What Should I Do?

So, earlier I wrote about how I got home and all the plumbing blowing up and things. I didn't realize how late it was when I wrote that post! So no wonder I was tired.

I got up this morning and made coffee, checked my messages, and went to get a shower. No leaking, no weird hair.

I thought I heard someone knocking, but I ignored it. The shower was the perfect temperature and I was planning to take my time. I figured it was probably the landlord wanting to see if everything was ok or something.

Well, I just found a note stuffed under my door.

"Dear Kara,

Despited how awful your plumbing problem was, I am glad that it happened. The few times we spoke while I was repairing it made the job worth it. I am glad that I got to meet you and I would like to get to know you better. Would you consider going out to dinner with me sometime? Please let me know one way or the other, because if you're not interested, I don't want to waste your time.

Hoping all is well,

Dan"

The plumber...now there's someone I never saw asking me out on a date.

I was married to a lawyer. I'm used to running in fancy lawyer crowds, client dinner parties, things like that. But here is this simple guy asking me to dinner.

I don't know. The divorce wasn't that long ago...okay, so it was several months ago. But I don't know this guy. I just talked to him while he was trying to fix the mess that was in my apartment. Yeah, he has a good sense of humor and I did enjoy talking to him, but having dinner with him? I don't know.

I'm torn. He left his number. Should I call him and accept?

Finally Back!

Alright, so apparently I lied. But this time I WILL try to be better about keeping this journal updated.

I'm home again. My plumbing all blew up and they had to redo the apartment!

Let me explain.

I woke up a couple days after that last post, stepped out of bed, wandered to the door on my way to the bathroom, and the carpet was soaking wet. The bathroom was completely flooded. Water was coming out of the toilet, bathtub, sink, even the pipes under the sink in the cabinet were leaking. It was awful!

I ran downstairs to get the phone and call the landlord, and wouldn't you know it? Water everywhere! The downstairs bathroom and the kitchen sink were the same way. Even the pipes leading to my washing machine were leaking water.

I called the landlord, who happened to be in the office and immediately came and turned the water off.

Now here's the weird part.

All the pipes were clogged with thick, black hair! It was disgusting!

The plumber told me that the landlord was saying it was just some kind of leftover from previous tenants and that it had something to do with the pipes being so old. But I saw the stuff - it was floating in my bathtub. It looked like hair! And when I had tried to see if there was a plug in the sink (I thought maybe Billy or one of his cronies had somehow gotten in and set this up) all that hair tangled around my hand.

We found a puddle of water under where the tub is upstairs. I mean literally - on the ground floor was a puddle of water. The pipes in the shower had been leaking and water had seeped down into the wall and floor and dripped out onto the downstairs floor.

And my desk. And my poor computer. And the phone. And barely missed my router.

So my computer has been in the shop getting repaired. I now have a new one because it was fried. Renter's insurance helped pay for it, and the landlord paid the difference because the plumber pointed out that he was supposed to have made sure the pipes wouldn't do something like this.

They had to tear out all the piping and put new in. That hair stuff, whatever it was, was clogging things so much that there was no way they could clean it out. So I have all new plumbing, sinks, bathtub, toilets...and a new part of the floor and downstairs ceiling where there was water damage. They also had to put in new carpet in the upstairs hall so they put new everywhere upstairs. And replaced the tile in the downstairs bathroom and kitchen that had been messed up by the water.

I was surprised that so much damage was done but the plumber told me something strange. He showed me how that hair stuff was not only everywhere, but seemed to almost be eating through the pipes. He had to wear gloves and not just because he was grossed out - as he grabbed hold of the hair, it burned his hand. Kinda like acid. He thinks that had a lot to do with the amount of damage. So far, he can't come up with any kind of explanation.

Neither can I for that matter but I am happy to be home. Old building, old pipes, weird things happen, right? At least it's all fixed now.

Bad Times

So, I've been neglecting this journal for a while. I'll try to be better about writing.

To be honest though, I have a good excuse. My mom has been in the hospital.

She came to see me and we were having a good visit. We decided to camp out in the living room and she was trying to be helpful, so she headed upstairs to get a couple of pillows and blankets out of the closet.

She brought the blankets down fine and went back to get the pillows. She only had two but as she was coming down she fell down the stairs. She came tumbling down like a ball, slammed into the closet door at the foot of the stairs, and then somehow fell off the step down into the living room.

I had to call an ambulance to come and get her and a taxi for me. Ended up that they never showed - I guess they couldn't understand English? - and I had to call Jennifer. (Though when I got back, I found out from the neighbors that the taxi had indeed finally shown up and the guy had been standing there cussing my door out in Spanish!)

I was questioned at the hospital by the police. Since I hadn't been right with her, the doctors had called them on suspicions of some kind of fight. They said it was more like mom had been thrown down the stairs.

She had two broken toes, her ankle was fractured, a hairline fracture in her leg, two cracked ribs, her shoulder was out of place, and she had a concussion.

I explained that she'd fallen and how and they stopped questioning me.

Mom woke up finally and they questioned her too but she confirmed my story. When she was moved to her own room she told Jennifer and me that it had seemed as though the stairs were wet. She said that it felt like something had grabbed hold of her ankle to trip her, then gave her a good shove when she caught her balance on the railing. She dismissed it as her being silly.

So that's where I've been, at mom's looking after her. She's doing much better and isn't needing me now. She doesn't have any stairs to worry about really and she can get around fine. She has promised to call me if she needs something, or to call Jennifer or Melissa if she can't reach me. Nothing was life-threatening or extremely serious, just painful.

Jennifer seems disturbed by the incident, but she isn't really saying anything. I know she was thinking something really had pushed mom but why would anything do that?

More Nightmares

Had the most horrible dream a little while ago.

I went to take a hot bubblebath and relax. I love bubblebaths. I fell asleep, something which tends to happen sometimes.

I dreamed I was standing next to me. As in, I was standing next to the tub, and looking down at my sleeping self. It was extremely strange.

I heard something on the stairs. I couldn't place the sound really. The stairs were creaking like someone was coming up them, but not as if they were walking. I walked over and peered down over the little half wall that is part of the railing.

At first, I didn't see anything. Then I saw what looked like a shadow crawling up the stairs. Crawling! Like someone coming up the stairs on their hands and knees or something.

Ever see The Ring? It was kinda like that. Not exactly, but that's the closet thing I can come up with to describe it.

It seemed to either be wearing white or was white, with long black hair. It made no sound. At first it was coming up the stairs slowly but it kept pausing like it was seeing if anyone was moving around upstairs.

I felt such intense dread and horror. I was nearly paralyzed by it. I tried to call out to my sleeping self and wake myself up but I couldn't make a sound. The feeling was so powerful and so horrifying that I nearly couldn't even breathe.

I looked back over the edge and saw that it was moving much faster now - almost impossibly fast.

It still was making no sound, but I could almost feel something like excitement from it. As it came around the corner, the light from the bathroom caught it's one visible eye, solid black. That's all I saw.

Suddenly I was back in my body and opening my eyes to that thing standing over me. It seemed to be delighted at finding me lying in the bathtub. It reached out and pushed me under the water. It's fingers were too long and although it was really thin it was really strong and I couldn't get away from it. I saw it grinning at me though its hair as I looked up through the water.

I jerked awake and splashed water everywhere. The water was cold but everything was just fine.

What a horrible dream.

Irritating

So I sent a query to a magazine. I've read it a couple times before. They keep saying they want different stories that aren't like what they have.

Well...they turned down my query. Why? Because they have too many stories like it already.

I don't get it! I know the one I suggested is different, but they don't seem to think so. I've never seen a story like the one I was suggesting.

It would have been great! Exposure in a national magazine. But nooo....

Oh well. As annoying as it is, I guess I'll just query somewhere else and see if they want it.

Home Again

So, I'm home. I spent the weekend at my mom's house. I was just too stressed out and things were getting to me, so I went to mom's.

I came home this morning. Nothing was disturbed - I guess changing the locks did it in that department.

I showed the necklace to my mother. She confirmed that it did look like the one Dana was buried with. She said maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe someone had accidentally left it there when they did some work on the apartment. I pointed out that I found it the same evening in two places but she just kinda ignored that. Mom's never been one for supernatural things. She always thinks there has to be a logical explanation. I don't see how there could be one for this. So her other idea was that someone had left it there on purpose. Maybe Billy had broken in and left it there just in order to cause me further stress. It's possible, I guess. But when I really think about it, he'd have had to be here to do it!

Sunday I called Jennifer and she picked me up at mom's and we went to her apartment. I told her about the necklace.

Jennifer said it was possible that mom was right - maybe it was a mean prank on Billy's part. After all, he'd know Dana's initials and everything. And he was out to hurt me.

Jennifer also pointed out something that has made me think. She said that if the stories about the townhouse are true and there was an exorcism performed there, it didn't really mean that it was successful. She said sometimes things just went dormant for a while. They withdraw, sometimes to lick their wounds and sometimes just because they want to let us humans have a false sense of security and they don't mind waiting for an easier target. She said that there were forces we didn't and couldn't truly understand, things that would help or hurt humans. Some liked to trick people and would do terrible things to them.

She said there were many worlds. Some people called it dimensions, others called it realms. She said things from those realms sometimes slipped into ours. That they were all around us. That we see them at the store and don't know it. That sometimes they are right in the room with us but we don't see them and they don't see us. She said it was like the different realms overlapped each other. It was when things found ways through that the trouble came.

She said sometimes people got lost in other realms or saw them. She said sometimes other things got lost here. Some hid as people, and only those who have what she called the Sight were able to identify them. They liked our conveniences like power and movies and video games. She said most of them just wanted to be left alone.

She said the ones to worry about are the ones who like hurting. Some of them are here because they know that people are easy prey. She said there were beings who fed off of fear, off of souls, and even those who would eat people who were just considered to be missing. She said sometimes people were taken back to wherever these things came from. She said there were many things we didn't know but that knew all about us. People don't know about them for the most part and most people don't want to know. And if they did, they wouldn't be able to understand.

She told me that it was possible that Billy had somehow arranged for the necklace to be put in my apartment. She said that there were two other possibilities. One - that it was Dana herself, somehow reaching me from the other side of the grave to let me know that not only was she okay, but that she was with me and looking after me like she had always done. To let me know that I would be okay too.

Two - that the original being that was tormenting anyone living in the townhouse had not truly left. That it had picked from my mind memories of Dana and either had stolen a necklace like hers from someone else or had gotten it from Dana's body itself. And then given it to me in an attempt to make me feel more comfortable and secure before it pounced.

It's certainly something to think about. Jennifer was being very sincere and I know she believes strongly in the supernatural. However, I had always thought that she just kinda dabbled in things. That she knew things like house blessings or little things like that, but I had no idea she was this into it. That she had such theories or anything.

While it's got me a little freaked out, in a strange way, it kinda makes sense. At least it would explain all the stories of the supernatural from around the world.

As it stands now though, the necklace is tucked safely into my jewelry box. The most logical reason it's here is that Billy is playing yet another trick on me.

The most comforting is that it's Dana. Ever since she died, I've sometimes felt that she was still with me. So even though it's not exactly logical, my heart wants to say it's her. I want to believe that she's giving me her blessing in starting a new life.

The most terrifying though is that it's possibly something sinister, just trying to trick me. I don't want to even think about that possibility.

Surely, if something bad was here, then it would have made a move sooner than this to hurt me. The stories I've heard talk about people being hurt within a week of living here. Nothing like that has happened.

I've had someone break in and trash the place but nothing was taken so other than being unsettling no harm was done. I've felt someone staring and brushing my hair back, but that combined with the necklace makes me think of Dana, not some monster out to get me.

I think she's trying to help somehow, help me get through starting over and getting away from Billy.

I don't feel like something is here right now. So I'm going to just sit and relax. Try not to think. Maybe something will pop up to explain things.

Odd Things

So I've been extremely stressed last few days.

Something odd happened today. While I was sitting on my couch having a nervous breakdown and crying my eyes out, someone brushed my hair back and patted my shoulder. No one was there.

That was the first thing. The second thing was that I found a necklace.

I have a tendency to wear the same jewelry over and over. I love jewelry and I have a quite a collection, but it seems I only wear a few pieces.

Sitting on my desk was a gold chain. Fine, delicate, something that I'd break in an hour if I ever wore it. Something I'd reserve for special occasions only. Yet there it was, laid on my desk.

The third thing has me in tears, frightened, and disturbed.

On my pillow was a gold heart. Also delicate. In the bottom there's a small diamond. The heart is just an outline, not solid, and inside the heart outline were the initials: DJL.

My maiden name is Kara Elizabeth Lovell.

My sister who died several years ago? Dana Jasmine Lovell.

She had a necklace that was a gold chain, delicate, with a heart just like that. She died wearing it.

She was buried wearing it.

No one has been here today but me.

Where'd it come from?

Is Dana here?