From: cooper@cos.com (Gary Cooper)
Subject: I didn't believe.....
Summary: until....
Organization: Corporation for Open Systems
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 02:34:07 GMT


one weekend spent at a farm owned by the family of a friend of mine.

I went to high school with Paul (this was about 1982 or '3), and had
always been something of a gun nut - so paul and I were a perfect match.
You see, paul's family owned a lot of properties, one of which is a small
farm about 20 miles south of Winchester VA, in the beautiful Shenendoah
valley.

The farm is in a clearing on a large wooded property, and the clearing
is perfect for shooting (don't email about being an evil animal "murderer",
I've shot thousands of rounds of ammo through every kind of weapon and I
never killed anything :>), and many weekends were spent there bruising
our shoulders and eardrums with high caliber weaponry.

The house itself is very beautiful, and was originally an "Indian Fort"
in the mid 18th century.  It has since been built up, with the addition
of several rooms and a second floor.  In fact, the original surveyor of
the property was a man named Thomas Jefferson - I imagine that he slept
in the same little 10' X 30' foot fort that I have.

The family has long known that "something" is a bit odd about the 
property, and that it is, in fact, haunted.  They have, or at least
had, a list of "rules" to obey in the house - one of which is "leave
all of the doors open at least a crack".  It would seem that closed
doors make "him" unhappy, and often result in slammed doors.

Being a young, arrogant 16 year old, I, of course, believed not a bit
of this supersticious rot.  Those in the know just kind of nodded and
smiled, as if to say " say what you want, coop, you'll learn".

Paul spends most every weekend up at the farm, and on one of those
weekends, I tagged along.  We had a grand ol' time shooting up lots
of milk jugs and paper targets, headed into town for some KFC and a
few beers (thankfully, paul was 18 and this was before they stupidly
upped the age) to wash the chicken down.  We brought the foodstuff
back to the house and settled down  - eating and talking (mainly
about the AMAZING crop of freshmen cheerleaders we had that year!).

After a while, we settled in for the evening.  In one of the rooms
on the ground floor, there is a nice little room with two couches, a
piano, and a fire-place.  We both claimed a couch, paul started a fire
(he usually slept in a room he's claimed on the upper floor, but this
was in the middle of winter and the room with the fire place was a 
better choice), and we both kicked back on our couches and started
reading (probably some sort of SF).

After about an hour, I heard a noise - the sound of someone walking
across the floor upstairs.  I looked over to make sure that Paul was
still on his couch, and I saw him laying there - grinning at me!

Now, paul and I were supposed to be the only ones in the house, and
the house is miles into the middle of nowhere - so I was naturally
a bit concerned as to who/what was making the noise.  So I took
the plunge;

"What's that?"

Paul grinned again, "I don't know, the ghost I suppose", and went back
to reading.

I tried to start reading again, but the print on the page just didn't
want to register - WHAT THE HELL (or heaven, if you please) WAS THAT
NOISE!.  Couldn't have been a rat or squirrel - this was definatly
something that sounded like a man in boots.

I looked over at paul again - and he was watching me with that evil
shit-eating grin of his.  OK - I was being had....

"Paul, what was that noise?"

"I told you, it was probably the ghost"


After a while, paul fell asleep - something I don't think that I 
accomplished that night.  Afterward, I talked to other people in 
paul's family - and yes, they said, it was probably the ghost.
They've all had some sort of experience with this "thing" and
have even had a "psychic" in to "feel" the house - and the 
psychic got to the threshold and refused to cross.  "He" is
supposedly a man who was killed on a raid against the cabin that
happend when Virginia was still a British colony (I only hope that
it was one of my Cherokee anscestors who arrowed/hatcheted the sleep
wrecking son-of-a-bitch).

I have since had no encounters with "him" on any of my subsequent visits
to the cabin - but then again, I've always made sure there was a large
crowd visiting when I went.....  


-- 
gary cooper (not the dead one)

                             Luddites Unite!