Who’s that ringing my doorbell?

It is all hallows night soon, and already I feel the ghoulish stirrings of those that have long past to the nether world.

The house I live in has, as it does every year, woken up…

Woken up to the restlessness of those who reside beyond the veil…

Every night I go to bed and lay there listening to the silence of the night…silence that hides the things that seek to step out of the shadowy spectral world and into mine.

They say that when restless spirits can’t rest, then they need to find the cause of their restlessness…or be damned to wander the grey as mindless spectres, angry, and ready to drag anyone they come across back to the hell from where they came from.

Every year at the same time I am visited by such spectres, yet, I have been fortunate to only be haunted and disturbed by them, and not dragged off to their dark hole.

Yet, somehow tonight I had a feeling that things might be different…how did I know?

Call it a psychic feeling, a sixth sense, or maybe something otherworldly. All I can say is the house felt different tonight.

It’s 4 am as I write this part, and I am now fully awake, at just after 3:30 am I woke up suddenly after a terrible nightmare, the hag once again decided to pay me a visit.

The doorbell rang, an insistent trilling until suddenly it stopped. In my dream, as always I woke up, my wife was asleep, but I was awake, the heavy footsteps of many people thundering up my stairs made me look towards the bedroom door.

Now, I sleep with the door slightly ajar, but in the dream it is closed. Yet as the intruders reach the top of the stairs the door is forced, pushed against, and suddenly it bursts open, the frame breaks as the lock and hinges are simultaneously shattered by the preternatural force.

There in the doorway stands only one figure, despite the many footsteps charging up the stairs, she stands there, draped in black, the veil barely concealing her horrific, pale face and her ghastly demonic features.

Her white hands are like claws as they reach out on those thin black encased arms. Reaching for me, the snapping of her fingernails as they meet, it reminds me of the clipping sound that crab’s claws make or worse, badly played castanets.

The smell of decay and death was almost overpowering as she moved slowly towards me, I could hear the swish of her silky dress, a worm or was it a maggot, wriggled its way out of her arm and fell to the floor, it was followed by another and another.

More followed as she drew ever closer to me, I gagged and felt the bile enter my throat as her rotten musk, the perfume of death, attempted to suffocate me.

A maggot fell upon my chest, it was joined my many more, they wriggled, I could feel them trying to find a way through the hairs on my chest, moving closer to my face.

I tried to move my arms but I was somehow trapped, frozen to the bed. I screamed, I screamed in my dreams, I was dreaming I shouted out. It’s just a dream!

This isn’t real, You aren’t real! Yet it felt so real, I screamed and struggled against the invisible force that was paralysing me.

My mind finally won out and I broke free of the nightmare, I woke up. The room was normal, my wife was sound asleep and everything seemed as it was before I went to sleep.

Except the door, the door which should have been only slightly ajar, no more than a few inches, was now halfway open, I could see clearly into the landing, and the room was cold.

I looked at the clock, it was 3:33 am…the still of the night was suddenly broken…by the sing song chimes of my doorbell.

Thank you for taking the time in reading my story.

Ric

Part of this was Originally posted on 19th November 2019.