Nighttime Visitor

Every year we garrison an old fortress on one of
the Great Lakes. We are in uniform for the Civil
War period. Being a staff officer, I need to be
in a place where people can find me in the middle
of the night in case something happens. In 14
years, nothing has every happened, luckily… except
for visits from some not in my command.

The location of my bunk is in the "prison" –
designed to hold drunken soldiers or other petty
offenses. The building is an old stone fortress,
nicknamed the "French Castle." Built in 1657, it
was in active use through the early part of the
20th century as a barracks, headquarters, or other
such military functions. Today it is simply a
living museum, open for tours, displays, or the
occasional reenactment group such as ours.

Every old fort has a ghost tale, and the French
Castle is no exception. Theirs is of a headless
soldier, searching for his head that he lost in a
sword duel over a woman. His head was supposedly
thrown down the interior well, which is located in
the middle foyer of this castle. I’ve not been
lucky enough to run into this creature, nor do I
believe he exists. I believe there are other
spirits.

The prison, in which I stay is off this main
foyer, down a hallway. Everything in this fort
is stone, and it is all original. Our metal heel
plates make distinctive sounds on the well-worn
stone. The hallway, which the prison is off of,
has two rooms – the prison and the powder room.
The modern bathrooms have an entrance from this
hallway as well; doors are locked most of the
time. The doorway to the prison is heavy –
probably two hundred pounds of solid wood and
metal framework. It takes me a good effort to
pull this door open. As you enter the room, you
see one window at the far wall. On the left are
bunks – two double bunks, set up so the sleepers
sleep with their feet towards the opposite walls
(the door and window walls), heads nearly
touching, and two levels of this.

On this particular night, it was July. I was in
the first lower bunk, which I always am, and my
commanding officer was in the second lower bunk.
We were fast asleep, when I woke up and realized
that the door had just swung open. A chill was
travelling from my feet to my head as I focused on
this door, trying to think if I left the door
open.

I lay there for a few minutes, wondering about
this. It could have been an hour, maybe a
minutes, who knows. I knew it wasn’t my roommate,
as he was still there. After a bit, I decided it
wasn’t important, so I closed my eyes to return to
sleep, when the chill came back. This time it
went from my head to my feet. This was a curious
sensation to me, and as I pondered it, I saw the
door smoothly close.

A dream, I concluded, and I rolled over and fell
back to sleep.

The next morning, I woke up at the same time as my
roommate. I sat up on the side of the bed and
procrastinated getting up and facing the world.
Before I could say a word, my C.O. spoke up:

"So, did you hear our visitor last night?"

"Visitor?" I asked.

"Yep. I was awake for it all. The door opened,
then a few seconds later I felt a chill go down my
body. After a few seconds, the chill went the
other way, and the door closed."

I quickly filled in my part of the story,
confirming that I had felt the same.

"Yep. A ghost probably came in looked out the
window, then left. Chills usually indicate the
location where they are."

Strangely, I wasn’t too scared about this. I’ve
stayed in this room a handful of times since, and
it never worried me.

There h