I was five years old the first time I saw him. It was the middle of the night and I had woken up suddenly from a bad dream and you know when you can just feel someone in the room with you? It was like that, it felt like someone was looking at me.

My eyes were groggy from sleep but I managed to peel them open to look around my room. I always left my bedroom door open with the hall light on because I frequently got scared at night or had to get up to use the bathroom and I didn’t want any surprises.

As I looked around, from the foot of my bed, past it to the window, to my closet I didn’t see anything. Then my eyes fell to the open door, and there he was. A somewhat tall, bald man wearing a trench coat on, holding an umbrella that was partially obscuring his face, just standing in my doorway, staring at me. The most frightening part was what little of his face I could see. It was nearly skeletal with thin, translucent skin, giant black eyes that showed no whites in them, no nose, and a sort of scarf pulled up around the bottom part of his face.

After staring at me without a sound for what seemed like hours but was probably only several minutes, the figure turned and walked away. After that, I began seeing him all the time, at least once a week. Mostly he would show up at night like that first time but the older I got, the more I would see him at other times and even outside of my house. I would see him watching me from across the playground at school, down the aisles of the grocery store when I would go with my mom, and across the street as I waited for the bus. He was always holding an umbrella. I never told anyone because I didn’t want them to think I was crazy.

Recently, now at almost 30 years old, I see him every day and every day he seems to be a little closer to me. He’s not just down the aisles or across the street, he is directly behind me, or next to me sitting on the couch, always staring at me.

While visiting my mom yesterday, I finally decided to ask her about it. I figure maybe there was some traumatic event that happened when I was little and my brain maybe manifested this creepy guy to keep me from remembering whatever it was that happened.

“Hey mom, I need to ask you something but please try to not freak out,” I tell her, knowing she does have a tendency to be dramatic.

“Johnny, what is it?” She asks, concern showing in the crease of her forehead.

“So, this is going to sound super weird but ever since I was little, I have seen this creepy looking bald person in a long trench coat following me around and I didnt know if maybe there was something that happened when I was around 5 or so since that is when is started.” I tell her.

Mom is frozen, staring at me as her face pales and what she whispers sends chills down my spine, “is he holding an umbrella?” Was all she asks.

My spoon clatters to the floor, ‘How do you know that?’

My mom, with a single tear running down her cheek says, ‘your dad saw him too.’

At that point, she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and asks, ‘how close is he?’

I cannot give an answer. My heart is pounding as I try to ignore the dark figure in my peripheral that is mere inches from my face.