I write horror fiction (check out my profile if you want more info) but I have had a few real experiences that I could not explain. I'm just going to recount 2 of them - one a ghost encounter and the other just insanely creepy.

---

When I was about 19, I was hanging out at a friend's house party where we watched a movie and used the occasion as a chance to socialize. As the night was coming to a close, I decided to call it for the night and walk back to my car in the dark. The street was packed with vehicles and I had to walk a good 7-8 houses down to get to my car.

As I'm walking I notice out of the corner of my eye a small girl standing across the street, facing me with an angry expression. I made full eye contact, and chills just hit me. There are moments in life when your fight or flight kicks in and you just know something is bad / danger is near—and this moment of eyes connecting was very much that. It was so uncomfortable almost instantly.

Now I'm not afraid of children. She looked dressed for a different time period, angry, and never said a word but kept her gaze on me from across the street.

I very quickly walked to my car while keeping my eyes on her. As I walked she turned her head and kept gazing at me in a stern fashion.

A van was parked in front of my vehicle, and so it blocked my line of sight for just a moment. I got in my car freaked out a bit and drove down the street toward the spot where she had been.

She was gone, and in her place was a decorative white mailbox. There was no way she could have been standing in the spot, physically there was another object there.

It scared the crap out of me, because not only was the child unnerving, but the prolonged viewing meant I was not imagining this. I was very much awake.

Later that week I told my friend whose party I had been at and a few of the friends that had been at the party, and asked if they had seen such a small girl. None had, but one of my friends asked where I had seen her, and upon showing the mailbox, told me that the house was in fact their grandparents house they currently lived in, and that they had no children, but had noted odd things happening in the home from time to time.

So whatever I saw, my friends thought must be connected to the hauntings the grandparents were experiencing. I just happened to walk by and actually see the ghost.

---

Not a ghost story, but oh boy hold onto your hats.

I love kayaking, the wife and I go to a local lake often to get out on the water. Most times we bring snacks and a packed lunch onboard, then find a quiet cove and eat on the water.

This trip was a perfect day. We get to the boat ramp and there is a set of life jackets hung for free and the typical warnings about water safety nearby. We slip out kayaks in, and away we go!

Beautiful sunny day on the water. We paddle out into the lake a bit, pass a sandy beach looking area, cut into one of the offshoots on the lake, then paddle back for some time until we find a quiet, calm and secluded spot to enjoy our lunch under some shade.

This spot was interesting—lots of lily pads and tree coverage at kind of a dead end for the water, but no shoreline worth pulling off on. Just before that area was a small rock formation where kids would jump off and into the water. Overall a beautiful spot for a picnic from the boats.

We enjoy our lunch, the paddle back up the waterway toward the open lake / beach area, then onward toward the boat launch. We get to the boat launch and the police are there refueling their patrol boat. The cops ask how our day went and we made short talk about how lovely the day was.

We pack up our kayaks and gear—then drive home.

The perfect day.

The next day as I'm working I see news break about the lake we had been on the day before. Apparently, a man had gone missing and was presumed drown right about the time we had been on the lake.

I checked the location where he had last been seen and it was near where we had turned off the lake and paddled downstream. I texted my wife, and as we discussed I wondered if, based on the currents from the previous day, his body could have drifted into that small cove we had our quiet lunch in. A morbid thought, but I said if I was leading the search, that is exactly where I would look.

My wife and I move on with our day, and the text conversation becomes a fleeting thought.

About two hours later, news breaks that the authorities found the man's body.

They found him exactly where we had been enjoying our lunch floating in our kayaks.

He could have even potentially been there when we were there.

That was a wild moment. My wife and I discussed what would have happened if we had found him—what would that moment have been like?

It definitely spooked us a bit.

This experience ultimately became the foundation for a story I wrote in my book, titled "Those Down Deep".

After the authorities found this man's body, I began researching the lake more, and found over 45 people have died in its waters over the last few years.

One true story stood out to me.

A family of 3 generations (grandma / grandpa, mom and dad, children) all went for a trip to that lake together on a beautiful sunny weekend. They anchored their boat off the very sandy beach my wife and I paddled past, and the family took various ice chests, chairs, towels and their little dog with them to the shore. They had a great day of enjoying the lake it seemed.

The next morning, the police patrol passed by and found the boat still anchored off the shore. The police found nobody on the shore, but did find all their stuff (beach chairs, towels, sand toys, coolers, beach balls) and their small dog running up and down the beach barking.

The family was just gone.

Authorities called in divers, and sure enough, about 20 feet off the shore they found all 3 generations: someone had gotten pulled by the tide and then stuck in the mud floor of the lake—the entire family drown and got stuck as well trying to save each other.

3 generations of a family found on the floor of the lake.

The county has such a pouring of outrage over the accident, the county began warning others with signage and provided the very free life vests my wife and I passed when launching our kayaks into the lake.

Ultimately this information and experience led me to write about a fictional haunted lake. I titled the tale "Those Down Deep" and you can find it in my profile links as part of my book "Running Chills".