Nighttime in Alabama

Nighttime in Alabama

By: Mystic Witch


My grandfather and I had grown very close over the years. Since I was 4 years old, he had stepped in and helped my mom out with me when my dad died. I loved him very much. The news of his death, even though expected, was the saddest news I had ever received.

The family attorney told us that we were to be at his office in two weeks for the reading of the will. He then said it was imperative that I be there.

I stared out of the window in the attorneys office as he read of the names of my relatives and told each one what they were bequeathed. After he told each person present, except for my husband and me, he stood up and told him or her that was all and it was time for him or her to leave. They immediately started to protest. The attorney walked around his desk and to the door that led to the outer office. He opened it up and turned towards my aunt’s, uncles, and cousin’s, I hope you all have a great day and I will see you later. Pissed off, and grumbling under their breath, they filed out. He then shut the door and turned toward the three of us left.

“I am sure you are very curious as to what your inheritances are? He asked. Before any of us could utter a response, he said, “well you’re about to find out.” With a slight smile on his face, he turned and walked to his desk.

“Your Grandfather has left you a trust fund with a balance of $233,000.00. He set it up for you right after your father passed away. There is a stipulation that comes with it however, you must help your mom out and make sure that you both have fun with the money.” At that statement, he grinned and looked straight at me. “He also left you his farm. As you know, it has two houses on it and a barn. The total acreage of the farm is just a little over 100 acres.” He then told my mom what she was to receive and asked if we had any questions. Satisfied that we had asked everything that seemed important and knew all that we needed to, we were handed the house keys and dead and we left.

On the way home, I could not help but think about the farm, and the money he had left us. My grandpa had worked very hard his whole life just to provide his family with some security. While thinking of these things I could not help but think of the old farmhouse that also sat on the property. It was deserted and should have been torn down years ago. The place had a feeling of evil about it. No matter who saw it the response was always the same, it feels like it is watching me, not like someone is watching me but “It”. I know that every time I went to gramps house I never went anywhere near the old house. It always gave me the creeps and sometimes I would even have nightmares about it grabbing me when I was walking by it and I would just disappear into it and into a black empty void. I would then wake up screaming and gramps would come in and calm me down. Since I now owned the farm, I could do something about the old house, and make sure there would be no repeat nightmares.


It took a little over a month to get everything in order so we could move. Our first night in the house was uneventful. All three of us were tired from the move and the events leading up the move. We had put our house up for sale and got rid of everything we did not want to bring to the farm. My mom had also put her house up for sale and got rid of what she did not need or want any longer. We only unpacked the essentials like our bathing products and cloths, and washed up. We had stopped and grabbed some burgers from a fast food joint so we ate them and hit the sack.

I woke up with a start. I was not sure what had caused me to wake up but I was awake and my heart was beating faster than I had ever felt it beat. I laid there in the dark, listening. Not knowing exactly what I was listening for. I don’t know how much time elapsed before I heard something. It sounded like someone taking in a very deep breath and exhaling it. It happened repeatedly. I tried to figure out where the sound was coming from. I knew it wasn’t my husband, I could hear him breathing the way a sleeping person does. I thought maybe my mother had come into our room for some reason, and was sleeping on the floor. I reached up and turned on the lamp next to my bed. I looked at the floor next to me and didn’t see her there. I got out of bed and looked around the room; she wasn’t any where in it. I went to her room and peeked in, she was laying in her bed sound asleep. I was confused now, where was that noise coming from. I went back to my room and laid back down.

The breathing noise suddenly stopped only to be replaced with the sound of someone talking. It sounded like there was a group of at least three people talking to each other out behind our house. I got up and went to the window, opening the curtain I looked outside to see who was out there. I was shocked and scared at what I saw. The old house, that was about 100 feet behind our house, was completely lit up. I could see what looked like people walking around inside of it and I could hear them talking.

I closed the curtain and tried to convince my self that I was just dreaming. I wasn’t awake. It was all just a very bad dream and I would wake up soon. I looked at my husband and saw him lying in bed, his breath coming in steady intervals. I looked around the room and noticed that it was exactly as it was when I went to bed a few hours earlier. I turned back to the window and opened the curtain. I looked at the old house. It sat in complete darkness now, no lights, no shadows of people walking around inside, no voices. It just sat there looking empty and deserted. I’m just dreaming I told myself again, and went back to bed.

The next morning we started unpacking. I didn’t say anything about the dream I had the night before. I didn’t want to scare my mom, she was already scared of the old house, and I didn’t see any use in upsetting her. My husband would have just told me not to worry about it, that it was only a dream, and dreams were how our subconscious mind cleared itself out. I couldn’t stop thinking about it though. What if I wasn’t dreaming. What if I was awake, and really saw and heard everything.

My husband and mother went to town to get supplies to stock the cupboards and refrigerator. I stayed behind to continue cleaning. I had just finished up in the kitchen and headed to the back of the house. We had stuck many boxes in a storage room that was between our bedroom and my mom’s. It used to be a playroom for my mom and her siblings as they were growing up, and was turned in to a storage room when the last of the children moved out. I walked into it to search through the boxes.

I was looking for the box that had our bathroom stuff in it when I heard a door slam. It didn’t sound like it came from our house, instead it sounded like it was out side. I walked into our room and looked out the window, the one I had looked out of in my dream last night. I looked at the old house and saw the front door to it standing open. It didn’t make sense to me that if I heard a door slam why would I see the front door open.

My attention was then drawn to a window on the second floor of the old place. I had seen movement in the window out of the corner of my eye. Now, however, looking at it I didn’t see anything. “Ok, Laura,” I said out loud to my self“, you are starting to hallucinate. You better lay off of the sweets; it’s causing you to see things.” I looked back down at the front door before I closed the curtain. It was now closed and looked as if it had not been opened for a very long time.

I went back to my search and found the box I was looking for. I went to the bathroom and unpacked it. I finished with the bathroom and went into the living room to unpack the boxes left in there.

I had completely unpacked on of them when I heard the door slam again. This time the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I got the feeling that something or someone was walking to my back door. I was totally consumed with fear. I tried to move, to get away from the thing that was approaching but I couldn’t. I was totally paralyzed.

I realized that what ever it was knew I was in here and knew I was alone. It felt like something was peering into my brain and reading my thoughts. It knew I knew it was coming to get me, and it knew how scared I was. It was reveling in my fear. It was enjoying every second of it. Fear is what this thing used to live on and fear is what it caused in every living thing that happened to be unlucky enough to be near it.

I heard the door on the porch open and spring shut. I heard the heavy footsteps walking to the backdoor of the house. I heard the handle of the backdoor turning and the door bang against the wall as it was thrown open. I heard the footsteps walking through the kitchen as they approached the living room where I was. My voice screaming in my head at me to run to safety and my legs ignoring the command from my brain to move.

From where I stood frozen in the living room, I heard the deep breathing as it approached. I couldn’t see the doorway that it would be entering through however because my back was to it. All I could do was listen and wait, the steps grew closer until they were at last in the doorway. I could feel its eyes staring at me. I could feel the evil, that it was, rolling off it and hitting me like waves crashing on the shore.

It didn’t move from the doorway for what seemed like forever. It just stood and watched me, consuming the fear it felt coming from me. When at last it did finally move again my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. I know it is stupid but I was hoping it would turn and walk back to the old house and leave me alone. It didn’t. It slowly approached me and when I felt a hand on my shoulder, I passed out.

I woke up in darkness so complete that I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. Confused and frightened I tried to figure out where I was. I remember putting the stuff away in the bathroom and then going into the living room. I remember unpacking a box of knick-knacks and arranging them on the shelves in the living room. I remember standing in front of the shelves and looking at them but what happened after that I don’t know.

I tried to sit up and realized that I was inside of something. I felt around and realized that it was a wooden box of some type. Now the fear set in. I started to scream, hoping that I would be heard and rescued. Just as I opened my mouth to scream for help the second time something very heavy hit the top of the box I was in, and I heard something say “STOP!!” in a voice that was more animal than human.

I lay there, not moving any part of my body, in fear that what ever was out there would open up the box I was prisoner in. I must have fallen asleep because when I next awoke I was no longer inside of a box. Instead, I was lying on the floor in a room that I didn’t recognize. I sat up, looked around, and realized where I was. I was in the old farmhouse.

I started to stand up when I heard something or someone walk into the room and say, “you’re awake and setting up I see”. “Good, he has been waiting for you.” “Get up and let’s go we don’t want to keep him too long. He wouldn’t appreciate it.” I stood up and looked toward the voice, standing just inside of the doorway I saw a man dressed in clothing from the early 1900’s. He had on a pair of overalls that looked like they would fall apart if they were ever washed, and the typed of hat I had only seen in old western movies when they showed you a farmer working on his land.

He was tall and had what looked like brown hair peaking out from under his hat. His skin was so pale and white it almost seemed transparent. His eyes were coal black with no visible pupil and what part of the white I could see was so blood shot that I thought at first they were bleeding. He raised his arm and extended his hand toward me. The thought of touching his hand and feeling his skin made me visibly shake, but I didn’t want him or whoever else was here to get mad, I still, in all of my human foolishness, had the thought of being able to escape. How silly humans can be.

I extended my hand towards his, as I was about to take his hand I looked at my own. I was frozen once more in shock and amazement. My hand looked like a foreign object to me, something I had never seen before. I knew it was my hand only because it was attached to the arm that I was lifting into the air. I also saw the ring on the index finger was the same ring I had been given by my grandpa for my 16th birthday. A white gold rind with a ruby in the middle and a diamond on either side of it

It was all too much for me to understand and my mind was beginning to feel as though it would fall apart. I stood there just staring at my hand in utter silence. When the man again spoke and brought me back to this reality, I looked up into his black eyes and knew…

I remembered what had happened in the living room, the thing coming from this house to mine. It coming inside and standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. The evil radiating off it like the heat radiates off the blacktop on hot summer days. It walking up behind me and laying its hand on my shoulder, and me allowing it to take me, completely into its will. I knew what it was now. He was my master, my provider, my father, and my lover. He had created me and now I was his and now on else’s. I looked to the man standing there and realized that he and I were the same. “Has he made more of us?” I asked. The man smiled showing his teeth, and said, “Yes, there are two others”. “A boy that looks around 14 years old and always will and my wife, Betty Moore.” “I am Jake Moore.” “The boy’s name is Clyde Harper.”

I now knew what happened to the previous owners of the house. My grandpa had been told by the Moore family when he bought it that the place had belonged to their parents, and that they had disappeared one night never to be seen again. I also knew what happened that hot summer night so long ago when she was just 10 years old and her 14 year old brother Clyde had disappeared while they were all playing hide and seek.

My mind was still reeling with the realization of my situation, I saw a light come on outside. I saw my mom and husband walk out of the house, flashlights in their hands. I knew that they were going to search for me. I also knew that they would never find me. I stood watching them, all emotion slipping away. I wondered what this life would be like. Living in the night not feeling the sun. I wondered what I would be like.

When at last all my human feelings vanished, “he” walked in to the room. I turned and looked up on my new world. He was like nothing I had seen before and I never wanted to see anything other than him again. I let the curtain drop and went to him.

I had always loved the nighttime in Alabama and now I was going to enjoy it even more.