Writing about ghosts and sleep paralysis yesterday got me thinking about one of the other scariest things that happened to me.  I suppose this could have been a ghost, although I suspect probably not.

This happened when I was living all by myself in an apartment in Austin, Texas.  I was on the top floor of the building and my apartment was the last one on the floor.  You physically couldn't walk past my apartment because there was a rail and beyond that a 3-story drop to the ground.  It was kind of nice because it meant nobody ever walked past my apartment.

So one time late at night I was sitting looking at my computer and I heard some footsteps outside walking towards my apartment.  It was like after midnight and I hadn't invited anyone over and like I said there was nowhere to go out there other than to my apartment.  The footsteps stopped in front of my door and then the door handle jiggled a couple of times like the person outside was trying to open it.  They didn't knock or anything, they just tried to come in.  Luckily the door was locked so they couldn't get in.  

I was on high alert because there shouldn't be anyone trying to open my door at any time of day let alone in the middle of the night.  I could feel my heart beating rapidly in my chest and my palms were sweating.  I thought about trying to call out "who's there?" but I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to confirm that I was there in the apartment.  For the same reason I didn't want to look out of the blinds.  I sat right beside the door and waited to hear if the footsteps would walk away.  And I kept waiting and waiting and didn't hear anything.  Was the mysterious person still standing on the other side of the door?  I waited a few minutes longer but I never heard the footsteps.  Finally I decided to take a peek outside.  Nobody was there.  Somehow they walked away without me hearing them.  Or vanished into thin air.  Or jumped over the rail and dropped to the ground below.  

It's one of those things, I don't know if describing it does it justice, but it was terrifying in the moment.  I had trouble relaxing that night and I don't think I fell asleep for a while.  Being alone late at night and having a mysterious entity trying to enter your living space definitely sounds like the recipe for a horror story to me.