Our ghost story: The mysterious floating man in black

Flashback: It was 1999 or 2000 and I was a senior in high school in Marietta. One night, my parents were out for the evening and my friends and I were hanging out at my house.

Caveat: My parents were gone, but we were all of sound mind when this story took place. I promise.

The intrigue: Around 8pm or so, my friends and I started walking downstairs from my bedroom, with me leading the group.

• After a few steps, I froze in my tracks and held out my arms.

What happened: At the bottom of the stairs, I saw the unmistakable figure of a person wearing black pants, black socks, black shoes.

• The figure seemed to float rather than walk, lightly tapping the tips of its toes as it drifted past our view, the legs trailing behind.
• The upper body was obscured by the wall, leaving only the lower body visible.

My friends were confused by my abrupt stop and the frightened and befuddled look on my face — except for one, whose eyes were also bulging wide.

• I looked him in the eye and asked what he saw. "Man, I saw someone wearing black shoes and pants," he said.

The aftermath: I did what any right-minded person would do, and grabbed the largest chef's knife in the kitchen and began announcing myself in rooms before blindly stabbing underneath beds and behind doors.

• We found nothing and promptly left the house. As we drove away, a light flickered in my old playroom.

Zoom out: My family lived at the base of Kennesaw Mountain and a short hike from the Civil War battlefield where thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers died. It was fertile ground for stories about ghosts and wayward spirits.

The bottom line: I don't know if ghosts are real. And I don't know if what my friend and I saw that night was supernatural (I think the flickering light was a dying bulb, not a message from the beyond).

• But I do know we saw something. Happy Halloween.