Halloween Ghost Story Contest -- 2018
Adult Winners

Second Place

A Message From Beyond

by
Athena Constantinou

I had just moved into a new neighborhood, a very quiet and beautiful place in the suburbs. A few blocks away was a small playground, so adorable I knew my daughter would love it, so I took her there on the first Sunday we had settled in our new home. It was frosty cold and too early in the morning for walks, so it was not surprising that no one else was there. It was the first time I had taken my daughter to a playground and it was so mesmerizing to watch her play. As we were getting ready to leave after a fun-packed day, I noticed a little boy sitting on a bench nearby. I became concerned when I realized that there seemed to be no adult with him. As we walked to the car we passed him by and I asked, “Are you here all by yourself?”. He leaned over and whispered something in my daughter’s ear, which prompted her to start running. I ran right after her and when I finally got a hold of her, I looked back and noticed the boy was already gone. I found it odd that he had left, but I was more concerned with trying to figure out what he had said to my daughter to make her so upset. She cried her heart out, but wouldn’t tell me a word and as much as I wanted to know what that boy had said to my little girl to cause her so much distress, I didn’t want to force her, so I left the matter alone hoping that it would just come to pass.

A couple of weeks later, my daughter seemed to pick up an imaginary friend, but I assumed that it was normal child behavior, until of course it wasn’t. I was watching TV one afternoon and I must have drifted off to sleep when I felt a bear hug from someone, so tight it woke me up. I quickly turned around to find no one in sight. After that, everything became more frequent. I was working in my room one evening when I saw from the corner of my eye a little dark figure going into my closet. I said, “Hannah don’t make a mess in there!”. After hearing no response I yelled once more, “Hannah!?”. My eyes grew wide when I heard “Yes Mommy?” coming from the bathroom. I hadn’t slept well for a while, so I interpreted all these strange incidents as the tricks of my overworked mind.

The next weekend my sister came to visit us and decided to stay at my place for a few days. Since all the other rooms in the house were filled with boxes that I had not yet unpacked, she slept in the living-room. Of course it proved to be a bad idea, as the next morning she looked so pale and terrified as if her eyes were about to pop out. She had claimed to have been woken up in the middle of the night by a cool breeze and a feeling of cobwebs on her cheeks and to have seen the silhouette of a child standing in the doorway. She was so scared that she closed her eyes and made her mind believe that it was Hannah roaming in the hallway and when she opened her eyes again the silhouette was gone. I assured her that my daughter was with me the entire night.“ I know. It was not her”, she said to me while she packed her things, still shaken from the events of the night before.

During the following days I was so busy with work due to the impending deadline with my publisher about this new cookbook I was writing, that it took my mind off the things that were happening in the house - knocking on the walls, sometimes on the windows and the front door, creaking floorboards late at night as if someone was slowly walking down the stairs to the hall, sounds of items being dropped at first, then objects actually being moved to different places, shadows roaming the halls. I wanted to keep telling myself that it was my imagination playing tricks on my exhausted mind so that I wouldn't lose my grip on reality, until one day while my daughter was at school, I saw her bed moving as if something was in the mattress. I screamed and from then on, all strange activity in the house stopped.

Then dreams about being pregnant started and I couldn’t figure out why I kept having them, but I was relieved that the disturbing occurrences had stopped. However, this period of calm did not last for long. Soon I realized that all the eerie and disturbing activity was now happening outdoors as I began to have the feeling that I was being stalked.

I was walking home one night, everything was quiet and peaceful. I was listening to music on my iPod and as I looked down I saw a shadow. I figured it was mine until I sensed an eerie presence right behind me, their cold gaze burning into my skin. I felt my heart clench, the pit of my stomach beginning to rise and a gentle electric current seep softly into my body as if preparing me to run, yet I freaked out and froze with fear. The first thing that came to my mind was that perhaps some creepy guy was following me. I finally gathered the nerve to look back, but I saw no one. I was far too tired to start analyzing what I had just felt, I was just happy I didn’t have to start running from some maniac looking for prey.

When I got home, I got ready to help my daughter take a bath. I was kneeling down, washing her hair as I sang a lullaby. Suddenly I saw from the corner of my eye the shadow of a child running across the bathroom. I got up and for the first time I was truly frightened. I knew this was not my imagination playing tricks anymore. I was beyond terrified, but somehow remained calm and tried hard not to be intimidated by this ghostly presence. I kept telling myself that whatever it was, it could not be malicious. And even if it was, it could not hurt us. I figured that perhaps my daughter had attracted the spirit of a young child who just wanted to play.

That night I stayed up late working on my computer in the living room as my deadline was getting closer. My daughter lay on the couch sleeping as that night I was too afraid to let her sleep alone in her room. When the clock hit 3:00 a.m. I felt a cold breeze as if someone had walked past me and I saw my daughter getting up and start weeping. I tried my best to put her back to bed, but nothing seemed to soothe her. She insisted on getting up and asked me to let her watch TV and despite my best efforts to make her go back to sleep, I gave in. She started watching a movie and even though I did not like the idea of her staying up beyond her normal bedtime, I allowed her to enjoy it since she didn't have school the following day. When I finally saw her dozing off I convinced her to go back to the couch to sleep, I turned off the TV and continued to work. However, a few minutes later I was distracted by a light coming in from my bedroom. I went upstairs to investigate and saw my TV was turned on and the movie was just where it had left off. “He wants to watch TV, Mommy”, my daughter yelled from downstairs.

At this point I was scared by the reality of it all and had no idea what to do. Part of me wanted to just ignore it, but a bigger part of me wanted it all to stop, so I immediately turned the lights and the TV off and closed the door behind me, but as I hurried down the stairs to get back to work, I saw through the crack of my bedroom door the light again being turned on. However, I still had a deadline to meet which at the moment seemed more stressful than whatever was going on in the house, so I quickly got back to my computer.

The following Friday my daughter was away to my sister's house for a long weekend, so I decided to spoil myself by taking a most luxurious bubble bath with essential oils and even some wine. As I lay back in the bathtub completely relaxed, totally immersed in happiness and bliss, I saw something that made my heart stop. Under the crack of the bathroom door, I saw ten little toes standing behind. I could not believe what I was seeing, but I could no longer deny the reality of these occurrences. The little bare feet quickly went away and I heard a single knock. “Mommy”, a little boy said from the other side of the door. And as I lay there in the bathtub completely still and without responding to this boy's call, I heard another two knocks, then the sound of a child sobbing and then it all stopped. As I was beginning to get out of the bathtub, I heard more knocking on the door and someone call me Mommy, only this time it was not a little boy saying it anymore - it was the voice of a man, a deep sinister voice that made my pulse beating in my ears and my head numb with fear. I was so petrified that I did not get out of the bathroom, instead I ended up sleeping on the floor that night and had a terrible nightmare.

Once again, it was about me being pregnant, only this time the dream was different. This time I seemed to be about nine months pregnant and as I looked down at my belly I watched in horror how the baby wiggled its toes, trying to get out of my stomach. It all seemed so real I actually felt the pain and woke up. And then it hit me. It was not my daughter who attracted this spirit but me and at this moment I realized that wherever I went, this thing was going to be following me and a suffocating feeling of dread, more like a sense of impending doom engulfed me. As I didn’t know what else to do, I called my sister the same morning and told her everything. She said it would be a good idea to sage the house, but she didn’t know what else to do. I followed her advice while my daughter was still at her place. I hung crosses everywhere and brought holy water from the church which seemed like a good idea. I found a bit of comfort in all I had done to my house and that night nothing happened. I stayed up all night in the living room, I was far too scared to sleep in my bedroom and my stomach turned at the thought of having another nightmare. All night I contemplated on the possibility that I was just going insane. I was never one to believe in such things like ghosts or demons and I knew I had done nothing to attract something malevolent and sinister. I tried to stop thinking about it, in the hope that it wouldn’t come back.

The next day my daughter came back home and I decided to do something I had been dreading for a while. I had to ask her what the little boy had told her that day at the playground. “Please tell me”, I begged her, but she kept refusing to give me an answer. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t want to cause her more distress, so I decided to give up. The next morning I took my daughter back to the playground, she played as I tried to see if the little boy would come back, but he didn’t. I sat down on the bench with my daughter and calmly asked her once again, what the little boy had whispered in her ear. She didn't look frightened instead a deep sadness was engraved on her little face as she finally answered with words that filled my heart with horror. “He said you are going to die soon, and when you do you are going to be his Mommy”.