Is any body there?

Dec 7, 2009 | Uncategorized | 4 comments

I don’t mind saying that it was the most frightening thing I’ve ever experienced. For the people who read this who are not blind, go home tonight and imagine someone is in your house. Imagine that the scope of your awareness is limited to that you can hear, smell and touch. Imagine that someone is outside that scope. Their aware of you but your not aware of them. Imagine that you are alone with that person and you don’t even know it.

The dog barks! The silence is broken.

I jump out of sleep and I’m fully awake and alert. But. I’m frozen. Unable to move. Unable to think. Unable to process what is happening.

My commen sense tells me it couldn’t be happening and it was just a bad dream but the part of me that still is frozen with dred cant ignore what ever it was that woke me up so quickly.
I’m not sure why I’m frozen solid but I know that it’s not something I drempt.

I’m still unable to move.

I feel stupid for being afraid of what is possibly nothing.

What is it?

I can feel something.

I cant hear anything though.

The rain batters the window.

The dog isn’t barking now.

I’m consintrating on trying to hear something but I cant move! I won’t move. I’m afraid that if I do, what ever or who ever it is, if something or someone is in fact there they will know I’m not a sleep and ……. No. I cant think of that.

I lie there. I know that a lot of time passes. But still nothing!

I start to loosen up.

I tell my self that I’m stupid. The dog could have got spooked by something out side the apartment.

I tell my self that the presence I felt wasn’t a person. It couldn’t have. I’d have heard him or her. It was all in my head.

I try to sleep.

After more time, the alarm goes off.

I spring out of bed, throw the clothes on from the day before, grab the dog and leave the apartment within minutes. I don’t need to be out that early but the feeling of being watched won’t go away.

As the cold morning air hits me on the way to the train station, I convince my self that there is no way someone else was in the apartment with me all that time.

I say it to no one because I feel so stupid. I push it out of my mind and I hardly give it another thought.

Satisfied that it was not real, I continue on for another month. Things are as normal as they’ve ever been.

One night, after going to bed, I hear a door close. Determined to fight the feer I experienced the month before I check that the rooms are empty.

More time passes without incident but residents speak of apartments that have been broken into. I’m assured that my dor cannot be opened using a card like others have been as the lock is too stiff so I’m happy with this reassurance. I also feel very confedent that the dog will be vocal in his notification that someone is in the apartment.

One morning however, I leave the apartment and open the second door toward the stairwell. Freddie emetietly behaves like someone is near. Without any reason to be concerned, I greet the person. He doesn’t respond. I let the dog walk over and find that he’s lying on one of the ornamental sofa’s. He’s a sleep but concerned that he may be locked out of his apartment, I wake him up to see if there’s anything I can do to help. He admits that he’s sleeping rough. Satisfied that he’s telling the truth, I continue to work. Within five minutes, On the way to the station, I call another resident and ask him to check the landing as with the break ins in the building I would rather that he’s monitored. I’m told that he’s no longer there.

I return home the next evening to find that the door to the spare room is open. Things begin to add up and I become less sure that my previous fears were unfounded.

Because of the mounting security problems in the building, I ask my land lord to get something done about it. He has the largest stake in the building as he owns most of the apartments. He fights the management company to get extra security added. The security company installs new locks but it is learned that keys have been left in post boxes. This has no effect as as soon as keys are provided, one is stolen.

After some more time, I decide to move out.

Packing begins and everything is moved to the new hous. While clearing out the spare room I find a cussion, different to the others in the apartment standing up against the wall in the spare bed. I’m now convinced that someone was there both when I was there and when I was away.

I return to the apartment for the last time to clean it to ensure it’s ready for the next tennent.

I open the door and the dog stops dead in his tracks.

I know straight away that there is someone in front of me.

I muster a very angry and demanding voice and demand to know what the hell he’s doing in there.

He tells me that he was given the apartment.

Concerned that he could be armed, I leave and close the door to the apartment and the door to the stairwell. The next time I go in I bring Emma with me. She doesn’t inform me that he has any kind of weppon so I confront him further. I ask him again. “Who gave you this apartment!”. He answers again that he was given it. When I demand to know who gave it to him he says he was given it by magic.

I give up and leave again. This time, I call a neighbour to stand at the door with me and call the gards.

He comes out and attempts to leave. I block him and tell him that he’s going nowhere . Expecting a confrontation I feer for the worst and tell Emma to take the dog out of the way.

Instead, he calmly agrees that he’ll stay and returns to the apartment.

Another resident passing by tells us that he knows who the man is. A number of very shocking facts are divulged and we’re advised to leave the building.

The gards arrive and ask us a number of questions before going in side. They already know the man and their aware of what he’s been doing in the building. I wish I understood how they were aware of it but yet did nothing to stop him but that’s a story for a later time I think. They also back up what I’d been told a short time before and suggest that I do not confront him again.

I was told he had been linked to a number of high profile and serious crimes in Tallaght and had travelled to Drogheda to hide. I was also told by the same person that he enjoyed acting stupid to throw people off.

The Gards went up and threw him out. When we met outside, they requested proof that he didn’t live there as he told them that I was the intruder, not him! Of course, a call to the land lord proved that but I’m still amazed that they needed proof! When all that was done, they just sent him on his way. Thank god, I’ve never heard from him since.

When he was gone, the Gards asked me to go to the apartment to make sure he had not taken or damaged anything. The gard walked through each room describing everything she could see. When we got up stairs she told me there was a cussion on the bed. When I checked, it was the same one from the spare room.

I completely loved that apartment. It was in a great location, the inside was done to such a high standard, the church design was really unusual and the high vaulted sealings with the windows made everything sound fantastic. But, when I returned to that apartment, everything seemed different. I knew that he’d been in there, I knew that I was stupid for not trusting my instingt and I knew that he could have been there a lot more than I knew.

I don’t mind saying that it was the most frightening thing I’ve ever experienced. For the people who read this who are not blind, go home tonight and imagine someone is in your house. Imagine that the scope of your awareness is limited to that you can hear, smell and touch. Imagine that someone is outside that scope. Their aware of you but your not aware of them. Imagine that you are alone with that person and you don’t even know it.

4 Comments

  1. abbyAnonymous

    Darragh, that story fits one this weekend.
    I had a guest stay over thursday and friday. Well, I had to kick them out. it’sthe first time I’ve ever had to do that to someone.
    Well the person leaves, but a hosrt time later, I hear two knocksat my door. Alice runs to the door, as I am up and about inside the apartment. Well, this person was also blind, but things just didn’t add up.
    anyway, I ignored the knocking, and went on with my night.
    Yesterdayk, the myserious knocks came again, this time two knocks. Again I didn’t go to the door, for fear that the person would be there.
    Nothing happened thankfully, but it was very scary! so I know some of what you experienced, but nothing close to your fear!!!!! so sorry!!!! people are so weird!!!!!

    Reply

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