"I'm going home," he says to the late-shift Mexican dishwasher. "You'll be OK?" There were no guests at the B & B that night, and she would be cleaning the house alone.
"Sí," she says. "But no alone. Me. Y dos niñas."
The waiter pauses, remembers the stories. "Fantasmas?"
"Sí."
"Scary fantasmas?"
"Oh no, no!" The dishwasher laughs. "Las niñas son muy bonitas. . . ."
I know that story because, four years ago, I was the waiter. Our dishwasher swore two little girls haunted the upper floor of the building, and I've never doubted her. Because the house, like Maryland itself, is weighted with a creeping, skin-pricking age, the kind of years that well up in an old room and creep across your neck.
There are plenty of good reasons to visit Maryland in the fall. The changing leaves are fantastic, and the crisp air loses the sogginess of summer humidity. And as Halloween approaches, Maryland's long dead - and those who believe in them - creep out of their holes.
Down rural Route 5 in Scotland, Md., where the Potomac River meets the Chesapeake Bay, sits arguably the most haunted park in America. The entrance to Point Lookout State Park (301-872-5688; 11175 Point Lookout Road) is marked by a misty obelisk, a mute memorial to the Confederate war dead who were imprisoned on this swampy peninsula.
Long, low strands of loblolly pine assemble in dark rows, serrated by a forest floor of sucking marsh soil and sharp gum-seed pods. In two years, several thousand Confederates perished here, amid harsh, chaotic conditions. Today, phantom Confederates are frequently seen and heard, wandering the forests and roads of southern Maryland.
The Point Lookout Lighthouse has been called the most haunted in the Chesapeake. In the 1980s, researchers left out recorders that captured 24 distinct voices in a building that had no tenants. Today, the lighthouse is automated and run by the Navy. Over a beer and a shot in a bar 10 minutes from Point Lookout, a local sailor told me about an equipment check he ran in the lighthouse basement last year.
An unseen voice whispered to him, "What are you doing here?" He dismissed the incident - until his colleagues, working in other parts of the building, all claimed to hear the same soft question hiss out of nowhere.
The ghosts of America's most turbulent era, the Civil War, are evident in western Maryland, at Antietam National Battlefield (301-432-5124; 5831 Dunker Church Road), in Sharpsburg. Sept. 17 was the anniversary of the bloodiest battle day in U.S. history, when 23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing after the 1862 clash.
Maryland's cities can stake spooky claims, too. In Annapolis, Maryland's capital, the knot of aged cobblestone streets gives off an intense eeriness at night. Grab a local brew at the Ram's Head Tavern (410-268-4545; 33 West St.), notable for hosting smoking live music and a dead, permanent guest: the apparition of a girl named Amy.
Another jaunt north lands you in Baltimore. Colorful characters, a violent history and pathos make for good ghost stories, and Baltimore is packed with all three. This, after all, was the home of Edgar Allan Poe, father of the modern horror story, whose grave has been visited every Jan. 19 by a black-cloaked man in a wide-brimmed cap. He leaves three flowers and a bottle of cognac as a macabre birthday present for the author.
On the cobbled streets of Fells Point, the waterfront-turned-entertainment district, Baltimore feels like the smuggling port that is the city's birthright, a rain-slicked, gas-lit haven for sailors, drunks and people of the night, all prowling with a complement of beloved local spirits. Baltimore Ghost Tours (410-342-5000; www.fellspointghost.com) depart from 731 South Broadway St. on walks highlighting the supernatural past.
Finally, far and away down Maryland's Eastern Shore, near the manicured village of Snow Hill, are the ruins of Furnace Town (410-632-2032; www.furnacetown.com; on Old Furnace Road off Route 12). Once an iron-smelting foundry, Furnace Town was abandoned in the 19th century, and tended in a wilderness of thick marshes and red-barked pines by its last inhabitant, an ex-slave named Sampson Hart who lived to the ripe old age of 106. Supposedly, Hart still wanders this muddy relic, now a living-history museum still under the shadow, like so much of Maryland, of the restless dead.
Planning your visit
* The Point Lookout Ghost Walk will be held this year on Oct. 26-27; call 301-872-5389 for details, or visit the park during normal hours (summer, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays; Monday, Wednesday, Friday in winter). St. Mary's County is a good 60 miles south of Washington, D.C.
* In Baltimore, you can visit Edgar Allan Poe's House (410-396-7932; 203 North Amity St.; adult admission is $3, children under 13 $1; noon to 3:45 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday) and grave in nearby Westminster Cemetery. Furnace Town is a three-hour drive southeast from Baltimore.
