Kingsmouth Hauntings

Kingsmouth has an unusual amount of reported ghost sightings, and has often been visited by ghost hunters, people with vested interest in the paranormal. None of them have been very successful - some "professionals" even claiming the citizens simply have very vivid imaginations. But because the sleepy town is an epicentre of occult activity, a crossroads between this world and others, spirits of the dead have often been anchored there, and many still are.

Stories about Kingsmouth's many old buildings abound, like the town hall, the Priest House, Innsmouth Academy, the Franklin Mansion and the church. Several ghost stories haunt these soulful edifices, and the citizens have done their best to keep the legends alive. Because of the somewhat eccentric pride the locals take in their dark history, the authenticity of the legends varies greatly, though it's true beyond doubt that several locations in Kingsmouth are indeed home to ghosts.

One building that is particularly well-known for its paranormal activity is the old Franklin Mansion. Between the 1930s and 1950s, the owners converted it into a so-called "occult hotel." They would host mystic evenings, inviting their guests to watch as they conjured the spirits of the dead. As a spiritual and occult tableau, the mansion has been saturated with the constant use of supernatural powers. All the ghosts that were paraded around like animals on show are now trapped within its wailing walls.

The current owner of the manor, Eleanor Franklin, is a special kind of lady. People in Kingsmouth think she's a few eggs short of a basket - she shares her home with the spirits, saying they have just as much right to live there as she does. The widow accepts their presence and the ghosts accept hers, but outside of that there is no interaction between them, and she knows little to nothing about their past lives. She accepts that others may want to interact with them though, and will often let people rummage around in the big, empty mansion.

Even in death, the Franklin Mansion ghosts remember the details of their demises vividly. They aren't very friendly, and those who have dared approach them now know what it's like to be locked inside a room with enraged gusts of wind hurling objects out of nowhere. However, when the ghosts calm down, they are often willing to tell their stories.

All of them save one either lived or worked in the house, and their tales are both sad and gruesome, as most were brutally murdered within the house itself.

There's Ella, the shy serving girl who worked in the house when it was Phileas Flagg's property. She was his favourite and he took special care of the young girl. But, when Mr Flagg moved away and left the house in the hands of caretakers, the other jealous servants treated her unkindly. Her life came to an end when they locked her up in the basement - her screams forgotten, or ignored. Ella starved to death, alone and cold, in a dark cellar in 1904.

In 1918, Margaret Delapore and her three children were killed in the house. Margaret's husband, Jonathan, suffered severe paranoia and was tormented by horrible nightmares. He believed that everyone, including his family, was in league with evil forces. One night, he decided to save his family by shooting them in their sleep. First his infant twin daughters and his young son, then his beloved wife and, finally, himself. The spirits of the baby girls and their father have moved on, while Margaret and Thomas Delapore restlessly wander the vast, murky spaces of the house.

Keaton Walker, Frida Diaz and Harriet Braun all lived in the mansion in the 1960s, when it housed a free-thinking artist collective. Punctured by psychedelic rock and the hallucinations of LSD, the young adults expressed their thoughts through poetry, painting and sculpture...until the day one of them, Billy Lee, went on a murdering spree and killed almost everyone. Both the house and Billy Lee were bathed in the blood of his victims - he had cut and hacked them up with a knife. Some were so heavily drugged, they never even woke to the slaughter.

Only one woman - Harriet Braun - escaped. She later helped the FBI lock up Billy Lee in an institution for the violent and mentally insane. Although she lived for many years after the murders, she told friends that her life really ended on that fateful night. Ironically, when she died of illness several years later, her spirit travelled back to the house and has been stuck there ever since.

There is one ghost without any evident connection to the Franklin Mansion. Little is known of him and he is most unwilling to tell his story; he calls himself Thurber, a gaunt middle-aged man of unknown descent. Unlike the other ghosts, he chose his haunted whereabouts, having arrived through a portal opened by the paranormal strain of all the sceances performed between the 1930s and 1950s.

His dislike, even hatred, for the secret world is obvious, but his reasons aren't as clear; he blames magic users for upsetting the balance of things and swears that payback is coming, but won't elaborate in any further detail. A nasty personality with a love for tricks and foul play, he's the most aggressive of all the ghosts in Kingsmouth.

All the spirits in Kingsmouth have different histories. Each once lived a unique life, though now they all gasp in the same sunken boat. The strong occult currents have trapped them here, in limbo between the living and the dead, forced to forever mull over their bitter experiences.