Email

A few months ago I received an e-mail without a return address. The e-mail's subject was merely my name in all capital letters (altered to protect my identity). After reading its contents, I devoted my life's savings to finding its writer. No private investigator or computer-savvy hacker could find its source. The IP it was sent from did not exist. I even had my uncle, who has ties with the FBI, have a friend from the bureau take a look at it. Nothing. I give its contents to you in hopes that somebody may eventually find its source.

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Subject: [My Name]

Contents:

I never used to believe in ghosts. That is, until I turned 15. My family and I had just moved from New Jersey to a new house in the south of the United States. I will not give the state or city due to the fear that somebody may actually try to find this forsaken place. In this house strange happenings began to occur. First came the nightmares. They would occur first once a month, then once a week, until eventually they were happening every night. Every time we closed our eyes. It was always the same dream : A ghastly woman with charcoal black holes for eyes in a tattered gown with a sinister grin on her face. Around her was complete and utter darkness. She would slowly approach in what seemed to take hours until her face seemed to be a mere foot from your own. At this point one bony hand would rise, and just before she could touch you, you would awake, usually with a scream. This was before things got bad.

At first we didn't know we were all having the same problem. We didn't discuss the dream with one another. Relations between our family started to get weak (probably due to the dream) so we went to counseling. There we discovered we all shared the same nightmare. I had recently noticed that if I spent the night at a friend's house, I slept soundly. My father, always a bit superstitious, believed the problem to be ghosts. I dismissed this as foolish and laughed it off. If only I knew how wrong I was. If only we had left that house after the first nightmare. Why did we try to stop it? Who did we think we were? God? Although, something this, this...evil couldn't have come from God...The next morning I awoke bright and early to the sounds of sliding furniture. Walking downstairs, I witnessed my father and a stranger clearing a space in the middle of the living room floor. Asking my father what was going on; he explained that this was a priest who would help clear our house of evil. I laughed and headed back to my room, picking up a good book. Later that evening, just before dinner, I was called downstairs by my father. The living room was a bit different now. On the ground was drawn a pentagram of salt with what could only be described as runes drawn on each point. I asked my dad who was going to clean this up tomorrow and he only looked at me with cold, blank eyes. The session began, though I decided to sit out (against the wishes of the priest). I watched my father, mother, and the priest sit cross-legged in the middle of the pentagram and join hands. The clairvoyant began to speak in what I would assume is Latin, though I had taken a course in school and it sounded a bit different. I realized that this wasn't a language I had ever heard before. The spoken words grew into chanting which he had my parents repeat.

After a few minutes the room became dark as pitch. This was odd because it was only dusk outside, and there were two windows in our living room. This is when I started to get worried. The ritual continued. The priest began throwing a pinch of some strange spice over each one of his shoulders. I decided I had had enough of this superstitious junk and went to bed. When I arrived at breakfast the next morning, something had changed. My parents didn't have that tired look they usually had. Instead of the usual fighting that had occurred since we had moved, they were more affectionate than ever. I asked them what exactly had happened the night before. They told me that all they really remembered was up until the point I left the room. They said they woke up in their bed the next morning without any knowledge of what had transpired. The priest was gone and so was the pentagram. All the furniture was back to its original position.

After this point in time the nightmares stopped for my parents. For me, though, they still lingered. Only this time, it was a little bit different. The ghastly woman approached me much faster this time, and rather than her face being a foot away, we were practically nose to nose. Those eyes pierced straight into mine, burning with some sort of hellish fire. The gaze seemed inescapable; no screams could exit my throat. Still, though, just as that bony arm rose, I would awaken. My grades dropped. I grew depressed. My screams awoke my parents every night. We decided we needed to move. Our new house was in Portland, Oregon. We had decided to try and get as far away from our old house as possible. For the first few weeks, everything was fine. No more nightmares. I would come to learn that nightmares were the least of my troubles. The wails came. At midnight, every night, down to the second. Down to the millisecond, actually, I would come to find out after purchasing an alarm clock because I had trouble waking up for school that they rang in my ears. They tore at my eyes, making me want to scratch them out. One night my father found my in my bathroom covered in blood from where I had tried to sever my own ear. It hung half-removed, hanging on by some skin. I was rushed to the hospital and put into a mental asylum for a month. My parents couldn't hear the wails. They didn't have the nightmares. Even in that white cell, strapped to my bed, I could not escape the woman. It had gone beyond wails now. I couldn't close my eyes without seeing her, couldn't open my eyes without seeing her. She would be floating above the bed only an inch from my face, staring with those charcoal black eyes straight into mine. No matter what I did, I could not escape her gaze. I was effectively trapped with her. I could not turn away, could not escape that gaze!

I can't explain how I didn't go insane in that mental hospital. It was truly a miracle. When I was released, she no longer appeared with my eyes open. I stopped attending school and began researching. Anything about ghosts and demons. Eventually I purchased a book from a private seller that explained the details of an ancient curse. Apparently, when a soul is taken from its body, sometimes it puts itself in the dreams of those who inhabit its location of death. The only way to remove this curse is through an ancient ritual. However, this ritual can only be performed once and must contain all infected parties or the ones who did not participate would be doomed forever with the spirit. Without any other distractions, it could focus all of its attention on me.

The spirit would slowly gain strength from its host. It would follow you effortlessly to the ends of the earth. As it gained strength, its scariness would get worse. First in dreams, then in thoughts, then in sight, and finally...in you. With this newly found knowledge I cursed the day we entered that house. I cursed myself for not participating in the ritual. If I had only believed...if only I hadn't been so STUPID! My fate was decided now. The next day I left my parents' house. I didn't tell them where I was going for their own safety. Didn't leave a note, didn't bring an item. I am now 25 years old. I am writing this from the basement of an abandoned house from a laptop I jacked from a local school in the dead of the night. Morality doesn't really apply when you're cursed for eternity. The ghastly woman is with me now always. The wails are all I can hear these days. Sleep is out of the question considering what I see in the nightmares now is beyond description with human words. I know that if I turn my head around from this paper right now the woman will be there, mere inches from my face, with those eyes...those damn eyes. I wonder if she knows English...can she read what I'm reading out loud to the class? What if she doesn't want anyone to know her secret? Every second of my life feels like it is on her time.

Yesterday I was flipping through a dusty old book I "obtained" from another private seller. He told me it was priceless, that he wouldn't sell...but I needed it. I needed it. In the back of the book I found a note tucked away written in Olde English. Only after several hours of Internet research I was able to fully understand it. Apparently there is only one way to rid you of my curse. How do you do this, you might ask? Simply pass it on to another. One must chronicle their entire history with the curse, from the moment it happened to the present day.
So now I have a confession, this is not a tale of someone else but this is a true story based on my life. It probably wasn’t right tricking you, but it was needed…I can’t stand that damn woman anymore. So hopefully you’ve listened to my story without tuning out or gotten bored. Because if you didn’t…then I’ll give you one piece of advice. Don’t turn around.