This is exactly what I recall to the best of my knowledge, and I want to put it all down, before I forget any of it. I only put the first letters of places and names in this story, but I am sure if you tried you could pretty easily fill in the blanks. My hope is that along with providing a (hopefully enjoyable) story for readers, that I have preserved it in some form. Although, I have had other experiences that could be termed unexplained or paranormal, this was the first and some part of me feels all the experiences are connected. Some day, perhaps I will write down the others as well.
I grew up in a village in Nova Scotia called B____ H___. In 1986 I was in boy scouts and my family attended church at Saint G______ Anglican Church. That year, I was looking to get a community service badge, and it just so happened that the church had gotten a new minister. I asked him if I could do community service work to go towards my badge. He said to show up at the church the next Saturday.
That Saturday morning, when I arrived something odd occurred right away. Another guy, slightly older than myself and in high school, had been hired on to work as the janitor. When I arrived he was just finishing up. The minister had not yet come out of his house next door.
M___, the janitor and I talked for a second and he warned me to be careful inside and when I asked why, he told me that he never went upstairs alone. He claimed downstairs was safe, but upstairs was haunted. I laughed, shrugged him off, and waved as he took off on his bike.
The minister came out and greeted me. Father D___ was a pleasant man and easy to talk to. He told me he had plans for young people in the church. He wanted to start both a youth group and a servers guild. We entered the church and he took me upstairs to the vestry.
Saint G_____ appeared very mid-century, built on a budget, but still nice. I liked the smell of the candles and on Saturday morning it was bright and there was a sense of calm inside. Father D___ explained that I would be polishing the brass and silver and gave a quick demonstration on what to do. He then said he had to work on the sermon for Sunday. He told me I could open the side door if I had to get out, but he was locking the doors so no one would come in and disturb me. I would be left alone to do my work.
I had no issue with this, and in fact, after he left, from the door window when I looked, I could actually see him in the window of his home, sitting at his desk writing.
I sat down in the vestry and began on a brass cross at the top of a pole which was carried in processionals.
Things were fine for about twenty minutes. Then I heard footsteps. Someone had entered the church somehow and was walking up the aisle. I never even thought at the time about how the aisle had thick red carpet that would have dulled the sound of walking. These footsteps were heavy, thumping. I wasn’t afraid. I just assumed maybe the door hadn’t locked after all and someone had come in.
I popped my head out of the vestry. Instantaneously, the footsteps stopped. There was absolute silence. I looked down the rows of pews and all seemed okay. Something just felt different though, heavier and I didn’t like it and I no longer felt alone. I stepped back into the vestry and continued polishing. The footsteps started again.
“Hello!” I called out and stuck my head out again. Again, everything stopped. What should I do, I wondered. I walked down the aisle to the entrance where in the lobby were a set of large wooden double doors. There was a chain latch lock across them and a deadbolt. So, no one was coming in there. I went to the other door and looked out the window. Father D___ was still working at his desk.
I knew something was in there with me, and I had no idea what, but I was a pretty skeptical person. So I decided to try to catch it in the act. I grabbed a chalice next for polishing and brought it out into the main area. I sat down on the dais in front of the altar where I could look straight down the aisle and observe the entire church.
I continued on polishing, waiting for something to happen again, but it didn’t. Nothing at all and after being in the church for two to three hours, Father D___ came back, unlocked the door, and said I could leave. I just kind of brushed off what had happened as noises in an old building. I had no idea though, that this was just the beginning.
Back then I was hanging out with three good friends, M___, G___ and Winky. Yes, Winky. His real name was S____, but he had Tourette’s syndrome and everyone we knew called him Winky. I called him S____, as Winky always felt rather mean. One day S____ told me that he had just joined the servers’ guild at church. He had already asked M___ and G___ and now he wanted me in as well. He said they planned on meeting on Saturday evenings, to play sports in the church basement and do server things.
At first I was not too keen on the idea. I wasn’t really into religion, but there wasn’t really much going on with my Saturday evenings, especially if all my friends were going to be at church. So I agreed to go with them to the first meeting.
Father D___ was not a bad guy, and he made us all feel like he was more than an average man, but a friend who talked with us all at our level. There was more than just the four of us. There was also W____, J___, G_____ and G___ W_____, and Chunk (He was a chunky kid named J____). At the first meeting we talked for a bit and Father D___ took us upstairs and showed us how he prepared for Sunday service. Our job was to assist and make sure candles were set out, brass and silver polished, and everything was in place Saturday night for that Sunday service.
Afterwards when we were walking home, I remembered about the noises I had heard while working there and I mentioned it to S____, M___ and G___. They kind of laughed at me of course and that was the end of the first night.
The next week, everyone was in attendance and Father D___ left us in the basement to play floor hockey while he was doing some other business next door at his house. We were all tearing around, shouting and having fun. Someone scored a goal and when the excitement of that ended and the room got quieter, we all heard something. It was overhead, from upstairs in the church which we were told was locked. It was the sound of heavy, footsteps thumping hard, pounding across the floor upstairs. Something huge was running up and down the nave.
We were boys. We were of course freaked out. Then, I think it was J___ who clutching a red plastic floor hockey stick headed to the stairs to check things out, ready to not be cowardly with a plastic stick for a weapon. We all did the same and kind of huddled together as one, we crept up the stairs to the door leading into the church. We could hear it running. Just the sound of footsteps, like someone in big, heavy boots.
J___ grabbed the door knob and swung the door open and we all spilled into the church. Silence. Absolute silence in the darkness, but it felt electric. It felt creepy and different up here at night. We looked all around and found nothing. S____ said to me that well maybe it was just building sounds. At least, it wasn’t ghosts which he did not believe in he said. His opinion soon changed.
From this time on, hearing the noises escalated. I am not sure if it was because of collective hysteria, but we heard the noises every time we were there. Sometimes as a group, or just one of us would tell the others they had heard something. However, nothing was seen. Part of our job for Sunday mornings was to put out the candles in holders throughout the church.
One day, it was noticed on a Sunday morning that the candles had been previously burned and were shorter than when placed out on Saturday night. We had also began hearing reports of people passing by in the night and seeing lights on in the church. Father D___ mentioned that people had been knocking on his door sometimes to say they had seen lights on or figures moving. He admitted going over to the church and having to turn off lights or thinking that maybe the candles had been burning recently.
We told Father D___ about the noises and at first he did not believe us. He said he had heard the sounds, but he thought it was the usual sounds of the building, especially in winter as the temperature changed. We told him that we believed candles were being burned. He kind of laughed it off. He thought we were being kids and that it would be fun to play a joke.
One evening while we were in the church basement with him, we heard noises upstairs. We all ran upstairs to look and see what we could find. As we made our way to the back of the church, I realized that both S____ and Father D___ were not with us. As we came to the double doors at the back of the church, they began to shake in front of us very hard. The other servers screamed and began to run away, except for me and J___. As J___ was about to run I had grabbed his arm and whispered, “It’s S____ and Father D___!”
Me and J___ stood there in the foyer, laughing, relieved as the others tore back down the stairs. The doors stopped banging and we smiled at one another knowing we knew what was going on. We then could hear both S____ and Father D___ laughing at everyone downstairs again as they had gone back around the outside and into the basement, Father D___ calling them foolish for believing in a ghost.
It was at this moment as we stood upstairs, hearing the laughter below us, that the chain lock stretching across the two doors lifted on its own accord and began to bang faster and faster up and down against the doors. As we stared, the doors began to vibrate, rattling in a different way than moments before. We tripped over each other running and rushing down the stairs. No one believed us that it had happened. I think Father D___ believed I was lying to him and that made me feel very poorly.
At this time, S____ suggested that to solve the issue of whether or not the candles were being burned, that on Saturdays, we would make sure we stayed last and then, we would sneak upstairs and make a mark in the top of each candle with our fingernails. If the mark was gone the next morning we would know the candles had been lit at some point in the night. We began to do this regularly. Sometimes we believed the candles had been lit, other times not lit. We also noticed that some times other items were moved out of place and we had to rush to put them in place before morning service.
It was during the course of this, that we encountered what I will call a shadow man. At least, that is what paranormal researchers today would call it. None of us had any knowledge of such things back in 1986 as kids. We had been hearing stories of something in the church.
Some of the lay readers for example, mentioned that when they were meeting upstairs they had seen a strange black shadow, like a dog. Some choir members mentioned shadows as well. One night, after a server meeting, G_____ & G___, the two brothers had to wait for their father to pick them up. They did not want to wait alone, nor did they feel comfortable waiting inside the church. So, I hung out with them in the parking lot. When their father showed up he asked why they were outside in the cold. They said because it was haunted, making him laugh. Afterwards I went to walk home. For some reason though, I looked back behind me at the church from maybe about a hundred feet away, across the road. It had one large set of stained glass windows on the end facing me. The night was bright and I was standing all alone. Inside the church seemed illuminated with flickering light, as if by candles. Next, as I watched a large shadow spread across the window as if from a tall figure walking past inside.
I ran to get Father D___ and we went over to the church together but could find nothing. He did say something was happening at night, but that he wasn’t sure what. I asked if he thought it was a ghost. He said he did not think so and kind of laughed, but looked troubled. He said not to worry about it.
Shortly afterwards, I arrived one Saturday. Things needed polished and the other guys wanted to make a run to the convenience store less than a block away for some junk food. I said I would stay and work if they would bring me back some red licorice. That way someone would be there and the door would not need to be locked.
Off they went. It was like a repeat of my very first incident. I was in the vestry polishing not five minutes after they left and I heard the footsteps again. I looked out and they stopped. It felt different though. Like there was a dark energy that hadn’t been there moments before. I walked down the nave looking at all the pews and went to the foyer, again where the double doors were. I turned to walk back, and when I did I saw the shadow. It was approximately seven to eight feet tall. It had a shape much like a man in a hooded robe. What would be the sleeves, hung down long past the hands. It was as if it was sucking the light from around it into the center of itself to create darkness. I do not remember seeing feet or how it moved. I just don’t know, although I was staring right at it. It was on the right side of the church and maybe about three quarters of the way up the side in front of me.
As I stared, somehow it moved, flowingly towards me. I don’t know if it went through the pews or between the pews, but somehow, it glided out into the center aisle and was coming slowly and steadily towards me. It felt as if it was growing, enveloping the room if that makes sense. I froze, like a deer caught in headlights. I couldn’t look away and I lost all sense of time. I knew it was coming for me and there was nothing I could do. It came to maybe within four feet and all I could feel was enveloping darkness. I could not think, I could not breathe. Everything slipped away and I faded into unconsciousness while still standing.
I came to, laying on the floor and my friend M___ was there. He said they had returned from the store and him and one of the others had come upstairs to get me. He said I was laying at the back of the church, face down. He ran to me while the other guy had gone for help. M___ said he had rolled me over and I began to wake up. Then, the other servers and Father D___ arrived. He was very concerned but I assured him I felt fine. To be honest, I did feel fine at the time, but as the years have gone by, this one point in my life has haunted me many times in different places, making me feel creeped out, or if I am nervous of a spot I expect to see that thing again. Time and again it has entered my mind as I wonder what exactly it was. It felt, more than anything else in my life, evil. Sometimes I have left a place because it has had the same familiar feeling and I have come to wonder if I am being watched then. It feels like it is checking in on me as if to say it is still there, waiting. When we were alone, I described my experience and he said to not talk about it, especially in front of the others. He gave me the impression that it wasn’t that he did not believe me, but that if we all ignored it, it would go away.
We were all concerned, but at the same time we were kids. There was along with the fear of the noises, a sense of adventure. Plus we were all coming together, hanging out, playing floor hockey and just having fun. My friend M___ lived more out of town with no other friends close by. His parents had divorced and he lived with an aunt while his father worked as a trucker who was gone for extended periods.
On one particular night, just around Christmas we were having a meeting and again the footsteps, now commonplace, began again. M___ was the only one who wanted to check it out. By this time we had grown accustomed to nothing being there when we looked. It had been maybe a month since my own personal encounter. We were in the church basement again and he headed up the stairs. We heard nothing. The footsteps stopped and he was gone for maybe three minutes. When he came back he walked right by me, heading for the door, looking rattled. All he said was, “I need to go home now.” It would be another eleven years before I saw him again when he surprised me by flying in and attending my wedding. I will return to that later.
Since M___ left, I spent more time hanging out with S____. G___ had been anchored to us via M___ and soon he kind of drifted away as well and found other things and friends besides going to a church group to do. Me and S____ became the oldest and were given more responsibilities over the younger servers especially to watch over them on meeting nights.
S____ wanted to investigate what was going on more and we would look around and he would speak with the older lay readers to discover if they had seen anything odd. It was still, somehow an exciting adventure to us. The lay readers only reiterated to S____ what we had heard before from them. The stories of odd shadows, however, they admitted they also had heard the footsteps.
Finally, what brought everything to a head was that myself and S____ went upstairs one Saturday afternoon. For some reason I can’t recall. I think it was that the meeting was cancelled but the setup for Sunday needed done so we went by the church in the afternoon. I went into the vestry and S____ went to straighten up some items that were kept on a table at the rear. A moment later, he called out for me to come and look at something. I looked out and he was standing near the back of the church, looking down at the floor.
I walked over to where he was and he pointed down at the red carpet. There was a distinct shape on the red carpet. It was a black footprint of a dog. Really weird. Winky pointed out others to me and said how to him it looked as if whatever it was had been walking on two legs. I knew nothing back then about tracking or anything, but knew he went hunting with his dad, so at that age he was the expert. Needless to say, we were shocked and nervous. We immediately went to get Father D___. He came with us back to the church and after he examined the carpet, we had a good talk about everything going on. He decided on the spot that he was going to bless the church.
We helped him get ready, watched as he prepared holy water, and then he informed us that in case anything happened, or appeared he would prefer if we waited outside the door. We went outside but hung around trying to listen. We were both nervous, looking at one another, wondering what was going on. Just after about ten to fifteen minutes, there was something. I don’t quite know how to explain it. It was almost like a crack or a groan, as the entire church seemed to shift and settle. The door opened and there was Father D___ looking kind of disheveled. We went inside and there was an electric feeling like ozone in the air or something, but the building felt better somehow. It was as if a storm had passed and the air had cleared.
Father D___ told us that he thought there had been something in the church, a dark entity. He said he had driven it away, but we were to not speak of it again. Speaking about it and telling others about it he said may bring it back, worse than before even. We agreed to what he asked and shortly after we went home until Sunday morning, when we had a shock. At the end of his service on Sunday, Father D___ made a surprise announcement. As he made his declaration that he was leaving immediately, he stared directly at me and S____. He said that it was his last service. The entire congregation was quite upset, and by the next Sunday he was moved and gone. Shortly afterwards, I stopped attending church.
Time has passed and I am still in touch with S____, who does not speak about that time. I have run into some of the other servers over the years and they were too afraid to want to speak about what happened. I came across a book written by a woman who had lived up the road. I guess you could call it self published and it was about local places to the village. It was called H___ A__ T____ I_ B____ H___, by M____ B____. We used to visit her as kids and I had forgotten she had written that book.
In the book was a section on the church. I do not know if the information is actually factual, but it says the beams in the walls came from a ship that had sunk and the bell was from an old steam engine which had crashed killing the engineer. Finally, it says that the bishop chair along with a lectern and some other items came out of a church in the nearby community of L__________ which had burned to the ground.
In 1997, I was married and my friend M___ came to the wedding, much to my delight. We were able to reconnect and shortly thereafter when I traveled to Ontario for work, I visited him at his apartment in Scarborough. We talked about the incident at the church and I asked what had happened the night he disappeared. As a kid, all I had heard was that his father had passed away and he had moved to Toronto to live with his mother.
M___ told me that night long ago, he had heard the noises and went up the stairs but on his way up the stairs he looked up and at the top of the stairs, stood his father looking back down at him, sadly. He said it looked like his father, but he did not feel that it was his father, and that something was horribly wrong. He ran away and biked home that night, only to be greeted by his aunt who informed him that his father had been killed in a truck accident in Newfoundland. The church and the image of his father has haunted him ever since and we spoke of it last in 2016 when we met in Halifax on his honeymoon.
In 2008, my family purchased a tent. We had some great camping trips across New Brunswick where we lived at the time. The summer of 2011, we took a trip to G____ M_____, and by chance in a small tourist shop on the island I came across a rack of cards. The front of the cards had a series of sketches by a local artist whose name was very familiar. It was Father D___. I spoke to the clerk who knew him. It turns out that he had been living on this island all of that time, not leaving, and I wish I had gone and paid him a visit, but I found the cards on the day that we left and had to catch the ferry back to the mainland.
So, that is my ghost story which is all true. The church is still there, but I believe it sat empty for some time as congregations shrank and became amalgamated into new ones. You can see it if you visit my home town. It is a simple building, painted or stained red on P_____ Road and few people would guess the events that took place there over thirty years ago in the nineteen eighties. Tim Mcnutt
Lower Sackville
Thanks Tim for sharing your story!
Tim has also written some short stories that you may want to check out. You can find them here.
If you know of any Ghost stories from your area, or have a story of your own that you would like to share, we would love to hear from you!
Read another great story! Catherine McIntosh, A Child's Grave