I don't recall the circumstances that introduced the supernatural topic into our conversation but I can guess with strong certainty that we had just gotten stoned.
As Craig began his first-hand account of his family's experiences, sharing their house with a ghost, his mood was cavalier but the further the story went along I could see in his eyes and hear in his voice the sound of a child frightened out of his mind by something he didn't understand. Craig probably didn't know in advance that a once forgotten darkness which had, for a time, enveloped his entire family's existance was still lurking inside of him-waiting for just this moment to reduce back to a frightened childlike state.
I watched him struggle to finish the story and he finally did--he was crying by then, completely helpless and I was left chilled-a believer.
Listen:
In the begining, he and his brother would both wake up in the still blackness of the room they shared and lay awake, sensing the presence of someone sitting in an old rocker that had been brought down from the attic. Who knows how many times they had been awakened at night, both afraid to make a sound in the stillness before, finally, Craig spoke up at breakfast one morning.
Craig and Doug corroberated each others stories to thier attentive
mother and indignant father, who said "Now you boys know that ain't true...eat
up and get to your chores and I don't want to hear any more of this kind
of talk." But Craig and Doug weren't the only ones who had felt the presence.
And this was only the begining of the all the events which finally drove
the family from the house....more later...JON