Haints
Case Files
- 1790 - Adam Livingston allowed a Catholic stranger to die in his house without benefit of last rights (being a bigoted Protestant [John] Damn those Protestants. [Dex] Stop leaving notes in the margins, John.). Shortly thereafter, candles refused to stay lit in that room of the house and in the days following the stranger’s burial, misfortune brought Adam and his family to ruin. While these happenings were frustrating and harmful to the family, nothing quite prepared them for the phantom snipping of scissors. These phantom scissors clipped hair, clothing, the heads of livestock, etc until Livingston finally broke down and called a Catholic priest to exorcise the house. Mass was said in the living room and holy water sprinkled on the thresholds and after that, the spirit was never heard from again.
- 1830 - In Dallas, Texas, a full-bodied apparition appeared in the Thirsty Devil and challenged a man sitting there to match him drink-for-drink. When the man refused, the ghost shot him in the head, immediately killing him and then vanished. No bullet was ever found, but the man was undeniably dead from a bullet wound. This apparition appeared again with some regularity for several years, always killing whoever was chosen for the drinking game when they either refused or failed. In 1958, Clive Gerritson confronted him and confirmed his identity as Stanton Cree, a known gunslinger from the 1820s who had been hanged following his murder of a man for his drink. Cree believes himself cursed to walk the land forever or until someone beats him at his drinking game. As no one has beaten him yet and he continues to appear at the Thirsty Devil every twenty years or so, this is unconfirmed.
- 1910 - When Vada Mounts’ husband failed to return from the front in WWI, she took up with another man who lived nearby. After a few months, Vada spotted a dark-clad man with a shaggy dog watching the house from across a field. When she told her lover, Ramer Larch, he took his rifle out to confront the man. He shot him in the middle of the field and return home in time to meet the sheriff and deputy who arrested him for the murder. Men from the village attempted to retrieve the body, but were repelled by the shaggy dog, which became aggressive and refused to let them near. They returned the following morning to find the body and dog gone and Ramer dead in his cell from apparent strangulation. It is generally thought that Vada’s husband’s ghost strangled Ramer in his cell and that the Black Dog was of the death-hound variety, but nothing was confirmed. [Dex] Spent eight months in ‘95 researching this one; never did confirm the death-hound.
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