The Scream and the Silhouette

(this story has been re-posted due to an issue involving the title of the previous post, the story itself has not been changed)

Growing up in New york wasn't a peaceful life, but I didnt really know much else, Born in Queens, raised in Nassau, my life was populated by traffic and litter. My mom and dad never quite got along by the time I was three, and eventually they split apart. My dad won the home in the divorce, and my mother won me, so I went with her to the suburbs just outside Queens to start the next 6 years of my life.

We started in a second floor apartment, our (now late) landlord was a kind, if impatient old man, passed away in the summer of '11. The apartment was everything a home had to be, two bedroom, one bath, dining room kitchen and living room, pretty nice. Me and my sister would always spend our free time on the roof, which was conveniently accessed via the west window, which surprisingly never led to any incident.

The story 'really' starts here, everything else is basically backstory. Sorry :(**

when I was 6, my mother met (who is now) my stepfather, the antithesis of the american step father, he was smart, nice, and brought me up like his own, and I still learn things from him even up to today.

My stepfather lived alone (with his cat, harlee) in a victorian-esque suburban home in the Irish quarter of eastern queens (which is now the spanish quarter of ALL of queens). The place was nice enough, if in a bit rough shape, We always talked about painting it, never got around to it.

Being 6 at the time we moved in, I never looked twice at anything that may have now struck me as odd, I was a very carefree kid, but recently I did some research and asked around into the home's history, and found that apparently, it had gone through... -70 years, -6 families, (3 senior couples who were displaced by their kin) two suicides, (one hanging, one overdose,) -one accidental death (a man fell down the stairs and broke his back, local "lore" says he was paralyzed from the waist down immediately, and tried to crawl back up the basement stairs until he died of internal bleeding) -and one small time serial killer I never got the name of.

the house had two floors, and a half finished basement,(which was ALWAYS kept under lock and key, unless absolutely necessary, I must have only seen it open two or three times, but it seemed like a fairly nice part of the house at the time) as did most new york homes of the time period, My room was on the second floor, with my sister, across the hall from my mother and stepfather.

• two years after we moved, I had turned 8, and I effectively grew into my "suspicious" phase, one I suspect I never quite grew out of. I looked at everyone and everything with a critical eye, and thus I lost several friends. However, this also began my fear of the house itself.

a month after the anniversary of our move, in march, I was just going to sleep like any other saturday, but I couldnt seem to sleep, I racked my brain for possible reasons why, but came up with nothing, there was nothing to anticipate, nothing to think about. I sat there for over an hour, just staring at the wall. Then I began to think, and that's never safe.

The more I thought, (about what, i dont remember) the more I felt uncomfortable, I wanted desperately to get up and move around, but I couldn't bring myself to do it, the atmosphere of the room had taken a drastic shift towards the uber-tense. My sister was still snoring softly, which helped me little, so I just kept staring at the wall, covered in sheets.

As I sat there, it may have been my stress kicking in, but I could have sworn I heard a dragging sound, I must have chalked it up to the wind. The clock turned to 12:30 the last I remember looking at it, which was unheard of for me at the time. At this point, the dragging began to sound like a continuous thump, a hard to describe sound, truly, but I cant think of how else to explain it, almost like a deep rumbling.

Suddenly, the rumbling seemed to crescendo, in a sense, in that it sounded a touch louder, and then faded quickly. I still attributed it to the wind. With the rumbling gone, I noticed how dead-silent the room had become, even my sister's snores had stopped.

Just as I began to dread the silence, I swear to all that is true and right in this world, I hear the most genuine, eardrum splitting scream a man could imagine sound off right from the side of my bed, strangely, the side closest to the wall, almost as if it was right in my ear.

Naturally, being the 8 year old I was, I began breathing like a Pneumatic and shut myself tight in the sheets, my skin slick with a thin sweat, feeling sick to the bone and shivering more than I ever have to this day, and yet all I could do was sit perfectly still in that bed. Now when I describe the scream, The sound is something I never forgot. Even to this day, while lying in bed I can recall the exact pitch and duration of the scream, and I'm afraid to think about it for too long, strongly believing that's what caused it the first time.

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Now when I describe the scream, The sound is something I never forgot. Even to this day, while lying in bed I can recall the exact pitch and duration of the scream, and I'm afraid to think about it for too long, strongly believing that's what caused it the first time.

As I sat there, in shock, under my sheets, The silence was deafening, but I didnt dare call out to someone, because I lived in a house full of people who would likely sleep through a goddamn artillery run.

after an unknown amount of time had passed, my shivers had calmed, and I tried to calm down, and gradually I even managed to put my head above the sheets and look at the wall, but I didn't dare turn around.

after still some difficulty sleeping, the scream was further from my mind, so I naturally rolled over onto my left shoulder, not thinking about what that meant.

as I laid there, eyes closed, facing the open air of my room, my face grew warm, it felt like I was blushing almost, and I gradually opened my eyes, and in the two seconds they remained open, I noticed three things:

1: the door to my room was open 2: my sister wasn't in the room 3: there was a dark figure, roughly 6 feet tall, standing in the center of the room, legs pin straight, head straight up, and arms pointed out in either direction, but slightly drooped.

I snapped, I let out the loudest scream My lungs could manage, which was, apparently, not very loud at all. My voice cracked as soon as I began screaming, so it tapered off into more of a wimper. Whilst screaming, I grabbed the sheets, and balled up as tight as I could in the corner of my bed, covered in the sheet, rocking back and forth for what seemed like hours before my mom and stepdad ran into the room, both looking very tired.

They asked me what happened, and I explained, but then they asked where my sister was, and frankly I had no clue, I was confused as to why her snoring had stopped, as she's usually quite persistent, but I couldnt remember at exactly what time that was.

the next morning, (I slept the rest of the night at the foot of my parents' bed) my sister was still nowhere to be found, My mom had called the police and filed a missing person's report, and spent the rest of the night in the dining room.

the next day the police came to the door with my sister, who apparently tried to run away from home, and stayed with a friend for a night before she decided it wasnt really worth it.

When I asked, she said she knew nothing of the scream I heard of the figure I saw, and yet she told me she left just before midnight.

later that year, my parents started looking into houses in south carolina and georgia, and whenever I asked why they wanted to leave the current home, I never received a straight answer. by the next new year's we had left the suburban 2 story for a ranch in northern South carolina. We packed in a hurry, only took a week to displace 20 years worth of my stepfather's accumulated junk, with only a 45 year old man, 35 year old woman, and a 9 year old boy between us, however we did leave a fair amount of stuff there, quite a few clothes and old containers, furniture that wouldnt fit in the trailer we just said fuck it because we didnt want to make another trip.

Three years later, we went back. The house was for sale, but the actual closing of the sale was put on hold because the buyer had to take an emergency trip to rochester for some reason, so we had to spend a week in the house.

We spent less than a full day in the house that week, I would wager. My mother stayed in south carolina while me and my step dad took one last look over what we might've left in the house, as well as saying goodbye to old friends, always leaving before it got bright, and returning well after 12, neither of us wanted to spend any more time in that house, ever since we left it had such an intense atmosphere, it felt like there was a thick time restraint on everything you did, like if you screwed up, you'd be in real danger.

Anyway, nothing really special happened in that week, but we did find some doors open that we thought we closed, but we blamed that on drafts and poor insulation.

well thats my story, not a crazy scary one, but just something I've never told anyone, sorry it was so long, I'll do my best to tighten it up next time, I've got a couple other, more troubling occurrences left to show, and I just might get a friend to give me one or two of his stories