Halloween Stories

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Halloween stories are best told in the dark – if you really want to be scared.

Ballyyahoo is a great place to find darkness because our little town has no street lights – not one.

Paddy Plant is one of Ballyyahoo’s oldest residents and he isn’t afraid of the dark.

He loves it because he says you can hear better in the dark.

Paddy has got fantastic hearing but that could be because he has great big hairy ears.

THE FLAP OF A BAT’S WING

No matter the cause, it’s a fact that old Paddy can hear every flap of a bat’s wing, every banshee’s whisper, and every single shake of a witch’s wand that happens within a mile of Ballyyahoo.

Now, as well as having a great pair of ears Paddy Plant is also known in Ballyyahoo as a great man for telling stories and yarns.

PADDY’S HALLOWEEN STORIES

Halloween stories are Paddy’s favourite but he swears that this particular story is true and so far, nobody’s proved him wrong.

CLICK HERE FOR YOUR FREE HALLOWEEN BOOK

THE SOUND OF THE GRAVE

It all happened a few years ago when Paddy was only in his eighties.

It was a dark Halloween night and Paddy decided to take a little stroll through the Ballyyahoo graveyard.

Not many Ballyyahooians would do that because they know that Halloween is when the dead are the closest to the living.

Paddy Plant said he was only a little bit scared but that soon changed because as he got closer to the graves he began to hear a strange scratching sound.

The night he heard the scratching noise he told himself that the sound was coming from the trees – perhaps just a little group of bats, making scratchy mischief in the moonlight.

But as he looked up to the treetops he realised there were no bats.

Even the bats had flown away to hide.

So around he stared, searching for the source of that ungodly noise.

Have you ever heard the sound of fingernails being dragged across a blackboard?

Well, that’s what it this was was like, except for one thing.

This noise didn’t sound like a blackboard.

It sounded more like these fingernails were scratching wood!

Not just any old wood but special wood, thick mahogany wood, the type of wood they use to make coffins!

That’s when Paddy realized – those awful scratching sounds were coming from one of the graves!

CLICK HERE FOR YOUR FREE HALLOWEEN BOOK

He crept closer, holding his ears to stop them flapping in the wind.

The closer he got, the louder the sound so Paddy knelt down and placed one of his ears flat on the grave.

As he did he heard something that made him leap up so high that his feet left his boots and he banged his head off a tree branch.

For a minute he dangled in mid-air and Paddy felt as if some invisible hand was holding him there.

He kicked and squirmed, yelped and howled until finally the invisible hand let him go and he fell back down.

As he did he fell so hard that he landed flat on his back on top of the grave.

That’s when the whispering began – quiet voices that he swore were the voices of the dead.

Paddy’s heart was beating so loud it felt like it would burst out of his chest and run away all on its own.

There was only one thing he could do.

He pulled himself up and he ran.

He ran so fast he even left his boots behind.

Now, Paddy’s not easily scared, but after that night he started to cross to the opposite side of the road whenever he went past the graveyard.

The people of Ballyyahoo knew Paddy to be a sound and sensible man, so pretty soon, they did too.

EEJITS AND HALFWITS

Later, Paddy claimed he wasn’t really scared. He’d just been having the craic and that only eejits, halfwits and people from Ballyyuseless were scared of dead people.

But Biddy who has a sharp eye and sometimes a sharp tongue noticed that whenever he said that – he crossed his fingers and you know what that means don’t you?