Headless Horror

Shady Lane, in Ashford in the Water, Derbyshire, UK, looks like a good place to avoid. It is said to be haunted by the ghosts of twelve pallbearers, each of them headless. They carry a coffin - an empty one.

The coffin awaits the body of anyone unlucky enough to see the twelve pallbearers.

Ghost Train

Marshall Pass, in Colorado, is the site of a very intriguing ghost tale involving a train - and more.

In the 1880s, Marshall Pass was on a commonly-used railroad line, and it was haunted by a ghost train. One night, engineer Nelson Edwards had an experience that was never to be forgotten.

As the train was ascending, Edwards received a signal that he was to stop. The conductor, when asked, said that he had given no such signal; he went on to say that they should rather increase speed, because another train was following theirs.

Edwards did so, reaching the high point of the track, and beginning to descend. It was then that he saw a freight train behind them. The train grew closer, and Edwards and the conductor both saw the engineer of the other train - and he was laughing at them.


As the terrifying chase continued, Edwards saw a warning light ahead to stop the train. Figuring that the other train would hit his anyway, he applied the brake, and went through a crowd of several railroad workers, not one of whom was a living person. His train stopped safely - but the other train derailed and went off a cliff. As it fell, it vanished.


The following morning, Edwards found this message written in the frost on his window:


“Years ago a frate train was recked as you saw- now that yu saw it, we will never make another run. The enjine was not ounder control and four sexshun men wore killed. If you ever ran on this road again yu wil be killed.”

Edwards didn't, and he wasn't. He left the company (Rio Grande) and found work as an engineer for Union Pacific. Nobody ever saw the ghost train again.

Burton Agnes Hall and the Screaming Skull

Young Anne Griffiths was so fond of her home, Burton Agnes Hall, that she was determined never to leave.







While walking in a park one day, Anne was attacked by a thief. She was brought back to the hall, badly wounded, but still coherent. Knowing that she was dying, Anne made her sisters promise that they would have her head severed from her body after death, and keep the head in her beloved home.




Her sisters, understandably, had her body buried intact - and that's when all hell broke loose. All sorts of strange sounds were heard at the Hall - footsteps, doors slamming, and moaning, until finally, Anne's body was exhumed for the gruesome operation. When the coffin was opened, her head was found to be separated from the body, and lacking all flesh and hair. In short, the head was now a skull, and ready to be installed in Burton Agnes Hall.

One day, a servant wrapped the skull in cloth and tossed it into the back of a wagon. Pictures fell inside the Hall, and the horses pulling the wagon were terrified. The skull was brought inside, and the disturbances stopped. On another occasion, the skull was buried in the garden, and again, Anne vented her fury until her skull was restored to the house - only this time, it was bricked into a wall, so that it could never leave the Hall again.

The ghost of a headless woman has also been seen in Burton Agnes Hall. Anne, perhaps?