Haunted: Ghost Children: A Collection of Ghost Stories From Beyond

Introduction

Everyone loves a good ghost story. On a dark night, with the lights low and the wind howling at the windows, few things are still as thrilling as settling in with an entertaining, spooky tale. From restless spirits seeking to avenge their violent deaths to those who have passed on yet still maintain earthly ties and just can’t let go, it’s fun to take a little trip to the dark side now and then.

Tales involving the supernatural are some of the oldest stories we have. Handed down orally from generation to generation, they were often morality tales, carrying messages and warnings. Later, Gothic ghost stories brought us to foreboding castles and manor homes, introducing us to brooding spirits who wandered endlessly down cold corridors, forever lost between worlds. When the ghosts came to suburbia, the terror hit a little closer to home. These stories of poltergeists, demons, and houses that were just plain bad still give us shivers.

Still, some ghost stories will always tug at us just a little bit more than others.

What happens when the ghost is attempting to seek answers, to solve their own death?

What happens when the ghost is not the benign friendly specter who simply watches over his former abode but is, instead, malevolent and angry?

What happens when the ghost is just a child?

Do children, these innocent souls whose lives were cut drastically short, haunt in a different way? Can YOU resist the spirit of a child?

In the following collection of ghost stories we’ll take you on a haunted ride. You’ll travel from the confines of a crowded cemetery where the majority of the guests can’t see the real inhabitants to an isolated farmhouse that holds a horrible secret and then to a childhood memory one woman will never forget. You’ll meet a boy who can never grow up and a boy who lives his life in a dark world few will ever understand. Although we, as the authors, will be your guides, it’s the children who will lead the way.

So, sit back, settle in, and lock your doors. But don’t be afraid.

After all, these ghosts have been waiting for you for a very, very long time.

STELLA

A Taryn’s Camera Short

By

Rebecca Patrick-Howard

Stella thought the night would never end. She hated everything about the night these days–being alone in her house with all its strange noises, the fact that it meant another day had gone by and another one was coming, the impenetrable darkness...

When she’d bought the house in the country with her husband two years ago the seclusion and quietness had promised to be peaceful. But then he died only two years later. A heart attack at sixty-five.

Now she was alone.

Bill had been gone for six months. It was the longest period of time Stella’s ever lived by herself. She’d gone straight from her parents’ house to Bill’s parents’ house where they’d lived for a year and a half at the beginning of their marriage. They’d been married forty-five years. She still wasn’t sure she knew how to live without him, or without anyone. She’d been taking care of someone all her life. She’d never not had someone there to depend on her, whether it was her frail father who’d suffered from severe arthritis and muscle weakness or, much later, her two daughters.

Mother, I don’t understand why you want to live in this old thing by yourself, her daughter, Millicent, had scolded her. She’d walked around the house the day after the funeral, her nose wrinkled in distaste at the creaky floorboards, peeling paint, and faint scent of dampness.

Sarah, her older daughter, had been more understanding. Mother loves this house, she’d chastised Millicent. And Daddy did, too. He’d want her to stay here and enjoy it.

She could’ve sold the house, moved in with Millicent in Nashville until she figured something else out, but Stella was stubborn. The pristine white farmhouse on twenty acres had been Bill’s dream. He’d wanted it so badly. It didn’t feel right to just give it up. Besides, her relationship with her daughter was strained at best.  She’d stay there at the house on her own.

But she didn’t like it.

There were things in Stella’s house. She’d felt them the day they’d first walked through with the realtor. She’d known as soon as she walked through the front door that something wasn’t right, just by the way her skin prickled. Stella’s scent was strong but it was more than the home’s age and earthy setting that accosted her.

Stella scented death. Death and something else. Anger perhaps? A strange mix of anger and love.

It had unnerved her, that first walk through the rooms, but she’d tried to ignore it. Bill knew it was the one and she couldn’t ruin it for him. Can’t you see it Stella, he asked with excitement in his eyes. Can’t you just see us out here on the porch, watching Taryn play in the yard? Maybe get some chickens! And that antique store in Murfreesboro? The sideboard? Wouldn’t it look great there in the entryway?

She hadn’t been able to deny him, never could. Besides, even at their advanced ages they were in love. She’d decided then and there to work her cleansing magic, along with some heavy duty scrubbing and elbow grease, and they’d wipe away whatever badness remained.

But it hadn’t left. And now Bill was gone and Stella was left there with whatever was lingering.

Stella had given up trying to sleep at night. It was so dark she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face and once she’d woken up, pawing at the air in the blackened bedroom, forgetting where she was. For one terrifying moment she thought she’d been shut away in the casket with Bill and she’d screamed, sweat rolling down her back and chest.

Help me, help me! she screamed, her words chocking in her throat. Somebody!

Once she’d fully woken up and was alert she’d felt foolish–just an old lady having a nightmare. Yet, at the time, it had felt so real.

So then she’d tried a night light. That didn’t help. All it did was cast ghastly shadows across her walls, the shapes moving in slow rhythms that reminded her of a deadly seductive dance. She’d stayed awake most of the night just watching them, waiting for one to jump off the wall and grab her.

You’re going crazy old gal, she’d muttered to herself, finally giving in and flipping on her lamp.

Next, she’d turned on the light in her closet. For the house to be as old as it was, her bedroom had a fair-sized closet, more than enough room for the clothes she’d kept after going into a tizzy one afternoon and donating most everything she had. The light in the closet was dim and offered just the right amount of illumination. For three nights she’d slept like a baby in a room that was neither too dark, too light, nor too shadowy. Then, one night, just as she was falling asleep she’d heard what she had come to refer to as the disturbance.

At first she’d thought she was dreaming. After all, she was drifting through that limbo stage where she was neither awake nor asleep. The cry was muffled and short; it barely registered on her mental plane. But then it had come again, louder and more insistent.

Stella’d shot straight up, startled. She’d looked towards the closet door where the noise had originated and peered into the light inside. She couldn’t see a thing. As she’d skidded out of bed to investigate further, however, a heavy thud came from inside the tiny room and Stella had jumped a foot into the air, letting loose her own shriek.

Hot damn! she’d hollered, her voice echoing in the large room. "Mother of God, what in hell was that?!"

Standing in the middle of her room, the hard floorboards cold under her feet, Stella had stared inquisitively at the closet door. The Johnson’s Baby Powder she’d always put on before bedtime was sticky and starting to clump from her sweat and she felt a glob roll down her thigh. It had made her sick to her stomach. She’d thought she’d heard a muffled voice and then the padding of feet. Oh, surely to goodness someone wasn’t in her closet, were they?

The thought of her being alone in the house all night, and then vulnerable in bed, while someone waited patiently in her closet for her to fall asleep terrified her. Frozen in fear, she could do nothing but allow the panic to consume her, her blood turning to icy droplets and chilling her to the bone. She could feel her heart trying to beat its way from her chest, pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears. The whooshing sound pained her, making her feel as though the room was pulsating around her.

Stop it, she’d commanded herself, stop it! There was nobody in the closet. It was a rat or a raccoon or a possum or something that had crawled in under the eaves and found its way inside. It was an old house that needed a lot of work. Who knew what lived in the walls?

Steeling herself and gritting her teeth, Stella had gathered her courage and fought the panic down to her toes. The fear was in her head, that was all. She’d know if someone was trying to hurt her. She’d know. Stella always knew. Feeling a small weight lift, she’d leaned over to the lamp and flicked it on. The room was suddenly filled with light but her fear remained. It wasn’t entirely gone.

She hadn’t been completely helpless, however. Her husband had lived on the road, often leaving her home by herself. Leaning back a little, Stella had kept her eye on the closet door and opened the drawer to her nightstand. She’d fumbled for a moment before her hand landed on the object she was searching for. With the small revolver in front of her, she’d felt safer and more secure. New confidence swelling inside her, Stella had crept towards the closet door, training her ears for any other sounds. Raccoons were mean, ornery things. She didn’t want to open the door and find one ready to pounce on her, claw her eyes out.

Legs opened and planted firmly on the ground, Stella had assumed her defense position and reached for the knob. The house was deathly quiet, as though holding its breath in anticipation for her. With a violent yank she’d flung open the door and pointed her gun into the dim light.

Nothing moved.

The closet light was turned on from a string that hung down in the middle. It was swinging now. Probably just from where I opened the door, she told herself. Although her clothes swayed gently back and forth from her sudden movements, nothing looked out of order. Stella pushed them aside with her free hand, keeping her revolver trained on the small space.

Nothing.

Stella had sighed, irritated with herself. She knew then that she really must have really been dozing and didn’t realize it.

I’m just scaring myself. And now I’m going to shoot my damn foot off, she said aloud to the empty room. Sighing, she’d placed the revolver back into the drawer and shut it to. She’d never been real comfortable with the thing, although she did know how to use it.

Whether she’d really heard something or not, she’d certainly scared herself silly so there was no way she’d be able to sleep. Muttering, she’d grabbed the book she’d been reading from her nightstand and trooped down the steep, narrow stairs.

She figured she’d sleep again when it turned daylight.

That had been two nights ago. Sleep had never really returned.

Stella was a woman who was neat by default. She was also a woman who had a lot of time on her hands. When her husband died her friends had come around a lot at first, taking her out to lunch, visiting with her on the front porch, inviting her to dinner at their houses...but those invitations had gradually stopped. She hadn’t noticed the exact moment when they’d stopped, just looked at her calendar one day and realized it had been weeks since anyone had phoned or visited her.

So, Stella cleaned.

There was a lot to clean in the old house. With eleven large rooms she could barely keep up with the dust and muck that gathered on the floors, much less the furniture polishing, washing the dishes, the laundry (it was amazing how much one woman who didn’t go anywhere or see anyone could accumulate), and the everyday organization of the clutter. So, she spent most of her afternoons cleaning.

As the sun started to set she proceeded to the front porch for her nightly ritual: watching the sun sink down over the old tobacco barn while she nursed a cup of hot chocolate spiked with Baileys.

That evening her mind flitted back to the events from a few nights before. She knew she hadn’t been asleep. She knew what she’d heard. But what did it mean?

I’m too old to deal with ghosts, she said aloud. Since Bill’s death she’d taken to talking to herself. Sometimes it was nice just to hear another voice in the house.

Still, she refused to honestly believe that her house was haunted by an actual ghost. Stella was sixty-five years old and had never seen a ghost. The only people she knew who had were either children, braggarts who seemed to want to outdo anyone regardless of the story, and her uncle Edward who was known for partaking of the whiskey a little too early in the morning.

Stella wasn’t sure that ghosts really existed. She believed in leftover energy, believed places had memories, even believed that people themselves could taint a place with their anger and love and jealousy. But ghosts?

The notion plagued her, however. She had to believe in some sort of afterlife. After all, if she didn’t, then what did that mean for her husband?

––––––––

Later that night Stella tucked herself into bed, a glass of milk and a Benadryl in either hand. She aimed to sleep through the night, to train her body to sleep in the proper hours, no matter what it took.  She thought if she could just sleep straight through the night once she’d be able to do it again. The doctor had given her some prescription nonsense but she refused to take it. She’d avoided medication for hypertension and high cholesterol so far, unlike most of her friends. She aimed to hold off on the hard stuff for as long as she could.

The Benadryl worked. For the first time in ages Stella was able to fall into a peaceful sleep without any effort. Her book fell from her fingers and landed at her side and she snuggled into her pillow and blankets, as content as she ever was when Bill was alive.

She didn’t know how long she’d slept but was having a lovely dream involving Sean Connery when she was rudely interrupted by the noise in her closet. In her foggy state brought on by the allergy medicine, she didn’t know what was going on at first. Her mind was alert and awake, but her body was not. She felt like she was moving through a mist, a thick sea of it, and couldn’t get her bearings.

From somewhere on the other side of the room she was mentally aware of a muffled sob, and then a thump on the wall. Someone’s not very happy, Stella thought dreamily and snuggled back into her pillow again.

But then it came again, this time louder and more intense.

Pushing through the fog of the medicine, Stella forced herself to open her eyes and sit up. Her head ached like she’d had too much alcohol and the room was spinning round and round in circles. Stella held her arm out in front of her to steady herself and listened. She willed her mind to quiet itself and clear. Her body relaxed and tune it to its surroundings. The sound came again then, what she could only define as soft crying.

Who’s there? she called out, but her voice sounded very far away, disconnected to her. I have a gun!

She groped for the drawer on her nightstand but couldn’t get her fingers to function properly. She could barely feel them move.

Figuring that wasn’t the safest time to reach for a gun, Stella awkwardly rose to her feet and stumbled to the end of her bed. She felt light as a feather, like she wasn’t moving at all, and seemed to float rather than walk. The Benadryl’s not such bad stuff, she thought drily.

Her closet door was open just a bit, a thin ray of light filtering from it. Funny, she didn’t remember leaving the light on.

Still feeling unattached to her body, Stella had the confidence she sometimes lacked since Bill’s death. With no thought to harm, she swung the door open, expected to be met by a person or, at the very least, a burning lightbulb.

It was dark. Once again, nothing was there.

Well I’ll be damned, she said aloud. Where the hell did the light go?

Shrugging, Stella stumbled back to her bed and collapsed, her feet dangling off the side and scraping the floor. She was lost too deep in the Benadryl to hear the soft cries that continued throughout the night.

Stella was a reasonable woman. When her husband was alive she was the one with her feet planted firmly on the ground. She balanced the checkbooks, did their taxes, made the major decisions about the household...and she liked that. Bill had been the dreamer, the one with his head in the clouds.

Stella was also the one with the loud mouth, the one who’d argued with store clerks when they weren’t treating her unfairly, the one who spoke her mind often without thinking, and the first one up for most challenges. Even Stella had to admit in the clear light of day, however, that what she’d done the night before had been stupid. Going to the closet without a weapon, ready to meet whomever might have been waiting for her without any thought to her safety–that had been crazy. It was obvious that she couldn’t take the Benadryl again.

However, she also had to admit something else...

The house might actually be