Halloween Event: Ghosts - Darynda Jones (Guest Post & Giveaway)

For the last ghostly post of the day I have the fabulous Darynda Jones joining us for a post about her very own haunting encounter. Darynda is the author of the Charley Davidson series, and features a part-time P.I. who also just happens to be the Grim Reaper. Hopefully by the end the chills won't be too bad and you can enter the giveaway! J

Hello Dear Readers,

Thank you for having me today! I’d like to talk about something near and dear to my heart. Will-o’-the-wisps. Apparitions. Ghosts.

Now not everyone believes in ghosts and that’s cool. I completely understand. I mean, yeah, you feel the occasional cold spot in an otherwise scorching room. A brush across your neck when no one is around. And let’s not forget the ever-popular levitating object. But absolutely, keep denying their existence. Ghosts? Really? Pffft. That’s just crazy talk.

Or is it? We all have ghost stories, right? How about that time you saw a stranger standing at the end of a dark hall. Or when you spent the weekend at your aunt’s house and she decided to spring the fact that her humble abode was haunted as you got ready for bed. (Thanks, Aunt Barb!) You can’t tell me you didn’t ‘see things’ that night. And possibly even needed therapy afterward.

Statistically speaking, 18% of Americans claim to have seen a ghost. Surely 18% of the population can’t be wrong, right? Well, okay, they can, but I am here to give you one more piece of fodder to add fuel to that already raging fire of curiosity.

When I was 12, my family moved into a very normal looking house. It had normal windows and normal carpet and a ghost. I didn’t know that at the time, so it was quite a surprise when I saw him. I know, I know, there is nothing more active than the imagination of a 12-year-old. But hear me out.

So, we move in and weird things start happening. You know, the usual stuff. All unexplained and eerie. Then one day a visiting friend said she saw a little boy in a yellow shirt run across the hall. Admittedly, that freaked me out. But weeks went by and nothing. Just when I’d almost forgotten about him, I was sitting at my dresser, getting ready for bed one night when I looked in the mirror and peeking out from under my bed was a little blond boy with a yellow shirt. He was just gazing up at me, his chin propped in his cupped hands, the expression on his face utterly endearing. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t move.

Finally, I turned around to look at him, but he was gone. I looked back in the mirror. Nothing. I scrambled to search under the bed, in my closet, over the door-jam, just in case. He’d vanished. The most darling boy I’d ever seen was gone.

It took me a while to shake that experience. I didn’t know what to think, if I should even believe my own eyes. Sadly, I never saw him again. Then a few years later, I was hanging out with a friend from high school. We’d known each other a long time, but had never really spent time together. We started talking about where we lived and learned that our streets weren’t that far apart.

“But I used to live on your street, too,” she said. “What house number?”

I told her and she blinked in surprise a few times before saying, “That’s where I lived.”

“No kidding?” I said. “You used to live in my house?”

“Yep. When I was little. We moved when I was about seven. And I have to ask you since you’re in that house, have you seen the little boy, yet?”

While I am still iffy on the whole apparition thing myself, that is a true story. It shocked me to the core. And even though I never saw that boy again, a part of me wonders what happened to him. I would love to know that he is okay, his days spent playing with other children who have the inexplicable ability to vanish before one’s eyes. 

~*GIVEAWAY*~

Darynda is kindly offering one hardcover copy of Second Grave on the Left to one reader. To enter, just leave a comment on this post answering this question: Do you believe in ghosts? Or have you ever had a ghostly encounter yourself? Then fill out the rafflecopter below!