The Old Man

The story I am going to tell you, you may not believe and think its fiction, but it is real. It happened to me when I was 13 years old and I am now 56.

This day on the 25th of May started like any other day. We got up around 8 o’clock, went for breakfast, and came back to the room to make the bed. The room was a bit of a mess. Suitcases were everywhere. It was getting later and my dad wanted to miss the traffic so we hurried to take the bags down to the van.

My sister and I sat in the back of the van, we should not have because it was pitch black, but I had my laptop and we listened to music and went to sleep.

We got back to my house at 12:30 and my dad asked me to go to the store. I did, they were only down the street. I bought some bacon.

Going to the store was fine I cut down the back ally and on my way back I walked the normal route. When I looked down the back ally there was a figure looking round the corner as if he was looking for me. He turned round, saw me, and shouted, “Emily!” but my name is not Emily, its Becky. I said to him, “Sorry, but you have the wrong person. I’m called Becky.” When he was walking he didn’t seem to be walking you couldn’t see his feet moving and he followed me all the way home saying, “Emily get back here now don’t you walk away from me.” I walked into my house and he hovered around the house for quite a while. Then he disappeared.

I told my mom and dad and their jaw dropped. They described the man to me (pale, tall, skinny, and wore white clothes) I asked them how did they know who he was. They told me, many years ago, there was a man that used to live at the top of the street, and he had a daughter named Emily. She ran away complaining he was hitting her when he was drunk and making her do every thing since his wife had died. She ran away and he killed himself. Every 3 years he comes back looking for her. My mom told me that I looked like her. He must have thought I was her. Now he will not leave me alone until I find his daughter. Every night, he would knock on my bedroom window shouting, “Emily I am sorry for what I did. It was hard for me when your mother had just died.” He would keep me awake until about three in the morning. Whatever room I went in, he followed. I was scared to go into a room with no windows in case he followed me and I could not get out. His daughter would have now been 28. He does not know this because when he died she was only 13. My mom helped me as much as she could by finding names and addresses of the girl, but none of them fit.

It was as if she had disappeared into nowhere. Maybe she had killed herself or been killed. It went on for 8 months and that was when someone came knocking on the door. She looked like an older version of me. Could it be her? I thought to my self. It was his daughter. She had heard about it and could not see me suffer from him, so she had come. Now the daughter talks to him and has made friends with him even though he is dead.