Pat and The Man In White

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I used to live in a haunted house. When most people hear me say that, they chuckle and don't usually believe me, but I'd seen undeniable proof of the ghost (whom I'd come to refer to as Patrick, or Pat for short) that inhabits my home. In fact, on a few occasions, I'd seen him with my own eyes.
Typically, when people think of haunted houses, they think of old, dusty, two-story homes that were built on Native American burial grounds, or was the place of a death years prior. I can tell you now, neither of those is the case when it comes to my home. My grandfather built this house after he married my grandmother, and it's been in my family ever since.
After my grandparents died, it was inherited by my father, and after he and my mother passed, it came to me. You might be thinking that Pat must be the ghost of my grandfather or father, but no, that's wrong too. He's been around ever since my grandfather completed construction.
It wasn't like he was there during the process of building the house either. Pat literally showed up the day after all of the work was said and done. Obviously, this initially freaked my grandparents out. Nothing malicious ever happened, though, just some sounds of footsteps, the occasional sounds of the doors opening and closing, and the drop of temperature in whatever room Pat was in at the time.
The thought of a ghost being in their home, however, just didn't sit right with them at first. They tried everything they could to banish him. They called in priests and even an exorcist, but nothing ever worked. After many attempts, they had contemplated selling the house and moving away, but my grandfather just wouldn't accept that.
He had built that house with his own two hands, and that pride wouldn't allow him to abandon it. Eventually, my grandparents learned to live with Pat. As I said, he was never malicious or did anything to cause harm. He was just... there.
After my grandparents died, my father thought that their ghosts would linger around the house as well, but that never happened. Pat was the only entity around, and it would stay that way. My father tried to learn more about Pat by researching the area where we lived but never found any credible results. It was as if Pat just materialized out of nowhere once the house was finished.
One time, when I was a teenager, a group of friends came over and we tried to communicate with Pat through an Ouija board. My parents had strictly forbidden this, so of course, being the teenage dumbass that I was, I decided to do it anyways behind their backs. This is usually the part of the story where all kinds of hell would break loose because of the Ouija board... but that didn't happen.
After many unsuccessful attempts to contact him, Pat finally showed himself to us. His body was faint, and we couldn't make out any real features other than the shape of his body. He looked to be about my height and weight, had short hair, black dress pants, and a white dress shirt.
"Hi... Pat," I said in a quiet voice. He stood there and gave me a confused look, and then slightly smirked, closed his eyes, and lifted his arm in a wave. I continued, "Pat's probably not your name right?"
He shook his head, keeping the smirk on his face. I continued on, "Well... can you tell me your name?" The smirk left his face and was replaced by a sad look. He looked down to the floor, and then to me, and shook his head again.
I had guessed that he must not be able to speak, which made sense seeing as there had never been any moans, or wails, or anything else vocal that you'd expect from a haunting. "You can use the board," I informed him, pointing to the wooden box. He walked over to it and using his finger, spelled out: "D-O-N-T-R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R."
He looked up at me again, still a sad look in his eyes. "Is it alright that I call you Pat?" I asked, for the sake of him at least having a name. He nodded, and the smirk came back.
After that experience with Pat, my friends and I decided to look into other paranormal activities. We live in Ohio, so there was plenty to look into. There is only one experience, however, that stands out from the rest... and it would be the last.
After inheriting the house following the death of my father from a years-long battle with cancer (my mother had died giving birth to me), I turned it into a base of operations for my friends and I. We would meet there and plan out where we would investigate.
This time, it was an old abandoned mental hospital that was known as "The Ridges." It was famously known to be haunted so I was particularly excited to visit it, as it had been a dream of mine to do so ever since we first got into the paranormal game. As we pulled up to the front gates in our van, I could feel my heart racing from excitement.
I have to advise anyone thinking of doing this to NOT DO THIS. Not only is it actually trespassing since overnight investigations aren't allowed, but what I encountered here scared me off of paranormal investigation for the rest of my life. It was when we stepped foot on the grounds, that the horror would really begin.
After jumping the gates and walking around outside. I noticed something in a window of one of the upper floors. I could see a man... standing there staring at me. He was completely white from head to toe... white closes, pale skin, even white hair.
Something about him made me feel incredibly uneasy, and everyone else said the same. We all knew that something was wrong because never before had we been scared off of a location this easily before. We got out of there pretty quickly, packed into the van, and took off.
"Um, guys?" said Andrew, who was sitting in the back of the van with his wife, Jen. My girlfriend, Jaimie, and I looked out of the back window and saw what he was seeing. There was the man in white, standing in the middle of the road, the only part of him not white being his eyes which were instead glowing a bright red.
I could feel my heart racing as we all tried to register what we had just seen. Soon I felt myself start to doze off when Andrew once again exclaimed, "Guys!" I sprang awake as Jaimie and I turned around. "That thing is following us," he continued.
As we looked out of the window again, Jaimie squeezed my arm. The man in white was directly behind us, and it looked like he was just standing in place, but he was somehow keeping up with the car. At this point, we had all started to freak out and I turned around to tell Bill, the driver, to speed it up.
As I turned back around to look out of the window again I noticed that the man in white was gone. "Where did he go?" I asked Andrew. "I- I don't know," he responded, "He just disappeared."
We thought that maybe we outran it or it just gave up, but then Jen started to act weird. Andrew had said she was feeling really sick so she went to sleep on his shoulders. We didn't think anything of it and just chalked it up to her being exhausted.
When we got home Andrew, Jen, and Bill said their goodbyes and left. We were concerned about Jen because she still looked like absolute crap, and we hoped she was feeling better in the morning. Later that night, I began to feel sick myself.
I felt like I was gonna throw up, and ran to the bathroom but nothing came out. I walked over to the sink and noticed how pale I was looking. I decided to turn in for the night, and Jaimie agreed to stay the night to keep an eye on me.
I fell asleep and was soon awoken by loud noises. My initial thought was that Pat must be active again, so at first, I ignored it. It just kept going, however, which sounded like someone rummaging through the drawers in the kitchen,
Suddenly, there was the sound of crashing and screaming. I recognized the voice as being Jaimie, so I sprang out of bed and into the kitchen, where the source of the noise was. Standing there, was the man in white, standing over the bloodied body of my girlfriend.
There were what appeared to be knife wounds all over her body, and a horrified look of pain and fear was frozen on her face. I screamed in anguish at the sight of her corpse, and with tears of anger in my eyes, I ignored my initial fear and ran directly at the man in white, tackling him and knocking the knife out of his hand.
He put up a fight as I landed blow after blow on him, but I overpowered him surprisingly easily. Throughout it all, not a single drop of blood stained his clothes. He remained entirely clean and the only parts of him that was red were his demonic-looking red eyes.
I reached over and grabbed the knife, ready to plunge it into his chest, but suddenly I felt a hand grab my arm. I looked over and it was Pat. He was completely solid now and I could see more features. On his face was a greying goatee and his short hair also had spots of gray. Honestly, he looked similar to my father, with some minor differences here and there. "Don't," he said to me as he took the knife from my hands.
He placed the knife on a counter and walked over to the man in white, who was now standing. A look of anger was plastered on his pale face, and the red eyes looked even more terrifying. "No," said Pat, as he grabbed the man by the throat, "not this time."
A look of fear replaced the anger on the pale man's face as Pat turned his head to face me. He gave me that signature smirk and nodded his head. I was completely confused as to what was happening, but I nodded in response.
Pat then turned his attention to the man in white, still gripping his throat with both hands, and closed his eyes. Suddenly, a bright light came from Pat and engulfed them both. I could hear the sounds of a demonic wail as the light swallowed them and disappeared.
Along with the light, Pat and the man in white were gone. Suddenly I looked to the floor where I had beaten up the man in white and saw... Jaimie. She was crying and shivering in fear, her face bruised and bloody.
"Jaimie!" I exclaimed as I tried to approach her, but she screamed and backed away from me. I looked at my hands, still covered in the blood that was not my own, and looked over at Jaimie. It was at that moment that I realized what I had done.
It wasn't the man in white that I was attacking... it was Jaimie. She sat on the floor, her arms around her knees and sobbed. I fell to my knees and sobbed into my hands.
"I'm sorry," I choked out, "I'm so sorry."
This was 10 years ago. I've never experienced anything paranormal ever since as I'd given up the desire to seek it out. Even Pat is gone. I never saw him again after he and the man in white were engulfed by the bright light.
All of my friends and my now ex-girlfriend are no longer a part of my life. The reason the man in white took so long to attack me and Jaimie was that he first attached himself to Jen. They weren't so lucky, and Jen ended up throwing Andrew out of their bedroom window... and jumped herself after realizing what she had done.
Bill was next, and he ended up getting hit by a car after running into the middle of traffic. After that was when the man in white possessed me. The only reason Jaimie and I are alive was because of Pat. He stopped me from killing her, and he saved my life in the process.
Jaimie understood the situation, but couldn't stand being around me regardless. Seeing me kept reminding her of our friends, and she never forgot the experience of me nearly beating her to death. She left me shortly after she was released from the hospital.
She claimed that she was attacked by a random assailant, so I never faced any repercussions for what I had done, even though a part of me still feels that I should, even if I was manipulated by some evil entity. It was my hands that hurt her. I never forgave myself.
I miss Jaimie. I miss all of my friends. Most of all, though, I miss Pat.
He was there my entire life. I don't know what exactly happened between him and the man in white, but he's gone now and I blame myself. I brought that thing into my home because I was nosing around where I didn't belong... Pat saved me and Jaimie and sacrificed himself to do it... and none of it had to even happen.
I don't know where Pat came from, and I don't know where he went. I don't know if he was a ghost, an angel, or something else, but I am thankful that he was a part of my family for so many years. I hope that wherever he is, he is at peace.
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Written by NerdxCorexCreep
Content is available under CC BY-SA
Category:Beings