The Night Gown

I was 16 years old when this happened and living with my Aunt.

I recall my first encounter with the little girl took place in broad daylight and while conversing with my Aunt. The two of us were standing there looking out the picture window, overlooking the vacant lot and immersed in conversation when I happened to notice a girl around the age of 10 or so just standing there at the edge of this lot staring at us. Normally I wouldn't have paid much attention to this, seeing as she lived in a pretty populated neighborhood; however this child was wearing a nightgown, it was mid afternoon and she was filthy (nightgown was tattered, hair was very matted and her face looked as though she hadn't bathed in some time). I quickly drew my Aunt's attention to this girl and asked her if she could also see her. My Aunt just stood there, mouth agape and stared at her. The only words to come out of her mouth were,"poor kid I wonder if she's lost, I don't recognize her from around here."

At that moment my Aunt headed towards the phone to call the police, hoping to help the child get back to her home. As my Aunt picked up the telephone, I watched this girl kind of give a smile and go running into the vacant lot and then vanish. I couldn't believe what I had just saw and stood there for a few moments searching for a sign of her. But she had unmistakably vanished. My Aunt hung up the phone and tried to act as though it never happened. When I questioned her on whether or not she had seen the girl vanish, she simply said... What girl.

A few days later I was again in the area of the house looking out the same window thinking of the little girl when there she was. Except this time she was standing in the lot just on the other side of the fence, just smiling at me. Her smile made me feel uneasy and after her and I stood there staring at each other for what seemed like an eternity, I decided I would go outside and confront her.

I made my way to the road and entered the lot, as I approached the child she gave a little giggle and once again took off running. I watched her dart off through the lot and then vanish at a group of bushes. I was determined to get to the bottom of this and so I walked over to these bushes, believing I would find her hiding amongst them. Instead there was nothing, no sign of the girl; however in the middle of this group of bushes was a small clearing and something urged me or rather drove me to pick up a stick and dig at this said clearing. So with stick in hand I began digging away at the soil and after quite a while the stick got stuck into something and I then pulled at whatever it was. When I pulled the object out from the ground, I noticed it was a piece of fabric. It suddenly dawned on me that this scrap of material looked identical to the little girls nightgown. Chills filled my body and I immediately dropped the stick and fabric and went running back into the house.

I knew that she (the little girl) had been trying to tell us something at this point and probably should have gone to the authorities and reported what I had found, but because of where I was in my life at the time I didn't know how to handle it and decided to let it go (bad decision). It was then that the little girl started tormenting me. My bedroom was adjacent to the area where I discovered a piece of her night gown, it was just on the other side of the fence. The next night I was sitting up late in my bedroom with only a candle for light, doing teenager things and listening to music when I heard giggling. So I turned down the music to get a better listen to the laughter. And I heard it, the same giggle she had let out on my second run in with her. It sounded as though she was right there in the room with me, so I got up and began to look around the room, until I fixed my eyes upon the bedroom window. There she was just staring in at me with that same unsettling grin and giggling away. She must have been floating or something because this bedroom window was a good distance from the ground and she was just a small child. We looked at one another for a short time and I decided that she was not going to get to me, so I pushed a big armoire in front of the window so as to block her from peeking in the window.

I then proceeded to return back to what I had been doing before she had interrupted me. I sat back down on the floor, still with only the candle as my light and turned the volume to my tunes back up hoping to drown out her giggles. I assume this angered her as the giggles became louder and seemed to echo through the room and from every corner. I tried like hell to just ignore her but it seemed like the more I tried, the more she tried. It was when she began to scratch and tap at the window, that I had had enough and thought that if I went to bed and fell asleep she would give up. Eventually I did pass out with the orchestra of sounds to lull me to sleep.

I awoke the next morning feeling like I had been through the wringer, especially on my abdominal area. I was and always have been a sound sleeper, so I can sleep through anything (not very safe, I know). When I lifted up my t-shirt I noticed a long and deep scratch, the size of a small fingernail. I knew right then I was in trouble and that she meant me harm. For the remainder of my stay at my Aunt's I began sleeping in the living room and didn't have any more occurrences. I ended up moving out abruptly and never looked back, but to this day I think of the little girl and wonder whether or not she was ever laid to rest.