The Stories That Haunt Us (8 page)

“There's a minister holding the hands of an old woman who is weeping.”

The father then looked at the dogs. “What happened to the hounds?”

“Well, they were lying there by the stove when suddenly they sprang to their feet and began snarling, and then they fell over—and I think they might be dead. They haven't moved. That's when we saw all these ghosts.”

John looked around the kitchen for a weapon of some kind to drive the spirits out of his home and away from his loved ones.
But
, he thought,
how does one fight the dead
? He stepped forward, and with a stern look on his face and with authority in his voice, asked, “Who are you people, and what are you doing here?”

He jumped back when shadows suddenly appeared before him. They began taking on human shapes. John had difficulty seeing the ghosts clearly. One of them stepped forward to speak, and John heard him clearly enough: “Leave this place or perish like the others. This is a death house. It is not a place for the living. Leave while you still can.” The ghost then retreated.

The Moore family watched as the ghosts moved silently from one to the other, speaking in whispers. Sarah turned to John and whispered in his ear, “We will not sleep in this house tonight or ever again.” He nodded in agreement.

Just before the family drove off, Sarah turned to her husband and said, “Burn it to the ground with everything in it.” John Moore doused the house with gasoline and set the place on fire. They drove off without looking back, the echoes of the hounds barking resounding in their ears.

Ghost on the Menu

C
redit for this little gem goes to students of Yarmouth Consolidated Memorial High School, who told a version of this story in the law 441, class of 93 book
A Matter of Mystery.

It's long gone now, but once upon a time, just outside of Yarmouth, there was a haunted restaurant called Eunice's. According to employees, back in the seventies, the ghosts were hotter than the griddle. They were all over the place.

It all started one night when the manager was closing up the restaurant. The whole place inexplicably became filled with the foulest odour imaginable. The manager began looking for the source; when she got to the dinning room, the smell became much stronger. She said it smelled like a combination of manure, hay and other farm odours. She searched for the source of the odour but could find nothing. The next day, the smell still lingered. Could it be that the restaurant was built on land where a farm once stood and the restaurant's dining room was located directly on the spot where the barn was?

There were other incidences when the ghosts let their presence be known. If an employee forgot to turn the lights off, they'd hear about it. One night the assistant manager received a phone call from a woman with a cackle in her voice. She told him, “You left the lights on again and I can't sleep.” He ignored the call as there were no homes near the restaurant, but the voice on the other end of the line was relentless. She called again and again. He went back to the restaurant and turned off the lights. There were no more calls from the mysterious woman with the cackling voice.

Many of Eunice's employees complained that they could feel a presence as they entered the restaurant. There was one particular spot the employees refused to go to alone because the cries of a baby could be heard inside the wall. These were not polite ghosts either, not the kind to mind their P's & Q's. On many occasions they'd greet employees with “Hi there,” or simply flutter on by, a cold breeze washing over them.

The cook was one employee who had more than her fair share of experiences with the restaurant ghosts. One day, she turned around quickly from the stove and walked right through the ghost of a man who was standing behind her. The cook remembers the ghost was merely an outline and she said she wasn't the least bit frightened. She knew something was there, however, as the trays of bread and rolls were hovering above the counter. Another time, when the cook was at the restaurant early getting things ready for the breakfast trade, she suddenly found the room very cold and filled with an odd smell. The cook moved cautiously toward the lounge area where she saw many men and women dressed in old-fashioned clothes, dancing.

We know that animals are most perceptive when it comes to the spirit world. It would seem children are too. One day a couple came into the restaurant with their young son. While the parents were looking at the menu, the boy, who had been all smiles outside the restaurant, suddenly became very frightened. He cried and screamed that they couldn't stay there because he was scared of something. Maybe the ghosts were unwilling to leave because of the legendary cooking at Eunice's.

Cold to the Touch

F
inally, home at last,” Nettie Cudmore whispered to herself as she dragged her aching bones up the driveway to the front door. She was still weak from the accident, but with rest and time, she'd be her old self again. What bothered her more than the stiffness and pain in her right hip was how she and her family were treated while in the hospital. She was a forgiving soul but their thoughtlessness was unforgivable. Lying there on those cold tables with only sheets covering her, her husband and three children. And to make matters worse, left alone in that cold room all that time!

The familiar surroundings brought a smile to Nettie's face as she stepped inside the house. Everything was as it should be. A little dusting was all that was needed. The home was passed down to her from her grandparents and those who visited it for the first time marvelled at how beautiful and large the rooms were.

As she made her way to the kitchen, the familiar surroundings helped her bear the pain she was feeling and she was looking forward to some peace and quiet and a good cup of tea. Seated at the kitchen table, Nettie was trying to keep her mind on what her husband told her. But try as she might, she just couldn't remember. And where were he and the children? Did he say something about getting an estimate of what it was going to cost to repair the damage to the car? Yes of course. They're at the garage! Every time she thought of that horrible accident, she whispered a silent prayer. To Nettie it was nothing short of a miracle that no one was killed. Sighing deeply, as fatigue overcame her, she got up slowly and limped into the living room, where she fell onto the sofa. Before she knew it, she was fast asleep.

She wasn't asleep very long when she was awakened suddenly by the sound of heavy breathing. She nearly fainted dead away when she opened her eyes. Sitting on the other end of the sofa staring at her were the cold, expressionless eyes of a panther, as black as night. This can't be real, she thought. I'm having a nightmare. Fully awake now, she tried not to move or breathe. She heard the sounds of hurried footsteps and voices coming down the stairs. The French doors were suddenly opened and the living room filled with the oddest mixture of people she had ever seen. There were midgets somersaulting across the floor while others were climbing on one and another's shoulders. There were musicians over by the piano tuning their instruments and an enormously fat woman with pink hair of all things was repeatedly hitting a “C” note on the piano while exercising her voice. Over by the fireplace a little old man was teaching a half dozen miniature poodles how to jump through a hoop, backwards. A cold chill went through Nettie's body when she realized that everything in the room—from the furniture to the pictures on the wall—was different.
How could
that be?
Nettie wondered. And none of them paid the slightest attention to her. Only the panther seemed transfixed by her presence. She needed to find out who these people were and what were they doing in her home.

She got up slowly so as not to disturb the panther. In a stern voice Nettie spoke, “Excuse me. Who are you people and what are you doing in my home?” She looked around waiting for an answer or some kind of response, but no one paid her the slightest mind. It was as if she wasn't there.

Nettie walked slowly in the direction of a young woman who was seated on the arm of a chair talking to a handsome Clark Gable lookalike. When she was close enough to touch the young woman, she stopped. Nettie slowly reached out with her index finger and touched the young woman's bare arm. It was warm! The young woman jumped and jerked her arm away. When she turned her head she had a startled look on her face. Nettie felt she was looking directly through her. The young woman kept rubbing her arm where Nettie had touched her. She then said something to the young man and left the room. Nettie now knew these people were not ghosts because the girl's arm was warm. Everyone knows ghosts are cold to the touch.

Something urged her to look toward the bay window. Her husband and her children were peering in. Nettie wondered why they weren't coming inside. She crossed over to the window and beckoned them to come in but they didn't move. The children, Nettie noticed, were crying. Nettie knocked on the window again, this time harder, and indicated she wanted them inside at once. But still they remained where they were. Her husband held up a newspaper and pressed it against the window. Nettie stared at the headline in disbelief “
Railway cross
ing accident takes the lives of entire Cudmore family
.” Nettie Cudmore realized finally that it was she who was the intruder!

Chapter Three

The Missing

Ghosts of the Halifax Explosion

T
he morning of December 6, 1917, dawns clear and cold. The streets are bare. A God-awful blizzard is still a day away, and the people of Halifax are blissfully unaware that two horrific and tragic events are just moments away from happening. Nature causes one, man the other.

At close to 9:00 a.m., mothers are getting their children ready for school—winter classes in the city begin at 9:30 sharp. Many children suffer from whooping cough, and will stay home, but they will not be protected from the catastrophe that is now just minutes away. Halifax Harbour and the Bedford Basin are filled with ships of war. A ticking time bomb, the munitions ship
Mont Blanc,
is low in the water and moving north through the narrows of the harbour to the basin, where it will join a convoy headed for Europe. Unbeknownst to its crew, the Belgian relief ship
Imo
is moving out of the basin and bearing down on the incoming
Mont Blanc
.

It's now a few minutes past nine. Fathers are on the streets heading for work. Children are also on the streets on their way to school.

In a twist of fate and as a result of a chain of miscommunications, the two ships collide and the face of Halifax is changed forever. As if by design, the bow of the
Imo
slices halfway through the deck of
Mont
Blanc,
setting it on fire. The two ships reverse engines to pull apart. The ensuing sparks ignite
Mont Blanc's
precious cargo. The crippled
Imo
drifts toward the Dartmouth side of the harbour.
Mont Blanc
, now on fire and billowing smoke, drifts closer to the Halifax shore. Very few people know of the dangerous goods below its deck.

The time is now 9:05 a.m. The
Mont Blanc
explodes and the blast levels the north end of Halifax. Houses are blown apart or crumbled on their foundations. Two thousand people die. Of this number, five hundred are children.

Some of those were children on their way to Richmond School that fateful morning. After the explosion, one wall of the school was all that remained. Although the school was rebuilt in 1919, it was eventually closed until the mid eighties when Halifax's family court was moved to the building. I spent some time in the building and even though it was crowded with families and lawyers I had a strong sense, an impression if you will, of another presence. John Campbell, the court administrator, felt the same, and he told me about the ghost children of Richmond school:

“We hear the children practicing Christmas carols. We also hear their laughter, their chatter. Other times we hear running footsteps and the slamming of heavy oak doors. Some staff members report seeing children coming down or sitting on the stairs and these workers stand and watch the children until they vanish.”

I was seated across from John Campbell listening to this amazing footnote to the Halifax Explosion when I observed the beginning of a smile on his face; he began to tell me of a painter who had a run-in with the ghost children.

It was agreed that the painting would be done at night, when the court building was closed. When John Campbell arrived at his office the following morning, he noticed that not much painting had been done. He understood why when the painter burst into his office.