30ish years ago I was living in a Polish Hill, Pennsylvania USA (a section of the greater Pittsburgh area). The apartment I was renting was an old divided 3-story house. It was a chilly October worknight. My roommate was at work, I was at home reading a book on the couch, and the roommates cat was sleeping on a large recliner. Life was very good for me then. It might have been one of the best times in my life in fact. Everything was pretty normal until around 8:30pm.

I took a break from reading to go clean my dishes from dinner. While I was washing them, I suddenly became very confused, weak and extremely sad for seemingly no real reason. I turned around to steady myself by leaning against a table, and I’m looking around for any clue as to what the hell just happened to me.

I then heard a large growl. It was the roommates cat. He’s awakened from his slumber, and is in pure offensive attack mode. He’s standing on two legs, fur puffed out, hissing, spitting and claws showing. He’s staring and leaping at the ceiling in a hallway off the kitchen trying like hell to get at something, raking at the walls trying to get to it.

By this time, I lacked the energy to even stand upright and had dropped to a knee with tears streaming out of my eyes for no real reason. The cat continued it’s assault against something that I couldn’t see, taking his fight into my roommates bedroom. Eventually, I did regain my strength, and I used it to get the fugg out of the house. It was the 3rd floor apartment, and I damn near killed myself getting down those steps in the dark.

I called a friend that lived a couple blocks over and I must have sounded like an idiot, but I essentially begged him to let me come over for a bit, which he permitted. When I got to his place, I was a total wreck and shaking like a bowl of jello. I felt bad because I think I interrupted sexy time with his SO, but not bad enough to leave. I really needed to be near someone at that point.

I recounted the story to them as best I could, and they acted as though they believed me, but frankly I didn’t even care if they did. I stayed there for a few hours until I really had to leave. Both my friend and I started work pretty early. I was a mechanical designer and he worked security at the Allegheny County courthouse.

I got back home and all was quiet and seemingly normal. The cat was again sleeping on his recliner (what a life). I apologized for abandoning him, finished my dishes and went to bed, though I did not get very good rest that night.

I had been around unearthly energies before in my life, but this was one was extremely negative. I never felt comfortable in that apartment again due to that event, though in retro, nothing else would ever happen to me there again. The lease was up in two months, and I did not renew it. I instead moved.

I had some friends help me move, one of them being my friend who provided me shelter that night. He used a few of his lunch breaks to search the street address, and to look up any old microfilmed documents the county had archived. He found a police report for a homicide at that address a few years prior. It recounted the last events of an apparent gay man, who had found only anguish and persecution in his life. He first tried committing suicide in the kitchen (about 3 foot away from where I was standing when everything went wonky) by blowing out the pilot light and putting his head in the gas oven. That apparently was not sufficient, so he completed his task by hanging himself in what was my bathroom.

Take it for what you will. believe it or not. I certainly don’t care which. If it happens to you, you won’t care what anyone else thinks either because you will know. I pray that it never does. It’s a very disturbing event that leaves a splinter in your mind.