Author’s note: This is a continuation of encounters with an entity known as the Harlequin. The entity began visiting Dan Mitchell of Wisconsin when he was five years old (follow my three-part story about Mitchell’s encounters at http://mysteriousuniverse.org). He’s not alone.
The Harlequin came to Kevin Brown of Portland, Maine, when he was a child – it came in the night.
“Like Dan I’m also 35 years old and remember seeing the Harlequin – this figure, person, spirit or demon – at around five to six years old,” Kevin said. “It started as a very lifelike dream.”
The Harlequin came to Brown with the ringing of bells.
“I remember laying in bed and I could hear the jingle, jingle of a bell and it’s coming closer,” Brown said. “That when I see the Harlequin come into my room. The Harlequin is dancing but never says anything.”
This thin, androgynous creature, its large, wide-open eyes glaring at him like lanterns, danced in the darkness. It smelled like summer rain – all like Mitchell’s encounters.
Then the horror began.
“While it’s dancing I can hear what sounds like two knives or metal scraping together,” Brown said. “As the Harlequin dances around my room I see blades at the end of its fingers.”
Terrified, Brown pulled his blanket over his head, but the jingle remained. So did the metallic scraping.
“It’s only after hiding that I hear the jingle, jingle of the Harlequin’s bells moving off into a different part of the house and the sounds fade away,” he said. “After waiting what seemed like forever I peeked my head out from under the bed covers.”
The Harlequin was gone – but it left something for Brown to see. Red footprints dotted the floor of his bedroom and lead out his door. Brown gathered his young courage, slipped out of bed and stepped into the hallway and followed the red footprints.
“I raced to my sister’s room,” he said. “I saw what looked like someone leaning up against the wall.”
It was his sister. He called her name, but she didn’t move. Brown slowly stepped into the room and saw the blood.
“Her face was cut at the cheeks so you could see all her teeth in some grim smile and at the end of the cuts were little blood red circles,” Brown said. “As fast as my little legs could carry me I ran back to my room and under the protection of my blankets.”
The sound of the Harlequin followed him.
“The jingle-jingle danced around my bed,” he said. “I could hear the Harlequin’s bells and I remember the smell of summer rain fresh off the pavement, and I could also hear a giggling. As fast as it came it went away.”
When Brown was sure the Harlequin had left his room, he looked from a small opening in his covers. More red footprints.
“They led off to my parents room,” he said. “In a panic I jumped out of bed running to my parents room. I found them in the same condition, the same terrible smiles with the blood red circles for cheeks.”
But the scene was from an even worse nightmare.
“The Harlequin slit the arms from elbow to wrist and pulled out the veins of my parents and pinned them to wall making them look like marionette’s puppets,” he said. “Scared to holy hell I ran back to my room and under the covers of my bed, one last time and it came – the jingle-jingle.”
Shaking in stark terror, Brown lay curled under his blankets shaking as the Harlequin’s bells and giggles danced around his bed. He lie there, crying until he felt liquid soak through the sheets and sat up, throwing off the blankets only to see the darkness of blood soaking into his sheets and the Harlequin standing in the middle of the room laughing.
“That’s when I woke up,” Brown said. This wasn’t the only time. “I’ve had these dream or visions all my life.”
But Brown doesn’t think these terrifying graphic visions are just dreams. He’s sure they’re something more.
“Like Dan my family has had some strange things happen as well around the Harlequin,” he said. “Like (Dan’s) family (mine) dismissed it as a child’s wild imagination. However, after a few years of not having the dream my family and I were sitting down at dinner and we all could hear in the upstairs bedroom a jingle-jingle sounds after looking for the source of the noise we never found it. I had the same dream that night.”
The jingles occasionally haunt his family.
“My mother was alone in the house and she swears she heard what she said was the jingling of bells upstairs,” he said. “Not scared of anything my mother went upstairs to find the source of the noise. Once upstairs she heard the noise coming from downstairs in the kitchen.”
When she went back to the kitchen, something sharp poked her shoulder and someone – some thing – screamed her name into her ear.
“She ran out of the house to my aunt’s next door and told her what happened in the house,” Brown said. “In the excitement of her story my aunt noticed and stopped my mother to show her a cut on her shoulder thin like a razor blade.”
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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
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6 comments:
Oh wow, I've read a lot of posts on your blog, but this is the first that is genuinely terrifying. The gruesome detail is just... unsettling. So this creature is almost like Freddy Krueger. It haunts you in your waking hours but strikes real terror in your dreams.
I hope I'm fortunate enough to never have nightmares like that.
When I was a kid and growing up in Indiana, I told my mom about the "little man" that I would see at night in my room. "He" would hide behind furniture and under beds. I didn't think anything about it, didn't scare me. My mom just nodded and said that was neat most times. It wasn't until my last year of high school (and I had seen him less frequently by this time) that I had a bunch of friends over one weekend. When everyone was prepping to leave, one of my friends mentioned a short person seen in the hallway between the bedrooms the night before and said he didn't know that there was a kid in the house. I told him there wasn't and that he had seen the "little man." He laughed at me and left it at that. I never told anyone about him except my mom and dad. I don't think they mentioned it to anyone, so it was nice to know someone else had seen him, too.
To me, the little man looked about one to two foot tall and was amorphous, but humanoid. No real facial features or distinguishing marks. Kind of like a rounded Gumby. As I got older, I chalked it up to imagination, and just maybe, wee-folk. :) Nice to know others have seen them as well.
When I was a child I would always wake up in the middle of the night. I was never scared at first but then I would say something to myself like I can't wait for tomorrow or something of that nature. I would hear something storming up the stairs from the basement screaming and scraping the side of the walls in hallway to my room. After thatthe entity would open my door yell at me saying he was sick of me living there and he had enough of me. Then slam my door and that was it. This happened to about 4 or 5 times. I always asked my mother if she heard anything and she never did. I never figured out what it was but I always felt uneasy in that house at nIght. I don't live there now. I hope nothing like that has happened since.
You know, it's funny. I've been following the Harlequin stories since you posted the first one, and honestly, have been searching the internet and various blogs for years for similar stories, simply because I've had some memories from my own childhood. But I've had little success finding anyone with similar experiences. And now suddenly so many people seem to be commenting with their own stories. Mine is nowhere near as frightening or detailed, or even as interesting. I simply have memories of a white face, with massive blue eyes, popping up from behind furniture, or in my window, and simply staring at me for a minute or so, and popping back down from where it appeared. I remember this all happening when I was four or younger. Although, I wonder if I've blocked out some details for the following reason: When I was four, I suddenly became afraid of the dark and stopped sleeping in my own bed, instead sleeping on a sleeping bag on the floor in my parent's bedroom. The strange thing is, and my parents will confirm this, I had no problem sleeping in my own bed at night prior to this. I even have some memories of sleeping in my own bed. In fact, the final time I remember seeing the face was while sleeping in my own bed and waking up in the middle of the night to see the face looking in my window. But all I can remember is having a staring match with the face, unafraid, until the face disappeared.
When I was a kid I remember hearing stories about a Clown, never too much more. Parents never mentioned it, but all kids and teenagers knew about it and were scared .. wonder if there is any link. Thank You for Sharing this Kevin, gives me a lot to think about. How can you protect yourself or your children from something like this I Wonder.
As I recall, I believe there's a scene in "Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors" where someone's arm veins are ripped out by Freddy, who then moves him like a marionette puppet...
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