#pararnormal

The Living and the Dead

Welcome! This is the first article in a planned series on paranormal romance (my favorite genre to write). There is no limit to the possibilities for paranormal pairings, but today we’re going to take a look at one of the more common kinds of couples: living people and ghosts.

The scare-o-meter

We know this is a romance, but the scare factor is up to you. Does your haunted house kill characters or just scare them? If they die, is it quick or messy? Does the backstory of the house include shocking violence and murder, or deaths due to disease and old age? Do you have a cast of kindly ghosts who want to protect your characters, or dead serial killers who’d love to up their body count? Of course, you can also write scares as comedy. Maybe the ghostly victims of the serial killer are a squabbling bunch annoyed by the fact that only one of their bodies has been discovered, and spend their time creating increasingly unlikely plans to guide the living to the rest of the hidden graves, all of which just end up terrifying visitors, and I TOLD you, Richard, this is why we need to be on Youtube, all the other haunted houses are there.  

Read the rest of the article

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

Nice Catch

Professional ghost hunter Mark Vernon has treated us to another of his paranormal captures.

Horrifying “Old Hag” Ghost Caught on Camera at Fort Worth Museum

If you enjoy being creeped out then you’re going to love this photograph taken at Texas’ Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. Hailed as one of the creepiest ghost pictures of all time it was snapped by Redditor KRAMERisKRUNK during a visit to the children’s section of the museum with his niece.

He claims that he didn’t notice anything unusual at the time, it was only when his niece saw the photo later and asked what the thing in the background was that he realized he had captured far more than a group of children having fun.

Come on, we think he would have noticed a terrifying old lady, hunched over wearing a shawl standing in a child size grocery cart.

5 Creepy Tales Of Imaginary Friends

The Girl in the Closet

“When my daughter was three she had an imaginary friend named Kelly who lived in her closet. Kelly sat in a little rocking chair while she slept, played with her, etc. Typical imaginary friend shit. Anyway, fast forward two years, the wife and I are watching the new Amityville (the one with Ryan Reynolds) and our daughter walks out right when dead girl goes all black eyed. Far from being disturbed she said ‘That looks like Kelly.’ ‘Kelly who?’ we say ‘You know the dead girl that lived in my closet.’”

The Man in the Dresser

“When I was younger, I had an imaginary friend who lived in this massive antique dresser. We’d chill out, and I vividly remember him telling me stories, although I have no recollection of what they actually were.

I remember one day talking to my parents about it, and when I started telling him about my dresser buddy, he wanted to know his name. It was something innocent like Peter or Patrick, but I can still see him going white in the face.

I drew Peter/Patrick out for him, and the very next day him and my uncle took out that dresser and burned it. It wasn’t until a few years later when I found out my Dad’s little brother (my uncle) also had the same friend with the same name who lived in the same antique dresser. After a few months of the typical imaginary friend shit, my uncle started having night terrors and couldn’t sleep because of Peter/Patrick. It got so bad that they had to move him out of his room before he managed to get back to normal.”

The Lady in the Wall

“When my son was about 3, he had an imaginary friend in his room who he used to talk to all the time. He would tell us stories about things she would tell him, and we’d hear him chatting to her at bed time. We thought it was pretty cute.

After a few months, my son said he wasn’t friends with her anymore. We figured he was over his phase of ‘seeing’ her, so were surprised to hear him still talking to her at night. Then he started not wanting to go to bed and having really bad dreams.

At some point, we ended up asking a lot of questions about her. We had assumed she was a little girl, but apparently she was 47. She lived in the wall and he stopped being friends with her because she wanted him to call her mummy (her name was something like Margaret). She wanted him to come and live in the wall with her.

He had told her he didn’t want to talk to her anymore and she wouldn’t go away. We eventually moved, and he stopped talking about her.”

The Girl Upstairs

“I used to break into houses as a little kid. I lived in a really run-down part of town with a huge amount of foreclosed and empty houses. So, I would pry off the window screens and if the windows were unlocked, I would crawl inside them. I was maybe like 5 or 6.

In one abandoned house, there was always this young Hispanic girl hanging out in the upstairs bathroom. I would go up there, and she would talk to me and we’d play tag and hide-and-go seek and truth or dare. I’d always invite her home for dinner but she said she couldn’t leave because she had to wait for her mom to come home. I guess it made sense to me at the time, but when I think back, there was nothing in that house. Not even silverware in the kitchen drawers. The carpets were all mildewed and it was seriously empty. I don’t think she could have really been there.”

Together Forever

“I have a niece I’m taking care of while her mother is in the hospital. Her father died before she was born, and her mother was diagnosed with cancer. She’s has imaginary friends, which is okay with me. But when they tell her to finish her dinner quickly to play and ask her to stay up all night, it worries me.

A gravedigger/ groundskeeper shares his stories and experiences on the job

Sometimes spooky crap happens that you just cant explain. A man walked up to us as we were throwing the canvas over the dirt trailer and commented on how beautiful of a resting place it was. We assumed he was a part of the family that was currently holding visitation and told him we were sorry for his loss and agreed that it was a beautiful spot. Later on, when the crew walked through the funeral home to get to the lounge for lunch, we all saw the picture they had set out for the guy that had died. It was the same man that had just came to the burial site a few hours before. He didnt have a twin, and no one else in the family looked that much like him. That kind of crap stays with you. Chills you to the bone.

Sometimes spooky crap happens that you just cant explain. A man walked up to us as we were throwing the canvas over the dirt trailer and commented on how beautiful of a resting place it was. We assumed he was a part of the family that was currently holding visitation and told him we were sorry for his loss and agreed that it was a beautiful spot. Later on, when the crew walked through the funeral home to get to the lounge for lunch, we all saw the picture they had set out for the guy that had died. It was the same man that had just came to the burial site a few hours before. He didnt have a twin, and no one else in the family looked that much like him. That kind of crap stays with you. Chills you to the bone.

The only other time this happened to me. I was cleaning off some headstones and cleaning up the grounds when a little girl caught my eye. She was playfully wandering around and looked happy. But I didnt see any adults around so I figured she had wandered outside from the funeral home. I took my gloves off because I was about to go on break, and figured I would ask where her parents were on my way to the building. I turned around and set the gloves down. When I turned back around, she was gone. A few weeks later, I helped set a picture plaque onto a headstone, and it was 100% the same little girl I had seen. Again, another thing I can never explain.

If a grave is sloping down a hillside or sinking too much, we get permission to move them to more level and stable ground. This particular grave was one of the first that had been in the cemetery, and the dates read april 1871-august 1877. Back then they buried their dead in pine/wood boxes. We had to move this grave as it was in a bad flooding spot on the grounds and just kept sinking further down every year. When we got to the coffin. The top had caved in and you could see the remains of the little boy curled up into a ball. That gave me chills like nothing else. We figure they unintentionally buried him alive, and when he woke, didnt know what to do, and eventually just curled up in a ball and died. You could see his little skeletal hands wrapped around his knees. I’ll never forget that.

Turns out this guy was pissed that he was left out of the will, and came to the cemetery to show his disrespect to his grandmothers grave. I dont care what that person did to you. If you try to kick anyones headstone over, im kicking you in the nuts and calling the cops.

Unfortunately, this happens more than you would think. We started the morning mowing the grounds. I went to mow the far end of the grounds first, but stopped when I noticed a person laying at the edge of the woods. Upon closer inspection, it was clear that the person had committed suicide (gunshot to the head) they did find a suicide note, but we never learned why he did it there. I assume he lost a loved one and just wanted out of the pain. Or maybe wanted to make sure he was found by someone other than family. Makes you sad, man.

Good ol’ Don. He’s a nice guy. He brings the crew lunch some sundays. Because every sunday, he and his wife would go out to lunch after church. He is there every Sunday to read to her from the Bible and put fresh flowers down. He’s a sweet old man and has been coming there every Sunday for as long as I’ve worked there. he tells us stories about their life together and gives that sad, longing kind of smile when he’s done. True love man. You cant deny that good ol’ Don was truly in love with Mrs Margie.

This one freaked EVERYONE out. A teen who had been killed in a car accident (19 I believe) was being lowered into the grave when we all heard a thumping noise coming from inside the casket. You could of heard a pin drop it got quiet so fast. Of course the director Re-opens the casket. Turns out the family buried him in the jacket he was wearing in the accident (dont ask why, i dont know) and the thumping was a ringtone he had set for an alarm that day. They had been looking for his phone, and somehow the battery had lasted the whole damn time, but the phone was on silent. That is, until his scheduled alarm went off. The mother almost passed out, because she thought her son had come back to life or something. It was really heartbreaking to witness.

Not sure if its teens being stupid or if people actually perform rituals to try to bring people back or are doing some other crazy crap, but we clear off at least one grave a month.

Ghosts Of The Tate Murders

On August 9, 1969, five members of the Manson family murdered actress Sharon Tate and four others at Tate’s Los Angeles home. Now, at least one homeowner near the former Tate residence believes the murder victims haunt his property.

Goatman’s Bridge

Oscar Washburn was a prosperous African American goat farmer back in the 1930’s in Denton County, Texas. He was better known as “The Goatman” who sold the meat, milk and hides from his goats. However his profitable business would be the death of him. One day he hung a sign off the Old Alton Bridge to point people towards his farm, “This Way to the Goatman!” it said.

Upon seeing the advertisement, the local Ku Klux Klan was infuriated. On a night darker than most they drug Oscar from his home and to the Old Alton Bridge where they had a noose waiting. They tightened it around his neck and threw him over the bridge, but Oscar never made it to the bottom of the rope. When the Klan members went down to the bank of the Hickory Creek to see Oscar’s lifeless body they only found an empty noose silently swinging below the bridge. Out of panic the Klan members ran back to his farm and burned it down with his family still inside.