When I was eight years old, my grandmother died of ovarian cancer. Her death severely affected my family, but she made sure some of us knew we were being watched.

One day I was playing with a jump rope in my grandfather’s yard, next door to our house, when something told me to look up at the back door of his house. When I did, I saw my grandmother’s smiling, semi-transparent image with her hand on the glass. Frightened and fully aware that her funeral had been a few days prior, I ran home screaming for my mother.

My grandfather believes he had another encounter with her. He recalled being alone in the house one night and hearing her footsteps in the mudroom. When he peered down the dark hallway, the footsteps faded away.

My youngest cousin was born several months after my grandmother’s death, so he never knew her. However, she still managed to introduce herself. One evening my aunt was giving my cousin a bath. Suddenly he squealed, pointed hard over her shoulder, and laughed. My aunt, turning to chide my uncle, saw nothing and was startled to learn they were alone in the house.

Even in death, Grandma is making her presence well known and surely remembered.

Arguments between married couples have always taken place and usually end in the same manner: with the wife going home to mother. That is how my first adventure into the realm of the supernatural began. I was probably four or five years old, my younger brother being three or so, when this occurred.

Mom took Dave and I to our grandmother’s house in Wayne, West Virginia. It was a large, white colonial home, typical for the baby boom era. There were two floors and an attic. Bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs, the rest of the rooms downstairs. It was furnished with odds and ends of all kinds since my grandmother Hazel was a bit of a collector. She didn’t gather any one thing, just lots of things. I always thought of the house as a creepy adventure. I wasn’t allowed to ever be upstairs alone or unsupervised. I had to stay in the living room, dining room, etc on the first floor. That kind of gave an air of mystery and spookiness to the second floor.

This house had some unique features that, at the time, were weird but I was only a child so I didn’t understand them. Such as the one room under the stairwell that was always cold, bitterly cold even on the hottest days. The way that the rocking chair in there would move on its own. How that room also emanated a smell of pipe tobacco and the sound of a violin. The only people to smoke in my family used whatever the cheapest cigarettes were at the time and no one was musically talented. There was also the matter of the stairs. Strange, rust colored spots littered them from top to bottom. When fresh paint was applied, the spots came through. Even when the carpeting was installed, the spots came through.

The night mom, Dave and I spent in the house was in the summer. A sticky, hot night with no breeze. Even the cars passing by on the lazy street in front of the lot did little to create any wind. Mom slept in the bed, a light sheet draped over her. Dave and I each had a sheet and were lying on a mattress at the foot of the bed. The two windows of the room were open but there wasn’t any fan or air conditioning in there. Not able to handle the noise of the sometimes passing traffic, mom slept with a pillow over her head to drown away the noise.

Late into the evening, I lied there awake. I’ve always been somewhat of an insomniac so this wasn’t uncommon for me. While waiting to sleep, I was counting the cars as they drove past, listening intently for the next one to come by. But the sounds that I heard weren’t of an automobile but footsteps!

My uncle Billy occasionally stayed with my grandmother when he was home from his job on the barges on the Ohio River. The footsteps were heavy and thick but they moved quickly and with purpose. They didn’t sound like a tired man slowly dragging himself towards an awaiting pillow for a long sleep. No, the footsteps stopped at the top of the stairs and the door to our room opened, exposing the bright hall light. No one stood in the doorway yet the footsteps came into the room. At this point, I hid under my little sheet and became very cold while the footsteps went past me.

I heard a drawer from a wooden dresser open then the shuffling of cloth items and fingernails scratching the bottom. The drawer closed and the coldness passed by me again. Still under the covers, the hall light went out as the door shut. Total pitch blackness filled the room. I heard the stairs squeaking again, but this time, the steps were slower and lighter. At the top of the landing, the creaking stopped with the abrupt WHACK! of a hard object against something fleshy. Something that sounded like a barrel made of meat rolled down the stairs. The entire room became cold as the light in the hallway returned under the door frame.

A year later, my grandmother died of a heart attack in the upstairs bathroom. I remember thinking that Grandma could play with the cold footsteps.

For years the house was either empty or briefly rented but not many people stayed there for any length of time. Finally, the house burned to ashes, not even leaving the large wrap-around veranda. The cellar was filled in and a trailer now sits on the lot behind a chain link fence. But, as with the house, no renter stays there long.

My grandmother died in my house on December 23, 2004. Ever since, there has been a lot of strange things happen. For instance every night before my mother goes to bed; she turns the TV off and walks out of the room. Every night that TV comes on after she leaves the room. One day last week she turned it off and went to bed. I went in the living room to get something, and the TV came back on just as I walked in. It freaked me out and I told my mom she would have to turn it off because I wasn’t going back in there.

Another very strange thing happened about 3 weeks ago. My boyfriend had just moved in with us and was just getting home from work at 1:00 a.m. I work night shift and was working this particular night. I have a lock on my door on the inside. It’s one of the locks that you have to close the door all the way in order to lock it. I called my mother at 12:30 a.m. to tell her to set my clock for me, which she did while on the phone with me. When my boyfriend came home 30 minutes later the door was locked and he ended up having to break the door to get into the room since there is no way to unlock the door from the outside.

About a week later while coming home from work, my boyfriend past a little bridge and saw something he described as being big and black pass in front of his windshield, causing him to almost have an accident.

I drive my grandmother’s car now. One day, while driving, we had the heat on, being it was really cold. We were nice and warm, when all of a sudden it got really cold in there. We looked at the heater and it was off. No one had touched the heat in the car, since it was so cold out.

Tell me what you think. I really think there is something my grandmother needs to do, and until it’s done she will not rest.

When I was 3 years old, my grandfather passed away. I didn’t know him much, but I can still remember some things of him, his cologne, the way he combed his hair, and the look of his face. His wife, who is my grandmother, she is still alive. She kept telling me she could hear foot steps in through the house, well, me being 20; I did not believe her until I stayed all night with her. It was a warm night in June of 2001, it was thundering lightly, and you could hear the taps of rain on the roof.

I couldn’t sleep at 1:30 in the morning, so I got up off the couch (where I was sleeping that night) and got a glass of water. Well, when I came back, there were butt prints in the couch as if someone was sitting there. I turned around and heard footsteps, just like my grandfather used to take. Therefore, I gently laid my head upon the pillow and dozed off. I felt something running down my spine. When I jumped up (because it felt like bugs), I seen my grandfather. Still to this day, you can hear his footsteps, and smell him when it is all quiet throughout the house.

Back in 1975, my family moved into a very old house. We had lived there for about a week when one night my dad and I were outside feeding our dogs and we saw a girl walk into our house. My dad asked me if that was my girl friend and I said that I didn’t know who that was. We went in and looked for her, but we could not find her anywhere. My mom was at my sister’s, so dad told me not to say anything to mom about it. We thought it funny, since we had a bunch of big dogs and they didn’t bark at her at all.

Well, about a week went by and the same thing happened again, except this time my mom saw her. We moved out after that. This girl looked to be about twenty seven or so years old and dressed in “old timey” classes. You could hear a baby crying in the house before she would appear. She didn’t look at us or say a word when she appeared, she would just go in the house and the baby would stop crying.

I do not know what that was. The name of the hollow was Big Fork and is on Frame Road.

I was staying in the up-stairs of my present house.

We had all heard noises and such before but our house is really old and we figured it was the house settling. It all started when my mom had a bothersome dream that she could not explain. Her dream was of a older man standing on our front porch who seemed to be having a stroke. When she tried to merge toward him she shifted to another part of the porch.

She continued to have the dream for several nights until my uncle who had lived in the area all his life came up to visit. The subject of ghost came up and we all had our stories but my mom’s made my uncle suspicious. He and my father went to a neighbor’s house to question them on any deaths in the house. Surprisingly there was a man whom had died there about 50 years back. The description that they gave of the man matched my mothers. After that my mother had no more dreams of him but the noises continued.

Two years later, I was in my up-stairs room by myself. I heard a faint cry coming from the attic area. When I went to investigate I got the shock of my life. There sitting on the step going down into my attic was a young girl with her head buried into her hands. She had a blue dress on, her hair was dirty-blonde with beautiful bouncing curls about shoulder length down. She turned her head to face me. Her eyes were dark blue and full of tears.

I know that you normally feel a chilling cold feeling when in the presents of a spirit but not this time. I got a warm sad feeling and as scared as I was I cried for her. I don’t know what was wrong with her and the noises continued and still occur. They just don’t bother me any more.

When I was around three or four years old, I was sitting in the living room of my old house. I was watching T.V. and my mother said she was going to take a shower. About three months earlier, my grandmother had died in her sleep. She was 84 years old.

I happened to look over about 5 minutes after my mother had left and I saw my grandmother standing there in a white light surrounding her. She told me that she was alright and that everything would be fine. I got so scared I nearly peed my self. I ran into the bathroom where my mother was and she strangely had a very pale face.

I told her what I had seen and heard and she said that she also heard my grandmother speaking which would have been normally impossible to hear is that the bathroom was about 5 rooms down. This was only the beginning of my grandmother’s visits.

10 years later, after my sister was born, we were in a different house for almost 9 years. We started to have strange occurrences in the house. Lights would come on by themselves along with the TV and you could also see things in the dark like a person standing beside you.

One day, my sister all of 2 decides to take a trip to my room in the attic. I start to hear her scream and so I run up to see what was wrong. Nothing was apparently wrong so I ask what had happened. She told me she had seen a lady. “The Lady Scare me,” she said. I just started to pop off things from the top of my head and finally realize what it could be.

Several other different things happened including me seeing my grandmother for the last time. Another year passed and my little brother has now turned 1. I am starting to think that my grandmother’s appearances have something to do with the children that are in my family. She loved us dearly. Hopefully, she is my Guardian Angel.

If you go down to the Cranberry Glades at midnight, and as weird as it sounds, not on a full moon night, you will hear strange noises. There were several of us that went down there last year around October and when we got into the long curve of the boardwalk, it was like a bunch of people were yelling a “rebel yell” and it started all at once, and stopped all at once.

It is rumored that there used to be a Civil War Prison Camp down about 100 ft away from the actual boardwalk. It was unlike nothing I had ever heard and even, the people with me could not explain it. All 3 guys that was in the group, hunt a lot, and they said that they had not heard anything like it before in their lives. We have been down there quite a few times since and every time we go, we hear a different noise. The last time, my husband heard chains rattling and foot-steps on the boardwalk. If anybody gets a chance, you need to check it out.

NOTE: This story comes from Bluefield, West Virginia.

As woods go, they weren’t much — a tangled second growth of trees and underbrush that barely covered an acre of ground. But THAT acre of ground was one of the most haunted spots in Southern West Virginia. The ghost of a young lady lurked there. She was murdered and buried in that spot over a century ago.

Some say that Irene was a flirt of the highest order. She was tall and willowy with dark hair, brown eyes, and full lips. She had the neighborhood boys nearly crazy with her batting eyes and melodious voice. Her come-hither glance was said to be enough to make a man leave his wife.

One day a stranger came into town. The first person he laid eyes on was Irene and, of course, she gave him the full treatment. He asked her if she would like to join him at dinner and that night she was seen in his company at a local eatery. Within an hour of their leaving the place, Irene mysteriously disappeared.

A massive search got underway the next morning as soon as it was light. Because she was so popular with the men, hundreds of them turned out to look for her. They didn’t have to search far. They found her bruised and bloody corpse in a shallow grave in the little patch of woods. The man who murdered her was never found.

When Irene was given a Christian burial in a local churchyard, half the town (and most of the men) attended her funeral. And this might have been the end of the story except….

The very night after she was laid to rest a group of men were coon hunting. The raccoon they were pursuing was leading them on a merry chase, over fields, and across streams. The dogs were yelping close at its heels. Finally the coon and the dog pack ran into the wood.

In a moment the hunters heard their dog’s distinctive yelping turn into howls of horror. There came the sound of scrambling in the brush and the entire pack of dogs came rushing out of the little wood. They ran right past their surprised masters and disappeared over a hill.

“Not what do you suppose got into those dogs?” one of the hunters said, scratching his head.

“I don’t know, but no coon could ever scare them like that,” replied another. “I’m going to find out what happened.”

“I just hope it wasn’t no bear,” the third hunter said.

The men walked slowly toward the wood, their muskets at the ready. A moment later they were in among the trees and thick brush. The overhanging trees blocked out most of the already feeble light provided by a moon in its last quarter. The woods were dark, very quiet, and quite spooky.

In the distance, the hunters saw a light — dim at first, then growing brighter. They peered over a bush and saw a female figure about 30 feet in front of them. They recognized it instantly. It was Irene.

The hunters looked at each other in amazement. All three of them had attended Irene’s funeral earlier in the day and, now, here she was standing in the middle of the woods were the search party had found her — in fact, right over the remnants of her shallow grave.

Irene looked at them and smiled her familiar come-hither grin. Then she raised a ghostly arm and beckoned to them to come to her. Nothing doing! The three horrified hunters turned tail and ran out of the woods at a pace that rivaled even their dogs.

Such an incident could not stay quiet very long, especially when the participants began to drown their terror in their cups. They ran into the first the tavern they came to and ordered copious amounts of an adult beverage. Soon the shaking hunters were quite inebriated. The alcohol loosened their tongues and they began telling everyone with earshot of their shocking experience with Irene’s ghost. Of course their fellow drinkers didn’t believe a word of it. Ghosts were for children, not big strong men like themselves.

“We did see her,” one of the men insisted. “She was standing there just as clear as day, smiling at us.”

“If you don’t believe us,” another of the hunters said, “come out and see for yourselves!”

That was a challenge too good to resist. The hunters and about a dozen other men, well-fortified with whiskey, walked into the little woods. They tramped through the underbrush for nearly a half hour but no ghost appeared. Finally their thirst got the best of them and they decided to go back to the tavern. Before leaving, one of the searchers asked the hunters if they hadn’t been well-oiled before even coming into the saloon. The hunters, of course, denied that had drunk anything. But it was too late. Word was out. There was alleged to be a ghost in the woods and, to this day, the legend persists.

About 20 years ago, the woods was sold as part of a parcel of land which was subdivided into building lots. The trees, of course, were cut down and houses and well-manicured lawns took their place.

One of the new houses is owned by the Robert Jerrot (not the real name) family. Bob, his wife Pam, and their two children moved into the house about ten years ago — the previous owner having moved out without explanation. Bob soon found out why.

About a week after they moved in, Bob and his wife were watching television in their semi-darkened living room when he suddenly caught a glimpse of something from the corner of his eye. At first he thought one of the kids (two girls, aged 12 and 14) had abandoned their homework for a moment and were standing at the doorway watching the television. But when he turned he saw a woman, dressed in old-fashioned clothing, watching him intently. She had a smile on her face and her whole body seemed to glow with an earthly light. He started to speak but she disappeared.

Bob’s wife had been intent on the television all this time so she didn’t see the apparition. When Bob tried to tell her what he had just experienced she said that he had been working too hard.

Two weeks later, long about dark, Pam Jerrot was bent over in her laundry room taking clothes out of a dryer and placing them in a wicker basket for ironing. When the basket was full, she grabbed the handles, stood up, and turned to walk into the bedroom. As she did she saw a glowing woman standing in the laundry room doorway, smiling at her. Pam screamed and dropped her basket. The apparition instantly disappeared. Her husband came running.

“Are you all right?” he asked in a panic.

“I’ll never doubt you again!” she said, nearly in hysterics. “I saw that woman myself, standing right in the doorway. I almost bumped into her!”

After Pam had calmed down she told her husband that it would be a mistake to tell the children about their newly-discovered ghost. “But what if they DO see it?” Bob asked.

“We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” she answered.

Well, the time wasn’t long in coming. Early one evening, several days later, the oldest girl, Jill, was in her bedroom, sitting in front of her vanity, primping. Suddenly she emitted a shriek that could have been heard in the next county. When they ran to her bedroom, Jill was standing on the bed in hysterics. Her makeup was scattered all over the floor.

“I saw a ghost, Mommy!” she wailed. “It was in the mirror, staring at me!”

“What did it look like?” her father asked.

“A woman,” Jill answered. “A woman in old clothes. She was smiling. I was looking down to find my lip gloss and when I looked up, there she was.”

Although the youngest daughter, Carla, had not yet seen the ghost, she thought it was “cool” that the house was haunted. Her father was not so sure. The ghost certainly did not seem bent on harming anyone. In fact, every time that she had been seen, she was smiling. But that did not change the fact that both his wife and older daughter, who had seen the ghost, were now jumping at shadows. He also worried that having a ghost in the house would ruin the value of his property. He decided to investigate the haunting himself, but swore his family to secrecy. He didn’t want to story to get out.

Bob went to the county courthouse to look up any records they might have on his property, but there was nothing which would shed light on his problem. The property, until it was sold to the developer, had always been part of a farm and there was no record of a house there before the present one was built. Then Bob visited the local historical society.

When he asked the woman at the desk whether any strange or unusual events had occurred on his property, she smiled knowingly. She told him of the murder of Irene and of the killer that got away. Then she said, “We deal in historical fact, you know. We have our reputation to maintain, but I can tell you this. I have heard some local stories that Irene’s ghost has appeared at that spot several times over the years — at the very spot where those men found her body in that grave.” She gave Bob a searching glance. “I take it you’ve seen Irene?”

Bob didn’t answer. Instead he went straight home and told his wife the tale that the lady at the historical society had told him. Then he asked Pam, “Do you think we should move?” He was surprised by his wife’s answer.

“We’ll see,” she said.

That night both girls saw Irene. They were in Jill’s room listening to records when the ghost suddenly appeared before them. This time Jill was not afraid and Carla, true to her word, thought the ghost was cool. Irene stood there for almost five minutes, smiling, and seemed like she was enjoying the music, too. The girls tried to talk to her, but she did not answer. After a time she slowly faded away.

Pam, too, had several more encounters with Irene, but each time she was less shocked to see the apparition. Maybe she was getting used to her. Even Bob had another encounter though, for him at least, it was a bit more uncomfortable.

He had just finished taking a shower and had walked into the bedroom stark naked when Irene showed up. As he tried to cover himself up to protect his modesty, Irene didn’t smile — she actually laughed. Then, as usual, Irene disappeared. Soon after, Bob summoned his family for a conference.

“Listen,” he told them. “We undoubtedly have a ghost in this house. I think we should sell it.”

“No, Daddy,” Carla said. “I like our ghost.”

“Me, too,” Jill said.

“I guess that makes it unanimous,” his wife chimed in.

Bob hesitated. “I don’t know about this. If word of this gets out the value of the house….”

“Oh, Daddy,” Carla said frowning. “You’re just mad ‘cause she caught you coming out of the shower in your birthday suit!”

Bob raised his eyebrows in surprise. “How do you know that?”

“She told me?”

“You’ve talked to Irene?”

“Uh, huh. She thought it was hilarious.”

Bob looked around the table. “Have the rest of you talked to her?” The others shook their heads. “Not yet,” Pam said with a smile, “but I can see right now that this is going to get very interesting.

That night the Jerrot family decided once and for all that they were not going to sell their haunted house. It was abundantly clear that ghostly Irene was quickly becoming a member of the family. Besides, a new resident might not understand the ghost was well as they did and might try to have Irene exorcised.

As the family got up to leave the table, Bob caught sight of ghostly Irene standing just outside the door of the kitchen. She was smiling at him, as usual, but in a much different way this time. Bob thought she was smiling in satisfaction. She tipped her head as if she were saying, “You’ve made the right decision to stay and I’m right proud to have become a member of your family.”

The last time I talked to Bob he had pretty well accepted a ghost in his house. However, he was still worried about property values.

This happened in Yukon #2, in West Virginia. I was about 16, me and my friend Jacob was going to go cat fishing one night. The spot where we cat fished was in a big patch of woods that used to be a field, a wide deep river runs trough the woods, across the river from the woods is a set of railroad track that many people say is haunted.

Well anyhow me and Jacob got our stuff and walked down the path and into the woods. It was pitch black, the sky was cloudy and it was raining a little. We got down to the fishing hole and baited our hooks, and slung’em in. We were there for about an hour until i seen something on the railroad tracks from the corner of my eye.

I looked up and will never forget what I seen, I seen a woman in a white glowing dress. She was floating down the tracks. I told Jacob to look, as he looked the woman looked at us, she had a bloody face, she stooped and pointed at us and screamed like a demon. Me and Jacob jumped up and ran all the way home. We didn’t get our fishing poles until the next day!

During the years prior to the Civil War, the Underground Railroad was the path to freedom for many slaves who were held in the south. The route through the rugged hills of what is now West Virginia was a favorite among guides for these escaped slaves because of the many hiding places and the treacherous mountains…. but sometimes these places led to death.
And to ghosts….

Near the two of Parsons is a tall, steep hill that is almost entirely covered with loose rock. It is a dangerous place and only one path leads over this hill and it is nearly impassable. The hill is called Darkish Knob and among local residents, it has long had a reputation for being haunted.

In the years before the Civil War, the Underground Railroad was busy bringing as many slaves as possible to the north. These escaped slaves had to travel at night, hiding and sleeping in the daytime, so that they wouldn’t be seen. One trip through an area had to be different from the next for the guides that led these slaves. They had to sleep in different houses and use different trails to avoid the authorities who might be waiting for them along the familiar routes.

One of the best routes north wound through the mountains of West Virginia (although is was still part of the state of Virginia at that time). There were many places to hide out here but traveling at night through the deadly passes could be treacherous. To the slaves who traveled the Underground Railroad though, only death and despair awaited them if they went back, so these men and women would often travel along trails that most people wouldn’t even attempt in the day time.

Such was the trail over Darkish Knob. It was here that a small house was hidden near the base of the hill that offered rest and safety for the slaves. The house was so well hidden that many travelers passed it by because they couldn’t find it in the darkness. This made it the perfect place to hide out.

One night, a young girl was trying to locate the house. She was being chased by slave-catchers, men who had been hired to find runaway slaves, and missed the house and started up the trail over Darkish Knob instead.

She rode her horse to the top of the hill and along the path that drops down into the Cheat River. As she reached the top, she turned and looked back. The horse lost his footing and plunged over the edge of the hill. As the girl fell to the rocks below, she let out a bellowing scream that was heard for nearly a mile.

The ghost of this young girl is said to return to the top of the hill every year on the eve of the date of her death. The ghost moans and cries for several minutes and then lets out a terrifying scream as the moment of her death approaches.

I myself never encountered this, but I have always heard the story as I was growing up, and my brother who is 8 years older than me, claims to have witnessed it himself.

There was a young couple who had just married. On their wedding night they were driving a white Trans Am through Cherry Creek Dip, just outside of Beckley. They were hit head on and both killed instantly.

As the story goes, if you drive out there on the anniversary of the accident at 12:00 midnight, and pull off to the side of the road… you will see a “ghostly” white Trans-Am drive through the dip, then disappear into thin air. I have had several people over the years tell me that they have seen it.