Jordan L. Hawk's Blog, page 32

The Graveyard of the Atlantic

Since the 1500s, over two-thousand ships have gone down off the North Carolina coast, leading to the nickname “the graveyard of the Atlantic.” With so many lost ships, it’s no wonder the area is haunted by the spirits of those who never returned to port.

In 1976, a yacht skippered by John Fielding almost joined their ranks. He was on a pleasure cruise with his wife and young daughter, when an unexpected storm blew up just as night fell. The high winds and rough waves snapped the cables needed to steer the yacht; suddenly, the ship was at the mercy of the elements. If the vessel didn’t overturn in the high waves, it would surely be dashed against the shoals which had claimed so many other ships.

Fielding knew the only hope of rescue lay with the Coast Guard. Fortunately, the radio was still operational, and soon the Coast Guard was on the way. While Fielding hunched over the radio, listening for updates, his wife called out that the Coast Guard had arrived. Puzzled because it hadn’t been long enough for a ship to arrive given the rough conditions, Fielding nevertheless hurried out of the cabin to greet their rescuers.

As the huge shadow of another ship hove alongside the troubled yacht, it resolved not into a Coast Guard cutter, but a large freighter. A voice called out from the deck high above, asking if assistance was needed.

In the flashes of lightning, Fielding could just make out the silhouette of a man, who identified himself as the freighter’s captain. “You’re headed for the bottom–abandon ship and come aboard!” he called down.

Knowing how dangerous it would be to attempt to board the freighter without trained rescue personnel on hand, Fielding declined and added that the Coast Guard was on the way. The freighter captain rather abruptly took his leave, claiming they needed to make room for the Coast Guard ship.

Shortly thereafter, the Coast Guard arrived and the family was saved. After the rescue, Fielding mentioned the freighter which had attempted to render assistance and asked the radio operator to check on the other vessel.

Shocked silence met his request. For the vessel and captain he’d named hadn’t been out to sea on that night. Rather, the freighter had been lost in a storm some years before, along with every soul aboard.

Had the freighter captain been trying to save the living family from the watery death he endured? Or was there some other purpose behind the encounter? What, after all, would have become of the family if they had accepted the invitation to come aboard?

No one will ever know. The Graveyard of the Atlantic does not easily give up its secrets.

The Terror at the Jail

The year is 1908. The place: the Buncombe County Jail in Asheville, NC. Hardened criminals filled the two large cells of the stone structure.

The April night began like any other at the jail. Jailer Mitchell fed the men in the two cells, then left for the night. As the sun set through the high, barred windows, only a single electric light remained to illuminate the jail. The bare bulb threw the shadows of the prisoners on the walls as they milled around, before settling down for the night.

Not everyone could sleep, and a few men always stayed up singing or swapping stories. A handful of others wept silently into their threadbare pillows, hearts aching for the loved ones they might never see again. The hours slipped away, until the clock tower of the distant courthouse counted midnight.

Something moved in the open space outside the cells. Had the jailer returned for some unknown reason? One of the prisoners stood up and stepped toward the bars, peering against the glare of the single electric light. A human-like shape drew nearer, but there was something odd about it…

An instant later, the man lurched back with a scream as something impacted the bars he’d been pressed against moments before. A thing clung to the bars, clearly visible to all the men who had been waked by his shriek, and if it had once been human, it clearly was no longer.

The creature clinging to the bars had a monstrous visage, pale as death and with great, glaring eyes. It swung back and forth on the bars, staring horribly, as if it saw the sins of every man within–and as if those sins gave it leave to torment them.

Most of the men immediately ran to the far corners to hide, dragging blankets up over their heads, clutching each other and praying frantically for salvation. But prisoner Ben Johnson was made of sterner stuff. He stepped up to the bars and demanded to know what the “spook,” as he later called it, wanted.

Very slowly, the creature crawled across the bars until it hung before him. Then its head all but split apart in a grotesque grin, and its tongue lolled out.

That was enough for Ben; he dove under the blankets with the rest of the men in the cell. But still the presence lingered, swinging on the bars, glaring and grinning, for at least two hours until it vanished.

After, the jail was haunted by many other occurrences: the haunting sobs of a mother and baby, and the ghostly sound of a gallows trap falling open again and again. But the strange presence which had so terrified the prisoners that April night never returned.

Friday Link Roundup

Mwahahaha! Get ready for Halloween with an extra-spooky edition of the Link Roundup!

No Halloween season would be complete without a round of awful movies playing on TV or being released into the theaters. Sure, there are some truly amazing works of horror, but the genre has been plagued with B-grade movies. Some of us–meaning me–harbor a deep appreciation for the B-movie. If you agree and have some time to kill, check out Badmovies.org, the brainchild of a true bad movie connoisseur. The reviewer rates between one and five slimes, but for true hilarity, check out the reviews of movies which rate a skull (worse than one slime). You’ll laugh until you cry.

If you’re an HP Lovecraft fan, I hope you’re also familiar with HPPodcraft.com, a free podcast which covers almost every story written by HP, including collaborations. Its successor is subscriber-only (although they do have some free episodes), and is currently covering some ghostly masterpieces of weird fiction including “The Upper Berth” and “The Signal-Man.” You can check out the podcast at Witch House Media.

And finally, the Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things brings us this carving of a cluster of rats.

 

The Hitchhiker

The incident took place on a lonely country road in the 1950s. A young couple on their way to visit friends were running late because of heavy rain, which made the unlit road treacherous. In those days, streetlights were few and far between in rural areas, and the thick forest to either side of the road reduced visibility to only what could be glimpsed in the headlights between flashes of the wipers.

As they were crossing a bridge, a figure suddenly appeared in the cone of light: a pale teenaged girl, her pink sweater drenched from the rain. The driver swerved wildly to avoid her, standing on the brakes as he did so.

When the car came to a stop, his girlfriend rolled down the window, “Are you all right?” she called to the girl on the bridge.

“I’m trying to get home,” the girl replied.

“Well hurry up and get in! We’ll give you a ride.”

The girl gratefully climbed into the back seat. She looked cold and wet, her dark eyes huge in her thin face. “What were you doing out on a night like this?” asked the driver.

“I was at the school dance with my boyfriend. We…we got into an argument. I decided I’d rather walk home instead of ride with him.”

The driver shook his head in disbelief, but his girlfriend winced. “I understand, honey. Tell us where to go, and we’ll take you straight home.”

They drove on through the downpour, following the quiet directions from the girl in the backseat. When they pulled into the drive, they saw a house with a light on in a downstairs window. Was an anxious parent waiting up for the teen?

“Thank you for bringing me home,” the girl said, climbing out of the car.

There were no outside lights at the house, so the darkness swallowed her up only seconds after leaving the car. The driver’s girlfriend hit him on the arm. “What sort of a gentleman are you? I can’t believe you didn’t walk her to the door to make sure she got in safe!”

The driver felt ashamed–he hadn’t wanted to get out in the rain, but his girlfriend was right. He’d been raised better than that. “I’ll check on her,” he said, and climbed out of the car.

He hurried through the downpour to the front door, stumbling over the steps in the dark, and rang the doorbell. A few minutes later, he heard footsteps approaching, and an old man opened the door.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the driver said. “But we gave a lift to a girl who said she lived here, and I just wanted to be sure she made it to the door okay.”

Tears filmed the old man’s gaze. “Thanks for trying, son. The girl you picked up was my daughter. She was walking home from a high school dance, when a car hit her on the old bridge. My little girl died twenty years ago on this very night, but she’s still trying to make it home.”

—-

Variants of “the hitchhiker” story above are probably one of the most common ghost stories told in America. The basic story seems to date back to the days of horses and buggies, and usually features a woman who needs a ride back to her house, only to vanish before they ever reach the door. This particular version was told by my dad, who swore it happened to him when he was dating his first wife. When I was a child, I believed the story whole-heartedly, and it gave me many chills around Halloween.

A Spooky Hainted Excerpt

Happy Monday, everyone. Got your pumpkins carved yet? I don’t, because I’m a giant slacker. What I do have is an excerpt from Hainted, featuring the first time Dan and Leif work together to lay a restless spirit. Boo!

Dan took three deep, cleansing breaths. Leif did the same thing at the exact same instant and tempo, and Dan hoped the synchronization was a good sign. Leif’s indigo aura flared, settling into a hardened, armor-like shell around him. His energy was palpable, brightening his eyes from ice-blue to neon. He all but glowed in the shadows, beautiful as something carved from ivory and aged for a thousand years in the darkness.

Dan concentrated on his own shielding, felt it slip into place around him, as if he’d last done this just yesterday and not years ago. When he was ready, he nodded to Leif, and they turned to the house.

Dan pushed open the front door. Zach hadn’t bothered to lock it in his hasty flight, and the hinges shrieked like dying men. The air inside tasted close and stale: dust underlain with mildew. Once Leif followed him in, Dan paused long enough to pour salt across the threshold. “Hecate, close this path.”

A flash of light passed over the salt in his astral sight, signaling the exit was sealed against the dead. Although people thought of ghosts as passing through walls, the truth was they mostly used doors, even if it meant sliding through one that was shut. When they did walk through walls, it usually indicated a door was present during the time the haint had lived, even if it was bricked up later.

“Do you feel it?” Leif asked. The close, heavy air flattened his voice; the words died unnaturally fast, with not even the hint of an echo.

“Yeah.” The sense of being watched was palpable. Which by itself didn’t mean the haint bore any ill intent, but in this case the sensation was accompanied by a definite malice. Whatever lurked in these walls, it was angry, and it didn’t appreciate their intrusion one bit.

The front door opened into a hall running the length of the house. What had probably been a formal dining room, at least going by the small chandelier, opened off to the left. To the right appeared to be a parlor or formal living room, now bare of furniture and draped in cobwebs and dust.

“I’ll go right, you go left?” Leif suggested.

Dan nodded and turned into the dining room. Although he still felt watched, there was no intensification of the sensation. As an experiment, he hit the light switch for the chandelier. The light came on, flickering a few times before dying to the level of a candle’s glow. Good thing Walkers can see in the dark.

Satisfied the room was more or less clear, Dan backed out and sealed the doorway with salt. A moment later, Leif joined him. Exchanging a look, they continued down the hall without comment.

The kitchen and a bathroom received the same treatment as the dining and living rooms. At the very back of the house, two more rooms opened off the hall once again: a bedroom and a den.

A single glance into the den told Dan everything he needed to know. The shadows there were deeper, somehow, as if there was something more to them than the simple absence of light. The sensation of being watched intensified, and the small hairs on his arms prickled.

“There,” Leif murmured.

“Yep.” Dan turned and sealed off the bedroom without bothering to go inside. “Ready?”

Leif entered the den first. Dan followed, pausing to seal the doorway with yet another line of salt, to prevent the haint from escaping.

The air in the room was ice-cold, as if they’d walked into a freezer. Currents of energy twisted and turned restlessly in the air, their color bruised and dark as rotting fruit. The atmosphere felt oppressive despite the chill. The mojo bag in Dan’s front pocket trembled in response to the menace, like a mouse catching a whiff of cat.

Leif warily slid along the back wall, his long legs and quick movements reminding Dan of a wading heron. By unspoken agreement, Dan stayed near the door, hoping to catch the haint between them.

Before Leif had even reached the other side of the room, the white walls began to flush scarlet. The plain gypsum wallboard grew steadily redder and redder, taking on a wet look. The stench of blood filled the air, as if they’d stepped into a slaughterhouse instead of a home, thick enough for the tang of iron to coat the back of Dan’s throat.

Leif unhooked the staff from his belt. “In the name of Hel, Half-dead, I would speak with you, spirit,” he declared.

Yeah, Leif was optimistic, all right. And, as the world seemed to hold its breath for a moment, it even seemed like he might be right in this case. Maybe the haint would communicate instead of trying to hurt them.

The boards in the center of the uncarpeted floor rattled loudly. The charms bound around Dan’s wand shivered in response, and a deep, bell-like sound came from the blade of Leif’s sheathed sword.

“Shit,” Leif muttered, even as he tucked his staff into his belt. With his free hand, he drew his sword in a hiss of metal and leather.

The wooden floorboards gave one final groan—and something exploded out of the floor on a wave of corrupted energy and furious hate.

Find it on:
   

Friday Link Roundup

Happy Friday everyone! This week’s link roundup brings you what will possibly be the scariest three minutes you’ll ever see. Seriously, do not watch this video if you scare easily, because it is massively creepy (so of course I loved it).

It’s Banned Books Week. If you check out their list of most frequently challenged books of 2011, The Hunger Games is at number three, for reasons such as “anti-ethnic” and “occult/satanic.” Um, I don’t think someone read the same book the rest of us did, do you?

And for your Weekly WTF? (hmm, should do a blog series about crazy things I find on the web and call it that?), I bring you this baffling bit of fashion via the blog of Mitch O’Connell:

I don’t understand why this never caught on.

The Ghost of Battery Park Hotel

Welcome to the first of five spooky haint tales–that’s “ghost stories” to the rest of y’all–I’ll relate every Wednesday throughout the month of October.

This story takes place in the Battery Park Hotel in downtown Asheville. One night in 1936, it became the site of a horrific murder.

W.L. Clevenger arose on the morning of July 17 and walked down the hall to room 224, where his 19-year-old niece Helen Clevenger had slept. When she didn’t respond to his knock, he assumed she was still asleep, and went inside to wake her.

The sight which awaited him would haunt him for the rest of his life. Helen had been brutally murdered during the night: her face horrifically slashed and beaten, before a gunshot ended her suffering.

The tragedy rocked the sleepy mountain town and shocked the nation with its viciousness. But Helen’s terrible death brought her no peace.

One July night many years later, a woman checked into the hotel and went up to room 224. After nightfall, a storm began to batter the old building–just as it had the night of Helen’s murder. Rain hit the window like something clawing to get inside, and the wind around the high cornices sounded like a far-off scream.

Worn out from her travels, the woman laid down in the bed and drifted off to sleep despite the storm raging outside. But somewhere around one in the morning, she woke abruptly.

Was there someone in the room with her?

“Hello?” she called. No answer came, but as she sat up in bed, she was certain she felt a presence in the room. “Who’s there? Answer me!”

At that moment, a huge flash of lightning illuminated the window. Someone stood between the bed and the window. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say something stood there, because as the flash faded, the traveler realized that the indistinct human shape seemed to be made of nothing but a red mist, like blood.

Panicked, she turned on the light by her bed. It flickered with the storm, then strengthened, revealing nothing but an empty room.

If you liked this story, you can read about another Helen who haunts downtown Asheville (take-away lesson: stay away from Asheville if your name is Helen). I’ll be back next week with another scary tale of NC ghosts.

Hainted Bonus Content

If you’re subscribed to my newsletter, you saw this last week, but if you’re not I now have some bonus content up. It’s a deleted scene from Hainted which I liked but didn’t move the story forward so on the cutting-room floor it went.

Click here to read it (explicit content, NSFW, 18+ only kiddies!).

Get Me in the Mood (for Halloween)

Help get me in the mood for Halloween! I need something to read, people, and the scarier the better.

In place of the usual Friday Link Roundup, I’m asking you to send me your links. Specifically, if you have written any books, short stories, etc. featuring ghosts, zombies, things that go bump in the night, or anything appropriate to the Halloween season, pimp your stuff in the comments section below. Post a brief description with a link to buy. As I said before, the scarier the better, although humor and romance are also welcome!

Not a writer? No problem–pimp your favorite scary/ghostly/Halloween reads instead!

Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Monday is the first  of October—I know, I can’t believe it either—which means I’ll post the first of five spooky North Carolina ghost stories next Wednesday. I really enjoyed sharing these with you all last year, so I thought I’d make it a Halloween tradition.

Do the dead always sleep quietly?

According to a 2009 CBS News poll, 48% of Americans believe in ghosts. 22% believe they’ve had a ghostly encounter. Widespread belief or not, there’s no denying ghosts have enjoyed a certain popularity lately, with a plethora of TV shows about hauntings, ghost hunters, and the paranormal. Movies also have a long tradition of relying on ghosts for scares, from the class Poltergeist to the more recent The Ring.

What about you? Do you believe in ghosts? Ever had a ghostly encounter? What are your favorite movies, books, or TV shows featuring ghosts?