December 9, 2009

The Entity in My Brother's Basement

Rate this encounter:[an error occurred while processing this directive] P.O. - Yardley, Pennsylvania - October 1, 2005

My brother stayed at our parents' house while he went through a divorce. He saved enough money to buy a ranch home of his own. A week after closing, I received a phone call from our mother. She asked me to go over to my brother's house and spend a few nights. I was told my brother was acting strange and sleeping back at my parents' house. He would go to his new home to do some renovations during the day, then come back to my parents' house to sleep at night. When asked, he simply told our parents he didn't want to talk about it.

I called my bro and insisted on spending the weekend there at his house and help him finish the work he started in the kitchen. Upon arriving at the house, the first thing I noticed was the bars on the tiny windows that were in the basement. I thought this was a little odd, and even more odd that my brother had obviously installed a new deadbolt on the door leading down into the basement.

We got to work in the kitchen. My brother cut away at the grout as I removed the old tiles from the kitchen floor, stacking them in the basement. When we finished, I decided to head over to a local pub for some beer, while my brother was to make the 20 minute drive to our parents to fetch some tools and leftover food for dinner. I returned with our beer about 15 minutes later and headed for the basement to put it in a small fridge we had set up down there. What I saw almost caused me to drop the beer on the stairs. The tile I had stacked down there was laid out on the basement floor, almost identical to the pattern it had been in the kitchen. I thought my brother really lost it, coming back here and doing this for some reason. But how could he have accomplished this in the 15 minutes I was gone? And where was he now?

I called our parents' house. My mom said he was there, and just left. I then raced around the house, thinking someone broke in. I checked every window, every door, to find everything locked. I looked under every bed and in every closet. Nothing. When my brother returned, I showed him the tile in the basement. His face went pale, and he started telling me about the footsteps he heard at night coming up and down the basement steps. I was not a believer in hauntings, and figured someone was playing games at my brother's expense. He assured me it was some kind of haunting. We called it quits for the day, drank our beer, and watched some college football.

After calling it a night, I went into the guest room, and my brother went to his room. Only about two minutes after lying down I heard loud footsteps coming up the basement stairs. No way someone got into that basement! The footsteps went up and down the stairs several times, then came up again and went right through the basement door and into the living room. The footsteps then went into the kitchen and started down the hallway, past my brother's room, and stopped in front of my closed door. It then turned around and headed back down the hall. I then heard a loud groan, and the footsteps went back through the basement door and down the steps. At hearing this, I jumped out of bed and opened the bedroom door. I saw my brother peeking out his door, wide eyed. It didn't register that this thing was able to pass through the basement door, so I'm still thinking that this is a person messing with my brother. I ran into the kitchen, got a hammer and flashlight out of my tool box, and headed for the basement door. My brother bounced out of his room, putting sweat pants on, saying, "What are you doing? Let's go!" I popped the deadbolt and opened the basement door. Shining my flashlight down the steps, the batteries were very week, and the only thing I could see was some dust that was kicked up on the stairs. Just then I heard a very loud thud come from the bottom step. I shut the door, hit the deadbolt, and ran out behind my brother through the back door. We ran a couple blocks to a convenient store and called our father to come pick us up.

There I was, late at night in October, standing by a pay phone in just my boxer shorts and T-shirt. My dad showed up about a half hour later, visibly annoyed. I told him a wild animal got in the house, and clearly he didn't believe us. The next morning, while my brother was in the shower, I told our parents everything that happened. Mom looked worried, and Dad remained skeptical. The three of us drove over to the house to get out the tools and some other belongings. I showed Dad the tile. He still remains a skeptic. My brother put the house back on the market and lives in an apartment. He refuses to buy a house. He hasn't been the same since this experience.