Burning Down The Barn

This is a story that my grandparents told me. I thought it was creepy.

My family and I live on a farm in Pennsylvania. We have horses and cows and all of those other good farm animals. When my grandparents had bought the farm around 25 yrs ago they had met the man who sold them the farm (he shall remain nameless). He had sold the farm because his wife had died of cancer there (nothing gruesome). He said that he couldn't live there anymore because whenever he was at home he was really sad because of the memories he had of his wife. He had said that his wife had told him that even after she died of cancer that she wanted him to keep the farm because it had to stay in the family and that he could leave it to their children who were all grown. He had promised her that he would but said that the memories made him sad so he had to break his promise.

My grandparents were saddened by this but they bought the farm and were pretty happy for the first couple years. Then weird things started to happen.

When they went to bed and turned off all the lights, they would get to their room and then some lights in the kitchen would go on. The first couple of times that this happened they thought nothing of it because recently there had been some electricity problems. Then after they had gotten that fixed it kept happening. Plates and bowls would fall off of the shelf or counter. Things would break suddenly. Really weird things. This creeped them out but they loved the farm so they stayed there.

The worst hadn't happened yet.

One night in the middle of December it was snowing. A beautiful night. That night around 10:30pm it was pitch black outside. They were in the kitchen drinking coffee. Why so late I don't know. They have a big window in their kitchen and when they looked out they saw the glow of flames. My grandfather got up from the table and immediately ran outside. My grandmother soon followed him. When he got down the hill he saw that the barn that the had almost finished remodelling was on fire. It was a sight. The snow falling heavily and the fire from the barn.

My grandmother ran back into the house and called the fire department. They soon got to the house and attempted to put out the fire. But it just wouldn't go out. All of the water wouldn't stop a thing. Nothing worked. The fire seemed to get bigger. About three hours later the flames died down but the barn was beyond replacement. The fire fighters went into the barn to look for the source of the fire. They found nothing but a picture. They brought it out to my grandparents to see if they recognized who the picture was. When they handed them the picture my grandfather recognized the man in the picture as the man who had sold them the house. He told the firemen and my grandmother. The woman in the picture they assumed was his wife who had died of cancer. How the picture had gotten in the barn, my grandparents never figured out. They had taken the picture down and had mailed it to the man.

That was the only thing left in the barn. When they had seen the picture before they were smiling and happy at the park for a picnic. Now the picture was still intact, but the man was sad and the wife looked angry. It was creepy and mysterious. My Grandparents called the man who had owned the house the next morning, but his son answered and informed them that the man had passed away the night before. They went back to the picture to put it in an envelope for the son, and when they looked at the picture both people seemed happy.