A little background before the story. It was the summer that I turned ten years old. I was spending the summer 'working' for my grandfather. He was retired. In his life he had been a soldier (WWI), farmer, mechanic, carpenter, salesman, general handy-man, and anything else that needed to be done to make a living for his family. He and my grandmother lived in a house in Mineral Wells, Texas that he, my dad and uncles had built on a small farm at the edge of town.
His farm was about 10 acres and covered in fruit trees and garden plots. There was a man-made pond, or tank as they are called in Texas, right outside the kitchen window. The house was small and utilitarian. It had a living room, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms; (Granny & Grandads' and off-limits to the grandkids); and a small 'guest' bedroom that I was staying in that summer.
Someone had given my grandfather an old house for the materials in it if he would tear it down and haul it off. So, my dad and uncles tore down the house and hauled all of the material to Grandads' back lot. He (Grandad) was going to use the lumber to build a work shop/guest house for all of his kids/grandkids to make use of and my job was to pull and straighten nails and sort the lumber that was stacked out back.
Summers in Texas are brutal. Grandad would get up early, before it was light outside, then wake me up. Granny always had a breakfast ready for us. We would eat and then get to work. We would work until around 10, or until Grandad thought it was warm enough. Then we would go inside, cool off, have lunch; maybe take a nap or play dominoes or cards, then go back out and work some more in the evening when it had cooled off outside.
To make a short story long: One morning, I woke up before Grandad had called for me to get up. I had the feeling that he was in the room just staring at me. I was lying there wondering why he hadn't teased me about being a lazy-bones or slug-abed as he usually did.
Finally, I opened my eyes to see what he was up to. When I opened my eyes, I noticed that the room was completely lit up, like the sun was coming through the windows. Then, I heard a loud voice yell, "You peaked! You're dead!", then an explosion of light, then the whole room went dark. I was lying there with my eyes squeezed shut, scared out of my wits. I was thinking, "Holy crap, I'm dead" or something along those lines.
I don't know how long I lay there thinking that I was really dead and that this was, indeed, a very strange experience. Finally, Grandad came into the room, flipped on the light, yelled at me to quit burning daylight and I realized that I was still alive.
After a couple of days, I asked Grandad if anything weird had ever happened to him or Granny in the house. He said "Don't worry about it" and would change the subject whenever I tried to bring it up. When I would ask Granny, she would say that she didn't understand and change the subject.
Could have been a dream but, if it was, it was the most intense, terrifying, dream that I have ever had. With Granny and Grandads' responses, I think that there was something going on but they didn't want to scare me or any of the others.
Granny and Grandad lived in that house for about another ten years before moving into a trailer on my uncle's ranch in west Texas. Until they moved, I never slept in that room again, and, if I had to go into it for any reason, would get in and out as quickly as possible.
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