Ghost Stories

The first story I'm posting is about the famous "woman in white"...

Since I was a little girl, I have always known that ghosts and spirits are around us. This particular time was when I was about 12 years old my mother, father, little sister, and I had moved into a new home in august of 1998. It was a brick, ranch style house on a dead end street. The last house actually. As I remember, I didn't feel anything weird or strange in the house at first. It wasn't until months later that I started to realize that something in that house wasn't right.

I think it was the summer of 99 when I had this particular experience. It was late at night maybe early morning and everyone was asleep. It was still very dark outside. My sister and I shared a bedroom and had bunk beds. I was on top and she had the bottom. I have this thing about open doors at night so I like to close my door when I'm going to sleep. So that night, after going to bed and knowing that I CLOSED MY DOOR, I was woken by a LOUD BANG. I sat up like a rocket and looked around the room to see where the noise came from. When I looked over at the door to the hallway I saw that it was WIDE OPEN and swinging slightly like it had just bounced off the wall behind it. It was liked someone punched or kicked the door open!

As I continued to look, I saw the back of someone walking down the hallway away from my room towards the living room. They were short and thin with something white and almost bright on like it had light coming from it but they were walking too fast for me to see exactly. Now, it's late at night and no lights are on in the entire house. I waited a second to see if they would turn on some lights or the TV or make a noise or something because I was thinking it might have been my dad (even though he was at least 6 ft tall and had a beer belly) going to get something to drink from the kitchen or watch some TV. But there was NOTHING. Complete silence. Okay, now I was starting to freak out. Here I am, sitting up in the top bunk of my bed staring out my open door into the dark silent hallway. I was still HOPING it was my dad (my mom had passed a few months before so I knew it could only be him right? And in case anyone is thinking it was my mom, she was a taller heavyset woman so it wasn't her) I was too afraid to say a word because I feared that if it wasn't my dad, whoever it was would hear me and come back down the hallway and into my room. But somehow I worked up the courage for one, good, loud "DAD!"

... And NOTHING... He didn't answer back! Okay, so I KNOW it wasn't him. So then I try to wake my little sister. I shook the bed, and tapped her on the head with my stuffed animals I kept at the foot of my bed. She didn't wake up either... And I was too afraid to get up and close the door in case it heard me moving around and came back. So I threw myself under the covers...shaking, and sweating bullets until I eventually fell asleep.

The next day I asked my dad if he opened our door last night to check on us or something. He said no and that he slept through the entire night. I told him what had happened and he told me I had a bad dream. It wasn't until years later when we both experienced something together that he would tell me about this same "woman" that he would see at night as well (but his experiences were scarier)...and that he was afraid to tell us about it or verify what I was telling him for fear that he would scare us.

This one is a funny story from the Alabama folklore...

Never Mind Them Watermelons

Well now, old Sam Gibb, he didn't believe in ghosts. Not one bit. Everyone in town knew the old log cabin back in the woods was haunted, but Sam Gibb just laughed whenever folks talked about it. Finally, the blacksmith dared Sam Gibb to spend the night in the haunted log cabin. If he stayed there until dawn, the blacksmith would buy him a whole cartload of watermelons. Sam was delighted. Watermelon was Sam's absolute favorite fruit. He accepted the dare at once, packed some matches and his pipe, and went right over to the log cabin to spend the night. Sam went into the old log cabin, started a fire, lit his pipe, and settled into a rickety old chair with yesterday's newspaper. As he was reading, he heard a creaking sound. Looking up, he saw that a gnarled little creature with glowing red eyes had taken the seat beside him. It had a long, forked tail, two horns on its head, claws at the ends of its hands, and sharp teeth that poked right through its large lips. "There ain't nobody here tonight except you and me," the creature said to old Sam Gibb. It had a voice like the hiss of flames. Sam's heart nearly stopped with fright. He leapt to his feet. "There ain't going to be nobody here but you in a minute," Sam Gibb told the gnarled creature. He leapt straight for the nearest exit - which happened to be the window - and hi-tailed it down the lane lickety-split. He ran so fast he overtook two rabbits being chased by a coyote. But it wasn't long before he heard the pounding of little hooves, and the gnarled creature with the red eyes caught up with him. "You're making pretty good speed for an old man," said the creature to old Sam Gibb. "Oh, I can run much faster than this," Sam Gibb told it. He took off like a bolt of lightning, leaving the gnarled creature in the dust. As he ran passed the smithy, the blacksmith came flying out of the forge to see what was wrong. "Never mind about them watermelons," Sam Gibb shouted to the blacksmith without breaking his stride. Old Sam Gibb ran all the way home and hid under his bed for the rest of the night. After that, he was a firm believer in ghosts and spooks, and he refused to go anywhere near the old cabin in the woods.