Stephen Bishop
One Saturday morning, my wife’s second cousin, Katie, came pedaling up the road. She veered into our driveway and then dismounted her moving bicycle, which careened to a temporary resting place. After partly catching her breath, the girl spoke between short inhales and announced her purpose – she always had a purpose, a mission, a call to action. She said directly, in no uncertain terms, “I need two pumpkins for carving.”
The hay wagon in our front yard was covered with mismatch collection of pumpkins – round, oblong, warty, giant, miniature, orange, white, pie, jack-o-lantern. I had grown these pumpkins in a half-acre pumpkin patch, a small battlefield where vine borers and squash bugs took up arms and joined forces with downy mildew to destroy as much vegetation as possible. The surviving pumpkins were on that wagon; part of my soul was on that wagon. I had to ensure my pumpkins would be well-taken care of and asked, “How are you going to carry two pumpkins on a bike?”
Katie had a plan. Katie always had a plan. She would identify two pumpkins that met her standards and specifications, put them on layaway, and retrieve them before she went to the Bar-H Haunted Hayride, where the ghosts were only moderately spooky, according to her friend Julia. Julia had been on a hayride before and was going again with Katie tonight. Katie’s grandma, Nell, who was our closest neighbor, would chaperon the two young girls. Katie gave strict orders: nobody was to steal her two chosen pumpkins.
“Sure thing,” I said, “but there’s no need to go to the Bar-H to find ghosts. Two real ghosts live on this farm.”
“Don’t listen to him. Ghosts aren’t real,” said my wife, Natalie.
Like Katie, my wife was a Kendrick. Kendricks are infuriating people who add disclaimers to perfectly good ghost stories. For a Kendrick, any story involving disembodied voices or footless footsteps is worth telling, albeit with the clause “but ghosts aren’t real” or its equivalent attached. Why anyone would tell a story they don’t believe in, qualify it with an easily overlooked footnote, and run the risk of propagating lies and mistruths is beyond me. But that’s what my in-laws do. Personally, I’ve made it a point of principle to only tell true ghost stories, like this one, and set a good example for my in-laws. But, in response to Natalie, Katie quickly affirmed her Kendrick lineage, saying, “I know ghosts aren’t real. Those people at the hayride are just putting on.”
“If ghosts don’t exist,” I protested to my wife, “how come I saw your great grandma standing beside our bed on the very night you were dreaming about her? And how come you saw your Uncle Tom in the barn at the very spot he always hid his liquor bottle?”
“Don’t be silly,” Natalie said, “Great-grandma Kendrick died in the front yard in an ambulance. You’d be more likely to see her while cutting grass or checking the mailbox than sleeping – if ghosts are real.”
“How do you explain Uncle Tom in the barn?”
“I was seeing things. The scariest thing in that barn is the skunk family living under the feed room.” Days before, my wife had been chased by a momma skunk and three skunk pups through the cattle chute. Thankfully, the head-gate was open, or she would have met a dead and smelly end.
With her two pumpkins set aside, Katie pedaled off. With all the rain and wet conditions, it had been a bad year for pumpkins, but those rains supercharged the goldenrod with nectar, and that year the bees produced a fall rarity – a honey crop. Just on a flyer, I had put the honey supers on the hives, and, by George, if the bees didn’t fill them with smelly goldenrod honey. It just goes to show you can’t make a honey crop if you don’t put the supers on. So that afternoon, I recruited Natalie to help me rob hives. Even with her help, it took all afternoon to remove the heavy supers. By the time we loaded the last honey super on the truck, we were both exhausted as we drove back to the barn to put some beekeeping equipment in a storage room. It was nearly dusk.
While at the barn, we saw headlights pull into the driveway at the house. A car parked beside the pumpkin wagon. Katie and Julia exited the car with grandma Nell in tow.
“I stink and I’m a sweaty mess cause of this bee suit,” Natalie said, “go talk to them while I finish here.”
“Well, I stink too,” I said, “why do I…”
“You’re a boy. You always stink.”
“Alright, but…”
“Just go.”
I took off my bee suit and went. Thankfully, no one had stolen Katie’s pumpkins since she said she had worried herself to death about pumpkin thieves. She was excited, nonetheless, about the Bar-H Haunted Hayride. Katie informed me that her grandma was less than thrilled (Nell nodded) but would tolerate the excursion. Katie informed me that her grandma’s cat was missing and asked if I had seen it since the cat liked to visit our barn to catch mice. Katie informed me that she’d like to go look for the cat in our barn.
“Sure,” I said, as Katie and Julia were halfway to the barn. I told Nell that the girls would be fine because Natalie was in there putting up supplies. A few moments later, the duo disappeared through the barn door. Nell and I talked about the missing cat.
“One day I’ll have the mice under control,” I promised. “I apologize for all the dead mice it leaves on your porch.”
“You know, I’ve never seen her catch a mouse, but she must be good at it.”
“Well, a blind cat could catch a mouse in our barn.” I said.
Suddenly, amid our small talk, a chorus of screams erupted, and Nell and I looked toward the barn. We found the cat. It shot out from the barn door and leapt into an oak tree—milliseconds after a scream that sounded like my wife had just realized ghosts were actually real. We watched as a ghostly figure faded into the pasture. Cows galloped away from the apparition. Then the source of the other disembodied screams materialized, as Katie and Julia flapped out the front barndoor, as if they were about to take off and fly away. Finally, four skunks scurried into the woods out of a side stall, too scared to spray.
Eventually, after calming the girls, luring the cat down, and locating a bee suit roaming the pasture, I was able to piece together what happened.
Katie and Julia were scared senseless by a ghostly white figure with a veiled face walking toward them in the barn. Katie informed me that I was right: she didn’t need to go on the Bar-H Haunted Hayride to find ghosts.
My wife said that while approaching the girls she was scared senseless by Nell’s cat that leapt from the feed room, believing herself under attack from the skunks.
Nell’s cat said it was scared senseless by the skunks while hunting for a mouse.
The skunks later confirmed that they were scared senseless by the ghost of Uncle Tom trying to hide his liquor bottle. But, being Kendrick skunks, they added the necessary disclaimer at the end, “but ghosts aren’t real.”
Stephen Bishop lives in Shelby, NC, on a haunted farm. You can see more of his work at misfitfarmer.com or follow him on twitter @themisfitfarmer.
