Real Vampires, Night Stalkers and Creatures from the Darkside. Brad Steiger

Nearby, there was this huge tree that my grandfather had named the Skin Walker tree, because of sightings of Skin Walkers in that area.

      I wanted to walk back to my grandmother’s home, but I was scared that the Wolf Boy would appear to me, so I continued walking east toward my mother’s home. When I crossed the old bridge, I heard a noise coming from under it. I looked back, and I saw what appeared to be a calf walking toward me. I started to run, and it began to run, following me.

      It was about 300 feet to my mom’s home, and I took off running fast. The animal stood up on its hind legs and almost caught me. I could hear its loud breathing. It sounded not human or animal like, but different.

      I made it to my mother’s farm land, and the thing jumped across the fence. When I got to the door of the house, I banged so hard to wake up Mom. “Open up!” I kept yelling! “Something is chasing me.”

      In recent years, Hollywood has released a number of motion pictures, such as the “Underworld” series, that have created a pseudo-history of a centuries’ old conflict between vampires and were-wolves (illustration by Dan Allen).

      Mom made it to the door. I pushed her aside and shut the door, and we locked it. She shut the lights off so no one could look in the house. My baby brother, Adam, was sleeping, and after a while I lay down. I was so worn out from running. I heard someone turning the knob of the door—and opening it! I could hear what sounded like the footsteps of a horse moving from room to room toward me.

      All of a sudden it was next to my bed. I screamed for Mom to turn the lights on, but she was having a hard time getting up. It was like she was in a daze. I felt the Skin Walker’s hand on me, touching my face and throat! His smelly breath and loud breathing were right next to me. The monster was tall and skinny half human and half something that looked like a cow. His hands were rough and hairy, and he had long nails.

      I couldn’t breathe! I screamed again and asked God to help me. It scratched my neck, and I was bleeding. When Mom managed to turn on the light, it vanished. Mom saw three scratches on my neck and said it was the Devil that had left his claw marks on me. We got up and checked the door. It was still locked, but the door hadn’t mattered to the Skin Walker.

      By morning the scratches were gone, just vanished. I wrote two stories years later that I called “The Devil’s Claws” and “The Skin Walker.”

       Encountering a Demonic Black Dog of Evil

       Paranormal researcher and author Angela Thomas is also executive co-producer and co-host of the P.O.R.T.A.L. Paranormal Talk Radio Show (http://www.oct13baby.com/). In this eerie account, she shares an encounter with a demonic entity which at first assumed the form of a black dog. Historically, as many readers are aware, the Black Dog specter has been commonly linked with haunting phenomenon and often as a precursor to werewolf or vampiric activity. The following is in Angela Thomas’s words.

      The sun was setting when I arrived at the strange house my grandparents now called home. The house was nothing compared to the two-story, farm house they moved from that sat on two hundred acres nestled near the only lake in the area. It was plain with wide, white planks that resembled every other house on Second Street in Bloomfield, Indiana. There was something eerily different about it. I wanted to leave, and I should have left, but the others with me would not have understood. An uninviting aura surrounded the house, and it appeared to have a life of its own.

      I quickly dismissed the thoughts when we were shuffled in the house, and led directly into the bedrooms we were to sleep in that night. Nothing looked unusual in the bedroom that my sister Sandy and I were to share except an antique, cast iron crib that had been passed down through several generations to my grandmother.

      The rest of the evening was spent listening to my grandmother chatter about the move into town, and how my grandfather had taken ill shortly thereafter. He was not present in the living room among relatives. Instead he lay ill on his bed. The bedroom door was open, and I could see him lying there almost lifeless. The doctors have no explanation. “He has been like this for awhile,” my grandmother said. As she continued to speak, I saw what I thought was a large, black dog passing in front of my grandfather’s bed.

      “When did you start bringing a large dog into the house?” I asked. I was concerned. After all, it was out of character for her to permit a large animal in the house. “We don’t have a dog. We gave all of the animals away before we moved here,” she explained.

      I knew I had seen something in front of his bed, and I quickly followed the path of where I thought this “dog” had gone. I searched every room—nothing. Making my way back into the living room, I noticed the lights had dimmed, and the room seemed filled with a foggy haze. The lights blinked bright again.

      “It’s an old house,” Grandmother said, looking directly at me. She must have sensed how uncomfortable the entire house made me. Her explanation, I assumed, was to reassure me that nothing was wrong with the lights, but I had a feeling her words meant a little more than the mere wiring functions of an old place. Old places typically did not bother me. In fact, I had an affinity to all things old. Perhaps it was due to my own intuitive sensitivity that made such things inviting.

      For several years, I had experienced unusual things, and a special knowing which I automatically thought others shared. Holding items, touching walls and expecting things to happen before they happened were part of my abilities, but there was no control then, or any way for me to alter my experiences. If I had touched the walls within the old house, I may have known what would soon change my life, and influence my perceptions of the world.

      In the true werewolf folklore, those cursed to become werewolves actually shape shift into the creature and do not become a wolfman—half human, half wolf (illustration by Dan Allen).

      The feeling in the pit of my stomach was sensing fear, and yet nothing in the bedroom alerted me to anything abnormal. Two double beds with a nightstand in between them, a small desk, and the antique crib were all that filled the room. A small Gerber doll rested on the inside of the crib. I had not noticed it earlier. My sister who had traveled with me was already sleeping in the bed next to mine. By this time, I was eager for sleep to come. Sleep would be welcomed if nothing more than to relieve the feelings of the place.

      Sleep would not come. I tossed and turned until I finally settled to the right side of the bed. The moonlight fell into the room providing the only source of light. Suddenly, a loud noise echoed from the other side of the room. Sitting up, I glanced in the direction of the crib, and saw a shadow of a large dog with its back hunched over. It appeared to be vomiting, and the noise coming from it was nothing like I had ever heard.

      “Sandy, get up!” I called to my sister. No response. The dog was between the bed she was sleeping in and the wall that the crib was butted up against.

      “Sandy,” I said loudly, but she did not hear me. I tried screaming, but nothing would come out. In a split second, the animal was beside my bed. I saw its shadow and heard the same noise coming from it as I had heard before. A rank odor filled the air. By this time, I felt light-headed, and paralyzed with fear. The moonlight crossed its face, and then I knew it was not a dog. It was a demon!

      Its face was twisted and resembled half-man, half-beast. Instantly, I began to pray to God. Recalling the scriptures, I began to telepathically command the demon to leave:

      In the name of Jesus, I command you to leave this place! The demon was still there. Hours seemed to pass, but I was relentless in prayer. The demon was inches from me and seemed to torture me with its presence. At one point, laughter filled the room, its sound bouncing from one corner to the next above me. With all of my conviction, I drowned out the sound with prayer in my head,