Volume 3: Ghost Stories from Texas (Joe Kwon's True Ghost Stories from Around the World)

Joe Kwon's True Ghost Stories

VOLUME 3

Ghost Stories from

Texas

Joe Kwon, Inc.

Joe Kwon's True Ghost Stories. Copyright 2010 by Joe Kwon, Inc. All rights reserved. Published and distributed worldwide from the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Joe Kwon, Inc, 3 North Lafayette, Marshall, Missouri 65340.

ISBN-10 0-9828659-2-9

ISBN-13 9780982865927

Compiled by Joe Kwon

Edited by Tom Kong

Special Thanks to

Tom Bolling, Joe Bolling, Inja Kwon

Angie Gable, Nicole Beasley, 

Zoe Song, and Greg Ashenfelter

Also, a thanks to all those who’ve shared their own encounters with us to make this compilation a reality, whereby the rest of us may consider ourselves warned that spirits do exist, and not all of them are friendly

Boogeyman

Llano, Texas

When I was a kid, I used to jump off my bed, not step off onto the floor, because I didn't want the Boogeyman to grab my leg. I would jump as far as I could and keep running.

I eventually outgrew that. I don't remember when it happened, I just remember the days when I used to jump and run.

Now as a parent, I have a son that is afraid of the Boogeyman under his bed. How is it that millions of kids around the world are afraid of the Boogeyman under their bed? Is it instinct? Do kids know something, see something, and sense something, that we adults cannot?

So last night I was in my son Andy's room, comforting him, telling him there is no monster under his bed. He didn't believe me. I could tell by the scared look in his eyes it wasn't doing any good just to tell him nothing was there. I laid down on the bed with him to help him go to sleep.

I felt a bump from under the bed. It was light and faint, but I felt it. I ignored it. It was a spring popping or something. He wailed and said, "There it is, Daddy!"

I shushed him, told him it was nothing. But then we felt it again. And again, harder.

I'm an adult. I'm logical. So I got us both up, and pulled the mattress off the bed. If there was a cat or squirrel or rat or whatever, I was going to put an end to this.

I tipped the box spring up on its side. There was nothing under the bed except Andy's car collection. I looked all over the box spring, looking for a hole an animal could get into. Nothing. I kicked it a few times, to get the springs back into shape. Then put the bed back together.

And ten minutes later it started again.

Andy just clung to me as hard as he could. I didn't understand what could be making the bumping under the bed. I still don't understand. But it was weird, and haunting, and I got scared myself.

I don't remember the bed making any bumping when I was a kid. But I do remember various times through my life, even as an adult, when the bed was vibrating. I could even tell what corner of the bed the vibrating was coming from. I never felt like it was an angel or something good. I always felt like it was something bad.

So I laid a blanket out on the floor where the mattress would have been, inside the bed frame. The mattress I threw over against the wall. I was going to show Andy there was no such thing as a Boogeyman. Despite his crying, I made him lie down with me on the blanket.

How can there be bumping under the bed when I'm under the bed myself? There can't, obviously. But apparently, all that does is force the Boogeyman out. And makes him mad.

First the door slammed shut, so loud I sat straight up, almost knocking Andy aside. Then the door locked. And then I saw him.

The Boogeyman, at least this Boogeyman, is a big guy. I had the impression he was dressed in old clothes, but it was too dark to tell for sure. The horror of being there on the floor with my young son screaming and hanging on for dear life while this thing walked over and stared down at me!

There was no thought of my putting up a fight or protest. It wasn't possible and didn't enter my mind. All I could think of was I was going to die and could I save my son from the same fate.

But the Boogeyman didn't attack. He didn't do anything, except stand there above me and look down at the two of us cowering on the blanket. He stood there so long without moving that I had time to come to my senses a bit. I saw that there was no sign of movement: no breathing, no wavering of arms. His eyes, though it was dark, came across as being paler than his face was.

So I sat, and so he stood, until I got the impression he was waiting for me. I was afraid to move, but Andy was starting to calm down a bit. Not that he wasn't afraid... this was a horrifying experience! But he stopped screaming at least. I started to think. What was the Boogeyman waiting for?

Then I had an idea. Slowly, so slowly, I crept away from the Boogeyman, holding Andy in my arms. We got away from the bed, and I stood up. I went to the mattress and box spring, and setting Andy down briefly, threw them both back onto the bed.

Then I grabbed up Andy and ran from the room. It seems to be the Boogeyman only wanted his spot back, that I had taken away from him. He wanted underneath the bed. I haven't been back in the room again. We're moving.

Whatever you do, don't take away the Boogeyman's spot.

Old Red

Pecos, Texas

I'm the proud owner of a scrubby piece of land down in Pecos, Texas. For those that don't know, Pecos is a little desert town full of tumbleweeds and rattlesnakes. At least, that's the entirety of the impression you'd have by simply visiting my property.

If not for sentimental value, I'd have gotten rid of the property years ago. Having inherited it from my grandfather, though, it simply doesn't feel right to sell it. So I keep it and, other than the annual tax bill I receive, pay little attention to its existence.

On that property, though, rested a little old, faded-out red pickup truck that my grandfather affectionately called "Old Red". This truck was already quite old even back when my grandfather was driving it. He and that truck had a long history. I recall a time when he drove it all the way to California to visit us, and he was pulled over by the police for driving too slow. The officer apparently took one look at the truck and immediately asked, "Sir, you don't even have a working speedometer in that thing, do you?" Grandpa replied, "No." and that was it. The officer warned him to "speed it up," and let him go. For as far back as I can remember, that truck never even had a gas cap. Grandpa simply stuffed a rag into the gas tank to keep the fumes in.

Anyway, there sat this truck. And about five or six years ago (not long after Grandpa passed away) I thought about having it hauled away. To me it wasn't much more than a haven for rattlesnakes and the like. A liability, in property-owner terms. Apparently Grandpa had other ideas, though, rest his soul.

I spent about thirty or forty minutes with a shovel trying to loosen the clay-mixed sand from around the wheels, and got a chain wrapped around the rear axle so I could tow it out. Just then a car pulled onto the property. A young Hispanic man got out and approached me with a disappointed look on his face. He wanted to know how I got the "old man" to sell the truck to me so fast.

Before I could explain that the "old man" was my grandfather, and that I'd actually inherited the truck with the property, the man said something that I had to ask him to repeat.

He asked again, "Are you stealing this vehicle?" But, that wasn't the part I wanted to hear again. So I asked him to repeat it all from the beginning.

He went over it again, "I was here yesterday and the old man showed up and asked me to leave. I was just looking at the truck. It's just rusting away out here. I offered to buy it. He told me no. So, I want to know... are you stealing this vehicle, or did he sell it?"

I started to laugh, but I could tell the young man took it personal that the "old man" wouldn't sell it to him. And then I asked him what the old man looked like. He gave a very detailed description -- of my grandfather!

I calmly explained that I was the old man's grandson and that I was just looking after the vehicle, and I left it at that. The young man smiled and apologized. With obvious admiration for the truck, and a quick reiteration that he was interested in case the truck was ever for sale, he got back in his car and drove away.

    I pondered it for a while, and though I knew Grandpa loved that truck, the young man was right -- it was just rotting away. Perhaps Grandpa's spirit did manage to somehow cling to it, but it was long past time for him to let go. The next day I drove the area and spotted the young man's car parked in a driveway and gave him the truck.

I don't get down there often. I don't know if he ever got the thing fixed up, or if he even still has it. I don't even know for sure if it was the right thing to do, because I don't really know what the young man encountered that day when he apparently spoke to my dead grandfather. I just put it all out of my mind and trusted that I did the right thing. I hope that's the case. For all I know, Grandpa haunted him for it. I say that jokingly. Sort of.