I have always held closely to the broad-shouldered belief that there are no such things as ghosts. Yet, I’ll never forget the evening I almost changed my mind…
Let’s go back maybe twenty-five years ago when I was much involved with rehabbing properties. I had acquired a once-handsome, maybe elegant, antebellum house with acreage forty miles from where I lived, situated on a flat, desolate tract of pasture land.
It stood in isolation, though there was a modern home three hundred yards to my left, concealed by forest, and a store to my right, equidistant, equally tree-obscured. A lonely, seldom- travelled two-lane road lay in front of the property, soon lost in the woods to the right and to the left, connected the two.
The house had a name: The Depot. It was so named because years ago, it was the way station for the stagecoach traverse, mid-way between Danville and Roanoke. As the legend goes, one extremely cold and blustering night a mail coach pulled up, but no one came inside. The station manager, alerted by the rattling of tack, and alarmed by the absence of the driver, pulled on a mackinaw, lowered his head against the storm, only to find the driver apparently asleep on the coach box. He pulled at him to wake him up and the man fell dead, frozen, at his feet. The horses, by habit, had found their way.
There were other such events over the years, but none of such a paranormal bent to ignite speculation, that is, until the voices started. This I was told by curiosity-seekers who came to visit me working. They seemed rather nervous, I thought, and, every now and then, one would caution: Just be sure and be out of here by dark. Why? The voices. Okay. Right.
I had loaded my pickup with supplies one morning, and was heading for the Depot, when I was stopped by a check point run by game wardens looking for contraband animals.
The officer was a big, no-nonsense grey-haired fellow who asked where I was bound. When I told him, he stiffened. “I know the place. It’s haunted. Voices. I was set up there one night after dark; maybe 10:00. I was watching for poachers. Then I heard the voices, a man’s and a woman’s, coming from that cursed house. Then I heard a ‘thunk’ and the voices stopped.”
“What did they say?”
“Wasn’t clear. Man’s voice, woman’s voice; that was clear.”
“What did you do?”
“Got out; haven’t been back;’ not going back.”
“Why’s it haunted?”
“Don’t know; don’t care. Just take my advice: be out of there by dark.”
I spent the next few weeks half-expecting a giddy multitude of translucent figures dancing noiselessly roundabout in a spectral, seventeenth century cotillion, hopefully convivial. I couldn’t help but keep an eye out for tools, skittered by an unseen hand, to begin moving about. But then, as far as voices, my constantly running power tools likely drowned them out. I left each day before dusk; but one day I was delayed a bit; it was full evening. I had loaded the truck for the trip home, I was locking the door, and . . . I heard the voices…
A man’s voice clearly; a woman’s voice clearly, their words unintelligible. Their conversation, while soft was nevertheless quite audible. Then a thunk, and the voices ceased.
I stood there cursing my lack of courage and toilet paper. I was determined not to let fear trump rational thought. As I waited, a car went slowly down the road. Ten minutes later, it drove back. I assumed the driver had visited the small grocery mart just down the road. Still, I stood there, determined to figure this out. This time I heard the thunk first, then the voices began and faded.
Suddenly, I had an idea. I raced my truck up the road to the house. A man and a woman were carrying grocery bags in the door. I got out, introduced myself, asked them a strange favor. I told them why. The woman said, “We’ve heard about the voices, of course, but we’ve never actually heard them ourselves. I raced back to the Depot, and sure enough, a man’s and woman’s voice, then a thunk. The two had granted my request: talk about anything, but do it in a normal fashion. They did, and the mystery was solved.
Ultimately, the answer was more scientific than superstitious. The Depot and the house beyond had been built, unknowingly, on an acoustic corridor, like the Greeks sought before constructing an amphitheater; a uniquely natural terrain of such special features that normal speech projected several hundred yards with perfect fidelity. The Depot was a bit further, and girded by trees, thus the voices, but not the words, were heard.
The couple had never heard the voices because they were the voices! Oh, and the thunk? Their car door closing.