Ghosts: True Hauntings In Montana

By David Francis Curran

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Brautigan, Richard, A Pilgrimage, August 1982

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Old Hag

Ben Tabb* is a student at the University of Montana. I met him in Neil Kettlewell's class on ESP. It was late fall of 1985. Ben was sharing an apartment with a buddy out in the Target Range area of Missoula. The deep chill of winter was in the air and the air was filled with wood smoke. On the last Thursday in November, he looked at the clock by his bedside and saw that it was 11:57. He turned over and went to sleep. About a half hour later Ben awoke. Dazed from sleep, he wasn't sure why he had awakened but he felt there was someone in the room with him. He opened his eyes fully, and, in the dim street light that filtered in through the window at the foot of the bed saw something gray and mist like hovering over him. Whatever it was was just a foot from his face. Ben felt that it was slowly moving toward him. Afraid of suffocation, he threw his blankets at it. It disappeared as soon as he began moving. Ben turned on the light but found nothing but his thrown blankets. A half-hour had passed since he had last looked at the clock.

Two weeks later, on a Wednesday night, Ben again went to bed about midnight. Approximately a half hour later, he again awoke feeling there was a presence in the room. He looked around in the dim light. By the dresser, directly down from the bed, were two small animate objects. As Ben looked at them, they appeared to be children. They seemed to be aware of him, in that they made eye contact, but made no effort to move from where they were. As Ben watched, they simply faded and were gone.

Ben saw nothing for two full months after that. But he did begin to awaken in the morning from time to time, conscious, but entirely unable to move. When he did finally move he would be sluggish for the rest of the day. Ben's roommate, having never seen, nor heard, anything in the house, was a little concerned about his friend. Then on a Monday night, Ben retired close to midnight again. About 45 minutes later, Ben awoke to the feeling of a presence in the room. He opened his eyes, and at the corner of the bed stooped an old man with a wrinkled face and a long beard. The man was entirely white and seemed solid. As Ben rose from the bed, the figure retreated to a far corner and seemed to shrink but remained in the room. Ben threw his pillow at the man. It hit the closet. The door to the room suddenly slammed and the figure was gone. Ben's roommate came in to see what had happened. There didn't seem any way the door could have slammed unless Ben had accidentally and unknowingly hit it with such force it bounced against the closet and then slammed shut. But then, Ben wonders, why wasn't the pillow in front of the door. .

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