My Favorite Halloween Monster

free photo from Dreamstime

October is one of my favorite months, aside from it being my birth month. I live in Central Pennsylvania and the fall foliage hits its peak during the tenth month. The mountains are ablaze with reds, golds and oranges. The weather also becomes pleasant. Summers in Pennsylvania are usually hot and humid, but the fall, particularly early October, is refreshing—and because of this lower humidity, October’s sky seems to become a brilliant, deep, blue. I love that shade and even make mention of it in A Hunter’s Angel by calling Ian’s eyes “October blue.”

But there’s another reason I love October. I love Halloween. I spent this past weekend decorating my front porch. I do a haunted house/witch theme and dress up during Trick or Treat as a witch to hand out candy from a large, black cauldron I have over a “flaming fire.”

But despite this tribute to my inner witch... I love ghosts. I hate watching horror movies, which let’s face it are fake and fictional, but I love watching the shows on the History Channel or the Travel Channel about the most haunted places in the world. I love the story about the Winchester Mansion and how there are rooms that lead nowhere simply because the ghosts of the people killed by the Winchester Riffle told Mrs. Winchester to build them.

Or the stories of the ghosts in New Orleans and on some of the southern plantations.

I’ve actually worked in a two haunted places. The hospital I used to work at (which was no longer used as an inpatient facility when I worked there) had all kinds of stories. There are two in particular that stand out.

When the building was renovated and turned into doctor office space, the workers swore they would hear babies crying where they ripped out the old maternity ward area. The other incident happened while I was working there. Several X-ray techs had chilling experiences with a more sinister specter in the radiology department, which just happened to be in the basement where the morgue had been. One of the scariest things happened when all the department doors were opened, even the locked ones, all the garbage cans were strewn in the halls, and chairs were stacked on top of the desk in the office. This all occurred within in a ten-minute period while the tech had come up stairs to do an X-ray in the urgent care unit where I worked one evening. No one had access to the downstairs office but the tech. Needless to say, she never wanted to work alone in the evenings again, and I avoided the basement of that building like the plague!

Carlisle Historical Photo

I’ve since left that little hospital and now work on an old Army post. There have been entire books written about the ghosts that haunt Carlisle Barracks. The most scary stories come from the old Hessian Museum. This old stone building was built in 1777 by Hessian prisoners of war as a powder magazine during the Revolutionary War. But it was also their prison. Many of these mercenaries died in that small stone building. I’ve been in there, and it’s a creepy place. It’s dark and dank and cold, even though it’s not meant to be. And many people have claimed to have seen the emaciated bodies of the prisoners working on the building or inside the cells.

Yes, if this looks at all familiar it's where I had my photo shoot in March. Here's my picture standing at the very door pitured above.

Of course, the most haunted place around here is Gettysburg. In fact, one of the fun things to do in the town isn’t touring the battlefield, but taking a ghost tour. I’ll be talking about some of the most famous ghost stories from that beautiful little town on Friday on the Inkslingers Blog.

Do you have any ghost stories? And what is your favorite Halloween monster?

The serial killer stalking Clayton, Pennsylvania, isn’t all that has Chief of Police Grace Wallace worried. For a year, she’s tried to forget Special Agent Ian McHenry and now he’s the expert the FBI sent to catch the killer. She can’t stay away from him, but something primal is telling her to run to save much more than just her heart. Despite the strict code of ethics Ian vowed to follow as a vampire hunter, he craves Grace’s blood above all others. If he chooses to stay, Ian risks losing his chance at divine forgiveness. But if he leaves Grace unprotected from the evil he’s hunted for over a century, he loses more than just his soul…

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Brigit Wolfe, a born werewolf, hasn’t killed a human in over a hundred years, although now, she wonders if the animal attacking people in Silver Creek, Colorado, isn’t her. But she might have bigger problems when her cowboy neighbor, Austin Calhoun, ambles into her bar. Austin hasn’t been a vampire for long, but he is determined to prove to himself that he’s worthy of his hunter’s dagger. Brigit’s rare beauty and blade-sharp tongue enchants him. She ignites a passion he thought was dead, but is she the killer his master sent him to destroy? During Austin’s investigation regarding Brigit’s involvement in the deaths, an old crime surfaces connected to her human best friend. These two immortal enemies have to join forces to solve the mystery before someone else dies. But can they survive the heat of their own desire?

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Promo: Tethered Hearts By Tabitha Blake

Tethered Hearts

Blurb:
Seeing the ghost of your dead girlfriend might be scary for most but not for Kade Mathews. Zoey's spirit brings him the much needed peace he craves. Until he is forced to make a choice. It will be the toughest decision he has ever had to make.


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Buy Link:


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Bio


Tabitha Blake is a paranormal suspense and romance writer. Writing about the creatures of the night is her passion. She is fueled by the need to pen romances with dark twists. Her fascination with the paranormal keeps her mind reaching for the next great story idea. Writing brings her joy and with each story she writes her characters become a part of her. Tabby has a wild imagination that shines through in everything she writes.

She resides in the bustling city of Houston, Texas, with her husband and three crazy cats. She is the mother of four amazing kids that have taught her how to have fun and just enjoy life. Her passion for the written word started at a very young age and has molded her into the writer she is today. Most of the time you will find her with her nose in a book or at her computer writing. The need to read and write runs deep and is part of who she is.


Happy Reading and Writing,
Tabitha Blake

My True Life Paranormal Experience

Everything I am about to tell you is true. These experiences really happened and I never want to come into contact with an unsettled spirit again. This was the most terrifying thing I have ever gone through. It has definitely left its mark on my life.

It all started when my family and me moved into a new apartment in Midland, Texas. I was young about eighteen. The household consisted of my two younger sisters, my mom, dad, my one-year-old son and me. Oh and our cat who hated the place from the get go.

We moved in and everything seemed fine. We like the apartment and settled in pretty quick. It was a nice split-level apartment. It provided us with the added room we needed. So things were looking up for us. My dad had a new job and things just felt right.

But soon things took a turn as weird and unexplained things started to happen. Of course as things happened we started to puzzle out what had caused the weird things happening. We always figured out the cause or at least put it off as this or that to ease our minds. The problem was the more we explained away the more things started to escalate.

I always got the creepy feeling someone was watching me when I was in my room. It got so creepy I use to take a shower with the shower doors open. I felt the need to see the whole room. The hairs on the back of my neck would stand on end and I always showered as fast as I could. I began to hate to shower at all. It just felt like someone was in the room with me.

I was raised Catholic and once a week we would say the rosary. It was something we had done for years. One day sitting in the living room we started to say the rosary. My dad was at work so it was just my sisters, my son, my mom and I. After about five minutes the down stairs toilet flushed. We all looked at each other and just shrugged our shoulders and started again. The flushing started again as soon as my mom started praying. She would stop and it would stop. It was so creepy because it only happened when she was praying if she stopped so did the flushing.

There was another time what ever was in that house decided to focus on me. I went to bed just like any other night, my son sleeping next to me. I always had a hard time falling asleep in that room. It just gave me the hebbie jeebies. I finally fell asleep. Sometime in the night I woke up and was being held down. I couldn’t move or scream. And believe me I tried both in a complete panicked state. It felt like someone was holding me down. You know how boys put their knees on your chest and hold you hands over your head when they play? Well that was what it felt like. I was terrified and was like that for a few minutes and then it just stopped. I grabbed my son and ran down the stairs in a panic. My parents said it was just a bad dream. But I knew better. I slept in my parent’s room that night. I mean I was eighteen and sleeping with my parents. It was the scariest thing I have ever been through.

It wasn’t long after that that my sister woke from sleep because she felt a cold bony had grab her hand that was hanging off the edge of the bed. She shot down the stairs in total panic.

We would hear people walking up stairs when no one was up there. We also heard what sounded like a child running up and down the stairs. When my son was sound asleep. My dad would yell for my son to stop running and he would be sleeping. Really creepy things were happening and one day it got really bad.

I was coming down the stairs and I felt a hand on my back and it pushed me down the stairs.  It pushed me with enough force that I broke my tailbone. I know this all sounds crazy and I would think the same thing if I hadn’t lived it. I remember looking back up the stairs and no one was there. I didn’t just fall. I felt the palm of a hand and fingers on my back. It gives me the creeps to just think about it.

My cat use to come running down the stairs in such a frantic state you wouldn’t be able to touch her. She finally just got to the point she refused to go up stairs at all.

My father always tried to put it off to our imaginations until one day when he woke from sleep to being held down also. That was when he decided we needed to move. This is the really creepy part. We never knew any of what I am about to tell you until we turned in the keys of the apartment to the manager the day we left. She asked my mom if anything weird ever happened to us in the apartment. My mom became pale and asked what she meant. The manager told her no one ever stayed in that apartment long. We had stayed the longest. People always said they had bad feeling in that place and experienced weird things. Most didn’t even finish their lease they just left. Come to find out a man hung himself in my bedroom.  Then it all made since.

Wow! I still get chills when I think about that moment. I know some people will think I am crazy when they read this but it is all true. This was a chapter in my life I hate to revisit but I figured with Halloween around the corner I would share my real life ghost story.

Don’t be so quick to judge people when they say they have had an experience with the paranormal. It may just be true. I know a lot of people out there will make up stories for whatever reason but some may just be telling the truth. I believe in the existence of spirits and that some are angry and want to harm us. So be carful when you mess with the paranormal it might end up being more than you bargained for.

Happy Haunting,

Tabitha Blake

Pike House is it Really Haunted?

This location is not to be confused with McPike Mansion. Located on Belvin St. in San Marcos, Texas, Pike House started out as part of The Cornwell Institute, a Methodist school, in 1903. The school closed sometime time later and became Old Soldier and Sailors Memorial Hospital. When a new hospital opened down the road in 1956, the house converted in to a dormitory for the San Marcos Baptist Academy. It received it's now famous name when it was acquired by Pi Kappa Alpha in 1968 and turned in to a fraternity house for 40 years. In 1998, it was bought by developer Terry Gilmore with the intentions of being converted in to a private residence. Unfortunately, Pike House will never serve a purpose anymore.

In 2007, Nicholas Ryan (25) and a 15-year-old male for undisclosed reasons committed an act of arson, burning the house to ruins. What was left of Pike house was later demolished. Where a grand mansion once stood now occupies an empty lot. This one act may add to the other legends which swirled around it.

One in particular is most known. During the pledge process, some pledges were killed. The fraternity brothers had the remaining initiatives write down the events of that night in the pledge book. The book was then burned and nailed to the wall. Blood smears, Polaroids and police tape were left as monuments of the tragedy when the building was abandoned. Other tales state the building was a hospital for Civil War soldier and later an insane asylum ran by a doctor who performed strange experiments on the patients. There's even one detailing its previous encounter with fire and the children who died as a result of it. Is any of it true? Who knows. Maybe some of it holds a degree of honesty.

Ghosts were believed to roam the layout of Pike House. Now, they have open space to explore.

The house was a hot spot for urban explorers. Urban Exploration Resource site has several photos of Pike house before and after the fire if you would like to see it in its former glory:http://www.uer.ca/locations/show.asp?locid=24506.