It was a dark and windy night.... [just joking - got your attention?]

This story comes about having just purchased a small piece of property a couple of hours from the City. On it stood a weathered, clapboard shack of a one-bedroom cottage, replete with just what you'd expect from a property this deep into the woods: an Outhouse. So, you get the idea: this place with its slate-stone corner-foundation, has been around a long time. In subsequent years I was able to determine it goes back to the late 19, early 20th-century.

The one nice thing about the purchase: it came fully furnished, left by the previous owner. Though most of it looked aged, and well used, it all were definitely serviceable, and convenient to get started.  

According to the real-estate agent: the owner had the property for decades, but hadn't utilized it for quite some time. His having recently passed away, it's being sold by his Estate.  Looking around the place it quickly became obvious it hadn't been used for quite a while.

With nothing better to do at this point, I took to work tearing things apart to get rid of the much accumulated dust and one hell of lot of mice pellets, a.k.a: shit!  As disgusting as that was, it couldn't rival the skeletal remains of a long dead squirrel, or so it looked. God knows how long it had been dead.

I got so caught up in cleaning the joint, I totally lost track of the time. I had no plans to spend the night of my first visit to the place, but I felt too tired and wasted to do the drive home. Thankfully, I was smart enough to have brought some fresh bed-linens and towels; the latter proving useless since there was no shower, let alone a bathroom save for the outhouse; not a function high on my list to employ for as long as could help it. 

It being early-spring at this point, the Sun was setting by seven-thirty at the latest, and thankfully coz I was desperate to lie down and call it a day.

I heated a bucket of hot water on the wood-stove and managed a sponge bath of myself of the days grime, but the feel of fresh, clean sheets on what turned out to be a comfortable mattress, as old as it probably being, I quickly fell to sleep.

I've never been one to sleep the night through without partially waking each time rolling over into another position; and, on one occasion of repositioning myself, from the corner of my partially opened eye, I saw a strange whitish-light in the back corner of the bedroom. It startled me enough to sit up and take a hard look, but there was nothing. I reasoned it possible the faint moon-light must have come from through the window just above my head, reflecting in that moment, the back end of the bedroom. Mentally satisfied with the explanation, I just went back to sleep.

Sometime there-after, what took place got me truly scared.

I am sure everyone at some time in their sleeping experience, they've found themselves slightly conscious: half-asleep, and at the same time - half-awake.

Well for some inexplicable reason, that's the state I found myself, but I was not alone.

Lying on my back, the conscious half-awake mind realized my right hand and fore-arm were standing up-right, my bent elbow resting on the edge of the bed. And, there before me, sat the ghostly image of a woman with her right-hand clutching and entwined with my raised hand. Slowly, she began caressing it with her other hand.  Well, I was now fully awake, and the apparition immediately disappeared.

To say I was shocked and shaken being an understatement, I quickly jumped out of bed, and turned on all the lights. Not really sure why I would think that to keep the boogey-man away, but it did give me reason to leave the bedroom and set up on the living room couch.

I hadn't have to look at the alarm clock to realize it's still hours yet from sun-rise, still shaken and disturbed by the reality of what had just happened, I set up bed on the living room couch on the weak thought of reasoning: if there's a haunting ghost in the place - hopefully it's limited to the bedroom.

At some point I had fallen back to sleep, only to be woke by a strange sense of there being a presence in the living room. 

Realize, I was sleeping on the couch positioned adjacent the front window that only went half down the wall from the ceiling, Being on my back, I looked through the corner of my right-eye and saw the ghostly image of a woman sitting on a chair. The chair I recognized as being one still in the cottage, obviously at some point, left by a previous, early owner of the place .

The woman was dressed in black, full-crinoline dress, and what looked a white kerchief head-dress. Attire women typically were shown to wear in the early 20th century. She seemed to be crying, or looked sad. Then, standing before her appeared the ghostly image of a bearded man. He is dressed in black suit and top hat similar to what you'd expect for the same period of time as that of the woman.

I immediately got the sense this man was evil, or had evil intents toward the woman he seemed to be scolding for what reason who could know.     

Still only half believing what I was witnessing to be actually happening, I decided I would intervene, if not only for the sake of the distressed woman.

I recall what took place next as vividly as the day of the experience: clutching my eyes shut to avoid looking at the apparition, I mentally directed my attention to the unknown man. I spoke loud and clear telepathically demanding the man cease his anger toward the woman; and, demand he leave the premises immediately. I repeated the demand over and over until I got his attention.

Without his saying a word, or in any way acknowledging my presence, and demands; he turned from the woman and summarily walked in my direction and proceeded through the front, windowed wall of the cottage.  It was this doing that made me realize what I was witnessing to be as true, as I am alive to tell of it.

My eyes still clutched tightly closed, as the ghostly image of the evil man made his way across the wooden floor, I could sense the sound of his harsh steps across the floor boards, and as he came across, and literally through my prone body; the electro-magnetic energy of his dimension caused my abdominal muscles to contract toward the line of his passage. It were as though I had been sliced in two by this mysterious electrical charge as he left the building. 

Next I knew, I woke still on the front room couch, with an immediate recollection of what had transpired. 

I owned the property for some twenty years after; it was the last of such occurrences, thankfully!