It's October. Halloween is coming.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I would check it out but it is a subscription forum.

Ah, sorry.

I'm sure that Fifty-Foot Ant/HumperMonkey's story will get reposted somewhere else soon!

[Severen13]

Who wants a scary picture?

Click here if you're brave enough.

[Jay 2K Winger]

You want scary pictures?

hEllO thErE...

I can see you looking at me...

So can I...

The people on the other side of the monitor are weird, aren't they, sis?

And lastly....

...don't blink...don't blink...don't blink...don't blink...don't blink...don't blink...don't blink...

...don't blink...don't blink...don't blink...don't blink...don't blink...don't blink...don't blink...

[Eireann]

I read about a house that was haunted by the ghost of a woman who would, from time to time, wake someone by putting an icy hand on the person's forehead. The person would come out of a sound sleep to see her standing there - headless.

It didn't surprise me that it took many years of haunting before one brave person had the courage to follow her; she took him to a spot where treasure was buried, then vanished. Not all the treasure was found, though, so the hauntings continued until someone else was brave enough to follow her, whereupon she revealed more treasure. After that incident, she was never seen again.

[Eireann]

Well - come on, people! More stories!

[Jay 2K Winger]

Who, Humpermonkey? Or someone claiming to be him and posting his creepypasta stuff?

I stand corrected. Fifty-Foot Ant is a different person who was apparently in the same unit. He's writing his own stories based on his experiences at that posting.

Monkey has made his own appearances in recent posts, and whether or not Ant's stories are true, he has a good grasp of how to write to keep people engaged in the story.

[Lace Neil Singer]

The Bell Witch.

Kate Batts was a woman scorned by her ex fiancé, John William Bell Sr, causing her to become obsessed, bitter and vengeful…to such an extent that even after her untimely/unknown cause of death in 1770, she could not leave him alone.

The first sign of the Bell Witch haunting occurred in 1817 as John Bell was out in his cornfield at his farm in Robertson County, Tennessee. Suddenly, he came across a strange-looking dog, which he later described as having the head of a rabbit. John was concerned for his crops and reached for his gun, shooting at it, but as he did so, it disappeared before his eyes.

Soon after, while John was at his farmhouse with his wife Lucy, daughter, Betsy and two sons they all heard scratching sounds and knocking sounds at the doors and windows. Upon investigation of these noises, nothing or no one was seen to be causing it. This carried on until eventually what was trying to get in, did. Betsy claimed to have been attacked by something invisible and objects were thrown across the room.

On many occasions, as the children slept, they were woken when their hair was pulled by something invisible. Betsy was particularly effected by the poltergeist’s growing activity and began having fainting fits and convulsions.

The poltergeist seemed to be gaining strength as time went on and eventually began communicating. When asked who it was, it replied, “I am nothing more or less than old Kate Batts, witch and will plague John Bell forever.”

John Bell was once attacked so badly by this unseen force, he could not speak afterwards, as his tongue was so swollen and his jaw so badly bruised. This constituted a time when something should be done about the haunting and the Bell’s minister, James Johnson was asked to conduct an exorcism in the home. But this had no effect and only seemed to anger the spirit further.

John Bell Sr’s son, John Bell Jr had been in the Battle of New Orléans, fighting under General Andrew Jackson and the two of them had remained friends after the war. When Jackson heard about what was happening in the Bell house he decided to help…bringing with him an exorcist and a group of men. However, as they approached the Bell’s home, the group of men were suddenly brought to a stop by something they could not understand. Their waggon and horses stuck firmly in the road for no apparent reason…where no amount of pushing and shoving could move the wagon or horses. Jackson and the men then heard a cackling of laughter, which they believed later to be the Bell Witch, who then told Jackson he would be meeting her later. At that point the wagon was able to move and they went on their way again to the Bell household.

When they arrived at the Bell’s home, the exorcist quickly made contact with the Bell Witch. He cursed her and mocked her and then shot at the point where he believed the spirit to be. The presence then proceeded to slap him and hurl him about by unseen hands. All of them fled from the house.

Andrew Jackson later said, ‘I would battle the entire British Army anytime, however, I would not wish to deal with the Bell Witch again.’

No one seemed immune from the Bell Witch’s evil. When one of the Bell’s friend’s, William Porter stayed overnight, the witch told him she would keep him warm in his bed during the night. Porter however, was woken later by the blanket being pulled off the bed and an icy chill slithering over his body. Porter leapt out of bed and tossed the blanket over the place where the cold spot was, in an attempt to capture it and throw it in the fireplace. As Porter wrapped the sheets around the presence and pulled it from the bed, it grew so heavy and let out such a stench that he dropped it and ran from the bedroom and out of the Bell household.

After three years of experiencing the fierce haunting and attacks, John Bell’s health deteriorated to such an extent that he became bed ridden. He would often suffer from facial seizures, which would leave him unable to speak.

John’s suffering finally came to an end when he fell into a coma and died on December 19, 1820 after drinking what he thought was a tonic. A vial of dark liquid, which was discovered on his bedside cabinet was force-fed to the family cat, to decide whether the liquid was poisonous. The cat died instantly.

It is believed that the Bell Witch did something to John Bell’s tonic, but how? you might ask…who knows.

After John Bell Sr’s funeral, the haunting stopped and did not begin again until 1828 when it returned for a few weeks to Lucy Bell and her two sons. But before it left, the witch declared, she would return every 107 years. However, in 1935 (107 years later) nothing of note happened in the area or to the surrounding villagers.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Esther Cox, You Are Mine To Kill.

For months it tormented a 19-year-old girl and her family with deafening noises, horrifying threats and unspeakable violence in one of the most famous poltergeist cases in Canadian history

Some ghost stories live on because of the sheer terror they brought into the lives of those who experienced them firsthand. For the most part, ghosts and apparitions are harmless to those who witness them, flickering briefly into view to perform some timeless task or to relay a message to a loved one, and then fading back into the unknown. Poltergeist activity, however, is another matter entirely. Seeming to center around an individual, a poltergeist produces physical phenomena that have been known to cause serious harm and otherwise scare the daylights out of its victims.

Esther Cox of Amherst, Nova Scotia was such a victim in a case that became one of the most frightening poltergeist accounts in Canadian history. The strange events were witnessed and documented by many people, and even became the subject of a book.

The year was 1878 and the place was Princess Street in Amherst, a town in north central Nova Scotia where the province borders New Brunswick. Esther Cox, 19 years old, lived in a small rented house with her married sister Olive Teed, her husband Daniel Teed, and their two young children. The crowded little cottage was also home to Esther's siblings, Jennie and William, as well as Daniel's brother, John.

THE ATTACK

Suddenly, into the tedium of this ordinary home, horror struck. But not from some paranormal force, rather from an all-too-human monster: Esther was nearly raped by an acquaintance named Bob MacNeal, a shoemaker with a disdainful reputation of which Esther had been unaware. Although she escaped the attack with minor injuries, the violence against her seemed somehow to open a door to further attacks - this time from an unseen entity or entities. And the Amherst poltergeist mystery began.

Although the house was crowded with the Teeds and their extended family, it wasn't unusual for households to take in boarders to help pay the rent. Walter Hubbell, a sometime actor, was a boarder at the Teed residence when the first stirrings of supernatural phenomena took place, and he recorded them in this book, The Great Amherst Mystery. One night, screams of fright brought all of the adults of the house rushing to the room where sisters Esther and Jennie shared a bed. The girls had seen the formation of something moving under their covers as they were about to go to sleep for the night; Esther thought it was a mouse. A search turned up nothing. The girls returned to bed and the house quieted for the night.

The following night, more screams disturbed the family. Esther and Jennie excitedly claimed that they had heard strange noises coming from a box of fabric scraps that was kept under the bed. When they brought the box out to the center of the room, it leapt into the air of its own accord and landed on its side. No sooner had the girls nervously righted the box when it jumped into the air again, eliciting the screams from the young women.

Up to this point, the events could have been attributed to the active imaginations of the two girls, especially given Esther's recent, harrowing experience at the hands of Bob MacNeal. But the third night would provide evidence to all in the Teed house that something far out of the ordinary was happening with Esther Cox. That night, Esther excused herself to bed early, complaining that she felt feverish. At about 10 p.m., soon after Jennie joined her in bed, Esther jumped up from the bed to the center of the room, tearing at her nightclothes and screaming, "My God! What is happening to me? I'm dying!"

Jennie lit a lamp and looked at her sister, horrified to see that her skin was bright red and seemed to be swelling unnaturally. Olive rushed into the room and assisted Jennie in getting their sister back in bed as she now seemed to be choking and struggling to breathe. The other adults watched in disbelief as Esther's entire body, which was remarkably hot to the touch, swelled and reddened. Esther's eyes bulged and she cried in pain, fearing she was literally going to burst through her stretched skin. Then from beneath Esther's bed came a deafening bang - like a clap of thunder - that shook the room. Three more loud reports exploded from under the bed, after which Esther's swelling subsided and she fell into a deep, deep sleep.

Four nights later, these terrifying events repeated themselves - Esther's unexplained swelling and torture ended only by the thunderous noises from under the bed. At a loss to cope with this unearthly ordeal, Daniel asked a local doctor, Dr. Carritte, to examine Esther. And he was witness to some of the most frightening events of all.

Attending at Esther's bedside, he watched in astonishment as her pillow moved beneath her head, untouched by any hands. He heard the loud bangs from beneath the bed, but could find no cause for them. He saw her bedclothes thrown across the room by unseen hands. Then the doctor heard a scratching noise, like a metal tool scraping into plaster. Dr. Carritte looked to the wall above Esther's bed and saw letters nearly a foot high etching themselves into the wall. When it was done, it had spelled out:

ESTHER COX YOU ARE MINE TO KILL

A jagged clump of plaster then tore off the wall, flew across the room and landed and the doctor's feet. After two hours, the house fell quiet.

Dr. Carritte - out of courage, compassion or curiosity - returned the next day and bore witness to more unexplained manifestations. Potatoes hurled themselves across rooms... the deafening noises now seemed to be coming from the roof of the house, yet when the doctor investigated, there was no apparent cause. Of these events, years later he would write to a colleague: "Honestly skeptical persons were on all occasions soon convinced that there was no fraud or deception in the case. Were I to publish the case in the medical journals, as you suggest, I doubt if it would be believed by physicians generally. I am certain I could not have believed such apparent miracles had I not witnessed them."

The doctor could, of course, do nothing to help Esther or settle the disturbances at the Teed home. The haunting continued and, in fact, became more destructive and threatening:

unexplained fires erupted around the house
knives and forks were thrown by some entity, sticking violently into woodwork
lit matches materialized out of thin air and dropped onto beds
furniture moved about by itself, flipping over or slamming into walls
loud slaps were heard, followed by the appearance of red finger marks on Esther's face
sewing pins appeared from nowhere and were jabbed into Esther's face
a pocketknife was ripped from the hand of a neighborhood boy and stabbed into Esther's back

Poor, tormented Esther tried several times to escape the devilish entity, but it followed wherever she went. One Sunday, Esther attended a Baptist church service and sat in one of the rear pews. Once the service had begun, knockings and rappings echoed throughout the church, seeming to come from the front of the church. The noises grew louder and louder, drowning out the minister's sermon. Knowing she was the cause, Esther left the building and the noises stopped.

She even tried to spare her family from the malevolent haunting. At first she moved to a neighbor's house, but the poltergeist followed and she was forced to return home. The Teed's landlord, fearing the destructive nature of the phenomena, wanted to evict the family. Again taking responsibility for the events, Esther moved herself out instead, finding work at a nearby farm. When the farm's barn burned to the ground, however, the farmer had Esther arrested for arson, for which she was convicted to a four-month sentence.

Fortunately, Esther served only one month in jail and was released. The short sentence may have at first seemed like a low-point to the much-troubled Esther, but it did have its upside. After she was freed from jail, the poltergeist activity seemed to just fade away. There were minor instances for a short time, and then the haunting stopped completely.

Esther later married, twice, and died in 1912 at the age of 53. Walter Hubbell published his book, The Great Amherst Mystery, after her death, and it included an affidavit signed by 16 witnesses of the horrific events at Amherst.

[Jay 2K Winger]

So Fifty-Foot Ant, whom I had mistaken for Humper-Monkey, given his current story mentions Tandy (a soldier who disappeared in Monkey's story), is posting a follow-up to his original stories posted on Something Awful.

And he's just posted a link to his compiled original stories: Here.

I haven't had a chance to read it all (it's LOOOONG), but given his skill at storytelling in his current writing, it should be good.

[Eireann]

Okay, people - more!

[Pixilated]

If I remember correctly, there is absolutely nothing that could be Number 13, no closet, nothing. The man in Number 12 discovers that his room shrinks at night; he learns later that the man in Number 14 experiences the same thing. But, yes, at night - oh, at night!

You are probably right ... haven't watched it in a while so must re-watch it!

Meanwhile I managed to dig up on YouTube an extremely short flick called The Ten Steps. I don't think it's got any surprises but it's got reasonably decent atmosphere. *koff* Let's just say I tend not to do down in the basement after dark for a few nights after watching it ...

Not sure if this qualifies as a ghost story, but ...

My grandfather worked at a foundry (which no longer exists) and the foundry ran 24/7, so he worked different shifts. Even when he worked the graveyard shifts my grandmother would always get up to make him "lunch" or "dinner". One night she heard the back door open and his footsteps on the stairs. She called his name but got no answer.

She got up and went to check. The door was closed and locked as usual.

Soooo ... she went down in the basement to see if he'd gone down there for something ... even though none of the basement lights were on.



I remember staring at her, stunned, when she told me that. She honestly didn't see why I would be so spooked about going to see if he was down there (one explanation: her favourite TV show at the time was The Lawrence Welk Show and mine was Dark Shadows. )

Of course he wasn't in the basement either -- so she went back to bed.

In retrospect I think she was in one of those half-awake, half-asleep states where you think you hear something and don't realize you dreamed it because you're not aware you were dozing.

Still, if it had been me, I'd have either crawled under the bed or turned on every freakin' light in the house on and sat on the sofa until he came home.

And then tried to think of a logical explanation for having the place lit up like a Christmas tree.

[Jay 2K Winger]

As long as we're talking about YouTube short flicks, check out There Are Monsters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsL_5bovozE

Understated creepy stuff going on.

[Eireann]

More! More stories!

[Eireann]

Come on! Keep on telling stories!

[bhskittykatt]

Hmmm.....well, this isn't a ghost story, but it does deal with the paranormal. Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to meet some "Big Footers" and see their presentation about the searches they went on over the summer.

One of them played some audio he recorded while he was asleep. Supposedly there were Sasquatch calls in the background, but the little laptop speakers they had didn't play them clearly. What you did hear, VERY clearly, were footsteps. Heavy footsteps.

Thump. Thump. Thump. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. *pause* THUMP. THUMP. Thump. Thump. Thump. thump. thump. thump.

I wish I had a copy of this recording, because it sends chills down your spine, especially when you consider it in context. It sounded like whatever it was walked right by them and didn't wake them up, and it sounded big. All I know is if that was me on that investigation and I heard that on playback....I would never go camping again!


Another story I picked up from that meeting, where they were giving an example of Sasquatch as a mimic:

Three investigators were going to bed for the night. They've just turned out their lights.

Voice 1: "Good night."
Voice 2: "G'night."
Voice 3: "Good night."
Voice 4: "Ger nigh."