COWBOY BOB AND THE COMPANY

After a few days of whining and sulking over the status of our stolen belongings,  I'm back on the subject of Cowboy Bob.  Some of the scarier but also amusing experiences I have to recount have been with the guests we've had here over the years.  We've thrown several parties, and our family has had numerous friends come stay with us since the house was completed in 2002. More than one visitor refuses to come back, hehehe.  And, NO, it's not that we were bad hosts, but somebody else was!  

Before the house was even completed we had the girls' friends rough it up here on the occasional weekend. My youngest, still in high school at the time, had to try very hard to convince three of her tough 'guy' friends to grow a set and come up for a visit.  They were quite nervous about it, and kept asking my daughter questions like,  "Just what all happens up there?" and "Nothing's gonna' happen while we're there, is it?" and "When was the last time anything happened up there?" . . . you get the gist.  

Their first morning at the house we were all sitting in the living room at the makeshift dining table watching the makeshift television and reclining in makeshift chairs and, on a perfectly windless day, from my line of sight I watched the front door handle jiggle and the heavy metal door open on its own.  The boys all heard it and gaped at each other, leaning back in their chairs to peek around the corner at the wide-open door.  I'd give anything to have had a camera right then to capture the looks on their faces.  One of them stammered, "That wasn't . . ."  to which I nodded.  "No Way!  That didn't just happen . . ."  blurted out of another one's mouth.  I went to the front door, closed and locked it before the boys streaked down the road or into the forest and I had to fill out three missing persons reports.

A couple of years later we hosted our first Halloween party at the house (those who know me well know how gaga I get over Halloween) and my youngest had a dickens of a time getting her friends to step a foot inside the house again.  Word had spread like wildfire at the high school about our house's otherworldly occupant.   I wasn't aware of the deal at the time, but apparently all of my youngest's friends made one stipulation that in exchange for them steeling their nerves and entering the 'ghost's den' they refused to sleep in the guest apartment by themselves.  The next morning after the party I went upstairs to wake up my daughter and get her to go wake up her friends for breakfast, and I found every single one of them sacked out in sleeping bags or on top of pillows, or just a blanket thrown over them on my daughter's bedroom floor.  Almost a dozen kids arranged heel to toe, side to side with no room to even walk between them.  I latched the door shut and chuckled all the way down the stairs.

Some of these same kids have been with us, sitting on our couches in the living room at night watching television with our family, and we've startled as we hear the floor creak upstairs and our dogs who were sound asleep on the floor suddenly sit up alert. Quickly the dogs move to the doggie gate we have in place which separates the living room from the front foyer and stairs.  Their hair bristles as they growl under their breath, all looking intently the same direction; up the stairwell.  Sometimes they bark furiously.  Again, where's a camera when you need one, to capture everyone's jittery expressions.  Every time this happened our company jumped up and asked our daughters to make a quick exit to another part of the house.

My eldest has a girlfriend who enjoyed visiting for a weekend from time to time . . . until that one night.  The two of them retired to my eldest's bedroom to watch television and gab in her room, and the subject turned to Cowboy Bob.  My eldest's guest was somewhat of a skeptic and they were enjoying making each other jumpy with stories.  When it came time to retire late in the night, after everyone else in the house had long gone to bed, the girls went downstairs for a final snack, a bowl of ice cream, then returned to the room to partake.  When they finished they turned off the television, turned out the lights and jumped under the covers.  

Immediately they heard distinct footsteps downstairs on the foyer's tile floor, moving slowly and advancing their way towards the stairs.  Cathy (not her real name) jumped and whispered, "What is that?"  

My eldest frankly answered, "That's Cowboy Bob.  Coming."  

"NO, it CAN'T BE!" Cathy yelped.  My eldest reconfirmed it with a nod of her head in the shadows. 

They froze and listened to the heavy, solid  footsteps.  The sound grew muffled as the steps made contact with the stairway carpeting, slowly advancing one stair at a time, the muffled thumps getting louder as they progressed.  Cathy was wigging, eyes round as saucers.  "That HAS to be your parents," she hissed.

"Not this late.  And besides, we were just down there getting ice-cream, you saw they were in bed.  It's Cowboy Bob, I tell you.  He's not going to hurt you, Cathy."

"But he's coming IN HERE?"

"I don't know.  I think we're going to find out!"

The steps slowed at the top of the stairs and waited . . . both girls breathed a sigh of relief, until very crisp and distinctly loud steps commenced on the wooden landing, headed right for my eldest's bedroom door.  My eldest jumped out of bed and locked the door as Cathy started whimpering, "He's coming right for us!" and threw the covers over her head.  My eldest followed suit as they both listened from under the comforter to the advancing steps, until they stopped right outside the bedroom door.  

The knob jiggled slightly . . . and then, nothing.  The entity had disappeared as Cathy sobbed under the covers, frightened to a level where she has refused to return here.  Which is really a shame because we all love her company!  

What's even more disconcerting is that, after all this time, our remaining dogs are so used to the noises coming down from the stairs they don't even get up.  It's creepy to watch them all suddenly lift their heads and quietly, intently watch towards the stairwell with maybe only a low growl as they stay stretched out on the couch or floor.  You just know they are all focused on someone we can't see, and they are apparently so used to him coming and going it doesn't phase them anymore.  Wish I could say the same for me. 

My next post I'll go into more detail about our various caretaker's experiences in "Cowboy Bob and the Caretakers."  Later, friends.