True Tales of the Paranormal, Mysterious & Macabre

By Cindy Parmiter

This terrifying collection includes true accounts of unearthly dealings with ghosts; demons; disembodied heads; visitors from the outer reaches of the universe; nefarious witches; enigmas; guardian angels; a letter purportedly dictated by the devil himself; the horrors of the dark web; and much, much more. These spine-tingling stories await those who are prepared to enter a world where fear is the rule, and nightmares never end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cindy Parmiter
• Release date: Jun 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201210427

Book preview

Prologue

There are people all over the world who see life in shades of black and white.  To their way of thinking, these are the places where good and evil, as well as right and wrong, exist.  In reality, a grey area in which all of our darkest fears dwell, ready to be awakened, lies somewhere in the middle.

Many of the stories you are about to read occurred in this most disturbing of places.  It is there that dreams quickly turn to nightmares.  Among the accounts included here are that of a child whose imaginary friend may have been all-too-real; a house bent on destroying a young family, one by one; unthinkable horrors lurking in the darkest regions of the internet; a letter said to have been dictated by the devil himself; alien visitations; the gruesome aftermath of a once common form of corporal punishment; ghostly reenactments of past events and much, much more.

Now that you know what is in store, it is time to explore these True Tales of the Paranormal, Mysterious, and Macabre.

Chapter 1:

The Nun

Everyone, including the subject herself, knew that Isabella Tomasi was born to be a part of the sisterhood. Devoted to her faith, the young Sicilian willingly turned her life over to God at the tender age of fifteen. Upon shedding her former identity, she was reborn as Sister Maria Crocifissa della Concezione.

Maria assimilated well to the cloistered environment, embracing life in the convent with open arms. For the next sixteen years, she would live peacefully among those who shared her ideology. What no one knew at the time was that, beneath her submissive exterior, a storm was brewing that would soon threaten to destroy everything in its path.

Everything changed for the young nun when, in the summer of 1676, she was found twisting and squirming on the floor of the rectory, her face smeared with ink. In her hands, she clutched a sheet of paper on which was written a baffling amalgamation of letters and symbols that no one present could decipher.

While being examined by the medical personnel who were summoned to the scene, a visibly shaken Sister Maria informed them that the note she held had been dictated to her by the creature she feared most: Satan himself.

She went on to say that, although she had no idea what she had written, or how she had accomplished such a feat while in a trance-like state, she did know that the words—which were not her own—were intended to pull her from the arms of God and into the devil’s unholy embrace.

Naturally, no one knew what to make of these outlandish claims. After coming to the hasty conclusion that she had suffered some sort of nervous breakdown, the decision was made to allow her to rest until she regained her senses. In the meantime, scholars set to work trying to decode the perplexing correspondence.

It was determined that, besides consisting of symbols that seemed to have no rhyme or reason, the note had been penned in at least four different languages: Greek, Latin, Runic, and Arabic. This observation raised more than a few eyebrows, given that Sister Maria was a linguist who was believed to have had at least a passable knowledge of each of those tongues.

Curiously, at the bottom of the letter, rather than signing her name, Maria had scribbled the word Ohime, meaning Oh, me. When questioned, she explained that the devil had demanded that she attach her signature to the note she had scrawled at his behest. Instead of complying, she had jotted down the exclamation as a way of voicing her indignation at having been forced to do his bidding.

Her defense sounded plausible, but not everyone was buying it. Other members of the order came forward to offer that Sister Maria had been behaving strangely in the days leading up to her apparent break from reality.

According to them, the thirty-one-year old would either faint dead away, or let out a blood-curdling shriek that would shake the rafters anytime her duties required her to approach the altar. She would also recoil in the presence of holy water and crucifixes, the very symbols she had once held in reverence.

It was during this time that Marie revealed to her closest confidantes that she was hearing voices. Convinced that she was being stalked by evil spirits, she hoped that by sharing her fears with others, the curse would be lifted. Instead, as was evidenced on the day she was discovered writhing on the floor, her confessions had only served to make things worse.

The indiscernible letter, coupled with the nun’s odd behavior, led her doctor’s to conclude that she was suffering from some form of mental illness, most likely schizophrenia. And, with that, the case was closed.

Centuries past and the mystery of what really happened to Sister Maria faded with time. That is, until 2018 when internet sleuths, using software developed on the dark web, were finally able to interpret much of the content found in the letter.

The dark web, the dungeon of the online world, is a place where secrets are normally kept, not uncovered. In this case, however, the platform used its formidable powers for good rather than evil.

It came as no surprise that the note was not flattering to the Christian faith. It began by declaring that the Holy Trinity consisted of nothing more than dead weights. It went on to say that God thinks he can free mortals. The system works for no one. Perhaps now Styx is certain.

The reference to the River Styx, the fabled waterway believed to separate the land of the living from that of the dead, was taken as an ominous warning to Sister Maria, and all others who shared her faith, that evil would prevail in the end. The letter also purported that God was a creation of man, not the other way around.

Sister Maria, who had always insisted that she had no understanding of the ramblings contained within the note, had nonetheless been adamant that it, and the attacks preceding its manifestation, had been a concerted effort on the part of Satan to force her to abandon her calling and join the army of the damned. If these recent revelations are accurate, there is a chance that she may have been onto something.

No reliable records can be found documenting what became of the emotionally tormented nun, but one hopes that she was confined to a place where the dark things that haunted her thoughts were kept at bay. It can be assumed that the root of her aberrant behavior was never definitively established.

While some held steadfast to their belief that she was the victim of a mental illness that had taken over suddenly and mercilessly, others were equally certain that she had been possessed by a demon bent on procuring her soul.

In the end, we will probably never know the full story. As of this writing, the letter is still being deciphered, much of its content remaining tightly under wraps. Perhaps someday the truth behind Sister Maria’s ordeal will come to light. Until then, we are left to wonder if her descent into madness was the result of psychosis, or a character assassination orchestrated by the devil himself.

Chapter 2:

One Man’s Treasure

The following tale was sent to me by a couple who learned the hard way that, sometimes, it’s best to leave things where we find them.  It’s worth keeping in mind that few things in life are free and your newfound treasure might have a rightful owner who is something less than forgiving.

Devon and Sheila Morrison had gotten into the habit of walking in a neighborhood park near their home in Pittsburgh ever since settling there in 2012.  Their outings were uneventful until one evening when they noticed a series of items that seemed out of place in the scenic environment.  What started out as a joke; would end up being anything but amusing.

On this particular evening, the couple spotted a hooded sweatshirt hanging from one of the lampposts that lined the walking path.  Neither one of them paid much attention to it, assuming that the owner had probably gotten overheated while exercising and had temporarily left the garment behind.  Devon did take note that it was an expensive name brand, easily identifiable by a logo that could clearly be seen by anyone passing by.  Reasoning that the owner would probably be back to claim it, he didn’t give it any more thought.

As they continued on their way, they spotted an umbrella hanging from another post not far from the hoodie.  Still further ahead, they saw that someone had laid out a pair of socks underneath yet another lamppost.  They joked about the items as they continued on their walk.  It was Devon who made the offhand remark that he didn’t want the other things, but if the hoodie was still there the next day, he was going to confiscate it.

The following evening, all of the items were gone except for the one thing that Devon had laid claim to.  True to his word, on their final lap, he yanked the sweatshirt off of the post and slung it over his arm.  He figured that the hoodie was now fair game since everything else had either been claimed by their owners or thrown out by the park’s caretakers. If whoever it belonged to hadn’t come back for it by now, Devon decided that it was finders, keepers.

After taking the garment home and washing it, Devon began wearing his new hoodie around the house.  It was a little bit big on him, but that was exactly the way that he liked to wear his clothing.  For her part, Sheila didn’t like the jacket and urged Devon to put it back where he found it.  She argued that it was hard to tell who had worn it before and, besides, it had a musty smell that would not wash out.  Devon ignored her request; claiming that if it had an odor, he didn’t notice.

Besides the evening walks that the couple took together, Devon regularly went for morning jogs by himself.  Sheila preferred to sleep in or lounge around the house while her husband headed off to the park for his alone time.

Not long after acquiring the hoodie, Devon was on his morning run when he happened to catch sight of another jogger who seemed to be following his route.  Although he had stuck religiously to the same path for months, Devon had never seen the man before.  On this occasion, he couldn’t help but notice since the jogger made a point of passing by him several times and making eye contact that he held for what was, for Devon, an uncomfortable length of time.

When Devon returned home, Sheila was up and he told her about the weird guy who had given him the creeps on the jogging trail. Knowing that her husband tended to overreact at times to social situations that wouldn’t bother most people, she didn’t encourage him.  Instead, she told him, basically, that he was being silly and that she was sure that no one had been following him.  She explained that the park was for everyone; even people with a tendency to stare.

Devon’s encounters with the mysterious jogger continued for weeks.  Uncomfortable with the man’s demeanor, but not wanting to give up on his morning runs, Devon began staggering the times that he arrived at the park, sometimes waiting until the afternoon.  He soon learned that it made