The Flat: pt2

Last time I told you about the first time I ever saw a ghost. As I said at the time, I wasn’t that scared. It’s strange because there have been other occasions I’ve experienced different things that have scared me…

THE FLAT: PART TWO

One night sitting watching television in the living room and I got the feeling that I wasn’t alone (sound familiar?!). Worse than that, the feeling was that whoever I was sharing the room with left me in no doubt that my presence was not welcome. The feeling grew stronger and stronger by the minute and I could think of no trigger. I’d been watching comedy on the television and hadn’t been thinking about anything strange before it happened. After about twenty or so minutes of hoping the feeling would go away, it got progressively worse. I eventually left. Not an experience I’d gladly repeat.
 
This happened a few feet from the room I’d witnessed my first ever ghost, and as I said, that wasn’t the last time I saw something.
 
This all happened a few months after the first experience. I can’t remember exactly how long, but it was long enough for me to have the other incident far from the front of my thoughts. I was lying in bed one afternoon (I was a chef working split shifts at the time and after years of practice, I am now the World Champion of Afternoon Snoozes). Just as I was thinking about going to sleep, I saw something between my bed and the closed door of my room. The area between my bed and the door is only about a square yard (just under a metre, for our European readers).
 
A black cat’s tail swished up, hung in the air for a moment, and then disappeared back down alongside my bed. It was odd, because, well, we didn’t have a cat. Nonplussed as to how a cat made it all the way upstairs and into my room, I propped myself up, and waited for a second, thinking (hoping) the cat would appear at the door and try to escape. It didn’t.
 
It must be cowering by the edge of the bed. It was the kind of bed with drawers built into the base, so there was no way it could have made its way under. Now I had to peer over the edge of my bed to see what it was doing, risking having my eyes scratched out in the process. I just wanted to sleep.
 
I peered over the edge of the bed to find absolutely nothing. Just so we’re clear, this was a solid black tail. Not a white ghostly tail. Not transparent. Solid black. And let’s be clear, I hadn’t even fallen asleep yet, so there was no way I was dreaming. Again, at the time I wasn’t scared. It was just… odd. As before, the scary part was still to come.
 
I did manage to fall asleep (see ‘World Champion of Snoozes’), but when I woke up, it wasn’t because of my alarm, and there was nothing natural about it.
 
I was awoken by pressure on my back. More precisely, four small points of pressure. More precisely still, two points on my upper back, two on my lower back. Spaced apart almost like feet. If pressed, I’d say exactly like feet. And if I had to guess the weight of the object that had just landed on me? I’d say it was about the weight of a cat. I leapt out of bed and carried out a thorough search of the room. There was no cat.
 
My room at the hotel always was a bit strange. There was a time I was awoken by a terrifying dog’s bark. That was on the cusp of being awake/asleep so I can’t say for certain that it wasn’t a dream, but that wasn’t all that happened. There were invasions of wasps, HUGE spiders (including one so big it barely fit into a pint glass(?!)), and Red Admiral butterflies. The thing about the butterflies was they used to appear in my room and fly right into the corner before settling on the ceiling. There they stayed until they died. The exact same spot. Never anywhere else. At one point, there were three lined in a row.
 
I remember chatting with my mum after I’d left the hotel, and just as a jokey remark, I asked how everything was in my old room. She told me that she didn’t know because my dad insisted on keeping the door closed. “He never liked that room.”
 
He only let me sleep there for ten years… Thanks, Dad!


Next time... One for the sceptics to mull over!

Have you ever had an experience you can't explain? Let me know in the comments! As before, I’d like this to be a serious discussion, so no jokes, memes, etc. And please be respectful of others!