The Story of Old Man Willie

by Jay
(New York, NY, USA)

(Photo from PublicDomainPictures via Pixabay)
When I was 11 years old my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to give sleepover camp a try. Little did I know it would be a month that I would never forget and still think about till this day.

More specifically I think about the story of old man Willie. The councilors at the camp told us the story of old man Willie on night after dinner at the mess hall. See Willie use to own the grounds that the camp is now on but due to financial trouble he lost the property back in 1949.

Rumor has it that old man Willie refused to leave the property and got into an altercation with law enforcement which led to his death. But before he was killed, Willie managed to attack several officers with a rusty rake that he kept in his tool shed.

He attacked one officer so bad the officer lost his left eye. Some people claimed that on most nights you could hear someone raking the leaves and walking through the gravel roads. Other claim to hear whispers coming from the tool shed behind the old house even though it's always locked from the outside.

One night after lights out, my friends and I got our flashlights out like we usually would do and started whispering while sitting on our beds. One of my friends started talking about the story of old man Willie. Most of us believed that the story was just that, a story to entertain us kids and nothing more.

It was almost midnight when we first heard it. It sounded like someone was walking towards our cabin really slow through the gravel, and it sounded like they were dragging something behind them. We all ran to the window in our room but no of us say anything, however we could still hear the footsteps approaching the cabin getting closer and closer.

One of my friends wanted to go and wake up the counselors but since we were supposed to be sleeping already we didn't want to get into trouble so we just stood looking out the window. What happened next really started to freak us out.

We started to hear these whispers, at first they were hard to make out but after a minute it was clear what the voice was saying. "Leave now or stay forever, leave now or stay forever, leave now or stay forever."

Just then an old rake bangs against the window frame and we all take off running. The counselor’s room was down a short hallway not too far from our own. We slammed opened the councilors door and was shock to see both beds empty and a white sheet hanging from their window that read, "Leave now or stay forever."

We were so scared and caught by surprise we did the only thing that came to mind and ran for the front door of the cabin. Right before I reached for the door it swung open and a man in a pair of dirty overalls and a straw hat stood in front of us holding a rusty old rake.

It was a weird moment for us kids because nobody ran, nobody moved, nobody even make a sound. We just stood there in shock until we heard, “Got cha!!!!” See it turns out our counselors heard us talking that night when we should have been sleeping and decided to play a prank on us.

All though I could look back and laugh about it now that night was no laughing matter. We never did find out what was locked in that old tool shed......