Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Cammy Good evening. I'm Ben, and welcome to the show where you and I gather around this campfire to hear some of our fellow campers scariest experiences. Whether you're a new or returning one, I'm glad you're here.
[00:00:18] Tonight we'll hear a story submitted by a camper named Tori, who sent in their own encounter after hearing a similar one on the show.
[00:00:26] Now, without further ado, do you want to hear a ghost story?
[00:00:33] I listened to your story about the Flanders Hotel in Ocean City, New Jersey, and it stirred something in me.
[00:00:40] My family doesn't stay in hotels. When we go to Ocean City, we've always rented the same little beach house a few blocks from the boardwalk by Brown's. It's not fancy, not historic, not the kind of place you'd find in postcards or any of the history books or ghost tours. But to me it's every bit as haunted.
[00:01:01] We've gone there every summer of my life.
[00:01:04] The house has three small bedrooms, wood paneled walls that smell faintly of salt, and floors that creak like they're carrying memories of every family who's vacationed there.
[00:01:15] The kitchen tiles are cracked in the corners and there's a faint watermark on the ceiling from some hurricane from long before I was born.
[00:01:25] The best part, though, was the screened in porch where you can sit with a book and hear the muffled roar of the ocean.
[00:01:32] My grandmother loved the porch.
[00:01:35] Every morning she'd be out there before the rest of us even woke up, knitting, sipping a cup of coffee, waving to neighbors as if she'd lived there all her life instead of just rented this house for the week.
[00:01:49] This past winter, though, she died.
[00:01:52] It wasn't sudden, but she was the glue that held our family together.
[00:01:58] It doesn't matter if you're prepared or not for that.
[00:02:01] My mom said she wanted to skip the shore this year, said it wouldn't feel right without Gammy.
[00:02:07] But my grandfather, a quiet and steady man, the kind who never really talks unless he has something really important to say, told us we all had to go, that she wouldn't want us to break tradition.
[00:02:20] So we went.
[00:02:22] Same house, same week as always.
[00:02:25] But to me it wasn't the same.
[00:02:27] When we first pulled up, I caught myself looking at the porch, expecting to see her already sitting there with a cup of coffee, smiling and waving at us.
[00:02:36] But she wasn't.
[00:02:38] The house felt smaller, somehow, emptier in her absence.
[00:02:43] Even the beaches in the boardwalk seemed quieter, the rides not as fun, the saltwater taffy not as sweet.
[00:02:51] We kept busy with all the usual things, morning bike rides, long days on the beach.
[00:02:57] But beneath it all there was this hum of grief none of us talked about.
[00:03:02] One night halfway through the week, everyone decided to go down to the boardwalk for ice cream and rides.
[00:03:07] Normally that would be my favorite part of the vacation. The flashing lights, the music from the carousels, the smell of fries and funnel cake. But I wasn't in the mood. I told them that I was just tired, didn't feel quite right, and would stay back.
[00:03:22] The truth was, I just needed to be alone.
[00:03:26] When the doors shut behind them and their voices faded down the street, silence rushed in like the tide.
[00:03:33] The house groaned in the old familiar way, wood stretching, letting me know it was going to be okay. I curled up on the couch in the living room with a book, but I don't think I was fully reading it. My eyes kept drifting towards the porch.
[00:03:48] The air that night was heavy and sticky, that real Ocean City humidity.
[00:03:54] But that's when I noticed the rocking coming from the front porch.
[00:03:59] There was a rocking chair that had been there all those years, and it was where my grandmother always sat, and I heard it move just once, a single deliberate rock, like someone leaned back into it.
[00:04:14] My first thought is that it was the wind, but it was really still out, and our wind chime wasn't making any noise.
[00:04:21] I sat up, telling myself that I was just grieving, that the house was old.
[00:04:27] Maybe the floorboards had shifted. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe I wanted to imagine it.
[00:04:34] When I caught a faint whiff of lavender, the same lavender of my grandmother's lotion that she wore every night, the scent drifted in through the screen door, wrapping itself around me.
[00:04:46] I walked to the door and slid it open.
[00:04:49] The sound of the rollers on the track was loud and scratchy, but the rocking chair was empty.
[00:04:56] Then, as I stood there just staring at it, talking myself down from this ledge I'd built myself up on, it started to rock ever so gently, as if someone had just stood up from it.
[00:05:08] Cammie. My voice cracked when I said it, but the chair stopped instantly.
[00:05:14] I should have been terrified, alone in a quiet house, watching a chair rock on its own, smelling the scent of a lotion that wasn't there.
[00:05:23] But I wasn't terrified.
[00:05:25] In fact, my fear went away.
[00:05:29] It dissipated into something else, like I knew in that instant that everything would be okay, because I knew this was my grandmother.
[00:05:39] My eyes shifted to the low table next to the chair.
[00:05:43] On it sat a glass jar. We always stored our saltwater taffy, though this year we Never filled it.
[00:05:50] However, I could see, sitting at the bottom, one lone piece.
[00:05:54] I opened it.
[00:05:55] Wrapped in an old crinkly wrapper was one saltwater taffy, vanilla, my grandmother and I's favorite flavor.
[00:06:04] My grandmother used to sneak me the last piece every summer when no one was looking. She'd wink and say, don't tell. It was our little ritual.
[00:06:14] My throat tightened as I reached down and picked it up. The paper was cool and stiff, like it had just been placed there.
[00:06:21] I held it in my hand and just felt certain that my grandmother was there with me.
[00:06:27] Outside, I could hear the faint echoes of laughter and people on the boardwalks coming back from there. Fun night.
[00:06:34] I sat down in her rocking chair and just thought.
[00:06:37] Thought about how life begins to go on as usual.
[00:06:42] But right now on that porch, life was going to be slower.
[00:06:47] I didn't want to move. I didn't want to move on yet. I didn't dare break the spell the house had put on me. The scent of lavender, her presence.
[00:06:56] I never saw her ghostly figure or had anything else ever happened to me.
[00:07:01] I just had this full sense of certainty, like I knew she was there with me, that I wasn't alone.
[00:07:08] And then, just as quickly as she came, she left.
[00:07:12] I heard the familiar laughter of my cousins walking down the boardwalk. When I knew my family was returning, I slipped the piece of candy into my pocket and stepped back inside.
[00:07:23] Moments later, the front door opened and the laughter spilled into the house, the smell of fries and funnel cake following it.
[00:07:30] No one noticed that the porch door was open or that I was dazed and confused.
[00:07:35] I didn't tell them what happened. I don't think I will.
[00:07:38] It felt like a moment between me and my grandmother.
[00:07:42] Later that evening, I unwrapped the piece of taffy and let it melt slowly on my tongue.
[00:07:47] And as I sat there in the dark, I came to the conclusion that while I still don't believe in ghosts and believe in my grandmother, and now every year going back to that home, I feel the sense of grief that I have every day.
[00:08:02] Leave just a little bit. She's still there.
[00:08:05] And every time I come back, I'm happy to be there, too.
[00:08:09] Thank you, Tori, for allowing me to share your story. I am always a fan of ghost stories from Ocean City. It's one of the few places I feel like I actually have a decent grasp of the paranormal lore.
[00:08:19] And I love hearing encounters like yours that aren't well known.
[00:08:23] I would like to welcome our newest lost camper, Emily Donaldson, to the show.
[00:08:28] If you'd like your own shout out at the end of an episode, head over to patreon.com do you want to hear Ghoststory as always, I'm just glad to have you all as campers on this journey. Please keep sharing the show with anyone you think might like these stories, or someone you're just trying to scare.
[00:08:44] If you're enjoying the show, please leave a review.
[00:08:46] I'd love to hear from you. Until next time.
