Jim
There was once this bloke in my local, used to come in three or four times a week, and sit by himself drinking. He was quite tall and thin with a mullet and beard, a rather lined face and a haunted expression. Probably late forties, early fifties. He kept himself to himself, never caused any bother so people used to leave him to his own devices - drinking, and sometimes reading the paper or a book, but mostly drinking and staring into space. So what, you may ask, pubs are full of such people. And so they are. This chap became a fixture over the years, a part of the furniture, never speaking to any of the other regulars or customers, only speaking to ask for another pint and chaser. He'd only seem to come out of his shell a little when Arsenal were playing, then he'd move slightly closer to the main crowd and get engrossed in the game. But most of the time he'd sit alone, drinking, from 7pm until closing time. He never seemed to be pissed, would just appear less haunted after he left the pub after 7 or 8 pints (plus chasers).

Then one week, he didn't show. I remember one night thinking something wasn't quite right with the pub, and the landlord pointed out that Jim (not his real name) wasn't in his usual chair. So what, he's probably moved house, or died, or perhaps given up the booze (we all laughed) and then forgot about him. A few more weeks went by and it was as if he had never existed. And then one evening as I entered the bar, he was there, in his usual place, a pint and a whiskey chaser in front of him.

He looked different. Somehow smaller, as if he had shrunken inside his 80's style brown leather jacket. He kept blinking a lot, exaggeratedly, almost like a wince. He kept shaking his head and his hands, when not employed in conveying glass to lips, were clutched tightly in his lap.

Everyone felt uncomfortable but no one had the emotional courage to go up to him and ask him what was wrong. Or perhaps they didn't care. But as I thought back over the years and years of Jim coming to my local, the sadder I felt and my heart began to feel heavy with sympathy for the poor man. As I watched from the bar he put his head in his hands and began to sob quietly, his thin shoulders shaking.

That was it for me. All very well to mind your own business and take the piss, but I just couldn't leave it. So what if he told me to fuck off, at least I'd have tried. So I walked over to him with my pint and sat down opposite him. "Come on mate, it might never happen." It came out without me thinking about it, the sort of inane platitude you blurt out in serious situations when words are inadequate, like asking someone very clearly injured in a car accident "are you all right?"

He looked up at me, his blue eyes awash with tears, his lined face all red. "It won't leave me alone," he muttered. "Won't fucking leave me alone." He had a beautiful voice, deep with a slight Irish accent. I'd never noticed before.

I dreaded to ask, but I had to. "What won't leave you alone, mate?"

"The baby... the...the baby." He broke down into sobs. I summoned the landlord to bring more drinks and waited for Jim to recover.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked hesitantly.

He glared at me for a moment, then took a sip of whisky. "You won't be able to help."

"I might."

Jim shook his head. "No. You won't." He leaned back in his chair and his face creased again. "No-one can!"

After a few more sips he calmed down, though he still looked haunted. And he told me his story. Those looking for a funny story will be disappointed; those who type TLDR fair enough, or think I’m making this up fair enough, but I'm not.

This is what he told me: thirty years ago, at the age of twenty-one, he'd got married to his childhood sweetheart, Rachel. He was a plumber at the time and her parents were "posh" and didn't approve of the match. But Jim and Rachel defied them and made the marriage work; within a few years he had his own plumbing business and Rachel (a teacher) was pregnant with their first child. All went well until this child was born. It was severely deformed with anencephaly (Google it but BE WARNED, the photos of babies with this condition WILL give you nightmares for the rest of your life). Babies with this condition never live very long and their child, a boy, lived for three hours after which it died from complications.

It was a devastating shock to the young couple, but Rachel soon recovered from it and began to talk about planning for another child. That was when the visits started.

One night, Jim was awoken by a noise from the next room - the room they were going to use as a nursery, but was now a general store-room. He got out of bed without disturbing Rachel and went into the room and turned the light on. There, propped up in a corner, was the corpse of their anencephalic baby. It stared at him with its dead, protuberant eyes. Jim froze to the spot - he says he never felt anything like it - he went cold all over and was overcome with this feeling of absolute terror.

And then the baby spoke, in a high, piping, lilting voice:

"Why are you scared of me, Daddy? I can't hurt you - I'M DEAD."

Jim blacked out. Rachel found him the next morning but he put it down to work stress, and didn't tell her what he'd seen and heard.

These visits came almost nightly after that. Jim became withdrawn, morose, and took to drinking. The drinking took over, Rachel left him, the business collapsed, and Jim began the downward spiral that led him to this pub, my local pub. He was now living in rented accommodation and claiming benefits for mental health problems. He spent a couple of months in a psychiatric ward after he tried to kill himself. He was prescribed meds but he found the only thing that helped was drinking heavily. But a few weeks ago his doctor had told him to stop drinking for the sake of his liver. Jim had complied - and the visits had started again. Always exactly the same - he'd be woken by a noise from another room, go inside, and find the baby there with its chilling statement. He'd tried not going - but then the baby would appear on the bed, or, once, inside it with him.

So now he was back, drinking again, despite the risk to his life.

After he'd finished his story he looked a little less haunted, as if the telling of it had relieved some of his pain. I told him that he was right - I could not help him - other than to suggest he goes back to his doctor or psychiatrist, because self-medicating with alcohol in his condition could only have one outcome.

He thanked me kindly for my advice though I knew he'd never take it. I stayed with him for the rest of the night and we talked about other things, mundane things like the football and the telly and antiques (on which he was a bit of an expert). When he left the pub that night he seemed almost cheerful - or rather, a shade less haunted and miserable.

I never saw him again and that was five years ago.

Wherever you are, Jim, I hope you have found some peace.
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 17:49, 11 replies)

Gost in the machines...
Time and time ago, back in the days when the pentium was new and exiting, when the SNES was very nearly the bees knees of all things entertaining, and the PS1 was the very cutting edge of excellent...

Came home one late one evening. Bleary eyed and with my head still full of curly brackets, ampersands and double equals signs. To find Best Beloved cowering in the corner of the sofa, curled around a pillow and with evidence of extensive crying all around. Poor girl was utterly terrified.

Over the next 15 minutes I tried to pry an explanation out of her in between bouts of sobbing. Whatever this was it had scared her very badly, badly enough that she didn't want to talk about it.
So I wrapped my arms around her and we just sat there quietly.
About 20 minutes later she screamed, jumped up and started crying again. Managing to tell me this time that she'd heard "The noise" that she was certain I'd managed to banish from the house just by being there.

Explanation pours out of her like water from a burst dam. All afternoon, ever since she got home, there has been this strange high pitched screaming half heard in the background, too quiet to pin down and too intermittent for her to be certain of its objective reality.
Given that her mother is a full blown Loop-De-Doo schizophrenic and has the paperwork to prove it, the poor lass was pretty certain that it was either a) ghosts (unlikely) or b) the onset of The Voices trying to talk to her. She wasn't keen on either.
I had, of course, heard nothing...

Quietened down again and listened intently, about 15 mins later there it was. A definite, if faint, ethereal screaming noise. Lasted a long and faintly sphincter tightening 30 seconds and then faded away.

I knew that noise of old, I recognised my foe and knew how to deal with it in seconds. Told best beloved to leave the room as she wouldn't want to see what I was about to do, and took up the universal remote as the closest blunt instrument to hand...

Closing the door so that the dear girl would not be disturbed by my actions I did what I knew had to be done to banish the specter.

Switched off the amplifier that was feeding from the Playstation to the speakers. Seems that setting the volume to zero when you pause Silent Hill doesn't _quite_ result in utter silence.

Nasty bug, they should fix that...
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Wed 19 Sep 2012, 18:50, 1 reply)

Phantom driver
Jamil is a lovely bloke. From Senegal, through France, via Sweden to Blighty. He is also very black ("Born in the night" is a phrase he tends to use)

Whilst living in Sweden he was driving down an unlit road at night when a cop car drove towards him, suddenly turned in the road behind him and started to pull him over.

Now, the black population in Sweden is not exactly huge, and he had suffered racism before, so was slowly beginning to seethe at this perceived injustice.

Slowly, one of the cops starts walking towards his car, as he gets closer he stops and turns to his colleague, who appears to have started a laughing fit in the police car. He turns back to Jamil, walking as slowly as humanly possible until he gets to the drivers window.

The cop has gone bright red, and starts to almost stutter as he speaks. "Sorry sir. Err...I don't know quite what to say. It was dark, and, er, you are dark, and, er, I couldn't see anyone driving the car. I mean, it looked as if there was noone in the car. Sorry. You can go."

Jamil starts pissing himself with laughter, the other cop has walked up to the car as well and is still laughing as the cop who couldn't see goes redder and redder.

It was some time before Jamil stopped laughing and could go on his merry way.

(Tenuous "ghost" story and shameless pea roast)
( monkeyboyalpha jumping on the bandwagon since, Fri 14 Sep 2012, 9:44, 3 replies)

My brother, the bastard...
My brother has no conscience at all when it comes to practical jokes and one Halloween he had an idea for a ‘Jolly Jape’ to play on my two Nephews (Then aged six and seven). He decided to hide up in my sisters loft with a view to scaring the little blighters. He was there for hours waiting for the kids to go to bed but when they did, that’s when the fun started.

Scratch, scratch, thump…
Scratch, thump. THUMP!

‘Muuuum! There’s something in the loft!’

‘Don’t be silly, you’re making it up ‘cos it’s halloween’

THUMP, THUMP, bangbangbang!

‘MUUUUUUM! There’s definitely something up there!’

My sister then said that she couldn’t get in the loft as she had hurt her knee (honest!). She then offered to pick up one of the children so that he could take a look. Surprisingly, the eldest volunteered (There’s no fucking way I would have done that!). He was raised up so that his shoulders just poked through the hatch. It was then that my brother shouted RAAAAARGH! at the top of his voice and pulled the eldest into the loft…

Cue about 5 minutes of absolute screaming bedlam, it was really mean but bloody funny!
( JamHamster My eyes, my beautiful eyes!, Fri 14 Sep 2012, 11:33, 8 replies)

Ghosts here?….maybe?
I can’t think of any stories I have involving ghosts but I can remember a time where I was taken to a place to try and contact them, so that will have to do instead

-----------Wavey lines to go back in time a couple of years and use some material I was going to post on another site a while back and totally forgot about until this QOTW appeared-------


My other half came in the other night to inform me that she had good news…she had found someone to look after the kids for us for one night while we went out. I was in a pretty good mood and managed to stay that way until we both got into the taxi that Saturday night.

Missus: You ready for this then Mon?

Me: What? Going out? I know we haven’t been out together for a while but I’m sure I can still handle it

Missus: No I mean Patrick Hutchinson

Me: Who?

Missus: The psychic were going to see tonight

Me: What?

Missus: I’m sure I told you before

(Bet it was when I was on the computer or doing something that took up most of my attention thinks I while typing up Patrick Hutchinson’s name into the internet browser on smartphone)

Ok so my night out had changed from a decent meal and maybe a few drinks to going to some pub and sit down listening to a bloke that refers to himself as The Soul Toucher, a retarded nickname that made me (And probably most of B3ta) think of a number of jokes instantly.

After the 20 minute trip to the place and 10 – 15 minute sit down at the local boozer before the thing started, I managed to get a good look at both his site and a few others mentioning his name. His official one is a little out of date but it was nothing extraordinary, with various photos of past shows with pictures of people surrounded by spiritual orbs (otherwise known as specs of dust), so far so typical I thought until I happened to skip to the news section to find a story of how he claims to have helped the police in Yorkshire after unearthing a child abuse case at one of his shows. I could go into the reasons why I think that getting someone to admit to this in a very public setting is wrong but another of other sites I looked at also mentioned that Mr Hutchinson attempts to get people to admit to being abused at a couple of his evenings (Sounds like a fun night out).

Anywhoo Mr Hutchinson finally starts and mentioned that there was definitely presence tonight, he managed to pick someone out and say he was getting the spirit of a dead miner called John (Wow hes picked the most common name from a few years back along with what was once the main profession for this area) sadly for Patrick this trick didn’t seem to work as the woman he chose had no connection. Hutchinson didn’t leave it at that though and after as few subtle changes we got the spirit of a woman called Jill that had an uncle that worked in electrical for a local coal mine.

To make this story as short as possible- Hutchinson then got pissed at the audience for not believing him and then attempted to do something with a glass and a table… that failed. He then spent a few minutes calling the ghosts in the room weak and soft as an attempt to get some sort of response. Still nothing.

By now there were a few disbelievers (including my wife who could not make eye contact with me for fear of laughing) who had realised that they could have spent their money on something better than sitting watch a man yell at a glass so Hutchinson decided to step it up again by taking a few photos of the room to show us where the spirit orbs were, but he had to do this in the dark. By now the few pints I had bulk bought at the beginning of the night were gone and I was getting a little bored. Hutchinson and one of his helpers told us to stay still and he would take a few photos. He started the countdown and for some unknown reason when the flash went off both myself and the missus turned to the camera and said cheese quite loudly while smiling cheesily and giving a thumbs up to the camera.

Hutchinson wasn’t too happy and yelled at us to leave despite my defence of saying I was told to do it after being possessed by the spirits from behind the bar. This set my wife off laughing and we headed off into the night to get royally drunk instead.

Apologies for epic length.
(mon bison powered by magnets, Fri 14 Sep 2012, 10:51, 3 replies)

I was a ghost that terrified children. Sort of.
*De-lurks*

It's the late nineties and I am a young graduate. I've been invited back to the kids' theatre group to which I used to belong to direct a play featuring the older members (15-19) as an experiment into doing something other than pantos and Oliver!

The play chosen involves an adult cast but with one child character, played by a 10-year-old who was obedient and showed talent. He also wanted to be told stories. After telling him an elaborate version of Orpheus (I was reading Sandman at the time) he wants to hear a true story. I make up a tale of love and murder that took place in this very theatre... exactly one hundred years ago this very week.

Child is thrilled and happily goes off and tells the rest of the cast. They come to me asking if it's true. Delighted, I go on to make up more details and get other folks who run the place to corroborate the story, some adding details of their own.

The day before we open we're in the theatre during the day to rehearse. During a break the cast want me to turn all the lights off to see if they can see tragic "Suzanne" who was pushed off the balcony and now performs on stage as she never could in her lifetime. They sit on the front row of the audience and I go up onto the balcony where the light switches are.

The lights go out. After 30 seconds of silence someone squeals. A shape moves across the stage. Everyone saw it. They watch some more. It happens again.

From my vantage point I can see a tiny shaft of light filtered in via the foyer shines from the front door onto the centre of the stage. Every time someone walks past the theatre a shadow is cast. But never mind that, everybody else sees a ghost.

I silently walk to the other side of the balcony and push a roll of gaffer tape over the edge and sneak back. The tape gently rolls down the aisle, building up speed before it whacks into the stage with a definate bang.

Screams. I flick the lights back on. Someone claims the tape was on the stage earlier so something must have thrown it off. We get back to work.

Every now and then I go back to that theatre to support the group that helped and supported me. I also hear the tales of Suzanne and the jealous actress who didn't want her to be Juliet but her death was officially ruled a suicide.

I hope this story continues to be passed on. It made me realise exactly from where ghost stories come.
( Ambegris likes his tea stirred anti-clockwise, Sun 16 Sep 2012, 16:57, 2 replies)

Used to live in Cornwall. Superstition abounds.
But so does mining.

All the 'My door suddenly slammed shut, must be a ghost' stories, the tales of 'The crockery rattled mysteriously', or 'The unexplained knocking sounds at night' anecdotes, the 'I heard the floorboards creak as though an invisible ghostly presence was walking outside my bedroom door' guesses.

SCIENCE! Cornwall is riddled with old mines, uncharted mines, extensive mines, that are so widespread that some of the galleries go a mile offshore under the sea bed. I actually had to pay extra for a mining survey when I applied for the mortgage to buy the house.

But suspicions aside, there are plenty of reports where Camborne/Redruth people wake one morning to find their back gardens have vanished into a hole in the ground because there was no knowledge that the house had been built over a minework.

e.g. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/real_story/6405519.stm

Solid rock is a very good conductor of sounds so the mechanical drilling and blasting done deep underground will form seismic waves that might make your best china rattle. Also, rockfalls in old areas where the wooden pit props have rotted through.

Then there's the fact that in the modern age we tend to understand things a bit better, i.e. if the back door is open and you then open the front door, an air pressure differential can cause the other door to be sucked/blown shut, usually with a slam. Makes you jump but you don't usually thing 'Zoiks! A g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-GHOST!'

The house I lived in down there was a newbuild and it has settled over time so that doorframes become distorted and things can pop open whereas once they used to fit. Add subsidence on top and it could become quite odd... 'this door wasn't locked 4 minutes ago!'.. well, no, it may be jammed though.

Because it's a modern house, it was not built with wooden timber planks for floorboards (which contract at night when it gets cold and may creak as they pull on the nails) as MDF is cheaper, so it's not potentially haunted because it doesn't make noises at night.

As olden time rumours of hauntings go, in a time of gas lamps and candles (and in certain rural areas of Cornwall we could be talking up to the 1950s here) a non-understanding about ventilation in closed quarters will not help. If all the lights (lamps, candles gaslights etc) in the room go out at once it's probably because the air in the room has become oxygen depleted- that would bring on the dual effect that combustion is impossible as the air/fuel ratio is wrong, and you're about to die of Carbon Monoxide poisoning and simultaneously are hallucinating like a champ.

So, in essence beliefs in ghosts can be almost as much as primitive assumption as religious beliefs about miracles- just because you don't understand a thing doesn't mean that it must have been made to happen by a paranormal, supernatural, mysterious or religious agent trying to scare you.

ALT- you live on a deserted fairground and the janitor is trying to scare you away so he can search for the missing treasure without interruption.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Thu 13 Sep 2012, 17:49, Reply)

Scary worksite
In 2007 I was contracted to work as a Support Worker for a Young Adult accommodation program in the glorious Eastern Suburbs. One of my clients was housed in a 2 bedroom house, which was owned by the state community services department, but was leased to a private, church-inspired organisation. My job was to hang out at this house, in the staff quarters, and wait for the adult client to come home with her "johns." (She was a former state ward, with an intellectual disability which limited her capacity to look after herself independently, hence the need for a support worker). She would have some company, and a bit of extra income, and we would document what he looked like, and whether he murdered us or not.

She wouldn't come home often - there were weeks where none of the staff had contact with her. It was weeks before I first met her. She hated the house, and so did the staff. Due to the "flexibility" within the Employment Award, I would be rostered on duty at this house for maybe four 24-hour blocks in a row. I might start at 3pm Monday, and not clock off (and go back to my own place) until 3pm Thursday. We were allowed 2 hours each day to leave the house, to buy food, or have a "break." Staff were rostered on alone, because it was a "one-on-one" placement, presuming that the staff would have the opportunity to develop quality, therapeutic relationships with the client, because there was only one client for staff to worry about.

This house had several large trees around it, but there were never any possums, which in hindsight I thought was weird, because every house in this city has possums, even in the CBD. I live in a block of hipster flats, so everyone encourages them onto the balcony with slices of organic, fair-trade fruit, and decaf soy lattes. They make a loud coughing noise, like old men with emphysema, and they fight on my roof. And shit on my car. They are the true "rats of the sky." This worksite, however, had nothing. Not even sparrows. The staff quarters were a bedroom, with a desk, and an ensuite. If you kept the windows open all year round, the stench of Glade Plugin teargas and body odour were bearable. The walls in the staff bedroom had staples all over them.

One evening, I was sitting at the desk, reading a book because of no internets. :( I was the only person in the house. For someone to be there with me, they would have to come in through the door, or through the skylight in the kitchen, because the windows had security bars on them. I heard a very angry, scratchy voice shout "Bitch" in my right ear. As if there was someone standing behind me. Scared me shitless. I didn't sleep at all that night. I didn't mention it to the next person on shift, even though we were pretty good friends, because I didn't want her to think I was nutty.

This co-worker phoned me one afternoon, several weeks later. She sounded really rattled, and I assumed it was because something had happened with the client, or one of her gentlemen callers, but no. My co-worker told me that she had been sitting on the bed with her laptop. She didn't have any music or sound playing, because it was necessary for us to hear if the client tried to sneak in through the skylight. She told me that she heard this really loud, horrible scream in her ear, as if someone was standing next to her. She was completely alone in the house, and was completely freaked out. I told her about the voice I'd heard. Somehow she calmed down enough to finish her three day block.

That house gave everyone on the team really bad vibes. We worked at a lot of sites where we were alone for days at a time, and none of us were freaked out at those sites in the way we were at this house. One of the staff attempted to "spiritually cleanse" the staff quarters, by burning sage and reciting prayers, but everyone still felt weird being in there. Several months after our contract to that property was finished, we were told by a manager that several years ago, the department placed a client in the house, with the client's bedroom being what was now the staff quarters. He'd had schizophrenia, which wasn't very well controlled with medication. He had stapled foiled all over the walls of his bedroom to stop people (aliens, government) reading his thoughts. Understandably, he had been very angry and miserable during his time there, and had eventually hanged himself in the ensuite.
(Boodicka, Sun 16 Sep 2012, 14:45, 8 replies)

I saw a dead baby ghost once
turns out someone had dropped a their hankie
( High Lord Phanty, Thu 13 Sep 2012, 21:02, 2 replies)

Late night, walking tour of Edinburgh.
Great fun, all ghosts and gory tales. Had my ear mock nailed to a post, too.
Part of the tour takes us under the streets, to the old Edinburgh, long since built over. Pretty spooky: dark, cramped, and with plenty of pitch black areas, behind rusty-looking metal grilles.
Guide is telling some story involving the ghosts of suffering children, and the terrified workmen who discovered them whilst unearthing the buried city. Cue much nervous laughter, and huddling together. Suddenly, something clanks, away in the darkness, behind the forbidding grilles. Laughter stops, and the guide brings us out, no one particularly keen to be bringing up the rear.
A fine end to an enjoyably spooky evening, a close encounter with something from the other side. Certainly, it was nothing to do with that stone that I idly kicked through one of the grilles. Oh, no, certainly not that.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Thu 13 Sep 2012, 15:04, Reply)

Ghost, or transvestite, or transvestite ghost?
Late, late on a Saturday night, and I am driving with my (now ex-) wife down the A35 towards Dorchester and the turn-off home in Weymouth. It is a cold evening on the Tolpuddle Bypass, with the odd patch of fog drifting insubstantially across the road like some lost soul trapped between this world an the next. Much like a...

"Ghost! Did you just see that ghost?"

I am dragged out of auto-pilot by the alarmed shouts of my darling wife at what I had – at first – taken to be a late-night hitch-hiker.

"You mean the figure at the side of the road?" I ask.

"You saw it too?"

"The figure at the side of the road in a long white gown?"

"That's unreal," she said". "Just wait until I tell everybody. It... it... was almost like an angel."

"That wasn't no ghost or an angel," I say, yet she doubts me.

Alas, I have unpleasant memories of this particular stretch of the A35, it being Pervert Country, and southern England's premier transvestite dogging spot

To this day, she maintains that she saw the ectoplasm-spattered tortured ghost of some poor abandoned bride. I know I saw some bearded truck driver in a plus-sized frock hoping for a blow job. And that wasn't ectoplasm.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 13 Sep 2012, 13:51, Reply)

Carry On, Matron.
Let me first point out the fact that I'm not a believer in the afterlife and all that. I'd rather shit a stickle brick than watch blood sucking parasites Derek Acorah and such like peddle their particular brand of bullshit and I don't get scared at much at all.

Between the ages of 15-18 I had a summer job as a filing clerk in at the Leicester Royal Infirmary hospital. It was a mind numbingly dull, endless job that involved replacing the files that had been used around the hospital into their correct cabinets. This takes a huge amount of space. They converted one of the old wards into a filing room years ago to accommodate a lot of the files.

The ward was a great big long building with an old fashioned conservatory at the end for the 'big files' (serious stuff). It was lined with cabinets, stuffed full of files. Sound did not carry through the room at all. It had that silence that you get in carpet shops, make sense? You could see down to the other end of the ward but not shout to people. The ward got dark quite quickly as the windows were partially blocked with cabinets. For this reason the lights were on motion sensors down all the aisles.

Several times, working down there alone or with another lowly file monkey, I got the impression I was being watched. Once or twice when looking up from the files I caught a glimpse of what I thought was someone moving in and out of the aisles. That's fine. I didn't mind that. It was the lights that bothered me. As you made your way down the corridors of files the lights would go on and off again once you passed. I was sat drinking tea on my break at the desk and watched as the lights at the far end of the ward turned on. Then the next. Then the next, getting closer and closer. They got to the end of the aisle and nothing. I knew there was no one down there filing with me that day. That scared me a bit but again, perfectly explainable stuff. The feeling of being watched continued and the light thing happened once more but faster and on an aisle I was looking directly down. That scared me more.

On the way out of my last shift of the summer (off to uni so knew it would be last shift ever) I turned around at the door and looked at the long gloomy ward. I'm not sure why but I said 'see ya' under my breath. All the lights turned on at once and burned very, very brightly. I turned around and ran. That did scare me.
( magictoast, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 14:21, 7 replies)

I was somewhat loathe to post this week, even though I have a story to tell.
Ghost stories aren't real. Everyone knows that.
But...
This actually happened to me, and I have no explanation. I was there. I didn't dream it, it wasn't a hallucination.
Several years back I worked in a nightclub. About halfway through my time there it was sold, and the new owners closed it for a few weeks to renovate. It was completely gutted, dancefloors and bars had their positions swapped, new doors were installed, the cellar was rebuilt. Big work.
When the work had finished and the grand reopening (a normal night, but the tarts dressed tartier and the champagne was free) was a few days behind us I experienced something odd.
The building was spread over four floors: The cellar and toilets in the basement, the office on the top floor, and two different bars in between. A twisting staircase ran right up through, from the very bottom to the top.
I was in the cellar with the manager at about 8am, getting a delivery in. When we were done we walked up from the cellar, past the ground floor, up to the top bar. We kept the internal door to the top bar locked, so I paused with the manager here to unlock it, finishing whatever stunning witticism I was currently spouting. Having unlocked the door and delivered the punchline I walked into the pitch-dark room (no windows, and weak emergency lighting). John the manager followed just behind, striking off towards the gents toilets in the dark, just on the edge of my vision. I turned all of the lights on, and asked John a question; I forget what it was.
There was no answer.
I went to look for him, checking first in the toilets, then the DJ box, then in desperation (and stupidity) in a small store cupboard. No sign.
I eventually found him in the office. He hadn't followed me in, he'd continued up the stairs, and the CCTV backs this up. Even now, 7 years later, I can remember something following me in the dark, just over my right shoulder, walking from the entrance to the toilets.
Not too weird on its own maybe (expecting someone to be there had possibly made my mind invent someone) but two further events followed.
A week later, about an hour after closing on a Saturday night, I went downstairs with a tray of glasses, leaving one guy stocking up and two girls stood at the end of the bar chatting (Come on girls! Time to lean? Time to clean!). I returned a few minutes later, and the girls did a double take; I had already returned, they said, and gone into the toilets. Of course, we checked, and there was no-one else in the room. They hadn't looked straight at the other person, since they'd assumed it was me, but they both said he'd walked from the entrance to the toilets. Again, we checked the CCTV; again, nothing.
Two weeks later, the bottom bar was open during the day, and a new member of staff had gone to restock the top bar, which was closed. He returned barely a minute later, looking slightly shaken up. He had, in his own words, turned on the main lights just in time to see a figure walking across the room. It looked like "the shadows and highlights you'd see on a person, without the person". When pressed to say where, he revealed that it had gone from the entrance to the toilets.
I'm drawing no conclusions from this. I know what I saw, I just don't know what it was. Nor do any of the other three. A few of us even camped out in the club one night when it was closed, hoping to see something, but we were disappointed.
The only other pertinent thing is the renovation; apparently many other 'ghost' sightings happen after a building has been disturbed. Everything that occurred here happened within a month of the reopening.

TL:DR? I saw something weird. So did three others.
(Paolo Nutini's Bikini Better than Frederick Fleet's optometrist, Mon 17 Sep 2012, 16:11, 3 replies)

Closed doors
In my early teens I shared a room with my brother. We had a bunk bed, they don't do much for privacy but are definitely more fun and provide at least a small bit of personal space. My brother, being a few years younger than myself liked to have the door to our room slightly open and the hall light on. The bed was positioned such that you could see the door and the comforting hall light on.

My grandfather had been ill recently and had been submitted to hospital, we had visited a few times and he was lucid enough to teach me how to make a decent paper-airplane. As time went by his condition worsened, depressing, but expected for someone in their late 80s. At the time I prayed for some peace in his passing. If it was his time to go, I asked the big guy in the sky to let it be painless.

My grandfather passed away a few days later. Whilst I know it was more coincidence I always felt a bit guilty for "praying" for him to die.

A few months later, the funeral had passed, family life had gone back to normal and I had a rather vivid dream. I had dreamed my grandfather had come into my room, stood by my bunk bed and tucked me in. He stood there for a few moments in the comforting way that a content family member does by the bedside of a child or grandchild before he walked from the room and shut the door behind him.

I woke up after dreaming this and noticed the door was closed. We never shut the door to the room. I got a big dose of goosebumps, I was sure I had been dreaming. Unnerved, I opened the door to the hallway and getting back into bed I stared at the hall light until I fell back to sleep.

I never mentioned this to anyone. A couple of years later at a family gathering my siblings and I were sitting round chatting and talk got onto ghost stories.

My brother then related the exact same dream I had about my grandfather's visit to our bedroom, the only difference being that he stood by the lower bunk nearer my brother.

I'm not much of a believer in ghosts. But I had never mentioned that dream before. Coincidence perhaps? But the chills I got when he told that story are something I will never forget.
(TheASK, Sat 15 Sep 2012, 0:07, Reply)

Night time fishing fright
A few years ago, myself and my brother were having a night time eel fishing session at a flooded quarry not far from where we lived. Course, there were the old rumours of the 2 kids drowned by the depressed dad in the water and the odd summer drowning but as sensible adults we didn't believe in ghosts.
So, we were sitting there on our camp stools in the poor but strangely warming glow of an old paraffin lamp, talking shite, drinking beer and generally just passing time until the bite indicators went off when this HUGE white ghostly shape floated out of the darkness and over the top of us. We fell off our stools, hearts going, sphincters loosening.
Was it a ghost? An apparition? The last echoes of a poor departed soul?
Was it fuck.
It was a heron with wings spread wide, probably as shocked to see us as we were it.
(Darth Thump, Thu 13 Sep 2012, 16:06, 4 replies)

The old lady in the wheelchair
I was awakened one cold, dark, autumn night by a muffled thump downstairs. It sounded like something heavy had collided with the wall downstairs, directly beneath our bedroom. This was followed a few seconds later by a quiet female voice, then silence...

My wife and I had just bought an large old house that required everything doing to it. The previous owner, an old lady who had recently died, had been mostly wheelchair-bound. Manouvering a wheelchair in this house resulted in many of the walls and skirting boards to be bumped and scratched. So, letting my imagination run riot at two-thirty in the morning, my brain conjured a wheel-chair bound spirit coming back to haunt our house.

After a couple of minutes, I managed to haul myself out of bed and check each room downstairs - nothing was out of place, and there was only silence. I ensured all the doors and windows were secure, and returned to bed.

Within 20 minutes or so, I had drifted back to sleep. Not for long, though. Once more I was roused; another 2 thuds in quick succession. Again, a few seconds later, I heard the same female voice quietly talking downstairs. Then, once more, stillness.

I lay absolutely still in bed, hearing only the gentle swish of the trees outside our bedroom window. I rolled over and looked at my clock. Ten past four. Haunted, and what's more, the alarm clock had decided to taunt me further by flashing the time rather than displaying with its usual familiar neon glow.

The penny suddenly dropped - a power interruption makes an alarm clock flash like that.

So the source of the thump? I leave my stereo amplifier on all the time; attached to the amp at the time were a large pair of floor-standing speakers. When I did occasionally power the amp down, you would get a distinctive thump. There must have been a couple of brown-outs during the night - enough to cause the power to briefly interrupt on the amp, but not enough to reset the time on the clock.

So the final piece in the puzzle? Who was the mysterious lady talking downstairs? Well, when we moved in, there was an old answering machine already set up which had belonged to the previous owner. Once we had unpacked ours, we had disconnected the old answering machine from the phone line, but had omitted to unplug the power cord. So when the brief power outages occurred, the old answering machine booted-up, and the default message played.
(eukaryote, Mon 17 Sep 2012, 23:21, 1 reply)

Mediums. Speaking with the dead!
"I'm getting something through... it's your grandmother"
"She's still alive"
"Your mother"
"She's still alive"
"Sorry, my mistake. I heard 'gran' and assumed. I think it's your grandfather, is he still alive?"
"No, he died last year"
"Yes, I've got him here. He had a very long name"
"No"
"A very short name"
"Yes!"
"Bob"
"No, Don"
"That's it, Don. I've got Don here"
"Grandad?"
"He says to look upstairs"
"I live in a bungalow"
"He means the loft"

"Woooow, she was amazing! I got a message from my grandad!"
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Mon 17 Sep 2012, 17:51, 1 reply)

Whispering voices
Before I started University, I stayed with my sister and her husband for a week or so. The first night I was there, bedded down on the sofa, I became aware of voices whispering at the limit of hearing. I tried to ignore them, tell myself I was imagining them, but it was no use. So I decided to see if I could locate them.

After moving around the room and listening carefully, I triangulated them and realised that they were coming from the TV. With relief I jiggled the on/off knob, and decided that it hadn't been turned off properly. But no, I could still hear them. OK, time for the big guns: pull the plug out of the wall. Hah! Answer that!

Oh shit - I can still hear them! The TV set is possessed! I'm going to be bumraped by the rotting corpse of Bruce Forsythe!

I spent a long, tense night trying to block the voices out with a foam pillow that was about as thick as a sheet of paper. In the morning, I related the tale to my sister and her husband, and laughingly he explained that Brighton, being hilly, had had a very early form of cable TV, back in the 1970s, and being such a primitive and brute-force system it had enough power to drive the TV loudspeaker directly, even when it was switched off.

Arse.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 17 Sep 2012, 11:10, 1 reply)

I love scary stuff...........
I’ve always loved a good ghost story. It’s a harmless genre and I love it dearly. As a kiddie, my favourite books were the spooky ones and I faithfully watched Night Stalker (the 1970s Darren McGavin one). We used to have séances at home around the kitchen table when I was a much younger Monkee girl (family night!) I’ve read every Stephen King book. I love scary ghosty/supernatural movies like Poltergeist, White Noise, The Manitou, The Entity etc. I love sitting on the couch in the dark and being scared shitless by ghosty stuff (and then waking up later that night and turning every light on, to create a safe passage to the loo). I don’t much like slasher films or programs like Ghost Whisperer or Paranormal Files or Most Haunted. I’m not a religious person but I do not begrudge a person their faith. (unless you are a fundamentalist/extremist/nutjob, then you can bugger right off and go and live on a deserted island somewhere and preach to the local wildlife).

When I saw what the QOTW was, I was like ‘goody, scary stuff, me likee’. But all I’m seeing is bullshit complaints about how they ‘don’t believe in that shit’ or ‘QOTW is shit’ etcetera, etcetera…….

The amount of vitriol that has spewed forth recently over the QOTW is disturbing. Are there that many angry people out there? Seriously, go and take a chill pill. If you don’t like what’s happening here, then piss off and leave the people who DO enjoy it alone. Just like the idiots who write into TV Guides and complain about television programs. Turn the bloody thing off! Go for a walk, read a book, make some sexytime with your significant other or failing that, yourself. I haven’t liked a few QOTWs but that doesn’t mean I’m going to berate the mods/contributors about it.
With all the negativity in the world at any given time, having a laugh, getting spooked or whatever, is very welcome. I enjoy it, but having to wade through the crap here gives me the irrits.

To keep on subject (for otherwise I will be told off most certainly) - yes, I have had a spiritual/paranormal experience. At the time I didn’t recognise it as such, as I wasn’t aware of what was happening, but when I was told that my Mother had died suddenly, then the happenings of the previous hour or so started to make sense. She had come back home to say goodbye. At a later time, that explanation sort of made it better (although I really do wish she hadn’t gone in the first place!). I don’t think she's hanging around or watching my every move, but it’s nice to think that sometimes when I hear a song or watch a movie she liked she's there with me. It’s called imagination and it gives me warm fuzzies. I’ve been with my father when he died of cancer, no bells or whistles, just a feeling of peace and love that seemed to encompass myself and my brothers and sisters who were all there too. Experienced UFOs as well. Not necessarily ET, but definitely UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS, and I wasn’t drunk or under the influence of MASSIVE DRUGS. No explanation, but makes for good story telling around the campfire. Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Lighten up peoples, and remember, never ever fall asleep with your foot hanging over the edge of the bed, you never know when a cold dead hand is going to reach up and grab hold of it………………………

Oh, and I don’t feed trolls. You’re such messy little things. So don’t bother.
(Monkee girl not a monkee, not a girl, Mon 17 Sep 2012, 7:56, 7 replies)

Jeepers Creepers
So I started watching this on a rented DVD and (like most horror films) it's scary until they actually get to the blood and guts part, at which point it becomes a comedy.

The film has just reached the point where the two kids decide to investigate the mysterious pipe (into which The Creeper has been dumping oddly body-shaped packages) when I realise the deep infra-bass pounding I can feel isn't coming from the TV. It's real, and it's in the house. I can't watch any more.



It turned out to be the local primary school disco playing 2 Unlimited.
(rogerzilla, Sun 16 Sep 2012, 20:39, 2 replies)

Sorry to spoil everyone's fun
but here is your explanation for 'ghosts'

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound

Infrasonic 17 Hz tone experiment

On 31 May 2003, a team of UK researchers held a mass experiment where they exposed some 700 people to music laced with soft 17 Hz sine waves played at a level described as "near the edge of hearing", produced by an extra-long-stroke subwoofer mounted two-thirds of the way from the end of a seven-meter-long plastic sewer pipe. The experimental concert (entitled Infrasonic) took place in the Purcell Room over the course of two performances, each consisting of four musical pieces. Two of the pieces in each concert had 17 Hz tones played underneath. In the second concert, the pieces that were to carry a 17 Hz undertone were swapped so that test results would not focus on any specific musical piece. The participants were not told which pieces included the low-level 17 Hz near-infrasonic tone. The presence of the tone resulted in a significant number (22%) of respondents reporting anxiety, uneasiness, extreme sorrow, nervous feelings of revulsion or fear, chills down the spine and feelings of pressure on the chest.[30][31] In presenting the evidence to British Association for the Advancement of Science, Professor Richard Wiseman said, "These results suggest that low frequency sound can cause people to have unusual experiences even though they cannot consciously detect infrasound. Some scientists have suggested that this level of sound may be present at some allegedly haunted sites and so cause people to have odd sensations that they attribute to a ghost—our findings support these ideas."[29]
Suggested relationship to ghost sightings

Research by Vic Tandy, a lecturer at Coventry University, suggested that an infrasonic signal of 19 Hz might be responsible for some ghost sightings. Tandy was working late one night alone in a supposedly haunted laboratory at Warwick, when he felt very anxious and could detect a grey blob out of the corner of his eye. When Tandy turned to face the grey blob, there was nothing.

The following day, Tandy was working on his fencing foil, with the handle held in a vise. Although there was nothing touching it, the blade started to vibrate wildly. Further investigation led Tandy to discover that the extractor fan in the lab was emitting a frequency of 18.98 Hz, very close to the resonant frequency of the eye given as 18 Hz by NASA.[32] This was why Tandy had seen a ghostly figure—it was an optical illusion caused by his eyeballs resonating. The room was exactly half a wavelength in length, and the desk was in the centre, thus causing a standing wave which caused the vibration of the foil.[33]


Cheers
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 14 Sep 2012, 12:41, 13 replies)

My old shed was haunted...
...things would keep being moved around and any food that I left in there kept going missing. The wife said that it was probably a mouse, but I had to tell her that such things don't exist. I had a good laugh at her expense that night.
I decided to get an expert opinion, so Bob from B&Q came down and had a look. He reckoned that it was the ghost of a Scottish nobleman who died as the result of a hideous wanking accident involving a ferret and a map of Swindon.
Bob set up some ghost traps and burned some basil leaves to cleanse the shed's meridian lines... or something.
Come morning, we had caught the ghost. Small furry bastard with a long tail. Put him in the bin.
(NoStrings Tastes like zombies!!, Thu 13 Sep 2012, 19:20, 1 reply)

Old Cornish hotel
I used to go on holiday to Cornwall to a particular hotel (about 22 years ago) which used to be a smugglers house. It sits about some cliffs and there’s a trap door in the basement leading to the caves below where the smugglers would stash their goods and ship them out.

It was a run down old place (it’s been fully renovated now and actually looks quite nice), and was looked after by an old couple. Mealtimes were the same. Full English every day with cold white toast and butter, then a roast in the evening. Very quaint.

But they were more than happy to tell us the place was haunted by an old monk who’d been murdered there (it’s always monks). The man said things would turn themselves on and off, such as his lawnmower which then ran over his hand, resulting in lost fingers. There were apparent sightings too, especially along the top floor corridor where my 8 year old cousin and I shared a room – alone.

I don’t believe in ghosts, but as a child I was so terrified that rather than heading down the corridor, I pissed into a towel instead.
(Deskbound You insignificant speck of dust, Thu 13 Sep 2012, 15:08, 3 replies)

I don't know what to believe
I was disgusted to hear about our double gold-winning Olympic distance runner suffering racist abuse, due to coming from Somalia as a child.


It's wrong that Britain's Mo's taunted.
(localboy purveyor of pisspoor puns, Thu 13 Sep 2012, 14:45, Reply)

I'm not sure it was a ghost
but when I was a child I did have an odd experience that I can't rationalise.

When I was 8 Mum and Dad bought a house in a new area. It was one of the bog-standard, 3 bed-roomed, 1930s terrace that you can see all over the UK. It was all very exciting as my sister and I went to school from the old house and came home to the new one.

That evening Mum sent me upstairs to unpack things in my bedroom and I was quite happy up there arranging all my stuff. I was sitting on the bed with the bedroom door on my right when I saw something in my peripheral vision. I looked up and for the briefest of moments saw a old woman passing the bedroom door. It was a split second glimpse but long enough for me to see that she was dressed in a Salvation Army uniform. (I was familiar with the SA's clothes as my nan lived down the road from one of their meeting halls.) I remember that I wasn't scared, just surprised and I stepped out onto the landing to see who it was. There was no one there. The only place she could have gone, based on her direction, was into the tiny front bedroom so I checked but that too was devoid of life.

I trailed down to the kitchen where Mum was and told her what I had seen, still quite undisturbed by the whole thing. Mum, however, dismissed it as imagination and forbade me to say anything about it to my sister. She says she just thought I was acting up or letting my imagination run away with me.

I kept my promise to my mum and didn't breathe a word of it to my sister. In fact, I pretty much forgot about it. Mum's reaction had convinced me that I had dreamt the whole thing and moving house was so exciting to an eight year old me that I had too much else to think about. Mum, however, was not best pleased when a couple of weeks later my sister announced at breakfast that she had woken up in the night and seen an old lady in a Salvation Army bonnet standing at the end of the bed. Mum assumed that I had been trying to wind my sister up with a ghost story and told me off. My outraged denials were ignored and I felt most aggrieved.

A few more weeks passed and again we all forgot about it. Then one morning Mum got chatting to one of our new neighbours, a lady who was in her 60s. She told Mum that she had moved into the road with her parents when the houses were newly built and had lived there since. She remarked how much things had changed over 50 years, not least the people who lived in the road. All the original tenants had, like her parents, been members of the Salvation Army.
(Innogen, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 16:08, Reply)

The Shadow Spectre
First ever pearoast:

Heard this from a friend who was doing some contract work in an office in Chester. Now, Chester was founded as a Roman fort and there are lots of archeological digs going on at any one time. The office my friend - we'll call him Paul - was working in was right opposite this dig where they reckon they'd found a second Minerva shrine, there was a lot of excitment over it and during the day the office workers would watch the excavations from the first floor window.

One night Paul decided to stay late to finish some work. This was in October so it was dark outside by half 6. Now the room he was working in was a big open plan affair, with windows at the far end and a double line of tall filing cabinets in front of the windows. Paul was working at a terminal at the other end of the room, on a desk up against the wall so his back was to the room and the windows and filing cabinets were some way off to his left.

He got quite into his work and oblivious of his surroundings, as you do, but at about 7 pm he became aware of a banging sound, as if someone was running up and down between the rows of filing cabinets and kicking them. This startled him, but it only happened the once so he put it down to 'building sound' and set to work again.

About ten minutes later the sound happened again, only louder. Paul tells me that he literally felt his blood run cold, as no way could this sound be attributed to any settling or shifting building noise. It sounded like someone or something was running up and down between the rows of cabinets and hitting them with a something metal.

Now these cabinets were only 4 foot high so if there was someone there he'd have been able to see them... unless they were a midget or a child... or were bending down in order to stay out of sight...

The sound got so loud that Paul closed down his PC and was getting ready to leg it - no way was he going to investigate - when the sound abruptly ceased.

Then, in the sudden silence, a figure rose up from behind the front row of filing cabinets.

At this point Paul tells me that he felt the most scared he had ever been in his entire life. He literally could not move.

This figure appeared to be the outline of a man - totally black, like a shadow come to life. Paul coud only see the torso, head and shoulders as it was behind the filing cabinets, but as he watched it walked forwards THROUGH THE CABINETS and marched down the office towards him.

Paul couldn't even scream as the spectre drew nearer. It was very definitely the outline of a man, with striding legs, swinging arms and an odd, oval shaped head. And as it came nearer to Paul, he noticed the weirdest thing of all about the apparation. He noticed that it wasn't solid at all.

It was made out of tiny black spheres about the size of a marble, arranged in the three-dimensional shape of a man.

Paul remembers seeing the hand of this shape, the fingers opening and closing as it marched closer and closer, the fingers made of individual black marbles...

It was coming straight for him but he could not move. And, as it passed by him, it paused - AND TURNED TO LOOK AT HIM with its blank, oval head. As though it had just noticed him.

At that point Paul broke and ran blindly from the room, screaming his lungs out. He can't remember much about the next few minutes but the security guards accosted him running through the foyer crying and shouting.

He refused to go back to the room, in fact refused to go back into the building, and lost the contract.

He told people what he had seen but no-one else ever saw or heard anything unusual happen in that building.

The archaelogical dig was a false alarm, they never found a second Minerva temple, instead all they found was remnants of a Roman gladius (sword).
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Mon 17 Sep 2012, 17:34, 2 replies)

Weirdness in Surrey...
Back in the mid-80's when I was around 9yrs old, my family moved. We'd upped sticks from the big shitty and found ourselves in the semi-rural idyl of Haslemere, Surrey.

For us kids it was great - went from tiny flat with balcony, to huge house with endless gardens. The street we moved to was a real mix - some very tired, old terraced cottages and a larger number of 1930's semis - in which we lived.

At first I didn't want move, leave school, make new friends - so I was bribed. A shiny new BMX was waiting for me in the porch when we first arrived at the house and that did indeed take the sting out of moving.

I was in 9yr old heaven. Cruising the quiet streets, jumping kerbs, conducting massive back-brake skids down the hill. A decent place to grow up. The school wasn't bad - and I entered on a wave of popularity having not only been to London but lived there all my life. AND I owned a BMX. Things were going to be ok.

Everyday after school, I'd run home, get changed and jump on the BMX and ride aimlessly up and down our street. It was on one of these evenings that I met Janice.

Janice lived at the very end of the road, in the very last of the ancient terraced cottages. It was obvious even to my 9yr old self, that Janice and her family were exceptionally poor. There was no car in the drive, the front lawn was an overgrown mess of weeds, bare light bulbs hung in every room and Janice herself was a state.

She had pure fire-red hair, 'cut' by her mother into a perfect pudding-bowl. She wore hand-me down clothes and seem to live in a pair of faded, denim dungarees. And worst of all, was her bike. Janice's bike was not cool - well not cool for 1985. It was a Raleigh Chopper that she must have inherited from some older brother who had long since flown the nest.

But I liked Janice. At first she was shy. Slowly trailing me round the street as I showed off with my bunny-hops and attempts at wheelies. But her confidence grew and after a while we started chatting. I told her all about London, about the tube, about Harrods, about Oxford Street and she hung on my every word. Smiling shyly with a hand over her mouth, always trying to cover up the gaps where her adult teeth had yet to descend.

I soon forgot about her un-coolness and aching poverty and I actually began to look forward to seeing her each evening. On one particular summer's night, she didn't appear - which wasn't unusual, she often wouldn't come outside, despite me waving through the window. But on that night I really wanted to see her. I had new trick to show her (I could now bounce confidently on the front wheel) and I couldn't wait till the next day.

I wheeled my bike up to her front door, searched for a bell and finding none, I knocked on the door. An elderly looking gentleman opened the door, followed slightly behind him by a frail woman wearing curlers in her hair.

'Um...I live up the street and I was just wondering if Janice could come out to play'. I mumbled, fidgeting and staring at my shoes.

'Janice?' Said the old man.

'Janice?' Echoed the frail lady.

'Yes, Janice...I was wondering if she wanted to come and ride bikes again.'

I looked up at the couple and finally got a good peek into Janice's house. It was threadbare. No carpets, peeling wallpaper and those horrible, glaring bare light bulbs swinging gently from side to side. But hung on the wall by the stairs, was the one semblance of a normal family life - a large, framed photo of a grinning, missing toothed Janice, sat on her Chopper, leaning forward into the camera with her elbows propped up on the handlebars, resplendent in her favourite denim dungarees.

The woman approached me at the doorstep. Something was not right. She looked me up and down and then actually prodded me with her fingers. I began to back away.

'Janice?' The old woman said again. 'Janice?'

'Yes, Janice.' I managed to say in return, pointing up to the photograph, deperately trying to manoeuvre my bike to face away from the house and mount it at the same time. 'You know, Janice, she lives here.'

'Son,' said the old man in a detached, almost dream like voice, 'son, Janice was killed in 1973.'

Suddenly, the world seemed to turn too rapidly. I felt light-headed and knew I was gonna puke at any second. Whilst my head whirred and my balance deserted me, I noticed the frail looking lady had practically collapsed.

She ended up kneeling on the carpetless floor clinging to the old man's legs, wailing incomprehensibly whilst staring at me with a terrifying expression, one caught half-way between pure hatred and unadulterated love.

I staggered back. Managed to mount my bike and tore off down the street to the safety of home. It was weeks before I could tell my story. I told my Mum. She didn't laugh. But she did mention it to one of the other mothers at school. Later my Mum came to speak to me. She relayed what the other mother had told her. That there was a girl called Janice. That she went to my school. And that she lived on my street.

Janice was killed in the summer of 1973. A delivery van wiped her out as she cycled down the road that led to our street.

In later years I named my daughter Janice. It only seemed right.
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Fri 14 Sep 2012, 18:35, 12 replies)

I see dead people
I'm a Coroner, you see.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 14 Sep 2012, 13:00, Reply)

My daugter was 4......
My wife and I were in the living room and our (only) daughter was running around playing games, jumping around and hiding behind sofa's etc. with her imaginary friend. She was full-on interacting with him like sam out of quantum leap. I asked her what she was doing, and my daughter replied "I'm playing hide and seak with uncle Andrew".

Uncle Andrew drowned aged 8, 20 years before my daughter was born. She didn't even know he'd existed.
(sunray18, Fri 14 Sep 2012, 12:11, 3 replies)

When I was young I took train journey travelling by myself
Even though it was during the day, it was really dark as the train had entered a long tunnel. I suddenly heard a ghost-like cackling "Ho Ho Ho Ho" and what sounded like a woman screaming. I looked around to see if anybody else had heard it, but it turned out I was alone in the carriage. I was starting to feel quite disconcerted, when out of the darkness besides the tracks a ghost with a human skull jumped out at me.
We'll I jumped out of my chair and stood bolt upright in fright, only to hear a man's voice say, "Sit the fuck back down in the seat, kid, or I'll kick you off the ride"
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Thu 13 Sep 2012, 20:31, 1 reply)