Black Aggie.

Black Aggie

A Maryland Ghost Story

retold by

S. E. Schlosser

When Felix Agnus put up the life-sized shrouded bronze statue of a grieving angel, seated on a pedestal, in the Agnus family plot in the Druid Ridge Cemetery, he had no idea what he had started. The statue was a rather eerie figure by day, frozen in a moment of grief and terrible pain. At night, the figure was almost unbelievably creepy; the shroud over its head obscuring the face until you were up close to it. There was a living air about the grieving angel, as if its arms could really reach out and grab you if you weren't careful.

It didn't take long for rumors to sweep through the town and surrounding countryside. They said that the statue - nicknamed Black Aggie - was haunted by the spirit of a mistreated wife who lay beneath her feet. The statue's eyes would glow red at the stroke of midnight, and any living person who returned the statues gaze would instantly be struck blind. Any pregnant woman who passed through her shadow would miscarry. If you sat on her lap at night, the statue would come to life and crush you to death in her dark embrace. If you spoke Black Aggie's name three times at midnight in front of a dark mirror, the evil angel would appear and pull you down to hell. They also said that spirits of the dead would rise from their graves on dark nights to gather around the statue at night.

People began visiting the cemetery just to see the statue, and it was then that the local fraternity decided to make the statue of Grief part of their initiation rites. "Black Aggie" sitting, where candidates for membership had to spend the night crouched beneath the statue with their backs to the grave of General Agnus, became popular.

One dark night, two fraternity members accompanied new hopeful to the cemetery and watched while he took his place underneath the creepy statue. The clouds had obscured the moon that night, and the whole area surrounding the dark statue was filled with a sense of anger and malice. It felt as if a storm were brewing in that part of the cemetery, and to their chagrin, the two fraternity members noticed that gray shadows seemed to be clustering around the body of the frightened fraternity candidate crouching in front of the statue.

What had been a funny initiation rite suddenly took on an air of danger. One of the fraternity brothers stepped forward in alarm to call out to the initiate. As he did, the statue above the boy stirred ominously. The two fraternity brothers froze in shock as the shrouded head turned toward the new candidate. They saw the gleam of glowing red eyes beneath the concealing hood as the statue's arms reached out toward the cowering boy.

With shouts of alarm, the fraternity brothers leapt forward to rescue the new initiate. But it was too late. The initiate gave one horrified yell, and then his body disappeared into the embrace of the dark angel. The fraternity brothers skidded to a halt as the statue thoughtfully rested its glowing eyes upon them. With gasps of terror, the boys fled from the cemetery before the statue could grab them too.

Hearing the screams, a night watchman hurried to the Agnus plot. To his chagrin, he discovered the body of a young man lying at the foot of the statue. The young man had apparently died of fright.

The disruption caused by the statue grew so acute that the Agnus family finally donated it to the Smithsonian museum in Washington D.C.. The grieving angel sat for many years in storage there, never again to plague the citizens visiting the Druid Hill Park Cemetery.

Black Magic

Mad Henry was a hermit who lived alone in a decrepit mansion at the edge of town.  Rumors were rife about the wild-eyed man.  Some folks said that he was a magician who called upon the powers of darkness to wreck havoc upon his neighbors.  Others called him a mad doctor who could restore life to foul corpses from the local cemetery.  No respectable citizen in town had anything to do with Mad Henry

 

Then one year a new family moved to town with a lovely daughter, Rachel, who caught Mad Henry’s eye. He showered the maiden with gifts—goblets of pure gold, necklaces of pearl, and a pot of daisies that never dropped a single petal. Despite the gifts, Rachael fell in love with another, Geoffrey, a handsome young man just home from university. A week after meeting they eloped, leaving behind a stunned Mad Henry. 

 

When Rachael and Geoffrey returned from the elopement, they threw a big ball and invited everyone in town. While Rachel was waltzing with her father, she heard a  clap of thunder. Lightning flashed again and again. Suddenly, the double doors blew open and a breeze whirled in, bringing with it the smell of dead, decaying things. Mad Henry loomed in the doorway, pupils gleaming red with anger. He was followed by the grotesque figures of the dead, who came marching two by two into the room. Their eye sockets glowed with blue fire as they surrounded the room.

Two of the corpses captured Geoffrey and threw him down at the feet of their lord. Red eyes gleaming, Mad Henry drew a silver-bladed knife and casually cut the bridegroom’s throat from ear to ear. Rachel screamed and ran forward, pushing through the foul, stinking corpses of the dead, and flung herself upon her dying husband. 

 

“Kill us both,” she cried desperately. 

 

But Mad Henry  plucked the lass out of the pool of blood surrounding her dead husband and carried her out into the thundering night. Behind him, the army of the dead turned from the grizzly scene and followed their master. The sounds of thunder and lightning faded away as the alchemist and his dead companions disappeared into the dark night. 

 

Geoffrey’s father and Rachael’s father gathered a small mob and followed the evil hermit, intent upon saving Rachel.  When they searched Mad Henry’s house, they found it completely empty save for a light, which shone from a series of mysterious globes that bobbed near the ceiling of each room. Mad Henry had vanished. 

 

Search parties scoured the countryside for days, but turned up nothing. Geoffrey was buried in the local cemetery, and the dance hall was torn down. No one in town spoke about what had happened, and no one dared imagine what had become of poor Rachel. 

 

A year to the day after the ball, a timid knock sounded upon the door of Rachael’s parents’ home. When her father opened it, he saw a gaunt, gray figure on the stoop. Her eyes were dull with exhaustion and pain. It was Rachel! Her tongue had been cut out so she couldn’t speak.  But when she produced a knife from her tattered garments—the knife with a silver blade that they had last seen in the hands of Mad Henry— the gleam of satisfaction in Rachel’s eyes told them that the streaks of blood that coated the knife were those of Mad Henry. That night, Rachel died in her sleep with a peaceful smile upon her ravaged face. 

Raw Head and Bloody Bones

Raw Head and Bloody Bones

A Missouri Ghost Story

retold by

S. E. Schlosser

Way back in the deep woods there lived a scrawny old woman who had a reputation for being the best conjuring woman in the Ozarks. With her bedraggled black-and-gray hair, funny eyes - one yellow and one green - and her crooked nose, Old Betty was not a pretty picture, but she was the best there was at fixing what ailed a man, and that was all that counted.

Old Betty's house was full of herbs and roots and bottles filled with conjuring medicine. The walls were lined with strange books brimming with magical spells. Old Betty was the only one living in the Hollow who knew how to read; her granny, who was also a conjurer, had taught her the skill as part of her magical training.

Just about the only friend Old Betty had was a tough, mean, ugly old razorback hog that ran wild around her place. It rooted so much in her kitchen garbage that all the leftover spells started affecting it. Some folks swore up and down that the old razorback hog sometimes walked upright like man. One fellow claimed he'd seen the pig sitting in the rocker on Old Betty's porch, chattering away to her while she stewed up some potions in the kitchen, but everyone discounted that story on account of the fellow who told it was a little too fond of moonshine.

"Raw Head" was the name Old Betty gave the razorback, referring maybe to the way the ugly creature looked a bit like some of the dead pigs come butchering time down in Hog-Scald Hollow. The razorback didn't mind the funny name. Raw Head kept following Old Betty around her little cabin and rooting up the kitchen leftovers. He'd even walk to town with her when she came to the local mercantile to sell her home remedies.

Well, folks in town got so used to seeing Raw Head and Old Betty around the town that it looked mighty strange one day around hog-driving time when Old Betty came to the mercantile without him.

"Where's Raw Head?" the owner asked as he accepted her basket full of home-remedy potions. The liquid in the bottles swished in an agitate manner as Old Betty said: "I ain't seen him around today, and I'm mighty worried. You seen him here in town?"

"Nobody's seen him around today. They would've told me if they did," the mercantile owner said. "We'll keep a lookout fer you."

"That's mighty kind of you. If you see him, tell him to come home straightaway," Old Betty said. The mercantile owner nodded agreement as he handed over her weekly pay.

Old Betty fussed to herself all the way home. It wasn't like Raw Head to disappear, especially not the day they went to town. The man at the mercantile always saved the best scraps for the mean old razorback, and Raw Head never missed a visit. When the old conjuring woman got home, she mixed up a potion and poured it onto a flat plate.

"Where's that old hog got to?" she asked the liquid. It clouded over and then a series of pictures formed. First, Old Betty saw the good-for-nothing hunter that lived on the next ridge sneaking around the forest, rounding up razorback hogs that didn't belong to him. One of the hogs was Raw Head. Then she saw him taking the hogs down to Hog-Scald Hollow, where folks from the next town were slaughtering their razorbacks. Then she saw her hog, Raw Head, slaughtered with the rest of the pigs and hung up for gutting. The final picture in the liquid was the pile of bloody bones that had once been her hog, and his scraped-clean head lying with the other hogsheads in a pile.

Old Betty was infuriated by the death of her only friend. It was murder to her, plain and simple. Everyone in three counties knew that Raw Head was her friend, and that lazy, hog-stealing, good-for-nothing hunter on the ridge was going to pay for slaughtering him.

Now Old Betty tried to practice white conjuring most of the time, but she knew the dark secrets too. She pulled out an old, secret book her granny had given her and turned to the very last page. She lit several candles and put them around the plate containing the liquid picture of Raw Head and his bloody bones. Then she began to chant: "Raw Head and Bloody Bones. Raw Head and Bloody Bones."

The light from the windows disappeared as if the sun had been snuffed out like a candle. Dark clouds billowed into the clearing where Old Betty's cabin stood, and the howl of dark spirits could be heard in the wind that pummeled the treetops.

"Raw Head and Bloody Bones. Raw Head and Bloody Bones."

Betty continued the chant until a bolt of silver lightning left the plate and streaked out threw the window, heading in the direction of Hog-Scald Hollow.

When the silver light struck Raw Head's severed head, which was piled on the hunter's wagon with the other hog heads, it tumbled to the ground and rolled until it was touching the bloody bones that had once inhabited its body. As the hunter's wagon rumbled away toward the ridge where he lived, the enchanted Raw Head called out: "Bloody bones, get up and dance!"

Immediately, the bloody bones reassembled themselves into the skeleton of a razorback hog walking upright, as Raw Head had often done when he was alone with Old Betty. The head hopped on top of his skeleton and Raw Head went searching through the woods for weapons to use against the hunter. He borrowed the sharp teeth of a dying panther, the claws of a long-dead bear, and the tail from a rotting raccoon and put them over his skinned head and bloody bones.

Then Raw Head headed up the track toward the ridge, looking for the hunter who had slaughtered him. Raw Head slipped passed the thief on the road and slid into the barn where the hunter kept his horse and wagon. Raw Head climbed up into the loft and waited for the hunter to come home.

It was dusk when the hunter drove into the barn and unhitched his horse. The horse snorted in fear, sensing the presence of Raw Head in the loft. Wondering what was disturbing his usually-calm horse, the hunter looked around and saw a large pair of eyes staring down at him from the darkness in the loft.

The hunter frowned, thinking it was one of the local kids fooling around in his barn.

"Land o' Goshen, what have you got those big eyes fer?" he snapped, thinking the kids were trying to scare him with some crazy mask.

"To see your grave," Raw Head rumbled very softly. The hunter snorted irritably and put his horse into the stall.

"Very funny. Ha,ha," The hunter said. When he came out of the stall, he saw Raw Head had crept forward a bit further. Now his luminous yellow eyes and his bears claws could clearly be seen.

"Land o' Goshen, what have you got those big claws fer?" he snapped. "You look ridiculous."

"To dig your grave…" Raw Head intoned softly, his voice a deep rumble that raised the hairs on the back of the hunter's neck. He stirred uneasily, not sure how the crazy kid in his loft could have made such a scary sound. If it really was a crazy kid.

Feeling a little spooked, he hurried to the door and let himself out of the barn. Raw Head slipped out of the loft and climbed down the side of the barn behind him. With nary a rustle to reveal his presence, Raw Head raced through the trees and up the path to a large, moonlight rock. He hid in the shadow of the huge stone so that the only things showing were his gleaming yellow eyes, his bear claws, and his raccoon tail.

When the hunter came level with the rock on the side of the path, he gave a startled yelp. Staring at Raw Head, he gasped: "You nearly knocked the heart right out of me, you crazy kid! Land o' Goshen, what have you got that crazy tail fer?"

"To sweep your grave…" Raw Head boomed, his enchanted voice echoing through the woods, getting louder and louder with each echo. The hunter took to his heels and ran for his cabin. He raced passed the old well-house, passed the wood pile, over the rotting fence and into his yard. But Raw Head was faster. When the hunter reached his porch, Raw Head leapt from the shadows and loomed above him. The hunter stared in terror up at Raw Head's gleaming yellow eyes in the ugly razorback hogshead, his bloody bone skeleton with its long bear claws, sweeping raccoon's tail and his gleaming sharp panther teeth.

"Land o' Goshen, what have you got those big teeth fer?" he gasped desperately, stumbling backwards from the terrible figure before him.

"To eat you up, like you wanted to eat me!" Raw Head roared, descending upon the good-for-nothing hunter. The murdering thief gave one long scream in the moonlight. Then there was silence, and the sound of crunching.

Nothing more was ever seen or heard of the lazy hunter who lived on the ridge. His horse also disappeared that night. But sometimes folks would see Raw Head roaming through the forest in the company of his friend Old Betty. And once a month, on the night of the full moon, Raw Head would ride the hunter's horse through town, wearing the old man's blue overalls over his bloody bones with a hole cut-out for his raccoon tail. In his bloody, bear-clawed hands, he carried his raw, razorback hogshead, lifting it high against the full moon for everyone to see.

Bloody Mary

She lived deep in the forest in a tiny cottage and sold herbal remedies for a living. Folks living in the town nearby called her Bloody Mary, and said she was a witch. None dared cross the old crone for fear that their cows would go dry, their food-stores rot away before winter, their children take sick of fever, or any number of terrible things that an angry witch could do to her neighbors.

Then the little girls in the village began to disappear, one by one. No one could find out where they had gone. Grief-stricken families searched the woods, the local buildings, and all the houses and barns, but there was no sign of the missing girls. A few brave souls even went to Bloody Mary's home in the woods to see if the witch had taken the girls, but she denied any knowledge of the disappearances. Still, it was noted that her haggard appearance had changed. She looked younger, more attractive. The neighbors were suspicious, but they could find no proof that the witch had taken their young ones.

Then came the night when the daughter of the miller rose from her bed and walked outside, following an enchanted sound no one else could hear. The miller's wife had a toothache and was sitting up in the kitchen treating the tooth with an herbal remedy when her daughter left the house. She screamed for her husband and followed the girl out of the door. The miller came running in his nightshirt. Together, they tried to restrain the girl, but she kept breaking away from them and heading out of town.

The desperate cries of the miller and his wife woke the neighbors. They came to assist the frantic couple. Suddenly, a sharp-eyed farmer gave a shout and pointed towards a strange light at the edge of the woods. A few townsmen followed him out into the field and saw Bloody Mary standing beside a large oak tree, holding a magic wand that was pointed towards the miller's house. She was glowing with an unearthly light as she set her evil spell upon the miller's daughter.

The townsmen grabbed their guns and their pitchforks and ran toward the witch. When she heard the commotion, Bloody Mary broke off her spell and fled back into the woods. The far-sighted farmer had loaded his gun with silver bullets in case the witch ever came after his daughter. Now he took aim and shot at her. The bullet hit Bloody Mary in the hip and she fell to the ground. The angry townsmen leapt upon her and carried her back into the field, where they built a huge bonfire and burned her at the stake.

As she burned, Bloody Mary screamed a curse at the villagers. If anyone mentioned her name aloud before a mirror, she would send her spirit to revenge herself upon them for her terrible death. When she was dead, the villagers went to the house in the wood and found the unmarked graves of the little girls the evil witch had murdered. She had used their blood to make her young again.

From that day to this, anyone foolish enough to chant Bloody Mary's name three times before a darkened mirror will summon the vengeful spirit of the witch. It is said that she will tear their bodies to pieces and rip their souls from their mutilated bodies. The souls of these unfortunate ones will burn in torment as Bloody Mary once was burned, and they will be trapped forever in the mirror.

Bloody Mary Returns

My stepmother was vile.  I guess most kids think that when their father remarries.  But in this case, it was true.  She only married Father because he was rich, and she hated children.  There were three of us – me (Marie), my middle brother Richard and my youngest brother Charles.  We were the price my stepmother Gerta paid for being rich.  And we were all that stood between her and inheriting Father's money when he died.  So she took steps against us. 

     She sent my youngest brother Charles away to boarding school overseas.  It had a good, scholarly reputation, but it also had the reputation for being a hard school that was full of bullies and strict discipline.  Not a place where a delicate child like Charles, who had been sickly as a baby, would thrive.  He was miserable there.  Somehow, Gerta contrived to keep him there for all but the summer holidays, and when he came home the first year he was pale and thin with dark circles under his eyes that looked like bruises.  He cried – he actually cried! – when Father told him he had to go back to the school.  But Father didn’t listen to him.  Gerta thought it would be good for Charles to go there, and so Charles went.  

  I did everything I could – encouraging letters and daily phone calls – until Gerta said it was too expensive and restricted calls to five minutes once a month.   I even got Father to book me a ticket to Europe so I could visit Charles.  Gerta was enraged when she found out. Her blue eyes went so cold it made chills run up my spine, and her pink mouth thinned into a bitter line that bade ill for me since I had dared to interfere.  Two days before my plane left for Europe, the school called and told us that Charles had climbed up to the tallest tower and flung himself off.  He was dead. 

     Father was shocked, of course, and Gerta was quietly triumphant.  For a few months, Father paid more attention to Richard and myself then he had since our mother died.  But Gerta was beautiful and had winning ways about her that soon drew my Father’s attention away. And now that one of her hated step-children was dead, she focused on another.  Poor Richard was next. 

     Richard was a sturdy chap who was about to enter high school, and he was really into sports.  He would have thrived at the boarding school that had killed Charles.  So Gerta sent him to an arts school instead.  He hated it, but Gerta had told Father he had “talent”, so there he went.  (You’d think my Father would have learned his lesson with Charles!)  But Richard was a survivor, and he grimly practiced piano and violin when he would rather have played soccer and football.  But Gerta was clever.  She introduced Richard to a couple of high school boys who were everything Richard craved to be – rich, popular, on the football team.  And into drugs.  Gerta made sure Richard had a very large allowance, and kept increasing it as Richard was drawn deeper and deeper under the influence.  Until one day Richard overdosed, and Gerta only had one step-child left.  Me.

     I was sure (sure!) that Gerta knew Richard was doing drugs in his room that day.  She knew he was ill and possibly dying in there.  If she’d “found” him even ten minutes sooner, his life would have been saved.  So said the doctor, and I believed him.  But Father wouldn’t believe me.  He was angry whenever I said anything against Gerta, and told me to hold my tongue.  Still, I knew I was next, and I was sure that Father would not live long after willing his fortune over to his wife.  I decided that if Gerta got too bad, I would run away and live secretly with my aunt in New Jersey until I turned 18.  

     From the moment Richard’s body was found in his room, I forced myself to be a model child.  My homework was done on time, I was polite to Gerta and all her friends, I went on all the family excursions with Gerta and Father – even the dangerous ones like shark-fishing. You can be sure that I took care to be “sea-sick” indoors and stayed away from the edge of the boat.  Gerta was clever with her tricks.  Everyone thought it was an accident the time we were out shopping and I fell onto the subway in front of an oncoming train.  I managed to roll out of the way on time, but it was way too close for comfort. 

       I had almost decided to run away when my father brought me the sad news that my aunt in New Jersey had died suddenly in her sleep, poisoned by person or persons unknown.  I was appalled. How had Gerta known?  But she had – I could tell from the smirk on her face. 

      I went to my room that night and locked myself in to think.  I could run away, but the money wouldn’t last long.  And I’d need to finish high school or my chances of getting a good job were nil.  Besides, Gerta would still be out there somewhere.  If she could hire someone to poison my only living relative (besides Father), she could hire someone to kill me, whether I was living at home or not. 

      There was only one thing I could think of.  And it was a terrible thing.  A family secret passed down from my Mother’s side for many generations.  It involved a witch named Bloody Mary, who had once tried to kill my many times great grandmother and use the child’s blood to make herself young and beautiful forever.  The witch had been stopped by the child's father (my many times great grandfather) in the nick of time, and the witch had cursed him as she burned at the stake.  Cursed his mirror, and the mirrors of all the men who had condemned her to death at the stake, so that anyone saying her name in front of those mirrors would invoke her vengeful spirit. 

       The story had gotten mixed up over the years, as it was passed down first in their village and then all over the country.  These days, school kids everywhere scared themselves silly chanting Bloody Mary’s name in front of darkened mirrors during sleepover parties, and nothing happened to them.  So no one really believed in the curse.  Of course, no one knew the real story of Bloody Mary.  That was a deep secret handed down by the villagers of long ago.  But I was a direct descendant, and I knew how to summon the witch.  You had to use a mirror owned by someone in the direct blood-line of one of the original families that lived in Bloody Mary’s village.  And the witch's name must be spoken by candlelight a certain number of times in their native tongue.  

       It was an evil thing to do, I knew.  But it was the only way to save my life.  It was either Gerta or me.  If I didn’t fight back, I was dead. So I took my hard earned money and went out to a specialty store to buy hand-dipped, beeswax candles.  Black ones.  I followed my mother’s directions carefully, placing them at certain intervals around the living room so that they reflected in the huge mirror behind the couch.  Then I lit each one, speaking the spell passed down in my mother’s family.  And I waited.  Father was away on a business trip, and Gerta was out at a party with her latest boyfriend.  She came home late, and scolded me for staying up to study.   Her voice was playful and light – I hated that voice.  It made her sound like she was nice.  But there was also a note of suspicion underlying her words, and she stared hard at the flickering black candles. 

       “Holding a séance, little Marie?” she asked, emphasizing the word little, knowing I hated when she called me that. 

        “I just like working by candlelight,” I said mendaciously, turning a page in my text book. 

        Gerta frowned.  “You know, little Marie, I think it’s time we had a talk,” she said, walking over to the mirror behind the couch and primping her hair. 

        “Yes,” I said softly.  “We should.  You killed my brothers.  And my aunt.  But I won’t let you kill me.”

          Gerta laughed.  “As if you stood a chance against me!” she said, fluffing her long blond hair up behind her shoulders. 

         I spoke the name of Bloody Mary in the native tongue of my ancestors.  Once.  Twice.  Three times.  Inside the mirror, the image of Gerta burst into flames, and another face looked out.  It was the malevolent face of a twisted old crone, ruined with age, and altogether evil. I ducked behind the chair as Gerta gave a scream of sheer terror, her eyes fixed on the witch.  As I watched from my hiding place, heat burst forth from the mirror, blistering her beautiful alabaster skin.  I could hear the flames roaring as the witch laughed evilly and held out her arms toward my step mother. 

      “Gerta,” crooned Bloody Mary.  “Come to me, Gerta.” 

        And she took my step mother into her arms. 

        Gerta’s terrified scream was suddenly cut off.  The flames disappeared as suddenly as they had come.  When I peeked out from behind the couch, Gerta and Bloody Mary were gone. 

       I called Father at his hotel the next morning to tell him that Gerta hadn’t slept at home.  (Well, it was true!)  He wasn’t pleased.  He called a few of her friends from his hotel room, and quickly discovered she had been carrying on with another man.  With several, if the truth be known.  Father hated infidelity.  He flew home at once to confront Gerta, but she was still missing; presumed run away with one of her flames. 

      Somehow, Father managed to divorce Gerta without ever trying to find her.  And since she had no family in the area except us, everyone accepted the cover story, and no one ever tried to locate her.  Gerta was gone for good.  And Father and I were safe at last. 

Bloody Mary Whales

Old Man Whales was an evil man who loved money more than anything in the world, except his wife.  In his lust for wealth, he supplemented his farm income by catching runaway slaves who were escaping to freedom through Indiana.  Whales would chain the ex-slaves up in his barn cellar until he could collect the reward on them.  When he couldn't find slaves, he'd capture free men and sell them into slavery.      When the Civil War ended slavery, it was a disaster for the evil Whales, who no longer had a profitable source of income to supplement his farm work.  And then his beloved wife died childbirth.  Overnight, Whales fell to pieces.  He hated the child – a little girl named Mary - that had killed his wife.  He neglected her, dressing her in rags, making her do all the farm choirs and half-starving her.  In spite of this cruel treatment, Mary grew into a sweet girl who loved her wicked father.        As Mary reached adulthood, the resemblance to her dead mother was striking.  Whales saw his dead wife every time he looked at the daughter who had caused her death.  One night, after a hefty bout of drinking, Whales lumbered into Mary's bedroom and stabbed her repeatedly.  Mary woke screaming and thrashed around in agony, trying to fight off her demonic father as blood spurted everywhere and bits of torn flesh littered the bedclothes and fell to the floor.  When she was dead, Old Man Whales carried her down to the basement, dug an indifferent grave and tossed her body into it.        Two nights later, when Old Man Whales came back from doing his nightly chores, he found Mary standing in the kitchen, her nearly severed head lolling against one shoulder as she stirred an empty kettle.  A pool of steaming blood lay beneath her feet, and bits of skin from her knife-slashed face were breaking off and falling into the kettle.   "Faaaaaather...." Bloody Mary hissed.  Old Man Whales screamed and leapt out the kitchen door.  When he glanced over his shoulder, the apparition was gone.       A week later, Old Man Whales looked up from reading the newspaper to find Bloody Mary sitting in the chair opposite him, her knife-slashed dress covered in blood.   Her tattered hands were busy knitting him a shirt.  "Faaaaaather...." she hissed through knife-scored lips. Blood fell from her body like rain as she flew across the room toward him, knitting needles held like knives.  Old Man Whales fled from the house in panic with two deep cuts scored across his back.       Old Man Whales cowered in the barn for several days, afraid to go near his house.  After nearly a week of sleeping in the hay and eating raw food from the garden, he decided it was safe to return to his house.  The spirit must be gone by now.        Old Man Whales hurried into the kitchen, eager for a wash and a shave after sleeping so many nights in the barn.  He pumped an ewer of water and took it over to the little shaving mirror they kept on the far wall.  When he looked in the mirror, Old Man Whales saw the glowing red eyes and knife-scored face of Bloody Mary.  Her once-fair lips were split down the center and blood dripped from them as she smiled evilly.  "Faaaaaather...." she hissed, raising blood-stained fingers.  Her nails were long and sharpened like the claws of a beast.  She reached out of the mirror and slapped her father twice across the face.  Old Man Whales screamed, blood streaming from four slashes on his cheeks.  He ran from the house and leapt into the safety of the barn, his heart pounding so hard his chest ached with it.           "Faaaaaather...." a voice hissed softly a few paces to his right.  Old Man Whales screamed and whirled around.  Blood Mary stood smiling at him through her blood-stained, razor-sharp teeth.  Her tattered tongue was bleeding from several places as if it had been scored by a butcher's knife.   She pointed above her head, and Old Man Whales saw a noose hanging from the rafters beside the ladder to the loft. The rope looked inviting, hanging there in a dust-speckled sunbeam.  Obediently, Old Man Whales placed his hands on the rung of the ladder and started to climb. 

The Brick Wall

The Brick Wall

A Massachusetts Horror Storyretold by S.E. Schlosserexcerpted from Spooky Massachusetts

Listen to the audio version

Massey was a soldier unfortunate enough to cross me, his commanding officer.  He did not live to regret it.  There was something very satisfying in the moment when I thrust the tip of my sword into the soldier’s heart during our duel.  I watched him fall to the ground with the satisfaction of a job well done.

The men under my command seem depressed in the following weeks. They mention Massey frequently, but I ignore their conversations.

One night, I retreat to my chambers to sulk and soon was joined by a delegation of men who were friends of Massey. I am surprised and delighted to learn that they had come to their senses and now saw the impertinent lieutenant for the cheat he really was. We share a round of drinks and laughed together.   I’m afraid I drank far too much that evening.

The other soldiers suggested we explore the lower dungeons. That sounded like a fine idea to me.  We set off in merry spirits, drinking and singing and laughing, our voices echoing through the narrow passages. Deeper and deeper we went.  My head started spinning and my legs felt like rubber after all that drinking. I am afraid I passed out from drunkenness, much to my shame.

When I came to, I was lying on my back with my wrists and ankles shackled to the floor. Drunken men, fooling around, I thought.

“Very funny, lads,” I called out. “Now set me free.”

The soldiers didn’t answer me. A moment passed and Massey’s best friend appeared in the doorway, holding mortar and a mason’s trowel.  The other men began handing him bricks and I realize that the soldiers are bricking up the entrance to the cell in which I lay shackled. “Very funny,” I said again.

No one answered me. They worked in silence, laying brick after brick until one row is done, then two. They were playing a nasty joke on me, of course.

Then Massey’s best friend paused in his work and looked directly into my eyes. At that moment I realized that this joke is no joke. Scream after scream ripped from my throat as I struggle against my bonds. But the dungeon was too deep within the fort, and no one heard my screams.  

They were on the final row of bricks. I was reduced to bribery now, desperately using my wealth in an attempt to escape my fate.  But no one listened to my bribes.    I watched in heart-thudding horror as the last brick is put in place, as the last chink of light faded from my sight. I have been entombed alive in the deepest, darkest dungeon of the fort.  I howled in panic, writhing against the iron manacles binding hands and feet and twisting my body. Eventually I fell back against the floor, my wrists and ankles wet with my own blood.

My fingers were torn and throbbing from their intense scrabbling against the hard floor. I found myself weeping angrily, though I have never shed a tear in my lifetime.

The agony of the thought sent me writhing again in spite of the horrible pain racking my wrists, ankles, and hands. Daylight. I must see daylight again. Just once more.

“Don’t leave me here to die alone! Don’t leave me!”  

But I was alone, and the sheer brutal horror of it overwhelmed me. My eyes strained against the complete and utter darkness, and I wondered if they were even open.

Dear God, I can’t get out. I can’t get out. I CAN’T GET OUT!

Historical Note:  This is a retelling of a story from Fort Independence on Castle Island in Massachusetts.  Local lore claimed that an unpopular officer was walled up in the fort's dungeon following a duel in which he killed a more popular man. Edgar Allan Poe learned of the legend when he was posted on Castle Island while serving in the Army.  His short story "The Cask of Amontillado," is said to be based upon the incident.

The Brothers' Revenge

The Brothers' Revenge

A Wisconsin Ghost Story

Retold by S.E. Schlosser

The blizzard was raging fiercely around them as the brothers stumbled down the long road.  they were miles from any farm, and knew they had to seek shelter or freeze to death.  So it was with  gratitude that the two brothers spotted a saloon and pushed their way through the door. 

Every eye in the room turned upon them, as the boys ordered coffee with the last of their money. As the bartender went to fetch the hot drink, most of the regulars returned to their conversations.  But one man continued to stare;  a massive butcher with a mop of red hair and a long red beard who was the worse for drink.

“You’re looking at me funny,” the butcher slurred, looming over the two boys.

“We weren’t looking at you,” said the older boy. “We were just warming ourselves by the fire.”

“Are you calling me a liar?” he shouted. Around the room crowd grinned; they loved a good fight. 

 “We didn’t say that,” said the older boy quickly, waving his hands and accidentally  striking the butcher on the arm. That did it. The butcher grabbed the boy by the collar. “No one hits me and gets away with it,” he roared and threw the boy headfirst into the huge fire raging in the hearth.

There was a moment of stunned silence in the saloon, and then the elder boy screamed in agony as the flames engulfed him from head to toe. The younger lad shouted in terror. The older boy stumbled out of the fireplace, as the little brother tried to beat out the fire with his small hands.

The butcher loomed above them, grinning sadistically as the flaming boy lost consciousness, his screams dying away.

“Your turn,” the butcher said to his brother. The younger boy gasped in fear and fled for his life out into the raging snow. The boy’s little frozen body was not found until the spring.

One evening, a decade after the death of the two young boys, a burly man with a long red beard came strolling down the road one taken by the brothers. The butcher had heard rumors of a ghost but had discarded them as so much poppycock and tavern talk.

As he meandered down the road, he became aware that a silence had fallen. In the odd silence, he heard the footsteps of a large animal. They walked when he walked and stopped when he stopped. Pulse pounding madly, the butcher turned. Behind him, large as an ox, stood a black dog with blazing blue eyes and sharp teeth. The butcher had seen those blue eyes once before, gazing at him from the face of a young boy trying to save his burning brother.

The black dog growled softly and took a step forward. The butcher whirled around to flee and found himself face to face with tall figure covered from head to toe in flames. The burning boy reached out toward the butcher with hands withered and blackened by fire. The butcher gave a terrified scream and fell, blood gushing from eyes and nose. He was dead before he hit the ground.  

      To this day, the black dog and the flaming figure still appeared in that vicinity to harass travelers and speed them on their way.

Burnt Church

Burnt Church

Retold by S.E. Schlosser

She was sophisticated, poised, and cultured.  In retrospect, this should have made them suspicious.  A teacher like her should be presiding over a girl’s school in London or New York, not seeking a position in a small town in Georgia.  But at the time, they were too delighted by her application to ask any questions. 

“It will be good for our daughter to learn some culture,” the attorney’s wife told the pastor’s wife. 

“And our boy may find some table manners at last,” the pastor’s wife responded with a smile. 

School was called into session in the local church shortly after the arrival of the teacher.  And soon, the children were bringing glowing reports home.  “Teacher” was special.  Teacher taught them manners and diction as well as reading, writing and arithmetic.  All the children loved teacher. 

The parents were delighted by the progress their children were making at school.  Teacher had been a real find.  A God-send, said the preacher’s wife. 

But not everyone in town was so satisfied.  The local ne-er-do well – called Smith – had more sinister stories to tell. 

“That woman ain’t natural,” he told the blacksmith, waving a bottle of whisky for emphasis.    “I seen her out in the woods after dark, dancing around a campfire and chanting in a strange language.”

“Nonsense,” the blacksmith retorted, calmly hammering a headed iron bar on his anvil. 

“They say she’s got an altar in her room and it ain’t an altar to the Almighty,” Smith insisted, leaning forward and blowing his boozy breath into the blacksmith’s face. 

“You’re drunk,” said the blacksmith, lifting the hot iron so it barred the man from coming any closer.  “Go home and sleep it off.”

Smith left the smithy, but he continued to talk wild about the Teacher in the weeks that followed.  During those weeks, a change gradually came over the school children.  The typical high-jinks and pranks that all children played lessened.  Their laughter died away.  And when they did misbehave, it was on a much more ominous scale than before.  Items began to disappear from houses and farms.  Expensive items like jewelry, farm tools, and money.  When children talked back to their parents, there was a hard-edge to their voices, and they did not apologize for their rudeness, even when punished. 

“And my daughter lied to me the other day,” the attorney’s wife said to the pastor’s wife in distress.  “I saw her punch her younger brother and steal an apple from him, and she denied it to my face.  She practically called me a liar!” 

“The games the children play back in the woods frighten me,” the pastor’s wife confessed.  “They chant in a strange language, and they move in such a strange manner.  Almost like a ritual dance.”

“Could it be something they are learning at school?” asked the attorney’s wife. 

“Surely not!  Teacher is such a sweet, sophisticated lady,” said the pastor’s wife. 

But they exchanged uneasy glances. 

Smith, on the other hand, was sure.  “That teacher is turning the young’uns to the Devil, that’s what she’s doing,” he proclaimed up and down the streets of the town. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the preacher told him when they passed in front of the mercantile. 

“I ain’t ridiculous.  You are blind,” Smith told him.  “That teacher ought to be burned at the stake, like they burned the witches in Salem.”

The pastor, pale with wrath, ordered Smith out of his sight.  But the ne’er-do-well’s words rang in his mind and would not be pushed away. And the children continued to behave oddly.  Almost like they were possessed.  He would, the preacher decided reluctantly, have to look into it someday soon. 

That day came sooner than he thought.  The very next Monday, his little boy came down with a cold, and his mother kept him home from school.  When the pastor returned from his duties for a late lunch, his wife came running up to him as soon as he entered the door.  She was pale with fright. 

“I heard him chanting something over and over again in his bedroom,” she gasped.  “So I crept to the door to listen.  He was saying the Lord’s Prayer backwards!” 

The pastor gasped and clutched his Bible to his chest, as goose bumps erupted over his body.  This was positively satanic.  And there was nowhere the boy could have learned such a thing in this town, unless he learned it…at school. 

At that moment, the attorney’s wife came bursting in the door behind him. 

“Quick pastor, quick,” she cried.  “Smith is running through town with a torch, talking about burning down the school.  The children are still in class!” 

The pastor raced out of the house with the two woman at his heels.  They and the other townsfolk who followed them were met by a huge cloud of smoke coming from the direction of the church, where the school children had their lessons.  The building was already ablaze as frantic parents beat at the flames with wet sacks, or threw buckets of water from the pump into the inferno.  Smith could be heard cackling unrepentantly from the far side of the building, which was full of the screams of the trapped students and their teacher. 

The fire blazed with a supernatural kind of force, and the pastor thought he heard the sound of the Teacher laughing from within the building when it became apparent that no one could be saved. 

The church burnt for several hours, and when it was finally extinguished, there was nothing left.  Mourning parents tried to find something of their children to bury, and Smith wisely disappeared from town, his mission against the works of Satan completed. 

The teacher’s burnt body was buried deep in the ground and covered with brick tomb.  The children’s smaller bodies were interred beneath wooden crosses.  Of all the student’s in the school that fall, only the pastor’s small son survived. 

To this day, voices can be heard in the graveyard of at Burnt Church, chanting unintelligible words, as the school children and the teacher once chanted in the woods outside town.  Sometimes apparitions are seen, and dark walkers who roam the graveyard at night.  And they say that a brick taken from the grave of the evil teacher can set fire to objects on which they are placed. 

Axe Murder Hollow

Axe Murder Hollow

A Pennsylvania Ghost Story 

retold by S.E. Schlosser 

Susan and Ned were driving through a wooded empty section of highway. Lightning flashed, thunder roared, the sky went dark in the torrential downpour.

     “We’d better stop,”  said Susan.       Ned nodded his head in agreement. He stepped on the brake, and suddenly the car started to slide on the slick pavement. They plunged off the road and slid to a halt at the bottom of an incline.

     Pale and shaking, Ned quickly turned to check if Susan was all right.  When she nodded, Ned relaxed and looked through the rain soaked windows.

     “I’m going to see how bad it is,” he told Susan, and when out into the storm. She saw his blurry figure in the headlight, walking around the front of the car. A moment later, he jumped in beside her, soaking wet.

      “The car’s not badly damaged, but we’re wheel-deep in mud,” he said. “I’m going to have to go for help.”

      Susan swallowed nervously. There would be no quick rescue here. He told her to turn off the headlights and lock the doors until he returned.

     Axe Murder Hollow. Although Ned hadn’t said the name aloud, they both knew what he had been thinking when he told her to lock the car.  This was the place where a man had once taken an axe and hacked his wife to death in a jealous rage over an alleged affair. Supposedly, the axe-wielding spirit of the husband continued to haunt this section of the road.

      Outside the car, Susan heard a shriek, a loud thump, and a strange gurgling noise. But she couldn’t see anything in the darkness.

      Frightened, she shrank down into her seat. She sat in silence for a while, and then she noticed another sound.  Bump. Bump. Bump.  It was a soft sound, like something being blown by the wind.

      Suddenly, the car was illuminated by a bright light.  An official sounding voice told her to get out of the car. Ned must have found a police officer.  Susan unlocked the door and stepped out of the car.  As her eyes adjusted to the bright light, she saw it.

      Hanging by his feet from the tree next to the car was the dead body of Ned.  His bloody throat had been cut so deeply that he was nearly decapitated. The wind swung his corpse back and forth so that it thumped against the tree. Bump. Bump. Bump.

     Susan screamed and ran toward the voice and the light. As she drew close, she realized the light was not coming from a flashlight. Standing there was the glowing figure of a man with a smile on his face and a large, solid, and definitely real axe in his hands. She backed away from the glowing figure until she bumped into the car. 

      “Playing around when my back was turned,” the ghost whispered, stroking the sharp blade of the axe with his fingers. “You’ve been very naughty.”

      The last thing she saw was the glint of the axe blade in the eerie, incandescent light.

Two and Three

Two and Three

^^

In a small village in Himachal (A state in northern hilly region in India.) lived an old man and his wife. Both were over seventy and both loved one another. Only five other families lived in this tiny village.
One cold winter evening the old man and his wife were sitting inside their hut. Outside it was snowing. Suddenly the old man looked up and said, “I wish we could have some pakodas (Salty snacks prepared by frying vegetable mixed in gram flour batter). I very much feel like eating pakodas today.”
“I’ll see if there’s any besan (Gram flour) in the house,” his wife replied. She got up and opened the tin of besan. “Oh, there’s only a little bit here,” she said. “It’s too cold to go out and buy more. So I shall make pakodas from this little bit of besan.”
The old woman lighted the fire and made pakodas. She made five. She gave her husband three pakodas and herself took two.
But the old man would not take the palcodas. How can I eat three when you are getting only two ?” he said. “Take one pakoda from me.”
“Two pakodas are enough for me,” his wife replied. “It is you who asked for them. You take three now. Tomorrow I shall get more besan from the shop and make pakodas. I can then take one more than you.”
“We’ll see about that later,” the old man said. “But today you must eat three pakodas.”
They kept arguing like this all evening. Night fell, but they had still not eaten the pakodas. At last they agreed on a plan. “It is quite late,” they said. “So let us go to sleep now. Tomorrow morning, the one who gets up first will have to eat three pakodas.”
So they both went to sleep. Morning came. But still they kept lying in bed, eyes closed. Each wanted the other to get up first, for each wanted the other one to have three pakodas. It grew quite late and the sun rose high in the sky. But still they would not get up. The neighbours saw that their door was still closed. They got worried.
“What is the matter with the old couple ?” they said. “They still have not got up. Let us go and find out if they are all right.”
The neighbours went and knocked at the door. They called out to the old couple, but there was no reply from inside. Then the neighbours hammered at the door with their fists. But still the door remained closed. Now they got really worried. “We shall have to break the door,” they said. “The old people may be ill.”
So they brought an axe and broke open the door. They then went in and saw the old man and his wife lying on their cots with eyes closed. “Oh no,” they said. “They are both dead! Let us take them to the burning place.”
When the old man heard this he shot up in alarm. He realised that they would both be burnt alive. “Oh very well,” he cried. “I shall eat three andyou can eat the other two.” On hearing this the old woman also shot up and cried, “That’s what I’ve been telling you all this time. If you had listened to me, we could have eaten them last night. We wouldn’t have gone hungry all night then. But we can eat them now.”
When the neighbours heard this they were alarmed. They ran out of the door shouting. “Run! Run for your life! The ghosts of the old man and his wife are after us! They are going to eat us all up! The old man’s ghost will eat up three families, and his wife’s ghost will eat up the other two families in the village !”
The old man and his wife were surprised. They ran after the neighbours to tell them that they were not ghosts. At this the neighbours were even more frightened. They ran faster still.
Much later the old man and his wife told the neighbours about the pakodas. When they heard this, they burst out laughing. That day the old woman brought more besan from the shop and made lots of pakodas. Then she invited everyone in the village for a feast of pakodas. You see, she was sorry that she and her old man had given everyone such a fright.