The bloody fireplace and other scary (but true) stories

[Lvl_9_Gazebo]

For whatever reason, I'm just in the mood to talk about this today.

From time to time, people ask me where I got my screen name from. It's a combination of several things, including a song I heard once called The Haunted Head plus the fact that I'm an aspiring horror novelist. However, perhaps the biggest reason is that if something weird is going to happen, chances are excellent that someone from my family is either going to have it happen to them, or else we're going to be there to see it happen to someone else. It's been this way for generations. Here is a history of our hauntings.

I'm going to start with my mother, who does not actually believe in ghosts, weirdly enough. In the late 1960's she and her first husband built themselves a completely unremarkable puke-green ranch house on a former horse pasture. To her or anybody else's knowledge, there had never been a structure on the land prior to that house. I don't know if activity in the house began before she and her husband divorced or after, but by the time she set about dating again, while raising my brother, the house had become a very interesting place to live. For one, something in the house did not care for a particular statuette given to my mother by her mother, who died in 1969. The statue was of a cherub pulling a chariot, and it wasn't uncommon for the statue to sail across the room from its perch on a shelf, and shatter on the living room rug about ten feet away. Eventually it was broken so many times and in so many places that it couldn't be put back together again.

The living room also contained a fireplace, and my mother kept a basket full of newspapers by the fireplace to use when lighting a fire. On more than one occasion, she would return home from work, or walk from another part of the house into the living room to find those newspapers spattered with blood. A more dramatic bloody event took place one night when some of my cousins were spending the night. Everyone was planning to go to church together the next morning, and so everyone was taking their turn in the tub. My mother finished her shower, and my cousin Joan went in after her. My mother had gotten to her bedroom when she heard Joan call out to her and ask her if she had hurt herself. Mom said she hadn't, and asked what Joan was talking about. Joan replied that there was blood everywhere, which of course sent mom running in to see for herself. She found blood spattered all over the sink and countertop, and puddled in the sink itself.

I mentioned that things in the house were fairly lively by the time mom started dating again. One night she and her current beau were watching tv in the living room, and my brother, who was five or six at the time, called out from his room that something was making a weird noise outside his room. Being a gentleman, mom's boyfriend went to investigate and found a picture on the wall swinging wildly on its hook, almost but not quite making a full circle around. While he watched, the picture stopped swinging and seemed to be trying to pull itself off its hook to fly at him, but for whatever reason it could not and so it just rattled there on the wall.

Speaking of my brother, one night he came down with a very bad fever and alarmed mom the next day when he told her that "grandma" had come to see him during the night. She'd stood at the foot of the bed and smiled at him, he reported, which was not as alarming as the fact that he was able to tell my mom what grandma had been wearing, in great detail -- and it turned out to be the dress she had been buried in seven years before.

By the time mom married my dad in 1977, whatever it was in the house had learned a new trick. Often whenever they and my brother returned home from an evening at church, dinner out, or a visit to his mother or her father, every door in the house -- including front door, back door, all bedroom and bathroom doors, and all closet doors -- would be standing wide open, and every light in the house would be burning. It may have been the 70's in small town North Carolina, but even then nobody left the house without locking the doors. Once also, something happened that involved dad. He had come down with the flu and was bedridden when something sat down very heavily on the bed, then stayed there long enough for him to stare at the depression in the mattress for several seconds before it got up.

After I was born in 1980, two new things began to happen, and they only happened around me for some reason. The first was that when my mother was holding me, sitting in her rocking chair in the living room, she could look up from me to see an old man sitting in a corner of the room, looking back at her, who would then disappear. The second was that from time to time, large drops of water would fall out of empty air and splat heavily on whatever I was lying on, or on whoever happened to be near me at the moment.

(More to come later if anybody finds this interesting)

[iradney]

Holy cow, HauntedHeadNC, that's hectic! And scary! I think I would possibly go mad if I was seeing all that :o! But please, do share more, it's fascinating...

[Lvl_9_Gazebo]

Thanks for the comment, Iradney.

It's probably worth noting that both branches of my family, my father's and my mother's, have lived in this same county since the 1770's at least, and that they've also mainly lived in their same respective parts of the county. My father is from a rural community in the western part of the county, while my mother is from the eastern part of the county. Perhaps not surprisingly, each of these two communities are known for unusually high levels of paranormal activity, even in this area that is as a whole known for that kind of thing.

Looking back into family history then, it's not surprising that so much strangeness happened to so many different people in my family. On my dad's side, when his brother, my uncle, was building his house about a hundred yards away from my grandmother's house, he would often have no choice but to work at night after his day at work. Frequently, a shapeless white mist would come out of the woods as if to observe from the edge of the light thrown by his lanterns and flashlights. A couple of time either he or my dad would take a flashlight or a lantern and try to approach it, but every time they did so it would only retreat as they advanced and it always stayed at the edge of the light.

Things were more dramatic for my mother's family.

For several years after my mother's parents were first married, they lived in a house that sat atop the foundations of a house that had burned down previously, killing the woman who lived there. The bedroom was upstairs, and as this was in rural Appalachia in the 40's when nobody could afford luxuries such as cribs, my grandmother devised a way to help everyone get some sleep in the same bed, without her two baby daughters, my aunts, smothering under the blankets. She slept on her back with one baby to each side, with her arms around them to keep the covers away from their faces. Her arms were exposed this way, which led to a regular and frequent occurrence that still scares the shit out of me if I think about it too much.

The first problem in that upstairs room was that most every night, throughout the night, the dark shape of someone could be observed crawling out from under the bed, across the bedroom floor to the door where it would turn and crawl back and then under the bed again. However, when my grandmother devised her Asphyxiation-b-Gone method of sleep, whatever it was under the bed would on most nights reach up from under the bed and run ice-cold fingers down my grandmother's arm. The arm would snake back under the bed, only to repeat the action later on, or for variety, the thing under the bed would crawl out, crawl across the room, crawl back, and crawl under the bed again. This kept up until my grandfather completed a new house nearby. The family moved in, then tore down the staircase in the old house and used that house as a barn.

(More to come later -- we've only scratched the surface)

[MMATM]

Very intriguing, hhnc. As a former ghost hunter (let the snide remarks begin, as there are nearly always a few) I'd kill (not literally) to get a chance to check out places like you're describing.

Actually, scratch the "former," as a friend and I are taking a camera out to a long-since-abandoned mill near campus in just a couple weeks.

[/OT]

But do go on, please!

[iradney]

Can't say I've had any hectic paranormal experiences. I'm not sure which would be my overly active imagination or real paranormal activity. I suspect I have aural hallucinations where I could swear that I heard something in a quiet house that isn't normal house noise. Or sometimes I'll see/feel someone walk past me in my peripheral vision. Of course, when I turn around, no-one's there. It's normally someone with dark hair.

The freakiest experience I ever had was when I was still living with my parents (late teens).
Now, I'm not afraid of the dark itself. I'm afraid of the dark when there's enough light to see the dark by. You know, if the hall light is on and you're in a dark bedroom. One night, I was thirsty. So, I get out of bed, turn on the light in the hall and walk to the kitchen (it's an open plan house). I glug some water, and turn to go to the hall. On the edge of where the light begins, something grabbed at my ankle. I jumped, turned around, and saw something about 3 feet tall skitter behind the couch. Now, my parents have two dogs, who sleep in their bedroom, with the door closed. There's no way they could get out and they don't have hands! :eek:
I sprinted to the bedroom and slept with my head under the covers the whole night.
Of course, I was half asleep, and like I said before, highly overactive imagination. So I tend to be skeptical of stuff like that that happens to me.

[lordlundar]

HHC, I have three words for you...

GET SOME SLEEP!:angel:

[Lvl_9_Gazebo]

Thanks again for the comments. Unfortunately, a lot of the places where these things happened are gone now. The house my mother built has been replaced by a used-car lot. The house that my grandfather built burned down when my mother was a little girl. However, certain areas of Henderson County, where all these stories take place, just feel much more haunted than others, and that can be sensed if one visits.

Delving further back into family history, it does seem that my mother's family got the weirder end of the stick. The stories are fantastic, but nobody in my family is known for their affinity for bullshit. I say that as a preface for some of the really odd things that are part of my mother's family lore.

Take the case of my grandmother, who was born in the 1910's and who bore the unfortunate name of Beulah Maude. She grew up in a valley known as Reedy Patch, and down the valley from where she lived was a cabin that belonged to a known and unrepentant slut. One day the slut disappeared and left her home and most of her possessions behind. Shortly thereafter on a frequent and regular basis, the other residents of the valley began to hear what could only be a baby wailing at the empty cabin. Sound carries quite well in valleys, and my grandmother said you could hear it very plainly from her family's house. The first day that it happened, some concerned ladies went to the cabin to investigate, afraid that the woman had up and left a child behind in the house. They searched and found nothing.

The crying continued for at least a few days a week for the next several months, and the house was searched repeatedly over those months. The last day the crying was heard, a group of men went to look at the house, and one had the bright idea to check under the foundations of the porch. When he did, the source of the crying became apparent, when he found what appeared to be a mostly but not quite full-term fetus, mostly skeletonized and covered in mold. The crying was not heard again after that.

Also regarding my gandmother, not to mention my grandfather (more on him later), death omens are a relatively common thing to experience when someone in my family is soon to buy it. One summer when she was little, my grandmother saw one the night her baby brother died. It was one of those hot nights when every window and door was left open to let as much cool air in as possible. The house she grew up in was little more than a single big room, so everyone's beds and the baby's cradle were all arranged in that single room. My grandmother vividly recalled watching a little white lamb enter through the front door and cross the floor, but silently -- and a lamb will not move silently across a board floor. It circled the cradle twice, went back out the door, and in the morning the baby was dead.

And now a story from a later time. Growing up, my grandmother had a brother who was in the military. On home on furlough, he was hauling a wagonload of corn when he was hit and killed by a drunk driver in a nasty collision of old ways and the forces of Depression-era modernism. My great-grandmother found it too painful to accept his uniform after the funeral, and gave it to my grandmother for safekeeping. After she married my grandfather and moved into the house with the thing under the bed, she hung the uniform on a nail in the attic loft above the bedroom (with the thing under the bed). What happened involving that uniform only happened once.

It was a summer night, and the family, my grandparents and my two aunts who were both young girls at the time, were planning to go on their weekly trip to town the next morning. To that end, one of my aunts was sitting under a table in the living room polishing everyone's shoes. Meanwhile, upstairs, my grandparents could hear something stomping around in the attic loft. My grandfather took a flashlight and climbed the ladder up to investigate, where he found nothing out of the ordinary except for that uniform swinging wildly from side to side on its hanger, from the nail in the wall where it hung. Also, the thumping ceased when he stepped foot in the attic. Whatever it was that was making the noise was apparently leaving via the window above the table beneath which my aunt was sitting polishing the shoes. She and my grandmother, who had come downstairs, both witnessed this: something invisible ran very heavily across the living room floor toward the open window above the table. It kicked aside the newly-polished shoes and out it went. There was no way to tell if it was truly gone however, seeing as how no one could actually see it, but at any rate it did not make any more noise at least.

(Still more to come -- in which we discuss floating coffins and haunted union suits.)

[Lace Neil Singer]

Very intriguing, hhnc. As a former ghost hunter (let the snide remarks begin, as there are nearly always a few)

Come off it, ghost hunters are seriously cool! Like the guys in my av, for example. :D

Anyway, continue with the ghost stories; nearest I've gotten to meeting a ghost was once on holiday when I was walking the dog, and she stopped on a path and refused to go any further. She was snarling at thin air with her hackles raised, and this was a very placid dog normally. After a few minutes, she went back to normal and was happy to go along the path. I don't doubt there was something there that she could see and I could not.

I've also experienced the running footsteps at Hampton Court; seriously creeped me out hearing them run past me and no-one there. :eek:

[BookstoreEscapee]

I should not be reading this thread while home alone, when it's almost full dark outside, and I have 2 sneaky cats roaming around the house:lol:. And I don't tend to believe in ghosts, either.

How does your mother explain all this stuff if she doesn't believe in ghosts?

[Lvl_9_Gazebo]

How does your mother explain all this stuff if she doesn't believe in ghosts?

Pretty much, she admits she can't and leaves it at that.

[Food Lady]

I have stories, but not as creepy as yours. The ones involving my mom have to do with premonitions and my stories are about visible beings or spirits or whatever you want to call them, or about invisible things that touched me. I don't believe in ghosts per se. Well, I don't believe they are the spirits of dead people. I believe once you're gone, you're gone, until Judgement. But there are spirts or beings or whatever that masquerade as "ghosts" of people. Just my 2 cents. I will post stories if anyone wants, but hauntedhead's are much better.

[Lvl_9_Gazebo]

So, let's see here... I've talked about my mother's first house, and some of the things that happened to my grandmother and grandfather, plus some of my grandmother's background. Now it's time to bring my grandfather into it.

His family, as part of my mother's lineage, also arrived in the eastern end of the county, planted itself, and never left again. They lived on the side of a mountain, near a high cliff with the poetic name of World's Edge (come see it some time if you're in the area -- the state recently bought it and will build a state park around it). My grandfather Clayton, born in 1916, and his brothers and sisters grew up in the 1910's and 20's, in a time when electricity was something reserved for the rich people in Hendersonville and up in Asheville. They grew up with no indoor plumbing, and with nights lit by lantern light and little else.

The first thing that I know of that happened to my grandfather's family was that they lived in a house whose doors had an annoying habit of bolting themselves from the inside if they left the house at night. When this occurred, my grandfather's brother, Barzilai, got the unenviable job of being sent in through a window to go unlock the door. Also at this house, lurked the haunted union suit that I mentioned earlier. Actually, no one knew what it was. It was just something that appeared after dark most nights, standing, or hanging out where the clothesline was. It could be seen through the window and from the porch, and could be seen standing perfectly still most any time one cared to look out at it. My great-grandmother noted that it looked like nothing so much as an old union suit hanging on the line, and the name stuck. If anyone ever felt brave enough to go see what it was, there was never anything to be seen by the person with the lantern going to look for it, but anyone still in the house or on the porch could see it plainly, and could also see anyone else out there blundering around passing through it.

The other two things that occurred at this house were more disturbing, at least in my opinion, because while a ghostly union suit might be creepy, at least it never moved or made any noise. The same could not be said of the thing that would sit on the driver's board of the wagon and scream through the night. It's favorite thing to do was to call out, "Hello?" repeatedly. As often as not, one could look out and see a dark shape silhouetted there, and again, if anyone felt brave or stupid enough to go out after it, they would see nothing, but anyone looking on from the house could still see the shape there. Usually, also, if the thing was screaming from the wagon, this would portend a sound like a log, or perhaps a body, rolling heavily down the house's tin roof, whereupon it would reach the edge and thump ponderously to the ground. There was never anything to be seen on the ground where it hit, not a depression, not so much as a broken flower stem, and certainly nothing like a log or a body.

Perhaps not supernatural, but definitely creepy, the spring where the family drew their water was infested with something my great-grandparents called "jack-o-lanterns" -- will-o-the-wisps that could just as easily have been some kind of phosphorescent fungus, except that the balls of light down at the spring were quite active in the way they bobbed and moved, plus they showed up no matter if it was the middle of summer or the dead of winter. I'm not sure will-o-the-wisps can move, and I'd think any fungus would go dormant during the winter, but who knows?

Anyway, when these sorts of thing happen so regularly, you just get used to them. No one really thought all that much of it. It was only when something out of the ordinary occurred that it was remarked upon. One such event happened one night as my grandfather was walking two of his sisters back home from church. It was after nightfall, and their only light was a lantern my grandfather was carrying. There was a pasture along their way to church that sloped uphill, with a large old stump at the top. As they passed by, they noticed an old man with a lantern sitting on the stump.

My grandfather remarked, "That's probably daddy up there, trying to see if some boy is walking one of you two home. I'll go up there and talk to him."

He did, and it is perhaps not surprising that when he got to the stump there was nothing to be seen. Then my grandfather heard one of his sisters shrieking from down in the road that she could see his hands passing right through the old man. Always one to realize when the time has come to leave, my grandfather bolted down the hill (and from the road, there could be seen the old man sitting hunched over on the stump with his lantern, naturally). All three, my grandfather and his two sisters, took off down the road at a dead run, but it didn't take them long to realize that they had something tagging along.

A little ball of light about the size and color of a firefly was keeping pace with them, until it overtook them and lighted on my grandfather's shoulder. He brushed it off. It rose up into the air, to what he later estimated was about twenty or thirty feet, where it split into two. The two halves flew out from one another, then flew back toward each other to collide with a noise like a baby thunderclap. When it was over, the resulting ball was larger than the original, and it descended toward my grandfather again. He swatted at it, and it rose up again, split, came together, and the ball was bigger. By the time the three of them made it home, the ball was the size of a "peck bucket," which apparently is quite sizeable, although I have no idea what a peck bucket even is. When they reached the house, the light shot off into the woods nearby.

And now for the death omens of my grandfather's family. My grandmother's was a white lamb, if you'll recall. Grandfather's family had two, one of which I remember my great aunt Vestie talking about before she died when I was about nine or ten. She said she saw "the 13 lights of Heaven" in her hospital room at night for the last several nights of her life. The other was not nearly so comforting, and my grandfather saw it once while returning home at night after a day of hunting -- it was a white casket bobbing placidly along through the air. It made a noise like a swarm of bees in a hive, and at the sight of it, my grandfather did what any Southern Appalachian man of his generation would have done. He shot it. Thankfully, this was enough to repel it, as it flipped over, the lid popped open, and a dead white dog dropped out before it disappeared.

(Still more to come -- including the one event that actually drove someone out of their home, never to return.)

[repsac]

I've several. Since I'm out of a job and nothing else better to do :P I'll share some in stages. This first batch is about when my Grandparents lived in Orrville Alabama. (For those curious, I'm not sure, but I think the home they lived in, the Allbritan (Or allbreton...I forget the spelling) Is listed in the natl. register of historic places.)

The house was huge, and over it's course had seen many deaths. Originally, the home had been built some time prior to the civil war, and even had the only original slave staircase known to exist at the time in the state. I say original, since many were modified in later years or boarded off.

My Gigi (grandmother) was never the type to belive in ghosts, but this first story comes from her. It happened while the family was restoring the home. All the lights were out, but the phone had just been connected. Standing near the main staircase, she was talking on the phone to my father. As she stood there talking, she distinctly heard footsteps coming down that staircase. These steps stopped just above her head, and then turned around and walked right back up. At the time, my Poppy (Grandfather) passed it off as a coon. Gigi always said though, that it sounded like heavy workboots.

Other members of the family had similar experiences. My Uncle on my dad's side (Gigi was his mother) refused to stay in the house. His reasons always pointed to the pink room. (Note: there were enough rooms that to tell them apart you went by color. The bedrooms were: Red, Green, Blue, Pink. (second floor) On the first floor, there were two others, and then a master suite. Two dining rooms, a parlor, a kitchen, and one other room I can't place. Storage I think.) The pink room had its share of strangeness. At one time, there had been a radio in there. Now, this radio had never worked properly, so most of the time it was left unplugged. That didn't stop it from coming on though. Other times, people would hear someone walking around the room as they slept in there. The Blue room also had it's share of strange activities. Usually that one dealt with the door. You couldn't lock it. Well you could, it just wouldn't stay locked. My father remembers one day, as he had lain to take a nap; watching the door knob slowly turn and then the door swumg open. No one was there and he was alone in the house at the time.

Personal experience:

I've more about the house, but I want to share one of my own. It's about the city, not the home. Since telling it the first time, I've heard other people collaborate it, so I know I'm not alone in this sighting.

I remember one evening, as was my father and poppy's custom, piling into the car to go riding around on the back roads. As we turned down one lonely dirt road, there across the way was an old railroad track. Now, this made me really smile, since I love trains. As we followed this track, I noticed then (I was around 8 at the time) that the tracks were overgrown and rusted. Even then I knew a train hadn't been past in years. Near a crossing, we came across what looked to be an abandoned station or freight house. The boards were falling apart, windows broken; and just before the station, an old dilapidated wooden boxcar sat. I can still see it all when I close my eyes, every last detail. When we got home, I sat down with a pen and paper and to the best of my ability, I drew what I saw.

Now, that wouldn't seem to be much of a story in itself right? Here's the kicker. To this day, my father denies having ever seen such a thing. In fact, I don't think he did see it. I kept that picture I drew, and found it some time later. It strikes me as shocking that here I am, barely eight, and able to draw a double sheathed wooden boxcar exactly as it should look. Before having ever seen such a thing.

Other people I've talked to on various ghost hunting forums have recounted a similar story, though there are different details. Looking back now, I even think I remember drawing the face of a man looking out of a second story window. So is there a story there? Y es and no. Here's what I've heard, but I can't confirm it.

At one time, there was an old freight house along the line there. (Likely Central of Georgia or the Louisville & Nashville.) The house is said to be long gone, but was the site of a horrific train accident in the early parts of the 20th century. Supposedly, a box car being unloaded by some day men was left on the siding by the freight house. This siding doubled as a runaround or passing loop for the line. Now, from here on it really varies. One account says it was an accident, the other say something more malicious. Either way, the story goes on to say that a switch was left open, and a freight train ran into the back of this boxcar demolishing it and the freight house; killing all inside in the resulting conflageration when the steam engine over turned. Since then, various people have reported seeing the thing at different times. Sadly, since there's no photos of it, the thing has become something of an urban legend. Even now, I often question if I ever saw it in the first place.

[Binky]

The first problem in that upstairs room was that most every night, throughout the night, the dark shape of someone could be observed crawling out from under the bed, across the bedroom floor to the door where it would turn and crawl back and then under the bed again. However, when my grandmother devised her Asphyxiation-b-Gone method of sleep, whatever it was under the bed would on most nights reach up from under the bed and run ice-cold fingers down my grandmother's arm. The arm would snake back under the bed, only to repeat the action later on, or for variety, the thing under the bed would crawl out, crawl across the room, crawl back, and crawl under the bed again. This kept up until my grandfather completed a new house nearby. The family moved in, then tore down the staircase in the old house and used that house as a barn.

(More to come later -- we've only scratched the surface)
OK, can I just say that, THAT just there is my WORST fear! and is the reason when I freak out becayse of soem scary movie I've watched I make sure EVERY part of me is covered by blanket...and now, after reading that I will do it every night till I forget I ever read it. But yes...freaky freaky freaky stuff....I'm glad I'm not part of your family I must say...I would have gone mental case by now....but do go on LOL..your a braver soal than me

[repsac]

Stories part deux.

(sorry, couldn't resist)

These come from two times. First when we lived in Mississippi (Brookhaven), and later when we lived in North Carolina. (Gastonia for those curious.)


Not so much a phantom or ghost, but creepy.

This is a really strange one here, my mother even remembers it. To this day, I'm not sure about this though. I've talked with some urban exploration and abandonded places guys and they know the location; but don't know the story either. (Possible explanation after all the stories)

We lived out in the middle of no where for a long time. My father and mother had bought some property and moved a trailer (doublewide) out there. The place was great. We had a huge pool and it was always quiet. That doesn't mean things weren't a bit...odd there.

For one, there was this old Gymnasium nearby. Maybe a mile or two away actually, but that was rather close then. The Gym was the only building for miles around and stuck out like a sore thumb. Brick construction, well built; and an ok roof. When you went inside, it still had all the old bleechers pushed up against the wall on one side, and pulled out on the other. What was really odd, though, was this pile of clothing that was in the center of the building. That thing was HUGE! Maybe eighteen feet, though, since I was young it could have been eight. Either way, it was strange. Boy's, girl's clothing of all kinds. Most of it looked to have been there years. In fact, most of the styles looked old. I remember the place felt weird too. Damp, cool, and a bit strange. Never figured out the story of that building though.

The area our house was in was the site of an old town. There's not much left of it, save maybe one or two people who still live in that area. Even so, I remember many times sitting on our front porch and hearing children laughing and talking. Just barely out of earshot. You know when you hear someone playing, but can't quite make out what's going on? That kind of sound. During the summer months were the worst, but it seemed to happen all the time. Alfus, our neighbor across the way once brought me some toys he found buried in his property. I remember playing with them for ages, but don't know what happened to them.


Gastonia:

Only one from here. Still gives me chills.

One day, saturaday I belive, I was sitting down watching TV in the living room. As I sat there, I had the strange idea to look up and to my left at the foyer. I saw, plain as day, this hand and cuff, like on an old jacket; as though someone had just passed through the foyer into the kitchen. The thing is, it was this odd greyish color; as though everything had leeched out of it. I was not a brave child, so I stood and ran outside. Took forever to explain to my father, who laughed it off. Never saw it again, though I often felt watched in that house.

----------------------------------------

So, what of the Gym? I've tried searches on the web, and contacting some people. It still stands, or so I'm told; and it may have quite a history.

One person speculated that it was the remnants of a school which had been destroyed by tornado. I know this happened some time before we moved to the area, maybe ten years or so. (we moved there in the seventies).

Another person said that the building may have burned down, but wasn't sure.

Either way, if there is any truth to either story, then it could explain the sounds of children I heard.

[Lvl_9_Gazebo]

It's taken me a while to put this up, because I wanted to make sure I had the details correct. As I understand it, this happened to my grandfather's parents. They told him about it, and they and he both told my mother about it when she was little. This was the one event that ever was bad enough to permanently drive someone from their home.

When first married, my great-grandparents lived in a little cabin down the mountain from where my great-grandfather's parents lived. There were a lot of rumors about this little cabin, most of them not worth the air it took to talk about them. Although, one rumor, that this cabin had at one point been used as a church, had some validity to it.

Regardless it was fall, which was the time of the year to gather fodder, which are dried cornstalks that can be used as feed for animals. To gather it, it must be done after the dew has settled else they'll just break apart. To gather them after the dew has fallen, you have to gather them after dark. After a busy evening of gathering fodder, my great-grandparents returned home and my great-grandmother began preparing supper on the woodstove in the kitchen. The family had two hounds, and one of them had made enough of a friend of my great-grandmother that she allowed it to stay inside with her. It usually slept behind the stove to keep warm.

While she was cooking, she heard that dog begin to howl and bark as though something was trying to kill it, and then she saw it shoot out from behind the stove and go galloping out of the house. When the noise of all that faded, she heard something else behind her, a choking sound, and the sound of something scraping across the board floor. She turned, and saw a man with his throat slashed from ear to ear pulling himself up through the floor, gagging and choking and grabbing for her. At this, she screamed and passed out.

My great-grandfather heard her scream and ran in the house to see her lying in a heap in front of the stove. He also saw the man with the slashed throat apparently attempting to free himself from the confines of the floorboards. In a situation like that, I suppose there are a couple of options you can choose, but the option my great-grandfather chose was to scoop up my great-grandmother and bolt from the house, heading for his parents' house up the mountain.

He hadn't gotten far before he heard something shuffling through the dead leaves behind him, and he turned as much as he could to see that man with the slashed throat not far behind and pawing at him. My great-grandfather had a pistol with him in the pocket of his overalls, and so he hoisted my great-grandmother over his shoulder, reached and grabbed the gun with his other hand and shot the man with the slashed throat, who fell down apparently dead. Then he turned and kept going on up the mountain.

It wasn't long before he heard the same sound behind him again, turned and saw the man with the slashed throat grabbing for him, hoisted my great-grandmother over one shoulder, and shot. The man with the slashed throat fell down again.

This sequence of events repeated itself at least twice more before he got close enough to his parents' cabin that his parents' dogs, plus my great-grandmother's dog, ran out from under the porch and were heading down toward him. Then, they all saw the man with the slashed throat, yelped, turned tail, and mobbed back under the porch. By this time, my great-grandfather was screaming for his father, and my great-great-grandparents were both running out of the house to see what the commotion was about. And it was at this point that the man with the slashed throat veered away from my great-grandparents and went shuffling away on up the mountain. According to my mother, her grandfather always remembered the sound of that man with his slashed throat bumbling through the leaves, off through the woods.

They didn't go back to that house. I'm not sure they even ever went back to get their possessions. What I do know is that the rumors went wild after that, and somehow or another, a rumor began that if one were to clean out the cellar of that house, that would call down the spirits there. One night in the 1940's a Boy Scout troop decided to see if they could not only stay the night, which would have been scary enough, but to also clean the cellar of the house just for shits. They tried, and didn't last long, and had fled the house before even midnight.

Now, I know this all sounds outlandish, but like I've mentioned before, nobody in my family is known for a talent in bullshitting. Some of us, myself included, are storytellers, but that's much different than just outright lying. That, and going back as far as my great-grandparents, you're in the realm of no-nonsense, hardfaced farmers who attended church whenever it was open to attend, and whose biggest concerns most of the time was keeping their families from starving. They had no reason to make up nonsense, and so if my great-grandparents say they saw a man with a slashed throat pulling himself out of a board floor, I personally have no choice but to believe them.

(More to come, if anybody's interested. Just let me know.)

[Lvl_9_Gazebo]

Thanks for your comments, folks, and thanks also for sharing your experiences, repsac. You can't spit in the South without it passing through someone, it seems. I know Savannah's famous for that. Asheville is getting there.

[Binky]

please...go on...:) it's interesting stuff :)

[reformedwaitress]

I've got quite a few family stories I'll have to check details on and get back to you. I am from the South, you know. All families from the South have a ghost tale or two. (c:

Thanks for sharing, hauntedhead -- I'm LOVING this thread. Keep em coming!

[mrtauntaun]

Loving the stories so far HHNC.

By the time the three of them made it home, the ball was the size of a "peck bucket," which apparently is quite sizeable, although I have no idea what a peck bucket even is

A peck bucket is typically a wicker basket, though occasionally a metal or wooden bucket, that holds exactly one Peck of something. Pecks are a unit of measurement for dry goods, so this is typically used for fruits, like apples or berries. Such as a Bushel and a Peck or Peter Piper picked a PECK of pickled peppers.

1 peck = about 8 quarts.

Hope that helps!

[Tanasi]

Loving the stories so far HHNC.



A peck bucket is typicall a wicker basket, though occasional a metal or wooden bucket, that holds exactly one Peck of something. Pecks are a unit of measurement for dry goods, so this is typically used for fruits, like apples or berries. Such as a Bushel and a Peck or Peter Piper picked a PECK of pickled peppers.

1 peck = about 8 quarts.

Hope that helps!

and 4 pecks to a bushel. FYI

[protege]

Up until recently, my grandmother lived in an 1860s farmhouse. Usually at night, it was dead quiet. Spooky enough...unless you know what sometimes happened there. Shortly after my grandfather died in '89, I saw something on the porch. A pale, blue light...roughly human-shaped :eek: It didn't stay long, and I haven't seen it since. Quite a few times, usually at night, I get the feeling that someone is watching me. Occasionally, I'd get the feeling that someone had put their hand on my shoulder. However, nobody else is in the house, the cat is outside...and Grandma went to sleep hours ago :eek: During the day, if I was there alone, I'd hear sounds coming from upstairs--someone walking across the floor, doors opening, etc. At first, I was a bit freaked out. Later, I realized that I was always at the farm growing up, and Grandpa was probably telling me that he's still watching over his family. Now that she's moved, it doesn't happen at all :cry: Hopefully, he'll find her at the new place. I do know that my cat would get jumpy if he was around--his ears would perk up, and he'd start staring at the ceiling.

[Melxb]

I just talked to my mother about any ghost or supernatural stories and while she doesn't have "ghost stories" per se, she did confirm something I've always had a feeling about--some females in her family have a touch of psychic in them. Not a lot, not flat-out-I'll-tell-you-your-future psychic, but certain women in the family are sensitive to stuff like that. I gave her my theories as to which of her sisters and which of my cousins are, and she confirmed that those are the ones that are. It's only the women, not any of the men.

I am, but not a lot. My grandmother is VERY sensitive. I think she might be a natural medium of some sorts. I've had conversations with her that she doesn't remember and has even gone so far as to say, "Why would I say that? I wouldn't know anything about that. My brother, who died 10+ years ago would know though. Not me...." When she just told me! :eek: She's had conversations like that with almost everyone in the family. She just "knows" stuff, and talks about it, but she doesn't remember knowing. I seriously think she's channeling spirits and may not realize it. Or knows she is, but refuses to believe. She's very religious and I think she may think it's sacrilegeous.

My mother has dreams of when people around her dying. She dreamt that her uncle, who was electrocuted in his shop (he owned a cabinet making shop) stopped by our house. The car he was in was old, small Datsun (he died in the mid 80's) and was packed to the gills with stuff. My mom said that stuff was also tied down on top of the car and was riding really low. He has room in the car only for him to drive. She said he came up to door, knocked on it, and told me mom he was going on a vacation. She said she asked to go, and he laughed and told her that he'd meet up with her in a very looooooooooong time. She said in her dream she cried and woke up crying. 2 days later he died.

Also, she dreamed when her grandmother died. My great-grandmother died of a heart-attack. Literally, she was walking about 2 miles everyday until she was 87, and one day she didn't wake up. She died in her sleep. About a week before she died my mom said she dreamed that she saw her grandmother sitting in a bus passing her by on the street. She hopped on the bus and her grandmother screamed at her (in Spanish no less!) to get off the bus! Get off the bus! Get off the bus! My mother, freaked out, and did get off the bus! The bus never moved until my mom get off. When she did, my great-grandmother apparently waved at her through the window, sat back down, and looked forward. And then the bus left.

[Binky]

aww no more stories? They are really interesting don't stop :(

I have one but it's not very interesting. I may have written about this before. When I was little I used to go and sleep in my mums bed all the time. I slept upstairs so I would have to walk down the stairs past the "corner" (it was a small space that was under the stairs that was connected to a small hallway the lead to the laundry, bathroom and the door to outside. Anyways I woke and started to walk downstairs...what I would normally do is walk down stairs then turn the stair lights off and run to my mums place through the kitchen, this night I REALLY bolted! As I went to turn the lights of I turned to look down towards the "corner" and noticed that there was someone standing there or well some THING. I could only really see a sort of outline of whatever it was but it SCARED me sh*tless. I turned the light off and BOLTED I was so scared I couldn't scream, and I ran into m y mums room and stayed under the blankets and didn't get out till the morning.

My house wasn't really that old...but it was built next to an old grave yard. The counsel converted it into a park. WELL I did often hear someone walking around upstairs even when there was only me home, my mum used to hear whoever it was as well. Also, doors would close or open on their own when there was no wind AT ALL. Worst thing about the doors would be it would often happen while you were alone and you were having a shower or something. I made a habit of really slamming the door shut so that I knew it was fully closed, but that never stopped whoever it was from opening it! I really hated it. Also, whoever it was loved to walk around my room at night if I turned my light off they would even start whispering (so soft I couldn’t' tell what was being said) so I never turned my light off and have a phobia about it now because I'm terrified that whoever it is will come back.

Oh and my step dad once went to a persons house to try and rid it of the spirits. He said it was really creepy and you felt very unwelcome there. Needless to say the spirits didn't want to leave.

Oh well that’s my story

[ThePhoneGoddess]

My whole family is from California...my Grandmother grew up on the Grapevine, and my Mom and all her siblings grew up in Paradise, a small town outside of Chico. Not many ghost stories from there, although there are some. Te South is much more known for that sort of thing, as is the entire Brisith Isles; but this story happened in Sacramento.

The year my parents bought their first house I was in kindergarten(late 70's). It was a cute house, just the right size for a young family like ours, and it was at the end of a cute little culdesac. Anyway, there was a red haired girl that lived in my room. I remember her, she lived in the closet and would come out and play with my toys. She was a few years older than me, and would sit on my bed and watch me go to sleep every night. I had no fear of her, but I used to get upset because she would take my favorite doll and not let me have it. She'd walk into the closet with it, and I would go tell my Mom, she would come and look in the closet and find the doll on the floor in there.

Now, I was a very imaginative child, and loved to play pretend. My Mother assumed the red haired girl was an imaginary friend of mine. Both of my parents are extremely black-and-white, literal minded people. They are not religious in any way and are firm believers in stuff like evolution, and that things which can't be proved by science don't exist. So to summarize, they did not believe in ghosts at all. AT ALL.

This went on for a couple of months. My Mom got to know her neighbors, many of whom were young Mothers like herself. One day she was in a neighbors kitchen, talking to a couple of them and told them about my imaginary friend, who I always referred to as 'the red haired girl'. According to my Mother, these ladies all got looks of absolute horror on their faces. After several of them had left (she said they fled like the red army was coming for them), she got the one neighbor lady who lived there to talk to her, and this is what she was told...

Apparently there had been a family living in the house before us. One day their only child had been hit and killed by a car on her way home from school. The child's Mother started having mental problems, having fits and telling her husband that their daughter was still in the house, she could see her. Her husband eventually had her taken to a mental hospital, and a few months later put the house up for sale. We bought it. Oh, and their child? She had LONG RED HAIR.:eek:

My Mother didn't know what to make of this, but it did freak her out. The house went back up for sale and we split as soon as the money changed hands. Years later, we talked about this, as she did not know what I remembered. But according to her, there were other unexplained things that happened in that house---stuff would be rearranged or missing---my Mother prides herself on her memory and her organization, so this freaked her out as well, she thought she was having problems.

[Eireann]

Hauntedhead, congratulations.

Your story of the man with the slashed throat may well be the most FRIGHTENING story I've ever read. I keep looking over my shoulder, now. I'm going to have to check under the bed before I go to sleep, IF I go to sleep.

And this is coming from a seasoned horror veteran. I've read horror fiction, true ghost stories, I've watched all kinds of horror films, I'm no greenhorn. I've been reading Elliott O'Donnell for years (and if you don't know who he was, I strongly recommend that you buy some of his books. Quite a few are available on Amazon).

But that one REALLY got to me. My dreams tonight are going to be interesting. If I manage to sleep.

Oh, and about the city that experienced a series of axe murders in the 1920s - it was New Orleans, wasn't it?