Hey Everyone!
Halloween is just around the corner now and we want you to share your spooky real life ghost story with us! Just post your real life haunted tale in the comments area below and the scariest story picked by the Gravedigger will get a free copy of our Gothic Blue Book due to be released on October 31st, of course. We look forward to those real life scary horror stories!
Scare Us!
The house I lived was haunted. We would be asleep and then all out of nowhere we would hear someone on the second floor, like kids running back and forth the thing is at the time there was no one living on the second floor. Start creepy music!!!
I was seventeen and a young soldier in 1965 on reassignment orders to a U.S. Army overseas facility at Kaiserslautern, Germany.
I reported for duty only to find that the unit was deactivating, then in the process of moving all of its soldiers to new locations. The sergeant told me to go find myself a cot in one of the vacant rooms, that I could have my pick as to which, that I would be notified in a few days as to my new orders.
It was on day two that I met two other soldiers in the same boat; however, unlike me, they’d taken up temporary residence on another floor. We became friends, mainly taking our meals together, avoiding all authority while waiting for our new assignments.
The room I selected was on the second floor of the drafty, old, stone structure that I reasoned had in the past housed many German soldiers. But now all was quiet, and as I learned a vacant billet was an understatement regardless of who used to call it home. It was like a ghost town.
My room was empty of all furnishings except for two other cots. No one was claiming either and I enjoyed the privacy knowing it would be short lived once my orders came.
On day three after a good night’s rest I woke to the door opening. In stepped a young soldier, about my age, wearing a dress green uniform and sporting a green beret. He stopped at the doorway and asked if he might join me in the room? I welcomed him to come in, so much for privacy, and quickly pointed out that I recognized him as a Special Forces soldier, the beret he wore cocked on his head being a dead give away for same. He smiled.
Closing the door, he stood next to my cot where we engaged in further conversation. I could see by the black plastic name tag he wore that his last name was similar to my own:
His name was BRIDGER, mine BRIDGES.
I pointed out this fact, excited as I had not encountered another soldier with a similar name as mine. He told me he and his family were firmly rooted in North Carolina. I told him mine was from Kentucky. We exchanged further small talk at which time I again brought up his green beret. That’s when he explained that he really wasn’t Special Forces; that he really wasn’t even old enough to be in the army; that by some trickery he had managed to join with a group of real Special Forces soldiers that had deployed to a place far from his home, a place called Vietnam.
I had not heard of Vietnam, and told him so. To which he explained to my amazement that he had been caught by surprise almost immediately upon arrival in the jungle there — and shot — and killed.
What? I will admit I was surprised by what he was saying but at the same time found his story, and his manner in an oddly and curious kind of way, quite believable. He explained further that as he lay on the ground dying he had wished he had not tricked anyone; that he had stayed with family and friends back in North Carolina and not gone to Vietnam; and, how he had wished with all his might to be able to visit with another soldier, a relative. And that was me.
The names were different but he claimed we were related and that’s why he was there in my room. His wish had been granted if only in part. Saying beyond that he had little understanding as to why he was there in my room and became visually surprised that he was in Germany.
After a few minutes more he moved to one of the vacant cots and lay down. I got up and dressed in my fatigues and was lacing my boots when my two buddies came crashing into the room with purpose of gathering me up to go to the mess hall for lunch. One of the two sat on the edge of the cot where BRIDGER lay quietly looking over at me, listening to the general festive conversation then happening from the two, but himself not participating.
I thought this rude that no one had acknowledged BRIDGER’s presence so I asked if it would be okay if BRIDGER joined us? They looked at each other, and at me, seemingly lost as to what I was asking.
BRIDGER said they couldn’t see him. That no one else could see him. He said he would stay until we left and then he’d continue on with his journey.
That sounded strange but so had everything else up to that point.
Caught up in my two friend’s insistence, we left the room with BRIDGER looking over and waving goodbye as the door closed behind us.
Thinking this had been an elaborate ruse at my expense, I laughed and said so, bringing up the matter again as we continued down the stairs; but again to vacant stares and comments they had no idea what I was talking about.
I tried relaying BRIDGER’s story as we went but they wouldn’t listen. Seated in the dining facility, they insisted they saw no one in my room and asked that I drop this idiotic conversation for more logical chit chat. I was beginning to believe they actually hadn’t seen BRIDGER and perhaps I might be losing my mind.
Upon returning to my room BRIDGER was gone, never to be seen by me again.
My new orders came that day and that was the last I saw of my two lunch buddies. For which I was thankful, for I was sure they thought me completely nuts.
Nearly ten years later I learned our family name of BRIDGES had in fact long ago been BRIDGER. My ancestors had migrated from North Carolina and taken up residence in Kentucky.
My family is one that is thick with legend; part of this is that my Great-grandmother was reputed to have the sight. I grew up uncomfortably familiar with the story associated with her death-bed.
As it was clear that she was dying, her four daughters took it in turns to sit up with her, waiting for the end. One evening, my Great-aunt Kath was leaving and, as she walked down the stairs she caught sight of something – a figure dressed in black. As she hesitated on the stairs, the figure turned to her and was revealed to be a woman dressed in full Victorian mourning, with a black veil over her face. My great-grandmother died that night.
Scary? Well yes. But as far as I was concerned, it was a story, of the kind that my family attracts. For example, the sight that my great-grandmother possessed was a gift which occurred once in every generation; family history states that she passed it to her youngest daughter, my great-aunt Evelyn.
I knew my Aunt Evelyn, and I liked her. When I was about ten, she became quite ill, and we all worried, but not excessively so. Then, one day, as I was watching television, I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye; I turned and at the far end of the room I saw the figure of a woman, dressed in a long white garment – like a shroud. Her hair was black and her face was clouded, as though covered by a veil. I stared for moment, then blinked, and she was gone.
That night, my Aunt Evelyn had the stroke which killed her.