Haunted Inspiration
On the farm where I grew up, we had a haunted barn. It looked sort of like this one. My mom didn’t like to talk about it, and she never told the stories when she knew we kids were around, but I heard them. It wasn’t “and then I saw a pale figure dragging chains” or “Get out!” or anything. It was the night she was milking the cows, and a hand reached in through the gap of the door to lift the hook from the eye-bolt, but it couldn’t reach far enough. The arm was clad in plaid flannel like my dad always wore, so my mom said “Hold on, honey, I’ll get it,” but when she opened the door no one was there. Later she learned my dad hadn’t been in the barn at all. It was putting a horse in a straight stall with the tie clipped to his halter, and finding him the next morning reversed in the stall (butt to the manger) with the tie wrapped around his leg. It was hearing footsteps walking down the aisle between the hay mows upstairs, and knowing the wagon was parked there and no one could be walking across that floor. And then getting the dog for company because she was spooked but she had to finish the chores—and the dog wouldn’t go into the barn. It was trying to bring the horses in from pasture on a wet and windy fall night, and they wouldn’t come near…