Chapter 12 - Some Ghostly Tales

Lee was able to grab a couple hours of sleep before his alarm went off alerting him that it was nearly time to meet Amanda. He quickly showered and shaved and then dressed for dinner. Margaret hadn't said if they needed to dress up or not so Lee wore a nice shirt with his jeans. He stepped out into the hallway at exactly 5:45 and found Amanda waiting for him. He held out his hand and she took it so they could walk downstairs together as boyfriend and girlfriend. When they entered the dining room, they discovered that the room was already crowded. Dinner turned out to be a huge buffet that everyone was just helping themselves to. Lee and Amanda ate a hearty meal while listening to the conversations around them. There was general talk about the park but nothing that seemed to point to any new developments. After the meal, they all went out on the huge farmer's porch and sat around enjoying their coffee or tea. During that time, Lee had found out that Dennis would be doing the Ghost Walk that night and teaching the newbies what to say. They were encouraged to take notes. At 8pm, Dennis stood up and said it was time for them to head to town. They went to the main parking lot where there were several buses parked. Everyone got onto a bus and it delivered the huge group to the middle of town. Dennis waited for everyone to get off the buses and gather around him. Lee and Amanda found themselves near the front of the pack and Amanda had a notebook ready to take notes for Lee.

"Okay folks. So the point in this ghost walk is not to scare anyone but instead to share fun stories of the past. People enjoy hearing haunted histories from small towns so that is why we decided to add this nightly event as something that the park offers. Fortunately for us, this town has a lot of history and there are stories of ghosts everywhere. When you do these walks, you have to come up with your own style to share the stories. Tonight, I'm simply going to tell you some stories that you can spin into those styles.

"So in front of us is a very historical building which dates back to around 1840. As you can see, it is called Falls Village Inn. This inn has seen a lot in its day. It is a beautiful building but it has suffered through 2 fires. The townspeople got so concerned after the second fire that they built the fire station next to the Inn. That was in 1924. After the first fire, people started reporting signs of what appeared to be ghostly images. Several people had lost their lives in that fire and the theory was that they were still hanging around. After the second fire, things got even stranger. Travelers would arrive for their stay and report items missing from their rooms. At first the staff was blamed but it always seemed to happen only in rooms located on the second floor. Those were the rooms most damaged by fire and also the room where little Gary who was only 8 lost his life. His family had rushed out of the room when they first realized there was a fire and thought he was with them. He had snuck back to the room and it is believed he went back to save some toys that his Grandmother had given him for the trip. People believe that he still hangs out on the second floor and likes to take things from the rooms and put them in other places almost like a search and find game. All items are eventually found but sometimes not until after the guest has left the inn. There are also reports all the time of people seeing ghostly images on the stairs or in a back hallway. At this point, you could suggest that anyone who wants to actually meet a ghost, might want to consider staying at the inn for a few nights and to make sure they request room #203 which seems to have the most activity. Just tell them to be prepared to stay awake all night since this ghost loves to being annoying if you are trying to sleep. "

Lee was checking over the outside of the Inn while Dennis was talking. It was certainly big enough that it could be used to sneak in terrorists and the ghost stories might be a way to make it so no one would question people moving around at night. He was definitely going to need to come back and check this place out later.

Dennis had begun moving down the street so Lee had no choice but to follow. Amanda noticed that he seemed interested in the Inn and wondered if he had seen anything. She decided to wait and ask him later.

As he walked, Dennis was still talking. "This inn is not the only inn that is said to be haunted though. A short distance from town, there is a place called Blackberry River Inn that is said to have a Lady in White who comes out nightly to walk the main hallways on the second floor and then she walks out to an empty house out back. No one quite knows who this woman is but there is speculation that she was murdered in the inn back in the early 1900's by the innkeeper. The story goes that she arrived at the Inn to stay for a night and asked the innkeeper to hold onto her valuable jewelry. HIs wife loved the pearl necklace and matching bracelet so much that she convinced her husband to kill the lady so that she could keep the jewelry. The woman is still trying to find her jewels so she walks from the room where she stayed to the cottage out back where the innkeeper and his wife lived. If anyone on your ghost walk wants an almost guaranteed ghost sighting, this is the place to suggest to them since this appears to be a residual haunting. Does everyone know what that means?"

Not many did so Dennis explained that Residual hauntings are like a video being played over and over. There really isn't any spirits involved, it is just a recording of a past event. This is one of the most often seen type of haunting. Amanda was glad he explained because she had never gotten involved with ghost stories and had never heard any of this terminology before. Dennis went on to explain about other inns or hotels in the area that were worth a drive if someone really wanted to chase ghosts. Tales consisted of guests being poked during the night, hearing voices, seeing objects being moved around the room and eerie lights showing up in the windows.

The group had reached an outer part of the main street of town and Dennis pointed in the distance to a huge field. He explained that the town had originally been an industrial town and that there was a factory that used to stand in that field. The factory employed many people from the town along with several of the other local people. It was a huge factory and was famous for manufacturing cannons along with other war materials and huge railroad tires. Since there wasn't any laws to protect children back then, parents sent their young children to work including children as young as 4 years old. Amanda grimaced at hearing this news. She couldn't imagine sending either Phillip or Jamie into a factory even at their ages of 8 and 10. Lee glanced at her to see how she had handled this bit of information and saw the pained expression on her face. He quickly touched her arm to show his support. She smiled in appreciation of the gesture.

Dennis continued talking "The children often times were not even dressed appropriately for the weather conditions so many came to the factory in the winter time with very little on and were cold. They would find pieces of cloth or rags to wrap around themselves which often led to clothing being caught in the machinery. One of the saddest such stories was little Billy who arrived with no winter jacket on a cold February day. One of the adults noticed how cold he looked so he grabbed some cotton material scraps that had been set aside for rags and did the best he could to wrap Billy up into them in hopes of keeping him warm. As the day went on, the scraps become more and more loose on Billy's body and eventually the piece that had been put around his neck as a scarf was hanging really low. As Billy leaned over one of the machines to insert materials into it, the cotton scrap got caught and pulled Billy into the machine. The whole factory heard his screams but no one reacted fast enough to shut the machine off. Poor Billy never had a chance. His parents were poor and couldn't afford a proper burial so they just dug a hole and placed his body in it. To this day, people say that if you come out sometimes at night time to this spot, you can see Billy walking around the field in his material scraps. If you approach him, he disappears. The theory is that since his body never got a proper burial, he is stuck in this world but since no one knows where the body was buried, they can't amend that."

Amanda had to wipe a tear from her eyes after hearing this sad tale. She was definitely glad she would be baking and not having to tell these sad stories each night. Meanwhile, they were on the move again and they soon found themselves on the edge of town where they could hear the waterfalls but not see them yet.

"I brought you out here to show you the falls but I also wanted to point out our rich Indian history. There were many different tribes of Indians that lived in these areas and of course when the white settlers came in, they eventually started taking over the land from them. The Indians never considered that anyone owned the land; they only occupied it; so it didn't take much for the white man to take the land away from the Indians. Eventually the younger Indians began rebelling against what was happening and started coming into the village in the middle of the night to kill people. They thought if they scared them enough, they would leave these lands, but of course that didn't happen. Eventually the white people drove these Indians up into the area that we now know of as the Appalachian Trail. It was well known to stay away from that area because the Indians had become hostile and anyone venturing alone there usually didn't come back home. There are many stories still today about how dangerous this trail is and that you sometimes can hear voices as you are walking on it. People have reported hearing gunfire from the trail even though there is no one around and also many have reported hearing footsteps. A few years back, a man by the name of Henry Clegg went up on the trail and disappeared for days. He finally stumbled out after about a week. He was covered in blood from wounds about his head almost as if someone had tried to scalp him. He tried to talk but he was pretty weak. He died shortly afterward. The people who witnessed it said that he kept repeating what sounded like "Look out for the raven." His family of course was heartbroken and said that he was a good man. He had apparently worked for the government for many years and had recently retired to the area."

Amanda was furiously trying to write all of this down so she could help Lee learn the stories later. Lee on the other hand had spent most of the time trying to come up with a game plan for smoking out whoever was in charge of the terrorist operations there. It seemed almost hopeless that they were going to crack this case anytime soon.

They all began walking and Dennis led them out to the falls. They were breathtaking and both Amanda and Lee walked out on the bridge to get a better look at them.

Dennis continued his stories by telling them about the winter of 1740 when it was so bitterly cold that half of the villagers died. He said "The snow had become so deep that no one could move from their houses so the very old and the very young were the most likely to not make it. The houses had not been prepared well enough to deal with such extreme cold and so unless a family had a lot of firewood stacked up close enough to their house so they didn't have to venture too far outside,, they just couldn't keep their homes warm enough. Many families also shared things so those who did not have the food at their house because a neighbor gave them part of theirs; soon found themselves with no food and no way to get across town to get any. It was awful. Many innocent people lost their lives that year. The one that hit the town the hardest was Doc Brown. He had been the town's Doctor since the village was settled and they had never asked for another Doctor to move in as a backup so when he caught pneumonia and died, it left the town without any way to deal with their normal medical issues. So not only did the cold kill many of the people but also medical conditions that couldn't be treated did like appendixes, bad cuts that got infected and so on. There was no way to go get help so the families tried to just doctor their own and many did the wrong things. In the meantime, the farm animals also suffered. It would sometimes be days before a family could get out to try to put food down for the cows that were out in the fields and since they didn't have a lot of shelter, many of them froze to death. There is a story that is told often to school children about how Bossy the cow is watching over them to make sure they behave and if they are not being good, she will come out and yell Moooo at them. It is supposed to be a joke because normally you would yell boo instead of moo."

Everyone halfheartedly chuckled.

"So the falls themselves have a lot of history. There are stories of people committing suicide by jumping off from them. Also, this town did have slaves in the 1700's. Of course like any slave town, there are stories of slaves trying to escape. A lot of them would run to this area and try to follow the Housatonic River in hopes of covering up their tracks and finding a place further down that would give them safety. During one of these escapes, a Slave named Sam was captured along the way and to make an example of him. The slave catcher made him stand tied up in the middle of the river while he beat him for an hour and then cut off parts of his body until he bled to death. He told the slave owners about it so they could march their slaves out to see the sight in hopes of making it less appealing for them to try to escape. There are tales that the river is haunted and of course it is Sam who has stayed behind to get even for what happened to him. People claim you can see things moving in the water at night if you come out near the falls. The areas further away from the falls report hearing whispering and what sounds like a boat on the water. The locals are petrified to come anywhere near the river at night and they teach their kids to never come down here. It has become a tourist place but the locals rarely ever come near here. "

Dennis stopped talking and looked around at the group. Everyone seemed to be very wrapped up intensely at all he had told them and many seemed to be in a daze.

"Well folks, that is the end of the tour. As you can see, there are plenty of tales to tell so that people enjoy their time. I hope you took some good notes but you can always ask if you need to be reminded of any of the information. Let's get back to the buses and return to the farm, shall we?"

Everyone nodded in agreement and began making their way back to the buses. Amanda and Lee hung back from the crowd so they could talk for a minute.

Amanda said "Do you think any of these stories were made up so that they could move these terrorists in and out easier?"

"Oh Amanda, I think you have read too many spy novels. I'm sure that is not what they are doing. I have to find out about their transportation system. I saw a cab from another town today but haven't noticed any public buses or trains. I'm sure they are coming in by bus though. Come on, we need to catch up with the group."

They hurried to catch up and then got on the bus for the short ride back. Amanda's mind kept thinking about what all of this meant but there was too much information at once. She needed some private time to absorb it all. This case was already becoming overwhelming.

TBC