A Child's Ghost Story - The Man that Jumped into the Fire

One year we decided to take a late fall camping trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  We like camping in the fall.  There are no bugs and it's great to sit around the fire enjoying the cool air and the warmth of the fire.  We decided we wanted to stay at the Elkmont campground so we could explore the area and maybe see a ghost that was still hanging out in one of the old houses.  We always wondered if that area was haunted and we figured we would see what we could find.  We selected a camping spot near the back of the camping area just across Jake's Creek from what used to be called Millionaires Row.  We wanted to be close to the buildings so it would be an easy walk in the dark to and from the buildings we were going to check out.  We got there in the middle of the afternoon, set up our campsite, gathered a ton of firewood, and then went to take a look at some of the houses just as it was starting to get dark. 

We walked up and back down the road looking in the different houses taking pictures as we went.  Kind of looks like there is an orb, to center, in this picture.

My wife took a picture of the inside of this house.  The flash went off and when we looked at the picture it appeared that there was a reflection off of something above the fireplace.  We stuck our flashlight in and saw that there wasn't anything that could reflect light up there.  Just wooden beam.  There also isn't any electricity or light fixtures in the house.  Interesting....what did we get a picture of?

 

After we spent about an hour or so looking at the houses and taking pictures we made our way back to our camp site, built us a nice fire, and settled in for the night. 

That is when it started.  Our young son started staring out into the woods and he got scared.  I kept trying to see what he was looking at, but I could never see anything.  He said that kept seeing a dark shadow that looked like a man and that it was hiding behind the trees.   He also said that it would poke its head around the tree it was hiding behind and look at him.  He could see it's eyes staring at him.  He said that we he would look back at it that it would look back at him and then hide behind the tree again.  He also said that he could see it moving from behind one tree to another.  He said it would kind of float from one tree to the next and that it was getting closer and closer each time it moved.  It sounded like it was trying to sneak up on us.  He then said that when I walked away from the fire to get some things out of the car that it came into our camp site, jumped in the fire, and disappeared into the flames.

Was that what we caught in the picture?  Did it follow us back to our campsite to see what we were doing?  Needless to say, our son didn't sleep very well that night.  He was worried that the man would rise out of the fire and come back to get us.

   

A Child's Ghost Story - The Lady in the Window

This is my personal ghost story from when I was a little boy.  When I was five or six my family used to drive from the town that we lived in to the next town over to visit my grandparents.  About midway between the two towns was this old abandoned farm house that stood up on a hill just off the road and across from the railroad tracks.  It was dark and falling apart even back then.  It was two stories tall and had two dormer windows that stuck out over the front porch.  The shingles were falling off.  The white paint was peeling away and exposing the grey and weathered planking underneath.  The windows were broken out and the shutters were hanging loose and falling off of the house.  Every time we drove by the house I got creepy feelings and would slump down in the back seat of the family station wagon to where only my eyes and the top of my head were visible.  I felt that had to look at the house, but I wanted to hide at the same time.

One evening we were driving by the house on our way home and I saw her.  I was late in the evening, but a full moon was out and you could see really well.  It was one of those late fall evening where it was warn during the day, but it's going to be cold that night.  She was looking out of the open dormer window on the left side of the house.  Her hair looked jet black and her face was as pale as the moon.  I could see her thin white arms holding the shutters open and the breeze blowing the sleeves of what looked like a white night gown.  I even remember that her sleeves hung loosely down to her elbows where they were bunched up in the crook of her arm.  It looked to me that she was looking out over the road into the field towards the railroad tracks.  I kept watching her as we drove away and rounded the curve in the road.  She never quit looking out into the field. She just stayed in the window like she was looking for someone to come home.

That house is gone now.  It was torn down and a new house was build near where it stood.  I also still drive by there every now and then and I still get that same feeling that I got when I was a little boy.  I know she is still there.  I wonder what she is waiting for and I wonder if the folks in the new house know that she is there.

A Child's Ghost Story - The Lady in Black

When camping the talk around the campfire always seems to turn to ghosts or other scary things.  It is always great to go around the fire and have each person recount a ghost story or talk about something that scared them when they were a child.  It's really fun when the young folks are around and they want to tell their story.  From time to time, you hear kids say that they have seen things and you believe them because of how genuine their story is.  I personally think that kids see the world differently than we do and it is great to hear them talk about what they have seen without asking leading questions or putting ideas in their heads about what it was that they saw.   So far I have head three really good stories from kids about seeing ghosts or things that they didn't quite understand.  Here is one of them.

The first is the story of the Lady in Black.  One evening, we were sitting around the fire next to the creek and some of the folks had brought their kids and there was this wonderful 5 year old little boy that started talking about the lady in dressed in black that had looked through the back door of his house one day.  This kind of startled his parents.  They had never heard him talk about her before.  It also kind of concerned them so they asked him to describe her and what she did.

According to the little boy, when he saw her, it was starting to get dark, but there was still plenty of light and you could still see really well into the back yard.  He said he was in the family room alone watching his videos.  His Mommy was upstairs doing some house work and that his daddy was gone.  He said that a lady in a long black dress came down through the back yard.  He said her face was gray and that she didn't have any eyes.  He also said that she didn't have any feet.  It was like she floated.  He said that she came onto their back porch and came up to the window like she was looking into the house.  He said that she stayed there for a couple of minutes, turned, and then went back up through the backyard and disappeared into the woods.  He said he wasn't scared when he saw her and that he just watched her as she came out of the woods, looked in the house, and went back into the woods.

According to the little boy's parents, the back door in question is a sliding glass door without a screen and the curtain is kept tied away from the glass so they can see into the backyard. The backyard is fenced and backs up to a small, but thickly, wooded area.  They stated that the "Lady in Black" would of had come through some thick woods, over a lot of downed trees, and jump or climb a 4 foot fence to get into and out of the yard.  It would be hard to imagine that someone would do that in a long black dress just to look into a house.  They also say that he still talks about the Lady in Black and that he always describes her the same and tells the same story of her looking in the window.  He also says that he hasn't seen her again.

Next is the "Man that Jumped into the Fire".