Welcome back to our second installment of our special Halloween episodes…. Tonight we will hear more stories from people’s experiences with the unknown, the unexplained…. With things that go bump in the night and haunt your dreams. These experiences are read out by me, because for some reason people are shy, but it doesn’t take away the chill factor of the experiences. So get yourself comfortable, turn down the lights, but not too low – you want to be able to see what is lurking in the corners of your room, or out in your corridor, or on your stairs…. Are you ready to walk with me into this part of the shadowlands and see what awaits us there? Then let’s begin.

This is Dar77’s experience

This happened in 2014. I had finally decided to try out a DVR, since it was included with the satellite dish package I purchased. Mind you I never really learned how the thing worked, so I never got much use out of it. However, one day, I noticed that it had recorded something on it’s own. I found it strange because I had never really sat down and figured out how to operate it.

Naturally I was curious as to WHAT it had recorded, so I pushed play and to my surprise it was a recording of an old show called ‘ Bonanza ‘. The only time I had ever heard of this show was from my Dad when I was a kid. But here it was. Even more peculiar was that it only recorded part of an episode. I was taken a back by the whole thing and decided to just leave it for a few days. During those few days I kept thinking about it and wondering HOW this could even be, WHAT it was all about.

My Dad had passed away about a year prior to this and I began thinking that maybe he was trying to tell me something. So I finally sat down to watch the recording. In this partial episode it involved a Dad and his sick daughter. She was bed ridden and the father was grieving at her bed side. The father seemed so concerned for his daughter, and wanted to help her but could not. He sat there and tried comforting her with his words, as she lay dying. Then the recording ended.

I knew that up until this point I had already dealt with several health issues and surgeries, while he was alive and he had been there for me. So I couldn’t help but wonder if my Dad could now foresee some new health concerns, since he was no longer living. Was he trying to warn me? Not too long after this I began having new health problems and am still having issues that I am currently seeking help for. And I’ve had to have more surgeries too. I honestly feel like my Dad was trying to tell me of these health issues and that perhaps he wanted to be here for me, but could not.

Kest from Louisiana

We lived in Louisiana because my husband was military. We had lived on the base for 18 months. It was not a happy place to live, and when I finally learned that we were going to be stuck there for a while, I decided I wanted a house. We looked at 3 houses that were for sale, and settled on one. It was a little fixer upper, but I loved that little house. Now for fixer upper, it didn’t need a lot of work. It needed paint, some new flooring, and a few new appliances – mostly cosmetic. It was all of 1,200 square feet. It had 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Coming from base housing it was a huge upgrade as we only had 900 square feet and 2 bedrooms, and 1 bathroom for our small family.

We had two small girls at the time. Both are grown and teens at this time. I have written about one of them who I call Jacey. This story probably relates to her. In fact, it might relate to her “friends.” If you don’t know about her friends, it’s not a bad idea to go back and visit that story, or take a look at it after this one if you prefer.

This happened at night. My husband has always been very big about not having the kids sleep with us. He’s kind of a big guy. He worried if a kid was in the bed he might squish them. I was always the one that if a kid woke up, they would wake me up and I’d usher them back to bed. I have always thought of myself as a heavy sleeper, but always woke when the kids came in the room. Nothing bothers my hubby when he sleeps. I remember it was 3:00 or 3:30 in the morning. I was woken by a kid standing by the bed. I thought it was Jacey. There was a window next to my side of the bed, but she was standing just outside the light of the window in the shadows. She was holding her blanket (both of the kids had blankets they were very attached to). I remember sitting up, standing and saying, “Jacey, let’s go back to bed. Come on.” Now, I was NOT asleep, and this was not a dream. I am one of those people when I am woken at night, I am very awake and can struggle to go back to sleep. I got out of bed and walked the 3 or maybe 4 steps toward Jacey thinking that she was very “black” and was surprised not more light was coming in the window as there was quite a bit of light that came in that window (one of the reasons I liked my spot in the bedroom). As soon as I was maybe a step from her, I realized this was not Jacey. It didn’t feel like Jacey (feel as in feeling a person’s presence), it is too small to be Jacey, it looks wrong, and it is not responding to me. “Jacey” suddenly blew apart. The blackness exploded, and it reminded me of black glitter as she rained down and the black glitter just disappeared to nothing.

I remember I ran out of my bedroom across the hall to Jacey’s room. Jacey was in bed sleeping. I went back to my bedroom and stood there. I went back to Jacey’s room and I got very close to her. I thought maybe she was pretending to sleep. How did she make it back to her room and get to sleep so fast? Was she playing with me? I realized she was sleeping and the emotions/feelings I had knowing that what I saw was not Jacey came flooding back to me. I left Jacey’s room, checked on our other daughter who was also sleeping soundly and I went back to bed. I considered waking up my husband, but didn’t know what I’d tell him. It took me a long time to go to sleep after that. I was up for close to an hour and did one of my tours of the house where I would walk all through the house a few times over. I didn’t feel any malice or threat coming from whatever it was. For all I know it could have been a child looking for a “mom.”

Bettina Marie from Utah

My mom was the school librarian for 23 years at the little public school, built in the 50/60’s (?) The main building was a kind of an H layout, with some outside “modular” classrooms. The admin office, staff WC/lounge, gym and cafeteria were all by the front, South entrance hall on the center “bar” of the H. My Mom’s library was a couple doors down, on the “outer” side of the lower “leg” or Southeast wing of the H. There were self-locking “exit only” fire doors at the end of each hall, which can be used, but not held open, without setting off the alarms. The entire campus was demolished, the year after my mom retired. I do not know if the new school got built there.

As a visitor, I always went in through the front doors to the office. I may have been in the cafeteria once, but I never really went past the hall where you go from the office around the corner to my Mom’s library. I had entered a few of the classrooms on that wing and the teacher’s lounge during daylight hours.

I had only visited my Mom a few times during school, in her little library. It had a “reading dragon” and a “life sized” statue of a beloved fictional character. I was not personally fond of this odd, adorable statue, but my mom talked to it and dressed it for holidays. The little kids loved it, too, of course. I always felt overgrown and out of place, even in her library. One time I was there to see my sister in law dressed up as Clifford the Big Red Dog for the book fair. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts…

I chalked up my general dislike for the building to the fact that it always stunk like grubby little children and rotted wood. Sorry to those who love kids; they do leave a stink. I disliked how the school felt, but shrugged it away. Many public schools out west are flat, plain, painted cinder block buildings, with upper inside windows along the halls. The open layout makes it so you can see into most hallways and classrooms from outside or the opposite wings. All my elementary schools had looked, dismally, more or less, the same. Many of them also had given me the same used, unpleasantly familiar, crowded but empty, “old” feeling when I was young. So no biggie: some schools I’d visited were much larger, older and creepier in the poor rural regions of my childhood. (I am looking at you, Middleton JHS.) However, I had never been to any of them alone after dark.

When my mom retired I came from the West Coast to help her clean her library and trim the collection. She struggled with tossing anything. I flew to help close her deadline to clear out. I love my mom, and I also hoard books, but I pushed her pretty hard to save what she could and damn the rest. I have worked in Used Books so I am accustomed to the heartache of “Discards”. We filled many boxes of donations. Piles of books lined the halls outside. We also had to pile up the trash there, as we’d be locked out trying to get to the dumpsters. The custodian was on vacation. My mom was worried about how he would react to all the piles of trash bags and recycling in the hall when he got back.

Anyway, on previous visits, I had found the teeny tiny stalls and tinier toilets in the student bathrooms were way too little for my large person to use. So I had avoided going in there since, and I had never been on the “Boy’s” side until I needed garbage bags to help my mom clean that summer day. The custodian supply room was just inside past the doorway to the boy’s side bathroom. Because I have worked as a janitor I have a habit of announcing my femme self when entering a Men’s room. These restrooms had no doors, and were side by side, where the entrance hall met my mom’s wing, opposite the staff lounge.

When I first went in on the boy’s side, I felt what could be the normal, elementary school transgressiveness of being in the (gasp) wrong bathroom, even though we were, for sure, the only ones there. Alas, I have spent way too much time cleaning bathrooms for there to be much novelty in that. With each trip into the “closet” for supplies my feelings grew to a more specific and very VERY unwelcome menacing absolute of something bad watching me and lurking close by. Eventually I just grabbed up a bunch of stuff and decided not to be in there again. This was on my first day of the trip. I felt like a ninny for being scared, even though it was a strong, involuntary, physical response. That first night we stayed until seven or so, before it was dark. Mom said she wanted to be out by nine and I assumed it was district policy.

The next day was Friday, we barely had time to meet the deadline. Once again, after 3 or 4 pm we were the only people in the whole school. I was a little out of patience with my loving mother when I discovered that, in addition to the treasures of her library, we also needed to clear out two large storage spaces. These unused areas were located across the hall from the bathrooms, between the teachers lounge and office area. Leaving my mom to tearfully catalog a stack of stragglers, I set out to basically toss or recycle twenty years worth of holiday and book fair decorations.

That whole time I was very much aware that I was NOT alone and I worked as fast and as quietly as possible. I did not want to be there in the hall or those storage cubbies after dark, no sir. The lurking feeling got stronger and more ominous, it seemed to seethe down the hall, up to the doorway of the library, coming from the bathrooms. I felt cornered in, followed, and watched in the small storage areas. It was all I could do not to run away back to my mom. After a stern lecture to my coward heart, I gave up on sorting the mess, and just shoveled it all into trash bags. Thus I quickly finished the storage areas.

My mom was tired, and sad to leave her school. We still had a very steep amount of cleaning and at least three sections of shelves to trim. We were up to our eyeballs in dust and books, working until it was dark and only the “emergency” lights lit the halls. She had turned on the real lights right in our part of the hall, though. The evil feeling was still there, but worse. My mom also locked us in, once it was dark, without saying anything. I felt safe enough with her, in the library, even if I felt like something was lurking near us in the empty hall. I felt very much like we were cornered by some angry, vengeful watcher.

Eventually Mom said she wanted to go home. I looked at my watch. It was only 8 pm, we still had an hour; so I said we should grind on. The end of our task was in sight. We powered through and managed to catalog or trim all the relevant materials. All that was left was to load some personal things and donations to take them away. We decided to do it the next day, because the car was full. At least the district’s to-do list was complete in time for her to turn in her keys.

I do remember forcing myself not to look back as I walked to the end of the hall and the lights of the fire exit. I waited, arms full, while Mom locked her classroom door. Mom went around the corner to drop her keys to the office, then hit the hall lights off. I have never in my adult life been more afraid of the dark than in those few moments it took for my mom to come back down that very short hallway. I have huge goosebumps now trying to write this. The dark shadows from the rest of the school seemed rushing to eat us both alive. I mean to say that I could feel with every inch of my being that some thing or many things was angry and present. Like “the predator is actually right beside you about to gobble your ass-NOW RUN” type of physical, animal certainty. My mom moved slow and tired toward me. I tried to be cool and not scream. There was nothing to be seen or heard. I felt like if I showed an inch of fear or acknowledgement, my mom and I would both be done for.

My mom is a tough cookie, but her retirement and gutting her collection had her in an emotional state. I had also further upset her by throwing stuff away, which she had just found around the corner. (Note: I am not much of an actor and a worse liar.) So I did not say anything or run screaming outside.

We left, checked the door behind us, and crammed into the car. Since I was also tired, and I watch way too many movies, I just shook off the horrorshow feeling. Honestly, everywhere I go in Utah has some level of scary crappy energy. I did not want to complain or to scare my mother. I was just very glad to be done. Also I did not want to admit what a chicken I am.

My mom said something about how she hoped any restaurants might be still open, and I realized my watch was on Pacific time. So we had left the school around eleven thirty, not nine-thirty like I thought.

The next morning we went back to fetch the remaining items. School started that next week. Many of the staff were prepping their classrooms. One of them waved and sent his teenage kid to open the fire door for us, the one we had exited the night before. Everything was too sunny and loudly fine. My mom went into his classroom and after introductions, the kid politely offered to help me carry things to the car. My mom stayed to chat with her colleague.

The boy says casually, as we walked up the hall “So, you were here late last night-did you hear ghosts?”

Trying to be cool, I was all, “Noooo…has that happened to you?”

Then this young kid tells me, all nonchalant, how he has heard ghostly children voices. That people had seen ghost figures, or heard footsteps across empty halls and the empty roof of that wing, for many years. How no one ever stays at the school alone or after dark, even the janitors. I tried not to barf or cry. He sort of smiled kindly at the look on my face and said “it scares my dad too” and that his dad, “won’t be here anymore alone or at night” since the one night “he and another teacher chased some voices that also slammed doors but no one was here.” I felt like someone was pouring ice into my guts. Even the dusty sunlight seemed scary. I could tell he was trying to be nice by changing the subject of conversation. I did not tell him what happened or how scared I was, but he seemed to feel bad for bringing it up. Needless to say, I packed up fast and with his help made just that one last trip.

Once we were both safe in the car again I brought up what the kid had said. I told my mom how scared I was in the bathroom, and the night before, and just then in broad daylight with other people. In response she just casually threw out how the staff had “all heard and seen creepy stuff FOR YEARS,” especially in the tunnels (WHAT?!) which go from that boys bathroom, under the school, to the other side of the gym. She calmly said that is why “she tries to be out by nine, because she knows she cannot fight whatever ‘It’ is, alone or after dark, since she wouldn’t let ‘It’ into her library.” At this point nothing on this Earth could have got me back in that school.

She is very religious so her matter-of-fact reaction surprised me. Three cheers to my mom, the brave little librarian who apparently educated several generations of kids while terrible lurking nasties crept around their school. (Her beloved fictional character’s statue got moved to the office for that last year. I like to think he helped guard my mom, and then that very last class of students after she left.) I had no idea if Mom coped with that same level of hateful, lurking, carnivorous evil energy for twenty something years, day after day, but DAMN.

I did not know what to say sitting there in the bright summer sun. I just cried. It was a terrible, no-good, very bad weekend. I really hate to visit Utah.

Fatih from Wales

I’m not much of a story teller, however I felt this was an experience that I needed to share. I’m Faith, I’m 19 and from a country called Wales in the UK, I’ve had a couple ghostly experiences and am quite a believer of the supernatural however this experience shook even me.

Me and my boyfriend Kieran had been together for 4 years and decided to stay at a hotel for our anniversary on the 16th of April 2019, since we never get time alone. We stayed at a place in Swansea called The Grand Hotel. When we got there everything seemed fine and we were allocated to room 2.12.

The first night was fine and nothing seemed out of place, we were having a great time and everything was happy. That was until things started to get weird. Things in the bathroom seemed to be moving places, at first I assumed it was the maids who had moved things while attending to the room. Things kept moving and I started to realise they were even moving after the maids had been.

Already a bit creeped out by the whole thing I decided to tell my “non believer” boyfriend Kieran all about it. He insisted that he hadn’t moved anything. When he asked me what had moved I explained how the glasses had turned the other way around and how both of our toothbrushes had been moved multiple times after me putting them back. Along with this my bag with all my toiletries in had moved. My boyfriend thought that maybe I just hadn’t remembered where I had put stuff, I knew this wasn’t the case as I can be OCD over my things and the exact place they must go.

Things continued to move until one night while my boyfriend was asleep I saw a face, it was near the door of the bathroom but it was too dark to make out. I thought it was the face of a woman watching me. I was petrified and woke my boyfriend who just hugged me and told me to go to sleep without opening his eyes. When I looked back the face was gone and I eventually went to sleep.

On about the 5th night me and my boyfriend had an argument before bed and I was ignoring him when he fell asleep. I was so mad, furious even. The argument wasn’t even serious but I was so mad I went into the bathroom because I couldn’t stand being in the bed with him. I looked into the mirror and I was suddenly filled with thoughts I had never had before. I thought “imagine how bad he would feel if I hung myself right here.”

After a couple hours of sitting on the bath looking at my reflection I finally convinced myself to go back to bed. When I returned my boyfriend apologised (in his sleep may I add) and all of my angry thoughts dispersed.

The next morning the key card for our door stopped working. We had to go to the hotel reception to fix the card however it turned out that it was the electronic lock that was broken so we had to move to a different room. The room we moved to was only a couple of rooms down. But nothing happened in that room. It was completely normal.

When I got home I researched the hotel to see if anyone had died, the only death I found was a woman called Rachel Phillips in 2016 who had gone to the hotel with her girlfriend. She and her girlfriend had argued and she was found to have hung herself in the bathroom in her room. I had never heard of the incident before and was shocked to actually find something.

The room number wasn’t stated and there was no information on anyone saying about the hotel being haunted. However when I saw the picture of the woman, I swear that was the face I had seen by the bathroom door. I like to believe she wanted to share with me how she felt, how angry, how upset and how determined she felt. I sympathize with this young woman and hope she may rest in peace some day.

One last cut

from KillHILLQueen90

I was in beauty school spring of 2015. It was normal day, when a client walks in the door they sign in, and the receptionists brings a slip back with the client’s name on it and what service was needed. I get my slip, I walk to the seating area and I hollar out “Larry”. A little old man gets up and walks to my station, basic haircut. He never said 1 word to me. I finished his haircut he got up laid my tip on my counter and left.

Next day I was off of school I’m sitting at home reading the news paper. I turn the page and there is LARRY. It broke my heart, I yelled at my boyfriend “awww babe I cut this guys hair yesterday and he died.” My boyfriend just brushes it off like “o’well”

I started reading the obituary and it said HE died 2 Days before I cut his hair. I was in tears like with just happened moment. Then I started thinking maybe they got the days mixed up which doesn’t happen a lot. But maybe it did this time. I was so confused. I couldn’t explain it. I literally was at a loss for words.

I cut it out the paper and took it to school the next day asking everybody if they remember him, no one paid enough attention. So I go to my school owner and have her pull the school’s sign in sheet and what do you know, there it is, the name LARRY no last name. Just Larry. I was so shook I even made my teacher cry when I told her what was going on.

I physically touched this man. Not to mention at this time I lived in a town 15 miles north of Larry’s hometown and had to drive through his town to get to school. I am going to assume he just needed 1 last cut before his holiday in the sky. What do y’all think?

Mireille’s Daffodils

from GSD Lady in Canada

This event occurred while driving down the road in a rural area of l’Ange-Gardien (Guardian Angel), in the Outaouais region of Quebec, Canada. My cousins, Paul and Charlie, had just lost their friend, Mireille, who was only 30 years old and the single mother of a young child. Mireille’s husband had drowned in a boating accident the previous spring and she had inherited her husband’s Harley Davidson motorcycle when he passed away.

Sadly, on the evening of June 1st, 2000, Mireille died in a very violent collision while riding home with two female friends. As she rode her motorcycle down a dip in the road with her two friends following behind her, a farmer, who was driving his tractor and pulling a hay wagon, had pulled out onto the road in front of her at the last second. According to her two friends, it happened so quickly, Mireille didn’t have time to react and she couldn’t avoid the fatal collision. I’ll skip the details regarding her injuries because they are just too horrifying to recount. Mireille was rushed to the nearest hospital by ambulance where she passed away about an hour after the accident occurred. Her orphaned child went to live with her aunt, Sylvie.

About a week later, I was in l’Ange-Gardien when Paul and I decided to go for a drive. As we passed the cemetery where Mireille’s remains were finally laid to rest, we noticed her grave was covered with dozens of bright yellow daffodils. I commented on how beautiful her flowers were and Paul replied that daffodils were her favorite. (I loved daffodils too – but not so much anymore.)

We drove around for a little while and at one point we reached a dip in the road and Paul said, “This is where Mireille’s accident happened.” The scent of daffodils permeated the air and right on cue we both said, “Can you smell that?!” and we replied in unison, “YES!” But then the sweet and pungent aroma of the daffodils became so overpowering and nauseating that I gagged as I struggled to catch my breath. The temperature dropped very quickly and we could almost see our breath as the icy cold air came creeping into the car. Paul looked at me with the most horrified look on his face and he said, “Sue, it feels like someone’s hand is on the back of my neck.” A few seconds later he added, “Do you think it’s her?” I had goose-bumps all over my body and I could feel her energy getting stronger and stronger. I knew that we were in for one hell of a ride and there was nothing I could do to stop it from happening. So, I looked at Paul and replied, “It’s not polite to talk about someone in the 3rd person when they are present.” Paul turned pale as a ghost and kept driving. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up. Then, from the back seat of the car, I heard her…

She was inhaling deeply between each heart-wrenching sob as she cried out and repeated over and over again in Quebecois French (which I have conveniently translated for you) “NO! It can’t be! This isn’t possible! What about my child?” Paul couldn’t hear Mireille but he could still feel her icy cold hand on the back of his neck and he started to panic. “Why is she here? Is she trying to tell us we are going to die in an accident too?” Suddenly, Mireille stopped crying and she answered Paul’s question, “No! No!” but Paul couldn’t hear her reply. I looked at Paul and repeated exactly what she said, “Mireille said, No! No!” Then Mireille added, “I just wanted to say thank you! I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to you the last time I saw you at so and so’s restaurant.” Once again, I repeated everything she said to my cousin.

I had never met Mireille before she passed away. I had no idea that Paul had seen her at that restaurant a few weeks earlier until I heard it from Mireille as she rode along with us in the car that day. Paul has been riding and racing motorcycles for years so he had given her some tips about riding her Harley safely and he had also shared some defensive driving techniques with her (such a cruel twist of fate).

I told Mireille that her child was safe and was going to live with her sister, Sylvie. I tried my best to reassure her that everything was going to be okay. Finally, the overwhelming odor of daffodils started to dissipate and the temperature in the car returned to normal. Paul looked at me and said, “I think she’s gone now.” I nodded silently while choking back tears of my own.

Paul parked the car on the shoulder of the road before he frantically searched everywhere inside the vehicle for a perfume bottle, flowers, or any other evidence of what we had just experienced. There was nothing left but the lingering scent of daffodils and the haunting memory of an anguished mother’s cries for her young, orphaned child.

Rest in peace, Mireille.

Robin15 from Aussie

Late November last year my family moved to into an old convent built in 1914. It is a lovely big house of 10 small bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, huge laundry (with 4 tubs), a sitting room, library, tv room, 2 sunrooms and so much more. Anyway not long after we settled in we started to notice some strange things. There is a spare room at the end of the hallways we use as a storage room and the door regularly opens and closes as well as the light turning on and off.

Guest bedroom is probably the most haunted room of the house, one time our cousins came over to stay and my aunt slept in the guest room, the morning after they’d left we went in to change the sheets and tidy up but what we found was definitely rather unexplainable. The painting on the dresser had somehow flung itself off the wall and the vase that was in front of the painting was still in place, untouched. No windows or door were open in that room for the painting to blow itself off! So yeah… A little weird.

Then there have been things disappearing and reappearing in strange places. One time my mum had swapped the candle stick on the table for a vase of flowers and she put the candle stick away in a drawer and not long after we came back into the dinning room and they had swapped over again!

My older sister has this ring which always ends up in strange places, we were at a restaurant down the street and she lost her ring and when we came home it was on the tv! The TV! And she swore that she wore it down the street.

Also we have house central heating and it often turns on itself. We very rarely actually see or hear anything, but my older sister has mentioned several times that she’s seen a small white dog walking around the house, when we only have three fat cats.

Certain rooms also have really strong energies, the library is a room which I myself don’t really like going in there and I can’t exactly say why, I simply don’t know because it is such a lovely room. Another room is of course the guest room. In the kitchen too we sometimes get the smells of sweets baking, like scones and cakes and biscuits.

The ghosts in the house tend to be more active after someone (other than us) is in the house, which we find interesting.

We do strongly believe that we live with a bunch of lovely old nuns from a hundred years ago and we are very fond of them and we think they are fond of us too. There have been more strange happenings in this house that are more on the creepy and frightening side but they have nothing to do with the nuns so that is another story. We think the nuns protect us and in return we try

 Caity Pennsylvania

My story starts in the summer of 2005. I had just turned 18 and graduated from high school. At the time my days consisted of working my job at the pizza place and spending almost all my free time with friends, as most kids do at that age. So when my boyfriend at the time, Dave suggested I moved in with him I couldn’t of been more excited. It would mean independence for me.

The apartment was SMALL. One bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen/living room area. My boyfriend had gotten a great deal on the place 300$ a month, as our friend’s father owned the building and we would be living there during construction. I’m not really sure what the history of the building was before, but my friend’s father guessed it was somewhere from 80-100 years old or so. Ours was one of only a few units in the structure which was more like a house.

Flash forward to a few weeks in and we were having some friends over, having a little bit of booze and enjoying our freedom, but nothing too out of hand. There were four of us, myself, my friend Jackie, Dave, and his friend James. We had played some cards and walked around showing our friends the unfinished “creepier” parts of the building.

I can recall the basement feeling odd when we went downstairs and my friend Jackie also commenting something along the lines of feeling watched. We sort of shrugged it off and went upstairs to my apartment and put on a movie in the bedroom.

Jackie was laying on a couch I had in my room and James was on the floor on a blow up mattress, with Dave and I on the bed. We were all fairly tired at this point so the room had gone quiet. I was just starting to close my eyes when I noticed a dark shape out of the corner of my eye in the left, upper corner of the room. I focused in on it, straining to see what it was in the now dark room. At first I assumed that it was shadows being thrown from the television, but it still rattled me enough that I reached behind me and flipped on the light switch. When I turned on the light the dark shape was gone so I assumed that I had been right. But before shutting the light off I started to ask aloud “does anyone else…” I couldn’t even finish before Jackie blurted out ” See that sh*t on the ceiling?!”

Feeling even more frightened now that someone else in the room acknowledged this, I waited about 15 minutes before shutting the light off. Another 10 minutes or so went by and just as before I was just beginning to let myself fall asleep, when I felt the overwhelming feeling of being watched. My eyes immediately shot to the corner where I had seen the shape, and sure enough, there in the corner was a dark, what now appeared to be moving, black mass. I shot up out of bed and flicked the light on. And to my shock and horror this time, the mass stayed.

Now with all the lights on the shape was clearly visible to me. It was what I can only describe as a black swirling cloud with small tendrils like smoke coming off of all sides of it, round-ish if I could even call it a shape at all. It seemed to move and swell like the way water or smoke moves and almost had a vibration around it. It was was a hazy black mist although its center appeared solid. At this point every single one of us was seeing the same thing exclaiming our fear out loud.

It was then that the figure started to slowly move along the top of the wall, picking up speed and going from corner to corner. I have never been so scared in my life. We all ran to the center of the room and huddled together, petrified by what was happening.

I began saying a prayer because it was the only thing I could think in the moment. So I said the Lord’s prayer and as I was it seemed to get faster and faster, it moved so quickly now you could barely keep up with it. This went on for just about three minutes. Then just as mysteriously as it appeared, it traveled around the room one last time and sucked up into the crack above the closet door and disappeared. Needless to say we were all shaken to the core and did not sleep that night or turn off the light.

I am now 32 years old. Jackie and I are still friends and we still talk about this experience everytime we see one another. Not one single day goes by that I don’t think about this spirit and what happened to me there. It has profoundly affected me. Whatever had presented itself to us that night was a bad energy.

Later, while fixing the bathroom wall (the wall shared with our bedroom) paper crosses were found stuffed inside the wall. Still not sure why, but most likely some kind of protection? Had this happened before? I eventually moved, and me and my boyfriend at the time went our separate ways. I never spent another day in that place by myself ever again.

Yellow hawk from Montana

A little background before I start. I come from a Native American family and this story takes place when I was thirteen.

I used to like riding my dirt bike out in the hills. I’d usually be out for hours, always returning when the sun started going down. On this one particular trip I was cruising along the top of a flat hill in the summer sun. Ahead of me about 30 or so feet I saw something shining, as I got closer I saw it was a medallion type necklace. It was beaded with metallic parts along the thread, I thought it looked cool so I took it home. This turned out to be a big mistake.

I had the medallion in my dresser and I didn’t bother to tell anyone about it. The night after I found it was when things started to go bad. I was lying in my bed on my side trying to fall asleep, then I felt as if someone lied down next to me. I felt whatever it was lean in closer and start breathing really hard into my ear. I was paralyzed with fear, I didn’t want to move nor look at whatever was behind me so I screamed and within a few seconds my dad burst into my room. I was crying and he was mad that I woke him up, he asked what the hell I was screaming for and I told him there was someone in my room. He didn’t believe me and told me to get back to bed. I didn’t sleep at all that night.

Over the next few days similiar things happened and sometimes I would catch glimpses of something pacing around outside the windows at night. Then on the last day my Grandpa came over to visit while my parents were out. He asked me how things have been and I told him what’s been happening. He put his coffee down and looked me dead in the eyes and said “What did you do.” Obviously I was surprised he would suspect me but then I remembered the medallion. I told him about it and he got pissed, he was yelling and cussing at me. Telling me I shouldn’t take stuff like that because it doesn’t belong to me.

Just then a heavy pair of antique handcuffs that were on the wall flew across the room and almost hit me. So I grabbed the medallion, got on my dirt bike and went back to where I found it. It was difficult but I was finally able to locate where I had found it. I laid it down, said a prayer and apologized to whoever owned it, then made my way back home. Things were calmer at the house, so I knew I did something right. My grandpa was still upset with me but he was glad I put it back. Now I knew better than to take someone elses property, whether they are alive or not.

Jersey Girl

This story is in two parts; the first part took place in New York City shortly after my boyfriend died. Of course I was devastated when this happened. He was to be buried in his native Ireland, but on the day of his funeral in Ireland they had a memorial Mass for him at his parish in Queens. My boyfriend always liked to hear me sing for him (I had done some singing around NYC at the time), so I impulsively volunteered to sing at his memorial Mass. The piece that I chose to sing was the “Pie Jesu” from Gabriel Faure’s Requiem.

The morning of the memorial Mass I tried to warm up my voice in my apartment, but every time I got to the words, “dona eis requiem,” I burst into tears. I didn’t know how I’d get through singing at the Mass (I was scheduled to sing during Communion). But it was too late to back out. All the way up to the time I walked up onto the altar to sing my piece I was praying, “Please help me get through this. Don’t let me let Jim down…” And then my Moment of Truth arrived. Standing in the sanctuary next to the organ, I nodded to the organist and he played the sustained, one-chord introduction. I started to sing, and as I did so, I felt a presence with me, urging me on, “You can do this for Jim… ” Whoever this unseen spiritual supporter was, he/she helped me get through the piece without breaking down in front of the congregation. As I finished the piece I walked off the altar, collapsed into a convenient pew, and gave vent to my pent-up tears.

Fast forward to about two weeks ago. I was touring around Ireland with a friend, and seeing as we were our own tour guides, we followed our own itinerary. Needless to say, one of our stops was to visit the graveyard where my boyfriend Jim is buried. We had been there before, so there was not much trouble finding it again. My friend left me alone as I knelt and prayed over Jim’s grave, and yes, even all this time later I shed some tears — we loved each other very much. And then I got back in the car, and my friend and I continued on our way.

My friend and I discovered a nice Classical music station on the car radio which we played when my friend (who did all the driving, bless her) felt she wouldn’t be distracted by the music if she was trying to find the right road to get us to our next destination. So, we were comfortably on the road again, and we decided to turn the radio on. About the second or third piece they played after we turned the radio on was the “Pie Jesu” from Faure’s Requiem. I gasped when I heard it come on. My friend (who attended Jim’s memorial Mass in Queens) took her eyes off the road long enough to meet mine. “I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” she said. “They don’t play pieces like that very often on the radio. I think this is Jim’s way of telling you he knows about your visiting his grave earlier today…” I shed a few more tears, thinking of Jim, but felt comforted that he knew I said an “Ave” for him, and that is grave is “warmer, sweeter” for it…

And there is where we will end our special Halloween episodes. Even though I have fooled around with sound effects and the likes, I do take this subject very seriously. Some of the stories have been plain scary for some of you, some have been very tender and bittersweet. I hope you have enjoyed these episodes and have a great Halloween evening. Keep safe out there and enjoy yourself!

Our haunting musical score this episode is called “Spirit of the Dead” by Aakash Gandhi. This is a copyright free piece of music.

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