Ghost stories, part 11
My mom was born into one of the those large Midwest families... the 6th child out of 10.. So necessity dictated that not just rooms be shared, but beds as well.. Hence, Mom shared a bed with 2 sisters, Louise and Sue. One night while all girls were lying on the bed, Mom and Sue hear the sound of something falling on their pillow between their heads. (Mom demonstrated my lightly flicking a pillow with her finger) Turning on the light, thinking maybe a bug or something had fallen on the pillow, they discover blood dripping from the ceiling. Instantly freaked, all 3 run to my grandparents' room. Grandpa, not one to be stirred by much, tells them to sleep on the floor in the living room and that a squirrel or rat or something must have died in the attic crawlspace. Next morning.... All go up to investigate. Nothing in the crawlspace.. no blood on the pillowcase... no blood on the pillow... no blood on the sheets... but a large about 5in diameter pool of dried blood on the mattress.... That, my grandpa simply flipped over and the girls slept on the mattress that night.
Another... Same cast of characters...
Mom wakes in the middle of the night with the urgency to do her duty. She heads downstairs, and is confronted by her sisters sitting in bed waiting for her... "We know it was you!" they say. "We know it was you." Mom is puzzled, as she has no clue what the fuck they mean. "We saw you! Trying to scare us!" Mom now wants the explanation as the sisters realize she really doesn't know what shit they're talking about. Well, a few seconds after Mom leaves.. someone begins tugging on the blankets... Thinking it was one of the other siblings, they shout out common annoying sibling phrases.. it stops, but now there's a tapping at the foot of the bed. Now spooked, the sisters look down and see "a figure" (as my mom described it) hunched over as if trying to hide behind the bed and then scurry away all hunched over into the adjacent bedroom. None of the other brothers and sisters heard or saw anything.
Another.. This one just my mom and grandpa..
Mom wakes up in the morning, comes downstairs. Grandpa's in the kitchen drinking coffee and says, "Where'd you get that dress?" Mom gives him the WTF look. "I saw you walking around the house last night wearing that old dress." Mom denies anything. Grandpa doesn't like being called a liar, so now he's wanting to know what the hell, adamant he saw my mom. He checks Mom's closet and dresser. No dress. Checks siblings' closets and dressers. No dress. Grandpa gives up.
This one... My uncle Gene and Grandpa
Grandpa's on his last legs with emphysema. Late at night, Gene goes downstairs (drink of water, whatever) and hears small thumping sound coming from the room of my grandparents. Grandpa's lying awake in bed. The thumps now are more like taps and they are coming from under the bed, almost marching from one end to the other. Grandpa looks to Gene like he knows that he's going ask what that noise is and says: "Don't worry. That's just my Guardian Angel come to take me home tonight." Being a hillbilly dipshit, Gene writes that off and goes back to bed. Grandpa dies that night.
Same Vein... Grandpa and Mom
This one's just a dream my Mom said she'd had about a week prior to my grandpa's passing... Mom comes downstairs into the kitchen. Grandpa is sitting in a chair, stiff, his eyes rolled back into his head. My two uncles Mike and Dan pick the chair up with Grandpa in it and turn it upside down, shaking the hell out of it. Mom screams for them to stop. They reply they're trying to wake him. Mom screams, "Can't you see he's dead?" End of dream.
This one.... Mom and Dad
Being young parents with no dough, my parents first lived with the grandparents. Same scenario as one of the previous stories, Mom leaves to use the bathroom, except she's now pregnant with my little sister. Ain't it great to see folks learn from mistakes? Sorry. Tangent. No, I need to explain the infrastructure a bit... Ma and Pa slept upstairs. Going up, you enter into a large "main" bedroom. At the foot of the stairs is a door. From where the bed was positioned, one could easily look down the flight and see the door with no problem. Okay, now Mom leaves, keeping the door open. Dad hears a knock a little later and peeks down the stairs. The door shuts and has one of those hook locks on the inside. The latches, locking whatever shut the door in with Pops (and me!).
Soon, poundings all over the room. Dad sits up and bed and not one to take shit from anyone, I guess, shouts: "YOU EITHER SHUT THE FUCK UP OR COME THE FUCK OUT!" With that, all noise ceases. Mom's locked out now, so Dad lets her in. Having experienced strange shit herself, she's ready to get the hell outta Dodge so we spend the night at my aunt's. This one my mom told me on several occasions, but Dad never told it. But a few years ago, having one of those "grown son-to-father chats" he did confirm it. He said he'd never been so scared in his life, but he just didn't know what else to do.
Still more.... Dad, Mom, Me!
Here's a little string of things from when I was a baby growing up at the grandparents'. We moved out when I was about 1 1/2. My parents used to place me in a Johnny Jumpup. For those unfamiliar with it, it was a seat with tethers that hung in doorways with a spring mechanism that allows babies to "safely" leap about. Anyway, Mom and Dad said I had a tendency to reach for someone all the time. To go so far as to speak to an unseen individual, pointing out "mommy," "daddy," and "baby" (my little sister who had since been born).
My parents had friends over one night and I was in the midst of having a conversation with this invisible friend of mine. My parents explained how frequent it was (multiple times, daily) that the adult conversation turned to "Who was I speaking to exactly?" People who had passed were mentioned, my grandpa and such... Then my dad suggests: "Maybe he's speaking to 'The Number One Man' " (aka God) At this, my parents say, I began to howl furiously at the figure no one else could see. Like have you ever scared a baby on purpose (yes, you have... you damn liar) and they WILL NOT take their eyes off you, cuz you scared them shitless. so they watch you. They say I did one of these numbers and just kept my eyes trained on where I would usually speak to "that guy."
Chapter 2.
I can walk now. Dad at work. Mom's doing dishes. Sister's with her in the high chair. I'm watching The Muppet Show or some shit in the living room. I tear from the living into the kitchen, hysterical. "MAN, MOMMY! MAN!" I shriek while pointing to the doorway. Mom sees nothing. Says there is no one there. Still in hysterics, still pointing. "MAN! MOMMY, MAN!!" Mom picks a knife. "Okay. I'll kill that man." she says, and begins to stab the air where I was pointing. Now utter hysterics, as I point behind us..."MAN! MAN!" Mom takes the quick way out, scooping up me and sis. Back to the aunt's.
Chapter 3
Now this one I remember... Not sure if it might've been a dream or what, but I remember is really vivid and it goes along with the story Mom said. Now she didn't tell me this one until I was about 15 or so. It was something she recalled after we telling these stories over again, I told her the only thing I remembered from that house. Here's Mom first.. Eating breakfast, I tell Mom: "The devil choked me last night." She, knowing how kids pick stuff up, writes it off. Dad comes home, and I tell him: "The devil choked me last night." He, knowing how kids pick stuff up, writes it off. Grandma's around. I tell her "The devil choked me last night." She, knowing how kids pick stuff up, writes it off.
Here's my story... I fell asleep beside the couch. I guess instead of disturbing me, the folks decided it'd be cool to let me be. Then I woke up to a scratching sound under the couch. Looking into the space, I could see a leather driving glove scurrying all Addams Family-like. (No Shit!) Next thing, it attaches itself to my face... such as when you place your hand over someone's mouth and nose so they can't breathe. I don't recall how it came off, but I seriously remember the smell and taste of leather and even the feeling of trying to pull it off and feeling those three little lines they sew onto the back of the gloves.
My grandma has since passed and the house has been sold due to her many outstanding debts. While cleaning it out, we actually find the original deed that dated back to 1810. It listed people who had died in the house and while I'm not sure of the exact count it was upwards of 20 with several of them children. This number doesn't even include the family members of mine who'd passed there (uncle, grandfather, grandma's new BF). There were even a number of funerals held there in the house itself. There's a still a few more short little stories my mom told me... Maybe the people who live there now have some as well.
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When I was around 6 or 7, I used to go to my grandparents' house everyday after school. I loved it there... Nan would cook an early dinner for me and we'd watch Count Duckula movies in the lounge room together. A few times, I'd ask if I could stay the night, and every time I did I got the same answer, "um.. no, not tonight." Some days I would get tired and start to fall asleep on their couch, but just before I was about to, *BAM* I'd get the sensation that I'd just fallen about 3 feet straight down. Now I've had this sort of thing happen before, but it was never as violent or frequent as it was when I was in their house. It wasn't uncommon for it to happen a few times in succession and usually left me feeling more than a little uneasy; I never mentioned it to anyone. Eventually I changed schools and stopped going there altogether.
My grandparents moved house a few years later, but it wasn't until I was about 16 that I bothered to ask them about the place. They told me some weird things that used to happen there, how the washing machine had a habit of turning itself on and "jumping around the place," wine glasses would mysteriously disappear from a closed cabinet only to turn up days later as a pile of broken glass, packed into the corner of a completely different room. What freaked me out most was them saying they heard what sounded like an old man sobbing. I can remember hearing a man sobbing on more than one occasion while trying to sleep on the couch I mentioned earlier, I had just assumed it was coming from outside since there was no way it could have come from behind the couch, like it seemed to. They told me they never would have let me stay there at night and that I should ask my dad about it... he'd lived there for 15-odd years.
Dad was surprised when I asked him, turns out he'd wanted to share quite a few experiences of this nature with me but wasn't sure how I'd take them. [A little background, my Dad has been teaching internal style martial arts for more than 20 years and runs at least 2 schools that I know of; he is also heavily into meditation and traditional Chinese healing.] He told me he woke up one night to the faint sound of a man sobbing; he mustered the courage to get up and followed the sound to the lounge room. That's when he saw it: a translucent figure looking out of the window, quietly sobbing to itself. The sobbing stopped as the figure became aware of his presence, slowly it turned to face him. He saw its eyes widen and in a split second, he understood exactly what had happened to it, the figure then drifted into the kitchen and out of sight.
He told me the figure was the remnants of a man that used to live there with his wife. She was apparently an evil manipulative bitch and never let him leave the house. He would often stand by the window, watching life go on without him. One day he told his wife that he'd had enough and was going to leave her... well, she went nuts and started throwing shit all over the place... he locked himself in the bedroom and waited for her to calm down. After a while, he opened the door: his wife was waiting there; she had cooked him dinner, and started apologizing for everything she had done. He ate the food she'd cooked and talked with her about how they could work things out. That's when he started to notice a burn in his throat and began to choke. He fell to the floor. His wife had put something in his food (or drink, I guess) and just let him lie there and choke to death.
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Tales from my haunted house: Vol. 2.
The Lady in the Window
I was the only one in my family to ever actually witness this ghost, although I am also by far the most observant; furthermore, due to my experiences in the graveyard, I had begun to take notice of the little things that so many of us ignore during the day. The house we lived in near the graveyard was 2 stories, plus an attic with a window. My sister's bedroom was just below the attic, and the windows were lined up nicely. When I first began to see the face of a woman, probably mid 30's, watching me every time I came in through the back, I thought that my sister had put some stupid doll or something (she collected porcelain dolls, so it was possible) in a dumb position. The figure never moved, just sat there facing the yard and following me with hollowed-out eyes. I realized that it was more than just a doll when it started appearing in other windows of the house. First the attic, and then the bathroom on the second floor that was next to my sister's room. Finally, the face appeared in the bathroom in the garage that also faced out on to the back yard of the place. I tried to point it out to people, but by the time they looked, it was gone. I think that they may have noticed it in passing, or in the fleeting moments that try your soul and make you choose between an inhibited stable reality or face the possibility of the unknown, and taken the easier road.
Anyway, while I alone may have seen this ghost, we all knew she was there. Not because of the usual "ghostly" things, the wilting laughter, the echo of chains in the darkness, or the sounds of sobbing in the distance. We knew she was there because it was her house, and she managed the furniture. The rooms were set up according to her needs, aside from one special item that will come into play later. In the living room, the couch was next to the big bay window, and ran horizontally away from it against the back wall. This allowed you to look at the entertainment center, which was against the far wall, the stairs, or out the window on to the front yard. You could also see the entrance form the miniscule dining room. Upstairs, in the large bedroom, the bed (or beds, when my brother and I shared that room) were placed next to the closet and against the wall opposite the dresser. This room was not allowed to be messy. It would be cleaned, two teenage boys or no. The other bedroom on that floor, my sister, had the bade against the back wall opposite the walk in closet next to the entrance, and also the dresser against one of the other walls. Bookshelves sat against the wall next to the bed.
In the converted den / bedroom, the head of the bed was against the wall on left of the entrance, in the middle of that wall, or (when my brother and I had that room) one in the corner next to the back wall and one next to the closet. The dresser was against the right wall regardless, and the desk in the house was in that room opposite the closet. The kitchen had no room for rearranging anyway.
This leaves the dining room: it was pretty normal, stuff had to be on the right shelves and in the right drawers. The table was in the middle, surrounded by chairs. The other addition to this room was a computer desk that I got to place. At first, the ghost kept moving the desk around the house. Eventually, she left a note stating: "This is my house," So I left a note on the computer saying: "This is my desk, I choose where it goes." She seemed to accept that, although my mother's attempts at "owning" the other furniture never panned out, and eventually my mom couldn't take it any more (she's a bit of a control freak) and after four years of this shit, we moved.
The lady in the window appeared for the last time, in a window she'd never been in before; the other second floor bedroom, which looked over the front yard. She seemed sad to see us go, but that could have been because I wanted the ghost to have liked us. I always thought she was amusing, although my mother couldn't stand her. I also liked the fact that she was very unghostlike; no random "spooky" noises (you couldn't even hear her move the furniture) and no messy or violent explosions of ghostly rage. Just a quiet ownership of what she saw to be her home, with the exception for the contraption that she had probably never seen before: a PC.
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Tales from the Graveyard episode 6: the mass
This thing still haunts my dreams and echoes itself in the corner of my eyes. It gathers in the shadows and then disappears to nothingness, making me question my sanity. I remember it perfectly, because every now and again, when I finally think it's gone, I see it hovering in the darkness. Sometimes, when all is silent, I can still hear its song.
It began like most of my other trips to the graveyard near my former home. It was a quiet and beautifully clear night. I could see the stars, and it wasn't very cold. It was spring, I had just gotten my driver's permit, and life was good. That night, I went to the cemetery thinking that I was done with the place, but what happened would haunt my dreams and make me obsessed with the place. I needed an answer, and one that I would never get, at least not while I still lived.
Near the back of the cemetery, they put up a giant hedge. They decided, for some reason, that a huge impenetrable bush would be superior to a fence facing one of the busier streets in the city. It was giant and green, on the outside. But inside the cemetery, there was a section of the bush that was fairly dead; the leaves had all fallen off and the branches reached out like the hands of drowning men from a sea of green. The guards never went near there, and when I had first started exploring the place, I had been warned by one of the friendlier security guards (who I've always referred to as Pat) not to go anywhere near there, especially at night.
By now, I should have proven that I was a reckless / foolish / brave (approaching stupidity) youth. So, realizing that I had never actually gone there at night, I decided that this night would be the one. The wind picked up, almost like what was there new I was coming and was waiting for me, and a light breeze played with the hair and danced off my face. That's when I heard the music. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard, indescribably wonderful. Imagine your favorite song, only better, a series of sounds that no one can truly hear or repeat, yet you would follow for no more than their serene perfection. That sound began to lead me down the path to the back of the cemetery.
This part of the graveyard was significantly less taken care of than the rest of the place: it was also the section that had several unmarked graves that Pat had told me were for derelicts who had never been identified. There were recent additions, to be sure, but the field of nameless dead stretched on for over a century, one straggled in every few years. Seeing headstones without names startled me back from the near hypnosis that the song had put me in; and for the first time in the graveyard I truly felt a little afraid. Not for my life, but for my sanity. But I couldn't force myself to turn back; the mind was willing to admit defeat, but the body demanded I press on.
I walked through these rows for about 5 minutes, waiting for the inevitable to jump out at me, and add me to the list of missing persons in my hometown, and also to the mass of unknown souls beneath the ground. Sometimes, when I lie awake at night wondering if it's still out there, I decide that death there would have been the preferable state.
The owners of the cemetery had always claimed that the weird bush growth there was because of the local trees; they cast shadows for the better part of the day on that specific spot, so long ago the bushes had learned that growing leaves there was pointless (much like a tree will bend itself towards the light over years) and had never regrown the leaves after the first batch had fallen off. This couldn't have been true, (biology aside) though, because the ground was always littered with what appeared to be a fresh layer of dead leaves. I had always been curious about that particular area, so I decided that sense nothing had eaten me so far, I must be safe. It was a foolish presumption on my part.
I reached the fallen leaves with no difficulty, and noticed that the pile was extraordinarily small for this time of year. For any time of year; it didn't really matter, there had always been a significant pile of dead leaves in various states of decay on that spot. That night, however, there was nothing more than the occasional dried-out husk. That's when the song began again. It was ephemeral and wonderful beyond belief; it must have been what Ulysses heard as he passed the sirens. And it was calling me to my doom once more.
Luckily, my body finally noticed something was definitely amiss; the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I began to shiver despite the fact that it was not cold. I stopped moving towards the sound, and instead started to look in the direction I was heading; and that is where it greeted me. A solid shadow loomed out from one of the empty headstones like a blotch of ink on a quite scenic painting. At first, it had no shape, but it began to coalesce in to something real, then it started to walk. To attempt to describe this "shadow" would be impossible; it had 7 legs, and an enormous amorphous body that changed shape as it moved. Occasionally, one of the legs would be engulfed by the rest of the creature, only to reappear a few seconds later. As it moved, the leaves near it died and fell from their branches.
I had already begun backpedaling away from the monstrosity, but it continued to calmly follow me like some villain from a horror film, waiting for me to trip or break my leg in an attempt to get away. As it neared, the shape became more definite; 2 long, spindly arms ending in hands reached forth from the mass, followed by 6 more that ended in pincers. It sprouted a head that was at the same time that of a man and a wolf, with a giant, gaping maw waiting to devour me. I did the only thing I could do in such a situation. I, remembering all my taunts at horror movie heroes, took off running, paying careful attention to where I stepped, hopped the chain link fence, ran home, locked the back door, went to my bedroom and turned on the lights, then started to watch the backyard to see if I had been followed.
I didn't see the creature again that night, nor did I hear its song. But one week later, I could have sworn for just a second that its sound came from someone's radio, even though I could hear them singing along to a completely different song. Then I saw it, in the old tunnels beneath my school (bomb shelter)... it wasn't inky or semi-solid anymore, but I watched a shadow on the wall change as I passed. Needless to say, I ran before anything else could happen.
Then the most startling realization occurred to me; the leaves on the bush had started to grow back, and the oak in my backyard began to act strangely, as if something was killing the foliage along the back up to about 8 feet. My parents accounted for some new neighbors adding a story on to their house behind us, but I resolved never to go outside at night. My dog also began to use the dog door to come and sleep in the garage at night, which she had never before done. I knew it was out there, waiting, but for what I didn't know. I would eventually find out, but that's another story...
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Tales from the Graveyard epi. 7: Wicca doesn't work, or I started the
f***ing fire
Chapter 1:
I had grown sick and tired of the gnawing fear that a creature born of shadows was waiting to devour my soul. I was tired of watching my back everytime I went anywhere. I was tired of not sleeping because of the gnawing fear that I may not wake up. I had begun to watch the tree, and ad seen the things head appear a couple of times, when animals ran around in the back yard, or birds flew by. For some reason, though, it never seemed to move forward. I first I thought it was playing a game, toying with me, but I slowly began to realize that while I watched it, it never watched me back. And it would only follow animals so long as they were outside of the circle of light created in our back yards. My mind made the only conclusion that any fresh 16-year-old could create; the thing was allergic to light. I decided I'd just go shine my flashlight at it, which only worked to really piss it off.
It was pissed off so much, in fact, that it massed out of the tree and came tearing through the night. One thing I had on it, however, was that it couldn't see... So I held perfectly still, and waited for the thing to give up on finding me. Then it began to sing again. That song, that perfect song, that could call a angry man from a fight... It took everything I had to not move, not go towards the infernal thing, every ounce of strength in my body to obey my minds commands to STAY FUCKING PUT.
It gave up after what seemed an eternity, but was probably only 20-30 minutes. I waited for it to get back in the tree, it just kind of dissolved itself in from the back side, the shadows becoming insubstantial and the coalescing into the tree and diffusing itself amongst the branches.
I was at my wit's end; I had gone through every book on the supernatural that I could find, and found no reference to anything like this. I thought that it might be some kind of evil fairy, but only because those seemed to define definition most of the time. I really had no clue.
So I went to the local churches and talked with the priests; they all had the same answer for me. Stop wasting my time with nonsense. I realized that I would have to turn away from mainstream religions when the local mosques and temples did the same; so I went and asked for help from the only other "religious" person I knew about, a really hot Wiccan named M. Now, I admit, I really had a crush on M. And I was pretty sure that she liked me back, in some crazy "I'm a freak, and you're just borderline insane" kind of way. So I went to her and spilled.
I knew that she wasn't buying from the pout on her lips. We'd been friends since grade school, and I knew her expressions better than I knew myself. So I did the only thing I could think of; I invited over to my place while my parents were away so she could see the thing. She probably thought I was just trying to get her alone with me in the dark, but that didn't seem to bother her at the time. Instead, she got to see the scariest thing that she'd ever seen before in her life.
She consulted her books, and found some kind of spell, as I called it, that worked to remove the taint of the supernatural. She asked me for the whole story, which I spilled, and she decided that we would have to go to the cemetery. And that meant that while she was preparing the incantation, I'd have to lure the thing back. So, at around 11 PM, I led her to the graveyard, to the very spot that this thing had originally sprouted from. She began mixing minerals into wine, that she was burning over a very low flame, the light of which she shielded with her body. I hopped the fence, and went home... The thing was there, in the tree. As I got close, it started to reform. I knew that if it was still pissed off enough to run after me, I didn't have a shot in hell, so I kept the flashlight beam off of it. Instead, as it took form, I began to back away, then I turned and ran towards the cemetery. I hopped the fence, then turned back, surprised to realize that I had gained no distance on the thing. It didn't seem to be going as fast as I had, seeing as how I'd ran, but it managed to stay at exactly the same distance from me until I stopped. Then it began to inch forward.
I walked back to the spot, and told M: "It's here." She didn't even look up, just kept chanting over the frothing red liquid. It approached, and I began to wonder if she'd be done in time... she finished only seconds before the thing got to us. It had already moved it's arms forward, and the head had arisen from the shadow-cloud that covered it's body. She grabbed the cup and flung it. I had expected smoke, fire, an explosion, magical lights dancing as the thing dissolved. Instead, it laughed at us, and struck at her...
It cut her, too. Three claws ripped into the torso of a 5'1" 110-pound girl. My mind went into not-idiot mode again, and I grabbed her as she fell, and took off towards the front gate. Luckily, the guards didn't seem to find me, so I just shoulder-rammed the gates open and kept running towards my car, as M bled. I threw her into the car as gently as I could, turned the ignition, and took off. The thing was right behind me, it never got any closer, but it was always just one step away in the rearview mirror.
I didn't have a cheval of heroism, I had a little old Ford POS, but I had never been happier to have this shit vehicle in my life, because somehow the lights were never against me and my car didn't die on the way to the hospital. I squealed into the parking lot, fishtailing to a stop in front of the doors, grabbed her and ran inside. Everyone turned to look at me, then realized that I was covered in blood and carried a semi-conscious girl bleeding from three slashing wounds across her abdomen. They took her from me, to a back room, and then started to ask me questions.
I said that we had been walking in the neighborhood, when a dog had jumped out and attacked. I kicked it, but it had clawed her pretty badly before I could react. Once I had gotten the thing off of her, I picked her up and carried her back to my car which was less than a block away. They asked me the dogs size, and I said large, bigger than any dog I had seen before. I said it was too dark to identify the type, but it must have been about the size of rottweiler / mastiff. They looked like they didn't exactly believe me, and had called the police. The cops got there a few minutes later, and began to question me again. I gave them the same story I had given the doctors.
In her moments of near lucidity, M had been talking about some kind of monster that attacked her. They had also identified the wounds as claw marks, not as knife wounds as they had originally thought. The doctor said he had never seen a dog with big enough claws to do this, but it didn't seem like either of us had actually gotten a good look at the creature. Thank God for obscurity in descriptions.
They asked me where, and I gave them the block in front of the cemetery. They said that they'd send a man to investigate, and luckily that was the last I heard from the cops on the matter. Somehow, they hadn't realized that it had taken a while for the blood of the girl I was carrying to spill over my arms on to the street (no blood trail back to the cemetery... I checked when it was light). I stayed there all night, claiming to be her "boyfriend" and her parents, who happened to like me, made the hospital let me back there with her. She regained consciousness, and survived, although it left 3 nasty scars on her chest. We were left alone, and talked in hushed whispers.
I told her that I was sorry I had gotten her involved, and that I was going to find a way to make things better. She told me that I should just leave it alone, and hope that it doesn't follow me back home, but now I was angry on top of brash.
The tree the thing had inhabited at the hospital was obvious, as it was a small pine that practically died overnight. Luckily for me, the hospital feared some kind of tree disease, so they had the thing cut down by mid-afternoon the next day. I grabbed a chain, and pulled the stump out of the ground at around 2 in the afternoon. The roots had gone to an sickly black, and seemed to be drinking an ink... I lashed it to my bumper, and drove to the bluffs, a kind of cliff-top that overlooks the Kern River Bed. In the summer, there's never any water running through, and it's actually pretty ugly, so I knew that the odds of being observed were low.
I grabbed the stump, and followed a trail down to the bottom. In the river bed, I built a fire pit, loaded it up with twigs and newspaper, then tossed the stump on top. I lit it all, expecting the fire to do all the work for me. I still hadn't quite gotten over the fact that light only blinded the creature; I was hoping that it would have some kind of vampiric allergy to sunlight, or that it couldn't leave into total light, but no, that was not to be. It came screaming out of the firepit, jumping from nothingness to existence as soon as the flames began to like at the stump from the tree.
I took an involuntary step back, and the creature heard my foot slide in the sand. It turned, but still couldn't see me. It leaped at where I had been a few moments before, and I ran to the other side of the firepit. I thought that I was a goner, that this would be my final fight. But I was determined not to give up, and the creature and I kept circling the firepit, it trying to get to me and I trying to keep the fire between us.
My lucky break occurred when I tripped. It heard this, and I saw the thing smile at me, its long, sharp teeth forming two lines of knives, and it walked calmly towards me. I had, however, tripped over a small branch, something that looked enough to me like a torch from an Indiana Jones movie for me to get the idea of lighting it on fire. I rammed the thing into the firepit as I scrambled to get up, and then pulled it out just as the creature jumped at me. I hit it, hard, and held the flame on its arm for a few seconds; but that was all that I'd needed.
The creature went up like paper, at first howling in pain with a low unearthly sound that chilled me to the bone. The fire ate away the thing's arms, then split up at the torso to eat through the centre and the legs. The shadow surrounding the face was the last to go, but the creature continued to smile at me. The shadows fell to the flames, leaving a fine, grey powder that drifted apart and away in the day's light breeze. I thought that maybe it had smiled at me because after years it had been defeated. I let my foolish thoughts of victory overwhelm me, and then I went back to the hospital to visit with M. She was in there for about 3 days, since they wanted to examine the wounds to make sure that she wasn't infected and check her for rabies.
Chapter 2:
I brought her flowers and a get well soon card, and told her that it was all over once we were alone. I stayed with her through visitor hours for the next three days, and then we went out on an actual date. I took her out on a picnic in the park: it was sweet and gave us time to talk about what had happened. I told her the final end to the story, and apologized again for getting her involved. We talked for a while, about faith and other such things, and when the mood seemed right, I leaned in for a kiss. It was a wonderful experience, and one that we would oft repeat for next 3 weeks. On that third week, however, we heard it. The song struck up again, in the dark recesses of our minds. As our relationship progressed, the presence became worse and worse. On our one-month anniversary, the creature showed up in the shadows; not in its full form, mind you, but the shape of it flirted in the two-dimensional darkness out of the corner of my eyes. She told me that she loved me, but couldn't live with the fear.
The damn thing cost more than I'll probably ever really know, and it haunts me still. It's almost impossible to actually get a good night's sleep anymore, and whenever I get intimate I can hear it, or see it. I'm not sure if it’s slowly reforming, or if its physical being is truly dead and now it just haunts me, getting its revenge from beyond the grave. I probably won't know, until it's too late. The only thing that is certain is that it hasn't completely left me, and probably never will. I am, in a word, haunted by a creature that defies my imagination and reminds me how foolish I was as a youth.
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It's sometime in late August, early September 2001 (I can't remember when precisely) at Ft. Knox, in a company for those who got injured during basic training.
I had a friend there who was about 30 years old with the greyest hair you'd ever seen, almost like he was in his 70's. Well, one day when there wasn't much going on, he and I got to discussing the events in his life that'd brought him to this point.
He mentioned that he'd been a Satanist, and showed me several upside-down crosses and other various Satanic tattoos he'd had done. We also got to discussing his life in Satanism, and he had quite a few interesting stories. The one that really stood out to me, and that I asked him to discuss most, was his tale of attending a Satanic party once (Note: I make no judgement on this story, and instead simply try to make it as accurate as I can remember). Apparently during the course of this party, he met three men.
His description of them is foggy to me now, but the basics stand out - these were old men. I don't mean that they were in their 80's - more along the lines of these three men had been around for hundreds of years, yet still looked quite young and spry. These three men also had various... abilities - conjuring fire at will, making objects levitate, etc. The suggestion was also made that these men had the power to... affect people, even over great distances, and that because my friend had spoken with them before, they maintained some kind of link with him.
As we were talking, I noticed him growing progressively paler and weaker, and as he neared the end of his tale, he slowly stopped talking, looked at me, and asked me to get the drill sergeant on duty. I could visibly see that all the blood had drained from his face and he was having trouble breathing. I went downstairs and asked the D.S. to come up and take a look at my friend - he barked something at me along the lines of telling him to walk down there his damned self. Being the dutiful friend I am, I walked back upstairs to check on my friend and see if he could make it downstairs, and by this time all he could manage was a squeak to tell me that no, he couldn't, and I needed to *hurry*... I don't think I've ever seen such a look of stark fear in someone's eyes.
I once again hurried downstairs, and this time managed to convince the drill sergeant that yes, my friend did need help and yes, I am an utter asshole for daring to speak to you (tangent...). He goes upstairs, and by the time I show him to my friend, my friend is no longer breathing and is turning cyanotic (blue tinge to the skin). He immediately starts slapping him on the face and trying to get him to wake up, and once he realizes that he isn't going to be able to, he tells me to go downstairs and call 911.
Long story short, the ambulance gets there, rushes him off to the hospital after restarting his breathing and he doesn't spend the night in the barracks that night. Sure, it'd be nice if my story ended there. But it doesn't.
That night, I slept in his bed (for reasons that I have absolutely no desire to go into now, or ever, but that are crucial to this story). Every hour of every night, teams of two men patrol the 3 story barracks looking for fires. And every single pair of guards that night, without telling the guards before or after them what they saw, later reports to me that there was a sort of shadow standing in the middle of the small 4-man room where I was. This shadow was staring directly at the bed where my friend normally would have lain that night, and each guard reported that when they shined their light directly at the shadow, it disappeared.
Later that morning, one of the other occupants on the room was found on the stairwell to the third floor (which in and of itself is a metric fuckton of stories, but I digress) gibbering to himself.
====================
A few years ago, back when I still went to sleepover camp, there was a story that was often told to the younger campers about an old cabin known as the "wombats," which burned down in 1951. However, the story goes, every once in a while the cabin reappears, and odd scratching noises are heard emanating from the windows of a cabin that didn't exist anymore. The story went on to be somewhat interesting, but I don't remember the rest and it's not really that important to my story.
As we were young and naive, we believed the tale, and many of us had trouble going to sleep that night. Half of us kept murmuring: "Dude, you think that story is true?," while the other half, trying to appear hardcore, replied: "Naw, dude. That's just stuff they make up to scare us. Right?? Guys??" After a few hours, we managed to go to sleep, and woke up the next morning already forgetting the story. The next night, we would be brutally reminded of the horrors.
Because at three in the fucking morning, we heard these scratching noises coming from the windows. And we had no idea what the fuck was going on, nor were any adults in the area. Whenever we shined our flashlights out of a screen that was making noise, we would see nothing, and the noise would immediately move to another window. We yelled and screamed for help for what seemed like an hour before anyone arrived. Once angry counselors arrived, wondering why we were making a racket at three AM, the noises stopped.
The next morning, the camp director informed us that there was a rational reason why the noises were occurring: a goat had escaped recently, and apparently this goat was the culprit. We didn't believe him. Then again, the wombat's tale was just a horror story that they tell kids to scare them. Right?? Guys??
===============
I haven't seen one of these in some time and as usual, I'm obsessed with reading things that will prevent me from falling asleep at night. As always, I'll start with my own. Keep in mind, this is a true story:
When I was in high school, me and my friend Rachel were always fascinated with the whole ghost hunting thing. We would do the occasional graveyard walks at midnight with a tape recorder just trying to get some EVP's on tape. Many times, we were able to pick up odd things but nothing that satisfied us.
FRIDAY
One evening after school, I picked up Rachel from her house and I took an old farm road that we knew only as Con's Pond Road growing up. This was one of those old farm roads with the thick canopy of trees on both sides. It was so enclosed with old growth and pine that it seemed you were driving thru a tunnel in most places. The roads were narrow and passing another vehicle would require pulling over as far as possible without finding yourself in a ditch. Now normally I don't like traveling along these parts of southeast Texas, but we wanted to go swimming alone that evening and make the best out of an already dull Friday.
Well, down this ancient country road was a plot of land that belonged to the old Judge Con that it was named after. On the edge of his property was a massive pond with a spillway that emptied beside the road and ran beneath one of those old wooden bridges with no guardrails along its edges. The best way to park was near the bridge and then to climb up over the embankment that surrounded the pond and dive in for a swim. It was already 4:30 PM by the time we arrived and it was the time of year that the sun seemed to set much earlier than you'd like so we didn't have but a few hours of sunlight left.
We spent a lot of time basking in the sun and skipping rocks across the water while sitting on the algae-covered cement spillway. After another quick swim, we were getting ready to leave when Rachel noticed something that should have been obvious to begin with, but never caught our eyes. Across the pond was the decaying remains of the old judge's home. Keep in mind, this property has been abandoned for well over 50 years now. The house seemed to have both the beauty of an old Victorian manor, and a great deal of the same architecture you see so much of in the old Garden District of New Orleans.
The house was mostly shrouded by trees and wild growth. Ivy and vines grew along the sides of the house weaving in and out of windows and eventually finding their way to the chimney tops that still remained. Most of the windows were boarded up, but the double doors nestled beneath the porch roof were left wide open, almost inviting us to enter for a quick look. To this day I can't understand what it was about this house that captivated our attention, but thinking back, I still can't help but regret what took place later that weekend. We decided it was getting too late for exploring, and so I went ahead and took Rachel home. After all, there's always tomorrow...
SATURDAY
After debating on the telephone for an hour, we decided to throw caution to the wind and return to the old property to pay the ancient house a visit. It was sixish, and the last rays of yellowish-red light danced playfully between the gaps of the crowded tree canopy above us. This time, we parked a bit behind in the cover of a trail that led to someone's hunting property as indicated by the POSTED sign that you see so many of in this area of Texas. We walked the rest of the way, about a fourth of a mile, to the spillway. Once we reached the spillway, the last vestiges of sunlight were struggling to illuminate the sky. My eyes strained to focus on the old home in the distance, we began our walk around the banks of the pond. Our destination lay only ahead and we were determined to stay the night and catch something on tape.
As we drew closer to this empty shell of a home, my eyes played tricks on me in the dim twilight. Sometimes reflections on unbroken windows would grab my attention, as I always expected to see something.... else. We walked inside past the double doors which were oddly shut tight this time. This certainly isn't a place a bum would live, since vagrants are something you never find in this place. It's mostly a rural community setting, not a concrete jungle with bustling traffic and hordes of people around you. Regardless, there are other kids like Rachel and me who come swimming at the old pond as well, so I assumed it was the work of the other teen trespassers who frequented the place.
After exploring the house for about 40 minutes, we finally found a place we were most comfortable with in the foyer. The foyer must have been beautiful in its day. A staircase contoured the wall on its way upward to the second floor landing. Of course if we had to boot it, we could easily make way for the front doors from where we sat. And so it was, we had made up our minds. It was certain that we would stay that night until we saw the light of the next day trickle in through the windows. As we explored the home, I would get slight pinprick tingles that would run from the back of my neck, expand outward across my shoulders and spread over my entire body within a split second, only to fade as quickly as they came. These chills were always accompanied by this sinking feeling in my gut that there was someone else with us, following our steps from room to room of this dilapidated manor. It was getting late, and we decided that sleep would be the best way to pass time for now. We worked our way back to the 2nd floor landing and down the staircase to our makeshift encampment. Sleep came quickly, but didn't last long...
SUNDAY 12:43 AM
Laying on a sleeping bag, the planks of old wood beneath me, I breathed the cold stale air of this dying shelter. I was somewhere between consciousness and sleep. As I became more and more awake, I heard footsteps moving near us. I can't explain how sobering this was for me. I wasn't thinking, "OMG GHOST!!!!!", but more along the lines of "OMG HOMELESS MAN WITH KNIFE" or "DRUG DEALERS WITH GUNS WHO WILL RAPE RACHEL AND KILL ME" It was dark. The moon was in its new phase and there was no light to be found although my eyes strained to detect even the faintest traces. I couldn't quite detect where the footsteps were coming from because they seemed to change location from in front of me to behind me with each step. This person was obviously wearing boots as you could hear the distinctive dull thump of the heels on the old wooden floors.
The last footstep stopped at what seemed to be ten or so feet to my right on the other side of the room. I sat in dead silence, blanketed in pure darkness, for what seemed to be 20 seconds. My heart pumping blood was the only thing I could hear, and I could feel each pulse pounding its way through my neck. As I was finally able to gain composure and react in a less panicked state, a new sound flooded my ears. Imagine if you will 30 people whispering random phrases into a tape recorder. Then imagine playing this orgy of sound in reverse and adding an echo effect to it. Now imagine this final product being played in stereo as if the entire house were a reverberating chamber of sound. My blood ran cold and I quickly reached for Rachel. I was relieved when my hand landed firmly on her shoulder. She woke up at that moment and asked what I wanted, then stated: "Oh, cool! It's finally night, let's get cracking."
I was horrified, but she couldn't tell at that moment. It was then that the top floor above us was the first to begin in its symphony of terror. The doors began to slam themselves shut repeatedly. First it started with perhaps one or two doors, and then all of them at random intervals. The first floor then chimed in as well, but what gave us both the motivation to move were the screams. It was like hearing a room full of people screaming and crying at the same time. It was a dizzying sound, but enough to turn our cement feet into the nimble paws of an African cheetah. As we made our way out of the home and across the old porch, there was a figure of something on the steps. She obviously never saw it, but I did. It was like a man, with no muscle. Just an old withered shell of a human with grey skin standing there. Its eyes were black empty sockets and it hadn't any lips. Just a sneering set of teeth that seemed decayed.
How I could gather such details of this thing at mach speeds is beyond me, but I know I wanted to die as I ran past it, its gaze following me slowly as I sprinted onward, jumping the length of the steps and hitting the ground running alongside Rachel. I felt its gaze on my neck as I ran, not looking back. I could feel its stare! I swear to you even now I remember that feeling, as if a knife were ready to cut the flesh on the back of my neck from some unseen attacker. The image of that thing is still burned in my mind to this day.
If anyone can stand a night in old Judge Con's house, then they deserve a fuckin war medal.
Another... Same cast of characters...
Mom wakes in the middle of the night with the urgency to do her duty. She heads downstairs, and is confronted by her sisters sitting in bed waiting for her... "We know it was you!" they say. "We know it was you." Mom is puzzled, as she has no clue what the fuck they mean. "We saw you! Trying to scare us!" Mom now wants the explanation as the sisters realize she really doesn't know what shit they're talking about. Well, a few seconds after Mom leaves.. someone begins tugging on the blankets... Thinking it was one of the other siblings, they shout out common annoying sibling phrases.. it stops, but now there's a tapping at the foot of the bed. Now spooked, the sisters look down and see "a figure" (as my mom described it) hunched over as if trying to hide behind the bed and then scurry away all hunched over into the adjacent bedroom. None of the other brothers and sisters heard or saw anything.
Another.. This one just my mom and grandpa..
Mom wakes up in the morning, comes downstairs. Grandpa's in the kitchen drinking coffee and says, "Where'd you get that dress?" Mom gives him the WTF look. "I saw you walking around the house last night wearing that old dress." Mom denies anything. Grandpa doesn't like being called a liar, so now he's wanting to know what the hell, adamant he saw my mom. He checks Mom's closet and dresser. No dress. Checks siblings' closets and dressers. No dress. Grandpa gives up.
This one... My uncle Gene and Grandpa
Grandpa's on his last legs with emphysema. Late at night, Gene goes downstairs (drink of water, whatever) and hears small thumping sound coming from the room of my grandparents. Grandpa's lying awake in bed. The thumps now are more like taps and they are coming from under the bed, almost marching from one end to the other. Grandpa looks to Gene like he knows that he's going ask what that noise is and says: "Don't worry. That's just my Guardian Angel come to take me home tonight." Being a hillbilly dipshit, Gene writes that off and goes back to bed. Grandpa dies that night.
Same Vein... Grandpa and Mom
This one's just a dream my Mom said she'd had about a week prior to my grandpa's passing... Mom comes downstairs into the kitchen. Grandpa is sitting in a chair, stiff, his eyes rolled back into his head. My two uncles Mike and Dan pick the chair up with Grandpa in it and turn it upside down, shaking the hell out of it. Mom screams for them to stop. They reply they're trying to wake him. Mom screams, "Can't you see he's dead?" End of dream.
This one.... Mom and Dad
Being young parents with no dough, my parents first lived with the grandparents. Same scenario as one of the previous stories, Mom leaves to use the bathroom, except she's now pregnant with my little sister. Ain't it great to see folks learn from mistakes? Sorry. Tangent. No, I need to explain the infrastructure a bit... Ma and Pa slept upstairs. Going up, you enter into a large "main" bedroom. At the foot of the stairs is a door. From where the bed was positioned, one could easily look down the flight and see the door with no problem. Okay, now Mom leaves, keeping the door open. Dad hears a knock a little later and peeks down the stairs. The door shuts and has one of those hook locks on the inside. The latches, locking whatever shut the door in with Pops (and me!).
Soon, poundings all over the room. Dad sits up and bed and not one to take shit from anyone, I guess, shouts: "YOU EITHER SHUT THE FUCK UP OR COME THE FUCK OUT!" With that, all noise ceases. Mom's locked out now, so Dad lets her in. Having experienced strange shit herself, she's ready to get the hell outta Dodge so we spend the night at my aunt's. This one my mom told me on several occasions, but Dad never told it. But a few years ago, having one of those "grown son-to-father chats" he did confirm it. He said he'd never been so scared in his life, but he just didn't know what else to do.
Still more.... Dad, Mom, Me!
Here's a little string of things from when I was a baby growing up at the grandparents'. We moved out when I was about 1 1/2. My parents used to place me in a Johnny Jumpup. For those unfamiliar with it, it was a seat with tethers that hung in doorways with a spring mechanism that allows babies to "safely" leap about. Anyway, Mom and Dad said I had a tendency to reach for someone all the time. To go so far as to speak to an unseen individual, pointing out "mommy," "daddy," and "baby" (my little sister who had since been born).
My parents had friends over one night and I was in the midst of having a conversation with this invisible friend of mine. My parents explained how frequent it was (multiple times, daily) that the adult conversation turned to "Who was I speaking to exactly?" People who had passed were mentioned, my grandpa and such... Then my dad suggests: "Maybe he's speaking to 'The Number One Man' " (aka God) At this, my parents say, I began to howl furiously at the figure no one else could see. Like have you ever scared a baby on purpose (yes, you have... you damn liar) and they WILL NOT take their eyes off you, cuz you scared them shitless. so they watch you. They say I did one of these numbers and just kept my eyes trained on where I would usually speak to "that guy."
Chapter 2.
I can walk now. Dad at work. Mom's doing dishes. Sister's with her in the high chair. I'm watching The Muppet Show or some shit in the living room. I tear from the living into the kitchen, hysterical. "MAN, MOMMY! MAN!" I shriek while pointing to the doorway. Mom sees nothing. Says there is no one there. Still in hysterics, still pointing. "MAN! MOMMY, MAN!!" Mom picks a knife. "Okay. I'll kill that man." she says, and begins to stab the air where I was pointing. Now utter hysterics, as I point behind us..."MAN! MAN!" Mom takes the quick way out, scooping up me and sis. Back to the aunt's.
Chapter 3
Now this one I remember... Not sure if it might've been a dream or what, but I remember is really vivid and it goes along with the story Mom said. Now she didn't tell me this one until I was about 15 or so. It was something she recalled after we telling these stories over again, I told her the only thing I remembered from that house. Here's Mom first.. Eating breakfast, I tell Mom: "The devil choked me last night." She, knowing how kids pick stuff up, writes it off. Dad comes home, and I tell him: "The devil choked me last night." He, knowing how kids pick stuff up, writes it off. Grandma's around. I tell her "The devil choked me last night." She, knowing how kids pick stuff up, writes it off.
Here's my story... I fell asleep beside the couch. I guess instead of disturbing me, the folks decided it'd be cool to let me be. Then I woke up to a scratching sound under the couch. Looking into the space, I could see a leather driving glove scurrying all Addams Family-like. (No Shit!) Next thing, it attaches itself to my face... such as when you place your hand over someone's mouth and nose so they can't breathe. I don't recall how it came off, but I seriously remember the smell and taste of leather and even the feeling of trying to pull it off and feeling those three little lines they sew onto the back of the gloves.
My grandma has since passed and the house has been sold due to her many outstanding debts. While cleaning it out, we actually find the original deed that dated back to 1810. It listed people who had died in the house and while I'm not sure of the exact count it was upwards of 20 with several of them children. This number doesn't even include the family members of mine who'd passed there (uncle, grandfather, grandma's new BF). There were even a number of funerals held there in the house itself. There's a still a few more short little stories my mom told me... Maybe the people who live there now have some as well.
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When I was around 6 or 7, I used to go to my grandparents' house everyday after school. I loved it there... Nan would cook an early dinner for me and we'd watch Count Duckula movies in the lounge room together. A few times, I'd ask if I could stay the night, and every time I did I got the same answer, "um.. no, not tonight." Some days I would get tired and start to fall asleep on their couch, but just before I was about to, *BAM* I'd get the sensation that I'd just fallen about 3 feet straight down. Now I've had this sort of thing happen before, but it was never as violent or frequent as it was when I was in their house. It wasn't uncommon for it to happen a few times in succession and usually left me feeling more than a little uneasy; I never mentioned it to anyone. Eventually I changed schools and stopped going there altogether.
My grandparents moved house a few years later, but it wasn't until I was about 16 that I bothered to ask them about the place. They told me some weird things that used to happen there, how the washing machine had a habit of turning itself on and "jumping around the place," wine glasses would mysteriously disappear from a closed cabinet only to turn up days later as a pile of broken glass, packed into the corner of a completely different room. What freaked me out most was them saying they heard what sounded like an old man sobbing. I can remember hearing a man sobbing on more than one occasion while trying to sleep on the couch I mentioned earlier, I had just assumed it was coming from outside since there was no way it could have come from behind the couch, like it seemed to. They told me they never would have let me stay there at night and that I should ask my dad about it... he'd lived there for 15-odd years.
Dad was surprised when I asked him, turns out he'd wanted to share quite a few experiences of this nature with me but wasn't sure how I'd take them. [A little background, my Dad has been teaching internal style martial arts for more than 20 years and runs at least 2 schools that I know of; he is also heavily into meditation and traditional Chinese healing.] He told me he woke up one night to the faint sound of a man sobbing; he mustered the courage to get up and followed the sound to the lounge room. That's when he saw it: a translucent figure looking out of the window, quietly sobbing to itself. The sobbing stopped as the figure became aware of his presence, slowly it turned to face him. He saw its eyes widen and in a split second, he understood exactly what had happened to it, the figure then drifted into the kitchen and out of sight.
He told me the figure was the remnants of a man that used to live there with his wife. She was apparently an evil manipulative bitch and never let him leave the house. He would often stand by the window, watching life go on without him. One day he told his wife that he'd had enough and was going to leave her... well, she went nuts and started throwing shit all over the place... he locked himself in the bedroom and waited for her to calm down. After a while, he opened the door: his wife was waiting there; she had cooked him dinner, and started apologizing for everything she had done. He ate the food she'd cooked and talked with her about how they could work things out. That's when he started to notice a burn in his throat and began to choke. He fell to the floor. His wife had put something in his food (or drink, I guess) and just let him lie there and choke to death.
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Tales from my haunted house: Vol. 2.
The Lady in the Window
I was the only one in my family to ever actually witness this ghost, although I am also by far the most observant; furthermore, due to my experiences in the graveyard, I had begun to take notice of the little things that so many of us ignore during the day. The house we lived in near the graveyard was 2 stories, plus an attic with a window. My sister's bedroom was just below the attic, and the windows were lined up nicely. When I first began to see the face of a woman, probably mid 30's, watching me every time I came in through the back, I thought that my sister had put some stupid doll or something (she collected porcelain dolls, so it was possible) in a dumb position. The figure never moved, just sat there facing the yard and following me with hollowed-out eyes. I realized that it was more than just a doll when it started appearing in other windows of the house. First the attic, and then the bathroom on the second floor that was next to my sister's room. Finally, the face appeared in the bathroom in the garage that also faced out on to the back yard of the place. I tried to point it out to people, but by the time they looked, it was gone. I think that they may have noticed it in passing, or in the fleeting moments that try your soul and make you choose between an inhibited stable reality or face the possibility of the unknown, and taken the easier road.
Anyway, while I alone may have seen this ghost, we all knew she was there. Not because of the usual "ghostly" things, the wilting laughter, the echo of chains in the darkness, or the sounds of sobbing in the distance. We knew she was there because it was her house, and she managed the furniture. The rooms were set up according to her needs, aside from one special item that will come into play later. In the living room, the couch was next to the big bay window, and ran horizontally away from it against the back wall. This allowed you to look at the entertainment center, which was against the far wall, the stairs, or out the window on to the front yard. You could also see the entrance form the miniscule dining room. Upstairs, in the large bedroom, the bed (or beds, when my brother and I shared that room) were placed next to the closet and against the wall opposite the dresser. This room was not allowed to be messy. It would be cleaned, two teenage boys or no. The other bedroom on that floor, my sister, had the bade against the back wall opposite the walk in closet next to the entrance, and also the dresser against one of the other walls. Bookshelves sat against the wall next to the bed.
In the converted den / bedroom, the head of the bed was against the wall on left of the entrance, in the middle of that wall, or (when my brother and I had that room) one in the corner next to the back wall and one next to the closet. The dresser was against the right wall regardless, and the desk in the house was in that room opposite the closet. The kitchen had no room for rearranging anyway.
This leaves the dining room: it was pretty normal, stuff had to be on the right shelves and in the right drawers. The table was in the middle, surrounded by chairs. The other addition to this room was a computer desk that I got to place. At first, the ghost kept moving the desk around the house. Eventually, she left a note stating: "This is my house," So I left a note on the computer saying: "This is my desk, I choose where it goes." She seemed to accept that, although my mother's attempts at "owning" the other furniture never panned out, and eventually my mom couldn't take it any more (she's a bit of a control freak) and after four years of this shit, we moved.
The lady in the window appeared for the last time, in a window she'd never been in before; the other second floor bedroom, which looked over the front yard. She seemed sad to see us go, but that could have been because I wanted the ghost to have liked us. I always thought she was amusing, although my mother couldn't stand her. I also liked the fact that she was very unghostlike; no random "spooky" noises (you couldn't even hear her move the furniture) and no messy or violent explosions of ghostly rage. Just a quiet ownership of what she saw to be her home, with the exception for the contraption that she had probably never seen before: a PC.
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Tales from the Graveyard episode 6: the mass
This thing still haunts my dreams and echoes itself in the corner of my eyes. It gathers in the shadows and then disappears to nothingness, making me question my sanity. I remember it perfectly, because every now and again, when I finally think it's gone, I see it hovering in the darkness. Sometimes, when all is silent, I can still hear its song.
It began like most of my other trips to the graveyard near my former home. It was a quiet and beautifully clear night. I could see the stars, and it wasn't very cold. It was spring, I had just gotten my driver's permit, and life was good. That night, I went to the cemetery thinking that I was done with the place, but what happened would haunt my dreams and make me obsessed with the place. I needed an answer, and one that I would never get, at least not while I still lived.
Near the back of the cemetery, they put up a giant hedge. They decided, for some reason, that a huge impenetrable bush would be superior to a fence facing one of the busier streets in the city. It was giant and green, on the outside. But inside the cemetery, there was a section of the bush that was fairly dead; the leaves had all fallen off and the branches reached out like the hands of drowning men from a sea of green. The guards never went near there, and when I had first started exploring the place, I had been warned by one of the friendlier security guards (who I've always referred to as Pat) not to go anywhere near there, especially at night.
By now, I should have proven that I was a reckless / foolish / brave (approaching stupidity) youth. So, realizing that I had never actually gone there at night, I decided that this night would be the one. The wind picked up, almost like what was there new I was coming and was waiting for me, and a light breeze played with the hair and danced off my face. That's when I heard the music. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard, indescribably wonderful. Imagine your favorite song, only better, a series of sounds that no one can truly hear or repeat, yet you would follow for no more than their serene perfection. That sound began to lead me down the path to the back of the cemetery.
This part of the graveyard was significantly less taken care of than the rest of the place: it was also the section that had several unmarked graves that Pat had told me were for derelicts who had never been identified. There were recent additions, to be sure, but the field of nameless dead stretched on for over a century, one straggled in every few years. Seeing headstones without names startled me back from the near hypnosis that the song had put me in; and for the first time in the graveyard I truly felt a little afraid. Not for my life, but for my sanity. But I couldn't force myself to turn back; the mind was willing to admit defeat, but the body demanded I press on.
I walked through these rows for about 5 minutes, waiting for the inevitable to jump out at me, and add me to the list of missing persons in my hometown, and also to the mass of unknown souls beneath the ground. Sometimes, when I lie awake at night wondering if it's still out there, I decide that death there would have been the preferable state.
The owners of the cemetery had always claimed that the weird bush growth there was because of the local trees; they cast shadows for the better part of the day on that specific spot, so long ago the bushes had learned that growing leaves there was pointless (much like a tree will bend itself towards the light over years) and had never regrown the leaves after the first batch had fallen off. This couldn't have been true, (biology aside) though, because the ground was always littered with what appeared to be a fresh layer of dead leaves. I had always been curious about that particular area, so I decided that sense nothing had eaten me so far, I must be safe. It was a foolish presumption on my part.
I reached the fallen leaves with no difficulty, and noticed that the pile was extraordinarily small for this time of year. For any time of year; it didn't really matter, there had always been a significant pile of dead leaves in various states of decay on that spot. That night, however, there was nothing more than the occasional dried-out husk. That's when the song began again. It was ephemeral and wonderful beyond belief; it must have been what Ulysses heard as he passed the sirens. And it was calling me to my doom once more.
Luckily, my body finally noticed something was definitely amiss; the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I began to shiver despite the fact that it was not cold. I stopped moving towards the sound, and instead started to look in the direction I was heading; and that is where it greeted me. A solid shadow loomed out from one of the empty headstones like a blotch of ink on a quite scenic painting. At first, it had no shape, but it began to coalesce in to something real, then it started to walk. To attempt to describe this "shadow" would be impossible; it had 7 legs, and an enormous amorphous body that changed shape as it moved. Occasionally, one of the legs would be engulfed by the rest of the creature, only to reappear a few seconds later. As it moved, the leaves near it died and fell from their branches.
I had already begun backpedaling away from the monstrosity, but it continued to calmly follow me like some villain from a horror film, waiting for me to trip or break my leg in an attempt to get away. As it neared, the shape became more definite; 2 long, spindly arms ending in hands reached forth from the mass, followed by 6 more that ended in pincers. It sprouted a head that was at the same time that of a man and a wolf, with a giant, gaping maw waiting to devour me. I did the only thing I could do in such a situation. I, remembering all my taunts at horror movie heroes, took off running, paying careful attention to where I stepped, hopped the chain link fence, ran home, locked the back door, went to my bedroom and turned on the lights, then started to watch the backyard to see if I had been followed.
I didn't see the creature again that night, nor did I hear its song. But one week later, I could have sworn for just a second that its sound came from someone's radio, even though I could hear them singing along to a completely different song. Then I saw it, in the old tunnels beneath my school (bomb shelter)... it wasn't inky or semi-solid anymore, but I watched a shadow on the wall change as I passed. Needless to say, I ran before anything else could happen.
Then the most startling realization occurred to me; the leaves on the bush had started to grow back, and the oak in my backyard began to act strangely, as if something was killing the foliage along the back up to about 8 feet. My parents accounted for some new neighbors adding a story on to their house behind us, but I resolved never to go outside at night. My dog also began to use the dog door to come and sleep in the garage at night, which she had never before done. I knew it was out there, waiting, but for what I didn't know. I would eventually find out, but that's another story...
============
Tales from the Graveyard epi. 7: Wicca doesn't work, or I started the
f***ing fire
Chapter 1:
I had grown sick and tired of the gnawing fear that a creature born of shadows was waiting to devour my soul. I was tired of watching my back everytime I went anywhere. I was tired of not sleeping because of the gnawing fear that I may not wake up. I had begun to watch the tree, and ad seen the things head appear a couple of times, when animals ran around in the back yard, or birds flew by. For some reason, though, it never seemed to move forward. I first I thought it was playing a game, toying with me, but I slowly began to realize that while I watched it, it never watched me back. And it would only follow animals so long as they were outside of the circle of light created in our back yards. My mind made the only conclusion that any fresh 16-year-old could create; the thing was allergic to light. I decided I'd just go shine my flashlight at it, which only worked to really piss it off.
It was pissed off so much, in fact, that it massed out of the tree and came tearing through the night. One thing I had on it, however, was that it couldn't see... So I held perfectly still, and waited for the thing to give up on finding me. Then it began to sing again. That song, that perfect song, that could call a angry man from a fight... It took everything I had to not move, not go towards the infernal thing, every ounce of strength in my body to obey my minds commands to STAY FUCKING PUT.
It gave up after what seemed an eternity, but was probably only 20-30 minutes. I waited for it to get back in the tree, it just kind of dissolved itself in from the back side, the shadows becoming insubstantial and the coalescing into the tree and diffusing itself amongst the branches.
I was at my wit's end; I had gone through every book on the supernatural that I could find, and found no reference to anything like this. I thought that it might be some kind of evil fairy, but only because those seemed to define definition most of the time. I really had no clue.
So I went to the local churches and talked with the priests; they all had the same answer for me. Stop wasting my time with nonsense. I realized that I would have to turn away from mainstream religions when the local mosques and temples did the same; so I went and asked for help from the only other "religious" person I knew about, a really hot Wiccan named M. Now, I admit, I really had a crush on M. And I was pretty sure that she liked me back, in some crazy "I'm a freak, and you're just borderline insane" kind of way. So I went to her and spilled.
I knew that she wasn't buying from the pout on her lips. We'd been friends since grade school, and I knew her expressions better than I knew myself. So I did the only thing I could think of; I invited over to my place while my parents were away so she could see the thing. She probably thought I was just trying to get her alone with me in the dark, but that didn't seem to bother her at the time. Instead, she got to see the scariest thing that she'd ever seen before in her life.
She consulted her books, and found some kind of spell, as I called it, that worked to remove the taint of the supernatural. She asked me for the whole story, which I spilled, and she decided that we would have to go to the cemetery. And that meant that while she was preparing the incantation, I'd have to lure the thing back. So, at around 11 PM, I led her to the graveyard, to the very spot that this thing had originally sprouted from. She began mixing minerals into wine, that she was burning over a very low flame, the light of which she shielded with her body. I hopped the fence, and went home... The thing was there, in the tree. As I got close, it started to reform. I knew that if it was still pissed off enough to run after me, I didn't have a shot in hell, so I kept the flashlight beam off of it. Instead, as it took form, I began to back away, then I turned and ran towards the cemetery. I hopped the fence, then turned back, surprised to realize that I had gained no distance on the thing. It didn't seem to be going as fast as I had, seeing as how I'd ran, but it managed to stay at exactly the same distance from me until I stopped. Then it began to inch forward.
I walked back to the spot, and told M: "It's here." She didn't even look up, just kept chanting over the frothing red liquid. It approached, and I began to wonder if she'd be done in time... she finished only seconds before the thing got to us. It had already moved it's arms forward, and the head had arisen from the shadow-cloud that covered it's body. She grabbed the cup and flung it. I had expected smoke, fire, an explosion, magical lights dancing as the thing dissolved. Instead, it laughed at us, and struck at her...
It cut her, too. Three claws ripped into the torso of a 5'1" 110-pound girl. My mind went into not-idiot mode again, and I grabbed her as she fell, and took off towards the front gate. Luckily, the guards didn't seem to find me, so I just shoulder-rammed the gates open and kept running towards my car, as M bled. I threw her into the car as gently as I could, turned the ignition, and took off. The thing was right behind me, it never got any closer, but it was always just one step away in the rearview mirror.
I didn't have a cheval of heroism, I had a little old Ford POS, but I had never been happier to have this shit vehicle in my life, because somehow the lights were never against me and my car didn't die on the way to the hospital. I squealed into the parking lot, fishtailing to a stop in front of the doors, grabbed her and ran inside. Everyone turned to look at me, then realized that I was covered in blood and carried a semi-conscious girl bleeding from three slashing wounds across her abdomen. They took her from me, to a back room, and then started to ask me questions.
I said that we had been walking in the neighborhood, when a dog had jumped out and attacked. I kicked it, but it had clawed her pretty badly before I could react. Once I had gotten the thing off of her, I picked her up and carried her back to my car which was less than a block away. They asked me the dogs size, and I said large, bigger than any dog I had seen before. I said it was too dark to identify the type, but it must have been about the size of rottweiler / mastiff. They looked like they didn't exactly believe me, and had called the police. The cops got there a few minutes later, and began to question me again. I gave them the same story I had given the doctors.
In her moments of near lucidity, M had been talking about some kind of monster that attacked her. They had also identified the wounds as claw marks, not as knife wounds as they had originally thought. The doctor said he had never seen a dog with big enough claws to do this, but it didn't seem like either of us had actually gotten a good look at the creature. Thank God for obscurity in descriptions.
They asked me where, and I gave them the block in front of the cemetery. They said that they'd send a man to investigate, and luckily that was the last I heard from the cops on the matter. Somehow, they hadn't realized that it had taken a while for the blood of the girl I was carrying to spill over my arms on to the street (no blood trail back to the cemetery... I checked when it was light). I stayed there all night, claiming to be her "boyfriend" and her parents, who happened to like me, made the hospital let me back there with her. She regained consciousness, and survived, although it left 3 nasty scars on her chest. We were left alone, and talked in hushed whispers.
I told her that I was sorry I had gotten her involved, and that I was going to find a way to make things better. She told me that I should just leave it alone, and hope that it doesn't follow me back home, but now I was angry on top of brash.
The tree the thing had inhabited at the hospital was obvious, as it was a small pine that practically died overnight. Luckily for me, the hospital feared some kind of tree disease, so they had the thing cut down by mid-afternoon the next day. I grabbed a chain, and pulled the stump out of the ground at around 2 in the afternoon. The roots had gone to an sickly black, and seemed to be drinking an ink... I lashed it to my bumper, and drove to the bluffs, a kind of cliff-top that overlooks the Kern River Bed. In the summer, there's never any water running through, and it's actually pretty ugly, so I knew that the odds of being observed were low.
I grabbed the stump, and followed a trail down to the bottom. In the river bed, I built a fire pit, loaded it up with twigs and newspaper, then tossed the stump on top. I lit it all, expecting the fire to do all the work for me. I still hadn't quite gotten over the fact that light only blinded the creature; I was hoping that it would have some kind of vampiric allergy to sunlight, or that it couldn't leave into total light, but no, that was not to be. It came screaming out of the firepit, jumping from nothingness to existence as soon as the flames began to like at the stump from the tree.
I took an involuntary step back, and the creature heard my foot slide in the sand. It turned, but still couldn't see me. It leaped at where I had been a few moments before, and I ran to the other side of the firepit. I thought that I was a goner, that this would be my final fight. But I was determined not to give up, and the creature and I kept circling the firepit, it trying to get to me and I trying to keep the fire between us.
My lucky break occurred when I tripped. It heard this, and I saw the thing smile at me, its long, sharp teeth forming two lines of knives, and it walked calmly towards me. I had, however, tripped over a small branch, something that looked enough to me like a torch from an Indiana Jones movie for me to get the idea of lighting it on fire. I rammed the thing into the firepit as I scrambled to get up, and then pulled it out just as the creature jumped at me. I hit it, hard, and held the flame on its arm for a few seconds; but that was all that I'd needed.
The creature went up like paper, at first howling in pain with a low unearthly sound that chilled me to the bone. The fire ate away the thing's arms, then split up at the torso to eat through the centre and the legs. The shadow surrounding the face was the last to go, but the creature continued to smile at me. The shadows fell to the flames, leaving a fine, grey powder that drifted apart and away in the day's light breeze. I thought that maybe it had smiled at me because after years it had been defeated. I let my foolish thoughts of victory overwhelm me, and then I went back to the hospital to visit with M. She was in there for about 3 days, since they wanted to examine the wounds to make sure that she wasn't infected and check her for rabies.
Chapter 2:
I brought her flowers and a get well soon card, and told her that it was all over once we were alone. I stayed with her through visitor hours for the next three days, and then we went out on an actual date. I took her out on a picnic in the park: it was sweet and gave us time to talk about what had happened. I told her the final end to the story, and apologized again for getting her involved. We talked for a while, about faith and other such things, and when the mood seemed right, I leaned in for a kiss. It was a wonderful experience, and one that we would oft repeat for next 3 weeks. On that third week, however, we heard it. The song struck up again, in the dark recesses of our minds. As our relationship progressed, the presence became worse and worse. On our one-month anniversary, the creature showed up in the shadows; not in its full form, mind you, but the shape of it flirted in the two-dimensional darkness out of the corner of my eyes. She told me that she loved me, but couldn't live with the fear.
The damn thing cost more than I'll probably ever really know, and it haunts me still. It's almost impossible to actually get a good night's sleep anymore, and whenever I get intimate I can hear it, or see it. I'm not sure if it’s slowly reforming, or if its physical being is truly dead and now it just haunts me, getting its revenge from beyond the grave. I probably won't know, until it's too late. The only thing that is certain is that it hasn't completely left me, and probably never will. I am, in a word, haunted by a creature that defies my imagination and reminds me how foolish I was as a youth.
=========
It's sometime in late August, early September 2001 (I can't remember when precisely) at Ft. Knox, in a company for those who got injured during basic training.
I had a friend there who was about 30 years old with the greyest hair you'd ever seen, almost like he was in his 70's. Well, one day when there wasn't much going on, he and I got to discussing the events in his life that'd brought him to this point.
He mentioned that he'd been a Satanist, and showed me several upside-down crosses and other various Satanic tattoos he'd had done. We also got to discussing his life in Satanism, and he had quite a few interesting stories. The one that really stood out to me, and that I asked him to discuss most, was his tale of attending a Satanic party once (Note: I make no judgement on this story, and instead simply try to make it as accurate as I can remember). Apparently during the course of this party, he met three men.
His description of them is foggy to me now, but the basics stand out - these were old men. I don't mean that they were in their 80's - more along the lines of these three men had been around for hundreds of years, yet still looked quite young and spry. These three men also had various... abilities - conjuring fire at will, making objects levitate, etc. The suggestion was also made that these men had the power to... affect people, even over great distances, and that because my friend had spoken with them before, they maintained some kind of link with him.
As we were talking, I noticed him growing progressively paler and weaker, and as he neared the end of his tale, he slowly stopped talking, looked at me, and asked me to get the drill sergeant on duty. I could visibly see that all the blood had drained from his face and he was having trouble breathing. I went downstairs and asked the D.S. to come up and take a look at my friend - he barked something at me along the lines of telling him to walk down there his damned self. Being the dutiful friend I am, I walked back upstairs to check on my friend and see if he could make it downstairs, and by this time all he could manage was a squeak to tell me that no, he couldn't, and I needed to *hurry*... I don't think I've ever seen such a look of stark fear in someone's eyes.
I once again hurried downstairs, and this time managed to convince the drill sergeant that yes, my friend did need help and yes, I am an utter asshole for daring to speak to you (tangent...). He goes upstairs, and by the time I show him to my friend, my friend is no longer breathing and is turning cyanotic (blue tinge to the skin). He immediately starts slapping him on the face and trying to get him to wake up, and once he realizes that he isn't going to be able to, he tells me to go downstairs and call 911.
Long story short, the ambulance gets there, rushes him off to the hospital after restarting his breathing and he doesn't spend the night in the barracks that night. Sure, it'd be nice if my story ended there. But it doesn't.
That night, I slept in his bed (for reasons that I have absolutely no desire to go into now, or ever, but that are crucial to this story). Every hour of every night, teams of two men patrol the 3 story barracks looking for fires. And every single pair of guards that night, without telling the guards before or after them what they saw, later reports to me that there was a sort of shadow standing in the middle of the small 4-man room where I was. This shadow was staring directly at the bed where my friend normally would have lain that night, and each guard reported that when they shined their light directly at the shadow, it disappeared.
Later that morning, one of the other occupants on the room was found on the stairwell to the third floor (which in and of itself is a metric fuckton of stories, but I digress) gibbering to himself.
====================
A few years ago, back when I still went to sleepover camp, there was a story that was often told to the younger campers about an old cabin known as the "wombats," which burned down in 1951. However, the story goes, every once in a while the cabin reappears, and odd scratching noises are heard emanating from the windows of a cabin that didn't exist anymore. The story went on to be somewhat interesting, but I don't remember the rest and it's not really that important to my story.
As we were young and naive, we believed the tale, and many of us had trouble going to sleep that night. Half of us kept murmuring: "Dude, you think that story is true?," while the other half, trying to appear hardcore, replied: "Naw, dude. That's just stuff they make up to scare us. Right?? Guys??" After a few hours, we managed to go to sleep, and woke up the next morning already forgetting the story. The next night, we would be brutally reminded of the horrors.
Because at three in the fucking morning, we heard these scratching noises coming from the windows. And we had no idea what the fuck was going on, nor were any adults in the area. Whenever we shined our flashlights out of a screen that was making noise, we would see nothing, and the noise would immediately move to another window. We yelled and screamed for help for what seemed like an hour before anyone arrived. Once angry counselors arrived, wondering why we were making a racket at three AM, the noises stopped.
The next morning, the camp director informed us that there was a rational reason why the noises were occurring: a goat had escaped recently, and apparently this goat was the culprit. We didn't believe him. Then again, the wombat's tale was just a horror story that they tell kids to scare them. Right?? Guys??
===============
I haven't seen one of these in some time and as usual, I'm obsessed with reading things that will prevent me from falling asleep at night. As always, I'll start with my own. Keep in mind, this is a true story:
When I was in high school, me and my friend Rachel were always fascinated with the whole ghost hunting thing. We would do the occasional graveyard walks at midnight with a tape recorder just trying to get some EVP's on tape. Many times, we were able to pick up odd things but nothing that satisfied us.
FRIDAY
One evening after school, I picked up Rachel from her house and I took an old farm road that we knew only as Con's Pond Road growing up. This was one of those old farm roads with the thick canopy of trees on both sides. It was so enclosed with old growth and pine that it seemed you were driving thru a tunnel in most places. The roads were narrow and passing another vehicle would require pulling over as far as possible without finding yourself in a ditch. Now normally I don't like traveling along these parts of southeast Texas, but we wanted to go swimming alone that evening and make the best out of an already dull Friday.
Well, down this ancient country road was a plot of land that belonged to the old Judge Con that it was named after. On the edge of his property was a massive pond with a spillway that emptied beside the road and ran beneath one of those old wooden bridges with no guardrails along its edges. The best way to park was near the bridge and then to climb up over the embankment that surrounded the pond and dive in for a swim. It was already 4:30 PM by the time we arrived and it was the time of year that the sun seemed to set much earlier than you'd like so we didn't have but a few hours of sunlight left.
We spent a lot of time basking in the sun and skipping rocks across the water while sitting on the algae-covered cement spillway. After another quick swim, we were getting ready to leave when Rachel noticed something that should have been obvious to begin with, but never caught our eyes. Across the pond was the decaying remains of the old judge's home. Keep in mind, this property has been abandoned for well over 50 years now. The house seemed to have both the beauty of an old Victorian manor, and a great deal of the same architecture you see so much of in the old Garden District of New Orleans.
The house was mostly shrouded by trees and wild growth. Ivy and vines grew along the sides of the house weaving in and out of windows and eventually finding their way to the chimney tops that still remained. Most of the windows were boarded up, but the double doors nestled beneath the porch roof were left wide open, almost inviting us to enter for a quick look. To this day I can't understand what it was about this house that captivated our attention, but thinking back, I still can't help but regret what took place later that weekend. We decided it was getting too late for exploring, and so I went ahead and took Rachel home. After all, there's always tomorrow...
SATURDAY
After debating on the telephone for an hour, we decided to throw caution to the wind and return to the old property to pay the ancient house a visit. It was sixish, and the last rays of yellowish-red light danced playfully between the gaps of the crowded tree canopy above us. This time, we parked a bit behind in the cover of a trail that led to someone's hunting property as indicated by the POSTED sign that you see so many of in this area of Texas. We walked the rest of the way, about a fourth of a mile, to the spillway. Once we reached the spillway, the last vestiges of sunlight were struggling to illuminate the sky. My eyes strained to focus on the old home in the distance, we began our walk around the banks of the pond. Our destination lay only ahead and we were determined to stay the night and catch something on tape.
As we drew closer to this empty shell of a home, my eyes played tricks on me in the dim twilight. Sometimes reflections on unbroken windows would grab my attention, as I always expected to see something.... else. We walked inside past the double doors which were oddly shut tight this time. This certainly isn't a place a bum would live, since vagrants are something you never find in this place. It's mostly a rural community setting, not a concrete jungle with bustling traffic and hordes of people around you. Regardless, there are other kids like Rachel and me who come swimming at the old pond as well, so I assumed it was the work of the other teen trespassers who frequented the place.
After exploring the house for about 40 minutes, we finally found a place we were most comfortable with in the foyer. The foyer must have been beautiful in its day. A staircase contoured the wall on its way upward to the second floor landing. Of course if we had to boot it, we could easily make way for the front doors from where we sat. And so it was, we had made up our minds. It was certain that we would stay that night until we saw the light of the next day trickle in through the windows. As we explored the home, I would get slight pinprick tingles that would run from the back of my neck, expand outward across my shoulders and spread over my entire body within a split second, only to fade as quickly as they came. These chills were always accompanied by this sinking feeling in my gut that there was someone else with us, following our steps from room to room of this dilapidated manor. It was getting late, and we decided that sleep would be the best way to pass time for now. We worked our way back to the 2nd floor landing and down the staircase to our makeshift encampment. Sleep came quickly, but didn't last long...
SUNDAY 12:43 AM
Laying on a sleeping bag, the planks of old wood beneath me, I breathed the cold stale air of this dying shelter. I was somewhere between consciousness and sleep. As I became more and more awake, I heard footsteps moving near us. I can't explain how sobering this was for me. I wasn't thinking, "OMG GHOST!!!!!", but more along the lines of "OMG HOMELESS MAN WITH KNIFE" or "DRUG DEALERS WITH GUNS WHO WILL RAPE RACHEL AND KILL ME" It was dark. The moon was in its new phase and there was no light to be found although my eyes strained to detect even the faintest traces. I couldn't quite detect where the footsteps were coming from because they seemed to change location from in front of me to behind me with each step. This person was obviously wearing boots as you could hear the distinctive dull thump of the heels on the old wooden floors.
The last footstep stopped at what seemed to be ten or so feet to my right on the other side of the room. I sat in dead silence, blanketed in pure darkness, for what seemed to be 20 seconds. My heart pumping blood was the only thing I could hear, and I could feel each pulse pounding its way through my neck. As I was finally able to gain composure and react in a less panicked state, a new sound flooded my ears. Imagine if you will 30 people whispering random phrases into a tape recorder. Then imagine playing this orgy of sound in reverse and adding an echo effect to it. Now imagine this final product being played in stereo as if the entire house were a reverberating chamber of sound. My blood ran cold and I quickly reached for Rachel. I was relieved when my hand landed firmly on her shoulder. She woke up at that moment and asked what I wanted, then stated: "Oh, cool! It's finally night, let's get cracking."
I was horrified, but she couldn't tell at that moment. It was then that the top floor above us was the first to begin in its symphony of terror. The doors began to slam themselves shut repeatedly. First it started with perhaps one or two doors, and then all of them at random intervals. The first floor then chimed in as well, but what gave us both the motivation to move were the screams. It was like hearing a room full of people screaming and crying at the same time. It was a dizzying sound, but enough to turn our cement feet into the nimble paws of an African cheetah. As we made our way out of the home and across the old porch, there was a figure of something on the steps. She obviously never saw it, but I did. It was like a man, with no muscle. Just an old withered shell of a human with grey skin standing there. Its eyes were black empty sockets and it hadn't any lips. Just a sneering set of teeth that seemed decayed.
How I could gather such details of this thing at mach speeds is beyond me, but I know I wanted to die as I ran past it, its gaze following me slowly as I sprinted onward, jumping the length of the steps and hitting the ground running alongside Rachel. I felt its gaze on my neck as I ran, not looking back. I could feel its stare! I swear to you even now I remember that feeling, as if a knife were ready to cut the flesh on the back of my neck from some unseen attacker. The image of that thing is still burned in my mind to this day.
If anyone can stand a night in old Judge Con's house, then they deserve a fuckin war medal.
Labels: alcoholic drinks, babies, breakfast, computer, corey, dan, death, dreams, family, friends, ghost stories, halloween, kids, maxed-out tags limit, pat, restarts, sleep, something awful, sue, weird stuff
posted by Flami at 1:35:00 PM
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