by Unknown
Joe Kwon's True Ghost Stories
VOLUME 3
Ghost Stories from
Texas
Joe Kwon, Inc.
Joe Kwon's True Ghost Stories. Copyright 2010 by Joe Kwon, Inc. All rights reserved. Published and distributed worldwide from the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Joe Kwon, Inc, 3 North Lafayette, Marshall, Missouri 65340.
ISBN-10 0-9828659-2-9
ISBN-13 9780982865927
Compiled by Joe Kwon
Edited by Tom Kong
Special Thanks to
Tom Bolling, Joe Bolling, Inja Kwon
Angie Gable, Nicole Beasley,
Zoe Song, and Greg Ashenfelter
Also, a thanks to all those who’ve shared their own encounters with us to make this compilation a reality, whereby the rest of us may consider ourselves warned that spirits do exist, and not all of them are friendly
Boogeyman
Llano, Texas
When I was a kid, I used to jump off my bed, not step off onto the floor, because I didn't want the Boogeyman to grab my leg. I would jump as far as I could and keep running.
I eventually outgrew that. I don't remember when it happened, I just remember the days when I used to jump and run.
Now as a parent, I have a son that is afraid of the Boogeyman under his bed. How is it that millions of kids around the world are afraid of the Boogeyman under their bed? Is it instinct? Do kids know something, see something, and sense something, that we adults cannot?
So last night I was in my son Andy's room, comforting him, telling him there is no monster under his bed. He didn't believe me. I could tell by the scared look in his eyes it wasn't doing any good just to tell him nothing was there. I laid down on the bed with him to help him go to sleep.
I felt a bump from under the bed. It was light and faint, but I felt it. I ignored it. It was a spring popping or something. He wailed and said, "There it is, Daddy!"
I shushed him, told him it was nothing. But then we felt it again. And again, harder.
I'm an adult. I'm logical. So I got us both up, and pulled the mattress off the bed. If there was a cat or squirrel or rat or whatever, I was going to put an end to this.
I tipped the box spring up on its side. There was nothing under the bed except Andy's car collection. I looked all over the box spring, looking for a hole an animal could get into. Nothing. I kicked it a few times, to get the springs back into shape. Then put the bed back together.
And ten minutes later it started again.
Andy just clung to me as hard as he could. I didn't understand what could be making the bumping under the bed. I still don't understand. But it was weird, and haunting, and I got scared myself.
I don't remember the bed making any bumping when I was a kid. But I do remember various times through my life, even as an adult, when the bed was vibrating. I could even tell what corner of the bed the vibrating was coming from. I never felt like it was an angel or something good. I always felt like it was something bad.
So I laid a blanket out on the floor where the mattress would have been, inside the bed frame. The mattress I threw over against the wall. I was going to show Andy there was no such thing as a Boogeyman. Despite his crying, I made him lie down with me on the blanket.
How can there be bumping under the bed when I'm under the bed myself? There can't, obviously. But apparently, all that does is force the Boogeyman out. And makes him mad.
First the door slammed shut, so loud I sat straight up, almost knocking Andy aside. Then the door locked. And then I saw him.
The Boogeyman, at least this Boogeyman, is a big guy. I had the impression he was dressed in old clothes, but it was too dark to tell for sure. The horror of being there on the floor with my young son screaming and hanging on for dear life while this thing walked over and stared down at me!
There was no thought of my putting up a fight or protest. It wasn't possible and didn't enter my mind. All I could think of was I was going to die and could I save my son from the same fate.
But the Boogeyman didn't attack. He didn't do anything, except stand there above me and look down at the two of us cowering on the blanket. He stood there so long without moving that I had time to come to my senses a bit. I saw that there was no sign of movement: no breathing, no wavering of arms. His eyes, though it was dark, came across as being paler than his face was.
So I sat, and so he stood, until I got the impression he was waiting for me. I was afraid to move, but Andy was starting to calm down a bit. Not that he wasn't afraid... this was a horrifying experience! But he stopped screaming at least. I started to think. What was the Boogeyman waiting for?
Then I had an idea. Slowly, so slowly, I crept away from the Boogeyman, holding Andy in my arms. We got away from the bed, and I stood up. I went to the mattress and box spring, and setting Andy down briefly, threw them both back onto the bed.
Then I grabbed up Andy and ran from the room. It seems to be the Boogeyman only wanted his spot back, that I had taken away from him. He wanted underneath the bed. I haven't been back in the room again. We're moving.
Whatever you do, don't take away the Boogeyman's spot.
Old Red
Pecos, Texas
I'm the proud owner of a scrubby piece of land down in Pecos, Texas. For those that don't know, Pecos is a little desert town full of tumbleweeds and rattlesnakes. At least, that's the entirety of the impression you'd have by simply visiting my property.
If not for sentimental value, I'd have gotten rid of the property years ago. Having inherited it from my grandfather, though, it simply doesn't feel right to sell it. So I keep it and, other than the annual tax bill I receive, pay little attention to its existence.
On that property, though, rested a little old, faded-out red pickup truck that my grandfather affectionately called "Old Red". This truck was already quite old even back when my grandfather was driving it. He and that truck had a long history. I recall a time when he drove it all the way to California to visit us, and he was pulled over by the police for driving too slow. The officer apparently took one look at the truck and immediately asked, "Sir, you don't even have a working speedometer in that thing, do you?" Grandpa replied, "No." and that was it. The officer warned him to "speed it up," and let him go. For as far back as I can remember, that truck never even had a gas cap. Grandpa simply stuffed a rag into the gas tank to keep the fumes in.
Anyway, there sat this truck. And about five or six years ago (not long after Grandpa passed away) I thought about having it hauled away. To me it wasn't much more than a haven for rattlesnakes and the like. A liability, in property-owner terms. Apparently Grandpa had other ideas, though, rest his soul.
I spent about thirty or forty minutes with a shovel trying to loosen the clay-mixed sand from around the wheels, and got a chain wrapped around the rear axle so I could tow it out. Just then a car pulled onto the property. A young Hispanic man got out and approached me with a disappointed look on his face. He wanted to know how I got the "old man" to sell the truck to me so fast.
Before I could explain that the "old man" was my grandfather, and that I'd actually inherited the truck with the property, the man said something that I had to ask him to repeat.
He asked again, "Are you stealing this vehicle?" But, that wasn't the part I wanted to hear again. So I asked him t
o repeat it all from the beginning.
He went over it again, "I was here yesterday and the old man showed up and asked me to leave. I was just looking at the truck. It's just rusting away out here. I offered to buy it. He told me no. So, I want to know... are you stealing this vehicle, or did he sell it?"
I started to laugh, but I could tell the young man took it personal that the "old man" wouldn't sell it to him. And then I asked him what the old man looked like. He gave a very detailed description -- of my grandfather!
I calmly explained that I was the old man's grandson and that I was just looking after the vehicle, and I left it at that. The young man smiled and apologized. With obvious admiration for the truck, and a quick reiteration that he was interested in case the truck was ever for sale, he got back in his car and drove away.
I pondered it for a while, and though I knew Grandpa loved that truck, the young man was right -- it was just rotting away. Perhaps Grandpa's spirit did manage to somehow cling to it, but it was long past time for him to let go. The next day I drove the area and spotted the young man's car parked in a driveway and gave him the truck.
I don't get down there often. I don't know if he ever got the thing fixed up, or if he even still has it. I don't even know for sure if it was the right thing to do, because I don't really know what the young man encountered that day when he apparently spoke to my dead grandfather. I just put it all out of my mind and trusted that I did the right thing. I hope that's the case. For all I know, Grandpa haunted him for it. I say that jokingly. Sort of.
The Last Conversation
Garland, Texas
My mother died when I was eight years old. I wasn't prepared for it, even though I should have realized what was coming. I was about as clueless as a kid can possibly be in most aspects of life, and this was no exception.
She had been sick for a long time. So sick, that for the last few years of her life she was completely bed-ridden. The family used a pair of walkie talkies so she could call for help from one room to the next if she needed anything. If she was left at home alone, we'd give one of the walkie talkies to the next-door neighbor. It was just something we came up with as sort of a wireless intercom system.
I remember the day I got called out of class at school to take a phone call. It was a phone call from dad. He said mom was very sick and I should come home. I remember being happy to get out of school early for the day. I remember thinking that mom is always really sick, and then wondering why this day was any different that I should get out of school.
There were a lot of people there when I got home. For some reason I wasn't allowed into mom's room. So, I picked up the walkie talkie off the kitchen table and took it to my room.
I pressed the button. "Mom, what's going on?"
There was no answer.
"Mom?"
Still no answer.
A moment later my oldest brother opened the door to my room and walked over to where I was sitting on my bed with the walkie talkie. He reached down and switched it off and shook his head. Then he turned around and left. That was it. Thinking back, I guess I should have realized at least by then that she was dead. But, I didn't. I didn't even really understand what death was.
A couple of days later we were getting ready for mom's funeral. I remember it being explained to me that mom's body would be there, and there would be music and sort of a church service where we were going.
Back before mom got sick, she'd go to church and she often took her tape recorder and recorded the sermons. I mentioned that I'd like to take mom's tape recorder so I could record this service. The family decided against it, and put the tape recorder away. So, I didn't tell anyone when I took her walkie talkie off her nightstand and slipped it into my pocket to give to her at the funeral.
At the service we each got a moment to go to mom's casket. She looked like she was sleeping very peacefully. I pulled the walkie talkie out of my pocket and tucked it beside her so she could call if she needed anything. No one paid any attention to what I had done. Everyone seemed to just be comforting each other.
When I went to sit down, I pulled my handkerchief from my jacket pocket and handed it to my crying grandmother, just as I had seen adults do in movies I'd watched. I listened to the singing, and to the sermon, and we all went outside for another short service and then we went home.
That night I turned on my walkie talkie and listened for mom in case she needed anything. I fell asleep listening to the intermittent static.
But then her unmistakable voice woke me. I opened my eyes and sat up in my bed. Still gripping the walkie talkie in my hand, I pressed the button. "Mom? You need something?"
Beneath the static, like a distant call, I heard her voice again. As if she were barely within range. "I just need to talk to you about something, honey," she said.
She and I talked for what then seemed like only a few minutes, but looking back I know it must have taken much longer. The exact conversation we had is very personal to me, but suffice it to say that from that night on I understood what it meant when someone dies. For the first time, I realized I wouldn't see her again for the rest of my life. For the first time, I cried in realization that she was really gone. But, I also knew she was no longer sick, and no longer suffering.
I began to fall asleep, so she finally she said goodbye. It's my fault for starting to fall asleep. To this day, when I think about it, I am still so disappointed in myself for getting so tired.
For the next couple of nights I tried to talk to her again on the walkie talkie. "I love you and I miss you," I kept telling her.
After getting home from school the next afternoon I noticed that many of mom's things were gone. Even things I'd put in my room that belonged to her. Her old Sunday-school teaching materials, a blanket that she kept on her lap when she used to get around in a wheel chair, and the walkie talkie were all missing from my room. My grandmother on my dad's side of the family had disposed of these things thinking it would be easier for us to "get on with our lives."
Whether or not the walkie talkie would have ever worked to speak to her again, I'll never know. But, I'll always be thankful for that one last conversation.
The Field
San Antonio, Texas
On a family campout one afternoon I told my family that I was going on a walk around the campsite. I walked behind the camper and onto the dirt road, long worn from feet and cars. I was collecting samples of plants for my biology class, and I saw a huge field full of wildflowers. That's when the noise started. It sounded a little like a prairie dog, until I got closer, then I realized it was an echo.
"Virginia," it was saying. "Virginia."
All I can say is that I must have looked like someone named Virginia, because that's when I saw the woman. She was not familiar to me at all; she was obviously human and looked normal save for her clothes, and her hair; they were so old fashioned.
As I looked at her, she grew older until her skin looked like paper and her hair was just a small bun of white spider silk. I said, "I don't know any Virginias."
I turned curtly and walked to the edge of the field. Then I ran.
Great Grandmother
Austin, Texas
My mother told me the story of how she saw my great grandfather's ghost in the house. My great grandfather died in that house in 1980 or 81.
I was born in 1983. I was about 3 months old when my mother went into the kitchen to make me a bottle. She says that she felt as if someone was watching her. She turned around; there was my great grandfather's ghost. She described him as in his younger years, with his full Marine uniform, but she had no trouble recognizing him.
There are other stories. In my great grandmother's room, she had a lot of paintings on the walls. The paintings were haunted. They would move. Like this painting she had of JFK. My family would say that he would move from side to side in the painting. Also his eyes would actually follow you.
There, too, was the painting of a lady. She had a fan in her hand.
Sometimes the fan would be behind her back, other times it would be in front, covering her face, and she would even move!
Funny thing was, the paintings would not move outside of the house, only while in the house. The paintings are at my aunt's house now. They haven't moved since they were taken out of the house 5 years ago.
About 2 or 3 years ago, my aunt placed a tape recorder in the house. She placed it on the floor then left for 2 hours. She came back, heard the tape, and found it now contained hundreds of conversations. Spanish and English! Too much to even focus on one. She even heard my great grandfather's voice on there! Also, there was the sound of someone covering up the tape recorder with a hand. There are plenty more stories, not enough time to tell them all.
My Protector
Lake Jackson, Texas
I am a subtle believer in ghosts, but I have had a few experiences that I cannot explain even to this day. This is one of them.
I had just turned fourteen and me and my mother, stepfather, and two year old sister, and I had just moved into a new house. It was a nice house, fairly new, maybe about eight years old with no history of paranormal activity. Not that I knew of, anyway.
After two weeks of being in the house, there were a few troubling things that occurred. Whenever my parents would be out for the night leaving me to watch my sister, I would hear strange things coming from the office, shuffling papers, the computer shutting itself off and then back on. I would just turn up the television and ignore it.
After going to bed, I would always hear my door open, and feel my blankets being slowly pulled off of my bed.
More annoyed than scared, I would just kick my legs and pull my blankets back up, and then I would hear my door quietly close. I would always look at my clock and it would be the same: 2:04 AM.