Every summer I lifeguard down on the Jersey shore in this town called Beach Haven and there’s this legend on the beach I lifeguard on called Pearl Street about the shark in a series of shark attacks that occurred I believe in the summer of 1916.  So, it is said that an off-duty volunteer lifeguard at the time was enjoying the beach at dusk and wanted to watch the sunset. He had his dog with him maybe it was a poodle or a labrador…I don’t know what it was specifically. But he saw something flashing in the water and with his lifeguard instincts he of course assumed it was a victim in need of rescue. So he bolted into the water, swam out to the victim, and his dog ran into the water and chased after him until he got to the spot where he saw someone drowning… except there was nothing there. There was just crashing waves and some white water. He started to make his way in until he was stopped by a shark bite to his lower abdomen. His dog started barking ferociously and the lifeguard was screaming, still trying to make his way onto the beach. A couple of beach patrons ran into the water to assist the man who was bleeding profusely at this point, and they brought him onto the beach and dragged him to the closest motel… where he died on the front desk. His blood spilt down the desk, staining the hardwood floors. His soul supposedly haunts room 714, which was the date of this attack. And rumor has it the shark continued to some towns north from here, taking a few victims along way. And a popular book was written about this specific shark… called ‘Jaws.

N has spent his summers in Beach Haven, Long Beach Island, New Jersey since he was born. The tiny town was established in the late 19th century and holds incredibly rich and often, dark history in the original structures that still stand. Many Victorian buildings still exist, which gives the beach town a unique flair. A popular pastime of teenagers on the island is to bike ride at night to the various, rumored-to-be-haunted locations and scare each other. Thus, the telling of ghost stories is prevalent in the childhoods of the children who grew up on the island. N learned this specific story from the lifeguard who passed down the torch to him on the Pearl Street lifeguard stand. This story is special because N himself is a lifeguard, and often while on duty he stares out into the ocean and considers what is lurking underneath the water.

Everyone knows the movie “Jaws,” so first it is interesting to me to hear the origin story of the shark, and it makes it even more interesting that I have a personal connection to it, knowing someone who swims in those exact waters. I definitely think the story has been stretched out and exaggerated a lot— especially the part about the lifeguard dramatically bleeding out onto a motel’s hardwood floor—by teenagers attempting to see who can scare each other the most. But I think it is interesting to try to pinpoint the exaggerated parts of an already-scary story that was attempted to make scarier because someone didn’t consider scary enough to begin with.

I didn’t believe in ghosts until I was staying at this old hotel in Lake Como, Italy. It was a five-hundred year-old building. An old hospital, no less, that they turned into a hotel. You walked in and there were angel statues everywhere. It was cold and dark inside, but full of history. We were staying in the penthouse and it had this wraparound balcony overlooking the lake… it was so beautiful. But I was absolutely terrified. Like, a hospital? Really, mom? You have us sleep in an old hospital? That’s like, almost as haunted as a graveyard. And of course the first night we were there there was this massive thunder and lightening storm. I was sleeping in this little room off of the master bedroom. And I was terrified of all the noises outside, so I was sleeping on my stomach, buried underneath the covers, my head under the pillows. And then…all of a sudden something started pressing down on my back. Hard. Pushing me into the bed. And I couldn’t breathe. It felt like two hands pushing me down. I started flailing… I literally felt like I was going to die. And then it stopped. I was crying, I went to go sleep in my parents’ bed. They thought I was being such a freak, imagining things, because I was already scared just staying there. My dad went to sleep in my little bed. And I was laying on my back, burrowed under the covers. I couldn’t sleep. Someone had literally just tried to suffocate me. And as I’m laying there… all of a sudden… the balcony double doors fly open and a burst of lightning zigzagged through the doors. There was a clap of thunder. The curtains billowed out with the wind. I’m not kidding. It was so scary. I expected like a vampire or something to appear in that doorway. I didn’t sleep a wink the rest of the time we were there. My parents never believed me.

M experienced this story for herself, and she deems it the scariest moment of her life. But few people believe her. Most think she was having a nightmare. But she recounts how real it felt, the feeling of not being able to breathe. She likes to tell this piece because it’s an experience few have had, and she’s not sure why it happened to her.

I believe M’s story. I definitely believe in ghosts, but I’ve heard very few firsthand accounts of people claiming a ghost was able to touch them. That thought scares me. This must have been a very angry spirit, maybe someone who didn’t have a pleasant life or died violently. I would be traumatized if this happened to me.

There’s this little town in Mexico. It’s name is a dog, I think. Chihuahua, I think. Yeah, Chihuahua, Mexico. And there’s this famous bridal dress store there… the only famous thing about Chihuahua, Mexico. And there’s this mannequin out front. And it’s a really creepy mannequin; I’ve seen pictures of it. There are rumors that the owner of the shop, this creepy old guy, did that thing where he put formaldehyde all over his daughter when she died young. What is that called? Uh, embalming. Yeah. There are rumors about this shop, that the mannequin in front is his embalmed daughter. I know it sounds crazy. But if you look at it… at the mannequin… her fingernails are so… real. Like, yellow and crusty where they meet her skin. And her skin is all sallow and rubbery looking. And she has this long, stringy hair. I can’t remember what color it was, but it wasn’t pretty. Kind of matted looking. And all crusty where it meets her scalp. Oh, yeah and her eyes are all murky. They don’t look like the typical painted-on or glass eyeballs that typical mannequins have. Like, at all. But it’s the fingernails that got me. I’m inclined not to believe this kind of stuff, it sounds insane. But I’ve seen the pictures and the mannequin looks like… a dead body. And it’s not nice to look at, especially given it’s supposed to be used to sit out front and look good and sell dresses. Like, why would somebody put a crusty, creepy mannequin out in front of their store? Because it’s their embalmed, dead daughter—that’s why.

M heard this story from her friend, and after seeing the pictures of the mannequin online, it’s haunted her ever since. She likes this piece because it scares her, and usually horrifies the people she tells it to, eliciting a good reaction. She’s so interested in this story that she wants to one day visit Chihuahua and see the famous mannequin in person. Maybe that will answer her question of the story being true or not.

This story is chilling, especially with the photos as a supplement to the story itself. It’s easy to discredit it as a scary story, but the pictures do look like a real body. I think I might believe that it is true.

We had these friends who lived up in Malibu on the cliffs in this gorgeous house. They were always asking us to come up for dinner, so we finally made the long trek over there and took them up on their offer. And the house was as beautiful as they described. Overlooking the ocean, this big airy kitchen. A huge swimming pool out back. It was a giant house and there were only three of them—mom, dad, teen daughter. They gave us a tour of the upstairs, the bedrooms and everything. They showed us the master bedroom. It was insane… wrap around windows, everything. There was this little room attached to it, kind of like the size of a closet. It had a big window that overlooked the backyard. And there was a crib inside and all these baby toys, clothes, a changing table. Their daughter was thirteen at the time, and all the baby stuff was meant for a boy. Little space ships on the walls, and a mobile over the crib with planets and rocket ships and stuff. So it wasn’t their daughter’s old stuff, and that would’ve been weird for them to keep for so long. They caught my confusion and explained. They were renting the house, and they got it for really cheap. The family who owned it moved out in a rush about three years before. They had a baby boy. Their only child. And the parents went to work one day, and left their son with his nanny. And the nanny brought the baby to the front of the house and was playing with him on the porch. She went inside to get a glass of water, and left the baby out front by himself. Well, he crawled over into the driveway just as the mom pulled in from work in her giant SUV. They lived on this steep cliff, and you really had to maneuver into their driveway. I remember being careful while driving in. You’re on an uphill climb, and then you have to turn sharply and start driving downhill through this narrow gate in order to get inside. Well, the mom didn’t see her baby in the driveway, and ran over him. And he passed away. And they couldn’t live in that house anymore so they moved out quickly and rented it out to our friends. Their only stipulation was they had to keep the baby’s room intact. Our friends couldn’t move anything—the crib had to stay there and everything. They said the door would crack open sometimes while they slept, or they would hear the baby mobile tinkling in the middle of the night. We lost touch over the years. And a few months ago I heard the house burned down. Not from a forest fire or anything, just burned to the ground. Eerie.

M experienced this story himself, and it is one of the only instances he has of interaction with the supernatural. He says he felt something in that baby room, and a sort of foreboding feeling while in the house—especially after hearing the story. He likes the story because it is creepy, especially since the house is no longer there.

This piece is creepy—the maintenance of how things were before the death of the little boy, as if he was still living in that room. I wonder why the parents kept it intact—maybe because they didn’t feel right throwing away his things, or they thought his spirit would still live on in that room?