Every neighborhood in America has at least one house that local legend claims to be haunted by a ghost or a demon. Every town, very village, from one coast to the other has at least one. And would you know, I happen to live in the most famous house in Benton, the famous “Sterling House''. Now, if you were standing on the street, the house would look like any other house on the block. It's a creole style cottage with a wrap around the front porch.  The front yard has a big, old oak tree in it. The back yard is kind of swampy since a creek runs through it.  As for the house itself, nothing really stands out, the windows might need cleaning, the floors might need mopping, the basement is cluttered with stuff. All in all it's your average house in the urban sections of Benton.

Only it's different. This house is haunted, and I know the ghost who haunts it. Ghost is the cheerful, almost playful spirit of Sterling, a teenage girl who committed suicide back in two thousand by jumping from highest point in Benton, the towns main water tower. How do I know this, because I've seen her with my own eyes and oddly enough she kind of like my big sister.

Now, others have told of that fateful night Sterling took her own life. There is no need for me to rehash it here. Heck I knew something was off about the house I minute I stepped foot in it. Everything felt off. It had been shut up for a good twenty one years at this point. But maybe that is why the house was so cheap, see I'm not from Benton, I'm from Yazoo City, my mom though was born and raised here. But when her marriage to my dad fell apart.. and boy did she take his sorry ass over the coals, pardon my french there. But boy she took him to the cleaners. 

What happened to my dad? Well mom and I caught him with some french woman, dude they were going at it in my bedroom for God's sake~ Like when I walked in on them, dad had tied her up and was going all Fifty shades of gray. I screamed, mom screamed, the woman screamed, dad screamed, I think dad came the moment she started screaming.. that one mental image that I would never get out of my head. I think I should have known something was off with Dad when I started to find my old barbie dolls tied up and blindfolded. But that a story for another time and place.

Anyway, mom quickly filed for divorce, it was granted like in a day, mom got the house and the lion's share of the bank account along with a good chunk of daddies oil royalties. Mom then sold our old house for a tiny profit. Once the house was sold, mom then decided she wanted to return to her hometown. And so she uprooted me from my settled life in Yazoo City and moved me forty miles into the sticks. Mom settled on this house because it was in her words a “Steal”whatever that means. Anyway once we were settled in, she decided she was going to put her education to use and open up her own small business, because it seemed popular at the time. And her business is now thriving.

And what happened to dad? Oh he left town and resettled in New Orleans with his french marriage breaker. They live in a small apartment in the french quarters down there. I think he's working with some big law firm or something. Not sure, don't care. Don't want to see either him or that french slut, pardon my french for the rest of my natural life. 

Anyway, once we moved in I knew something was off about the house. I mean, given the fact the house had been boarded up for twenty something odd years, that was a given. I mean there was dust a good three or four inches on the floor and on the stairwell. A lot of the old dishes were still in the cupboard. Safe to say it was a pretty big job, so big I had to get some friends of the family over to help. And so our forces mustered and armed for battle we tackled the job of making the house livable.

And trust me that was a job and a half. I spent hours on my hands and knees scrubbing with a scrub brush the floorboards and the baseboards of the house. The windows were caked with dust and had massive cobwebs hanging in the corners.  

Anyway, since the project was so big, we kind of sectioned the house off. And I would normally spend a lot of time along, doing you know cleaning. I started cleaning, at first my room. Something felt off the minute I was left along. It was early spring, and already the highs for the day were hitting eighty or ninety, that common in Mississippi. Anyway I was scrubbing and the windows were open to help the floorboards dry and to lure some fresh air into the house, when I felt a sudden cold breeze cross the small of my neck. It was cold, like really cold and made those tiny arms on the back of my neck stand straight up.

I kind of blocked it out. And returned to scrubbing my floors, the cold breeze happened again. And this time, I kind of paused a bit longer before returning to work. Then it happened, the mop bucket, I swear to God and sunny Jesus y'all went flying through the air, spilling its contents of steaming hot water mixed with cleaner all over the floor. I freaked then and ran like hell down the wooden steps. The sound of laughter followed.

Now I come from old southern stock, so after I settled down, said a few prayers, I eased back into the room, picked the bucket up, filled it with water again and resumed my cleaning. Nothing happened. A few days later, when I started to scrub the walls in the upstairs hallway, I noticed somebody had written in the dust and grim. 

“Go AWAY!” It is what was written. I paused for a moment and shrugged my shoulders and just cleaned away the words and nothing happened. As I did that the air around me got colder and colder and I felt somebody had shifted all its attention to me.

Things started ramping up too, I would sweep and the broom would fly out of my hand, I would be  knocking down some cobwebs and again the broom would just get knocked out of my hand. I would come to find my bed sheets and covers flung all over the room. Once I found my Manga collection piled up in a nice neat pile at the foot of the stairwell, with my bed sheets, and most of my stuff packed up in boxes. Mom and I had been out that day doing some shopping for the house. Both mom and eye shrugged our shoulders and she helped me get my stuff back into its proper place.

We figured we had a ghost, but the ghost seemed harmless enough. Mom called our local Episcopal Priest, Fr. Percy over to bless the house. Mom had attended school with Fr. Percy for a few years and once confined in me, the way mothers do that she had dated him for a few months. The two never broke up, but just gently floated apart. Anyway the moment Fr. Percy stepped into our house and something odd happened. 

For one, nothing happened, no weird bumping sounds, no random closing or opening of windows. The house became silent and it put both mom and I on edge. Fr. Percy however started to roam around, he roamed for a good two hours. Going from room to room. I was surprised, I expected him to  start chanting prayers in Latin and splashing holy water around, instead he seemed to be thinking. At times it seemed he was talking to somebody.

Finally, his tour finished and he ushered mom and I into the sitting room. Mom fixed Fr. Percy  some coffee and he thanked her. After he finished his coffee. He took a deep breath, removed his collar and leaned back into the chair.

“You do have a ghost. The ghost is a young girl, fourteen or fifteen. Around Taylor's age. It seemed she killed herself, by jumping off the town's water tower some twenty one years ago. She is not ready to move on.” He paused.

“At first she was not happy with you two being here. But she took a shine to the pair of you. She is watching over you. She will reveal herself in good time. She is,” He paused. “She has become Taylor's Guardian Spirit. Their other spirits in this town.. she is one of the good ones.” With that he stood up and left.

Things settled down after that. But one day, feeling a little bold, I walked into my room and eased down upon my bed. I then took a deep breath and in a loud booming voice called out.

“Okay! So, first you wanted me gone, now you want me to stay. Listen school's going to be starting soon. I don't want to come home from six hours of school to find my room in a mess. Also, please, don't start knocking my stuff around. And I know you might not like my taste in clothing. And that's cool and all, but please don't throw myself on the floor. And the whole knocking shit over, it has to stop.”

I felt a little silly talking to the air like that. But it felt better to get all that off my chest you know. Then something happened that I did not expect. The door to my closet opened and from the confines of my closet they stepped out a girl, she wore a long skirt, and what appeared to be a turtleneck. Her raven black hair was styled back in a classic french braid.

“Okay.” She said as she moved across the floor. “Lets talk.”

And so we did, and that is how I started developing a friendship with a ghost. Don't believe me, why don't you come over to my house so you can meet her? That is, if you're brave enough of course.

Not all the stories my friend's tell are set in Benton. Some are urban legends from other small towns. The following story is one that was told to us by our friend Taylor Croft. Taylor was not born in Benton, but her mother was and her family is of old Benton stock. Taylor was born in Madison and raised in Yazoo City until a few months ago when her mom suffering from a bad divorce moved her and her daughter back to her hometown. Anyway it's with her permission that I'm posting her story here for others to read and enjoy.

A long time ago, back when Yazoo City was known as Manchester there lived a woman all along in a run down house on a hilltop that overlooked a sharp bend in the Yazoo River some thirteen miles from town. The town has been developed and the swamp has been drained and cleared away and farmers now plant cotton, soybeans, peanuts, and corn in what used to be nothing but marshland. But the till top remains and on top of that hilltop one would find ruined remains of an old house.

Now according to legend the woman was named Ruth and how she came to live in a run down house located on top of a hill that overlooked a bend in the Yazoo River that was surrounded by swamp has remained a mystery for generations. Some say she had once been a belle who had lived in Vicksburg, others say she had come over from England to escape justice. Nobody knows, but what they did know is that she was a strange woman and her house was filled with books, old leather bound books that had strange symbols on the covers and whose pages were filled with strange letters that nobody could read beside Ruth herself.

One stormy, foggy night a young boy of twelve who had been fishing in the nearby swamp for catfish knocked upon Ruth's old wooden door. He was soaked to the bone and the rain was coming down in buckets. He knew somebody was home because through the dirty windowpanes that were choked with cobwebs, dirt and dust he spotted a single candle flicking upon a wooden table.

Finally the boy could not take the coldness and the downpour anymore and so he pushed upon the door and walked inside Ruth's home. The moment he walked in was the moment he felt himself grow pale. Because the scene he had walked into reminded him of the vivid images of hell the local Baptist minister preached on every so often.

The wooden floorboards of the house were covered in blood, crimson red blood that seemed to call out to him. The stench of rotting flesh seemed to fill the room, on the table was a butcher's cleaver that was stained red with blood and beside it was a human hand. Bubbling away on the dying embers of a fire was a black cauldron. The boy cursed his curiosity as he slowly picked his way from the front door over to the simmering kettle. Taking a deep breath he peered over the edge and a moment later he was overcome by horror!

For there, bubbling away in the pot was a blood red broth, a hellish concoction it seemed of severed fingers, human bones, blood, human flesh, dried red peppers, fish bones, and fish heads all bobbing up and down in the bubbling red sea. The boy felt himself about to vomit when there in the doorway stood old Ruth, her brown tattered dress hung down down, her gray hair tangled and matted down, her fingernails long and yellow, with dirt caked under them. In one hand she held a large skinning knife and in the other she was dragging what appeared to be a man. And a man that looked like he had just been pulled from the muddy Yazoo River. His short black hair was dripping wet and he seemed more dead than alive.

The boy blinked and peered at Ruth who it seemed was also wearing a leather apron that was stained with blood. Her eyes quickly narrowed at the boy and then in a crackling tone of voice she called out.

“Dark One! Oh Dark One! You've gone and brought Ruth a tender little meal! He'll be fine as summer wine all chopped up and boiled in one of Ruth's good old fashion soups!” Ruth Joyfully called out as she dropped the fellow she was holding. He landed in the mud with a thud, it was then the truth dawned on the boy, the man was dead.

The boy its said was overcome with fright but retained his wits about him. He dashed toward Ruth and ran past her and dashed toward the swamps. All the stories agree on one thing, he dashed toward the river to his wooden raft and started to paddle toward the tiny hamlet that was Manchester. He reached the town right as the morning sun was starting to peek over the willow, and cypress trees that dotted the banks of the Yazoo River.

He put in at the bottom of what is now the bottom of Main Street but then was called Fisherman's point. Breathing hard he climbed up the muddy banks of the river and started toward the Sheriff. Now at the time Benton was still the county seat of the newly formed Yazoo County and Manchester was nothing more than a collection of salons, alehouses, with a few shops and banks and a collection of small creole cottages located in the steep hilly section north of the main business district. This area is now called Broadway Street.

But Manchester did have a small militia attachment in town called the Manchester Rifles. The militia acted like a make-shift police force and was mostly used to deal with river pirates and highwaymen that roamed the countryside and often preyed on flatboats and lone travelers. The Commander of the Militia was also the Sheriff oddly enough. He was a tall man, a big chested man who had won a reputation of being a skilled tactician and a fearless leader in many of small and often deadly clashes with armed groups of highwaymen and river pirates.

His name was Martin Harden and to his house this boy came knocking.

“Mr. Harden! Mr. Harden!” The boy called out. “I've seen the devil in the making down by River Bend! Old woman Ruth! She is cooking and eating men alive!” He cried out into the early morning. “I've seen her cooking a hellish broth!” He cried out in agony.

Martin Harden was at breakfast when the boy came calling that morning, at first he was annoyed but then he started to think. For years men and boys had gone missing around that bend in the river. And he knew of old woman Ruth, everybody did. Most of the town's folks just regarded the old woman as nothing more than a mild annoyance, she most often showed up on market days standing on the street corner where she would be for alms. Other times she would try to exchange her herbal curses for a few crumpled dollar bills and still others she offered to read somebody palm in exchange for a few pennies.

And though Martin Harden had his doubts. He could tel the boy was sincere. And so he told his maid to look after the boy to fix him some breakfast while he went about town and gathered up some men. Around mid-morning a posse of men had been formed, all of them were mounted and armed. Martin then called for the boy and told him to lead them to the woman, warning him if this was just a hoax then there would be trouble for him.

The boy swore an oath that this was no hoax and so the posse set forth into the jungle-like swampland that surrounded the village.
The trek through the swamp was a perilous one, clouds of mosquitoes swarmed around the men as they hacked their way through canebrakes using only their pocket knives and backs. The sun too was merciless. Dozens of shallow creeks had to cross and with each step the men took, horseflies nipped at their exposed skin. But they pushed on, they pushed on through the heat of the day till at last late in the afternoon they came to the edge of the woods that bordered the witches hut.

It was then they paused and took a collective breath because standing before them was a sight that chilled even the toughest man among them. A man, naked hung from a tree by his ankles. He had been gutted like a deer and his head had been cut clean off his shoulders and a wooden bucket sat under the bloody stump. Drops of crimson red blood dripped down into the bucket. And there in the doorway of her house old Ruth stood, hatched in one hand, musket in the other and a pistol tucked into the waistline of her dress.

One of the younger men raised his musket and fired off a shot, he missed but Ruth slowly turned toward them, raised her own musket and a moment later she fired off a shot and the same young man that fired first fell down to the ground, dead as a hammer. Ruth's musket ball had spit his head half into.

Martin Harden then gave the order to attack and the men charged from the clearing toward the old woman who raised her pistol and shot another dead before taking her hatched into her hand and charging out to meet her attackers. The following melee only lasted a few moments before Ruth had hacked her way through the loose formation of men, killing two more and wounding another. Like a mad dog she ran into the woods, howling like a banshee as she dove headfirst into the thicket of briers, vines and bamboo.

But as luck would have had it, she lost her footing and slipped down a slipper slope and landed in a pool of quicksand. Just before she slipped under the surface however, she yelled out.

“I'm going to put on a curse on this damn town.” She bellowed at the top of her lungs. “Each generation will feel my wrath. My curse will linger till Gabriel blows his trumpet! And God decides to end this world and bring forth his kingdom. Not till the day of judgment will this town be safe!” And with that she slipped under the surface and was no more.

Now according to legend, they fished her body out of the hole and tied it to a horse and carried her back to town. Their they hung her from a sour apple tree to prove to the towns people she was really dead and her rule of terror over the them had come to a end. A search of her house uncovered the remains of around twenty seven bodies.

She was buried in an unmarked grave in the town's cemetery, but then they remembered her parting words and so they had a blacksmith forge a chain, the chain had thirty seven links in it. And covered the whole of her grave. The townspeople did this more out of jest and mockery than anything with the smith who forged the chains having said.

“If she breaks out of that! She can burn the whole damn town down!”

Time marched on and the tiny river hamlet of Manchester grew into a city and the name was changed from Manchester to Yazoo City to honor the river the town was built on. The towns population greatly increased and business thrived. A railroad was built that connected the town to Jackson. The railroad expanded and branched out into the delta.

Electricity soon came to the town and soon electric street lights replaced the need for lanterns and candles. Once dirt streets were replaced with brick, thriving merchants built fine houses in a newer section of town that was soon to be called Grand Avenue; a modern High School was built at the intersection of Grand Avenue and Main Street. The city had telegraph offices that connected the business district to such far away places as Boston, New York, Liverpool and London. The town also built a fine brick railroad station.

The town was thriving, till one hot August evening when a mysterious fire broke out at the top of Broadway Hill. Soon the first had spread to the surrounding houses, the wooden houses went up like matchsticks, burning brightly, hot embers and cinders rained down from heavens and soon the fire spread, it spread down from the steep hill and into the main business district.

The orange and red flames seemed to leap from one building to the other. The town was thrown into a panic and ministers of all the churches in town started to ring the church bells of the town. A call to arms, as men, women, and children rushed down the streets toward the safety of the river as the town burned around him.

It was a hellish sight, the wooden frames of the houses burned brightly, the heat caused the cobblestones to crack, the metal rails of the trolley seemed to almost melt from the heat, and above the loud pealing of the bells the screams of men, women, and tragically children trapped inside the burning building filled the air. The main business district was gutted and soon the fire spread to the surrounding neighborhoods. Grand Avenue, Madison Street, Jackson Street, South Main, Custard Street, Willow Street, Brook Street, Taylor Street, and River Street, burned and the smell of roasting human flesh and horseflesh filled the air.

The fine churches and public building that lined North Main Street went up in flames, the newly built Catholic and rebuild Episcopal Churches, were reduced to a smothering pile of cinders and ashes, the towns post office and hospital burned, not even the schools were spared.. the flames lasted for three days till at last a sudden downpour quenched the fires. The butcher's bill came to three thousand houses burned to the ground, two hundred and fifteen businesses, seventeen churches, and the whole school system gone.. and most heart breaking of all seven hundred and fifty people had perished. The fire had caused around six million dollars in damages.

Once the smoke cleared though, a few of the older townspeople who had been just toddlers when Ruth was hanged remembered her dying threat and so they started toward her grave. It was early afternoon when they arrived at the grave, and much to their horror the long length of chain that had surrounded her grave had been broken in half.

“The witch, she returned.. she broken out of her grave..” Somebody was supposed to have said upon looking down at the broken chain.

The witches curse endures today. Another length of chain was broken when the Mississippi River rose up and claimed the downtown area in the flood of nineteen twenty seven. Again another length of chain was broken when the Tallulah – Yazoo City – Durant, Mississippi tornado ripped through town, causing several million dollars in damages and taking the lives of twenty seven people. And so it seems old Ruth is keeping her word, and still using whatever dark powers she had to keep her curse alive. And so it seems the town of Yazoo City is cursed and will be cursed till the ending of the world.

Vicksburg, Mississippi is an historical city located on the banks of the Mississippi River. As a port on the Mississippi River the city of forty thousand souls is far more cosmopolitan that the surrounding area. Vicksburg is also one of the most haunted cities in Mississippi. The city itself endured a terrible forty day siege by Federal Force's during the Civil War. The city is said to be crawling with ghosts, from phantom Confederate soldiers still defending the city from advancing Federal Forces, to demons said to  have been conjured up by reckless teens who dabbled in the occult for fun. The town is said to host dozens of haunted sights. The most famous of these supposed haunted houses is McRaven, an Empire style house located on Harrison Street.  The house has often been called “The Most haunted house in Mississippi.”

But my story is not about the many ghosts that are supposed to call McRaven Home. No my story is about a personal encounter I had in a small little museum located at the intersection of Clay Street and Cherry Street in the heart of Historic Downtown Vicksburg.

I remember it was the autumn of two thousand eighteen and I'd just told my older sister Kayla that I wanted to live full time as a girl named Madeline. Kayla just rolled with it, shrugging her shoulders and saying that was a decision only I could make. But she also mused that since I was going to be living full time as a girl that I needed to explore the world as a girl. And so since she had business in Vicksburg, she decided that I should tag along and explore the city as a girl. Up till that point, I'd only been allowed to travel around my new hometown of Benton dressed as a girl and once or twice at the mall in Jackson.

Kayla reasoned that Vicksburg was a pretty safe town to explore, and being rich in history she hoped I would learn something while she visited with friends. So, with that in mind she placed one hundred and twenty six dollars in my hand, checked my purse to make sure my phone was fully charged, and oddly enough she slipped in a rosary, for luck she said. I believe that rosary saved me.. and once all that was done she kissed me on the cheeks, told me where to meet her for dinner that evening, warned me not to flirt with all the boys and left to make her social round.

And so there I was in the heart of Downtown Vicksburg, alone with two close to two hundred dollars in my pocket and the whole day in front of me. Now like Benton, Vicksburg has a thriving downtown scene, it just feels alive. Both sides of the street are home to thriving boutiques, lively cafes, romantic bistro's, and unique museums.

And let me tell you something, I soaked it all in. I felt like I was living in a Studio Ghibli movie. It's hard to explain, but the sounds of people laughing and talking, the way sound echoed down the cobblestone paved streets, the smells that perfumed the air, smells that included fresh baked bread from the bakery, freshly brewed coffee from the coffee house, the shouting of children as they played on a old cannon that overlooked the river. And the way the wind just seemed to blow around me, tossing my brunette hair around. 

I spent the first part of the day touring the many museums that called downtown home, including one that focused on the civil war, and another that focused on Vicksburg as a whole, and another one focused on the river. Of course I shopped at the many boutiques too, I'm not ashamed to say I brought at least two skirts, a dress and a pair of casual jeans without breaking the bank. And I had a delicious blue plate lunch at a charming cafe called “Cafe De New Orleans' '. The meal was golden fried chicken , the chicken was fried to perfection with the best seasoned crust I've ever tasted in my life. And was so moist and tender it just melted in your mouth. My sides included mustard greens that had been seasoned just right and flavored with tiny bits of bacon. 
Black eyed peas that had been slow cooked to perfection, and Speckled Butter beans a favorite of the south. And to finish it all off a piece of decadent chocolate cake. Talk about a tiny slice of heaven. I felt like I'd gained at least fifteen pounds from that meal alone. 

It was well into the afternoon when I finished eating. I had caught the tail end of the lunch crowd and the staff had informed me that if I'd been just a minute or two late, I would have missed lunch altogether. Full from lunch, I decided to tour an art gallery that was just up the street and hit the local bookshop. I brought from the art gallery a small print from a local painter and from the bookshop a manga I was missing from my collections. 

The sun was just about to set, and one quick glance at my watch told me I had just enough time to squeeze in one more stop before I was to meet my sister for dinner that night. It was then I decided to check out the tiny doll museum located just across from the bookshop.

The place was called “Yesterday's Children Toy and Doll Museum”. And according to the local's the place was supposed to be haunted by a doll now according to local lore the doll, who was fitting enough named Annabel had been owned by a little Jewish girl in Germany in the nineteen thirties. Because of Nazi Anti-Jewish actions, the family according to some The Wernickle family planned on leaving German and to join relatives in the U.S. The little girl insisted that her doll leave too. To placate the girl, the family shipped the doll to relatives. Before they, too, could leave, they were rounded up by the Gestapo, placed in a concentration camp and never heard from again.

It was said the spirit of the little girl lived inside the doll and that she would often search out for playmates among the visitors. In some cases she showed real malice toward the living and would often scratch, bite and physically attack the living. In other cases she was said to menace the living by pushing items off the selves, giggling behind their backs or whispering words into their ears. I learned all of this from an episode of ghost adventures. 

Looking back now, I should have turned around and walked away, but I felt something was calling out to me, something inside that place wanted me. And before I could catch myself, I started to cross the street. And soon I was pushing through the wooden door and stepping into a world of wonder. Okay wonder not the right word. But I soon found myself surrounded by toys from all era's.

“Can I help you?” I remember the clerk said to me from behind a big wooden desk. The clerk was an old woman, who seemed to have one foot in the grave. Her hair was white as a sheet and most of her teeth seemed missing. Her fingernails too seemed longer than they should and her dress, a blue dress seemed to hang off her bone-thin frame. 

“Yes.” I said. “I want to see a doll.”

“We have plenty of dolls.” She responded.

“This doll appeared on television last year.”

“Oh!” I recall her saying as she pointed with her gnarl hand through a door. “She is waiting on you right through there. But be careful. She likes to play with children..” She paused, then she loudly cleared her throat and tapped the sign that read.

“Admission – Seven Dollars.”

I blinked and rolled my shoulders and pulled my purse around me and fished out my billfold, I then counted out one five dollar bill and three ones into the old woman's open palm. She smiled a feral smile and sniffed the money and then cackled like a demon released from the pits of hell. Looking back, I should have turned tail and dashed out the door and ran for the nearest police book. Age had taken its toll on the woman it seemed, she was clearly a few cards shy of having a full playing deck.

But I shrugged my shoulders and started to walk through the door. Now I was never much of a doll person. Heck even when I was a boy going by the name of 'Mark' I preferred plush dolls and stuffed animals over the china dolls that seemed to surround me. I hated porcelain dolls, something about them seemed to put me on edge. My late mother Lisa loved them and had a massive collection of them. The guest room in our old house in Clinton was filled with her collection of vintage porcelain dolls.

As I walked through the walkway memories of that guest room came to mind. As a little boy, before I became Madeline I used to hate going into that room. I always felt like something or somebody was watching me. The dolls seemed to move and often seemed to play tricks on me, like causing the door to shut behind. I never, ever closed the door behind me, just the thought of getting trapped inside that room gave me nightmares. Those dolls seemed to know it and used that fear against me.

My breathing became harder and deeper. I felt a tightness form in my chest. It felt like somebody was squeezing my lungs. I started to cough, then I started to wheeze and then the room started to spin around. I felt like I was having an asthma attack.  The room started to spin around, I felt like icy claws had taken hold of my chest, the fluorescent light bulbs overhead started to flicker on and off before popping, showering the room in a waterfall of sparks. 

I was beyond words and scared out of my mind. One would think with the flights flickering and popping somebody would come running. Nobody came.. After what seemed like a very long time, but could have only been a matter of seconds I managed to get my breathing under control, well controlled enough that I could stumble through the door I just walked through. I wanted to leave the room as soon as possible, the idea of spending any more than a few seconds in a dimmed room surrounded by creepy porcelain dolls was more than my shaken mind could take.

But then something happened, something appeared out of the corner of my eye. A silhouette of a girl appeared just a few feet in front of me. The moment the outline appeared was the moment the temperature in the room seemed to drop like a stone. My breath turned to mist in front of me, a sudden coldness seemed to surround me, and my asthma once more seemed to kick up. Once more I felt myself struggling to breath and the shadow girl started to walk toward me.

What happened then, I can't say, I reached into my purse, pulled out the rosary that Kayla had given me that morning. Showed the shadowed child the silver crucifix at the end and started to yell. And I mean bellowed the Lord's Prayer as loud as I could and as quick as I could and that seemed the work. A few moments later my breathing returned to normal and though my strength was sapped. I managed to crawl out of that room.

Now I believe I've encountered the paranormal a few times in life. Some of those encounters have been very positive, others have not. This one though was one of the few times I felt my life was threatened. I try not to think what would have happened if I'd not had that rosary with me. Or what would have happened if the shadow child had reached out and touched me. Or what could have happened. But as any seasoned ghost hunter will take you, sometimes things get real, and when things get real that is a real test of your metal. If you catch my drift that is.

With the hindsight of a few seasons behind me, I was fourteen when I encountered that ghost or demon or whatever it was. I'm sixteen now. This was a foreshadowing of things to come, Vicksburg is haunted. And it seemed I would soon find myself encountering many of the ghosts that roamed the city. Maybe that is why I decided to found  a society of storytellers who sit around a roaring campfire in the middle of the woods, roasting marshmallows and beef franks, and while we much munch we scare ourselves silly with ghost stories. Because each of us had our own personal encounters and we needed to share them.

In the course of writing down these stories, I've discovered no two paranormal encounters are the same. I'll give you an example, let's say you and I dear reader were going on a ghost hike through the woods. You might encounter the legions of hell attacking you, you might be touched, scratched, and otherwise menaced. While I, on the other hand, would enjoy a midnight stroll through the woods. 

And that is why I write these stories. To chronicle the paranormal encounters of a fellowship of trans girls, their boyfriends, their friends, and their allies. And above all to bring you some spine tingling tales. So with only a handful stories to go till this volume of  Ghost Stories and Urban Legends of Benton: More Ghost Stories is finished let's keep the ball rolling. So readers beware you're in for a scare!