Ghost walking

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   The most chilling and strange thing that has ever happened to me occurred when I was a child of about 10 or 11 growing up in Hawaii.  My bedroom was part of a converted garage and since it was rather large, it had been divided up into three "rooms" using bookshelves as walls so that my siblings and I could each have a space.  My room was at the back next to the backyard, looking out at a patio (called a lana'i).  I am not sure exactly when, but soon after we moved in I began to hear footsteps at night outside my room.  It sounded as if someone was walking in circles on the patio. 

I could hear the scuff of their hard-soled shoes on concrete, the tap of regular steps and then the turn as the "person" circled around on the patio.  The steps were sharp and very clear as  they got closer and then moved further away.  I slept with twenty stuffed animals and the covers over my head at all times.  A small hole in the covers near my head allowed for breathing air while sweat formed everywhere else.  When the steps woke me in the night, the fear paralyzed me for hours while I wondered about the man (I was sure it was a man!) who marched and marched outside my window.

The walking was bad enough, but then something else happened that frightened me even more.  Just as I was about to fall asleep, someone would sit on the end of my bed!   The creak of the mattress, the depression, the weight of a body.... Oh lord, it scared the living crap out of me!  They would sit there for awhile and finally get up.  Somehow, once the person had left, I managed to fall asleep. 

 I can only attribute this to the complex "protection" which I thought would guard me from the ghost, the kind of protection only a child imagines will work.  My piles of stuffed animals guarded me closely, making a wall between me and the thing out there.  When they had been placed just so each night and the covers were pulled over my head and a small breathing hole allowed air to get in, I would read books by the light of a flashlight until sleep took over.  My mother did not know what to do.  She told me it must be a dream, that since the "bed sitter" only came just as I fell asleep, then I probably had fallen asleep and was dreaming.  She had given me the flashlight so that I could shine the light on whatever it was and so prove to myself that nothing was there.  No way could I leave the protection of the covers to reveal myself to the thing.  Not only that, no matter what shining a light at the "sitter" could only make it worse!  Either way, if nothing were there or something was there, it would be awful!

At one time I nearly convinced myself that the footsteps were simply water dripping after the very common downpours that happen in Hawaii.  But no, the steps sounded different than the water, very crisp and definite. 

If the haunting weren't bad enough, one more thing happened to me regarding this ghost.  I will never forget it and to this day I can still feel the sensations from that night.