Listen to tales of ghostly faces peering from windows, the Devil’s Half Acre, or a pub where the dead still wait for last call. Take a walk on the creepy side this Halloween.
through cemeteries, historical haunts and other curiosities Spirited strolls

the time of year for scary stories uttered outside in the dark.

Tales of Blackbeard’s loot, of long-dead mischievous harlots and of a mysterious, sputtering vacuum – all made more curious, and creepy, by a hooded guide and candlelight.

Enter the ghost tour.

Equal parts spooky tale, haunted history and high drama with a touch of camp, ghost tours in Maine lure hundreds of people every year with the promise of unusual adventure and a fleeting shot of seeing something otherworldly.

“I’ve had some strange things happen. I like to keep an open mind,” said Roxie Zwicker of Kittery, who this year debuted a Haunted Pubs of Portsmouth Walk. One stop is a former brothel where it’s said the ladies still lock doors and throw glasses to play pranks. “It’s kind of nice to cuddle up with a hot toddy and hear ghost stories.”

Zwicker slips into a velvety black dress and red cape to lead tours: “If I just did it in jeans and a T-shirt it wouldn’t be the same.”

Maine’s oldest running tour goes back only to 1997, founded in York Village by a local art teacher. Ryan Avery bought the business last year. That tour makes a quarter-mile loop around the heart of downtown, past the oldest standing jail in the United States and through a cemetery, where tourgoers stop to perform a witches’ good luck spell.

Everything’s got to be researched and authentic or locals would call him on it, Avery said.

And setting matters in the ghost tour experience.

The perfect location needs a cluster of well-kept homes and businesses with rich, interesting pasts, an existing tourist draw and great visuals, he said.

Nancy Washell of Lewiston started a summertime tour in Wiscasset three years ago with husband, Bill, that reflects that town’s colorful maritime history. She said she’d love to start a tour in Lewiston but attractions are too spread out to do it on foot.

Tour guides draw material from books, old newspapers, first-hand sightings, magazines and psychics. Stories touch on ghosts pining for lost loves and visiting what were, in life, old haunts, and sticking around the scenes of tragedy.

The tales often end in some hint of past sightings or peculiar happenings witnessed by old homeowners, former employees or other tourgoers: a white figure peering out a window; a man in the library who isn’t really there; a misty presence in a graveyard.

And there’s at least a teensy tease, explicit or implied, that the same thing could happen again … this very night.

“We have a lot of people come in and they’re very antsy and giddy. I think they assume this is going to be a life-changing experience,” said Avery. “Unfortunately, it isn’t.”

That enthusiasm is rooted in belief. In a recent Gallup poll, 73 percent of Americans said they believe in some sort of paranormal activity, whether it’s haunted houses, ghosts or communicating with the dead.

Ghost tours tap that market. They’re good fun, taken lightly, said Pat Linse, co-founder of the Skeptic Society and Skeptic Magazine. Her group is brought in on debates ranging from Bigfoot to global warming.

With ghosts, Linse said, there’s a lot of variation from culture to culture. In the Middle East, ghosts haunt husbands who don’t shower their wives with gifts. In Europe, ghosts carry chains. In Russia, they guard kitchens and outhouses. In Greece, they sit on your shoulder and offer mostly good advice, and sometimes bad advice for kicks.

So Linse is, well, skeptical.

But no matter. Walking a dark, ghostly path is a release, she said. Having fun in the face of danger.

Avery is upping the spook factor on his tour in the 10 days leading to Halloween, planting a few surprises in the bushes and trees along the regular route. It’ll be, for that short time, more like a walking haunted hayride.