Author K.D. Kulpa: Smoke and Mirrors

In this month’s instalment of “Author(ized) Accounts of the Paranormal and Unexplained,” K.D. Kulpa, author of Coma, will tell us the story of a mysterious nighttime encounter with an uninvited visitor…

For as long as I can remember, ghosts have always enjoyed making themselves known to me. No matter where I live – an apartment, a house, or even a different country – eventually, unusual events happen around me.

It all started when I was growing up in a haunted house, where I experienced paranormal activity almost daily. One of my most eerie encounters still feels like something that happened yesterday.

I was around fifteen years old at the time, and my bedroom was on the second floor of our small, split-level bungalow in Nipawin, Saskatchewan. It was the middle of the night, and I was trying to sleep. I’m one of those people who can take over an hour to fall asleep, so that wasn’t the uncommon part of this story.

While lying in bed, with all the lights off, I heard a click from the main floor. It reminded me of our landline phone being put back into its base. Since having unusual experiences was common for me, including seeing a transparent man appear in my hallway, I preferred to sleep with the door open in case I needed to run out of the room. This meant I could typically hear what was going on through the upper and middle levels of the house. Noise travelled quickly up the stairs and down the hall.

At first, I didn’t think much of the click – houses can make noises at night – so I just rolled over and continued trying to fall asleep.

That’s when the footsteps started. I listened closely, wondering if someone had gotten up. It was late, and everyone else had already been in bed for over an hour. My parents’ room was beside mine, so I knew they hadn’t gotten up. I would have heard them go downstairs in the first place. My brother’s room, however, was in the basement. So, he could go into the kitchen without my knowing.

However, the footsteps weren’t going toward the stairs to the basement. They were coming up the stairs to my level, and they were moving slowly…

This was when my breathing grew faster, and my heart beat harder. I wasn’t thinking of ghosts yet – I thought someone was in our house! I was terrified that an intruder had somehow managed to break in and was coming up the stairs.

After a few seconds of listening to those steps coming closer, my logical brain remembered that our Dalmatian dog, Dallas, was sleeping in the kitchen. If anyone tried to break in, she would have been barking to alert us instantly.

 So, what could have walked through the kitchen and up the stairs without disturbing her? And how did they leave the kitchen when a noisy, creaky wooden gate kept Dallas in overnight? I hadn’t heard it open.

That’s when the footsteps seemed to turn. Across the hall from me was another bedroom, and beside that was our main bathroom. The footsteps had turned into the bathroom, the sound of the footsteps changing as they moved from carpet to linoleum. That’s when the tapping started.

Tap, tap, tap …

Someone was tapping their fingernail on the bathroom mirror. They only did it a few times, and then it was quiet again.

At this point, I had rolled over and watched my open doorway, wishing I could close and lock it without making too much noise. I couldn’t move, though. I was terrified.

The footsteps started again, returning to the carpeted hallway and stopping directly outside my door. I quickly turned my eyes to my dresser’s mirror, which I had placed on the opposite wall at the right angle to see into the hall without leaving my bed.

The hallway outside the doorway was black in my mirror, as if all the light had been sucked out beyond my door frame. I couldn’t see the glare from the kitchen stove’s light, which we sometimes kept on. I couldn’t see anything. It was just a black wall of nothingness outside my door.

I didn’t know what to do.

I could scream and hope my parents would come running, but what if the thing in the hall was evil? What if alerting them to its presence would cause it to do something to them?

Instead, I opted to pretend I didn’t hear it. I closed my eyes, pulled the blanket up to my chin, and hoped it would go away. I remember taking deep breaths, pretending I was asleep and unaware of what might be standing in my hall. My blood rushed in my ears, making it hard to hear.

After a few minutes, I finally opened my eyes again. The black wall was gone, and the eerie, cold feeling that I didn’t realize I was shivering against had left the room. I felt like I was alone again.

What could have visited me that night? I’m not sure. Our household ghost, Godfred, didn’t usually try to scare me. This visitor felt different. Could it have been something coming by to see why Godfred liked haunting our house? Was Godfred trying a new tactic to get my attention?

I guess I’ll never know.

Author Interview

The Night Librarian: What a spooky story! I’m sure that encounter and the mysterious “Godfred” are great inspirations for your writing. Can you tell us a bit about how do you do research for your horror stories?

K.D.: To be honest, a lot of my ideas come from nightmares. Vivid nightmares have plagued me for as long as I can remember (maybe that’s why ghosts are drawn to me?). Eventually, I began writing them down as stories to get them onto a page and out of my head. Now, I have more book ideas than I know what to do with! Once I have an idea, I still need to make it come to life. To do this, I study the setting I want to use in my book to get a sense of why someone might live there. Then I watch horror movies and read books with a similar theme to learn what has worked for others in the area. This helps me come up with an idea that’s a little different and my own, while also ensuring I have a good pace that is typical for that specific genre or mash-up. Like many horror and thriller writers, I’m sure my Google search history would make some people pause…

The Night Librarian: Ah, yes, hopefully nobody looks too closely at our Google search histories. So, do you have a writing idol?

K.D.:  I have so many authors that I look up to and probably started me on my writing journey. They come from many genres and areas of expertise, likely because I’m a mood reader. The books and genres I read shift like seasons, so one never knows what I’ll feel like reading next. The biggest ones I think have had the most impact on my writing style, though, would be Stephen King, Anne Rice, and R.L. Stine. I loved all things horror when I was young – likely because of my paranormal experiences. I would consume Goosebumps, vampire and witch books, ghost stories, and everything in between. I also loved local ghost stories and folklore books, like Ghost Stories of Saskatchewan. They likely helped me cope, as it proved I wasn’t alone in my eerie encounters.

The Night Librarian: Are you working on a new project right now? What can you tell us about it?

K.D.: I have a few projects I’m actively working on! I’m excited to have been invited into a Young Adult Horror anthology that will be released in the fall of 2025. I’m also actively working on a horror novella that follows a Canadian archaeologist as she tries to uncover the mysterious disappearance of a civilization. Finally, I’m planning a massive road trip! Since my paranormal podcast, ParaGhoul Paranormal, focuses on featuring paranormal and unexplained experiences in Saskatchewan, I hope to collect even more stories to turn them into a book eventually. This latter one likely won’t be published for a few years, but I enjoy sharing some of the stories on my podcast and blog along the way.

Follow K.D.: Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok

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