Fun Campfire Ghost Stories (4 page)

Old man Williams owned a mansion on Raven
Road. It had not been used for over forty years and he used to say
that it was haunted by a spirit from long past. Most people thought
this story was just an attempt to keep people away from the
property. The mansion was old, but still in good repair since old
man Williams had employed a caretaker during the day to keep the
property up. The caretaker had just quit after old man Williams
died a few days earlier.

After the funeral they had the reading of the
will and Ted inherited the mansion on Raven Road. Ted had decided
to stay at the mansion a couple of days in order to assess its
value for sale.

It was late when Ted arrived at the mansion.
Unlocking the front door, he stepped into the huge entrance hall.
Off this hall were many corridors traveling in multiple directions.
Ted went up the grand staircase and went down the hall on the
left.

Tired, Ted decided to get to bed, but first
he had to find one. The first door on the left was locked, the
second door was just a storage closet, the next door on the right
was an empty room. After several more doors he found a room with a
nice big bed.

Ted changed into his nightclothes, turned
down the bed and was just about to get in when he realized that he
had not brushed his teeth and needed to use the toilet. Since the
mansion was old there were no bathrooms in the bedrooms, so Ted
needed to go find one. Ted grabbed the candle and took off down the
hall looking for a bathroom. Up one hall and down another he went
without success. Ted was getting more and more frustrated when he
turned down the hall on the right.

At the far end of the hall Ted saw a faint
light that seemed to be moving toward him. As it got closer it got
a little brighter and seemed to take on the ghostly appearance of a
man.

Ted just stood there motionless with what
looked like an impatient look on his face. The ghost now was just a
few feet in front of Ted when, in a ghostly voice it said, “I am
the ghost of Raven Mansion and I have been roaming these halls for
100 years.” Ted without hesitation said, “Good, you must have found
the toilet by now…so where is it?”

*****

J
immy was out of
school on summer break. He was looking for a summer job, but had
little success. The job market in the little town of Backwater was
crummy. The few summer jobs available were taken by other kids who
had the same job the summer before. This was Jimmy’s first summer
where he was able to work. He had been looking forward to earning
some extra money and having something constructive to do during the
long summer hours.

One day Jimmy woke up and decided that today
would be the day he would find a job. He got up, washed up, dressed
nicely, ate a good breakfast and after giving his Mom a kiss,
headed out the door. He rode his bike to the hardware store, but no
luck…he went to the hamburger joint, but their schedule was
filled…he headed to the movie rental place and again no luck. After
another couple of stops with no success, his spirits beaten down,
Jimmy turned his bike around for the long ride home.

As the hard top road turned into a dirt road
the sun was slowly settling toward the western horizon. The old
Black Hill Cemetery was just ahead on the left marking the halfway
point between town and Jimmy’s house.

As Jimmy got closer to the old graveyard he
noticed a sign stuck in the ground that he had not seen before
today. It said…Summer help wanted immediately Inquire at the gate…
Jimmy slammed on his brakes and stared at the sign. He thought to
himself…A Job! He stared at the old under cared for, overgrown
graveyard and thought about how creepy this place was. He assumed
it was not used anymore since there never seemed to be any activity
around the place and everybody went to the large nicely manicured
cemetery on the other side of town. Jimmy walked up to the old
rusty gate and called out, “Is anybody there?” Silence was the
response. Jimmy again called out, “Is anybody there?” Turning to
leave, a scratchy hoarse voice came from the far side of the gate.
“What do you want?” Jimmy turned back around and seeing the old
bent over man with gray stringy shoulder length hair, almost
decided to jump on his bike and take off. Taking a deep breath, he
told the old man that he had seen the help wanted sign and was
there to see if the job was open.

The old man said that his name was Frank
Johnson and that he was the owner of the cemetery. He had been sick
for a long time and was not able to keep the place up. He said that
people did not want to get buried there anymore because they
thought the place was hunted. However, there were still a few
unoccupied spaces that had been purchased but unfilled and, as a
matter of fact, he had one customer that had to be buried by law
before the day was done. He had no equipment except a shovel and he
was too weak to do it himself. Mr. Johnson said that if Jimmy
wanted the job, he would have to dig a hole six feet deep for his
customer. (He pointed to an old pinewood coffin lying on the ground
near by.) Jimmy would have to put the coffin in the hole and cover
it up by midnight. If Jimmy did that, Mr. Johnson said that he
would pay him to clean up the place during the summer.

Jimmy grabbed the shovel and said, “Where do
I dig?” The old man lead Jimmy up a broken path through the
overgrown foliage, under giant oak trees to a dark spot towards the
center of the cemetery. The old man pointed to the spot and said,
“Funny thing about this customer, his name was Jimmy, just like
your name. He first died forty years ago in a farming accident, but
just as they were about to cover him up, his eyes opened and he was
alive. They thought that he might have been in a comma or something
and the doctors mistakenly thought he was dead. He lived a full
life until last month when he really did die. His dying wish was to
be buried in the same coffin and the same spot used the first time.
His last will and testament stated that he did not want to be
buried until the last possible day allowed by law and that was
today.” Mr. Johnson said that he thought that was because Jimmy was
afraid to be buried alive like what almost happened to him years
before.

Mr. Johnson said that he did not feel well
and so he thought that he would go home. He told Jimmy that since
he would be working late that night, to not worry about coming in
to work until the day after tomorrow. Mr. Johnson turned and left
while Jimmy started to dig.

Jimmy was about three feet down when the sun
went down and the shadows of the graveyard turned into darkness.
Thank goodness Mr. Johnson had left a lantern to give some light.
The air became heavy with dew which turned into a mist rising from
the graves. A slight breeze stirred the trees just enough to
flicker the lantern light and give movement to the shadows caused
by the light.

As eleven o’clock approached, Jimmy had dug
down about five feet and the graveyard had become very scary. The
breeze made the tree limps sway, rubbing on one another making all
sorts of strange sounds. The mist was heavy and the night was very
dark. Silent lightning flashed far away and the clouds must have
been heavy since there was no star or moonlight. Suddenly, Jimmy
remembered that no one knew where he was. I’m sure my Mom is very
worried about me, he thought as he quickened his pace.

As eleven thirty arrived Jimmy was about to
take the last shovel full of dirt out of the hole when all of a
sudden his shovel head hit something hard. Jimmy tried a different
spot and it was just as hard. Jimmy brushed the dirt off with his
hands to discover, what looked like, the top of a coffin.

At first Jimmy was afraid and he knew he was
running out of time. Jimmy noticed that the lid was not nailed shut
so he decided to look inside, believing the coffin was empty. Rain
started to fall and the lightning was getting closer. The wind
picked up. Jimmy reached down putting his fingers under the lid on
one side. He slowly pulled the lid up and just as he was about to
see inside, a big gust of wind blew the lantern light out. A
lightning bolt cracked loudly overhead and…………

That is why people who work in cemeteries do
not like the graveyard shift.

*****

I
t happened one day
at the tallest office building in town. The maintenance man, Fred,
did all the repairs in the building. He made sure that the
elevators worked, the air conditioning cooled, the heater heated,
the toilets flushed and the lights came on.

The office building was home to a very
important corporation and the president of the corporation liked
Fred, because Fred always let him know what was going on with his
building.

On this particular day, Fred was hard at work
repairing items on his repair list when he had a fatal heart
attack. Everybody was very sad because they all liked Fred.
Everybody went to Fred’s funeral and wished him farewell.

Back at the office the next day, the
president was very busy with a lot of work with pending
deadlines.

Fred was dead, but his spirit could not rest
because he still had a lot of repairs to do on his repair list.

The president’s secretary was on her way to
the copy room when all of a sudden she saw a ghost in the hallway.
Not knowing that it was Fred’s ghost, she went rushing back into
the president’s office and said to the president, “Sir, sir there’s
a ghost in the hallway. What shall I do with him?” Without looking
up from his work the president said, “Tell him I can’t see
him.”

*****

W
hen I was young
growing up in Orion, I used to go to work with my Granddad who
owned a motel in town. As the story goes, this one room in the
hotel was haunted. When the hotel was first built a man got into a
fight in a bar. He took a tremendous right cross too his left eye
and the punch knocked him out. Folks hauled him up to his room to
sleep it off, but he never woke up. He was found dead in the room
the next morning by the cleaning lady.

Since then, no one was able to stay in the
room because of the ghost of the man. One day, a woman needed a
room. Granddad said, "Sorry, mam, I've only got one room left and
it’s haunted." "I don’t believe in that stuff, I'll take it,"
replied the woman.

While preparing for bed, she heard a voice
that said, "I'm the ghost with one black eye.” Scared her half to
death! She ran out the front door and was never seen again.

A few months later, a cowboy rented the room.
Granddad said it was haunted, but the cowboy said, "Heck, partner,
I rope bulls and eat rattlesnakes. I ain't afeared of no ghost."
But, as he was taking a bath, he heard, "I'm the ghost with one
black eye."