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By the Light of the Moon; © 2010 by etva
Beware the Demon Dog; © 2010 by etva
It's that time of year, when tales of ghosts and goblins keep sweet, little children awake at night. I personally feel that no childhood is complete without a night of spooky stories, and the joy of being scared silly.
I still remember my very first fright night, which took place during a sleepover with a childhood friend. After a relatively tame ghost story, her father snuck outside to tap on the windows. Our screams could be heard for miles, and I couldn't sleep in the dark for a month!
My own sons are not so easily frightened, so last year, I decided they were old enough to hear about our real ghost, who still resides not so very far away.
When I was a little girl, my brother and I would wander around our farm looking for adventure. One day, we discovered a dilapidated house just beyond our woods, where an old lady lived with her two large dogs. Each day, we’d hide behind a row of box bushes and spy on her, and we couldn’t help but notice that she was always alone. No one ever came to visit her.
When we asked our parents about her, they explained that she was the last living member of her family, and preferred a solitary existence. They warned us to stay away and not disturb her privacy, but we were young and curious and determined to keep up our secret vigil.
After many months, we arrived one day to the sounds of wild howling coming from inside the house. For a moment we were paralyzed with fear. Then we took off down the path, back to the safety of our front yard.
But children are resilient, and so we bravely returned the next day to face our fears. The dogs were still howling, and when they caught a glimpse of us, they started jumping against the window.
I think that was the first and last time I ever ran a 2-minute mile.
That night, my brother and I were plagued with nightmares, and we finally confessed our sin to our parents. Several nights later, we overheard them whispering in the kitchen, and only then did we discover the true horror of our experience.
It turns out, the old lady had died, but no one knew, and her corpse lay in the house for many nights, with her two big, dogs howling their distress. We never actually saw her decomposing body, but our imaginations created a vivid picture of the gory scene.
Weeks passed, but the old lady’s house remained empty, and my brother and I soon decided that we should stop by, just to prove we were brave enough. When we reached the edge of her property, we peered over the box bushes. All was quiet, so we took a step forward, and then a few more, and before we knew it, we were at the front door.
Now in those days, everyone in our village knew everyone else, and nobody ever locked their doors, so it came as no surprise, when the door easily swung open, though neither of us quite remembers turning the handle. We stepped inside and were shocked to find all the furniture completely shredded. Tables were knocked over and broken glass lay on the floor. We carefully stepped around the mess and peered into the kitchen.
Just then, we heard a noise upstairs.
Now I’m convinced that we would have gone upstairs to investigate, but suddenly the front door slammed shut. About the same time, a branch hit the kitchen window, and the pane shattered.
The next thing I remember is my brother and I racing through the yard away from the old lady’s house, but just as we reached the box bushes, we heard dogs growling. We glanced into the woods, and saw two dogs standing next to a fence – a fence surrounding a graveyard; a graveyard with a fresh grave.
I don’t remember how we got home, but it wasn’t long before rumors of ghosts spread through our little village. People complained of howling during the night, and even the huntsmen refused to use the trail that passed by the house, because their horses became skittish and consistently tried to bolt away.
Over the years, my brother and I frequently passed by the house, but we never went alone, and almost always, you could hear dogs howling somewhere close by. As teenagers, we taunted our friends with tales of ghost sightings, and dared them to enter the house, which by now, had caved in upon itself, creating eerie shadows that shifted when the wind blew.
The stories grew to mythical proportions, when several teenaged boys vanished, and it was whispered that they were camping near the ghost house. No trace of them was ever found, and it’s said that their restless spirits can still be seen haunting what remains of the old house.
Eventually, the children in our village grew up, and the stories surrounding the property were forgotten, until last year when I shared it with a new generation. They assured me, that it wasn’t at all scary, but for some reason, not one of them wanted to go for a walk in the woods that night.
