Post #262625 by Cammo on Tue, Oct 24, 2006 9:42 PM

Sit back kids. This is a long post. Turn the lights down, way down. Oops! First get a glass of your favorite, and one for the middle section of the story, cause you’re gonna need it this time for real.

The Haunted Farmhouse
Part 5

Way way later, years later when we had talked over the farmhouse stories and pieced together what had seemed to happen, I got really interested in True Ghost Story books. There’s a great one, let me get it down off the shelf – it’s called;

“I Never Believed in Ghosts Until…” by the Editors of USA Weekend, it’s assembled from their annual poll of reader’s true ghost stories. They have all kinds of rules to submitting a true story, like it must be backed up and witnessed by at least 2 people not related to you, etc. It’s an interesting book, to say the least. Scary as heck. Sincere. Many of the experiences were very similar to what we went through.

Another good one is –

“The Ghost Book” by Charles Lindley, Viscount Halifax, from 1936. This is the original classic true ghost story volume. Very very scary. A great Halloween read. He established the same rules as the USA book; the ghost must be witnessed by more than one person, names signed, dates given…

But the point is, in neither book, or any other I’ve ever read, did anything nearly as violent happen as what happened that night at the farmhouse. It was off the scale in destruction. I still can’t believe it happened, but Mark and Wendy told me about it and refused to say anything again, it was just too frightening to discuss.

That had found a new place to live that day, and had been making plans to move very soon. They really wanted to get out of that farmhouse, the new apartment was nice and close to work. Lots of kids in the area. Close to grandma, even. And cheap, but not too cheap, y’know?

Rod had acquired a dog. A fully grown Afghan, one of those tall skinny dogs that look like Greyhounds but has long hair. Rod had finally left for parts unknown, but the dog had stayed. It was always outside next to the garage. It was really mild mannered, just laying around all day and chasing a few rabbits for exercise. Three square meals.

That friggin dog had a great life.

It was a cold clear night. Mark and Wendy were snuggled in bed up on the second floor. Sara was in her room next door. Everybody had down covers over them, all fluffed up and toasty warm. Down covers are a necessity in a farmhouse, it can dang cold. And they make for a pretty fun bed, y’know?

Wendy woke up suddenly. She had been asleep one second and fully awake the next. She sat up in bed, listening. What had she heard? Somebody walking around downstairs, footsteps shuffling around, something moving. She felt it in her stomach at the same time, something was wrong. It was a burglar. It must be, she could hear it distinctly.

“MARK! Wake up!” she hissed.
He rolled over and decided to snore some more.
“Mark! I’m not kidding!” She shook him awake, “There’s a burglar downstairs!”
She listened again, the noise had stopped. Had the burglar heard them?
“There’s nobody downstairs.” Mark sniffed.
“There IS!” Wendy turned around, put her feet up against him and pushed him to the edge.
“Hey!”
“Get up! Get down there! Our house is being burglarized! Somebody’s going to steal stuff an kill us!”

Mark was awake now too. They both listened, but there was no sound.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
They both listened again. Wendy shoved him some more, and his legs swung out onto the floor.
“Okay, okay.” He stood up, totally naked. It was cold.
“Where’s my shirt?”
“Who cares! Get a weapon and defend us!”
Mark looked around the room. The full moon outside gave him a little light, but he already knew what was in the room. Every wall was a book shelf, made from stacking wood slats on top of bricks, and fixed to the wall with little cup hooks. Hundreds of books.
“We don’t have a weapon, what am I supposed to do, throw the Oxford Unabridged at him?”
“Do something!”
Mark took a few steps. The hall outside looked down on the living room area if you leaned over a bit. Nobody seemed to be down there. A broom was leaning against the wall, Mark picked it up. He put the whisk part down by his privates, and held the stick out like a sword. It looked stupid. Even half asleep, he knew it looked stupid. He took a few steps to the stairway. Wendy’s head appeared from the doorway behind, watching him. Cripes, it was cold!

They heard the screen door opening downstairs. Somebody was leaving the house. Both of them ran back into the bedroom and looked outside. A glassed-in porch projected from the house below and to the left of them, they could see it clearly in the moonlight, it’s flimsy aluminum glass-and-screen door opening right underneath them. Nobody had come out though.

The door closed just like somebody was there closing it. The Afghan dog was about 15 feet away, chained to a tree next to the garage. He was awake too, standing up at he end of his chain, watching the door.

He started to growl, then bark loudly. He never barked, not even at strangers.

The door opened again, slowly. Creeeeeaaaak. The dog went crazy. It was barking viciously, pulling at the chain, trying to get at the thing opening the door. The dog was howling, screaming now, people probably heard it miles away. Mark and Wendy were holding onto each other, shaking with fear. The door closed again.

Wham!

Then it opened, slowly, but the dog was barking too loud for them to hear it open now.

Slam. It closed.

Wendy managed to look up at the tree the dog was tied to. The leaves weren’t moving. There was no wind.

The door opened this time with a jerk, like it was being kicked open. Bam! It hit the side of the porch.

Then BAM it slammed closed.

The dog had suddenly stopped barking. Now it went back to hide behind the tree, whimpering. It was totally silent outside except for the door.

The door opened so hard it seemed somebody had hit it with a baseball bat. BAM! Wendy could hear the glass in the frame cracking slightly this time. Then it closed, just as fast, Crash! Some of its glass split more, a big crack ran around the edges now.

Again, pause, and SLAM! All the glass shattered this time, they could see the splinters falling down the porch steps.

It opened again, crashing against the side of the porch. It slammed so hard, Wendy could feel it hit the house, the floor vibrating slightly each time. Even the porch glass was cracking now.

SLAM! It closed again. The dog was whining in fear, it sounded sickening. All the glass in the porch was cracking, they could see and feel the whole frame shaking each time it opened and closed. BAM! BAM! BAM!

It was going so fast now it was hard to follow, the violence was incredible. The whole house shook. Glass was falling all over. Every single window downstairs had cracked now, the ones closest to the door had been completely shattered, but still it went on, BAM! CRASH! BAM! More glass smashed, the grass outside was filled with big cracked pieces of it shining in pools of moonlight.

It went on, smashing every window in the porch, opening, closing like it had a life of its own. The door from the fifth ring of hell. Mark and Wendy were hanging into each other so hard it hurt. Mark was shaking in spasms, from cold and fright. Still, the door kept smashing, the house jerking each time.

Then it stopped. Everybody waited to see if it was going to start again, or if they heard footsteps below, footsteps coming up the stairs. No, nothing. They listened more, nobody moved.

Then the dog walked out from behind the tree and howled, a long, thin, quiet howl with its head pointing right at the moon.

Wooooooooooouuuuuw. Wuu, wuuu, WOOOOOOOOooooouuw.

It was then they remembered to take a breath.

I won’t tell you what they said next, it ain’t fit to print, but they checked on Sara (still asleep, hadn’t heard a thing), finally went to bed and got to sleep hours later.

In the morning they both went downstairs together. It was all real. This wasn’t like the first Star Trek episode where nothing is real to Captain Pike. Nope. Glass was everywhere, they couldn’t walk near the windows. It took days to clean up, and a lot of money. Almost every window downstairs had been cracked, every window in the porch was shattered and gone. They stood around, having a real hard time believing it had happened. Wendy kept pointing out that there was no wind that night.

Mark went over to the screen door. It was bent at every edge, twisted so badly it couldn’t close correctly anymore.

“That isn’t the point, Wendy,” he said, “watch.” And he closed the door, pushing it as hard as he could with his hand. The whole door was flimsy, though, without any glass in it there was too much wind resistance and too little weight for it to even move fast. The door just swung a few feet, stopped, and hung there, swaying in the slight breeze. It was so light, it would just move a few feet and stop. No matter how hard it was pushed.

It couldn’t slam. It wasn’t a big oaken door, just a thin aluminum frame on light hinges. It was impossible to slam that door closed.

A week to get the windows back, and they just told everyone there had been a storm. Sara was moved into their room most nights. I had no idea anything had happened, nobody did. When they had a final going-away party two weeks later it was a lot of fun. They were happy to get away for their own reasons, we were all happy to celebrate the good times we had over the last three years. A lot of people came to the party, it lasted late.

Lottsa fun.

It was what happened after the party, late that night, that wasn’t any fun at all. I think it was the last strange thing that happened in the farmhouse. It was the only time the ghost attacked anybody directly.

I know, ‘cause it happened to me.