That One Time An Apparition Ruined My Vacation

My name is Julie and this is my first time logging on in almost five years. I decided to begin sharing my experiences again. I am now twenty years old and studying to be a mortician, so I have quite a few. I created this account when I was sixteen to share and read creepy stories. However, I abandoned it after a few negative comments on my first and only story. I figured that maybe storytelling wasn't my thing. However, now that I am older, I know that I can't let strangers on the internet bother me. Don't get me wrong, they were right not to like my story. I don't even like my story! It was very poorly written, but I left it up unaltered because although I could now easily find explanations for the occurrences that had happened, it was the way that I had I perceived them when I was sixteen. This is an experience that I can't easily find an explanation for. 
I was seventeen years old and had just begun my senior year of high school. Although I had some strange interests and had grown accustomed to weird, paranormal experiences, I was a very normal teenage girl. I had a close circle of friends, I was on the swim team, I participated in yearbook, and I attended every sporting event dressed up in my school colors. Like most seniors, I had decided that this year would be my year. I wanted to make some amazing memories, get accepted into my dream college, attend parties, go to prom, and make the most out of my final year of high school. So I figured I'd kick the year off with a long weekend trip to the beach. 
I asked my mother and she loved the idea. She was a huge beach person and she had always been very spontaneous. We invited my little sister and decided to make it a girl's trip. We found a condo in Ocean City, Maryland and booked it for four nights. We left after school on a Thursday and planned to leave on Monday. 
The condo was very small, but nice. It was newly renovated with marble countertops and hardwood flooring. I remember being surprised at just how fancy it was given what we paid to stay there. We had truly gotten a bargain. 
The only thing we knew about the building was that it used to be a hotel before it was bought and the individual rooms were sold as condos. We were on the top floor and our room was at the very end of the building. This excited us because not only did we get a balcony overlooking the bay, but we also got an additional view through a window on another side of our room. 
There was an empty condo on the other side us and a party of groomsmen across the hall throwing a bachelor party weekend. 
I know these details are seemingly unimportant, but they come into play later. 
The first night was pretty uneventful. It late in the evening when we arrived so we decided to unpack, settle in, and play some board games. We had a great time. My mother and I had always had a somewhat strained relationship. Although she was always very easy going, our personalities were very similar and we would often butt heads, but this was the longest we had ever gone without arguing and I was ecstatic. I was so excited for the weekend to come. 
We all had a few glasses of wine and headed to bed comfortably buzzed around 11 o'clock. There was only one bedroom so my Mom and sister shared a bed while I slept on the pullout couch. 
Like I said, the first night was uneventful. I am normally a very perceptive person and will get uneasy feelings from certain locations. However, I got none of these feelings in the condo that night and the most unusual thing to happen was the noise coming from the loud groomsmen across the hall. 
The next day, we woke up, enjoyed a large breakfast, and headed down to the beach. On the way out of the condo, we ran into the groomsmen and briefly stopped to speak to them. 
"Did you have a good night?" I asked the best man jokingly. "No," he replied laughing, "we started drinking way too early. We were all passed out by ten". We talked with them a little longer before parting ways. I thought it was a little strange. I could've sworn I heard what sounded like a group of men talking and playing music from their room late at night. However, I dismissed it. I could have been dreaming or maybe I just went to bed earlier then I thought. To this day, I still am not too sure that this occurrence was paranormal. Strange? Maybe, but I can't necessarily say it was anything unearthly. Perhaps it was just a coincidence. 
The day went without a hitch. We played in the water and then walked the boardwalk as the sun set.
That night was when weird things started happening. Although we locked the door when we left, we came back to find everything in the condo was slightly off. This was nothing that scared us initially. I mean, it wasn't like all of the cabinets were open and there was writing on the wall spelling out, "REDRUM". No, these were little things. Little things that would make any person shrug and brush them off. 
When we had left, we could have sworn we shut the curtains that hung in front of the glass sliding door which led out to the balcony. However, they were drawn wide open. My sister had also remembered sitting a dirty glass in the sink, but when we got back, it was sitting on the counter, at least three feet away.  
There were also a few other things that were off. I was missing a pair of sunglasses while my Mom was missing her favorite pair of flip flops. 
It was strange, but we dismissed it. Like I said, these were all just little things. 
We cooked dinner, watched a movie, and went to bed. That night was sleepless. I tossed and turned and when I finally did manage to fall asleep, I had a horrible dream. 
I was on the balcony with my mother and sister, listening to them animatedly tell me a story about their day. We were all laughing and enjoying the pleasant weather. The sun was warm on my skin and a slight breeze rustled the trees below us. I could smell the salty ocean air and I could hear seagulls squalling over the bay. The sun was setting and it was perfect. Utter peace. Suddenly, my mother and sister grew quiet. I turned away from the view to look at them; curious as to why they stopped talking. Their faces were blank and I recoiled in fear as their eyes darkened and their features became warped and grotesque. Their complexions became grey, their eyes disappearing into pits of nothingness, and their teeth elongating into sharpened points. They smiled at me. Awful terrible smiles that stretched and took up most of their faces. "What's wrong?" my sister asked in a screeching voice that surely could not belong to her. My mouth became dry and my tongue was lead in my mouth. I backed up until I hit the railing of the balcony with bruising force. My mother then reached out and shoved me. For some reason, this shove felt like more of a gentle touch. It was as light as a feather, but it sent me careening off. 
I awoke with a start. My heart was pounding and anxiety was rolling off of me in waves. I looked around the dark room before picking up my phone. It was 3:00am on the dot. I sighed and scrubbed my eyes. I knew I would not be getting anymore sleep that night. I turned all of the lights on, still paranoid from my dream, and stood to get a glass of water. 
I was startled by three, slow knocks on the door. I jumped and sat the glass down in the sink with a sigh. I wearily walked to the door and looked through the peep hole, but no one was there. My blood ran cold and I felt myself break a sweat. I counted to three in my head and swung the door open, but there was nothing, but an empty hallway. 
Suddenly, one of the very drunk groomsmen jumped out from beside the door frame. I let out a scream and fell back to his amusement. He laughed and leaned up against the door. "Gotcha" he said. I curled my lip back in anger. "It is 3 o'clock in the morning!" I whisper-shouted, trying not to wake up my Mom and sister. 
"Sorry," he said taking a step closer, "I just wanted to see what you were up to". I took a step back and he reached out to thumb the strap on my tank top. "What are you doing?" I asked. I was only seventeen and this guy had to be close to thirty, but he made what he wanted very clear. 
He opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by my mother. "What's going on here?" she asked furiously. His eyes widened and he rushed to put some distance in between the two of us. His mouth opened and closed, trying to come up with an answer. 
"Let's speak out in the hallway," Mom said sternly. 
The two walked out in the hall and shut the door behind them. I wish I had heard their conversation, but all I could catch was the muffled sound of her shouting. I sighed and turned away. Yep, there was no way I was falling back to sleep. 
I walked back to the sink to retrieve my abandoned glass, but it wasn't there. I looked up and it was sitting three feet away on the counter. 
My Mom and I had stayed up the rest of the night watching bad reality television, but only after she gave me a very long, drawn out talk about being more careful. 
We had another normal day after that. We played in the water and walked the boardwalk as the sun set, just like the day before. When we arrived back to our building, the groomsmen's door was propped open and there was a lady vacuuming the floors inside. "I guess they decided to cut their trip short," Mom said smugly. I later found out that she had reported them to the front desk and the owner of the building wanted them out immediately. Apparently, she had gotten some money taken off of our bill as well. 
As I settled into bed that night, my mind was racing, but not with anxiety. I wasn't thinking about the groomsmen or the mysterious case of the moving glass. Instead, I was thinking about what the following day would bring and what my friends were doing. I picked up my phone and opened Snapchat, sending a few selfies to the users on my "close friends" list. 
My best friend, Ava, replied right away, asking to see what the condo looked like. I stood up and took a few videos of kitchen and living room before settling back down. "OMG that's so nice!" she snapped back instantly. I smiled and took a picture of the balcony, saving it to my camera roll, before sending it back. 
I looked at the picture and smiled, all of the lights of Ocean City were beautiful at night. I wished I could stay here forever. 
I looked down in confusion when I got the notification that Ava had screenshotted the snap. I opened the chat feature to see that she had sent the picture back, but had zoomed in on the corner of the balcony. "Is that a ghost staring at you?" she wrote. 
I examined the picture and laughed. It did appear that way. I was someone who was very used to paranormal experiences, strange sounds, and weird coincidences, but I never really believed in apparitions and I certainly did not scare easily. 
They just seemed too unreal, I guess. I could come up with a viable explanation for every image of an apparition I have seen. 
I guess you could call me skeptic who believes in ghosts. 
I posted the picture to my Snapchat story, circling the figure and captioning it, "am I tripping or is there a ghost staring me down?". 
Instantly, snaps started to flood in and my phone was chiming every second with notifications. The responses ranged from, "that's so fake" to "you need to run!". I typed out quick replies and laid my phone down, hoping to get some sleep, but the more I thought about the image, the more I became legitimately afraid. I tried to tell myself it was late and I was just paranoid, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching me. 
In my head, was the image of the supposed ghost. A stereotypical transparent boy in Victorian clothes.
I finally worked up the courage to stand and rip the curtains closed. Almost instantly, the handle to the balcony started to jiggle furiously. I searched my mind, desperately trying to remember whether or not I locked it when suddenly, it stopped. 
I was more scared than what I had ever been in my entire life, but I was also embarrassed. I did not want to wake up my little sister and have to explain to her that I was terrified because I thought a ghost was stalking me. I turned on the lights in the living room and laid back down, hoping that I could find an explanation for what had happened in the morning. 
Just as I was beginning to calm myself, I heard three knocks on the wall above my head. Now you see, I would love to say that it was coming from the condo next to us, but as I mentioned earlier, we were at the end of the building. The wall that the knocks came from had nothing on the other side, not even a fire escape. 
I froze and stared at the ceiling. Then, one side of my body became unbearably hot while the other became frigid. It was the strangest thing. I haven't felt anything like it to this day. 
I was like a statue, being unable to move due to sheer terror. What broke me out of my stupor was a low, guttural moan right next to my ear that shook me to my core. 
I got up and ran as fast as I could to my mom and sister's room, babbling and sobbing about a ghost boy.
My mom managed to calm me down from my hysteria and pulled me into bed with them so that I was squeezed tight in between the two. My sister was bemused, thinking that I had just had a bad dream and my mom kept asking me if I had hit my head or something. 
We packed up and left early the next morning, not because my mom and sister were scared as well, but because I begged them to. I could not bear the thought of staying another night in the condo. 
I know that this story is anti-climactic. 
Maybe you think I was dumb for being that scared.
Maybe you don't believe me.
However, that night stands as the worst night of my life. For a year afterwards, I had a panic attack every time I stayed in someplace different. My friends were confused when I suddenly started turning down slumber parties and my grandparents, who lived a state away, were devastated when I stopped visiting once a month. 
I didn't really get over it until I was well into my freshman year of college. 
Now, I'm a junior and I'm rapidly approaching graduation. I live in a house with my boyfriend and I've never been happier, but sometimes, I still get nightmares of that night. 
And sometimes, I still wake up at 3:00am with the feeling that someone is watching me, but I never dare to lift my phone and snap a picture.  
 
Category:Ghosts