Hey everyone, I haven't posted anything like this before, but have had many discussions with close friends and my partner about my experiences. So, I'm a 23 year old girl, I live in London, England with my partner and our puppy.
I don't actually remember my first weird experience, because I was only 3 years old at the time. My mum has recounted many times the night when we were on a family holiday, and I came running into her bedroom in the middle of the night. I was hysterically crying, and begging her "please don't go to the other side mummy, please!". No amount of soothing from either her or my dad could calm me down, but eventually I exhausted myself and fell asleep. When my parents asked me about it the next day I had no recollection of the event. My mum was convinced something bad was going to happen to her! Thankfully it seems that was literally just a bad dream.
Over the years I became very superstitious, there are certain rooms at my parents' house I won't enter after dark because I can feel someone else in there. Luckily the house I moved into is brand new and refurbished no eerie feelings there!
The next memorable event happened when I was 18. My grandmother, Nanny Rose, was in a hospice in the place my mum grew up in, Nottingham (where Robin Hood was set), 2 hours away from our house. She had struggled for a long time with cancer, and my mum had been staying with her sisters in Nottingham. They had received a call that evening advising them to come and say their goodbyes as she didn't have long left. I was at home with my father and brothers in London, and I remember very clearly being suddenly woken up at 1.50am by what sounded like a flock of birds flying through my room. The noise was deafening and I was terrified. After a few seconds the flapping and whooshing noises receded, and I worked up the courage to jump out of bed and run to my dad in his room next door. As I crossed the hall the telephone rang, my dad answered. It was my mother; she was calling to tell us that Nanny Rose had passed away minutes before.
After that, the events became more frequent. I worked at a local pub for 2 years; it was a very old building, with a lot of history. In the mornings I would have to open the pub up alone. The cellar was divided into two sections, one housed all the kegs and barrels and the ice, the other all the bottles. When changing kegs over I would hear footsteps, like children's feet running (there were no kids under 18 allowed on the premises) and I would hear giggling too. I also experienced several bottle caps and plastic lids that littered the cellar floor hitting me in the back of the head when I was scooping ice out of the freezer, when I was the only one there. One morning, I was stood on top of a barrel trying to pull the plug off, when a little voice asked "can you see me?" right in my ear. I was sure it was a ghost, but I did not feel threatened or afraid. I replied "no, I can't see you, but I can hear you..." and the child's footsteps pattered away with a faint giggle.
On the other side of the cellar however, I did feel threatened. There was an old bar on which we kept the stock and a thick wooden pillar in the middle of the room. When I was in the stock room in the evenings collecting bottles for the bar, I would always see a man leaning against the pillar out of the corner of my eye. He was wearing a brown suit with a white shirt, and a brown hat. If I tried to look directly at the figure, he would not be there. Nevertheless, I felt very threatened and afraid of him. One morning, I unlocked the door to that side of the cellar and saw, for a split second, an elderly woman sat on the old bar amongst the bottles and crates. I slammed the door shut and refused to go back in for the rest of my shift.
One night a few of the staff were having a drink after work, and I decided to confess to the strange things I had been experiencing. Before I mentioned the man in the cellar, one of the other assistant managers said she had seen "a creepy bloke in a brown hat" in the cellar. A lot of the other staff recounted having bottle caps thrown at them whilst using the ice freezer and some had heard footsteps. I decided to ask around about the history of the building. Turns out, there used to be a family living in the flat above the pub, and when it was gutted by a fire over 80 years ago, a little boy died of smoke inhalation. The pub was rebuilt, and the cellar bar was used as a sort of private club for local east end gangsters and drug dealers. It was run by an elderly lady who had died of a heart attack in the bar. There was also the story of a gangster who had found out his wife was cheating on him, had executed her and her lover, then had hung himself from the wooden ceiling of the cellar bar, although I'm not sure whether these are urban myths, they did seem to tie in with the things myself and the other staff had seen.
Finally (and this one still makes me shudder), last year my partner went to a party at one of his friends' houses. I couldn't go as I was working, but had arranged to pick him up at about 2am when my shift was over. All day I had a horrible feeling that something horrible was going to happen. I texted my loved ones an innocent message "hey. What you up to?" etc. And there didn't seem to be any problems. When I got to work I had an awful pain in my abdomen, I put it down to something I had eaten, and drank lots of water. It was about 10pm, and I was suddenly sure I was going to vomit. I ran to the loo and was violently sick. I was so sure that someone I loved was in danger, I put a message on my Facebook status asking if any of my friends had injured themselves or had bad news, please could someone let me know because I was going out of my mind with worry.
My brother, who was in Turkey on honeymoon at the time, jokingly messaged me to say he had stubbed his toe on the beach, and although my stomach ache and sickness was gone, I felt dizzy and disconnected. My manager let me leave work early because he commented that I was "almost green" and had "glassy eyes". I went home and tried to have a nap, but I could hear the blood pounding in my ears, and I couldn't concentrate on anything. When it was time to pick up my partner, I drove to the block of flats and parked outside. As I pulled up my blood ran cold, my hands were tingling and my eyes started to water. My scalp was tingling and itching and I felt like I would scream if I didn't get out of there soon. My partner got in the car and I sped away, feeling more at ease with every second. When we got home I was exhausted and all but passed out on top of the duvet still in my work clothes. The horrid feeling was gone.
The next morning, my partner received a phone call from his friend. Apparently while the party had been going on, the man living in the flat above them had been murdered. He had been stabbed in the abdomen, and then disemboweled, and it had been by somebody he knew because he had buzzed them in to the block of flats. The police were all over the building, and apparently he had been a drug dealer who was mixed up with the wrong people. Needless to say, I believe the feelings I had that night were down to my boyfriend, who I love more than anything, had been so close to danger.
My boyfriend's friends have since moved away from that apartment, and I don't work in the pub anymore. I work in a hospital, and my office is directly above the morgue, but I never get any bad feelings at work. I take care to pay very close attention to my gut instincts now, and my partner has learned to pay more attention too. He bought me a puppy last month, and if he barks at nothing when I'm walking him at night, I change direction immediately. It might seem silly, but I think my puppy wants to protect the ones he loves from harm, just like I do:-)
Thanks very much for reading this, it turned out to be a lot longer than I thought. Hope you enjoyed it, it has felt good to write all this down, and I welcome your comments.
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