Storiesonline.net ------- The Crane House by Barneyr Copyright© 2012 by Barneyr ------- Description: This is my story for Halloween this year, I hope you enjoy it. It came to me in a nightmare one night. This is told by the 15 year old boy that it happened to. Codes: true paranormal ------- As I was growing up in western New York, I heard a tale of the haunted house out on Mill Road in the township of Busti. Now Busti Township is made up of ten villages or hamlets in an area of about 48 square miles, but the actual town of Busti itself was originally called Busti Corners because it grew up centered on five intersecting roads. These were Forest Avenue Extension from Jamestown; the Busti-Sugar Grove Road, the opposite direction of Forest Ave.; County Road 18; County Road 328; and Mill Road, the opposite direction of CR 328. The township was created in 1823 and named for Paul Busti, a general agent with the Holland Land Company. Herman Bush came to town around 1825, and built a sawmill on Hatch Creek, on the site of the now Bush Cemetery, the only large cemetery in the town proper. Then Uriah Bentley built the very first brick house in Busti in 1837. This is the land upon which the haunted house is located. The brick house was destroyed by a fire in 1857, and a new wood home was built by Lyman Crane in 1868. Rather than using the normal horizontal wood planks on the outside of the house as was normal at that time, he used a vertical wood type of siding, much like very old homes from the 1800s. This is the beginning of the legend of the Crane House. Now the thought is that there were southern sympathizers that found out that the Bentley home was a part of the underground railway and therefore burned the house down. There were nine bodies found in the ashes. Legend says that there were large quantities of long planks found underneath the home when Lyman was excavating to build a basement for his new home. He used these nice planks as part of the outside clapboarding for his new home. Over the years since the house was built, it has had many owners and most did not live there long. Mysterious goings on had been reported for many years, people disappearing or ghastly murders associated with the home. It was totally abandoned in 1917 and no one has lived in it since then. The surprising thing was that the outside of the house never deteriorated. It looked just like the last owner, Fred Carpenter, left it in 1917. The house had a white exterior with multi-pane windows and a detached one-car garage. Now the garage was a different story. It looked a hundred years old and was leaning against the large maple tree next to it on the south side of the house. But the house looked like it always had. Electricity had not come to this area until the 1930s, so the house never had electricity run to it. Lights were seen in the house sometime in the fall, around the middle of October to the first week or so in November. These were flickering lights or shadows seen through the clean windows. They most likely would have been from candles or kerosene lanterns that were common in the day when the residents of the house lived there. There were several attempts to tear the house down that were thwarted, but under unusual circumstances. George Martin bought the property in 1925 and was attempting to tear the house down when he woke up one morning and discovered his hands were red from some type of rash. He immediately went into Jamestown to see a doctor and was told it was a kind of hives type of thing, that he must have gotten bit or stung by something near the house, or gotten something on him to cause it. He waited almost a month for the redness to go away, and when he tried to go back to the house, he found his hands turning red the closer he got to it. He immediately abandoned the house and left the area. In 1939, a man was hired by the son of George Martin to bulldoze the house down. Before the dozer got to within ten feet of the house, the track on one side came off. Once that was fixed, he attempted to push the house down again, and as soon as the dozer blade hit the house all the electrical in the machine fried and electrocuted the man running the machine. The dozer was towed away, and the house sat for another fifty years, never aging. This is where I come in to the story. My name is Robert Reese, but most people call me Bob. I mainly grew up in Jamestown, although some of my very early years were spent in Busti Township in the hamlet of Ashville. We moved to the country when I was about 15 and I started going to the square dances at the Busti Fire Hall on Saturday nights, as it was the best cheap entertainment around, and I met a lot of nice girls and some not so nice ones, if you know what I mean. You know that the not so nice girls would allow liberties that the nice girls wouldn't. Nuff said, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, know what I mean? Anyway we were coming up on Halloween and I heard the story about the Crane House from some of the old-timers at the dance. We all would go outside to cool off and smoke or make out with our dates during the intermissions. It seems that the flickering lights were back at the Crane House just last night. My friends and I had not heard of this before, so we asked the old gentleman what the story was. He gave us the back story you just read, and said that there usually was strange goings on at the Crane House ten days before, and up to six days after Halloween. They said it wasn't every Halloween, but there was no other time of year when the lights were seen. Halloween was the next Friday and they were saying that it would be a good thing that no one was expected to be around there then. Well, we figured that this was just a load of BS the old-timers were giving us kids. Let's face it, you think that you're invincible when you're 15, especially about ghost stories. I mean, hell, we knew Santa was just a figment of some marketer's imagination way back in time to sell more stuff at Christmas. I had just moved from a house that was like a block from the largest cemetery in Jamestown, and I went all over that place as we scared little kids with our pranks every year. We used to dress up in rags put on a chalky face, blacken our eyes, and come out of the crypts and mausoleums scattered all over the cemetery; or we would just lay behind a tombstone and then scare the hell out of the kids walking through on the roads. So we knew a ghost story when we heard one. I tried to find out all I could about this so called haunted Crane House all that next week. From what I could find out the stories were true. There has been some incidences where people have been hurt or disappeared and never heard from again over the years. Who can say what's right concerning this event? A few more people have tried to do something to the house besides enter it. It's very rare someone approaches the house around Halloween, but the house is open and anyone can walk in and look around any other time of year. But don't try to leave with anything or try to harm the house in any way, because you'll suffer the consequences if you do. I had finally talked someone into going along with me on Friday night. It was Gordon Shumway; he was a friend from down the road where I lived. He was a year older and played fiddle in our band. I played acoustic guitar and sang, Ken played piano and electric guitar, and also sang; my cousin, Gilbert, played banjo and bass fiddle. We dubbed ourselves the 'Country Gentlemen' and mostly played at 4H dances or some of the high school dances for some of the surrounding consolidated schools. Anyway, Gordon was the only one to come along, since I think everyone was afraid to be with me. I was the real daredevil of our bunch. I was the first to jump off the roof of the pig sty when we were kids; I jumped into the creek pond first when it was still spring runoff time. I would try just about anything for a thrill. Needless to say, I'm not that way anymore; but more on that later. Anyway, Gordon and I went there that Friday night and walked in like we owned the place. We had flashlights, and they went out as soon as we crossed the threshold. We went back to my dad's car for the candles I made sure I brought, and lit them after we went back inside. We were about five feet from the door when it closed. It was windy tonight and the candles flickered right before the door slammed shut. We stood stock still and waited a few minutes; nothing more happened, so we went looking around. We walked all over that house except the basement. That door it was locked or stuck when I tried, because it didn't budge at all. We walked upstairs and nothing was out of place, so we figured the whole thing was a big ghost story. We got back downstairs, and after trying the cellar door again, we were in the front room about to leave, when I felt a very cold chill run up and down my spine. Gordon had been behind me and he wasn't there when I turned around. I turned back and there was nothing there either. I turned back to look behind me again and I saw the ghostly apparition of a small girl of about nine or ten, holding a candle in one of those candle holders with the round handle to hold it with, and a plate type of thing for the candle itself. I didn't see any metal coming up around the base of the candle, so I assumed that there was a nail sticking up to put the candle on. She had come from the cellar, since I could see as the door was now open. Back to this girl, she was small like I said, and was wearing a long white gown, like an old nightshirt or flannel nightgown. I could see right through her, and it looked like I was looking through a sheer gauzy fabric, but she was like that too. There was a dark stain at the front, and just below the waist of her gown. There was a long pointed thing that looked like the tine of a pitchfork but in her smaller, other hand. It looked overly large in her small hand. She turned toward me and I saw a fiery glow where her eyes should, be and when she opened her mouth, I saw a blackness darker than the inside of a cave I had once explored. The sound that reached my ears was like fingernails on a real slate blackboard, then I heard voices like the souls of sinners of Hell that were crying out for mercy. I drew my hunting knife from the sheath on my belt, but I wasn't able to bring it to bear on the apparition because I was frozen to that spot. I never moved as she came closer to me, then just disappeared from my view, but as she did, following her were several more ghostly white figures. Some were younger children, some were adults. There were white people, black people, and some that looked and were dressed as Indians, similar to the Seneca Indians I had seen in the history books. I then I heard a scream that came from below that reverberated off the walls and made the floor vibrate and shake with its echoes. I was still frozen to the spot, and the apparitions didn't disappear like the first little girl as they came toward me. These creatures walked right through me; I could feel each and every one of them as they made their way through my body, and a sudden coldness entered me as they passed through. It was like I was becoming almost like them, since the more that walked through my body, the easier it was for them to pass through, and the colder I got. I became partially unfrozen as the last apparition passed through my body, and I turned around, then raised my hand and saw an outline of my hand and jacket sleeve. My hunting knife was still in my hand and it seemed to be as solid as ever, unlike my arm and hand, but it now had a dark stain on it that looked like it might be dried blood. I tried to move any other part of my body, but I was still immobilized and had to stand rooted to the spot. My arm froze again as it was stretched out in front of me. My fear now was palatable; I could feel the bile rising from my stomach into my throat. I'm not afraid to admit that I had a warm feeling running down my leg. I just knew that whatever was in the basement was coming for me and my life was going to be over. My knife and my candle would be useless on this creature; that much I knew. I just hoped that the little girl had helped Gordon escape. I knew I was to be the next victim of 'The Crane House'. I just knew that whatever was in the basement was the last thing on this earth that I would ever see. The roar from before came again, but it seemed closer to me than before. It was coming up the cellar stairs. I was now shaking in my boots; I had never, in all my 15 years, experienced anything like this before. I could hear the steps creaking as if some huge weight was being pressed on them, making the wood itself scream in terror. Just about then, the first little girl with the lit candle came back through me. I could feel the coldness, and yet I felt the heat of the candle too. She turned to look at me with those fiery eyes and her mouth opened again, but I only heard a single scream and it sounded like Gordon this time. She turned and went to the cellar door, and closed it behind her as she went down to the basement. I heard that unearthly scream again, but it seemed to be retreating into the basement below again, as now the sound came from further away. I could feel that I had become unfrozen and I was about to turn around and try to make a very hasty retreat when a finger tapped me on my shoulder. I screamed and jumped forward to get away from whatever was behind me. I spun around, thrusting my candle and hunting knife in front of me. That's when I saw Gordon, white as the ghostly figure I had seen earlier, his eyes were as wide open as could be, and his mouth was open in a scream that wasn't heard. His ghastly figure slowly dematerialized from both ends towards the middle, then there was a loud liquid pop and he was gone. I ran for the door and couldn't open it. Why, I can't say. The knob would turn, but wouldn't allow the door to open. I ran back towards the kitchen and hit the back door with such force that I flew through it and landed in the backyard. I looked back and it looked like the back door had turned into a mouth, and I could see the clapboards turn into teeth as a smile emerged from the mouth, and I heard a rumble that shook the earth around me as I heard, "Thank you, he was good." Needless to say, I left in a hurry. I ran all the way home in fact. It was a long run of over ten miles. I stopped to catch my breath a couple of times, but I was off once I could breathe again. The County Sheriff and State Police had me repeat my story for almost three straight days before they let me go home again. They were very interested in the snow white hair that suddenly appeared along one side of my head. From about my left ear, on up for about an inch, all the hair from the front to where the curve of my head turned into the back was white and no dye would ever cover it. It is all white now, as I'm an old man who hates Halloween with a passion that knows no bounds. I now live in Texas, and never go home again, especially around the fall. As for Gordon, he was found in his bed on Saturday morning, a week later. He had no idea what had happened to him, but he has a funny scar that is shaped like two devil's horns on his right buttock. It looks like someone poked him many times with a sharp pointed object, like a pitchfork tine, to make the drawing of the horns. He has no recollection of the week that he lost. He remembers being behind me when we saw the ghost of the girl, then he woke up a week later on that Saturday morning. ------- Epilogue I'm an old man now, and I never venture outside of my home on Halloween to this day. My wife has to sit outside and hand the treats out to the children who come to our door, but not me. I stay inside my own home and cringe every time I hear the cackles of a witch or the roar of a demon. I secretly have my hunting knife with me, the one with the blood stains that still remind me of that night so long ago. Edited by Pepere, Proofing by Bettyr and prissy_35503 ------- The End ------- Posted: 2012-10-30 ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------