Hobnail Boots

We were young, I think I was about four years old. We lived in an old Del Monte owned farm house that was known as the “Hate” house. I found out years later that it was actually “Haight” and not hate as we presumed as small children.

I was given the room off the living room and my brothers both slept upstairs in this old farmhouse. My brothers were seven and three. One night we were visited by my uncles. One slept in the room that my older brother usually was in and the other uncle slept in my younger brother’s room. We were in the living room watching television on the old black and white Zenith when we heard something. We heard footsteps on the ceiling.

The room right above the living room was occupied by my older brother. There was carpet on the floor in that room and it was not conceivable to hear footsteps on the wooden floor unless someone took up the carpet which was tacked down on all the edges.

My father and an uncle went up into the bedroom. They found the carpet had been ripped from the tacks holding it in place and it was rolled neatly up to the bed. This definitely freaked out the family but there were accusations of our uncles playing a joke on everyone. We are not certain how they could have, they were down with us watching television.

My father and uncles unrolled the carpet, and using slats and nails, tacked the carpet back down. they had to use the slats because the edges of the carpet were frayed from being ripped up before. My dad did not do anything half-way. After they were done we all went to bed. My uncle who slept with my older brother was sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag. The night was clear and quiet, and everyone was dozing off when the oddest sound came from above the living room. I heard it first, being in the bedroom off the living room and I sat up with a start.

Everyone ran upstairs to my older brother’s room to see the carpet was ripped from under the frame slats and shoved angrily against my uncle. It was curved around him and against my brother’s bed on each side. My uncle was too frightened to move, he just let it happen around him. My other uncle saw the carpet being ripped from the edges and being shoved. He did not see anyone do it. We were all silent, too afraid to move, to speak. Then it happened. Slow footsteps–across the hardwood floor. We did not see anything but the footsteps were as clear as anything. My mother described the sound as a man wearing hobnail boots.

After that event, more information was being given to us as we got older. It seems that the day that my mother and father moved into the house they looked into the attic room and my mother swore she saw a man dangling from the center of the ceiling. She never went back into that room. She feared, to the day she passed away, that he was the man who ripped up the carpet in the bedroom to expose the beautiful hardwood floor that he possibly put there himself.


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