Tall Tales

The storm lasted so long that they thought they would starve. Finally, when the wind and swirling snow had died away to just a memory, the father, who was a brave warrior, ventured outside. The next storm was already on the horizon, but if food was not found soon, the family would starve.

Keeping his knife and spear close, he ventured out upon the most-frequently used game trail, watching intently for some sign, in the newly-fallen snow, of animal footprints or movement of any kind. The forest lay deep and oddly silent under its gleaming coating of ice and snow. Every creature of sense lay deep within its burrow and slept. Still, the warrior hunted, knowing how desperate his family had become.
As he moved through the eerie stillness, broken only by the soft caress of the wind, he heard a strange hissing noise. It came from everywhere and nowhere at once. The warrior stopped, his heart pounding. That was when he saw the blood-soaked footprints appearing on the path in front of him. He gripped his knife tightly, knowing that somewhere, watching him, was a Windigo.
He had learned about the Windigo at his father's knee. It was a large creature, as tall as a tree, with a lipless mouth and jagged teeth. Its breath was a strange hiss, its footprints full of blood, and it ate any man, woman or child who ventured into its territory. And those were the lucky ones. Sometimes, the Windigo chose to possess a person instead, and then the luckless individual became a Windigo himself, hunting down those he had once loved and feasting upon their flesh.
The warrior knew he would have just one chance to prevail over the Windigo. After that, he would die. Or… the thought was too terrible to complete.
Slowly, he backed away from the bloody footprints, listening to the hissing sound. Was it stronger in one direction? He gripped spear in one hand, knife in the other. Then the snowbank to his left erupted as a creature as tall as a tree leapt out at him. He dove to one side, rolling into the snow so that his clothing was covered and he became hard to see in the gray twilight of the approaching storm.
The Windigo whirled its massive frame and the warrior threw the spear. It struck the creature's chest, but the Windigo just shook it off as if it were a toy. The warrior crouched behind a small tree as the creature searched the torn-up snow for a trace of him. Perhaps one more chance.
The Windigo loomed over his hiding place, its sharp eyes seeing the outline of him against the tree. It bent down, long arms reaching. The warrior leapt forward as if to embrace the creature and thrust his knife into its fathomless black eye. The Windigo howled in pain as the blade of the knife sliced into its brain cavity. It tried to pull him off of its chest, but the warrior clung to the creature, stabbing it again and again in the eyes, the head.
The Windigo collapsed to the ground, bleeding profusely, almost crushing the warrior beneath its bulk. He pulled himself loose and stared at the creature, which blended in with its white surroundings so well that he would not have seen it save for the blood pouring from its eyes and ears and scalp. Then the outline of the creature grew misty and it vanished, leaving only a pool of blood to indicate where it had fallen.
Shaken, the warrior, heart pounding with fear and fatigue, turned for home. He was weakened by lack of food, but knew that the storm would break soon and he would die if he did not seek shelter.
At the edge of the wood, he found himself face to face with a red fox. It was a fat old creature, its muzzle lined with gray. The creature stood still, as if it had been brought to him as a reward for killing the Windigo. With a prayer of thanksgiving, the warrior killed the fox and took it home to his starving family. The meat lasted for many days, until the final storm had blown itself out and the warrior could safely hunt once more.

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I have a fascination with genealogy, which is what started all the trouble. My next-door neighbor and I were fellow hobbyists, and we often supported each others search for long-lost ancestors. We would spend hours pouring over stacks of dusty country records, wandering through poison-ivy strewn graveyards, and getting lost on back lanes trying to find the homes of retirees who remembered what our forbearers were like way back when.

On this particular day, we were traveling to a distant graveyard which conveniently happened to contain the graves of ancestors from both of our (completely unrelated) families. Cheryl's great-great-aunt and her other kin were quite easy to find, but we had to search high and low before we found the tomb of my third-cousin-once-removed, one Samuel Beauregard Smith. I took a rubbing, recorded his information into one of my copious notebooks, and then stood examining the fancy stone for a few moments.
"No expense spared here," I said to Cheryl.
"Either someone really loved him, or someone was glad to see him go," Cheryl agreed with a grin. "Do you have any idea which it was?"
"Nope. I just found out about his existence last Friday," I replied.
We packed up our stuff after that, lunched at a quaint little tea house in the vicinity, and then went home. The early evening proceeded normally; at least, it did until I heard the squeak the front door made when it opened. I knew I had shut the door firmly when I came in, and I was pretty sure I'd locked it, but when I went into the hallway, the door was wide open, as if someone had just walked in.
Behind me Soot, my black cat, started to purr. She walked delicately toward the front door and started twining herself around and around, as if she were rubbing against someone's legs in greeting. But there was no one there. My arms broke out in goose bumps, and I hastily shooed Soot away and closed the door. The cat continued to purr and leisurely walked into the living room, as if she were dogging the footsteps of some invisible presence.
In the living room, Terry, my ancient fox terrier, huffed a greeting to a very-empty-looking spot in the middle of the room, thumping his tail a few times before settling back down in his basket to snooze. I hurried away to the kitchen to do something normal - like the supper dishes - and then went right to bed, telling myself I was being over imaginative and silly.
The next morning, some of the cabinets were open, as if someone had been searching through them, looking for breakfast food. Pretending that I must have left them open last night (I hadn't), I closed them, and ignored Soot's purred greeting to someone who just happened to be occupying the empty chair across from mine as I ate some cold cereal and got ready for work. I also pretended not to see the unfolded newspaper on the kitchen table as I grabbed my keys and I absolutely did not see one of the pages start to turn as I walked out the back door.
For almost two weeks, I ignored the invisible person living in the house with me, although he (it felt like a he) drove me crazy, leaving cabinets open, scuffling up the rugs, rearranging the furniture to suit his fancies, and forgetting to turn off lights. But when he started whistling off-key, I'd had enough.
I'd told Cheryl about my unwanted guest. She'd been reluctant to believe me, until she came over one morning and found someone invisibly reading the newspaper. After that, she gave me the name of a psychic, and I gave the woman a call.
Cheryl wanted to be here when the psychic arrived, but she was called over to her daughter's house to baby sit, and so she missed out on the grand entrance. The psychic was a nice, normal looking brunette who stiffened as soon as she entered the house and said: "Yes, you do have a ghost," before I'd even had a chance to take her coat.
We sat down in the living room, and the psychic quickly made contact with the spirit. And what do you know? It was Samuel Beauregard Smith. Apparently, he'd seen me visiting the graveyard, and decided I reminded him of his first wife, so he'd followed me home.
"I'm flattered," I said carefully, "but it isn't seemly for a widow to be sharing her home with a bachelor such as yourself."
As the psychic relayed my message to the ghost, I heard Cheryl's car pulling into her driveway, and knew she would be over any minute.
"Samuel has agreed to leave the house," the psychic said. I wondered where his spirit usually resided, but decided it would not be appropriate to ask such a personal question. A moment later, a feeling of emptiness filled the room. "Samuel is gone," the psychic told me.
After thanking the psychic and paying her for her services, I escorted her to the front door, just in time to see Cheryl hurrying up the front walk. The two women nodded to each other as they passed, and then Cheryl burst into the hallway.
"Was that the psychic? What did she say? And who was the old-fashioned man with the white mustache who came out your front door just as I was pulling into my driveway?"
My mouth dropped open in shock. Closing it, I swallowed and sat down rather abruptly.
"What is it? What did I say?" asked Cheryl, alarmed by my pallor.
"Nothing," I said, slowly beginning to grin. "You just saw Samuel Beauregard Smith leaving the house at my request."
Now it was Cheryl's turn to sit abruptly. "Samuel Beauregard Smith?" she asked incredulously. "That third cousin of yours with the fancy tombstone?"
I nodded.
"I just saw his ghost?" she said.
"You just saw his ghost," I confirmed.
For the first time since we'd met, Cheryl was speechless.
I laughed suddenly and got up. "It will be nice to have my house to myself again," I told her, and went to the kitchen to make us some tea.
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Well now, old Sam Gibb, he didn't believe in ghosts. Not one bit. Everyone in town knew the old log cabin back in the woods was haunted, but Sam Gibb just laughed whenever folks talked about it. Finally, the blacksmith dared Sam Gibb to spend the night in the haunted log cabin. If he stayed there until dawn, the blacksmith would buy him a whole cartload of watermelons. Sam was delighted. Watermelon was Sam's absolute favorite fruit. He accepted the dare at once, packed some matches and his pipe, and went right over to the log cabin to spend the night.

Sam went into the old log cabin, started a fire, lit his pipe, and settled into a rickety old chair with yesterday's newspaper. As he was reading, he heard a creaking sound. Looking up, he saw that a gnarled little creature with glowing red eyes had taken the seat beside him. It had a long, forked tail, two horns on its head, claws at the ends of its hands, and sharp teeth that poked right through its large lips.
"There ain't nobody here tonight except you and me," the creature said to old Sam Gibb. It had a voice like the hiss of flames. Sam's heart nearly stopped with fright. He leapt to his feet.
"There ain't going to be nobody here but you in a minute," Sam Gibb told the gnarled creature. He leapt straight for the nearest exit - which happened to be the window - and hi-tailed it down the lane lickety-split. He ran so fast he overtook two rabbits being chased by a coyote. But it wasn't long before he heard the pounding of little hooves, and the gnarled creature with the red eyes caught up with him.
"You're making pretty good speed for an old man," said the creature to old Sam Gibb.
"Oh, I can run much faster than this," Sam Gibb told it. He took off like a bolt of lightning, leaving the gnarled creature in the dust. As he ran passed the smithy, the blacksmith came flying out of the forge to see what was wrong.
"Never mind about them watermelons," Sam Gibb shouted to the blacksmith without breaking his stride.
Old Sam Gibb ran all the way home and hid under his bed for the rest of the night. After that, he was a firm believer in ghosts and spooks, and he refused to go anywhere near the old cabin in the woods.
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There once was a crazy ghost over Poughkeepsie way that got folks so plumb scared that nobody would stay more than one night in its house. It was a nice old place, or was, until the ghost began making its presence known. It got so no one would enter the house, not even kids on a dare, and you know what they are like!

Now when my friend Joe heard a fancy old house in Poughkeepsie was selling dirt cheap, he decided to go have a look. He asked me about it and I told him about the spook, but Joe just laughed. "I don't believe in ghosts," he said and went to visit the agent selling the house.
Well, the agent gave Joe a key, but refused to look at the old house with him, which should have told Joe something. But Joe's a stubborn man who won't listen to reason. He even waited until after dark to visit the house for the first time, just to prove his point.
Joe got to the house around nine p.m. and he entered the front hallway. It was a large entrance and well-proportioned, but neglected-looking, with creepy cobwebs and dust everywhere. As Joe paused near the door to get his bearings, he heard a thump from the top of the staircase facing him. A glowing leg appeared out of nowhere and rolled down the steps, landing right next to Joe's feet. Joe gasped out loud and stood frozen to the spot. An arm appeared and rolled down to meet the leg. Next came a foot, then another arm, then a hand. Glowing pieces of body kept popping into existence and plummeting down the steps towards Joe.
Joe held his ground a lot longer than anyone else ever had, but when a screaming head appeared at the top of the steps and started rolling towards him, Joe had had enough. With a shriek that could wake the dead - those that weren't already up and haunting the house that is - Joe ran for his life; out of the house, out of the street, and right out of town, leaving his car behind him.
He called me the next day and asked me to drive his car down to the hotel where he had spent the night. Joe was headed back to Manhattan and refused to come within fifty miles of Poughkeepsie ever again. The agent gave up trying to sell the house after that, and the house fell into ruin and was eventually torn down.

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One dark, windy night, the town drunk was meandering his way home after the bar closed. Somehow he got turned around and ended up walking through the churchyard instead of taking the road home.

The wind picked up and he thought he could hear a voice calling his name. Suddenly, the ground opened up in front of him, and he fell down, down into an open grave! He could hear the voice clearer now, calling to him. He knew it was the devil, coming for him just like the preacher said, on account of him being the town drunk.
The hole was very deep and inside it was pitch black. His eyes adjusted to the darkness after a few moments, and he made out a form sitting in the darkness with him. It called his name, and he scrambled away in fear, trying to climb out of that terrible grave. Then the figure spoke. "You can't get out," it said.
The drunk gave a shout of pure terror and leapt straight up more than six feet. He caught the edge of the hole in his hands, scrambled out, and ran for home as fast as he could go.
Inside the open grave, his neighbor Charlie sighed in resignation. He'd fallen into the hole a few minutes before his friend and had thought that together they might help each other climb out. Now he was going to have to wait until morning and get the mortician to bring him a ladder.

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A preacher was riding to one of the churches on his circuit when darkness fell. It was about to storm, and the only house nearby was an old mansion which was reputed to be haunted. The preacher clutched his Bible and said: "The Lawd will take care o' me".
He went into the mansion just as the storm broke. He put his horse into the barn and made his way into the house. The door was unlocked. He went into a large room which contained a fireplace that filled one wall. There was wood laid for a fire. He laid a match to it. Then the preacher sat down to read his Bible.

Gradually, the fire burnt down to a heap of coals as the storm howled around the mansion. The preacher was roused from his reading by a sound. He looked up from his Bible. A very large, black cat was stretching itself. Then it walked to the fire and sat down among the red hot coals. It picked a coal up in its paw and licked it slowly. The cat got up, shook of the ashes, and walked to the foot of the preacher's chair. It fixed blazing yellow eyes upon him, black tail lashing and said quietly: "Wait until Emmet comes".
The preacher jumped from Genesis to Matthew in shock. He had never heard of a cat talking before. Nervously he kept reading his Bible, muttering to himself, "The Lawd will take care o' me."
Two minutes later, another cat came into the room. It was black as midnight, and as large as the biggest dog. It lay down among the red-hot coals, lazily batting them with enormous paws. Then it walked over to the other cat and said: "What shall we do with him?"
The first cat replied: "We should not do anything until Emmet comes".

The two cats, black as midnight, sat watching the preacher, who read through the Gospels at top speed, aware of blazing yellow eyes watching him.
A third cat, big as a tiger, entered the room. It went to the fire full of red-hot coals and rolled among them, chewing them and spitting them out. Then it came to the other two cats facing the preacher in the chair.
"What shall we do with him?" it growled to the others.
"We should not do anything until Emmet comes," the other cats replied together.
The preacher flipped to Revelation, looking furtively around the room. He closed the Bible and stood up.
"Goo'night cats. I is glad of yo' company, but when Emmet comes, you done tell him I been heah and went."

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A storm was raging that night in 1735, when Mother Leeds was brought to bed in child birth. The room was full of woman folk gathered to help her, more out of curiosity than good will. They had all heard the rumors that Mother Leeds was involved in witchcraft, and had sworn she would give birth to a devil.


Tension mounted when at last the baby arrived. It was a relief (and to some a disappointment), when the baby was born completely normal. But a few moments later, before their terrified eyes, the child began to change. The room erupted with screams as the child grew at an enormous rate, becoming taller than a man and changing into a beast which resembled a dragon, with a head like a horse, a snake-like body and bat's wings.
As soon as it was full-grown, the monster began beating all the woman (including his mother) with its thick, forked tail. With a harsh cry, it flew through the chimney and vanished into the storm.
The Monster of Leeds, or the Jersey Devil as he was later called, still haunts the pines of New Jersey, wrecking havoc upon farmer's crops and livestock, poisoning pools and creeks, and appearing on the New Jersey shore just before a ship wreck.

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