I've met a few ghosts over the years. This was the first.
When I was a kid, we lived in a haunted house. Built in the 1790’s, just beyond the old pre-Revolutionary War treaty line in New York State, who knows what violent thing happened there?
When we moved in, I was in second grade. The people who sold it to us told a long story about an Indian massacre. They even showed us a floor board with a big chip out of it that had “been hit by a tomahawk.” They explained the ghost made a lot of noise, like someone running through the rooms. My father, who was in sales, said it was the “worst sales pitch he’d ever heard.”
Daddy traveled a lot. This left my Mother and me alone in an old, creaky house way out in the country. We had a neighbor up the hill, and a dairy farm across the road, but nobody was close. We had a mid-sized dog, Jerry, who functioned as a good dog should. If he barked, guaranteed, someone was either coming up our long, curving driveway or walking along the road. Sometimes, hearing his alarm, we’d look out, and see a tramp with his bundle heading East on Rt. 20.
I remember the first time our ghost showed up. At bedtime every evening, the light was on in hallway and my door was open, because I when I was small I was seriously scared of the dark.
This particular night, a noise began downstairs, as if someone in heavy boots was pacing back and forth in the living room. I knew Daddy was away, so I couldn’t imagine who it could be. I lay frozen and listened, my hair standing on end, while Jerry dog barked like crazy in the cellar.
My mother couldn’t imagine, either, because next I saw there she stood, in her pink baby doll nightie, carrying the shotgun which resided under their bed. She quickly stuffed shells, and braced herself with one foot against the wall, pointing the big gun downward. The heavy steps continued, a steady thumping round and round.
“Who’s there?” she shouted. “Who’s there?”
At the sound of her voice, there was a pause, as if the intruder had heard her. Then, in the next instant, we heard him run from the living room and hop onto the stairs. Thud! Thud! Thud!
Boots were coming up the stairs, one after the other—fast!
I sat at the foot of my bed, staring at my mother in utter terror—I knew she was about to shoot an unseen somebody who was in our house and racing toward her up the stairs! I could hear his feet, the familiar stair creak and rebound of those 200 year old boards.
How she refrained from pulling the trigger—and blowing out the front door—I’ll never know. The mere sound of those upsurging steps nearly popped my heart through my skinny chest.
Of course, no one arrived on the landing. The sound stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The stairwell, which I looked down when she dragged me out to see was empty. We both went downstairs, she still carrying her loaded shotgun. We turned on every light in the house. We let out the dog, who simply seemed glad to see us. He ran around the house a bit, but returned to us quickly. Clearly, there was no one.
After a couple of years, we got fairly used to this thumping specter, although I have to say, there was always a horrible cold feeling which my Mother experienced, too. It didn’t happen often—perhaps every four months—and after a while, we referred to this as our “walking ghost.” For a time my father thought we were nuts, until the night we had one of these walk-a-thons while he was home. After his first experience—my father at 6 feet plus shotgun was an impressive sight—-he, too believed.
As many times as it happened, though, I can’t say I ever felt at ease. There was always an overwhelming feeling of dread that accompanied the sound of those heavy, pacing feet. Maybe the Indians did get into the house and kill someone back in the old days, but we could never confirm it.
The Wholly Book of Exodus is humorous adult literature that features adult language, situations and content. It is the companion book of Jay Dubya's The Wholly Book of Genesis that satires the entire first book of the Bible.
The Wholly Book
