Not Just Another Ghost Story

I realize that there are as many ghost stories out there in the world as there are automobiles driving up and down our Interstate highways, but this is not just another ghost story. This begins just as any other normal everyday story starts. I've driven down this road on my way to work and other destinations more times then I could ever begin to count. As I've driven down this same road over and over I've had to pass by the same old house over and over as well. The first time I actually paid any attention to this house was about 6 years ago when it had a for rent sign stuck up in it's front yard. A friend of mine who lost his house to a house fire was looking for a place for he and his family to live in. I was helping him look, and I noticed this house and told him about it, however he was more interested in a place closer to work, and this was probably just as well for him. After that I never really paid a whole lot of attention to this house until just recently.

This house is not by any means out by itself in the middle of nowhere. This house is located in a developed area with occupied neighboring houses on both sides of it, and a fire department with an active community center directly across the road from it. The road that this house sits off of is a two lane asphalt highway that supports a fair amount of day to day traffic. Most people drive right by this house and don't pay anymore attention to it then the man on the moon. However for some reason every time I pass by this house my eyes are drawn upon it. I was starting to feel as though someone or something was looking back at me through the old curtains in the windows.

I finally decided to stop one day on my way home from work, and snap a couple of pictures of the house from it's front yard. The house had seen many years of neglect and the yard and property all around the house was very overgrown. There was ivy growing all over the yard, the house, and totally covered the front porch. There was branches and trees laying all over the property, and in the summer time it was so over grown that it was hard to even see the house from the road. It was just simply an empty old house that was going down hill fast. When I got the photographs home and looked at them, something just didn't look right in the windows, but at the time I just couldn't put my finger on it.

A short time ago I was driving by the old house, and I noticed an old man walking around the front of the house. So I couldn't resist stopping and talking to him. It turned out that he was just checking the house out as well. He was thinking about buying the house and fixing it back up to it's original beauty. He said that the lady who use to live there's daughter had since moved to the southern part of our state leaving the house behind to rot. That's really all I learned from him, except that the rear of the house had collapsed and caved completely in, which could really create a big challenge when it came to rebuilding time.

After this encounter I talked to a neighbor of mine, and this is where the ghostly part of this story finally begins. I wanted him to go back with me to the house to look around some more. After I explained to him exactly where the house was located at he quickly refused to go back there with me. I asked him why, and he simply said that the house was haunted. He said years ago when he was younger he and a friend mowed the grass for the old lady who lived there. The whole time while they mowed the grass they could sense and see out of the corner of their eyes a man watching them from the back of the house. When they finished mowing they told the old woman about someone watching them, and she told them that it must have been her husband.

They learned that many years ago the old woman's husband had committed suicide in the back portion of the house, which is where they saw someone watching them. The old lady has since passed away, and she died in the front portion of the house. I take it that her death was from natural causes. This old house has a lot of rich history behind it. It was a plantation house set up like a lot of old houses, and it was built with a parlor in the front of the house. In the early days of this house it was used as a jail with iron bars covering the windows. My neighbor also informed me that the house was built on top of an old grave yard, and that when the grass was mowed real short you could see the flat grave stones all over the property. He also said that the massive round stone on the side of the house was actually what was left of an old grave monument. There are also reports that on certain nights a light can be seen shinning out of an upstairs window in the house, and keep in mind that the electricity was cut off in this house many years ago. After hearing all of this I now believe that I was correct about the feeling of somebody watching me from behind the windows, and I also don't believe I'll be returning to that house ever again!