Waterloo Village   May 1995

                              By Diane M. Cece

PART ONE

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   My first introduction to haunts, witches, goblins, and things that suddenly go bump in silent dark rooms happened at the Stagecoach Inn early one evening on a strangely still and dark overcast day in May 1995.  This strange stillness of dusk was like a Halloween evening;  if you looked hard enough around the rooms, you could actually see green and yellow eyes looking back at you just as hard.  Prior to my experience, I never really thought much about things that go bump in the dusk or the night of darkened rooms.

 It was 5:45 PM, after the Conch Horn blew down at the old mill, signaling closing time.  I closed down the inn for the day; checking locks on the doors, and closing out lights for the night.  I headed out the front door and locked it.  Realizing I left the "OPEN" sign in the tavern window near the register desk, I quickly reopened the door and swiftly ran back into the dark building to remove the sign; all the time hoping I wouldn't be late at the time clock to punch out.  The rooms smelled like mold on walls and old furniture, wet dirt flooring and rotting, dusty window curtains.

 To my great surprise, when I got to the inn's register desk, an angry, low pitched growl of a dog sounded (or was it a demon) from under the register desk!  My first thought was that my sudden intrusion into the room disturbed it's sleep. My second thought was that I stepped on it's tail or paw and woke it up; but wait a minute, said my third thought, am I crazy?  There are no dogs in here!

 Talk about a moment of silence for the dead-I stood there in shock not breathing or moving a muscle, clenching my fists in fear, finding it hard to believe I heard this sound in this empty building.  With that thought running through my frightened mind, it was a warning to get out of the building fast.  I quickly turned to the window and snatched the "OPEN" sign up.  But to my shock, what happened next was as fast as a bolt of lightning cutting through a rushing cloud of an approaching thunderstorm.

 I can only describe it as a force field with the burning anxiety of an angry wind, coming through the kitchen door straight at my back - filling the dark still air of the tavern with a very cold chill.  The feelings that permeated in my soul were: "How dare you disturb my dog, woman!  What are you doing in this tavern?"  "Girls don't belong in here!"  (Now whether the force field communicated these thoughts to me, or whether I just knew I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, is something unexplainable.)

 In a flash, my hair blew forward around my face, (I was facing the window, with my back to the kitchen door); the grilles/grids in the top window lite snapped out when the force field whipped around me in a U-turn, partially knocking me off balance, the wood grill missing my forehead by a half inch - moving in slow motion inside the forcefield to the left side of my face, stopping in mid air, and then bursting in mid air in front of my eyes; bursting like a bubble, into millions of tiny slivers of wood, and tinkling to the floor behind the register desk (sounding like a child's pick up sticks!)  The force field continued on heading straight up the tavern stairs (on the wall to my left) followed by the loud crashing sound of breaking glass somewhere in the upstairs bedrooms of the Inn.

 

 

 

To see what happens please read part 2 of

      "Stagecoach Inn Haunts"