More in Heaven and Earth

I ain't one to believe in the supernatural. Ghosts and goblins don't typically do it for me. I love a good zombie movie (I love 28 Days Later, Zombieland, and Romero's stuff. And if you dig that read zombie comic Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman. AMAZING!) but all that stuff never struck me as feasible. Now I've heard a few stories and bein' that it's October and Halloween is comin' up I thought maybe I'd share a few of those creepy true stories that I'm just not sure about.

One dark night many, many years ago my grandfather was on his way home and drivin' through Iowa. If you've never driven through Iowa I can tell you that it's a boring drive. Fields as far as the eye can see and very few interesting things to see. I'm sure it was even more so durin' the fifties and sixties.

My grandfather was havin' a hell of a time stayin' awake. He spotted a hitchhiker headin' in the same direction as he was so he offered to give him a lift. The man gladly accepted and they rode and chatted about a few things. My grandfather was asked to pull into a side road that the man claimed he lived down. There wasn't a house for miles and my grandfather was becoming suspicious. He pulled over and asked the man to get out.

The passenger pulled out a knife and attacked my grandfather. They struggled and eventually my grandfather stabbed the man in the center of his chest. After doin' so my grandfather passed out either from exhaustion or 'cause of the beatin' he took, I'm not sure which. When he woke up in the mornin' his truck was in the middle of a cornfield and the man was gone with no sign of blood or anything. What was there in the seat next to him was a knife stuck right where the man's chest would've been.

Maybe he dreamed it all up. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe.

When my father was a young man and living with his parents he had a recurring dream. He dreamt that an old woman would come to his screen door at night and try to open it. He left the door open to get a breeze in the summertime but kept the screen locked to keep out thieves.

He told a relative about the dream he kept havin' wonderin' if it meant anything. What was told to him was that old women appear in your dreams to take you to an undiscovered treasure. This friend said to leave the door unlocked when he went to bed and the old woman could then show him where the treasure was.

So he did. The old woman appeared in a dream and with the screen door unlocked she was able to let herself in. When she did, she pulled a knife from her belt and charged my father. Her face had rotted away and she became infested with spiders and maggots. She tried to kill him but he awoke before she could.

Another instance involving my grandfather took place as he was workin' on a farm. He and several other men had been hired to pick cotton or fruit I'm not really sure which or what state they were in exactly. It happened before my grandfather was married so i suppose it could've been in the forties on any patch of land suitable for growin'. Well when my grand father was hired he was shown around. "These are the outhouses over here. Those are where the bunks where all you boys are gonna be stayin'. These are the trees you'll be pickin' from. And I'll be at the house way over there on the hill if you need anything you boys just come and get me."

The owner went off to his house and the guys started workin'. Night rolled around and the guys headed in to their little shack. They wanted some water for their supper but had used up what they had already. My grandfather was sent to grab a bucketfull from the well one of the guys had seen.

It was dark and my grandfather could only see by the moonlight. He made it to the well before he noticed a woman standing there. She told him the well water was no good here and that he should use the well on the far side of the owner's home. My grandfather thanked her and did as she suggested.

The next mornin' the owner came early to let the workers know that the well closer to the had bad water in it. Somethin' in the water made people sick and he told the workers they should use the one on the far side of his house. My grandfather said, "Thanks, but we already know. Your wife told me while I was up there about to get water from the well."

The man looked surprised, "I don't have a wife and nobody lives near here for miles."

My grandfather went later to search for footprints of a trespasser and only found hoofprints like the ones from a cow where the woman had been standin'.

I dunno that any of these are exactly as true as the people that they happened to believe but those people believe 'em. I don't buy into all this spooky stuff but I've heard that expression ,I forget exactly how it goes but it's sumthin' like, "There is more in Heaven and Earth than we understand." I'll buy that. There are things that fool us and things we believe to readily with no good cause. People believe in the Bible without questionin' it and people trust science and technology more than they should. There are things that neither can truly appreciate and those are the lil gray patches in the world where ghosts and goblins come from. The Twilght Zone, Outer Limits, under the bed, in the closet, in the shadows, there are always things to be feared and misunderstood somewhere.