After seeing Blair Witch (while spending 20 minutes trying to get out of the Dobie parking garage) my girlfriend and I traded spooky stories and legends we've encountered.

Does anyone remember a legend from when they were growing up?

Ever see a ghost?

-- Anonymous, July 20, 1999

Answers

My girlfriend lived in a college town in Vermont where the land had been donated by a mysterious old man whose mansion doubled as part of the college. Ghost stories were plentiful, but the weirdest part (because she witnessed it first-hand) was that every spring there would be an invasion of lady-bugs. They were all over the campus and town, but were concentrated on the mansion and the tomb of the college's benefactor.

Outside of my hometown in Alabama was the House of Crosses. While not a site of ghost stories, it is creepy. A fervently religious old man has made hundreds of crosses all over his land on either side of a country road. Each has fire and brimstone bible passages on it, and there are some cars (one is rumored to be the one in which his wife and children died in an accident) with writing on them as well. He will allow visitors, if you come up to his house and sign his book of guests. I visited with friends on a rainy Halloween night in high school and believe me, the inside of the house is even creepier.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 1999

Back when I was in college, there were at least a dozen locations in town that were supposed to be haunted. Another couple were rumored to be where the Satanists held their sacrifices. I never heard anything about any of those locations but stories--never anything I felt could be verified. I really like ghost stories, but I tend to be unable to believe them.

My favorite ghost legend is the story of the Steer Called Murder, an old Wild West ghost story. After two brothers quarrel over the ownership of a magnificent unbranded steer that's turned up among their herd, one kills the other and, before killing himself in remorse, has the steer branded "MURDER" in large letters on its side and then released to wander alone. It's said that the steer still walks the deserts and prairies of the West, and anyone who sees it is destined to either kill another person within 24 hours or to be killed themselves.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 1999

I remember the evening I was in a car with my best friend Tyson and the boy I was dating and he was older and driving us around downtown Houston and we were excited because we really weren't supposed to be at all of the "cool" coffee shops and stuff he was taking us.

At one point he stopped the car and leaned in to ask if we had heard about the haunted hospital.

"No!" we said, wide-eyed.

Apparently there was a hospital in the bad part of Houston where it used to be an insane asylum and now it's this abandoned building that's half burned down because it caught on fire with the patients still inside and now there are homeless crack heads and heroin junkies living in there with the surviving crazy patients and they all just wander around in there trying not to step on all of the bloody needles and soiled clothing and roaches that litter the floor of their home.

"Do you want to see this place?" he asked us.

"No," I said.

"Yeah," said my friend.

"Are you sure?"

"Uh-huh. Let's go."

"Okay," he said, with this smile. "Look up."

We had been huddled towards the center of the car listening to him and when we lifted our heads and looked out the window we saw that we were parked right in front of the building.

I've never screamed like that before or since. My friend began to whimper. "Get us out of here!"

"Are you sure? One of them might come up and talk to you. Or curse you."

We began hitting him on the arm until he drove off.

My memory is sort of fading on what that building looked like, but I remember that it was old, broken and some of the windows were ripped open and you could see inside. It was dark outside, so my eyes were playing tricks on me and really all I saw were crazy people staring at me waiting to see if I was going to come in and play.

Ih! I'm creeped out! I had forgotten that story until Andy brought up this topic. Okay, time for coffee.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 1999

***My dad told me this story when I was really little, I'll try to tell it right. ------------------------------- There once was a beautiful Indian princess who was in love with a common Indian brave, Flying Eagle. Flying Eagle and Little Dove wanted to get married, but her father, the Chief, wouldn't let them because Flying Eagle was a common brave. The Chief said that in order to prove he was worthy of Litte Dove, Flying Eagle would have to perform some daring feat. Flying Eagle decided to perform this feat at the same time as his manhood ceremony, so he could then chose his adult name as a token of his love for Little Dove. Flying Eagle decided that he would climb the high mountain to the eagle's nest and bring down eagle feathers for the Chief's headdress. The high mountain was very steep and very dangerous, and the Chief decided that would be a fitting test for the young brave. The day came, and Flying Eagle prepared to climb the high mountain. He told Little Dove that he would not stop until he had the feathers, and that he loved her more than life. He asked the gods for blessings, that he could climb the high mountain and be successful in his quest. He anointed himself with sacred sage ash, and recieved the blessing of the shaman. Flying Eagle started to climb. Up and up and up he went, until he looked like a speck on the high mountain. The going was slow, and the way was tough, but Flying Eagle kept going. He had to get the eagle feathers or he would not be able to marry Little Dove. Up and up he climbed. Finally he reached the top. Flying Eagle grabbed handfulls of eagle feathers out of the nest, ignoring the eagle chicks. Filled with triumph, he started the long climb down the high mountain. The going was even more dangerous going down that it had been coming up. Suddenly, a fierce bald eagle appeared. The eagle thought Flying Eagle had disturbed the chicks. It swooped at Flying Eagle, trying to claw him and bite him. He waved at the big bird, trying to scare it away. That only made the bald eagle madder. It attacked again and again and again. Again the bird attacked, and again Flying Eagle tried to wave it away. Flying Eagle's grip on the high mountain was getting slippery from trying to defend himself from the bird. Then it happened. Flying Eagle slipped, and started to fall. He couldn't hold on to the high mountain any more. He hit some rocks with his arm as he fell, and they all started tumbling down. When he reached the bottom, Flying Eagle was buried in a pile of stones. Little Dove was so sad. Her beloved Flying Eagle was dead. Each day she would go back to the high mountain and sit there and weep, all day long. The Indian villagers held the manhood ceremony for Flying Eagle, naming him Falling Rock, in hopes that Little Dove would take comfort in the ceremony. It was no use. Each day, Little Dove would walk to the high mountain and weep. The Chief came to her one day and asked her why she came every day. She replied, "I am watching for my love. His spirit will come back". The Chief could not sway her from her quest, and for the rest of her life, Little Dove would go to the high mountain and watch for her love and weep. In honor of the Indian lovers, you will to this day see signs on the side of the road near particularly steep and dangerous high mountains that say "Watch For Falling Rock". ------------------------------------- *** Ok, it's kind of cheesy, but it really freaked me out when I was little. I'd see those signs and think that Falling Rock's spirit was going to come for me. *shiver* MellieBee

-- Anonymous, July 20, 1999

Actually, I heard the thing behind 'Watch for falling rock' was that the Chief's son's name was Falling Rock. Falling Rock went on some quest and never came back, so the Chief put up signs 'Watch for Falling Rock' to try and find his son.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 1999

My friend told me about this thing that happened to her brother, Tom. He was about sixteen at the time. Tom was on a long drive with his parents. They stopped at a rest stop to use the bathroom. His father and him went into the bathroom. There was no one in there. His father got done first and waited outside for him. A few minutes later, Tom comes running out, white as a sheet. His father and mother ask him what was wrong and he couldn't say anything. A few days later he was finally able to tell them what happened. He was in the stall, finishing up. He heard his dad leave. And then a few seconds later, he heard footsteps coming to the stall. He figured it was his dad and then suddenly the stall door started to shake, like someone was trying to get in. He said, 'Dad?' No answer. Then over the top of the stall door a kind of faceless face appeared. He couldn't remember any distinguishing features. Just a blank face. And then the stranger reached over the door and tried to grab him. Tom was absolutely petrified as the stranger kept trying to grab him. Finally, he just pushed the stall door open and ran out.

The father knew that no one was in there when he was there. And he knew no one walked in after him because he was waiting outside the door the whole time. The thing that makes it creepy is that I know this girl so it's not like a 'friend of a friend of a friend' type scary story. And also her brother was fifteen or so at the time. Not like a little kid or something who would make stuff like that up.

Well, it's a creepy story to me.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 1999

i used to go to summer camp on the eastern shore of maryland, a place that was built on some land that was owned by a family named wright. the story that went with camp was a fairly simple one and rather romeo and juliet - the daughter of the wrights fell in love with the son of the next door neighbors, who were feuding with the wrights. they planned to elope, blah blah blah. her father found out, came home to stop her, and she fled the house. while running through the woods to escape her pissed off father, she tripped and fell head first into an old well on the property. she broke her neck, died immediately, and the boy she loved later died in world war ii.

anyway, she's said to haunt the camp grounds, and every summer, they'd take the oldest kids out to the well after dark, sit them down, and tell the story. freak us out, all that jazz. it usually worked, but we generally had forgotten to be scared by the time we made it back to camp half a mile up the road.

the last summer i was there, though, something creepy happened. the story had just wrapped up, we were enjoying a beautiful chesapeake bay night, and all of a sudden, a thunderstorm rolled in off the land. when you're as close to water as we were, the storms don't come in from the land - you only ever have sea storms, things that brewed over the the water. so on a perfectly clear night, no threat of storms, this enormous storm appears out of nowhere. we started booking it back to camp, when one of my friends grabbed my wrist and said "what IS that?"

i'm not claiming it was the white lady who haunted the camp, but there was something white, floating, and glowing in the woods twenty feet from us. and before i could answer her question, it was gone. convinced that we were hallucinating, we said nothing about it that night. the next morning, though, all of the older kids were whispering that they'd seen something in the woods. something that looked like what a ghost should look like.

so maybe i've seen a ghost. and if i didn't, it was still a goddamn creepy experience.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 1999

Omar may know about his one (or anyone in San Antonio).

Apparently, in the 1930's or 40's a group of school children were on a field trip in South S.A. As they were approaching a railroad track, their bus stalled. Well that bus rolled right onto the tracks and those kids didn't get out before a train came along and wiped out the lot of them.

Fast-forward to today. If you take your car out to the same tracks and kill the engine, put your car in neutral and stop on the tracks, something will push your car off. They say that this force is those very same kids trying to make sure no one meets with the same demise. If you put baking soda on your bumper you can see the fingerprints of those very same children. Anyone near San Antonio should go do this sometime. It is one of the scariest things in the world.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 1999

Hey Andy - I didn't know you were from Alabamie. Me too. There's this place outside of Birmingham called Mad Dog. It is reputed to be a Satanist colony. Never mind that it's doubtful that anyone in Alabama is a Satanist, except maybe my mom - just kidding - but it IS this scary place where everyone has to go at least once to get the crap scared out of them while on a date. I took my turn on a double date with my friend Stephanie who thought it would be oh-so-cute to get our dates to take us down into Mad Dog. It was cute 'til we got to "Devil's Bridge" and the car broke down. Ha HAAAA! And it wasn't one of those teenage boy things like "Hey...the car broke down...nudge nudge...why don't we take our clothes off to see if it will start?" It had genuinely broken down and we're sitting on this bridge next to a house that's painted black that looks deserted but has a fire burning in barrell in the front yard. Cute! We had to get out of the car and walk a mile through the woods to the highway. Pitch darkness. It was like the Redneck Witch Project. We were so terrified, we talked super loud all the way out. As soon as we hit the street, I tearfully marched to this nearby gas station and called my big brother who came and got us and cussed these guys out all the way home.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 1999

A friend of mine just moved to San Antonio and she was telling me about "the haunted railroad tracks". They are just a few blocks away from her (she lives on Clipper Dr. right off of Military Dr. if that helps). She's so scared of these things she won't go on them until I get there. Would it be worth the 1150 mile drive?

-- Anonymous, July 20, 1999

My girlfriend was telling me about the RR tracks, too. According to her, it's even on a little bit of an incline, and her car went uphill! Unfortunately they didn't have any baby powder to check for tiny handprints, but that might be a little too freaky for me. Then again, at least they're being nice.

Yeah Allison, I'm from Montgomery. If you're ever around Prattville you should check out the House of Crosses for another backwoods scare. My first trip out there was similar to your Satanic breakdown story... except we didn't break down; but we did wander up to a random shack in the middle of nowhere to ask for directions.

-- Anonymous, July 21, 1999

Sorry, I meant baby powder when I said baking soda. I was really scared talkin' about the ghost tracks... I wouldn't go 1150 miles for them by the way. It's cool, but not that cool. Andy, you do go on an incline. SPOOKY!!!

-- Anonymous, July 21, 1999

Chuy, I live about an hour from SA. I haven't ever heard about this though. I've only lived here a year and a half. Have you actually done this? Where are the tracks? Oh, I am so scared just thinking about it:(

-- Anonymous, July 21, 1999

Andy, you won't believe this but I actually know all about that cross-house guy. When I was in college (UA), I was an editorial intern at Alabama Heritage Magazine and we did a story on Alabama folk artists. I remember that guy because he was reluctant to be included in the story - he didn't want to be thought of as an artist. He apparently considered himself more of a preacher or something and said that he had a "troubled relationship with God," and that's why he put up these crosses and wrote his messages on them and his house and cars.

I think he, in fact, may have actually had a "troubled relationship" with Jack Daniels. I remember very vividly standing in this field of crosses with the photographer and watching him nail pieces of trash together and stick them in his yard. By the time we did this story, you could hardly walk to his house for all the crosses. I remember being very sure that I didn't want the sun to go down on me in that place. Religious fanatics can be much scarier than ghosties.

-- Anonymous, July 21, 1999

The railroad tracks thing is totally urban legend -- although a spooky one to tell at that. I used to frequent a ghost stories newsgroup that was really quite good (alt.folklore.ghost-stories). I'd stay up late at night scaring the pants off myself until I could barely go to sleep.

Here's my own real-life ghost story. When I was in the second grade my family was stationed in Zweibruken, Germany. My father worked in the clinic there and it was rumored to be haunted. A friend of ours, a nurse, had stories of working late and hearing footsteps in the hallways when no one was there. The most haunted part of the building, however, was the record's room. It was at the end of the hallway and had a window in the door as thought it was an O.R. When you'd get close to this room the hairs on your neck would stand up and you'd start to feel really cold. I remember as a kid being very scared.

A year ago, I asked my parent's about that since I wanted more details to tell the story to the newsgroup. My father said that in the corner of the room there was a trap door leading into a sort of bunker left over from WWII. He said that he heard stories from other people about noises coming from the bunker late at night. Apparently two MPs (military police) were sent to investigate one night, opened the trap door and freaked out. Their officer tried to get them to go down there and see if someone was down there but they refused. I don't think they saw anything but said it was completely black down there and the feeling scared the hell out of them.

When I mentioned remembering how cold it was, my mom said that she,too, thought it was unnaturally cold and creepy. She said that she was pregnant at the time with my little brother, Eric, and felt fearful for his safety. However, it gets wierder.

My parents went on to say that around age four, Eric was telling my mom about his memories of Germany. She told him that he wasn't born over there but shortly after we moved to Nebraska. He then said that he remembered this certain place and described, exactly, what that hallway and doorway looked like.

Now, I suppose it's possible that he picked up on us talking about it at one time or another but it's unlikely that we talked about what it looked like. If anything we talked about what it felt like but, since we'd all been there, why talk about how it looked?

Anyway... creepy stuff.

-- Anonymous, July 22, 1999

People, I heard the most hilarious ghost story last weekend. I was with the S.O. in Evergreen, Colorado and we were staying at this B&B called the Brook Forest Inn. The waitress in their restaurant was telling us with great pride that the Inn was home to six ghosts, all from different eras and all different ages. We listened with fascination, because even if you don't believe in such things, if you could see the Brook Forest Inn, you might be swayed to give such a story a chance because the place is super weird. Anyway, she is telling us this story about the ghosts and is telling us their names and mentions - unfortunately - that two of the ghosts, unrelated to each other, mind you, are named "Carl."

I embarrassed myself, I started laughing so hard. Maybe you have to be from the southeast to appreciate it, but the name "Carl," like the name "Wayne" brings to mind an image of your mechanic or the guy that cleans the gutters on your house. And they had TWO ghosts named Carl. The waitress was hating me. She was so proud of the Carls - she thought it was a really scary story. She avoided our table for the rest of the weekend. I felt bad.

-- Anonymous, July 22, 1999

Chuy -- yeah, I totally grew up on that one. It still scares me. I heard that when I was little, but I've never known anybody who actually did it. We should go sometime. (yeah, right. Just see if you can get me there.)

BLAIR WITCH SPOILER!!!!! Don't read!!!

Dude, that was one of the things that freaked me out toward the end of Blair Witch -- the handprints! SCARY!!!!

oooo-mar..

-- Anonymous, July 22, 1999

H.P. Lovecraft, although guilty of over-writing and hyperbole, purple prose and all manner of other literary sins has some real gooduns.

My favorite is "In the Vault"

I can't recall all the details but it goes something like this,

In a small New England town in the 1920's an aging doctor turns his practice over to a young man. He fills the young man in on all the local gossip and various patients maladies including a rather odd one.

Apparently late one night, in the very early spring, in a year near the turn of the century the doctor was called to a remote farm house to help in an emergency. The local undertaker, a habitual drunk was in need of first aid for some grisly and rather peculiar wounds on his ankles and lower legs. Apparently he had accidently locked himself in a burial vault and had spent most of the night and early morning trying to get out.

In New England it's so cold in the winter that in the old days you didn't bother to bury the dead, you couldn't break the soil with a plow or shovel, it was frozen so solid. So you had your funeral service and then placed the bodies in a mausoleum or burial vault until the spring thaw allowed you to get 'em under.

Well, the thaw had arrived and the undertaker, who doubled as a coffin maker had decided to get to work. He had gotten several graves dug and was in the process of loading the coffins onto the wagon when he accidentally locked himself in the vault. It was his own fault really, his maintenance skills weren't the best when he was sober and he was rather inclined to let things go until repair or replacement was absolutley necessary. When a gust of vernal wind blew the vault door shut, the rusted bolt was shot and he was trapped.

So, after fighting with the lock for several hours he realized the only solution would be to chisle the transom open wide enough for him to squeeze out. Then he could work on the lock from the outside. Well, it took longer than he thought.

The only tools he had in the vault were for woodworking and the pick and shovel he'd left on the wagon outside. The wood chisel and mallet weren't well suited (or sharpened) for working on the stone bars of the transom. Additionally, he wasn't tall enough to reach the transom by himself, so he had to stack the coffins, like steps, three on the botom, then two, then one on top to get him up to the level of the transom. Even then, he had to stand almost on tiptoe.

Well, as you can imagine, it took quite a while and by the time he was finished it was well past dark. He was exhausted and paused to rest. The horse took fright at something and bolted, leaving him there with a long walk ahead in the darkness of the New England countryside. He took a pull on his bottle and prepared for the final ascent.

Now as I said, the undertaker was not the most gifted craftsman. Earlier in the year, a despised miser, rather tall and gangly and reviled by the public at large had come to an untimely, but not particularly mourned end. Despite his less than brilliant skills, the undertaker had managed to produce a rather good coffin for this miser, perhaps better than he deserved. So, later when a well loved alderman passed away and when a rather severe hangover had caused the undertaker to perform, well, rather shoddy work, he realized that a bad coffin for a well attended funeral would never do. So, he took the best coffin he had available, the one he had made for the miser, and put the alderman in that one. No one at the funeral remarked at the rather capacious size of the well made coffin for an alderman of such diminutive stature. Naturally, the miser wound up in the shorter mans coffin, but some alterations had to be made.

As it turned out, it showed just how poor the judgement of the undertaker was because it was the shoddy coffin of the gangly miser that was on the top of the grisly stairway that he used to get out of the vault. He couldn't very well put a flimsy coffin at the bottom of the stack, but then again, on the top of the stack it would be the coffin that bore his weight most directly. So it should have been no great shock to him that in the stress of trying to reach up high enough to pull himself out he put too much of his weight on the coffin lid.

It collapsed.

His feet landed in the contents.

Eventually he managed to get out of the vault through the narrow transom, and drag himself to the nearest farm house where the farmer and his family did what they could. The undertaker was raving though, and incoherent and caused the family no small distress with his gruesome wounds and grisly ramblings. So they called the doctor who got out as soon as he could. After administering a seditive to the undertaker and calming the farmers family down, he cleared the room and got to work cleaning and examining the wounds. They were rather bad, the undertaker would undoubtedly limp for the rest of his life and would probably need a cane. But what disturbed the doctor most was the nature of the wounds.

As he had been rambling and shouting the undertaker had filled the doctor in on the details of his dilemma and how the coffin on top had been the shorter one that had been intended for the alderman, but in which he had placed the taller miser. He couldn't make the coffin fit the miser, so he made the miser fit the coffin. This had entailed a morally dubious and hideous alteration. It was this fact that made the wounds on the undertaker so horrible and sinister. They were unmistakably human bite marks.

Submitted for your consideration.....

-- Anonymous, July 25, 1999