The Creecy-Skinner-Whedbee House is a squat, white, Federal-style house in Hertford, N.C. It was built in 1775 and has been under the care of my mother’s family for a little under a century.
I spent many a summer of my childhood growing up behind the white picket fence or exploring the sleepy downtown of Hertford, which was merely a few minutes walk away. Even though it is known locally as the oldest house in Hertford and was built by ancestors of my family's Skinner and Whedbee branches, its history is relatively and unfortunately lost.
As houses age and begin to settle into their foundations, strange noises can often be heard. The floorboards creak and groan, the lights flicker and the temperature is unnaturally cold in random spots. Many people attribute these occurrences to paranormal entities. I would like to share with you now the story of the shadow man at the Creecy-Skinner-Whedbee House.
It was the summer of 2001, and my family and I had just arrived at Grandma’s house. The house was overflowing with cousins and aunts as we all gathered for a week of fun and togetherness. I was to spend the nights in the smallest bedroom of the second floor while my parents slept on the pull-out couch in the TV room downstairs.
I was already upset with these sleeping arrangements. I was a 4-year-old child, and I was afraid of the dark. Unfortunately, we had forgotten to bring my nightlight. My mother tried to calm my fears by leaving the door cracked and turning on the bathroom light so I wouldn’t be so afraid of the unknown creatures lurking in the night.
The room was stuffy because it had been shut off and unused for many years. My aunt had opened both windows and put in screens, but there was a lack of a breeze that summer evening. There was a window air conditioner at the end of the hallway, right next to the stairs, but it wasn’t powerful enough to blow cool air into the room. Despite this, I eventually fell asleep — that is, until a sudden shiver shook me from my slumber.
My bedroom was as cold as the inside of an industrial freezer.
It was also pitch black, as the bathroom light had been turned off.
I desired my parents' comfort and warmth. I left the bedroom, clutching onto my prized stuffed bear, ready to make my way down the steep stairs. The only light ahead of me now was the moonlight filtering through the branches of a tree at the end of the driveway. I could see quite clearly and thus could easily make out a solid figure that was standing on the staircase landing. It was a figure made completely of shadows, who lacked any identifying features, such as a face.
I was frozen with fear in the doorway, unable to move. I felt like it was smiling at me, like a hungry predator with its eyes on its prey. It held up a hand, slowly bringing it to where its mouth would be. The only sound I could hear, aside from the echoing thuds of my racing heart, was the harsh hissing of air as it urged me to stay quiet. Instead, I screamed wordlessly before breaking down into hysterical sobs in which I cried for both of my parents.
Time seemed to both slow down and speed up, before being interrupted by the harsh appearance of the upstairs hall light, which could be flipped on from a switch downstairs. I could hear concerned adults calling for me as they raced up the stairs. I was in a distorted fog that broke as my parents caught me up in their arms and assured me that everything was going to be alright.
For the time being, everything was just fine.
Except, that night left me with this feeling of helplessness, like this would not be the last of such encounters in this ancient house.
