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<h2>ghost.house</h2>
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   This story took place in Athens,  Texas  while  I  was  in  high-
   school.   My  best friend's folks had a farm outside of town that
   had a livable house on it. The orginal owners had built the house
   back  in the 1920's or before. However, it was in good condition,
   and a man and his family had lived there recently.  The  man  had
   run  the  farm,  but  had moved back to Montana when his youngest
   child moved out of the house. So the house was not lived in,  but
   not abandoned.
 
   This was in the early 1950's, and  the  county  had  been  losing
   population  since  World War I. A general steady migration to the
   city -- mostly to Dallas. The area was primarily agricultural.  A
   lot of land had lain fallow for a number of years, and there were
   a lot of grown up farms. Some had been unused for fifty years and
   were  covered  with  almost  the  equivalent of a virgin stand of
   timber.
 
   My friend's family farm was Five hundred acres  or  so,  and  was
   surrounded  on  three  sides  by  a very large farm that had been
   unused in this century. It had belonged to a man named English so
   it  was  called the "English" woods. It was two or three thousand
   acres in size and was 100% covered with dense woods.   The  heirs
   probably didn't want to sell it because land was very cheap there
   then, and it was covered with dense woods making it even cheaper.
   This  is  because  it  would have to be cleared to be useful as a
   farm or ranch, and that would probably not be worth it due to the
   low  land  values  at  the  time (It is mostly at the bottom of a
   resorvoir now).
 
   The house on the farm was built with a living room all across the
   front  of  the  house,  and  the front of the house faced West. A
   dining room was in the center of the house. It  was  accessed  by
   French  Doors  that  were on the East side of the Living Room and
   exactly in the center of the East wall. On the North side of  the
   Dinning  room was the kitchen and breakfast area. Accessed to the
   Dinning room by a door. On the South side  of  the  Dinning  Room
   were the three bedrooms and the bath room accessed by a door from
   the Dining room and a door from the Living Room that was  on  the
   left of the French doors.
 
   The county was about 20%  Black  in  population,  and  still  is.
   Several  Black  people  worked  on  the  farm,  and the house was
   usually unlocked during the day so  that  they  could  eat  lunch
   inside  or  get  out  of the rain if need be. Most of them didn't
   have their own transportation, so  if  someone  was  working  out
   there  we drove out there after school and took them home. All my
   little gang played football, so during the season we might  be  a
   little  late.  One  afternoon we got out there after dark, and it
   was raining hard. The man that had been  working  out  there  was
   standing  out in the rain away from the house. My friend told him
   he should have been in the house  or  at  least  on  the  covered
   porch. "No suh, I'd rather not be near the house after dark." was
   the reply.  This was the first time that this  came  up  in  this
   way.  And  we  quizzed  the  man all the way back to town. All we
   could get out of him was that some very evil person had  died  in
   the  house  long  ago  and no Black person would go near it after
   dark. This was new to my friend and his family.
 
   After we related the story  to  my  friend's  family  his  mother
   remembered  something that the man that had lived there had said.
   She had asked him once if  everything  was  OK  with  the  house.
   Meaning  is  there  any  repairs  that needed doing, painting, or
   something like that.  He had said, "He has been prowling  around,
   but  I'm  not  afraid  of  him."  She  thought he had referred to
   something that he had told her husband about a  poacher,  rusler,
   or tramp or something like that, and the man was a tad strange so
   she promply forgot it. He had been a solo sheep-herder in Montana
   for  a  number  of  years,  and  that  can  get you to talking to
   yourself.
 
   During these years, as a group of four  or  five,  we  hunted  at
   night  and camped out overnight in this place. We never did sleep
   in the house until the hired man headed back to Montana.  So  one
   winter  weekend we decided to go out there and stay in the house.
   (This group was kind of centered around our Explorer Scout Post).
   So  about  10pm we all begin to settle down after trying to scare
   each other as boys will do, and most of us were not taking  these
   attempts seriously.  We were all in the Living Room, which was in
   the front, as described above.  We were all in sleeping bags, and
   all  had flashlights. There was a lot of noise in the attic. This
   was normal, as there were rats and a lot of tin-cans in the attic
   (we checked this out before going to sleep).
 
   After about an hour of  screwing  around  trying  to  scare  each
   other,  most  drifted off to sleep. Then the handle on the French
   Doors (see above) distinctly turned and made enough noise to wake
   most  of  us  up. Everyone who was then awake, suspecting someone
   trying to scare us, turned our  flashlights  on  the  doors.  The
   doors proceeded to open to reveal - Nothing.  We checked everyone
   to see who was missing - no one. Every one was not  convinced  it
   wasn't a trick, but we were at a loss to explain it.  The handles
   had to open for the doors to open. So there was no way  that  the
   doors could blow open even if there was wind.
 
   An uneasy bunch of boys then tried to  go  back  to  sleep,  with
   their  flashlights  handy.  After some time the bunch of boys was
   back in a fitfull sleeping state.
 
   Then (hard to remember exactly) there was  a  series  of  events.
   First  the  noises  in  the  attic  grew louder, and sounded like
   someone might be struggling around in  the  tin  cans.  The  next
   thing  to  happen  is  hard to describe. But my impression of the
   sound was that of a large dog running across  a  wood  floor  for
   several seconds. This sound came from the dining room which could
   hardly contain a large dog running except for one  step.  Then  a
   crashing sound into the French Doors, which then opened to reveal
   again - Nothing. Search and examination again  revealed  nothing.
   This  was about 3am in the morning. We all went back to town, and
   never stayed there again.
 
   This was witnessed by six or seven people. I can remember four of
   the people that were there, but I draw a blank after that. It has
   been more than fourty years ago. The old house,  if  it  was  not
   torn  down,  is  at  the bottom of a power plant reservoir now. I
   only know of where two of those people are now, but next  time  I
   talk  to  them  I  will bring this up and see if they remember it
   like me, or if they remember at all.
-- 
Michael (Mike) C. Dean


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