Local Haunts

October Knight

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Fantasy, Horror and Sci-fi. I'll try basically anything though. I also love strange and unusual RP genre concepts. Different is good!
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Tell me Iwaku: Are there any local, spooky legends in your corner of the world? Horrific Myths, haunted houses, mass murderers spirits? Anything. Tell me.

 
Well, in Texas, they say there is a ghost in the basement of the Alamo. But, you also have La Llorona. Which is a mexican folktale. She's the lady in white. People chased her down, claiming she was a witch. Wanting her child to be spared of a horrible fate, she drowned her son. They say you could hear her cry at night for her son. Some say she kidnaps children and drowns them. Also, her son is the cucooe (don't know how to spell it), but every mexican knows of him.
 
There are a lot of "spooky legends" around here. I'm not going to detail each and every one of them, but here's one for you:

Back in the 1950s, if I'm remembering the "legend" correctly, a car was driving across railroad tracks when it died. Try as they might, they couldn't start the car. Just like in the movies, there was a train coming. Very much unlike the movies, the car didn't start just in time to get away, and yes Jar-Jar, some people died.

Now, the "legend" has it that every year around that time (in March, if I remember correctly), if you're trying to cross the tracks, your car will die on the tracks for no reason other than the entertainment of supernatural beings from another plane of existence. A "train" will be seen coming right for you, but unlike the above story, it's cool because it's only a "ghost train." Once it passes, you car will start up as if nothing happened, and you can continue about your merry way.
 
Hmm...

We have this old empty house nearby where I live and before the government came in and restored it, it was very creepy looking. They made a park in front of it for some of the weirdest reasons. Apparently it was home to one of the founding members of my city. The paint was peeling off so it exposed this really old wood. And some of the wood itself was falling off too. There wasn't a fence around it either or glass paneling around the windows to keep people out. I kinda wish the government didn't come in restore it and put a large ass fence around it. I thought it added a bit of character to our city. XD Is it haunted? I have no clue, I just love the creepy aspect of it.

One day my brother and his friend were driving down one of our main roads. I don't know if it was at night or not, probably night though. As they're coming down the street they see this car pull out of the road, drive into a wall and disappear. Obviously a real car can't do that so they both assume it's a ghost car. Well... The thing about this road is it's known for street racing. It's a long stretch of road with very few stop lights and very little traffic. There have also been people who have died here from racing. And everyone who lives in this area knows this. I even had a guy who lost his friend doing that come talk to us about it in high school.
 
There's a creepy volcano in our county [named Malheur Butte] said to be a gathering place for witches. People have witnessed imp creatures there, too. I don't believe any of it, but it's still creepy stuff. *researches more info*

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Malheur Butte according to legend, it once was a popular meeting place of witches. The Snake River is also in the vicinity and supposedly draws wicca ceremonies due to the fact that it flows south-to-north. Near the Butte (and in the outlying areas, as well) many people have spotted small, shadow-like creatures after dark. A witness claims she was chased to her car by something she couldn't see very well. Whatever it was made noises and was about the size of a dog. Even though she doesn't spook easily, she was terrified by the incident. A few years prior, another witness claimed to have seen a similar creature at a nearby park one night. Other sightings have occurred. In addition to these alleged 'imps' the entire area surrounding Malheur Butte emanates a creepy vibe that is unmistakable.
 
So my childhood friend's house is apparently haunted. I'm a fence-rider about these kinds of things but I'll never forget the nights I slept over at her house. Most of them were just normal sleepovers but there were a few times when the creepiest shit would happen. Like one time her mom and I cleaned up the downstairs before going to bed (my friend was getting her baby brother ready for bed upstairs). We put all of the chairs back at the table and made sure the doors were locked. It was a chilly, snowless November night. And I remember this sleepover well because around 1 am, we heard something moving downstairs. At first we thought it was the dog, but then we remembered that the dog was in her mom's room with the door closed. So naturally, like any nine-year-old would, we were scared shitless.

Long story shortened, after several attempts to go down the stairs to see what the hell all the noise was about, we pussied out and ended up waking up her mom. So all of us when downstairs and guess what we found?

The chairs were moved all over the place - one at the sink, one up against the fridge, and the other three in two other rooms.

All of the knives in the kitchen were on the table, from butcher to plastic butter.

The front door was wide open.

There were snowy footprints on the carpet.

It hadn't snowed yet that winter.

So yeah. Either some seriously fucked up prank or, y'know, I don't even...

Apparently some dude killed himself in the garage a few years before my friend's family bought the place though.

Ever since then, I've had a fascination with the supernatural ^^
 
The Alamo is supposedly haunted, this is true. There have been reports of a little boy, as well as a man in a long black coat. Another haunted location in San Antonio is the Menger Hotel and Bar, where Teddy Roosevelt recruited the Rough Riders... and supposedly still hangs out. ;]

On a more personal note...


My childhood home was built in the 40's and was the oldest house in the neighborhood. It had a bit of an odd layout, since it was built into the side of a hill to start with and had been added on to over the years; it had an attic as well as a basement, two floors with a kitchen and a chimney apiece, and seven doors leading to the outside. We never used the attic except for storage, but we often had to use the basement because our washer and dryer were in there. Funnily enough, the basement was actually slightly elevated from the downstairs floor (we actually had to go up a small flight of stairs to go in). The basement access was through a door just beyond the boiler room, and we generally kept both doors closed, because it was an old house and prone to drafts.

There were often sounds at all hours of the day. The boiler made an awful lot of noise, for one, and old houses creak and groan with weather and age. Sometimes there were odd clanks, or scurrying sounds overhead that were likely due to squirrels in the attic. Sometimes there were sounds that might almost be taken for footsteps, if you didn't know that you were alone and so of course that was absurd. Also, as things do when you live with other people, items would go missing and turn up in the oddest places, places that seemed to make no sense. The thermostat would be fiddled with, and no one would own up to it. Doors would open and close- from those drafts again, no doubt.

For some reason I never felt comfortable alone downstairs, even during the day. I always had this prickling feeling, like I was being watched. At night I couldn't sleep (due to a bit of insomnia, as well as sleep apnea) and I would hear noises in the hall, noises that spurred me to leap up and turn on the light and shut my door. And my least favorite place of all was the basement. Sometimes our cat would get in, and I would be shaking in my boots at the thought of having to go crawling around in the back of the basement to fetch her (it was quite a large area, with insulation sticking out of the cinder blocks and wooden floorboards near the back). When I had to go in and do laundry, the feeling of eyes boring into me would mount so high that once or twice I ran out of the room and didn't stop until I was upstairs and out of breath.

One night, I was out late with my brother, his girlfriend, and a friend. My brother's girlfriend pulled up into the driveway (it was an old gravel drive, curved and inclined in a way that pissed off many of our houseguests) and parked the car. We were chatting away, in no rush to go inside. I found myself looking out the window (driver's side backseat) and my eyes were drawn to the steps which led down to the outside basement access. Seven doors to the outside, as you recall...

What happened next I am still not sure how to explain.

At first, I thought it was my mother, coming out to scold us for being out so late. It certainly looked like a woman with long, dark hair, from what little I could see in the dark. The car was off, so there was no light even from the headlights, and my house was surrounded by so many old oak trees that no street lights could penetrate far into the yard. Then I thought my eyes must be playing tricks on me, until the chatter between the others in the car halted and turned to frantic questions of, "Oh my god, do you see that?"

The figure moved past the car and down the driveway.

We got out of the car and ran into the house. My mother, who was very much still in the house and at her computer, looked up in surprise and asked us what was the matter, likely because we were all white-faced and shaking. We explained as best we could.

Because when that figure got to the bottom of the driveway and into the ambiance of the street lamp, and the four of us watched wide-eyed, it disappeared.
 
Old mining towns here have a lot of stories to do with ghostly women and children killed by smallpox. There's also an interesting one about a phantom train.
The legends of Stanley Inn, where you can supposedly hear the laughter of a nonexistent child and the strains of piano music from an empty room, inspired Stephen King.
 
OKAY, DOUBLE POST I KNOW. But no one from Wisconsin contributed this and this is a fabulously creepy haunting story.

In rural Wisconsin, there is an old abandoned park. Built in the 1920s, it served as the town's gathering place for everyone.

That is, until a newly developed Train and Tunnel for Tots™ ride was installed in 1932. It was an innocent looking childish train, with one main (mechanized) head car, with three small trolleys pulled behind it. It went around some loops before going into a small tunnel.

But this is where the story gets weird. There were numerous cases of child deaths that year, all of them happening after the child rode on that train system. Some kids went missing in that short tunnel (about ten feet), and others went comatose after leaving. One, upon exiting, was found to be dead. Her dress was covered in what looked like small bloody handprints. Some killed themselves by scratching at their throats until they bled out, and one of them even killed another child before hanging herself with razor wire at the family's farm.

The park was closed, and the town's popularity as a tourist town plummeted.

Recently, a team of scientists were sent out to the park. They taped a video camera to the train, and put a new intern in with it, before sending it on its way onto the tracks.

When the train left the tunnel, it was empty, except for the camera.

The last ten seconds were nothing but static, save for the sound of children laughing.