More spookies: The man in the barn

Barn by Night, originally uploaded by jscene1.

Story found at The Shadowlands, a fantastic site with hundreds (if not thousands) of true stories submitted by readers. I’ve cleaned up the formatting, spelling and grammar somewhat (a perpetual problem at that site, unfortunately).

The Man in the Barn

My grandfather always told me and my cousins about experiences that he had had with ghosts. This first sparked my interest, and I became fascinated with ghosts and other paranormal activity. However, I never really wanted to see a ghost; I just liked hearing other peoples’ stories about strange happenings.

Our family lived in the city for most of my life, and when the decision was made to move to the country I couldn’t have been happier. We quickly moved onto an old farm. There was a ranch house and a huge barn. Both the barn and the ranch house had been rebuilt just 10 years earlier and were in great condition. The stalls in the barn were made of cedar and oak, and the aisles of the barn were made of beautiful interlocked brick. I loved it here and for the first time in my life I loved where I lived.

It wasn’t long before things started happening though. The first time that I felt something was when I was in the barn tacking up my horse and getting ready for a hack with a boy that I had met from down the road. Well, there was a cellar entrance just below the cross ties that had been bolted shut. The barn was built on the old foundation, so this cellar was from the original barn that had been built over 100 years ago. My horse started to freak out; he was rearing and trying to break free. I tried everything I could think of to calm him down, but he continued to rear. I finally got him off the cross ties and into his stall, which was at the other end of the aisle; he quickly calmed down. I decided to take out my mom’s horse instead. I put him on the same cross ties and started to tack him up. After about ten minutes he started to freak out like my horse had done before. I was a little rattled and put him back into his stall. He quickly calmed down. I decided to just wait for Brian, the boy that i was going riding with, and then he could help me tack up. He was much taller and stronger than I was, so I figured it would be easier for him to handle the horses if they freaked out again.

I sat on a tack box and ate a candy bar while I was waiting for him. I had been sitting there for about 5 minutes when I heard a loud moaning coming from the cellar. I knew it couldn’t be an animal that had become trapped in the cellar because there was no way of opening it. I turned off the radio and listened for it again. It started–louder this time– and the cellar entrance started to move slightly up and down. Next, I did something stupid — I began to ask if anyone was in there and needed my help. The voice just kept moaning and sounded like it was in pain. I ran up to the house to get my cousin who had been staying with us and she came down to listen. By the time we got back to the cellar door, the voice had stopped. Brian was just arriving and asked what we were doing. I told him what I had heard, and he told me that that last owners had heard the same thing when they were building the barn, but it had stopped once the barn was finished. We decided to cancel the ride and try to open the cellar. I was soon to find out that this was not the brightest thing to do. We spent the better half of our day getting the cellar door open and sent Brian in to see what was in there.

The only thing that we found was an old book, and a table with three chairs around it. The weirdest thing, though, was the table and chairs had no dust on them and the book was opened like someone had been reading it. There were also footprints in the dirt and they seemed fresh. We decided that it would be a good idea to bolt up the cellar again and leave it alone. Whatever was down there was gone now.

That night Brian and his friend stayed the night. We stayed up until about 2 a.m., and I decided to go to bed. I woke up at about 6 a.m. to feed my rats and then go back to sleep. It was mid-summer, so when I woke up it was very bright in my room. I looked at my clock and then got up to feed them. When I returned I went to bed and went to turn off my light. When I rolled back over to go to sleep, I saw the face of a man looking straight at me. He looked like he was upset about something. I screamed and pulled the covers over my head. Brian and his friend had heard me, and ran into my room. The man wasn’t there anymore, and I didn’t mention anything about it because I didn’t think that they would believe me. I just went back to sleep and didn’t see anything for a couple of weeks.

In September, things started happening again. It was always the same man that I had seen a couple of weeks before. I was lying one the couch with Brian (who was now my boyfriend) and we both heard a woman’s voice. When we looked back to see who was calling us, something cold and clammy pushed our heads down and I felt paralyzed. I couldn’t move and it felt like something was sitting on my chest. I was lying down and I felt something walk through me, starting at my head and ending at my feet. It felt like cold pins and needles as it went through me; then it just disappeared and I could move again. I talked to Brian about it and he felt the same thing.

Since that I have not felt the ghost (who we have named Fred), but I see him every night. He wanders around the house and interacts with it like it’s a different house. My parents have not seen him, but Brian and my cousin have. We think that it may have something to do with the cellar. That is why the horses freaked out when they were made to stand over the cellar door. We are planning on having the house blessed, and hope that that will stop it. We have tried talking to him and asking what he wants, but he will not talk back; on the rare occasion that he does, we can not understand him. He still scares me and I end up at Brian’s house scared out of my mind in the middle of the night at least once a week.