Lawrence.com

kthutch (anonymous) says...

Does it have to be lawrence?

'cause I have one from the hotel where The Shining was written.

Well, not as much a ghost story as me scaring everyone within earshot.

We were walking by the playground while touring the outbuildings. I noticed that while it wasn't windy two of the swings were going. I suggested that the two soulless little girls from the shining were playing outside today.

I got dirty looks for the rest of the tour.

October 18, 2005 at 3:41 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Joel (Joel Mathis) says...

Lawrence-centric entries will be given special consideration ... but in the interest of entertainment, we'll allow all entries.

October 18, 2005 at 3:45 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

lazz (anonymous) says...

That Shining clip you linked to, Joel, is the funniest thing I've seen in a damn long time.

Scary stories; Me getting out of the shower.
Can't top that.
Giimme the swag.

October 18, 2005 at 3:53 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

morganalefay (anonymous) says...

Darn. I won't be able to contribute a scary story because I'm going to be out of town at a conference for the rest of week starting tomorrow.

However...maybe the fact that I will be in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho for this conference is scary enough. It is pretty close to White Supremacist territory after all...

Have fun!

October 18, 2005 at 4:09 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Joel (Joel Mathis) says...

Morgana...

Aren't you a bit of an expert on scary stories?

October 18, 2005 at 4:09 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says...

Drat! After reading the title, I thought this was going to be about Ric Flair. Anyone else catch him bleeding all over himself last night?

Morgana, I'm so jealous. Are you going to be downtown by any chance?

October 18, 2005 at 6:15 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

morganalefay (anonymous) says...

Joel: I guess you could say I'm a bit of an expert on scary stories, especially if they feature vampires. I wish I could contribute, but alas..

Bill: Jealous, eh? Coeur d'Alene is supposed to be quite a lovely place. I will be at the resort area at the north end of the lake. Maybe they let some of the White Supremacists from the surrounding areas work at the hotels.

October 18, 2005 at 8:10 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

frankdormat (Frank Dorsey) says...

Submitted for your approval:

About 2 years ago, I inexplicably woke up in the middle of the night. I looked to my wife's side of the bed and saw a strange, swirling blue and yellow mass, just next to her night-stand. I noticed her moving and saying something I couldn't make out. I forgot about it till 2 days later when my wife asked what had happened that night. I told her what I saw, and she said she saw a similar blue and yellow something, only she thought it was our cat, Bigby. She was trying to pet it. The realization that we both saw similar things was very chilling.

Several other things make this story even more compelling. My friend Mark, who used to live in this same house and slept in the same room, once told me that he felt cats walking on his blankets at night, even though he had no cats. Also, I live in the house of a fairly famous cat-lover, and there's a cat graveyard just outside our bedroom window. The 'ghost cat' appeared soon after we had brought home our new cat, which I think may have precipitated the visit. I'm not sure whether the ghost cat approved of Bigby, but it didn't seem like a bad encounter.

David 'Yellow Dog' Ryan also lived here with his cat. I'd be interested to know if he had any supernatural, feline encounters.

October 18, 2005 at 8:12 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

morganalefay (anonymous) says...

OK:Here's a "scary" story from my college days.

One evening my roommate, Brad, and I went to my boyfriend's house to hang out and play with the Ouija board. My boyfriend, Mark, was convinced that he had two ghosts in his house. If I remember correctly one of them was named Vinnie:or was that one of his Corvairs? Hmmmm:I'm not sure, but it doesn't really matter.

Anyway, all three of us got on the Ouija piece, which Mark had actually made all by himself because he didn't trust the manufactured ones. Come to think of it, Mark never did reveal to me the mystery surrounding The Construction of the Ouija Piece:hmmmm (insert scary, mysterious ghost music). As I was saying: we all got on the Ouija piece and started asking the standard questions and the piece moved around and answered them.

cont'd next post

October 18, 2005 at 9:22 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

morganalefay (anonymous) says...

After a while, though, the piece started moving very quickly and we couldn't make any sense out of the apparently random letters that it was spelling out. So, I decided to get off the board and take dictation. I wrote down every letter the piece moved to, but I still couldn't figure it out. Finally, I realized that it wasn't spelling anything out in English! It was sending us messages from beyond in German! And this is the really spooky part: I was the only one in the group who knew enough German to spell out words like that and construct sentences, such as the ones we were getting and I wasn't on the piece!!! (more scary music).

The gist of the message was that in a previous life my roommate Brad had been cursed by his dad back in the Middle Ages when he found his dear son in a compromising position with a male worker from the fields. The curse was that Brad would never find true happiness or love until he became less self-centered (we were all a bit disappointed in the sappy message).

Then:suddenly:there was an extremely urgent message on the Ouija board that we had to abandon the premises immediately because an evil spirit was coming. This reminded Mark that we probably shouldn't have played Ouija board in his house because in addition to having two ghosts, he was convinced that his shower was a vortex to hell! Further instructions from Brad's spirit guide were that we should cross water on our way to a new location, so that the evil spirit could not follow us.

So, we packed the board, jumped into Mark's other Corvair, Lana, and took off across town to my place, frantic to find a stream or some body of water to cross in Tallahassee. We found something and then also jumped some train tracks for good measure. For a moment we were airborn and as we hit the pavement my feet almost went right through the floorboards. Oh, oh:now I'm mixing a scary Corvair story with a creepy Ouija board story. Sorry. When we got to my place, all the spirits had abandoned us even the one who was giving Brad advice. Too bad:but it's no surprise, really. A year later that house that Brad and I were living in was condemned.

October 18, 2005 at 9:22 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

cwrist (Chris Wristen) says...

Here's a scary story:

There once was a running back from Kansas State. He stared across the line of scrimmage and saw Banks Floodman, Nick Reid and Kevin Kane staring right back with sly grins on their faces.

Yikes!

October 18, 2005 at 9:35 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says...

"Coeur d'Alene is supposed to be quite a lovely place. I will be at the resort area at the north end of the lake."

The Resort is gorgeous, but I'll be very surprised if you see any supremists; they tend to be more rural. CdA is without a doubt one of my favourite cities. I'd live there if my wife didn't hate pine trees so much. If you get out, look for a bar on Sherman called "The Iron Horse" (there's a restaurant attached to it) about 4 blocks from the resort. While you're there, ask for a guy named "Blaze" (yes, it's his real name); he's 40ish, sort of Hawaiian-looking with gray hair. Owns a used mining equipment business. Tell him I sent you and he'll buy you drinks all night long. Trust me ;)

October 18, 2005 at 9:36 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

hilary (anonymous) says...

I was in fourth or fifth grade, and an elderly lady down the street was going to be gone for a few days. My mom told her that I would come in, water the plants and feed the fish while she was gone. So, my friend, Hannah, and I went over there together to get it done quickly. Too much Tetris to be played at home.

The house was very small. You just walk in, and there's a hallway that runs straight through the house. The living room is on the right, opening up into a dining room, and a swinging door which separates the kitchen. The other entry to the house was the back door, in the kitchen. Bedroom and bathroom were to the left of the hall.

Anyhow, Hannah went into the kitchen to water the woman's plants, and I stayed in the living room to feed the fish. Right away, I started hearing this white noise/feedback kind of sound. I looked around, thinking it was an appliance or something, but I didn't see anything. I yelled for Hannah to see what noises she was making, but she didn't answer me. This house was very small, mind you, and old, the only doors were to the bathroom and kitchen, so you could hear any movement or sound throughout the entire house.

I kept yelling out her name, to no answer. I continued to look around, and got a strange feeling I was being watched. I yelled louder to Hannah, then bolted to the kitchen out of fear. Hannah wasn't there, and the back door was flung wide open.

Well, I got on my bike, and peddled home as fast as I could, and dialed Hannah's phone number. She picked up, and without even saying so much as a hello, said "Did you hear that?" I told her I heard a weird buzzing sound, and she replied, "I heard it too, and I was yelling your name, but you never answered me."

I, of course, never heard her, and refused to finish my week's duty at the house, and deferred the job to my friend, Lindsey. Freakiest little experience, and I still remember it like it was yesterday.

October 18, 2005 at 9:37 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Dazie (Aileen Dingus) says...

I haven't lived here long enough to experience any hauntings, although I've been told my house is haunted. She must like us, because she's not done anything yet, to my knowledge.

However, my mom sent me a link to a website that lists by state, all the haunted places. http://theshadowlands.net/places/

Wouldn't you know it? I live directly across the street from one of the most haunted places in Lawrence- Haskell. Cool. :)

October 18, 2005 at 9:51 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

morganalefay (anonymous) says...

Bill: Thanks for the tip! Duly noted. I will definitely try to stop by the Iron Horse and visit with Blaze. That'll be cool.

Too bad your wife doesn't like pine trees. I've only been out west a couple times, but the pine forests remind me a lot of Germany and Switzerland.

I was also aware that the supremacists are pretty rural, but I figured they might let them into town every now and then to take on odd jobs here and there. Well, maybe not...My curiosity about them is much like the kind of curiosity one might have about seeing a wild animal in its natural habitat. You know they're out there and you know they're dangerous, but there's a certain kind of thrill about going into their natural habitat and knowing that you might encounter one - as long as it's at a safe distance.

Talk about a chilling and scary experience!

October 18, 2005 at 10:33 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says...

Okay, not based in Lawrence, but I have to add my two cents' here:

I was ten years old, and my grandma was dying. Slowly. Of lung cancer. We all knew it was coming, and we are a gathering sort of clan, so we were all there for the last four days of it.

After three days of drifting in and out, of trying to say her last words but not quite being able to, she finally said "Oh, get the hell out of the room. I want to go by myself, dammit." (She was that kind of broad.) So we did. The grownups settled us kids on couches and pallets on the living room floor, and gathered in the kitchen to drink bad coffee and divide up the Carnival glass.

About an hour or so after drifting off to sleep, I sat bolt upright in my makeshift bed. I looked around, and the other kids were awake, and sitting, wide-eyed and scared-looking.

At that moment, the screen door on the back porch slammed open and then slammed closed again. I clutched my blanket around my shoulders, and walked into the kitchen, where the adults were sitting silent and still, watching each other with "what the fuck?" looks on their faces.

It was the first time I'd seen a grown-up look like that.

The hairs on our arms, the back of our necks, were all standing at attention like good little soldiers. The house went morgue-cold in the space of a few seconds. The flames of the gas stove rose up higher than wood flames for a moment, then retreated to a barely-there glow, despite the knobs being turned to "high".

(continued in following post)

October 18, 2005 at 11:08 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says...

Then Grandma's voice came wavering from the bedroom, "Oh, fuck, I don't want to be alone anymore. No, Grandpa Bellamy, NO!!!"

So we all filed into the bedroom, where she was crying and clutching the sheets with fingers that hours before were too weak to grasp her children's hands. Her head was thrashing about on the sweat-soaked pillow, her face in a horrible rictus of terror, and she kept crying, "No, I won't go with you, no, not with you, no, not there."

We all felt it. It was cold, it was terrifying, it was like being in an arctic freeze so deep you couldn't breathe. It was like an icy blanket being held over your face. My mom started singing a hymn, it was "Amazing Grace", and we joined in. It took half an hour of us singing, praying, sometimes humming when we didn't remember the words, for that oppressive cold to leave and for my grandmother to settle down.

Twelve hours later, she finally died, her last words being, "Oh, shit, I can't even die right". (She was that kind of broad.)

Years after, when my grandfather died and we were sorting through the boxes of photographs left in the house, we came across a dagguerotype, tintype, early photo, whatever, of a hard man with eyes like Charles Manson. He was the scariest motherfucker I have ever laid eyes on, dead or alive. On the back was scrawled simply "A. Bellamy". And at that moment I knew exactly what my grandma had been so damned afraid of.

So that's my ghost story, and it's also why I belive in an afterlife, dammit.

October 18, 2005 at 11:08 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

wbabbit (Will Babbit) says...

come on, someone has to have one from stull...

October 19, 2005 at 8:30 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

kthutch (anonymous) says...

When I was in college, my boyfriend at the time lived in a house on Maine over by the stadium. It was a creepy house for several reasons. I mean, the guys who lived there were scary, it was probably structurally unsound, and it just generally gave me the creeps.

The ex claimed to have seen ghosts there (but he could have been just trying to scare me). I never saw anything, but I had dream after dream about someone (sometimes me, sometimes other people) being pushed down the old rickety stairs. At the bottom of the stairs was a big window, and often when I walked by, I got a mental image of someone plunging through it.

We also were a little concerned about the basement. It was one of the usual scary lawrence basements, you know the ones with the walls so bad that you have carpets hiding them. But the basement had a door directly to the outside, and as you walked towards the far corner, suddenly your footsteps were hollow, as if there was a sub-basement. We never did find the way to get there, but then, we were too grossed out by the walls to investigate behind the carpets.

And then there are the ghost dogs on Alabama, which I only know of from song.

Ghost dogs will rise again!

October 19, 2005 at 10:21 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

BadEnglishMajor (Bethany Jones) says...

Bill: I like to eat rice.

October 19, 2005 at 10:54 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Joel (Joel Mathis) says...

So....

I'm thinking of writing a novel for National Novel Writing Month...

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

That would take roughly 1,700 words a day during the month of November. Usually my longer blogs run about 400 to 500 words apiece, so it would be a challenge.

To be honest, I'm stealing this idea from a fellow blogger...

http://www.lawrence.com/blogs/averill...

... but I would actually write the novel on the blog.

Any thoughts? I'm not ready to commit. All I have is a title:

"Roundabout: A novel of Lawrence."

October 19, 2005 at 1:20 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Joel (Joel Mathis) says...

And is it just me, or have comments dried up on L.com in the last few days?

October 19, 2005 at 1:37 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says...

You've dried up in the last few days?

October 19, 2005 at 1:41 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

rednekbuddha (Kelly Powell) says...

No truly scary ghost stories.....But having worked at the eldridge and paradise cafe really early in the morning I have had visuals of the empty seats being full of people....ghosts or a visual overlap of a fatigued mind?

October 19, 2005 at 1:50 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

rednekbuddha (Kelly Powell) says...

Hey joel....Are you going to do a halloween costume thread?

October 19, 2005 at 1:51 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Joel (Joel Mathis) says...

Bill: Well *I* haven't dried up, obviously. Just seems like there's fewer people talking in here, is all. I miss the din of conversation.

October 19, 2005 at 1:56 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

beatle919 (Marcy McGuffie) says...

I dunno about everyone else, but I've been busy busy these days. *sigh* It's difficult to find the time for posting...AND I don't have any exciting ghost stories to share. I was once goosed by a ghost on the stairs in my house...but that's as eventful as the story gets.

October 19, 2005 at 2:12 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

ladylaw (Terry Bush) says...

Misty - include the white iris part of your grandmother's tale. I like to think that was also part of the whole story!

October 19, 2005 at 2:15 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Dazie (Aileen Dingus) says...

Beatle- Busy. I hear ya. We still have to do lunch.

October 19, 2005 at 4:07 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

BadEnglishMajor (Bethany Jones) says...

Joel, have you done Nanowrimo before? It's a blast. I've been on a few message boards that have nanowrimo boards so everyone can share their novels. :)

October 19, 2005 at 6:33 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Joel (Joel Mathis) says...

I haven't. I'm psyching myself up. And I'm not sure that I have anywhere near 50,000 words worth of story to tell. In fact, I suspect not.

October 19, 2005 at 6:36 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

jochan (Jocelyn Craft) says...

Well, the point of NaNoWriMo is quanity, after all. You never know. There might be that much story in you, even if some of it's kind of crap. ;)

I wish I had a ghost story of my own. The only one I know is my cousin's, and it's not Lawrence, and not scary. Just... she just saw the ghost of a sad little boy standing next to her bed one night. She blinked her eyes and he was gone.

Well, I don't *really* wish I had my own ghost story. I just wish I had something better to tell. :)

October 19, 2005 at 7:58 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

beatle919 (Marcy McGuffie) says...

Dazie: Aw, I was starting to think you didn't love me anymore! One of these days we'll both get our stuff together...

October 20, 2005 at 8:46 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says...

ladylaw--it is, certainly, but I was already going waaaay long. Besides, planting flowers with dead people is nowhere nearly as interesting to the general public as being terrorized by them ;)

October 20, 2005 at 11:30 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )