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Wake Up Call - Texas Style

 

A little background before the story. It was the summer that I turned ten years old. I was spending the summer 'working' for my grandfather. He was retired. In his life he had been a soldier (WWI), farmer, mechanic, carpenter, salesman, general handy-man, and anything else that needed to be done to make a living for his family. He and my grandmother lived in a house in Mineral Wells, Texas that he, my dad and uncles had built on a small farm at the edge of town.

His farm was about 10 acres and covered in fruit trees and garden plots. There was a man-made pond, or tank as they are called in Texas, right outside the kitchen window. The house was small and utilitarian. It had a living room, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms; (Granny & Grandads' and off-limits to the grandkids); and a small 'guest' bedroom that I was staying in that summer.

Someone had given my grandfather an old house for the materials in it if he would tear it down and haul it off. So, my dad and uncles tore down the house and hauled all of the material to Grandads' back lot. He (Grandad) was going to use the lumber to build a work shop/guest house for all of his kids/grandkids to make use of and my job was to pull and straighten nails and sort the lumber that was stacked out back.

Summers in Texas are brutal. Grandad would get up early, before it was light outside, then wake me up. Granny always had a breakfast ready for us. We would eat and then get to work. We would work until around 10, or until Grandad thought it was warm enough. Then we would go inside, cool off, have lunch; maybe take a nap or play dominoes or cards, then go back out and work some more in the evening when it had cooled off outside.

To make a short story long: One morning, I woke up before Grandad had called for me to get up. I had the feeling that he was in the room just staring at me. I was lying there wondering why he hadn't teased me about being a lazy-bones or slug-abed as he usually did.

Finally, I opened my eyes to see what he was up to. When I opened my eyes, I noticed that the room was completely lit up, like the sun was coming through the windows. Then, I heard a loud voice yell, "You peaked! You're dead!", then an explosion of light, then the whole room went dark. I was lying there with my eyes squeezed shut, scared out of my wits. I was thinking, "Holy crap, I'm dead" or something along those lines.

I don't know how long I lay there thinking that I was really dead and that this was, indeed, a very strange experience. Finally, Grandad came into the room, flipped on the light, yelled at me to quit burning daylight and I realized that I was still alive.

After a couple of days, I asked Grandad if anything weird had ever happened to him or Granny in the house. He said "Don't worry about it" and would change the subject whenever I tried to bring it up. When I would ask Granny, she would say that she didn't understand and change the subject.

Could have been a dream but, if it was, it was the most intense, terrifying, dream that I have ever had. With Granny and Grandads' responses, I think that there was something going on but they didn't want to scare me or any of the others.

Granny and Grandad lived in that house for about another ten years before moving into a trailer on my uncle's ranch in west Texas. Until they moved, I never slept in that room again, and, if I had to go into it for any reason, would get in and out as quickly as possible.

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The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by yourghoststories.com. Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, texastennessean, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

texastennessean (1 stories) (1 posts)
+1
9 years ago (2015-06-20)
I asked my parents about it several years later and they said that they didn't know of anything going on. The house that he built (where it happened) was not built on top of any old structure, as far as I know. It was a couple of miles away from the Bakers Hotel on the edge of town going towards the interstate (I20 I think). There were a couple of houses around but none real close. There was a cemetery about a 1/2 mile away. The wood from the old house that he had demolished was stacked about 50 feet from the back of the house. I seem to vaguely remember a figure in the room when I opened my eyes right before the yell, so I am fairly certain that the yell came from inside the room. There wasn't any noise with the light explosion, only the yell, then the light. I don't know if anyone moved in after they moved out or not, as I was overseas at the time. The last time that I went through Mineral Wells, about 10 years, ago, the house was gone but the farm with the fruit trees and tank was still there. I haven't had any other unusual experiences. I have occasionally felt like there was someone in the room with me at different times but nothing ominous or really scary, usually when I was much younger and by myself.
ladydarke (113 posts)
+1
9 years ago (2015-06-19)
There are any number of experiences about how someone wakes up in the night sensing a presence behind them in the room and feeling watched. Almost all of the experiencers seem to react by refusing to look -- some even report feeling compelled to look and resisting. By and large, they pull the blankets over their heads because they feel great dread that if they look, the thing will "get" them. (When they do look, it seems usually there's nothing there. Some cases report seeing something creepy, but nobody gets 'got.')

I guess there's also the variation where the experiencer has the creepy hallway or stairs where they always feel chased but never look back.

So it might be said its like there's an interplay here with a mutually understood but unspoken rule between spirit world and corporeal world of 'no peeking.'

Maybe when you peeked, you got a sarcastic and playful type of entity that called you on breaking the rule, and by shrieking "You're dead!" pointed out that, therefore, you had been 'gotten.' Same as maybe in laser tag, or a kid's game, or what have you, where someone calls you out when you took a hit the game rules say should have been pretend fatal?

Can't explain the light, though. It's interesting that you never actually felt dread or fear. It sounds like either the entity didn't want to scare you or it's still in monster school and at the bottom of its class, lol. (Monsters Inc joke) The fact that it had all that energy to put into the light explosion and also to yell so loudly seems to indicate it did actually have strength and skill to burn, contrary to the inexperience theory. So maybe it really was just goofing around being sarcastic with the rule and having a game with you? I kind of also want to say that just the presence of all that light makes it sound like its not a being of darkness, y'know? (What do angels do on their day off, lol?)

Did you ever have any other experiences, maybe even much later in life, where you woke up in the night sensing a presence that did make you feel afraid, so you followed the blanket-over-head-no-peeking rule? I'm just wondering if it thought it was helping you out by teaching you the rule, enforcing it by making you scared after the fact of being "gotten?" If so, was this was actually something that might have in some way have benefited you down the road... Or just an entity being obnoxious?
YLissaBearrY (1 stories) (16 posts)
 
9 years ago (2015-06-19)
Hello, fellow Texas dweller. 😊

This must have been a really frightening experience for you.! I'd feel the exact same if it happened to me...

Whelp, first thing's first. I was wondering when exactly the house was built that your grandma and grandpa were living in at the time in Mineral Wells.

Did this event happen after the house was rebuilt, or before.?

Whenever you heard this voice that yelled "You peaked," did it sound like it was coming from outside or inside--How close did it sound.? Did you happen to see anyone when that was yelled.? I'm just wondering if it could've possibly been a person or not.

It's strange that your grandpa only says "Don't worry about it" and changes the subject...It's responses like those that make you want to worry even more (well, in my opinion). But I can understand him maybe hiding something for the safety or sake of you and the others. Now that he's moved out of there, and from the looks of it, you're a middle age adult; I think it's time for some answers (assuming he's still in the land of the living).

I think this is really interesting though...I'm also wondering if the land that the house is on was once a battlefield or something. That might explain the person yelling, and the "explosion of light," followed by darkness. This event could have been like, a little "replay" of what may have happened there in the past and whatnot; though I could be wrong too. I'm not sure if this explains the room being "lit up" before all that either.

Also, was there any sound when this "explosion of light" came through.?

I'm pondering whether this event could've just been a dream or something. I mean, it seems like it might be, but then again... Maybe it isn't.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your story. 😁

With kind regards,
Lissa
BrokenTree (76 posts)
 
9 years ago (2015-06-19)
Awesome experience. I wonder what it was all about. Too bad your grandfather would never tell you anything. You should have asked your uncle as he might have known something about it. I love the stories from Texas.

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