In the trees back up

  In the Trees:

  My house is up off a winding back road that you could easily miss if you weren't familiar with the area. Not too far from my house, down a hill from where I live and usually hidden from view and my house from its view by the slope of the hills and density of the tree is this old abandoned run down farm house. It is a weird spot, like I can't imagine the heavily forested area and hills ever being farm land; especially with how much the area just on the other side of the road down from that property floods, as does the area around it; making it a muddy mess that attracts hogs and other animals out hunting mushrooms during the summer, or just playing in the mud. That property despite how close it is to my house is down a long dirt driveway to another road that the winding road my house is off of intersects a good half mile down the road; whomever planned these roads must have had a hell of a time working around the landscape I reckon. So it can be no wander none of these kids who'd occassionally be out in those woods ever figured out where the strange lights and noises were coming from. Truth is I would occassionally see from the edge of my property, or the edge of the hill by my shed anyway; not really sure where the property line is or if anyone even owns the land that old farm is on; anyway I'd see lights down there, hear voices. I at first thought it was vagrants, but realized it was kids, teenagers, early twenties sometimes. See, not too long before the whole "Ghost Hunting" craze had started up thanks to certain shows on television. Before that I think no one really cared about the farm, I remember in high school the property was seen as the scene for some dumb urban legend I am pretty sure was started up at the local high school by my father's cousin; at least according to him. Typical tagic ghost story horseshit not worth repeating as it was entirely made up. But that's the way with urban legends, give it a few decades, kids growing up with them; and suddenly they act like its some ancient folklore past down by the sacred ancestors.

   Before I go on I am often asked these questions so I'll address them now; the first is I grew up in this house; I moved away for about a decade to my own place; but when my parents put the house up for sale I bought it. So yeah, grew up here, moved out, moved back in when my parents moved out. The second thing is no, kids messing around with that old farm house was not like a nightly occurence and I am sure I missed a few who went out there. But sound carries up a hill at night. I could usually hear them talking, or see the lights shining up at the tree tops. The first time I recall was when I saw the lights and walked to the edge of the hill and yelled down that they need to get out of there; those kids freaked out; but what they were saying; I think they thought I was a ghost. So yeah, I got the idea every so often when I'd catch them pull a Scooby Doo and make howling noises, loud groans and gutteral screams to frighten them off. Because of the trees no matter how many times they shined their flash lights up they couldn't see me, but I could see them just fine; tree branches and them having their flash lights in their own faces half the time; no way their eyes were well adjusted to the dark that and flash lights just make everything look spookier for some reason.

    I mentioned this but I should be more a bit more precise, the area I live in is mostly forests for a good few miles; fifteen minute drive to the nearest gas station. Mostly trees out here, holls, marshy areas; especially in summer time; even on the straighter streets most of the houses are easy to miss because of hidden drives, gates, and being up off the road. Unless of course you know to look for mail boxes. I remember seeing a video once that I swore could be my street that had these kids pondering over why there was a mail box in the middle of no where with just a field behind it and thinking; "the house is down a drive on the opposite side of the road, just turn around". Most the houses are only a few hundred feet apart, but between forests, posting no trespassing signs, and the mail boxes you'd easily miss that fact. There were of course also plenty of burned out barns, chimneys and foundations of older buildings, not unlike the old farm house. It is a tad spooky to think why so many lots were just abandoned and nothing new built on them. Around my immediate area all the lived in houses for about ten miles in any given direction seem like they are all up inclines, and all the abandoned properties are down in valleys. A reasonable guess I always assumed was because of flooding issues in summer. But finding evidence they also used to be farms is always unsettling, came across an old scarecrow post and clothes once when I was a kid, yes I explored the old farm house myself as a child, and found this post and clothes in the middle of a bunch of skinny little trees. Of course I am told, and given how often I have to clear out sapplings from my yard; that the forest is quick to reclaim land out here if you don't keep clearing it back from your yard and fields. Hard to imagine how different this whole area probably looked back in the 1950's or so when it was used for farm land.

   Now to be fair, I am not saying the old farm house wasn't haunted; this isn't just me confessing that I am what every kid that goes out there is experiencing. Actually, I don't know about the farm house its self, but a little ways off into the woods in the area where I found the old scarecrow. Now THAT area is haunted I know that for a fact. I think the kids just get lucky; usually I'd only catch them out there in mid October, some in November; and a few times in summer when school is out; but its usually too wet and muddy down there. Also helps that this is so far out from the town, they have to drive out here, find someplace to stash their car; usually the drive way of the old farm house; the engine and headlights also tended to alert me someone was messing around down there. Those wet summer months, and the freezing cold dead of winter are when I'd catch anything genuinly spooky going on in the woods. Usually it was just lights, orbs of light up in the trees, so small and faint you'd easily mistake them for candle flames moving about. When I was little my parents forebade me to play in the woods, specially those behind the house and anywhere near the old farm house; not to say I didn't explore it as a kid as I said before; but only like twice; its really not that interesting to explore even as a kid; not when I had all these other woods nearby, and the creek to catch fish and crawdads. Go worm hunting for trips to a real fishing hole, I even made a little stick fort. So yeah, its not like there was anything really scary in those woods. That said, the scariest thing I recalled as a child were two incidents. One where I was out playing in mid-summer and it was getting late and I thought I heard my mom calling me to come home because it was getting late; only to discover she wasn't even home and my dad had been inside watching television. The other was in winter when I saw what looked like an emaciated albino deer in our driveway. I saw it like 2am, I looked out the window and there it was out by my dad's pick up, it was licking around the tires where my dad I had hit something the day before, I think a possum or raccoon. It was freaky thing, when it saw me its face twisted up like it was smiling; it didn't even look alive; even weirder though was a rock came flying out of the woods and hit it and it ran away. I have no idea who or what threw that rock; but I'm glad they did.

   But yeah, the rest of my child hood I can't think of anything else particularly weird; well, I thought I heard singing sometimes, but we do have neighbors, even if they are like hundreds of feet away and voices carry over the hills. But yeah, occassional orbs of light and those two things stand out. Living here alone for years without incident either, its my opinion you have to try and do something stupid to make whatever is in those woods pay closer attention to you. Leave them alone and they leave you alone. But kids, they will do some stupid things sometimes.