I. Shanz Professional Portfolio & Blog

Never really told anyone our family story or the things we have gone through. Some families are unfortunate to be “cursed” or haunted for some reason that most likely has been lost to history. The most famous family I can think of is the family of Bruce Lee. He talked about his family’s demons. We are not famous. Only those we interact with know that we exist… and only my close family members know of the events that I will discuss here. We have never told anyone. We have our demons that have tormented my family for as long as we can remember. I do not know when it started or what generation caused it. All we know is that we have had to deal with this for four generations. My grandma’s generation, my parents, my sisters and I, and our children. The main demon that has caused us the most horrible experiences in our lives, we have named “the old man”. We believe that he is somehow linked to our grandma or her side of the family. Most of our memories of him have taken place at our grandma’s house. Despite this, he would travel amongst us tormenting us all. One of the most terrifying experiences my older sister had took place in her dorm room when she first entered college. During this event she experienced him waking her up in the middle of the night at which point he started pressing down on her chest to prevent her from breathing. I do not remember all the details of this story, so I will tell you one of mine instead. I seem to be one of his favorite playthings and thus have many stories of encounters with the old man. I am going to start with one of the more mild ones.

I was about sixteen when this happened. My two older sisters had already moved out. But one of my older sisters had come home during a break in her college classes. I gave up my room for her so she could have a place to sleep. Therefore, I ended up in the living room on the couch. Now let me set the scene. In our living room, we had a huge tv entertainment center on the opposite side of the living room from the couch that I was sleeping on. The entertainment center was full of electronics that emitted bright green lights that made the living room unable to ever be completely dark. I had already gone to bed on the couch and fallen asleep. I am not sure how long I was asleep, but at some point, after falling asleep, I was awoken by a loud crashing sound. This sound was huge and startling. Like a huge item such as a fridge or washer had been picked up and dropped from a good height. The sound was almost deafening. Trust me, being woken up from a deep sleep by something like that is quite unnerving. I was considerably scared. Hoping someone else would get up and see what happened. I could not imagine that I was the only one to have heard it, given how loud it was. It had to have woken up someone else. As I lay there facing the back of the couch there in the darkroom with the glowing green lights, I listened for any sounds or anyone else stirring. I heard nothing but silence from my two sisters and my parents’ rooms. I waited a few more minutes but finally decided that I needed to see what made that sound. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath… and then got up. As I sat up and swung my legs around so I could stand up, I took in the sights of the living room. The glowing green lights were bright enough that I could make out all of the furniture in the living room and I could tell that I was alone, and everything was undisturbed. So, I gathered my courage and stood up. I proceeded to start searching the house for something that could have caused the loud crash that woke me up. I went into the dining room and glanced around. There was a huge bay window that let in enough light to illuminate the dining room fully. Everything looked as it should. So, I moved on to the next room which was the kitchen. I quickly looked around the kitchen and nothing was out of place there either. I turned the corner and looked towards the next room. This one had a door because it led to my baby sister’s room. This room had always creeped us all out for some unknown reason. Though we used it, we hated to enter it at night alone. Despite knowing my sister was sleeping on the other side of the door, I was leery about going in.

I took a deep breath and walked over to the door and gently opened it. I peeked inside and saw that my sister was sound asleep, and nothing was out of place. I left, gently closed the door, and continued my search of the house. I walked back through the kitchen, dining room, living room, and into the hall leading to my room and my parents’ room. I quietly opened the door to my room and peeked inside. I saw my older sister sleeping. There was nothing out of place in my room either. At this point, I am getting a little more weirded out. I know what I heard; it was loud enough to have woken me up from a dead sleep. How is it that everyone else in the house was still asleep? I shut the door quietly, and moved to the last door, my parents’ room. I once again gently opened the door enough to peek inside. I saw that my parents’ room was dark and quiet, and I heard the sounds of my parents sleeping. I shut the door and went back into the living room. At this point, I had a really bad feeling. I have experienced paranormal activity enough throughout my life to know the feeling that I was having. I knew the old man was back. I had not had any encounters with him for a while. But I knew the feeling. I ran back to the couch, laid down, facing the back of the couch, and covered up my head with the blanket. I have no idea why I did this. Not looking or covering myself with a blanket would not keep me safe. But I did it anyway. I lay there breathing hard for a few minutes taking deep breaths to calm myself. When a chill ran down my spine. I heard footsteps and I felt a presence like I was no longer alone in the room. I was terrified. I didn’t want to look, but I knew I had to. I slowly rolled over so I was facing the entertainment center. My eyes were closed, and the blanket was still pulled tightly up over my head. once I knew I was in a position to see who had walked into the room, I opened my eyes and slowly lowered the blanket just enough for me to see. What I saw froze me in place and chilled me to the bone. I could not see the entertainment center or the glowing green lights from the electronics. Instead, I saw a tall, dark figure standing in the middle of the room. Halfway between me and the entertainment center. His head was just barely shorter than the ceiling. He was bigger than any man I have ever seen. I knew immediately that it was not my dad who stood only about 5’10. I do not know if I managed to not scream. But I just froze. I could not breathe. I could not move. I could just lay there looking at him standing there. Then he took a step towards me. I then heard a deep inhuman voice say, “I am coming for you”. At this point, I broke free of my inability to move and did the only thing of which I could think. I turned my back to him, facing the back of the couch again, covered my head back up with the blanket, and I began to pray. The moment that I started praying, I heard another loud sound. It was not as loud as the first loud sound. I then heard someone whisper in my ear “you are safe now, go to sleep” and felt a hand gently stroke my hair. Then nothing. I can only imagine that I either passed out, or I fell asleep the moment the other voice told me to go to sleep. I have no memories of anything else that happened that night. I just remember waking up the next morning completely freaked. I told my dad what had happened. Considering the frequency of events like this happening, we did not know what to do. He told me that praying was the best thing that I could have done, and he was sorry that he couldn’t protect me.

If you liked that story, let me know. I have many, many more where that came from. Thankfully, the encounters with the old man have slowed. These past few years have been the calmest I have ever had. I pray he is gone or has finally lost interest in our family. But somehow, I have a feeling, he is not finished with us.