The Vengeful Ghost of Carl Pruitt

In Kentucky, June 1838, a carpenter named Carl Pruitt arrived at his house and he caught his wife having an affair with another man.  The other man managed to run away and escape by leaping out of a window, but carl went into a blind rage and he choked his wife to death with a metal chain.  When Carl's rage subsided, he then realised what he had done and that his life was ruined, so he decided to take his own life.  Unlike many couples who die, Carl and his wife were not buried beside each other.  They were not even buried in the same cemetery.

A few weeks after carl had been buried, residents noticed that a discolouration was developing at the top of his headstone and it looked like the shape of a chain.  Some of the locals suggested that it was a bad omen and that the headstone should be removed and placed somewhere else, but officials disagreed with the idea and they chose to let the headstone stay.  A month or so passed and a group of boys were passing past the grave on bicycles, and one of the boys named James Collins, stopped and threw rocks and chipped the supposedly "cursed"gravestone, probably to show that he wasn't scared of all of the hype that the grave had gained.  On his way back home, James lost control of his bike, as if it were being manipulated by an unknown force, and it began to pick up speed until he eventually crashed his bike into a tree.  To everyone's surprise, the bicycle chain not only came off of the bike, but it also managed to wrap itself around James's neck, strangling him to death.  News of the incident spread quickly, and when residents went to investigate the gravestone, they noticed that it was unharmed, despite James's friends saying that James had thrown stones at it. This event began to fuel rumours that Carl's Ghost was responsible for the boys death.

As expected, James's mother was heartbroken that she had lost her son.  A month after, she went to the graveyard with an axe, and enraged, she hacked away at Collin's gravestone until it lay on the floor in numerous pieces.  The next day, she was hanging her washing outside on a washing line made of chain instead of wire or rope, and she slipped and got entangled with the chain.  despite all of her struggling and her best efforts, she was unable to break free and she choked to death on the chain.  After her death, Carl's gravestone appeared to once again, be undamaged.

Rumours continued to circulate, and shortly after the incident, a farmer and his family were riding past the graveyard on their horse-drawn carriage.  The farmer began to boast how he wasn't afraid of ghosts, then he pulled out his pistol and began firing shots at the gravestone, damaging it.  The horses that were pulling the carriage got spooked and they began to run faster and faster.  The family managed to jump off to safety, but the farmer stayed on and tried to stop the horses from running.  The horses ran too fast round a corner, resulting in the farmer being thrown off of the carriage and getting his neck caught on one of the chains on the traces.  The farmer's neck was broken, and once again, another victim was claimed and the gravestone remained undamaged.

The police were eventually called to the cemetery to try and investigate the gravestone and all of the misfortune that it had caused, but there was nothing that they could actually do, and one of the officers laughed at the gravestone and at the townspeople's superstitions.  The officers eventually got into their car and began to drive away.  The officer who had laughed was driving the car and he glanced back towards the graveyard.  He saw a light rising from the graveyard and quickly fly towards the police car.  The officer suddenly lost control of the car and it began to pick up speed.  The car went off of the road and crashed between two posts and began to roll around.  The officer who was sitting in the passenger seat was thrown out of the car, but he only suffered minor injuries. The officer managed to get to his feet and he went to check on his partner.  His partner had been killed, but not due to the impact of the car crash itself.  There had been a metal chain hanging between the two posts, and as the car crashed, the chain broke off through the car's windshield, and wrapped around the officer's neck, and it almost took his head off!

After this incident, most of the residents became afraid and they decided to avoid the cemetery altogether.  One man named Arthur Lewis wasn't afraid and he was adamant that everything was superstitious gibberish, and he was determined to prove it to everyone.  He told his wife what his plans were before he left to go to the graveyard at night with a hammer and chisel.  Arthur began to chip away at the gravestone, and everyone who lived nearby could hear the noise.  Suddenly, the noise of the chiseling was replaced with a spine-chilling scream.  A group of men with lamps ran towards the cemetery where they found Arthur's dead body lying at the cemetery gate with the gate's chain wrapped around his neck.  Despite countless witnesses having heard the gravestone being chiseled, it remained undamaged.

Eventually, the graves from the cemetery were moved to somewhere else, but Carl's grave remained and was forgotten under weeds.  In the 1950s, a strip mining operation took place in the area, and Carl's grave was destroyed in the process.  No more deaths had happened as a result of this, but the 5 previous similar deaths still remain to be mysterious and unexplained.

Do you think that all of these related deaths were just caused by random unfortunate events, or do you think that they were caused by dark forces at work?  Let me know by commenting in the comments section.

The Vengeful Ghost from Indonasia - Sundel Bolong

A Sundel Bolong is a ghost from Malaysian and Indonesian mythology.  The ghost is of a woman with beautiful long black hair, and dresses in a white dress.  She has a hole gaping from her back, and her name means “prostitute with a hole in her back” and this refers to the hole in her back and her method of catching her victims, which tend to be male.

In folklore, there are several variations surrounding the life and death of the Sundel Bolong, but it is supposed to be the ghost of a woman who was forced into prostitution and eventually because pregnant.  The woman later either died and gave birth in her coffin; or died during childbirth and by some strange phenomena, the baby came out of her back instead of the usual process, resulting in the big hole in her back which she hides with her long black hair.  Legend has it that she roams the world looking for her baby, and she is also said to take revenge on men by seducing them with her beauty and scent of perfume.  She then shows the men the bloody and maggot infested hole in her back, and the scent of perfume changes to that of rotting flesh.  If a man is put off by this, she will castrate him, then kill him and devour his organs.

I know that sometimes, times are hard and a man can't be too picky with his women, but it would be a long time in hell, before I hook up with a woman with maggots coming out of a hole in her back! Castration and a grisly death would also be pretty bad, but I could probably escape while she looks for a big enough knife....  What option would you rather pick? Let me know in the comments section!

The Brahmaparusha Vampire from India

The Brahmaparusha vampire is the brain-eating vampire from India and it is creepier than many other vampires. The Brahmaparusha is a male vampire who has a strange habit of collecting its victim’s intestines as trophies and wearing them around its head like a turban, as a sign of power to show off how powerful he is. Pretty messed up right? This vampire’s ego doesn’t stop there because it would also pour its victims blood into a skull cup which it carries about for drinking blood.  Once the vampire had drunk its victim’s blood, it would proceed to crack the victim’s skull open, then feast on the brain, which happens to be its favourite part. Finally after the vampire would be done eating, it would tear open the victim and rip out their intestines which he would then wrap around his head and neck and wear them as a trophy. The vampire also has a big appetite and it would take more than a few victims before it got its fill.

It is unknown how these vampires were created. Some believe that it’s a demon who possesses a corpse or living person in order to keep feeding, and it begins to eventually destroy the host body from the inside. Unfortunately they are very fearsome and the only way to prevent being eaten is to run away and hide somewhere and hope that it doesn’t get you.

The Vampire from Berwik

In Berwik, England, there was once a vampire known as the Berwik vampire.  There once lived a religious man who everyone looked up to, but when he died, it was discovered that he had lived a life full of sin, and everyone disliked him afterwards.  The man died, possibly as a result of a plague, and since no one was too fond of the sins that he committed, he was denied to be buried in a normal graveyard, therefore his grave stood alone on unconsecrated grounds.

Soon after the man was buried, a pale apparition which resembled the man, was seen roaming the streets at night and attracting the attention of many dogs who followed him around, and barked endlessly all night long.  Residents were too afraid to walk outside at night, in case they crossed paths with the wicked creature and its hellhounds.  Disease began to spread around and some people thought that it was caused by the vile man getting revenge and spreading a plague.  A group of people eventually decided to try and fix the problem, therefore they went to the man’s grave during the day, dug him out, chopped his body into numerous pieces, then finally burned the body, in hope that this would destroy the undead phantom for good.  After all of this took place, the man ceased to wander the streets at night, and the loud barking of dogs also stopped, thus assuring the residents that evil had been vanquished and once again, they were free to walk the streets at night.  All did not go to well afterwards, because the plague returned to Berwik and many of its population perished, but many believed that it was caused by the previous presence of the vampire.

Some people classed the apparition as a ghost, while others thought that it was a vampire, and some people even thought that it was the man being controlled by Satan himself.  What do you think it was? Let me know in the comments.

Penanggalan - The Dark and Terrifying Malaysian Vampire

The Penanggalan vampire is a variation of vampire from South-East Asia, primarily Malaysia.  Like the Loogaoo, the Penanggalan vampire is not quite undead since it’s a living person during the day who transforms into the vampire at night. The Penanggalan vampires are all woman who at night detaches their heads from the rest of their body in order to fly off in search of victims, but their stomachs and entrails are still connected to their head and they glow in the night as they fly around. Talk about scary and disgusting!

In folklore, the vampire is either a beautiful old or young woman who gained her powers through the use of black magic or through other dark and supernatural methods in order to stay beautiful forever.  A woman may also become a Penanggalan by being cursed by someone with the use of black magic.  The Penanggalan was also said to be a midwife who had made a pact with the devil to not eat meat for 40 days, but she failed this and as punishment she was cursed forever to suck the blood from mothers who have given birth and their infants. This vampire can also control its hair and organs like tentacles in order to remove obstacles from its path as it flies.

The penanggalan flies around at night in search of pray. The vampire can drink blood and also eat flesh, but it prefers to drink blood. This vampire may also wait on rooftops of houses where women are giving birth, and it screams out when the infant is born.  It’s preferred pray are infants, the blood from mothers who recently gave birth, and the placenta which it eats after it has been buried. If the vampire is unable to gain entry to a house, then it can stretch its tongue through under the front door or any other small openings and then it begins to such the blood from its victims. Victims who come into contact with the tongue but are not killed in the encounter, are said to then die from the wasting disease unless they are healed by a medicine man. Many Malaysian houses are built on stilts, therefore it is also believed that this vampire can use its organs like tentacles and squeeze its way above the floorboards then proceed to devourer any infants in the premises.

There are a few ways in which one ca protect themselves from this vampire.  One way to protect yourself against it is to scatter the spiky leaves from the pandanus palm tree, in hope that the vampire would puncture its exposed organs and lungs on them. The thorny vine can also be strung up around windows and doors, so that the flying vampire can get its organs snared in the vines and then it can be killed with a machete. Although the snares wouldn’t protect the infants for when the vampire enters through under the floorboards, therefore several months before a child is expected to be born, the family can plant pineapples under the house, and the spikes from the plant and fruit will protect against the penanggalan. Pregnant women can also sleep with scissors or nut cutters, since the vampire is afraid of these items.  A way to identify when a midwife is a penanggalan is to notice if they are licking their lips when a woman is giving birth as if they are looking forward to drinking her blood at night, and these vampires tend to avoid making eye contact when they are in their human form. Men should find out where the vampire lives and when it flies away into the night, they should go into the house and locate the detached body and either cremate it or stick broken glass down the neck so that when the vampire returns they puncture their organs and die or are unable to go into their body and daytime comes and they die. A non-lethal way of dealing with one of these vampires is to find the detached body and move it back to front so that the vampire with attach its body with its head facing the wrong way for everyone to see.

It is also believed that the penanggalan’s body begins to decompose when it becomes detached from its head therefore she stores it in a vinegar vat in order to preserve it while she flies around. Similar to the loogaoo, if you find her detached body and rubs garlic paste on the inside, then the vampire with perish. 

How would you react if you saw this monstrosity flying outside your window at night?