Ghost Stories

[JackUnion]

In 1996 a cartomancer in West Kirby, England named Serena gave an apparently accurate tarot card reading to an old school friend. This is the tale.
Serena and Tracey had been best friends at school in the Eighties, and after leaving school in 1987 they had continued their friendship, despite each of them living at each end of Wirral's peninsula. Serena lived in West Kirby and Tracey lived at Ellesmere Port. One Sunday afternoon in 1996, 27-year-old Tracey drove up the M53 on her way to her friend's home. Swollen rainclouds shadowed her along the motorway, and by the time she was turning off the M53 onto an A Road, sheet lightning was flashing through the skies like a giant strobe. Tracey thought it seemed like the perfect setting for having her fortune read, which was precisely what had arranged by her white witch of a friend. For the past seven years Serena had studied the occult. She'd read a mountain of books and bought all of the esoterical paraphernalia that went with it: joss sticks, crystal balls, Tarot decks, silver charms, ankhs, pendulums, quartz crystals, scented candles, meditation mats and so on. But the room Serena had turned into a high priestess's temple had a welcoming, magical atmosphere for those who yearned for the mystical. Tracey found the room, with its exotic Persian rugs and polished wooden floor very therapeutic to chill out in.
Tracey reached the house of her friend on Westbourne Road at 2 p.m. in the midst of a violent thunderstorm. She was soon sitting in the darkened room where Serena practised her fascinating craft. The scent of sandalwood hung in the air, and a large vermilion candle burned on a low square table covered with an emerald velvet cloth. In the centre of the table near the candle, there was a small cherrywood box with brass trimming along its lid. The centre of the lid bore the heraldic five-lobed red rose of Lancashire. Serena sat on one side of the table on the floor in a lotus position wearing a striking gold satin furisode kimono. On the opposite side of the table sat Tracey in a black cotton tee shirt featuring the Fugees rap group and a comfy pair of Kappa tracksuit trousers. She watched her friend take out a disappointingly normal pack of playing cards from the box.
'Are we going to play Blackjack?' Tracey sarcastically asked her friend.
'No, we are not,' said Serena gravely. She was trying to keep her mind focused on maintaining the equilibrium of being unbiased. She visualised the Yin and Yang symbol of balance in her mind. 'I'm using these cards because the Tarot is so complicated and open to so much interpretation. I want to keep this relatively simple' Serena told her friend as she shuffled the pack.
'Oh,' said Tracey, flatly. She hadn't understood a word Serena had said.
Serena dealt three rows of three playing cards, then placed the remaining cards in the cherrywood box. She turned the first card over, and her lips moved as she mouthed silent words. Serena pondered upon the card, then turned over the next one. When she had finally overturned all nine cards, she drew in her breath, then looked at Tracey as if she was about to break tragic news to her.
'What?' Tracey uttered, sensing something terrible had been glimpsed in her future via the cards.
Serena's eyes scanned each card as she spoke. 'You're going into hospital -'
Tracey swore and exclaimed, 'No way, no way. Oh come on Serena give me a break.'
Serena continued, 'Shush Tracey, I'm not making this up; this is what these cards are saying.'
Tracey hid her face in her hands and shook her head, 'I don't want to hear it.'
'Okay,' Serena said, ready to scoop up the cards.
'No go on, tell me,' Tracey changed her mind quickly.
'Okay just shut up then,' Serena reprimanded her, and she resumed her scrying as lightning flashed through the windows, heightening the atmosphere.'You go into hospital but according to the next card it won't be anything fatal. In hospital you meet a young dark man, represented by the Jack of Clubs here. But, there's another older man here; the King of Hearts.'
'And?' Tracey was trying to make sense of the reading.
'Marriage -' Serena was saying when she was interrupted.
'Oh my God!' Tracey was tilting her head, trying to see how the cards looked from her friend's vantage point.
'No wait,' Serena waved at her friend to be quiet and read the cards again. 'You'll have a wedding yet you won't marry because of the Knave.'
'What do you mean?' Tracey asked, hating him already, despite the fact that she hadn't met him yet.
'The Knave, the prince, the young man - him!' Serena tapped the Jack of Clubs with her index finger. 'He'll be unfaithful so the marriage won't go ahead.'
Tracey was understandably upset. Not only would she be going into hospital, she would also meet a cad and fall for him, he would cheat on her and ruin the planned wedding. She looked so despondent and worried now.
'I asked you if you were certain you wanted a reading,' said Serena. She came around to Tracey and hugged her. 'It may never happen. Maybe we really do make our own destiny.'
Seven weeks later, Tracey awoke in her bedroom. A strange low humming sound had roused her from her sleep. She turned - and saw a huge bee on her pillow. Before she could flee from her bed, the bee flew into her face and stung her. She screamed, and brushed the dying furry insect away. The venom sac of the stinger continued to pump its poison into her skin, causing excruciating agony. She raced to the bathroom and grabbed a pair of tweezers. She tried to pull the stinger out of her face with them, but it only made matters worse. The tweezers squeezed the stinger sac and pumped more venom into her face, which was now red and swollen.
Tracey suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous. Her nose and throat felt very congested, and her eyeballs felt as if they were going to burst from an unbearable pressure. Her chest felt very tight, and a hot flush coursed through her body. She felt so light-headed and her feet and hands tingled. Tracey stumbled to the telephone and dialled an ambulance. A quarter of an hour later, as a paramedic hammered on the door, Tracey staggered to the door, opened it, and then fainted into the ambulance man's arms.
Tracey was suffering from a massive allergic reaction to the bee sting. The paramedic took her to the nearest hospital where she was treated for anaphylaxis - a serious condition where a person collapses from a violent allergic reaction to an agent in the bloodstream such as penicillin, certain food, or insect stings. Many cases of anaphylaxis are fatal, but luckily, Tracey made a steady recovery. She was discharged from the hospital after a day. Tracey took the week off, and two days after she left the hospital she visited her local library to browse for a book she could relax and curl up with. Tracey looked through the shelves for something to capture her imagination, and as she turned into another aisle, and found her way obstructed by a man, who was simply, by her own mental definition - a hunk. Love springs in the unlikeliest places. Tracey had been to Thingees night club every Saturday night with her friends from work. She had always gone under the pretence of just having a good time, but the real mission had been to find the elusive Mr Right, or even Mr Half-decent. That had never happened. The men who usually approached her were white-shirted shaven-headed monosyllabic morons who usually ended their Neanderthal palaver with: 'Shall we go back to yours then?"
The hunk standing before Tracey holding a volume of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica had a full head of black shiny hair, a manly, chiselled jaw-line, and the type of handsome masculine face Michelangelo would have immortalised in marble. His tall muscular physique was that of a Greek god, and even his hands looked perfect.
'Oh, sorry,' he said, stepping out of Tracey's way.
Even his deep voice sounded virile to her. 'It's okay,' Tracey said, and she smiled and gazed into his dark blue eyes.
The athletic, good-looking reader resumed reading, and Tracey turned into the next aisle to get a plan together. Should she go round again and see if he was interested? No, that would make her seem so desperate. Should she ask him where the keep fit books were, then ask him how he kept in too much shape? No, that sounded so false and sickly sycophantic. Should she just forget him? No way, he was a living archetype of the man she had been searching for. I know, Tracey thought, It's pretty warm outside. I'll sit on the bench out there and when he comes out, he might just make a comment.
'Excuse me,' said a sonorous voice from behind Tracey.
Tracey turned slowly and looked up. It was the hunk. 'Yes?'
'Look, this may sound really corny to you, and I never thought I'd ever say this to a woman, but If I don't, I'll regret it for the rest of my life.' He said, gazing at her with his blue unblinking eyes, so confident and determined.
Tracey's heart somersaulted. She somehow knew what was going to come next.
'I think you're the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, and -'
'Oh thank you,' Tracey blushed and smiled broadly.
'And I don't want to be pushy or anything, but could I take you out to dinner one night?' the tall dark stranger asked.
It was the first time a male had asked her out to dinner. They usually asked her to go to a pub for a drink. Tracey nodded and smiled, then turned away, wanting to say yes but not wanting to come across as easy, and this little charade went on for a while. 'Just a yes or a no would do,' said the Adonis, 'If you say no, at least I'll walk away knowing I tried.'
'Yes.' Tracey whispered.
'Sorry?' the hunk bent over her.
'Yes, where do you have in mind?' Tracey said at a slightly higher volume.

The rest was a roller-coaster. The hunk's name was Ben, and he was thirty and single with no children. Like Tracey, he had a boring job in an office as well, but at least it paid the bills and mortgage on his semi-detached house. He was the most romantic man Tracey had ever encountered outside of a Mills and Boon book. The white-hot courtship had been going on for almost three months, when suddenly without warning one morning, at a cosy café called Casterby's, Ben got down on his knee in front of all the customers and staff, and asked Tracey to marry him. The reaction he got was not the one he expected. Tracey burst into tears. It was all self-pity. She had been looking for Ben for so long, and the last three months had seemed too good to be true. Even her best friend at work, Kirsten, found Ben charming and genuine.
'Oh, isn't that lovely?' said the middle-aged waitress surveying the couple.
'Yes, I will marry you Ben,' Tracey said, and the waitress handed her a napkin.
'Have a good blow love,' the waitress advised.
Ben got up off his knees and hugged his fiancee. She seemed to vanish in his huge arms.
At the swimming baths the next day, in the changing cubicle, Tracey told Kirsten all about the marriage proposal.
'That's great,' said Kirsten in a dismal voice. She sat on the bench, taking off her trainers.
'What's wrong?' Tracey asked. It was obvious that something was upsetting her friend. In the office, Kirsten had been in good spirits.
Kirsten bowed her head, and tears started to drip from her closed eyelids. She never made a single sound as she cried.
'What's up babe?' Tracey said, and put her arm around her friend's shoulder.
'Nothing,' Kirsten replied, and then came the flood of tears and now the sobbing was audible.
'What's wrong Kirsten?' asked Tracey, pushing her friend's long hair out the way of her sad tear-stained face.
'This guy I was seeing, he - ' Kirsten's voice trailed off and she hugged Tracey as she shook and burst into tears.
'What guy? Come on Kirsten you'll be ok,' Tracey hugged her back.
'He hit me.' Kirsten barely managed to get the words out.
'Who did?' Tracey wondered what was going on.
Kirsten eventually stopped crying and told her what had happened. Kirsten said she had met a man at a club a month back, and he had been married, but he hadn't told her that he had a wife. His name was Curtis, and she had fallen for him in a big way. Yesterday Kirsten had bumped into Curtis and his wife and two children in the street. Kirsten had started to cry, and Curtis later paid her a visit and told her it was over. Kirsten said it wasn't and Curtis punched her and told her to keep away from him and his family.
Kirsten took off her tee shirt and bra, and showed Tracey the bruise where he had punched her in the chest.
'You should have went to the police - you still can!' said Tracey.
'No, I'll just put it down to experience,' Kirsten told her. Then she said she didn't feel like going for a swim in the baths after all. A week later, Tracey and Kirsten were at work in the office when Lynne, the pretty buxom, peroxide blonde data entry operator came into their zone and asked if they had seen her mobile phone. No one had.
'It's vanished,' said the dizzy computer operator. Some of the men called Lynne an air-headed bimbo but in reality she was a caring, and modest young lady.
'Well it isn't here,' said Kirsten, sneering at Lynne's signal-red stilettos.
'I might have left it in the car,' Lynne decided, and tottered back to her corner of the office.
That night, a little after nine o'clock, Kirsten dropped a bombshell. She called at Tracey's home and asked if she was alone.
'No, why?' Tracey asked.
Kirsten came into her friend's home and walked straight to the kitchen. This was the usual spot where she and Tracey gossiped. 'Trace, guess what?'
'What?'
'Guess who I saw coming out of Ben's house earlier?' Kirsten said, with a staid look on her hazel eyes.
'Skip the guessing games - who was it?' Tracey inquired and pouted, bracing herself.
'Lynne.' Kirsten replied.
'Lynne? You mean Lily Savage Lynne out of work?' said Tracey, feeling stunned and a little humiliated.
'Yes, her. She came out of his place about half-past eight, and he was all over her. I felt like going up to the two of them but I thought I might be jumping to conclusions. Maybe there's some innocent reason for her to be there.' Kirsten said, and she watched the look of devastation breaking out on her friend's face.
'How could it be an innocent reason if she was all over him?' Tracey said. Her voice sounded uneven and shaky.
'Tracey I'm sorry.' Kirsten said as tears welled in her eyes.
'And he was only telling me last night how he was looking forward to the honeymoon.' Tracey said, and she bit her lip. She gazed out through the kitchen window at the moon in the sky. She remembered all those lovely things he had said to her, just the other night as he held her beneath that same moon.
Kirstengritted her teeth, took out her mobile phone and said, 'I've got Lynne's number. I just want to give her a real earful I do.' Tracey reached for Kirsten's phone. 'No, I'll do it, and then I'll make a holy show of him. Boy will I make a spectacle of that two timing slimeball.'
'Ok, Trace. I'll make you a coffee.' Kirsten said.
Tracey called Lynne on Kirsten's phone. She listened to the ringing tone. It went on for quite some time, until it was answered - not by Lynne - but by Ben.
'Hello?' Ben said.
Tracey's heart broke in two as he spoke.
'Is that you Kirsty?' said Ben, puzzled by the silent call.
Tracey hung up and switched off the phone. She thought about the sentence Ben had just uttered. Why on earth did he ask if it was Kirsty? If the phone belonged to Lynne, surely he would have inquired if it were her calling. Something didn't ring true about all this, Tracey thought.
'What's up?' Kirsten asked.
'Nothing. Look, wait there, I won't be a minute.' Tracey walked towards the hall.
'Where are you going?' Kirsten called after her.
'It's okay I'm not calling on Mister Two-timer yet!' Tracey shouted, and left the house. She drove to the terraced house were Lynne lived, and when Tracey pulled up outside her front door, she saw Lynne standing in the doorway, chatting to a man with greying hair. It was Lynne's ex-boyfriend Anthony. He worked in the accounts section of the office where Tracey and Lynne worked.
Lynne was surprised to see her work colleague making a house call so late.
'Lynne, please can I have a word with you a moment?' Tracey asked her.
'What's it about?' Lynne was intrigued.
'Can I come in for a moment? Just for a quick private chat.' Tracey said, and acknowledged Anthony with a brief nod.
Lynne told her to come in and asked Anthony to wait on the doorstep a moment.
In the parlour, Tracey stood toe to toe with Lynne, and she told her about the allegations Kirsten had made. Lynne was initially perplexed then furious. She started to swear and called Kirsten a liar. Then suddenly the silver-haired blonde smiled slightly. She called Anthony into the parlour. When her ex-boyfriend entered, Lynne said to him: 'Anthony, please tell Tracey what you were telling me earlier.'
'What was that?' Anthony said, blankly.
'About Kirsten!' Lynne said with a little impatience.
'Oh, that, yes. Well I thought I saw her hovering about near Lynne's desk today. She was acting very suspicious. This was when Lynne went to the loo,' Anthony told Tracey.
'She's the one who took the phone, and I bet she put it in Ben's house,' suggested Lynne.
'But how would she get into his house? I don't even have a key to his place.' Tracey said, trying to make sense of the situation. 'Maybe she's been having an affair with him. Maybe she was at his place earlier this evening.' Lynne hypothesised as she fluttered her eyelashes.
'I'm not too sure of that. She's just come out of a relationship with a guy named Curtis who was violent towards her. She showed me the bruise he gave her.' Tracey said, then she started to shake her head, 'What a fool I was. What a blind trusting fool.' Tracey realised that the bruise on Kirsten's breast had not been caused by a punch; it was a love-bite, most probably inflicted by Ben. Now it was all starting to make sense. Kirsten was trying to ruin the marriage plans by making out that Lynne was seeing Ben. Then she would have Ben all to herself.
Tracey returned home. Kirsten was sitting in the living room watching the television.
'What did he say?' Kirsten switched off the television and waited tensely for an answer.
'He told me all about you,' Tracey said, folding her arms.
'What do you mean?' Kirsten looked so shocked.
'He told me all about you seeing him behind my back, but he said you're history now and he begged me to stay with him. So I'm going to give him another chance.' Tracey relished the words.
'Tracey I don't know what you are talking about - ' Kirsten tried to smile and feign innocence, but it was no good. She felt sick. Oh give it up will you?' Tracey yelled at her former friend.
Kirsten got to her feet and dashed out of the house. She ran all the way to Ben's home and hammered on his front door. When he answered she clawed his face. Ben eventually convinced Kirsten that he had not seen Tracey earlier in the evening. 'She's caught you out now!' Ben snarled, 'She's caught us both out!'
'Are you still going to marry her Ben?' Kirsten asked him that question several times as he ranted on about her being a fool. 'Yes! If she'll still have me, that is! Yes! And you are going out that door!' He bawled at Kirsten, his face was flushed and menacing. He shook her and repeated that he would marry Tracey if she forgave him.
Kirsten screamed hysterically and got on her knees before Ben, pleading with him to stay with her.
'I don't love you!' he told her, 'Now get out of my house!' he demanded, and picked Kirsten up by her hair. He threw her into the hallway then went to open the front door asking himself, 'Why on earth did I ever get involved with the likes of you?'
'Because you loved me Ben,' Kirsten said, just before she was thrown out of the house.

It took a while, but Tracey ultimately told Ben he was forgiven. She also buried the hatchet where Kirsten was concerned. Lynne and Anthony thought Tracey was crazy to forgive and forget so easily. The wedding went ahead, with over one hundred and fifty guests crowded into the local church. Ben wore a basic tuxedo, nothing fancy, but Tracey wore a stunning bridal gown with a peau satin scallop neckline. It had long flowing flared sleeves, a basque waist, and a bodice embellished with jewelled Venice lace appliques. The bustle back was adorned with three roses with loops at the waist leading into a train three feet in length.
The diminutive minister smiled at the couple, and started to recite the Wedding Service from the Book of Common Prayer: 'Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this company, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony…'
For some inexplicable reason, Tracey started to dwell on the unfaithfulness of Ben with Kirsten. It was as if she had suddenly woken up. The rose-tinted spectacles had been taken off, and now, at the wedding altar of all places, she suddenly realised she was about to be married to a rat. Ben was a leopard who would never change his spots.
Ben glanced sideways at her and smiled.
She returned a cold, heartless look that wiped the smile clean off his face.
The minister gave a little cough to remind the couple he was there. He continued with the service: 'If any man can show just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.'
There was a slight pause.
The minister was about to continue, when Tracey suddenly raised her hand and said to him: 'Well I'm not a man, but I'll give you a just cause for not going ahead with this service.'
The minister's jaw dropped.
Tracey turned to face the guests.'Ben is a two timing rat. While he was planning our honeymoon, he was seeing Kirsten behind my back,' She pointed to the back of the church and told everyone: 'That's Kirsten hiding at the back there! The woman in the blue outfit!'
The bewildered guests mumbled among themselves, and Ben turned to Tracey with a look of alarm.
At the back of the church, Kirsten grabbed the bench to steady herself as her legs turned to jelly. At the front of the church, Serena, Tracey's white witch friend smiled ever so faintly. She had predicted all of this months earlier from the card reading.
Kirsten ran out of the church. Tracey kicked the bustle, and strode up the aisle, tearing off the veil. The maid of honour, the little flower girls and the bridesmaids looked on sulkily, and the astonished and dismayed guests watched her leave. Tracey's parents left their seats and talked to the minister for a while. Her father, disappointed yet philosophical, then addressed the guests and told them to proceed to the reception anyway, saying it would be a shame to waste the elaborate and costly preparations.
The final part of the prediction made by Serena - Tracey's encounter with the King of Hearts - seems to have taken place too. Two months after the wedding debacle, Tracey met a man much older than her named Matthew, and although he is nowhere as handsome as Ben, he has a genuine, loyal, loving heart, and at the time of writing Tracey is still living with Matthew and remains deeply in love with him.

[Princess_Royal]

Written by Craig Dominey


Have you ever heard someone use the expression, "My life flashed before my eyes"? People use it so much it's become a cliche'. But such a thing really happened to me. Although it wasn't my life that I saw.

When I was a young man growing up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I was dating a girl named Melissa. She lived just over the state line in the small town of Lafayette, Georgia. When this incident happened, I'd only been seeing her for a couple of months, so I was still trying to impress her as best I could. So you can imagine my anxiety one Friday night - the night of a big date I'd been planning for days - when my car broke down right after I'd gotten off work. I kicked the tires so hard I almost broke my foot!

Well, I frantically located my big brother and coaxed him into letting me borrow his old beat up truck. Sure, it wasn't the fancy chariot Melissa was expecting me to show up in. But all I cared about was finding four wheels that could take me straight to Lafayette - via Chickamauga Battlefield.



Now if you've never heard of Chickamauga - think of it as the Gettysburg of Georgia, but bigger. Chickamauga is actually an Indian word meaning "River of Death." And it lived up to its name during the Civil War when a bloody battle was fought there. The Yankees were trying to capture Chattanooga, which was a major rail center at the time. The Rebels drove them back, but not before nearly 40,000 soldiers died.

Of course, the history behind the battlefield wasn't important to me that night. What was important was getting to Melissa's house, and I was already over an hour late. So I knew the quickest way to get there was the two-lane road that cut straight through the heart of the battlefield.

As I gunned my brother's truck over the state line, a hard rain that had been falling all day was tapering off. But it left behind a thick and eerie mist that crept through the open battlefield like ghostly fingers. The park had closed for the night, and there were no cars in sight. The road was almost impossible to see. But I had used this park as a short cut a million times before, and knew it like the back of my hand.

As I was driving down the main road, I noticed the faint headlights of a car approaching in the distance. For a split second, I wondered if this was someone just like me, late for an important date with a Georgia beauty. I could only hope he saw me in the swirling mist between us.

But as the car drew closer, I noticed it was unlike any vehicle I had seen before. The headlights appeared to be a strange greenish color. I knew a thing or two about cars, but I'd never seen headlights like that. Maybe they helped the driver see in bad weather conditions, I thought.
The car drew closer and closer, and those green lights were burning at a wattage I'd never seen from any headlight. And they seemed to bounce up and down, and weave from side to side, as if the car was riding on springs. I politely tapped my horn, hoping the driver could see me in front of him.

But as the mystery car got closer and closer, the driver appeared to swerve further into my lane. This time I laid on the horn - what's wrong with this guy, I thought, is he drunk? Then I saw something that really shook me. There were no beams shooting out of those green lights - they looked like two floating orbs, powered by some other source. They even looked like...eyes.

I frantically blared my horn again as the green lights drew near. And just before we passed each other, the driver suddenly swerved into my lane! I reacted quickly, spinning the wheel the opposite way. My truck flew off the road and onto the battlefield grounds, swallowed by darkness. I slammed into a tree, and the world turned black.



When I came to a few moments later, the battlefield was silent, save the hissing sound coming from the crushed hood of the truck. My headlights were smashed, and the only light was from the bright stars above. I felt the large bump on my head and groaned.

It was then I saw the green lights again, sitting silently in the darkness, observing me. I watched as the lights floated closer and closer toward my vehicle. In the silence, I could hear no car engine sputtering toward me. It couldn't be a car that I had seen. But what was it?

Suddenly the lights disappeared. I began to tremble with fear for the first time. "Who's out there?" I called out, but no one answered. I then heard a rustling sound against my car. I peered out the window, and in the darkness I could just make out a large shadowy figure circling me. I thought it was a large man, for it shuffled about on two legs. But as my eyes adjusted, I could see that it's hair was long, right down to the waist. And it made a horrible moaning sound, the saddest sound I'd ever heard.

Just like that, the figure disappeared, and the night was quiet again. "Is anyone out there?" I yelled, but there was still no answer. After a long pause, I slowly reached for the door handle with shaking fingers.

Then something pounced onto the hood of my truck. I looked out the cracked windshield, and what I saw was no man. It was a beast, with long dirty hair and huge, mangled jaws from which two long, sharp fangs jutted out. And it had two burning green eyes, fueled by some otherworldy evil I couldn't begin to comprehend.



I tried to scream but found myself mute, hypnotized by those green eyes. And as the creature and I stared at each other in silence, the battlefield began to transform around us. The darkness gave way to a strange green glow. There was no road, no cars and no monuments. Instead, I was surrounded by smoke, fire, scorched grass and the charred remains of warfare. The sickening stench of burning flesh filled my nostrils. At my feet were piles of bodies in blue and grey unforms, drenched equally in blood. Some were missing arms, others legs. There were heads without bodies, their eyes shut tightly as if afraid of their ultimate fate. And everywhere were the low and agonizing moans of pain and death, filling the skies along with the black smoke in a hellish symphony.

Suddenly, a curtain of darkness fell down on the battlefield. I could hear a car horn behind me. The creature leapt off my hood and disappeared into the night. It was then I realized I was back in the wrecked truck. A couple of rangers ran down the hillside to my aid. "Are you alright?" they asked.

"Did you see that animal that attacked me?" I asked them breathlessly. "The one with the green eyes?"

The two rangers looked at me strangely. "That's a serious bump you got on your head, son," they answered. "You must be seein' things."

"But something jumped on my truck," I yelped. "I saw it!"

But the rangers never found evidence of any creature. Even when daylight broke, and my truck was towed away, not a single animal print could be found. And I soon gave up my argument about the creature, fearing that people would think I was crazy.

Believe it or not, in later years I ended up becoming a park ranger myself at Chickamauga Battlefield. The area was no longer just a shortcut between Chattanooga and Lafayette. To me it was hollowed ground, from which I could point out every military maneuver, every act of bravery, and every tragic defeat.

But as time passed, other folks insisted that they, too, had spotted the mysterious "Green Eyes" while driving through the park at night. And they would ask me what I saw that fateful night as a teenage boy. You know what I told them? I would say that what I encountered that night was no monster, but the shadow of death that creeps around every town, alleyway and battlefield where men go to war - and will keep doing so as a reminder of our tragic mistakes.


- THE END -

[JackUnion]

I reckon you should tell us one of your own ghost stories.

[Princess_Royal]

I dont have a ghost story of my own..LOL

[JackUnion]

It was 11pm at night. Halloween. Jamie was out in the woods. How she got there nobody knows. It was pitch black. As black as Newgate's knocker. She could see no more than 3 feet in front of her and the only sound was the crunching of leaves under her feet as she walked.

Then, she felt something touch her left shoulder. She stopped walking and swung around to see who it was. But there was no-one there. She thought her imagination was getting the best of her so she carried on walking, searching for a way out of the woods. All of a sudden she hears someone, or someTHING, breathing heavily behind her and she could feel its breath on the back of her neck. She turned around again and still she saw nothing.

So AGAIN she carried on walking, determined to escape from the hellish woods. She heard a voice "Jaaaaaaaaaaamie. Jaaaaaaaaaaamie" but it was very quiet, like a whisper.

"Jaaaaaaamie. I'm behind you. Turn around and look at me!"

So Jamie bravely turned around and right in front of her eyes was the most grotesque, evil looking creature that she had ever seen!

And then she woke up from her horrible nightmare.

[Princess_Royal]

I really had a bad dream last nite, well this morn really, I was in the kitchen and I pulled on of the kids cups from the cabinet and I started hearing this hissin sound, I looked in the cup and nothing was in there and I still heard the noise and so I looked on the floor and there was a small diamond back rattle snake slitherin on the floor, it was tryin to get me so I layed down on the floor (for some odd reason) and I knew that if I was still, it wouldnt bite me, I felt its scaly skin on my arms and face....then somehow my dog got in the house and went after the snake, but she didnt get it, they snake made its way down the hallway and a mouse went after it then...did I mention this was a weird ass dream? LOL....and then the snake slithered into the living room where my family was sitting, my cousin picked it up by the tail when I sat down on the couch and he threw it at me and it landed on my neck...I woke up then, thank god...I hate snakes...ew...yuk......

[JackUnion]

Whenever you have another bad dream you can climb into my bed.