Scary & Freaky stories: The Paranormal World

Waltzing In The Moonlight

None of my family or friends came to visit, only Mom and Aunt Et. Poor Mom had to hire six guys to carry the casket to the cemetery, but before that happened I had a little fun. Ida Framer, that was her real name, came to gloat the last day that daylight fell on my cold pale face. She was a local TV journalist and had single-handedly encouraged the feeding frenzy that railroaded me into prison and that date with the executioner. She lived up to her name.

Nobody came to the funeral except Mom and Aunt Et. They were sitting together waiting for the minister to arrive when Ida sailed through the door and marched over to the casket. She stood there looking down at my body like a vulture about to dine on road kill. That’s when I decided to wipe the self-satisfied smile off her face. I passed through her, positioning myself between her and the casket. The movement gave her a chill. She shuddered and glanced about as if to discover the nature of the disturbance.

“Don’t do it,” a voice said.

I didn’t care. Mom was weeping and Aunt Et was holding her hand in consolation. Neither of them saw what I did next. Ida turned back for a look at the body and when she did I moved its right hand. The idea was to make it wave at her, but it was too stiff. I only succeeded in creating a little jerk or spasm. It was good enough. Ida saw it, gasped and put her hand over her mouth. It caused a massive emotional reaction. I knew it because I could see the veins standing out on her neck, throbbing like crazy. Little beads of sweat appeared on her forehead. One more ought to do it, I thought.

The minister arrived and his entrance startled her. She acknowledged the man with a nervous nod. I could see that she was shaking visibly and when she turned back to look at my face I provided the coup de grace. I opened the eyes of the corpse. God almighty it was beautiful, a real piece of work. Ida wet her pants, screamed and passed out cold on the floor. If I could have laughed I would have.

Because of Ida I nearly died a happy man; nearly, but not quite. I was still incomplete somehow, something still undone, a piece unmade. An unseen hole inside the invisible me allowed no peace. Aunt Et and the minister rushed to Ida’s side and as I looked down at her lying there on the floor I knew that although I would miss my body at least I’d given it a good send off.

—–

I was pretty restless and after the funeral I hung around the grave for a while. They say that the spirits of the dead inhabit a cemetery, but it turned out to be a pretty lonely place. Every once in a while I thought I saw another ghost out by the hillside, but I could never be quite sure who it was. I didn’t know what to do or where to go, so I just floated around. I had no sense of the passage of time, but it must have been a while because I remember when the leaves fell in the fall and when the snow covered the ground. It was a peaceful place, but there was still a hole in me somewhere and I couldn’t appreciate the beauty around me. The snow came and went many times.

The leaves fell again, and one night during a full moon some kids came by to challenge their own fear and the shadows of the night. I had a mind to put a scare into them, but I heard a voice tell me to leave them alone and so I did. Winter arrived and I was still drifting around all alone among the tombstones when I spotted a familiar name carved into a slab. It was the name of the girl I had been accused of murdering; Samantha Taupin. Hers was the ghost that kids dared to glimpse. Hers was the story they told.

When the moon waxes full

and the evening is still,

in a long satin dress

she’ll glide o’er the hill.

They called her Lady Samantha.

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