Ghost

First of my apologies this story is a bit long, but I wanted to properly tell it. So, consider yourself warned. This is basically a story of three nosey teenagers trespassing where they don’t belong. It is also a story of my own personal experience on something I saw with my own eyes and cannot properly explain. The story is true and happened many years ago. I hope you enjoy it and make it to the end.This story took place in 1989 or 1990. My family recently moved to southern Indiana, and we settled in a little town a few miles outside of Corydon called Central. For those of you that don’t know, this area is out in the country. It was my freshmen year in a new high school; however, I eventually met a couple of buddies who both lived somewhat close to me.One morning in class one of my friends talked about this “Old farmer” who lived not to far from his place outside of a little town called Mauckport. Evidently this old farmer passed away some months back and there did not seem to be anyone around his property. Urban/country legend was that this old farmer had his own catfish pond on his property that he stocked. The fish in this little pond were reportedly HUGE due to him not letting anyone fish on his property except him… That was all we needed to hear, all of us loved fishing and we made plans to stay at my friend’s place that weekend and go after these fish.The weekend arrived and the three of us found ourselves at the crack of dawn standing Infront of an old shabby looking farmhouse situated in the middle of an overgrown field. It was however by no means a working farm. The house did appear vacant and there were no vehicles around. Behind the house was the legendary pond, we immediately set to work trying to catch these gigantic fish. The entire time we fished the dark old house seemed to loom in the background. We quietly spoke among ourselves wondering what happened to the old farmer. My friend said all I know is one evening he saw an ambulance out front, a few days later his grandmother told him the old fella passed away, evidently, he was very elderly and lived by himself due to being widower. As the hours passed without even a nibble it became obvious the only thing biting were the bugs that swarmed us, the sun by that time was beating down on us making us sweaty and quite miserable. Soon boredom overtook us so, we decided to give up on our dreams of catching monster catfish. We packed our stuff and started to head back to my friend’s house.I was walking towards the road giving my friend hell (good naturedly) about his fanciful tale of trophy catfish and mysterious geriatric farmers when our other friend shouted out. Hey guys, the front door of this place is open, let’s check it out! We both looked back at him, then dumbly looked at each other. Being the young idiots, we truly were we nervously agreed dropped our fishing poles and decided to cautiously explore.What struck me as odd immediately upon entering the home was that was still fully furnished and looked lived in. The decor was dated in the 50’s thru 70’s era, dusty and very cluttered. The power was shut off to the house so the only light we had was whatever daylight made it thru the filthy curtains. Inside the house it was suffocatingly hot and stuffy. The house was filled with the stank of garbage, rot, mold, and nicotine. Upon entering the kitchen, we could hear a scurrying sound that we assumed was either roaches or mice. We found overflowing trashcans, as well as rotten food sitting on the messy counter tops. Dirty dishes filled the over full sink. There was the constant buzzing inside the house. This was due to the many flies trapped between the curtains and the windows. The atmosphere was very heavy and depressing, so much so I was feeling a bit sick to my stomach. Once we made our way into the living room we were met by a peculiar sight. The telephone was a typical old style rotary phone mounted on the wall. It had an extremely long cord. The receiver laid on the floor stretched to the middle of the room; it was dead. Surrounding the area around the receiver was what appeared to be rectangle shaped wrappers of paper backed plastic that was pulled apart, there was also bits of gauze and small hard plastic orange caps. An old grubby button up shirt also lay in the mess. The wrappers stood out because they seem to be the cleanest things in the house. I picked up one of the wrappers and looked at it in the ray of sunlight. I am certain whatever it contained was for medical purposes. We walked around the lower rooms and they were all pretty much the same, dust, extreme clutter, memories, and pictures of someone’s life. The house had two levels. We started to make out way up the old narrow wooden steps that creaked incredibly loud during our assent. The temperature upstairs was almost unbearably hot. All of us were drenched in sweat, the already rank smell of the house was now made more pungent by our own body odor. Being there was no windows in the stairwell we were in complete darkness fumbling and feeling our way up the stairs, we could barely see a dull glow of light shining thru the closed curtains on the upper level ahead. We made our way to the to of the steps and noticed three rooms.We made our way into one of the rooms. The lighting was very dim, as I made my way towards the curtain to let some light in, I was stepping on unknown items on the floor that crunched. I pulled open the curtains and we were immediately blinded by the light. As our eyes adjusted, we clearly saw we were in a bedroom. A room that looked like it was not slept in form many years. Dirty clothing was strung across the bed and across the floor in plies. The mattress was water stained and full of holes, as well as the ceiling. The floor was full of mice dropping and some sort of insect exoskeletons. I vividly recall a single framed black and white photo sitting on an old dusty nightstand of a young couple in an embrace. The man was in a military uniform with his hat jauntily placed on his head with a stoic expression. The woman with a feathery hat of her own smiled brightly holding a puppy between them.My buddy made his way to the next room. It was a small room/ large closet that seemed to be used as storage space. The walls had shelving that held many jars of various pickled fruits and vegetables all covered in grime. They floor space was packed with canning equipment, jars, pots, containers, and other utensils.We turned our attention to the last room and noticed the door to this room was closed. We opened the door and saw blackness. Our eyes now adjusted to the light could only see a few feet into the room. I once again carefully made my way to the window and opened the curtains, when the light came in, we were surprised at what we saw. This room yet dusty was immaculate. In the corner was a small bed, neatly made with stuffed animals. A wooden toy box sat at the foot of the bed full of old child’s toys. Little shoes and boots lined the wall next to the door. On the wall underneath the window was a small wooden desk and swivel chair. Written on the desk in a child’s handwriting was the name Loren in crayon. On the chest of drawers was a picture of a little boy in a lone ranger outfit standing next to a pony. I was suddenly overcome with a feeling that we REALLY need to leave. I turned to say the same to my friends when a tremendously loud crack blasted thru the silence, so much so that I thought it was a gunshot. We all literally jumped in fright. Both my friends immediately pointed to the wooden chair with looks of shock and fear on their faces. Time at this moment was in ultra-slow motion I remember my heart pounding in my chest so hard I was feeling the pressure in my ears. I glanced back just in time to see the small swivel chair quickly rotate with so much force it sent the desk crashing into the wall. We froze and stared at each other with mouths open in stupid disbelief. Suddenly my friend bolted for the door, this move triggered a full-on flight response in the other two of us. The only thought I had in my mind at that second was I would not be last one in line! I would run up and over my friends if they got in the way. In fact, I am pretty sure I rode one of them halfway down the stairs as he tripped in our panic sprint for the front door.The funny thing afterwards in the days that followed is we tried to convince each other we did not see what we did. Instead, we accused each other of pulling off a trick making the chair do that. It then morphed into teenage male bravado making fun of the others masculinity during our mad sprint for the door. Deep down we knew that was no trick, there is no faking the fear we saw in each other’s eyes that day. That happened…To this day I still can’t explain how.I moved again about a year later and eventually lost contact with the two individuals, such as life. I did learn however once the old farmer passed away nobody claimed his estate. From what I understand the State took it over. A company eventually came out to sell/auction off the useful items and disposed of the rest. I am not aware what became of the property or the house. I do know the state became owners of three fishing poles and a tackle box that day. We left them behind in our haste and had no intentions on going back to get them.