Funny how when you are a little kid, things that can't happen do happen. The house I'm now in is free from any and all spirits, but that wasn't the case in our old house in Los Angeles. House was a large Spanish style built in 1932 along with the rest of the neighborhood. The original owners that sold to my parents moved away healthy and happy, so I can't blame anything on them.
My original bedroom was at the rear of the house and was peaceful, but I got bumped when I was five years old to the den in front of the house when my grandmother came to live with us. Things really went downhill for me - night terrors and a fear that something was out to get me. My parents would never believe in ghosts or the occult, so I was on my own. The problem was that the walk-in closet in the den was entered by a normal door, and some 12 feet back into the dark recesses were large grates from the floor to the basement and in the ceiling to the attic. Strange, and today I can only guess that they were there for some ventilation purposes. When your 5 years old and looking into blackness both below and above, it can be a scary thing.
Like any kid I would check and make sure the closet door was securely closed before going to bed. It was an uneasy feeling waking up in the morning and seeing that door open a couple of inches. Except for an unexplained fear that I had, nothing out of the ordinary happened other than the occurrence of finding the door open every so often after I had secured it the night before.
I finally was successful in convincing my parents to allow my Border Collie to stay in the house overnight to sleep with me. This is when the trouble started. It was just after midnight that the dog started to growl, and my first thought was that he heard someone outside since the houses in our neighborhood were stacked close together. Unfortunately, when I looked up at the dog that had now retreated to the top of my pillow, he was growling at the closet. I left the handling of the situation to the dog and quickly retreated under the covers. I fell back asleep with my bodyguard staring at the closet door.
About a month went by without incident, and the dog and I had worked things out with him being the protector and I the protectee. Now that I think about it, the occurences came just a little less than a month apart in that room.
The quiet of the night was broken once again by the low growl of the dog, but this time I was awake enough to hear the closet door creaking open. No more growling, but a fully freaked dog barking and bouncing around the top of the bed sometimes gaining enough courage to lunge a little towards the closet. I once again took refuge under the covers. While it seemed like an eternity, it was probably a few seconds before my dad was in the room with the light on. His reaction to being awakened by a crazy dog was what you would expect, “what in the g-d da-n h-ll is going on!” At this point the fear of the closet guest was overcome by the current fear of ignoring my dad for too long with the covers over my head. When I popped out my gaze fell on the fully open closet door. The dog was now quiet, but shaking violently by my side.
There is no way a WWII Vet short on sleep is going to put up with stories of late night ghosts and goblins. The dog was permanently dispatched outside for creating such a ruckus, and I was back on my own with no defender. For many years after, I slept under the covers. When I got a little older, I left the closet door open so the creaking wouldn’t wake me up. Sort of a different don’t-ask-don’t tell, mine was don’t-look-don’t see.
I never did attempt explaining to my wife why even today she wakes up in the morning and finds the sheet over my head. Old habits are hard to break.
