Troubled Trail

From: Melissa (Mlssp9@aol.com)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Cocoa, Florida
Source: Form Submission

My friend Brook and I had horses at Tenderfoot Ranch, close to the St. John's River, for most of our younger years. Every day we would jump on the horses bareback and head off on the trail behind the barn. We had always heard stories of ghosts that haunted the woods due to the land being old Seminole Indian territory. We never thought anything of it, until one day.

We jumped on the horses and headed for our trail. It was a normal Summer day, no breeze, about 90 degrees, and very humid. We got about half way down the dirt path, and noticed the horses were being very spooky. They were extremely apprehensive about moving forward and kept trying to turn back to the barn. When we insisted they keep walking, I started listening for something that could have been scaring our horses. Maybe a raccoon, or a hog was in the bushes.

All of a sudden, I hear drum beats in the distance. Brook and I stopped the horses and listened. The drum beats were getting louder and louder and the horses were starting to rear up and spin around. They definately sounded like a Native American drum beat. We made the horses keep walking so we could find out where the sound was coming from. We had goosebumps all over our entire bodies. We were so confused and shocked about the sounds that we didn't breathe. We just sat there mesmerized and pushed forward.

But the closer we got to the sound, the more it would start to drift away. We followed the sound for maybe five minutes, it would get louder and louder then it would be hardly audible. Then we got to the point where the drums were very loud, and all of a sudden a freezing cold wind came blasting around the corner of the trail. It made us scream and it made the horses completely freak out. They reared straight up and bolted back towards the barn. Behind us the drumbeats were getting so loud, it was like they were chasing after us! Between the horses' hoofbeats on the ground, it sounded like there were more horses behind us! Maybe there were Indian ghosts chasing after us!Neither one of us could look back. The chill was still on our skin even though we were charging full speed away from the direction that the wind came. Tears were streaming down Brook's cheeks.

When we got to the clearing that seperated the barn from the woods, immediately the drums stopped and the chill went away. We ran to Sandy, the manager of the feed store on the property and, in tears, told her about what had happened.

"Yep, we told you kids. There's something out there, and it likes to dwell on you young-uns. Me an' Bill heard the same thing about a month ago when we went riding down there towards the creek." I couldn't believe it. I always thought they were just teasing us, trying to scare us.

Sandy went on to tell us about a year before I started boarding my horses there, a young girl had the same experience riding by herself on the trail. Her horse had thrown her off half way back to the barn, and then she heard the drums. She tried to run back as fast as she could but the sound was all around her. When she finally reached the clearing, the sound stopped. She was so hysterical that they could never get the actual story out of her. She just kept repeating that the drums were chasing her and she could feel something behind her. The girl's parents moved her horse to another stable very shortly after that.

Now I don't know exactly what it was that we experienced out there that day. What I can tell you is this, I don't scare easy and neither does my best friend Brook. But whatever was chasing us back towards the barn scared the daylights out of us. I will never forget that chill, how cold it was, how it went straight to my bones. And I will never forget those drum beats. That was my first supernatural experience, but definately not my last...