Postby snobound » Sun Oct 03, 2010 6:41 pm
I've always held a very strong belief in the existence of extraterrestrials. However, my skepticism regarding religion caused me to dismiss the possibility of "ghosts"- until a neighbor's story left me shaken.
You might be thinking that I would have to be quite gullible to accept someone's personal tale at face value, but you'd have to know my neighbor to understand. I'll call her "Martha". Martha is a long-time senator at the Vermont statehouse. She's one of those old-fashioned, dyed in the wool, unflapple Vermont Yankees. A retired attorney, she's very conservative, and certainly not someone to go around telling outlandish stories. She doesn't gab unless she's got something meaningful to say, and she chooses her words carefully.
Like me, Martha has a number of old apple trees on her property- the entire area had been an orchard in the late 19th century. She's always giving me loads of apples, so I volunteered to help prune the trees. It was mid November, windy and cold, and approaching dusk. I had suddenly gotten a distinct case of "the creeps". Martha came out of her stately old colonial to tell me for the fourth time that I had "done enough".
I was the one that broached the subject- asking whether she had ever seen or heard anything strange in the 115 year old colonial. She looked as if I had stolen her breath. Martha sized me up for a moment- you can see the intelligence in her eyes. Finally she spoke. When she finished, I was the one who felt as if someone had stolen my breath.
She explained that she had lived alone in the house for many years, and that her chocolate lab is a fairly recent acquisition. The incident took place roughly ten years ago. Martha claims that she had been reviewing a case file in bed- just as someone might read a chapter or two of a novel before nodding off. She said that she began to get sleepy, tossed the file onto the nightstand, and turned off the bedside light.
She was due in court the next day, and was turning over her anticipated arguments in her head. Martha said she had been tossing and turning for about twenty minutes, and felt that she was finally beginning to dirft off. Something suddenly tracked across the width of her bed- over the blankets and sheets covering her. She likened it to having a large dog trample you. She said she screamed bloody murder, though no one would have heard her perched on over thirty acres. No sooner had the trampling ceased when the heavy down comforter of her bed was yanked down by at least two feet. She continued to scream herself hoarse in the darkness, absolutely petrified with fright. I remember the elderly woman shaking as she said this- I think I was too.
Martha said that it must have been thirty seconds before she was able to overcome her paralysis and reach for the light. Of course, the lighted room was empty. The only visible sign of the event was the displaced comforter. After gathering all her courage, she got out of bed. She looked under it, in her closet, and behind the shower curtain, then went over each of the house's fifteen rooms armed with a loaded 12 gage. She claims to have spent the next week at a motel in Montpelier, though was only able to fall asleep due to sheer exhaustion on the third night.
Martha never heard ANY footsteps- before or after the "trampling". Remember- she lives alone, and had NO pets at the time. The ancient house's windows are a chore to open, and she had locked all doors from the inside- so she claims. She was so visibly distraught after finishing her story that I felt obliged to help her back to the house, which I couldn't wait to get out of. Was there someone hiding in her house on that day? Was she so paralyzed with fear that an intruder had time to escape? Somehow, I don't think so. I believed her. At least, I believe that SHE believes the story is true. It freaked me out. Level-headed, logical, "scientific facts" me.