Spooky stories offered at Ghost Festival

Bloomington residents took time out of their Friday night to sit in chilling temperatures and be spooked by scary stories from around the world.

Listeners huddled together in Bryan Park, sipping hot cider while storytellers gave them goosebumps. There were Mexican, Native American and British folktales.

One story was about a man travelling through Kansas after the Civil War. He stumbled upon a house and heard chopping, so he approached. The family in the house invited him in and cooked him dinner, only to attack him with a meat cleaver. The story ends when another traveller hears chopping and stumbling upon the same house, only to be offered another meal — the flesh of the first traveller.

The night ended with a story from Indiana about a female student at IU who was afraid of blood because she had seen her father chop the head off of a chicken when she was younger.

Her male friends played a trick on her by hanging a hand they took from a science lab to the pull string for her light. After a while, they went to check on her after she didn’t scream and eventually found her in a corner. She was eating the hand.

This is the 30th year for the ghost story concert, said Stephanie Holman, an organizer representing the Monroe County Public Library and the Bloomington Storytellers Guild, both of which served as co-sponsors.

The third co-sponsor was Bloomington’s Parks and Recreation Department, which provided a semi-trailer that folded out for a stage with lights.

“There’s a strong audience for this type of story at this time of year,” Holman said. Even though the storytellers tell stories year-round, these stories are shared specifically for Halloween, she said.

“We loved it,” Bloomington resident Ewa Paluszkiewicz said. “I enjoyed each one.”

She said she and her son, Alex Ausbrook, came back to hear the stories after attending last year.

Bloomington resident Karen Pollock said her children grew up in Africa, and as this is their second Halloween, she wanted them to be exposed to typical Halloween stories.

Her son, Scott Pollock, 9, tagged along.

Like in the past, Holman said they will continue to have the event the Friday before Halloween in the future.