During July, 2006, I left town for a week. Peggy stayed at my house on 1774 Bryson Lane to watch my cats. When I returned, she said she saw a floating black mass enter the living room.

“It was looking for something or someone. I said, ‘They aren’t here.’ It left.”

That was disconcerting, but there was worse to come.

I stayed overnight at my boyfriend’s house on Artist Drive that fall. My daughter worked on a school project downstairs.

We retired and left the living room lights on. Erin finished after midnight and took the 4 big dogs outside. They all returned for bed.

Her room had sliding glass doors out to a patio. When we stay, she often opens the drapes to see stars or lightening bugs. This night she didn’t. She felt uneasy.

She said as she lay down, she had a psychic vision.

She saw herself upstairs looking through the front window at a male figure from the chest up. It had no bottom half and seemed to be hunched over. What resembled strips of rotting flesh hung like hair from the scalp and covered its face down to a wide, blackened, and disgusting mouth.

The entity was dripping wet. Its jagged teeth were broken. It said, “I’m looking at you.” It reappeared inside in the corner by the door. It became a mass of black shadow solid enough to touch. Then it disappeared. Erin knew this wasn’t a dream. When she did sleep, she had nightmares.

The entity hadn’t left.

Kemp, who sleeps soundly, awoke in time to watch it seep through the window and move towards him. Two eye sockets came close and stared. It had no face of its own. But it did have two things like catfish barbels sticking out from that area. He startled up and drew a ragged breath, but could only stare back. The thing appeared blurry…dark charcoal-gray and elongated. Kemp said its motion resembled an undulating dragon during a Chinese New Year, moving its head from side to side. This undulating grey smoke slithered around the room and bed with its end appearing and disappearing. Then it hovered over Kemp and stared down into his face again, attempting domination. Kemp, with his Choctaw blood, knew this creature was a shape-shifter and didn’t give it power. He thought it was searching for someone or something and was trying to decide if this human was the culmination of its search. He sensed this creature entered through a dimensional portal. He knew it was pure evil. The entity must have decided this soul wasn’t what it was searching for, or else that it couldn’t dominate Kemp’s spirit, and disappeared.

I didn’t wake up. Did the thing keep me asleep? Why didn’t the dogs respond?

I knew nothing until breakfast when Kemp told both Erin and me what happened. He stated emphatically that it was not a dream. Then Erin told him that his description fit well with her psychic vision. We both believed him. Me especially after the earlier conversation with Peggy.

However that entity wasn’t through yet. It waited several years and returned

It was around the dead of night….3:00 A. M. when spirits walk. I was back at Bryson Lane, and composing this story for a ghost magazine. My computer started sounding like soft flowing water. It began erasing words. I had to shut it down. It wouldn’t function.

Then a soft voice whispered. It said to light sage incense and to burn the three pages of notes taken about Erin’s vision. I tried burning the notes in the sink using a silver spoon to hold and turn them. They refused to catch fire or smolder. It took 30 minutes to turn the pages into ash. Then I restarted my computer. My old dog, Gracie, the one remaining from that fateful night, slept in the living room. She had cataracts and was deaf. She trotted in and sat by the door, staring onto the deck. She growled. I turned on the outside lights. Nothing.

My cat jumped onto my lap. He kept pushing my hands away from the keyboard. He wanted me to stop writing. I obeyed.

My daughter and I never speak of this even now.

Deborah Bowden got into the arts at an early age. She said her mother gave her colored pencils and paper to draw on in church to help keep her well behaved, but it led to a lifetime of drawing and painting. Her father was an artist and used charcoal and water color. Deborah chose acrylics, oil and some pastels. She said her father held four college degrees and many licenses. He taught her electricity, masonry, carpentry, metal working, glass cutting and soldering among other skill sets … even how to shoot a gun. She said all that found its way into her writing, as well as a stained glass business and other sidelines over the years. She has been a teacher, mother and reader. She writes children’s books, poems, song lyrics, magazine articles, short stories and adult horror novels. Most of her books are on Amazon. Just search Deborah Bowden or Rosemary Coven. Two new ones just arrived with two more coming soon.