Octagon Barn And House

Before I begin, I know that I was in the wrong in parts of this account. I know that I should have not just followed suit with what my friend wanted. At the same time, however, she could have practically told me to stand in a fire and I would have done it, I was so smitten by her. I mention this not as an excuse but to give the state of mind I was in. This in mind, this is my account at the Octagon Barn and its associated house in a small town in Michigan.

The Octagon Barn is a former homestead from many years ago, well before even my mother's time, and at the time of the account was being turned into an historic site. At first, things went fairly normally. Both Lori and I loved the place, we'd both grown up on small farms, me with horses, and I can't remember what her dad raised. We'd go every weekend I was up, and beyond the occasional impression of a horse or cat only one large event took place. We'd left the barn door open as we walked the circuit the octagon shape laid out. As we got back to the main portion of the barn, we both noticed that the door was closed. There were no other cars as we would have heard them. We sorta laughed about it, and apologized for leaving the door open.

As time went on, and we visited the barn more, Lori met one of the renewal crew. She asked permission to check out the house, and was told if the door wasn't locked to go ahead and go in. She was told they couldn't give her express permission, but that the house hadn't been started on yet but was in good enough condition to walk through.

Well, the next time we went, she decided to check the door and of course it was unlocked. We walked through it, and the whole time we were, I could feel someone walking just behind me. Close enough in fact, that it felt if I had to stop quickly, it'd bump into me. It didn't like that we were there, but again, as I was quite taken with Lori, I just followed behind her. The one time I mentioned it, she replied with a "I know, just keep walking."

After that, she'd check the door every time we went there; if it was unlocked, in we went. After that first time, I never felt quite that way, but it also was never a normal walk through of an empty house.

The final time we walked through the house, we were with a friend of Lori's named Darwin. Her and I both felt what we took as a baby in one of the upstairs rooms, and we decided to as we called it, "play with the baby". Lori for some reason couldn't feel it, so she quickly got bored and started exploring. She went up in the attic and was gone only for about 5 minutes when she came back down.

"We're going now!" she demanded to Darwin and I.

Of course neither of us wanted to go, as we were enjoying spending time with the baby. Her response to this was to demand that I go up in the attic if I was so wanting to stay.

To appease her I did so. Walking up the stairs was normal, but once turning at the top, I felt something that felt like a "caged tiger". It felt like it couldn't get at us, but if it could it would basically want to just rip us apart. Needless to say, I was done with the baby, and I too wanted to get out asap.

We argued with Darwin about it until she finally decided that she could always come back later. We both said our goodbyes to the baby and then Lori and I didn't quite run, but it wasn't much slower than that, down the stairs while Darwin looked at us like we were looney.

We stopped going in the house, but still, the barn felt as inviting as ever, and Lori even started trying to check it out as a possible site for a Halloween party. We kept going there several times. She once sent me up into the loft to see if we could safely hang decorations in the rafters using that as our access point. While up there, I got a definite "I'm not alone" feel, but it wasn't hostile so much as curious so I just lightly mentioned it when I came back down out of the loft.

Minor stuff happened like this until again, I went away from the barn. I figured no one would mind me looking around the land, as I planned to stay far from the house, and somewhat near the barn. I looked at the creek that ran past the barn, and went over to the tree line and kind of just looked in. Everything was quiet and normal until after Darwin and Lori left the barn. Now, I've never had anything like this happen before, and am not fully sure what was going on, but as they called me, I tried to go back to them. I couldn't do it for little bit.

I'd start to, and as far as I could see, the area was completely clear, other than a couple minor things like gopher holes and such. However, as I'd get close to them, it'd feel for the world like something was in the way. I turned and tried to walk around it, and would find myself further from them. The feeling would pass and I'd try again only to have the same experience.

I'd estimate this to have gone on for about 10 minutes at least. I never really felt the time, just sheer frustration at not being able to get to them. Lori had to go to work later that day, so she was really getting impatient, and Darwin was just getting confused. Finally, I was allowed to get to them, and then everything felt normal again.

I don't know if that experience was the ghosts telling me they were still upset we went in the house, or that they didn't appreciate me going anywhere but the barn, but after that I went to exactly where I was welcomed and only there.

As a closing, the funny thing is that now, the land, barn, and house are used in class trips from Elementary through High School. It makes me wonder exactly what the ghost (s) think about all these kids coming in and out of the house after it took the time to chase us out.