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The Baggageman's Ghost

Scary Books: The Best Ghost Stories
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"The corpses of the passengers killed in the disaster up at Spuyten

Duyvil was fetched down here and laid out in[1] The room was darkened

and I could just make out the out that storage room," said a Grand

Central depot baggageman. "That's what give it the name of morgue. Some

of the boys got scared of going in after that, 'specially in the dark;

and a lot of stories was started about spooks. We had a helper (a

drunken
hap that didn't know whether he saw a thing or dreamed it), and

he swore to the toughest of the yarns. He says he went in to get a

trunk. It was a whopper, and he braced himself for a big strain; but,

when he gripped it, it come up just as if there wasn't nothing in it

more'n air or gas. That unexpected kind of a lift is like kicking at

nothing--it's hurtful, don't you know?"



"I should think so."



"Well, Joe felt as light-headed as the trunk, he says, but he brought it

out. When he was putting it down he was stunned to see a ghost sitting

straddle of it."



"What did the ghost look like?"



"Joe was so scared that he can't tell, except that it had grave-clothes

on. And it went out of sight as soon as he got out into the

daylight--floated off, and at the same instant the trunk became as heavy

as such a trunk generally is. Some of us believe Joe's story, and some

don't, and he's one of them that does. He throwed up his job rather than

go into the morgue again."



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