Ghost of a Killer

''This is based on real events that have happened to me. ''

It was a cool March evening, I was with my best friend and his daughter who had just moved into his parent's old farmhouse. You see his father found a good paying job in Maine and he wanted the hose to remain in the family. Jeff and I were always close, we met in 8th grade and have been inseparable, even when he had a child, I became "Uncle Seffy." as his daughter called me. So when he got the home, he invited me over to stay with him and his daughter (her mother having recently separated from him.) for a night and celebrate. I obviously didn't refuse.

We did all the usual things that night, watched TV, played some video games, even drank a few beers after putting my niece to bed. But obviously we had to go to sleep so at 12:30 AM, we decided to call it a night. When I went to the guest room though, my niece met me at the door, looking scared out of her mind. I bent down and asked her, "What's wrong hon? Something spook ya?" I moved some of her hair from her face. She said, "Uncle Seffy, I think there is a scary lady in the home." My eyes shot open and I asked, "Where?" She said, "She was sitting in my closet, she disappeared though."

I got my pistol, my grandfather's old Colt Python and told my friend. He and I did a quick look around her room, then the rest of the house, but found nothing. Jeff asked his daughter if she might have just imagined it and she replied, "Maybe..." We both laughed and he ruffled her hair, "Wanna sleep with daddy tonight?" She nodded and clung to him so he could carry her to the master bedroom.

It was probably about 1 AM when I fell asleep, but at 2:30 I woke to the motion light outside of my room flicking on. I knew a fox had been going after the chickens that my friend's parents left him, so I decided to run out and check for it. I grabbed my pistol, not having the key to my friend's gun safe and put on some pants, a t-shirt, and my boots. I snuck outside and looked around the immediate area for even so much as a fox track in the melting snow, but nothing. I scratched my head and sighed, "Well that was all for naught." I say softly and went to the coop to check the chickens. Sure enough, they were all there, so I went to head back to the home, that is when I saw something that made my heart sink.

A man, large and muscular, with messy brown hair wearing denim overalls, a white long-sleeved shirt, and a pair of boots, carrying a lever-action rifle, was running for my friend's home. I took off after him and yelled "HEY! STOP!" He spun and fired a shot off towards me, I didn't see the round hit the ground or anything as I hid behind a tractor for cover, but dismissed it as the darkness and his poor accuracy as I was well over 100 yards away. I went to shoot but he was already inside. I ran for the door, but then heard 2 sickening gunshots followed by a feminine scream, then a 3rd.

I became enraged, thinking I had just heard my friend and his daughter get murdered. I made it in only to see the man heading for the backdoor and begin shooting. I yelled "Frieze fucker!" And aimed at him, he spun and went to shoot at me. But I fired 3 shots, one right after the other. He recoiled back as if I hit him, but then, he vanished as he hit the ground, leaving me dumbfounded.

I heard a scream, definitely belonging to my niece as Jeff came running down, pistol in hand as he yelled "What the fuck are you doing Seth!?" I turned to him, sweating and shaking "Y-You're alive?" He growled "Yeah! No thanks to the mini heart-attack you just gave me! What the hell is going on!?" I saw my niece behind him, looking at me with fear as I sat on the couch in the living room.

I came clean, told him everything, waiting for him to call me insane or something, but instead, he looked horrified, like he saw it all with me. He looked to his daughter and told her to go to bed, that she would be safe. He came and sat with me before holding his face in his hands "Seth... you aren't crazy." He told me. He then told me a story: About 100 or so years ago, a man lived in the farmhouse he now owned with his wife and 2 beautiful daughters. About a mile down the road lived a mentally unstable man by the name of Ed. He was madly in love with one of his daughters and several times tried to win her heart only to be turned down by both her and her father. One day he decided if he couldn't have her, no one could. He took his rifle and went to the home where the family was eating dinner that night. He broke in and with two shots killed the husband, and with a third killed the wife. Both daughters ran to the backdoor and towards the woods. Ed then ran to the door and was able to kill one (the one he loved,) and almost killed the other. He would have had it not been for a farmhand who saw him break in from his quarters, located where the chicken coop was now. He grabbed his handgun and ran for the house, he was able to gun Ed down at the backdoor before he could finish the job.

Over the years, rumors that Ed and the daughter he loved still haunted the home persisted. He never told me, thinking that he didn't want to keep me from coming over. But both his mother and brother claimed to see the daughter and Ed respectively. He had always dismissed it as their imagination or that they were trying to scare him. But now with proof from me, someone he trusted, he knew that there was a problem and we had to fix it.

He stayed up all night so his daughter and I could go back to sleep. The following day we went to a priest, knowing we were dealing with evil forces. He obliged and said he'd come with us and do a ceremony. After he sprinkled holy water and we all prayed, he told us something was linking them to the home, and he sensed it under the first floor but above the basement. We tore the carpet up and found dried blood everywhere. Jeff called a flooring company and got the flooring removed and replaced.

Ever since, all has been silent at the home, who knows, hopefully Ed and the daughter are finally free and the haunting might be over, but still, if I have to sleep at that home, I make sure my gun is out, just to let Ed know that I am ready to end his little spree again.