The Penthouse

I had just moved into the most beautiful apartment in West Allentown, Pennsylvania. My son was 10 years old at the time and I felt so lucky to be living in this very posh unit. Things were great for a couple of months and I thought it would be nice to get a pet for my son. So, I purchased this beautiful male gray cat who we named Purseous. I was divorced at that time so my son would visit his father on the weekends and I was able to have a bit of peace and relaxation on those days. Everything seemed great, but then the trouble started.

One night when a friend of mine was over visiting. It was about 9:00pm and we were standing in the kitchen of my apartment. I had recessed lights in the ceilings in all of the rooms. We got into an argument and all of the sudden the recessed lights started to go bright and dark, bright and dark over and over for about a minute or so. I jokingly said that it was my grandfather (who had passed may years before) and he was getting mad at him. My friend then got so scared that he left immediately. I never gave this experience a second thought.

Then one night I was asleep and at about 3:00AM I heard noises coming from the living room that prompted me to wake. I walked into the dining room only to find my son sitting motionless on the staircase with a completely blank expression on his face, just staring forward. I quickly realized that he was sleepwalking. I gently moved him into his bed. This child had never slept walk before, ever! This started happening more frequently over a two month period, and always at 3:00am. This became very disturbing to me. He had no recollection of doing this at all.

The next odd experience happened as I was laying down in my bedroom watching TV prior to falling asleep. I was starting to get a bit tired and rolled over on my side. A couple minutes had passed and then suddenly my bed sunk down next to me as if someone sat on the edge. I quickly turned over to find nobody there, but could clearly see the depression on the bed. I got so scared I turned back around and the weight lifted off of the bed a short time after.

Then finally the straw fell that broke the camels back as they say. Our cat who was always very affectionate suddenly freaked out and started attacking my son in my bedroom. It was late at night and we were in complete darkness. The cat attacked with such persistence that all of my efforts to pull this crazed cat off my son were futile. When I was finally able to pull this cat off of him and get him out of the room my son was left scratched all over his arms, neck, back and face. It was like something out of the, Pet Cemetery", movie. At this time I came to the conclusion that this apartment had a very dark side. Shortly after, I moved to a new home. My son has never slept walked again since.

There was something residing there that I will never be able to explain and it was definitely not benevolent. Luckily it did not follow us to our new home.