The Ruin

From: Brad (Bradfish62@aol.com)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Lecompton Kansas
Source: Form Submission

Several miles outside of Lecompton, Kansas, a town historically significant in that it was the territorial pro-slavery capital, stands on a lonely hillside overlooking the Kansas River the vestiges of a once great stone house. It is believed that a terrible fire devastated it and that several people lost their lives in the blaze, though this hasn't been verified. There are, however, two small graves immediately beside the forlorn structure, almost as if it were meant to be an epitaph.

A friend of mine, Dave Willard, first introduced me to this relic. He called it 'the ruin' and said it was a 'really bizarre' place. Dave was a big Doors freak and was quite an interesting individual, his penname for his poetry being 'Lord Byron Styrofoam'. I wasn't real sure what to expect.

It was a beautiful, cloudless summer night when we arrived at the place, with a light southerly breeze just holding down the humidity. We pulled into an ancient drive overgrown by weeds, and were stopped by a barbed wire gate. Climbing out of the car, we jumped the wire and walked up a faint path until we stood before a large gray shadow. Our eyes adjusted to the dark and the moon shone enough light to illuminate the pale yellow limestone of the house, giving it an almost glowing effect. We stood looking at it a moment, then walked around it, locating the small stones near it, and finally ending up at where the front door once welcomed visitors, but now only looked like the open maw of some peculiar creature. We cautiously stepped inside and stood upon the large quarried stone blocks, which littered the floor, having either fallen during the fire or through the ages. We stood here, talking, smoking and drinking a beer. Though a spooky place, the atmosphere did not seem rancorous.

We were there for not more than five minutes when everything changed. I have never had this feeling, before or since. Everything suddenly became dead silent. Buzzing insects, wind, everything. We looked at each other and saw fear in the other's eyes, and could feel within ourselves the strange sensation of 'fight or flight'.

Without warning the wind became a screaming, frigid gale, literally flapping our clothes and pushing us away from the Ruin. We needed very little persuasion to get us out of there, literally hurtling the barbed wire and frantically scrambling into the car. It started, thank God!, and we sped off. I remember my heart rapping fiercely against my chest, so frightened was I. We drove back to where my car was parked, both of us remaining in silence all the way.

Strangely, we never really talked much about it, as if it were something better left unsaid. Dave and I went our separate ways after I changed jobs, and I never saw him again. Several years after this occurrence Dave died in an auto crash only a few miles north of the Ruin.

Ironically, a gruesome incident occurred about ten years later that involved the Ruin. Three older people were kidnapped, in Topeka, and driven to a location near the site. The kidnapper told them to stay in the car and walked away. One of the women ran off for help while the elderly man and his wife stayed behind. They apparently decided that the kidnapper would kill them if they stayed and so they ran, finally stumbling upon the Ruin. The kidnapper caught up with them and shot them both to death in cold blood.

I was horrified when one night, while watching the news, this particular story came on with an overhead view of the crime scene, shot from a news helicopter. My eyes widened and my heart raced as the image I beheld burned into my psyche: only feet from where the murdered remains of the elderly couple lay in their throws of death, as if watching in it's haunted malevolence, loomed the Ruin!