My uncle and his close friend Katie were both unmarried and weren’t getting any younger. They both had good jobs and were tired of renting. They decided to buy a house together so that they could experience the joys of home ownership.
After searching from one end of the county to the next, they finally stumbled upon an old farmhouse. It sat back off the main road at the end of a long curving dirt driveway. Although they had both grown up in the area, neither one of them had ever noticed the house before. It had apparently been there longer than either of them had been alive. The old house was dark and empty. It looked as though it had been that way for quite sometime. It was inherited by a local man in his 30’s who had no interest in the home and immediately listed it for sale. Happy to make a quick buck he allowed my Uncle Paul and Katie to get the home for a steal.
Realizing that they didn’t need all three bedrooms in the house, they decided to rent out the third room. Before they had even moved in, Uncle Paul and Katie had found their first tenant. Roger was a mutual friend and was looking for cheap rent, so the deal worked out for everyone. Soon they would all be one happy family.
Moving day came soon and the three friends decided to flip a coin to see who would get the biggest bedroom. The largest bedroom was upstairs and had a big window with stained glass trimming that looked out across the large backyard and into the deep forest behind the home. Katie was thrilled when she won the coin toss.
Uncle Paul ended up in the smallest bedroom downstairs. The first week was going great for my Uncle Paul and Roger but something strange seemed to be going on with Katie. She seemed to be growing distant and withdrawn. Dark circles began to appear under her eyes as if she wasn’t sleeping well. She looked almost as if she was becoming ill. She seemed nervous and would jump at every little sound. She would also lash out in anger at Paul and Roger for what seemed like no reason at all. To sum it up..Katie was changing.
A few weeks later, Katie announced that she would no longer be sleeping in the master bedroom so Uncle Paul said he would take it and Katie would take his room. That first night, Uncle Paul found out why Katie didn’t like the room.
Uncle Paul had moved all his things upstairs and snuggled down into the big king-sized bed that could only fit in that room. He fell asleep smiling, delighted by Katie’s sudden decision to leave the best room in the house.
It was the dead of night when Uncle Paul was jolted from his sleep. He claims the room was pitch-black, but vibrating uncontrollably, as if he had awoke at the end of a very long and loud scream. He hadn’t heard anything, but the vibrations told him something terrible had just happened. That’s when he heard a loud bang coming from the wall next to his head.
There was nothing on the other side of the wall except for the outside. Then another bang resounded, but it came from the ceiling , and then another bang resounded from the opposite wall. Soon Paul was unable to tell where the loud slams and bangs were coming from. Were they coming from inside his own head?
The scariest thing that happened was the dresser tipping over by itself and the mirror shattering on the floor without anyone touching it. That was just the first night and the next morning, a very disturbed Uncle Paul “offered” the room to his friend Roger. He decided not to tell Roger what had happened the night before. He was afraid that if he told, he would be stuck in that room forever. Not to mention his nausea. He felt like he must have been allergic to something in the room, because he felt sick to his stomach after sleeping there (if you could call it sleeping) the night before.
Paul and Katie gave each other knowing looks from across the kitchen at each other, but neither said anything about the room to Roger. Roger couldn’t understand why they would give up the best room so easily. Roger stayed in the room for nearly three weeks, longer than any of them, until one night when they heard a terrified scream and then stomping all through the house, with the door eventually slamming shut.
Katie and Uncle Paul ran from their rooms to find that Roger had run screaming from the house and refused to come back in. Katie and Paul decided it was time to have a serious talk about what was going on. They compared stories and Katie’s story was nearly identical. She too, felt something was “screaming” in the room and awoke every night to the strange vibrations. But she also heard what sounded like soft footsteps walking round and round her bed. It was if something were dancing around her, or that she was the center of some kind of ritual.
She claimed there was some strange “catlike” thing in there, too. The two avoided the room like the plague for as long as they could until money started to get tight and they decided they needed to find someone else to become a tenant and rent the room from them. Katie eventually found a young, laid-back and very nice young man who seemed like a great addition to their farm house family. His excitement about moving in reminded them so much of Roger.
He seemed somewhat fearless as well. He had traveled on his own for most of his young life. He moved into the “screaming room” and things seemed to calm down after that. The young man never complained and seemed right at home. There were no scary stories or haunted tales to tell about the best room in the house anymore. Katie and Uncle Paul began to relax and even wonder if they had been crazy all along.
A few months later, the two began to take notice of a growing odd behavior in their new tenant. He seemed to become anti social and depressed. His skin began taking on a grayish appearance and his eyes had the same dark circles that had begun to appear under Katie’s.
Worried, but afraid to ask about what she knew must be bothering him, Katie suggested he visit the doctor and the young man simply stared at her. His dark eyes looked as if there was someone else behind them. The young man began spending more and more time alone in the room.. Until it got to the point where he never came out at all… Not even to eat or bathe.
After not seeing him for a few days, My Uncle Paul went to check on his young roommate. When he reached the door he had to use a key to gain access. As the door swung open, my uncle’s face was flush white and his voice began to tremble as he tried to call for Katie. To his horror, the young man was hanging from the ceiling by a rope. The stench told him he’d been there for far too long and his room was in destroyed: clothes, boxes, books, sheets and pillows thrown all about. There were holes in the walls and ceiling as if he had been trying to hit something.
My Uncle Paul said that they ended up moving out and ironically moved in with Roger on the other side of town. He says that’s by far the weirdest thing that has ever happened to him. He said that after they were able to eventually sell the house, it was torn down a few months later by the new owners without explanation. Now there is only a big overgrown field where the haunted farmhouse used to sit.
Did the house claim the life of their young tenant? Was there something about the old farmhouse bedroom that made people go insane? Either way, Paul says that it was haunted, and I for one, believe him.
