Tales Too Strange To Be Fiction

By Cindy Parmiter

The notion that truth is stranger than fiction is on full display in this hodgepodge of stories that range from the simply bizarre to the supernatural. Included in this collection are real-life accounts of prophetic dreams; animals that did the impossible for love of their owners; an antique car with a will of its own; hauntings; items believed lost forever that turned up in the most unlikely of places; communications from beyond the grave; near-death experiences; heavenly messengers; and much, much more. Now that you have an idea of what is in store, you need wait no more. Your journey into the world of the strange and unusual is about to begin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cindy Parmiter
• Release date: Jul 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201574734

Book preview

Introduction

During the process of collecting stories revolving around real-life encounters with the paranormal, I came upon many tales that were certainly bizarre, but not necessarily supernatural in nature.  Not wanting to throw them aside, I filed them away for a book dedicated to the strange, but true events that leave us shaking our heads in disbelief.  This, my friends, is that book. 

Some of the accounts you are about to read will make you smile, while others will send chills racing down your spine.  

Included are tales of hauntings; psychic connections; near death experiences; cursed objects; lost items that inexplicably reappeared in the most unlikely of places; prophetic dreams; communications from beyond the grave; animals who went above and beyond for love of their owners; creatures of unknown origin; a car with a will of its own; and much, much more.

What you are about to read are real-life events that attest to the fact that, sometimes, truth really is stranger than fiction.

Chapter 1:

Time Stands Still

This disturbing account was sent to me by a woman named Karen Matthews via social media. If nothing else, it serves as a reminder that events of the past are not far removed from those of the present.

Karen’s ordeal began one night when she was roused from a sound sleep by flashing lights that seemed to be bouncing off the bedroom walls. Assuming that there had been a traffic accident, or that one of her neighbors was having a medical emergency, she went to the window to get a closer look. To her surprise, even though blue and red lights continued to fill the space around her, the street was quiet with nary a soul in sight.

Over the course of the next several minutes, the lights faded and everything returned to normal. Although it was obvious to Karen that something completely unexplainable had just occurred, she had no choice other than to return to bed and try to forget the entire ordeal. By morning, she had convinced herself that she had dreamed the whole thing.

Coincidentally, the night of the incident was the first time that she had slept in the house alone. Prior to that, since the bedroom suit had yet to be delivered, she had been sleeping on the living room sofa while a friend who was assisting with the move dozed in a nearby recliner.

Karen admits that she was a bit apprehensive when she turned in the next evening. To her great relief, the night was still and she slept peacefully. Everything went smoothly in the coming days and she put the strange incident behind her. As it turned out, she had let her guard down a bit too soon.

On Tuesday night of the following week, the same thing happened again. From out of nowhere, red and blue flashing lights lit up the interior of the bedroom. As was the case on the previous occurrence, the street was vacant as her neighbors slumbered away, unaware of what was taking place next door.

Glancing at the clock on the bedside table, Karen saw that it was 4:12 in the morning. This didn’t mean anything to her, but for some reason she felt that it might be significant. Twenty minutes would pass before the lights finally dissipated, plunging the room into darkness.

From that point on, a pattern emerged. Karen recalls that every Tuesday night like clockwork the lights of emergency vehicles would manifest in her bedroom, despite the fact that no such vehicles were present on the street.

Hoping to gain some insight, she shared the details of her experiences with friends, family, and a host of coworkers, none of whom had an explanation for what she claimed was taking place under her roof. On at least one occasion, she says that a curious friend who had offered to sleepover also saw the lights, confirming that they were not simply figments of her imagination.

Determined to get to the bottom of the happenings, Karen took her concerns to her landlady. The woman, who lived only a few streets over in a senior high-rise apartment building, was sympathetic, but could offer nothing in the way of an explanation, or so she thought.

During their conversation, the woman said that she and her husband had lived in the house for many years before she decided to move out after losing him to a massive coronary. Unable to bear the thought of staying in the house without him, she had opted to rent it out while she relocated to an apartment that was better suited to her needs.

Although she hadn’t put two and two together just yet, Karen listened intently as the landlady shared the details of how her husband had awakened her in the middle of the night complaining that he couldn’t catch his breath. As she phoned for help, he had collapsed on the floor beside their bed. By the time that paramedics arrived, he was beyond saving. Seeing the workers trying in vain to restart his heart had been a moment that she would never forget.

The women chatted for a while longer before parting ways. Later on that evening, Karen began to mull over the conversation. Only then did an outlandish scenario form in her mind. She wondered if it was possible that the lights she was seeing, which were clearly those of one or more ambulances, were somehow connected to the night that the landlady’s husband died. As implausible as it seemed, the theory made a strange sort of sense.

Unfortunately, the landlady hadn’t mentioned on which night of the week her family’s ordeal had unfolded. Even though the curiosity was killing her, Karen just couldn’t bring herself to phone the elderly widow and ask if her husband had passed on a Tuesday. She feared that, under the circumstances, the query would be viewed as insensitive.

In spite of the ongoing Tuesday night disturbances, Karen remained in the house for three years before moving on to bigger and better things. She had come to believe, over time, that energies trapped inside the house were reliving the events that occurred on the night the owner died, specifically, the fruitless efforts to save him. The lights of the emergency vehicles, flashing silently in the space he had occupied in his final moments, were a reminder of a time when life and hope were lost forever.

Chapter 2:

A Real-Life Christine

Before I delve too deeply into this story, I need to make one thing clear.  My father-in-law, Larry Parmiter Sr. has never read a book by Stephen King.  He has never seen the movie Christine.  His tastes in entertainment run the very short gamut of war movies, westerns and twenty-four hour news channels.

In 1992 my father-in-law purchased the car of his dreams.  It was a 1963 Ford Falcon.  He would be the third owner of this very unusual automobile.

The first owner had been an elderly woman.  When she passed away, the car was sold in an estate sale to an elderly gentleman. Upon his death, my father-in-law bought the car.

Larry Sr. is somewhat of an expert when it comes to automobiles and he knew that he had lucked into a gem.  The car looked and ran like a dream and he loved showing it off.  The only thing that he found odd about his pricy acquisition was the fact that the radio, which only received AM stations, played nothing but big band era music from the 1940s.

Regardless of where he turned the dial, big band music would be blasting away.  He soon found that no matter where he traveled, his song selection was limited to one genre. Whether he was driving through North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, or any state in between, every station would flood the car with music from the 1940s.

In the year 2000, Larry Sr. installed a custom fit AM/FM cassette player in place of the old radio. Even with the new setup, he discovered that, although he was able to tune in FM channels that played a variety of musical offerings, every last one of the AM stations featured only the golden oldies of the big band era.

In 2004, the car was pretty much wiped out when a hurricane destroyed parts of Florida, including the area where my in-laws lived.  In the aftermath, Larry Sr. sold the car to a man who restored old vehicles.  That should have been the end of the story, but it wasn’t.

A few months past and Larry Sr. hadn’t given the car a second thought until one day when the fellow