Come forth with your spooky/ghostly/creepy tales......

[petitepeach]

Ready for Hallowe'en!
Have been waiting for someone else to come forward.....
I love the ghostly threads on here!! Can we keep to the creepy tales from the crypt and not people telling us they don't believe in them pretty please?![thismile]

Waltzing I won't name it here but if you're local you may remember it as the village with a boatyard, and a persistent smell... It used to have an asylum in it. ;o) This was the other side of the road to the old asylum. I grew up about ten miles away and the haunted house with the sweary old man is in a village I also better not name, but if you know the area, used to have a famous bikers' cafe.

Ooooh, Joffrey, I grew up the next village along from the biker cafe village - it still has a cafe, it's just outside of the village now. Which is the haunted house??

Just marking my place here while i read the wooo thread. Was gonna add my story, but its already in the linked thread so, read that if you wanna know

OK. I'll do another one. As a kid I had a recurrent dream. This dream was that there was a flood or something and I was adrift, alone on the river, under some trees. I couldn't swim til I was about 10 or 11, so the dream persisted til I finally learned to swim then the water had no fear for me any more and I never had the dream again. I thought nothing of it as my dad's dad had a boat on the river Ouse and we spent most weekends on the river. And also, same river, my mum's dad had lost the family farm in the 1930s... after a catastrophic flood wiped out their uninsured livestock. Our family lost the farm we'd been tenants at for 100 years and my mother spoke about it a lot, so I assumed hence the river flood related dreams.

At university, and now a long way from home, one night I had this terrifying dream that I was in the water, and people all round me were drowning. This time was different - it wasn't the familiar river, but the sea and a place I didn't know. It was nearly xmas and there were xmas lights strung all along the shore. There was a middle aged man in the water with me and he exuded this weird calm. And I knew, like me, he wasn't really 'there'. He said to me: "Hold onto some of the wreckage - you'll be fine." Not those exact words but that was the gist. Then he went off to help people.

I was so terrified, I screamed the place down, and woke my then boyfriend up by scrambling in the dark to find the light switch. I hadn't had a nightmare like that since I was a child. I told him about the dream, in detail, and then put it down to a recurrence of my childhood nightmare, and went back to sleep.

The next day, went about my business as normal and was none the wiser til the evening news. A lifeboat disaster had happened in the night and 16 people drowned. At the same time it was happening, I woke my other half up screaming the place down. On the news you could see christmas lights strung along the shoreline, just like my dream. My OH freaked out even more than I did.

Time went on and I just put it down to mathematical coincidence. Someone somewhere will always be having a dream about some disaster or other that is really happening; maybe, like me, at the same time it happened. It meant nothing.

20 odd years later, and hundreds of miles away, I was doing my family tree and at the same time, researching a local story I felt compelled by - of an accident on the river, where a number of people drowned when a small boat capsized. I couldn't understand why I kept being drawn to the story - none of the victims' or survivors' surnames were any of my known family names.

Several years passed and I got my great grandad's birth certificate and realised my connection.... one of the handful of survivors was my great uncle X 3. He couldn't swim but when the boat capsized... survived because he held onto a piece of wreckage - an oar. Exactly like the man had told me to, in that dream in 1981. He was quoted verbatim at the inquest, and comes across as a very calm, sensible man who seems to have been massively respected by the other survivors. He was middle-aged. Just like the man in my dream who had told me to... hold on to some of the wreckage. We went to find his unmarked grave in a large municipal cemetery (he died decades after the accident, of old age). As my husband went to the gatehouse where volunteer genealogists were at hand to figure out where your relative's burial was... I wandered across the cemetery and came to a standstill. When my husband, now armed with the map and a plot number, found me five minutes later. Stood at the precise spot my great uncle x 3 was buried. I always felt this man really wanted us to find him.

I'm sitting here in tears reading this thread. I've found it strangely comforting. On my DB's unexpected last day, we knew it was going to happen, just not so soon, he was talking/rambling in his sleep. He kept waking up and asking 'were you talking to me?', when we were sat in silence. My Mom had made comment about 'they' were talking to him, but I find it comforting to know he's not on his own, not that he ever would be he was such a kind person. I've never doubted for one second that he would go in any direction but upwards. Thank you for sharing your stories.

Wow, your stories are amazing Joffrey. I'm really pleased you 'found' your great-uncle x 3. Sounds like he wanted you to.

I must be on a different side of York, as biker cafe village / and boatyard village with smell aren't ringing any bells! Still exciting though.

I don't have a psychic bone in my body (I'm a boring scientist), but my mother is very "sensitive". Most of the time, her experiences can be written off as her picking up on sensations most people would miss as she is a very sensitive, perceptive person. Not of all of them, however.

The scariest relates to some infamous local murders. My mum knew one of the victims and was very upset about the case. One night she had a nightmare where she was trapped in a prison cell with the person charged with the murders, who was trying to make her change places with them. She wouldn't go in to all the details with me, but the dream really upset her. The next day we found out that the murderer had committed suicide the previous night, the night of her nightmare. Still gives me the willies thinking about it (the murderer was a particularly evil, nasty person too). I know the case had been playing on her mind but it was just too much of a weird coincidence.

She's also claimed to see the ghost of a young man in one of my student houses, but I reckon it was my housemates half-naked boyfriend

I have a few.
My dad had prostate cancer. By the tme it was diagnosed it was already terminal. He decided he wanted to die at home. My mother and I looked after him.
My niece, who was very small at the time, had made him a picture while he was in hospital and he bought this home and put it by his bed (his bed was downstairs).
He deteriorated quite quickly and wasnt really with it a lot. He would talk to himself and had no real "awareness" of his surroundings. One friday night he began taking down the picture my niece had made him and wrappping it in his blankets, apparently he was going on a trip with his mum and wanted to take the picture with him (his mum died before I was born).
When he fell asleep, my mum put the picture back up again and things carried on the same for a day or so, then, on the Sunday night, we were all sitting together and he looked at the end of his bed and started talking to his mother, apparently she was ready to take him but she wanted him to be ready, so he took the picture down and wrapped it again and went to sleep.
The next morning, my mum had suggested maybe it was time I started trying to go back to work and back to normal, as she didnt think my dad had long left. As I left for work my dad was lucid, for the first time in ages, eating his breakfast and chatting to my mum while she put the picture back up.
at 10.20 my mother called work to tell me I had to come home. I walked in through the door (earlier than she expected), expecting my dad to be poorly, but there he was, dead, with the picture wrapped in his blanket.
My mum told me that he started wrapping it and told his mum he was ready, he could go now.

The second is, one morning, I was getting DS ready for nursery, and he had one of those toot toot garages with the cars and fire engine. The fire engine was his favourite, so while I was getting him dressed I asked if he’d been playing with the fire engine (it was over the other side of the living room) He said that “Grandad” was playing with the fire engine. I said, no granddad is at work (DH’s dad), he said “Not granddad xx, other granddad”. I just froze, then the fire engine went off. I don’t know if you are familiar with these things but you have to press the windscreen to set it off.
When it stopped, I was sufficiently spooked so I said, no, there is no one here to set that off, then it went off again. This time when it had finished DS waved and said Grandad had gone now. The fire engine never went off on its own again.

marking place for later

here is one:

A few years ago, DH and I went, with a group of friends, for a few days to Edinburgh for celebrate New Year. As a bit of spooky fun we went to visit South Bridge Vaults. It was a bit of fun and giggle and very interesting too, until we went to the last chamber haunted ( as informed by our guide) by some nasty guard, or other very unpleasant ghost.
I felt someone leaning on me, at first I though it was dh but he was in the other side of the room trying to get a signal on his phone (!).

With a corner of my eye i couldn't see anyone, just a dark and damp room, but i could feel the weight on my shoulder and my arm, and i felt icy cold touch like getting a hug from a block of ice. It lasted maybe a minute but it felt like hours. I don't remember to be scared, rather frozen and unable to move. It was very odd and unsettling experience. It couldn't be a trick, I am sure that there was no one standing next to me, but I could feel someone's weight on me. Boo :)

Another (sorry I should have put them all in one post), when I was on maternity leave, one night I was struggling to sleep. DH was ill and I had ended up on the couch with DS (he wanted cuddling and it was more comfortable to do it there). When he was asleep I lay him in his moses basket and sat on the couch, struggling to get comfortable again, I then saw what looked like a shadow on the wall and felt one of the sofa cushions move ever so slightly, and suddenly felt much more comfortable and went to sleep. It was almost like being "tucked in".

My last, thats not so much spooky (as its a dream), but so vivid that it stayed with me, clear as day since. It almost felt too real, like the people in it were actually trying to find a way to let me know they are all ok.
When I was a child, my mum and dad used to take my brother and I to a christmas party that the landlady of the local pub threw for the children. My uncles and aunties used to take my cousins, and we would all go to the party in an upstairs room while the mums and dads sat and had a drink/gossip/game of cards downstairs. Then we would all get a selection pack of some sort from ‘Santa’ and go and sit and have a can of pop and a bag of crisps with the grown ups. As it was a typical pub in the West Midlands, all smoky and blasting out wizard and slade from a ginormous jukebox in the bar. The pub is now demolished.
Anyway, in this dream, I had bought my son down to visit and take him to this chrtistmas party, but beforehand, we had visited my grandmother (she died a year and a half before DS was born), and chatted with her for a bit and then explained we had to go as we didn’t want to miss the party, she was sad as she said “she never gets to see DS” , but understood, so off we went. We were a little bit late and so the party was about to start, we ran upstairs to the party and I stayed there in the party with DS and my, SIL and nephew.
After the party we all went downstairs and my dad and uncles (all died between 10 and 5 years ago) were all playing cards, my mum and aunties were all chatting away and my brother and husband were propping up the bar, the atmosphere was heavy with smoke, and slades “So here it is Merry Christmas” was blaring out. It was starting to get dark so DH suggested we hit the road, so I went over and said goodbye to everyone, lots of hugs and kisses and all my aunties/uncles made a right fuss of DS, and then we left. I woke up then, and it all felt so real, I swear I could even smell the smoke briefly. Its still so real to this day.
I went downstairs and put the radio on and “So here it is Merry Christmas” came on, I cried like a baby. I still well up when I hear it now.

Waltzing, this is due South.

When my dad was dying (another lovely dad with prostate cancer) my husband's colleague told us a story about her dad which had happened recently. As her dad lay dying, he was pretty well comatose most of the time. But one afternoon, he was briefly lucid and asked:
"What is the significance of a quarter to three?"
No-one knew the answer. They thought he was just rambling, and calmed him down - he went back into unconsciousness, never to wake up again.

The next day he died - at precisely quarter to three.

My own dad had a hospital bed in his living room, as he wanted to die at home and had McMillan nurses, the district nurse etc coming in and out to take care of him. He died during the 'Countdown' credits! He loved Countdown...

Wyld the house I am on about is within sight of the church. The lane that goes downhill towards the High School (lane with high school at the end of it, I mean). If you went to that school, you know the lane I mean. Up at the church end, not the school end - third house from the beginning. It is 3 storey and unremarkable looking but was the original farmhouse. They built a new estate on what was my back garden!

Every time I go there (my mum and grandparents are buried in the churchyard within sight of that house), I long to knock on the door and ask the new owners if they have ever seen anything. It did seem more active when strangers were in the house. My dad lived there 40 years or so and he claimed never to see or hear a thing.

Marking place for later, we're going to a creepy dinner party so these will be perfect!

I have a few that I've told on here before, apologies if you already know them :)

In my old house there was a presence at the top of the stairs, not particularly nice or nasty but dark & like a dark mass sometimes & you could feel the change in the air when you walked up the top 3 steps. There was also the feeling of being watched (It got so unsettling that I actually got a medium in but I won't go into that as the story is too long). The point is that when DS1 was a baby he was in due time moved into his own room & his own cot & to get to his room from mine you had to walk across that dark place as our rooms were opposites with the stairs adjacent, a bit like a capital T with the long stem being the stairs. I always hated getting up at night in the dark & walking past that bit but it had to be done. So I was aware of stuff in the house that I didn't understand all the time.

One night when DS1 was still a baby I had raging PND but had been dismissed by a doctor (another thread again) so I was not having any treatment for it & I popped DS1 onto the floor to change his nappy & was sobbing uncontrollably at the same time while kneeling on the floor. I remember thinking very clearly to myself that if someone came into that room right now & asked to adopt DS1 then I would have given him up & done it gladly. So there I was trying to deal with DS1 with zero confidence & a truckload of guilt & still crying like I wouldn't ever stop when I felt somebody take a step & stand right behind me. It wasn't DH as he was in an alcoholic & drug induced stupor in bed so to all intents & purposes I was alone in the dark with the mass at the top of the stairs. But my back was to the door & somebody was standing between me & it & I was too afraid to look to see who it was as I knew logically there could be nobody there & my fear was too great to look straight at the dark mass in the dark. But somehow it calmed me & I managed to change DS1's nappy, put him in his cot & go back to bed.

I'd love to tell you it was somebody protecting me but I have no idea what happened or who it was & I didn't get a sense of love or protection or menace, just nothing but the knowledge somebody was there. (the medium told me who later but he scared me more without meaning to) :)

It happened once more, in broad daylight when I had vegetable rage. I was chopping a swede or a turnip for a stew mid morning when my knife got stuck in the fucking thing halfway through & I couldn't pull it out or push it out. I held up the knife with the impaled turnip on wondering how I could get it out when somebody stepped behind me & looked over my right shoulder to see what I was doing, I think. I felt them stand behind me & I knew their chin was above my right shoulder looking at the knife so their face was pretty much cheek to cheek with mine. Then they stepped away & it was gone. Again not at all threatening but also no sense that they knew me or I should know them.

I was going to tell you about the baby monitor as well but I'm too freaked out so can't :)

Spooktastic! Ok here's another one from me and it's true;

I was feeling rather low having had a nasty chest infection so I had gone to bed early and alone, my husband was working away at the time. I drifted off to sleep with a rattle and wheeze in my chest.
During the night I awoke to the funny feeling that someone was in the bedroom with me. There was a walk-in *closet in the corner of the room furthest from my bed, the door to it was closed but I felt the presence came from inside. I lay still for moments, listening, but as I didn't hear anything I assured myself that I had been dreaming and it was nothing.
Sometime later, while I was dozing I felt my breathe getting very laboured. The chest infection was making me wheeze but I also felt like I was being squashed. I tried to move but found I couldn't, like I was pinned down to the bed. I was being squeezed, something was actually sitting on my chest.
I opened my eyes to find what can only be described as a 'demon', sat astride me. It had sinister, gargoyle like features and was not quite one metre tall. It's skin appeared mottled, damp and stank of decay. It was so heavy that I felt the mattress sink beneath me with it's unnatural weight. I was utterly terrified and tried to thrash about hoping to dislodge the creature and throw it off me. But I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. In my panicked mind I bucked and reared, shouting, 'No, no', but my body was actually paralysed and no words escaped my lips. The demon was crushing the life out of me.
Just then my son, who was 2, awoke in the other room and began to cry.
A tear ran down my cheek as I felt myself slipping away with the saddest thought of him being left all alone without me.
An angry voice in my head growled, 'Fight then, fight.' So, I composed myself and found my resolve. I stared the demon straight in the eyes and up from the pit of my being came an almighty piercing scream. With my own supernatural strength I thrashed angrily and yelled, 'No, you're not taking me, I will not go. Go away, GO AWAY!' I sat up, arms flailing and suddenly the dead weight lifted from my chest. I gasped for breath and saw that the demon had vanished.
Running to my son I picked him up and hugged him tightly. 'It's ok, we're ok now,' I said. I looked down at my fingers and saw that their tips were blue, as were my lips.
I was so shaken up that I stayed wide awake in my son's room for the rest of the night. In the morning and the cold light of day I didn't know quite what to make of the event. When at last I plucked up the courage to go back into my bedroom, I saw that the bed sheets were in disarray and the closet door stood wide open.

*The closet was built over the space where the original old staircase ran down to the kitchen many, many years previously. Our cottage is hundreds of years old and while we were renovating the kitchen (shortly before that night) we found an old boot, the bones of some animal and a horseshoe, embedded in the wall above the back door. Superstitious charms to ward off evil. We placed them back into the wall when it was later rebuilt.

As time passed I put the ordeal down to feeling ill and that I had had some kind of feverish hallucination as I am sceptical about these things.

However, I was having coffee with a friend some time later when she told me she had a similar experience - I hadn't told anyone of mine. This sparked my curiosity so I did some research and found many stories, myths and legends about my demon friend. Or should that be fiend?
Folklore says it appears to people when they are low, poorly or depressed and sits on them, crushing out their last breath and then stealing their souls.
I even saw a picture of it in an old 17th century book and it had some eerie similarities to the one I thought I had seen.

Another haunted by-pass.

www.stocksbridge.org.uk/html/bypass.htm

An old friend of mine lived near there. He is a very level-headed, down to earth, intelligent person. In the 1990s, he was driving along there at night and saw a man trying to cross the road, with what looked like a boy. The man was dressed like a monk. My friend thought it was weird but not beyond the bounds of possibility to spot a monk crossing a road. Although it stuck in his mind as there was a boy, too. A few years went past and he forgot all about it.

Til he saw an account on TV - of the monk that haunts the Stocksbridge By-pass...

Whatever he saw, it was so solid he had no doubt it was a real, living person.

These are brilliant, please keep them coming. Anyone who has several to tell, please don't hold back or apologise, I find them so fascinating.

I remember the Stockbridge bypass featuring in an episode of Strange but True in the mid 90's. Loved that programme, wish they'd bring it back.

I hope I get to spend eternity somewhere a bit more interesting than a by-pass!

WeeWhile - it sounds a bit like that painting, The Nightmare by Fuseli.

I've just told Dad about this thread and he reminded me about the Blue Bell Hill ghosts

Apparently when I was very small (as in only just started to use sentences) we used to drive that way a lot and I always insisted he locked the doors on that part of he journey and begged him never to stop along that road (Dad does love to pick up hitch hikers), I'd then spend that entire stretch of road telling Dad over and over to slow down and be careful 'coz of the girl' we'd never seen her but I was terrified of the road. Dad did once see a girl hitchhiking in exactly the spot I used to make him lock the doors but I'd made him promise me he'd never stop to pick the girl up and apparently I had looked so frightened when forcing him to promise that even though I wasn't in the car that day he didn't stop.

luffa a good spooky thread!