Daily Inspiration: Ghosts and Murder, but not Zombies

So, I know I said I was going to talk about children's fiction today, but I changed my mind. We writers are allowed to do that, right? The old bait and switch, or something like that.

Anyhow, I just got back from Savannah, Georgia a couple days ago. Hubs had signed us up for a midnight zombie tour, which sounded like a barrel of monkies to me. I thought it would be cheesy and fun and you know, about zombies. How silly of me. Apparently the tour guide is more sneaky than us writers. So, here I am at a few minutes 'til midnight standing next to a huge cemetery, in the dark (yeah, funny how there's no light out at that time), and this dude starts telling all this creepy historical stuff about how Savannah is the most haunted city in America and the city's built on the remains of 17,000 bodies, etc. Yeah. And I'm thinking, when the heck do we get to the cheesy, touristy zombie part?

Let me tell you a secret. I'm not even that embarrassed to share it. I believe in ghosts. Really and truly. I've known too many people that have had unexplainable things happen to them. So, I'm standing there in a dark cemetery, and he's talking about all the camera failures and people passing out and bringing ghosts home with them after this tour, and I start to get really freaked out.

Then we go walking about visiting lovely places where lovely events happened. Like when he had us follow him into the middle of this park and then says we're standing on the bones of 1,100 slaves less than four feet below us. And how it's a portal to ultimate evil or something and women that come here start getting followed by these shadow creatures that make your life miserable. Yeah, women, because we're more psychic or something. Of course, this tale can't be complete without kids getting murdered by their parents and dropped off roofs to be impaled by wrought iron fences. It was a barrel of monkies, alright. And no freaking zombies!! Not a single mention of them. What the heck, right?

Needless to say, I had a hard time going to sleep that night since I had been told I might wake up to find the shadow thing had followed me home. Oh, what fun. But, all in all the trip was good, and I have lots of good fodder for a book.

So, do you guys have any creepy stories that have inspired your writing? Or un-creepy vacation tales that put you in the writery mood?