February 6, 2009

A Disappearing Kitten

Rate this encounter:[an error occurred while processing this directive] David Lee - Suburbs of Dallas, Texas - August 2000

It was back in the late summer of 2000. I had just relocated from my hometown to a nearby city after accepting a new job. Strange occurrences began to happen. They seemed minor at first and easily explained, but as time passed these events became more noticeable. At first I would notice little things such as my toilet seat being let down after I had made a point of leaving it up. I would turn off my air conditioning before work, and when I came home it was running full blast. Bedroom doors I knew I had left open would be closed upon my return. My six-year-old daughter and I were the only two people staying there and no other person had a key. I started to make a point of leaving things in certain positions each morning prior to taking her to the sitter's and my going to work. Daily, we would find things different than we had left them. On several occasions a television would turn on for no specific reason. I thought that the apartment complex maintenance staff may have been entering my unit, or maybe the prior resident still had a key. But This had not been the case, and even after my locks had been changed (as they were before I had moved in) these events still took place.

Annoying as these events were, what happened next was more unsettling. I had adopted a kitten when we had moved in. We got up one morning and the kitten was gone. I had just fed it the night before and could not figure how it had slipped out. I found a window screen clawed open where the kitten must have slipped out, but I remember closing that window prior to going to bed that night and seeing the kitten still in my apartment after I closed the window. After a few days we did find the kitten, however a week later it had disappeared once again, this time with no evidence where it had gone.

A few days later my girlfriend was visiting town and was babysitting my daughter at the unit. I received a phone call around lunch time with her in a panic. They had been playing in my daughter's room when she went to the kitchen for a drink of water. As she closed the fridge she heard a man's voice greet her. Afraid, she ran into my daughter's room and could hear the fridge's door slam shut. I had never told her of the odd events we had been experiencing, so I was worried there may be an intruder. I rushed home (I worked five minutes away) and found the internal dead bolt locked, with no forced entry into the apartment visible. After this we had a blessing done and the problems there disappeared. However, these events would bring back many memories from childhood I had long forgotten. Over the next few years I would continue to experience strange events such as these, no matter where we lived.