Someone On The Stairs

Ispent the night at a high school friend's house in Dranesville VA when I was 17. That was 1975 - you do the math..............

He lived in an old farm house, the kind where the second floor is one long room with stairs to the main level on each end. The upper floor had been divided into 3 rooms, a study, his sister's bedroom, and his bedroom. My friend's grandfather had his own living quarters at the bottom of the stairway leading out of my friend's room. There were doors at the top and bottom of the stairs.

After an evening of playing cards, listening to records, and talking about girls, my buddy and I went to sleep. I was in a twin bed next to the door over the stairs. I was awakened at 2:00am to the sound of footsteps coming slowly up the stairs. They came right to the top, and I expected my friend's grandfather to open the door and check on us. I was going to pretend to be asleep. The door never opened, and the steps never went back down. I fell back asleep.

In the morning, I teased my buddy that his grandfather would feel the need to check on him during the night. He said "what are you talking about?". I told him about the footsteps, and he said I must have been dreaming. He took me upstairs, and we opened the door from his room and descended to the bottom of the stairs. The door to his grandfather's living space was completely boarded shut! There was no way for anyone to enter there to come upstairs.

His parents told me that the house was built in 1840, and had briefly been used as a civil war hospital for the Confederate side. They mentioned that they occasionally heard footsteps around the house, and that sometimes things were moved from place to place by unseen hands.

I know I wasn't dreaming, and I know I was wide awake! I was so freaked out, that I never slept over again, and when high school ended, I gradually lost touch with my friend.

I wonder if some old soldier is still climbing those stairs now and again?.