Free Dark World: Into the Shadows with the Lead Investigator of the Ghost Adventures Crew by Kelly Crigger, Zak Bagans Page A

help figuring it out. They weep aloud and wander in pain until they find it. Those are the hardest ones to deal with because they tug at your heartstrings and test your humanity.
    Sad Spirits
    A suburb of Boston, Sudbury, Massachusetts, is one of the oldest communities in America and sits a stone’s throw away from the infamous town of Salem, where nineteen people were hanged on dubious accusations of witchcraft by their own paranoid peers. Longfellow’s Wayside Inn was built in Sudbury in 1707 as a combination residential house for the Howe family and a lodge for weary travelers, and has been occupied continuously ever since.
    Three-hundred-year-old homes almost always have hauntings. It’s rare that a building can stand the test of time like this one and not have a restless spirit or two roaming it. I went there in February 2011 because the tale of Jerusha Howe sounded like a good romantic backstory for a Valentine’s Day investigation, but in fact I would leave Sudbury in almost the same state of mind as when I left Preston Castle where the restless soul of Anna Corbin touched me—only with a slight difference.
    Jerusha is a case study in heartache. It started as an innocent crush and grew to an all-consuming obsession that owns her to this day. The details are lost to time, but we do know that the man she fell in love with departed Sudbury to take a journey across the ocean to England and was never heard from again. We all know that “love” is an impossibly difficult thing to find, and happily married people always say “when you’ve found the right one, you’ll know.” Imagine when Jerusha found her true love only to have him disappear. Those feelings and deep emotions were life changing, and when that love does not return for you there’s nothing left to do but die from despair. Even in my favorite movie, Bram Stoker’s Dracula , lost true love had the power to turn one into a vampire. Now, that’s my kind of love.
    It’s said that Jerusha never loved another and even after her death she continues to wait patiently for his return. Her spirit wanders the halls of Longfellow’s Inn, inquisitively gravitating toward men to see if they are her long lost suitor (what strikes me as weird about this story is that she did not find another love while she lived the last days of her sad life, but now she flirts with hundreds of men while deceased).
    On quiet days Jerusha can be heard playing the piano, and on other days she reaches out to touch men as they walk by. In one room, it’s believed she climbs into bed with them at night to caress them. I would joke here that Jerusha is my kind of spirit and I was looking forward to meeting her, but her plight only raised sympathy in me. Jerusha leads an eternal afterlife of loneliness that I would not wish on anyone, so I was very motivated to make contact and ease her suffering.

    The Inn was so completely opposite from the dark, brooding places I’ve investigated that it took some getting used to. Instead of possessions, growls, and tales of demons, it felt more like a bubble bath, slippers, and a robe were in order. It was a comfortable, quaint cottage environment that certainly didn’t seem like the place where an agonized ghost frightened (and intrigued) the residents.
    Jerusha has been reported to be most active in room number nine, so I lay down on that bed and got to work. Before long I felt the unmistakable tap of fingers on my right leg and knew there was a presence in the room, not only from this physical touch, but because I felt the heavy air that always accompanies the presence of a spirit.
    A wave of pure ecstasy hit me like snake venom. What may sound like just a tap to you was a transference of incredible energy that you just have to feel to understand. There’s a scene in Bram Stoker’s Dracula where Keanu Reeves is being seduced in bed by several gorgeous bloodthirsty erotic vampires and he can’t do anything but sit there and be at the mercy of