THE RAILROAD

My cousin and I had gone to San Antonio, and we had heard rumors of some haunted railroad tracks. The story was, a school bus full of children had stalled on these tracks with a train coming. The train was going too fast for there to be time to get the children off. So they all died.

When we finally found the tracks, we stopped the car, parking it right on the railroad tracks. We were both a little nervous, and scared, and waited for something to happen. Just when we were about to leave, the car started rolling. We were both too freaked out to do any more than grab each other and gasp, eyes wide, mouths open. After what seemed like an eternity, (but was actually less than five minutes tops) the car stopped rolling. We looked around, and we were off the railroad tracks.

Now, that may not seem spooky, but what we saw next scared us enough to jump back in the car and make the six hour trip home that night. Both of us got out of the car and walked around to the back. After the first six hour drive, our car had accumulated quite a bit of dust on it. That's not scary, no. But what was scary was the little sets of hand-prints all over the back of the car. All the size of children's hands..

ANNIE VAN DERLOT

Patapsco Female Institute in 1936

Location:Ellicott City, Maryland

Built ca. 1837

Architectural style Greek Revival

Governing body Local

BASED ON TRUE GHOST HAUNTING

In Ellicott City, Md one of the most well known haunts exists. At the Patapsco Female Institute the ghost of Annie Van Derlot is said to reside.

This institute was at one time in it's historic past an all girls' school. It was a school of etiquette. Girls learned how to stand straight, walk correctly and other manners deemed important.

It's said the school and it's training were very rigid. Girls weren't allowed to eat if they didn't sit straight. They were actually tied to their chairs and had to miss the next meal if they slouched. Needless to say many left for their school breaks much thinner.

The school was said to be very cold in the winter. The only source of heat was a single stove in the basement and the floors were made of stone. Heat never made it to the upstairs where the girls slept. Many of the girls got sick and even died from influenza there.

One girl, named Annie Van Derlot especially resented living there. She had many friends, being a people person, and was known to be well liked by her classmates. However, she never agreed with the schools methods. She sent letters to her parents begging to leave and complained about the harsh conditions. They refused to oblige her. Annie eventually died from pneumonia during her first winter there.

Now it's believed that her ghost lingers there, roaming the hallways. Many people have seen her over the years since. Keep in mind the school was officially closed in 1891. The building has since been used in various ways. In World War I it was an infirmary for soldiers. Possibly their souls may haunt this place. It then became a theater and was also owned as a private residence. It's no longer open to the public, except for special occasions.

So the haunting has gone on for years. Paranormal investigators (like TAPS) have visited the institute and verified that a haunting exists there. The only question that remains is what type of ghost it is. Most agree that it's Annie. Some however, say she's an intelligent type of ghost and will try to attract your attention. Others say that she's simply a residual type, that visitors happen to stumble upon.

Today you can tour the Patapsco Institute around Halloween by taking a Hauted House tour named "The Haunted Ruins". Some people that have taken the tour claim to have seen a girls face in the upstairs window. Some have felt a depressing feeling as soon as they approach the building. Others have refused to enter, due to extreme feelings of anxiety. Some have claimed to feel something brush by them inside, according to the tour guide.

The ghost of Annie still remains one of the most notorious hauntings in Maryland. The school itself has been mostly gutted, yet it's outward appearance at night is quite scary. The Haunted Ruins tour is also spooky, for those who like a frightful experience..

DOWN IN BACK

~as told on internet

A woman has just left a mini-mart after purchasing a few odds and ends for supper that night. She walks to her big four wheel drive vehicle and climbs in. She puts her bag over on the passenger seat along with her purse, she settles in and starts up the engine. She pulls out of the shopping center, onto the main road. It's about 8:00 and she is trying to rush home to get supper started, knowing that her husband will be starving.

As she drives she feels a chill run up her back, so she turns on a little heat. She has a very unusual bizarre feeling that she can't quite name. All of a sudden this maniac swerves by her car almost running her off the road. He stays along side her car waving and pointing at her, swerving dangerously all the while. She's frantically trying to keep control of her car while trying not to run into this maniacs car beside her. She finally speeds up and leaves the weirdo behind her.

She turns on the radio for some soothing, calming music.

She's relaxing, trying to talk herself into a calm state after the incident with the unknown driver. All of a sudden she sees bright lights flashing her from behind. She glances in the rear view mirror and it's the same car, driven by the psycho she's just encountered 3 minutes ago. She ignores him and concentrates on the road only to be flashed again from behind by the glaring lights. She once again looks in the mirror back at him. Her forgotten radio station is interrupted by a news flash about police helicopters in the area, on the trail of a serial killer. She turns the radio off and concentrates on the road and turns her attention away from the pesky car behind her. She's only a few miles from home and again the car behind her flashes a bright blinding light straight into her rear view mirror. She's had enough of this guy but she's not bold or stupid enough to stop and confront him.

She tries to lose him by going down some back roads. She's hoping he will go on his way and not follow. As she turns down another dirt road she sees his lights once again. She quickly picks up her cell phone and hits 911 quick dial. She tells the police the story of what's been happening. They assure her that they will send out some squad cars to meet her at her home, but she will need to drive around for about 10 more minutes so the police can get to her house before her. So she drives on, only to have the maniac drive up closer to her bumper, threatening to hit her car, flashing her each time.

She is frantic now and can't wait to pull into her driveway. After about 10 minutes she heads down the road to her home and the safety of her husbands arms. She sees the police cars ahead and suddenly feels all the pressure and frantic, wound up nerves in the back of her neck relax. She rolls into the driveway and the unrelenting car behind her rolls in behind her. The police are stationed outside her home in the bushes and in the neighbors bushes.

As the frightened women jumps out of her running car and runs to her husband who is waiting by the garage, the police approach the old man in his car. They have their guns drawn and they instruct him to get out of the car with his hands up. He's shocked and doesn't understand why the police are pointing guns at him. He gets out and the police start frisking him against his car. When he's asked about the incident and why he wanted to scare the woman. He looks up with sad eyes and says, "I was simply trying to save her life, but she wouldn't let me help her". The police are baffled and they know that they have a senile man on their hands. They ask him what he means by "saving" her life. The man says, "If you'd check in her car you'll find him. He has a knife in his hand. He tried to kill her over and over again. I flashed my lights so she would look up and he would then lie back down in the back of the seat".

Two policemen quickly run over and throw open the back door of the woman's car. A sharp glistening knife swipes out at the first policeman making no contact, the second policeman fire's immediately at the body and arm attached to the knife. The arm goes lifeless. The police quickly pull the body of the dead serial killer out from the lady's back seat. He was still clutching the knife he was going to use to kill her...,

DON'T OPEN YOUR EYES

~as told on internet

My sister Sarah, and I were at the park and it was a lovely day. Our town was a great place to grow up. Crime hardly ever happened there. Everyone knew everyone else and were friends. The park was crowded with families and I recognized everyone, well almost everyone.

There was a strange woman sitting on the bench on the other side of the park but she seemed harmless. Just sitting there reading a book, minding her own business, so I didn’t think twice about it. My sister and I loved to play a game called “don’t open”. What you do is one person closes their eyes and the other tries to trick you in to opening them. You usually try to scare them.

We sat under a tree. It was my turn to get my sister to open her eyes. I tried tickling her but it only made her laugh so I pretended to leave. I made the fake walking away sound with my feet and slowly lowering my voice to make it sound like I was farther away. She fell for it. Sarah opened her eyes and when she saw me she was relieved.

It was now her turn now. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Sarah laughed and I couldn’t help but laugh too. Suddenly her laughter stopped and so did the sounds all around me, as if everyone in the park had left. “Sarah, are you there?” I wanted to open my eyes so bad but something in my head said don’t.

“Becca help, please help me.” Now I really wanted to open my eyes but Sarah usually used this scare strategy to win. So I just sat there as she yelled. My stomach started to turn and I didn’t think I could take any more. The screaming stopped and a whisper said “don’t open your eyes”. I opened my eyes despite what I heard only to see every one gone but my sister hanging from a tree, dead.

I called 911 and sat there stunned. I looked across to the bench were the lady was sitting and saw her book. I walked over to it. There was a note in the book. I pulled it out. It said written in dark red ink “don’t you wish you opened your eyes.”

BLEEDING SINK

~retold by: S.E. Schlosser

I found it extremely annoying that one of the bathrooms on my dorm was permanently closed. Especially since the cause was an urban legend. An urban legend, I tell you! According to the story, years and years ago some bloke got himself massively drunk at a bar in downtown Helena and had passed out in the bathroom on the fourth floor. Apparently, he hit his head on the sink as he fell, and his blood had spattered the sink as he slid senseless to the floor and silently hemorrhaged to death. His death was considered a “sad accident” by faculty, staff and townspeople. But that was no reason to shut up the bathroom for decades! I completely discounted the story of the bleeding sink. That was just an urban legend the students circulated to explain the locked door.

“I’m sick of sharing a bathroom with you disgusting lot,” I grumbled to my roommate. “I’m going to break into the fourth-floor bathroom.”

My roommate’s eyes widened. “Don’t you know that bathroom is haunted?” he exclaimed. “The bloodstains on the sink are as fresh today as they were when the accident happened back in the 1960s, and sometimes you can hear the boy moaning as his life ebbs away on the bathroom floor!”

“Romantic twaddle,” I snapped. “My granny lives in a haunted castle in Scotland with ghost stories that would make your hair stand on end. She’d laugh at me if she found out I ignored a perfectly good bathroom because of a few bloodstains. Besides, the maintenance staff told me the bathroom was shut up pending renovations. No big deal!”

“You’ll be sorry,” my roommate said darkly. I ignored him. He was just sore because I’d lumped him in with the disgusting lot of fellows who mucked up the bathroom on my floor. You’d think someone would teach them to pick up their dirty clothes and clean the sink once in awhile.

When the dorm quieted down for the night –which wasn’t until late –I hurried up to the fourth floor with a bit of wire I’d purchased at a local hardware store. My little brother and I had become expert lock-pickers over the years, since our mother had a bad habit of locking her keys into the house or the car at least once a week. With all that experience, the lock on the bathroom door gave me no problems.

The bathroom was rather old-fashioned in appearance and had a disused air. There was dust in the corners, and a spider web drooped from the ceiling. But I heard no unearthly groaning, no mysterious footsteps. I carefully inspected the sink, the walls and the floor. Other than a smallish orange discoloration on the sink, there was no blood anywhere. Ha! So much for urban legends. There was probably something in the water that caused discoloration over time. I turned a tap experimentally, sure that the maintenance staff had shut off the water long ago. To my surprise, water gushed forth instantly. I smiled. Well, well. It looked like I had a bathroom to myself after all! I carefully locked the door behind me when I left.

I got up late the next morning, and had the downstairs bathroom all to myself. So it wasn’t until evening, when everyone was back in the dorm, crowding in and out of the bathrooms, that I slipped away to use the locked up facilities. It was still early in the evening, and I made sure no one was around before I headed to the abandoned bathroom. With a few twists of the wire, I opened the lock. As I stepped inside, the air temperature plummeted twenty degrees or more and my nose was hit by the pungent, strong smell of fresh blood. A second later,I saw the blood-spattered sink.

Bright-red gore was everywhere –on the porcelain, on the walls, oozing down the sides of the sink. And hovering before it, his feet a good six-inches off the ground, was the luminous form of a college-aged boy wearing old-fashioned clothes in the style of the 1960s. His forehead had a disfiguring dent smashed into it, and blood was dripping down his face. As I gaped at him, horrified and frozen in terror, he turned and looked at me. Then he held out a blood-stained hand. His eyes were desperate, pleading for help, and I heard a low moaning sound coming from between his blood-stained lips. The sound raised every hair on my body and made the skin prickle in sheer, cold horror. I backpedaled fiercely, my legs scrambling to get away while my eyes and head remained fixed on the ghost, on the bloody sink. A drop of red blood fell from his outstretched hand as I stared at him. Then the momentum of my legs carried me through the door, which slammed shut behind me, and the hot, pungent smell of fresh blood followed me through the halls and down the staircases until I was outside into the chilly air of autumn, breathing deeply. My knees shook so bad that I fell onto the nearest patch of grass, stomach heaving. Oh lord! The ghost was real! No wonder they kept the place locked up.

I lay on the grass for a long time, ignoring the chill in the air. This was a natural chill which comforted, not that unnatural chill that had frightened me upstairs. I breathed in and out, in and out, watching the stars above me, bright even through the campus lights. I took comfort from the huge, clear expanse of sky. But I still felt reluctant to go back inside that haunted building. I shuddered once, from head to toe. Oh how my granny would laugh if she knew her big brave grandson was too scared to go back inside a haunted dormitory. It was the thought of granny that got me back onto my feet and upstairs to my room. But I didn’t care what granny or anyone else thought of me. I was never going back to the fourth floor bathroom. Once was enough.

DANCING WITH THE DEVIL

A Texas Ghost Story

~retold by: S. E. Schlosser

The girl hurried through her schoolwork as fast as she could. It was the night of the high school dance, along about 70 years ago in the town of Kingsville, Texas. The girl was so excited about the dance. She had bought a brand new, sparkly red dress for the dance. She knew she looked smashing in it. It was going to be the best evening of her life.

Then her mother came in the house, looking pale and determined.

"You are not going to that dance," her mother said.

"But why?" the girl asked her mother.

"I've just been talking to the preacher. He says the dance is going to be for the devil. You are absolutely forbidden to go," her mother said.

The girl nodded as if she accepted her mother's words. But she was determined to go to the dance. As soon as her mother was busy, she put on her brand new red dress and ran down to the K.C. Hall where the dance was being held.

As soon as she walked into the room, all the guys turned to look at her. She was startled by all the attention. Normally, no one noticed her. Her mother sometimes accused her of being too awkward to get a boyfriend. But she was not awkward that night. The boys in her class were fighting with each other to dance with her.

Later, she broke away from the crowd and went to the table to get some punch to drink. She heard a sudden hush. The music stopped. When she turned, she saw a handsome man with jet black hair and clothes standing next to her.

"Dance with me," he said.

She managed to stammer a "yes", completely stunned by this gorgeous man. He led her out on the dance floor. The music sprang up at once. She found herself dancing better than she had ever danced before. They were the center of attention.

Then the man spun her around and around. She gasped for breath, trying to step out of the spin. But he spun her faster and faster. Her feet felt hot. The floor seemed to melt under her. He spun her even faster. She was spinning so fast that a cloud of dust flew up around them both so that they were hidden from the crowd.

When the dust settled, the girl was gone. The man in black bowed once to the crowd and disappeared. The devil had come to his party and he had spun the girl all the way to hell.

ALONE IN THE DARK

~As told on internet
Hey my name is Vinnie, im 15 years old and i live in Erie, Pa..nothing scary really ever happens to me, except for a few nights ago, i havent slept good since the incident...this is the only way i feel i can relieve some of the fear, to tell you my story...Well anyway, like i said it was a few nights ago, July 11, 2005, i was dead tired because i just got done seeing my girlfriend all day so i decided to hit the sack a little earlier than normal..everything was routine for me as usual, i brushed my teeth and washed up and I went into my room, shut my lights off, closed my door, and got into bed... I was only asleep for about 2 and a half hours when i woke up out of a dead sleep..my room looked hazy, but i figured it was just because i was waking up like i normally dont do...so i rubbed my eyes and sat up and looked around and in the far corner of my room i saw something that sent a chill up my spine, i couldnt move..i didnt know what to think, there in my corner was an old woman battered and beaten staring right back at me..i couldnt run for my door because she was standing in the corner by it..i tried to scream but i couldnt i completely froze...i was half paralyzed but i could still move my eyes so i looked down and shut them, suddenly i could move again so i hid under my covers and curled up in a ball and closed my eyes tight...i thought she was gone so i peaked out of my covers and she was right beside my bed, bent over looking me in the face..her face was scarred and bloody..i quickly pulled the covers back over my head and started praying..soon after i started to pray i became relaxed and went to sleep totally hidden from everything under my covers still..i woke up and to my surprise, it was night time once again..i had slept the day away...at this point it was about 11 p.m. and i wasnt tired at all..so i layed there thinking to myself..was it a dream?..i close my eyes trying to remember what had really happend but i couldnt quite remember, and when i opened them the old woman had returned..then my lights went on and off slowly..the first time they went off and came back on i saw she started to walk towards me, the second time it happend she was right next to my bed with a knife held high over her head with an evil looking smile on her face...i got up and i tried to run through her, and i did..i turned around once i got to my door and she was stabbing right where i was laying..i opened my door and sprinted down stairs to tell my parents but they said i was dreaming and told me to go back to bed..of course i didnt go back up there, i ended up sleeping on the couch...when i woke up it was morning to my reliefe and right away i went to my room with my buck knife in hand..i searched for clues of a woman being in my room and stab marks in my bed, but i found nothing..so i decided to do some research..it turned out that before i moved into my house, an old couple lived there...my room was the couples former room...the man, Charles, was a ex-convict who abused his wife constantly and one day his wife, Rose Mary, had enough with his abusiveness and in the middle of the night she snuck into their room and murdered him in cold blood..i guess that explains everything, yes this is a true story……