#ghost story

[headspacedad]

I can see through water.

No, I don't mean in the usual 'look in a glass of water, see what's on the other side'. I mean...

It doesn't matter how deep down the water goes, it doesn't matter how rough the surface of it is, it doesn't even matter how cloudy the water is- if there's water, I close my green eye and look only with my grey and I can see all the way to the bottom of it.

Growing up, it took me a while to realize I was the only one that could do that. I grew up in Kansas. My first experience with water was swimming pools and puddles and just about anyone can see to the bottom of those. My first trip to a lake was kind of weird but it was spring fed and those are like glass to everyone. There were a couple of childhood vacations to Atlantic City but we only went as far as the beach and the water's just not that deep. I mean - its the Atlantic Ocean but -

what I'm trying to say is I was never out over any Deep Water. Not deep enough to realize that what I was seeing wasn't what anyone else was seeing. Not until I was in college. A bunch of friends convinced me to work a summer break job over on Nantucket Island. We'd share a place to cut the cost and busk a little on the side and make out pretty good. And I didn't think anything of it as we took the ferry over to the island. I didn't think anything of it until I was a half hour into the trip and I walked out on the deck because who doesn't love salt wind blowing in their face and I looked down over the side and -

I thought it was the shadow of the ferry gliding over the floor of the ocean under us at first. I thought the fish and squid and, further down the lobster and crabs scuttling out of the way was because the ferry's shadow startled them.

And then I shut my green eye so the overlap stopped.

There are - things. Things in the ocean. Things that glide like the ghosts of sunken ships and murdered whales. Things down in the dark so deep we can't see them, things so huge that sonar mistakes them for the sea floor.

Things that know we're there, up above them.

Things that ignore the fish and sharks and dolphins but that pay attention to us.

It shadowed us all the way out to the island and my heart never left my throat. I could already feel the cold water closing around my head, hear the way it would blot out all noise when it did. I knew, the second I took my good eye off that - thing - so deep down there, that it would lift away from the floor of the ocean and start to -

It finally stopped when we passed over the Andrea Doria, trapped forever in her frozen tomb, settling down over her like a blanket smothering a dying man. I think that was where it lived, when it wasn't shadowing ferries visiting the Grey Lady.

My legs were so weak by the time we reached the pier that my friends had to help me off, laughing about sea-sickness. People had been throwing pennies over the side as the ferry rounded Brant Point. People had been leaning over the railing of the ship on and off all trip. But I was the only one that had seen that thing in the water, a moving, stalking, bleeding oil slick of movement the whole way.

When summer ended I took the plane home and I didn't look out the tiny window the entire cramped flight. I didn't want to see it again or worse -

I didn't want to see what might shadow the island itself, even larger than the one that had followed us out to it.

I don't go near the ocean anymore. Pools are enough for me. I like being able to sleep at night without dreaming of icy cold water closing over my head and darkness waiting patiently below me.

I'm still better off - so I've been told - than the poor schmuck who knows what lives at the bottom of Lake Superior.

You were born with a unique set of eyes, ones that allowed you to view the sea as clear as glass. By the time you got old enough to join your ship’s crew, you were smart enough to know not to tell them about everything you saw below the waves.

[theveryworstthing]

The 3rd Headless Haunting: Selkie and Kelpie

She'd have been way less angry if he'd done more than the bare minimum to get away with it.

He was always a good storyteller, maybe one of the best. But she had no idea how, after tossing her beheaded corpse off the cliff by the sea and forcing her horse to follow, he had stumbled into town covered in blood with strands of her hair still wrapped around his fists and got people believing that she was a selkie who'd taken her skin in a fit of jealousy and left poor ol' him alone and broken hearted (and able to marry that poor stupid girl he's been in a badly hidden affair with).

Maybe people just didn't like her? A secret lifelong resentment is the only way she could explain how readily they believed that shifty, silver tongued, sack of cow shit. Fakest crying she'd ever seen. No snot. Unbelievable.

They didn't believe any of the other fae bullshit that's been happening around here for generations but selkies? Well of coooooourse those are real. This time. They weren't when her poor granddad was telling stories about how his mother took saltwater baths sometimes and searched the farm like a woman possessed in between chores any time his father was gone for more than a day. They weren't when poor little Mary said the "seal man" made sure that they had a nice fish dinner every night when her father got too deep in the bottle to feed his children. But now, OOOOOOH now, everyone's big on selkies! Selkies everywhere! rich local history, proud seaside folktales, respect for blah blah blah.

Lying bastard couldn't have possibly known that her blood in the water would call to those who shared it.

Time to ride into town and try out her new teeth.

[goryhorroor]

horror sub-genres: paranormal

[valdevia]

This picture is known as the Class of 48 photo.

According to the story, the teacher of a small Dutch school took a group photo before heading out for a class trip. When they left the classroom, all 24 children and their teacher vanished without a trace. Despite a large-scale search, nobody from the group was ever heard from again.

When their final photograph was developed, this is what appeared.

[enchantedbook]

'The Ghost Story' by Louis Wain, (1860 - 1939).

[seyph]

Lone wolf.

From An Unremitting Ululation by @not-freyja

[classichorrorblog]

10 Overlooked 1980s Horror Movies To Consider For October/Halloween

[weirdlookindog]

“I thought you'd be dying to see me”

Ghost Story (1981)

[kambriel]

Dracula author Bram Stoker's long lost ghost story Gibbet Hill has been found in an 1890 Christmas supplement of a Dublin newspaper!

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g9119l64qo

~Kambriel

[Kambriel.com ~ Etsy ~ Bluesky~  Twitter ~ Tumblr ~ Dreamwidth ~ Facebook ~ Instagram]

[yesterdaysprint]

The Decatur Daily Review, Illinois, October 29, 1933  

[ladamarossa]

Supernatural (1981)

[enchantedbook]

illustration by paul Hardy for Edward Bulwer Lytton's ghost story 'The Haunted'

[marisashorror]

The Whistling Ghost

2023

[skidar]

Yeehawgust Day 26: A Horse With No Name

On the prairie watch out for that old grizzled mare. Don't seek her out, don't stare too long. The horse has no name, but if you meet her in the dark, she'll call out yours. There's nothing you can do the stop what comes next. Keep your head down, ride on.

[tagedeszorns]

This comic is a few years old, but I still like it.

40k-Lucius gets haunted by Ghost-Saul.

Feelings ensue.