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Shadowy Greetings From My Haunted Childhood

 

When I was very young, around 5 years of age, my parents moved out to the rural town of Wimauma, Florida. I had numerous encounters there of a seemingly paranormal nature.

We moved into a 2 bedroom single wide trailer with no air conditioning so leaving the windows and bedroom doors open for simple cross ventilation was a necessity. Include the use of fans to help move the air and then just deal with the temperature as best as you can.

On the very first night we moved in, things began for me. I don't remember sleeping through the night. My parents explained things away as my nerves about moving there. Strange noises in my room and shadows... Lots of shadows.

The trailer was set far, far back from the old country road. The property had one outside light my father called a "Silent Giant" light that sat high atop a telephone pole that cast a goodly amount of light around the area with the road a great distance the other side of the light. This being said... Even if there was a car driving down the road we were too far away to be affected by its headlights unless it was directly driving up the extremely long driveway towards the trailer and, even then, its lights would have been diffused by the Silent Giant street light outside.

Now, I can understand skepticism about the strange noises... We had just moved from a suburb type area into a rural area in the middle of an old school fish farm with seemingly countless pools of fish and the numerous forms of nature and animals that came along with it such as frogs, toads, alligators and even the occasional raccoons and stray cats and dogs. But the shadows just can't be explained away so easily, especially when they had shapes and forms that couldn't be seen through.

Like I said earlier, I don't remember sleeping through that first night. At some point early on the noises woke me. I remember looking out my bedroom window and thinking I heard something outside. When I got back into bed and tried to go back to sleep, I began seeing strange figures standing in my doorway looking at me.

Eventually they moved on and a seemingly endless parade of shadow "creatures" began walking past my doorway pausing long enough to look directly at me and then move on. One by one they filed past my room like a bunch of school children walking past an exhibit on a field trip to a museum or an animal at a zoo.

It only happened that particular way that very first night. There were other times similar in the weeks to come and then it died down.

Many other times during my time there, I repeatedly saw a shadowy figure of humanoid outline that couldn't be seen through and all you could see of it were two eyes that seemed to stare through me.

Once I ventured down the hallway to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night only to be blocked by something shapeless and dark in color. With my heart pounding out of my chest I immediately ran back to my bed and hid under my covers.

Although not "shadow" related there were numerous times the television turned on by itself either in the middle of the night or when no one was home.

We lived there for just over 6 years before a fire burned through the area, taking our trailer with it and we had to move to Tampa.

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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, Veylre, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

Veylre (2 stories) (6 posts)
+2
4 years ago (2019-12-18)
Lealeigh,
Its funny that you should mention "Nature Spirits" because I had another unusual occurrence that I talked about in a previous post. Please read "A Case for Elementals" and give me your opinion.
Lealeigh (5 stories) (512 posts)
+4
4 years ago (2019-12-18)
Veylre,

Thanks for the extra information. That place really sounds like a forbidding place; it would have made a heavy impression upon me.

I somehow forgot to mention this (my long winded commenting style does not help me say everything, for some reason) but my mother has a rental property in Bradenton.

That is quite close to where you were living in Wimauma. I have been to her place several times; the dark places in the swampy woods of that area are pretty scary to me.

I wouldn't have done well as a child if I had to try to sleep there. Bradenton is fine but all swamps give me the creeps. I lived my first five years of life in Louisiana so I have more than one reference point.

Maybe, I could suggest that the things that harrassed you might have been some kind of nature spirits. I say this a lot but they could be a kind of Native American guardian keeping an eye on that specific territory. I don't think that they were ghosts of once living people because there were too many of them. I'm no expert but I can't imagine that ghosts congregate with each other to perform any actions.

I don't know what I think the featureless mass blocking the hallway was; that entity seems to be the only one that was genuinely "bad" as it was cutting you off from your parents and any feeling of safety.

Maybe the fire happened because you were being forced out; no one will ever know.

Now that I have finished writing my book here, I'll consider going on tour.

Thank you for sharing your experience!

- Maria
Veylre (2 stories) (6 posts)
+3
4 years ago (2019-12-17)
No the group I saw the first night had no discernable facial features. When the paraded by they were all "rank & file" past my open doorway and were different sizes and shapes. Their movements indicated looking in my direction. Leaning and pointing and seemingly communicating between themselves as they passed by.

The entity that came by later was always by himself and was the shape of a taller man in build and always came either from my closet or from my window area.

The darkness that blocked be in the hallway filled the hallway and wouldn't let me pass. I never saw anything discernable from it, it just filled the hallway by the bathroom door and completely blocked the entrance to my parents room and left me completely terrified. As for the trailer's layout... At the far end was a small dining area next to the kitchen with the living room next to that. My small bedroom was in the center next to a hall closet followed by the bathroom and my parents bedroom was after that at the other end of the trailer.

Much of that time of my life during my sleeping hours was spent holding a Bible and wearing a cross as I slept. My radio was left on so as to block out any noises that I was hearing in my room and with some form of night light.

The fire always seemed "coincidental" to me, especially since our home was the only one destroyed. Almost as if we were being forced to leave there.
Lealeigh (5 stories) (512 posts)
+3
4 years ago (2019-12-15)
Hello Veylre,

I wanted to get clarification on the incidents with the shadow people. You said that the first groups of them filed past your doorway, each pausing to look at you. Did they have any faces, features or eyes or did you think that they were looking at you based upon their movements?

I ask this because the later entity that you describe, the one who came alone, had eyes that you could see.

You did say that you remember that you were unable to sleep the first night so I won't suggest that the shapes and sounds in your room were part of an unusually vivid dream.

The most alarming part of your narrative, to me, is the description of the darkness blocking you from going down the hall. It makes me want to ask where your bedroom was located; many mobile homes have a master bedroom on one end and one or more bedrooms on the opposite. Was your bedroom the only room to be blocked by this thing?

I have read from several scattered sources that water can be some kind of conduit for paranormal activity; some people say, even, that it can act like a mirror or doorway. I don't know if I believe that but I read it from somewhere (much of Planet Earth is covered in water so if it's true then we're in trouble); it might be a superstition. I only mention it because you said that the place where you were living had been a fish farm with many pools of water around.

I am sorry that a fire destroyed your home; at least you didn't have to remain in a place where you were uncomfortable and frightened.

- Maria

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