Haunted Canada 8 Page 7

  But his anger was short-lived. A brilliant flash of light filled the air behind him, lighting the road and surrounding woods. Duncan turned around to locate the source of the light and, with a growing sense of fear and trepidation, saw a glowing ball of light hovering in the air far behind. It was roughly the size of a basketball, and much to Duncan’s surprise, it flew straight toward him. When it neared the buggy it dipped and passed beneath it, shooting out the other side and passing through Nellie’s legs, then hovered above the road before them. This proved too much for Nellie and the horse reared up, whinnied frantically and then landed and kicked her back legs out in fear. She nearly smashed the buggy to pieces. It took Duncan a long time to settle the animal. The ball of light waited patiently ahead of them the entire time. It seemed capable of thought, and Duncan, his attitude toward superstitions beginning to erode, was starting to believe that it was a ghost.

  As soon as Nellie and Duncan had settled down, the light began to drift farther down the road, leading them on.

  Although Nellie was still agitated and reluctant to move, Duncan was able to lead her forward. They followed the light along Green Road all the way to Robert’s farmhouse, where it turned off the road, floated down the narrow driveway, and passed through a main-floor window.

  Duncan paused. Like before, another grave feeling overcame him, but this one was worse — much, much worse. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he was nearly certain that his brother was dead.

  With the sensation of dread spreading through his bones and slowing him down, he unhitched the horse and stabled her, then entered the house. Inside was as quiet as a cemetery at midnight. Duncan crossed through the front hall and entered his brother’s room, wondering whether or not Robert would be there.

  He was, although not how Duncan had hoped. Instead, Duncan found Robert lying corpse-still in a casket. Robert’s family later informed Duncan that Robert had died the night before. Both of his bad feelings had turned out to be true and Duncan was surer than ever that the light that had led him to the house was not only a ghost, but the ghost of his dead brother.

  MOVING IN WITH THE DEAD

  Saint John, New Brunswick

  Bill walked around the small and dated house in the west end of Saint John and decided that, despite the house’s shortcomings, it would be fine for the time being. He told the owners, the couple who had just given him the tour of the property, that he’d be happy to rent it.

  The owners gave each other an odd sideways glance. After an awkward pause, the man said, “I have to tell you something.”

  Bill waited patiently for the man to reveal what he and his girlfriend had clearly been putting off sharing. Finally, he told Bill that there was nothing physically wrong with the house — everything was in good working order, despite its age and old-fashioned layout — but that he and his girlfriend were moving out because it was haunted.

  Without hesitation Bill said, “That won’t bother me.”

  The man still felt obligated to ensure Bill knew what he was getting himself into. The couple had hired a psychic to visit the house, and the conclusion was that there was no doubt a spirit lurking within the old building. The man and woman had only lived there for a few months and already the constant paranormal activity was too much for them. They couldn’t bear the thought of spending another night in the house.

  Bill still wasn’t disturbed. “Hey,” he said. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  Despite his skepticism, he’d soon wish he’d reconsidered before signing the rental agreement.

  Before he officially moved in, Bill visited the house a few times and did a lot of cleaning. The house was pretty messy and it looked a lot better when he’d finished sprucing it up. Bill had spent a lot of time working in Europe and had moved to New Brunswick to work some odd jobs, with the goal of opening his own business. If that happened he’d move out of the rental house and buy his own place, but now that he’d done some cleaning and minor repairs, he felt better about his new accommodations. That happy feeling changed the very first day he moved in.

  It started slowly. He’d hear odd noises from different parts of the house, noises he couldn’t identify or explain. Small items and personal belongings would move from room to room on their own. Bill kept his tape recorder on the dining room table to listen to music, but as soon as he’d leave the room someone would start messing with the volume — either turning it down so low he could barely hear it or cranking it up so loud it hurt his ears.

  Bill was starting to wonder if the couple had been correct in their assessment of the property.

  One day when he left the dining room and entered the kitchen the music’s volume once again turned up and down. So Bill stood in the doorway between the two rooms and shouted, “Stop that fooling around with my tape deck!”

  The ghost didn’t appreciate being scolded.

  The kitchen cabinet nearest Bill started violently swinging open and shut, open and shut, open and shut. It went bang, bang, bang! And every time it opened it nearly hit Bill in the head, as if the ghost was trying not only to frighten him, but to injure him.

  After that scary episode, Bill became a believer. And the paranormal activity continued.

  Late one night as Bill went upstairs to bed, he finally identified the eerie sound he’d heard when he moved in. It was the hiss of flowing oxygen and it reminded Bill of the sounds you hear in a hospital. But he still couldn’t find the source of the sound. Sometimes he’d wake up in the middle of the night and hear someone coughing. Footsteps regularly passed through the house when he was all alone.

  Peculiar items that didn’t belong to Bill began to appear in odd places. He found a woman’s earring on the side of his bathroom sink, grubby picture hooks and tacks on the dining room table and a brass dinner bell beside the kitchen sink.

  One day Bill placed his vacuum cleaner in the family room, then sat down on the couch because something on TV had caught his attention. A bit of time passed and Bill decided to go to the kitchen to get some lunch. As soon as he left the family room the vacuum cleaner turned on and started cleaning the floor all on its own.

  “Stop it!” Bill yelled in a panic.

  This time the ghost listened and the vacuum cleaner turned off.

  In search of an explanation for the nightmare he’d knowingly moved into, Bill began asking everyone and anyone if they knew anything about the house’s history. A man he’d hired to upgrade the kitchen counters happened to have a strong connection to the house. He’d been a pallbearer at the funeral of the woman who had previously lived there. Her name was Marion, and the contractor told him there had been some sort of friction between her and the rest of her family. She’d died in the house long ago, and her death was neither peaceful nor quick. She’d suffered for a long time before she passed, and had needed to be watched at all hours since she was constantly coughing and choking.

  The news sent shivers down Bill’s spine. What the contractor had revealed lined up with the noises he’d heard and the items that had appeared throughout the house. He knew that he was sharing the home with Marion.

  Bill was having second thoughts about moving in, and was considering moving out and starting over somewhere else. But then he made a fortunate discovery.

  During his time in Europe he had picked up the habit of buying flowers in order to brighten up his home. He even bought flowers to make hotel rooms cheerier. One day in Saint John he decided to resume this custom and he purchased some flowers for the dining room table.

  The ghostly disturbances stopped immediately.

  It then dawned on Bill that there were plenty of old vases left behind throughout the house, and he later found growing lights in the basement. These discoveries, coupled with the fact that the spirit seemed to be much happier once he started filling the house with fresh-cut flowers on a regular basis, led him to believe that Marion had been an avid gardener and loved plants.

  In the days that followed, Bill would still occasionally hear
Marion walking about the house, but he wasn’t attacked again the way he had been when he scolded her in the kitchen. Over time he grew accustomed to living with a ghost and he continued to buy flowers to keep her happy. But Bill believed that Marion had remained there for a reason, since she had such a strong presence and was quick to fly off the handle. What the purpose was, Bill could never say. Perhaps a future tenant will discover the ghost’s true intent, for as long as the house stands, Marion will haunt it.

  THE BODY IN THE BROOK

  Chester, Nova Scotia

  It had been an extremely damp and cold winter in the town of Chester one year during the early part of the nineteenth century. The townsfolk were eager for spring to arrive so they could enjoy more time outdoors in the sun. The snow melted, the leaves blossomed on the trees and the air was once again filled with birdsong. As soon as it was warm enough for a swim, a group of young boys raced through town with their swimsuits on, laughing and smiling. They crossed the bridge on Victoria Street, peeled off their shirts and tossed them forgotten to the ground, then ran straight into Back Harbour without slowing down. The water was still frigid and the boys shrieked in shock, but their bodies soon got used to the cold. Before long one of the more daring, adventurous boys ventured a little farther away from the others. He soon wished he hadn’t.

  Chester’s Old Stone Bridge

  As the boy was treading water and urging his friends to follow him, a bloated, waterlogged body broke the surface beside him. The man’s skin was an odd greenish-bronze colour, and much of his flesh had peeled away. His mouth was wide open in a silent scream. The boy’s scream, on the other hand, could have woken the dead. And when the other boys saw what was wrong, they added their own voices to the fray.

  The townsfolk were quick to rush to the scene of the commotion as the boys hurriedly swam back to dry land. The body was carefully removed from the water and was identified as a man named Mr. Brown from Annapolis Valley. Mr. Brown had travelled to Chester the previous winter and had vanished without a trace. After it surfaced in the spring, his body was returned to Annapolis Valley to receive a proper burial, but his spirit remained.

  In the years that followed, the wooden bridge that crossed Back Harbour and the Old Mill Race Stream developed a bad reputation. Late at night, long after the sun had set and the air took on a chill, people saw what looked like a white shadow — perhaps fog — drift out of the harbour and slowly climb up the side of the bridge. It moved with purpose, however, so it couldn’t simply be shadow and fog. And when late-night travellers squinted their eyes and moved closer for a better look, they discovered with a sense of shock that it was actually a man — a man who looked just like the deceased Mr. Brown — and that he was climbing the bridge as if trying to escape his watery grave. Where the ghost of Mr. Brown went and what he did once he reached the top of the bridge no living soul could say. Even the biggest and bravest men and women fled in terror at the sight of the ghost climbing out of the harbour, and most horses refused to cross the bridge any time of day, perhaps sensing that something bad had happened there.

  The wooden bridge was destroyed during a bad storm known as the Saxby Gale in 1869, and it might have been expected that the ghost of Mr. Brown would move on, but he was not so easily set aside. When a new stone bridge was constructed around 1882, locals and travellers once again began witnessing the ghost emerge from the water and climb up the side of the bridge late at night. People learned that it was best to cross in the dead centre of the bridge (if they had to cross at all) in order to avoid the sides and what might jump over the edge at any moment.

  Why is the ghost so determined to remain in Chester, frightening the townsfolk with each setting sun? A rumour circulated among the locals shortly after Mr. Brown’s body surfaced from the bottom of the harbour. It was said that the night he’d disappeared, Mr. Brown had visited a small inn that once stood near the bridge. Mrs. Mallack, the old woman who ran the less-than-savoury establishment, made sure there was no shortage of beer and rum at all times, and she allowed her patrons to gamble until the early hours of the morning. Mr. Brown joined a game with a group of local men and was doing quite well when one of the men accused him of cheating. Without affording Mr. Brown the opportunity to defend himself against the claim, the man pulled out a gun and shot Mr. Brown where he sat, killing him instantly.

  A dead silence filled the inn as the grim reality of what had just happened gripped the small crowd, and Mr. Brown’s blood pooled around his lifeless body on the floor. They couldn’t bury the body since the ground was frozen, so they dragged it under cover of darkness to the bridge and dumped it over the edge, where it fell into the harbour. Everyone involved promised never to speak of the night’s events again, but they never could have guessed that Mr. Brown’s ghost would return.

  In 1902 Gail Smith’s grandparents bought the inn and turned it into their home. The Smiths passed the story of Mr. Brown’s murder down from one generation to the next, and Gail recalls her father sharing all the gory details with her when she was young. One of the more unnerving details was that Mrs. Mallack had allegedly tried to cover up the murder by scrubbing the dining room floor as well as she could, and painting the floors to hide the remaining blood stain. Gail had no idea at the time how accurate this story was, but when the house was torn down in 1958 she made a startling discovery. Upon examining a piece of the original flooring from the dining room, Gail clearly saw, hidden under a layer of chipped paint, the dark red stains of Mr. Brown’s blood soaked into the hardwood.

  From that day on, Gail never again doubted the story she’d been told as a child. And the townsfolk of Chester — at least those who also know the story — steer clear of the haunted stone bridge.

  TO DIE IN DURHAM

  Whitby, Ontario

  It was late at night and the only sounds in the building came from a set designer’s tools. He was constructing a set in the Centennial Building, a large community theatre in downtown Whitby that originally served as the Ontario County Courthouse in Durham region. The man was on the stage working when he suddenly had the distinct impression that he was being watched. He jerked his head up and spotted a man standing at the edge of the second-floor balcony.

  “Hello,” the set designer called out.

  The man on the balcony didn’t answer. He was dressed in old-fashioned clothing: a white ruffled shirt with black pants and a dark hat. He might have been an actor, except the clothes didn’t match the current production’s costumes.

  The proof that the man wasn’t a member of the theatre’s cast or crew — in fact, that he wasn’t a part of the living world at all — came when he stepped off the edge of the balcony and floated effortlessly to the ground. He then walked along the centre aisle between the theatre’s seats, glided up onto the stage and stared at the set designer, who couldn’t believe his eyes (the mystery man, he could now see, was translucent), and finally turned and disappeared through the side door.

  Stephen Welling and Shirley Richard have a theory about who the ghost — who is often seen falling or jumping off the balcony — is, and why he can’t leave the building. They were invited to join a Whitby This Week newspaper reporter and photographer, as well as a custodian who worked there, to spend the night in the Centennial Building in an attempt to figure out who the man might be. Stephen and Shirley were well-known psychics, and as they sat on the stage with the other three people, they picked up on a possible explanation. They both felt that in the 1800s a youth was on trial where the stage now stands, while an older man — possibly the youth’s father or uncle — was pacing nervously in the balcony. When the judge passed a guilty verdict, the man, distraught and irrational, ran to the edge of the railing to protest and accidentally tumbled over and fell to his death.

  The case that the psychics picked up on does match a couple of trials that were held in the courthouse in the late 1800s, but other people believe the ghost might belong to one of the two men tried in the building and hanged at the nearby O
ntario County Jail in 1910 and 1946, respectively. But if that’s the case, it doesn’t explain the earliest report of a ghost haunting the building, which dates back to 1873.

  The Ontario County Courthouse, around 1895

  An article that appeared in the Whitby Chronicle that year described the ghost as the “talk of the town.” A crowd gathered at the courthouse on July 30, hoping to catch a glimpse of the spirit. Rumours had spread through the community that the building was haunted, and that the ghost had been spotted in different forms. Some had heard the most sorrowful moaning before the ghost appeared, setting their hair on end. At times the ghost was that of a man leaning on a staff by the front door, and other times walking back and forth from the front steps to the gate during the witching hour, stopping occasionally to look up at the sky and groan as if in great physical and emotional pain. When approached, the man would burst into flames and sink into the ground. Scarier still, he’d also been caught transforming into a large black dog with burning red eyes.

  One caretaker who used to work there often brought his dog to keep him company. Turns out even if the caretaker had left his dog at home he wouldn’t have been alone. The dog would often bolt to the balcony and sniff around excitedly, then wag his tail as if some unseen presence was standing there. And the building’s lights would quite regularly flicker on their own, making anyone brave enough to be alone wish they were anywhere but inside the old courthouse.

  These days, the most tragic drama in the Centennial Building might not be taking place on the stage, but among the spectators on the balcony.

  SECRET ROOM

  Hudson, Quebec

  Things might have turned out much better — or differently, at least — for sisters Kyle and Lindsay if their parents had never discovered the secret room.