Dark of the Moon

Most researchers of the paranormal believe in three types of hauntings. The first type of ghosts are from a residual haunting. This is a situation where the ghosts do not realize they are departed spirits, appear repeatedly in the same places, and pursue the same activities as they did in life.

Intelligent hauntings are self-aware ghosts and know how to focus their energy. This type of manifestation may react with earth-bound humans by moving bits and pieces or initiating contact, playful or otherwise, through a séance and paranormal medium.

Poltergeist is the German word for noisy ghost. This is the third type of ghost and these are powerful, self-aware, and malicious entities with a steadfast intent. These terrifying hauntings violently move objects, prey repeatedly on specific individuals, and grow stronger with every person they horrify. Most haunted houses are the dwellings of poltergeists.

In the Caribbean Sea, an island now carries the name of a saint, but in another age, dark deeds were afoot which did not resemble any form of sainthood or benevolence. This an island where all three of the hauntings are most prevalent during a particular lunar cycle.

In the daylight hours, the island with the smoldering volcano and the little mountains can be the perfect picture postcard for a Caribbean vacation. The busy streets are milling with colorful tourists, and the modern world of airliners and cruise ships briefly touch the tainted ground, but when the light is defeated and darkness begins to move over the island a resentful revenge rises with every Dark of the Moon.

The moon, indeed, carries weight over the world. The moon drives the tides, mayhem, and lunatics, but when the Dark of the Moon rises as a bottomless and empty sphere, other powers can pull up the past and reach into the present. When the Dark of the Moon is sheer darkness and only the cold starlight reaches into the night, the islanders who are wise pull down the shutters and lock the doors tight. Many folks know of the past and voice warnings, but when the careless wander, more than the past is eagerly waiting.

The haunting began at an enslaved sales market when a grandmother, her daughter, and two granddaughters were torn from each other sold separately to the sugar barons and their brutal overseers who were truly demons walking the earth.

The three generations of the women who became enslaved did not know their love was strong enough to live beyond the grave - until it did. The slave market flourished until it did not, but the isolated buildings of stone that stood for 200 hundred years remain today as a relic and a reminder of the countless who are still waiting for another Dark of the Moon.

The cab driver was much older than his battered taxi, and he was more than ready to exploit any who were young, foolish, and ready to ignore the old wives' tales from his grandmothers, mothers, and daughters. After all, the tourist money was too good to pass up and if someone else was not offering a ghost tour and haunted drive to the spooky old slave market, other drivers would seize the opportunity and perhaps make more than money and a tip.

The tourists from the airline climbed into the cab well after dark. They were obnoxious, loud, and boisterous with rum and they were showing no respect. The drive up the mountain to the ruins of the old market was on the original cobblestone road and it was bumpy, rough, and dangerous without guardrails. The path above the winding cobbles was perilous even in daylight but more so with complete darkness. 

When the cab began to chill on the climbing path and passengers could suddenly see their breath in the previously hot Caribbean taxi, the fleeting and ghostly images of the enslaved climbing in chains were always the first apparition during the Dark of the Moon. 

Before the cab and the suddenly sober ghost tour tourists could round the final turn to the market and the ruins, the air became even colder, and frost began to form on the windows of the ancient sedan. This was when the second apparition always began to beckon with his flickering lantern and his cracking whip. The second specter was the ghost of an overseer of the enslaved. When the wheezing taxi rounded the last curve atop the cursed mountain, the peak, and the cliffs, the lantern of the overseer was a glowing spectral, and the crack of his whip was the snapping of bones.

Before the taxi could screech to a halt at the ruins that were once a slave market, the tourists of the ghost tour were screaming for the driver to take them back. The cab was cold as a meat locker, every window was foggy with frost, but when the glowing figures, the old grandmother, her daughter, and her granddaughters began to march forward dragging their chains, the third and strongest haunting was waiting in the form of the poltergeist who was driving the taxi.

When the old cab broke through the guardrail at full speed, and the tourists who came for the ghost tour were screaming with terror, the driver disappeared with the frost and fog as the taxi tumbled down the mountain and fell into the ravine below. At the base of the cliffs and the rocky edge of the Caribbean Sea, a host of other wrecked taxis were waiting for more terrified tourists and another Dark of the Moon.

Happy October, Marco, Goodland, and Isles of Capri