Grandma’s Spooky Spirit
by Sarah Hoyland, Runcorn, UK
I became obsessed with spooky stories at a young age, and my Grandad bought me lots of books on the subject. I adored seeing ghostly photos and reading about poltergeists, but little did I know my family had our own ghost story. I’ll try my best to explain what I remember, but it has been a long time since the story was told properly to me.
We live in Runcorn, a town near Liverpool in the UK. The incident in question took place in Halton Village. We have several stories of spooks in this area, including prisoners who still haunt the castle, ruin dungeons, ghostly goings on in an old library, and supposedly a phantom traveller (the rumour is that if you listen closely you can hear the sound of the horse’s footsteps…before you know where it’s coming from, it’s passed you by and is trotting into the distance; no horse or traveller to be seen). You’ll have to forgive my lack of knowledge regarding dates and years. It began in the days when travel was done by horse and carriage. There was a massive house on Main Street in Halton Village, and it was used as a doctor’s surgery. There was a stable on that area of property the doctor owned, and also a massive garden. The man who worked in the stable and looked after the doctor’s and patients’ horses was a man named Harry. He worked very hard at what he did. That is until one day, he heard a strange noise approaching the house. To Harry’s utter shock and dismay, he learned that the wealthy doctor had purchased an automobile. Harry panicked. The doctor had a car. A car meant “no horses.” No horses, in Harry’s eyes, ultimately meant “no job.” Instead of being calm and realizing there were still patients who would be travelling by horse and carriage, Harry went into the stable, and took his own life. He hung himself from a beam.
Years went by, and the house (along with the massive garden and stable) was sold to my grandma. Grandma had big plans for this property. It became Halton House Residential Home. But what of the stable, where the poor man had taken his life many years before? Grandma had it converted into a small house where she lived with my grand dad, my great grand dad (grand dad Tom), my mother, and my aunt. She knew of the story of Harry, but there were no disturbances for a while. Things began to happen when my mother was roughly seventeen and training to be a nurse.
One night my grandma was in bed when she became very aware of someone else in the room with her. Grand dad and Grand dad Tom were downstairs, and her daughters were in their rooms, as far as she knew. The door hadn’t opened, but there was very definitely someone in the room with her. She sat up and peered into the darkness at the foot of her bed. At first she thought it was my aunt she could see, but as her eyes properly adjusted, she realised it was a man…a tall man, taller than my grand dad or grand dad Tom. He seemed to glow dimly, like he wasn’t quite there. As quickly as my Gran put the light on to confront this strange man, he’d vanished. The door remained closed. No-one had entered or left through it. Gradually, strange occurrances like this became the norm in the household. Most notably was the cold spot in the living room that was by my Gran’s chair. She said to me, “I used to sit there with your grand dad in that toasty warm living room, and suddenly, the air in a certain place underneath a main beam would go icy cold. We used to say “Oh, Harry’s come to visit.” However, living with cold spots, hairs standing up on the back of necks, and an odd smell (I’m sure my grand dad said every now and then the house smelled horrid for no reason) was easy enough for my family. What my Grandma couldn’t take was when the ghost scared her children.
It was explained to me that ghosts don’t mean you any harm. It was certain that Harry never meant any harm to my family. Yet one night, he decided to appear in my mum’s bedroom doorway. She was walking up the stairs after getting home late one night. Grandma was in bed, grand dad and grand dad Tom were downstairs. As she rounded the corner to her room, there was this apparition in the door way. A tall man who was just staring at her. He vanished when she screamed, but it really spooked everyone out.
According to my grandma, all she did to get rid of him was one day was to say very loudly, “YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO LEAVE NOW. YOU ARE SCARING MY CHILDREN AND THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!” There were no further disturbances involving the ghost known as Harry in the little house. I was fascinated with the whole story, and growing up I spent a lot of time on that property, hiding in the cellars of the big house and wandering around the little house hoping I would bump face to face into a ghost. The little house became room for more beds as part of the residential home. There were never, to my knowledge, any more reports of strange goings-on in the house. The only other stories I’m aware of are reports of a ghostly man, matching the same description as Harry, wandering around the village near the church further along the road. The property in question has since changed ownership, and is now a home for children. I often wonder if any of them have sensed something a bit ghostly?
Scary Ghost Stories From My Life
from Elly…
Well, all I have to say is that I was not a believer in ghosts. But, after my very first encounter…yea, I’m definitely one now.
My very first encounter was at my 16th birthday sleep-over, and the girls thought it would be fun to buy an Ouija Board from a local store called Spencer’s. I told them from the very start, if anything happens, you are all going home. The party started without a hitch and was going great…until I had to go the restroom.
When I finished my business I turned to wash my hands as I looked at the mirror I noticed something very, very disturbing. My hazel eyes had become a very bright green and my image smiled at me not just any regular smile but one with wicked intent. As the image began to move it began to tear its face off in the mirror. I was petrified and turned and ran hysterically from my bathroom and told my mother to call all of their parents to have them go home.
After that night I have never had another encounter with the green-eyed ghost that looked like me. But now, I think maybe it was her warning not to play with things we don’t understand. My second and third encounter was at my very first security position at Seattle, Washington’s Pacific Place Mall. I was doing the nightly wand patrol, scouring the building for these little, silver buttons we had to scan with the wand. One of the silver buttons was placed in a very, very far back hallway inside a very creepy stairwell. I noticed every time I walked back there my hair always stood on end, but nothing ever really happened.
One particular night, not only once but twice, I received a pretty good scare. I had walked back into the long hallway (with the same hair standing-on-end feeling like always), opened the door to the stairwell and checked the dark cubby hole behind the door. Then, I heard three, very distinct footsteps to my left coming from the stairs. I looked over to find a very dark, but very distinct shadowy figure standing not three feet from me on the very top step. Immediately, I turned and ran the whole way back to the security officer on the bottom floor. I proceeded to throw the wand at the nearest officer and told them to finish the wand patrol, since I was not going to!
My supervisor pulled me outside for a quick smoke break, as I was a very pasty white, and asked me what had happened. I told him what I had seen, and he laughed at me. What I thought was an eventful night coming to a close, soon changed. We received a call not too long after my ghostly encounter from the Solstice Sunglasses store on the third floor. My security supervisor and I hiked it to the third floor and sat in the back room with one of the sales managers, who told us we needed to see something. She pulled out a disc labeled, “Ghost” (Ha, ha, ha, ha. Yea, it gets even better).
The way the store is set-up there are five tables: one set-up in each corner of the store, and one big one right in the middle; plus the long check-out counter in the back. The movie on the disc began to play and a very dark and distinct (but very familiar) dark figure walked across the screen from the front entrance, proceeding to walk though the middle table and stop dead. Looking straight at the camera, the figure proceeded to walk out of the frame and through the front counter. I then screamed hysterically and ran from the room and ended up back in the security office.
Not too long afterwards, my supervisor came in and asked me what had happened. Not only did he see the figure in the movie like I did, but I told him it was also the same man I saw in the hallway. He finally stopped laughing.
From that day on, I never had another encounter while being at that site, but it was very, very interesting.
Scaring Myself Ghost Story
by Dianne…
First of all, let me say that I didn’t see a ghost at this particular time; but please read my story, as it is fact. I’m not sure how old I was at the time, around 11 to 13 years old, maybe. I am now 24 and am Australian.
One night I was home with my mum. She was in the lounge watching TV, and I was in the kitchen washing the dishes. Anyway, in our kitchen we had hooks hanging from a shelf to hang cups on. I placed the cups on the hooks and returned to cleaning the water from around the sink. And then, there was an exploding noise that made me jump: one of the cups had exploded. It was so intense that pieces flew right into the dining room.
At this point, my mum ran into the kitchen to see if I was OK, as she heard it. And she asked, “What happened?”
I said, “It just exploded (half of the cup was still on the hook, by the handle, as only half of it exploded. I am the logical type that thinks there’s an explanation for everything – boy am I wrong).”
I went with mum into the laundry to get the broom and dustpan; and we came back into the kitchen. I looked at the bench and the handle of the cup was laying on the it. So, I turned to mum and said, “Didn’t we leave it on the hook still?”
She replied, “I can’t remember exactly, but I’m fairly sure it was still on the hook. OK, lets see.” She got the handle and placed it back on the hook and made sure it was steady, and said, “We will come back in five minutes.”
So, we went into the lounge and then later made our way back to the kitchen. I looked in from the door first and saw the handle back on the bench – in the same place. At that point, I started screaming, and mum looked and saw it there also. At this point, I couldn’t stop screaming and shaking. Mum laid me down on the couch in the lounge, and I was crying until my dad came home.
After that, I couldn’t go to sleep without the lights on for two weeks, and the scariest thing is, about one month before that event happened, a friend of the family was leaving our place on his bike. He was crossing the road at night and was hit by two cars, dying right in front of our house on the road. I was just a kid; and we ran out because we heard the bang, and I saw him laying there – deceased. It’s amazing how both the bang from the cup and our friend getting hit by a car sounded so alike.
I could tell you a few other strange things that have happened, but it’s 1:37 AM here, and I’m scaring myself too much. For those of you who don’t believe, or haven’t experienced anything, I truly envy you. Consider yourself one of the lucky ones…