A Photographic Journey Through Savannah, Georgia
by admin on Apr.13, 2021, under From the Web
Reposted from Ghost Stories and Haunted Places | Go to Original Post
Savannah Is one of the most haunted places in the world. You can feel it in your bones when you arrive. It is also one of the most hauntingly beautiful. Only photographs can really do it justice.
A Photographic Journey Through Savannah, Georgia
by admin on Apr.13, 2021, under From the Web
Reposted from Ghost Stories and Haunted Places | Go to Original Post
Savannah Is one of the most haunted places in the world. You can feel it in your bones when you arrive. It is also one of the most hauntingly beautiful. Only photographs can really do it justice.
Thanatopsis
by admin on Apr.13, 2021, under From the Web
Reposted from Ghost Stories and Haunted Places | Go to Original Post
Thanatopsis
by admin on Apr.13, 2021, under From the Web
Reposted from Ghost Stories and Haunted Places | Go to Original Post
The Kenyan Ghost Lion
by admin on Nov.20, 2018, under From the Web
Reposted from Ghost Stories and Haunted Places | Go to Original Post
This ghost story was sent to me by a wonderful gentleman named Derrek. It is a personal story and I think these ghost stories are often the most resonant and the most terrifying:
What I am telling you may or may not be a story, perhaps it is just the drunken ramblings of a local from a village near Masai Mara in Kenya or my own drunken memories. Nonetheless when I travel for business, in the product development industry, I often make it a point to stop at local places I have been told are good to visit for a conversation or two. I was directed to a Mara Bush Camp, the kind where tourists go to take pictures of the wildlife.
As soon as I arrived at the bar I knew exactly who I wanted to sit by. Most people that I know look for a party while they are on a business trip trying to find a lively group for a night on the town. Throw some money around and you look like a big spender in a place that doesn’t have a lot, maybe you get mugged too in the process. Not me, that is just not me. I took a glimpse of the setting, too many tourists but one local sitting on a stool by himself staring deeply into his drink. A drink that looked like it had barely been touched.
He looked like he was dressed as a tour guide or at least someone that could spend a few moments speaking English with me. (I am the horrible business type that doesn’t even try the local language, although it is part out of respect as I do not want to butcher their language.)
So I chose a stool right beside him and asked him how his day was. Something light to try and start a conversation. His reply was, “ask me tomorrow after the night.”
We sat there in silence for a while, what was I supposed to follow that up with. So, business man…I bluntly ask him what he meant and this is what he told me.
A few months past there was a rehabilitated lion released back into the reserve. He then continued to explain that often what happens with events like this is that boundaries for prides shift to account for a new male lion in the area, it gets pushed around a bit itself until it settles and finds its pride. What the male lion does when it finds its new pride and essentially defeats the dominant male lion of the pride is kills all of the cubs from the previous leader. I nodded a little but wildlife being what it is I was not so surprised.
He paused, scrunching his face up in perplexity, and then said that was not what had happened. Apparently the particular lion they released was unusually aggressive about territory. It took a straight path to the first pride and fought and drove off the pride’s leader and then killed the cubs hastily. The former leader was then essentially outcast and injured, forced to find his own food and way without the help of the lionesses of his tribe having just seen his offspring slaughtered.
For the next few weeks the former leader continually encroached closer and closer to inhabited areas. Never so close as to be perceived as a threat. Until one day when another rehabilitated lioness was about to be released he charged at the personnel without abandon. The stranger himself had to act quickly and regretfully shot and killed the former leader.
The next night a goat was killed and left mangled by a nearby village with no trace of any predator around.
And again another night a dog, that was a pet of one of the reserve workers was killed and practically mutilated without tracks or any sign of predator.
Such senseless killing doesn’t happen by what I was told by the stranger. Killing by a predator sure but it will eat the animal or drag it off to hide somewhere. Were it a jaguar it would even potentially carry the dead animal up a tree for safe keeping while it ate.
He continued to tell me how him and a fellow coworker just the night before were told to keep watch. The coworker in particular was a long time friend of his. They had seen wondrous things in the reserve from the growing populations of once dwindling species to the smiles on some of the faces of the children of the tourists as they watch a giraffe eat in the wild or awkwardly gait away to the next stand of trees. I could see in his eyes how much of his life was shared with his friend. It was almost the look one has when they speak about a family member proudly.
He took a deep breath and stated very bluntly the former leader of the pride killed his friend his brother.
We both sat in silence, his drink still barely touched, me on my second. I shook my head and began bellowing with laughter and slapping the counter with an open hand. This reserve worker had just told me one of the longer stories I had heard on a trip to try and scare me.
That is what I thought until he grabbed me by my tie with our faces mere inches away from each other’s. Mine with tears from laughing and his filled with tears of sorrow.
He quickly placed something on the counter while holding me in place by my tie, myself slightly wishing I had tied it a little looser that day.
I heard muffled sounds coming from the counter as the man jerked my tie toward a small digital camera screen sitting on the counter. I could see what was likely the stranger’s friend walking ahead of the camera with the stranger’s voice in the camera. They looked happy. If I could understand what they were saying I am sure they would have been joking around.
Then his friend fell to the ground thrashing or being thrashed around but by what nothing, I couldn’t see anything. His head jerked violently to the side and he stopped screaming. I looked closer at the screen and could see as he was drug slightly and slowly beginning to be ripped open by what I would think only claws could do as the camera slowly crept backwards. I couldn’t take anymore and had to turn my head around.
I quickly stumbled off my stool toward my rental and then to my hotel room. I didn’t sleep that night. I slept restlessly for the next few until I left Kenya, lost out on one or two business pursuits. Who knows maybe more. I just wanted out of there. Before seeing that video my world was smaller. Only humans had souls and only humans could have ghosts. That stranger though with that video, I doubt a reserve could pull off such effects and to what end?
Halloween Horror Nights 2018
by admin on Oct.29, 2018, under From the Web
Reposted from Ghost Stories and Haunted Places | Go to Original Post
This is our third year going to the Halloween Horror extravaganza that is Universal Studio’s Halloween Horror Nights. Every year, for a little over a month, Universal Studios shuts down one of its parks after five and transforms the park into a theme park of horror. They have at least four scare zones. These are areas that are decorated to look like certain horrific themes and filled with actors that could jump out at you at any moment. I am hard to scare and the actors in these zones are always the most likely to get me because I am not ready for them. I will be standing there having a drink and boom, a killer clown with a chainsaw jumps out from behind me.
They also have 10 unique haunted houses. This years haunted house line up included, Halloween 4, Trick R Treat, Stranger Things, Poltergeist, a French Zombie Attack, Seed of Darkness (a vile plant related apocalypse house that was far better than I expected), Blumhouse, Slaughter Sinema (a wonderful homage to b horror movies), Scary Tales, Carnival Graveyard, and The Harvest. They were all wonderful. The scare zones this year were Child’s Play, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, 80’s vampires, and Dark Harvest. This was the best and most intense year we have experienced. I can’t take pictures in the houses and the dark, slightly intoxicated photography that comes out of these experiences are never perfect, but I have posted what I was able to photograph from this year’s horror nights!
Halloween Horror Nights 2018
by admin on Oct.29, 2018, under From the Web
Reposted from Ghost Stories and Haunted Places | Go to Original Post
This is our third year going to the Halloween Horror extravaganza that is Universal Studio’s Halloween Horror Nights. Every year, for a little over a month, Universal Studios shuts down one of its parks after five and transforms the park into a theme park of horror. They have at least four scare zones. These are areas that are decorated to look like certain horrific themes and filled with actors that could jump out at you at any moment. I am hard to scare and the actors in these zones are always the most likely to get me because I am not ready for them. I will be standing there having a drink and boom, a killer clown with a chainsaw jumps out from behind me.
They also have 10 unique haunted houses. This years haunted house line up included, Halloween 4, Trick R Treat, Stranger Things, Poltergeist, a French Zombie Attack, Seed of Darkness (a vile plant related apocalypse house that was far better than I expected), Blumhouse, Slaughter Sinema (a wonderful homage to b horror movies), Scary Tales, Carnival Graveyard, and The Harvest. They were all wonderful. The scare zones this year were Child’s Play, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, 80’s vampires, and Dark Harvest. This was the best and most intense year we have experienced. I can’t take pictures in the houses and the dark, slightly intoxicated photography that comes out of these experiences are never perfect, but I have posted what I was able to photograph from this year’s horror nights!
Book Release: The Darkest Art: Book 2 in The Accidental Witch Series
by admin on Oct.12, 2018, under From the Web
Reposted from Ghost Stories and Haunted Places | Go to Original Post
The Accidental Witch was a bestseller on Amazon for three weeks in a row. Now the sequel, The Darkest Art, comes out today! This book is second in this trilogy of black magic and dark spirits. Come join Phaedra Black as she dispels the demons lurking in the swamps of
Alabama.
Phaedra Black is having a rough year. Her marriage fell apart, she lost her license to practice clinical psychology, and she was fired from her job at the hospital in her home town of Dismal, Alabama. But those are the easy problems. Phae is also a witch, one with a prophesy hanging over head. A prophesy that claims her as the Phoenix, the most powerful magical force in the world. And the most destructive.
Phae only trusts two people—her best friend Diane and her boyfriend Frederick Navarre. Diane is an oracle, when she’s not working twelve-hour shifts at the hospital. Fred is a warlock and Phae’s touchstone and teacher. Without him, Phae feels completely lost. The trouble comes when Fred leaves to go on some unknown quest. He doesn’t tell her anything except to avoid magic at all costs. Easier said than done. Phae’s new job as a counselor at a methadone clinic is exhausting, pointless, and pays peanuts. Her boss and co-workers are miserable, rude, self-centered people who should be in rehab themselves instead of helping addicts, and her beautifully restored plantation house, the Black Magnolia, put her in the red. With her bills piling up, Phae is at her wits end. Not even Diane, who’s moved in with her, can help. She has no choice but to use her magic, sparking a chain of events that takes her down a road of no return. Her power begins seeping out into the world and no matter what she does, she can’t control it. When she gives her boorish boss a tail and turns the condescending clinic doctor into a tin of coffee, Phae realizes the immense force she has inside her will continue to grow and leave a trail of doom behind her. Worst of all she finds out that The Guild of Witches wants her dead and it has nothing to do with not paying her annual dues. In desperation, Phae turns to an ancient demon who promises to help her. She accepts, but his assistance comes with a steep price and consequences bigger and more catastrophic than Phae could ever imagine. With no choice left to her, Phae has to undo what she’s unwittingly set in motion, or she could lose everything and everyone she loves.
Phae only trusts two people—her best friend Diane and her boyfriend Frederick Navarre. Diane is an oracle, when she’s not working twelve-hour shifts at the hospital. Fred is a warlock and Phae’s touchstone and teacher. Without him, Phae feels completely lost. The trouble comes when Fred leaves to go on some unknown quest. He doesn’t tell her anything except to avoid magic at all costs. Easier said than done. Phae’s new job as a counselor at a methadone clinic is exhausting, pointless, and pays peanuts. Her boss and co-workers are miserable, rude, self-centered people who should be in rehab themselves instead of helping addicts, and her beautifully restored plantation house, the Black Magnolia, put her in the red. With her bills piling up, Phae is at her wits end. Not even Diane, who’s moved in with her, can help. She has no choice but to use her magic, sparking a chain of events that takes her down a road of no return. Her power begins seeping out into the world and no matter what she does, she can’t control it. When she gives her boorish boss a tail and turns the condescending clinic doctor into a tin of coffee, Phae realizes the immense force she has inside her will continue to grow and leave a trail of doom behind her. Worst of all she finds out that The Guild of Witches wants her dead and it has nothing to do with not paying her annual dues. In desperation, Phae turns to an ancient demon who promises to help her. She accepts, but his assistance comes with a steep price and consequences bigger and more catastrophic than Phae could ever imagine. With no choice left to her, Phae has to undo what she’s unwittingly set in motion, or she could lose everything and everyone she loves.
The Real Monsters: The Rape Victim’s Coffee Story
by admin on Oct.09, 2018, under From the Web
Reposted from Ghost Stories and Haunted Places | Go to Original Post
My life is mired in darkness of one kind or another. I write horror novels and ghost stories. I decorate for Halloween. I collect skulls. But at the end of the day this all seems light and airy compared to my day job. I am a counselor during the day and I specialize in rape and sexual abuse. For me, horror stories and ghosts are a jaunt into the lighter more magical side of life. I recently advocated for a young woman who went to court after a rape. The guy got off. Not only did the guy get off but the defense attorney had the jury so mad at the victim that one of them, a Mr. Wilson started emailing her and telling her what a bad person she was. She fell apart, of course, and she gave me permission to talk to him on her behalf. She couldn’t handle his telling her she was a liar and a monster. She was already falling apart. This just made it worse. So I conversed with him via email. We fought over the facts for a long time and he still saw her as a monster. The juror was convinced he rapist was a nice guy. He was so convincing on the stand. She had fallen apart after the rape and the defense had made her look like a freak because her PTSD symptoms were terrible. She was obviously a monster conspiring to destroy him because he wouldn’t love her.
I couldn’t get him to relent until I told the story below. Suddenly, everything made sense to him. He saw that she was the victim. He stopped yelling about her being a monster. It is funny that the only way people understand that rape is wrong is if they image sex is coffee. Here is the story that made him understand the victim:
I want you to imagine for a moment that you are young and single. You have had a hard time dating and meeting the girl of your dreams. You haven’t been with a woman in a while and you are lonely and you crave a woman’s touch. Imagine that a beautiful woman who embodies everything you want comes up to you and asks you over to her house for coffee. You emphatically agree and hope that her invitation might include more than coffee. You hope it might include sex and romance. The day comes for the coffee and you enter home filled with hope, perhaps this hope is unrealistic. This woman is a ten and out of your league, but the hope remains. She starts making the coffee and you again agree that you definitely want coffee. You love coffee. You tell her you want nothing more than to try her coffee. She smiles and brings the entire pot of coffee over and hands it to you. For a minute you hesitate, but you drink because you want her. It is boiling hot, so hot that it burns your throat. You put the pot down. You tell her it is hot. She laughs and tells you to man up grabs the pot and begins pouring the boiling hot liquid down your throat. You fight and yell but she is much stronger than she appears and much stronger than you. You throat is burning. You have never been in so much pain. You didn’t even know pain like this existed. You beg her to stop but she keeps pouring until the entire pot of scalding hot liquid has been emptied into your throat. When she is done, she kicks you out.
You are stunned, embarrassed, humiliated. You don’t know what happened. You are bleeding. There is blood everywhere. You text a friend to help you. You look in the mirror. Your face is covered in blisters. Your neck is burnt. Your friend comes and convinces you to go to the hospital. You go. The doctor is shocked by the damage this woman has done to you. You need surgery. You need skin grafts. The police come. They talk to you. Apparently this is this woman’s thing. She invites men over and burns them. She loves it. They have seen at least a dozen men come into the hospital like this and they push you to press assault charges. You agree. Everyone seems to be on your side. Other victims come and talk to you and thank you for being braver than they were. They couldn’t face the beautiful woman again, even in court. They were embarrassed that they were so easily overpowered by a woman and that they were stupid enough to agree to go to her house for coffee. They didn’t want anyone to know. Their shame was overwhelming. The police tell you that you are brave and that you are going to be the one who stops this woman from doing this to other men. You believe them. You believe that there will be
justice for the agony you have suffered.
Finally, you have your day in court. Over the past year while you waited for court, you fell apart. You can’t taste anymore because your taste buds were so badly damaged. You can’t swallow. You have scars that are visible and others mock you in public. Your behavior has changed. You have PTSD. You can’t sleep. You became addicted to pain pills because you took them for your burns. You get to court. You are put on stand. The questions come. You admit on stand that you told this beautiful woman you wanted coffee. You admit that she was beautiful and you dreamed of having sex with her and falling in love with her and spending a life with her. You admit that you were a fool and that when she asked if you wanted coffee, you said please give me coffee. I want coffee. You are torn apart by the attorneys. The attorneys say, “ You wanted that coffee. How can you complain now? Why would the police push you to press charges? Clearly this is a vast conspiracy? What kind of jerk would go over to a nice girl’s home for coffee and ask for coffee and then try to ruin her life after he got coffee? What kind of police would try to ruin this beautiful woman’s life. She is so sweet. So beautiful. Look at you. You are a drug addict who conspired with your friend and the police to ruin this beautiful woman because she wouldn’t give you what you wanted.”
You are now made the monster. No other victims are brave enough to stand beside you. You are alone on the stand with your scars. You’ll never swallow right again but that doesn’t matter. Your face will never be the same. Your scars are long and ugly but you asked for that coffee so you are the monster.
I watch the news. People yell and wonder why women don’t go to the police after a rape. Why don’t they press charges? This is why. Even when they do, they are humiliated and degraded on the stand and attacked after the court case and the only way the jury will understand rape is if you explain it like coffee.
Follow Up: The juror who was harassing the rape victim resumed harassing her and wrote me to tell me I was “fucking crazy” so the coffee didn’t work either.
The Real Monsters: The Coffee Story
by admin on Oct.09, 2018, under From the Web
Reposted from Ghost Stories and Haunted Places | Go to Original Post
My life is mired in darkness of one kind or another. I write horror novels and ghost stories. I decorate for Halloween. I collect skulls. But at the end of the day this all seems light and airy compared to my day job. I am a counselor during the day and I specialize in rape and sexual abuse. For me, horror stories and ghosts are a jaunt into the lighter more magical side of life. I recently advocated for a young woman who went to court after a rape. The guy got off. Not only did the guy get off but the defense attorney had the jury so mad at the victim that one of them, a Mr. Wilson started emailing her and telling her what a bad person she was. She fell apart, of course, and she gave me permission to talk to him on her behalf. She couldn’t handle his telling her she was a liar and a monster. She was already falling apart. This just made it worse. So I conversed with him via email. We fought over the facts for a long time and he still saw her as a monster. The juror was convinced he rapist was a nice guy. He was so convincing on the stand. She had fallen apart after the rape and the defense had made her look like a freak because her PTSD symptoms were terrible. She was obviously a monster conspiring to destroy him because he wouldn’t love her.
I couldn’t get him to relent until I told the story below. Suddenly, everything made sense to him. He saw that she was the victim. He stopped yelling about her being a monster. It is funny that the only way people understand that rape is wrong is if they image sex is coffee. Here is the story that made him understand the victim:
I want you to imagine for a moment that you are young and single. You have had a hard time dating and meeting the girl of your dreams. You haven’t been with a woman in a while and you are lonely and you crave a woman’s touch. Imagine that a beautiful woman who embodies everything you want comes up to you and asks you over to her house for coffee. You emphatically agree and hope that her invitation might include more than coffee. You hope it might include sex and romance. The day comes for the coffee and you enter home filled with hope, perhaps this hope is unrealistic. This woman is a ten and out of your league, but the hope remains. She starts making the coffee and you again agree that you definitely want coffee. You love coffee. You tell her you want nothing more than to try her coffee. She smiles and brings the entire pot of coffee over and hands it to you. For a minute you hesitate, but you drink because you want her. It is boiling hot, so hot that it burns your throat. You put the pot down. You tell her it is hot. She laughs and tells you to man up grabs the pot and begins pouring the boiling hot liquid down your throat. You fight and yell but she is much stronger than she appears and much stronger than you. You throat is burning. You have never been in so much pain. You didn’t even know pain like this existed. You beg her to stop but she keeps pouring until the entire pot of scalding hot liquid has been emptied into your throat. When she is done, she kicks you out.
You are stunned, embarrassed, humiliated. You don’t know what happened. You are bleeding. There is blood everywhere. You text a friend to help you. You look in the mirror. Your face is covered in blisters. Your neck is burnt. Your friend comes and convinces you to go to the hospital. You go. The doctor is shocked by the damage this woman has done to you. You need surgery. You need skin grafts. The police come. They talk to you. Apparently this is this woman’s thing. She invites men over and burns them. She loves it. They have seen at least a dozen men come into the hospital like this and they push you to press assault charges. You agree. Everyone seems to be on your side. Other victims come and talk to you and thank you for being braver than they were. They couldn’t face the beautiful woman again, even in court. They were embarrassed that they were so easily overpowered by a woman and that they were stupid enough to agree to go to her house for coffee. They didn’t want anyone to know. Their shame was overwhelming. The police tell you that you are brave and that you are going to be the one who stops this woman from doing this to other men. You believe them. You believe that there will be
justice for the agony you have suffered.
Finally, you have your day in court. Over the past year while you waited for court, you fell apart. You can’t taste anymore because your taste buds were so badly damaged. You can’t swallow. You have scars that are visible and others mock you in public. Your behavior has changed. You have PTSD. You can’t sleep. You became addicted to pain pills because you took them for your burns. You get to court. You are put on stand. The questions come. You admit on stand that you told this beautiful woman you wanted coffee. You admit that she was beautiful and you dreamed of having sex with her and falling in love with her and spending a life with her. You admit that you were a fool and that when she asked if you wanted coffee, you said please give me coffee. I want coffee. You are torn apart by the attorneys. The attorneys say, “ You wanted that coffee. How can you complain now? Why would the police push you to press charges? Clearly this is a vast conspiracy? What kind of jerk would go over to a nice girl’s home for coffee and ask for coffee and then try to ruin her life after he got coffee? What kind of police would try to ruin this beautiful woman’s life. She is so sweet. So beautiful. Look at you. You are a drug addict who conspired with your friend and the police to ruin this beautiful woman because she wouldn’t give you what you wanted.”
You are now made the monster. No other victims are brave enough to stand beside you. You are alone on the stand with your scars. You’ll never swallow right again but that doesn’t matter. Your face will never be the same. Your scars are long and ugly but you asked for that coffee so you are the monster.
I watch the news. People yell and wonder why women don’t go to the police after a rape. Why don’t they press charges? This is why. Even when they do, they are humiliated and degraded on the stand and attacked after the court case and the only way the jury will understand rape is if you explain it like coffee.
