In Clarksville, near an off-ramp on Interstate 24, is a long line of restaurants, motels, gas stations, and a huge mall. These businesses lie in a highly commercialized area known as "The Strip." Only decades before, the ground on which The Strip is located was farmed in corn and tobacco. Then the developers moved in, tore down the farmhouses, and built businesses.

Each farm had a family graveyard where generations of family members were buried. Unfortunately, some of the developers might have been in such a hurry to make way for progress that they moved the tombstones, but not the graves.

One restaurant on The Strip is said to be haunted because it was built over one of these graveyards. Since the day it was opened, the place has been bedeviled by something unseen.

At night, when the customers are gone and the closing crew cleans up for the day, strange noises are sometimes heard. The most prevalent sound is scratching--a sound like something with long fingernails trying to claw its way up through the floor.

Maybe mice were at work in the building. An exterminator was called in. That should have ended the problem. It did not.

Most employees don't mind working in the restaurant alongside two or three other workers. But working alone in the building at night is creepy and a chore to be avoided.

One night Jenny L., a student at a nearby college, was working late in the restaurant. The rest of the closing crew had already gone home.

Jenny, a new employee who had not yet heard stories about the strange sounds, was busily straightening out the stockroom. Suddenly she heard scratching coming from beneath the floor. She stopped and listened.

The noises stopped.

Her first impulse was to blame the odd sounds on her imagination. She resumed working. Again the noises started. She stopped a second time.

Then the scratching sounds moved to the dining portion of the restaurant. An intruder! she thought to herself. And I'm the only one here!

The only telephone was in the office. She would have to walk through the dining room to reach it.

"I was so terrified I hardly knew what to do," Jenny said later. "Sometimes Clarksville police park on the parking lot with their radar guns, looking for speeders. I looked out the window, but I saw only my little yellow car. This was a week day, so even the main road was almost empty of traffic."

The scratching noises continued, increasing in volume.

"I had been a runner in high school," she continued, "and had won a number of trophies for the hundred-yard dash. The only thing to do was make a dash for the office--right through the dining room. If I moved fast enough, maybe the intruder would not have enough time to react and I could get into the office and lock the door behind me.

"I heard more noises. They got louder. From where I stood in the storeroom, I could just see the office door. Well, if I waited any longer, I thought, I'd never get up the courage to make a run for it.

"Finally me feet caught up with my panic and I lit out across the dining room, not daring to look to either side. I was afraid of what I would see--maybe someone lunging at me with a gun in their hand.

"I was halfway across the dining room when a dark figure in old-fashioned clothing stepped out in front of me. But it was too late to avoid a collision. And before I knew it I had run clear through the person!

"I stopped just outside the office door, caught my breath, and looked around. The figure was gone--there was absolutely no one at all in the dining room!"

Had Jenny's imagination gone ballistic, or had she really run clear through a ghost?

"Oh, I ran through something all right," she said. "The experience was like running through a freezer/ When my body passed through the figure I felt a cold rush--then warmth."

And was she afraid?

"You're going to laugh at this," she answered, "but I was quite relieved when I realized that I had only encountered a ghost and not a human intruder."