#ghosts

Since around 1999, I’ve lived across the street from an old sawmill. It’s sort of assumed that the family who still own and operate the mill have owned the hundred or so acres it sits on since the beginning of time. The owner’s sons, now into their 30’s, have always sort of been “wild” boys. They like old muscle cars, dirt bikes, fireworks, things like that. They even built part of the largely-unused land behind the sawmill proper into a motocross track, just building up the dirt to make ramps,…

Let me start off by saying that as far as I can remember, this is all true, it’s not ‘creepypasta’ or anything like my previous posts, there’s no satisfying conclusion or an explanation, so if that’s what you’re here for, I’m sorry but you won’t find it, but this is how I remember it. It’s a story of two incidents that occurred in my mother’s house separated by years of normality, the latest of which happening in the early hours of the morning beginning the 26th of December 2011.

On several occasions my interest in the supernatural has taken me to some of the most prestigious seats of learning in the entire United Kingdom. From the venerable halls of Oxford and Cambridge, to the more humble surroundings of inner city colleges and schools, my pursuit of evidence to substantiate such claims has rarely been fruitful. However, while exploring the University of St Andrews in Scotland, I found a rather interesting tome hidden away in a dark and musty corner of the campus…

Moving at the end of my high school career is not what I imagined. My mother and father insisted that we move a few towns a way. Far enough to escape poor memories, yet close enough to the ones we wanted to keep. The town we reside in now has a decent enough track record, and the crime rate seems to be pretty low. My father has become so quiet now, so sallow. I swear, my mother's complexion will never come back.

l once knew a man who was afraid of nothing. No monstrosity man made nor fictitious could subdue his spirits, and the mere mention of the word 'supernatural' would elicit a most cynical example of laughter. This bravery was both his greatest strength and his most profound weakness, for ignorance and heedlessness can often be mistaken for a deep and foolhardy sense of courage. He was to learn the limits of his bravery down in those oppressive tunnels, deep below the streets of Amsterdam.

"'Tis midnight, let us hit this," He said, after procuring the previously mentioned drugs. Wielding the ever-convenient Ziplock bag, he started to make his way into the room, abruptly falling down without the slightest grace as his already-altered motor skills abandoned his legs. He hit the floor rather loudly.

I woke up sweating. This was the third time this week that I had this strange recurring dream. It feels so real, like I can hear the voices clearly, feel the contact with my skin. Sometimes I can't tell if it's real or not.

A dream of pale, flesh colored thread. I blinked back the darkness encompassing my vision, revealing again the dusty room we had been biding our time in. I must've fallen asleep, and the Sun was now dead, the window revealing night blanketed over the countryside. The moonlight casted shadows of corpses of forests and dead verdure, the sheets of snow reflecting the light with a strange sheen.

Eva rummaged through her messenger bag frantically. Once again her notebook had disappeared into thin air. Cursing the missing piece of educational materials she opened a fresh one and began taking Russian notes on page one. Lucky for having scanned the pages into her desktop. Moving her long dark hair behind her ear she obediently repeated as she was asked to. And as the bell rang she moved to her next class. College was no different from High school, she was fortunate to have graduated in…

A scream rang out. As I traced the auditory source of evident horror, I was led to my daughters room. I looked around quickly as I caught my breath from the reacting sprint, but nothing seemed out of place other than that tearing of a child under the bed. As I glimpsed at what might have caused any of this I noticed her new doll, limbs contorted, across the room. Going over to the bed to console her, "Honey what's wrong?"

The old storage sheds along the tracks were abandoned shortly after the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was built, and it wasn't long before the poor folk of the area moved in. The sheds provided shelter - of a sort - although the winter wind still pierced through every crevice, and the small fireplaces that the poor constructed did little to keep the cold at bay.

“So what’s your story, morning glory?” he asked her, staring into her big brown eyes. They were like two magnets pulling him in. Of all the juke joints in town, he had to walk into this one. Where he would see this exotic gold skinned beauty in a dress that could cure cancer. It was a red dress. One that had seen its share of blood and lives fucked up beyond redemption. If dresses could talk, this one could write an encyclopedia of misery.

“Welcome to Riverwood.” The administrator exclaimed, shaking the hand of the new night nurse. Riverwood was the town’s only nursing home. It had been built as a hospital back in the early days of Millville. It was a grand three story building, built in an “L” shape. At the far west end of the building was a bell tower. It no longer sounded, the bell having been removed several years ago. It was on a slight hill overlooking the north end of town and was surrounded by trees so thick that it was…

I can't stand when someone is walking behind me or simply that feeling of being watched or followed. It’s not pleasant at all, and personally for me, it’s unbearable. Let me begin by saying that the reason I practically hate it is due to the fact that's how I felt that during most of my childhood. All of the events that I will tell you actually happened so you probably will understand that for protection purposes (yourself, my family and mine) I will avoid providing any names or locations.…

That damn rain again.

The following is an account of events that took place in the late summer of 2001. I can neither confirm nor deny its validity. It was recounted to me by my Brother-in-law, who disappeared in the summer of 2008.

After college my boyfriend and I went our separate ways and I moved into an apartment that I could more easily afford on my own. It was one of those modern apartment complexes with paper-thin walls (and apparently floors), a cookie-cutter layout, and minimal landscaping. Despite their bright white sterility, my rooms decorated up nicely and most of the other inhabitants of Greenfield Court were good, kind people. My only real complaint was my downstairs neighbor. The elderly man who lived…

Hope. It really is the most powerful yet dangerous and cruel of human traits. It forces us to defy logic, sometimes at great cost. Other times it guides us through treacherous waters and back into the arms of our loved ones. We cannot live without being in its presence yet we can die tragically while being draped in it. It is truly a paradox.

Very seldom does it happen that a young person enters a nursing home. Mostly we assume that nursing homes are for the elderly. Those who are too fragile or infirm to be without twenty-four hour care, those with a broken hip that won’t heal or with too many illnesses to count. A few who will recover and the rest left here as a last resort. But occasionally a child inhabits a room at a nursing home. Here is the tale of one such child, and the impression she left behind.

[Author's note: The historical context of the time period has been altered than what actually happened in history due to the nature of the story being derived from another one of my projects.] August 19th, 1915 Corp. D.H. Griffin, 3rd Infantry Battalion, US Army