Wicked Wednesday: Spooky Places

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by Barb, leaving for Key West tomorrow

First of all, this happened.

I had coffee with longtime Friend Of the Wickeds, Mark Baker, (Carstairs Considers) when he came through Portland on vacation. So great to see him in real life–and not even, as he pointed out–at a conference.

But back to our usual programming.

Wickeds, what’s the spookiest place you’ve ever been? It could be someplace deliberately spooky–like a haunted house. Or it could be a place you stumbled into, or even went to on purpose.

Edith/Maddie: Safe travels, Barb! As for spooky places, with my imagination I can turn anywhere into a spooky place. Dark windows at night (especially when I’m inside alone), underneath a bridge, walking through a tunnel by myself – you name it. There has been an apparently abandoned antique home in my town that was completely overgrown with trees and vines. Dirty windows, a junker in the side yard, but at night the occasional light on in one back room. Now THAT’S spooky (or maybe sad, but that’s not what you asked about).

Julie: Safe travels! I went to a haunted house when I was a kid that did me in. But I also went camping once (emphasis on the once) and that whole being outside with no lights and nature all around terrified this city girl. No thanks.

Edith/Maddie: OMG, Julie! I adore camping, maybe because I grew up doing it with my family amid Giant Sequoia trees. Not scary at all to me. So funny.

Sherry: Have a great trip, Barb! As to camping, I’m with Julie. I’ve had terrible luck. The first time was at Lake Powell. We were out on a boat. It was 80 degrees. A park ranger comes up and tells us a squall is coming in a few hours. Spent the night in the tent, wind howling, tent flapping over my face, and it was freezing. The next morning there was snow on the ground. My next two experiences were when my daughter was in Brownies in Florida. One year my friend and I put up our tent. The leader came over, said it was backwards, and said a LOT of words that aren’t in the Brownie manual while she fixed it. I came home from that one with so many bug bites that my legs looked like a topographic map of Indonesia.

But to tie back to the topic. The next camping trip with the Brownies was one year in April. We went then so it wouldn’t be too hot. We get there and set up. (Someone else put up the tent Elizabeth and I would be sharing.) The park was very close to the interstate. A ranger comes by and tells us a. that there’s a bear in the area and b. there’s a freak cold front is coming through. It was freezing. There’s more howling wind. Elizabeth kept falling out of her sleeping bag and I kept stuffing her back in so she wouldn’t freeze to death. Then I hear crunch, crunch, crunch of something or someone outside the tent. I couldn’t decide if I was more afraid of it being a bear or some crazed psychopath that found his way from the freeway.

Barb: I like haunted houses. My kids still talk about the Haunted House at DisneyWorld where we went thirty-six years ago. I also like camping. My family never camped but Bill’s did and we camped with our kids and with Bill’s family. But I do get what Julie is saying. I am never scared or creeped out by a big city. Put me in the country on a night so dark you can’t see your hand in front of your face and I am really freaking out.

I have a Brownie camping story, too. Or maybe they were Girl Scouts, but still pretty little. It was mid-June and unbelievably hot for New England. We were excited to be going to a Girl Scout camp with tent sites on a lake. But when we got there, there was some problem with the lake. We couldn’t go in or near it. The sweating little girls lined up along the shore staring at the lake with the most pathetic faces. Finally, even the adults agreed it was just too hot so we packed up and headed to our cottage and let all the girls swim and eat dinner. MEANWHILE, in California, O.J. Simpson had climbed into a white Bronco and was leading the police on a slow-speed chase. All the moms were glued to the news. Finally, we gave up on the camping trip completely and headed home.

Readers: Tell us about a spooky place and/or a memorable camping trip.

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Published by Barbara Ross

Barbara Ross is the author of twelve Maine Clambake Mystery novels and six novellas. Her books have been nominated for multiple Agatha Awards for Best Contemporary Novel and have won the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Portland, Maine. Readers can visit her website at www.maineclambakemysteries.com

19 Thoughts

  1. I’ve been to the Winchester House in California. I’ve been to haunted houses in the circus, not a fan as they tried to scare you but I scared them instead.

    One camping trip we went to Bear Mountain. We walked a bit further than we should and of course we spotted a bear and was chased by said bear. I haven’t been back since.

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  2. I took my son back when he was almost 2 years old to the town Halloween Haunted Railroad car. My youngest brother was one of the monsters and he came over to uss and didn’t scare my son at all. The next week their was a picture of them together in the local newspaper.

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  3. Think the spookiest place I’ve been is at home. It was also the more terrifying time. Now mind you we were in the very near path of a tornado (less than 1/4 of a mile) and the color the sky took on, the noise and then the quiet before the noise took over again, seeing things flying in the air, it was petrifying and left one awe struck at the same time until you realized that it was more than likely affecting others drastically. Thankfully we found out later it was only out buildings and debris flying around and no one was injured due to taking cover when warned. Honestly hope to never be that close to another tornado ever again!
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

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  4. Safe travels, Barb!

    I’m not a spooky fan, so no stories there. But plenty of camping trips in Girl Scouts. The most memorable are the one where we cooked a turkey in a garbage can (it was delicious) and the Jamboree where all the tents were raided by a raccoon because someone down the line had ignored what the leaders said about NOT putting candy in the foot of your sleeping bag.

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    1. I have a raccoon story too. We were camping on an island in Lake George where the raccoons we over populated and unafraid of humans. We were eating dinner at a picnic table on a platform with our Coleman cooler by our side. A raccoon came up, opened the rather complicated lock on the cooler, reached in, took out a hardboiled egg, and calmly peeled it and ate it, all while staring straight at us. We were so astonished and fascinated, we didn’t even shoe him away.

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  5. I once lived in a haunted house. in Gloucester, MA. For real! My boys first complained about “a guy coming out of the closet.” I told them they were dreaming. Then the guy came into my room! It was real. I met a woman who had lived there as a child. She told me, “My mother always said that house was haunted.” I learned that a man and his sister had died in a fire in a house which had stood on the original foundation of the house . I didn’t pass the information on when we sold it, but I presume it’s still haunted!

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    1. Hmmm. So interesting. I know you have to pass along facts about your house if they are relevant–like if there’s been a murder there. But do you have to pass along the information about ghosts? I’m sure not but would I want to know? It might enhance the value.

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  7. On the way from AZ to PA, driving the moving truck, we stopped at a supposedly great crab cake restaurant. Well, not only did they not have crab cakes, we seem to have tripped into the Twilight Zone. Only one table of drinking bikers and no waitstaff. The bikers completely ignored us. Only employee was a woman in the kitchen who ignored us. We felt entirely invisible. The vibes were very eerie. We got out of there only to realize that the restaurant was between two rundown abandoned motels. I waiting for Rod Serling to show up.

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  8. Ohhh, Girl Scouts camping trip AND racoons. Yes! Got one. We were camping in the mountains in NJ. One of my very good friends and I were sharing a tent which means by the time the giggling stopped, it was way late. The day before the trip, my friend had her long and enviably straight hair cut into a pixie cut. Well, I woke sometime in the night and felt long, soft hair under my hand. At first, I thought Linda was playing a trick. Then I opened my eyes and stared straight into a pair of beady black eyes surrounded by a black mask. I froze and clearly remember trying to figure out what Nancy Drew would do. Eventually, it moved off. Who knew raccoons had such soft fur.

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  9. The spookiest place that I have ever been was not anywhere near Halloween. Hubby Dearest and I grew up in Harlingen, Texas in the Rio Grande Valley. When you went up Hwy 77, after Raymondville, you would drive for 90 miles before you got out of the King Ranch. There was another ranch below the King Ranch called the Yturria Ranch. We went to a party at the Yturria Ranch to meet a bunch of friends, the foreman of the King Ranch and his date for a bonfire party. The directions were to go through the front gate, drive past the Ranch house which was several miles in and just keep going until you see the bonfire. There were no lights, a rutted road and scary noises. We drove for miles. Hubby Dearest (we were in High School, so young) was telling me stories about lost people that lived out there and preyed on anyone driving along the road. We were in a VW Beetle and as we drove along, out of the dark of night, a huge creature jumped in front of the car. It was larger than the car, ran across the road in front of our car and off it went. Turns out it was a Nilgai, which is the largest African antelope. All of these ranches have exotic breeds. Scared the fool out of us. We finally made it to the bonfire and our friends and had to have a few Cuba Libres to settle our nerves.

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