Hometown Horror - Spooky Tales of Hometown Lore From The Writers Team
Wrap up tight, it’s cold out here. Here let me help you with your scarf…
Come sit by the fire and drink that hot chocolate and let us tell you some stories about our own hometowns. These stories are filled with legends, ghosts, creatures, and horror.
Don’t be too scared, we’re right here with you…
It’s hard for me to pick a hometown because I had the luxury of growing up in the military where we moved every two years. I’ve lived in Canada, Germany, Belize and England. BUT if we get technical – I was born in Suffolk in England and all my family still lives there so that’s what I’ll pick! Suffolk has a tonne of history because England is old as fuck. There’s a whole bunch of ghost stories around Ipswich where I specifically was born. There’s creatures, demons, urban legends and great fish and chips shops. But the legend I’m going to tell is that of Black Shuck.
Known as Black Shuck, Old Shock, Old Shuck, or simply Cher….just kidding, Shuck – this is a ghostly black dog that roams the coastline of England. The word Shuck actually comes from the Old English word scucca which loosely translates to devil or fiend, Shuck has been considered an omen of death.
He is apparently massive with red eyes and shaggy black fur and loves to visit churchyards. Honestly it kind of sounds like me in dog form. One of the most famous sightings was in 1577 on August 4th. During a church service at Blythburgh Shuck burst through the doors as thunder sounded. He killed a man and a boy by ripping out their throats. When he left, the steeple collapsed through the roof. It’s said he left scorch marks on the door he escaped through and that you can still see them to this day. Many have seen Shuck over the years but I’m sure a lot more saw him but were unable to tell the tale….
In pop culture – Shuck is mentioned in Teen Wolf, Annabelle Comes Home, and of course in Harry Potter.
So you will do well to shut your eyes if you hear him howling; shut them even if you are uncertain whether it is the dog fiend or the voice of the wind you hear.
-Charlotte (twitter instagram letterboxd goodreads)
In Calgary we have a bridge at 12th Street SE called the Zoo Bridge. In the early ‘1900s, a horse-drawn wagon was crossing the bridge and crashed, pulling the driver, wagon, and horses into the water to drown. In 1946, a six-year-old boy named Donnie Goss was playing on St. George's Island when a man lured him under the bridge with promises of candy and toys. The man then stabbed Donnie nine times and beat him about the head, throat, and chest. Post-mortem examination showed the young boy was criminally attacked before and after his death. In more recent times, there was severe flooding on the bridge that caused a woman to become trapped in her vehicle there. She drowned while on the phone with her mother explaining that the water was rising and she couldn't get out of her car. Since these untimely deaths have occurred, Calgary police have (and still do) receive calls from people claiming to hear either a woman or a little boy shrieking in horror from under the bridge.
Every town has its share of urban legends and hometown ghost stories. Cautionary tales of places we’re told not to tread. I was going to tell about the Brownsville Demon house, but since I technically never lived in Brentwood, I opted for something a little closer to “home”. My spooky spot just happened to be within walking distance of my home in high school. Less than a mile away, at the end of a steep uphill drive, stood Preacher’s Point. Renamed from Patton’s Point, this picturesque peak (damn, that’s a lot of P’s) provided (sorry!) a breathtaking view of the surrounding countryside. The story we heard as kids was that a Pastor of a local church took a troop of Sunday school kids to the lookout point, then threw a bunch of them over the cliff. Since then the place has been haunted AF and served as a bit of a rite of passage for the teens of the area. If you could stay up there past midnight, you were “one of the gang.” Fortunately, this horrific tale is false, though the true story is no less tragic.
Rev. Hutchinson was lead worship at a local church and also served as the area’s Boy Scout troop leader. On a camping trip at the Point, a violent storm tore through the area causing the troop to seek shelter. After the storm passed, the Reverend and his daughter were struck by lightning, killing them both. A small park was built on the land to commemorate the good work the Reverend did in the community. Just a small pavilion and some playground equipment.
But wait, there’s more! In the years to come, cars were pushed from the point, land disputes were fatally settled, and a few folks were murdered there, including a young woman pushed from the cliff. The county closed off the entrance, but that didn’t stop the local youths from trekking to the point for drinking and drugging; fighting and fondling. Since I was such a good kid growing up, I never ventured to the point… Okay seriously, I was there once and only one swing started moving (no wind) and there was definitely the sound of children laughing so I noped it the fuck out of there and never returned. Except that one time but that story is for another time… Stay scary kiddos. Happy Halloween.
-Dave (twitter)
Growing up in the suburbs of northeast New Jersey, we used to do some pretty stupid shit to entertain ourselves: build makeshift ramps in the woods at the end of our street and jump our bikes over them, run around in the middle of the night creating all kinds of mischief, and sit atop the roof of our house smoking cigarettes and whipping shingles at unsuspecting joggers in the wee hours of the morning (that is an absolute true story).
After my mom moved us down to south Florida at the end of the ‘80s, I’d always continue to spend one month in the summer and a week during the winter holidays back at my Dad’s house in Jersey. My first priority each visit was to get together with the old crew and find something new and stupid to do to past the time. The story I’m about to tell happened during one of those visits, sometime in the early ‘90s.
My childhood best friend was now in college and a proud member of a fraternity that holed up in a two-story house a good ways off the campus of Montclair State University. This one night, a group of his frat brothers, a combination of both our longtime buddies from junior high and some new friends, had decided we’d go down to Cedar Grove and explore this “asylum” that had recently closed half the buildings that made up its multi-acre campus. Part of me thought it’d be cool. But there was a side of me that was scared shitless, yet would not dare admit it, lest I be teased for the rest of my existence.
We parked on a neighborhood road a short walk from the asylum and I remember heading through this dense underbrush that ran its way up a small hill where we could see the hulking brick behemoth from below. It was the dead of night and a few of us were smart enough to bring a flashlight we could illuminate before entering. Maybe it was my youthful ignorance, but I can honestly say I have never been so scared as I was that night, and haven’t been that scared since.
I’m not saying we saw any ghosts or anything as we made our way from room to room of the dilapidated structure, but it was more the fear of not knowing what lurked on the next floor or in the deep darkness ahead. Sure, we saw what could maybe be perceived as evidence of some kind of satanic ritual: spray painted pentagrams on the wall accompanied by a circle of candles on the floor. But hey, it was still the age of Heavy Metal supremacy at the time, so more than likely evidence of just a couple bored head bangers. This is why I still have the utmost respect for a film like The Blair Witch Project, because it really just played on our fear of the unknown, fear of the dark, and how our mind can make up a lot of its own narrative if left to wander unchecked. Of course, imagine my surprise when just a decade or so later, that very same Essex County Hospital was featured on both Syfy’s Ghost Hunters and Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures. Man, we did some stupid shit, ladies and gentleman… stupid shit.
- Dan (twitter)
Here in Virginia we’re just loaded with history, and so another thing we have is plenty of ghosts to go along with that. There’s so many ones to choose from: the ghost of Blackbeard the pirate, haunting the eastern shore, St Alban’s Sanatorium...but the one that I’m going to talk about today is the infamously haunted Cavalier Hotel in my hometown of Virginia Beach.
First built in 1927, it was only two years later that death surrounded the hotel, as the body of Coors Brewery founder Adolph Coors was found dead in 1929 after having only checked into his room on its 6th floor days earlier.
Its 6th floor is supposed to be exceptionally haunted, and many guests speak of the spirit of an elderly bellman who warns guests, “Don’t go up there, there’s ghosts up there.”
Employees and guests alike over the years have told stories of elevators moving by themselves, lights flickering, cold spots, toilets flushing by themselves and more.
The hotel still stands so if you want to take a trip to Virginia Beach and see some ghosts yourself book a room today.
I grew up in Miami, the child of Immigrants who moved from Central America to give me a better life. With migration comes oral histories that have followed my ancestors from place to place, old wives’ tales becoming watered down with time and assimilation. Indigenous culture is ripe with magic, mysticism and, of course, boogeymen. In a Mestizx household, something is always coming to get you for something as serious as lying to your mom about who ate the last pastelito to not wearing socks in the house (according to my Abuela, this will give you a deadly flu). The truth is that no one ever threatened me with el Cucuy except myself, and holy hell was I terrified of it to the point where I behaved myself on my own accord – I was less afraid of my mom than I was of el Cucuy, also known as el Coco or Coco-Man in Portugal, and this is why:
The tale of the Cucuy that I know has roots in 14th century Mexico, and it is terrifying. Legend has it that he only comes for children, kidnaps them and brutally murders them, and I didn’t know how bad you had to be for him to pay you a visit, so I was an angel. According to legend, el Cucuy was large, hairy and offensive to the nostrils. To me, he was worse than el Chupacabra, as to this day I am pretty positive I am in the safe zone, for I am not a goat (unless you mean the Greatest Of All Time) so he was less of a threat to me than el Cucuy. On nights I stayed up later than I should have, I could see the shine of his red eyes cast across the floor of my bedroom, hear his ragged breathing, smell his musty stench and oh my gods, the little ear growing out of his big ear, the ear he used to hear misbehaving children from 250 miles away… unacceptable.
I never saw el Cucuy – obviously, I have not been snatched, taken to his dark cave and eaten alive. To this day, in my olden age, I am still wary of him. You never know, his preference for children may have mutated into a thirst for people in their mid-30s over the centuries. I refuse to take any chances.
A la ruru, mi hijito,
Duermase ya
Que viene el Coco,
Y se lo comera!
---
Lullaby, little son
Go to sleep already
The coco is coming
and he is going to eat you!
Ottawa is an old town, at least by North American standards. It’s chock full of history going back to its origins as a logging town. With that history comes ghost stories. Lots and lots of ghost stories. If you take Ottawa’s Haunted Walk they will guide you through the downtown core and regale you with long past tales of hauntings in the area. The most famous site and crown jewel of the tour is the Nicholas Street Gaol.
The Nicholas Street Gaol was constructed in 1862 and operated as a prison into the nineteen-seventies. Many executions were carried out there in that time, with the most famous being Patrick Whalen’s. On April 7th, 1868 Thomas D’Arcy McGee was assassinated outside his apartment on Sparks Street. Canada wasn’t even a year old yet and had experienced its first political assassination. Pressure was on to find the culprit and Patrick Whalen was soon arrested for the crime and promptly sentenced to death. To this day a cloud of doubt surrounds his guilt and sadly the truth of the matter will likely never be known.
Innocent or not, on February 11th, 1869, thousands came to see him drop and witness what would be the last public hanging ever held in Ottawa. Whalen’s body was then unceremoniously buried somewhere on the prison grounds where it remains to this day.
Currently the jail serves as a hostel and many travelers have reported seeing Whalen appear at the end of their bed or in his death row cell. One tale, oft repeated, describes two brothers jumping on the spot where Whalen is believed to be buried and taunting him, challenging him to appear. Whalen does not indulge them, but they are both struck with nosebleeds simultaneously. There have been numerous other sightings of ghostly guests who met their fate within the walls of the jail. They are said to wander the halls to this day. Numerous bodies have been discovered in unmarked graves during modern construction work and while the exact death toll is not known, it would seem their spirits have not found rest.
The jail remains a part of local legend to this day and many have their own stories of encounters there as guests of the hostel. I myself have been through on a couple of occasions but sadly didn’t experience anything supernatural. There is also a rumour that if you volunteer to stay in one of the death row cells, and can make it through the night, that your stay is free. I have however been assured by a friend who used to work there that this is not the case and they would appreciate it if people stopped asking.
You did it! You made it through all of our stories, no one has ever made it this far before…have you finished your hot chocolate? I’m sorry it tasted a little bitter, we only put a tiny bit of poison in there we swear…here, let me help you with that scarf. It’s much too loose around your neck…
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