I Know
When your girlfriend’s daughter comes running and screaming out of the house in nothing but a towel, you know something serious has just taken place. Hannah isn’t one for theatrics, so when she’s scared, it’s authentic.
Shortly after all of the failed attempts at ridding our home of Norman, we decided to get outside for a while. We all needed some fresh air and time away from it, him, that, or whatever you want to call that thing. Christina and I decided to have a bonfire that evening.
We had a big fifty-gallon steel barrel outside that we frequently had fires in.
While the two of us were setting up the fire, Hannah said she was going to take a shower and then come out to join us.
About twenty minutes had passed when completely out of nowhere Hannah comes flying out the front door screaming at the top of her lungs, claiming somebody was in her bathroom.
Still dripping wet from the shower, she claimed to have seen a shadow through the shower curtain near the sink. When she turned the shower off to look, she noticed a few words written on the mirror.
Knowing I only had a small window of time before the condensation on the mirror dissipated, I quickly ran into the house and grabbed a camera to document it.
When I got to her bathroom I was taken aback by the words “I Know” written very large in the foggy mirror.
The words appeared to be written with a greasy finger, like a finger of someone who just ate chicken wings or something.
“I know” written on the mirror.
I took a handful of pictures before it faded completely.
I started reviewing them immediately in the window of the digital camera.
I fell back against the wall when I noticed Norman’s face in the mirror. I didn’t notice him at first because my eyes were attempting to focus on the words in the mirror. But once I looked again, his face stood right out to me.
I had to stop and digest all of this.
How was this even remotely possible? Yet there he was as plain as day standing behind me.
To put things in perspective for you, you can see my eye in the “O.”
Norman behind the words.
Norman’s face in mirror.
Christina joined me while Hannah waited outside, refusing to enter. She too noticed the greasy letters. You could still see the words if you looked at the mirror from a certain angle.
“I know” is such a common phrase that often shows up during paranormal research. It’s cliché and a bit corny at this point, considering how much it has been used in horror films and novels, including my own works, but how else do you say it?
I have to share this case as it happens. This time it really hit home. If you know something, you simply say I know. When you break it down, there are many other words commonly found during paranormal investigating, such as names, labels like “mom” and “dad,” and simple yes and no responses.
So I guess it simply is what it is.
As we searched through the house to make sure we didn’t have an actual living, breathing intruder, I kept thinking about how the message discovered on the mirror was to be interpreted.
Having learned of Christina’s tragic past that mimicked Norman’s dismal history, I couldn’t help but wonder if that was what he meant. Did he know that Christina lost her son and only her daughter survived?
This made me ponder the idea that maybe Norman was looking for surrogates. My girlfriend and her daughter were to take the place of his lost mother and estranged sister. To me, this seemed logical considering everything that hadhappened so far and the uncanny similarities in the stories.
There was just too much to call it coincidence. This would also explain why I seemed to be the target of the violent outbursts while the women of the house and even guests were never harmed.
There was no father in Norman’s life or his sister’s, which means there would be no need for me if he was attempting to recreate what he once watched through plastic eyes.
From the protection statue being thrown at my head, the disturbing voices calling my name, Norman always returning to the house, the grisly murder of my cat, and the physical attack, all pointed to wanting me out of the picture. But it didn’t end there.
We returned outside to the fire to collect ourselves, calm Hannah down, and try to talk through this as a family.
Any way you slice it, finding something written on the mirror after you shower is disturbing. Whether it is paranormal or not, somebody or something was in the house and did it. That to me is the most frightening part.
I could see the fear in Hannah’s eyes. Here stood a fifteen-
year-old girl who was alone in the house simply taking a shower, only to discover somebody had been in her bathroom.
I stood close to the barrel fire while Christina was consoling Hannah about fifteen feet away on the other side of her car.
I was just about to put some more wood in the barrel when our peaceful moment was shattered by the sound of a gunshot.
The shot came from within the barrel and was only a foot or so from my hand.
I immediately jumped back while Christina was yelling at me to get away from the barrel.
As I was quickly running toward them behind the car, more shots were fired. One right after another.
I counted at least eight separate shots as sparks flew from inside the barrel.
Shortly after the sequence of blasts, things calmed down and I slowly walked back over to the fire.
Nothing else happened at that moment, but we all were a bit on edge. It was best for us to go back inside together.
We collected ourselves in the master bedroom. All taking turns glancing between the monitor controlling the surveillance cameras and Norman.
I reassured them that the barrel was always cleaned out prior to starting a new fire. The ash is removed and a new fire begins.
I was convinced, however, that somebody had placed live ammunition in the barrel as a trap.
During our conversation, Hannah grabbed our attention as she was viewing the surveillance. She said she just sat there and watched her bedroom door open by itself.
If you knew how I had her bedroom door rigged, you would be just as dumbfounded as we were. I should tell you also that it had never done that before.
With four dogs always wanting to break into your room when you aren’t there, I rigged up a simple latch on her door to prevent them from doing that.
Without the latch, a firm push would cause the door to open.
With the latch, it could not be opened. I quickly found the part on the surveillance footage where she claimed it started opening.
Sure enough, the three of us sat there and watched her door unlatch and then open slowly to reveal the darkness of her room.
I wish I could say it all ended there for Hannah, but sadly it did not.
Hannah’s exterior bedroom door latch.
Well after we had all went to bed, Norman decided to continue his maniacal pestering.
Two in the morning brought with it an awakening that rattled the house.
Hannah was screaming at the top of her lungs. You could tell she was screaming through tears, yelling “mom” as loud as she could.
Christina and I nearly fell out of bed, and all the dogs jumped up barking. For a second, our bedroom was total chaos. We bolted out the bedroom door and ran into the living room.
Latch in closed position.
In the living room stood Hannah in tears and nearly hyperventilating. She told us that something pulling on her blankets woke her up.
When explaining to us what had transpired, Hannah said at the time she remained quiet for a moment, thinking she must have been dreaming. She just continued to be still in the bed.
But then she felt pressure, like somebody had just sat down near her feet.
Suddenly she could feel something crawling up the bed. She said it felt human. Hannah described it as a person crawling on their hands and knees on top of her.
It was at that moment in time she panicked and decided to sit up, but she was unable to.
Immediately her body suffered from a paralysis. Hannah told us it felt just like a person had crawled up on top of her and was refusing to let her move.
She struggled and struggled until it let go and she was able to break free and scream. She immediately jumped from her bed and ran out into the living room to meet us.
Having shared in a similar experience as a child, I knew damn well what happened to her was spiritual in nature and potentially savage.
Christina and I of course inspected her room. There was no sign of an intruder. Attacking Hannah was the icing on the cake. She had been a victim all evening. It was an exciting night to say the least. Christina and I decided that with Hannah being the target of a handful of separate paranormal incidences happening so closely together, we needed to get her out.
She packed a bag and we took her over to her brother Matthew’s house to stay until we could figure all of this out.
The next morning I went out to the now-extinguished fire barrel to examine the ash. I sifted through the ash, hoping to snag something that would explain what caused the sparks and the sound of gunshots the night prior.
I found three empty shell cases from a .22 caliber bullet.
That was all I needed to see. I didn’t need to locate the five others to know they were placed in there purposely to cause one of us harm.
We own firearms, and a .22 rifle is one of them. Those bullets came from our bedroom, where they were locked up in a cabinet.
Apparently somebody had found the key and was well educated enough to be methodical knowing exactly what they would do under extreme heat.
But we had bigger problems on the way. We were about to find ourselves trapped and isolated between the horror inside and the horror outside from an approaching storm.