Nightmare in Alief

Irvine, California. The city I grew up in. After what I experienced I wish I had stayed there, but before I get to that, let me tell you the story from the beginning. My name is Cameron Wilkinson. I moved my wife, Sharon, and two sons; Daniel, aged 6, and Hunter, aged 12, to Houston from an affluent neighborhood.

The reason?

I'm a manager for a real estate company and I got moved to a building in Houston, and I wanted to move my family closer to my job. Unfortunately, the only place that was convenient for me was the Alief area southwest of downtown. If you don't know, Alief has a horrible reputation of crime and gangs.

However, I trusted my kids to not be influenced by all that because my wife and I raised them well. After spending a week at a local hotel near downtown, I finally found a house in Alief that I was interested in.

The house, if I could say so my self, was really inexpensive. When I asked the seller of the house why the house was so cheap, she told me back in 1996, the house was a site of the brutal murder of an entire family and the case remained unsolved. Now, normally that would sway potential buyers from purchasing the house, but I myself wasn't bothered. The way I see it, that was the past. Why should I let that keep me from such a good deal? I purchased the house and I never told my family the house's secret, so they wouldn't be afraid.

After some time was spent unpacking and arranging the house, we were greeted by the neighbors. Now, despite what I expected, the people in our neighborhood were really friendly and gave us homemade Mexican food, which our family enjoyed. I enrolled the kids to school and enjoyed the 7 minute drive to work. However, I was cautious of certain neighborhoods that I was told had gang and drug problems. After everything was settled and done, I figured we would enjoy living here. However, I soon learned that I was wrong...

My wife told me, after maybe two weeks of living here, that she was extremely uncomfortable being alone in the house, while I was at work and the kids were at school. She told me she had felt like someone was watching her and would hear children laughing in certain parts of the house; Daniel's room in particular. She said she would hear muffled screaming and see shadowy figures from the corner of her eye. It would freak her out so much that she would just leave the house for a few hours.

Since I never really been home alone, I never really heard or seen anything. However, the only thing out of the ordinary that I noticed was that Daniel was always locked away in his room, but Hunter told me he never noticed anything odd with the house. I told Sharon that maybe it's just her imagination, since she hasn't slept much due to her sleeping problem. After some time, she reluctantly agreed it was that and made a doctor's appointment to up the dosage on her sleeping pills. After that we just cuddled up in bed and watched the television.

Daniel woke me up at 3 in the morning and asked me if his new friend can sleep over. Puzzled at the time, I asked him who his friend was and he said his friend Luis. Convinced that Luis was just an imaginary friend, I told him yes. Daniel then casually walked to his room and I went back to sleep. Before I even feel asleep, I heard through the thin walls Daniel talking, as if carrying a conversation.

Then, to my surprise, I heard another child's voice. I got up, went to Daniel's room, and asked where Luis was. When he told me Luis was right next to him, I got irritated, but I just assumed Daniel made up another voice for his imaginary friend. I told him to go to sleep and I walked back to my room and put my head back on the pillow. I heard Daniel laughing, followed by another child's laughter. However, it was strange. It echoed throughout my room, but Sharon didn't seem to hear it as her sleep went undisturbed. I convinced myself it was just Daniel and I drifted off to sleep. The dream I had afterwards was really creepy...

Everything was different. I was in my house, but the furniture, curtains, and just the way the house was arranged was different. I was in what appeared to be Daniel's room, but of course the arrangement was different. After maybe 2 minutes, I realized I was in a lucid dream; I was able to control my actions. I walked out of the room and into the hallway and what I saw disturbed me: I saw a severed arm, and based on the size, it belonged to a small child.

I followed the trail of blood to a room that we currently used as a game room and saw three bodies. I realized the severed arm belonged to a little girl, who looked to be around 8 years old. She was stripped naked, except for underwear.

On her chest and stomach were what looked to be more than thirty stab wounds, with her intestines pulled out. Another body belonged to a man who appeared to be in his late 30s. He too had multiple stab wounds and his throat was slit deeply; there was still blood squirting out of the wound. The final body had on a distinctive black shirt with white stripes. However, you could barely tell it was white due to all the blood. There was a Jack-O-Lantern placed on his head, and when I removed it, I discovered there was no head. The poor man had been decapitated, but upon looking at the body, his cause of death was the multiple stab wounds in his heart area. By now I was extremely frightened.

I walked to the kitchen where I saw a woman, presumably the mother, with her throat cut and still coughing. I could tell she was trying to speak, but she couldn't. After a few seconds, she finally slumped to the floor and died, and I ran to the back door but it wouldn't open. I looked out the window and saw a boy, maybe around 10 or 11 years old, hanging from a tree. His insides were spilled out and it scared me even more.

I tried running to the front door and that's when I ran into a man. He looked to be in his early twenties and he was wearing a white shirt although it was covered in blood. He said to me "Luis just run, I'll try my best to hold him off!" In my confused and frightened state, I didn't take any thought on what he said and ran to the master restroom where there was a window. As I was going, I looked back just in time to see the man fight the attacker. I also noticed that all the phone lines were cut. The man knocked the attacker down and ran towards me. As he got closer, he suddenly fell to the ground dead. That's when I saw the attacker had thrown a knife, and it lodged itself into the back of the man's head. I ran to the restroom and looked in the mirror.

I wasn't me, I looked to be a 6 or 7 year old boy. Now it all made sense; in the dream I was Luis. That's why the man called me that. But then I remembered what happened before I fell asleep, with my son Daniel talking to somebody named Luis. Now it was clear, Luis is a ghost, and if Luis is a ghost...that means this dream isn't a dream; it's what happened to the family that was murdered here back in 1996.

I heard noises and I hid in the closet in the restroom. I noticed a photo album hidden away in some cracks in the wall. Just as I saw it, a dark figure with a knife burst in. In my fear and panic I didn't get a good look at the killer, but I screamed as he got closer, praying to God I'd wake up. I saw the killer raise his huge knife and lunged it at me, and before it hit me, I woke up.

After I woke up, I was extremely distraught. I got up and dressed for work, I didn't talk to Sharon or the kids as they went to school. Sharon noticed something was wrong and when she asked, I just told her I had a bad dream and walked out the door.

Throughout work, I kept replaying the dream in my mind. It felt so real, I seriously felt like I was there. The fear and panic felt so real, but I couldn't focus on work so I went home early. My wife was gone and the kids were at school, so it was just me. I decided to head to the closet in the restroom. I checked where I hid in the dream and noticed the same crack. I checked it and I found an old dusty family album.

After flipping through it, I noticed the family looked just like the ones in the dream. That's when I saw the picture that stood out the most. It was the family in the dream. They were all wearing the same clothing as in the dream. Curious, I checked the back of the photo and there was a date. The day said October 31, 1996. I figured that was the day of the murders, due to the Jack-O-Lantern on one of the victim's head. I couldn't believe it.

I witnessed, in my dream, the horrors that this poor family endured. I started crying heavily and when I looked up, I saw the 20ish year old man that fought off the killer in the dream. He looked at me with a sad expression on his face and vanished. I couldn't handle living here in this house anymore. I decided that I'm going to move my family out of this house.

Days after the dream, we had already left the house. My wife actually believed what I told her and helped me cope. I have been going to therapy for experiencing symptoms seen in those suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I am also on suicide watch, because my family has thwarted not one, not two, but six suicide attempts from the pain caused by the whole experience in Alief. My children have been placed with their grandparents, due to my sanity being questioned by CPS, and it's just hurting me even more.

I moved back to Irvine in my old office building, but it's been hard to work nowadays. Last I heard of the house, it's back on the market and while I wont tell you the exact address, I will tell you this. If you are in Alief and you are thinking of purchasing a house on Cliffgate Drive that's slightly grayish and brown in color and has a distinctive 4 circle pattern in the front, I advise you to look elsewhere. The spirits in that house have not rested and will show anyone who hears about the house's history and remains ignorant, what they saw and felt that day...