My family has owned a lakehouse on Wappapello Lake in Missouri for years and it has been the site for many family holidays. My best friend and I loved to go there when we were teenagers and this summer was no different. It was in the early 80`s and we were 14 years old (my friend shall remain anonymous since I have not asked her permission). We were spending a week at the house with my grandparents and had decided to sleep in the room overlooking the lake instead of our bedroom. Strangely this room was added on by my grandparents. It was a room that was quite large and had several windows overlooking the lakes and woods down below. We fixed our sleeping bags and made ourselves comfortable for the night. As teenagers would, we did not go right to sleep but spent hours talking and gossiping. Sometime after midnight I happened to look over to the sitting area and saw, to my horror, the figure of a man sitting in the armchair. This armchair was no more than 4 feet away from us and I saw the apparition very clearly. The figure sitting in the chair was all black and appeared to be wearing a hat. There were lights coming in from the windows so I knew my eyes were not playing tricks on me. He sat there with his legs crossed and arms resting on the armrest of the chair. I buried my head in my sleeping bag thinking that if I did not look, he would go away. Eventually, I looked again and he was still there. Once again, I buried myself in my sleeping bag. I finally worked up the courage to share what I was seeing with my friend and to my astonishment and relief, she was seeing the exact same thing. We started describing exactly what we were seeing, each filling in information. When we realized we were seeing the same thing and it was not going anywhere, we both buried ourselves in our sleeping bags and huddled together out of fear. I still remember how we wanted to get out of that room but were paralized with fear. We did not scream, we were too scared. Eventually, we made a mad dash out of the room. We ran out of that room through the kitchen, dining room and living room to the bathroom. For some reason, we huddled together in the bathroom for a while, too scared to move. Then we decided to go to our bedroom. We walked slowly out of the bathroom, so as not to wake my grandparents. And, that is when we saw the second apparition. There she was, a woman lying on the living room sofa. She was laid out as if she were in a coffin, with her arms crossed over her chest. She was wearing what I would describe as a turn of the century gown, possibly a wedding dress. And, her hair was fixed in turn of the century style, piled on top of her head. This apparition did move or communicate either. The living room lights differed from the new room. There were no windows, the light that allowed us to see this apparition was from the bathroom. Finally, we reached our bedroom but were too frightened to sleep. We left the light on and talked into the night. Then, at a little after 3 am is when it happened. Suddenly we heard loud music playing, it sounded as if it was coming from inside the house. The only way I can describe the music was a marching band. It lasted for about 10 minutes. It was impossible that it was actually a marching band playing outside. It was a sleepy lake community and it was after 3 am. We spent the night fully awake and were very happy to see daylight. When the sun came up we got up to investigate. We went down to the basement and found and old radio, circa 1960's. To our dismay, the radio was unplugged and when we plugged it in, it didn`t work. We told our story to anybody that would listen, but nobody believed us and chalked it up to teenagers playing a prank. A few years after that when I had my drivers license, I took a group of friends to the lakehouse. These friends new what had happened and hoped to have an experience themselves. Well, they were not prepared for what happened to them. A group of three went down to he basement. When they were down there, the lights went and left them in total blackness. No matter what they did, they could not get the lights back on. They fumbled around frantically in the darkness and finally made their way upstairs. When they reached the top of the stairs, the door they had left opened, and nobody upstairs had closed, was closed and refused to open. Hearing frantic banging, I went to see what the problem was. I opened the door with no problem and they came tumbling out with horrified looks on their faces. They told me what had happened. I wondered if they were trying to pull one over on me because of what I had told them about the house but the looks on their faces made me believe them. When they insisted that somebody had locked the door leading to the basement, I informed them that the door had no lock. After their experience and hearing this, they insisted upon leaving the house straight away. We left the house and they would never go back. I have returned to the house a few times but have refused to sleep alone. One night I was there and was forced to sleep alone. I'm not sure if it was my imagination but I heard ice being scooped out of the industrial size ice machine all night. Needless to say, it was another sleepless night in our lakehouse.

Submitted From: Stephanie McDonald, Quebec, Canada

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