Fall.
The air has changed. Gone is the repressive heat, allowing us to enjoy being outdoors again, but with every reward there is risk. We draw closer to the Halloween season where spooks and ghouls prowl the streets with promises of horrors unimagined. Thanks to the rise of paranormal and ghost hunting shows it has become acceptable for one to admit their unexplainable encounters. Those brief glimpses of the other side of the veil where the realms of life and death cross.
One night, my wife and I were finishing up an evening walk. We had almost made it back to the driveway when she slapped me across the chest, stopping me in midstride. What followed was not a discussion I thought to have. “Did you see that?” she asked. “No,” I said. “What?” “I just saw a man in uniform cross the street, stop under the streetlight before turning to look at me and wave.”
I looked around. There was no one about and nothing to see. Being a military historian, I asked her to describe him, and she did. I went to our office and dug through an old Civil War book. Her eyes went wide when I showed her a picture. Good enough for me. She had seen a Union officer, right down to his drooping moustache and the mud on his boots.
It’s no secret General William T. Sherman was ordered to halt his army in the Raleigh area at the end of the American Civil War. Sherman accepted the surrender of the final Confederate army left in the field, under the command of General Joseph Johnston in Durham after winning battles in Fayetteville and Goldsboro. It is also well documented that elements of that army occupied what is now Holly Springs—including a hospital unit—explaining why my wife would have seen this apparition. I slipped back outside while she went to shower and, while I never saw a ghost, it became bone chillingly cold under the same light pole.
H
olly Springs has several areas which are considered haunted, with too many incidents to count. But what of the quieter areas where no one talks about what they have seen? The Civil War ghost has been seen by several friends and neighbors. One man claimed to have gone downstairs in the middle of the night for a glass of water and, looking into his backyard, spied the soldier seated at his picnic table staring off into the woods.
While this ghost appears harmless, there are other, darker spirits roaming the night. A mother making breakfast for her three daughters was caught off guard when one of her children thanked her for coming in to check on her in the middle of the night and asked if she could not hug her so tight again. The mother had not woken up that night, nor had she gone to hug her daughter.
There are many secrets in the world. Some we strive to uncover whereas others are best left to the imagination. Imagine being the man who awakens minutes before the alarm goes off only to find a spectral figure already reaching for the clock as he stares down on you. That’s bad enough but combined with heavy footsteps running down the upstairs hallway while the rest of the house is asleep allows for an eerie sensation crawling down our spines. The same man, in the same house, who sees a young girl walking away in her white evening gown.
Not far away, at the same time, another man awakens to the sound of doors and cabinets opening and closing. The heart pounds as fear spreads. Living in the safest town in North Carolina has its advantages, but only for the living.
According to folklore, ghosts are the souls or spirits of the dead—both human and animal—that appear to the living. Some believe they are trapped in limbo, forgotten by the powers of Heaven and Hell. While science overwhelming suggests ghosts don’t exist, there is a preponderance of evidence hinting otherwise. Are the ghosts we see real or just imaged by the power of our minds?
This author has never seen a ghost, though I have felt an eerie presence lingering nearby and I have watched my 155-pound Bernese Mountain Dog growl at the same spot in the kitchen several times over the past decade. What did he see that I cannot?
Across town, in a quiet neighborhood nestled deep in the heart of Holly Springs, a fleeting glimpse of a woman dashing across the yard caught the attention of a man preparing dinner. Thinking it was his wife, he headed outside to see where she was going. His calls went unanswered as the woman in white slipped between dusk-shrouded trees. After reaching the same trees to find no one, he returned inside where he found his wife standing in the kitchen.
Certain cultures believe that the departed remain on Earth until there is no one left alive who remembers them. Only then are they released to discover their final reward. This might explain the loud banging heard in the dead of night when there is no one else in the house. The shadows moving in the dark spots on the edge of sight. Or the chill in the air that penetrates our bones on a warm autumn evening. Regardless of your personal beliefs, there can be no denying there are a great many events that are unexplainable and those are the moments that spark our imagination and fuel our dreams.
Are ghosts real? That’s not for me to say. I remain skeptically optimistic. All I know is it is always best to investigate those unexpected noises in the middle of the night. You never know what you might find staring back at you.
Christian Warren Freed retired from the United States Army in 2011 and made Holly Springs his home in 2012. He is the author of over 25 science fiction and military fantasy novels, his combat memoirs, a children’s book, and a pair of how-to books. His work has been featured in several local magazines and newspapers.
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