One wintry night in 1972, the Joneses, a family of four in Old Swan heard a faint regular thumping noise which sounded like a human heartbeat. The strange pulsation seemed to be coming from below, and getting stronger by the minute. By midnight, the throbbing vibration was driving the Jones family to distraction. The budgerigar became hysterical in its covered cage, the family dog started to howl, and the goldfish swam around their tank as the weird pulse shook it. Mr Jones went outside and was intrigued to hear the eerie beating sound in the street. The old next-door neighbour Gladys came out and asked what the thumping sound was, and Mr Jones shrugged. About five minutes later, the vibration stopped suddenly, but it returned on various occasions over the following weeks, and was even investigated by the council. The sound could not be traced, but was of subterranean origin, and seemed most intense within a triangular area bounded by Broad Green Lane, St Oswald's Street, and Edge Lane Drive. One woman in the centre of this triangle had to move from her home in Cunningham Road because the deep vibrations gave her migraines. Meanwhile, in the home of the Jones family, a strange spate of incidents started to take place whenever the pounding heartbeat shook their dwelling. In September 1972, Mr Jones was putting the milk bottles out, when he heard the deep rhythmic thuds beginning once again. This time they seemed more heavy and nearer. Mrs Jones was enjoying a cosy bath at the time. She let out a shriek, and Mr Jones raced up the stairs to his wife. In the bathroom, five strange faces were appearing on the steamed-up window panes. The faces were contorted and looked like skulls. As Mr and Mrs Jones looked on, the faces melted away, leaving streaks of condensed water behind. Then the vibrating heartbeat stopped abruptly.
On the following day, old Gladys next door was taken into an ambulance. She'd just suffered a heart attack. Mr and Mrs Jones visited her in hospital that evening, and the old neighbour told them a curious tale. She said that she had dozed off in her armchair and had awoke to find the parlour crowded with horrible dead-looking people. The gruesome crowd had faces like skeletons and they were all leaning forward, watching Gladys intently. She was so terrified of the ghouls she screamed out and had a heart attack.
Later that week, Gladys died.
Around the same time one evening, Mr Jones's 18-year-old daughter knocked over a cup of tea. As she went to mop up the puddle of spilt tea from the coffee table, she let out a scream. Right in front of the Jones family, the puddle started to form the distinctive face of a grinning skull - then it suddenly evaporated.
On the following night, an old night watchman told Mr Jones that he had been on his way to work around 11.30 PM, when he had been chased by a bizarre-looking figure. It looked like a monk wearing a long black robe with a hood. The watchman said the weird figure seemed to come out of nowhere near Mr Jones's house and never made a sound as it ran after him. On the corner of Broad Green Lane and St Oswald's Street, the medieval looking figure gave up the chase and vanished.
A year later, the Jones family moved to another house in the city, as they were so eager to escape the ghostly goings-on at their old house. The year was 1973, and the council decided to knock down the row of houses where the Jones family had moved from. The houses were flattened, and the strange phenomena continued. An empty JCB was almost overturned as some powerful but invisible force lifted the vehicle so it was only resting on two wheels. The workmen looked on in stunned silence and felt a tremendous wind blowing from the direction of the overturning JCB. Seconds later, the vehicle dropped back onto its wheels again as if the thing lifting the JCB had decided to let go. Later that day, an incredible discovery was made by the operator of that JCB as he was clearing the rubble from the foundations of the demolished houses. The JCB driver saw what looked like a box protruding from a mound of uprooted rubble. A gang of demolition workers inspected the box and saw to their horror that it was an unmarked coffin. The authorities were notified, and this is where the mystery deepens in a most sinister way.
The demolition men were ordered to leave the site immediately and a cordon of secrecy was thrown around the area. However, the press learned of the unearthed coffin and reporters were amazed to discover that an phenomenal 3,561 coffins were buried beneath that street in Old Swan. The coffins were all unmarked and stacked sixteen feet deep. This site had never been a graveyard, and no one could determine just why thousands of people had been buried there. Stranger still, all the bodies were neatly grouped according to their ages, which ranged from children of ten or 12 to adults in their twenties and thirties. All the older skeletons had intact sets of teeth, which indicates that they were fairly young when they died. But just how the people in the mass grave had died was never established, but there were grisly rumours that their hearts had been removed. These peculiar claims were backed up by several people who had viewed the skeletons and noted that their breastbones had been smashed or removed, perhaps to retrieve the hearts of the corpses.
Archaeologists in London read of the astounding mass grave in Liverpool and immediately journeyed to the city to investigate, but for some mysterious reason, Liverpool City Council had the three thousand corpses cremated. When the archaeologists from London arrived in Liverpool, they were horrified to learn that the thousands of corpses had been exhumed and cremated. The ashes were then reburied in a special container. The authorities did all of this under a cloak of secrecy.
The angry and disappointed archaeologists branded the council as philistines and examined the site of the mass-burial pit. The site was definitely not a plague pit from the 15th century, and despite a thorough search of local historical records, the identities of the bodies could not be found. One investigator from the British Museum thought the mass burial had taken place in the early 1700s but couldn't be certain.
The strange hooded monk in black was seen again throughout the years, and continues to be seen in the vicinity of Broad Green Lane to this day. A group of mediums in the mid 1990s who investigated the bizarre case said they definitely felt the strong presence of an evil discarnate being in the neighbourhood where the mass grave was unearthed. One of the mediums said he felt as if multiple sacrifices to Satan had been carried out by Devil-worshipping monks in the locality of Old Swan centuries ago. He also hinted that there were three other sites of mass graves in Liverpool, and that the locations of these sites would form a huge cross facing the west. Traditional Christian churches face the east, where the sun rises, but the west has always been revered by followers of Satan.
It has since come to light that there are more mass graves in Liverpool, and yes, they do form a somewhat crude cross that faces the west. One of these graves was uncovered in the 1960s in Cobden Street in the Everton district. The Everton grave contained only three hundred bodies, but they too were grouped according to their age, and no one can determine when or why they were buried there. The other two mass graves are still being investigated and their locations are being kept secret.
The Note to Santa
A Heart-Warming Tale of Charity in Victorian Liverpool
by Tom Slemen
The following story is a true tale which took place long ago on a bitterly cold Victorian Christmas Eve in the Edge Hill district of Liverpool, England. Pull your chair up to the fire and I'll transport you back in time to the Christmas Eve of 1868. The snow is fluttering down on a little run-down house in Oxford Street East, and a choir in this street is singing Silent Night...
When the choir called at number 52 Oxford Street East at 7 p.m., a woman with a sad, ashen face and heavy sorrowful eyes answered. Her little 7-year-old daughter, Annie came from behind her mother clutching an old broken doll. Little Annie smiled at the choir. She could hardly see them, because she was partially sighted, but she imagined the singers as a flock of angels. When the choir stopped singing, Annie's mother, Kate, could only offer them a few farthings. A small boy held out his cap and received the coins with a grateful bow, saying, "God bless you ma'm. A merry Christmas to you and your family."
Kate smiled and nodded, then closed the door. Behind the door she stood there, trying not to cry. But she started to shake. Little Annie held onto her mum's dress and said, "Mummy don't be sad. Please don't cry, Polly doesn't like it when you cry." And Annie held up the little threadbare doll and shook it.
Kate stooped down and hugged her little daughter and said, "Oh, I love you little Annie. You're the most beautiful little girl in the world."
The past year had been like a nightmare. Kate's husband, a coalman, had died of cholera, and left her a widow at 27 years of age. Only the love of her little daughter had kept her going, but each day, life seemed to get harder. Kate was now living in a rundown dwelling owned by an elderly, cold-hearted landlord named John Stanley. Mr Stanley had warned Kate that if she did not pay off her rent arrears soon she would be thrown out, along with her daughter. Mr Stanley had called earlier in the day at 10 o'clock, but Kate had been out with Annie buying the food rations for that week; a little Christmas pudding, a loaf, two mince pies, a couple of oranges and a small slice of mouldy-looking cheese. Mr Stanley had left a note on the mantelpiece saying he would be back later and expected to be paid. Kate thought about bolting the door to the callous Mr Stanley, but the landlord had been barred from entering his premises by previous tenants, and had long removed the bolts from the doors of the dwelling. Kate undressed Annie in front of the fire and told her not to expect anything from Father Christmas, because Santa had told her he was very busy this year - but he had promised to bring presents to Annie in the New year. "Oh." was all that Annie could utter, and she bowed her head slightly and a little tear trickled from her eye. Annie quickly wiped it away and put on a brave smile. She said, "I don't need any presents because I've got Polly."
Kate hugged her daughter then lit a candle and led her up to her bedroom. As she was tucking Annie into the bed, she noticed a folded piece of brown parcel paper sticking from under Annie's pillow. Kate retrieved the scrap of paper and hid it in her hand. She then kissed her daughter and said, "Goodnight Annie, goodnight Polly. Sleep tight."
Downstairs by the light of the fire and the flickering candle, Kate's heart broke when she saw what was written on the piece of paper. In enormous childish letters, the ever-optimistic Annie had tried to write out a list of things she wanted from Father Christmas.
That finally did it. Kate held her head in her hands and quietly sobbed. She felt so hopeless and alone. A little mouse warming itself near the fire was the only company Kate had. Then came the rattle of the key in the lock. It was Mr Stanley, the hard-hearted landlord. He came in and said, "So, you're finally in, eh?"
Kate sniffled and nodded. The mouse ran off into the darkness.
"You owe me ten shillings in arrears. I want it now." And the landlord held out his hand and said, "Now."
"I don't have the money Mr Stanley." Kate said, with a tremor in her voice.
Mr Stanley picked up the poker and walked about the room, grumbling to himself. He declared, "You're out of here first thing in the morning. And I don't care if it is Christmas, I'm sick of tenants taking liberties with me."
"But I've nowhere to go. And what about my child?" Kate said, expecting Mr Stanley to show some humanity in the Season of Goodwill.
"That is your problem. Pay up now or get out." the landlord said, and he hurled the poker into the grate, startling the widow.
"Would you accept my husband's silver pocket watch? That's all I have." said Kate, in desperation. The watch was of great sentimental value but the well-being of Annie and herself had to come first in these hard times.
"It all depends on its condition." said Mr Stanley in a grumpy voice.
"Wait a moment, I'll fetch it." said Kate, and she hurried off up to her room to get the pocket watch. When she came back downstairs a minute later, the landlord was not around. "Mr Stanley?" Kate shouted, but there was no reply. She went outside, and caught a glimpse of Mr Stanley hurrying down the street. He was barely visible as a silhouette rushing away in the raging blizzard that had suddenly descended on the town. Kate was puzzled, and she went back into the house.
Something strange happened in the early hours of the following Christmas morn. Little Annie was awakened by something. Her eyesight wasn't good enough to see who was standing in her room, but it seemed to be a figure carrying a sack. Who else could he be? Annie smiled and said, "Is that you Mr Christmas?" She felt so sleepy, and thought it was all a dream.
The figure said, "Sshhh! Little angel. Go to sleep or you'll find ashes on your bed in the morning."
Annie squeezed an eye shut and watched the fuzzy figure move out the room. She heard him creeping down the stairs about ten minutes later. Annie decided it was all a dream and went back to sleep.
On Christmas morning, Kate awoke and found a box and a parcel at her bedside. The gifts were wrapped in expensive decorated paper and tied up with golden silk ribbons. A card on one gift bore the message, "A Merry Christmas to you my dear." Kate hurried downstairs, expecting to find someone in the house who had perpetrated this prank. There was no one about, and who would go to such lengths to play such a joke? Kate was completely baffled. She opened the parcel and saw it was a beautiful long velveteen dress. The box contained a stylish, expensive-looking bonnet. Then the mystery deepened. In the kitchen, she found someone had left a hamper, crammed with food. It contained a turkey wrapped in a muslin cloth and a huge family-sized Christmas pudding. Among the rest of the contents there was a bottle of Exshaw's four-star Brandy. Kate thought she was dreaming and went upstairs to wish her daughter a Merry Christmas and to tell her of the food left by the phantom Samaritan. But Kate got the shock of her life when she entered the bedroom. There was little Annie, fast asleep among a clutter of wrapped presents. Boxes of every size, large and small littered the child's bed and the floor of the room. Kate clasped her hands together and said, "Oh thank you Sweet Jesus."
She woke Annie, and the little girl was naturally completely overwhelmed by the presents from the mysterious benefactor. The bright-coloured parcels contained costly porcelain dolls, a large house for them to live in, a musical jewellery box, a beautiful little bonnet that fitted Annie to a tee, a little pram, and a beautiful royal blue dress trimmed with fine lace. There were also several story books that Kate could read to her daughter. But there were no cards to indicate who had left the child's gifts. Annie excitedly told her mother about the man in her room with the sack who had told her to sleep, but Annie couldn't give a description because of her partial blindness. She merely added that the man had a kind voice and must have been Father Christmas.
Sometime later, Kate noticed that the little note that Annie had written to Santa had vanished from the mantelpiece. And stranger still, the landlord never bothered her again. He never came back to demand his rent. But five years later, Kate's luck suddenly changed. A cousin died and left her a substantial amount of money in his will. Kate and her daughter left the dwelling in Oxford Street East, and on the day they were leaving, Kate and her daughter called upon the landlord to hand in the keys. Kate asked Mr Stanley why he had never taken rent since that Christmas Eve. The old landlord seemed reluctant to reply initially, and seemed all choked up. Then he finally told a sad tale. When he was thirty, his little 6-year-old daughter Emily and his wife Lydia died in a tragic blaze which gutted his home. Mr Stanley was naturally devastated, and when the fire had died down, he went among the burnt-out shell of what had once been a happy family home. It was Christmas Eve, and snow began to fall upon the charred remains of what had been little Emily's bedroom. Among the snow-covered rubble, Mr Stanley found a sock Emily had hung on the foot of her bed, along with a scrap of paper. It had been Emily's note to Santa, listing all the presents she wanted. Mr Stanley had all those presents for his daughter and wife in a sack hidden at his brother's home. Mr Stanley broke down upon finding that little piece of paper and carried it about with him for the rest of his life. The loss of his wife and daughter made the landlord a very embittered man, and people mistook his bitterness for cold-heartedness. So, upon that Christmas Evening when he had gone to Kate's dwelling, demanding his rent, he had noticed little Annie's note to Santa on the mantelpiece while Kate was upstairs fetching her late husband's pocket watch. That little note to Santa had been too much for the landlord to bear, and so he left in tears. It brought back so many painful memories. And yet it also made John Stanley have a dramatic change of heart, so he returned to Kate's house and let himself in with his key in the wee small hours. John Stanley carried the sack of presents originally intended for his wife and long-dead daughter into the house. He had been the Santa to little Annie and her poor mother.
Ghost At The Window
by Walt Hicks
By myself, with my thoughts, still alone. Almost.
Lightning split the night sky without a sound, illuminating the skeletal trees outside. The old Victorian house shook to its very foundations once the peal of thunder rumbled hatefully across the shimmering, tempestuous lake. Illuminated also were the figures at the window staring in at me. I suppose they were staring, it was hard to tell, since they never appear to have eyes.
From inside a blurry, detached tunnel vision, I saw my trembling hand reach for the nearly empty decanter of scotch on the living room table. A dribble of the amber liquid spilled onto the table, vanishing without a trace. I could smell ozone in the room, overpowering the scent of age and mildew. The atmosphere was definitely electrically charged, and it wasn't only a result of the storm.
One thing about it, you can't drink away these visions. I have tried. And tried.
Awake for going on sixty hours, hallucinations would be a given. But these apparitions are real -- too real -- individualized nightmares custom tailored just for me. I can't go to sleep because they talk to me, inside my head mostly, whispering unimaginable things about loss, suffering and death. And they touch me with icy, whispery fingers -- not physically exactly -- it's much worse, from the inside out. They want me to suffer a long, slow demise. Not that they did. Lucky? I suppose not, but anything had to be better than the languid, torturous free-fall into a sleep-deprived madness exacerbated by a constantly gnawing, blinding fear.
The visitations first started in a driving rainstorm forty thousand feet above Phoenix, as I was preparing for final descent. I turned to acknowledge my co-pilot's approach vector and autopilot setting to descend at 1500 feet per minute, when I observed a dull luminescence hovering outside the starboard side cabin window, an impossibility at just under 550 knots. Slowly, the moon-shape became more distinct, and yet it was hard to envision fully, as if it had been glimpsed out of the corner of one's eye. But I knew (in my thundering, rampaging heart, perhaps?) that it was the beatific face of a young girl, the streaming rain on the window giving her the appearance of weeping, even though there was absolute blackness where the eyes should have been.
"Ross . . . ?" my co-pilot spoke urgently.
The girl's face was mouthing words, words I could not hear, but instead feel. She was calling for her mother, in a soul-wrenching, desperate ' voice' that was emoted to me, at once searing my soul, and sending icy shards stabbing up my spine. Horribly, she reminded me of my own daughter, in the custody of her mother after a long and bitter divorce.
The apparition vanished without preamble, and hands shaking, I quickly rejoined the busy routine of preparing a Boeing 747-400 for landing, just before final approach. I couldn't tell my co-pilot about what I had seen -- what I thought I had seen . . . I would surely be grounded.
The landing at Phoenix International went without further incident, in spite of the unusual rain storm seemingly isolated in a small area around the airport. Once the wheels touched the runway, the rain seemed to vanish altogether. I initially dismissed the occurrence in the cabin as the aftermath of a bad burrito dinner, but found I could not shake off the overpowering feeling of depression and loss imparted to me by the little girl.
I was grounded after that, however, not due to the incident over Phoenix, but because of the ongoing investigation into a "near miss" event one month before.
The supernatural sightings increased in frequency after that, as did my further decline into depression, paranoia and insomnia. It was nearly always the same, the obscured little girl just outside a window -- any window -- beseechingly crying for her mother's comfort, or perhaps begging to get in. Finally, I attempted an escape to my late father's old Victorian on Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana.
In time, a very short time, she began making her appearances outside the windows at night. No matter if I shuttered them tightly, the vague iridescent figure beckoning to gain entry appeared askance, finally turning to face me, ripping out my heart and freezing my soul with her palpable sadness and longing. Worse still, she was slowly being joined by others; eventually, I counted eighteen distinct personalities, male and female, assorted ages. I could hear murmurs, whispers, grousing, (all in my head, I think) questioning, cajoling, and condemning. A conflicting whirlwind of strong emotions hammered my psyche, seeding the poisonous germ of guilt --about what, I was not sure. Despite a state of paranoia-fed fear and near constant panic, I found I could not muster the courage to leave the house.
The violent hurricane had blown in from the Gulf of Mexico, fortunately downgrading to a tropical storm before it swept through New Orleans. Severe thunderstorms and lashing rains pounded the old house, and it groaned tiredly. The restless spirits paced outside the front room window (shuttered against the storm), agitated. I downed the last of the scotch and swallowed hard against the burning gag reflex.
I staggered toward the window where the little girl peeked in (on tip toe, I imagined). I whispered fearfully, "What -- what do you want?"
"I want my Mommy. I want in." The mouthed words were out of synch with the playback in my head, like a badly dubbed Japanese horror film.
The electricity was out because of the storm, and although it was stiflingly hot-humid in the shuttered house, I found myself trembling as an inexplicably icy breeze caressed the back of my neck, the kiss of a corpse's cold, dead lips.
"Your Mommy's not here," I croaked through the rising bile.
"Pleeeeeeeeeese? I'm so cold." She began crying softly.
Over her shoulder, a gnarled old man regarded me malevolently.
"Okay," I whispered. "But just you, okay?"
"Kay." The old man vanished.
Before I could unfasten the window, the girl was in the room, standing next to me.
"I - I don't understand what you want," I stammered helplessly.
"My Mommy said to meet her here." The missing eyes pleaded with me. "Do you have a teddy bear?"
Behind me, a raspy voice answered, "Right here, Megan."
My heart turned to frozen, palpitating slush. That was my daughter's name. Stars exploded before my eyes, and the front of my pants ran warm and wet. I whirled to see who -- what -- was behind me.
She had been beautiful -- once. She was wraith-thin and haggard, hair hanging lifelessly, flesh the mottled color of a decomposing corpse. She displayed the inside of her arms and I could plainly see the horizontal razor wounds on each wrist. And, of course, her eyes were missing.
"Captain Ross," she began, and my knees gave way forcing me to the hardwood floor. The ambient temperature of the room rapidly descended thirty degrees, and my breath fogged. "Yes." I mouthed. The child ran past me squealing, hugging her mother's legs tightly. I almost fainted as I noticed that the gaping lacerations on her wrists were pantomiming every word uttered from her lips. The Unholy Trinity spoke.
"You really don't know what this is about, do you?" Beyond speaking, I shook my head no. Tears began rolling from those bottomless, empty sockets. "My daughter, Megan, was going home with her grandparents to Ohio on a charter flight. The 747 you were flying almost collided with it. The plane lost control and went down, killing all eighteen on board. Including my parents, and my Megan." She was crying in earnest now, bones showing through paper thin flesh trembling pitifully. I almost thought I could hear them clacking together.
I tried to find my voice through the strangling fear. "Ma'am, that wasn't my fault. The other aircraft crossed into our air space. I've been suspended from flying temporarily, but I'm sure the NTSB will clear me in that incident."
"Incident?!?" she howled, and I felt the hot stench of a slaughterhouse wash over me. "You killed my daughter, because you weren't paying attention to what you were doing. Your personal life was more important to you."
Outraged, she began screaming loudly, the howl of hurricane force winds, and I curled into the fetal position on the hard cold floor, covering my ears. Lightning flashed white hot and immediately thunder deafened me. I felt the sensation of the roof ripping away, pin pricks of a driving rain, and then everything went black.
Some time later, I awoke slowly to sunrise and clear skies, lying in the debris of my late father's house. An ancient oak had uprooted during the storm, destroying the front room and part of the upper story. I checked myself for injury -- miraculously I seemed to be uninjured except for a superficial cut on my forehead -- and slowly got up. The remainder of the house seemed to be intact. Except every single window in the house had been broken out.
Dismissing the events the night of the storm as a drunken hallucination or some sort of nervous breakdown, I decided to move forward, get my life back on track. The NTSB, as I suspected, cleared me of any wrongdoing or error in the near midair collision. The airline politely asked me to leave, but I had decided I didn't want to fly passengers any longer anyway. I landed a job in New Orleans flying a DC-9 freight hauler.
My co-pilot in the near-miss incident, Jack Whitley, suffered the same indignant dismissal from the airline as I had; in fact, he had helped me land the air cargo job. He was my right chair for my first night flight out of New Orleans.
"You don't look so good, Ross," he said during preflight.
"I'm fine, Jack. Just fine," I reassured him.
After leaving New Orleans International, we climbed quickly to 15,000 feet en route to O'Hare.
****************
The tower told us the weather is supposed to be clear. Abruptly, lightning shatters the night and rivulets of a hard rain pepper the windshield.
"That's not supposed to happen," Jack says flatly.
"I know," I whisper.
Unexpectedly, tears form in Jack's eyes, and I see the little girl outside the window over his shoulder.
"Do you see her, too?"
"Yes," I say quietly.
"Yes,: I repeat, as I nose the DC-9 earthward.
****************
National Transportation Safety Board Report No. NTSB-AAR-99-10
Report Date: January 24, 2000
Incident Date: October 31, 1999
Registration: N6271
Type: DC-9
Operator: Air Cargo Freightliners
Where: Slidell, Louisiana
On October 31, 1999, Air Cargo Freightliners Flight 117, a Douglas DC-9 was a regularly scheduled cargo (non-passenger) flight from New Orleans to Chicago (O'Hare). Flight 117's take off from NOI at 7:45 p.m. est was uneventful, climbing to an altitude of approximately 15,000 feet.
It is believed at that time, although the weather conditions were clear on the ground, Flight 117 encountered a high altitude micro-burst thunderstorm event, and the subsequent wind shear, coupled with a severe down draft and swirling headwinds, forced the DC-9 into an irretrievable nose dive.
The crash site was a sparsely inhabited area of Lake Pontchartrain. The airplane was destroyed during impact, explosion and subsequent fire. One home was destroyed, two crew members were killed onboard, and eighteen persons (as yet unidentified) were killed on the ground.
There was no communication with the tower beyond the normal take off exchange.
Oddly, the cockpit voice recorder contained only one garbled word:
