Creepy Stuff

Lynne and I love to walk.

When the kids were all at home we used to walk the dog for an hour every night. It was our time to be alone and to be able to talk without interruption. On rainy nights we left the dog at home but walked anyway.

We talked about lots of different things on those walks and I remember one night I was telling Lynne ghost stories—some reportedly true, others from fiction.

As we approached our house I was just getting to the punch line when Lynne saw the neighbour's cat trying to get at her goldfish. She yelled to frighten the cat and it bolted back across the fence.

It wasn't only the cat she frightened—I was so involved in the story that I jumped a mile.

That was the last time I ever told her a ghost story. I decided that if I was going to frighten myself it was just too harrowing.

And More Ghosts
I believe in ghosts. I should do, I've seen a couple. Call them spirits, wraiths, shades, whatever—they exist and if you're lucky you occasionally have the opportunity to see one.

But whether you believe in ghosts or not, you'll have no trouble with this story.

When I was young I moonlighted in a variety of places so I could earn enough extra money to get married. One of my jobs was as a cleaner in a foundry.

The place was an enormous barn of a building with an earthen floor into which mouldings were cut. It had one dim light in the back corner and high, shuttered windows that rattled and banged constantly in the wind. It was like a creepy scene from a B Grade movie.

There wasn't enough light to clean the main part of the building; it didn't need it anyway. My job was to clean the offices and amenities areas.

I was given the job because the previous cleaner, a guy named Tommy, believed it was haunted. The watchman, a drinking mate of Tommy's, had committed suicide on the premises and Tommy was convinced that his spirit still walked there.

A few weeks after I started, I was walking through the main section with my second load of rubbish for the night (we used to throw it into the mouldings) thinking about Tommy and the ghost.

I looked at the gloomy scene, listened to the eerie rattling and thought, "I can understand how a heavy drinker like Tommy might get nervous in here."

While I was thinking about it I threw in the rubbish—and the cat that was in the hole eating the food scraps from the first load let out a mighty screech, leapt out of the moulding, and bolted for the front of the building.

I bolted for the back!

It seemed funny later but, I'm not kidding, my legs were still running when my body stopped at the back wall.