True Scares And Real-Life Nightmares: Volume 2

By Cindy Parmiter

This book details terrifying brushes with entities both natural and supernatural. To illustrate the latter, there are true tales of ghost animals; vengeful spirits; possessed objects; time travel; dream stalkers; demonic infestations; hauntings; a mysterious hitchhiker; and much more. For a touch of reality, there are stories that relate the all-too-real encounters that everyday people have had with the monsters that walk among us; ranging from heartless killers to a modern-day Frankenstein. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cindy Parmiter
• Release date: Jun 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201506537

Book preview

Prologue

In a world filled with mysteries we cannot begin to explain, the line between what exists in the waking world and that which haunts our nightmares can sometimes become blurred.  Just as our lives are ruled by light; so are they equally governed by the darkness. 

The stories you are about to read take place on either side of that invisible divide.  Some detail instances of true paranormal encounters including spirit hauntings, probable possession, premonitions and parasitic ghosts.  Others take place in our everyday world.  These are the real-life tales of horror that illustrate man’s inhumanity to man.

Whichever is more frightening; the otherworldly creatures that go bump in the night or the all too real monsters that prey upon the innocent, they should both serve as warnings that true evil knows no bounds.

Chapter 1:

The Forgotten One

The story you are about to read was sent to me by a gentleman named David Roberts.  The events took place when he was a teenager, but have remained embedded in his memory as a reminder that misdeeds are not always forgiven, even after death.

David spent most of his childhood being shuttled back and forth between his mother’s home in Virginia and his grandmother’s house in West Virginia.  Technically, the latter was owned by his great-grandfather whom David remembers as being in his late eighties or possibly nineties at the time that the boy first moved into the house.

The elderly man, known to David as Poppy, was an extremely tall, thin fellow of few words who spent most of his days sitting in a corner of the kitchen beside a wood-burning stove.  David remembers that Poppy always positioned his chair between the stove and a box of kindling which allowed him to stoke the fire whenever necessary. 

David doesn’t recall his grandmother, known as Ninny, having much interaction with her father.  She would stay in the living room most of the time watching television while Poppy remained on his own in the kitchen.  Since the old man seemed content to sit alone by the stove day in and day out, David assumed that everything was alright between the two.  It would be years before he would learn the truth.

The house was fairly large, but ill-equipped when it came to nighttime accommodations.  Ninny slept in the only bedroom in the house while David made himself comfortable on the living room couch.  Poppy, in spite of his advanced age, was delegated to the attic which had been converted into a makeshift sleeping area.  Every night and following morning, the old man would maneuver the steep flight of stairs that separated his mattress on the floor from the kitchen below.

During the day, David would go upstairs and play board games on the floor with his friends.  He remembers that they had to hunch over in order to walk without bumping their heads on the ceiling.  Since Poppy stood well over six feet tall, it meant that he would have to double over to both climb the stairs and move about in the room.  Still, David can’t recall ever hearing so much as a whisper of complaint from the old man.

David’s mother had suffered from various chronic illnesses throughout his childhood which was the reason he had spent so much time with his grandmother and Poppy.  It had been that way since his father’s passing when David was a toddler.  The arrangement was all he had ever known and, as a result, he moved between homes with ease.

Things changed for David when he was around fifteen.  He had been living with his mother for several months when she had suddenly taken ill with a viral infection that had weakened her already fragile body.  Unable to properly care for her son, she had sent him to his grandmother’s while she recuperated.

David remembers feeling as though something wasn’t quite right from the moment he entered his grandmother’s house.  He found her sitting in her usual spot in the living room, watching television without a care in the world.  As he made his way through the house, nothing was out of the ordinary except for the glaring absence of the old man whom he expected to find resting in his customary place in the kitchen.

Thinking that perhaps Poppy was in the attic, David went upstairs to look for him.  He knew immediately upon entering the room that something was wrong.  It was evident that Poppy had not been there for quite some time.  The area had been almost completely stripped of furnishings.  The mattress was gone as well as all of the old man’s belongings.

David ran back downstairs and asked his grandmother what had happened to Poppy.  He recalls that she met his eyes for only a second as she told him, matter-of-factly, that her father had died.  She then returned to watching her show without saying another word on the subject.

Surprised by the news, and the fact that he had not been told that Poppy had passed, David immediately called his mother.  When he asked her why she hadn’t told him that the old man had died, she claimed to have not known herself.  Instead, she mumbled incoherently before hanging up the phone.  David relates that, in that moment, he felt completely lost and alone.

Over the next few days, David tried to get information out of his grandmother about Poppy’s death.  She eventually told him that he had passed away in his sleep.  She claimed that she had found him one morning and had called on neighbors to take his body to the funeral home.  That was as much as she was willing to share, so he let the matter drop.  Even though Poppy had always been civil to David, they had never had much of a relationship to speak of.  Still, he missed the old man’s familiar presence.

From the first night that David arrived, until the day that he left almost four months later, he heard noises that he could not explain.  On his first night back in the house, David remembers being awakened by the sound of pounding coming from above the kitchen.  He looked at the clock and saw that it was a little before 5 o’clock in the morning.  Since his grandmother hadn’t stirred; he got up to see what was going on.

When he entered the kitchen, David could still hear the intermittent pounding that seemed to emanate from directly over his head in the area that used to be Poppy’s bedroom.  The sound that was becoming more forceful with each thump was one that was familiar to David; he had heard it countless times over the years.

When Poppy was still living, he would use his cane to signal when he needed something brought up to him in his room.  Usually, it meant that he was hungry and wanted his breakfast.  David recalls that Ninny would grumble while her father continuously banged his walking stick on the old wooden floor of the attic as he impatiently waited to be served his morning meal.  In David’s experience, it was the only time that he considered Poppy to be at all demanding.

David would always be the one to run the food up to Poppy, since his grandmother was grossly overweight and unable to navigate the stairs.  He had never given much thought to how the food made it up to the old man when he wasn’t there.  He assumed that, on those occasions, Poppy made his way downstairs earlier than usual and served himself.

The phantom pounding that was occurring long after Poppy had passed spooked David more than he cares to remember.  Even though it couldn’t be, he knew the source of the noise was an old man—months in the grave—demanding to be fed.  Fearful of what he might find, David made no effort to explore the attic while the pounding was taking place.  He knew that no one was supposed to be up there and, on the off chance that someone was, he didn’t wish to encounter them.  In any event, once the sun came up, the noise always ceased.  David would soon learn that this would not be an isolated event. 

When his grandmother got up, David told her about the thumping that had kept him awake.  She claimed that she hadn’t heard anything.  He says that he could tell by the look on her face that she was not being truthful, but he didn’t pursue the issue.  David knew from experience that she wasn’t someone who would crack under pressure.

During the day, things at the house were fairly normal.  When he wasn’t in school, David spent most of his time hanging out with a couple of boys who lived in the neighborhood.  Sometimes, they would spend a whole Saturday upstairs in the attic playing games and smoking cigarettes.  Even though the sound of Poppy thumping his cane on the floor still went on as night made its way to morning, there was nothing out of the ordinary in the upstairs room in the daytime.

As long as he had friends with him, David wasn’t afraid to hang out in the area that had been Poppy’s living quarters.  He admits that he never went up there alone, day or night.  He also says that, even when his buddies were present, the hair on his arms would sometimes stand on end for no reason.  Something wasn’t right in the attic, but no one other than him seemed to take any notice.

Besides the disturbing knocking sound on the floor, David says that other noises would frequently be carried from the attic to other parts of the house.  Without getting too graphic, David says that Poppy would always have to cough up mucous when he first woke up in the morning.  He would then spit it out in a handkerchief and stuff it into the pocket of his overalls.  He also remembers how his grandmother would curse the old man when she had to handle the contaminated cloths on laundry day.

Just as the noise of the cane hitting the floor had become a constant in the house, so did the familiar sound of Poppy clearing out his airway.  This came later on in David’s stay, but once it began; it continued to occur until the day he moved back in with his mom.