I was around eleven when a truly frightening and bizarre occurrence transpired — I can’t wrap my head around it, to this day—the place, Abilene, Kansas, in a two-story, three-bedroom green house. I spent several years of my childhood living in this house on the edge of town on SW 2nd Street. Some considered it the wrong side of the tracks, but I didn’t know what that meant back then. To me, it was just home.

The property was once a farm, and from what I understand, the house had at one time caught fire. At the end of the sanded driveway was a large grey barn, big enough to accommodate three cars and equipped with a hayloft that had many stories of its own. Two other outbuildings stood next to the barn, that is, until Dad, to please Mom, decided to tear them down and used the lumber to build a fence to hide the view of the old rusty junk cars next to our backyard. My mom was embarrassed and hated this area because of its location and what was visible from the street just beyond our backyard.

On the east side of the house, we had a small orchard with pear, apple, apricot, and cherry trees. A windstorm would later destroy several of them. The backyard had a massive elm tree that provided a great deal of shade for those sultry, hot summer days, and two worm-infested smaller Chinese Elms were right outside the kitchen window. We also had several walnut trees along the driveway's west side. Out front, a catalpa tree we kids used to throw firecrackers down its hollowed-out trunk, occasionally causing the inside to catch fire. I always thought it was an odd-looking tree with its extra-large leaves and long string bean-like pods.

A mile and a half to the south were the Union Pacific railroad tracks running through the flat fields of wheat and corn. At night, while in bed, I would often hear the lonely distant horns of the train engines as they rolled down the tracks. Somehow, the eerie, drawn-out wail made it easier to fall asleep.

There was one room upstairs that gave me the Heebie Zeebies. The storage room was crammed with boxes of books, records, toys, and board games. An unfinished portion of the wall without sheetrock in the back right corner formed a pitch-black abyss that fueled my imagination of what might be lurking there. Creepy!

However, this particular night, the freakish events took place in our bedroom. My brother and I slept in the south bedroom upstairs, with my bed next to the west window, and my parent's bedroom window was directly below mine and to the right, facing south. Late one night, I was awakened by what sounded like someone walking around right outside my window in the leaves, making a crunching sound with every step, which terrified me. Who or what is right outside my window in the middle of the night? I immediately yelled for my dad, who was downstairs in bed. Within seconds, the upstairs hallway lights snapped on. Dad rushed up the stairs, frantically asking what was wrong. I explained to him what I was hearing outside. He said you couldn’t have heard someone walking around in the leaves because there were several inches of snow on the ground, which, of course, would muffle the sound of crunching leaves. Immediately in the other bed, my older brother angrily shouted, “Shut off the lights! I’m trying to sleep!” Dad reassured me there was nothing out there and proceeded back downstairs. He had probably just reached his bed to get in when my brother and I heard a tremendous bang, as if a brick or something big was thrown near my bedroom window against the house. This time, both of us screamed for Dad. When Dad asked us what happened, we said didn't you hear that bang? What bang, he said. My brother and I couldn't believe that neither my Dad nor my mother, who was almost directly below us, didn't hear a thing. I don't think I slept at all the rest of that night. The next day, Dad and I searched the area where I thought I heard the footsteps. There was nothing, not a single track in the snow. What the hell was it? It just didn't make sense, and we never found out. It's an experience I’ll never forget.

The actual house along with a few creative liberties.