Spring shifts the mind to recreation, and if ghost-hunting gets your heart pumping, head out to Southwestern Ohio. Just in time, writing duo C.D. Hersh has put together a travelogue of spooky places there that you might want to check out…
POLTERGEISTS, PHANTOMS
AND PARANORMAL PRESENCES!
From C.D. Hersh
Where we live, in
Southwestern Ohio, one of the most haunted cities in the area is Cincinnati,
Ohio. Here’s a sampling of some haunted spots in that fair city.
Music Hall, in
downtown Cincinnati, built on top of a pauper’s grave, is rumored to be haunted
and was selected as one of the Travel Channel's Most Terrifying Places in
America.
Union Terminal, or the Cincinnati Museum Center as it’s known now, is said to
be haunted by the ghost of a security guard named Shirley, who was murdered
there.
At the Cincinnati
Art Museum a seven foot specter rises from a mummy sarcophagus.
Kings Island Amusement
Park employees have reported sightings of a little girl in a period 1900s blue
dress believed to come from the graveyard adjacent to the park.
Mother of Mercy High
School has a nun, Sister Mary Carlos, who haunts the auditorium, which is named
after her. The Sister interferes with performances unless she is asked for
permission to use the space and is invited to the performance.
At the Cincinnati Zoo not
all the animals are caged. A ghostly lioness prowls the park at night.
We haven’t seen any of
these apparitions, and don’t plan on going ghost hunting to find them, but
Catherine has lived in a few places her family believed to be haunted.
As a young girl she lived
in an old house that had been subdivided into apartments, and her parents
believed the apartment they lived in was haunted. Pictures and items would be
moved to different places when they came home; a cousin saw a man standing at
the foot of her bed one night; and when the neighbor’s children would call at the
door for Catherine and her sister to come out and play, a man’s voice would
answer saying, “They aren’t home.” Funny thing was, no one was home when kids
came calling … except the ghost.
In another home where Catherine lived a murder had taken place years before. Her folks kept the scary information a secret from the children. While she lived in the house, Catherine had a recurring dream of a woman who appeared at her bedroom door and urged her to climb out the second story bedroom. Catherine would always awaken before she made it out the window. When the family moved, she mentioned her dream to her mother, who told her about the murdered woman. She had died at the top of the steps by the door to Catherine’s bedroom. Her mother believed the ghost of the woman was trying to kill Catherine and that if she had ever gone fully out the window she would have died. That dream, no matter how hard she tried to replicate it, has never occurred in any other home where Catherine has lived.
Catherine’s sister Carolyn lived in an apartment in the basement of Westwood Town Hall, in Cincinnati, Ohio, another reported hot spot for spooks. The town hall is reported to be haunted by the ghost of a former security guard who hung himself in the building after he was fired. Some resources say the ghost is known as Willy, others say his name is Wesley. There are many reports of stage sets, costumes and orderly things found in disarray. Water faucets turn on by themselves and locked doors are unlocked, lights turn off and on and children have reported seeing a man on the ground and in the building.
Carolyn and her husband
were caretakers for the hall around 1971. “We had to clean the buildings,”
Carolyn said, “and we would hear whispers around us.” Carolyn believes there is
more than one ghost because of the multiple voices they heard. They would be in
bed in their basement apartment of the town hall and could hear racket going on
and what sounded like people bumping into the walls when they knew no one was
there. “On one occasion we had to clean a room on the upper floor where a train
group met. We could hear voices in the room and the door wouldn’t unlock. When
we finally got the door open, there was no one inside.”
After Catherine’s sister
learned the building was haunted she wouldn’t go into the main area by herself.
Can’t say that I blame
her!
Now that I’ve thoroughly
frightened myself by writing about all this spooky stuff at night, I think I’ll
go double check the dead bolts, flip on all the lights, and look up some
paranormal ghost busters … just in case.
Happy Haunting!
Have you ever had any
spooky, paranormal encounters?
While you think about
that here’s an excerpt from the first book in our Turning Stone Series, The
Promised One.
The woman stared at him,
blood seeping from the corner of her mouth. “Return the ring, or you’ll be
sorry.”
With a short laugh he
stood. “Big words for someone bleeding to death.” After dropping the ring into
his pocket, he gathered the scattered contents of her purse, and started to
leave.
“Wait.” The words sounded
thick and slurred . . . two octaves deeper . . . with a Scottish lilt.
Shaw frowned and spun
back toward her. The pounding in his chest increased. On the ground, where the
woman had fallen, lay a man.
He wore the same slinky
blue dress she had—the seams ripped, the dress top collapsed over hard chest
muscles, instead of smoothed over soft, rounded curves. The hem skimmed across
a pair of hairy, thick thighs. Muscled male thighs. Spiked heels hung at an odd
angle, toes jutting through the shoe straps. The same shoes she’d been wearing.
The alley tipped. Shaw
leaned against the dumpster to steady himself. He shook his head to clear the
vision, then slowly moved his gaze over the body.
A pair of steel-blue eyes
stared out of a chiseled face edged with a trim salt-and-pepper beard. Shaw
whirled around scanning the alley.
Where was the woman? And
who the hell was this guy?
Terrified, Shaw fled.
The dying man called out,
“You’re cursed. Forever.”
When your “goose bumps”
disappear perhaps you might be interested in the links for our books:
Putting words and stories on paper is second nature to co-authors C.D. Hersh.
They’ve written separately since they were teenagers and discovered their
unique, collaborative abilities in the mid-90s. As high school sweethearts and
husband and wife, Catherine and Donald believe in true love and happily ever
after.
They have a short
Christmas story, Kissing Santa, in a Christmas anthology
titled Sizzle
in the Snow: Soul Mate Christmas Collection, with
seven other authors. Plus their paranormal series titled, The Turning
Stone Chronicles.
They are looking forward
to many years of co-authoring and book sales, and a lifetime of
happily-ever-after endings on the page and in real life.
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