Garbled Voice

I have had quite a few experiences in my life. Most of them are small. For example, I saw something last night. It looked like a figure in a long white dress which I spotted out of the corner of my eye. Things like that are normal for me. I only gave it an iota of my time because it wasn't something I hadn't seen before. I checked to make sure there wasn't anything there that would make me think there was a white dress in the middle of my living room, shrugged when I discovered there wasn't anything with the same shape or vibrancy of white, and got my water glass from the cabinet.

Sometimes my experiences aren't just little flashes of an image or movement that's gone in the blink of the eye. My most recent experience was at my friends' house. My best friend, her fiancé, and my boyfriend (my best friend's fiancé's best friend) all live in the same house. We say that I live there part time because I currently work weekends and I spend most weekdays at their place. We already know that the place is haunted. The house is pretty intense and we love joking about what it would be like if we had a professional medium or paranormal investigators come in because we're sure the ghosts would give them something, anything.

I have all kinds of stories about this place because so much happens there but for right now, I want to focus on my most recent experience. I was there with my boyfriend for the night. We had hung out for a few hours but it was late and he needed to get some sleep. I wasn't tired and I wanted to get some writing done. It was a decent opportunity, considering my boyfriend would be asleep (so I wouldn't have to feel bad about missing out on time with him) and my best friend as well as her fiancé were at work. I gave him a kiss good night and took my laptop out to the living room.

Their front door opens to the living room which has a blue couch on the same wall and looks across at a plaid chair next to a door that gives access to the rest of the house. There isn't an actual door in the doorway though. They have a brown curtain up to act as a door and a piece of plywood to keep my boyfriend's dog out of the living room. Occasionally, in the middle of the room, they have a long, white folding table. They obviously have other stuff in their living room too, but these things aren't essential here.

Instead of sitting on the couch, which is relatively new to the household, I decided to sit in the chair. There were downsides to sitting in either space. The couch provided too much blank space next to me and it was very close to a window that looked out to the street. I have a weird, deep-set worry about being surprised by a face in a window and I really didn't want to sit super close to theirs. The chair, however, is torn and dirty. We are constantly finding lost items under it or in its cushions, even if no one has sat in the chair for weeks. It's actually one of the go-to searching places if we lose something because even if you lost the item in a bedroom, there is a chance it's in the chair. It's just an aspect that makes the chair a little weird and the fact that I would be sitting right next to the covered kitchen door made me take pause. The fact of the matter is that the chair is squishy and thus comfy. It also has armrests, so I wouldn't feel like everything around me was spread out. It would temporarily be my own little space.

I am currently writing a story that has some horror themes and feeling secure was extremely important to me. I pulled up my story from my USB and reread my last sentence. I could hear my boyfriend's dog chewing on himself from the other room, so I called out for him to stop. He did and thumped around as he presumably tried to find a comfortable place to lay down. With that, I put in my earplugs and got to work.

The part that I was working on was relatively tricky. I was still working through the details and trying to decide how things were going to play out. In addition, I was also working on some character outlining because I had a new character involved in that particular scene. Every character has their own personality and no one wants to muddy them up just because you're approaching an intense scene. With each paragraph, I could feel myself getting more and more uncomfortable, despite my prime location.

I squirmed in my seat and even tucked my legs under me so that they wouldn't be in front of that blank space between the bottom of the chair and my feet. I found that it was hard to concentrate but I kept pushing myself. I just kept telling myself that it was turning into a decent scene and that the build-up was natural. After all, the anticipation should be just as much of an experience as the confrontation. That's something I look for when I'm reading novels and thus it is key that it's part of my story too. Basically I was trying really hard to stay completely positive so that I would keep making progress.

In other parts of the house, I would hear thumps and bumps. If I was really in the moment of writing, I would jump but realize it was either the dog or the rats. I should mention that they have a bit of a rat problem in the house. They're big rats, brown with white underbellies. I like rats, especially domesticated ones. Rat infestation is a problem though, for a variety of reasons, and we've been taking steps to get rid of them. Rats don't' freak me out. I've always liked rodents, so it was actually far more comforting to assume it was just the rats making noise.

Before long I was spending a lot of time just looking at my screen. I was trying to map out the best way to make a big reveal. This scene was essential for displaying personalities, forcing the group to work together as a team, and give the reader a thrill. It can be a bit like a mental puzzle and I was trying to snap the pieces into place before I mucked it all up and had to commit to a mountain of editing. I was zoned out, fingers prone over the keyboard as my mind flicked through a timeline of events and the images that I needed to describe. There wasn't a single bump, bang, or thump in the house that could draw my attention because I was just that far gone.

Finally, my fingers started moving. I pushed myself into the dialogue of two headstrong characters. There wasn't anything but the two of them on my mind. They're both characters that one might describe as having alpha personalities so it was high time that they butt heads, especially because it was a tense situation they were in. I was excited to pour these personalities together and experience the clash before their world ignited into chaos. If you've never felt this feeling, I can only describe it as a huge rush. Writing is an insane process and when you have two characters interact that have taken residence inside your head, it can be enthralling. It is safe to say that I was still absent from the world around me because I was really into this moment.

I got to the point when a confrontation between the two people was really starting to spark. They had both put their foot down about their place and only I knew that what they were about to face was creeping closer. I admit that my heart was racing, but a heavy thump from behind me ripped my attention from the screen. I looked around, shocked, and tried to reconnect with my surroundings. I heard a softer thump from what sounded like the back door of the house and shook my head. It had to be the rats again.

The sound had pulled me out of my zone though and I stared at my keyboard for a moment. I reread the words I was typing and tried to get myself back to that place so that I could finish the dialogue I had started. It was nearing 5am. My boyfriend would be up before long and my best friend would be home from work not long after that. I was starting to feel a little tired and because my heart had been racing so much, I had the creeps. I knew I worked myself into them and I refused to think that there could be any other cause.

I stretched my legs before curling them back under me. I was determined to just finish that dialogue, at the very least. I settled back in but before I could lay a finger on a single letter, I heard a deep man's voice somewhere in the house. I jumped so hard that I felt myself lift off the chair for at least a full second.

I ripped my earplugs out of my ears and just sat there for a moment. I could hear John snoring in his bedroom. His dog was silent. I didn't hear any of the usual rat noises. That voice played over and over in my mind. My earplugs had obstructed the word that it had said. It was one word, two syllables longs. It didn't sound like my boyfriend, awake or talking in his sleep, his voice never sounded like that.

I peeked into the kitchen and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Unnerved, I texted my best friend. She can't use her phone at work but I knew she would see it afterwards. I told her that I heard a man's voice in her house. Once I had told her, I decided to try to shake it off. My boyfriend would be up soon and everything was going to be fine.

I sat back down but I couldn't dredge up the motivation to write another word. I was too freaked out to put my earplugs back in. The idea of just curling up in bed became an overwhelmingly sweet notion. I saved my work and read the last sentence once more. It was a simple line of dialogue. One that reeked of bullheaded intent and it ignited that little spark in me that was excited to write again.

Part of me started to rethink my plan of going to bed. It was one voice. Was it creepy? Yes. That wasn't the first time I had actually heard something though. I've had worse. I thought that I could keep writing if I really wanted to.

A sound from the front door changed my mind. At first it was a loud scraping noise but it quickly grew into that sound doors make when you push or pull them against the frame without turning the latch. It only lasted a couple of seconds but I wasn't staying out there to hear more.

I left the room and went directly to my boyfriend's room. He was sprawled out in bed. It was going to be hard to distinguish him large folds of multiple blankets. I stood in there with him. Just hearing him breath and knowing I wasn't alone was enough to calm me down.

Despite the fact that we say that I live there part time, I still know that I'm a guest in the house. I can't just leave my stuff everywhere, all willy-nilly. I gathered my courage and slowly went out into the living room again. I shut down my computer and carried it back into my boyfriend's room. I put it in my bag and crawled up into bed.

I was extremely careful so I wouldn't hurt him with my graceless acrobatics and so that I wouldn't wake him. He was going to be tired enough because he stayed up late with me knowing that he had to leave for work early in the morning. I didn't want to be some clumsy, sleep-depriving monster so I ended up laying across a mound of discarded blankets and a pillow. I was still creeped out and I jumped at every little noise.

I'm the kind of girl that can see a white dressed figure or a spooky shadow and barely bat an eyelash. That night, I couldn't shake this sense that I had been driven away. I felt like I couldn't be at ease until my boyfriend was up or my friends came home. I was tired but entirely too alert. My eyes were constantly on the bedroom door, which I left open.

I had left it open on accident. I usually close it because my boyfriend's dog is massive and he drools. He tends to chew on himself and it's a disgusting sound plus I don't really want him to drool on my things, which stay on the floor when I'm over. Once I was on the bed though, I wasn't getting up until my boyfriend got up. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest on a number of occasions as I listened to the house. The first time was because my boyfriend's dog came in the room to lay in the doorway. The other couple of times were due to my boyfriend's alarms.

He actually ended up sleeping in a little so when he got up, he was in a bit of a rush. I did find a moment to tell him what happened. He didn't know what to tell me but I wrote the door-thing off as possibly rats, though I wasn't entirely certain of that. As he was on his way out, my best friend came home. They asked me about the voice, they particularly wanted to know what it said. It was a little embarrassing to have explain that word was pretty garbled due to my earplugs. We're the sort of people that like details and so I knew that information was disappointing to them.

That was my most recent big experience. I would really like to share more. I might rummage through my memory bank or I might just submit experiences as soon as possible after they happened. This one is less than a week old but I remember it very well. I think it does me well to share.