The Squatters

From: Mason (samuel_j_galbrai@hotmail.com)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Orangeville, Ontario
Source: Form Submission

This story was told to me by my step-father when I was 18 (22 now.) The story takes place in the winter of 1998.

A friend of his had gone on vacation leaving my step-father to tend to her house from time to time.

He gave this friend a ride to the airport and then three days later went to go check on the house. It took him twenty minutes to drive deep into the woods to where the house stood. When he got there he noticed three things.

1) There were not any tire tracks in the snow of the driveway besides his own.

2) Looking through the windows he could see that every light in the two story house was on.

3) There was one set of footprints in the snow making it's way up to the door. And he was still standing beside the car.

This was before the time of cell-phones and my step-father is a very brave man. (Probably too brave.) He took a tire iron out of his truck and went inside the house.

He entered into the living room where he saw that the lights were all on. (The two ceiling lights and three lamps.) The television was on, showing static. The stereo was on, not playing music but turned up so loud that you could hear the silent power coming from the speakers. There was also a fire blazing in the fireplace.

He went through every room in the house. He had to turn off the taps on the sink and the tub because water was flowing at full blast. He noticed also that stopper for the bathtub was in and the water level in the tub could only have been a half inch when he turned off the taps.

He found no one inside so as he went through all the rooms he shut off all the lights and appliances and also extinguished the fire in the fireplace. Leaving the lights on outside so he could go out and look around.

As he walked outside he nearly fell down. What had been one set of foot prints heading up to the house was hundreds of sets of foot prints going in all different directions. Some sets seemed to have no direction at all, going in circles and figure eights. Some made straight lines into the woods while twice that amount went straight to the front door.

He got in his car and drove straight home where he made my mom stay up with him as he couldn't make himself go to sleep.

He told me that he had never ever been so scared as when he came out that door and saw every bit of the driveway, front yard, and back yard covered thickly in foot prints.