After the Tapping on the Window incident, things grew quiet. I had a
few encounters in the following years, but nothing of note. It wasn’t until I
was in my final year of primary school that I had my next true experience of the 'supernatural'
I was ten years old, and the school had planned a weekend away at a
campsite bordering a vast forest. Having lived on the edge of one for some time,
and considering what had happened there, the prospect wasn’t exactly appealing
to me, but my whole class was going, and I wasn’t going to be the one weird kid
who stayed at home whilst everyone else went off and had the time of their
lives. So I went.
It is worth stating that the site wasn’t exactly what I was expecting,
the word campsite implies bonfires, makeshift tents and sleeping bags; this
place was more of a leisure centre situated on the edge of a forest. Not that I
minded, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to sleeping in a cramped tent in
the middle of nowhere. There were two dormitories, which were split up into
boys and girls accordingly, not that any of us were all that interested in the
opposite gender at that age.
We arrived later than planned at the site that evening, so that meant
the trek into the forest was postponed to the next day and instead we sat
through a dull two hour orientation before being allowed to retreat to our
bunks. Did I mention we had bunk beds? Me and my friend Mark agreed we would
take turns sleeping on the top bunk; the first night I was on top.
For some reason our teacher, Mr Gardner, who was supervising the visit
seemed to think it was a good idea to tell us all a horror story before lights
went out. Needless to say, the reaction was terror met with a stubbornness to
show terror in an intensely childish way. The lights soon went out and Mr
Gardner wished us all ‘goodnight’ before returning to wherever it was the
teachers were staying. The dorm was deathly silent, there seemed to be no
external noise whatsoever, the only sound was our collective breathing and
snoring.
I lay awake, as I was accustomed to do in strange places, and let my
mind wander. Mark seemed to have no trouble sleeping far beneath me as his
breathing grew louder and somewhat more erratic as he fell deeper into sleep.
The room was swelteringly hot and I could barely stand to stay under covers. It
was when I came to the decision to remove the duvet that I heard something;
something that wasn’t the sound of someone breathing. Footsteps. I looked
around the room to see if anyone had gotten out of bed, seeing no-one, I placed
my head back down on my pillow. No sooner had my ear touched the cloth than I
heard the same sound again, only louder. There was no doubt now, the origin was
outside, it had to be. I bolted up again and peered around the room,
scrutinizing every bed. Had someone gone outside? Every bed was filled, no-one
was absent; who was it? I listened intently for a while. I heard the footsteps
grow ever closer and then start to pace back and forth past the building.
There were two doors to the dorm, one of them led straight outside,
and that door remained locked during the night, the other led to the main
centre and presumably where the teachers were staying. The footsteps would
circle the building, coming to a stop when it reached the corridor that led to
the main centre and would then return the other way. Occasionally they would
stop for a few seconds right outside the door, and when they did, I held my
breath.
I leant over the bannister and tried to wake Mark.
“Psst! Mark!” He stirred slightly, but it took some persistence to
bring him to consciousness.
“What? What’s wrong?” he muttered, drowsy and barely awake.
“Listen… do you hear that?”
He stopped for a few seconds, listened, and then placed his head back
on his pillow.
“Hear what?” The footsteps were louder than ever. There was no way he
couldn’t hear them. The memory of my brother reawakened, and I dismissed the
entire thing, if I made myself believe it wasn’t real, it would go away.
“Never mind- sorry.” Mark grunted back at me, and was asleep again in
an instant. Despite my persistence and determination, the footsteps didn’t go
away, but oddly, after some time, the sound no longer disturbed me, it became
almost soothing, and I was able to finally rest.
The following day was the big hike through the forest. Due to my lack
of sleep, dislike of forests and general uneasiness of the whole situation, I
found myself dreading the upcoming trek, but as ever I continued with the
crowd.
The hike was led by one of the site’s members, an middle aged man with
greying sideburns and a slight limp as he walked, then there were two other
teachers, Mr Gardner being one of them. Mr Gardner stayed generally with the
centre of the group whilst the other teacher brought up the rear to make sure
no-one lagged behind or got lost.
I have to admit, to my surprise, I rather enjoyed the experience on
the whole. I had repressed, what I considered to be a rational fear, of
forests, and therefore believed I would hate every moment of the trek, but in
truth after the first ten minutes or so, I forgot all about my fears and
suspicions.
It was only when we stopped for a break during the walk that I
discovered Mr Gardener seemed to have something of an obsession with horror
stories. We were all sat in a clearing, on the floor, listening to him speak of
what he knew about the forest we were currently in.
“This forest is famous for one reason, and one reason alone,” he
opened dramatically, “years and years ago, a family came camping in the forest,
a father, a mother and their daughter, this was before the centre was here
mind, they were fully fledged campers; none of these creature comforts you kids
take for granted these days. They ventured deep into the forest and set up
their tent, the day was clear, but when night came the weather turned and the
tent was beaten relentlessly by the wind. It became so bad that the tent
threatened to blow them away, even with the weight of them all inside it. As
soon as the wind calmed down slightly the father resolved to return to the car
and retrieve more nails to hold the tent down for the rest of their stay.
Despite protests from both his daughter and his wife, he left quickly lest the
weather turn on them again. It took him longer than he expected to make the
journey, and it was dawn by the time he returned, only when he did return did
he discover the camp site abandoned, with no trace of his family in sight.
Stricken with worry and grief, he searched the forest relentlessly, and
hopelessly, for them, but found no sign of them anywhere. Neglecting his own
needs in despair for his family, he succumbed to dehydration. He died, but he
still wanders through the woods each night, endlessly searching for the family
he lost- for the family he abandoned.”
It was a good story, slightly illogical, but entertaining. Looking
back, the story doesn’t frighten me in the slightest, but at the moment it was
told, after hearing what I had heard the night previously, it scared me more
than I cared to admit.
After the hike was done, and we returned to our dorms as night fell, I
got that sickly feeling of fear deep in my stomach as Mr Gardner told us his
horror stories and then turned out the lights. I don’t need to tell you that it
happened again, I don’t need to tell you that the noise came again. I was on
the bottom bunk that night, and for some reason, that made me feel all the more
vulnerable. I heard the leaves crack and crunch under the boots patrolling
outside, I heard the mud squelch and stick to the soles, I heard the careless
scrape of someone dragging their feet. I was being ridiculous. It was probably
just a member of staff patrolling the site, just a normal duty, just doing his
job, how had I not thought of that before?
Because it didn’t feel- right.
At first I was afraid of the footsteps; then I grew bored of them,
they were not harming anyone, so why should I care? It was only when I noticed
a shadow passing the window that the fear came back. There wasn’t a shadow
before… Oh god, there definitely wasn’t a shadow before.
I didn’t notice at the time, but there was no light that could
possibly have projected a shadow outside, or inside for that matter, but I was
so consumed by terror that I did not stop to consider this. Despite the
impossibility, there it was, faint, but definitely there; a shadow
systematically passing each window in time with the footsteps.
It was one thing to deny I had been hearing things, but I could now
see with my own eyes that someone was out there. I woke Mark up by kicking the
underneath of the top bunk.
“What now?” He asked, just a little too loudly, clearly frustrated for
being woken up two nights in a row. Some of the other boys woke up due to
Mark’s outburst, I didn’t care; I was too scared to take any mind of them.
“There’s someone outside!”
“Really? Again?”
“Just look!” I pointed at the window the shadow was passing. Mark
glimpsed at it with tired eyes.
“I don’t see nothing!”
“I think I saw something!” one of the boys from across the room
stated. That was it then, it wasn’t long before the whole room erupted with
some fearful and some annoyed chatter. Honestly, I was thankful for the fact I
wasn’t alone in my consciousness, and in the midst of the talking the shadow
and the footsteps faded away.
The next day consisted of cramming in literally as many of the
centre’s activities as it was possible to do in one day. Whilst I enjoyed
archery, rock-climbing and canoeing, to name a few, my participation was
somewhat half-hearted due to my weariness. Most of the boys were also in a
similar condition, the lack of sleep the night previously had drained us all.
As darkness started to set in that night we all packed our things ready for an
early departure the next morning.
That sick feeling only grew stronger the darker the day became.
Something was coming, I knew it, but I didn’t know what ‘it’ was. If legend
were true, there was a man out there, dead due to dehydration, searching for
his lost family in our dorm. In my childish ignorance I believed that it might
even be the case. Not that I cared all that much about the reasoning, all I
could concentrate on was the fear, and the terrible anticipation.
The footsteps came later that night. They were clumsier, more
uncertain; more real. To my shock, someone from across the room acknowledged
the sound before I said anything.
“There’s someone outside!” There was suddenly a hushed, frightened
murmur of agreement. Mark, who was usually such a natural sleeper, sat bolt
upright in the bed, his eyes wide. The shadow was there too, stumbling instead
of drifting, past the windows, one by one, footsteps dragging along behind it.
It circled the dorm countless times. Everyone in the room seemed to be holding
their breath, scarcely daring to breathe for the fear that whatever was outside
would hear us inside, and want to come in.
We had all heard the story Mr Gardner had told, and at that point, we
all believed it to be true, without a shadow of a doubt.
The footsteps made one final rotation around the building before stopping
abruptly; directly in front of the door.
Silence permeated the room. The darkness seemed heavier than ever,
thicker than fog. I don’t know how long that silence lasted. It felt like
forever. But I know how it ended.
SLAM!
The whole room seemed to shake, vibrations rippling through every
particle, invading every corner of our dorm.
Our reaction was exactly what you would expect. Panic erupted;
screaming, shouting, crying.
SLAM!
Again, the sound was almost deafening in comparison to the footsteps. I
could see the door tremble at the impact, even through the hindering darkness.
Someone managed to locate the light switch and flicked it on. This did nothing.
Now we could see, we could see the door threaten to break open at any second
and let whatever it was out there; inside.
SLAM!
SLAM!
SLAM!
This continued for a while. Eventually it became apparent that
whatever it was that was causing this noise, didn’t have any intention of
coming inside, it was merely making noise. This did not lessen to fear, it merely
meant that we understood even less than we thought.
Eventually a member of staff, along with a teacher, came to
investigate what all the commotion was. Needless to say, they were just as
terrified as we were, only they did their best to hide it.
They both approached the door slowly, before turning the lock and
swinging it open.
At first, the person at the door was unrecognisable, his forehead was
dripping with blood from where he had repeatedly smashed it with the door and it had trickled down his face, into his mouth and down his chin; but
on closer inspection, you could just make out Mr Gardner.
For a while he simply continued to rock back and forth as if the door
was still there. Then when the teachers shook him he merely didn’t respond. He
stood solemnly, silently for a while and then collapsed into a heap on the
floor. The teachers dragged him inside and made sure he was still breathing. I
remember all of the staff assuring us that ‘everything’s okay’ and to ‘go back
to bed,’ like that was going to happen.
Eventually Mr Gardner woke up. He woke up with an ear-shattering scream. He screamed as if he was in a severe amount of pain, as if a limb were slowly being crushed under a large amount of weight, but not only that, it was almost as if he was screaming for something lost, there was a hint of sadness in his guttural screeching. He was dragged out of the
room, kicking and screaming at the top of his lungs, digging his nails into the ground as he was carried away, and we were left with unanswered questions and thumping hearts supervised by a member of staff for the rest of the night.
No-one slept, we were all haunted by the crazed look in our teacher's eye, and the scream that still resonated in our ears.
The trip soon became something of legend once we had returned to school. Mr Gardner was forced to take a leave for a
time, we saw him again before the end of the year and he apologised for his
actions saying he didn’t know what came over him. Of course all the kids
believed he was possessed by the spirit he spoke of in the woods. I don’t think
so. I later discovered he had been having problems at home, his wife had
divorced him and was refusing to let him see the children. Understandable then
that he should feel an emotional connection with the tale he spoke of and latch
himself on to a reality where what he did was possible. That is my explanation
anyway- doesn’t explain the footsteps I heard for the first couple of nights
though- but there you have it.
If you are anything like me you may have noticed some similarities
between the two incidents, both events transpired over three nights, both
events involved me hearing a phantom noise, and both ended with a dramatic
outcome. Many of my experiences have followed a similar pattern, and it is why I
write this, to show a sense of repetition and routine in all paranormal
activities, and therefore prove that they are not always what they seem, but in
my experience, they are most certainly to be feared.
