Online Ghost Story

A Ghostly Tale of Love with a Modern Day Twist

First off, I’m not sure if the FoK gods will approve my answering a reader’s question. But the little coffee shop I frequent locally is called “Joe Mugs." They have excellent coffee and are very tolerant of myself and my group of loitering professors, fellow writers and starving artists.

As for the topic of my article, I was sipping coffee at my local hang out with my group and a very dear friend of mine seemed distracted. Both intrigued and curious, as is my nature, I pried my way into her business demanding to know what vexed her. She was reluctant to answer at first, but my growing concern was evident. She agreed to share her strange situation to reassure me she did not have a terminal illness or such.

My friend teaches at a nearby college and I will not divulge which to protect her reputation. As for her reputation, I can attest she is one to neither embellish nor fall easily for a tall tale.

We never know who is on the other end of our chat window when we meet someone online. The dangers are apparent and the horror stories frequent our news headlines from time to time. To say the least, one must remain cautious and ever vigilant. The list is full of every type of online predator. But my friend fears she may have found one that has not yet been added to the watch list.

Her story began innocently enough when she joined a popular chat-based community to keep in touch with her daughter, who lives across the country. They would chat often among others within the subdivided community, and this carried on for quite some time. After having noticed one particular name whom frequently logged into their community, my friend decided to say hello to the only person she knew as Richmond42.

Richmond42 was a polite and never forward gentleman as described by my friend. He was well-written and possessed more than an academic knowledge of literature, art, wine and philosophy. My friend found herself spending more time with Richmond as the weeks went by. She mentioned him to her daughter, who did warn her of the dangers of the Internet. My friend gathered up her nerve and inquired to know more about Richmond.

He seemed to have nothing to hide. He confided he was once a school teacher in Virginia, but was now retired and enjoyed a quiet life outside Richmond. He was slightly older than my friend by only two years and admitted a more than innocent curiosity for her as well.

My friend was then more intrigued by Richmond than she had been before. She felt she must meet him. Her daughter had an uneasy feeling about Richmond and urged her mother to not go any further into this friendship with Richmond until she could do some checking around.

Richmond’s information checked out. There was a person by that name who had been a teacher of literature at the school which he admitted to my friend he retired from. Richmond’s age also checked out. However, he had not retired from the school. He had died of a heart attack several years prior to turning up in my friend’s chat room. My friend was devastated. How could she have been so foolish she asked? Seeking closure, she contacted Richmond42 and told him what she had learned.

Oddly, he found the information to be amusing. He said he had certainly read of no such news of his untimely demise and even asked for the date and issue of the paper that posted his obituary. She was quite upset and even more confused now. He seemed to sense this and he promised to get to the bottom of it. Reassuring her that even if their paths never crossed, he would prove to her it was simply some sort of misunderstanding.

My friend decided to not return to the chat room again. Two days later she received an email, from Richmond, with an image attached. Reluctantly she opened it and it was a picture of Richmond holding two newspapers. One newspaper was the obituary article circled and the other was a newspaper bearing the current date of the email. He also included official verification of his identity. His smile was wide and slightly triumphant.

My friend is meeting her online ghost during the mid-semester break. He will materialize at the local airport for a sightseeing adventure of our city and dinner afterwards. She's quite embarrassed and fears he will think her foolish now. I assured her that as far as ghosts go, she has picked a winner.

Previously Posted on FullofKnowlege.com

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Occult: The Witches of Ravenhope

It was the kids that discovered the truth of the matter. We all knew there was an old cemetery in the woods off Poplar Springs Drive. We had all visited the small structure in the woods to see the ornate paintings on the walls and the large stone pillar at the center. We went there at night. Those caught going during the day would be ran off. And there were tales that eerie signs were conveyed from the dead to the living that could only be witnessed at night. All the kids knew about Ravenhope.

The paintings were ancient occult symbols written above graphically detailed depictions of women being burned and hung by an angry mob. Their arms outstretched toward the ceiling. Other images could be seen on the ceiling showing black shadowy figures reaching out to receive them. At the front of the structure was a painting that looked much older. This painting depicted a hand rising from a pit that bore the sign of the inverted pentagram. It took two strong boys to dislodge the pillar at the center. Beneath the pillar was a deep pit. Dropping a stone into it returned no echo of an impact.

Behind the structure were dozens of stones sharpened at their tips. No words were written on these stones. There was some obvious scribbling where other kids had superimposed Slayer lyrics on them. But each stone had authentic occult symbols dug into them. The etchings were as weathered as the stones themselves and not done by any novice. The craftsmanship of the etchings suggests they could only have been engraved by a stonemason. We had known about Ravenhope because the older kids had told us. Our parents knew about Ravenhope and their parents knew about it. To suggest it wasn't there was simply ignorance.

The company that hoped to place their car lot on the site where Ravenhope existed doesn't matter. Suffice it to say you have probably driven their cars and trucks. The city council acquired the property rights to the site because the last surviving relatives of the original owner had died over 40 years before. The city agreed to clear the site as a part of the company's agreement to place their new dealership in town and the manufacturing plant near Meridian. This promised to bring prosperity and money into the town's economy. Everyone seemed to be happy with the proposal and no one opposed it. It was approved unanimously by the city council. It wasn't until the sign went up that the problems started. The dealership was to be built over Ravenhope.

The kids stirred up the drama that would soon become the news of the town. What about the witches buried there? You can't simply put a car lot over them! It was preposterous and we were shushed off. We had no understanding of what the arrival of this business meant for the economy. True, we didn't have any clue how important it was to progress. But we were certain that no car lot would ever be built there. If we had to lay on the graves under the bulldozers we would defend Ravenhope. We flooded into the next city council meeting to voice our protest of the car dealership. They had to put it somewhere else!

The city council members assured us there was nothing on record to suggest there had ever been a church at the proposed build site and certainly no cemetery ever existed there. There was an old well house left there by the previous owners and that was all. "Then how do you explain the headstones behind the structure?" We protested. These were not headstones. They were only a group of randomly placed rocks used to form the walled edges of the well. One of the council members pounded his gavel on the table and we were again shushed out of the meeting.

A local contractor was hired by the city to clear the site for building. No one was allowed to go on the site. Signs warned that trespassers would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Dump trucks, heavy digging and earth moving equipment entered and left the small road leading to Ravenhope. The trees along the road obscured the work being done. Someone said all the old headstones were loaded on a truck and hauled away. Surely they would have unearthed the bones when they started digging. Days went by and nothing was said to suggest anything strange was found there. Then a horrible realization occurred to us. The contractor had to have been carrying off the bones! There was no other possible reason for the silence. A few of us agreed we would go search the site under the cover of night. There must have been something left to find. They could not have gotten all of the bones.

The next city council meeting was relatively quiet. Nothing of great importance was on the agenda to discuss. We stood along the back wall as the meeting began. There were always one or two people from the newspaper or television station in attendance in case news happened. We weren't sure how we were going to approach this or how we would be perceived afterward. But we stood quietly hoping to have a say at the end. One of the council members stared at us with mild impatience and finally addressed us. "Is there something we can help you kids with?"

A pretty girl about 15 years old nervously peered at us. We gave her a nudge forward. She walked slowly to the long table before the city council and placed a human femur on the table. She said nothing and turned away. Gasps issued from the adults seated in the council room. Another boy about 16 years old stepped forward placing a fractured bone segment that was clearly the eye socket, nose cavity and upper teeth of a human skull. One by one, we continued to make our way single file toward the table. By the time we were done the council room was filled with people and the table scattered with the remains of the witches of Ravenhope.

The contractor was charged with desecration of graves but not convicted. We had thought there were only a dozen or more graves on the site but the examiners suggested over a hundred. They were found in the clearing and within the ground beyond the tree line as well. Graves were not typically arranged in this manner and the city council could not explain it. The bones were dated back to the 1800's.

But all was not lost. The company still built their plant nearby in Canton, Mississippi. Many people in Meridian make the 30 minute drive to and from there to work. Unfortunately, Meridian missed that opportunity to advance progress. But there will be other opportunities. One of our many mottos is "Building a better future!" We have another motto as well, "Just because there is no one left to remember you don't mean you should be forgotten."

Every time a historical landmark is threatened by the advance of progress, someone mentions Ravenhope. So you could say the witches of Ravenhope haunt the city council until this very day!

Previously Posted on FullofKnowlege.com

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