Faces of Death

The Bélmez Faces or the Faces of Bélmez is an alleged paranormal phenomenon in a private house in Spain which started in 1971 when residents claimed images of faces appeared in the concrete floor of the house. These images have continuously formed and disappeared on the floor of the home.

Located at the Pereira family home at Street Real 5, Bélmez de la Moraleda, Jaén, Andalusia, Spain, the Bélmez faces have been responsible for bringing large numbers of sightseers to Bélmez. The phenomenon is considered by some parapsychologists the best-documented and "without doubt the most important paranormal phenomenon in the 20th century".

Various faces have appeared and disappeared at irregular intervals since 1971 and have been frequently photographed by the local newspapers and curious visitors. Many Bélmez residents believe that the faces were not made by human hand. Some investigators believe that it is athoughtographic phenomenon subconsciously produced by the former owner of the house, María Gómez Cámara - now deceased ("Thoughtography" is considered a form of psychokinesis among parapsychologists).

Skeptical researchers point out that unlike other psychic claims this case is falsifiable. Since the faces of Bélmez are fixed on whitewash of cement, scientists are able to analyze the molecular changes that took place in such mass of concrete. Skeptics have performed extensive tests on the faces and claim that fakery has been involved.

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GOOD FOR BUSINESS

THE Four Gables Bed and Breakfast in Brattle, Vermont, was built in 1791 as a residence for Archibald Horton. Horton, a professional surveyor and an amateur occultist, achieved a small level of notoriety when he broke off from the Freemasons to form his own group, which he unimaginatively called the Hortonists.

            Horton and his Hortonists were obsessed with black magic, and they believed there were invisible portals all around us—portals to alternate realities where great old gods with terribly unpronounceable names dwelled. The Hortinists wanted to usher in a new era for mankind; an era where the ancient demon gods would liquefy human flesh and turn bone into ash. Despite their best efforts, the Hortinists never managed to achieve their goal. But they did pull off a bunch of other dark, nefarious stuff.

            One after another, the Hortonists died off in bloody, suspicious ways, until Horton himself was the only one left. Having lived to the extremely old age of 103, he committed suicide by cutting off his own head in a guillotine he had had shipped to America from France.

            Over the centuries the house passed from owner to owner—none of whom stayed very long. There was a long period of time when it was completely abandoned, but the historical society kept it from being demolished.

            Everything changed in 2001, when Beatrice Torgleson purchased the house with hopes of turning it into a bed and breakfast. She was recently widowed (under mysterious circumstances), as well as recently retired, and she thought this was a perfect way to spend her “golden years,” as people liked to call them.

            Bea shelled out a small fortune to restore the house, although it was hard to keep the same contractors working on the job. They would quit at an alarming rate, with no real reason given.

            Eventually Bea was able to get one of them to tell her that the house was haunted. The workers would hear strange things. Rooms would suddenly grow cold. The walls would bleed. Black ooze would leak up through the floorboards. Random animals were found skinned and decapitated all around the property.

            Bea was miserable. Her dream was dead before it began. How on earth could she open a B&B if it were haunted?

            The house was finished before winter came, and just in time. A blizzard came crashing in, smothering the landscape in snow. Bea was alone in the newly restored house, sitting by the fire, when Archibald Horton appeared. He stepped out of the fire, clutching his severed head in his arms.

            In her rocking chair, Bea sighed.

            “Are ye not afraid of me, woman?” Horton’s head asked.

            Bea shrugged. “What does it matter? My life’s dream is over. I killed my husband to inherit his fortune so I could open this bed and breakfast, and now it’s ruined.”

            “I understand not many of the words you have just spoken,” Horton said. He placed his head up onto the bloody stump of his neck and it rested there awkwardly. “I demand a sacrifice, woman.”

            “Go ahead, then,” Bea said. “Kill me and get it over with.”

            Horton laughed, and his laughter caused his head to fall off his neck and roll into the fire. Cursing, he reached into the flames and pulled the head out.

            “You are too old and ruined for the likes of me, woman,” Horton said. “The sacrifices must be of virgin blood.”

            “Well, you’re all out of luck,” Bea said, rising from her chair on creaking legs. “No virgins here.”

            She turned and headed for the stairs.

            “Where are you going?” Horton said. “I demand you come back and have an audience with me!”

            “Whatever,” Bea said and went upstairs to bed.

            That winter was spent interacting with the various dark forces that dwelled within the walls. Bea had planned to open the B&B in time for Christmas, but she gave up on that idea. She updated the B&B’s website to say Opening Delayed Indefinitely.

            Every morning as she woke and went to the bathroom, a shrieking female face stared back at her from the mirror, blood pouring from her eyes and spiders crawling from her mouth.

            Bea ignored it.

            When she took breakfast in the large, empty dining room, a headless, legless torso would crawl out from the heating vent and drag itself across the floor, leaving a trail of blood that would eventually evaporate.

            Bea ignored it.

            There were gigantic, hideous goat-like men in the attic, and two -headed rats in the basement. There were shrouded specters that floated from room to room, moaning and leaving a sticky residue of ectoplasm on the walls. There were a man and a woman, who were both nude and seemed to be composed entirely of blood, who would have violent, loud sex on the living room floor, before vanishing into mist. And of course there was Horton himself, always losing his head, screaming and chanting and demanding Bea bring him the sacrifices he desired.

            Bea ignored it all.

            Winter gave way to spring, and then summer, and soon autumn arrived. Bea took a trip into town. She needed to get out of that damned house for a while. She spent the day doing some light shopping and wandered into a Barnes and Noble.

            After perusing a few of the romance paperbacks, she was heading for the exit when she bumped into the corner of one of the display tables. The table was set up with various books for the upcoming Halloween season. Bea couldn’t believe her eyes. There were at least half a dozen books that acted as guides to various haunted locations. There was even an entire book devoted to haunted bed & breakfasts of New England.

            People apparently liked this sort of thing. They would pay good money to stay in a haunted hotel. Slowly, a plan began to materialize in Bea’s brain.

            She returned home. Horton floated up from the floor, clutching his head by the hair.

            “Tremble before my visage, woman!” he shouted. “For I am one with the Great Darkness!”

            “Yeah, whatever. Listen, I have an offer for you,” Bea said, setting her shopping bags down.

            “I do not make deals with the living,” Horton spat. He set his head down on a coffee table next to him.

            Bea smiled. “Oh, I think you’re going to like this one.”

            That Christmas, the Four Gables Bed and Breakfast finally opened, and seemingly overnight became renowned as one of the most haunted spots in New England. This brought in the tourists by the dozen, and the fact that Bea was a very good cook kept them coming back for more.

            Every day, a different person who was staying at the B&B would come up to Bea with a giddy look on his or her face, and tell of the horrifying sights he or she had seen during the night. Bea always smiled and nodded. She acted as if she didn’t really believe in that sort of thing, but that she would let the guests have their fun.

            And every few months, there would be reports from the surrounding towns of missing children; children seemingly snatched from their bedrooms late at night and never seen again. There were no leads, and no known motive.

            Of course, Bea knew the motive. She knew it because the basement was always off limits to guests, and she kept the key to the big padlock on her at all times. She knew it because she spent many nights washing the blood from her hands.

            But what did a little blood matter? After all, it was good for business.

            

One For the Road

            Mind if I buy you a drink?  It’s just that, well, I was sitting alone, and I saw you here in the corner, also sitting alone.  And I figured, you and me, we could sit alone together.  So whatever you want to drink, you let me know.  It’s on me.  Spare no expense.

            I’m not sure if you’re from around here or not, but have you heard about all the strange things that’ve been happening?  I’m sure you have, everyone has by now.  Weird stuff, let me tell you. 

            For instance, two weeks ago, the cows from McCreely’s farm started giving black milk.  Black as nightfall.  Every single cow.  They had a vet come out and look at them, and the vet couldn’t figure out what was wrong.  Then one by one, over the course of three days, the cows started dropping dead.  Every cow on that farm, gone.  McCreely is ruined. 

            Last week, the clock on the tower in town hall, it started running backwards.  They tried just shutting the damn thing off, and that didn’t work.  It just wouldn’t stop running backwards.  Did that for two days straight.  Then it stopped dead, and they haven’t been able to get it working since.  I mean, that clock is over seventy years old, so I guess age could have something to do with it, but I don’t know.  Seems strange.

            Are you sure you don’t want that drink?

            Anyway, Nativity Of The Blessed Virgin, that’s the church over on Riverline Ave., well, they have this old bell tower, see.  And one night, around one a.m., the sound of loud clanging bells starts screaming out of that tower, and doesn’t stop

until sun up.  The fact that the bells wouldn’t stop ringing isn’t the strange part.  You see, there aren’t any bells in that damn tower! There haven’t been for fifteen years!  But everyone heard them.  Hell, I heard them.  They kept me up all night, and I had just gotten off of a double-shift.  It was awful.

            Where did you say you were from again?

            Did I mention the woods by Bindlebottom Lake?  Bindlebottom Lake is this huge lake we have, at the edge of town, and it’s surrounded by thick woodlands.  Woods that go on for miles and miles, up into the mountains.  Well, there was this group of trees near the lake, and all of them were stripped of their bark.  And not just a little bit.  I mean, entirely.  About fifty trees stripped clean.  And there were these weird...symbols carved in them.  I don’t know what they were, I’ve never seen anything like them.  Some professor or something, in the newspaper, said

that they were Pagan symbols.  Ancient. 

            And it’s cold.  I mean, it’s fall, so it’s supposed to be cold.  But I don’t remember a fall ever this cold.  It’s a biting, stabbing cold.  It seeps in through your clothes, cuts through your skin and wraps itself around your bones.  I wake up covered in ache.  No matter how many layers I put on, I still get the chills.  Thought I was getting sick or something, so I went to see the Doc.

            He couldn’t find anything wrong with me, but he said almost the entire damn town had come in to see him complaining of that same coldness. 

            Folks are saying this town is haunted. I don’t know if that’s possible, for an entire town to be haunted.  I’ve never heard of that. Maybe a house, or a whole block of houses.  But an entire town?  And if it is, is it all one ghost, or is it a ghost in every home? Can one ghost haunt an entire town? Of course, that all depends on if you believe in ghosts, I suppose.

            Last chance for that drink...

            Okay...

            Everyone’s scared now. That’s understandable. Strange things like this are bound to make anyone frightened. The thing about fear is, it leads to desperation.  And desperation, well, I’ll be honest, it leads to sex. Nothing makes people feel safer than sex. Takes everyone’s mind off of things. So I’m just putting it out there, that I want you to go home with me tonight.

            I don’t care that your arms are broken branches, or that your hair is constantly dripping wet. I don’t care that I can see through your skin to your bones underneath. And I don’t care that you don’t have any eyes, just two empty sockets glowing red.  Tonight, to me, you’re lovely. 

            And I need some company. 

            I’m too afraid to walk home alone.

Review: I AM A GHOST

I Am a Ghost is one of those rare ghost stories that's told from the perspective of the one haunting the house, rather than those being haunted.

Anna Ishida is Emily, a woman from a seemingly Victorian time stuck in a loop. She keeps reliving the same random events every day, and she also finds herself communicating with a medium she can not see, named Sylvia. 

Emily died in the house she haunts, and Sylvia is trying to get her to move on--but it's not quite working, and neither woman can figure out why.

To say any more would spoil the film, so that's all you need to know. The less you know, the more effective this film is.

I Am a Ghost is a slow-burn, reminiscent of Ti West's House of the Devil, which also features a female character trapped in a spooky old house, slowly building towards a frightening climax.

This is essentially a one-woman show, and Anna Ishida does a fine job of carrying the film. She's not as polished as a "Hollywood actress", but this helps with the out-of-time nature of the character. 

Again, this is a slow-burn of a movie; some people may lose patience after seeing Emily cook the same two eggs for the fifth time, but the build up is worth it. When the horror finally kicks in, it's all the more effective.

It always helps to have a good setting for your film, especially if your film is of a lower-budget, and the old house in I Am a Ghost is perfect. It's clearly a real house--not a set--adding realism and a nicely preserved historical look. Director H.P. Mendoza employees a few nifty tricks to keep the mostly quiet movie engaging; for one thing, the film itself is presented in a frame reminiscent of an old photograph, with rounded edges. Split-screens and washed-out colors help with atmosphere and actually contribute to the film, rather than just feeling like they were added to "look cool."

If there's one complaint I have with the film, it's the (vocal) performance of Jeannie Barroga, as the psychic Sylvia. Never seen and only heard, Barroga's line-delivery feels very flat, almost as if she's just reading her lines off a piece of paper into a microphone, and not putting much feeling into them. But that's not enough of a problem to derail the movie. 

At 74 minutes, I Am a Ghost never over-stays its welcome. It knows just when to end, and doesn't drag things out any further than necessary. 

It may not be the slickest of ghost movies, but it's certainly one of the more effective, with a final act that will leave you chilled and disturbed. 

White Stag

The minute Mary saw the thing, she knew it was wrong. 

There was nothing outwardly ominous about it—it was, after all, a small porcelain statue shaped like a white stag. But the feeling of dread that lurched up in Mary’s stomach when she laid eyes on it was impossible to deny. She didn’t like the thing; in fact, she downright hated it.

And of course, her daughter Sarah was instantly drawn to it. Mary and her daughter had gone out for a drive on a warm Sunday morning, and had happened upon a very large yard sale taking place in front of a huge, old Victorian home.

There must have been hundreds of items, and there were half a dozen people mingling about—taking it all in. But out of the hundreds of random items, Sarah had gone right for the white stag. It was sitting on top of a small bookshelf, which was also for sale.

“Mommy, look at THIS!” Sarah had exclaimed, as if she had discovered something remarkable. Sarah held the statue up in her tiny hands and beamed.

“Put that down, honey,” Mary said, trying not to look as worried as she felt. “You don’t want to drop it and break it.”

“Oh, I don’t think that would happen,” came a sand-papery voice. Mary started, turning on her heels. An old man in a red cardigan sweater stood behind her. He wore dark mirrored sunglasses, and his face was grizzled with white beard stubble. 

“Is…is this your yard sale?” Mary said, forcing a smile.

“Sure is,” said the man, grinning with large, rotting teeth. 

“This thing is so cool!” Sarah said, turning the statue over in her hands. “It’s a deer!”

“It’s a stag, actually, little lady,” said the old man. “A white stag, point of fact.”

“Cool!” Sarah exclaimed. Mary looked down at the stag; looked at its blank, sculpted face and its black painted-on eyes. She shuddered involuntarily. What was she being so silly about? It was just a stupid statue—why feel so afraid of the thing?

But she was afraid, and she wanted to grab Sarah by the hand and pull her away.

“How much is it?” Sarah asked.

“Sarah, manners please,” Mary said. It was the only thing she could think to say. What she really wanted to say was “PUT THAT THING DOWN, and come with me THIS INSTANT.”

“Oh, for you, little lady,” the old man said. “One dollar.”

“Oh wow! Can we buy it, Mom?” Sarah said, smiling up at Mary. 

Say no, Mary thought. Say no way. Tell her to put that thing down and get in your car and get out of here…

The old man was smiling politely. He had a pleasant, warm smile—when he wasn’t showing those stained teeth. Mary looked from him to Sarah and then back again.

“Sure,” Mary forced herself to say. She paid for the statue, and they left. The whole ride home, Mary kept casting nervous glances at the white stag, and the white stag looked back with those empty black eyes.

At home, Mary told her husband Tom how nervous she felt about the statue. Tom laughed.

“It’s just a statue, hon,” he said. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

“There’s just something about it…it makes me SO nervous and I can’t say why,” Mary said. The next few months, Mary found her entire world turned upside down. She had been living what she considered an idyllic life—things were near perfect. Then, Tom was in a terrible accident at work. He was the foreman of a profitable steel mill—but the accident was so bad that the doctors said he would never walk again. He lost his job, and his health care benefits were revoked—making the medical bills near impossible. 

Mary’s mother, who had been in wonderful health for her age, suddenly died of a massive heart attack. Only a few weeks later, Mary’s father died of the same exact cause. 

Sarah was doing terribly in school---likely because of the family tragedies going on, the school guidance consoler had said. But she was failing her classes, and getting into fights with other students almost daily. Sarah had once been a sweet, innocent girl; now she came home from school with black eyes and bloody knuckles. It got so bad that she had actually broken the arm of another girl she got into a fight with, and had been expelled. 

Just when things couldn’t get any worse, the company where Mary worked was downsized, and she lost her job—and her health benefits, which were helping to pay for Tom’s medical bills.

Friends would try to help the best they could, and they would all offer their sincere condolences for all the bad luck the family was experiencing. But Mary knew in her broken heart that it wasn’t bad luck—it was the white stag. All the trouble had started the day after she had bought the statue. The entire time, the statue had been sitting on a coffee table, looking blankly at them as their lives crumbled.

As insane as she knew it was, Mary felt that if she got rid of that statue things would be good again. 

First, she threw it out in the garbage. She even watched the trash men dump the can into their truck, and saw the statue crushed. But the very next day, it was back on the coffee table in perfect condition. Next, she tried burying the statue in the park. But again, the next day, it was back where she left it. No matter what she tried—even smashing the thing with a hammer at one point—the statue would always be back in its place the next day.

She tried to find the old mans house where she had bought the statue, but she could never locate it. It was as if the entire house had vanished.

And then, an idea came to her.

“I think I’ll have a yard sale,” she told one of her friends. “We have a lot of old junk laying around here, and heaven knows we can use the extra money.”

So Mary had set up a yard sale on the front lawn, placing random items around the ground with stickers on them listing the price. And in a place of great prominence, she put the white stag. Before the sun had started to set, a woman and her daughter arrived. The daughter, who was the same age as Sarah, went right for the statue.

“Can we buy it, Mom? Can we?” the girl said. Mary saw the look of terror on the mothers face, but Mary’s own face betrayed no emotion.

“H-how much is it?” the mother asked, swallowing. 

Mary smiled--flashing her large, rotting teeth.

Beautiful Ghost

They said you could see her after midnight—if you really wanted to find her, that is.

No one remembered her real name; it became lost over time. But everyone in town knew the story. She was sixteen years old during the Civil War, and she helped care for the wounded—on both the Union and Confederacy sides. Her mercy did not discriminate, and she was loved by all. A beautiful girl, with fire-red hair and light freckles dotting her cheeks, and eyes that resembled two deep, blue pools.

But those were bloody times, and sorrow found her. She had the misfortune of falling in love with a Confederate soldier, and he with her. Their love was forbidden by her father, but she disobeyed him, and it cost her dearly. She was falsely accused of being a spy and giving secrets to the Confederates. And the girl who showed everyone mercy was granted no mercy of her own. She was found guilty, and hanged until dead.

And she did not rest easily. 

Ever since then, rumors have persisted that if you wandered over to the field where the ancient oak tree from which she was hung still stood, you might see her ghost. And if you did, it was a bad omen. Someone close to you would die, because her unjust execution had robbed her spirit of any of the tender mercy she possessed in life.

Or so they said. 

I'd never put much stock in these stories. That summer, I was seventeen years old, and was so hung up with finishing school and my almost crushing love for a girl named Alice who was in one of my classes, that ghosts and old legends were the furthest thing from my mind. But Alice rejected me—she was in love with someone else.

Feeling heartbroken and down on my luck, I took a late night walk to clear my thoughts. I spent almost the whole walk looking down at my shoes, unaware of where I was going and not really caring.

Before I knew it, it was well after midnight, and I was in that legendary field, right beneath that infamous tree. It had been a warm summer night, but the air was suddenly chilly. I shivered, and felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. 

And then I saw her. 

She came out of a beam of moonlight, her dress swaying in a breeze that was not there, her hair bright red like fire, and floating about her head as if she were submerged in water. And I could see the rope marks burned into her throat. She was beautiful, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I was enthralled with her, and at the same moment I was terrified. She whispered something to me, but I could not hear what it was. She smiled with sweet lips, and then she was gone. 

My whole body shook, and I felt suddenly exhausted, as if I had been sprinting for miles. My mind struggled to convince me that what I had seen had not been real—could not be real. But I knew I had seen it. And I knew that meant someone close to me would die. I was terrified—who would it be? One of my friends? My parents? I spent the next few weeks in terror, waiting to receive a phone call telling me that someone I held dear had met with a tragic end. But it never came. Weeks turned into months, and months turned into years, and the memory of that beautiful ghost faded away.

Returning home from college one Christmas, I happened to run into Alice—my high school crush. We began dating, and after graduating college we married. Occasionally I would have haunting dreams where the beautiful ghost would come to me, whispering her secret that I couldn't hear. But the dreams would fade. And time would march on. And I would forget.

Alice became pregnant, and we were both thrilled. She was as eager to be a mother as I was to be a father. The doctor told us he could inform us of the baby’s gender, but we wanted to wait—to keep it a surprise.

The pregnancy was going smoothly, and we were prepared for our lives to change for the better.

And then yesterday, I received a phone call at my office. It was from a state trooper. Alice had been in a terrible car accident after a tractor-trailer had derailed on the highway. She had been killed instantly.

I wept madly for my wife and unborn child. And last night, I went to bed, my heart aching, my body weary. And I dreamed I was 17 again, back in that field by the tree on that moonlit night. And the beautiful ghost came to me, whispering her secret.

Only this time I heard what she said:

"Daughter."

Talking with the Dead

“A few simple instructions are all that is necessary, and I shall be pleased to give these, free of charge, to any one.”

--Aleister Crowley on the Ouija Board

 

• Former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi claimed under oath that, in a séance held in 1978 with other professors at the University of Bologna, the "ghost" of Giorgio La Pira spelled the name of the street where Aldo Moro was being held by the Red Brigades in a Ouija. According to Peter Popham of The Independent: "Everybody here has long believed that Prodi's ouija board tale was no more than an ill-advised and bizarre way to conceal the identity of his true source, probably a person from Bologna's seething far-left underground whom he was pledged to protect."

• In London in 1994, convicted murderer Stephen Young was granted a retrial after it was learned that four of the jurors had conducted a Ouija board séance and had "contacted" the murdered man, who had named Young as his killer. Young was convicted for a second time at his retrial and jailed for life.

• Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, used a Ouija board and conducted seances in attempts to contact the dead.

• The poems written by Patience Worth, an alleged spirit, contacted by Pearl Lenore Curran, for more than 20 years, were transcripted via a ouija board.

Heads Will Roll

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."

--Shirley Jackson

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