It was a picture-perfect life for Debbie D. and her boyfriend in the scenic mountains of Virginia... until their dream was shattered by a haunting that would escalate until they were driven with fear from their beautiful home. This is Debbie's story:
While living in a beautiful old farmhouse in Virginia, my family, friends and I encountered somefrightening activity that we cannot explain. It began when Joe, my boyfriend of seven years, and I rented a wonderful old brick farmhouse. It was the perfect place to live. It was situated atop a mountain with surrounding pastures as far as one could see. After about six months, however, this idyllic scene became rather unpleasant.
One night while watching television, we could hear someone rifling through Joe's files in his office.
The sound was unmistakable. We could hear the file drawers open then slam closed. Joe grabbed his 12-gage, I picked up my 20-gage and we went upstairs threatening to shoot whoever was there. But no one was there. Everything was in order except that a window was open. This was the middle of winter, mind you, and we were certain we did not leave it open. We convinced ourselves that the noise was just an animal on the roof, and that perhaps one of us did absent-mindedly leave the window open.
The second strange occurrence took place shortly thereafter. I've never been a good manager of money and I had fallen short on cash with two days to go until payday. I decided to dip into my change jar. While dumping out the coins, I saw on the side of the glass jar what looked like a hole made from a bullet, B-B or steel shot. It seemed impossible. Joe helped me look around the wall near where the jar was placed and there was no hole in the wall or widows anywhere. When looking at it again, we noticed that to make the indention it did on the jar, the shot had to come from inside the jar. No human I know could fit into that jar, let alone bring a gun in with them to shoot a hole in my pickle jar piggy bank.
Several small, unexplained incidents like this took place over the next few months. Yes, it was somewhat unnerving, but it felt harmless. The noises would always be upstairs in either Joe's office or the spare bedroom. To rationalize it, we put it off to the old house settling or some animal.
The Knocks
One night while I was working late, Joe heard an awful loud pounding coming from the wall between the fireplace and staircase. When I came home his eyes were wide open with fear. He asked if I ever heard the knocking and I had not. For the next few weeks, it was only he who could hear this knocking. And the more it knocked, the more fearful he got, and the more fearful he got, the more it knocked.
One day after a friend of mine left the house, I heard a knock. I wondered who it could be at my door. We lived so far out in the country that hardly anyone drove by, let alone visited. I thought perhaps it was my friend returning, but it would be odd that she would come to the front door since we all used the back door closest to the driveway. When I went to the door and peeked out, there was no one there. Fearing there was a prowler on the property, I went to look out the dining room window. When I turned to head that way, I was facing "the wall" and out of nowhere came a knock... then another and so on. I was so scared I could not move. My head kept telling my feet to move, but they were like lead. I just stood there until this thing in my wall had its jolly old time scaring me half to death.
I do not know where or how we ever got the nerve up, but when Joe came home, we went outside and into the basement to see if there were pipes under or around that wall that would make the knocking sound. There were none. That was the first and the last time I heard that knock. But it still liked Joe and would knock anytime he was alone.
The Footsteps
Our friend Mike came down to live with us and help us out with the restaurant we operated. We never told him about the goings-on in the house; we did not want him to think he moved all the way to Virginia to live with a couple of nuts. Joe and I came in around midnight after a long day of work and we saw Mike sitting on the sofa with the television volume up very loud. It seems he heard the same noises coming out of Joe's office and the sound of footsteps walking or pacing in the spare bedroom. Joe took one look at Mike and knew what that look on Mike's face was. FEAR! Mike is a biker - big and pretty much afraid of nothing... or so I thought.
Joe looked at Mike and said, "Did you hear something?" Mike said, "Yeah, I could hear someone upstairs, and when I went up there was nothing there.
So I yelled up the stairs, 'You don't f____ with me and I wont f____ with you.'" He said that pretty much stopped all activity upstairs. But then something started banging in the wall. He said he felt that whatever it was, it was pure evil. The more he told it to quit, the louder it got, so he just used the TV volume to drown out the knocking. Joe and Mike were the only ones to ever hear the knocking again, but it would never happen until one or the other was alone.
One morning around 3 a.m. we were all awoken by the sound of someone running franticly through our backyard. It sounded like it ran right past both the east and north windows in our bedroom. Mike, brave as he was, slept in the spare bedroom upstairs. He was a sound sleeper, but heard the footsteps, too, and came running down to our room frantic; he thought it was either Joe or me out there. He looked stunned to see us both there looking out the window at a pasture with fresh fallen snow - and not a footprint in sight. Joe and Mike went outside to see if they could find anything awry, but there were still no footprints, no sounds, no evidence of anyone lurking around.
My parents came to visit that next spring and things were still knocking and bumping around. My father left his hearing aids upstairs one morning to go downstairs to use the restroom. My parents knew of our ghosts and I doubted they believed us. But it did not take long before the ghost made its presence known. While dad was in the bathroom, mom could hear footsteps crossing the room upstairs then she could hear my father's hearing aid screeching loudly, then softly, then nothing. Then again footsteps, as if it were walking away then back to the hearing aid. This went on until dad went back up to bed. Dad could not hear too well without his hearing aids in and mom never told him, either.
Nightmares and Dread
Joe had about all he could take of the ghost when something else began to occur. Joe would awaken scared to death. He did not know why, just that he was afraid, as if he was having nightmares but could never recall them. Each time he would awaken he would feel someone sit next to him on the bed. Mike had since moved out and Joe was at his wits end with all the haunting activity. The restaurant was holding its own, but our partners and us were not getting along,so we all decided to sell the restaurant. Joe ended up going to the doctor because he thought he was going crazy. He told the doctor about the issueswith the house and he prescribed Joe some Valium to help him sleep. The doctor chalked it all up to the selling of the restaurant and with that he told Joe that he was having a nervous breakdown.
It was obvious Joe had seen and heard enough, and he moved to South Carolina while it was arranged that I would stay in Virginia about two weeks longer until the new owners of the restaurant were trained. Three days after Joe moved out, all hell broke loose in the house. The walls did not knock nor did Joe's friend sit on the bed, but there was a heck of a party going on upstairs. I awoke not from sound, but from sheer terror like Joe had experienced several times before. I was scared. I decided I would run to the back door and jump in my car and get the heck out of there.
The Apparition
Then a thought came to me: What if they followed me? I would be alone on a dark country road. So I lay there in my bed too scared to scream, too scared to cry, too scared to run. Yes, I would be the stupid lady in the horror films who just stands there and lets the monster get her while everyone else in the movie theater is yelling, "Run, you idiot! Run!" I wanted to call someone to be with me, but that thought was interrupted...
The apparition ofwoman materialized before me, standing at the end of my bed. She spoke to me without ever saying a word. She told me it would all be okay. I felt a peaceful calm come over me like I had never felt before or since. I was not sure what I was seeing, so I looked closer. I could not see her face. I wanted to keep my eyes on her. I did not want to let her out of my sight because she was all that brought me comfort and sanity to what was chaotic and frightful. Yet I felt she would not be there long and I could only hope that that peaceful feeling was not temporary.
Though she reassured me several times things would be okay, I wanted to see for myself that what I was seeing was not a dream. I turned on the bedside lamp to see her better... and she disappeared.
I remained in the house for the rest of the two weeks without another incident. And as I left, I prayed that I did not bring any ghosts with me to my new home.
http://paranormal.about.com/cs/trueghoststories/a/aa072803.htm
Subject: The Farmhouse Haunting 
Tue Oct 09, 2007 7:16 am
