Just up the hill from my Grandpa Prater's farmhouse in northern Indiana was the Old House: over 100 years old, now fallen to ruin. We could go up and play in the dusty yard, or hunt for frogs in the little pond, but we could not go inside. Uncle Paul said that it was full of "witch's blood" that would turn us into "ghosts," but most likely it was just unstable.
We usually stayed away from the Old House, unless there were adults up there, playing horseshoes or skinning and cleaning the animals they hunted. We didn't like the weird shadows in the upstairs windows, like dark figure moving about, or the porch swing that sometimes moved by itself.
But one day in the summer of 1972, when I was eleven years old, the farmhouse was full of people: Mom and Dad, my aunts and uncles, and some people I didn't know, an old guy Grandpa Prater's age, some husbands and wives, and a couple of surly teenagers. They were in the living room, the kitchen, in Grandma Prater's memorial room, even on the front porch.
They were all laughing loudly and talking about things that happened thirty years ago. Boring! And no kids to play with! My brother and baby sister were out with Grandma Davis, and Cousin Buster was spending Christmas with his other grandparents.
It was noisy and oppressively hot; I had to get out of there! I told Mom I was going to play outside.
But what to do? Nothing is more boring than a farm with no animals on it.I decided to go up to the Old House and throw rocks into the pond, to see if I could scare some fish.
Even though it was a bright, sunny day, the Old House seemed more sinister than usual. I shivered with nervous excitement.
The porch swing was swinging by itself. I heard the rusty scrape.
Trying to avoid looking in the windows at whatever might be inside, I rounded to the back yard, and and almost ran into a boy.
I yelled and jumped back.
He didn't approach. He just stood there, staring.
He was a few years older than me, but not yet a teenager [models in the nude photos are over 18]. Tall and slim, with a round face, sharp features, and black curly hair. Wearing a thin brown jacket, which seemed weird on a hot day.
The full post is on Tales of West Hollywood.