The Farmers Tractor

Iam normally a logical and cynical person who is hard to impress and even harder to scare. I have had at least five paranormal experiences (that I can remember);three of which I believe to be true apparitions, two are suspect but, all have been frightening. The most frightening by far and the most recent is.....

"The Farmers Tractor"

In the late 1970's I shared an old farm house with two room mates and my dog Molly a Doberman pincher and Cemus my room mates German shepherd . It was your typical farmstead, out in the sticks south of Tyler, Texas at least a mile from your nearest neighbor. It had the farm house, and old barn with a dilapidated old tractor still in it, and some acres of pasture that ended in the forest. Actually quite a quaint place, very Norman Rockwell.

It was the beginning of summer and the parties were just beginning. One Friday morning (I can't remember the exact dates) my room mates announced that they were heading to the beach for the weekend to get "away from it all" and asked if I would like to join them. I declined, as that evening I was going to a party with my pal Marty and his new wife Debbie. Earlier that morning I had baked a cake for my roomys and myself but my roomys left without having any, so I sat by myself drinking coffee, having a slice of cake and reading the paper with the two dogs.

The day went by uneventfully and soon it was time for the party. On schedule Marty and Debbie showed up to pick me up and we made it to the party at around seven. The party turned out to be a bore and after two or three bourbon and cokes for Debbie and about four beers apiece for Marty and I, we decided to leave. Now my friends call me "The Black Hole of Beer" and Marty and the missus are no small tippers themselves so; by no means were we drunk. We were riding back to my place discussing the merits of the party when I remembered the cake at the house for after the party. I interrupted the conversation with this great news and we decided rather than to drop me off and call it a night we would have coffee and cake, and watch some TV and would have a decent Friday night after all.P>Everything changed suddenly when we pulled into my driveway. The driveway led all the way up to the farm house back door and straight to the barn where the old tractor is in plain view from your car window. Debbie who was riding between Marty and I in the front seat suddenly stiffened and let out a small gasp. When asked her trouble she said "Nothing. Marty I don't feel well, lets just go home." Marty said " Oh honey you are probably hungry because we didn't eat at the party and the bourbon has got to your stomach. Let's eat some cake and see if you feel better." And then he hopped out of the car. I got out and went to unlock the back door. When I looked back at my friends. Debbie was clinging to Marty like a floatation device on the Titanic and poor Marty was almost dragging her to the house. When we got into the kitchen and I turned on the light, Debbie was (pardon the expression) pale as a ghost. I said "Deb you look kinda sick to you want to have cake or perhaps a sandwich instead to see if it will settle your tummy?" This woman looked me right in the eye and said " No thanks I have a headache, well I mean my stomach hurts, Marty can we please go home?!" Marty and I looked at each other and shrugged we honestly thought that maybe she had had more bourbon than we realized and was beginning to get a hangover. So Marty tells her okay but he'd like me to pack up some cake for them for later. Debbie who is getting more agitated by the minute and acting just plain weird says "NO, I mean Dana can bring us some cake in the morning,can't you Dana? Lets go right now!" So I say "Sure Deb not a problem, Marty go on and take her home she really feels bad." So Marty and I exchange one more glance and shrug and off they went.

I thought that Deb acted very strange but blew it off as one of those things that occasionally happened to me when my male pals got a new girl or wife, some women don't understand platonic relationships between their man and another woman and visa versa. I let the dogs out, fixed the coffee anyway, and went to turn on the TV. I watched the news, let the dogs back in and decided to take my bath and read for awhile. I turn off all the lights except for my bedroom reading lamp and settled back with a cup of coffee and a true crime novel. The dogs were lying on the floor beside the bed.

It was about eleven at night and I was wide awake. My bedroom was at the back of the house, it adjoined the kitchen on one side and had a bathroom on the other. If you stood at the far wall you could see out the back door of the house and if you were in the kitchen you could see the barn and it's old tractor from the door. The bedroom door was open into the kitchen for my coffee runs and for the dogs to have free run of the house. I had just made a coffee run and was sitting in the bed getting comfortable when Molly my Doberman began to growl at the kitchen. Then Cemus began to growl at the kitchen. Suddenly both dogs stood up with their hackles rising and began slowly walking toward the kitchen growling dangerously. I stared to get up to see what the the dogs were on about when they broke into savage barking and turned back towards me in the bed. I thought "what the devil is going on?!?" and inched back on the bed worried that the dogs had gone nuts and were about to attack me when suddenly I felt someone sit in my lap; a large someone, man-sized. The dogs rushed the bed barking and snapping furiously at something a scant few inches above my lap. I tried frantically to move away from this thing on my lap when I felt two legs swing up on the bed and an immense pressure on my upper torso pushing me back into a semi lying position until my head was crimped up against the headboard and my legs folded in a yoga position felt about to break. Molly had jumped on the bed and was literally biting and foaming like a mad thing inches above my face and stomach, Cemus was circling the bed and snapping at empty air where my legs would be if they were stretched out. I was in terror no longer from my dogs but of this thing lying on me. I clawed out at it and shoved on it screaming all the while. I truly thought I was in danger of my life and I fought the thing with all my might and my dogs were fighting it for all they were worth for what seemed like hours but could have only been a couple of minutes. Then when I thought I was surely going to go crazy and die, I felt the weight lift off of me and Molly jumped off the bed and both dogs were in hot pursuit of this thing I could not see. The Dogs raced out of the bedroom to the kitchen back door and began crashing into the door to get out. Sweating and panic stricken I stumbled to the back door fumbling with the lock and trying to hold the dogs back thinking to myself "The dogs can see it, let them get it, open the darn door and let the dogs have the foul thing!". I flung the door open and the dogs crashed through the screen and ran towards the barn foaming, growling and barking in full attack mode. As they entered the barn I got a glimpse of greenish blue light that disappeared as I watched. The dogs were acting like they had a monster cornered and I slammed and locked the door. For the next few minutes I was so terrorized I just stood in the kitchen staring through the door at the barn and listening to my dogs in a killing frenzy of barking and growling. The whole incident lasted about twenty minutes and as suddenly as it began it was over. As I watched the dogs came out of the barn sniffing around as though they had lost the scent and Molly whining, came back to the door with Cemus sniffing around behind her. I let the dogs back in quickly never taking my eyes off the barn and locked the door again behind them. I then fell weakly into a chair at the table shaking and crying and Molly came over to me and put her head in my lap as if to say " It's okay now mom, I ran it off." I tried hard to think of what to do next and how to explain it to the sheriff's deputies if I called them. I knew I'd had a paranormal experience more frightening than I had ever had and had no clue what to do about it.

I then remembered Debbie's weird behavior earlier that evening. I rushed to the phone with the dogs right on my heels ( that's where they stayed for the rest of the night) and heedless of the time called Marty.

I asked Marty what was wrong with Deb and what she had said when they left me. Marty told me she refused to tell him what was wrong and continued to claim she was ill but that he didn't believe her because when they got home and locked in for the night Debbie's illness quickly faded. I told Marty to put Debbie on the phone. At first she refused to talk to me, Marty pleaded with her telling her there was something wrong with me as I sounded like I was crying. Debbie became worried and got on the phone immediately asking me what happened. I told her my tale and demanded that she tell me what happened to her at my house,knowing full well by her behavior earlier that she was somehow involved in my horrible nightmare. Debbie then told me as we pulled into my drive that she glanced at the barn because she thought she saw a light on in it. What Debbie said she saw was a greenish blue man in old farm clothes glaring at her from beside the old tractor. She said he looked at her like he'd like to kill her so hateful was his stare. She then realized she was looking at what must be a ghost though she had never before seen the like because he was hazy looking and had the greenish blue glow about him. She told me she panicked and freaked and didn't want to tell Marty and I thinking we would laugh at her. She said she was so scared she didn't even consider that I might be in danger she just wanted to be away from there as fast as possible. Marty upon hearing Deb's story insisted on coming back over. Now that I knew my monster was a ghost I calmed considerably and told Marty to wait 'till morning to come back over.

I sat up the rest of the night wondering why this ghost attacked me and why no one had ever seen or mentioned seeing or feeling anything before my encounter. The rest of the weekend passed peacefully and when my room mates came home I confronted them with my story as they had lived at the farm almost a year before I moved in.

Nothing had ever happened to them they both swore. One of my roomys got the idea to go talk to our nearest neighbor to see if any ghostly stories had ever come from our farm. The neighbors; an older farm couple were very amiable and asked us in for a cold glass of tea. We told them of my haunting and they told my roomy and I that they weren't a bit surprised that the place was haunted because the original owner of the farm was a mean spirited old curmudgeon with a greedy and possessive heart. The old farmer lived alone after his wife died and just became meaner and more obnoxious. He had nothing to do with his neighbors unless he wanted to show off or threaten them for getting to close to his precious farm. His tractor was his pride and joy and he flaunted it at his less fortunate neighbors charging them ridiculous rent fees to come over and till their farms as he rubbed in the fact that he could afford the nice tractor and they couldn't. The neighbors told us that at the end of his life he refused to leave the farm for fear some one might steal it and though he could no longer drive his tractor he went out to the barn daily to care for it, washing it keeping it oiled, and starting it to make sure it stayed in working order even though it never left the barn again. The farmer died in his sleep in the back bedroom of the farm house, my bedroom.

His inheritors never needing the farm or the old tractor in this modern world began to rent the farm out immediately after his death about five years prior to I and my room mates renting the place. As far as I know the haunting only occurred that one time never before and never after.

My room mates lived on in the farm house for several more years after I moved out with never even a stirring of an incident. I myself lived there for months after that with no more hauntings. Who knows why it happened perhaps the stars were aligned just so or perhaps two women with slight psychic clairvoyance was what he needed to show his anger at these invaders to his domain. I guess I'll never figure that one out, but I can tell you I have never been so frightened by my abilities to see things paranormal and Debbie; well she has never had another ghostly experience and she never, never again came back to the farm, I had to go visit them or Marty alone would come out to visit or take me back with him to visit Debbie.