Cold Dark Night

The footsteps never went further than the kitchen. We would peek around the corner from the living room to see who was there, then Mike and Joe and I would just look at each other, laugh kind of sheepishly, and return to whatever it was we were doing before the unseen guest had opened the creaky back porch door, and the storm door from the mud room, and walked six steps across the linoleum floor and vanished. It was becoming a pretty regular occurrence.

Mike and I were buddies all through high school. He was the smart one, and I was the, well, I'm not sure what I was to Mike, but he took me under his wing the first day our family moved to our suburban upstate New York neighborhood, and made adjusting to my new high school and neighborhood fun and exciting. Now, three years later, we were out on our own, having some more fun and excitement. This time it's in our rented farm house in the country, with our new friend and roommate, Joe. We're beginning our first year of college. The three of us are renting bedrooms in this 150 year old, weather worn, two story farm house. The old house looks like a monument to time as it hunkers down on 148 acres of farm land, in the middle of corn fields and wooded hillsides. It's also 20 miles from the nearest nightlife. There's a farm house down the road about a mile to the south, and another up the hill a half mile or so. If anyone lived at either place, we never saw them.

Our old farmer landlord has moved out. He went to live with his son up North, a couple of hundred miles away. We have the whole place to ourselves. At least that's what we thought before the unseen visitor started making his presence known.

All three of us were pretty excited about being on our own for the first time in our lives. We enjoyed just hanging out in the living room drinking beer and eating pepperoncini peppers and getting acquainted. Sometimes we would go explore the old red barn and the storage sheds and outbuildings that were behind the house and next to the creepy overgrown pond that seemed to be home to a hundred or so fat noisy bullfrogs. We occasionally drove around to nearby towns looking for fun places to hang out. We found a couple of towns that offered a few beer bars with pool tables and pin ball machines. Having only three channels available on the TV, going to town to play pool and drink beer always seemed like a good idea.

Mike usually drove. He had a nice, but ugly, green Ford Falcon that his dad talked him into buying because it was so reliable. Joe drove a red Plymouth that he had hot-rodded up. With gas prices up over 35 cents a gallon, we didn't care much for driving that gas guzzler around. I had a Bultaco motorcycle that wasn't too good in the snow, so I bought a little Chevy Corvaire that seemed more appropriate. It was awesome. I think I had it two weeks before the transmission went out. It wasn't too big of a deal not having a car. Our class schedules usually were close enough so I could get a ride to and from school with Mike or Joe. When that didn't work out, I was able to walk a couple miles over to a main road that was pretty good for hitchhiking. Sometimes, however, the seven and a half miles to the campus became a long walk to school; especially on the cold and blowing snow days. I think I've mentally blocked out many of those daily mundane memories now.

That was way back in 1970 and 1971. I seem to just remember the more indelible moments now. I remember things like my two cats, Bronson and Harley. I named Bronson after a popular TV program by that name. Bronson would go for walks with me through the fields and would fetch sticks like a dog. Harley was a rescue cat some girl at school talked me into taking home. I originally named her Honda, but Mike and Joe said Bronson should have a Harley. So she became Harley. I don't think she minded though. She liked me enough to bring home opossums and leave them next to her food dish for me. At night the cats would both curl up together on the bed with me. I could hear them purring, and they warmed up my cold feet right through the covers.

Another indelible memory I have is the kitchen window. A nice cool breeze would come through that window in the spring, if we could get it open. It was a weird window. I guess over the years the house and window frame have twisted and tugged at each other. Adding several coats of paint over time may have distorted the frame some too. Sometimes we were able to open the window, and sometimes we couldn't. The really weird thing though was Mike and Joe and I weren't the only ones that opened and closed it. It seemed to us that the window did not belong to us. It belonged to the house. It would open and close if and when it wanted too; with our help, or without it. It became a regular topic of conversation for us. Who opened the kitchen window today? Not me. I didn't. Me neither.

It was about the same time we began wondering about that window, that the footsteps started. The reality here is that we are three young college boys living all alone on a farm, with an open invitation for any of our friends to drop in at any time. It's also a small Community college with mostly local farmer kids that go home after school to do chores. Consequently, we only had two friends that occasionally dropped in. Usually we had to ask them to come over. So we would get excited to hear someone coming in to visit. Only sometimes, we couldn't tell who it was. Half way across the kitchen floor their footsteps would stop. When we peeked around the corner from the living room to see who came in, no one would be there.

We never did have any parties worth mentioning. I guess parties were considered more of a weekend thing. On weekends we all went home though. That was when we got our laundry done, had some home cooked meals, and spent time with our girlfriends.

I was the only one that returned to the farm house on Sunday nights. Mike and Joe would just drive straight to school on Monday mornings. I don't re-member why. As I think about it now, I wonder why I didn't just get a ride back with Mike on Monday mornings. I'm thinking it was probably because I wanted my girlfriend to give me a ride back; after all, we usually spent all day together and then had a big dinner her mom would cook. Yum. Her mom could even make vegetables taste good.

Sometimes my dad would let me return in his car for the week. Dad would have mom give him a ride to work during the week when I borrowed the old blue Ranchero. Neither mom nor dad could tolerate each other's driving styles though. So I only got to take dad's car on special occasions. So there were a couple of times that Paula drove me back to the farmhouse. There was one time Paula offered to take me back early and cook me dinner. It was a beautiful warm and sunny spring day. We were having a great time. Her spaghetti dinner was delicious, and we were having a wonderful time. While she cleaned up the dishes in the kitchen, I took the trash out back to the burn barrel. I finished dumping the trash and headed back toward the rear porch door. Paula was standing there. She looked... terrified. When I got close enough, I was able to get a brief scenario of why, as she made a steady B-Line to her car. She blurted out that she had finished the dishes and gone into the living room to sit on the couch and wait for me. While sitting on the couch, the TV table that was set up at one end of it, rose up off the floor and floated across the room in front of her. It came to rest at the other end of the couch. It FLOATED, she repeated to me, and now shouting from the driver side window of her car, she said with wild frenzy, "and I'm never coming back to this place ever again!", as she backed down the driveway and sped away past the corn fields and out of sight.

The next time she was there was forty years later. We took the opportunity to show the place to my ten year old son while we were back east on vacation. I had to park way down the road before she would allow me to get out and walk back to take a picture of the place. Someone had done a nice job of putting new siding on the place and cleaning up the yards and fixing up the barn. Even the old pond looked pretty good. It sure didn't look like it did back in the winter of 1971 when I had my little episode. What a night that was!

It started on a Friday after school. Joe and I took turns shooting at cans out back with his.22 caliber rifle. We still had seven bullets left when we decided to quit. I put it on my dresser in my room and grabbed my dirty laundry. Joe offered to give me a ride home if I'd come and have dinner at his mom's place. That sounded good to me. The weekend started out pretty good. We had a good time that day. Joe got me home early evening on Friday night. Saturday I spent getting my laundry done and mowing the lawn for dad. Then Sunday Paula came and got me. We spent the day together, then had a fantastic dinner at her house, and sat around watching TV until about 8pm. I kept waiting for her to ask if I wanted a ride back to the farmhouse. It was cold out and kind of blustery with snow flurries. I was concerned the weather might get worse. I finally told Paula I needed to get headed back. She offered to give me a ride to the entrance ramp of the freeway. There just wasn't any way she was going to take me back to that place with the floating TV tables. So I found myself standing at the entrance to the freeway at about 8:30pm on a cold blustery winter night, trying to thumb a ride to the middle of nowhere.

I must have looked pathetic standing there shivering under the street light, because I was offered a lift rather quickly. It was a warm and comfortable half hour ride and I was dropped off at my exit at about 9pm. It's still twenty miles to the farmhouse from there. With it being a cold blustery winter night on the edge of farm country, I knew my chances for a ride further into the bowels of cornfields and dense forests were slight to none. So I conjured up a plan. My route passes a local Tavern I've visited on occasion. I'll stop in there and strike up a conversation with someone and finagle a ride to the farmhouse from them. Stepping in out of the wind and snow flurries, I ordered myself a rum and coke and took a seat at the table near the door. I studied the room for a potential new friend. Uh-Oh; I may need a new plan. There's an old guy in the corner sweet talking to a lady that seems quite content on just getting free drinks from him. Two guys at another table look like they just took a break from jacking deer on the old country roads. The only other guy in the bar is the guy that made me my drink. So I finished my drink, headed back out into the cold and started hoofing it. There ain't much traffic on Sunday nights in farm communities. I thumbed my way out of town toward the farm. I don't think a dozen cars passed me as the sidewalks came to an end. Then the distance between houses increased, and the street lights ended. I pretty much knew I was in for a long walk. I still had seventeen more miles to go if I take the shortcut across the cornfield road. The cornfield road was just a tractor path through the middle of a huge cornfield. It leads right to the old road that passes the farmhouse though. If I stay on the main road in hopes of a car passing and giving me a lift, it's an additional seven or eight miles that goes around the corn fields.

When I was a Boy Scout, I learned that my walking pace was two and a half miles per hour. I think I bumped that up to about five miles per hour on that night. The sky was mostly black. I could barely make out the road beneath my feet. On occasion a small patch of stars would show through. At those times I could see the fields to both sides of me, or the trees. In the darkness my senses were heightened. I strained to clearly hear and identify the sounds around me. The blustery wind whistled in my ears. Leaves and debris along the sides of the road would sweep across in front of me. An empty soda can would clang and bounce and roll past me at times. My heart would race and pound briefly until I could dismiss the noises as harmless and no threat to me. I would hear noises now and then that defied explanation. Noises that came from the darkness I couldn't see into. Probably the noise was just a raccoon or a deer. My mind of course was more inclined to believe the noises were bears and wolves; or worse. The open blade of my pocket knife in my hand gave me a slight feeling of security. I added to that some singing and whistling at audible levels that I was sure could be heard above the whistling winds. The journey just kept going on and on. Mile by mile I forged on with one foot after the other. I was in great shape. The quick pace was keeping me warm and wasn't too physically traumatic. It was the wind and the darkness and the noises, and the images in my head that my imagination kept conjuring up; that is what drove me to stare wide eyed into the darkness and strain to hear the slightest sounds. I was stretching the limits of my senses to their max. By the time I reached the tractor road shortcut, it was a clear decision. There were no cars, and hadn't been for hours. I wasn't going to get a ride. I picked up my pace and pretty much jogged the last couple of miles home between the tall dead corn stalks in the fields. A relatively short time passed. The corn stalks ended and I emerged into the barnyard of my neighbor. From here it was just a short distance down the road to the end of my journey. It sure was a relief to finally arrive at the back porch of the farmhouse. I walked through the mud room and into the kitchen and flicked on a light. It was warm, and bright, and the cold night wind was a mere whisper through the windows now. Bronson and Harley pranced into the kitchen to greet me and were rubbing against my legs and purring. Leaning down to pet the cats I started to feel my calf muscles beginning to burn. My adrenaline was tapped out to the max. I needed to lie down and relax for a bit so I could get some sleep. I looked at the clock. It was ten minutes before two. There were only about five hours left before I needed to get up and hitchhike to school. I headed for my bedroom with the cats scampering past me on the stairs.

After a brief stop in the bathroom, I crossed the hall into my bedroom and I took off my shoes and fluffed up the pillow on the bed. I turned on the TV and adjusted the rabbit ears and lowered the volume. I just wanted a little something I could use to distract my mind. I just needed to clear my head and unwind. I flopped down on top of the covers and the cats jumped up on the bed with me as I blankly stared at an old John Wayne western that was playing on TV. That old bed never felt so good. It seemed to wrap up around me like a big warm hug.

I left the light on in the hallway outside my bedroom. The TV was just to the left of the doorway, so with my door open, I could look across the hall into the bathroom. The stairs were out of view to the left. I was glad I couldn't see them. Things were about to unfold like I never could have imagined.

I hadn't watched more than three minutes of John Wayne when the kitchen door downstairs creaked open. I heard footsteps slowly enter into the kitchen as the door squeaked closed behind them. There were six, maybe seven heavy footsteps. They stopped about midway into the kitchen. Bronson and Harley popped up from their curled positions at my feet and simultaneously bolted under the bed. That sent a clear message to my brain. I wasn't hearing things. It was two in the morning and someone was walking into this old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, unannounced, uninvited, and unexpected. My brain said... Be afraid. I shouted down to the kitchen... That you Mike? There was no answer. That you Joe? Still there was no answer. Who's there? There was silence. I sat up and grabbed Joe's rifle from the top of my dresser and loaded the seven bullets left over from Friday. As I was loading the rifle I began shouting out loudly to whoever was down there invading my peace. It's 2 O'clock in the morning and I'm tired and not in any mood for joking around. I've got a loaded rifle pointed at my door and will shoot anyone that comes into sight. Who's there? Again, no answer. Then the footsteps started again. Sounding like hard soled shoes on gritty dirty linoleum floor, they continued to the end of the kitchen, and then stopped. I listened. There was no snickering or indications of any prankster. Just silence. It was an eerie heavy silence that just radiated fear into every fiber of my body. So again I began shouting from my bedroom. I've got a loaded gun; I'm going to shoot anyone that comes in sight. I'm not kidding! Who is it?... and again no answer. I can feel the hair on the back of my neck and arms, standing straight up.

The footsteps have never gone this far before. They always stopped half way into the kitchen. The silence is then broken as the footsteps continue into the living room. I can hear my pulse beating like a drum in my ears. I'm sure the fear in my voice is pretty obvious as I again shout out my intentions to shoot without hesitancy, anyone that comes in sight. What happens next is what nightmares are made of. The old piano with its' yellowed keys and bad tuning, begins to play. It's a loud deafening pounding of the keys that sends my heart right into my throat. My mind tries to rationalize it. I visualize a mouse running up and down the keys... but a mouse couldn't pound the keys so hard, maybe a rat, or an opossum. Wait, no, the keys are playing from both ends to the middle, then back. The old upright piano is pounding out a nerve wracking horror melody. The pounding goes on and on for what seems an eternity. Then it stops. Again I'm listening intently. The silence is eerily as scary as the pounding music had been. Then the footsteps head toward the stairs. Oh my God. I'm praying silently in my head; please don't come up the stairs.

I was screaming my message now. Over the sound of the footsteps as they continued up the stairs, I repeated; I've got a gun. I won't hesitate to shoot. They keep coming. Slowly the footsteps ascend one creaky step at a time. I hear them come until finally, half way up the stairway, they stop. The silence returns. That dark heavy, eerie silence now blocks out the John Wayne movie and the wind as it whistles through the bedrooms' window panes. I'm on my knees on the bed. I'm poised and ready to shoot. I'm looking down the rifle barrel into the hall outside my room. A section of the floor just outside my doorway is starting to darken. It's a shadow appearing from the stairs. It's getting darker. It hasn't moved into that position like a normal shadow. It's just appearing. It's getting darker. It's becoming a sharper and more focused shape. I can make out the shape now. It looks like a broad shouldered man with a heavy overcoat. The collar is turned up. He's wearing a wide flat brimmed hat. I can see the shadow from the waist up, as if he is standing on the stairs, half way up, with the light behind him. The light is not over there though. The light is directly above my door in the hallway. How can that be? How can a shadow appear under the hall light?

As I wait and prepare for what may come next, the shadow begins to fade. It fades so slowly that I wonder if it's actually fading. It is. I'm still poised and ready and aiming at the shadow as it fades completely away. I remain staring for a few more minutes... and listening. The air seems to change. It's not so charged up now. It doesn't seem so heavy and eerie. The silence seems to be peaceful almost. As I relax my posture and lower into a sitting position, Bronson and Harley hop back up on the bed. I look at my watch. It's two fifteen. I sense everything is over now. My body is drained. I put the rifle back on the dresser, still loaded, and I turn off the TV. Without undressing or turning off any lights, the cats and I fall fast asleep on top of the bed. I don't remember if the alarm clock woke me up, or if the sun coming in from the window that morning woke me. I know I was glad to be starting a fresh new day though. I was anxious to see Mike and Joe at school and tell them about my experience. As I remember back, it seems to me that they didn't quite believe me. To this day I know my own son doesn't believe this story. One thing is for sure though. Paula and I believe something in that house makes TV trays float, and plays really bad music on the piano.

This was a true story from my college days. I told it to my family at all our campfires the last 30 or so years. I thought I'd write it down for my next generation to tell at their campfires. My sister is an author and suggested I find a place to share it with others. This is my first attempt to go public with any of my stories. I hope you enjoy it. I didn't!