Basement Shadowman

When I was about 13 years old my bedroom was in the basement of our house. It was a very nice room, but the rest of the basement was unfinished. I had a very old large wooden door for my room that my dad had retrieved from the trash at a house demolition. The night after my dad installed that door I saw something that was very frightening for me. I suspect that what I saw was related to this door.

My dad worked a 2nd-3rd shift mix, from about 6PM to about 4AM 4 to 5 days a week. It was not unusual for him to come and check on us kids when he got home at night. On this particular night I went to sleep and was woken up by the sound of my door slamming open. It startled me and I screamed. There was some light coming in through the now open door and I could see the shadow of a large man standing in the doorway. I couldn't see features, I just knew it was a man. I thought it was my dad and I said, "You scared me. What's going on?" I got no answer. I said, "Dad? Is that you?" I expected him to say something but the thing said nothing. The red alert in my head said this was not my dad and potentially a robber or kidnapper or some other psychopath in my house. I didn't automatically think there was a ghost standing in my doorway. So I shrieked--as a 13 year old child will--and the thing was gone. I didn't see it disintegrate or anything. My mom heard me screaming and came running.

When she got to me, my door was open--something or someone had definitely opened it up! I asked her if dad was home and she said it was only one o'clock and that he wasn't home yet. I told her that a man had opened up my door and when I screamed he was gone. Of course my mom was freaked out. We both ran upstairs and called the police, then we woke my sisters up and stood outside in the driveway until they arrived. The strange thing was that both doors were closed and locked when we went outside. The police did a thorough search and even tried to take fingerprints on the windows and their frames. They found that all the windows were closed and locked. No one had forced a door and the front door can't be opened from the outside at all once it's locked, so they would have had to come in through the back door. That door was also dead bolted from the inside. You can't lock it from the outside without a key.

I believe that the man was somehow attached to that door. Maybe he was confused about where he was--the door wasn't in his house anymore and it must have been as frightening for him as it was for me. I haven't lived in that house since I was 18 years old and I'm 30 years old now. But in the years I did live there afterward I never saw the man again.