Every time I relate this story, adults give me a look of disbelief as though I were losing my mind and kids give me a look of pure fright. The story isn’t that absurd, at least that’s the way I see it. It’s about how I saw a ghost and I believe what I saw, no matter what others may say about it. This is how it happened.

A few friends and I took a trip to a cabin out in the mountains around the time we all graduated from college. The cabin was old and there was an old caretaker who took care of the place, cooked the food and lived in a small house a few yards away. The cabin was surrounded by woods and the caretaker related stories from the past. Some of them included bear attacks and how some of the people who came were attacked, as they took midnight strolls in the woods. One story the caretaker told us took place a few hundred years back, when the cabin was first built. It was about a couple who had come over to spend a romantic vacation in the woods and a bear had broken into the house and attacked them. The man survived, but the woman wasn’t so lucky.

The legend continues that she didn’t give up without a fight and didn’t want to leave the man, so her soul still struts in and around the vicinity of the cabin. The caretaker claimed that several of the guests had seen the woman’s ghost walking around the house. These guests had packed their bags and left the next morning. Although I was intrigued by this story, I didn’t actually believe it until…

I woke up late in the night wanting to use the bathroom. There was only one toilet in the cabin and it was located behind the rooms on the way to the kitchen. I got up, flashlight in hand, and started towards the toilet. On my way, I felt something brush my arm and then felt a cold sort of breeze around me. I flashed the flashlight around but saw nothing. I kept walking although I was a little frightened. Surely this couldn’t be the woman’s ghost, I told myself. I felt the cold breeze again and this time I turned off the flashlight and closed my eyes to accustom my eyes to the lesser light of the full moon that was out that night. I distinctly saw a figure move past me and felt it brush against my arm again. I tried to follow it but it turned a corner and disappeared. I didn’t believe it. I used the toilet and came out to find a figure of a young woman seated in one of the chairs. I approached. Carefully and slowly. As I got closer she got up and started moving, I followed, whispering “Hello." She turned into the corridor and disappeared.

I went into the room and woke my friends and related my experience. They told me that it must be the alcohol and the story the man told us that caused this to happen. I was not ready to believe that. I woke up the next day and related my story to the caretaker, who then told me that I was very lucky. When I asked him why, he said that the ghost has a tendency to mistake some men for bears and attack them. Sweat poured down my forehead and I packed my bags and left as soon as I could.