STEVE LaCHANCE INTERVIEW

My Interview with Steve LaChance
T. Fox Dunham

Fox Note:

Every Halloween, I order a a collection of horror books, usually zombie anthologies and scary stories. A rare treat is a book about a true demonic haunting. For the past few years, I have enjoyed The Uninvited by Steven LaChance. It describes his experiences dealing with a true demonic haunting, while he lived in the home and helping out the later resident. The experience changed his life and opened his eyes to a wider universe.
 
I was fortunate to contact Mr. LaChance, and he agreed to an interview for the site. You can see his story on an episode of Discovery Channel's A Haunting, which has recently started again with new seasons. He is also releasing a sequel book, which I am looking forward to reading and adding to my Halloween collection.


INTERVIEW WITH STEVE LaCHANCE


How has your experience changed your view of the world?
I think it has taken away a little bit of the false security we all feel. There are times I catch myself in a public place and I look at people and wish I did not know the things that I have learned. I suppose you could say that I should find some kind of solace in the fact I now know there is something more after death. That is simply not the case at all. The entire experience has raised more questions about the afterlife and the unseen things which could be surrounding us on a daily basis. We simply have no clue. There is a sense of an invasion of privacy even when I am alone. You can never really be sure if there is not something else there with you. I was attacked at some of the most private moments in our lives we just simply take for granted. I cannot put my head on my pillow at night and feel absolutely secure.

 
Do you believe you were selected for this experience by fate or divine selection?
I would like to think so. It makes dealing with it all a bit easier. I know I have changed lives and I have helped many people on a paranormal level and not. Was I selected for some kind of soldier in a spiritual warfare battle? I think that idea might be going a little bit too far. However, I do feel the experience was given to me at a time when I needed it. That is hard to explain to someone who has not been through something of this magnitude. It is all a strange dichotomy in a way. One hand I wish I had never lived through it at all and on the other hand it was one of the single most changing events in my life. It made me the person I am today. I believe things happen for a reason and there are times we are given things in this life when we need them. Not all of those things are going to be pleasant. In the end, the most important thing is the lesson learned. Those lessons are the character builders which make us the people we are. I don’t know maybe it is just my way of putting it all into a box which makes it easier to understand and handle.

 
What do you say to skeptics who don’t believe your story?  
I have been very lucky in this respect. For the most part, people have the understanding we went through something life changing and horrible. How they fit that understanding into their reality box can vary. The few true skeptics I come across I remind them I use to be a skeptic too and I will be there for them if something like this ever happens to them because I am the guy you call for help. An important point to also understand is that the more I do this work, the more of a skeptic I become myself. There is a whole lot of fraud and BS out there in this world. Sometimes it is all you can handle just to dig your way through it all in order to find those who truly need your help. In the end, I have found I feel more alone than anything else because I have come to understand the events which happened to my family are very rare. Not exactly the exclusive club you want to find yourself in.

 
What advice would you give others who are suffering a demonic haunting?
I could give you a whole dissertation on this subject alone. The most important thing you can help them with is to understand how they have played a part in their situation. How they invited this into their lives. I am not talking about this in a religious sense or spiritual one either. The spirit can come into play, but it is often something that has nothing to do with either of those things. Many times it is our actions in relation to other people which can cause the demonic to attract. Anger is one of the big ones. I personally had so much anger from my wife deserting us and my sister dying that it was like a match to dynamite. It is the easiest way I can explain it to you. The demonic are attracted to dysfunction.

 
How did you approach writing the Uninvited? Did you have a strategy?  
The only strategy I had when I wrote the book was to have a conversation with the reader. I wanted anyone who reads the book to feel like I am right there talking to them. I guess you could say another strategy was not to hold back even when it was difficult to explain some of the things that happened. I also wanted to take responsibility for the things I did wrong for the investigator who could possibly read it. By no means did I ever put myself on a pedestal having the attitude I know everything. The truth is there have been a lot of people before and there will be a lot of people after who will battle with these same questions. The point is, for those who live through something horrific like this, we could care less what name it is given. We simply want the help to get rid of it and to keep it out of our lives. There is the difference between a real case and fantasy.

 
Please tell us about your current projects and your future work.  
I am just finishing the final edit to the follow up book to The Uninvited. It is often a misunderstanding that once a door closes and you walk away from a haunted house it is over. Lorraine Warren told us a long time ago it would never be truly over. When she said this I did not understand. I do now. Also, we have so much more history about the land the house is built upon and we now have a pretty clear picture what is causing the disturbance. The new book is called, Blessed are the Wicked. It will be out sometime in 2013. I am also working on living a normal life. I miss normalcy. I have moved to Myrtle Beach, SC and I have to tell you the beach is good for the soul. There are other things I am working on. I am also really turning my focus to hard core research and the development of new ideas which I hope will help us gain a better understanding. You know the one thing about me that differs from the rest of the paranormal crowd is I am not doing one ounce of my work for them. My focus is the regular guy out there. I want to answer his or her questions about life and death. I want to take them on a journey they may have never thought of taking or are too afraid to take that step. The paranormal crowd is just preaching to the choir. The other people are the ones that matter. Them, and those out there who are in need of quality help and a kind word.

TWITTER: @StevenLaChance

WEBSITE:  www.stevenalachance.com

Books: Available at Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, Books a Million, and anywhere books are sold. 

Amazon Link For Steven A. LaChance:

CLICK ME FOR STEVE'S BOOK AT AMAZON

Books: 
The Uninvited
Crazy
Blessed are the Wicked (coming soon)  
Films:  
The Morse Mill Project:
Children Of The Grave
The Possessed
A Haunting "Fear House"
The Unseen
Supernatural Fifth Season

Blessed are the Wicked is Steven's next book which is a follow up to his best selling book "The Uninvited." It will be released in 2013.

All content, submission, transmission, and rights reserved 2010.

THE BATTLE

The Battle

Submitted by Renee

Bloomsberg, Pennsylvania USA

My college, in Bloomsburg PA, was no stranger to paranormal activity. My dear friend Deb lived next door to me in Columbia, the all-women's dorm, on the 5th floor. This was a floor with a reported history of a teenage suicide and other ghostly happenings- in her room. We never did find out if there was any true history behind the stories, but there had been a lot of stories over the years about people not wanting to live in that room. Occasionally Deb would mention seeing a ghost, or hearing a voice, but I never really paid too much attention  until someone or something made its presence known, at a time when I was alone in her room. Which led to an interesting night.
 
A mutual friend, Jeff, headed our way for a movie night. She had to sign him in at the front desk, so I waited in her room, and started to hear a scratching sound on the walls. Thinking it was an animal, I started poking around in the closets and various nooks and crannies. The scratches turned to footsteps, and localizing the sound proved difficult. A fan of unusual decor, she had a large, scary looking plastic bat she called Shmoopy hanging on the wall, next to the top bunk of the bunkbeds she shared with her roommate. Suddenly, both he and two books on a nearby hanging shelf simultaneously fell off the wall to the floor. Laughing the incident off, I picked them up and put them back on the shelves, not thinking anything of it, standing on the bunk-bed ladder to reach the hooks and shelf. No sooner had I done this, then every book she'd placed on a wall-mounted shelf, including those on the opposite walls, fell off the walls at the same time. I've never jumped out of my skin quite like that before. When she came back with Jeff, the place looked as if a bomb had gone off. All I could say was.. 'Um.. redecorating?'

The next morning, I woke up feeling like I had just been through a war in my sleep. Every muscle throbbed. Trying to figure out what could have made me so tired and creaky, I discovered bruises on my arms and legs, that were not accounted for by the simple viewing of a movie the previous night.

When talking to Deb later that morning, I showed her my bruises. She looked at me and said 'whatever happened, you must have killed it'. She then stated that she had seen a ghost's head with no body attached. The story we came up with was that I had fought something in my sleep, cut its head off, and sent the head over to her as a prize.

For some reason people didn't want to come visit us much after that. I have no idea why.

WAKE UP FROM DAD

Wake up from Dad

   Submitted by Ravens Zuta (Me Lovely Mum)
 South Central, Texas
 

My father, a hard-working fellow, was ill for quite some time before he left this existence. My four sisters and I would always talk about how Dad always looked out for us, and we figured he would probably continue to do so from wherever he was. The October after his death, I made the monumental decision that I had had enough of seventh graders and since my health was suffering, I quit. Didn’t put a lot of planning into the event, just decided enough was enough and out the door I went.

A few weeks passed and as was my new custom, I would lie down on the couch in the living room in the afternoon and read and usually fall asleep. On this particular afternoon, I was awakened by someone poking me in the back . . . hard! I grudgingly opened my eyes, mumbled something, and then realized that no one was there and my back had been to the couch, not outward. I sat up! I looked around, listened. Nothing happened. Then I chuckled and said, “Okay, Dad, I’m up, I’m up!” I didn’t pass my time in the afternoons on the couch for a long time after that and tried to be sure that I stayed as busy as possible . . . just in case.

DARKNESS IN THE WOODS

Darkness in the Woods

Submitted by Robbie Anderson

Montana Mountains, U.S.

When I was younger, I was one of those total outdoors woodsman types. I grew up in the mountains of Montana and used to disappear for weeks into the forests during the summer. Hiking deep, I spent my time communing with the powerful forces of nature.
 
There are things in the woods. Mysterious things. Dark things. Unexplainable things. There were many a night I sat watching the darkness around me. The night has a life all its own. Shadows move and breathe in the small hours of the morning. As dusk slowly creeps down through the canopy, the creatures of the day steal away to their holes and dens. As the long fingers of darkness reach out, the night creatures crawl from those same holes and dens.
 
One particular night stands out for me. I was sixteen and on my usual walkabout trek. The forest was unusually quiet as night fell and I woke up just after 3AM with a feeling. Of what? I’m not sure to this day. Of being watched? Sensed? Monitored? Judged? Goosebumps prickled up my arms, but something compelled me to unzip that tent. The stars had been utterly swallowed. I couldn’t tell where the canopy ended and sky began. The flashlight barely penetrated the wall of blackness. Something moved just beyond the beam of light. I could almost see it much the way you catch something out of the corner of your eye. It circled me in the silence of the night. I know animals. I know the woods better than my own home. We have bears, wolves, elk, moose, deer and a varied assortment of small critters around here. This was none of the above. I felt that in my bones.
 
It didn’t stay long and in the years since, I’ve never felt it again. I don’t go into the mountains anymore, but sometimes, late at night, I watch our backyard. I know it’s still out there. But for what?

GRAMPIE

Grampie

    Submitted by Renee Johnson

     Norfolk County, Massachusetts

 
The first memory of interaction with any spirits in the house was when I was about 5. My great grandfather died, nobody told me. I know I was his favorite little person but I never liked going to the nursing home even though I liked to visit him. The place always smelled of old urine and I didn't like being there. I remember how hard it felt to breathe, it was suffocating.

My family never told me that he died. I don't know what they expected, maybe that I wouldn't notice?

I was asleep when it happened and I was woken up by 'something'. I remember just waking up out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night. I was facing the wall closest to my bed when I opened my eyes. On the wall there was a shadow darker than the room and after a few moments adjusting to being suddenly awake I realized it was Nathaniel. He moved and pointed towards the far end of the room where my closet door was. When I looked to the closet there floating in the air in front of the closet door was Grampie's face, smiling and large. The thing that impressed me the most was how large, his face, floating there took up most of the width of the door. And then they were gone, Grampie and the shadow of Nathaniel. But I understood what happened, I understood why he was there. He was saying goodbye even though no sound was made. I knew he was gone.

Some time later, several days maybe, we were all dressed up and in the car. I am in my own little world half paying attention to the adults talking in the front seat when I hear something about going to see Grampie. And I spoke up and said "But Grampie died" and my Grandmother turns in her seat to look at me and say, "How did you know?".

"He told me".

I don't recall their reaction, I was looking out the window at nothing. I do not remember going to his funeral, I think they have been dropping me off elsewhere. But that's where the memory of the event ends.

GEORGE

George

Submitted by CC

The United Kingdom

 
When we were teenagers my sister and I used to hold séances in our room. To be fair, we never had any clear results, this was obviously a game to us and never really took it too seriously, however, on one occasion, something rather unnerving happened. As you would at any respectable séance we started by concentrating and invoking any spirits to come and communicate with us. We then asked the usual “Is anybody here? If so, make yourself known to us” and proceeded to ‘let the spirit guide our hand’ on whatever card from the Countdown game we had placed in a circle on the floor. To my surprise the ‘spirit’ spelled the name George Bernard Shaw. Of course my sister had quite obviously cheated! And yet, suddenly, the temperature dropped and we both saw the long white curtains lift up and gently fall back down again, as if a short gust of light wind had come through the window. We knew the window to be shut but we checked anyway and yes, it was shut. We both became a bit frightened and left our room in a hurry.

That same evening I started to see around the apartment what I can only describe as a silhouette of white light, shaped like a man but with no features whatsoever. I was the only person to see this, and I only ever caught a glimpse of it for a fleeting second or so in various places, mostly going past outside the kitchen door, in the hall, at every evening meal. I kept asking everyone if they had seen it also, but they never took me quite seriously. The strange dealings between my sister and me over the years, the creepy stories we used to read and then discuss, the horror films, the books we had, our séances etc had made our little impressionable brother very frightened, to the point that he was very scared of sleeping on his own. My parents thought I was making this vision up to frighten him further and forbid me to ever mention this again in his presence. I never once felt this vision menacing in any way, I became used to it and learned to just keep it to myself. My sister was the only one who believed me, and we ended up naming the apparition ‘George’ from our séance of that night.

During the time of these visions some strange unexplained things happened around the house. Small objects disappeared, only to be found in the strangest place of the house a few days later or mysteriously make their way back in their original place. However, the strangest and extremely unnerving occurrence is on a tape recording, which I still possess. During one boring summer my sister got into the habit of recording our conversations, or she would make me sing, do and say funny things, without my knowledge of her recording me on cassette tapes, and then she would replay the recording for a laugh. I’d fall for it every time. One evening we were both in our beds, reading and chatting before going to sleep, when my sister played back the conversation which she had just, again, recorded without my knowledge. I hadn’t finished rolling my eyes to the ceiling when we both froze in terror because we heard a scream which I have no words to describe. It sounded human but also like a growl. My sister stopped the tape immediately and we were both alert and looking at each other confused and frightened because it sounded as it had come from within our room. We soon realized the scream was on the tape...! We played it again and there it was: a ghastly, beastly scream, loud and clear on top of both of our voices. Useless to say neither slept much that night. Nearly two years passed, I had just turned 16 when a chilling night, which I remember quite vividly, put an end to the apparition of George.

My sister and I had gone to bed at a normal time when the familiar noise of the lounge doors woke me up, indicating my dad who had been watching telly was retiring for the night. It was my father’s habit on his way to bed to come and check on us to make sure the lights were off. Indeed I heard the door opening and pretended to sleep. After a few seconds though it was clear that he was still there, peering in, or he had left without closing the door, and so I turned and sat on the bed only to realize that the door was in fact shut. A quick glance at the clock and it was apparent it was way too late for my dad to be still awake, and I started to feel very eerie. It was past 2AM, my sister was fast asleep on the other side of the room. I lied back down, facing the ceiling, trying to calm down: I knew I was definitely awake and I had heard the noises of both doors clearly.  Immediately I became aware of a presence right behind my bed. I turned my head in terror and I wanted to scream or run, but found myself stuck, pinned down to my bed, my body heavy and pressed down into the mattress, unable to move or even whimper. Right behind me was the familiar white apparition holding a baseball bat, the only clearly visible item since the ‘thing’ that was holding it was, mercifully, just made of the usual strange white mist in the shape of a person ... The ‘thing’, George, was terrifying, obviously not because it looked scary, but because I perceived its intentions and they were very malignant indeed. George was holding the baseball bat over his ‘head’ and was about to slam it right down on mine with brutal force. Right when the bat was supposed to hit me and most definitely kill me, George and his bat vanished, I felt free to move again, my head was spinning, and I don’t know if I lost consciousness or just softened into a deep sleep. I woke up in the morning not remembering.  

It was only during a mid morning break at school when, walking along a corridor with a friend, I saw someone walking towards us dressed all in white and I suddenly remembered!

Back home I told my sister what had happened the night before, and we were discussing what it could possibly signify when our brother came into the room and asked “Have you seen my baseball bat? I am late for practice and I can’t find it anywhere.” The bat was found, after searching the whole apartment for it, abandoned, on the floor, in a corner of the terrace.  

  

I never saw George again after that night.

MEETING MY MOTHER"S FRIEND

Meeting My Mother’s Friend

Submitted by Lady Yaro

Independence Day, Circa 1996

Rifton, New York

 

It was a hot summer afternoon of watching cartoons and reading in the living room of my mother’s partially old house, located in the tiny town of Rifton, New York. I was at the young age of six, yet I remember this experience like it happened during a recent morning. I left the living room for a snack. At the time, my father worked the night shift at a grocery store, and was sleeping with the bedroom door closed. (Across the hallway from the entrance to the living room.)

As I began to walk towards the kitchen, I stood in the hallway, as I saw the door start to creak open. I felt as if I were almost forced to wait there to see what, or who, was behind the door. At the time, we had a talented cat named Dixie, who could somehow open a closed door with his paws and sharp claws. I figured it was him, wisely doing that. Or, possibly my father, who could have awaken midday. However, what I saw opening the door brought my young body to chills, tears, and goosebumps. Not fearful tears, rather confused, surprised, and curious ones.

The figure that was floating before me was tall, white, and translucent. I could make out that had this been a human, he was a male sporting a leather motorcycle jacket with longer blonde hair that flowed over his forehead. Not a word was said, from me or the spirit. Nor was any movement made. Just two “pairs” of eyes gazing into each others. Maybe I felt obligated to stay there for a moment, perhaps it was some sort of brief hypnosis. I had never heard much of the term spirits or ghosts before, but I knew what he was.

I remember running into the kitchen, finally, to find my mother. At this point I was frightened and explained what had happened only seconds prior. She hugged me, told me not to worry as a slight chuckle leaped out of her.

She knew who it was. Who he was, and was no one to fear. It’s just often difficult to explain to a six year old why there is the spirit of a deceased in our home, who came to greet me. The man whose spirit I encountered was Chris Trensvisck.* He was a close friend of my mother’s growing up, and did not live too far away. My mother said he would often come over when they were young, so that explained why he chose such a familiar place to visit as his spirit.

She didn’t explain to me why he had passed away until I brought the experience up at a more mature age, where I could handle the term “death”. Her friend Chris had been killed in a serious motorcycle accident at a young age. The impact was so bad, that it nearly left him decapitated.

Chris’s spirit was glowing, and his head was fortunately, attached. To this day I wonder if that was the same jacket he was wearing during his final moments on Earth. I imagine if I were to see his spirit again...what I would do, if I could have a conversation with him. I will admit that there have been a few time which I have stood in the same spot we locked eyes together, and, no sign of him again...yet.


Lady Yaro

NIGHT PATROL IN THE DESERT

Night Patrol in the Desert

Submitted by JD Spencer

Iraq

I served in Iraq a few back and I was on a night patrol. It was at that point just before dawn. In the desert, that's the darkest, coldest time of the night. I was exhausted and really ready to call it a night.

We were stopped at the edge of this village taking a break. There were no lights other than our headlights. I walked about a hundred yards out into the desert and the darkness just swallowed me. I was going to switch on my flashlight when I saw a light a distance out from me.

I just watched it and time kind of stopped. It didn't get closer or farther. It sort of bobbed there like a glowing balloon. I snapped out of the trance when someone shouted at me. We drove over to where I thought I saw the light, but there was nothing out there. No people, no vehicles, no nothing. It left me with creeps for days. Other people have told me similar stories about lights in the desert with no source too or I would think I was nuts!

SARA'S FIRST GHOST

Sara's First Ghost

Submitted by Sarah Cyprien

Hudson Valley, New York

Since I moved to the Hudson Valley in New York paranormal situations started happening to me. The first incident occurred when I was 11 and was living in a 3 bedroom apartment with my family.

           

I used to read to my little brother and sister at night to get them to fall asleep. One night after reading to them I fell asleep on the floor next to my brothers bed. I woke up a few hours later to a weeping noise thinking it was my sister. I looked at her and saw that she was peacefully sleeping. However I proceeded to look into the corner and there I saw a figure of an old man in a wheelchair with his hand on the shoulder of a little girl. The little girl had long dark hair and her hands covering her face and weeping. I stared for a few seconds thinking that my eyes were deceiving me that then bolted out of the room. I proceeded to tell my mother the next day, thinking that she would find what I say crazy but needing to get it out anyways. She went completely white and sat down next to me and told me that she had experienced the weeping sound as well and numerous time of someone trying to keep the door open when she was trying to close it.

NAMELESS CHILD

Nameless Child

Submitted by T. Fox Dunham

Pennsbury Manor, Morrisville Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is rich in its history—one of the pleasures of living in this state. During my recuperation years after my hard fight with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, I volunteered and eventually worked at a historic site, Pennsbury Manor. This was the country home of William Penn, the Quaker who left England and founded Pennsylvania. He built the mansion and farm on the Delaware River to have a quick route to his dream city of Philadelphia. It’s a beautiful estate, far away from civilization on a little bend in the river. At night, there are no artificial lights, only the moon glowing on the flow and the stars.

           
We’d stay late for role-playing practice in the winter, and I’d walk the site along the manor house in the dark, enjoying the peace and the absence of loud civilization. It was still like it would have been in 1701. Now places have a way of remembering, and we leave a trace of ourselves as we go. The land, the manor house remembered the Penn family and the all the suffering that took place there. Understand that before modern medicine, children often didn’t survive. Hannah Penn lost half of her twelve children, several at the manor house. One child died a week after being born, so they never named it. He died nameless to wander.

           
One night walking the dark ground, looking up at the windows, the glass black like obsidian in the night, I saw lights floating past, running, slowing down then flying out. Unnatural lights without an obvious source floated about the grounds. Then, I heard a baby wailing. At first, I thought it was an animal, but the child sobbed, silenced then wailed like a hungry infant or lost spirit. I searched the grounds for an explanation, but besides two of the staff, we were alone and isolated down there.

            
Old spirits walk those grounds. The house remembered. 

DANCING IN THE MIDNIGHT MIST

Dancing in the Midnight Mist
Submitted by Belle DiMonté 

St. Louis, Missouri

The mist. It terrified me. It would often come at night during wretched, drawling storms, unfolding over the dark prairies in the wilderness near my house. I would avoid going outside during those times; something in the way the mist would curl and bob around the lights on the neighbors’ houses, the way the sky would look so bloated and raw—it scared me senseless. But one night...oh, one night...I, a foolish teenage girl, did venture outside to taste the air and the wind. I climbed the hill to the empty fields near my backdoor. I was immersed in mist. Completely engulfed, swallowed in it. I could not see. Could not hear. Just—mist. And then this furious pounding began to rise in the ground beneath me, like a drumbeat. I felt the rush of feet and hands all around me. And I broke into a mad run for home. Once there, at the backdoor, I looked over my shoulder, trembling all over: and I plainly saw, dancing beneath the pool of light made by the nearest neighbor door-lamp, a small, hooded figure with a huge nose. It looked like an elf or a gnome, or maybe it was just a ghost out for some fun, and it did not see me; it only danced, danced, hands aloft, without a care in the world. I lingered on for at least five transfixed minutes, staring, watching its hypnotic, self-absorbed dance. Needless to say, then I rushed inside as quickly as I could.

Belle DiMonté

Co-Editor, Into the Willows

An Ezine of Fantasy and Fey Verse

www.intothewillows.wordpress.com

www.belledimonte.wordpress.com

 

TORI'S HOUSE

Tori’s House

Submitted by Tori L. Ridgewood

Kirkland Lake, Ontario

We've had some unexplainable events in our house, in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Canada. And I know we're not the only ones -- this town is rife with homebody ghosts!

But here are three vials of ghostly fun to pour into the general cauldron...

About two years ago, while my husband was away at school (four hour drive from home), he would Skype me every night to chat with us, often just before the kids were ready for bed. They would say goodnight, I'd take them upstairs, and then we'd have some quiet time to talk before logging off for the evening.

One night, after I had gone upstairs with the kids, he was waiting patiently on his end of the computer connection. The living room was empty. The television was off. 

He heard a voice.

He's never been quite sure what the voice said, but it was definitely something. He's a skeptic, so he didn't pay much attention, other than to be mildly surprised and mention it to me in passing later on.

But there was more...

One night, I woke up and saw a figure in our room. My daughter was in the bed, and the figure was distinctly menacing and terrifying. It was next to my side of the bed. I tried crying out, then curled my body over my daughter and pulled the blanket up around us both, over our heads. When I looked next, it was gone.  

It's not the first time I've seen a figure in my bedroom, watching me sleep, and I can never be sure whether I was truly awake, but it happened in this house and in our home in Swastika. 

A few weeks ago, my husband told me that he saw something reflected in a picture mounted on the wall. It looked like a woman in a long nightgown, and he thought I had gotten out of bed for some reason. But when he turned around there was no-one there...and I was wearing cozy purple jammies that night. So what did he see?

I'm certain there is a presence in this house... And I'm certain that it's actually benevolent. It likes us. Whatever I saw next to the bed, I think our resident spirit shooed it away.

Blog:  torilridgewood.wordpress.com

OLD FRIENDS NEVER LEAVE

Old Friends Never Leave

Submitted by Lady Rose Blackthorn

NW United States

When I was eighteen and graduated from trade school, my best friend gave me a graduation present—an eight week old Russian Blue kitten. When I brought her home, my parents just about wouldn’t let me keep her (they did NOT believe in having animals in the house) but I managed to talk them into letting me keep her.

I could just about write a book about that cat’s life. I named her Kia, and she was queen of our castle. She was my familiar, almost an extension of me. She was a tiny thing, never weighed more than seven pounds in her life, and was a great hunter of mice, grasshoppers, moles and assorted birds. There are legends amongst my friends and family about that cat. She was larger than life.

She was with me for almost twenty years, and when she passed I felt as though I’d lost a child, she was that big a part of my life. Other pets that I’d had over the years, when they passed away they would be buried in the yard, and a stone placed or a flower planted for remembrance. But when Kia died, I wanted to keep her with me. I had her cremated, and her remains placed in a small wooden box engraved with her name.

I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, or just because we’d been each other’s shadow for so many years, but I guess she wanted to stay with me as well. I have never seen her, but I’ve felt her many times. A soft warmth brushing against my bare ankles, a barely sensed vibration as though she lay purring on my pillow. At the time she passed, I had two other cats and a dog. I may never have seen Kia, but I can guarantee that they did! More than once, my dog Sebastian would leap to his feet from a doze to look for the aged cat who’d always kept him in line. And the two male cats, Zion and Matase, would often back away from their food dish in deference to their queen who was no longer there.

I’ve moved since then, a few times, and none of my pets who knew Kia are still with me. But I still have the box with her ashes on my bookshelves. I still sometimes feel her nudge her head against my arm. And sometimes, when the two dogs I have now suddenly jump up from their nap and stare suspiciously into an empty corner, I have to smile. Kia is up to her old tricks.

http://roseblackthorn.wordpress.com/

DREAMING OF THE JERSEY DEVIL

Dreaming of the Jersey Devil

Submitted by Zachary M.

New Jersey Pine Barrens - First Weekend of October 2012

Recently, I went down to Smithville, NJ, to camp out and help my friend run his archery range. I plugged Smithville into my GPS and started on the road early on Friday evening. As I got closer and closer to the end of my drive down, I began to see the road signs that indicated that Smitheville was near Leeds Point, birthplace of the infamous Jersey Devil.

I used to live in a farm house on the edges of the Pine Barrens. Walking in those woods at night, you learn to respect the stories whispered by the residents of the area. You see and experience things that can make the most hardened skeptic carry some charm, just in case they are wrong. But I really didn't take a good look at the map, and assumed the area I was camping in was close enough to the shore to be out of the territory of New Jersey's most famous resident. I left my charms at home, and just slept alone in the back of my car.

The first night went by without incident, and I spent the day having fun and teaching kids to shoot bows and arrows. On Saturday night, however, things got interesting.

The visitations came in my dreams. I am a semi-lucid dreamer, having taught myself a degree of control over my dreams as a child to fight off a problem I used to have with nightmares. As a result of that control, I have learned that there are some dreams that are just different than others. In these dreams, the feel and engagements is different, and there is a sense of alieness that comes when something gets introduced from outside of my own mind. The first dream to come had this sense of surreal weirdness. I will save you from the disturbing details, but let's just say it involved the level of gore you would typically see in a Quentin Tarrentino or Rob Zombie movie directed at an innocent child at the hands of a winged monster. Normally, that would be enough to set me off, but I was so distant in viewing the scene, that it appeared like a television show, and I reacted in disgust towards the producers rather than fear.

The next dream was more personal.

In the dream, I was me. I was in the back of my car, in my sleeping bag, pretty much the exact situation of my real world self. I then heard a sniffing and snorting coming from outside the car, and the car began to shake as if a large animal was knocking into it. I attempted to  get up to see what was outside, but as I began to reach towards my jeans to grab my keys, a hairy arm came through the window, across my body, and grabbed hand, keeping me in place. As it grabbed me, I could feel the pain of its nails digging into my hand. This was, by the way, the first time pain did not wake me from a dream. I looked at the arm, It was too thin to be a bear, and the claws were too small. The hair was long and thin, similar to an orangutan’s and it was colored a deep chocolate brown. Because I could not place what animal it was, my curiosity was stronger than my fear, and I new I had to get up and see what this creature was. The more I tried to rise, the more I was pinned, and eventually I just pushed with all my mental might to rise.

And I was alone in my car again, with the pain still stinging in my hand.

I took a few moments to shake off and process the experience. When I realized what had visited me, I began to search around my car for hoof prints, or any other sign of the visit. I actually felt denied the full experience when nothing was found. I shouted at the woods, complaining of the decline of the supernatural standards, as the visit seemed only half-finished and without climax, without that final touch. Maybe next time we meet, he'll be ready to put in that extra effort. But then again, next time I'll know to be ready as well...

SENSING SOMEONE

Sensing Someone
Submitted by Belle DiMonté 

St. Louis, Missouri

Once I was home alone and I got this very strong feeling that I was not, actually, alone. I peered all around me but found no-one of course because it seemed for all intents and purposes that I was honestly alone. But I could not shake off the feeling of being watched, of being tailed...so I gathered up all my courage and shouted, “Is there anybody here?” and at that very second, a painting fell off the wall with a clatter, freaking me out horribly. I locked myself in the bathroom with all the lights on and did not come out until someone returned home. I quickly forgot about the whole incident until a few days later, when I was lying in bed one night... (I hear you all going “AAAAH!” but no, wait for it...) and right as I was about to drift off to sleep, I felt a blazing hot aura sidle from the farthest wall to the foot of my bed. It freaked me out. I thought I was dreaming, so I sat up, staring at the hot aura, staring, but I saw nothing. I laid back down. The aura did not go away. It only came closer, burning hotter and hotter. I felt the sensation of someone peering at me. I sat up again. There was nothing. The space at the bottom of my bed was completely empty and dark, though I could feel something very hot and very keen, peering, just peering. And the aura stayed for a long while. 10 minutes or more, until it at last just passed over me, passed into the wall behind me, and was gone. I shivered into a restless sleep. A few days later, I felt another hot aura sidle through the walls, only this aura was a different one than before, followed closely by another hot aura. The two auras danced swiftly over my bed, passing over and above me, and I distinctly heard—though no words were actually said aloud—a young man’s voice saying, “Excuse me, we’re just passing through,” and then I heard the sound of a car alarm blaring in the distance. I feel that on the first night I had been sensing the spirit of a departed family member come back to "check up" on me, for the aura did not feel malicious, only concerned, and perhaps a bit sad. That second night I think I sensed the auras of two young men who had died in a car accident passing on their way from the car to whatever is on the other side...perhaps...perhaps not...but this is what I honestly feel...though I have never sensed such spirits again!

Belle DiMonté

Co-Editor, Into the Willows

An Ezine of Fantasy and Fey Verse

 

www.intothewillows.wordpress.com

www.belledimonte.wordpress.com

BLACK SMOKE

BLACK SMOKE

Submitted by Tara Fox Hall

Northeast U.S.

My mother Chris loves to retell this story in our family. I would think it was fiction, if I hadn’t been there the night it happened.

            

Chris had been in her early thirties, sure of herself, one divorce already under her belt. The apartment had been a godsend: cheap, easy to heat, and no yard to mow. There were no stairs, unlike the apartment above hers with a whole flight to transverse. The only drawback was that the laundry room for both apartments was in the cellar.

           

She’d never liked the cellar. It was raw earth, one wall just rubble and soil where the excavators had stopped working. There was one bare bulb for light, its illumination never reaching the corners. Worst of all was that against the far wall was a sub cellar with stone steps. Down there was the worst, because the weak light didn’t reach that far. There was no electricity. If you ventured down those steps, you had to have a flashlight.

           

That night she’d been folding laundry, cursing the landlord and his refusal to buy a dryer. Idiot had said dryers shrunk sheets. She’d been hurrying, tired from a long day at work. She had reached down to put the laundry in the basket. When she’d looked up, against the wall in front of her was the cast shadow of immense unfurling batwings.

           

Bat, she thought dumbly. It’s a big bat.

           

The wings continued to unfurl slowly.

           

She turned, and then stared with wide eyes. Dense black smoke floated a foot off the ground, wafting slightly.

           

That was no bat!

           

Screaming at the top of her lungs, Chris had fled the basement, locked the cellar door, run upstairs and locked her own front door. She huddled at the kitchen table for a few minutes, trying to pull herself together with the aid of a beer while her 8 year old daughter Tara played with her horses on the kitchen table. Then she had gone upstairs to her neighbor’s apartment and asked him to help her with a bat in the cellar.

           

Her gracious neighbor had come to the rescue, telling her to stay upstairs while he got rid of the bat. He’d gone downstairs alone, whistling, while she waited in fear upstairs, trying to decide what to do if he didn’t come back.

           

However, the worst hadn’t happened. Her neighbor was back in ten minutes. A thorough search of the cellar had revealed nothing out of place. With a smile that managed not to be condescending, he’d assured her that if any bat was still down there, she was safe, as he’d locked the cellar door.

           

It had taken Chris three days to work up the courage to get her clothes. When she had finally ventured downstairs, it had been in the day, the weak light streaming into the cellar through the two narrow dirty windows. The minutes had seemed like hours as she slowly crossed the cracked cement floor, her eyes on the sub cellar that remained in inky blackness. A sudden subtle noise had come, as if some creature had shifted its weight, getting ready to pounce. Stifling a scream, Chris had grabbed her laundry basket quickly, then hauled ass upstairs.

           

She’d stayed there another few weeks, always making sure to make trips to the cellar during the day. She’d never again seen whatever it had been in the cellar that night, or heard any more noises. To her knowledge, no one else who had lived there over the years had ever reported seeing anything, including her cousin, who’d moved in when she’d left.

           

Her fear lingered over the unsolved mystery, haunting her thoughts on dark nights. As the years passed, she’d theorized the black smoke was a vampire or maybe a ghost. The place had been a bar long ago; maybe someone had been murdered there, or murdered someone else.

Tara Fox Hall is an OSHA-certified safety and health inspector at a metal fabrication shop in upstate New York. She received her bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a double minor in chemistry and biology from Binghamton University. Her writing credits include nonfiction short stories, flash, short and novella-length horror stories, and contemporary and historical paranormal romance. She also coauthored the essay “The Allure of the Serial Killer,” published in Serial Killers - Philosophy for Everyone: Being and Killing (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Her first E-Book, Surrender to Me, was published in September 2011. Tara is the author of the Promise Me vampire romance series and the Lash action adventure series.She divides her free time unequally between writing novels and short stories, chainsawing firewood, caring for stray animals, sewing cat and dog beds for donation to animal shelters, target practice, and contemplating—though not committing—murder for hire.

BEAR'S GHOSTS

Bear’s Ghosts

Submitted by Rebecca Brown

Cardiff, Wales, UK

When I first saw a 'ghost', I must have been about seven or eight. He was a relatively short man dressed in dark green who stood in the corner of the room and admired his own fingernails. There was nothing frightening about him. Nothing intimidating. I liked his hat and told him as much. Mostly, he ignored me. 

Photo by Rebecca at Llandaff Cathedral, Wales.

 

 That was the first time. It wasn't the last time I saw something or even the last time I saw that man in particular. 

There were regular visitors and 'occasionals' who made an appearance.

Mostly, they ignored me. There was a man with a wood axe once who brought the blade down as if to cut me. I don't think he saw me and I don't think he meant to hurt me. In his 'reality', there was wood. He cut it. It wasn't pleasant, though... 

There were a few 'unusuals' too. 

Things which didn't make sense. From time to time, I saw people who were almost definitely alive. Usually, a little bit of investigation found that they were sleeping at the time or otherwise unconscious. Maybe they 'wandered'. Maybe they were thinking of me. I don't know.

I still see things you might class as 'ghosts' sometimes. Mostly, they still ignore me. When they don't, they're rarely threatening. I've 'encouraged' some of them to make their way to wherever it is they're meant to be - but that isn't always appropriate. Some of them, I think, are just echoes. A fading trail. There's nothing left to go because they already went a long time ago. 

Llandaff Cathedral, Wales

Orbs are paranormal activity caught on photographs. Some paranormal researchers believe them to be aspects of spirits. -- Fox

There's definitely something there, but I'm not convinced the photos show anything but dodgy photography if I'm honest - see what you think :) -- Rebecca Brown

  
Rebecca Brown's Blog: 

http://rebeccalbrownupdates.wordpress.com/

Llandaff Cathedral Website:

http://www.llandaffcathedral.org.uk/

HOSPITAL FOOT STEPS

Hospital Foot Steps

Submitted by Jamie O'Connell

Here's one for you...

When I was sixteen, I was hurt pretty badly and paralyzed. You spend a lot of time in the hospital lying awake staring at the ceiling. I started counting things to keep my brain from losing it. Cracks in the tiles, tiny holes in the tiles, the number of times the fire alarm blinked in an hour... stuff like that. I also started counting footsteps in the hallway during rounds. One night I was in a lot of pain and couldn't sleep. I started counting footsteps to take my mind off it. A lot of nursing staff wear rubber soled shoes and they have a particular squish on linoleum. So it's the middle of the night and I hear the tread of heavy shoes. No squish. It caught my attention because it was so out of place. I listened to the thud go down the hall and vanish. A nurse came to check on me and give me meds and I asked about it. She swore up and down there was no one on the floor with shoes like that. Visitors? It was the middle of night. Was I hallucinating? My pain meds had worn off. I never heard it again, but I'm convinced it was a ghost.

Jamie O'Connell

Thanks for this Fox! I'm going to enjoy reading all of them

THE HAND GAME

The Hand Game

Submitted by B.E. Scully

Woods just outside of good ol' Sunbury, PA

One of the painfully enjoyable delights of my childhood was “The Hand Game.” My dad and I would stand facing each other, sometimes with my hands on the bottom facing up and his on top facing down, sometimes the other way around. Without so much as a fair-warning “Go,” the person whose hands were on top would flip them over and attempt to smack the hands of the person on the bottom. If you were on the bottom, you had to be fast enough to pull your hands out of the way to avoid a double hands-smack down.

           

Dad was almost always fast enough to avoid getting a smack, and I was almost always too slow to avoid not getting one. And dad, being the former hard-as-nails Green Beret that he was, wasn’t about to throw the game just to let me win. If I wanted a genuine hand-slap on Dad, I had to earn it.

           

Dad was so tough and stubborn, in fact, that he was sure that after he died he’d be able to come back in the afterlife for one last stand.

           

“Send me some kind of sign,” I’d always tell him, as eager to impress him with my courage as to actually get a sign from the after-life.

           

Then right out of nowhere one day a massive heart attack came and took Dad to the other side—just the way he’d always wanted to go, fast and fuss-free, if a little sooner than any of us expected.

           

When I came back to the old house to help Mom with the arrangements, I was up at the burn barrel getting rid of some old papers and documents when I decided to test Dad’s mettle. It was a deep winter day in Pennsylvania, which meant that it was pitch black by six o’clock at night. The shadows from the forest that surrounded me on all sides crept closer to the leaping fire.

           

I stared into the forest that Dad had loved so much and spent so much time in and suddenly I said, “O.K., Dad, give me a sign! I’m ready! You always said you’d give me a sign, and here I am waiting for it!”

           

And instantly from out of the forest darkness came the sound of steady, crashing human footsteps—not a leaping deer, not a scurrying raccoon or a wandering cat, but the unmistakable tread of human feet. Or at least, once human feet.

           

I stood there as long as I could as the footsteps drew closer. Then I threw down the fire place poker clutched in my trembling hands and ran as fast as I could back to the lit safety of the house.

           

After I had calmed down and armed myself with a flashlight, I went back up to the burn barrel and called out for Dad, but he was nowhere to be found. Just like he always had in life, Dad had done exactly what he said he would—he’d given me the sign, and was probably right now having one hell of a laugh in the afterlife at the sight of me high-tailing it away in blind terror.

           

Dad had come back to win The Hand Game one last time.