October 2, 2013

The Lamp Lady Comes at Night - Excerpt from True Ghost Stories: Jim Harold's Campfire 2

By By Jim Harold

A Note from Jim: Here’s a Campfire tale to whet your appetite. Enjoy!

This happened about 17 years ago. I was about 14 years old and we lived in Pennsylvania. My aunt had been going through some things in her house, and she asked me if I wanted this lamp that she had found. I was really drawn to it. It wasn’t a lamp in the traditional sense. It was a ceramic figure of a woman, a standing Spanish flamenco dancer. Her hand was in an upward position with a tambourine in it, and she had a very full skirt that was swirling as if she were dancing. The reason I call it a lamp is because there were all these different colored light bulbs in the skirt. You could plug it in and it would light up. It was very unique.

Anyway, I took it home and I put it in my room. I think it was probably no more than a week or so after I had the lamp that the first strange thing happened. I lived out in the country, and when the bus would come in the morning for school it was still dark outside. Mom would wake up before everyone else and she would turn the heat up for us, because it was very cold. This particular morning, it was dark, I was in bed and I heard the shuffle of my mom’s slippers. At least I thought they were my mom’s slippers, coming up to where the thermostat was located right outside my doorway.

It was so real, you could hear the weight on the floor. I called out to my mom to say good morning and she didn’t respond. I thought, “Well, that’s kind of odd.” Soon, these footsteps came closer and closer to my doorway, and I glanced up. To my surprise, it was the woman from the lamp standing in my doorway!

She was in the same position as on the lamp. I couldn’t really discern her clothing. It was dark. The same position of the hand, everything. A chill just went up my spine. It had tried to trick me into thinking it was my mother, because that’s exactly the way her footsteps sounded…with these shuffling slippers. If you knew my mom, you’d know. It’s kind of a family joke how she shuffles.

It was a human figure. I don’t remember seeing through it; it was solid. I couldn’t see color either because it was always dark. It continued to appear every night, and though it never tried to copy my mom anymore it progressively got closer and closer to my bed.

I can’t remember the expression on its face. I just remember this overwhelming feeling of evil, and that it meant me harm. I was paralyzed. Every time it came around, I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t move. This went on for several weeks, every night. During the day, after this would happen it never occurred to me to tell anyone. It was almost like I couldn’t, like it had blocked itself off in my memory. Yet, every night, as I fell asleep, I would have that dread of knowing that it was going to come bother me.

I had a four-poster bed, and every night it got progressively closer and closer. I was afraid of what it would do next when it got to the point where it was leaning over me. Toward the end, it had put both of its hands on each of the bottom posts of my bed and was leaning over it.

It still kind of freaks me out to talk about it today. For the longest time, I didn’t talk about it because I was so afraid. From the first moment, though, I knew somehow — I guess it was because of the position it stood in — I knew it was connected to that lamp. I finally told my parents, and they decided, “Okay, we’ll just get rid of the lamp.”

So they did, and nothing happened for a little while. I moved my bed because I didn’t want to look at the doorway anymore.

A few weeks after this happened, I was laying in bed – and now my bed is against the wall next to the doorway – as I looked over, this hand came around the doorway and grabbed the post right next to my head.

I was totally freaked out, because I thought, “What else can I do? The lamp is gone, I’ve told my parents.” At that point, I was pretty religious. I told my pastor. He just told me to rebuke it, but I couldn’t speak. He didn’t understand that I seriously was not able to do anything. It was like I was paralyzed.

So, I went outside with my sister the next day, and I was telling her about it. We were walking around the house, and it was in the winter; there was a lot of snow. All of a sudden, we see the lamp on the ground, behind our house. We had an old oil tank and the lamp was there in the snow. That’s why it was still coming around. It wasn’t really gone.

I remember that we told my parents, and I guess my father must’ve taken it and he actually put it in the trash can. Once it was gone, the apparition was finally gone too. After the fact, we found out that there was actually a woman who had made the lamp, it was like a ceramic cast piece. This woman had gotten in a lot of trouble legally for abusing children. So, I don’t know if somehow she put something into that lamp, but I felt very targeted as though it really wanted to scare me, terrify me, and just make my life a living hell.

I think it was definitely an entity. It seemed like it knew what it was doing. It felt like it was put there on purpose, almost, to just do this kind of thing. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but that’s the way I feel.

I believe evil exists. I didn’t have as strong an opinion on it until at that point where it was made real to me. I never thought, really, that this type of thing was possible. I was pretty skeptical, and realized that other people believed in things, but unless I saw it, I wasn’t going to believe that certain things were really possible. After this happened, I’m a believer. I mean, how can you not be when something happens to you? I know a lot of people would say that I was sleeping, but I know I was awake. I was so terrified. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t sleep afterward. I know I was awake.

It happened so many different times, and it got progressively closer, and it was just horrible. I was so scared. I don’t think I could’ve slept if I wanted to, because my heart was racing. I mean, I was wide awake. Each time it came, it wasn’t just a split second. It would be at least – oh, five to ten minutes each time, just standing there.

It seemed like it had me mesmerized. Maybe that’s part of why it took me so long to tell anyone, because during the day it was almost like it didn’t happen. It just blocked itself off in my mind and that’s so not like me, because I talk a lot!

-Amy, Montana

This is an excerpt from Jim Harold's new e-Book True Ghost Stories: Jim Harold's Campfire 2 The Kindle version is $2.99. the print version is $9.99. For more information, please visit: JimHaroldBooks.com