It has been a while since I have added to this series, but with Halloween on the horizon I could not think of a better time. Submitted for your approval in honor this greatest holiday of the year, I have tales of vampires, monster serpents, and even a spooky Halloween tale. As usual, if you wish to scroll through the archives feel free to below.
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1. Atlas Vampire: Ever since people began swapping scary stories with each other the ominous specter of the vampire has loomed ever present. These undead bloodsuckers have been so influential on our culture that there are those who have taken up the lifestyle, and while the overwhelming majority of people in this subculture are incredibly polite individuals who mean no harm to anyone, occasionally though someone takes things too far. In Stockholm, Sweden during the early 1930's a brutal murder was the result of one of these rare cases. Lilly Lindestrom was a divorcee making her living as a prostitute in her small apartment. On the eve of a May Day celebration Lindestrom, received a phone call from a mysterious man requesting her services. For the next three days nobody was able to make contact with the woman, leading police to check out her apartment to ensure everything was alright. They discovered that Lilly Lindestrom had been brutally murdered by several blows to the head, but that was not the disturbing part; investigators also found a gravy ladle in the room covered in blood, Lilly's blood. As they pieced the scene together, they uncovered that a man described as being very "sober and polite" was her last customer and he apparently bludgeoned her to death and consumed her blood using a gravy ladle. Detectives interviewed as many of her regulars as they could but no suspect ever turned up. The media dubbed her killer, the Atlas Vampire striking fear into the citizens of Stockholm. The identity of this Sanguinarian has never been discovered.
2. The Vanishing Children of New York: In 1989 two children, two year old Christopher Dansby and 19 month old Shane Walker, disappeared at the same New York City playground within three months of each other, both on a Thursday afternoon. Dansby was being watched over at the park by his grandmother as he played with a 10 year old girl and her 5 year old brother. When the grandmother turned away for a second, the child had mysteriously vanished. The same two siblings would appear again when Walker, who lived in the same building as Dansby, vanished from the very same park playground. His mother, Rosa Glover, recounted that as they sat on the park bench the boy and girl approached her wanting to play with Shane. Rosa told them he was very young, but that did not phase the mysterious siblings as they started playing on the slide under Glover's watchful eye. But the mother was distracted when a man sat beside her and began ranting about crime in the park, showing her his scars from where he was roughed up a while back. Glover turned for a split second to look at the scars, when she looked back her child and the two children he was playing with were gone. Rosa Glover frantically dashed around the park searching for young Shane. She found the two children he was playing with reentering the park through a gap in a wire fence, but they claimed that Shane was still there when they left. Police questioned both of the children as well as the man who sat beside Rosa but came up with nothing. The fate of these two children remains tragically unknown.
3. Wessie: You do not have to be a herpetologist to know that you should never get on the wrong side of a python. As many of you are aware, a python is a large snake that uses its immense size to strangle the life out of its prey. Luckily for people in colder climates, these animals tend to stick to more tropical regions, unless you happen to reside in Westmore, Maine. Earlier this year, a citizen at a playground near the Presumpscot River reported seeing a 10 foot snake with a head the size of a softball in the area. Naturally this was treated as a joke by the police, but a few nights later they received another call from someone by the river, once again claiming to see a giant python, this time eating a beaver. As more reports came in, the police of Westmore began to take things more seriously. The search for this mysterious monster snake took a new turn in August as a snake skin measuring ten feet long was found in the forest. The locals have dubbed the creature "Wessie" and made it a folkloric icon in just a short amount of time. But the question still lingers as to where this python came from and where is it hiding? Recent studies show that no matter where you take a snake it tends to journey back to its own territory, since it is hard to believe a cold-blooded reptile is native to Maine, could the python now consider this town his territory?
4. Eastern Airlines Flight 401: In 1972, the jetliner, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crashed killing over a hundred people. But this crash was just the beginning of one of the biggest mysteries in aviation. Any part that could be salvaged from the aircraft's remains were used in other planes, but as this happened the crews and passengers of these planes began to see the apparitions of the crew members who perished on the ill-fated flight. The strangest of these encounters occurred when the of pilot Don Repo appeared in the galley of a flight, which was equipped with an oven from 401, to warn them of an impending fire. Sure enough the plane was struck with an engine fire which caused them to change their plans. One has to wonder if the crew of Flight 401 are still trying to perform their duties even after they have passed on. Though Eastern Airlines denies these reports it has been rumored that some of the company's top executives have had their own encounters with the spirits of Flight 401.
5. The Black Flash: In Provincetown, Massachusetts, the citizens readied for the Halloween season in their New England town, but this year something sinister was there to deliver more tricks than treats to them. A humanoid creature began appearing around Provincetown, described by witnesses as being incredibly tall, with black skin, pointed ears, and silver eyes. Having been dubbed the Black Flash, this entity would pop up around town to scare and terrorize the residents and get away using inhuman speed and agility. That year the fear of the Black Flash put a damper on the Halloween festivities and terrified children refused to go out. The local police chief finally made a claim to the public that this creature was merely a hoax and that he knew who was behind it. Sadly when pressed for details the chief did not give any names, saying that the Black Flash was now "dead and buried". If this was truly the work of ordinary people, nobody has ever been identified and the police chief took his secret to his grave.
If you enjoy my looks into the unknown and the unexplained be sure to floor me on Twitter @darknite125
