Spooky stories

I'm posting these so that I don't forget them, as the old memory is getting a bit rusty! We've been talking about spooky stories on a forum, and rather than post a huge reply I thought it'd be easier to put it here!

Black Dog

When I was 14 /15 I spent a lot of time outdoors messing around with a large group of friends. We would meet up after school, hang around street corners being noisy, the usual teenage antics. Because we were such a large group, sometimes as many as 30 people, we were often moved on from our little spots by the police, and had to find a new 'homes', kind of like a wandering band of nomads. I'm pretty sure it was October 1995 when this happened, and we had recently begun hanging around at an old church on a big hill near my house. We all knew the surrounding countryside like the back of our hands as we had grown up roving around in the trees, and never thought anything of the fact that we were hanging around in a graveyard at night.

Anyway, this particular evening a group of 7 girls had broken off from the group and walked down the sloping road away from the church. We were a ten minute walk away from the others, and well out of earshot. We sat down in a circle at the base of a small rise in a field, and the sun had set behind the rise so it had a pretty glow to it. We were chatting away when we heard something being killed in the bushes, like a rabbit screaming. One of my friends said jokingly 'it must be a werewolf', and I just laughed and said it must be a fox killing its dinner.

About two minutes later I looked up to the rise and saw the biggest black dog/wolf/thing I have ever seen. I'm pretty sure I uttered swore, and everyone turned around to look. I know a lot about dogs(I'm animal mad and used to be a vet nurse), and this was taller than an Irish wolfhound, but bulky like an Alsatian. It started to growl at us, and just stood and stared. I can still hear the sound it made in its throat even to this day. Everyone got up really slowly and walked away, and I said 'DO NOT RUN', in case it chased us. We all took about 5 steps, someone shouted 'RUN', and we all descended into mass hysteria and bolted back up the hill. Of course no-one else in the group believed us.
My best friend still hasn't forgiven me for leaving her behind, as she hated dogs anyway, and was traumatised for ages. When we all get together we still talk about it, all these years later.
On a related note, we recalled on reflection that years earlier, probably in about 1992, four of us had been climbing trees in this same field and had seen five men with shotguns stalking in the trees. We were scared as guns are quite uncommon here, and we had never seen 'real' guns before. Also, we were scared that if we moved they would shoot us thinking we were whatever 'game' they were looking for. Maybe they were local farmers who knew of this 'wolf', and were hunting it down?

Also, about 4 years ago, I had almost forgotten about the sighting, and I took my dog for a walk up there. I don't often go there, as I now live about 3 miles away, and I kind of stumbled into this field not thinking. I paused on the rise as I suddenly remembered where I was, and the dog started to growl. We shot out of there pretty quick!

Man in the Woods
I was walking the dog with Pete, Taylor was playing with a football and Isobel was in the buggy. We were at a place in Basildon called Nevendon Bushes. Its a tiny piece of ancient woodland in the middle of a housing estate, I used to go there alone with the dog often, which soon stopped after this happened. I've never been back since.

I was holding the dogs lead, and had just been saying to my partner how I always feel as if I'm being watched there, you feel surrounded by nature there. The place has an atmosphere, not necessarily bad, but it feels quite magical. I joked that I always expect fairies to pop out and surprise you. Its very dark as the trees are so tall, and I love it in summer as its so cool.

The dog had an extendable lead, and all of a sudden he zoomed off into some trees barking. He's was a Fox Terrier, so I let him go as I thought he was hunting something. I followed him into the bushes to see what he was after and was surprised to find a man dressed all in black just standing there. I was a bit embarrassed that the dog had barked at him, I mumbled an apology and turned to go. As I turned I realised that he had no face, no features at all! He was just the darkest black all over. I spun back round on my heels, and he was gone. I had been standing about 3 feet away from him and there was no mistaking it, he was just nothing all over, but it had taken my brain a while to register it. He had vanished in the time it took for me to turn and then spin back round.
I shot out of the trees and told Pete that there was a man in there. He is terrified of the paranormal, so I didn't go into details, but I told him something wasn't right and that we had to go. This bothered me for ages, I felt like I'd seen something I shouldn't have. I don't think I'll ever go back over there.

Vanishing Taxi

This happened in 1997, and myself and my boyfriend at the time were driving back from his house to mine at around 9pm, the journey was only about 20 minutes and he was driving. We were coming up to the estate where I lived at the time, and the roads were clear. As we came up to
a pedestrian crossing we both noticed a taxi behind his car. It was a white modern taxi, probably a Ford escort or mondeo, but we didn't notice the actual make of car. The reason we noticed it was that it was driving too close to his rear bumper, and we were both cursing the driver. I actually turned round in my seat to have a look, and my boyfriend was watching in his rear view mirror. As we passed the crossing, the taxi suddenly disappeared. It didn't fade from view or anything, it was just gone.

Even now every time I go past the crossing, I relay the tale to whoever I'm with at the time. I'm sure they are all sick of hearing the story by now!


My Mum finally saw a ghost!

As a child I was saw weird stuff a lot, and my Mum always laughed the stories off and made me feel stupid. Well, finally, at age 53, the sceptic saw one right in front of her! She now agrees with everything I ever told her about ghosts, to the way they appear, to the way you feel during the experience.

She works in a County Court as an Usher, she's been there about 8 years. One morning she was the only person in, except for security at the front desk, even the cleaners hadn't arrived yet. Security is very tight, due to the nature of the work.
As she walked past court room 4, a little face peeped through the glass running vertically down the side of the door. She said the face was of a petite, blond, elfin looking woman, just smiling serenely at her. She stood there and looked, and the woman looked back. There was a definite interaction there. My Mum walked away to get security, and when they came back she was obviously gone. There was no one else in the building.
My Mum has called her Geraldine(no idea why!), and says hello to her every morning.


Pauline sees her Mum
>My Dad and Stepmum Pauline live in an old house(built in the late 1800's) in Maldon, Essex. There have never been any paranormal occurrences there.

About three years ago my stepmum went up to bed before my Dad, and could suddenly smell an overpowering perfume in the air, which she recognised as the one her mother used to wear. Her mum died in 1995 from cancer all over her body, but which started in her lungs. The smell was so strong that it was making her gag. As my Dad came up the stairs and into the room, the smell vanished.

The next day, she was ironing in the dining room adjoining the kitchen, looked up and saw her mum walk through the kitchen wall into the conservatory, then on into the garden. Her mum turned round and smiled at her, then vanished.
Later that afternoon she had a doctors appointment as she had been feeling unwell and had an infection, and they discovered that she had a lump in her breast. It turned out to be grade 3 cancer, which is about as bad as it gets.

Thankfully, she's been in the clear for about 5 years now. I always think its a lovely story though, as her mum was coming back to check up on her.