It’s not what you see…
So it’s pretty ironic that my first sale was a ghost story.
But even though I’ve never experienced the paranormal directly, the notion of what might be out there, if only I weren’t the equivalent of a supernatural dead zone, is enough to start the caterpillar-creep of gooseflesh along my spine.
When I was in college, my roommate Brigid’s sister, Shannon, had a ghost. Shannon called him Paul – and if my murky memory serves me, he was supposedly her brother in a previous life, when they’d both lived in France. (I didn’t ask how he got from France to Laramie, Wyoming. The séance express?)
Shannon was pretty matter-of-fact about Paul, but then, he was protective of her. He hated her boyfriend, however. Chuck experienced unexplained shocks from time to time, got freaked out by a rocker moving by itself and by the furnace firing inexplicably.
It was all academic for me until Paul took his act on the road.
We were driving from Laramie to Casper to visit Brigid and Shannon’s family for the weekend. We’d left late, given our usual failure to launch, and the highway was deserted.
I’d been zoning in the back seat, when Shannon said, “Do you see that guy?”
“What guy?” Dark highway. Empty road. Nothing but rank weeds on the verge, illuminated by the headlights. No guy.
Caterpillars. Start. Creeping.
“The guy in the tuxedo. He shows up every few miles.”
Caterpillars sprinting now. Yeeesh. How many urban legends involve a hitchhiker-who-is-not-what-he-seems? Those stories never end well.
However, we made it to Casper (how appropriate is that name?) without picking up any spectral passengers.
That drive, and the image of the tuxedoed guy-who-wasn’t-there (except to Shannon), returned to me when I sat down to write Northern Light, I guess maybe I picked up a mental hitchhiker that night after all. It just took him a few decades to finally pop out and say “Boo!”
How about you? Any close encounters of the spine-chilling kind? Tell your tale for a chance to win a $10 gift card for your choice of Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo.
Okay, that is SOOO creepy!! No such experiences in my life. I’m open to them, though. Come on, ghosts!
Be careful what you ask for, Roxanne! Perhaps ghosts are like vampires — once you invite them in, you’re SOL.
Ooohh, spooky! Halloween is actually my favorite holiday and I love stories like this! In our old house, I swear we had a ghost. (Yes, I believe in them.) Every once in a while I’d see something out of the corner of my eye and I just had this feeling that something else was in the house.
Oh, Robin. Isn’t that the creepiest? Of course, the one time I kept seeing something out of the corner of my eye, it turned out to be a bat! I think I would have preferred a ghost…
Yeah. We had our own ghost. It never bothered us much, so we, kids, never had a problem with it. It used to play the piano downstairs. Not a concerto by a long shot, but notes, single notes. It also used to roll up cords and put them away. Why? Who knows? But with my mom being a strict catholic, well, the six of us elected not to tell her about our guest. Then, one weekend, we came home from visiting my father, and she told us she’d had a “weird” experience. Apparently, our ghost decided to party while the house was empty. Only it wasn’t empty. My mom was downstairs in the office working. She went upstairs to change into casual clothes and heard voices and footsteps on the third floor. Specifically, dancing. So up she rushed to catch us in the act. You know, partying with our friends on a weekend. And when she got to the third floor it was empty. We were all away for the weekend.
Heh. Not a scary story, but a very pertinent one. After that, when we’d sneak in at night after curfew and my mother heard us, we’d tell her it must have been our ghost’s guests.
🙂 Enjoyed the blog, Ellen.
N.
Maybe your ghost was a safety-conscious ex-musical theater performer. (BTW, how often did your mother buy that excuse?)
Ooooo, chills and thrills on the highway. Love your story. The only ghost that took the time to visit me was my father, who told me to turn him loose, because he was having a too good a time to come back again. Really? Doesn’t parental duties go beyond the grave? Geez.
BTW,it doesn’t matter that your hitchhiker took awhile to show up, cause Norther Light turned out to be a hell of story. 🙂
Thanks, Elizabeth! Speaking as a parent, sometimes you just want to leave the kids with the babysitter and just enjoy the party!
Gah! That is sooo creepy.
I loved Northern Light and was so excited to find your other books… and was surprised it was your first. Sure hope there are many more to come. 🙂
As a kid I occasionally saw what some folks refer to as Shadow People. Most consider them to be frightening or nasty and I’ve always been a skeptic in spite of wanting to believe in things. A few years ago though, I had a rather startling incident where I was SURE I had seen someone out of the corner of my eye as I passed by our basement family room. I stood there shivering for a moment before sucking up my courage to go investigate. Turns out my children had left a small space heater running! If that shadowy figure hadn’t scared me we may have had a fire in the night that due to the location would have very likely killed my husband, our baby daughter, and myself. Spooooooky.
Anytime someone mentions Shadow People as a villainous sort I can’t help but share my story of the one who saved us.
Hi, Rhianna! Thanks for stopping by and for the kind words about Northern Light!
Wow. Score a big win for the Shadow People — and a big win for you for conquering your flight reflex. I’ll bet the thought of what might have happened was more frightening in retrospect than facing down an army of Shadow People with a pack slavering red-eyed hellhounds thrown in!
Sooooo creepy. I don’t think I’d love to have ghost. Well, maybe if it was friendly like Casper. Happy nearly Halloween!
I wonder if you can ask for resumés before you commit to the supernatural relationship, Hayson. Matchmaking for ghosts?
my former sil (he passed away in the year he predicted at age 26) was a conductor and he sensed ghosts in the resort where we would all stay for our Christmas celebration. They weren’t nasty or trying to do anything bad, he assured us. SO I just asked him things about them. My daughter, his wife, was so scared that she could not sleep during our stay there.
Oh my goodness. So sad (what a horribly early age to lose him), and so eerie.
Ooooo That’s freaky! I’ve had many experiences with the strange as a child and well, they weren’t like that! I remember being at home one day as a child and planned to go down to the basement to pick out some toys to play with in the living room. As I opened the door to the basement I remember seeing these two glowing dots at the bottom of the stairs. As a child I didn’t know or thought much about what is was but I close the door and walk away finding something else to do with my day. I’m not sure what it was but I know that nothing could have glowed like that because there wasn’t any light to bounce the reflected a light source back in that manner.
Once, I was home alone (kids all away at college, Curmudgeonly Husband at a conference), I got up in the night to investigate a noise. When I looked over the balcony railing into the dark kitchen below, I saw a glowing orange dot in a place where nothing should be. When I crept downstairs to check, I found it was the control panel of our new dishwasher. I’m not sure whether I was relieved or disappointed!
Nothing yet.
Thanks for the chance to win!
natasha_donohoo_8 at hotmail dot com
Thanks for stopping by!
When we first moved into our current house, an 1879 farmhouse, we heard footsteps on the stairs and strange noises at all hours. I finally had to tell whoever it was to keep it down and they could stay and we’d all get along. And they did!
Gotta love a ghost that takes directions!
How creepy!!!
The only spine-chilling experience I can honestly say I’ve had is when my husband and I were visiting a psychiatric hospital museum in St. Joseph, MO. We were there about 45 minutes before they closed, and we were literally the only people on the third floor. We were in the room where they used to do lobotomies, looking at all of the old tools, when we heard a strange sound. We looked out the door of the room, and didn’t see anything, so we went to the next room. When we were in there, something started knocking. We looked at each other and he grabbed my hand and we ran out in to the hallway. Still… nothing. We walked into another room, and the door on the opposite side of the room opened ON IT’S OWN. It was at this point, that we literally ran out of there. As fast as we could. As we blew past the desk, the ladies working the front counter looked as us like we were crazy. I don’t care. It was absolutely terrifying!
Thanks for an awesome giveaway!
songbird1613 at yahoo dot com
OMG, Marie, now THAT’S freaky! I would have run too, all the way to St. Louis!
No, no experiences
Thanks for stopping by!
I don’t have any such experiences of the spine chilling kind. But i do remember hearing noises which weren’t there. Now, creepy sounds always make me paranoid and alert.
Thanks for the giveaway!
Janhvi
justjanhvi at gmail dot com
I’m grateful I have a cat. I can always blame any unexplained noises on her!
No such experiences, but I really don’t like horror movies, they make me real jumpy:)
My daughter totally freaks out over horror movies, but could never say no when her high school best friend suggested they see one. We finally made it easy for her — “Just tell Kelsie we refuse to let you go.” Big smile from her. “Okay!”
I have never seen a ghost, but I feel like there have been spirits around me and noises I have heard
I hope they’ve been friendly spirits, Ashley, and non-catastrophic noises!
No interesting stories on this from me 🙁 Such a shame, especially reading some of the great stories posted.
Considering creepish nature of some of these, Sarah, maybe you’re better off! Easier to sleep without unexpected bumps in the night. 🙂
I’ve never had any experiences, really. Which is good since I’m scared of what may be hiding in the dark. Didn’t stop me from going “vampire hunting” with my friends in a creepy cemetery after dark.
I hope you didn’t discover any vampires, Jennelle. Eeep!
I grew up in a haunted house, so things were always happening to me. My grandmother was constantly covering for the ghosts. Perhaps she didn’t want to admit the house was haunted since she was often alone in the house during the day. Or maybe if I wasn’t with her, she didn’t experience the same things. My sister often called me a witch since strange things seemed to happen around me. We could hear footsteps walking up the steps to the unfinished attic at night. The steps would walk around overhead. I would tell my grandmother to listen and she would tell me the sounds were the dogs walking on the porch. No matter that the porch was beside our window and the sounds were overhead. I refused to go to the bathroom alone at night. I would make my grandmother or my sister go with me. There is a reason for that, but I’ll save that story for another time…
Okay, now I want to know what that other story is!
Not one spooky encounter, but well, you know when you’re all alone in the house, and the wind is howling, and everything’s creaking and you keep freaking out because you think that there’s somebody breaking in. Well, that. 😀
Yep. Know all about that! The classic “tree branch scraping against the window.” **shudder** We live out in the country, so occasionally raccoons will climb up on our porch roof and peer in the bedroom windows. Always freaks me out.
Eeep that’s so creepy!! No spooky experiences so far (and Thank God too!) 😀 Thanks for the giveaway. 🙂
blackcapballistics AT gmail DOT com
Whew! Thanks for stopping by!
Not that I know of…
vitajex(at)aol(dot)com
Thanks for stopping by!
I haven’t had any creepy experiences but after reading all the stories on the hop I think I may imagine a few tonight.
Hmmm…I guess you’ll find out whether that’s a good or a bad thing, eh, Kim? Hope they’re manageable!
I have all kinds of experiences that can’t be explained….
Thanks for the amazing giveaway!
elizabeth @ bookattict . com
Sometimes it’s best not to look to hard for an explanation, right?
I haven’t had any really. But I love reading about them.
kac_030@yahoo.com
Who knows? You might stumble into one by proximity like I did!
No such luck yet. Thanks.
Keep trying, Joy! Maybe you have to invite them in, like vampires.
Luckily, no. I think that would freak me out for life! Thanks for the giveaway! pinkbonanza{ AT }gmail{ DOT }com
I know what you mean, Krista! Thanks for stopping by!
For years after my grandparents had died I had spoken to both on a daily basis.
My Mem-mem passed first, I was 5. I don’t remember but my parents have told me that I would sit in front of the rocking chair and talk for hours. They thought it was an imaginary friend until I told them other wise. Three years later my Pop-pop passed. For some reason things changed. This is what I remember. For several years I would talk to them both after my parents put me to bed but before falling asleep. One on either side of the bed. I would tell them about my day, my feelings, how much I missed them, etc. They even talked back. We would have full conversations.
I don’t remember when the sightings stopped. Probably around my early teenage years. But I still feel them both and have heard my Mem-mem on one occasion since.
Ooooh. Sometimes I think that children are able to perceive a completely different plane of reality. As we get older, we learn too much about what’s “possible” and “impossible” and let it color what we allow ourselves to see. I have twin sons, and adults, even though they’ve known the boys for years, still have trouble telling them apart. But kids, especially young ones who haven’t yet learned to read, never have any trouble. They haven’t learned to generalize yet, and see the details rather than the whole picture.
Never seen a ghost before but believe in the possibility.
Sometimes just the potential for the uncanny or magical is what gets us through the day!
One night, I was at my cousin’s huge house and saw silhouettes of two kids in a dark room staring out the window. Funny thing is, there were no other young kids in the house. I never did tell my cousin about it.
Silhouettes can be soooo creepy. Have you ever seen The Third Man? There’s a scene where this huge misshapen silhouette is bearing down on Joseph Cotton and it ends up being a balloon vendor.
ive sene alot my fav encounter would have to be Matty the dead boy whose spirit seems to follow house to house and loves to play ball and hide things from me its awesome yet at times spooky
And he follows you around? Oh, yes. Definitely spooky!
haven’t had any close encounters, happy halloween!
Happy Halloween! Thanks for stopping by!
Not really a ghost story, but
When I was a senior in high school, my favorite uncle had cancer and was really sick and was in and out of the hospital for a month. One afternoon when I came home from school, I had to go to the back door to find the spare key to the house and when I passed our picnic table, I was overcome with some serious grief. I sat there and cried for no reason. Like it felt like my heart was broken. And after a few minutes, I felt better and went inside. When my mom got home, she told me that my uncle had died and I was just like.. this afternoon? It seriously freaked me out, I kid you not. I told my sister what had happened before my mom got home and we chalked it up to random stress since my dad had died in the beginning of that same year. But after mom told us, she just stared at me. lol. It was so CREEPY.
Oh, my. A little bit of prescience, which is definitely enough to freak anyone out. So sorry about your uncle!
Congratulations to Marie H, winner of the gift card giveaway! Hope everyone had a gloriously creepy Halloween!