This story a part of the True Ghost Stories page on Obiwan's UFO-Free Paranormal Page. Please do not copy or distribute without permission from Obiwan and/or the original author!

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.

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Michael (Mike) C. Dean