Writers in the Storm

A blog about writing

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October 31, 2012

It's Halloween! Get Your Spooky On...

Via Lynn Kelley, WANA Commons

In honor of Halloween, we decided to take a hiatus from the norm to tell ghost stories!  But they're all true. So sit back, enjoy, and relax . . . if you can!

Buahahahaha!

Photo: Catie Rhodes, WANA Commons

Orly Konig-Lopez

A group of us were headed to a party at a friend’s house. They lived on a country road that was quite dark at night. We were caravanning in two cars. I was in the first car but in the back seat.

We weren’t driving fast—lots of ruts in the road—but still probably faster than we should have been (hey, we were in high school.)  The second car was pretty close behind us with their brights on so the driver was swerving a bit trying to keep the headlights from blinding us.

We came around a bend, just before the clearing for the house, trees on both sides of the road, when a man walked out of the woods and in front of the car. He was wearing a baseball cap, a red shirt and jeans. He stopped and looked directly at us just as the car hit him.

Needless to say we all screamed and jumped out of the car. The guys in the car behind came running and yelling, “what happened?” They saw our car lurch to a stop but didn't see why.

There wasn’t a body under the car, around the car, no sign that anyone had crawled into the woods, nothing. The only evidence was a slight dent in the front fender.

We continued to our friend’s house but didn’t stay long. On the way home, we drove very slowly, windows up, doors locked. When we reached the same bend our headlights caught a baseball cap hanging on the limb of a tree.

Credit: Photobucket House of Commons

Laura Drake

I was a jock in High School. Competition racing, and synchronized swimming. I was one of the few on the team who had their Mom’s car, that week before Halloween, so too many piled in after practice, after dark.

It was foggy. I’m talking thick white-out fog, when your headlights just reflect back cotton. We had all the windows open and our heads out, but I still couldn’t see the edges of the road. so two giggling volunteers sat on the hood, to keep us out of the ditch.

Fog can get spooky, smothering sight and sound. And it wasn’t just me; by the time we got to Margie’s neighborhood, we had all fallen silent. How we found her house in that soup, I don’t know.  But I had just pulled up out front, and Margie was climbing out.

A massive dark shape came out of the fog, moaning – right into my face, grabbing at me. The face was pale, bloody, and scarred. In that second, I knew I was going to die. I emptied my lungs, and my bladder.  I think several of the others did, too.

Margie’s brother thought his mask and his joke was hilarious. If I hadn’t been so embarrassed about it, I’d have made him clean the seats of my mother’s car.

Via: Lynn Kelley, WANA Commons

Sharla Rae

Ever had a vision or premonition? When I was around 19 I still lived at home with my folks. I’d been out one evening, parked my car and climbed the stoop to the front porch. But when I pulled open the screen door to unlock the front door, I blacked out.

I didn’t exactly faint though and on some level I realized I still stood with the door handle in my hand. At first there was only a terrible dark and then I realized that I hovered on the shoulder of a dark highway.

By the light of flashing emergency lights, I saw that there’d been a bad accident involving a pickup truck colliding with a semi. Everything was very quiet and I didn’t see who was driving either vehicle. I sensed I knew someone in the accident but just that quick I was back on my front porch again.

I was weirded out and when I told my mother what happened, she was too. You see, my dad drove a pickup truck to work and his job was driving a semi that hauled gas. We couldn’t help seeing the possibilities.

My mom promised to warn dad to be careful. But a week later he was driving his semi when a drunk in a pickup caused him to swerve off the road. Fortunately, no one was hurt. Guess I’ll never know if that was because he’d been warned or if it was just a very strange coincidence.

Credit: Catie Rhodes, WANA Commons

Fae Rowen

My mother had been recovering for almost a year from a broken hip. “The worst break I’ve ever seen,” according to her orthopedist. When she completed nine months of physical therapy and “graduated” from her walker to a cane, I took her on her bucket-list trip – a cruise to Scandinavia and Russia.

My kitchen was being re-modeled and we were staying with her for a few weeks, and all we heard was, “When I get to take a bath again...” She was one week short of being cane-free and excited about being cleared to take a bath again. After fifty-one weeks of showers, which she’d never liked, she was ready for a good tub soak.

Unfortunately, she died suddenly at home in that last cane-required week. One of the things I cried about was how hard she had worked for that never-to-be-taken bath.

The morning after she died, I was awakened by a thunder in the house. Not the thunder of a storm. It sounded like Niagara Falls. Inside the house. Certain that a pipe had burst, I ran into my bathroom. All was well. I ran into the kitchen. No water anywhere. Still, the thunder of a waterfall.

I ran into my mother’s bathroom to find her tub filling, the water tap opened wide. I thought something had broken and wondered where I would find a wrench in the garage. But when I turned the handle, the water stopped. I was afraid to leave the house, in case it happened again. Obviously something was wrong with the plumbing.

The plumber arrived in a couple of hours. After tapping the wall and turning knobs he pronounced the bathroom plumbing in perfect working order.

My mother was just getting her long-awaited bath.

Just that once. It never happened again.

And in case none of those tales were scary enough, here's Jenny Hansen's husband in a truly terrifying Halloween Costume:

It's amazing what some pink lipstick and fake eyelashes can accomplish...

So now? It's your turn. Tell us YOUR scary, true story!

0 comments on “It's Halloween! Get Your Spooky On...”

    1. That costume slayed us because we had a bra-tank on him with socks stuffed in and the right one kept sliding down toward his waist. It was frightening.

      And we had some gay friends at that party who could NOT look at my straight husband dressed in drag! One guy had to stare at me while he talked to my husband.

  1. I, too, loved them all. Since hubby played both Tarzan and Jane, inquiring minds want to know how Jenny dressed for that parTAY.

    The scariest (for me) was also the most poignant. The story about Fae's mother's bath.

    Nothing like this has ever happened to me. Perhaps I should one day follow the advice I've gotten most of my life -- "sit down, be quiet, and listen."

    1. Gloria, I was pregnant and in that place where nothing fit and I felt like I just looked fat, rather than pregnant. We basically traded costumes from the prior year. I went as a caveman, complete with hair on my face and arms, etc. Sadly, I kinda looked more like an Amish man than a caveman...

    2. With the sudden circumstances with no medical issues surrounding my mother's death, it was very comforting, actually, once I found out it was not faulty plumbing.
      And you're right about the listen part. As I've gotten older, I listen more. It's amazing how much easier life has become!
      -Fae

  2. Remember PJ parties where everyone tried to tell the spookiest stories? Today's stories remind me of that . 🙂 Someone always screamed into their pillow. It sounds like it's coming from outside and if there was a newby in the group, it scared the pants off them.

  3. Great stories all. So you want to know my spooky tale. All I have to say is, which one? I was raised with ghost and I don't like them.

    Here is a recent one. About twenty years ago, yes I know, not so recent, but still scary. I came home with the children from the store. My youngest was four years old and rushed into the house when I opened the door. From the kitchen we both heard my husband call out. "You guys home already?"

    My four year old cried, "Daddy," and ran into the kitchen.

    I did a double take. My husband's truck wasn't in the driveway. He was still at work. Angry now, I stepped into the house and yelled.

    "You leave her alone. You're not welcome here."

    My daughter had gone all the way into the basement which was our rec. room looking for her daddy. She came back out of the kitchen with eyes that expressed how scared she was. So, I comforted her. When my husband got home we had quite a tale to tell him.

  4. Spooky and fun, ladies !! Loved the stories and was touched by the bath. I know two people who were visited by their dead mothers ... full blown ectoplasm in full color. Me? Not the full image, but the spirit of a loved one. My middle brother died way too young. We had this ambivilent relationship for my whole life and I could never find peace that we hadn't grown old enough to make it whole.

    The year after he died I moved my family to a freezing cold apartment in Brooklyn. And as was his way, my brother visited often. He was what I called the ghost of my shower. I'd say something or do something and the shower would go on full for a new seconds, shut, go on again and then go silent.

    I told myself it was a defective shower head. But when five years later we moved to another apartment in Manhattan and that shower did the same thing ... I started answering it. "Okay Dom, cut it out." It would stop and start like he was talking to me. Once when my daughter was eight and had a sleep over one of the girls commented about the shower. She just told her, "That's just my Uncle Dominick. He likes to tease my mom."

  5. Wonderful, shivery stories, ladies! My scariest experience occurred when I was pregnant with my son. During those months I had three dream premonitions that came true, but in sort of twisted ways. On one occasion I dreamed the grocery store where we shopped burned to the ground. The next morning we learned a store in the same chain had burned down over night. That wasn't the truly scary dream, however. Some time later I dreamed my husband was involved a terrible car accident and was seriously injured. You can imagine how frightening that was. Well, a couple days later a good friend of ours told us his cousin had been in an accident -- on the night of my dream -- and was in the hospital. Coincidence? I doubt it, but then I don't believe in coincidences.

    1. It's amazing the information we can receive in dreams. It's almost like we have little antennae that can receive future info. (Can't tell I write science fiction, can you?) I used to have dreams about very large plane crashes. Within 3 days they all happened. Quite freaky. -Fae

  6. I had a premenition of my grandfather's death, my daddy's death and even my husband's death. I also dreamed or saw my paternal grandfather at the foot of the bed one night. MY husband and I had been married a little over a year. I found out later that the grandfather had died. Weird. But never dream of losing the women in my life just the men. My husband asked me when I told him what he died of and I told him I didn't know it didn't show that. He died on 30 Nov 2011 from several illness and his heart just quit.

  7. This was great! I love Halloween...and you've inspired me. Next year I'm going to have to do a post that includes my husband's costume from last year - he dressed up as the bee girl from the Blind Melon video "No Rain" to win best costume. He wore one of the women's flirty little bee costumes - it was hysterical.

  8. Hey, ladies, I've got heaps of true ghost stories. But, I'll tell you just one. My brother married a simply amazing woman, called Tanya. She and I became firm friends, best buddies, like sisters. We used to spend whole days and I mean 'whole' sitting at the kitchen counter, just talking and laughing. Anyway, ten years she died, at the tender age of 32. Now, Tans and I had always said if one of us passed first, we'd find a way to continue to look out for each other. I walk every day and back in those days (prior to 10 years ago) I always used to walk in pre-dawn. It was usually either dark or twilight.
    Well, after Tans died, one morning I was out walking at 5 a.m. I came down the hill and was just about to turn down an alleyway, when I heard Tanya's voice. In my ear, Tans said, "Don't go down there." I said, "What?" I told myself I was imagining it. Then I heard her again, "It's your choice." Suddenly, I felt a chill of premonition that something bad was going to happen. I turned tail and walked back up the hill as fast as I could. I detoured right around the alleyway and walked down a second hill, parallel to it. As I neared the bottom of the street, a very scruffy man scuttled out of the end of the very alleyway I would have gone down, he didn't look up but walked across the street toward the park. I tell you, I was spooked big time. I knew Tans had saved me from something horrible. P.s. After that incident I have stopped walking in the dark. 🙂

      1. Yes, you're tuning in beautifully, Sharla. Tans has done other amazing things for me from the other side, that go beyond words can say. Let's put it this way, she's the reason my middle son is here today!

    1. Yikes, you're giving me shivers! How lucky you were to have such a wonderful friend!
      And I'm glad you're not walking before dawn any more!

      1. Thanks, Laura. In fact, other friends had tried talking me out of it over the years, but I didn't listen. However, when a friend is in spirit and you're out in the cold dark, it's funny how you suddenly sit up and listen!

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