In the early 60's in Mauritius, we used to have wakes when someone would die. The body would be exposed at the family's for a whole day and night and would then be buried the next day. During these wakes, families and friends would come to eat, chat and play cards the whole night. The card playing is a tradition and usually, by the end of the night, the cards would be thrown away in the yard, not to be played ever. I never understood this tradition and never really asked about it.
Anyway, wakes used to be quite joyful, a bit like a party. Quite strange you would say. But that's a bit the tradition at least then.
Back to the story. There was a wake at an uncle of mine. An old aunt had passed away. There was a lot of people and it was in a large colonial house with a big yard and with a long entrance alley that would be about 300 to 400 meters long and curvy. The house was slightly dominant, being built on a small uphill. Therefore, from the veranda, we could see the entrance to the alley. There were large trees and bush on the sides of the alley and there was a large round concrete circle in front of the house with small trees in the middle of the concrete circle, for cars to come around and go.
It was around midnight. There were a lot of people under the veranda chatting, eating and playing cards. The corpse was on a table in the middle of the lounge inside with doors open. I was chatting with a cousin when we saw a small light coming from the entrance of the alley. My uncle, who was the owner of the property, said that it was the milkman coming. Indeed, in those times, the milkman (it was actually a peasant of the region) would come during wakes to deliver... Milk on his bicycle. He would carry two large containers made of iron, attached to his bicycle. Don't ask me why the milkman would come at midnight to deliver milk. It use to be that way for wakes.
Anyway, we saw the small front light of the bicycle slowly coming on the alley as if the milkman was pushing his bike. After several minutes, we saw the light about to reach the large concrete circle in front of the house. We could hear the sound of the wheels and chains as well as footsteps. The light went behind the shrubs in the middle of the concrete circle and stopped. We could not see anything because of the shrubs hiding the milkman.
My uncle called his wife to bring some containers to collect the milk. We were all on the veranda chatting and watching the scene. Three aunts/cousins walked down the big stairs with containers to go collect milk with the milkman. They walked around the circle and disappeared from our sight behind the shrubs. Then they walked around looking for the milkman and asked us on the veranda where he had gone. Since we were on a high point and had seen and heard the milkman, we were convinced he should have been behind the shrubs. Some guys walked down to look but there was no milkman nor any bicycle.
Then suddenly, we all heard like a chain being violently rattled on the roof which was partially made of iron sheet. It was making an astounding noise. We came out of the house to see what was happening. Someone lit the roof with a torch but we could not see the source of that noise. It went on again. Then someone said he knows who is doing that. He loudly threatened someone by saying her name and summoned her to immediately stop this nonsense. We heard something falling down the roof with a heavy thump and like something running away in the bush around.
Everybody had their eyes wide open and some were scared. Then the guy who had summoned this "entity" said that it was a lady who was staying not far who was into witchcraft. She used to do that kind of pranks to scare people. I don't know if she was the entity or she sent an entity.
Anyway, the "real" milkman came just afterwards, scaring some people, mainly the ladies and everybody was only talking about this. No need to tell you that the conversations afterwards were all about ghosts, witchcraft, poltergeist and black magic. Everyone would have a story to tell.
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