Memoirs of The Darkness: Part 1

Writing Prompt: Supernatural - You buy a haunted house and get more than you bargain for when the you discover the house is inhabited by not sprits of the dead but something much more evil.

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The story I am about to tell is not my own, even though I am now a part of it. Before I can start into it properly, however, let me take a momentary diversion to introduce myself and tell you how I came to became a part of this much older and darker story.

My name is Harold, but you can call me Hal. I was once a police detective but for the last ten years I have been making my living as a parapsychologist/paranormal investigator. I have become somewhat well known in ghost hunting and paranormal communities online and for the last five plus years I have travel the country trying to help people that think they are being plagued by the supernatural. In all honesty I hated my job. The majority of my “clients”, if you can call them that since most did not or could not pay me, were just high-strung paranoids that had convinced themselves that the noises that are completely normal for a house, like thermal expansion or contraction of water pipes or the building structure itself, the rattling of doors and windows of a drafty house on a windy day, or the flickering of lights due to an improperly wired or grounded home, etc, were all actually malevolent forces there to destroy their lives and steal their souls. It was frustrating work to say the least but on rare occasions I would indeed come across something truly unexplainable with deductive reasoning… and a small fortune of scientific testing equipment. Those rare cases of the truly unexplained were what kept me going.

For the longest time I wanted to do a proper long term study of a single home that was, as best as I could tell, actually haunted. There were hundreds of reasons for this, not least of which was to be able to stop dealing with what seemed to be a constant stream of the high-strung paranoids that are the bane of this job. The top reason however, had to be my desire to really take the time to investigate a haunting from a day-in-day-out perspective. This is primarily because over the years one of the only consistencies I have found with a potential true hunting is that it develops over time almost like a relationship. As one becomes more accustomed/intimately involved with a haunted location the more the location reveals its abilities/personality.

With that goal in mind, I had been dutifully saving every cent I possibly could, with the intent of being able to purchase a hunted home when the opportunity presented itself. Two years ago that opportunity presented itself more than I ever could have imagined. I came across a vacant home with a gruesome past and a strong local lore of it being consistently haunted seemingly from the moment it was built. Old is good when it comes to the chance of a haunting and this charming colonial was built in the mid 1700’s. Being near or a part of emotionally charged events also bumps up the chance of a haunting and this home was near a civil war conflict zone (not a fully named battle but hey I’ll take it) and was used as part of the Under Ground Railroad that helped salves escape from the south. The last and most important marker for a potential hunting though, is tragedy, and this house was bursting with tragedy. From the original owners decent into murderous madness, horrifying brutality during the civil war, the murder-suicide of an entire family, or the most recent events that led to the woman, whom I bought the home from, to end up a recluse (or so I thought at the time) this home has had a long and very close relationship with tragedy. I know this might sound callused but for someone in my line of work it is as close to a sure thing as one can get. Even the neighbors give varying accounts of strange or unnerving incidents or feelings about the house.

The home came to my attention though a local group of amateur ghost hunters that tracks haunted homes in and around the city of Norfolk, Virginia and the home was on their radar primarily due to the news coverage of the gruesome murders of the previous family about a decade before. They actually had no idea just how dark this home’s history really was. So, after my research turned up such a treasure trove of tragic events I just couldn’t pass up the chance to buy and study this house. 

When I purchased the home two years ago it was owned by a woman named Samantha Greer. She had been the owner for the last 3 years and she had listed the home well below market value (another good sign for me) and yet it sat empty for nearly a year before I became aware of it. It seemed like the stars were aligning for me to finally get a home to further my research. So, I put in a low ball offer and to my surprise it was accepted the same day with an “as-is” contingency. Anyone, who has ever bought a home before knows that an ‘as-is”  contingency usually means there are serious issues with the house that the current owners can’t or won’t address, but during the home inspection the house seemed to be in near perfect condition. Ultimately the inspector couldn’t find any issues that don’t inherently come with a home built just before America's independence. Honestly, it was in better condition then I could have ever hoped for and I was getting more than excited to start into my project. After all, someone doesn't sell a house like this for under market value with no apparent issues unless the issues are not with the quality of the house but with something else entirely. 

I tried to contact the owner a number of times before during and after the sale but never got any kind of a response from her. The only response I ever got was from her real estate agent, whom having the same last name I assume was related, and she told me that Ms. Greer was not well and did not want to be troubled with the house or anything else. I would eventually learn Ms. Greer’s fate but that is another story entirely.

This book you are reeding now was intended to be a detailed dissection of the homes history and my attempt to document any and all potential supernatural experiences while connecting them to the home’s history as best I could. However, what ended up happening was far more strange and unexpected than I ever could have imagined possible. Spoiler, I have come to find that there are no sprits in this house at least not of human origin, no souls trapped by tragedy, no spirits refusing to move on. This house is however contaminated by one and only one entity, one that has existed on this earth for what I have come to suspect is thousands of years and has used this house as its hunting grounds since it was built.

After millennia of hunting and feeding, it has for some reason chosen to spare me from the usual fate of those who live in this house and instead to share its secrets with the intent purpose that I may write them down in some sort of twisted, horrific memoire. I don't know wether this is out of boredom, loneliness, hubris, or worse, a knowledge that there is noting I or anyone else can do to stop it but what ever the reason I am still alive if not for the sole purpose of chronicling this things "life" though it does not live as any other creature on this planet. This book is not mine, it belongs to the being, the thing, the demon that now dictates my life and actions. If you one day read this do not come looking for me, do not try and save me, it is already too late. Do not let curiosity get the better of you. You will not survive it. Life is its food and as such we are no more than a thought to it, as a blade of grass is to a sheep, or the sheep is to a wolf. This demon has no emotion, no empathy, no care or concern for the death and destruction of its actions. I write this as a warning and because I have no choice. I am certain that as you read this now you will think that it is all just fiction, a fever dream of a demented mind and in a way I wish that were the case but unfortunately, this is true, this is all so horribly true.

The following is a chronicle of my time in the house and my interactions with what I have come to call The Darkness.

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It was a warm fall day in 2023 when I finally got the keys to the house. As I said before I had been saving every penny I could towards buying a home like this and that extended to every aspect of my life including my living arrangements and personal belongings as well. So moving my stuff from the efficiency apartment I was previously renting didn’t even fully fill the back of my SUV and the smallest moving trailer I could rent. Honestly, the majority of my stuff was the hard plastic, protective travel cases filled with all of my paranormal equipment. It took me less than 5 hours to fully move all my stuff in and my small collection of things left the two story 3 bedroom home feeling woefully empty. This was by far the nicest, largest home I had ever lived in and was way more home than I would ever need as a single, childless, friendless and virtually undateable 45 year old ghost hunter. 

The combination of the money I had saved, the low ball offer the seller had accepted, the meager income from my online endeavors and primarily a good chunk of money that I’d received from my mom’s estate when she passed away a couple years back, put me in a good position. If I was carful with how I spent this stock pile of cash, I could live off of my savings for just over 4 years. This set me up to be able to focus full time on the investigation and study of the paranormal activity in the house, a better situation than I could have ever hoped. My budget however, didn’t take into account furnishings for the house so, I would either have to get creative or just be okay with a really empty house. Honestly, empty was okay with me as I have never needed much stuff. I was always too busy traveling for jobs to care what I did or didn’t have at home. As long as my car was dependable and I had the gear I needed to do my job well, I was good. So, mostly empty was how it was going to stay for now.

The next day after getting settled and an uneventful night, I immediately started in on photographing and documenting the house. I took notes on where the original structure was still intact, and where there were additions or modifications. Some sprits really don’t like it when you modify, adjust or otherwise disturb the house as it was when they were living so, identifying these areas would give me a good idea of where to set up my monitoring devices first. Also, it is always a good idea to trace all of the electrical in the house so you don’t mistake electromagnetic radiation coming from the wiring in the house as a “sprit” on your electromagnetic field detector or EMF detector. So, I set to work documenting and setting up some of my equipment in various rooms of the house. I started with a few motion activated cameras with both visible light and infrared or IR capabilities so I could capture anything both day and night. These cameras went in my bedroom, the kitchen-dining room, and the living room for now. I also placed a few EMF detectors with audible alarms in the other two bedrooms and the dining room. All of the rooms were empty except the corner bed room that I had decided to put the rest of my equipment in as wall as their travel crates.

Two weeks passed and there was noting out of the ordinary. I was still getting used to and documenting the sounds of the house but the warm days followed by cool nights, frequent wind and and rain storms of this time of year, were allowing me to quickly acclimatize myself. I was beginning to be able to pinpoint and come to expect the thermal contraction and expansion creeks and groans of the homes structure. Running hot water at each individual tap helped build a documented and mental map of the noises that accompany the expansion and contraction of the pipes. I was quickly making a mental map of the homes sounds to use as a built in filter for anything out of the ordinary.

By the end of the first month I was starting to get a bit nervous that I had not seen or heard anything even remotely paranormal, everything was easily explain away and debunked as typical and even expected events. I knew that some haunted places took some time to start in but this was a long time to not have anything to show for it. In the back of my mind I felt a nagging though pop up; had I just bought a regular house? I shook the thought away and decided to go through my video footage yet again. Over the month I had tried to turn the extra bedroom with my equipment into my home office. I had splurged on a desk and chair I had gotten from a Craigslist ad for a whopping $35 and it quickly turned into the charging station for the myriad of batteries to the various devices of my trade. I hadn’t liked being around the clutter of wires and charging docks so I had taken my laptop to the kitchen island bar and because of this I had been reviewing all of my video on the relatively small laptop screen. “Well if I’m going to look at this all again I should at least use my big monitor”. I said out loud even though I was always the only one in the house. I grabbed my laptop from the kitchen and headed upstairs to the now office. As I crossed the room to the desk the small battery powered EMF detector gave a chirp as my own body’s electrical field triggered the device. I had been dutifully changing the rechargeable batteries on each of these devices day after day even though I was disappointingly the only thing causing them to go off. 

I sat down, connected my laptop to my large external monitor, and started to go through the new video footage from yesterday before I re-reviewed the older clips. I checked the camera card from the Kitchen dining room quickly scanning each clip. Nothing out of the ordinary just me moving about my day. Living room video clips were the same just me doing my thing, then I saw it. It was so subtle I don’t think I would have seen it without my larger monitor. 

If you are looking at the house from the front, the living room took up the whole left half of the first floor and there were two large picture windows that looked out to the front porch. The left wall of the living room was the exterior wall as well but only had one small window toward the porch, then a fireplace centered on that wall. I had placed the camera in the corner of these two exterior walls looking back into the room so you could see almost the entire living room. On the far wall, opposite the fireplace, was the only door into the room. It was two large wooden sliding pocket doors. One was pulled partly closed but the other was  fully open giving a partial view of the entry/hallway that split the house in half and led to the second floor stairs. I checked the previous clip to see where I last saw myself. The time stamp said 21:43 (9:43pm) I watched myself turn the TV off, get up from the couch turn the room lights off, the camera flashed as it switched to IR night vision mode, just as I rounded the door heading for the stairs. I though over my actions from last night. I know for certain I went upstairs got ready for bed, laid down and read for about 30 minutes before turning out my sidelight and going to bed. I know I didn’t go back down stairs last night. I switched files to play the last living room clip again. I pushed play, the video was a bit grainy in its black and white IR mode but it was still plenty clear to see what was going on. The camera shook then quickly settled as the clip started up, that is what triggered the motion sensor to start recording but what caused the camera to shake in the first place? The time stamp was 22:56 (10:56pm) by this time I may have still been awake reading but I was not moving around so it couldn’t have been me that caused the shaking, especially not from my bedroom as its on the opposite side of the house above the kitchen not the living room. I replayed the clip from the beginning listening for any sounds, there was nothing I could hear other than a rhythmic rattle caused by the shaking of the camera itself.  I kept watching the video as it kept playing the 120 second long capture length. About 20 seconds in with the camera now completely still again and nothing else moving in the shot I noticed something. I could see more of the room on the left side of the camera than I remembered, only a sliver but it was different, I was sure. I paused the clip and moved back to the previous clip when I had left to go up for the night to compare. “What the….” I said out loud as my suspicions were confirmed. With both clips up on the screen I could plainly see that the later clip was turned to the left ever so slightly. I closed the clip with me in it and went back to the last clip watching from the beginning again. As I pushed play something else caught my attention that I hadn’t noticed before, the camera did not shake vertically left to right (like tilting your head but still looking forward) but horizontally left to right like looking side to side. That means the camera was not nocked or jostled sideways but twisted. I rewatched the couple seconds of the twisting action over and over. How could that happen? I though about this as the video continued to play watching absentmindedly. The 120 second clip was almost done playing when I was snapped out of my contemplation, a shadow or mist like smudge appeared at the doorway in front of the closed right side door. It seemed to slowly move through the doorway and into the hall, then turn left toward the stairs. The whole time it was phasing in and out of existence in random patches. It was almost like a combination of looking through a warped piece of glass, the darkness of shadow, the opaqueness of smoke, and noting, all combining at once. Constantly undulating as it moved smoothly through the doorway it was unlike anything I had ever seen before. “Oh ho hooo, Fuuuuck Yaaa! I see you whoever you are!” I nearly yelled, repaying the last bit of video over and over. 

I took a few screen shots made some notes then sat back in my chair thoroughly pleased with myself. It had taken a while but here it was, evidence that I had just bought myself a haunted house. I took a deep breath let it out slowly, a grin still plastered to my face. “Hello whoever you are, I am looking forward to getting to know you more, I hope we can be friends.” I said more to myself than the house but deep down hoped the house was listening.

I watched the clip a few more times marked it as my first piece of evidence and made a copy for my external drive. I sat there for a moment then opened the files from my bedroom. I watched through them slightly sped up but with a new sense of focus and excitement. There were a few but not many, mostly me moving around getting ready for bed. The second to last clip was me sitting in bed reading. I had moved to put the book down and that had trigger the camera to start recording. On double speed I watched myself moving comically quick, setting the book down, taking a drink from the glass on my nightstand quickly shuffling in the covers, situating myself to go to sleep for the night, my hand reaching up to switch off the light, the camera switch to IR and there it was… the smoke, steam, smug thing floating, standing right next to the bed. It was next to the nightstand just inches from me. I quickly paused the clip set it back to regular speed and started again just as my hand reached for the lamp. There was nothing there at all, but as soon as the camera switched to IR it was visible. I stared slack jawed as the shadowy mass undulated next to me. Questions flooded my mind. How long had it been there? Did it snap into existence as soon as the room went dark? or had it been there the whole time watching me and it was only visible on video once it switched to IR mode? A shiver ran down my spine as I saw the shadow bend at the middle tipping towards me hovering; the end of its long undulating form just above my head. “What the…..” I half whispered as I watched in awe and unease. I reflexively leaned in closer to the screen then, in a snap the shadow disappeared like it was never there. No fading away, no standing back up, no movement at all just gone. “EEEEEEERRRRRRRREEEE” behind me the EMF detector’s alarm went off cutting the silence in the room. Without thinking I shot up knocking the chair over as I spun around to look back into the room. My heart was pounding as I pressed myself back against the desk, the EMF detector continuing to blare in conjunction with the lights on its display. I couldn’t see anything in the dark room but was this the thing I had seen on the video clips? Was it in the room with me right now setting off the device? Nearly simultaneously the the EMF detector when silent and doorbell rang out. “DING DONG!” I didn’t move. I stood in the dark room hart pounding for what seemed an eternity. 

The door bell rang again. “DING DONG!” I snapped out of my frozen state and slowly skirted the edge of the room to the door not wanting to set off the EMF detector myself out of some irrational fear that it might call the thing back. I walked down the stairs towards the front door trying to compose myself. I could see someone through the leaded glass of the door partially lit by the porch lights. I grabbed the handle and pulled the door open a crack. My attention was still being pulled back to what had just happened so, the mid-to-late 30’s woman standing at my front door fully locked up my brain. I just stood there peering out through the 4 inch wide crack in the door. I must have looked utterly insane but she didn’t seem to care in the slightest. She looked straight at me with a slight smile and said “Hello, are you the new owner of this house?” I opened the door a couple of inches wider. “Yes I am.” I said with a slight crack in my voice. I quickly cleared my throat and added, “I just moved in about a month ago.” I starting to take her in more fully; she was probably a good half foot shorter than me with long wavy reddish brown hair, blue green eyes, and a thin athletic build. She was, for lack of a better word, beautiful, but not overly so. There was something odd about her, about her confidence and how she looked at me. It was both disarming and ever so slightly unnerving.

She cocked her head to the side gave an odd smile and said, “Well that is good news, Hal, very good news.” 

“I ugh, I…. wait how do you know my name?” I responded, now becoming both confused and feeling the unnerving sense shift to full on unease.

“Ah, quick too. This is not how I usually do things but you intrigue me and you have so many interesting gadgets.”

“Wait, what are you talking about? …and how do you know my name?” I was getting more concerned by the second. Had this person been spying on me through my windows?

“Now, now, don’t get grumpy Harold, we have so much to talk about. Aren’t you going to ask me in?” she said looking like everything she just said was not weird as hell.

“Look Ms, I don’t know who you are and honestly you’re really starting to freak me out so, I’m gong to say good night.” and with that I pushed the door shut. I stepped back and looked through the frosted glass at the top of the door. I should have been able to see her blurry shape but there was nothing there.

I was about to open the door to look out and see where she went when I heard foot steps coming from the living room. I whipped around and moved slowly towards the sliding doors of the living room. I moved across the doorway to scan the room and there she was, the woman from the front door standing on the far side of the room, leaning forward slightly, looking directly into the lens of the camera. She reached up and with a single finger flicked the camera causing it to rattle back and forth just like it had on last nights clip.