Tests showed that there were no vibrations in the house; there was nothing wrong with the electrical system; and there were no chemicals in the bottles that would make them pop.
Then what was causing the trouble? None of the experts knew. But every day the Lombardos received dozens of letters and telephone calls from people who thought they did know. Many believed that the house was haunted. They thought that a poltergeist was on the loose—the noisy ghost that is blamed when things move around on their own.
No one has proved that poltergeists exist. But people everywhere have told stories about them for hundreds of years. And what they have told was not too different from what was happening to the Lombardos.
Detective Briggs did not, of course, believe in poltergeists. He had begun to believe that Tom Lombardo might be to blame. Whenever something happened, Tom was usually in the room or nearby. When he accused Tom of causing the trouble, the boy denied it. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “All I know is that it scares me.”
People said that Detective Briggs was a tough cop who would turn in his mother if she did something wrong. But he believed Tom. Only now he didn’t know what to think.
Tuesday, February 25. A newspaper reporter came to the house to interview the family. Afterward he sat in the living room by himself hoping that something would happen that he could describe in his story.
Tom’s room was just across the hall from where the reporter sat. The boy had gone to bed, but he had left his door open. Suddenly a globe of the world flew out of the darkened room and smashed into a wall. The reporter dashed into the bedroom and turned on the light. Tom was sitting in bed blinking, as if he had just been awakened from a sound sleep. “What was that?” he asked.
Wednesday, February 26. In the morning a small plastic statue of the Virgin Mary rose up from a dresser in Mr. and Mrs. Lombardo’s bedroom and flew into a mirror. That night, while Tom was doing his homework, a ten-pound record player took off from a table, flew fifteen feet, then crashed to the floor.
Friday, February 28. Two scientists arrived from Duke University in North Carolina. They were parapsychologists who studied experiences like those the Lombardos were having. They spent several days talking to the family and examining the house, trying to understand what was going on and what was causing it. One night a bottle of bleach popped its top, but that was all that happened during their visit.
They did not tell the Lombardos about a theory they had that a poltergeist actually might be involved in such cases. According to this idea, poltergeists were not ghosts. They were normal teenagers. They had become so troubled by a problem that their emotions built up into a kind of vibration. Since it was taking place in their unconscious minds, they didn’t even know it was happening. But the vibration somehow left their bodies and moved whatever it struck. It happened again and again until the problem had been solved.
Scientists had given this strange power a name. They called it “psychokinesis,” the ability to move objects with mental power, or mind over matter. No one knew if this really could happen, or how to prove it. Yet most reports of poltergeists did involve families with teenage children, and there were two teenagers in the Lombardo family.
Monday, March 3. The parapsychologists said that they would prepare a report on what they had learned. The day after they left the trouble returned with a vengeance.
Tuesday, March 4. In the afternoon a bowl of flowers flew off the dining-room table and smashed into a cupboard. Then a bottle of bleach jumped out of a cardboard box and popped its top. Then a bookcase filled with encyclopedias fell over and wedged itself between a radiator and a wall. Then a flashlight bulb on a table rose up and hit a wall twelve feet away. Finally, four knocks were heard coming from the kitchen when nobody was in that room.
Wednesday, March 5. While Mrs. Lombardo was making breakfast, she heard a loud crash in the living room. The coffee table had turned over by itself. But that was the end of it. After a month of chaos everything returned to normal.
In August the two parapsychologists gave their report. They decided that the Lombardos had not made up the story. Nor had they imagined it. Their trouble had been real. But what had caused it?
They said that no pranks or tricks were involved, nor was any magic. As the police had done, they also ruled out vibrations from underground water and other physical causes.
The only explanation they could not rule out was the possibility that a teenage poltergeist had been at work, moving objects with mental power. They did not have enough evidence to prove it, but it was the only answer they had.
If it was a poltergeist, they thought it was Tom. If they were right, if a normal boy like Tom had become a poltergeist, this also might happen to other teenagers. It might even happen to you.
Whoooooooo?
There are four ghosts,
a ghostly monster,
and a corpse in this chapter.
But the stories about them
are funny,
not scary.
Strangers
A man and a woman happened to sit next to one another on a train. The woman took out a book and began reading. The train stopped at a half dozen stations, but she never looked up once.
The man watched her for a while, then asked, “What are you reading?”
“It’s a ghost story,” she said. “It’s very good, very spooky.”
“Do you believe in ghosts?” he asked.
“Yes, I do,” she replied. “There are ghosts everywhere.”
“I don’t believe in them,” he said. “It’s just a lot of superstition. In all my years I’ve never seen a ghost, not one.”
“Haven’t you?” the woman said—and vanished.
The Hog
When Arthur and Anne were in high school, they fell in love. They were both big, fat, and jolly and seemed suited to one another. But as sometimes happens, things didn’t work out.
Arthur moved away and married someone else, and Anne didn’t marry anyone. And not too many years later, she got sick and died. Some said it was from a broken heart.
One day Arthur was driving to a small town not far from where he and Anne had grown up. Soon he realized that a hog was following him. No matter how fast Arthur drove, the hog stayed right behind. Each time he looked back, there was the hog. It began to irritate him.
Finally he couldn’t stand it any longer. He stopped his car and rapped the hog on its snout good and hard. “Get out of here, you fat, dirty thing!” he shouted.
To his astonishment, the hog spoke to him, and it was Anne’s voice he heard. “It’s her ghost!” he thought. “She has come back as a hog!”
“I was doing no harm, Arthur,” the hog said. “I was just out for a brisk walk, enjoying myself. How could you strike me after all that we meant to one another?” With that, she turned and trotted away.
(When you tell this story, have the hog speak in a high voice.)
Is Something Wrong?
A car broke down late at night way out in the country. The driver remembered passing an empty house a few minutes earlier. “I’ll stay there,” he thought. “At least I’ll get some sleep.”
He found some wood in the corner of the living room and made a fire in the fireplace. He covered himself with his coat and slept. Toward morning the fire went out, and the cold awakened him. “It’ll be light soon,” he thought. “Then I’ll go for help.”
He closed his eyes again. But before he could doze off there was a terrible crash. Something big and heavy had fallen out of the chimney. It lay on the floor for a minute. Then it stood up and stared down at him.
The man took one look and started running. He had never seen anything so horrible in his life. He paused just long enough to jump through a window. Then he ran, and ran, and ran—and ran until he thought his lungs would burst.
As he stood in the road panting, trying to catch his breath, he felt something tap him on the shoulder. He turned and found himself staring into two big, bloody ey
es in a grinning skull. It was the horrible thing!
“Pardon me,” it said. “Is something wrong?”
It’s Him!
The woman was the meanest, most miserable person you could imagine. And her husband was just as bad. The only good thing was that they lived in the woods all by themselves and couldn’t bother anybody else.
One day they were off somewhere getting firewood, and the woman got so mad at her husband that she grabbed an ax and cut his head off, just like that. Then she buried him nice and neat and went home.
She made herself a cup of tea and went out on the porch. She sat there rocking in her rocking chair, sipping her tea, thinking how glad she was that she had done this awful thing. After a while she heard this old, empty voice out in the distance moaning and groaning, and it was saying:
“Whoooooooo’s going to stay with me this cold and lonely night? Whoooooooo?”
“It’s him!” she thought. And she hollered back, “Stay by yourself, you old goat.”
Soon she heard the voice again, only now it was closer, and it was saying:
“Whoooooooo’s going to sit with me this cold and lonely night? Whoooooooo?”
“Only a crazy man!” she shouted. “Sit by yourself, you dirty rat!”
Then she heard the voice even closer, and it was saying:
“Whoooooooo’s going to be with me this cold and lonely night? Whoooooooo?”
“Nobody!” she sneered. “Be by yourself, you miserable mole!”
She stood up to go into the house, but now the voice was right behind her, and it was whispering:
“Whoooooooo’s going to stay with me this cold and lonely night? Whoooooooo?”
Before she could answer back, a big hairy hand came around the corner and grabbed her, and the voice hollered:
“YOU ARE!”
(As you say the last line, grab one of your friends.)
T-H-U-P-P-P-P-P-P-P!
After Sarah went to bed, she saw a ghost. It was sitting on her dresser staring at her through two black holes where its eyes had been. She shrieked, and her mother and father came running.
“There’s a ghost on my dresser,” she said, trembling. “It’s staring at me.”
When they turned on the light, it was gone. “You were having a bad dream,” her father said. “Now go to sleep.”
But after they left, there it was again, sitting on her dresser staring at her. She pulled the blanket over her head and fell asleep.
The next night the ghost was back. It was up on the ceiling staring down at her. When Sarah saw it, she screamed. Again her mother and father came running.
“It’s up on the ceiling,” she said.
When they turned on the light, nothing was there. “It’s your imagination,” her mother said, and gave her a hug.
But after they left, there it was again, staring down at her from the ceiling. She put her head under the pillow and fell asleep.
The next night the ghost was back. It was sitting on her bed staring at her. Sarah called to her parents, and they came running.
“It’s on my bed,” she said. “It’s looking and looking at me.”
When they turned on the light, nothing was there. “You’re upset over nothing,” her father said. He kissed her on the nose and tucked her in. “Now go to sleep.”
But after they left, there it was again, sitting on her bed staring at her.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Sarah asked. “Why don’t you leave me alone?”
The ghost put its fingers in its ears and wiggled them at her. Then it stuck its tongue out and went:
“T-H-U-P-P-P-P-P-P-P!”
(To make this sound, put your tongue between your lips and blow. It is called giving someone “the raspberry.”)
You May Be the Next . . .
Did you ever think as a hearse goes by
That you may be the next to die?
They wrap you up in a big white sheet
From your head down to your feet.
And the worms crawl in and the worms crawl out,
In your stomach and out your snout,
And your eyes fall out and your teeth decay—
And that is the end of a perfect day.
Notes and Sources
The sources given are described in the Bibliography.
Boo Men
“Boo men” is a name for imaginary scary creatures in Newfoundland. Boo men are similar to bogarts in Great Britain, from where many Newfoundlanders came, and to bogey men and boogeymen in America. See Widdowson, If You Don’t Be Good, pp. 157–60; Widdowson, “The Bogeyman.”
The story about the girl who meets a ghost in a cemetery is told in many places.
When Death Arrives
The Appointment: This story is the retelling of an ancient tale that is usually set in Asia. A young man sees Death in the marketplace in Damascus, the capital of Syria. To escape his fate, he flees to either Baghdad or Samarra in what is now Iraq. Death is, of course, waiting for him. In some versions, Death is a woman, not a man. The story has been told in one form or another by Edith Wharton, the English author W. Somerset Maugham, and the French writer Jean Cocteau. The American novelist John O’Hara entitled his first book An Appointment in Samarra. See Woollcott, pp. 602–3.
The Bus Stop: This is from the family of “vanishing hitchhiker” stories in which a ghost returns in human form. It usually is seen on a street corner late at night or during a storm and is offered a ride home in a car. But when the driver arrives at his destination, the passenger has disappeared. In the story “The Bus Stop,” the ghost remains in human form for several weeks before disappearing.
The story is based on several versions. One is a recollection by Barbara Carmer Schwartz from the 1940s in Delmar, New York. There also is a version in which the young man loses his mind when he learns that the young woman is a ghost. See Jones, Things That Go Bump in the Night, pp. 173–74.
A similar story was told in ancient Rome. It involved a young woman named Philinnion who died, then six months later was seen with a man she loved who did not know of her death. When her parents learn of her appearance, they rush to see her. She accuses them of interfering in her “life,” then dies a second time. See Collison-Morley, pp. 652–72.
The folklorist Jan Brunvand lists many variants of the vanishing hitchhiker tale in The Vanishing Hitchhiker, pp. 24–40, 41–46.
There also have been at least two popular songs on the subject: “Laurie (Strange Things Happen),” a pop-rock song of the early 1960s composed by Milton C. Addington, and “Bringing Mary Home,” a bluegrass song composed in 1961 by Joe Kingston and M. K. Scosa. Both were still being performed when this book was written.
Faster and Faster: This is retold from a summer-camp story of the 1940s in New York or New Hampshire. Ruth L. Tongue prints an account she collected in 1964 in Berkshire, England, in which some city boys find an old hunting horn in Windsor Forest. When one of them blows it, he summons up the ghosts of a hunting party and is killed by the ghostly arrows of a ghostly hunter. See Tongue, p. 52.
Just Delicious: This is one of hundreds of stories that make up what folklorists call the “Man from the Gallows” family, or tale type 366. They are found in America, Great Britain, Western Europe, and parts of Africa and Asia. Perhaps the best known in the English-speaking world is “The Man with the Golden Arm.” For a version, see Schwartz, Tomfoolery, pp. 28–30.
Such stories have their roots in the ancient tale of the man with no work whose family was starving. Searching for food, he comes to a gallows where a criminal has just been hanged. He cuts out the dead man’s heart (or some other part of his body) and takes it home. That night his family feasts. But while they sleep, the man from the gallows comes looking for the part of his body that had been stolen. When he cannot find it, he takes with him the person who stole it. See Thompson, The Folktale, p. 42.
“Just Delicious” is a story that closely follows this tale. The retelling is based on accounts I have heard
over the years in the northeastern United States, the earliest in the 1940s. Louis C. Jones prints a New York City version in which the husband saves himself by removing his wife’s liver and giving it to the ghost as a substitute for the one she had stolen. See Jones, Things That Go Bump in the Night, pp. 96–99.
Hello, Kate!: This story is based on a legend from southwest Munster, Ireland. See Curtin, pp. 59–60.
The Black Dog: The story is based on an experience reported in the French village of Bourg-en-Forêt in the 1920s. A spectral black dog like the one in this story is said to be the ghost of a wicked human or a foreteller of death. See Van Paassen, pp. 246–50.
Footsteps: This story is loosely based on one collected in Amherst, Nova Scotia, by the Canadian folklorist Helen Creighton. See Creighton, pp. 264–66.
Like Cats’ Eyes: This is adapted from a story the English author Augustus Hare was told in the late nineteenth century. In that version the hearse was pulled by four horses. See Hare, pp. 49–50.
On The Edge
Bess: This story is based on an old European legend. The Swiss folklorist Max Lüthi named it “Oleg’s Death” for the ruler Oleg, who lived almost two thousand years ago in what today is Russia. He is said to have died as John Nicholas did in our story, bitten by a poisonous snake hiding in the remains of a horse he feared.
The legend contains many themes that are frequently found in folk literature: What seems weak may be strong, what seems impossible may be possible, the greatest danger we face is from ourselves. See Lüthi, “Parallel Themes.”
Scary Stories Complete Set Page 14