One night, a father and his daughter were driving down a deserted country road. They were returning home after spending the entire day visiting the girl’s mother in hospital. Listening to the sound of the rain drumming on the car roof, the girl began to doze off.

Suddenly, there was a loud bang. The father struggled with the steering wheel but the car skidded off the wet road and slammed into a stone wall.

After checking that his daughter was uninjured, the man got out of the car to survey the damage. Both of the front tires had large punctures and the right fender was crumpled against the wall. The rest of the car had survived unscathed.

“We must have driven over something on the road,” he explained to his daughter. “Whatever it was, it blew out both of the tires.”

“You can fix it, right?” asked his daughter, somewhat shaken by the accident.

“No,” replied her father, shaking his head. “I’ve only got one spare in the boot. I’ll have to walk back into town and find somebody to tow the car,” he said. “It isn’t that far from here. You wait in the car while I’m gone.”

“OK,” she said, reluctantly. “But please don’t take too long.”

The man could see in his daughter’s eyes that she was frightened.

“Sit tight,” replied her father as he he slammed the car door. “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

His daughter watched him in the rear-view mirror as he trudged off down the road in the pouring rain and disappeared into the night.

More than an hour passed and her father stil had not returned. The girl began to wonder what was taking him so long. She was very worried because he should have been back by now.

Just then, she glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw a figure in the distance, walking towards the car. At first, she thought it was her father, but when she turned around to take a closer look, she realized that it was a strange man. He was dressed in overalls and had a big bushy beard. He was carrying something large in his left hand, swinging it back and forth.

Something about him made her very nervous. As he approached, she stared out the back window and squinted her eyes. In the dim light, she could just make out what he was clutching in his right hand. It was a big, sharp butcher’s knife.

Thinking quickly, the terrified girl locked both doors in the front of the car, then jumped into the back seat and locked the rear doors. When she looked up again, she saw that the strange man had stopped in his tracks and seemed to be staring directly at her.

Suddenly, the man raised his arm and the girl let out a blood-curdling scream. In his left hand, he was clutching her father’s severed head.

She just kept screaming and screaming. She couldn’t stop herself. Her heart was pounding and she struggled to breathe. The grotesque expression on her father’s face was horrifying to behold. His mouth was hanging open and his eyes were rolled back in his head.

When the man reached the car, he shoved his face right up against the window and glowered at her with his crazed, bloodshot eyes. His hair was wild and matted with dirt. His face was covered in deep scars.

For a moment, he just stood there, in the driving rain, grinning at her like a madman. Then, he reached into his pocket, took something out and slowly lifted his left hand.

He was holding her father’s car keys.

A married couple, who had just
returned from their honeymoon, decided to buy a house. The couple were very happy because they managed to get the house at a very cheap price. It was in a nice neighborhood, close to the city and just a short walk from a shopping center.

One day, the husband was walking down the hall when he spotted a red crayon lying on the floor. The couple didn’t have any children, so the husband wondered where the crayon had come from.

“Perhaps the previous residents left it behind”, he said to himself as he casually threw it in the trash.

The next day, the husband came home from work to find another red crayon lying in exactly the same spot. He was very puzzled and decided to ask his wife about it.

The wife grew pale in the face when he brought it up. She told him that, every day since they first moved into the house, she had been finding red crayons when she was cleaning.

They were always lying in the same spot, at the end of the hallway.

The husband was standing in the hallway, wondering about this weird phenomenon, when he began to notice something was not quite right.

The hallway was too short.

He tapped on the wall at the end of the hallway and heard a hollow sound. Curious, he began peeling off the wallpaper, despite the protests of his wife.

Behind the wallpaper, they found a pair of sliding doors. It was as if someone had carefully hidden the entrance to a closet or a small room.

The husband discovered that the sliding doors had been nailed shut.
He got a hammer from his toolbox and began prying out the nails, one by one.

After pulling out the last nail, he slowly opened the sliding door to reveal the small hidden room.

Looking inside, they saw that the white walls of the little space were covered with words scribbled in red crayon.

Over and over again were the words:
“mommy im sorry let me out mommy im sorry let me out mommy im sorry let me out…”

The man was standing on the side of the road, hitchhiking in the middle of a thunderstorm on a dark and moonless night. Time passed slowly and no cars went by. It was raining so hard he could hardly see his hand in front of his face.

Suddenly he saw the headlights of a car approaching over a nearby hill. The car was moving very slowly, approaching and appearing ghostlike in the rain. It slowly and silently crept toward him and stopped.

Wanting a ride real bad, the guy jumped in the car and closed the door; only then did he realize that there was nobody behind the wheel, and no sound of the engine to be heard over the rain.

Again the car crept slowly forward and guy was terrified, too scared to think of jumping out and running. The guy saw that the car was approaching a sharp curve and, still too scared to jump out, he started to pray for his life, as he was sure the ghost car would go off the road and into the river, and he would surely drown!

But just before the curve a shadowy figure appeared at the driver’s window and a ghostly hand reached in and turned the steering wheel, guiding the car safely around the bend. Then, just as silently, the hand disappeared through the window and the hitchhiker was alone again.

Paralyzed with fear, the guy watched the hand reappear every time they reached a curve. Finally the guy, scared to near death, had all he could take and jumped out of the car and ran to town.

Wet and in shock, he went into the nearest bar and told everybody about his supernatural experience. A silence enveloped the room and everybody got goosebumps when they realized the guy was telling the truth about the stange car and the ghostly hand that guided it on its way.

Just then, two men walked into the bar. They were dripping wet and as they took off their rain gear, they looked around the room. Their eyes came to rest on the hitchhiker.

“Look!” said one of the men, “There’s the idiot who jumped into our car when we were pushing it in the rain.”

Heavy rain pelted against the window of Alec’s beat-up car as he squinted against the gloom that was being feebly illuminated by the aged headlights. Muttering curses, he gripped the steering wheel and fumed at the fact that his boss had forced him to work late hours, causing him to have to drive home in the rain at night.

He hating driving in the rain. It only made the challenging drive along the narrow mountain road even more treacherous, but he’d done it before. And he’d do it again.

Suddenly Alec saw something that brought his car to a screeching stop on the slick road. There was a little girl, unusally pale and highlighted by the highbeams of the car, standing on the side of the road, just outside of the car lane. Overcoming his shock, he wheeled his car gently forward, rolling down his window to talk to the child.

“Hey! You gave me quite a shock! What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere all by yourself?” Alec asked, trying to sound more cheery and good-natured than he felt.

“Waiting,” the girl replied, her voice low, and for an unidentifyable reason, slightly creepy.

“Waiting? For what?” Alec asked, confused.

“The bus,” she replied simply, as Alec leaned out the window and turned his gaze upward to realize that there was, in fact, a weather-beaten bus stop sign just a few feet from the girl. It was almost illegible due to rust and the paint peeling.

“I don’t think the bus runs here anymore. Do you live far from here? I could give you a ride,” Alec suggested.

The girl nodded, and wordlessly opened the door and climbed into the passenger seat. Alec started the car. They drove in silence for a few miles, when suddenly the girl broke the uncomfortable quiet.

“We’re not far from where I live now.”

Alec looked around.

“Are you sure? There aren’t any road signs or landmarks or stuff…” he trailed off.

“I’m sure,” she replied.

A few minutes later, after more silence, the girl spoke again.

“My stop is just ahead,” she said quietly.

“If you say so,” Alec muttered, uncertain as to whether or not they were going the right way.

Suddenly a bend in the road, leading to the right came into view in the distance.

“Turn left. My stop is to the left,” said the girl. Alec looked at her strangely.

“Kid, I don’t think you know your directions,” Alec said, eyeing the girl. “That turn goes to the right.”

“I know that. Turn left,” the girl said, a slightly angry tone creeping into her voice.

Alec turned his head fully towards her.

“I’m not turning left! Sorry, but you can’t possibly live down there, it’s nothing but a ravine!” Alec snapped.

The girl snapped her head around to face Alec, her face contorted in anger, and her previously ice-blue eyes were now a haunted purple.

“I said, TURN LEFT!” she screamed.

Suddenly, the steering wheel was wrenched out of Alec’s hands, sending the car careening through the guard rail and over the edge of the cliff.

As Alec lay dying in the mangled wreckage, he saw a second car at the bottom of the ravine. The bodies of a young girl and her parents were inside.

I live in Osaka, Japan and often use the subway to go to work in the morning. One day, when I was waiting for the train, I noticed a homeless man standing in a corner of the subway station, muttering to himself as people passed by. He was holding out a cup and seemed to be begging for spare change.

A fat woman passed by the homeless man and I distinctly heard him say, “Pig.”

Wow, I thought to myself. This homeless man is insulting people and he still expects them to give him money?

Then a tall businessman went by and the homeless guy muttered, “Human.”

Human? I couldn’t argue with that. Obviously, he was a human.

The next day, I arrived early at the subway station and had some time to kill, so I decided to stand close to the homeless man and listen to his strange mutterings.

A thin, haggard-looking man passed in front of him and I heard the homeless guy mutter, “Cow.”

Cow? I thought. The man was much too skinny to be a cow. He looked more like a turkey or a chicken to me.

A minute or so later, a fat man went by and the homeless man said, “Potato.”

Potato? I was under the impression that he called all fat people “Pig”.

That day, at work, I couldn’t stop thinking about the homeless man and his puzzling behavior. I kept trying to find some logic or pattern in what he was muttering.

Perhaps he has some kind of psychic ability, I thought. Maybe he knows what these people were in a previous life. In Japan, many people believe in reincarnation.

I observed the homeless man many times and began to think my theory was right. I often heard him calling people things like “Rabbit” or “Onion” or “Sheep” or “Tomato”.

One day, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to ask him what was going on.

As I walked up to him, he looked at me and said “Bread.”

I tossed some money into his cup and asked him if he had some kind of psychic ability.

The homeless man smiled and said, “Yes, indeed. I do have a psychic ability. It is an ability I obtained years ago. But it is not what you might expect. I can’t tell the future or read minds or anything like that.”

“Then what is your ability,” I asked eagerly.

“The ability is merely to know the last thing somebody ate,” he said.

I laughed because I realized he was right. He said “Bread”. The last thing I had eaten for breakfast that day was toast. I walked away shaking my head. Of all the psychic abilities someone could have, that one must be the most useless.

Did you notice the horror of this story?

• Ghosts can feed off of your fear. (There are other entities that are not ghosts that wlil also feed from your lower vibration and fear energies.) NEVER show your fear to a ghost. Ghosts can feel your fear. They can take from that negative energy and grow from that. They can grow larger literally as well. It feels like they are taking your breath away. Ghosts can, also, take your breath away. This takes your energy away and gives them more energy. If this happens make sure you tell them to STOP and BACK AWAY NOW! When this happens, that entity is showing you that they aren't feeling powerful and are trying to draw on YOUR power. Don't let them! As I have said, whenever you feel powerless or whatever, you say whatever empowers you. Whatever makes you feel more in control and protected. Most may say the Lord's prayer. Some kind of chant that is strong and makes you feel strong. Surround the White Light of protection around you as often as you remember.
• No one, especially in death can control you! So if you are encountering a ghost that is being controlled by another ghost, they need to know that they are in control of themselves. They have the power. And that entity needs to know this in order to move on and continue with their soul development. They are allowing that other soul to control them. They need to stop this. Once he or she realizes that they are in control and no one can control them, then he or she will move on.
• This came from Echo Bodine's excellent book for helping Earthbound Children Souls: "When there are children ghosts in a house, we've found it works very well to ask one of the adult ghosts, often the one most resistant, to escort the children to the light and through to the other side. We tell the children to hold hands so that none of them wanders off as they make their way through the tunnel."
• Don't discourage your child in matters of the spirit. They are more sensitive to spirits than you are as an adult (usually). So if they are talking about talking to a spirit or talking to "nothing", then they more than likely are telling the truth. Same goes with animals. They sense at a higher level than we do. If they start acting up or acting weird, you know what's going on. A spirit is in the house.
• Ghosts may be stubborn and will stay until they feel they have been punished enough for whatever reason. They will move on when they are ready. So you may not be able to get rid of all of them. These ghosts have chosen to stay thinking they HAVE to be punished, when really they don't, they can move on whenever they like. 
• Some ghosts refuse to go on to the other side because they don't want to face another person who has passed on already. Like for example, if a person was molested by their father, or treated badly by a person, they will flat out refuse to move on to the other side. But all they need to do is ask their spirit guide when crossing over that they do NOT want to see that person. And they don't have to, for as long as they need. They don't know this and will insist that they will have to see them. But they are hurt from their life with that person. Just reassure them that it IS true. You do not have to see anyone you don't want to see on the Other Side.
• This one is very important. A Ghost that was an alcoholic or drug user (any addiction) when they were living will stick around and try to find a body to inhabit that is living with that same addiction as well. They jump into any body that is high, or whatever the flavor is of the Ghost, just to feel that high again. If you are an addict, surround that white light around you and ask God to protect you from these Ghosts, especially when intoxicated! Because of the Ghost inhabiting your body to feel these highs, you may have an even harder time at kicking the habit because they will not want you to quit either.
• Sometimes I hear that some people have a ghost around them and are aware of this and want to keep them. It's sad because these are Soul's, not pets. They need to move on to the Other Side and continue perfecting their Soul. If they have low self esteem and are staying because one of us wants them to, then they feel loved and protected in a way. But they don't know any better. You really do need to try to tell these Ghosts to go on to the Other Side. Say it with CONVICTION. Again, do not speak of them for at least three days, or (rarely) they will think you miss them and come back again. Sometimes this is effective and sometimes it is not. If the ghost does not leave, then sometimes they need more time. Sometimes it was not a ghost at all and actually a guide trying to contact you. Use your intuition to be sure.
• Portals are openings from this world to the Spirit World. Ouija boards and séances, etc., will open these up. If you don't know what you're doing you will invite too many entities, that you may not be able to handle. Any entity can come in from these Portals. Good or bad. Ask for protection from God, the universe, however you feel comfortable in asking. Get a psychic in there if it gets way out of hand. Portals are very serious. If you continually think about ghosts, read about ghosts, do things that invite them into our world, etc., the more ghosts you will attract.
• Ghosts have no concept of time, as with the Other Side as well. They may be here for years, decades, etc. Make sure you tell them the truth about what year it is. That might wake them up to what they are doing, or not doing in their case. Tell them they need to move on to the Other Side.
• Usually a residual haunting or "imprint" happens from traumatic events, from civil wars to a mother looking for her baby. This could be the real spirits OR an "imprint". But things that keep happening over and over again are most likely "imprints" and not the actual ghost(s), as the actual spirit has moved on.
• Also "imprints" of emotions can happen as well. Like a curvey road that when you go by a certain area, it feels sad, you pass the area, and you are fine, that type of thing. Something sad happened, there and it made an "imprint".

But there are those times that you see a residual haunting. Of (using the same example) a mother looking for her baby, but she doesn't know she is dead (or she does) and continues to look for her baby. Goes through the same event over and over again. If you see this, try to help that soul find it's way. Tell them they will find what they are looking for on the Other Side where they belong.
Remember ghosts were once living breathing human beings. There is no need to fear them. Like curses they only have power over you if you allow it. Nothing has power over you unless you give it permission. And do note that not all ghosts are out to get you. Many of them, if not the majority, are just trying to connect with the living with what they know in their very foggy state. Many are in need of a little compassionate assistance to cross over. We do the best we can to help and that is enough.

Abby was sitting in her room one day when she heard someone crying soutside. She ran to the window and saw a small girl sitting on the curb, sobbing. She looked about seven years old.

Abby ran outside and asked what was the matter. The girl pointed to her tummy and complained, “I’m hungry.”

Abby felt bad for the girl and tried to cheer her up.

“What’s your name?” Abby asked.

“My name is Katie,” the small girl answered. Then she said she had to go home and help her mother. Abby said okay and went back to her house for dinner.

The next morning Katie was outside playing with a ball. Abby went outside to say hi. Katie was very happy to see her. Abby asked where she lived and the girl pointed down the road.

“Down there,” the girl said, “My mommy is going to have to go to someplace an hour away tomorrow and won’t be back until seven. She can’t find anyone to take care of me and make me dinner. Will you babysit for me?”

Abby agreed and Katie ran down the road to her house to tell her mom. Abby told her dad about Katie and he guessed she had just moved to the old house that had been for sale. Katie came back and met Abby’s parents. They thought she was adorable. Abby then brought up the subject about babysitting; her parents said of course she could.

The next day at about ten o’clock she rode down to Katie’s house. It was old and beat up. Abby knocked and Katie ran to open the door. They baked and played dress up till five when Katie said she had a surprise and it would take a few minutes to set up. Abby was told to wait in the guest bedroom until Katie said she could see. Abby heard Katie’s home phone ringing and Katie asked her to get it.

Abby answered the phone it was her dad.

“Abby get Out of that house!” he screamed. “I was watching the news and a serial killer who calls herself Katie escaped from the asylum. She is about 18, but small. In previous murders she has worn makeup to make her look about seven. She has brought kids to babysit her and EATEN them.”

Abby dropped the phone and ran downstairs to the back door. Katie was already there.

“Abby… I’m hungry,” she said quietly.

Katie brought a butcher knife from the kitchen and herded Abby toward the dining room. Abby saw the table was set for dinner. She turned and saw Katie glaring at her.

“I listened to the call,” said Katie. “Your dad has ruined everything.”

Abby saw the knife coming toward and never opened her eyes again. The police arrived about 10 minutes later. They found Katie sitting at the dinner table, quietly chewing on something that looked like steak.

There was a young girl named Josephine who was habitually late for Sunday morning mass at her local church. She always forgot to set her alarm and wouldn’t wake up in time. Finally, she got tired of her parents telling her off and decided she would never be late for mass again.

One Sunday morning, Josephine woke up at midnight. Unaware of what time it was, she thought she had overslept again and jumped out of bed. She quickly got dressed and ran out the door without ever looking at the clock.

It was still dark outside, but it usually was dark at that time of year. It was very quiet and there was nobody else on the street. The only sound she could hear was the noise of her own footsteps on the pavement as she hurried towards the church.

When she heard the church bell ring, she quickened her pace and took a shortcut through the cemetery. She got to the church just as the service was about to begin.

She found a seat and took a look around. Much to her surprise, she didn’t recognize anyone. The church was filled with people she had never seen before. They were all staring straight ahead and an eerie silence hung over the gathering. When the priest came out to celebrate mass, Josephine realized he was a stranger too.

The priest told the congregation to pray for the soul of a young girl named Francoise who had died the night before. Josephine was shocked. She knew Francoise and she had never even heard that the poor girl was ill.

Something was radically wrong. She began to feel very uneasy.

She looked around again and, as her eyes began to adjust to the dim light, she saw someone she knew.

There was an old woman sitting at the back of the church. Josephine’s heart sank when she remembered the old woman had died the year before.

Looking towards the front of the church, she saw that some of the people sitting there looked very strange. Their skin seemed to be pearly white. One of them turned his head and Josephine discovered to her horror that he was nothing but a skeleton in a suit. Just a skull and some bones.

“This is a mass for the dead,” thought Josephine. “Everybody here is dead, except me. It’s a spectre’s mass.”

SHe noticed that some of them were staring at her. Their eyes were filled with anger. It was clear to her that she had no business being there.

Suddenly, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Nervously, she turned around and found her grandfather standing in the row behind her. He had been dead for three years.

There was a worried look on his face. He leaned towards her and whispered in her ear.
“Leave right now, while you still can,” he hissed. “You don’t belong here.”

Josephine immediately grabbed her coat and walked quickly toward the door. She heard hollow footsteps echoing behind her and glanced back. The dead were rising out of their seats and following her. Their faces were twisted in fury and hate.

Josephine was terrified and she dashed to the door, a pack of shrieking ghosts snapping at her heels. She felt skeletal hands grabbing at her, trying to stop her leaving. She twisted and turned, struggling to free herself from their grasp. Her coat was ripped off and her hat was snatched from her head, just as she managed to slip out the door.

Screaming and crying and almost out of her mind with fear, Josephine ran all the way home and told her parents what had happened. Later that day, someone came to the house holding what was left of Josephine’s coat and hat. They had been found in the cemetery, torn to shreds

According to legend, in the 1930s there was a terrible accident on Brubaker Bridge. five cars crashed into each other on the bridge and all the people in the vehicles were killed on impact.

Because the cars crashed in such a remote area, nobody saw it happen and it remained undiscovered for a whole day. Eventually, after nightfall, a neighboring farmer was driving his tractor down the road and discovered the crash. he immediately alerted the police.

When the ambulance came, the workers found a total of 12 dead bodies in the wreck. The bodies were all put into ambulances and brought back to a local funeral home, where they were all identified and given proper burials.

After such a tragic accident, the town was eager to try and put the death crash behind them.

However, shortly after the accident, the farmer who originally discovered the bodies claimed that every time he crossed Brubaker Bridge, his tractor would suddenly stop for no reason. Then he would hear 13 loud knocks, followed by a strange gurgling and hissing sound.

Other locals told the same story. They said they would be driving down the road and their cars would suddenly stall as they were crossing Brubaker Bridge. This was always followed by someone or something knocking 13 times on the car. And then, right before the car started up again, gurgling and a hissing noise was heard.

The farmer began to wonder if the ambulance workers had really recovered all the victims of the death crash. He searched the area around the bridge and eventually wandered into the woods by the side of the road. What he found there chilled him to his very soul.

Sitting propped up against a tree, covered in snow, was the dead body of a man. He was frozen stiff. His arms had been eaten away by black bears, leaving only bloody stumps.

His mouth was hanging open and his tongue was missing. The farmer had found the 13th victim of the crash. The man had been thrown out of the car in the accident and wound up lying injured by the side of the road. He had been dragged into the woods by black bears who devoured his arms and tongue. The ambulance sirens scared off the black bears and the man was still alive when the ambulance workers were taking the dead bodies out of the cars. He had been trying to call for help but his arms and tongue were gone so nobody could hear him.

Today, locals still believe that the ghost of the 13th victim still haunts Brubaker Bridge, stopping any car that dares to cross his path. The ghost beats on the side of the car with the bloody stumps that were once his arms and then tries to call for help. But all that comes out are hisses and gurgles because he doesn’t have a tongue.

I was adopted. I never knew my real mother; rather, I knew her at one time but I left her side when I was too little to be able to remember. I loved my adopted family though. They were so kind to me. I ate well, I lived in a warm and comfortable house, and I got to stay up pretty late.

Let me tell you about my family real fast: First, there’s my mother. I never called her Mom or anything like that; I just called her by her first name. Janice. She didn’t mind at all though. I called her that for so long, I don’t think she even noticed. Anyhow, she was a very kind woman. I think that she is the one who recommended my adoption in the first place. Sometimes I would lay my head against her in front of the television and she would tickle my back with her nails. She is one of those Hollywood mothers.

Second, there’s Dad. His real name was Richard, but he never really liked me much so I began to refer to him as Dad in a desperate attempt to gain his affection. It didn’t work. I think that no matter what I called him, he would never love me as much as his own child. That’s understandable so I really didn’t press the matter. The most notable attribute of Dad was his unmoving sternness. He was not afraid to pop his children when they did something wrong. I found that out before I could use the restroom properly. He didn’t hesitate to spank me. Well, I’m in line and it’s because of his methods.

Lastly, is my sister. Little Emily was really young when I was adopted, so we were about the same age, but she was slightly older. I liked to think of her as my little sister, though. We got along better than any sibling could possibly get along. We would always stay up late together and just talk. Well, she did a lot of the talking; I mostly just listened because I loved her. It was a great setup that we had! We were short on bedrooms, so- because I didn’t want to sleep in the living room by myself when I was littler- I had a pallet set up for me next to her bed on the floor. This is where I have slept since. But it was cool with me because I enjoyed being with her and I had always felt pretty protective of my little sis.

Everything changed on a horrible Wednesday night. I was at home taking a nap when little Emily opened the front door. The sound of the door opening pulled me to a state of consciousness and I walked from the room down the hall to the living room. That’s when I first remembered it was Wednesday. I was never any good at keeping track of what day it was. Actually I’ll just go ahead and say it: My sense of time was HORRIBLE! But nevertheless, I knew it was Wednesday because Emily had just come home from her Church’s youth group gathering. She walked in the front door and hugged me, and then was followed in by Dad and Janice.

“You have a good nap?” Janice said teasingly as she ruffled up my hair. I just shook my head away and snorted in a manner that clearly expressed that I was teasing back with her.

“Don’t you snort at your mother like that!” said my father gruffly with authority. He shut the door behind him and hung up his coat.
“I was clearly joking…” I growled under my breath. He must not have heard me because I didn’t feel him smack me. Emily then proceeded to our room and I followed. She started telling me about her day. You know… usual teenage girl stuff. But I listened so that she would feel better. After her summary she suggested watching TV and I obliged and jumped onto the couch as she was going for the remote. She rolled her eyes at my little-brother-like immaturity and scooted me over and sat down. The TV turned on and we watched it together until the sun went down. Emily was the kind of girl that- instead of watching cartoons and soap operas- would rather watch Discovery and Animal Planet and Natural Geographic. I like those too so I didn’t mind. Actually, those were the only channels that can hold my attention.

So it got late and Janice walked up behind the sofa. “Emily it’s past your bed time. Turn off the television and go to your room. You too.” she pointed at me. Emily turned off the program we were watching grudgingly and stood up. She started down the hallway to our room. As I followed I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.

We went into our room and Emily turned off the light. Just as she did, I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. It was out the window, but as soon as I redirected my line of sight to where the window was no longer in my peripheral vision, what it was that I thought I saw was gone. I still remained alert. For my sister’s sake.

I laid there in the darkness with nothing but the thin ray of light from the street lamp outside to illuminate the room. It wasn’t much. Time and time again I could have sworn that I heard subtle sounds just out the window… a twig break, leaves crunching, clothes jostling. And all the while I could smell a faint stench of sweat and blood. I kept my eyes open most of the night.

The sounds outside subsided and the smell left my nose. I began to feel at ease. My eyelids closed.

Not long after that, I heard a very loud crash on the other side of the house. I was up in an instant. “THERE’S SOMEONE IN THE HOUSE!” I barked with extreme adrenaline coursing through me. “Wake up!” I shrilly pleaded with Emily. She did, and as soon as I saw her sit up I ran to my parent’s room…

Dad was dead. His neck was splayed open and gaping as blood spilled out of it, off the bed, and onto the floor. I saw that the master bathroom’s door was closed and just before it- on the outside- was a man.

A man… I don’t feel comfortable calling it that.

He was very large and rugged. He turned around and saw me and that’s when I saw him accurately for the first time. I wont forget it. His eyes were large and beady and trapped with lust. He was styling a beard that was badly unkempt with blood dripping off. His clothes were dirty and his face was cold. Just then I noticed the same horrid smell of sweat and blood from earlier, but this time it was overwhelming.

He saw me. He saw me and grinned with a set of crooked yellow teeth. That smile threw me off. I thought that I was going to die, but then he turned back to the bathroom door completely unperturbed by my presence. I was terrified and didn’t no what to do. I just yelled and cried. I watched as he shouldered through door that was Mom’s only protection. I watched as he raised the large razor that he was carrying, but had obviously neglected to use properly. I watched as he sliced her open and tore her to shreds…

I then heard something; the last thing that I wanted to hear… It was Emily’s scream coming from behind me. The large monstrosity looked up from my butchered mother and stared at my little sister. I was distraught. He stood up and quickly started walking toward us. My sis turned and ran, and I was at a loss when he bypassed me and went straight after her. Why was she still in the house? Had she not assessed the situation and run? Apparently not, and now she was dead and I was alone.

I ran after them both. I expected the man to kill her as he had the rest of my family, but I was sadly mistaken. He grabbed her by the arm and jerked her as a way to make clear that he was in control. He dragged her through the house… I was making all of the noise I could now, hoping and praying that someone would come to my aid. He mustn’t take her. Not her.

As he passed me I backed against the wall and whimpered with terror, “Why?” He didn’t respond except by putting his free hand on my head while Emily screamed in the other and saying “Good boy.” He gave another crooked grin and a very cold, unnatural laugh. I followed him to the door where he dragged my helpless sister after him. He opened it, pulled her out, and slammed it shut behind him.

I am now sitting in the house with my mutilated adopted parents, shivering and whimpering with dismay. He’s out there with her. Doing who-knows-what to her, and I can’t do anything. I would if I could, but I can’t. I would chase after them in a heartbeat, but I can’t. I sit here, looking at the front door. I look down at my paws. If only I could open doors....

Black Hair is a spooky ghost storyfrom Japan about a man who leaves his wife for a younger woman, but later regrets his decision. It is based on an old Japanese ghost story by Lafcadio Hearn called “Reconciliation”.

There was a Japanese man who had grown tired of his wife. When they had gotten married, she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, with long blackhair, beautiful brown eyes and soft skin. However, over the years, her looks had faded and she had grown fat. Her face had become wrinkled. He realized that he wasn’t attracted to her anymore and decided to leave her.

The man told his wife he wanted a divorce and promptly moved out of the house. He rented an apartment in the city and took to visiting bars and clubs in search of a new romance. It wasn’t long until he met a stunningly beautiful young girl. She was only18 years old, tall and slim with long flowing blond hair. He was instantly smitten and within weeks, he had asked her to marry him.

The blond girl accepted and afterthey got married, she moved in with him. However, as soon as the ring was on her finger, the blond girl’s behavior changed. Before the wedding, she had been sweet, pleasant and polite, but now her attitude was hard, mean and rude.

She was very vain and seemed tospend hours in front of the mirror, preening, applying makeup and gazing at her own reflection. She was also very demanding and made him spendall of his money on her. She forced him into buying her new clothes, new jewelry, new gadgets and a new car.

One day, the man came home and took a good look at his new wife. All of the makeup… the eyeliner, the mascara, the eye shadow… only hid the ugliness inside. He began to wish he had never married her.

As the years went on, the man started longing for his old wife. She may have been old and overweight, but she had been a caring and considerate person. He cried when he remembered her soft voice, her gentle smile and her eternal patience. He regretted the day he had divorced her.

He gradually realized that he still loved his first wife, loved her more than he could ever love the blond girl. He began to understand how he had thrown away the only woman who ever truly loved him. Sometimes, in hisdreams, he would see his old wife, sitting alone in her room, her long black hair covering her face. Late at night, he would ask himself how she was living, whatshe was doing, would she ever take him back?

One night, after a bitter argument, he decided that he had endured enough. He couldn’ttake it anymore and left his blondwife. He left the city and mad ethe long journey back to his old wife’s house. When he reached the street where they used to live, it was already late at night

The house looked deserted. Tall weeds were growing in the garden and the windows were cracked and broken. Tiles were missing from the roof and the walls looked as if they hadn’t been painted in years.

He knocked on the front door, but no one answered. Then, he tried the handle and found that the door wasn’t locked. He walked inside and found the rooms empty and silent. A chilly wind was blowing through the broken windows.

Going upstairs, he opened the door to the bedroom and was startled to see his wife sitting there on the bed. He ran to her, embraced her in his arms and cried on her shoulder. Through the tears, he told her how much he had missed her over the yearsand begged her to forgive him for leaving her.

Her face was covered by her longblack hair, but he heard her sweet voice whispering in his ear. She told him “I’m glad you came back to me,” she said, “if only for a moment…”

“Only for a moment?” he replied, with a laugh. “I’m back for good. Now we can spend the rest of our lives together.”

He brushed the hair from her face and leaned in to kiss her, but when he opened his eyes, hescreamed in horror. Her face wasa dirty, moldering skull. To his horror, he realized that what he was clutching in his arms was nothing but a sack of dusty, old bones and long, stringy, black hair.

The man scrambled to his feet and tossed the bones away from him in disgust. He stood there in the dim light, shuddering as a sickening feeling spread throughout his body.

He ran downstairs and out the front door. On the street, he found a neighbor and demandedto know who lived in the old, broken-down and abandoned house.

“There is no one living in that house now,” said the neighbor.
“Years ago, it belonged to a woman whose husband left her. He divorced her in order to marry another woman. She was so distraught that she killed herself soon afterwards…”

A friend of mine’s child told him, “Daddy, I love you so much that I want to cut your head off and carry it around so I can see your face whenever I want.”

My 3-year old daughter was standing over her newborn baby brother, looking at him. Then, she turned to me and said, “Daddy, it’s a monster… We should bury it.”

My cousin used to freak he mom out as a child. Whenever her mom would ask her why she did something mean or wrong she would whisper, “The devil told me to do it!”

I was babysitting for a little girl and she asked where I had parked my car. I pointed out the window to my car across the street. She looked at me and said, “Go to it without looking both ways.” I asked her why and she replied, “I want to see someone die.”

One night, I was tucking in my 2-year old son. He said “Goodbye, Dad.” I corrected him, “No, we say goodnight.” He replied, “I know… But this time it’s goodbye…” I had to come back and check on him a few times during the night to make sure he was still there.

My 3-year old son was cuddling with his grandmother. He took her face in his hands, and stared straight into her eyes and said, “You’re very old and you will die soon.” Then he made a point of looking at the clock.

My little girl went through a phase where she would just constantly say ‘Hi’ to things. “Hi hi hi hi hi hi” One day, it sound sounded strange, so I asked her, “What’s that you’re saying?” She turned to face me and just whispered “Die die die die die diiiieeeeeee…….”

My niece was sleeping over at my parents’ house one night. She had all the lights on in the spare bedroom. I asked her if she was afraid of the dark, and she said, “No. I am afraid of what is in the dark.”

My 5-year old daughter said, “Mommy, when you die I want to put you in a glass jar so I can keep you and see you forever!” My 6-year old son laughed and replied, “That’s stupid. Where are you gonna find a jar that big?”

My 3-year old daughter was holding her newborn baby brother for the first time. She looked up at me and asked innocently, “So, I shouldn’t throw him in the fire?”

My sister was pregnant and we were having a conversation at the dining room table. My 4-year old son asked my sister if there was a baby in her belly. She told him there was. He slid out of his chair and headed for the kitchen, saying, “We need to get it out. I’ll go get the knife.”

When my son was little, I would sometimes hold him down and pretend to eat his face, saying, “nom nom nom.” One day, he said, “I’ll never eat your face, Mommy. I’ll cut it off and wear it as a mask…”

My 5-year old cousin drew a picture of a hideous, black monster. Then, she looked up at me and said, “He told me to draw this… He’s coming for you… You better hide…”

When I was about 3 years old, our cat had kittens, but they all died. I asked my father if we could make crosses for them, which he did. As he was making them I asked, “Aren’t those too small?”
Dad: “What do you Mean?”
Me: “Aren’t we going to nail them to them?”
(Several moments silence)
Dad: “we’re not going to do that”

My mom loves to tell this story: Apparently when I was 5 or 6, I told her that aliens had stolen her real son and replaced him with me, an exact copy. I said that someday, I would return to my home planet, but she shouldn’t be sad, because her real son was having a good life in our zoo.

My little cousin was thrown out of a Catholic preschool because he took off his shoe and told one of the nuns, “Shut up or I’ll take out your eye with my shoe, because I’m the son of the devil!” Apparently that was the last straw.

I was awoken from a deep sleep at around 6 AM. My 4-year old daughter was standing over me and her face was inches from mine. She looked right into my eyes and whispered, “I want to peel all your skin off”. For a few seconds I was terrified. In my sleep addled state, I didn’t know if I was dreaming or what was going on. Then, I realized what she was talking about. I had been sunburned the previous week and my skin was starting to peel.

My niece was sitting on the couch with a weird look on her face. I asked her what she was thinking about and she said, “I’m imagining the waves of blood rushing over me.” As it turns out, they had just come back from a local science museum. There was an exhibit on the circulatory system of blood in the human body.

My 3-year old son was telling me there was a man in his room. “Mommy,” he said. “The man has big yellow eyes and he is looking at you.” I tried to tell him there was no man and my son just told me, “Oh he is hiding now.” Two minutes later, he said, “Oh no Mommy, you made him very mad. Now he says he will come when you are sleeping.” Some time later, he told me, “I’m not going to be four. I’m doing to die and you will put me down, down, down in the hole.” I assured him that wasn’t true and asked who had told him that. He got very quiet and replied, “The man told me. But I will be scared, so after three nights you will die too and come with me.”

I was in the basement of my friend’s house with her 2-year old son. He took my hand, led me over to a brick chimney that had a rusty metal door on it and said, “That’s where the dead babies go…”

I was looking at houses with my brother and his 3-year old son. As we passed the school, the little boy said “If you buy a house here, that’s where your kids will go to school!” Then, we passed a pool and the little boy said, “And that’s where your kids will go to the pool!” Then, we passed a cemetery and he said, “And that’s where you’ll bury your kids!”

One night, when my daughter was 4, I overheard her talking in her room. I poked my head in and asked if she was talking to me. “No,” she replied. “I was talking to the little boy who lives in my closet… He’s dead.”

I jokingly asked my little cousin, “What’s the best way to get a girlfriend?” His response was, “Tell her to be my girlfriend or she’ll never see her parents again.”

One day, totally out of the blue, my 5-year old son said, “Before I was born here, I had a sister, right? Her and my other Mom are so old now. They were OK when the car was on fire, but I sure wasn’t!”

One day, my 3-year old son hugged my wife and said, very seriously, “Mom, I promise I won’t ever chew on your bones…”

My 5-year old daughter had night terrors and she would sometimes scream in her sleep. One night, I said “Mommy’s here. It’s OK.” She looked right at me and screamed, “Mommy? But who is that behind you?”

A few months ago, my 3-year old daughter was playing outside in our backyard. My wife was sitting on the back step and my daughter came up and asked her if she could play with the little girl on our slide. My wife said, “I don’t see any little girl” and my daughter said, “She’s right over there on the slide, Mom. Can’t I play with her?” My wife said, “I don’t see anyone” but my daughter kept insisting, “She’s on the slide and she is blue. Can I play with her?” My wife was freaked out said, “Let’s just go inside and get a snack.” For the rest of the day, my daughter kept looking out the back door, telling my wife that the little blue girl was lonely.

When my brother was very young, he was sleepwalking. My mom was trying to get him to go back to bed. He said, “I would, but the devil is behind you…”

One day, my 4-year old son said, “My brain is telling me to do things I don’t want to do.” I just hope his brain wasn’t telling him, “Burn them! Burn them all!”

As a child I would tell my parents daily that they were not my real parents and that my real parents died in a train accident. At first, they thought it was cute, but after a few months of this, they had to put a stop to my story.

Out of the blue, my 2-year old daughter said, “If you’re quiet you’ll stay alive.” I still have no clue where that came from.

My daughter and her friend were talking about dinosaurs. I asked her, “If you were a T-Rex, what would you eat?” She got very serious, looked me right in the eyes and said, “Children… I’d eat children.”

Last week, my 5-year old son asked me, “What do you see through the black circles in my eyes when you’re controlling me when I’m at school?”

My 5-year old son gave me a card he’d made at school. On the front, it said, “How you see yourself”. He had drawn a picture of me walking in a meadow. I was surrounded by blue skies, a blazing sun, green grass and butterflies. There was a big smile on my face. Inside, it said, “How you really are”. There was a picture of me in a jail cell, gripping the bars and crying.

I work in a preschool there is a small toy kitchen in our classroom that the kids use for playing house. There was one little girl who was playing with a baby doll, rocking it back and forth and singing to it. Suddenly, she shoved it into the toy oven, slammed the door shut, turned to me and said, “Sometimes bad babies go in timeout!”

My mother told me that when I was a little girl, I saw some guy at the grocery store and started screaming and crying. It was so bad we had to leave and when we got back to the car, my mom asked what was wrong. I told her he took me away from my first mom and hid me under his floor and made me sleep for a long time until I woke up with my new mom. It totally freaked my mother out.

My daughter told me that there is a woman in her bedroom who watches her and sleeps on the ceiling above her bed. She also says the woman doesn’t like me and wants to eat my heart.

A few days after my dad passed away, my mother and I were awoken in the middle of the night by a furious banging noise. We went downstairs to find my little sister desperately trying to open the back door, yelling, “He wants back in! We have to let him back in!”

We had a small fire in the backyard and my baby cousin picked up a branch, lit it on fire and stared at it for a few minutes, muttering “burn…..burn….BURN!” Eventually, as the whole stick caught fire he started laughing maniacally and yelling in a deep demonic voice, “BUUURRRNNNNINNNGGGG! BUURRRNNNINGGGG! BUUURRRNNN!!!!” It was terrifying.

My mother told me that, when I was a child, I asked her what it was like to die. When she said she didn’t know, I told her not to worry because I’d find out when I was 21.

My aunt was very sick and my wife and I were talking about the cost of making arrangements for the funeral. Our 4-year old son walked in and said, “Why don’t you just set her on fire?” As it turned out, that’s how he thought cremation worked.

We were collecting my mother-in-law at the airport. While we were waiting, my husband picked up our son and joked about tossing him over the railing. On the way home in the car, our son spent the next 3 hours making a booklet titled, “All the Times My Dad Has Tried To Kill Me”. There were illustrations showing him in all sorts of peril, including being flushed down the toilet by my husband. My mother-in-law was horrified.

I was making dinner and my 5-year old niece casually walked through the kitchen and said, “I’ll get you, and I’ll make it look like a bloody accident”. It scared the heck out of me, but later I found out she was quoting a line from The Cat in the Hat.

I asked my 3 kids what they wanted to do when they grew up. My 10-year old said, “I want to be a teacher!” My 8-year old said, “I want to be a writer!” My 6-year old said, “I want to run the machine that cuts the heads off chickens!”

I was giving my 6-year old daughter a bath and she a couple of Barbies in the tub with her. One of the Barbies had no head. The head was floating in the water. I asked her to reattach the head because it was creepy. She responded, “Why Mom? It’s not REAL. If it was real, the bath would be full of blood, and THAT would be creepy…”

One night, I was reading my 3-year old niece a bedtime story and I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was dark and eerily silent. There was a nightlight on. I turned over and saw my niece. Her eyes were wide open and she was staring at me. Then, she whispered, “How did you get out of your box?”

I asked my nephew what he was drawing and he replied, “A skeleton-making machine”. On further inspection I saw that he hadn’t drawn a skeleton making machine but rather a flesh removal machine, complete with screaming naked men and a channel for the blood. Creepy.

My wife and I were giving our daughter a bath one night, when all of a sudden, she said, “You humans brought me here!” It took us four months to figure out that it was a line she heard in a movie.

Late one night, I was sitting at my friend’s kitchen table when her daughter walked into the kitchen and said, “Mommy, when I was older I crashed the car and died. Can I have something to drink?” My friend calmly gave her daughter a glass of milk and sent her off to bed. It gave me the chills, but my friend didn’t want to talk about it. She started crying and told me never to bring it up again.

When I was 6 years old, we moved house. I said my mother, “The lady who use to live here told me that she hates the wallpaper and you are covering up her note.” She just thought it was childish rambling and forgot all about it. Twelve years later, my mother was redecorating the house. She took down the wallpaper in the attic and found a suicide note scratched into the wall.

When my mother was pregnant, my little brother came into the room and pointed a nerf gun at her stomach. “Oh, no! Don’t shoot me!” my mom said playfully. “Don’t worry, Mom,” he replied. “I’m not trying to kill you, I’m just trying to kill the baby.”

A friend of mine brought her 3-year old son over to my apartment. I asked him what his favorite holiday was. He replied, “I like Halloween because I like candy and death!”

I was minding my own business, working in the garage when the door creaked open and my 2-year old son popped his head in and asked, “Daddy, are you dead yet?” I replied, “No…?” and then he just slowly closed the door.

I was at a friends house when his 4-year old cousin was getting ready to go to bed. He walked around, giving everyone a goodnight hug. I said to him, “Sweet dreams!” He stopped at the top of the stairs, turned around and with a very serious face said, “I’ll control your dreams and make them nightmares…”

My son was 4 and his sister was almost 2. I had to go to a meeting and I couldn’t read them a bedtime story. I promised I would read them two the following night to make up for it. My son said, “It’s ok, Mom, Auntie Tracy will read to us”. I felt the hairs go up on the back of my neck. “Who?” I asked. “Auntie Tracy, Mom,” he said. “She looks just like you. After we go to bed she reads and sings to us”. I had never told them that I was an identical twin and my sister died at birth. Her name was Tracy.

My wife was making a sandwich for our 4-year old son. He was watching her really intently and she asked what he was doing. He replied, “I’m watching you make a sandwich… so I know how to do it when you die.”

While I was cooking dinner one evening, my 4-year old daughter came in and wanted to help. “You’re not going to touch the stove, are you?” I asked. “No,” she replied. “Do you know why you shouldn’t touch the stove?” I asked. She looked at me and, in a very serious tone, replied, “Because I might get burned and die and then you’d have to eat me.”

I was blowing my nose into a tissue and my 6-year old daughter asked if she could see it. I said no and she responded with, “I promise I won’t eat it”. 

There is a story about a young boy who was leaving his school one evening when he heard a noise behind him. Looking back, he saw a beautiful girl sitting at a window. The girl had her arms propped up on the window sill and was just staring out at him. He wondered why she was there, because it was an all-boys school.

When she saw him looking back at her, the girl smiled and hugged herself so that she was holding her elbows. Then suddenly, she leaped out of the window and landed on the ground outside. The boy realized with horror, that she was missing the lower half of her body.

She made her way towards him, clawing along the ground and running on her elbows making a tek-tek-tek-tek-tek sound. The boy was filled with terror and revulsion. He tried to run, but he was frozen to the spot. Within seconds, she was upon him and she took out a scythe and cut him in half, making him into one of her own.

When kids tell this story, they warn each other about Tek-Tek. They say she carries a sharp saw or a scythe, and if she catches you, she’ll cut you in half and you’ll become just like her. She is said to chase children who play at dusk. She is also known as “bata-bata” (again, the sound of it running on its elbows) or “The Girl That Runs On Her Elbows.”

It is also similar to the story of Kuchisake-Onna (the Slit-Mouth Woman) and the story of Kashima Reiko. The American version is called Click Clack.

When Kevin arrived at the cliff, it was almost midnight. He stood there, waiting for Amanda, feeling the cool night air and looking out across the bay at the peaceful scene. It was a perfect night. The moon was full and the breaking of the waves between the rocks below was soothing. This was the third summer that his family and Amanda’s family had gone on holiday together. It was the first chance he had, this summer, to be alone with Amanda. As he turned and walked back towards the gate, he realized that he was not alone.

At first, he thought it was Amanda, but when he looked closer, he saw that it was someone else. A female figure, wearing a white shirt with red arms, was coming slowly towards him in the moonlight. Who on earth could she be and what was she doing out here at this time, he asked himself. As the young girl walked past him, he got a closer look. She was beautiful but her face was dirty and her hair was matted and wet. She carried a handbag which was slung over one shoulder, and her eyes were fixed on the ground. She walked gracefully, but her face betrayed a sorrowful expression.

When he reached the gate, something about the girl made him look back. She was walking towards the cliff. What could she be doing? He watched her standing there, lonely and silent, just staring out to sea. He felt there was something unusual about her. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Perhaps it was the disshevelled state of her hair. Perhaps it was the fact that her clothes seemed dirty and torn. Her face was deathly pale, but also exquisitely beautiful. Finally, it came to him. There had been blood on the front of her shirt.

As he watched, the girl suddenly threw her head back and her arms flailed wildly in the air. Then she started screaming.

“Did you miss me?”, said a voice.

He turned around to find his girlfriend Amanda standing right behind him.

“I managed to sneak out…eventually”, she smiled. “What’s wrong?”

“I was looking at that girl”. He turned back to point, but the girl was gone.

“What girl?”, said Amanda.

“She was there. At the cliff edge”, he said. “Waving her arms about and shouting. Didn’t you hear her?”

They ran to the edge of the cliff and looked over, but there was no sign of anyone on the rocks below and the little path that led down to the shore was completely empty. When they walked down to the beach, they saw no trace of any living person.

“She must have gone off in a boat,” said Amanda.

“No”, said Kevin. “She wouldn’t have had time. I was looking right at her and then you came. When I looked back, she just wasn’t there anymore.”

Well she must have gone somewhere”, said Amanda. “She didn’t disappear into thin air.”

Kevin didn’t reply.

“Come on. It’s getting late. My parents will start to wonder where I am” said the girl.

The young couple walked back up the pathway and headed towards home. Kevin was silent, still thinking about the strange sight he had witnessed on the cliff.

The next day, Kevin was cycling through town when he met Amanda. They decided to go for lunch together and found a quiet little cafe.

“Remember what you were telling me last night”, said Amanda. “About that girl you saw. Well I was telling my mother about it and she thought it was very odd.”

“So did I”, replied Kevin.

“But she told me that a young girl disappeared around here years ago”, said Amanda. “It was a girl who worked for my grandmother at Ocean House. She was a maid and she just went off and nobody ever saw her again.”

Kevin was very interested in the story and Amanda went on to recount what her mother had told her the night before. It seems that the maid was an orphan and Amanda’s grandmother had taken pity on the poor young girl and offered her a job. The maid’s name was Barbara and she was a very beautiful and refined young girl. Naturally, she had many admirers among the boys who lived in the area.

Young as she was, she was very flirtatious and enjoyed all the attention she got from young men. One night, she would be seen out on a date with one young man and then a few nights later, she would be dating another. People in the area began to gossip about her and wondered if she would ever settle down with a nice young man.

After a while, Barbara became engaged to a young fisherman who worked in the area. The fisherman and his older brother owned a small fishing business across the bay and Barbara considered him quite a catch. When the news was announced, a number of young local men were heartbroken.

Barbara had no relatives and Amanda’s grandmother said that she could remain as a maid in Ocean House until the wedding day. She also said that Barbara could hold the wedding reception at Ocean House. She had grown attached to the young girl during her time in the house and wanted to do something nice for her.

Amanda said her grandmother immediately set about making preparations for the wedding, but on the morning of the wedding day, Barbara was nowhere to be found. She went to bed the previous night as usual, but her bed had not been slept in and her clothes were still hanging in her wardrobe. She apparently hadn’t taken anything with her. Nobody had noticed anything unusual in her behavior and even the unhappy bridegroom couldn’t suggest any reason why she might have run away.

The local Sheriff made exhaustive inquiries and searched the area for days, but nothing was ever seen or heard of the beautiful young Barbara again. Amanda’s grandmother, who had been very attached the young girl, was devastated and believed that something horrible must have happened to her. Most of the neighbors, however, did not believe that the girl had come to an untimely end. They remembered how many boys she had flirted with, and how she had revelled in the attention they paid to her. She must have fallen in love with some other young man, they decided, and then ran off with him to avoid having to explain things to Amanda’s grandmother. According to local gossip, Barbara had been involved with many young men and any one of them might have taken her fancy.

Although Kevin wanted to know more about the story of the missing girl, that was all Amanda could remember.

“You know, my father knows the Sheriff here” said Amanda. “We could invite him over for dinner and ask him to give us all the details”.

Kevin thought that was a great idea and the next night, when he arrived at Ocean House, there was a squad car parked in the driveway.

Over dinner, Amanda’s father asked the Sheriff if there had been any news about the disappearance of the young maid named Barbara. To his surprise, the Sheriff said that the mystery had finally been cleared up.

Only three days previously, the Sheriff had been in the police station, talking to his deputy, when a local man barged through the door. It was a fisherman who was well known and liked in the little seaport town. He had a tortured look on his face and the sherriff led him into an interrogation room and sat him down.

The fisherman said that his mind was sorely troubled, and a guilty secret weighed upon his soul. His conscience had forced him to give himself up to the police, make a confession and accept his punishment.

He told the Sheriff how, years before, he had passionately loved a pretty young girl who worked at Ocean House. Misled by her flirtatious manner, and the friendly smiles which she had innocently lavished upon everyone she knew, he began to believe that she was in love with him. When he learned that his younger brother had asked for her hand in marriage and that she had accepted, he was outraged. His thoughts became dark and bitter and he decided that the young lovers had made a fool of him. Brooding alone, for days on end, he came up with a plan to take his revenge.

He silently bided his time until the day before the wedding. On that day, he stole his younger brother’s mobile phone and sent Barbara a text message, telling her to meet him in the cove below Cliff House at midnight. Then he deleted all traces of the message from his brother’s phone and replaced it where he had found it.

That night, while his younger brother slept, he crept out of the house and took his boat out on the water. Rowing quietly across the bay, he finally came to a small cove, where he put his boat ashore.

Poor Barbara was waiting at the top of the cliff and waved to him in the darkness, believing it was her true love. He trudged up the pathway that led up the cliff, and when he reached the top, Barbara was shocked and terrified to find herself confronted by the wrong brother.

Seething with rage, the evil man put his hands around her throat and began choking her. The frightened girl screamed and began to struggle, but to no avail. Crazed and furious, he declared that if he could not have her as his wife, then neither could his brother. Suddenly, he siezed the girl in his powerful arms and tossed her off the side of the cliff. She fell to her death on the dark rocks below.

As he stood in the moonlight on the edge of the cliff, gazing at her broken body lying across the rocks, the vicious murderer’s mind turned to thoughts of how to cover up his horrible deed. Without any remorse, he walked down to the beach, picked up her lifeless body and placed it in his boat. Then he collected several heavy stones and tied them firmly around the poor girl’s corpse. Finally, he rowed out to sea, over a mile or more, and there quietly dropped the dead girl overboard.

As the Sheriff finished his tragic tale, everyone at the table grew silent. Years had gone by since the young maid’s disappearance. Eventually, the truth had come out and they knew what had become of the bride on that fatal night. Kevin said nothing. He couldn’t stop thinking about the beautiful, haunting and inexplicable vision that had appeared to him, so long ago, as he and Amanda stood together on the cliff next to Ocean House.

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall is a ghost photo that has becomefamous over the years. The ghostly image was captured on the staircase in 1936 by photographers who were snapping pictures of the historic Raynham Hall for Country Life Magazine.

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall is known as the world’s most famous ghost photo. The two photographers saw the misty figure descending the staircase and managed to capture this amazing photograph. The full report appeared in Country Life Magazine.

The Brown Lady got her name from the brown brocade dress that the ghost has often been seen wearing while wandering the halls and staircase of Raynham Hall. She is believed to be the ghost of Lady Dorothy Walpole, who lived at Raynham Hall. Her husband learned that she had an affair with another man, so he kept locked in her apartments until she died of smallpox in 1726, at the age of 40.

Some people believe that she really died of a broken neck after being pushed down the grand staircase by her jealous husband.They say that her ghost still walksthe staircase looking for her 5 children.

One night, in 1849, two men were on their way upstairs to sleep, when they were amazed tosee a ghostly woman in old fashioned clothing drifting downthe staircase. They noticed that her eye-sockets were completely empty. The incident resulted in several members of staff handingin their resignation. Local detectives were called and conducted a full investigation of Raynham Hall.

In 1926, a woman encountered the Brown Lady on the staircase. She had never heard the stories about the ghost and when she saw a portrait of Dorothy Walpole, she swore that the ghost looked exactly like her.

A well-known author at the time, Captain Marryat, asked to stay in the room in which the Brown Lady was believed to appear. He was walking along a corridor, with two guests, when they suddenly came face to face with a ghostly female figure. It was advancing towards them and carrying a lamp. Captain Marryat recognised the woman from the portrait that hung in his bedroom. As she passed by the three men, she looked straight at them and they became extremely frightened. Captain Marryat, pulled out his gun and fired a shot at The Brown Lady. The bullet passed right through the ghostly figure and was later found embedded in a door.

King George IV also had a ghostly encounter with the Brown Lady. He was staying in Raynham Hall and woke up in the middle of thenight to find the ghost standing at the foot of his bed. He was frightened out of his wits and immediately left, saying, “I will not spend another hour in this accursed house, for tonight I have seen that which I hope to God I never see again”.

To this day, nobody knows if it was a hoax or a real ghost picture. Supposedly, experts examined the negative and declared that it was genuine.

There’s an abandoned wilderness camp a few miles from where I live. A couple years ago, it was a popular place for parents to send their kids during the school holidays. The counsellors would meet the kids at the main road and then hike out into the wilderness until they came to an isolated area where the cabins were located.

For years, the local people spread rumors about the wilderness camp. They said it was built on an area of cursed ground where, 30 years earlier, a religious sect had committed mass suicide. Local people would never send their kids to the camp, so the only children who went there were from out of town. None of these kids were aware of the history of the place.

One night, the counsellors were arranging activities and games to keep the kids occupied. They decided to play a game of hide and seek. To make it more challenging, they tied one of the kids, a young boy named Gerald, to a tree in the middle of the forest. He was told to close his eyes and count to 100, while the other kids found hiding places in the woods. When the boy finished counting, he would have to untie himself and go looking for the others.

The counsellors and the kids spent 20 minutes or more crouching behind trees and rocks, waiting for Gerald to come and find them. They started to wonder where the boy was. Finally, they grew impatient and made their way back to the clearing where they had left Gerald. There, at the foot of the tree, they found a horrible scene.

The rope was still tied around the tree, but poor Gerald had been chopped up into tiny pieces. Bits of his body were strewn all around the clearing and his severed head was balanced on a tree branch.

The kids were all screaming and crying. The counsellors were trying to calm them down, but there was little they could do. Eventually, they all went back to the cabins and one of the counsellors tried to use a long wave radio to contact the police. Unfortunately, the radio was broken, so the first counsellor hiked back down the dirt road to alert the police, while the other counsellor stayed with the children to make sure they were safe.

As the kids sat in the cabin, they trembled with fear and tried to make sense of what had happened. The counsellor who was staying with them seemed really shaken and began drinking alcohol. He was knocking back glass after glass with shaking hands. He kept telling the kids that it was probably a wild animal, a man-eating beast from the forest, that tore their poor friend to pieces. The kids all said that theory couldn’t possibly be true. Gerald’s body had been chopped up. No wild animal could have done that.

They all agreed that their friend must have been murdered by a person. They began to suspect everyone and questioned each other. “Where were you?” asked one boy. “I was hiding behind a rock with her”, said a girl. “And where were you?” asked another girl. “I was up in a tree. I can prove it. He saw me climbing up there”, said another boy.

Eventually, they had accounted for everyone’s whereabouts except for the counsellor “Where were you?”, asked one of the boys.

The counsellor just stared at them and refused to answer. His eyes seemed to glaze over and his face twisted into a horrible grimace.

Just then, the kids heard the sound of a jeep driving up the dirt road. The counsellor jumped out of his chair and ran out of the cabin. The kids raced to the window and caught sight of him, just as he disappeared into the woods. When the police arrived, the kids told them about the counsellor and they took off after him, running into the wilderness with their guns drawn.

Even though the police searched the forest for four whole days, no trace of the counsellor was ever found. The children were urgently evacuated and the wilderness camp was closed down. It now lies abandoned. Of course, there are still some thrill-seekers who hike out to the remote camp, specifically to be able to say they stayed there overnight and lived. Many of them come back talking about some strange paintings on the walls of the surviving buildings. Some of them don’t come back at all.