A Shadow in the Night

Lindsie Harlan of Austin, Texas, often wrestles with sleep. One night in the spring of her senior year in high school, the math education major at Austin Community College, awoke to find something dark, something cloaked in shadows.

“I was asleep and I just woke up for no reason and there was this huge tall black figure standing on the side of my bed,” Lindsie said. “Its legs were all the way to the ceiling and it was staring down at me with two beady, shiny eyes.”

Lindsie lie in bed, the hooded figure staring down at her.

“I didn’t move because I was afraid if I moved it would know I was alive and try to kill me,” she said. “I felt as if I was paralyzed from the eyes down.”

As many people experiencing ghosts and shadow beings have reported, Lindsie was able to shut her eyes and strangely fall back to sleep. She didn’t talk to anyone about the experience until her second paranormal encounter later that summer – a night wrapped in cold.

“Before I fell asleep that night I ended up going into the laundry room and getting another comforter because I was freezing,” she said.

Lindsie woke in the early morning hours to find another visitor in her room, a swirling, smoky cloud that slowly coalesced into the head of a lion.

“I woke up and I looked toward my door,” she said. “I didn’t even realize I was looking at anything until I saw these huge eyes staring at me. It was this swirling vortex of a cloud with two huge eyes. It had a mouth – and it was open. It looked more like a human mouth on a lion head with huge eyes. I was afraid, terrified.”

Lindsie muttered “oh, my God, go away, go away, go away, go away, please go away,” and the apparition slowly disappeared, leaving her in the cold, dark room.

“I turned on my lamp and could actually see my chest move from my heart pounding,” she said. “It was beating fast for maybe 30 minutes. I couldn’t calm down. I panicked. I felt nothing but evil coming off of that thing.”

The next day she reluctantly told her mother the story.

“She got scared for me,” Lindsie said. “She started going into this whole thing about Jesus and to say ‘in the name of Jesus, I command you to go away.’ She also said something about ‘death comes knocking on peoples door all the time, you just have to be careful.

“Do you really think it’s death?”

Lindsie found her mother spoke from experience. Her mother confessed that, as a child she experienced something dark and sinister knocking at her door.

“When she was younger, she shared a room with her sister, and while she was laying in her bed she kept hearing this noise coming from the living room like footsteps,” Lindsie said.

The footsteps moved through the living room and kitchen before marching down the hallway to her bedroom door.

“As these footsteps grew louder she said that she could barely breathe,” Lindsie said. “And it started to get really cold and she had become really scared for her and her sister.”

Lindsie’s mother began praying aloud as the footsteps came closer and a shadow appeared under the closed bedroom door like someone was standing right outside.

“Right as the footsteps got up to her door she saw the knob turn and right as she said, ‘protect me lord,’ the shadow disappeared,” Lindsie said. “The knob quit trying to turn to open the door.”

Lindsie hasn’t been visited in the night since the cold, dark lion, but that doesn’t leave her comforted. She’s still waiting for the night something dark with glaring eyes wakes her in the darkness.

“I find it hard to go to sleep,” she said. “I am so paranoid that the next time I open my eyes I’m going to see something else that will scare me.”

Copyright 2007 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Include your name, address and telephone number. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

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