The Bonfire

Have you ever been in a situation so bizarre that you have nowhere to turn to but to consider an other worldly reason. In today's story, Emily wrote up her experience during what was supposed to be a regular get together with some of her friends and family, perhaps an uninvited guest. My name is Edwin, and here is Emily's true scary story. A quick hello to everyone listening. My name is Emily, and the story I have to share with you today is one of the unexplainable instances that I have experienced in my life that stands out highly above the rest, an occurrence that left me absolutely shook and to this day still raises the hair in the back of my neck when it crosses my thoughts. So this instance occurred about ten years ago now, on a warm evening in the fall. My then boyfriend's family was hosting a bonfire in a little farming town outside of Jackson, Michigan, out in the countryside. I brought my friend Andy along with me, and there were other friends of the family there as well. One of the guests was a boy named Landon who was seven at the time, that I had known since he was just a baby. Shortly after I had arrived. We were in the house getting some food ready to enjoy, and Landon had pointed to a picture on the wall paid behind the couch. The picture was of my boyfriend's grandfather, whom I had never met but was pretty sure had passed away. Landon said to me as he pointed to the picture, I saw this man the other day. I immediately stiffened, but to inquire further, I said, you did. He said, yeah, I was playing on the steps and he said, get off the stairs, boy, or you'll trip trip. Because I didn't know for sure if his grandfather had passed away or not, I just kind of laughed and said that laying on the stairs really isn't that safe. I later confirmed with my boyfriend that he had in fact passed away several years prior to this, but not wanting to freak him out, I didn't share what Lana had said to me about allegedly seeing him in the house. We were all out at the bonfire next to the pond, and it had started getting pretty late, so Annie and I decided to take Landon into the house to start winding the night down for him. My boyfriend joined us, so it was just the four of us inside and everyone else remained out by the fire. When we first got inside, my boyfriend posted up on the long end of the sectional couch, and Annie and I sat on either side of land and on the other side of the couch. My boyfriend started watching TV, which was mounted super high up on the wall across the room. I'm talking almost to the ceiling high, with nothing under it but a small small stand for DVD player or some movies whatever. And In and I grabbed a book to start reading to Landing. We were taking turns reading on and off to him, and when we first started reading, I saw him staring over at the steps going upstairs. He muttered under his breath, get off them stairs, boy, you'll trip trip. When he said this, I started thinking that maybe he really did see my boyfriend's grandfather and is recounting this and currets in his head. Either way, it really came out of nowhere when he said it, So I started paying closer attention to him. As Annie read her term. He didn't seem to be listening to the story anymore at all, and became very blank and disengaged. His whole energy shifted. But I'm thinking he's probably getting really tired being up the sleep. A couple of minutes go by, and I noticed him staring at the wall underneath the TV. Now under his breath. Ever so quietly, he says, what are you doing? I immediately I had full attention on him as Annie kept reading because this was starting to get really spooky. He says it again, and louder this time, what are you doing? Annie heard him this time and stops reading. She follows his eyes to the wall under the TV and said, who are you talking to, Bud? There's no one there. He looked over at Annie and then over to me, then back to the wall under the TV. He lifted a pointed finger straight ahead at it and said, I want that little girl to go upstairs and kill that man. The entire room became thick, and Annie jumped up off the couch. She started saying nope, nope, and was seriously wigged out. Landon looked at me and his eyes were completely fogged over and he had a slightly scared expression on his face. I said, there was no one there, Landing, and he just looked back ahead and then dropped his gaze. Me and Annie exchanged a look, and I said and I'm going to go tell his grandma what just happened. So her and I head out to the bonfire to tell Debbie what just went down. She quickly brushed it off and said, ah, he watches too many scary movies. But it was not simply a child's imagination getting the better of him. She wasn't there, and she didn't see him. She didn't hear him and feel the energy thickened in the room like Annie and I had. So I went back inside and told land and his grandma said to come back out to the bonfire. We were all circling the fire in our chairs, and I'm just keeping a very close eye on Landing. He hadn't said a single word to anyone, had a very serious expression on his face. My boyfriend's dad less asked me to dance with him, So I stood off and resurganced a little bit, and then Landon stood up out of his chair and aggressively charged towards Lust and started flailing his face at him, trying to hurt him. He was me extremely intense and out of character, and everyone just laughed, thinking he was joking around. But me and any took one look at each other and decided that we did not want to be there anymore, and that night was the last time that we ever hung out. And the weeks following this, I had a terrible feeling of someone being right over my shoulder. It was the most intense when I was in my house, just like there was a head I could not see right over my shoulder following me looking at me. I'm not one to be paranoid like this either, and I'm certainly not one to pray. But after a couple of weeks in this I had enough. I went outside of my house where I felt safer and just dropped down to my knees and prayed. I wasn't sure exactly who I was praying to, but the prayer want something like this bringer of light, goodness and positive energy, please clear the spirit from my life and from my mind. When I went back into the house, I noticed an immediate difference. The feeling had dissipated, and I felt lighter all around. Nothing like this has happened to me since that night. There has been a handful of things that have happened that are hard to explain, but nothing like what happened that night. To this day, almost ten years later, I still get goose swamps on my entire body when I hear Landon's voice in my head saying I want that little girl to go upstairs and kill that man. It was crazy, and I've heard noises, maybe seeing a flash out of the corner of my eye, But when this happened, I mean, there was, without a doubt, something in the room with us, because just the look on his face, the way he glossed over, he was just he was like, gone, I have so many goo slumps right now sharing the story because it was just the craziest thing that's ever happened to me. I believed in ghosts up until this, and people always speculate on what a ghost is. Was if the energy that leaves our bodies after we die, is it that realm that souls get stuck in between the here and the after? But he saw something in that room and pointed at it and straight up said, I want that little girl to go upstairs and kill that man. It was intense. I'm guessing he was referring to my boyfriend's grandfather because he had said that he's seen him, and he told her to get off the stairs or he'll trip. Just the whole thing just doesn't add up. It was very freaky. I was telling my mom this story and she said, what little girl. I'm like, I don't know. That's the mystery. He pointed at nothing. It wasn't like he was making it up. You can tell when a child is lying or using their imagination. I've known Land she was a baby, and he's very docile, very sweet, very kind. It's not like most children to make up something like that would spook you to your core. It was very mysterious, very spooky, and even to this day, like if I find myself thinking about it sometimes I have to turn the thought off because I might I feel like I might start having to look over my shoulder again, because it was just so real and it was so serious, like it was a thing that happened. And I literally have not seen my friend Anny since that night. I try and talk to her about it via text, and basically she just blew it off, Yeah, that was really spooky, hah, and then immediately change the subject, like she did not want to talk about it at all. I think because it spooked her so terribly that she didn't want to remember. Maybe a similar thing happened to her that happened to me, and she felt that presence looming over her shoulder following her. I thought about reaching out to her after the podcast was finished and seeing if she wanted to listen, but I'm not really sure she wants to go down memory lane because it was really scary. His whole energy was just it was gray, if that makes sense. It was just gray. All I thought to do was go outside and tell his grandma and then get the heck out of that house. I had a really hard time going back over there after that. Emily has also had other experiences with the paranormal, and perhaps an explanation about what may have happened with landon the rest of her story. 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Go to HelloFresh dot com slash true Scary sixteen and use code true Scary sixteen for sixteen free meals plus free shipping. That's HelloFresh dot com slash true Scary sixteen and use a code true Scary sixteen for sixteen free meals plus free shipping. Easy, fun and affordable. That's why it's America's number one milkit. I definitely have a handful of experiences that I've been through. I guess probably the most profound saying that's happened to me besides this, which is a whole nother story. We can totally write out podcast for this one. But I had this piece of driftwood to paint the picture for a piece of driftwood, and hanging off it was strings of shells and the shells were all equally spaced apart, and it hung up on the wall in our bathroom. I was probably like twelve or thirteen, and I got them from Seashell City, which is a place in Michigan up near one of the Great Lakes, and the shells would randomly just start clankling against the wall and there was no draft or no vent on nothing, and they would just softly just clink clink against the wall, and friends that would come over would be like, Hey, what's up with those shells in there? My whole everyone in my whole family was like, what's going on with these shells? And this is to the point where like should we destroy them? We don't want to anger any spirits. It was something that was happening to all of us. It's a little more validating when it's happening to not just one person, but multiple people are experiencing this. So we kept them on the wall because we were afraid to move them, thinking that maybe the spirit or whatever's going on, is going to channel that energy somewhere else. So I'm in the bathtub one day and I'm just staring at these shells and they weren't moving a muscle, and I'm starting to think in my hand, I'm staring at like the second string from the left. I mean, there's probably like twelve strings, and Tole staring right at the string, and I'm thinking in my head, I'm thinking, if there's a spirit in this room, move this string. Let me tell you what happens next. The very bottom of the string lifted up off the wall like three inches, as if somebody picked it up. It lifted off the wall three inches and then dropped back down, and then all of the seashells started going nuts. He just started to jake vigorously, shaking, And when I tell you, I dunned out of that bath ub. I ran out of that bathroom. It was scary. I'm pretty sure it was very shortly after that we got rid of the seashells, because that was the final straw for me, Like, okay, little soft clayland here and there, whatever. But when that string lifted up off the wall and then fell back down, and they all started going uts. It was intense. You could almost blame it on a stray draft, them just softly clankling. But when I was focusing my energy and saying in my head, but answers, the spirit moved this string and it just lifted up off the wall. I definitely believed in ghosts after that. So that was when I was about twelve, and the story I shared today I was in my early twenties, and honestly, since then, nothing really profound has happened to me. And I think it might be because I keep it all in the very back of my mind, because it affected me so highly and was so scary that I just I tried not to think about anything mysterious that could be unexplained. I hear a bump of the night, I just blamed my cats, because it's just easier that way. I told the story to my mom forever ago, and then she was telling me about Landon's cousin who was a couple years older than him, whose family had this house with this really old barn, really old barn, and I guess my mom was there with them one time, and the owner of the house is saying that the barn was super haunted, and that the person they bought it from was telling them all these stories about the barn. And I guess Landon and his cousin had been playing in the barn when my mom was there. Maybe he picked something up, Maybe he became more susceptible to seeing things after that. I don't know where he is in his life now, but he was seven years old. You say he'd be able to remember that. If you have a scary story you want to share with us, go to true scarystory dot com and tell us about it. If you like this podcast, give us a follow on your podcast app, like on Spotify or Apple podcasts. If you like this story, check out our other stories in the catalog, like The Little Girl Part one and Part two. Just don't listen alone. Thank you very much for listening, See you as soon.