This story is perhaps the most memorable, freakiest, most hair raising story to date so far. This incident terrified me to the point I literally felt my blood run cold and my heart pound in my ears because it was so deliberate, the timing so uncanny.

Let’s jump right in. It’s the middle of the night, and I’m sleeping. Only partly unconscious, of course, because there isn’t anything in this world or the next that was gonna sneak up on me.

I startled awake, as I often did, thinking I heard a noise, then rolled over to look at the clock to check the time. If the red numbers on my clock said 1:10 a.m., I knew I was in for something unusual.

The spirits in the house always (and I mean 90%) of the time, woke me up at exactly 1:10 a.m.. Did I just trick my body into waking at that time? An internal alarm o’clock I didn’t mean to set? Perhaps, but after ten years of waking up at 1:10 a.m. to shadows, voices, footsteps and heaven only knows what else, you accept what seems unacceptable and stop fighting it.

So I roll over, chest tight, and look at the clock.

1:10 a.m.

Great. I look into the doorway of my bedroom and don’t see any shadow people or other ghostly folk that don’t belong lingering in the hallway. I don’t immediately hear anything out of the unusual. I try to roll over and close my eyes, covers all the way over my head, but my arms get prickly. Whatever is waking me isn’t taking no for an answer.

I have a need to roam the first floor to check the locks, reassure myself we’re locked in tight and all is well.

Why did I get out of bed? I have four kids in this house, and while most of them are in my bed snoring softly, all of them aren’t, and my Mom instincts kick in harder than my ghost instincts. So roam the first floor I go, ready to handle whatever is waiting for me.

Front door- locked. A quick peek out the windows show a quiet neighborhood nestled under a dark, starless sky. I walk through the dining room, into the living room, going out of my way to avoid the basement stairs as I make my way into the kitchen. Nothing but the sounds of my feet on the wood floor and the hiss of the heater.

Back door is locked, no people—dead or alive—standing on my patio. The soft spill of pillar lights bathes the kitchen in a warm glow. Ideallic quiet night it is not, however. Goose flesh prickles my neck. Something doesn’t feel right. Bad? No, just different. That’s the motto in my house.

Something is rooting me in place, not making me run. Perhaps it’s the feeling that I’m not alone, and I don’t know which way to move. I walk directly to the back door to give myself a good close look at the yard for danger because my Spidey senses tell me something is up.

As I stare out into the night, the baby’s playpen is immediately behind me in the kitchen against the halfway of the staircase. The pressure on the back of my neck grows to the point I can’t deny it. I turn around now, facing the playpen and a mix of toys sitting lifeless in a row propped up against the wall.

Yep, wait for it!

My chest gets heavy, and though I don’t see anyone, I know I’m not alone. I fully expect to see someone, hear voices, have something skid across the counter. The energy in the kitchen is that electric.

My choices for fleeing are to the left where I have to run past the open basement stairs, or to the right where I have to run past the stairs leading up that offer me a blind corner.

I look left, then right, my gaze finally falling on the talking light up toddler toy dog sitting in the middle of the toys in the playpen. As I turn to stare at the toy (why I don’t know) it lights up at that exact moment and says:

“Peek a Boo, I see you”

It then proceeds to giggle in the pre-recorded, computer generated child’s voice that will haunt my dreams until I die.

Go back and re-read it. I swear on everything I hold dear, I am telling you the truth.

In the silence of the night, the second I turned to it, the toy self activated and said Peek-A-Boo, I see you.

Okay, so the rational part of my brain kicks in, grabbing fear by the throat, and tells my feet to hold their ground. I know, right, how can one person be so stupid? Certainly this can’t be happening. This doll did not light up and talk on it’s own, choosing the most terrifying and appropriate phrase from it’s inventory of factory pre-recorded statements that include I love you and the A,B, Cs.

I have two choices, but my brain picks one. Walk forward and pick up the doll. If the switch is turned on, I can convince myself it’s a random malfunction, a firing of the switch. Some manufacturer glitch. If it’s off, we’re burning the damn house down.

The switch, in fact, is on, so I set the doll nicely and carefully back into the playpen, heart in my throat, and walk to the right (no chance am I risking the basement stairs right now) and head straight into my room and begin the series of prayers I know by heart on repeat in my head.

P.S. St. Michael has been my best friend since birth. If you know, you know.

No other dolls or toys talked that night. In fact, Im pretty sure I sat straight up in my bed in terrified stunned silence until the sun came up. Did the light up dog ever talk again you ask? Sorry folks, it never got the chance. It was “donated” the next morning.

And yes, I really mean donated. I treat the toy animals and dolls nice, and they don’t come back and kill me in the middle of the night like in the movies. It’s a deal we make. My girls got a life size Barbie doll once from a sadistic friend, don’t get me started on that. That doll was better taken care of than we were. She never had any reason to go Chucky on us.

That, my friends, was a true terror story from my real life haunted house, and one of the most specific experiences I had there.