As most stories start out "on a dark and stormy night", I will bypass the horror formalities and just tell you exactly what happened. I had been living in Memphis TN for over a year, and at this time was living with a good friend of mine named Kari in an apartment complex in East Memphis. We got along fine, and greatly enjoyed living together, but due to the scorn of her local bishop, she was told that one of us had to move.
Seeing as how she had more furniture than I did, I decided to go and let her stay in the apartment. Mid-September I began looking for an apartment in the midtown area. Midtown is the artsy part of town where the bohemian "wanna be's", and young hippy art students live. LONG STORY SHORT, I found an apartment on the top floor of the ALTA VISTA complex on Poplar and Clark that fit into my price range. I moved out of the East Memphis apartment, and settled in to my new place.
This was my first time living completely alone. I had always had a roommate before, and I didn't know how I would handle the situation. But, as luck would have it after a few weeks I started getting comfortable with my new surroundings and started going out at night in the neighborhood to the local bars and clubs. Midtown life seemed to agree with me. I had made several new friends that came over frequently, so I spent very little time alone.
However, the night everything started, no one but myself would be witness to. It all began on a Saturday in October. I was lying on the couch watching television with my dog Cameron. He was a beautiful black lab I had adopted shortly after moving into Alta Vista. We were relaxing on the couch when I began to hear scratching inside the walls. This building was built in 1912 and although I had never seen any, I knew it had to play host to a variety of bugs and mice. I naturally assumed that's where the noises came from. And, I would have been satisfied with that theory if the situation had not suddenly exploded as it did.
Around 11:00pm I decided it was time for a shower before I proceeded with the evening's activities. I went to the bathroom, started the water running, removed my clothes and stepped inside the tub. That's when the scratching in the walls stopped and something started banging at the front door. I bolted from the tub and wrapped myself in a towel as I walked into the living room. "Who is it?" I called, but no one returned with an answer. Suddenly in front of my eyes the banging started again. It almost took my breath away. Whoever was on the other side of that door was banging with such force that it was shaking the door inside its frame. It was obvious that whoever was on the outside wanted in, and I was not about to give them permission.
"Who is it?" I yelled over and over. "I am not opening the door until you tell me who you are..." And, then the banging stopped. Seeing as how I lived on the third floor of the apartment building I looked out the window at the courtyard to see who was coming out of the stairwell. I waited for several minutes before realizing that whoever it was stayed in the hall. They did not leave. I jerked the door open and looked down the stairs. Still, no one. There was nobody in the stairwell at all. "How strange..." I closed the door and went back inside and called my mom to tell her what had happened, and for the rest of the night everything stayed quiet.
HOWEVER, every other night after that was interrupted with the loud pounding at the door. This was something I complained about frequently to the office, but being unable to identify the guilty person; my complaints went seemingly unnoticed. (FAST FORWARD TO LATE OCTOBER) By this time the pounding was a frequent occurrence being that it happened almost every night, but the only difference was now I had friends who had witnessed it firsthand.
One night before the situation worsened, I happened to be in the bathroom again brushing my teeth when the knocks started. I turned and looked down the hallway and could see the door being beaten so roughly that it looked as if it were about to come down from its frame. It had never been this bad before. It was always loud, don't get me wrong, but never to this point of pounding and shaking. I walked down the hallway toward the front room when out of the corner of my eye I saw a plaster figure that I had hung beside my bedroom door fly from the spot it was hanging and hit the wall opposite it. I was stunned. I could not move. I could not believe what had just happened. It came off the wall with such force that it broke a few of the pieces off when it hit the wall across from it. And again, just as before, the banging stopped. My first instinct was "get out, move, find a new place!" But, I was under a six month lease and would be charged a fine plus they would keep my deposit, and I planned on getting that money back one day. So I stayed.
After October had passed, I went to the supermarket to pick up some pumpkins for decoration in honor of Thanksgiving. I bought 5 of the big perfect gords and lined them up on the tops of my china cabinets. I went home for Thanksgiving. Cameron and I piled up into the car and took off to momma's house for the holiday. It was great. No banging, pounding, or flying objects. I came back home on a Monday.
I came into the apartment and threw my bag down. I went down the hallway to the bathroom to use the restroom. After I finished I emerged out of the bathroom and discovered that I had left my kitchen door shut. I turned the knob and pushed. Something was behind the door. I pushed again, and something was definitely on the other side of the door blocking me from opening it. I PUSHED HARD! And, got it open. I looked behind the door and discovered one of the pumpkins that I had placed on my china cabinets had been hurled at the back of the door. You could see where it had hit, where the guts has splashed out, and where it slid down on to the floor. I panicked as I looked around the room. I saw that all my pumpkins were lying in the floor. HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN? No one had a key. There were no signs of forced entry. I felt like I was losing my mind.
Well, sad to say after this huge ordeal, I did wind up breaking my lease and letting them keep my deposit. I never slept in the apt again.
PS: I forgot to tell you about the pantry. You see, I didn't have air conditioning in that apt and it got very hot in the late summer, but I had discovered that the pantry in the kitchen was ALWAYS cold as ice FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON. So when I would wake up sweating at night I would take go stand in the pantry. ALSO, I caught the dog staring at it on several occasions and growling. The whole situation just creeps me out.
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