Full Body Chills - Not So Alone On The Farm

Episode Date: October 1, 2021

A story about a familiar farmhouse and its recent residents.Not So Alone On The FarmWritten by Ashley Estelle LeifsoYou can read the original story at http://fullbodychillspodcast.com/ Looking for more chills? Follow Full Body Chills on Instagram @fullbodychillspod. Full Body Chills is an audiochuck production. Instagram: @audiochuckTwitter: @audiochuckFacebook: /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck

Hi listeners, I'm Samantha Ware and I have a story I want to tell you. A story about a familiar farmhouse and its recent residence. So, gather round and listen close. When I graduated school and became a dentist, I badly needed change. School and training had been long and grueling, and I was tired of city life. I was also tired of paying copious amounts of money for a one-bedroom apartment with a heavily sloped floor that was too small for me and my two cats. I wanted a place bigger than a closet. I wanted to not fall asleep to car horns and sirens. And I wanted space to plant a garden for fresh vegetables to use in my cooking.

And that's how I came to live in a seven-bedroom farmhouse in middle-of-nowhere Copse Hill. The farmhouse was absurdly inexpensive. It was owned by a farmer who had purchased multiple farms over the years and had no need for the house. It was an older place and hadn't been lived in for years, but according to the landlord, it had seen some recent renovations and repairs. I was just happy the floors were level. The property was expansive, fields of wheat as far as the eye could see.

There wasn't another house for miles and the nearest grocery store was 15 minutes away towards the suburbs of Cobbs Hill. As for work, there was a dentistry clinic in town looking for a part-time assistant. It seemed like a nice fit. My parents thought I was crazy for moving there, taking a job in a small town I had no connection to. But to their surprise, I settled into rural living easily. I liked the people and enjoyed this lower pace of life on the farm. It was my

ideal life. It was nearly fall now and I had lived in the farmhouse for about a month. For all that time, life had been pretty tranquil, but I started to notice a few things around the home that just seemed… odd. The first odd thing happened one night while I was asleep. I was woken up suddenly by a loud bang that had come from the basement. It sounded like some empty cardboard boxes from the move had toppled over. I assumed that it was the cats, as they were always making a ruckus. But as I sat up from my bed, I realized both cats were here, sleeping with me. As most reasonable people would, I explained it away, deciding that

I simply hadn't taken care to stack the boxes well enough. I ignored it and went back to sleep. Now, if that was the only incident to occur during my stay, I think I would have forgotten all about it. But far stranger things were to come. Of all days, it was Halloween. It was late, around 9.30, when I decided to take a bath. I flicked off the porch light, poured myself a glass of wine, turned up the music and went upstairs to fill the large clawfoot tub with warm water. It felt safe to assume that no trick-or-treaters would be coming to my door.

And I was mostly correct. As I was soaking, I slowly became aware of a rhythmic sound quietly clashing with my music. The cats heard it too. Their ears perked up full attention. Trying to hear this other noise, I turned off my phone. Mixed in with the silence was a distant melody. I immediately got out of the tub and threw on a pair of oversized gray sweatpants and a hoodie. I went to listen in the hallway.

The music was so faint. I couldn't make it out, but it sounded like it was coming from the kitchen. I carefully approached the kitchen, afraid that with any loud sound I might lose track of the music, but there was nothing there. I could still hear it, though. It was louder now. I grabbed a knife from my kitchen drawer

and started walking through each room of the farmhouse. In some rooms, I couldn't hear anything. In others, the music was loud enough for me to discern a guitar strumming. Following the sound to its source, I crept to the basement stairs. It was your typical farmhouse basement with concrete floors and several small rooms spaced around the center. One room I found particularly creepy. It was the farthest from the steps, next to the well water filter system, and had a small pink door. I had peeked inside only once when I first moved in. The hidden space was mostly empty except for a few old dust-covered jars and empty boxes.

It seemed to be where the previous owners stored their preserves. I turned on the light at the top of the stairs. I was unsure if I should try to be sneaky or threatening. I ended up doing something in between. Hoping to scare away any potential intruder, I marched down the old creaking stairs, stomping every step of the way. However, the music continued. I checked through every room, leaving the pink door for last. Oddly enough, I couldn't hear much of the music anymore. It was as if someone had been turning down the volume the longer I searched.

But as I approached the pink door, I heard it again. Except this time, the music was very clearly coming from a vent that led to the kitchen. I quickly ran back upstairs, but when I got to the main level, the music had stopped. Nothing. I listened for a few minutes, but it was completely gone. I couldn't relax after that. I needed to find the source of that music. In the end, I checked every room and every closet twice.

Only after my search, I realized how silly I was. It was Halloween night. Obviously, someone must be playing a prank on me. I went outside and walked to the garage, then started down my long, unlit lane. But I saw nothing. No cars, no lights, nobody. I checked around back and even to the edge of the wheat fields. Nothing there either. I've always considered myself to be a practical person. So after having no luck finding the source of music myself, I decided that the next logical thing to do would be calling my landlord. He comes and goes between all his properties,

tending to the fields and fixing things around the farmhouses. It seemed reasonable that he might have a work radio that he had forgotten to turn off. I called him and briefly explained what happened. Laughing, he told me that the farm's previous owner had rigged up a radio to the sump pump so that if the basement flooded and the pump turned on, the radio would too. In that way, the owner would know if it was flooding. Considering it had rained the day before, it seemed possible. Relieved, I finally gave up my search and went to bed. However, a couple days later, my landlord came over to look at the sump pump. There was no radio attached and he couldn't think

of any other way to explain the music. This left only two real possibilities in my mind. Local kids were playing pranks or someone was sneaking around the farm. Both thoughts were completely discomforting to me. I weighed my options. I could pay for an expensive alarm system or I could adopt a big dog. A couple days later, Big Rex, the chocolate lab rescue, was a part of the family. A month or two passed quietly after the mystery music on Halloween night. By this point, it had become something of a joke. Coworkers and friends would ask if I heard any

music lately, thinking of course that I had imagined it. I was starting to believe them. And even though there were subtle hints to something unnatural, I soon enough was labeling every odd occurrence as the work of Farmer Joe. To me, Farmer Joe was a catch-all for every bizarre happening around the farm. It was always little things like objects being misplaced or weird sounds that I'd hear early in the morning. I would jokingly complain to my friends about him. I would yell out loud about how annoying he was

and I would scold him for interfering with my things. I always did it in a joking way because I couldn't commit to the idea of anything more serious actually occurring. I had always viewed the supernatural purely as entertainment. Outwardly, these were all just fun stories to share with my friends. I was in a pissing contest with a ghost. And it was comical. Secretly, I was feeding Rex an abundance of treats so that he followed me around everywhere I went on the farm so that I was never alone.

Farmer Joe and I disagreed on a lot of things. I often left the radio on for the cats and occasionally it would be shut off by the time I got home from work. I assumed Farmer Joe didn't like the pop music station I'd left on, so I kept playing it, and he kept turning it off. I frequently delighted co-workers with tales of how Farmer Joe and I fought relentlessly over the radio station. Sometimes they would laugh and then ask what was seriously happening. I had a ready excuse to tell anyone who asked. I'd simply say, the electricity goes out all the time.

Any type of bad weather just causes the power to shut right off. And that was a good enough explanation for me. I refused to think about the parts of my story that didn't make sense. Like why the radio didn't come back on when the power did. Or the times I knew the power hadn't gone out. Otherwise, the digital clocks would have to be reset. Yet, I never took the time to log these details because ignorance is bliss. After my first New Year's at the farm, life became slightly less blissful when Farmer Joe started messing with doors. I came home from work one evening and took Rex out for a play in the yard.

We were running around in the snow, circling the house, when I saw the back door to the garage was open. My skin prickled as I stared at the open door. Had I left it open while organizing some gardening equipment yesterday? I couldn't be sure. I walked over and pushed it closed. The next day, immediately after work, I set out to check the garage. The back door was open. Again.

My heartbeat sped up and I chastised Farmer Joe. I walked over to the door and pulled it closed for the second time in two days. That night I was fast asleep when I woke to one loud bang after another. There was a winter storm howling outside, but this noise was different. It was coming from the garage. I threw on some clothes and got Rex. I went straight into the garage and turned on the light. The back door was open and wind was causing it to bang against the outside of the house.

I ran over to the door and pulled it shut. This time I made sure to lock the door. I had trouble sleeping the door and pulled it shut. This time, I made sure to lock the door. I had trouble sleeping the rest of the night. Over the next few days, I found every excuse to avoid investigating the garage. I had no interest finding out if the door was still locked. As far as I knew, all was well. My friend Kristen, however, changed all that. She came over for coffee one weekend and I laughed as I told her about the door and wind and how silly I was. Saying it out loud was making me feel better. But even though I was laughing and joking, her big brown eyes looked at me with concern. So you haven't checked the door since Wednesday? I told her no and immediately she stood up and told me we were going to the

garage. I fought her the entire two minutes it took to lace up our winter boots, but she wouldn't budge. So we walked through the snow and to the garage. I peeked over her shoulder as she opened the front. The back door was wide open. You ever hear the story about the man squatting in the attic? Asked Kristen in a low voice. How the woman thought she was going crazy when really, this guy was living in her apartment the whole time, moving her things around during the day. It was in that very moment that my dear friend Kristen convinced me

there was a squatter living in the attic. We spent almost three hours looking for any evidence that someone else was living in the farmhouse. We climbed into the attic, which was covered in dust and cobwebs. We looked over every floorboard for any secret hiding places or evidence of a squatter. There was nothing. After Kristen left, I went back to the garage and stacked a few heavy boxes against the door. Then I circled around the outside of the garage and put some old bricks from the chimney against the door from the outside. This door was now out of commission.

It was the month of April when I started having problems sleeping. One night, I woke up coughing. The smell and taste of smoke were filling my nose and mouth. I panicked. I was sure the farmhouse was on fire. I grabbed the phone on my nightstand and called 911. It was getting difficult to breathe. The smoke was so thick. Coughing and wheezing, I stumbled to the light switch and flipped it on. The voice on the phone asked what my emergency was. I looked around the room. There was no smoke. The voice on the phone asked me again what the emergency was. I still had the taste of smoke on my tongue

as I mumbled something incoherent. I walked around the house flipping every light on. No fire. No smoke. I'm so sorry, I told the operator. I thought my house was on fire, but it must have been a dream. Embarrassed, I hung up. I went to the bathroom and tried to wash out the taste of ash on my tongue. In the mirror, my eyes were bloodshot and rimmed all red as though smoke really had been irritating them. This same dream became a regular occurrence in the following weeks. I would wake up believing the farmhouse was on fire. One time, I even found a black smudge on my pillow that looked suspiciously like ash.

I could taste the smoke. I could smell the smoke. But I could never see it. And as quickly as the nightmares started, they stopped. As spring turned to summer, I regained some joy in my time on the farm. The garden I had planted in the spring was thriving and the weather was beautiful. One Friday, Kristen and I had been out shopping and had to come back to the farm for lunch. The plan was to make a salad with veggies from the garden.

As we walked up to the front porch, I noticed that a window in the basement didn't look quite right. When I got closer, I realized it was cloudy. I thought to myself that it almost looked like frost. I put my hand on the window. It was ice cold to the touch. I looked over at Kristen and told her that the thermostat must be broken. She stared at the window, shaking her head. We went inside and slowly walked downstairs to the basement. It was cooler, the way you'd expect an old cement basement to be, but nothing out of the ordinary. We walked up to the window to examine it closer. It was completely frosted over and I had no way of explaining it. After that, Kristen refused to come to the farm. She said I was in denial and that whatever was going on wasn't funny anymore. After almost a year of living on the farm, I noticed that my animals were acting strange. I had done my best to ignore the signs,

my cat staring intently at empty spaces, big rats refusing to enter certain parts of the house, or the handful of times when he raised his hackles and bared his teeth, growling at nothing I could see. I even ignored the moments when I'd suddenly get goosebumps and feel a cold crawling up my spine. I ignored it all. Until finally, Farmer Joe made it impossible to ignore. It was Halloween. Exactly a year since I heard the unexplainable music. I was relaxing on my couch watching TV. I looked at the clock.

It was late, and I needed to go to bed. As soon as I turned off the TV, I heard it. Clear as anything. Music. Fouled, almost rock-type music. I could clearly hear that it was coming from my bedroom. A sudden surge of adrenaline made me feel like my skin was on fire.

I walked through the kitchen to the hallway, and the second I flipped the light on, the music stopped. I barely had time to comprehend this when behind me, the microwave started to go haywire. I turned around and ran back to the kitchen, seeing sparks fly. I whipped open the microwave door and inside, neatly placed in the center of the tray, was a metal fork. I was shaking. I slowly put my hand into the microwave and then quickly withdrew it. I didn't want to deal with this. With the fork still inside, I closed the microwave door. And there he was.

In the shiny black reflection of the microwave door, I saw a pair of long legs standing behind me. I couldn't see anything from his waist up, but I could see both arms down at his sides. And I saw a hunting knife, gripped so tight in his hand that his forearms were tensed with bulging veins. I have no idea if I screamed or not, but I spun around so fast I almost fell. I turned to see an empty kitchen. I could feel the onset of a terrible headache. I couldn't see him, but I knew. I knew that every bump in the night had been him. Everything I couldn't explain was him. And every time I had felt like something was just not right was because... something was not right.

I started laughing quietly, mostly for just thinking about how stupid I had been. Every single thing was him telling me that he was there, and I ignored it. I ignored every sense I possessed. I refused to believe the music I heard. I refused to believe the frosted glass I touched. I refused to believe the smoke I smelled and tasted. And most ashamedly, I refused to believe my own gut instinct.

I packed up what I could that night and stayed at Kristen's house. I never went back to the farmhouse alone, and I made sure to always have at least one person with me while I packed and moved out. It took me 12 months to catch a glimpse of him, but he was there the whole time. This series was produced by Ashley Flowers and David Flowers. This episode was written by Ashley Lifesow and read by Samantha Ware. The story was modified slightly for audio retelling, but you can find the original and full on our website. Full Body Chills is an AudioChuck production. So, what do you think, Chuck?

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