From the forward by Anthony D.P. Mann in Hunting Ghosts: Thrilling Tales of the Paranormal, edited by Buck Weiss.

The very first stage play that I ever wrote and produced was a dramatization of those supposed horrible events that transpired at the Borley Rectory in the 1920’s – The Most Haunted House in England, as it was known. It was the early nineties, and I was a teenager who had a healthy (or un-healthy, depending on who you spoke with) fascination with ghosts and monsters and other nasties that went bump in the middle of the night.

As Harry Price, the UK’s most notorious and famous parapsychologist of his day, I started the show by stepping onto the stage and proclaiming to the reality of that realm inhabited by phantoms and spectres. What was immediately obvious to me, even at that inexperienced age, was that everyone in that audience – believers and skeptics alike – was keen to experience a good spooky tale. Now, whether or not the audience got a good show by the end of the evening is a matter unto itself, of course. But this example paints a very clear picture that further illustrates the phenomena that brings us together today (you as reader and I as writer of this foreword): Everyone enjoys a good ghost story.

Fast-forward two decades, and here I am every bit in love with ghost stories as I was when I was a kid. I’m not an avid reader, by any stretch of the imagination, but when I crack open a volume of haunted tales, I am seldom happier. As such, it’s a pleasure to impart some of my own observations and insights into the genre, just as you prepare to immerse yourself in the terrors that await you in the pages of this tome.

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The Children of the Infinite

From Hunting Ghosts: Thrilling Tales of the Paranormal, edited by Buck Weiss. Story by Scott Bartlett.

A few days later, the three of us found ourselves sitting around an oak table at the Chadwick library. An unused fireplace was sending a draft throughout the library’s sitting area. I put my coat on and began to flip through the sheer pages of an old book from 1905. The first few pages were dog-eared and torn with faded yellowed tape holding them together. As I got further into the book, every page mentioned a character that was now immortalized as a street name. I saw woodcarvings of small factories that were now skeletal frames of scorched bricks.

In the center of the book was a map of the town, depicting how it looked when it was established in 1830. The town was nothing but fields and pastures, and the drawings of oversized cows drove the point home. A line signifying the Mohican River split the town in half and the two sections were labeled “Upper Village” and “Lower Village”.

I turned a few pages and saw how the town was mapped out when the book was written in 1905. The sections of town, Montague and Lakeville, were added. Illustrations showed thriving factories, bridges, dams, churches and graveyards. I ran my finger along the long line that said Lovell Road. With the exception of the town landfill, Lovell Road was still woods. In the middle of the woods I could tell that something was once written there in pencil and later erased. As I looked closer, the word looked like “Graveyard”. I ignored it, chalking it up as graffiti.

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