6 Years, 600 Ghost Stories

Aloha family, friends, and fans,

Technically, I've written seven hundred and forty-four ghost stories in the past six years. With three technical years left, that would give us a thousand some odd ghost stories.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #1

 2 Months Later

"Neil David molested Tabby when she was six years old. I cannot pretend to know how that affects someone into their adult years.

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  "I wasn't certain myself," Boy said while holding the office door open for Rita, Tiny, and Ivan. Everyone took their seats and prepared for the briefing. Just then, Tabby walked in and took a seat at the table.

"So, the spirit of Jack The Ripper? Here? In this day and age in Hawai'i?" Tabby asked. "What are the chances? We've kept vampires away, as well as all kinds of other things? But Jack The Ripper? That's insidious."

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 It was a vast plain absent of trees. Mosquitos filled the air, and spiders roamed about without pretense of sudden erratic movements.

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I had him trapped, he was standing in the middle of a pond of kerosene and I had the lighter.

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 As they say, if you're perceptive enough and if you have a portfolio of life experience, you can see disaster approaching from a mile away.

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 Charles Litman, who identified himself as hapa, part caucasian, part Japanese shared a fascinating story regarding the kind of work he does.

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My fourth-grade year in school was a big deal for me.

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 "I feel a little drained today. Despite all my efforts, the sun rose from the east.

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We cried. We held hands. We walked. We stopped. We hugged. We cried more.

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 I hung out with my grandfather a lot during the last year of his life.

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Our old house in the back of Kalihi Valley had a big fenced-off backyard.

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 Most late-night food places around Honolulu are crowded, and there are usually long lines going straight out the door.

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 It was a party which I'd been invited to at the very last minute.

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 The human teeth bite marks were very pronounced.

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 My hands no longer have the dexterity they once did when weaving a lei of different flowers and ferns was as effortless as breathing.

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The Future

Sure there were houses on the street, but mostly the elderly lived in those domiciles. They hardly came out, and if they did, it was merely to go somewhere and come right back.

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 My son was tremendously lost after the death of his mother.

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 The dream I've been having has begun to push out other dreams from my subconscious until it became the only dream I would have every time I closed my eyes. It's an old downtown church and standing in the doorway, several ali'i dressed in regalia and finery have no trace of hope on their faces. Something feels terribly wrong. In real life, the old church is leveled as complaints from the neighborhood come to the attention of the police. Homeless drug addicts were squatting there and made things dangerous for the community. They were rousted from the old house of worship, and the church itself was leveled and destroyed after. Nearly a year later, when a developer bought the property and built a small strip mall, the construction crew uncovered several burials. Among the bones were found feather helmets and capes. Cultural practitioners were called to perform protocol and ceremony where they apologized for the disrespect of un-earthing such sacred bones. They then asked for the high-ranking spirits of those remains to send them a sign as to how they should protect the remains until they could find a proper place for them to be re-interred. A slight rain fell for a few minutes, and then the uncharacteristic appearance of the sun shone through the rain, causing a rainbow to arch over the deep Kalihi valley mountains. It was there that a proper place was found for the remains to be at rest. On the way out of the valley, we removed all markers and signs of any consequence that could give someone a clue s to where the bones might be. I wonder how many ancient Hawaiian remains are sitting under the foundation of old churches around the islands?

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 In 1969 a six-year-old girl living in Nānākuli fell into a cesspool in her backyard and was not seen for several days.

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 There's a spot I was called to because the people who worked there couldn't get the job done because of the spirits that were actively making everyone's life miserable.

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 I needed peace, quiet, and stillness. I needed all the sound to go away so I could think clearly. I needed the kind of silence that is so unnerving that you can't be within it. Where I found it would completely surprise you. It's in the middle of downtown Honolulu at the lower part of Fort Street Mall, facing walker park. It's that bit of concrete sitting area just outside of the architect school. The hour is four in the morning when the night is at its deepest and darkest. It feels as if darkness is an eternity that will never see the first light of day. At that precise hour, all elements, dark and light, male and female, past and present, intersect and become one. I witnessed Hawaiians from ancient times moving about their day for an ever brief moment while smatterings of cars languished along Ala Moana boulevard simultaneously. Finally, they saw me and began to approach. I stood and made my way to leave but what I witnessed was disconcerting. It was a downtown Honolulu that did not yet exist. 

Fort Street mall was a two-way street. A shortcut left turn on Beretania brought you right up and down the middle of everything. Stores and outlets were converted to apartments or studios. The homeless were gone, and the area was like a new Waikiki, devoid of all the Vegas-style lighting and gaudiness. Then it was gone in a flash, and the deathly silence returned. I could not have left any sooner than I did. What I witnessed stayed with me, and even while I slept on my own bed, I could not shake this overwhelming feeling of wanting to scream bloody murder. It boiled just beneath my chest as something separate from my own conscious thoughts, waiting, fighting, to get out. Am I possessed? Or is my body reacting from being in differing time slips happening all at once? Wish me luck. I'm going back to find out for myself.

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 They were the typical tourists looking for adventure in a place that they'd never been to before. They were filled with wide-eyed enthusiasm but had no real plan or direction for what they would do. When they told me they would go wherever the wind took them, I felt a tinge of concern. Normally, I would have laughed in their faces and walked away. That mindset pretty much tells me that no matter how much wisdom I try to impart to them, they will disregard it and do whatever they want. "Here," I handed the talker of the group my business card. "If you hit a snag, or run into any difficulty, call me."

"I'm sure we won't have to," the talker laughed. "But, we'll keep it if we need to find a good lūʻau!"

With that, the talker, the goof, and the muscle head disappeared into the further depths of Kapiolani park, carrying everything they owned in their backpacks.  A few days later, an article surfaces in the papers, social media, and the news. Three hikers are found wedged into a crevice in the further recesses of Palolo Valley. When the three are finally pulled out by emergency crews, they are dead. Some of my contacts called me because they found my business card in the pocket of one of the deceased. He said the three had frozen expressions on their faces as if they had each died of fright. He showed me the photographs in confidence. It was the talker, the goof, and the muscle head. No one knows why they were trying to inch their way into a crevice in the side of Palolo valley until their bodies were removed. It turns out that it wasn't a crevice but an entrance to a burial cave. It was storming suddenly, and the three were looking for a place to get in out of the rain. The question is, what did they see that literally frightened them to death? My guess is that only the 'iwi kupuna could tell us, but that's something we will never know anytime soon.

photo credit: The Grunge.

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 Sixty people were on the LIVESTREAM watching Kaulana Manheim show everyone how to make a simple flower lei using plumeria or pua melia. It was an evening program, and as Kaulana was going through the steps, someone on the live stream noticed something off-camera to the left and commented about it. “There are people behind you, like walking right past you.”

Kaulana turned around to catch of fleeting glance of Hawaiian warriors walking through her bedroom. One of them suddenly grabbed Kaulana and threw her up against a wall while the other ghostly warriors stopped and made time to stab Kaulana to death by using their eight-tipped spears. Flesh and marrow came away as each warrior stabbed the girl, pulled their spears out, and stabbed again. The LIVE audience of six was horrified while everyone else called 911 and others tried to figure out Kaulanaʻs address. Only one person commented, “I donʻt know if this makes sense at all, but if those are night marchers, Kaulana is not Hawaiian. Does that count?”

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Waiting was the most difficult because they were older now, and all the cushions on their butts didnʻt pad them the way they used to. That gave them no option but to lay on the grass and wait, they were fully clothed but who the hell lays on the green grass in a cemetery? They did, they had to. There was no choice. It was nearly three in the morning and the green-colored akua lele didnʻt show up the way that their contacts in the area said it would. Theyʻd exhausted all their hot cocoa, sandwiches, musubi, and drinks of various sizes. Now, they were passing gas and burping and a few were snoring. So much for the “experts” from the Ghost ʻOhana Social Media page. Their first investigation was a bust. The admin of the group called it a minute after three in the morning. Everyone sighed and heaved as they packed up the coolers, the beach chairs, and the paranormal equipment. “Next time,” everyone waved as they all walked to their cars neatly parked in a line right outside the cemetery. The vehicles started almost at the same time when the buzzing streak of green flames came out of nowhere over the cemetery. With its long green flaming tail at the end, it went straight for the line of cars and decimated every single one, causing a deafening explosion on impact. “Works every time,” the admin of the Ghost ʻOhana Social Media page chuckled. “Every time.”

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #25

The relationship was doomed from the beginning. It was Dougʻs fault really for being so friendly during a not-so-good time in his life. Patricia took it all the wrong way, he was merely paying her a compliment but Doug might as well have told her that he loved her. She became a constant presence, whether he liked it or not. Inserting herself, here and there, subtly letting everyone know that Doug was hers. Cats in the neighborhood were found mangled to death, then it moved on to people. The killings all took place within proximity of Dougʻs residence, but it would be too late by the time the authorities figured it out. Patricia showed up at very random hours which would leave Doug very unprepared to receive her as a guest because she would show up when he had company over or was online in a very important meeting. Or if he were entertaining a female guest. Thatʻs when Patricia would become unhinged and lose her mind. The killings of the neighborhood animals and people continued simultaneously.  After a big blowout, Patricia would feel bad and would show up at Dougʻs place with a plate of pasta or lasagna. Tonight, it was her special Tsukemono even though it was off-season. She knew that this dish would win Dougʻs heart and things would be good again until the next big blow up. When she arrived, she let herself in, just in time to see Doug completely naked and morphing into a dog-like creature. Patricia joined the ranks of slaughtered animals and disemboweled persons in the neighborhood.

image credit: ancient origins

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #26

                                                                                        

The wooded trail which Robert John often took as a shortcut to get to school with his classmate and neighbor Freddy Cordeiro, was fun and exciting because of the hills and drops.

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27

Hamilton library was unexpectedly quiet, and not at all haunted in the way that everybody claimed.

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28

 The Venus flytrap lulls you into a false sense of security with its beauty until it's too late, and by the time you realize you've been had, you're screwed.

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29 

With a great deal of hesitancy, she answered the phone, only to hear the same voice on the other side, which did not seem to hear hers.

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30

 It took advantage of her one weakness.