OK, here's yet another of my famous yawners...
This is a supposedly true story told by a former boss of mine. We were having a halloween party at my house, which is quite possibly one of the worlds best houses for halloween parties. To help set the mood and inspire people to come, we had been telling some of my co-workers about the few "strange but true" occurances around our house. So naturally, well into the night the party turned into a ghost story party. My recollection of this story is a little shakey as I was a little inebriated at the time. Well, more like flat out drunk. Fortunately, my younger brother wasn't, so he set me straight on some of the fine points I forgot when I first posted this.
One interesting note - my brother was at this camp many years later (unfortunately, he doesn't remember the name at the moment), when he was in the Boy Scouts. They were told under no circumstances were they allowed to go across the road toward the old barn. Anyone violating this rule would be immediately expelled from the camp, and sent home. This seemed like an unusually harsh punishment for a minor infraction, so they asked the staff why. The councilors replied that it was dangerous over there because the ground was very marshy. This seems highly unlikely - that's not the type of place one normally builds a barn...
One night during a full moon, he and a few companions decided it was light enough to take a hike. Some distance from the camp, they came across a large, dilapidated building. The building was a three story, three room building - most likely an old barn. They, of course just had to investigate. Fortunately my boss had had the forsight to bring along a flashlight.
Upon entering the first floor they discovered, well, nothing much. But they did notice that the floor was well-covered with a fine dust. Aside from a couple old broken down wooden tables, some old wooden chairs, and a few empty whisky-type barrels, the only thing they noticed was an open stairway leading to the second floor. It was a crude wooden stairway with very creeky, and missing, stairs. But when has that ever stopped a group of young guys? They proceeded to the second floor.
The second floor had even less occupying it that the first did. Just some empty tin cans, empty canning jars, and assorted debris. After poking around a few minutes, they looked for the access to the third floor. One thing they noticed was the second and third floors each had a large square hole in the floor, one under the other. This is typical in large barns, for hoists and for dropping hay to the first floor.
The third floor was obviously more of an attic or loft than a real floor. Leading up to it was a crude, and rather unsafe looking ladder. As they started heading for the ladder, one of the boys stopped, and said "wait a minute - I hear something. Something is up there!"
My boss listened for a minute, and decided he heard something too. But neither of them could here it well enough to try and determine what it was. "Probably just a little wind coming through the holes in the walls" my boss said. His friend replied that it sounded more like a small animal wimpering. Apparently neither believed what they told the other - they both admitted later that although they couldn't hear it clearly, it gave them the creeps.
They, of course, were not about to admit to each other that they were getting scared. So they started up the ladder, my boss's friend taking the lead. Suddenly, he let out a scream - and dropped the flashlight. There in the hatchway that the ladder passed through, was a huge pumpkin shaped head, about the size of a beach ball! In the instant he clung there paralyzed with fear, my boss saw that this "head" had huge eyes, a large oval for a mouth, and no other discernable features - except that it was transparent. He could see the moon shining through a hole in the roof behind the head. After a few seconds, his friend overcame his paralysis long enough to run backwards down the ladder and a few steps across the floor - far enough to fall through the afore-mentioned hole.
About that time, they simutaneously regained the use of their limbs, and fled back to the first floor. My boss said he doesn't think their feet even touched the stairs on the way down. There, they found his friend unconscious on the floor with his leg broken. They gathered him up, and fled the barn. After the got outside and a little ways away, they looked back at the barn. The top floor had a vented "window" much like many attics in older houses do, but much larger. They saw a vaguely human shaped glow in the "window", as though the apparition was watching them leave. Needless to say, they immediately "beat feet" back to camp!
The camp councilors, of course, didn't believe thier story. They thought the boy had been injured during horseplay, and they came up with this story to get out of trouble. Come morning, the councilors headed out to the building to see if they could figure out just what had happened.
There in the dust were clearly the boys' footprints. They followed them up to the second floor, and across the floor to the ladder. Their lay the flashlight, now dead. They then climbed up the ladder.
The attic was completely empty, except for a heavy coating of fine dust all over the floor, and some dried leaves and twigs here and about. But there in the dust right by the hatch were a pair of immense handprints - just as if someone huge had got down on their hands and knees to peer down to the floor below! Their were no other prints on the third floor, nor any at all in the building except the boys' and their own.
It was the last time my former boss ever went hiking at night.
