October 2 question – Ghost stories fit right in during this month. What’s your favorite classic ghostly tale? Tell us about it and why it sends chills up your spine.
It isn’t a classic, but I read it in middle school(?).
I can’t even remember the title, but it’s a medieval/pioneer setting and there’s a village being terrorized by some night creature killing people and livestock by punching a hole into the victim’s throat, then ravaging the body. Community meetings and various folks go out to try and catch the critter, only to fail. Two young men have to take a shift because it’s their household’s turn. One is attacked in the night, but before the creature can kill him, his brother swoops in and severs the creature’s hand at the wrist. The creature shrieks, runs away. The hand is left behind as some dried, gnarly bloody thing. The victim’s brother takes him home. The family fusses over the injuries and bruising on the survivors neck as the brothers tell the story about an impossibly fast and strong critter they couldn’t see because of the dark.
No one notices tiny grandma quietly coming in to sit in her rocker, hiding the roughly bandaged bloody stump of her arm under her shawl.
Story ends right there.
Why wouldn’t this freak someone out? Is she demented? Is she actually a monster in disguise? Is it some witch-thing to prolong her life? Did she know her grandsons were on shift that night? Did she even care? Is it actually the plan to kill her family?
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT, GODDAMMIT!?!?!???
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