It was a brisk , cold November morning. It was Saturday, back in 1958. Dad decided he would go on hunting, to see if he could catch some rabbits for supper,. He was about 14 years old. He had decided to go hunting back in a location that the locals called, Bee’s Pond. it was off of the haunted Flood gate road, where the Gabriel Davies Tavern, an old Military hospital, was located. Everyone knew this road, and the tavern itself was a terribly haunted place. He went off of Floodgate road, into a big field. He was carrying his trusty, 12 gauge, pump shotgun. He had used it all of the time for hunting.

As the day went on, he could not find any wild game to bring home. So, he figured he should head on home, before it got dark. Back in August, Dad’s little brother Michael and some friends, had gone fishing back there, off of a little rock. At that time, they had come running home, and were ranting and raving about an invisible thing trudging through the water, where they had been fishing. They could see the splashing and water moving of the food steps, moving towards them. Afraid, they ran home, leaving all of their fishing equipment right there. Dad’s other brother’s and him, went back to the fishing spot, to see what was going on as they had described the situation to them. Big brothers to the rescue! When inspecting the area, they found nothing, except their fishing equipment, in which they had left behind on the rock.

Getting back to Dad’s day of hunting back there in November, it was starting to get dark. Dad was on his way home, walking down Floodgate Road. There was a field to his right, and woods to his left, and the river just below the woods. As he continued to walk, he heard footsteps walking along side of him, there in the woods. So he stopped to listen, and as he did, the footsteps stopped with him. He began walking again, and “it” began walking again. Yet again, Dad stopped. And the invisible figure, also stopped when he did. So Dad loaded his shotgun with three rounds of ammo and jumped into the woods where he heard the footsteps. Dad shot to his left, and shot to his right, and shot right in front of him, and there was complete silence. The creepy kind of silence.  Dad looked around and he could not see a thing. At the same time, he reloaded his gun. And he again, jumped out, back onto the road. He started to walk again. ll of a sudden, he heard the footsteps came back, in the woods beside him. At that point, my Dad was so scared, because he could not see who it was, or where it was. As he had been walking the dirt road, footsteps to some invisible stranger had been walking along side of him in the leaves about 12 feet away from him to the left. He was so frightened at this encounter, that he started running. He had made it to the end of the road, and stopped to catch his breath. He still had a good half of a mile to walk, through the woods to get home.

As he started to walk up the rest of flood gate road, up by the old military hospital mentioned in the beginning, built in 1876,  half way up the road, he heard the footsteps come back again to his left but still could not see anything. He ran again, trying to get home as soon as he could. He was breathing heavily through his mouth, and accidentally swallowed an insect due to being so overly excited and afraid. He started choking on it, trying to spit it out, but had swallowed it.  When he finally got to the end of the road, he unloaded his gun, and walked the rest of the way home,  which was about 4 blocks away.

Dad had lived not far. Near his home, there was a small ravine that they called “The Gulley”. Dad and his family had been feeding some cats with some aluminum pie pans. They had heard something outside of the window on several occasions. The pans were found smashed and distorted. So they had a great idea to put up spot lights in the ravine for whatever was coming, and making all of the noise and smashing the pans each night. On the night that they put up the spot lights, they tested them out. The lights had lit up the woods, as if it were day time. Then they turned them off an waited. Dad had his shotgun on him of course, and so did his brothers. They sat and waited for the visitor. After a few hours of sitting in the dark and waiting, they heard a noise on the other side of the “Gulley”. It sounded like a person walking and smashing through the brush.Dad could hear the footsteps coming down the hill on the other side of the ravine. Then, the footsteps were heard walking up the center of it. Dad was standing on the side of the ravine on a slight angle facing downwards, looking and listening. He had some bushes next to him as he stood watch. He could hear the footsteps walk all of the way up the to the bushes in front him. But alas, nothing was visible. Only the sound of mysterious  footsteps. Then, suddenly, the bushes started to shake as if someone had grabbed them and started to violently shake them. So Dad had shot one round into the center of the bushes. After that, nothing was there! No animal, no person. If so, they would have for sure had been shot by dad’s gun. Only, heard the footsteps again, this time heading on back down from where it came from. They went to the far other side of the gulley from where they came.

The invisible man, had been “heard” walking many times by many people, and still to this day, by those going back there at that time of day, around 5 pm. Could it had been, one of deceased soldiers making his way though through the woods, and neighborhood making his way back to the tavern, the old hospital where he lived, and perhaps died? Had it been a soldier of the area who had fished and lived there, only to have passed away, and become a haunting figure there in the woods, that still even in the afterlife, continued his journey and path through the woods for all time? You decided. Dad has no idea, as the figure was unseen but heard.