There was a hunter in the woods, who, after a long day hunting, was in the middle of an immense forest. It was getting dark, and having lost his bearings, he decided to head in one direction until he was clear of the increasingly oppressive foliage. After a what seemed like hours, he came across a cabin in a small clearing. Realizing how dark it had grown, he decided to see if he could stay there for the night. He approached, and found the door ajar. Nobody was inside. The hunter flopped down on the single bed, deciding to explain himself to the owner in the morning. As he looked around, he was surprised to see the walls adorned by many portraits, all painted in incredible detail. Without exception, they appeared to be staring down at him, their features twisted into looks of hatred. Staring back, he grew increasingly uncomfortable. Making a concerted effort to ignore the many hateful faces, he turned to face the wall, and exhausted, he fell into a restless sleep.
Face down in an unfamiliar bed, he turned blinking in unexpected sunlight. Looking up, he discovered that the cabin had no portraits, only windows.
You are home alone, and you hear on the news about the profile of a murderer who is on the loose. You look out the sliding glass doors to your backyard, and you notice a man standing out in the snow. He fits the profile of the murderer exactly, and he is smiling at you. You gulp, picking up the phone to your right and dialing 911. You look back out the glass as you press the phone to your ear, and notice he is much closer to you now. You then drop the phone in shock. There are no footprints in the snow. It's his reflection.
You get a phone call from your Mother. Since her car has been in the shop, she asks you to go to the grocery store and pick up a few odds and ends for her. Bread, milk, cereal, and chicken breasts.
After writing down a small list you reluctantly get in the car and pick up the items at the store. The lady cashier makes an odd remark to you: "You know, we're in no danger of a milk shortage."
Upon arriving at her house you knock several times. No answer. You decide to try the door. It opens. You place the grocery bag on the counter. Strange. There seems to be six other grocery bags, each with identical contents. In a couple, the chicken and the milk has gone bad. "Mom, " you call out, but no answer. You make your way through the kitchen and into the living room.
Sitting on the couch, with her head cut off and neatly resting on her lap, is your Mother.
Naturally you call the police who come over to investigate. They mention that she has been dead for nearly a week. Furthermore, the police psychiatrist is at the scene and talks to you after you give your initial statement. Sitting on the front steps, you overhear the psychiatrist talking with the crime scene investigator.
"It's not uncommon for people suffering from schizophrenia to get locked into a series of repetitive behaviors, " he says.
You think to yourself, They can't be talking about me. Schizophrenia? No way. Repetitive behavior? Do they think I did this?
Suddenly your cell phone goes off. "Hello?"
"Hi hun, it's me. Could you stop at the store and pick up some chicken and milk. Oh, and I need some bread and cereal too."
"No problem Mom. I'll be right over..."
I've been lying down for hours now. It's 5:35 AM and there's not much I can do. You know what the worst part about my situation is? I'm in the same room with my parents. they keep looking at me, and I can't help but look back and try not to scream. Their eyes are focused on me and their mouths are wide open. There's the strong sense of blood and I feel so paralyzed with fear.
Here's the thing. The second I make any hint that I'm not asleep anymore, I'm completely fucked. I will die and there's nobody around to save me. I've been trying to think of a way out by the only idea I have is to rush for the door and run outside while screaming for help, hoping any neighbors will hear me. It's risky, but if I stay here I'll surely die. He's waiting for me to wake up and see his masterpiece.
You're probably wondering what's going on. I do get ahead of myself sometimes.
About three hours ago, I heard screaming from the other side of the house. I got up and went to check on the noise before realizing I had to use the restroom. Instead of doing the smart thing and investigating, I used the bathroom first. I could've gotten myself killed right then from my stupid actions...but I actually did my business and took a look outside the bathroom. There was blood on the carpet. I got very worried and ran back to my room, hiding under my sheets like the pussy I was. I tried to convince myself to go back to sleep, that it was just some really vivid dream or something.
I heard my bathroom door open. Like the terrified child I was, I peeked from under my blankets to see what was going on. I could see something dragging my dead parents into the room. It was not human, I can tell you that. It was hairless, with no eyes and no clothing. It walked like a caveman, with its back slouched as it dragged my parents, but this thing was much smarter than any caveman. It was aware of what it was doing.
It propped my dad up on the edge of my bed and made him face me. It then sat my mother down in the chair and positioned her towards me as well. It then started rubbing its hands upon the walls, staining them with blood and then drew a circle with the devil's pentagram in it. This thing had made what it would probably call a masterpiece. To finish it off, it scribbled a message onto the wall that I could not read in the darkness.
It then positioned itself under my bed, waiting to strike.
The scariest thing is now, my eyes have adjusted to the darkness since then and I can read the message on the wall. I don't want to look at it, because it's terrifying to think about, but I feel I need to see, before I'm killed.
I peek at the creature's masterpiece.
"I know you're awake."
The Railroad
My cousin and I had gone to San Antonio, and we had heard rumors of some haunted railroad tracks. The story was, a school bus full of children had stalled on these tracks with a train coming. The train was going too fast for there to be time to get the children off. So they all died. When we finally found the tracks, we stopped the car, parking it right on the railroad tracks. We were both a little nervous, and scared, and waited for something to happen. Just when we were about to leave, the car started rolling. We were both too freaked out to do any more than grab each other and gasp, eyes wide, mouths open. After what seemed like an eternity, (but was actually less than five minutes tops) the car stopped rolling. We looked around, and we were off the railroad tracks.
Now, that may not seem spooky, but what we saw next scared us enough to jump back in the car and make the six hour trip home THAT NIGHT. Both of us got out of the car and walked around to the back. After the first six hour drive, our car had accumulated quite a bit of dust on it. That's not scary, no. But what was scary was the little sets of handprints all over the back of the car. All the size of children's hands
A Mother's Love
One afternoon, a couple was traveling on by car when at a far distance they saw a woman in the middle of the road, waving frantically.
The wife told her husband to keep on driving because it might be too dangerous, but the husband decided to pass by slowly so he wouldn't stay with the doubt on his mind of what might have happened and the chances of anyone being hurt. As they got closer, they noticed a woman with cuts and bruises on her face as well as on her arms. They then decide to stop and see if they could be of any help.
The cut and bruised woman was begging for help telling them that she had been in a car accident and that her husband and son, a new born baby, were still inside the car which was in a deep ditch. She told them that the husband was already dead but that her baby seemed to still be alive.
The husband that was traveling decided to get down and try to rescue the baby and he asked the hurt woman to stay with his wife inside the their car. When he got down he noticed two people in the front seats of the car but he didn't pay any attention to it and took out the baby quickly and got up to take the baby to it's mother. When he got up, he didn't see the mother anywhere so he asked his wife where she had gone. She told him that the woman followed him back to the crashed car.
When the husband went back to look for her, he noticed that clearly the couple in the front seats were dead, one of whom was unmistakeably the woman who had flagged them down.
Sarah O' Bannon
Coffins used to be built with holes in them, attached to six feet of copper tubing and a bell. The tubing would allow air for victims buried under the mistaken impression they were dead. In a certain small town Harold, the local gravedigger, upon hearing a bell one night, went to go see if it was children pretending to be spirits. Sometimes it was also the wind. This time, it wasn't either. A voice from below begged and pleaded to be unburied.
"Are you Sarah O'Bannon?" Harold asked.
"Yes!" The muffled voice asserted.
"You were born on September 17, 1827?"
"Yes!"
"The gravestone here says you died on February 20, 1857."
"No, I'm alive, it was a mistake! Dig me up, set me free!"
"Sorry about this, ma'am," Harold said, stepping on the bell to silence it and plugging up the copper tube with dirt. "But this is August. Whatever you are down there, you sure as hell ain't alive no more, and you ain't comin' up."
Wristbands
(When you are admitted to a hospital, they place on your wrist a white wristband with your name on it. But there are other different colored wristbands which symbolize other things. The red wristbands are placed on dead people.)
There was one surgeon who worked on night shift in a school hospital. He had just finished an operation and was on his way down to the basement. He entered the elevator and there was just one other person there. He casually chatted with the woman while the elevator descended. When the elevator door opened, another woman was about to enter when the doctor slammed the close button and punched the button to the highest floor. Surprised, the woman reprimanded the doctor for being rude and asked why he did not let the other woman in.
The doctor said, "That was the woman I just operated on. She died while I was doing the operation. Didn't you see the red wristband she was wearing?"
The woman smiled, raised her arm, and said, "Something like this?"
The Other Watcher
A man went to a hotel and walked up to the front desk to check in. The woman at the desk gave him his key and told him that on the way to his room, there was a door with no number that was locked and no one was allowed in there. She explained that it was a storeroom, and that it was out of bounds. She reminded him of this several times before allowing him upstairs. So he followed the instructions of the woman at the front desk, going straight to his room, and going to bed. However the insistence of the woman had piqued his curiosity, so the next night he walked down the hall to the door and tried the handle. Sure enough it was locked. He bent down and looked through the wide keyhole. Cold air passed through it, chilling his eye.
What he saw was a hotel bedroom, like his, and in the corner was a woman whose skin was incredibly pale. She was leaning her head against the wall, facing away from the door. He stared in confusion for a while, was this a celebrity? The owners daughter? He almost knocked on the door, out of curiosity, but decided not to. As he was still looking, the woman turned sharply and he jumped back from the door, hoping she would not suspect he had been spying on her. He crept away from the door and walked back to his room. The next day, he returned to the door and looked through the wide keyhole. This time, all he saw was redness. He couldn't make anything out besides a distinct red color, unmoving. Perhaps the inhabitants of the room knew he was spying the night before, and had blocked the keyhole with something red. He felt embarrassed that he had made the woman so uncomfortable, and hoped she had not made a complaint with the woman on the front desk.
At this point he decided to consult her for more information. After some gentle quizzing and the promise that the explanation would go no further than him she finally said "Well, I might as well tell you the story of what happened in that room. A long time ago, a man murdered his wife in there, we find that even now, people get uncomfortable staying there. But these people were not ordinary. They were white all over, except for their eyes, which were red."
Upstairs
When I was a child my family moved to a big old two-floor house, with big empty rooms and creaking floorboards. Both my parents worked so I was often alone when I came home from school. One early evening when I came home the house was still dark. I called out, "Mum?" and heard her sing song voice say "Yeeeeees?" from upstairs. I called her again as I climbed the stairs to see which room she was in, and again got the same "Yeeeeees?" reply. We were decorating at the time, and I didn't know my way around the maze of rooms but she was in one of the far ones, right down the hall. I felt uneasy, but I figured that was only natural so I rushed forward to see my mum, knowing that her presence would calm my fears, as a mother's presence always does. Just as I reached for the handle of the door to let myself in to the room I heard the front door downstairs open and my mother call "Sweetie, are you home?" in a cheery voice. I jumped back, startled and ran down the stairs to her, but as I glanced back from the top of the stairs, the door to the room slowly opened a crack. For a brief moment, I saw something strange in there, and I don't know what it was, but it was staring at me.
The Thing that Stalks the Fields
It was a few weeks ago that the hay bales started creeping slowly away from the house. Every morning when I woke up, each had moved a few hundred feet from where it was before. I assumed it was pranksters with nothing better to do, so I ignored it.
Within a few days, though, the bales began to approach the boundaries of the farm. I was tired of the whole game by then, and decided to move them back. It took a tedious hour to bring them all from where they were to over near the house again, and by the time I was done I was ready to snap the neck of whatever little pissant was deciding to screw with me.
The next morning, I found each and every one of my horses messily decapitated. The smell was what woke me up. Each one was slumped over against the side of its stall. There were no signs of the heads. I spent the rest of the day cleaning up the mess and burying the remains. It was only when I was done that I noticed the bales of hay had all returned to their positions from the day before, scattered far out into the fields. This time I left them where they were.
That night I sat on my porch with my shotgun in hand and a pot of coffee on the table beside me. I sat for hours, straining my eyes into the fields to catch a glimpse of who was moving my hay bales. Finally, I was beginning to nod off. I would have, but just as my eyes began to close I heard a clamor and a rustling of trees from the nearby woods. I leaned forward, my heart racing with excitement; I was going to catch the bastard. I fumbled with my gun and fidgeted in my seat, waiting anxiously for whoever it was to get close enough to ambush. It was only when the thing got close enough for me to make out its silhouette in the dark that I was frozen still. The thing that crept into my fields from the nearby woods didn't seem to notice me sitting there.
It stalked, hunched and deliberate, through the field with the posture of a tiptoeing thief. If not for the fact that it must have towered to over ten feet tall even in its crouched position, it might have seemed almost frail. The thinness of its arms and legs and the emaciated, caved-in quality of its chest reminded me of a starving animal. Still, this thing was undeniably strong, and I watched it hoist each bale up into its arms with ease, and set it down carefully a while away, taking only a few strides to cover the distance. I watched it work, moving each bale thoughtfully. Every once in a while it would straighten up to look around at the other bales' positions in the field, before adjusting the one it was working on ever so slightly.
Before it left, it looked towards the house. I felt its eyes sweep over me in the dark, but whether it saw me or not I couldn't tell. Then, it turned silently and crept back the way it came, disappearing into the dark of the woods. It took me an hour before I had the courage to move at all. I went inside after a while, but didn't sleep that night. It was only when the sun rose that I dared step off my porch into the fields. The hay bales were where it left them. Strangely, it didn't move them as far as it had in the previous days.
They were approaching something invisible in the fields, and as I looked at them I realized that they seemed to be marking some line. Indeed, as I walked around the house, I saw the distinct circle that they formed with me at the center. At first I thought the bales were just being haphazardly moved away from the house, but now I could see that they were instead being moved towards some boundary. The thing was sending me a message. I slept uneasily that night, and only because I was exhausted.
The next morning the bales hadn't moved at all. They didn't move at all for the rest of that week, in fact. They were finally where the thing wanted them. I made myself sick trying to interpret them. Why would this thing expend so much energy moving my hay bales, and threaten me with such violence should I try to interfere? Killing my horses was just that a threat. An intelligent threat, at that. It knew what would scare me, and it knew that I would understand the implications.
The sound of an automobile working its way along the road to my farm one morning gave me a little rush of excitement. I'd been planning to abandon the farm since I saw the thing, but I couldn't hope to leave on foot without risking it treating me like it treated my horses. But, if I could get in the car with whoever was coming my way, I might be able to escape before it could stop me. I didn't know or care who it was. I decided that the moment they stopped the car, I would jump in the passenger's seat and tell them to get the hell out of here. I didn't get the chance.
The car worked its way slowly along the road, trundling across the uneven ground. I urged it silently to hurry. It was when it passed between the two bales placed on either side of the road that I began to hear a booming clatter from the woods. The thing burst suddenly from between the trees, sprinting on all four of its terrible, gangly limbs towards the car. Within a few seconds it was there, pouncing on the automobile like a predatory cat. Within moments it was picking and peeling the vehicle's steel frame apart, working to get at the driver.
The man, whoever he was, screamed all the while and I could hear him even over the crunching of metal and the shattering of glass. It was only when the thing crushed him carelessly in its hand that the screaming stopped. It tossed him away, and straightened up to look at me once again. In the sunlight, I could see the inhumanity of it. It was composed entirely of something awful and alive which was lashed together in a messy semblance of a human form. Whatever it was made of looked so polished and hard, that if it weren't for the minute writhing of the stuff, I'd think it was made of granite.
The thing retreated back into the woods, and I was left to my shock. My eyes wandered to where the car sat, the engine still sputtering, between two of the hay bales. Suddenly, I understood. The message was clear. I am this thing's captive, and I am not allowed visitors. Nothing may cross the borders it has set. I'm trapped here, by the thing that stalks the fields, and it demands nothing except that I never leave.
Still, I don't know if I can handle being that thing's canary. I've been thinking hard for the last few days since I saw it crush that man's chest, and silence him before he could finish his scream. If I crossed the hay bale border, it'd probably do the same. It'd smash my skull before I could put my hands up to protect myself. It'd go and find a new pet, and probably keep looking until it found someone who could stand knowing that it was waiting just outside, watching it at all hours with its shiny, insect eyes.
I've been thinking hard for the last few days, and I might just make a run for it.
In Berlin, after World War II, money was short, supplies were tight, and it seemed like everyone was hungry. At that time, people were telling the tale of a young woman who saw a blind man picking his way through a crowd. The two started to talk. The man asked her for a favor: could she deliver the letter to the address on the envelope? Well, it was on her way home, so she agreed.
She started out to deliver the message, when she turned around to see if there was anything else the blind man needed. But she spotted him hurrying through the crowd without his smoked glasses or white cane. She was, naturally, suspicious, so she went to the police.
When the police paid a visit to the address on the envelope, they made a gruesome discovery, three butchers had been harvesting human flesh and selling it to the starving people.
And what was in the envelope the man gave to the woman? A note, saying simply "This is the last one I am sending you today."
You know how Fox has a weird way of counting Simpsons episodes? They refuse to count a couple of them, making the amount of episodes inconsistent. The reason for this is a lost episode from season 1.
Finding details about this missing episode is difficult, no one who was working on the show at the time likes to talk about it. From what has been pieced together, the lost episode was written entirely by Matt Groening. During production of the first season, Matt started to act strangely. He was very quiet, seemed nervous and morbid. Mentioning this to anyone who was present results in them getting very angry, and forbidding you to ever mention it to Matt. I first heard of it at an event where David Silverman was speaking. Someone in the crowd asked about the episode, and Silverman simply left the stage, ending the presentation hours early. The episode's production number was 7G06, the title was Dead Bart. The episode labeled 7G06, Moaning Lisa, was made later and given Dead Bart's production code to hide the latter's existence.
In addition to getting angry, asking anyone who was on the show about this will cause them to do everything they can to stop you from directly communicating with Matt Groening. At a fan event, I managed to follow him after he spoke to the crowd, and eventually had a chance to talk to him alone as he was leaving the building. He didn't seem upset that I had followed him, probably expected a typical encounter with an obsessive fan. When I mentioned the lost episode though, all color drained from his face and he started trembling. When I asked him if he could tell me any details, he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. He grabbed a piece of paper, wrote something on it, and handed it to me. He begged me never to mention the episode again.
The piece of paper had a website address on it, I would rather not say what it was, for reasons you'll see in a second. I entered the address into my browser, and I came to a site that was completely black, except for a line of yellow text, a download link. I clicked on it, and a file started downloading. Once the file was downloaded, my computer went crazy, it was the worst virus I had ever seen. System restore didn't work, the entire computer had to be rebooted. Before doing this though, I copied the file onto a CD. I tried to open it on my now empty computer, and as I suspected, there was an episode of The Simpsons on it.
The episode started off like any other episode, but had very poor quality animation. If you've seen the original animation for Some Enchanted Evening, it was similar, but less stable. The first act was fairly normal, but the way the characters acted was a little off. Homer seemed angrier, Marge seemed depressed, Lisa seemed anxious, Bart seemed to have genuine anger and hatred for his parents.
The episode was about the Simpsons going on a plane trip, near the end of the first act, the plane was taking off. Bart was fooling around, as you'd expect. However, as the plane was about 50 feet off the ground, Bart broke a window on the plane and was sucked out.
At the beginning of the series, Matt had an idea that the animated style of the Simpsons' world represented life, and that death turned things more realistic. This was used in this episode. The picture of Bart's corpse was barely recognizable, they took full advantage of it not having to move, and made an almost photo-realistic drawing of his dead body.
Act one ended with the shot of Bart's corpse. When act two started, Homer, Marge, and Lisa were sitting at their table, crying. The crying went on and on, it got more pained, and sounded more realistic, better acting than you would think possible. The animation started to decay even more as they cried, and you could hear murmuring in the background. The characters could barely be made out, they were stretching and blurring, they looked like deformed shadows with random bright colors thrown on them. There were faces looking in the window, flashing in and out so you were never sure what they looked like. This crying went on for all of act two.
Act three opened with a title card saying one year had passed. Homer, Marge, and Lisa were skeletally thin, and still sitting at the table. There was no sign of Maggie or the pets.
They decided to visit Bart's grave. Springfield was completely deserted, and as they walked to the cemetery the houses became more and more decrepit. They all looked abandoned. When they got to the grave, Bart's body was just lying in front of his tombstone, looking just like it did at the end of act one.
The family started crying again. Eventually they stopped, and just stared at Bart's body. The camera zoomed in on Homer's face. According to summaries, Homer tells a joke at this part, but it isn't audible in the version I saw, you can't tell what Homer is saying.
The view zoomed out as the episode came to a close. The tombstones in the background had the names of every Simpsons guest star on them. Some that no one had heard of in 1989, some that haven't been on the show yet. All of them had death dates on them. For guests who died since, like Michael Jackson and George Harrison, the dates were when they would die. The credits were completely silent, and seemed handwritten. The final image was the Simpson family on their couch, like in the intros, but all drawn in hyper realistic, lifeless style of Bart's corpse.
A thought occurred to me after seeing the episode for the first time, you could try to use the tombstones to predict the death of living Simpsons guest stars, but there's something odd about most of the ones who haven't died yet. All of their deaths are listed as the same date.
If you ever are in an area of absolute quiet, still your breathing and move not a muscle. After a few seconds, you will notice that the silence has a sort of "sound" of its own, a kind of empty ringing tone. This is nothing unique; everyone will hear this, given the proper setting. An informed person will tell you that your brain is trying to interpret the lack of stimuli to your hearing and so creates a bit of a filler sound. This ringing sound actually serves a more arcane purpose, covering up a noise we are not meant to hear. This noise is not impossible to hear, and if you are persistent you can effectively "break" the cover-up sound.
The next time you are silent and hear the ringing, shout at the top of your lungs for about half a minute, then be abruptly silent. It will be different for everyone. Some will hear nothing different for dozens of tries. Others might pick up soft murmuring. A special few auditory heroes might clearly make it out on the first attempt. What you will hear is a voice that relays an account of events about to happen in the immediate future. It's like a sportscaster relaying the events occurring 10 seconds into the future.
As time goes on, you will be able to make out this voice under increasingly noisy circumstances, to the point that it can be heard at any time by just concentrating. Such ability would doubtlessly be invaluable, no? You will be able react to any immediate danger, relate to people around you with greater ease. No one would ever surprise you. Now, of course you are wondering what sort of horrible catch this ability entails. Perhaps the tone of the voice is so horrible that it will drive you mad, or maybe the voice will only predict your death over and over again.
Of course this isn't the case, though, it's a normal voice, your ears receive it no matter what, and it's simply a matter of noticing. But there is a danger. For you see, where there is a voice, there is a body. And just like you will notice new sounds, so shall you notice new sights. More importantly, you will be noticed.
A young girl had a sleepover with several of her teenage friends attending. Shortly before midnight she told her guests that there was a grave in the edge of the woods behind her house and anyone going there on a full moon and standing to close to the grave would be pulled into the grave by the bony hand of the old man buried there. One fifteen year old girl scoffed at the story and after much teasing accepted the challenge of going alone to the grave. As proof she had actually gone all the way she was to stick a large pitchfork into the top of the grave for inspection by all the others the next morning. The girl left and did not return. The others got scared - afraid to wake the adults in the house - fearful they were in serious trouble. Next morning they all huddled together and nervously made their way to the grave. There they found their friend lying dead from exposure beside the grave with her long night gown pinned to the grave where she had stuck the fork through it and into the hard clay covering the grave. She died of fright.
Snuff Film
You ever seen someone die on camera?
A snuff film is a recording of the actual murder of human being that is subsequently passed around for entertainment purposes. Suicides and accidents don't count. According to the MPAA, the FCC, the FBI and the ever-lovin' Snopes.com, there's no such thing as a snuff film. Yes, this includes Faces of Death. Anything you think might count is faked, falsified, or not made for that purpose, such as those tasteless videos you find on shock sites.
This is a lie.
There are, as best as anyone can tell, between 30-40 snuff films floating around out there. The earliest is a silent film on decaying nitrate celluloid, simply titled La mort d'une fille, and bears the date of 1896.
The latest, judging by the hairstyles and the presence of a "Frankie Says Relax" t-shirt, was probably made in 1983 or 1984 and is on Betamax.
The films vary in violence, but they all include seemingly ritualized sex, followed by the slaying of a girl with dirty blonde hair and piercing blue eyes who appears to be around 19 years old.
Every film has the exact same girl in it.
The Pile of Photographs
A young girl walking home from school found a small pile of Polaroid photos lying in the gutter. There were twenty in all, neatly wrapped in a rubber band. She picked them up, and as she walked she started to browse. The first photo was that of a ghostly white man on a black background, standing just far enough away from the camera that she couldn't make out his features.
The girl slid the photo to the back of the stack and looked at the next one. The photo was of the same man now standing a bit closer.
The girl flipped through the next several photos quickly. With each one the man in the picture came a bit closer and his features were a bit clearer.
Turning the last corner to her house, the girl noticed that the man in the photos seems to be looking at her even when she moved the stack from side to side. It frightened her, but she kept flipping them over, one by one.
By the nineteenth picture, the man was so close his face completely filled the frame. His expression was the most horrifying the girl had ever seen. Walking up the driveway, she turned to the last photo.
This time, instead of an image, there were two words: "Close enough."
Hearing a scream outside their house, the girl's brother rushed to the door and opened it. All he saw was a pile of photographs lying on the doorstep. The top one looked like an extremely pale version of his sister, but she was standing too far back for him to be sure.
A 15-year old boy in a small town in Maryland sat down at his computer after getting home from school one day. He turned it on, logged into AIM, and was then surprised to receive an IM from a classmate of his, who had been absent that day.
It consisted of two words; "Please come." Confused, the boy sent a reply, asking why he'd been absent that day. After two more messages and fifteen minutes with no response, he decided to get on his bike and head over to his classmate's house. It was a short ride, only about five minutes away.
When he got to the house, he found the door was unlocked. Inside, partially dried blood was splattered over the walls and floors, and an unrecognizable figure was crumpled against the far wall. It was missing an arm and a leg, and bloody streaks on the floor lead away from the body and into the kitchen. The boy slammed the door closed, and immediately called 911 on his cell phone.
When the police arrived, they found three corpses, as well as tracks leading away from the house from the back door. The forensics report concluded that the entire family, the boy's classmate and his parents, had been killed sometime the previous night.
Remember this -
Should you ever despair of life so much that you want to die, you have the means at hand and yearn to end your life, you have written a suicide note to those you will leave behind and you are prepared to die-at that moment, stop. Cut away at the note until you end up with a piece of paper in the shape of a key. Go to a door. Push the paper key forward and turn your hand as if unlocking it.
The lock is real.
Open the door. There you will find it the other earth. The one that waits to replace this one when it dies. That death is inevitable, but in the meantime the other earth will belong to you.
Be warned: the other earth is very different from this one.
If you are watching television, and the signal cuts out to static, turn the TV off immediately. Sometimes, if you watch the static on TV for long enough, the static will suddenly pause. All sound in the room will cease; even the white noise of the TV itself will disappear. If this happens you must not look away from the screen. You will probably not notice at the time, before you lose your gaze on the TV, your body will freeze as well. Time around and with you have paused completely. Specks of the black and white dots slowly come to life, creeping slowly in seemingly random directions. Not static as you know it, but organizing themselves into a moving picture again in front of you. As the static returns to normal, and the white noise of the TV comes back, you will regain control of your body. You must never watch that television again. It will only play static, even when unplugged. If you watch the static any longer, these same events will reoccur, but with disastrous results. What exactly happens is unknown, as it is obvious that anyone that has been unfortunate enough to experience this has disappeared. It is rumored that if one continues to watch the static again, or during their experience, looks away, the white and black specs will slowly start to move again, but you will not. Your eyes will then be permanently fixated on the screen as you watch the picture come back to life, and what seems to be your station's signal return. You learn soon this is not the case, as all sound is still absent, and the picture on the TV shows a familiar surrounding: the room in which you sit. The only thing you see next is movement on the TV, as you see yourself from behind, and subsequently, the cause of your disappearance.
Black-Eyed People
Black-Eyed People (sometimes called Black Eyed Children) are young people, often children, with eyes that are solid black and no differentiation between sclera, pupil, or iris. Those who report encounters with them often feel that the children were somehow supernatural and very dangerous. Often, the reports talk of a meeting with one or two unusually confident and eloquent children who attempt to talk the victim into letting them into their house to use a telephone, to be safe from something, or often try to talk someone into giving them a ride home. Often, people begin to agree to their requests, even though they will be vaguely unsettling, until it is realized that their eyes are completely black. As soon as they can tell, the children become very angry and insistent. Some people who have encountered black-eyed people feel that the children may have been using some form of low-level mind control to get them to comply.
Experiences involving the black-eyed people generally do not explain the cause of the children's eye color or the origins of the children themselves. Some imply they could be ghosts or demons, specifically vampires: the encounters frequently emphasize that the children must be voluntarily admitted or invited into the house or car in question, and in this way are reminiscent of some vampire legends.
Shadow People
Shadow people (also known as Shadow men, shadow folk or shadow beings) are said to be shadow like creatures of supernatural origin that appear as dark forms in the peripheries of people's vision and disintegrate, or move between walls, when noticed.
Reports of shadow people are similar to ghost sightings, but differ in that shadow people are not reported as having human features, wearing modern/period clothing, or attempting to communicate. Witnesses also do not report the same feelings of being in the presence of something that 'was once human'. Some individuals have described being menaced, chased, or (more rarely) attacked by shadow people. There have also been reports of shadow people appearing in front of witnesses or lingering for several seconds before disappearing. Witnesses report that encounters are typically accompanied by a feeling of dread.
Most accounts of shadow people describe them as black humanoid silhouettes with no discernible mouths, noses, eyes, or any expression whatsoever, though purported witnesses have also described child-sized humanoids or shapeless masses. Some reports also include glowing red eyes. Generally, they are described as lacking mass, though their specific nature varies from a two-dimensional shadow to a vaporous or distorted three-dimensional form. Their movement is often described as being very quick and disjointed; they may first move slowly, as if they were passing through a heavy liquid, and then rapidly "hop" to another part of a witness' surroundings. Some witnesses describe this movement as though the shadow entities they have seen "danced" from one wall to the next, or as moving around the room "as if they were on a specific track". Some accounts differ from the above and instead describe a completely black creature with red eyes, a cloak, and a gentleman's hat. This variation has become known as "the hat man".
Sephiron
Sephiron are creatures with a killing lust, sometimes also mistaken for "white shadow people".
They usually hunt in packs of three or four, have cat-like eyes, and a very smooth stride which can almost give the appearance of floating.
Their existence is due to an exposure to a plant which releases spores as a natural defense. It causes any nearby herbivores to obtain a light skin rash, followed by swelling of the cerebrum, which in turn is shortly followed by death.
Humans, however, are affected more severely. The swelling ceases at a certain point, causing the infected to slowly lose sanity. At two days after exposure, they will obtain an urge to kill, but it is controllable at this point. They will sub-consciously begin to scout local neighborhoods, planning murders. Within three to five days after exposure, their eyes will change and give off a cat-like appearance, as well as the change in stride. After eight days, the disease can become contagious. Any contact with the rash will spread the condition. After eleven to fifteen days, they will become aware that they cannot control themselves from killing and seclude themselves.
In this period of seclusion, they will begin to admit a strange pheromone. While humans cannot smell it, dogs, and other infected are able to sense it, and will be drawn to it. The infected will wait until all those with the condition are drawn to it. When gathered, frequent homicides will occur. At this point, the condition is no longer contagious. The rash is gone, and they will simply continue to kill until they are disposed of.
Holder of the End
In any city, in any country, go to any mental institution you can get yourself to. When you reach the front desk, ask to visit someone who calls himself "The Holder of the End". Should a look of child-like fear come over the workers face, you will then be taken to a cell in the building. It will be in a deep hidden section of the building. All you will hear is the sound of someone talking to themselves echo the halls. It is in a language that you will not understand, but your very soul will feel unspeakable fear.
Should the talking stop at any time, STOP and QUICKLY say aloud "I'm just passing through, I wish to talk." If you still hear silence, flee. Leave, do not stop for anything, do not go home, don't stay at an inn, just keep moving, and sleep where your body drops. You will know in the morning if you've escaped.
If the voice in the hall comes back after you utter those words continue on. Upon reaching the cell all you will see is a windowless room with a person in the corner, speaking an unknown language, and cradling something. The person will only respond to one question. "What happens when they all come together?"
The person will then stare into your eyes and answer your question in horrifying detail. Many go mad in that very cell, some disappear soon after the meeting, and a few end their lives. But most do the worst thing, and look upon the object in the person's hands. You will want to as well. Be warned that if you do, your death will be one of cruelty and unrelenting horror.
Your death will be in that room, by that person's hands.
That object is 1 of 538. They must never come together. Never.
The Tape
During the summer of 1983, in a quiet town near Minneapolis, Minnesota, the charred body of a woman was found inside the kitchen stove of a small farmhouse. A video camera was also found in the kitchen, standing on a tripod and pointing at the oven. No tape was found inside the camera at the time.
Although the scene was originally labeled as a homicide by police, an unmarked VHS tape was later discovered at the bottom of the farm's well (which had apparently dried up earlier that year).
Despite its worn condition, and the fact that it contained no audio, police were still able to view the contents of the tape. It depicted a woman recording herself in front of a video camera (seemingly using the same camera the police found in the kitchen). After positioning the camera to include both her and her kitchen stove in the image, the tape then showed her turning on the oven, opening the door, crawling inside, and then closing the door behind her. Eight minutes into the video, the oven could be seen shaking violently, after which point thick black smoke could be seen emanating from it. For the remaining 45 minutes of video, until the batteries in the camera died, it remained in its stationary position.
To avoid disturbing the local community, police never released any information about the tape, or even the fact that it was found. Police were also not able to determine who put the tape in the well, or why the height and stature of the woman in the video didn't come close to matching the body they'd found in the oven.
The Girl in The Photograph
One school day, a boy named Tom was sitting in class and doing math. It was six more minutes until after school. As he was doing his homework, something caught his eye.
His desk was next to the window, and he turned and looked to the grass outside. It looked like a picture. When school was over, he ran to the spot where he saw it. He ran fast so that no one else could grab it.
He picked it up and smiled. It had a picture of the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She had a dress with tights on and red shoes, and her hand was formed into a peace sign.
She was so beautiful he wanted to meet her, so he ran all over the school and asked everyone if they knew her or have ever seen her before. But everyone he asked said "No." He was devastated.
When he was home, he asked his older sister if she knew the girl, but unfortunately she also said "No." It was very late, so Tom walked up the stairs, placed the picture on his bedside table and went to sleep.
In the middle of the night Tom was awakened by a tap on his window. It was like a nail tapping. He got scared. After the tapping he heard a giggle. He saw a shadow near his window, so he got out of his bed, walked toward his window, opened it up and followed the giggling. By the time he reached it, it was gone.
The next day again he asked his neighbors if they knew her. Everybody said, "Sorry, no." When his mother came home he even asked her if she knew her. She said "No." He went to his room, placed the picture on his desk and fell asleep.
Once again he was awakened by a tapping. He took the picture and followed the giggling. He walked across the road, when suddenly he got hit by a car. He was dead with the picture in his hand.
The driver got out of the car and tried to help him, but it was too late. Suddenly he saw the picture and picked it up.
He saw a cute girl holding up three fingers.
The Statue
A few years ago, a mother and father decided they needed a break, so they wanted to head out for a night on the town. They called their most trusted babysitter. When the babysitter arrived, the two children were already fast asleep in bed. So the babysitter just got to sit around and make sure everything was okay with the children. Later that night, the babysitter got bored and went to watch TV, but she couldn't watch it downstairs because they did not have cable downstairs (the parents didn't want children watching too much garbage). So, she called them and asked them if she could watch cable in the parent's room. Of course, the parents said it was OK, but the babysitter had one final request... she asked if she could cover up the angel statue outside the bedroom window with a blanket or cloth, at the very least close the blinds, because it made her nervous. The phone line was silent for a moment, and the father who was talking to the babysitter at the time said, "..Take the children and get out of the house...we will call the police. We do not have an angel statue." The police found all three of the house occupants dead within ten minutes of the call. No statue was found.
Camping
A few months ago a friend of mine, who is an up-and-coming nature photographer, decided to spend a day and night alone in the woods outside of our town. She wanted to get photos of the woods and wildlife as naturally as she could for her portfolio. She wasn't afraid of being alone, as she had camped by herself many times before. She set up a tent in the middle of a small clearing and spent the day taking pictures. She filled up four rolls of film on that trip, but when she went and got them developed she saw four pictures that unsettled her, these four pictures were taken from inside the tent, of her, asleep in the middle of the night.
The New Bride
During a wedding reception of a young couple the guests decided on a drunken game of hide and seek. It was decided that the groom was "it" and he eventually found everyone but his new bride. Eventually the man became furious and decided it wasn't funny anymore and left her there. As weeks went by he accepted that she'd had second thoughts and went on with her life so he did the same. A few years later a cleaning lady dusted off an old trunk in the attic of the building where the reception had taken place, out of curiosity she opened it. Inside the trunk was the rotted body of the missing bride who'd apparently became locked in the trunk she'd hid in. Whether she'd suffocated or starved was unknown, but her face was frozen in a scream and there were huge scratches in the inside of the trunk where she had tried to get back to the man she loved.
Baby Doll
In rural southern Illinois a toy company began selling "realistic" baby dolls to expectant mothers. But apparently after the mother had her child the toy baby would start crying. Eventually the "rocking motion" advertised to calm it down wouldn't work, and you couldn't get it to stop without shaking it. Eventually when it started crying the parent would have to beat it, and the beatings and thrashings would have to get harder and harder to get it to be quiet. The only thing that seemed to shut the baby doll up permanently was the bash its head against the wall to destroy whatever mechanism triggered the crying. On more than one occasion though, neighbors called the authorities to report child abuse, and when the police arrived they found the bloody remains of infants smeared across the walls and the floor. In most cases the mother couldn't understand why the police were there, she just "got rid of the stupid doll" as she rocked a baby-shaped bundle in her arms.
The New Bride Two
A young man and his new bride were honeymooning in Paris when she sat him down, deadly serious, and asked him if he would ever leave her were she not truly beautiful. He laughed and complimented her, figuring she was simply being dramatic and wanted to be told how pretty she was. She then grabbed a cloth and rubbed at her face, wiping off the heavy foundation she wore and revealing a grotesque purple birthmark, covering nearly her whole face. Of course he would still love her, he was a good man but before he could stop himself he let out a gasp. His wife burst into tears and fled, and hadn't returned by the time the honeymoon was supposed to end. She had no passport, and no money so fearing the worst the man went to the police. The police thought it was most likely the girl simply had second thoughts about the marriage, yet due to the fact she had no official documents and spoke no french, they launched a hunt. Nothing ever turned up.
As weeks turned into months the man finally gave up on finding his beautiful wife, but his life fell into a shambles, he was so filled with grief.
Unable to hold a job or go on with his life, he took to wandering the world looking for anything that might ease his pain. Years later in Borneo he came upon a freak show in an old shabby building, he went in on a whim. In the last filthy cage he saw a twisted, scarred and mutilated woman rocking back and forth and groaning strange animal-like noises. He screamed as he recognized the birthmark on his wife's face.
Leon Czolgosz
Leon Czolgosz, assassin of William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States, was electrocuted for his crime on October 29, 1901, at Auburn Prison in Auburn, New York. Among the personal effects found in his cell was a U.S. quarter stamped with the date 2218. The face in profile on said quarter was not George Washington, but rather a face which has yet to be identified.
The Licked Hand
A beautiful young girl is left home alone with only her dog to protect her. On the news that night, they announced there is a serial killer on the loose in the area. Before she goes to bed, she locks all the doors and tries to lock all the windows, but the one in the basement won't lock. She decides to leave it unlocked, but locks the basement door and goes to bed. Her dog takes its customary place under her bed.
In the deep of night she awakens to a dripping sound coming from her bathroom. Half-awake, the girl feels the comforting lick from her dog and falls back to sleep. She reawakens to the dripping sound, reaches her hand down to the dog where she feels the reassuring lick and falls back to sleep. Once more, she awakens to the dripping sound. She reaches her hand down and feels the lick of her dog.
Now curious about the dripping sound, she gets up and slowly walks towards the bathroom, the dripping sound getting louder as she approaches. She reaches the bathroom and turns on the light. She is greeted by a horrific sight; hanging from the shower nozzle is her dog with its throat slit open and its blood dripping into the bathtub.
Something on the bathroom mirror catches her eye; she turns around. Written on the wall in her dog's blood are the words "Humans can lick too."
Sleepover
A young girl had a sleepover with several of her teenage friends attending. Shortly before midnight she told her guests that there was a grave in the edge of the woods behind her house and anyone going there on a full moon and standing to close to the grave would be pulled into the grave by the bony hand of the old man buried there. One fifteen year old girl scoffed at the story and after much teasing accepted the challenge of going alone to the grave. As proof she had actually gone all the way she was to stick a large pitchfork into the top of the grave for inspection by all the others the next morning. The girl left and did not return. The others got scared - afraid to wake the adults in the house - fearful they were in serious trouble. Next morning they all huddled together and nervously made their way to the grave. There they found their friend lying dead from exposure beside the grave with her long night gown pinned to the grave where she had stuck the fork through it and into the hard clay covering the grave.
The Old Lady
One day at a shopping mall in the afternoon, a woman was coming out of the mall from a shopping spree. She was in a happy mood. She had gotten to her car and loaded her stuff that she had bought into her trunk. When she was done loading, she shut the door of her trunk and she saw an old lady standing by the passenger side of her car.
The old woman said "Would you be a darling and give me a lift home? I don't have a car and I was walking all day." The woman said "I'd be happy to." So she unlocked the door for the old woman.
As she started to make her way around the car to the driver's side, she started to feel uncomfortable. So when she got in the car, she looked in her purse and said "Darn, I can't find my credit card. I'm going inside to see if anybody found it." The old woman said "I'll wait for you here."
The woman left to go look for help. Then she found a security guard and told him the situation. They went back to the woman's car and the passenger door was wide open. On the seat of the car was a shopping bag that the old woman had been carrying. Inside of the bag was the old woman's dress and a gray haired wig, along with a huge butcher's knife, a video camera, and a roll of duct tape.
Please Come
A 15-year old boy in a small town in Maryland sat down at his computer after getting home from school one day. He turned it on, logged into AIM, and was then surprised to receive an IM from a classmate of his, who had been absent that day.
It consisted of two words; "Please come." Confused, the boy sent a reply, asking why he'd been absent that day. After two more messages and fifteen minutes with no response, he decided to get on his bike and head over to his classmate's house. It was a short ride, only about five minutes away.
When he got to the house, he found the door was unlocked. Inside, partially dried blood was splattered over the walls and floors, and an unrecognizable figure was crumpled against the far wall. It was missing an arm and a leg, and bloody streaks on the floor lead away from the body and into the kitchen. The boy slammed the door closed, and immediately called 911 on his cell phone.
When the police arrived, they found three corpses, as well as tracks leading away from the house from the back door. The forensics report concluded that the entire family, the boy's classmate and his parents, had been killed sometime the previous night.
Copies
You're at work alone, when you suddenly hear the copy machine start up. You walk out to take a look at what's going on and see several copies filling the tray. Picking up one of the pieces of paper you discover that it is a copy of a picture depicting you sitting in your office chair, dead, with your eyes torn out and your throat cut. The others are the same picture, but taken from increasingly bizarre angles.
There is no original picture in the copy machine.
Bad Dreams
"Daddy, I had a bad dream."
You blink your eyes and pull up on your elbows. Your clock glows red in the darkness it's 3:23. "Do you want to climb into bed and tell me about it?"
"No, Daddy."
The oddness of the situation wakes you up more fully. You can barely make out your daughter's pale form in the darkness of your room. "Why not, sweetie?"
"Because in my dream, when I told you about the dream, the thing wearing Mommy's skin sat up."
For a moment, you feel paralyzed; you can't take your eyes off of your daughter. The covers behind you begin to shift.
Peripheral Vision
Have you ever gotten a glimpse of something out of the corner of your eye? A simple movement caught in your peripheral vision. Most will simply dismiss this as a shadow brought about by a flickering candle, or perhaps a pet jumping down from a piece of furniture. Ninety-nine out of a hundred times, these people are right.
But then there's that one elusive sight. It can easily be explained by the above conditions, but something feels wrong about it. A chill down your spine, a slight pain in your side. Maybe even a complete blanking of your mind, only to recede moments later.
Should any of these symptoms be felt, there may be cause for worry. Our peripheral vision is designed to catch motion, even in the dark. This was used to defend against predators in our early days, and as with many aspects of our human nature, it has remained, but weakened.
This view out of the corner of our eyes still alerts us to danger, and although predators have dropped on the list of dangers we may face today, they still exist. Should you ever feel that queer chill in your back, try not to focus on that shadow you saw in the corner of your eye. It might be better not to see.
Genetic Memory
Many classic horror icons, such as Geger's xenomorphs, Silent Hill's Pyramid Head, and other disturbing creatures, share common characteristics. Pale skin, dark, sunken eyes, elongated faces, sharp teeth, and the like. These images inspire horror and revulsion in many, and with good reason. The characteristics shared by these faces are imprinted in the human mind.
Many things frighten humans instinctively. The fear is natural, and does not need to be reinforced in order to terrify. The fears are species-wide, stemming from dark times in the past when lightning could mean the burning of your tree home, thunder could be the approaching gallops of a stampede, predators could hide in darkness, and heights could make poor footing lethal.
The question you have to ask yourself is this:
What happened, deep in the hidden eras before history began, that could effect the entire human race so evenly as to give the entire species a deep, instinctual, and lasting fear of pale beings with dark, sunken eyes, razor sharp teeth, and elongated faces?
...Just be careful out there.
Wake Up
It has been reported that some victims of torture, during the act, would retreat into a fantasy world from which they could not WAKE UP. In this catatonic state, the victim lived in a world just like their normal one, except they weren't being tortured. The only way that they realized they needed to WAKE UP was a note they found in their fantasy world. It would tell them about their condition, and tell them to WAKE UP. Even then, it would often take months until they were ready to discard their fantasy world and PLEASE WAKE UP.
The Lighthouse
There is a small island in the Mediterranean Sea that does not appear on any map. It cannot be seen from any other island, nor can any other land be seen from it. On this island is a lighthouse, rotting from age and sea water, which is never lit. There is nothing inside it, save for a spiraling staircase that leads to the top, and an ancient, dusty bookcase.
The case is filled with unmarked books; bound in ancient leather, save for a single space. If you remove a book from the shelf, it will fling itself open in your hands, and the words inscribed in it shall start screaming to the air. You must wrestle the book closed and shove it back on the shelf, or the immortal evil contained within its pages shall break free, and you will be forced to take its place, with pages, ink and binding crafted from your own flesh and blood.
However, if you bring the correct book to the island, and place it in the empty space, the lighthouse will light. As long as it is lit, the world shall enjoy an unending paradise, for all the evil in the world will be contained in the lighthouse. And while it is lit, nothing can go in or out.
The only problem; you will be trapped for eternity with all the evil ever known or conceived, by man or God. And the only way to escape is to douse the light.
The Corner
In almost every building, there is one corner, one small enclosure that no one ever looks at. It's the corner in the basement that has been blocked by a disused sofa for years; the thin space in the attic between the wall and the stacks and stacks of crates full of junk you never use, but could never throw away. The space that never sees the light of day, or any other kind of light at all. Where darkness does not merely dominate, but practically oozes out from around the edges of its prison.
No one knows quite how long a space must remain concealed for it to acquire this particular property, nor if there are any specific conditions that it must meet. But it is a far more common occurrence than you might think.
In newer buildings, when this happens, the residents often report feeling cold when passing by, even in attics during the hottest of summers. Whenever contemplating taking a quick peek to see if there is anything actually there, an unnatural dread seizes them, and they leave the room quickly, if not quite running. Once left behind, the feeling passes, and it is quickly forgotten, or laughed off.
What actually happens in these forgotten sanctuaries of the dark? It is impossible to tell. For while many such corners have been exposed to reveal absolutely nothing, some brave souls have lost their sanity through nothing more than an ill-timed glance. The safest thing to do when encountered with such a phenomenon: close your eyes, rip away the area's covering in a single motion, then keep a tight hold on what you've pulled away. No matter what you hear or feel, do not get up, do not look around, and do not try to cover your ears. You might be one of the lucky ones.
Gjoberdik
In Gjoberdik, a small fisherman's village in the country of Bulgaria, on the dawn of January 1st, everyone closes their curtains and hold their breath for half a minute. Hours after the craze of midnight's celebrations, children look questioning at their worried parents, but can not help to shiver in the embrace of their shaking parents.
One can hear the sound of bells being struck exactly 25 times last year, in this short time span. The nearest church however, is over 32 miles away. You will find no one out on the streets in these fateful 30 seconds, and even the birds will stop whistling.
Some have gone out of their houses, roaring boldly in disbelief of this century old tradition. On the first sunset of this year, two people gambled their fate in the very first rays of sunlight.
The next dawn, the bells will be struck 27 times.
Soon all people in the village either moved away or died off, some unfortunate souls were even caught outside on these nights. Then one January, as the last remaining living person passed away, the bell rang once, just once. Now when travelers pass through the area, there is no sign of Gjoberdik. It cannot be found on any map or seen at any time, but on January 1st, right after midnight, a barely audible bell can be heard in the fog.
Barbie.avi
Hello. This thing happened to me a few months ago; I just need to share it with somebody.
It all started at my friend's party. He's an artist who rented out a loft in the industrial part of town. If you can picture what a place like Detroit looked like in the 1920s that's what this area looks like. A bunch of old turn-of-the-century factories crammed into ten blocks.
Most of them are abandoned.
So I partied a little too hard that night and decided to crash on a couch at the loft. I woke up at around 4 am, the sun wasn't out yet but you could still make things out in the dim blue light. I went to the bathroom, carefully tiptoeing around the people that were passed out on the floor. As I was taking a piss I tiptoed to look out the bathroom window and I saw the panorama of deserted urban decay.
I remembered how much I liked places like this. It was so dark and devoid of life, and strangely serene.
So I went back to the couch and tried to fall asleep. After 45 minutes of staring at the ceiling I decided I didn't want to be there any longer, so I swallowed my pride and decided to wake my girlfriend up to beg her for a ride, since walking around the vacant streets at this time was not an option. Being an awesome girlfriend, she was totally cool with it, and told me she would be there in about a half-hour and that she would give me a call when she was outside. My phone died ten minutes later so I decide I would sit by the window and watch for her car. I sat there for a while and my eyes started getting heavy and I began to doze off.
A crashing noise outside woke me up. It wasn't loud, but just enough to snap me into reality. I looked out the window and scanned the area, but didn't see anything. Across the street from the loft near a mountain of garbage bags and one of those enormous dumpsters I see a computer and a monitor smashed against the floor that hadn't been there before.
When my girlfriend arrived I went downstairs and greeted her. Just as I was about to get in the car, I remembered a friend of mine who had blown out his power supply. So I decided to walk over to the dumpster and see what I could salvage. The monitor was worthless, but the tower seemed to have suffered almost no damage, so I put it in the trunk and we drove off.
About a week had passed and I had completely forgotten about the tower until my girlfriend called to let me know that it was still in the trunk and that she wanted it out. That night I brought it home. Before I took it apart I decided to hook it up to my monitor to see if it still ran, and to my surprise it did. It ran Windows XP and it looked like it had been wiped clean. I decided to do searches for words like "tits" and "pussy" in hopes of finding some secret stash full of weird deviant porn the previous owner had forgotten about. Morbid curiosity, I guess. Search came up nothing. Searched for picture Files nothing. Then I searched for movies and one file came up. It was an .avi inside a folder titled "barbie" hidden in the WINDOWS/system32 directory.
So I played it, now this is where it gets disturbing.
The movie was about an hour long, and was made up of what seemed like raw exported footage. The footage was of this woman sitting on a chair and talking against a white backdrop. I skipped through most of movie and it was all the same continuous shot. Then I decided to sit though the footage to find out what she was talking about. Fifteen seconds into the footage the audio goes completely bad and her voice is drowned in harsh static/background noise. I couldn't make out a thing.
So I imported the footage into final cut and tried to mess with the levels to isolate her voice. It helped a little, but I still couldn't hear what she was saying. I was intrigued now, and I began to really pay attention to her face and body language. It seems that she's being asked some kind of questions, because she stops at times to listen, and then continues talking.
About 15 minutes into the footage, her face begins to redden and contort as if the questions are bothering her... But she continues to answer them anyway. Shortly after she begins to cry. She sobs hysterically for the duration of the film. One of the few words I could lip-read was "skin". She repeats this word many times throughout the footage and at one point she even pulls at the skin from her arm and mouths the word. She seems to be unhappy with her skin.
There is much more I have to get off my chest, but it is getting late and I can't go on. I will share the rest tomorrow. God save my soul.
It kept on building and building, and about 40 minutes in she's crying so hard she can barely look at the camera. She stops talking at this point and the rest of the footage is just her crying with her head down. Oddly enough she doesn't get up or move, the screen just fades to black.
I was fucking dumbfounded.
I played the whole thing through many times that night, trying to find inflections and nuances in her movement that would reveal anything else about what was going on. I felt so dissatisfied, I wanted to know more. That's when I noticed that there was about 10 more minutes left on the timeline after the screen went black, and about 2 minutes in there was more footage.
The footage was extremely shaky, almost unwatchable, and depicted a pair of legs walking along train tracks. my guess is that camera was accidentally left on as it was being carried somewhere. The person in this footage walks along the train tracks for about 6 minutes and then turns into the forest and walks over what looked like foliage flattened by a piece of plywood. The person continues on this makeshift plywood road until the movie clip ends.
Now my heart started beating with excitement because there were train tracks a few miles away that looked very similar to the one in the video. I had to check this out.
I called up my friend Ezra; he's 6'4 250 pounds of mostly muscle. I convinced him to go on a little adventure with me. I'm no pushover myself, but I felt if was to go wandering in the woods looking for god knows what, extra muscle couldn't hurt. This whole idea of investigating this video had me so excited I couldn't sleep.
The next morning on a sunny Saturday, I took my flashlight, my camera, and my 7 inch ka-bar with a matte black finish and serrated edge and went to pick up Ezra. When I got to his house he wasn't even awake. When I woke him he pretty much told me to fuck off. I was already packed and I had mentally prepared myself to do this so I decided to go through with it without him. I parked my car at the train station, took my stuff, and hopped onto the tracks.
After walking for about two hours, I saw a broken piece of plywood and my knees almost buckled with excitement. I searched the nearby foliage, and there it was: a little plywood trail leading into the forest.
I walked slowly along the trail, paying close attention to everything. I would stop occasionally, kneel down, and listen for anything or anyone... but it was so quiet. This was one of the most nerve-racking things I've ever done. I didn't know what to expect at the end of this trail.
The dense tree line gave way into a little island of grassy field, and then I saw it, a house being consumed by the forest. From the looks of it no one had lived there for 20, maybe 30 years. I got my camera and snapped a few pics. A few yards away from the house was a tool shed made of rusty sheet metal. I just sat there among the trees for a while, absorbing everything.
I didn't want to go into the open field, I had this bad feeling that something would see me.
It took me a while to muster the courage to up to the house. The door was partly opened. I pushed it in with the flashlight and was relieved that the inside was actually very well-lit. I put my flashlight away, got my camera and took a few more pics. There was no furniture. The floor was riddled with bricks and wood and rubble, and some of the walls had huge holes in them. When I went in further to explore, I saw some things that I didn't pay much mind to in that moment, but now that I think about them in hindsight, they greatly disturb me.
The first thing that seemed a little odd was that one of the doors in the first room, that I presumed led to the basement, seemed a little too new to be in this house. It was also the only door in the house that was locked. Also, when I made my way up to the second floor, I saw some chairs and a fold-up table that also seemed a little too new to be there. But what disturbed me the most for some reason, was the bathroom. The dust on the mirror had been wiped away, and in the bathtub, I saw a clear plastic tarp that still had water droplets on it from, when I presume, it was washed clean. That's when I heard something moan really loud, and that's when I jumped the fuck out of the second story window and ran back to the tracks.
Halfway there I realized the moaning was most likely a water pipe expanding or contracting, and that little moment of relief gave into the horror which I felt when I wondered why the water would be running on an abandoned house in the middle of the fucking woods.
It's been a little more than 2 months since this happened and I haven't gone back there, nor do I plan to.
Death's Truck
Some people have been known to communicate with Death. There is no way for you to reach him; he must come to you. You have no control over whether he does or not. One day, however, you may be approached by him.
It will happen when you are alone, perhaps walking down a lonely country road after someone you love has just died. You will hear the sounds of a noisy automobile that will slowly grow louder and louder. If you turn around, you will see an old, rusty green truck approaching. If you do not turn, you won't see the truck before it reaches you. And reach you it will.
A man will get out of the truck, a tall man with his eyes hidden in the shadows of an old baseball cap. He will introduce himself as Death and you will know that this is true.
Death will give you the opportunity to go down into Hell with him and reclaim a lost soul. If you decline, he will nod politely and go on his way. You will live out the rest of your life normally, but wonder every day what could have been. If you accept his offer, you will descend through a mad underworld before battling through a hellish labyrinth for the chance to reclaim a lost soul. Nobody knows what happens if you win.
Queen's Bay
It is said, a long time ago, when Queen's Bay was just a small fishing village, the mayor's young wife Maura was killed by "The Queen."
I'm not one to say whether this is true, but I do know that certain nights are colder than others.
You see, you're too young to remember, but your mother used to run the inn where the Lady Maura used to live. And there were times, young man, when you woke up screaming, because "the scary woman was staring at you."
Laugh if you will, but your mother was never too sure about this. Until that night when you didn't wake up.
She had put you down for the night and returned to the common room, to have a glass of wine and tally the evening's profits. About an hour later there was a crash from your room upstairs. Thinking you were waking up from another one of your nightmares, she hesitated to run upstairs, waiting for you to cry for her before coming to the rescue. Strange thing is, young man, you never started screaming.
She eventually closed everything up and, thinking you had gone back to sleep, doused the lantern and went to her room.
The next morning came and you were late for breakfast. After calling for you several times, she went up to your room. I can tell you, she intended to skin you raw your mother with a common room full of customers and a dish boy who was too lazy to get out of bed.
She gasped as she entered your room to find it empty. The window was open, and the toy horse you kept by the windowsill lay shattered on the floor. Your sheets were strewn across the room, and you were nowhere to be found the only evidence being the merest trace of a lady's bootprints, and a few drops of blood.
The whole town was up in arms looking for you that morning. For days, we searched high and low to no avail. Devastated, we returned home to wait for the news.
It wasn't until about a week later when your mother, still inconsolable, heard another crash in your room, late in the evening. Hoping you had somehow returned, she rushed up the steps only to find your door open and a young woman beautiful they say placing you on your bed. Your mother screamed and the woman looked at her. I can hear your mother now, just as she told me the first time: "Her hair was blond, her eyes blue as cornflowers. She had such a sad smile, and a thin line of red that ran across her neck." As your mother approached, the woman faded as if she had merely been smoke in the shape of a person, now blown by the wind into nothingness.
The town cleric told us that it was a changeling or some other evil spirit that had gotten you one of the servants of The Queen's court. But that night your mother cradled you close, screaming. It was all we could do to pull your lifeless, cold body from her arms.
Oh, my boy. Your poor mother, right before she took her own life, made me swear to visit your sweet grave once a year and tell you this story. She wanted you never to forget the woman-shaped thing that took you from us, and how she will see you soon.
Thirty-Third Birthday
On your 33rd birthday, go to your local gas station and pick up the newspaper. The classified ads will have a small segment commemorating your birth and asking you to turn around. Upon looking behind you, a man dressed in a black cloak will be advancing in your direction. If you choose to run away, he will hunt you for the rest of your life, eventually killing you. However, if you await his arrival and show no intent of fleeing, he will give you a small package. Inside, you shall find the object you most desire.
One For The Baron
An odd occurrence has been rumored to happen in a certain pub at night in southwest Germany. If you sit in the stool farthest from the door while one beside it is empty, order a round for yourself and offer to "buy one for the Baron". The bartender will without question or expression will pour 2 beers from tap. He'll place one beside you and the moment the other one hits the table the room will go dark and silent, save for the sound of footsteps as a man in uniform sits beside you.
It is believed that it is indeed Captain Manfred von Richthofen, although no one is sure because they can barely see their own glass, much less the person's face. No one who's told this story has had the nerve to touch him or risk insult, and the figure does not say a word. But apparently if you were to ask him "So sir, what's the condition at the front?" he would tell you startling details about the region's future and sometimes how they connect to the world as a whole.
Those who lived long enough after the fact claim that these events took place the exact amount of years from the date they asked as from the date Baron von Richthofen died in battle. Yet this cannot be confirmed, because every time the figure has been asked the question after 1964 he's only replied with a cold laugh.
Truck Driver
There's a dark forest deep in the heart of the Rockies, surrounded on all sides by mountains. In the center of the forest is a lake on the shores of which you will find a large black stone. If you swim out into the center of the lake, the stone will drag you down into the darkness.
You will emerge from shadows in the alley of a frightening dark city of heavily arched roofs and buildings built on stilts. You must not talk to a single citizen of this city, or you shall be trapped there forever. The citizenry is horrid and mutated, and they will leer and curse at you, and their hideous and deformed women shall offer you unknown and horrible lewdness.
At the edge of this city is a highway. Walk down the left side of the road (yes, against traffic) with your thumb out and a man in a dark truck shall pick you up and drive you back the way you came. The city will be gone, and he will take you to any place on Earth as long as you can name it and there's a road there.
The Man In the Black Cape
If you stand alone at the corner of Church St. and Market St. in Charleston, South Carolina at 3 AM, you see a man coming down Church St. wearing a black hat and black cape with stringy white hair and weathered skin. He'll stop at one of the two corners directly across from where you are standing and start to walk the corner directly opposite from where he is standing. When he reaches about halfway (dead center of the intersection) and nobody else has arrived, he'll stop, turn, and look directly at you.
If you do not blink for roughly 20-30 seconds he'll tip his hat to you and walk along his way, disappearing into the dark shadows of the trees that line the streets. Nobody knows what happens if you follow him.
If you do blink before he tips his hat, the very first thing you will see is the man standing directly in front of you. He'll grin maliciously at you and draw a blade hidden in the shaft of the cane and slash you across your throat, but you will not feel a thing. You will, however, pass out and remain in a comatose state until the sun rises over the horizon.
For the next six nights, you will have a recurring dream of the man walking down the street, appearing suddenly before you, and slashing your throat. On the seventh night, the events will replay the same up until he stops in the middle of the intersection. At this point, he'll say, "It's been fun playing with you, boy, but now it's time for you to go. Don't ever let me see you again." He'll then tip his hat and walk away before you wake up.
Nobody knows what happens if you visit the corner a second time.
The Child
There is a child in a hospital in Decard, Tennessee. The child is a quiet toddler that remains in the nursery with all the other newborns. If you ask the staff, they will ignore you, but the tag on his arm is antiquated and yellowed, clearly made in the late 1940's or there abouts. He will not cry, only rock quietly. If you speak the name on his tag, his eyes will open, something you don't want to happen.
The Man With Green Eyes
There is a certain road near the Everglades in Florida, which, if you drive down it alone in the rain, day or night, you will suddenly have a very real feeling of being completely lost. Your radio will turn to static, your CDs will skip, and your tapes will play slower than normal. If you try to find a map in your car, it will have mysteriously vanished.
If you continue forward down the road for more than a minute, you will find that you can't turn around, and everything behind you is pitch dark. There are no other roads and no other cars.
Continuing down the road, you will come upon a fork with no signposts. In the middle of the fork, there will be a man, covered head to foot in various pieces of clothing. The only skin visible will be around his eyes, which will be bright green.
You must get out of your car, but do not turn it off or close the door after you. You must approach the man, but stop at least three feet away. You must stand there silently, waiting for him to speak first. If you break the silence first, you will find yourself back on a main road, but you will die within 24 hours.
If he speaks first, he will ask you what you require. Tell him that you need to know which road will take you to your destination. He will then ask you what you will offer him in exchange for his assistance. If you offer him a ride, he and your car will disappear, and you will become the new guardian of the crossroad. If you offer him an umbrella, he will take it and stab you through the chest. If you offer him your love, he will take your heart still beating from your chest and eat it, condemning you to walk the earth without a heart, insane from the pain and loss.
You must offer him your loyalty and kneel before him. If you do this, he will close his eyes and bow in return, extending a hand to whichever path will lead you back to safety.
But if you try to run from him, you will be dead before you reach your car, and your body will be found back in your car, deep in the swamps of the Everglades.
Missed Calls
It's early in the morning. The sun won't be up for another couple of hours. You're fast asleep in bed, lost in a dream, when the phone rings. Rather than waking up, you roll over and cover your head with a pillow. Hours pass. The sun rises. The phone is ringing.
When you wake up, your alarm clock is blaring and the phone is ringing. By the time you will yourself to turn the alarm off, the phone has stopped ringing. You realize that it's been ringing all morning. You slide out of bed and press the blinking red button on your phone as you stumble into the bathroom. The phone beeps, followed by the friendly, electronic voice. "Hello. You have six hundred and sixty-six new messages."
Message one.
The phone beeps again, and you're not prepared for what comes next.
Screaming.
You spin around, thinking that she's standing right behind you. There's pure terror in her screams, accompanied by other disturbing noises. You stand there, horrified, for about ten seconds. Screaming gives way to hysterical, garbled crying before dying out with the sounds of spilling meat and tearing flesh.
The phone beeps again. You're shaking.
Message two.
Thanks
It's 3 AM on Halloween night and you and your friends been up all night on a horror binge. You've watched your favorite scary movies, read your favorite scary stories, and even attempted the old "Bloody Mary" trick in your mirror. After your friends leave, you stretch and yawn, deciding now is about the time to hit the hay, so you move into your bedroom and lay down to sleep.
After awhile, however, you realize that you can't get the images of some of the fictional creatures you saw on your television out of your head. "Meh...I'm going to hate myself for this tomorrow," you say aloud as you flick on your bedroom lamp, knowing that having a nightlight used to help get rid of your nightmares as a little kid. Within minutes you're close to sleep, snuggled up comfortably under the blankets with your eyes closed and more pleasant thoughts on your mind...
...that is, until you detect something moving in front of the light, casting a shadow over you. You blink, beginning to turn towards the lamp before a rotting hand grabs hold of your shoulder. "Thanks for turning on the light, I was having trouble finding you in the dark."
Missing
It might happen one morning that you wake up home alone. This could be normal depending on your situation, but this morning will be different. While your environment will all seem exactly the same, you'll notice that everything is quieter than normal. If you go outside, you will notice a distinct lack of anything like birds, insects... or people. As far as you travel, you will not encounter another sentient human being. The entire world will be intact, empty except for you.
There are currently over 100,000 missing persons cases in the United States. Some are just normal cases of murder or kidnappings, but in others, the disappearance cannot be explained and no remains of the person are ever located.
Five Minutes
Your cell phone rings, and it's a number you don't recognize. You shrug, and answer anyway. The voice on the other line says, "Can I have five minutes of your time?" You answer yes, and the caller immediately hangs up. Then, you look at the clock.
...And you feel five fucking minutes older.
The Mouth of Truth
Somewhere near the center of Palermo, in Sicily, there is an old amusement park.
Should you wander around, just aside a shooting gallery there is a old funny-looking statue of a grotesque face. Dont try to get close to it yet. As soon as you're about to touch it, no matter how hard you try, you'll change your mind. Get to the shooting gallery and pay the clerk for three games, it will cost you the equivalent of 10$ in total. It doesn't matter how much you score, as soon as you finish the second game keep the gun and don't shoot again. The clerk will ask you his gun back, but you must ask to try the Mouth of Truth instead.
After he agrees, you'll be able to approach the statue. Put your hand in its mouth up to your wrist. A small crowd will gather around you. After some seconds the eyes will light and your hand will be blocked, as the statue will ask you one question about a secret, or embarrassing fact of your life, even something you're ashamed of. You must answer the question truly and aloud, regardless of the people watching you.
If you answer correctly, some will be shocked, others amused by the truth, and your hand will be released. Within the following two or three weeks you will feel somewhat different. You will see that same light of the statue in your own eyes, and you'll notice people will feel a bit uneasy when talking to you. That will be for a simple reason: none will be able to lie at you. The effect of this "blessing" will last about a year. After it has worn out, you'll be able to redo this once again.
Don't answer the statue with a lie!An inner mechanism will clamp your fingers and you'll pass out from the shock. When you wake up, you'll be just outside of the park, and you won't be able to enter it ever again. When you'll go back home, the morning after you'll feel something strange in the hand you put in the statue's mouth, and find out your pinky is missing. No cuts or wounds, just smooth flesh where your finger used to be.
Throughout the following days, each morning you'll wake up with one of your fingers disappeared. On the eleventh to twentieth morning your toes will start missing. Should you try to ask for help, people will just laugh at you and tell you've always been a liar. By a month, you'll have no appendixes: no nose, ears, eyes, lips, genitals. All you'll be able to do will be feeling around with your stumpy limbs. Then your limbs will disappear too. Youll be left wherever you fell asleep as a human stump until starvation and decay get the better of you.
If you answer truly, but keep your voice low, from that moment on for the rest of your life you'll just be a big liar. Anytime you'll try to tell the truth, your voice will be cut and only a slight hissing will come out.
13th month
If you use the Julian or the Gregorian calender beware:
February of all the months of the year has only 28 days. Why so, is a question that crosses the mind once in a while, well... it is not a coincidence; it is a hint. If you take the extra days of the other months so that every month only has 28 days like February there will be enough days to create a 13th month with... 28 days. Sure there is enough to have a month or two with 29 days, but there will be a 13th month in which you can have the 13th day of the 13th month. Good thing we have used a 12 month system for so long, because if it is the 13th day of the 13th month and you know it is that date: 'it' will happen.
(Note: It IS possible to learn the existence when such a date)
Toolbox
You wake up one morning to find a note taped to your mirror: "Don't worry, I took care of everything." Your clothes have been freshly laundered, the bathroom is spotless, and your garage has been organized. Even your faithful old toolbox has been replaced.
Later that week, there's another note on your mirror: "GET OUT OF TOWN." Paper-clipped to this message are several grainy photos of police in a taped-off section of a field. One of them is carrying your old toolbox in his latex-gloved hand.
Lucid Dreamer
Dreams are just your mind dealing with the day's events, right? Nothing paranormal about that; everyone does it. I mean, there are places you visit often in your dreams. A certain house, a shop, a school...but these places are just figments of your imagination, right?
Have you ever wondered about these places and the people within them?
I know you're out there, "lucid dreamers". You're the ones who can control what happens when they dream. You are just beyond that film, that membrane that separates us.
Lucid Dreamer, have you ever wondered what that beautiful woman in your dream felt when you suddenly decided you wanted to fuck her? Oh, she seemed willing enough, didn't she?
Have you ever considered that you raped that woman, Lucid Dreamer? That she had no choice but to do everything you willed her to do while her mind watched on in horror?
Remember, Lucid Dreamer, all those awful things you have done in your dreams... And consider what those who call dreams their home must think of you. What they wish to do to you in kind.
I'm waiting, Lucid Dreamer, for those nights when your exhaustion keeps you from your power.
Oh, the things I will do to you then. Sweet dreams.
Barking
We've all heard it. The incessant barking from your one of your neighbors dog. Late in the night, the barking will wake you, and you will scream at the dog out of the window. One night, you hear the dog barking more than normal, but you will ignore it. The dog barks again, louder and faster than before, and you ignore it. The final time, the dog is barking loud enough to practically shake your ears. You go out and throw a brick at the dog in the back yard, which silences the dog for good. Proud of yourself, you fall back asleep. Deep in your dream, all you see are dogs barking. Through an infinite void, just dogs.
The next morning, The Police find a number of footprints coming from the dog house, a bloody corpse hanging from the back door, and one dog with a brick lodged in it's skull.
The Argument
You're the manager for a small store. You hired one of your friends, and you just found out that he's been stealing from the register, stealing stock, abandoning his post to visit with his girlfriend in the back room while he's the only one on duty, and the argument you had with him at the office just didn't settle it for you. You pound on his door. When he opens up, he goes pale, soils himself, and staggers back, gasping for breath.
It doesn't impress you, really; you figure he just thinks you're showing up with the cops, until you step through his door and glance to the side, where you get a good look at yourself in the mirror.
Or at least, the parts of you that are still recognizable after that shotgun blast that your friend gave you at the end of that argument...
Itch
You feel an itch in your throat.
You try to cough it out, but it just won't come.
You struggle with forcing yourself to vomit. You drink lots of water, but whatever it is, its just stuck there.
You reach for the carton of milk in the fridge and sneeze as you raise it up. Something hits the floor with a rattle. You look at the floor and see a small button with a flowery design on it.
Then you look up. On the milk carton, you notice a missing kid. Her blouse shows the same buttons.
Cell Phone
If you call yourself on your own cellular phone, sometimes you will get an answer. You won't hear anything other than heavy breathing, so don't bother waiting for them to speak. If you then say the name of a person you know and a reason that they should die (reasons like "I just want them dead" do work), then they will die a gruesome death within the next 24 hours. Their horribly mangled corpse will be completely unrecognizable, and there is never any evidence pointing to a specific perpetrator so the person(s) who performs this service has never been caught. This was how the infamous Black Dahlia murder was perpetrated.
Victims
An Apple A Day
Have you ever heard the expression "an apple a day keeps the Doctor away?" Most assume, with no reason to think otherwise, that it is simply an easy-to-remember rhyme that stresses the importance of eating healthily to young children. But the saying did not originate as a harmless reminder. It was born in a frontier town in the early years of the gold rush, where food was scarce and money even scarcer.
One August, when a bad drought had struck the region, a series of bloody killings swept through the town. Every night, a single house would be broken into, and anyone who saw the invader would be swiftly, brutally slain. Nothing was ever stolen, save for a few scraps of food.
After two weeks of this, the local grocer set out a few apples and a glass of milk in the town square overnight. He then hid in the tower of the church, hoping to catch a glimpse of anyone who came by.
Fighting fatigue, the grocer waited for any sign of life below. Just after midnight, he was rewarded by a chilling sight; a man, carrying a black bag stuffed with dully shining metal tools and covered from head to foot in cloth bandages, staggered into view. He paused at the sight of the apples and milk, and then whipped his head around, as if looking for the one who dared to patronize him. Seized with fear, the grocer ducked out of sight, staying hidden 'til sunrise.
The strange man had only taken one of the apples, and didn't even touch the glass of milk. No houses were broken into, and no one was killed. For decades, the town continued to place out an apple or two every night, even long after a single apple stopped disappearing.
The Subway Ride
I live in the U.K. A colleague at work heard this from her boyfriend.
He works with someone who said that his sister's friend got the last tube (subway train) home a couple of weeks ago. When she got on there were five rows of seats empty but the last row had three people sitting in them. As she was a little afraid, she went and sat opposite these people. She settled down and looked up to see the woman sitting opposite her really staring at her.
So she got out her book and started to read but every time she looked up the woman was still staring. The train pulled into the next station and a man got on. He looked up and down the carriage, took a look at her and the people opposite her and came and sat next to her. As the train left the station the man leaned back and said quietly in her ear "If you know what's good for you, you'll get off at the next station with me". She was scared but thought the best idea would be to get off at the next station as he asked as there might be people around.
The next stop comes up and she leaves the train with this man. The man says "Thank God, I didn't mean to scare you but I had to get you off that train. I'm a doctor and the woman sitting opposite you was dead, and the two men either side were propping her up." According to the guy who told this story, the girl and the doctor called the police who stopped the train at the next station.
Dripping
A couple was sitting in a movie theater watching a scary movie, and the female of the group wasn't having a good time. She'd obviously been bored out of her mind. It'd been a late showing, so there was practically no one there and the room was dead silent except for the screening. About an hour into the show, she feels a drop on her hand.
Ignoring it, she quickly shakes off the feeling and continues to watch the movie, trying to enjoy it. Another drop lands on her hand and furious now, she hits her boyfriend, thinking that he'd purposely been messing with her, be it spitting or throwing water on her. He doesn't move. She pushes him harder this time, throwing in some obscenities, and to her horror, a red line that she hadn't noticed until now, starts to seep red and then his head falls off.
Horrified, she lets out a silent scream and that's when she feels the drip again. Looking at her hand, she can barely make out the color of the liquid, but it's red. Nervously, she looks up and is shocked to find a body hanging directly above her, it's neck tied within a noose and the stomach torn open.
The Ferrari
A man saw a Ferrari at a used-car sale and asked for the price of the car. The salesman lit up with a smile and said he'd give it to the man for $500 dollars. The man bought the car instantly on the spot after hearing the ridiculously cheap deal.
The man had the car for months now, but on a cold, winter day as he got into the driver's seat he was startled to see someone in the rear-view mirror. He quickly turned around and saw nothing in the empty seat and quickly shrugged it off thinking he must have imagined it.
As the cold days went by, the car doors started to lock up on him, the engine would stall, and he would hear sounds of something hitting in the back. The man started getting anxious about this bad omen. That horror soon showed itself as he was driving to the airport to pick up his relatives. He looked up and saw 3 bloody bodies in the rear-view mirror staring at him. He screamed and realized that this car is really haunted and fled from the car.
Later he heard the story of the car from the salesman. The police found the car 2 years ago abandoned in an empty airport parking stall where 2 dead bodies were found in the back seat and another one found in the trunk.
The Three Wishes
An elderly man was sitting alone on a dark path. He wasn't sure of which direction to go, and he'd forgotten both where he was traveling to...and who he was.
He'd sat down for a moment to rest his weary legs, and suddenly looked up to see an elderly woman before him.
She grinned toothlessly and with a cackle, spoke: "Now your third wish. What will it be?"
"Third wish?" The man was baffled. "How can it be a third wish if I haven't had a first and second wish?"
"You've had two wishes already," the hag said, "but your second wish was for me to return everything to the way it was before you had made your first wish. That's why you remember nothing; because everything is the way it was before you made any wishes." She cackled at the poor man. "So it is that you have one wish left."
"All right," he said hesitantly, "I don't believe this, but there's no harm in trying. I wish to know who I am."
"Funny," said the old woman as she granted his wish and disappeared forever. "That was your first wish..."
The Building in the Woods
In my city, there was an abandoned building. It used to serve as a storage facility for wood. It was long abandoned, and nature almost completely reclaimed it. Although it was tough to get there, when you did it was worth it. Teenagers hung out there, it was a place to get away from the house, and away from your parents.
For some reason, nobody ever went into the dark part of the complex, where no beam of sunlight ever hit the walls. Me and my friends were talking about it, and we decided to venture into the darkness. We were curious, and we wanted to look cool. We went home, and packed our bags. We brought potato chips, beer and flashlights. We didn't actually believe in ghosts. Ghosts were something that was used to scare little kids, we thought.
People thought we were crazy, for going into the dark part. For some reason, you didn't want to stay there long. the air just had a smell of terror. We got used to the very few light we had quickly. We sat there, the 5 of us, and drank some beer. Then one of my friends noticed there was a staircase leading downstairs. We challenged each other, but mostly ourselves, to go down there. It was even darker here. But we got used to this as well, and decided to hang around a little longer. We drank some beer, and joked around a little bit. As i walked around, i noticed there was a wooden barricade set up. I could just see past it, and noticed there was yet another staircase there. I called over my buddy's, and we removed some of the wooden boards. They were to be removed quite easily, and we were able to pass through. As we were walking down the stairs, we noticed that this floor was completely flooded.
The water smelled like rotting corpses, and i got a strange feeling in my gut. We whispered, as we were all absolutely terrified. It was completely silent, and then we heard a scream. The scream of a young woman. Our flashlights stopped working.
I ran like hell, and i screamed at the top of my lungs. I heard my friends yell behind me. I didn't wait. I was too scared. When i got out, the sun was setting. I ran out of the building, into the woods, and i fell asleep beside a tree. Only two of us made it out that day.
The police investigated the site. They found the body of a beautiful 20-year old woman, who had drowned there. My friends are still missing.
Video Tape
A degenerated VHS dub was discovered in the University Library containing five minutes of inexplicable amateur footage. In one continuous shot, the camera momentarily focuses on a doorway on the north wall of a living room before the operator climbs outside of the house through a window to show the exterior white clapboard. The camera then moves inside the house through a second window completely circling the doorway and so proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that insulation or siding is the only possible thing this doorway could lead to. A hand appears in the frame and pulls open the door, revealing a narrow black hallway at least ten feet long. The camera begins to move closer, threatening to actually enter it. A voice can be heard, "Don't you dare go in there again, Davy," to which another voice adds, "Yeah, not such a hot idea."
The Skeleton Tree
During the spring of 1902 in the Dry Tortugas Islands off of the coast of Key West, a man was shot and the bullet protruded slightly from the back of his skull into a tree (which he had his back against at the time). As time passed and the tree continued to grow, his putrefied corpse was lifted into the boughs as his skull was still attached loosely to the tree by the bullet. As time passed, the tree grew around the skeleton. If you can find this tree on one of the islands, tap it thrice with the heel of a cow hide leather boot, you will be granted the ability to make anyone forget anything at will.
The Unfortunate Hiker
I was through hiking the Appalachian Trail last year, when I got lost and found myself off the trail, in a strange, dark hollow with heavy moss and one running stream. It was getting dark, and starting to rain. I found a cave just above the creek bed, and there were no bear-tracks, so I went in for shelter.
Sometime in the night, a bear did come, right into the cave, and I had no way out! Keeping my head, I crawled deeper into the cave and found a passage too small for the bear to fit. It led to a long crawl way ending in a little alcove.
I had no light, and was terrified. But the sound of the bear in the bigger room faded away. This new room was cozy, with what felt like mounds of soft moss and crackly leaves all over the floor. A breeze blew through, and the leaves, though I couldn't see them, seemed to move all over, they tickled me all night long, making it hard to sleep.
The next morning I crept back out to see if the bear was gone - he was. So I exited back into the hollow. I had a terrible rash all over my body from the itchy bedding I had slept on, and couldn't stop scratching as I gathered my stuff and went down the creek looking for a road and some directions back to the trail.
I found another trail along the creek, and in a few hours, it ended at a dirt road. There I rested, trying to decide which way to walk for help. My skin was bleeding in spots now, and pustules were forming at the itchiest places. I thought I might need some cream or something.
A game warden Jeep came around the bend, and when the Warden saw me sitting at the trailhead, he stopped.
"You planning on going up there?" he asked, gesturing up the trail I had come down.
"No, actually -- " I began, but the itching on my skin made me stop short to scratch.
"I wouldn't if I were you, especially that cave."
"Why?" I asked.
"They call it Spiders-Nest Cave."
The Tundra
The native villagers around these parts say that there's a stretch of tundra just north of here that is occupied by benevolent spirits. These spirits grant insight and warning, they say, to whoever visits them at night, once the sun has disappeared entirely and left the world in jet darkness.
I drove out to the middle of the frozen expanse of ice and waited, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever commanded these people's reverence. They send their children out, bundled in furs to keep from freezing, on the eve of their 15th birthday to seek an audience with these spirits. Once they have achieved this, the children run home to their parents to share the news. From then on these children are considered adults in the village. Engaged couples visit this tundra on the night before their wedding. The entire village stays up all night awaiting their return, as it is upon their return that the couple either decides to proceed with their marriage, or to abandon it. The elderly visit the tundra whenever they are sick or ailing, and often make their condition worse by staying all night in the cold. When they return, however, it is most often with an air of sheer serenity.
So I waited, curious to see what phenomenon might inspire people so powerfully. I waited for hours, bundled in my parka and sitting on the hood of my pickup. I waited until I felt that I was going to freeze to death, even in my thick clothing.
I heard the spirit before I saw it.
A crunching of snow in the silence made me jump off my truck and spin around. A hunched, gray-skinned man stood a few meters away. Sad, yellowed eyes stared back at me, set inside a skull from which sprouted only a few greasy hairs. He breathed heavily, with a rattle that shook his fragile ribcage, and one of his arms looked as if it had been messily broken and then neglected, allowing it to knit back together imperfectly. Badly scarred flesh marred his splayed legs. The man stared at me for perhaps ten seconds, breathing in the frigid air and exhaling a sickly dribble of steam, before disappearing when I blinked my eyes.
I spun around, looking for the man, but he was truly gone. Approaching where he had stood, I found a pair of bloody footprints in the snow. Frantic with fear, I got into my pickup and headed for the village as fast as the ice would allow. A few villagers were waiting for me when I arrived, knowing that I had gone out and curious as to what might happen.
I hastily got out of my truck and, approaching the nearest villager, I demanded, "What is so benevolent about these spirits? What is so insightful? How do these spirits help you?"
"What did you see?" he asked, the look on his face now mirroring the fear in mine.
"I saw a man, horribly disfigured and desperately sick!" I screamed into his face, and the rest of the villagers around us backed away a step. "Why? What does that mean?" I begged him.
"The spirits show only one thing," the man explained. "They show their visitors, a year in the future."
Indistinguishable
"It is a process which I derived empirically. All motion, either generated by or imparted to an object, obeys the same principle," said he. "When your arm moves, is the motion continuous, or are there discretized points, however small, at which there is no in-between?"
"The latter case, I would imagine, at some subatomic level," I offer.
"Indeed," he replies. "In my work, I have discovered it matters not the timeframe in which the motion occurs, nor the force that impels it. On film, during the traditional application of the process, the movement is indistinguishable from life. Would you agree?"
"Aside from the crudity of the animation as has been practiced in the past," I say, "that is entirely the point."
"Yes, you have chosen the perfect word," he says, opening the black leather bag I have been eying since we entered the room. Perhaps he has noticed. "The stop-motion animator's work is quite crude. I have refined the processes, and refined them again until the medium was freed of its old moorings, yes? A new art form emerged, and a new science. At a sufficient level the two are indistinguishable."
"Many things seem to be," I say. He smiles at this.
"But enough talk," he returns as his smile is replaced with a stern air of professionalism. There is some hint of pride in his face, though, as he says "perhaps, to begin, I should introduce you to one of my assistants."
He claps his hands three times. From a shadowy corner, a misshapen clay thing the size of a man shambles jerkily across the room towards us, its skin rippling as if plied by countless unseen fingers.
Gloomy Sunday
"Szomorú Vasárnap" or "Gloomy Sunday" in English, is a hit song written in 1933 by Hungarian composer Rezso Seress. It's more commonly known as "The Hungarian Suicide Song" because of hundreds (if not thousands) of suicides that had been inspired by listening to it. The song itself has been covered several times, most famously by Billie Holiday, and for the most part is considered an urban legend and a brilliant marketing campaign.
The version that reached radio waves, however, is not the version that was originally written. Rezso Seress originally wrote the song in order to woo his girlfriend, who had recently left him. The song succeeded in bringing them back together for a short time, before she jumped from his apartment window. Rezso had been out at the time. His girlfriend left a note for him: "Szomorú Vasárnap."
The song was changed before release. Rezso Seress himself committed suicide in January 1968, jumping out of his window in very much the same manner his girlfriend did.
The Shadow Being
When I was fourteen, my mother and father were divorced, and I went to live with my mother and a man she supposedly fell in love with several years ago. We searched for a house for all three of us to live in, and eventually found the perfect house. A few months later, after finding out that my dad had Cancer, my mom went, engaged to this man living with us, to the very hospital and stayed with my father for about a week, leaving me to tend to myself as I remained in the basement, wasting my time on the computer.
It was late, around midnight if I recall correctly, and the man living with us went off to bed, turning off every light in the house, except for the computer room in the basement. During this time we had one dog and one cat. I can't remember exactly where the dog was, but the cat was downstairs with me, doing what cats do, I guess. While typing away on the computer, it occurred to me, after several minutes had passed, my cat had been staring at the door, which was left wide open, for a long time. Her ears appeared to be pinned against the back of her head and I finally noticed her faint growling.
Thinking that it was the dog, I turned around and called for her, only then to notice something that took me completely by surprise. The door that leads up to the second floor was left wide open. In front of it, taking the size of a three or four year old, was this ominous being, made of shadow.
As chills ran down my spine and fear completely took over my body, I watched this unearthly 'thing' with what little time I had, I absorbed any features possible, noting that it had small, beady eyes that were yellow, and this 'thing' had black tendrils on top of its head, and on the sides of its body, which didn't exactly have a 'shape'.
Whatever this thing was, it reacted quickly and hid by leaping over to the stairs, making it partially visible to my view. Then, I noticed that it leaned over and peeked through the wall that hid it, quickly pulling away as it knew I was still watching.
To this very day I don't know how, but I managed to muster up enough courage and quickly ran to the computer room's door, slamming and locking it. An hour later, I ran through the whole house, turning on every light possible, except for my mom's bedroom, and I went to bed with the light on. I didn't bother looking for the dog, and I never told the man about this strange occurrence. I just went into my room and crawled into bed.
I don't know how I fell asleep. But I did. Whatever the Hell that thing was, it was watching me. I didn't think that I'd ever get over it. But I guess I calmed down after a while.
A week later, after staying the night at my brother's house, I was bored and decided to look this thing up. Oddly enough, what I saw that night matched the description of what most people call a 'Shadow Being'. That scared the living Hell out of me, and I knew, without a doubt, that it was not my imagination that created this thing.
Ever since, I hated that house. That perfect house was no longer my home. I'm honestly surprised that I still stayed in that house, unfortunately, I didn't have much of a choice. But I never saw the Shadow Being again. Never. Still, I was afraid.
Thankfully three months after, my mom and I moved back in with my dad and the man living with us eventually moved away, and our so called dream home was up for sale. Probably still is.
I still have nightmares of the Shadow Being from time to time. Sometimes, it feels like it's watching me whenever I'm alone. I was never really afraid of the dark until then. Now, I hate looking into the darkness.
The darkness could be looking back at me.
The End
On his way home that night, as he walked through town, a man stepped out of an alley in front of him. He tensed to defend himself, but the man just stood there. Looking him over, he realized the man looked like a hippie. Something of a comedy caricature of a hippie, really. Long unwashed hair and beard, sandals...and a sandwich board reading 'THE END IS NIGH'. That, he thought, was unusual, even for a hippie.
"You want something?" he asked.
"The world's ending," said the hippie. "I need your help."
He stepped around the hippie and kept walking. High as a kite, he thought to himself. The hippie started walking after him, and fell into step beside him.
"Please, I need your help," said the hippie.
"Look, man, I'm really not interested," he said, and kept walking.
The hippie leant against a wall, watching him walk away. The hippie wasn't all that disappointed; lots of people gave this kind of response. Another skeptic, he thought to himself, fingering the ragged holes through the middles of his hands.
The Withering Belief
In the long forgotten annals of human history, there is a being. This being is not of this existence, I doubt it exists outside our own imaginations. But that does not stop it, no more than you can stop nature. Once you learn of this being, it finds you. Not unlike a parasite, it leeches off your doubts. Not any old doubts, but your own doubts that it even exists in the first place. this would be harmless if it wasn't for the fact that, the more it leeches, the more you believe. The more you believe the stronger it becomes.
And when every fiber of your being believes...
Well, I'll leave that for you to find out.
Scientist's Log
Chief Scientist's Log 12/7/2007 12:31 AM
A new find was brought into the lab today. Men working the demolition of a condemned warehouse at this facility discovered a rusty oil barrel that seemed to exude cold. Preliminary electromagnetic field readings yielded chaotic data before the equipment died. Barrel appears to be constructed of stainless steel and, again, radiates cold.
13/7/2007 9:00 PM
We opened the barrel today inside a sealed chamber. Chamber immediately frosted over. Unidentified entity found within the barrel. Appears to be gaseous and black. Indeed, the very light surrounding it appears to be "sucked in" by it's presence. Appears to be sentient, but does not communicate in any understood way. Biological matter that comes into contact with the Entity seems to disintegrate.
14/7/2007 10:11 AM
An intern entered the sealed chamber alone today, without his hazard suit. He was not seen again. The Entity has double in size since being released from containment. Has become aggressive. We are sealing off the chamber immediately in light of it's flesh-consuming properties and rapid growth. All research is halted.
14/7/2007 11:00 AM
It's gone. God help us, it's escaped.
The Scariest Video Game Ever
I just got done playing one of the SCARIEST video games ever. Now, hear me out before saying, "Oh, he's probably just a fag that gets scared of everything." I don't get scared of video games or movies. I've played many survival horror games and have seen many horror movies in my day. The only thing that made me just a tiny bit scared were some parts of Penumbra and Condemned. Amnesia was pretty good. Everything else was just boring. This game was different. VERY different.
You aren't given any sort of backstory to the game at all. As soon as you press play, it throws you right into the game. However, I was able to piece together what the story basically is through finally beating this little brick shitter. Apparently, you're a madman. We're never given the name, but you can guess what it is if you pay attention to the title screen. For some reason, you escaped from whatever mental hospital room you were hiding in. Now, the very horrid state of your mind has transformed the halls of the hospital into nothing but a pitch black maze with the only light being the walls, which glow a deathly blue.
Your character is apparently some type of mad cannibal that you can barely control. You can force him to turn corners in the creepy hallway, but not much else can be done. Your character seems to grab anything and try to eat it; whatever is in front of him is thrown into his mouth and he munches it down.
While playing the game, you're being chased by four hideous and fucking scary ghost monsters. You cannot hurt them at all, and to come even close to one is instant death, in which the ghost latches onto you and rips you inside all, all while you hear the horrible noise of your body being torn.
You can, however, eat some odd objects hidden in the maze, after which your character goes into an even more unstable state. You can literally EAT the ghost monsters. Your character runs right up to them and devours them, only leaving their eyes.
There aren't any words to describe how horrific and terrifying this game is, and I don't want to spoil the surprises for you. Just go ahead and try it for yourself. Google the word Pac-Man and you'll find it on the first search.
Candle Cove
NetNostalgia Forum - Television (local)
Skyshale033 Subject: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Does anyone remember this kid's show? It was called Candle Cove and I must have been 6 or 7. I never found reference to it anywhere so I think it was on a local station around 1971 or 1972. I lived in Ironton at the time. I don't remember which station, but I do remember it was on at a weird time, like 4:00 PM.
mike_painter65 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
it seems really familiar to me.....i grew up outside of ashland and was 9 yrs old in 72. candle cove...was it about pirates? i remember a pirate marionete at the mouth of a cave talking to a little girl
Skyshale033 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
YES! Okay I'm not crazy! I remember Pirate Percy. I was always kind of scared of him. He looked like he was built from parts of other dolls, real low-budget. His head was an old porcelain baby doll, looked like an antique that didn't belong on the body. I don't remember what station this was! I don't think it was WTSF though.
Jaren_2005 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Sorry to ressurect this old thread but I know exactly what show you mean, Skyshale. I think Candle Cove ran for only a couple months in '71, not '72. I was 12 and I watched it a few times with my brother. It was channel 58, whatever station that was. My mom would let me switch to it after the news. Let me see what I remember.
It took place in Candle cove, and it was about a little girl who imagined herself to be friends with pirates. The pirate ship was called the Laughingstock, and Pirate Percy wasn't a very good pirate because he got scared too easily. And there was calliope music constantly playing. Don't remember the girl's name. Janice or Jade or something. Think it was Janice.
Skyshale033 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Thank you Jaren!!! Memories flooded back when you mentioned the Laughingstock and channel 58. I remember the bow of the ship was a wooden smiling face, with the lower jaw submerged. It looked like it was swallowing the sea and it had that awful Ed Wynn voice and laugh. I especially remember how jarring it was when they switched from the wooden/plastic model, to the foam puppet version of the head that talked.
mike_painter65 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
ha ha i remember now too. ;) do you remember this part skyshale: "you have...to go...INSIDE."
Skyshale033 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show? Ugh mike, I got a chill reading that. Yes I remember. That's what the ship always told Percy when there was a spooky place he had to go in, like a cave or a dark room where the treasure was. And the camera would push in on Laughingstock's face with each pause. YOU HAVE... TO GO... INSIDE. With his two eyes askew and that flopping foam jaw and the fishing line that opened and closed it. Ugh. It just looked so cheap and awful.
You guys remember the villain? He had a face that was just a handlebar mustache above really tall, narrow teeth.
kevin_hart Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
i honestly, honestly thought the villain was pirate percy. i was about 5 when this show was on. nightmare fuel.
Jaren_2005 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
That wasn't the villain, the puppet with the mustache. That was the villain's sidekick, Horace Horrible. He had a monocle too, but it was on top of the mustache. I used to think that meant he had only one eye.
But yeah, the villain was another marionette. The Skin-Taker. I can't believe what they let us watch back then.
kevin_hart Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
jesus h. christ, the skin taker. what kind of a kids show were we watching? i seriously could not look at the screen when the skin taker showed up. he just descended out of nowhere on his strings, just a dirty skeleton wearing that brown top hat and cape. and his glass eyes that were too big for his skull. christ almighty.
Skyshale033 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Wasn't his top hat and cloak all sewn up crazily? Was that supposed to be children's skin??
mike_painter65 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
yeah i think so. rememer his mouth didn't open and close, his jaw just slid back and foth. i remember the little girl said "why does your mouth move like that" and the skin-taker didn't look at the girl but at the camera and said "TO GRIND YOUR SKIN"
Skyshale033 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
I'm so relieved that other people remember this terrible show!
I used to have this awful memory, a bad dream I had where the opening jingle ended, the show faded in from black, and all the characters were there, but the camera was just cutting to each of their faces, and they were just screaming, and the puppets and marionettes were flailing spastically, and just all screaming, screaming. The girl was just moaning and crying like she had been through hours of this. I woke up many times from that nightmare. I used to wet the bed when I had it.
kevin_hart Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
i don't think that was a dream. i remember that. i remember that was an episode.
Skyshale033 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
No no no, not possible. There was no plot or anything, I mean literally just standing in place crying and screaming for the whole show.
kevin_hart Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
maybe i'm manufacturing the memory because you said that, but i swear to god i remember seeing what you described. they just screamed.
Jaren_2005 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
Oh God. Yes. The little girl, Janice, I remember seeing her shake. And the Skin-Taker screaming through his gnashing teeth, his jaw careening so wildly I thought it would come off its wire hinges. I turned it off and it was the last time I watched. I ran to tell my brother and we didn't have the courage to turn it back on.
mike_painter65 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid's show?
i visited my mom today at the nursing home. i asked her about when i was littel in the early 70s, when i was 8 or 9 and if she remebered a kid's show, candle cove. she said she was suprised i could remember that and i asked why, and she said "because i used to think it was so strange that you said 'i'm gona go watch candle cove now mom' and then you would tune the tv to static and juts watch dead air for 30 minutes. you had a big imagination with your little pirate show."
ME TIE DOUGH-TY WALKER!
There was a haunted house where supposedly, every night, a bloody head fell down the chimney. At least that's what people said. So nobody would stay there overnight. Then, a rich man offered two hundred dollars to whoever would do it. And a boy said he would try if he could have his dog with him. So it was all settled. The very next night the boy went to the house with his dog. To make it more cheerful, he started a fire in the fireplace. Then he sat in front of the fire and waited, and his dog waited with him.
For a while, nothing happened. But a little after midnight he heard someone singing softly off in the woods. The singing sounded something like this: "Me tie dough-ty walker..." "It's just somebody singing," the boy told himself, but he was frightened. Then his dog answered the song! Softly and sadly, it sang: "Lynchee kinchy, colly molly, dingo dingo...." The boy could not believe his ears, His dog had never uttered a word before.
Then a few minutes later, he heard the singing again. Now it was closer, and louder, but the words were the same: "Me tie dough-ty walker..." This time the boy tried to stop his dog from answering, he was afraid that whoever was singing would hear it and come for them. But his dog paid no attention, and again it sang: "Lynchee kinchy colly molly dingo dingo..." A half-hour later the boy heard the singing again. Now it was in the back yard, and the song was the same. "ME TIE DOUGH-TY WALKER!" Again the boy tried to keep his dog quiet. But the dog sang out louder then ever: "LYNCHEE KINCHY, COLLY MOLLY, DINGO DINGO!" Soon the boy heard the singing again. Now it was coming down the chimney and yelled: "ME TIE DOUGH-TY WALKER!" The dog sang right back: "LYNCHEE KINCHY, COLLY MOLLY, DINGO DINGO!" Suddenly a bloody head fell out of the chimney! It missed the fire and landed right next to the dog. The dog took one look at it and fell over--dead from fright! The head turned and stared at the boy and slowly it opened its mouth... and...
/Insert scream here/
Second Sight
Monday, August 3, 2009
Times are hard, and I work in a business that is slowly becoming obsolete. People are steering away from glasses and contact lenses to Lasik surgery and more permanent, feasible choices in the field of eye care. I've never been the type to collect my thoughts and put them down, and yet these have been the toughest months to endure as of late. My wife left me, along with alimony and a good chunk of everything I've struggled to build since I was in my early twenties. I don't know if I'll make my mortgage payment on time for the third month in a row. This hole is going to be impossible to climb out of.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Got a phone call from corporate and had to terminate the positions of two employees. Stan has been here for seventeen years. He was a good eye doctor. I have a strong suspicion that more permanent layoffs are on the way. I had to go to a dealership and downgrade my vehicle, but the sales tax almost cleaned out my bank account.
Friday, August 7, 2009
I was helping Stan take his things out of the office today and a new vendor approached me. He works for some company called "New Vision," and their prices are better than every other type of lenses we carry. They don't do glasses or frames. Only contacts. He gave a pretty convincing argument, so I filled my own prescription with their lenses and I'm going to put them in tomorrow morning and try them out. This may be the small boost we need to stay open. I hope so.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
I called New Vision and told them my office was on board. I should have talked to our regional division manager before cutting the deal, but he treats me like garbage and routinely tells me that my office is in last place in every category but customer service. He says customer service doesn't make money if you sacrifice profits. He's not a doctor. These lenses feel more natural and it seems like the material adapts to light better than any other brand that I've seen in my twenty plus years as an optometrist. I'm going to keep using them myself. I mowed my lawn today, and I swear I could see every blade of grass. Maybe our patients will drop some greenbacks to try these out.
Monday, August 10, 2009
I prescribed my first pair of New Vision lenses to a patient today. He's a six year old boy who was blind as bat before we fitted his eyes. His mother was concerned that six is too young for contacts, but after she saw him looking around and nailing the entire test on the wall, letter for letter and number for number, I convinced her to try them out. If I can get a pair of these out every day, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. I've stopped taking mine out at night because they don't bother me like normal lenses do in the morning. I feel like I could leave them in forever.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
I've prescribed them to thirty eight patients and it seems that word of mouth is sending more people my way. People are dropping HydraSoft and Toric left and right. The vendor from the company came by today and put a great ad in my office window. "See things in a new light. Fit some New Vision lenses today!" They also guarantee that you'll read at least a line below where you normally would on the wall with any other vendor. They won't tell me what the lenses are made of, but as good as they feel, I'm not hesitating to give my patients the best choice. The regional manager called again and congratulated me on turning business around. He'll probably take credit for it at the board meeting. What an ass.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
I traded in and got a Mercedes, and I offered Stan his job back. I told him he'd have to convince people to go with New Vision when pitching patients because with the healthcare reform bill on the way, this product is our only trump card. Without it, people will go somewhere else. I'm going to install a plasma TV on the wall in the reception area so people can watch football while they wait on their appointment. People love football. Whatever it takes to get people in the door.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Stan tried them out and he's fifty five. He's reading better than he was in his thirties, or so he says. We went to lunch today and he drives faster than usual; maybe it's because he can see the road better.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
I'm a little rattled. I called New Vision today to order more product and to fill some prescriptions with some pending patients, but the line has been disconnected. I called the vendor's personal cell and heard some sort of odd sound. You know when you're sitting at a campfire and you can hear wood burning and popping in the flames? It sounded like that. Maybe their phones are down or there's a power outage. I'm not sure. I'll call them on a regular business day.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
I feel strange. I tried to go to mass with my mother today. I try to go to church with her at least once a month. I walked through the front doors of the chapel, and my vision started going blurry. The membranes around my eyes felt like they were going to burst open. I didn't bring my glasses so I had to sit outside before we went to Sunday lunch. I think it was just a headache or a spasm or something. I'm not too worried about it.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
I'm frightened. Something wrong happened today. I fitted a 13-year-old girl for contacts, and while I was looking in to her dilated pupil, something appeared in the apparatus lens that hangs from the ceiling when I looked through it. It seemed like a bat, except its eyes were on fire, and it was getting closer and closer to my eye the longer that I stared in to the scope. I looked away before it got too big. I think I've been working too much and I may take a personal day. Stan is going to backfill my patients in to his schedule.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
I almost died today. I wish I would have. I went to the old house in New Haven that now belongs to my wife, thanks to the courts. On the way, I stopped at a McDonald's, and the girl in the drive-thru window looked like she was going to kill me. Her eyes caught on fire and her teeth elongated, and her voice sounded like one of those mechanical larynx boxes they give to people who smoke their throats in to oblivion. My Big Mac was shaking in my hands and I spilled that special sauce thousand island shit on my khakis. I looked down to wipe it away, and when I looked up at the road, the bat was on my windshield. It shattered and tried to claw my eyes out, and my eyebrows are gone. It singed them right off before I sped up and threw it out the window. My wife asked me if I was doing drugs when I showed up at the door with no eyebrows. All I wanted was my pair of shiny black shoes from the closet. I shouldn't ever have to go back again. I saw her eying my car and my smashed windshield. I don't really care anymore.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
It's almost midnight and I tried to take my lenses out. They're not THERE anymore. I reached in to pull them off my cornea with my finger, and I poked myself straight in the eyeball. I've heard of lenses with high amounts of protein buildup dissolving in to people's eyes, but I've worn these for less than a month. How can I still see if they're not in my eyes? For the first time in my life, I'm scared of something more than my ex-wife.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
I checked the ledger today and business is out of the red and in the black. We're officially making a profit on every patient now, but I'm having trouble focusing. I can see fine, but every now and then, my vision goes blurry and I see the winged thing coming at me from off in the distance. I tried going in to the broom closet and just keeping my eyes open in the dark. I still saw the bat in the distance, flying at me, head-on. It's trying to get my eyes. I'm an optometrist. I NEED my eyes.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Stan is dead, and so is the six year old boy. No one else has made the connection that the only thing they have in common is my office and New Vision. They found Stan about a mile from work, his car caddy-cornered with the shoulder of the road. His hair was burned off and he didn't have any eyebrows, either. His eyes weren't missing. They were burned and melted in to his eye sockets. I never got to ask him if he'd tried to take the lenses out. I have to call everyone and tell them to return their prescriptions and stick to HydraSoft. I tried to call the vendor guy from New Vision. The line was popping and snapping again. The bat started coming at me, so I hung up.
Monday, August 29, 2009
Fourteen more patients are dead. I'd say that I would be looking at a lawsuit for my prescription records, but they haven't found any traces of any company named New Vision or a brand of lenses by that name. The same thing happened to their eyes as mine. I've closed my office (Dr. Mendez and Associates will be closed until further notice due to illness) until I can find out what's happening. We're about to be in the red again, but something tells me that I won't be around much longer to worry about the fruition of my business and craft. I was going to retire in the next five years anyway.
Tuesday, August 30, 2009
My eyes are not red. My eyes are not bloodshot. There's this pink, fleshy, THROBBING membrane of skin around my eyelids. It breathes, it copulates, and it pulses when I stare off in the distance for long periods of time. The thing becomes to come again. I finally let it get close enough that I saw what it really is. It's a hairless human head with talons growing from a rut in the chin. The wings have wrapped around the temples and extended from the ears. Although the eyes are on fire, I recognize that mole on the corner of its chin. It's not any human head. It's MY head.
Wednesday, August 31, 2009
It came to me this morning and gave me a bottle of pills. Said I should go down to Doctor Margaret Lenore's pediatric office in New Haven and tell her about this new drug. Helps kids with ADD and ADHD focus and get good grades. Supposedly works 400% better than Ritalin. She tried it on her hyperactive Pomeranian and it works. Saw dollar signs in her eyes. I didn't tell her that the bottle smelled like burning fire to me.
Friday, October 1, 2009
I found the New Vision property. It's deserted. Everywhere I go, things are on fire. The gas station attendant's face melted and stretched out thirty feet to the floor when I gave her my card to pay for gas. The pink flesh is dark maroon now and it's growing out from the sides of my head. When I was shaving this morning, I ran my razor down from my chin to the base of my Adam's apple. The skin broke open and I saw a little white sharp claw poking out after the blood stopped. I found something in the back room of this place.
The vendor guy is missing his head, and this entire office smells of ashes.
The Never-Ending Road
In Corona, California there once was a road known by most locals as the Never Ending Road. Specifically, the road's true name was Lester Road. Now, over twenty years later, the landscape of Corona has changed, and the Never Ending Road is no more. However, years ago, Lester Road was an unlit road that people claimed became a never ending road when driven at night. The people who made such a drive were never seen or heard from again.
The legend became so well-known that people refused to even drive Lester Road during the day. One night, like many teens my age, I drove up Lester Road, but only a short distance, and in my headlights it did look like it went on forever. Frightened, I quickly turned around, because if I continued up the road, I thought I might never return again.
Perpetuation of the legend convinced local law enforcement to investigate. Lester Road took a sharp left turn at its end, and there were no guard rails. Beyond the curve lay a canyon, and on the other side of the canyon was another road that lined up so well with Lester Road that when viewed from the correct angle, especially at night, the canyon vanished from sight, and the road seemed to continue on up and over the hill on the other side of the canyon. Upon investigation of the canyon, dozens of cars were found, fallen to their doom, with the decomposing bodies of the victims still strapped to their seats.
Hooded Man
Every time I went to get groceries I'd walk past an abandoned hospital. It was surrounded by dead weeds and most of its shingles had fallen off and were strewn about the area. Basically it was something you would call an "eye sore".
Anyway, every time I walked by a person in a red hood would stroll by. I never got a good look at him or her, but aside from their hood they seemed to be wearing dusty gloves, boots, and a white T-shirt. Each time I passed the hospital the hooded person would point at me with his back turned. I ignored them the best I could but I got increasingly annoyed and creeped out each time.
They NEVER stopped wearing that hood. Not even when the weather got hot or it was windy. I got curious as to what they looked like so I approached them when they pointed at me and tried to ask them why they kept pointing at me and why they always wore a hood. When I tried to look them in the eyes I heard an inhuman shriek come from them, like knives slashing at a chalk bored. I ran and they continued to shriek and point at me.
I stopped using that route to the store but sometimes, I see the shadow of an index finger across my room.
The Graveyard People
About 11 years ago, I used to live in a small house that neighbored a cemetery. I was only twelve at the time, so this arrangement was slightly unnerving. Particularly so when I began to stay up late during the summer when school was out.
If I looked into that graveyard at around three in the morning I could see shadows moving. For a long time I didn't know what they were or what they wanted, but I eventually took to calling them the graveyard people.
The graveyard people had a little ritual they would do. They would always go to a grave (this was a different grave every night), grab something, and then run back into the mausoleum that sat in the center of the cemetery.
For a few months I would stay up just to watch them. After all, they stayed only in the cemetery, and never seemed to notice me watching through the blinds. I had always been careful to darken my room when watching them, so that I didn't leave my silhouette showing in the window.
However, in early August of that year I had a nightmare. I can't remember what it was now, but it made me utterly afraid to have a light off that night. Despite this, I wanted a last look at the graveyard people before school forced me to sleep well before they awoke for their strange ritual.
So I pressed my luck. I slipped my head up to the window. A scream caught in my throat. One of the graveyard people was at my window, staring at me with its grey, hound like face. It stared, perfectly still, with a half eaten and half rotted limb in one hand.
I was frozen as it snorted hot breath onto the window, making a fog on the glass. Then it took a long finger and wrote on the glass. "You Should Be Sleeping".
GraveyardWatch the graves at night.
Stephen GrimmAdded by Stephen Grimm
For years afterward I refused to stay up late, and if I did, I at least pretended to sleep. I have moved several times in the years since, always for different reasons. Nothing supernatural mind.
My moves have brought me full circle. I am in college now, and live across from a cemetery once more. And occasionally, If I'm up late enough and dare look out my window, I can make out the shadows of the graveyard people. I wonder if they ever look back, to see if I am watching.
Rumor has it that if you ever visit Maine, somewhere, no matter what city you are in, is a dusty path that stretches for miles and miles before taking you to the Interstate somewhere in Boston. These paths can not be located by satellite or airplanes, as the trees are so thick that one cannot see them from above. It is also nearly impossible to find the correct path, as many lead to abandoned outcroppings or other sections of different highways. If you do find the right path however, be warned. What I'm about to show you is a transcript of a 911 call triangulated to a dense forest in Stow, M.E
Dispatcher: Chatham 911, what is your emergency?
Caller: Chatham, New Hampshire?
Dispatcher: Yes. Your emergency?
Caller: Im lost in this large wooded area
Dispatcher: I suppose, where are you located?
Caller: That's just it, I have no idea. If you are in Chatham I might be right on the border. I was in Stow before I placed this call. Just off of the {unintelligible} Road.
Dispatcher: You seem to have placed the call from Stow. The dense forest on the border.
Caller: Ah, okay. Well, it seems I have the correct path, but there is some sort of... I have absolutely no idea. Its eyes are yellow. (faint growls in the distance)
Dispatcher: Does it seem to be provoked or angry?
Caller: Yes, I think I've wandered into its-- (speech cut off by growling and screaming, followed by dead silence)
It was later determined that the caller's location was on a narrow path no more than 2 feet wide that led south toward a nearby pond. Police sent divers to the pond, who discovered a well preserved Model T at the bottom. Further clues were found in a rusting ammunition container, holding written accounts of what was witnessed in the call. Each were 10 years apart and written by men named Charles.
The Rocking Chair (pt 1)
Somewhere in a small town, a group of campers were on a trip deep into the Keeney Woods. It was supposed to be a perfect night, a night of scary stories by the fire, and smores that would melt in your mouth. But, that's not exactly how it turned out.
"Now children," said the camp counselor in a deep booming voice. "Gather around the campfire, time for some horror stories." As the children gathered, the light from the fire flickered on their youthful faces. Giggles and whispers would ripple through the small crowd of campers. "There is a legend...The Legend of the Rocking Chair..." It seemed as if the air got colder, the fire didn't seem to help. The dark trees branches silhouettes of bony hands, fog layered the ground like a soft blanket. the children went quiet, and it seemed even the crickets were listening in. The fire crackled.
"Every night in these very woods, a rocking chair will appear. No one knows who the rocking chair belongs to, or why it's there. It just is... According to legend, if one was to sit in the chair all night, they would vanish... Some say they go to another dimension, others say they're kidnapped by a creature. But no one knows for sure..." A tree branch cracks and startles many of the campers.
"That's a stupid story." Says a camper. The other campers giggle at his smart remark.
The counselor looks at him and smirks "Now Jimmy, if it's so stupid, then try explaining that." The counselor points to the top of the hill, and barely visible by the light of the moon, there was an old creaky rocking chair, rocking back and forth...back and forth....
The Rocking Chair's Legend (pt 2)
Everyone assumed that this was another one of those silly pranks by the camp counselors. However, most campers were shaken up about it anyways.
"Hey, Andrew, I dare you to sleep in that chair tonight," said Jimmy, with a devious smile.
"You're out of your friggin' mind! Even if it isn't haunted or whatever, I don't want any animals eating me!" Andrew said with a nervous laugh.
"Come on! Do it. Chicken." Three or four campers began to chant, "Do it, do it, do it." Eventually Andrew caved in and agreed to the dare.
Later that night when all of the camp counselors where sleeping in their tents, and only the crickets could be heard, Andrew snuck out of his tent and walked to the rocking chair. He thought to himself... It seemed to take hours to walk to a rocking chair that was only up the hill. The creaking of the chair seemed to be deafeningly loud, creak after creak. There was no wind so why was the chair rocking? Surely there's a logical reason why. Oh well...
Andrew reached the chair and planted himself in it. The chair creaked louder than anything, everything else seemed to be silent, even the crickets were hushed. Andrew sat there in the complete silence. Every detail of the night seemed to become more creepy by the second. The trees stared at him with faces of anger and sorrow. The grass swayed in his direction, as if it were trying to get to him. Andrew was scared out of his mind, but stood his ground, and he finally felt sleepy. "Here we go..." He drifted to sleep.
Andrew dreamed. There was a man. Sitting in a rocking chair in his cottage. He appeared to be reading a book. A sound of glass shattering rang out. The man just sat there, as if he didn't hear the glass shatter. A figure appeared in the doorway, a tall dark figure blending in the darkness of the other room. The figure walked forward. It was horrible, a tall man in a sleek business suit...he was so thin, it appeared he hadn't eaten in months. His eyes were dark red, the color of blood, and his face was a face of pure evil. He slowly walked behind the man. The man sat there completely oblivious of the demon behind him. Suddenly, the figure grabbed the man by the neck and shoved his arm down the man's throat. He pulled out a mysterious blue light. A terrifying voice came forth from the looming figure.
"Finally... The key... Your soul, old man, will stay within this chair forever. You are to steal the souls of mortals to add to my... Collection." The figure gave a large, evil smile. He threw a marble on the ground and everything was gone. The house, the man, the figure, everything... Except the rocking chair. Everything faded to black. The rest of the night was dreamless.
The morning was foggy, but bright. The sun pounded down on the earth while the foggy clouds blurred Andrew's vision. 'Looks like I survived the night,' he thought to himself. He got up and headed to his camp, the tents were there and a fire was burning in the middle of the site. But it was silent. Andrew entered his friends tents and found them empty. Confused, he assumed everyone would be back soon. But then, he saw some movement inside of a tent on the other side of the fire.
"Hello...?" No one answered. He walked to the other side and into the tent, in the middle of it was a chair. Someone was sitting in it.
"H-hello?" No answer for about a minute until...
"Hello Andrew," said a gravely voice. "You should have stayed in your tent. Now you have to be punished."
"What do you mean?"
"You have to be punished."
The chair spun around. It was the man Andrew saw in his dream.
Screams.
The House of Nightmares
On Raven Drive, there is a house. It's a large, run-down mansion that was built in 1886. The mansion is currently abandoned, but was owned by several wealthy families. Today, the house is overgrown with vines. There is a rusted, stripped-down car sitting in the yard, which has a tree growing through its frame. The windows are boarded up and covered with steel bars. The large double doors are chained and padlocked shut. There is some speculation as to why the house is so heavily locked down. Some say it is simply because they want to keep people out. But, you see, they aren't keeping people out, but keeping something in. There is a creature that has been heard groaning and growling. Loud, persistent banging on the windows and doors are also heard frequently. Inside the basement of the house is something that can only be described as Lovecraftian horror.
The basement is filled with living, murderous mannequin-like beings. Some have seen them staring from the basement windows, smiling widely whenever a human walks by. But, they don't ever attempt to break the windows to reach passersby. That may simply be their choice, or they may be unable to do so. The creature itself has been described as a tall, slender humanoid with razor-sharp claws, wide white eyes and a mouth lined with very thin, but very sharp teeth. The creature was seen in the basement consuming one of the "mannequins," which suggests that they are a source of food for, as he has been called by the locals, "The Rake." This, however, could just be a coincidence and have nothing to do with the actual Rake. If you are near the house on Raven Drive, maybe you'll see him. But, beware; just because he hasn't broken out yet, doesn't mean he won't do it when you walk by. So, take the risk and pray this is the one night he doesn't have an appetite for you.
The Rake
During the summer of 2003, events in the northeastern United States involving a strange, human-like creature sparked brief local media interest before an apparent blackout was enacted. Little or no information was left intact, as most online and written accounts of the creature were mysteriously destroyed.
Primarily focused in rural New York state, self proclaimed witnesses told stories of their encounters with a creature of unknown origin. Emotions ranged from extremely traumatic levels of fright and discomfort, to an almost childlike sense of playfulness and curiosity. While their published versions are no longer on record, the memories remained powerful. Several of the involved parties began looking for answers that year.
In early 2006, the collaboration had accumulated nearly two dozen documents dating between the 12th century and present day, spanning 4 continents. In almost all cases, the stories were identical. I've been in contact with a member of this group and was able to get some excerpts from their upcoming book.
The Rake
A Suicide Note: 1964
As I prepare to take my life, I feel it necessary to assuage any guilt or pain I have introduced through this act. It is not the fault of anyone other than him. For once I awoke and felt his presence. And once I awoke and saw his form. Once again I awoke and heard his voice, and looked into his eyes. I cannot sleep without fear of what I might next awake to experience. I cannot ever wake. Goodbye.
Found in the same wooden box were two empty envelopes addressed to William and Rose, and one loose personal letter with no envelope.
Dearest Linnie,
I have prayed for you. He spoke your name.'
A Journal Entry (translated from Spanish): 1880
I have experience the greatest terror. I have experienced the greatest terror. I have experienced the greatest terror. I see his eyes when I close mine. They are hollow. Black. They saw me and pierced me. His wet hand. I will not sleep. His voice (unintelligible text).
A Mariner's Log: 1691
He came to me in my sleep. From the foot of my bed I felt a sensation. He took everything. We must return to England. We shall not return here again at the request of the Rake.
From a Witness: 2006
Three years ago, I had just returned from a trip from Niagara Falls with my family for the 4th of July. We were all very exhausted after a long day of driving, so my husband and I put the kids right to bed and called it a night.
At about 4am, I woke up thinking my husband had gotten up to use the restroom. I used the moment to steal back the sheets, only to wake him in the process. I apologized and told him I though he got out of bed. When he turned to face me, he gasped and pulled his feet up from the end of the bed so quickly his knee almost knocked me out of the bed. He then grabbed me and said nothing.
After adjusting to the dark for a half second, I was able to see what caused the strange reaction. At the foot of the bed, sitting and facing away from us, there was what appeared to be a naked man, or a large hairless dog of some sort. It's body position was disturbing and unnatural, as if it had been hit by a car or something. For some reason, I was not instantly frightened by it, but more concerned as to its condition. At this point I was somewhat under the assumption that we were supposed to help him.
My husband was peering over his arm and knee, tucked into the fetal position, occasionally glancing at me before returning to the creature.
In a flurry of motion, the creature scrambled around the side of the bed, and then crawled quickly in a flailing sort of motion right along the bed until it was less than a foot from my husband's face. The creature was completely silent for about 30 seconds (or probably closer to 5, it just seemed like a while) just looking at my husband. The creature then placed its hand on his knee and ran into the hallway, leading to the kids' rooms.
I screamed and ran for the lightswitch, planning to stop him before he hurt my children. When I got to the hallway, the light from the bedroom was enough to see it crouching and hunched over about 20 feet away. He turned around and looked directly at me, covered in blood. I flipped the switch on the wall and saw my daughter Clara.
The creature ran down the stairs while my husband and I rushed to help our daughter. She was very badly injured and spoke only once more in her short life. She said "he is the Rake".
My husband drove his car into a lake that night, while rushing our daughter to the hospital. He did not survive.
Being a small town, news got around pretty quickly. The police were helpful at first, and the local newspaper took a lot of interest as well. However, the story was never published and the local television news never followed up either.
For several months, my son Justin and I stayed in a hotel near my parent's house. After we decided to return home, I began looking for answers myself. I eventually located a man in the next town over who had a similar story. We got in contact and began talking about our experiences. He knew of two other people in New York who had seen the creature we now referred to as the Rake.
It took the four of us about two solid years of hunting on the internet and writing letters to come up with a small collection of what we believe to be accounts of the Rake. None of them gave any details, history or follow up. One journal had an entry involving the creature in its first 3 pages, and never mentioned it again. A ship's log explained nothing of the encounter, saying only that they were told to leave by the Rake. That was the last entry in the log.
There were, however, many instances where the creature's visit was one of a series of visits with the same person. Multiple people also mentioned being spoken to, my daughter included. This led us to wonder if the Rake had visited any of us before our last encounter.
I set up a digital recorder near my bed and left it running all night, every night, for two weeks. I would tediously scan through the sounds of me rolling around in my bed each day when I woke up. By the end of the second week, I was quite used to the occasional sound of sleep while blurring through the recording at 8 times the normal speed. (This still took almost an hour every day)
On the first day of the third week, I thought I heard something different. What I found was a shrill voice. It was the Rake. I can't listen to it long enough to even begin to transcribe it. I haven't let anyone listen to it yet. All I know is that I've heard it before, and I now believe that it spoke when it was sitting in front of my husband. I don't remember hearing anything at the time, but for some reason, the voice on the recorder immediately brings me back to that moment.
The thoughts that must have gone through my daughter's head make me very upset.
I have not seen the Rake since he ruined my life, but I know that he has been in my room while I slept. I know and fear that one night I'll wake up to see him staring at me.
My Fear of Water
I've always had a terrible fear of being submerged completely in water. Not that I can't swim or anything. My dad made me learn; he said I almost drowned when I was really young.
I was afraid of it because, for as long as I can remember, whenever I am under water and look up at the surface I see a woman reaching down to me with a warm smile, with glowing golden hair and dark blue eyes. Even if its just in a bathtub. It always happened, it was just normal for me, but i never got used to it.
It was unnerving, but also soothing at the same time. She always made me feel like it was okay. I still avoided it, though, because I was just a kid and it was really freaky.
I never told my dad about it as a kid, but I did ask him about my mom. He never wanted to talk about her. Sometimes he even got mad at me for trying too hard to bring it up.
It was only recently that I described this apparition to him. He nearly drove into a telephone pole; obviously he knew something. I asked him, again, about my mom. He still would say much, except that she died when I was very young, and that she loved me very much. He also admitted that her hair and eyes were those colors, just like mine.
So I did some research on my own, looking up her name for myself on my birth certificate and trying to find any references I could, any news clips about a boy nearly drowning, any thing. I mostly wanted a picture, something I could match to my guardian angel.
Today, buried in our town library, I found it.
WINCHESTER: Marie Withie, 28, drowned to death yesterday evening after climbing a razerwire fence and fleeing to a nearby reservoir. A funeral is scheduled by her family for the 25th. Marie was institutionalized just six months ago, after being found "not guilty" of attempted murder on grounds of insanity. Her husband Daniel Withie had acted quickly enough to rescue their infant child when she was found trying to drown him in a bathtub.
The Growths
I'd had them ever since I was a kid.
I can remember being incredibly self-conscious about them, hiding them in my pockets under books and bags. The kids at school never said anything to my face, but I knew they were laughing behind my back.
I remember asking my parents to take me to the doctor, to get them checked out. The growths on my hands seemed to be the elephant in the room back then, since they'd just say I was fine and change the subject. But I knew better.
I had tried to remove them as a child, but without avail. Scissors, knives, potato peelers; trying to cut or scrape them off was always a lost cause because I couldn't continue once the pain kicked in.
But today was different. It's amazing how numb you can get with a couple of tourniquets and a bottle of Jack Daniels. I was originally planning to use a sharp knife, but figured that trying to slice through the tough flesh of the growths would be too arduous in my drunken state. I opted for the slightly more technological plan B.
I had to hurry though. I was already pretty light-headed and was starting to feel dizzy. My hands and forearms, nearly blue from the lack of circulation, couldn't wait much longer either. The whirring of the blender helped to put me in a sort of tranceready to do what I had wanted to do since I first looked down at my strange deformities.
I shoved my left hand in first. The immediate sensation of sharp blades slicing through flesh was jarring, but I was surprised at how well the alcohol was workingI expected it to hurt more. I could hear the sharp metal churning and cutting, working perfectly as planned. I pressed my hand down harder. All those bad memories, all of the embarrassmentall of those horrible things were now nothing more than a thick red pulp.
Breaking from the feelings of ecstasy, I pulled out before the blades hit knuckle. I smiled, taking a good look at my new hand. As for the growthswell, five down, and five to go.
The Message
Don't dismiss this outright as the work of some raving lunatic. There's some sense to this story, if you'll just hear me out...
Look, we all wonder if time travel is possible, right? Well, let me tell you something... it is. I'm from the future, actually. I know you probably don't believe that, but seriously, I'm from the future. It's a really great thing; getting to see the past, watching events unfold... stuff like that. We know more now than we ever would.
Behind all the fun, though, there's a more serious aspect. We aren't supposed to go in our own lifetime, and we are NEVER allowed to contact our past selves. Let me tell you, I'm breaking that rule right now. Yes, kid, you're talking to yourself. Your future self. I'm going to be executed for this, but you know what? I accept that. I'm preventing something by talking to you that is WORSE than death. I can't tell you outright what to do, because the filters would catch it. This is the closest I can get, trust me. I can, however, send a little message.
You should probably read the first word of every paragraph, now.
The Kitchen
A young girl is playing in her bedroom when she hears her mother call to her from the kitchen, so she runs downstairs to meet her mother.
As she's running through the hallway, the door to the cupboard under the stairs opens, and a hand reaches out and pulls her in. It's her mother. She whispers to her child, "Don't go into the kitchen. I heard it too."