Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Hazo
Dec 30, 2004

SCIENCE



Chapter Four: Grand Opening

On July 4th, the Rambledown was packed. Hundreds of people had made the long drive to see the grand opening of this new theatre, and champagne and hors devours were handed out by waiters with big trays. As the fireworks shot off from the high bluff, Andrea and I were busy readying things for our ten o’clock show. Opening night had everyone on edge, but I was doing my best to put everyone at ease.

Mark was a guy a little younger than me who’d been hired as house manager. As a stage manager, I was responsible for everything that happened onstage and backstage, while Mike handled the audience and box office. We were sitting around in the technical booth at the back of the audience, just having a glass of champagne and bullshitting about the upcoming show when Mike brought up the ghost light.

“What’s up with that,” he asked me suspiciously, “You haven’t actually seen any ghosts, have you?”

I laughed, “No, man, it was all Andrea. Something happened that I think spooked her, and she’s pretty superstitious, you know, so-”

“What did you see?” he interrupted.

“Well,” I started, “Nothing, really. We were cleaning and heard some bangs from the stage, and then a spotlight turned on.”

“What?” he exclaimed, “How could you not tell me this?”

“Well, it wasn’t really anything,” I said surprised, “Probably just pipes and wiring. You’ve seen the basement, it’s all messed up down there.”

Mike got really silent for a while and then drained his glass.

“I saw something too.”

I was taken aback, “What?” I asked.

“I saw something. A ghost, I think.”

“You saw a ghost?”

“Well, maybe. I don’t know.”

“When?” I asked him.

“About a week ago. First dress rehearsal. I was walking through the house before the show, you know, making sure there wasn’t anything wrong. Just sort of practicing for tonight,” he looked embarrassed, “I was nervous, I didn’t want to gently caress up and get fired. And as I was walking through section two, stage right, you know, I thought I saw someone peeking out from behind the curtains. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned my head it was gone.”

“It could have been one of the actors.” I stated.

“No, man.” he said, “It was a face, but too-long, you know? It was.. like a horses face. But human. Or not human, I don’t know. It was long, and skinny and grey. And there was a hand, or something. Long spindly finger gripping the curtain, thats what it looked like. And besides that, it was about twenty feet up, near the grid.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, somebody could have been loving with you.”

“Maybe,” he said, “but I don’t know. All I know is that it gave me a really bad feeling. Shivers up my spine, and everything.”

We sat quietly for a while as I finished my champagne. We let it stew. Our experiences could have been any number of things, no need to jump straight to the supernatural. Mike stood up and patted me on the back, and then went down to manage the house. After all, he was house manager. I sat in the booth alone for a while, looking out over the stage. I shivered. Very weird.

Andrea joined me in the booth, followed by the light and sound guys, and suddenly there was no time to stew about anything. The show went off without any major problem. Curly was late on a cue once, barely, and Andrea cringed. The house was packed, and we made a lot of money. There was a standing ovation. All-in-all, it was a roaring success.

Andrea bought me a dozen roses as a gift for all my help, and I hugged her in thanks. She wasn’t really that much older than me, I thought, less than ten years anyway. I shook my head and smiled, she stared at me for a moment, huge grin on her face, and then disappeared, to find her family and other well-wishers. That left me to take care of things backstage.

I was cleaning the dressing rooms when the lights in the shop flickered off. The shop was at the end of a the long hallway that bordered the dressing rooms and Green Room. I was wiping down the mirror with Windex when I saw the lights flicker out in the mirror, the doorway directly behind me going dark. For some reason I started to shiver, my eyes glued to the doorway, my hand still on the mirror. I felt cold. All I could think of was the thing Mike had seen in the curtain. I waited for long slender fingers to wrap around the edge of the doorway, maybe followed by a long toothy face that slipped out of the darkness with a murderous grin. In my mind it had white eyes and its skin was waxy and sallow, like a corpse left to rot in milk. As I stared into the mirror, I heard a tick-tick-click from the shop. It reverberated in the high empty space and made me think of fingernails. Tick-tick-click, it echoed, tick-tick-click. I suddenly panicked, imagining that ghosts were invisible to mirrors and I spun around. I found myself face to face with a figure that filled the doorway and let out a yelp.

“Hey, man, sorry.” it said.

In the half second it took me to turn and face the door, one of the actors, Brian, had slid into the room. I let out a sigh of relief as he moved to pick up his jacket.

“Forgot my coat,” he smiled, and started to walk away. He stopped. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” I said, “Yeah. You just scared me.”

He laughed, “The lights turned off by themselves, did you see that?”

I nodded.

“Pretty freaky. Anyway, I’ll see you later. Thanks for a good show.”

“Yeah,” I said, “You too.”

I watched him walk out of the room and pause for a minute to stare into the dark of the shop, and then start to walk away.

“Hey?” I called.

“Yeah?” he said, and appeared in the doorway.

“Wait up, I’ll walk with you.”

“Sure thing,” he said, and I gathered up my things. As we walked down the hallway, away from the shop, we were silent. I tried to listen for the sound I’d heard before, the tick-tick-click, but heard nothing. I shrugged my shoulders hard. I just got spooked. As we hit the door to the columned area beneath the ballroom, I paused.

“Still though…” I said to myself, and stared down the hallway. At the end, against the west wall, the fluorescent lights started to flicker to life. I suppose I should have gone back to turn them off, but I was ready to get the gently caress out of there. I turned to see Brian looking at me.

“You going to get those?” he asked, smirking.

“No,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow at me and made a “tisk-tisk” motion with his finger.

“gently caress you,” I added.



Chapter Five: Things Heat Up

I’m not sure what caused the sudden spike in activity and experiences in the Rambledown, but it was obvious that when the weather started to cool down and we settled in for a long fall something else settled in too. We were on our second show, Oklahoma! had made us a lot of money and performances of Beauty and the Beast were set to begin November 1st.

I’d made a good impression on the five friends who ran the place, and Andrea especially seemed to like having me around, so I’d been hired full time and given a raise. Taking the job had required me to put school on the back burner for the time being, and so I would often sleep at the Rambledown, (as many of the workers did,) because I had no need to drive back to the city. Sleeping in the guest rooms wasn’t allowed, so I would usually crash on a couch in the Green Room, or when things got too hairy on that side of the building, on the floor of the staff lounge.

When I say hairy, I mean that the stage and backstage areas seemed to be a hotbed of creepy-rear end activity. I never saw anything akin to Mike’s grey monster, but I would hear things. Oh boy, would I hear things. It was never so bad when other actors would sleep there, which they did after long rehearsals or in-house cast parties, but when you were alone and huddling under blankets on a couch in the middle of nowhere, your mind seems to play tricks on you.

Once I thought I heard voices over the monitor, which I had definitely switched off. One night the voices persisted so long that I flipped on the screen to reassure myself that the theatre really was empty. Lights would frequently flicker out when people were backstage, and once a room full of actresses had melted into gibbering messes when a voice started whispering “Hey. HEY!” from the dressing room vent.

Jared and his architecture major buddy Jeff were working full speed to improve things in the mine. They’d run into trouble when state laws had forbidden them from serving food in the tunnels, so they’d resigned themselves to building a patio restaurant along the entrance, and turning the caves into a dance-floor and bar.

Andrea was sort of a mess, after a string of scary experiences that left her drained. It was sad to see her looking so drawn, it obscured her pretty face and made her look older, but after what she described I couldn’t really blame her.

Andrea claimed that she’d been locking up one evening when she heard a crash from the booth. She feared that a table had broken and sent the expensive light-board tumbling to the ground, so she quickly unlocked the doors and ran up to see what had happened. When she emerged from the spiral stairs into the booth, she saw a figure sitting in one of the chairs, its feet up, resting on the window. “Hey,” she had yelled nervously, and the figure had spun in its chair, only to disappear.
“It was like something folding into itself,” she’d later told me, “like a piece of paper turning sideways.”

The only reassurance she’d had that she hadn’t imagined the whole thing was the desk chair spinning around on its bearings, lazily sweeping the room.

Myself, I still wasn’t sure that these, dare I say it, ghostly experiences were anything more than pre-show nerves and an old creepy building, but I knew that it was scary to be left alone in the Rambledown, so I spent a lot of my time with Mike or Andrea.

We had our first wedding in mid-October. A pretty young black couple was to be wed in the grand ballroom, and so for a full week every guest room and outlying guest house was rented out. Our cooks worked at full speed, and we were to give a special preview of Beauty and the Beast for the wedding party.

All of us slept in the Green Room mostly every night, the actors for the most part were amateurs, the professionals of the summer had found jobs for the winter months at larger, big-money playhouses, and so that left us to hold open auditions.

It was sort of a bohemian atmosphere that fall, there was nary a day without at least a few of the actors staying the night. The management were new at their jobs, and didn’t really know what to make of our request to sleep there, so they just shrugged and told us not to make a mess. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to smoking up with Mike or some of the actresses late a night, and it really was the kind of life that seemed too good to last. It wasn’t sure enough for me to cancel my rent in the city, but I figured I’d make the best of it while I could, even if it was just for the few short winter months.

I ran into Jared the Thursday before our special Friday show. He looked sort of agitated and I asked him how things were proceeding with the wedding. The couple was rich, and their entire family was being treated to five star dinners in the food court every night, and late night dancing and everything. The Rambledown was running at full capacity.

“Something weird is going on.” he told me, point blank.

“How so?” I wondered.

“Guest house five, the guests want to leave.”

I pondered for a moment. Guest house five was located to the north of the theatre, the closest building to the mine.

“Rats?” I guessed.

“No,” he shook his head, “Thats the weird part. They won’t say why. They just want us to put them up in the main building.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Give them what they want,” he said, “But that leaves us with an open house. I’ve spread word around the wedding party that house five is open, so I’ll know tonight if its going to be filled. Otherwise, you and the actors could take it over, but just for this week.”

I smiled widely and crossed my fingers. The guest houses were like condos, two rooms, a full kitchen, the works. Best of all though, each house had a hot-tub.
Whatever had happened to the family from house five, it was enough to keep anyone else from moving in. The family had been split up among the eight guest rooms in the main building, and Mike, myself, and a slew of actors and headed over with booze, weed and movies. It was a night of debauchery that you goons would be proud of, swimsuits were not necessary for entrance to the grand hot tub of luxury, and we all got well and truly hosed up.

It was two a.m. before things calmed down and we all went to bed in anticipation of the next night’s show. I was sleeping on the floor in the kitchen, having given up the most comfortable spots to my friends. The night passed without incident, and I was almost upset that nothing had happened. I had expected some terrible bloody miner to come stumbling from the gaping shaft and bang on our windows, but no dead miner did. We packed up our things and headed back to the Rambledown. Mike alerted housing that we’d vacated the guest house, and we all set up camp in the Green Room.

We’d been chilling there for an hour, just talking and laughing, the actors running lines and fixing costumes, when Mike and Andrea entered, looking grim. They motioned me into the hall.

“We’ve got a problem,” Mike said.

“What is it?” I asked.

Andrea looked gaunt, “The ghost-light.”

“Yeah, what about it?” I was confused.

Mike licked his lips and looked to Andrea. “Maybe you should just see for yourself,” he said.

We walked through the shop and onto the stage, and my breath caught in my throat. The iron frame of the ghost-light had been bent all to poo poo, the light broken and cord frayed. My head snapped around to look Mike full in the face.

“You better not be loving with me,” I warned him.

“You better not be loving with us,” Andrea said.

We all paused, our eyes on each other for a moment. We all bent back to the ghost-light.

“Ah,” I said, “poo poo.”



Chapter Six: The Storm

Our show for the wedding party was fantastic, they all laughed and loved it. We had the rights for the Disney version, so most of the little kids sat up front and sang along. The wedding was beautiful, people cried and laughed and everybody was happy, and then they left. That left us and the production team just two more weeks until we opened. In theatre lingo, the week you spend not sleeping, working on the show until the wee hours of the morning is called Hell Week.

Ha ha.

I’m not sure Andrea slept during Hell Week. She was too busy running over cues and freaking out when an actor flubbed a line that she practically survived on coffee alone. Throughout it all, she still managed to produce a beautiful show, and I think she probably would have been able to keep on as a full time director if the following hadn’t have happened.

It was the night before we opened, and Andrea had let the cast and crew off early to rest up. She, Mike and I were walking through the theatre, picking up trash and doing last minute checks of sight-lines. Mike had taken to helping us clean up, as he said, “I don’t really have anything better to do.”

I took my customary position of cleaning up the Green Room, and Mike handled the dressing rooms. Andrea told us she was going up to the booth to check over the lighting cues one last time, and Mike and I smirked smugly and went off backstage. I turned on the monitor and screen for company while I was cleaning, hearing Andrea muttering to herself was oddly comforting. I had finished, and Mike was helping me vacuum when we heard Andrea scream. My eyes flew to the monitor, and it was dark. I figured we must have blown a fuse or something and we ran back to the stage.

“Andrea!” I called, “Is everything okay?”

“No,” she said, “It’s loving dark. I can’t get any of the lights to come on.”

“I think we blew a fuse,” I said, “I’m going to have to go to the basement to flip the breakers.”

“Fuuuuuuck,” Mike let out a low whistle.

We convened backstage and worked out who was going to go to the basement. I won two out of three with a scissors/rock combo that I’m still proud of, and Mike trudged off into the shop to take the stairs down to tunnel 6.

I walked back to the stage and plugged in the new ghost-light, after groping around in the dark for a while.

“You surviving?” I yelled to the booth.

“Yeah,” Andrea yelled back, then added a low “gently caress me.”

“Now?” I asked, and I heard her laugh.

We sat in silence for a while and I pictured Mike climbing around in those low tunnels. I didn’t envy him at all.

“Do you know any good jokes?” I yelled up to Andrea after a while. I waited for her response, but she was oddly quiet. “Hey, you okay up there?”

Nothing.

“poo poo,” I whispered, and called her name. She still didn’t answer. I could barely make out a form in the booth from the light the little pale bulb gave off on stage, but not enough to see if she was passed out or what.

“Andrea!” I yelled again, picking up the ghost-light and pulling it as far as I could before its cord snapped taught. I could have unplugged it and moved it to another, closer, floor-box, but that would have left me in thick darkness for a few to many seconds, and if Andrea was hurt or something I wouldn’t want her to freak out as the stage plunged into blackness again.

I was just about to leave the light on stage and run up to the booth when the house lights came up again with an audible click, and somewhere far off I heard Mike scream, “loving finally!”

I blinked in the sudden bright and sprinted through the house and up the spiral stairs to the booth. Andrea was sitting, facing me, with an empty look in her eyes. I stopped, suddenly scared by her expression.

“Hey,” I said, softly, “Are you okay?”

She looked at me, blankly, and shook her head.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, moving closer to her.

“I can’t…” She started, “This is just too much. I can’t do this anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When you left,” she started to cry, “Why did you leave? When you left there was someone here with me.”

“I didn’t leave,” I said.

“You did, I called your name and you didn’t answer and then I turned around and I could feel someone here. Someone was here!”

She started beating at my chest with her hands when Mike appeared from the stairs.

“Hey, is everything okay?” he started.

“No!” Andrea said, “Someone was HERE!”

Mike and I helped her down the steps and into the lobby. I took her theatre keys and locked everything up. When I came back, she was gone.

“Where did she go?” I asked Mike.

“She left. She’s driving home.”

“You didn’t stop her?”

He gave me a look.

“Okay,” I said, “What the gently caress is going on.”

Mike shrugged. He took a few steps towards the window, to see if he could spot Andrea leaving, and I knew something was wrong.

“Hey,” I said, “What’s on your shoes?”

He looked down, his tennis shoes were soaking wet.

“I dunno,” he said, “The tunnels were wet.”

“Wet?”

“Flooded. There’s about two inches of water down there. It sucked. I guess its because of the rain.”

“Mike,” I said, “What rain?”

“The storm. You didn’t hear it? Huge loving thunderclaps, I could hear them from the basement.”

I just stared at him. He looked back at me and started shaking his head from side to side, his mouth forming words, No, no, no.

He ran to the doors and pushed them open, I followed. We stood there for a few moments, looking up. There was beautiful, clear night sky as far as the eye could see.



Chapter Seven: Halloween

Andrea’s spot was filled by a stern old man from the city. He wasn’t nearly as pretty as Andrea was, I lamented, but he was a proficient director, and our production of West Side Story the following summer was the best show yet. He had asked right away about our ghost light, and I’d not hesitated to tell him about every experience I could remember. I expected him to laugh in my face, but instead he just nodded and quietly hmm hmmmmed to himself.

“I suppose we can’t be too careful,” he’d said, and I’d agreed.

A long time had passed since any ghostly had happened, but our newer actors were constantly barraged with stories of our past three productions. In the spring we did a straight play, Oleana by Mamet, Oleana has only two actors, so cast party hi jinks were kept to a minimum. Mike had taken that show off, traveling the west coast with his brother, so I was left to train a new guy. I didn’t attempt to scare him, but I wasn’t really surprised when he’d emerged from the shop looking like a deer in headlights, claiming he’d heard someone call his name while he’d cleaned the dressing rooms.

But now Mike was back, and we had a huge cast, and our bohemian lifestyle was restored. We were well into our run, only a week away from closing, when Jared and Jeff had completed the new restaurant. As workers had put up supports and struts, plenty of stories had come out of those caves. A creepy humming noise had been heard in a deep cavern, as well as pale blue lights that seemed to float around. They ended up collapsing the tunnels that were too dangerous, and put up pleasant brick walls to hide the deeper spaces. One young builder had sworn to me he’d heard someone scratching on the other side of his wall as he lay the last few bricks, whispering, “let me out let me out let me out hey let me out.” It wasn’t really something anyone talked about.

Mike and I didn’t really talk about Andrea, either. We’d gone into the tunnels the next day to find them bone dry. Mike had never worn those tennis shoes again.

Things started to get really bad that fall. There had been a couple of times during the summer where things had happened and I’d been really shaken, but nothing bad enough to make me want to quit. In October, when the restaurant at the mine had opened, we’d started to get a steady stream of guests who would stay for our weekend raves that we hosted in the ballroom. A lot of the money was really hush-hush and under the table, and looking back I was pretty sure that Jared had some sort of drug deal going on to the young couples who came to party, but a stoned audience is better than no audience at all, and so we did very well.

Once Upon A Mattress was our show, and we had a professional actress from New York in the role of Winnifred. One afternoon she’d seen a man walk into the dressing room and point at her before disappearing, and we’d all held our breath when she’d emerged from the dressing room out of breath and anxious, but she’d decided that it was the coolest thing she had ever seen and wanted to hold a seance later that evening. Mike and I had decided to sit that one out, but I guess it really didn’t matter because the group of young actors and actresses hadn’t really discovered anything at all.

The first strike against me continuing to work at the Rambledown was the night of our Halloween party. We’d set up the whole place as a haunted house, (haha,) and invited people to come and revel drunkenly, which they had. The place was packed, and there was no performance that night, so the actors and crew had all partied with the rest of the guests. When a group of guests asked for a tour of the facility, Jared came to me to ask me to give it to them. I told him I would for a bonus, and he’d just rolled his eyes and waved me off. I took them all around the main floor, gave them a sort of backstage tour of the busy kitchens and theatre facilities, and was almost home free when one burly guy had noticed the stairway to tunnel 6.

“What’s that?” he asked, and he pointed.

“Oh,” I said, “just access to the basement.”

“What’s down there?” he wondered.

“Nothing, really, storage. Fuse boxes, pipes.”

“Can we go?” he asked, and the rest of the group agreed.

One of their number was the pretty young girl who I’d been chatting up all night, so I reluctantly agreed to take them down. Oh, fickle heart.

The tunnels are dank and dark in the best of conditions, and tonight they were cold and wet. I explained how the floors used to be flooded in the old days, and everyone found it fascinating. We were passing the junction with tunnel 1, when out of the corner of my eye I saw someone slink around the corner to tunnel 4.

“Hey,” I said, “Stick with the group.”

“We’re all here,” the pretty young girl said.

I turned around and counted. Sure enough, everyone was accounted for. I heard a shuffling from tunnel 4 and silently cursed my status as a guide.

“Wait here,” I intoned, and started towards the noise. I hoped it was just a lusty cook making it with some hot maid, but my intuition told me otherwise.

I got to tunnel 4 and turned towards where I’d seen the shape move to, when I noticed a door half-open. poo poo, I thought, poo poo. I took a step towards the door when a long, grey arm snaked out of the open room. It was impossibly long, seeming to bend with four or five joints, quietly reaching along the wall towards me. I stopped breathing, and the arm seemed to notice. It silently felt along the wall, moving to the floor and brushing up against the far door. I shook my head and when I looked again, it seemed as if the arm were just a smudge on my vision, the way your eyes will make solid objects from nothing in a dark room. I couldn’t shake the image of a dead appendage, though, and so that was the image that solidified in my mind. I waited there, silently, and I heard burly man call after me.

“Everything okay?”

The arm/smoke/whatever it was reacted to the noise, and withdrew into the room, and the door slammed with a bang. I let out a huge gasp of air and turned heel and walked quickly back to the group.

“What was it?” the pretty girl asked.

“Just a door left open,” I said, and did my best not to sprint to the stairs.



Chapter Eight: The End

Strikes two and three came in November. The noises and half-caught visions that would have made me run screaming a year before had now become happenstance. I’d run into the apparition in the booth twice on my own, the desk chair spinning by the time I’d turned my head to see who was sitting next to me. The novelty of a haunted theatre was starting to wear thin for the actors, the professional New Yorker long gone.

We were in rehearsal for A Christmas Carol, to be played to the festive holiday crowds and their families, right after a fantastic Christmas feast of ham and stuffing and everything else that goes with the season.

The night that prompted me to quit started out normal enough, rehearsal when fine, the actors had left, and Mike and I were cleaning up the backstage area. Strike two was something I saw as I walked from the dressing room to the Green Room, which meant I had to pass through the shop. I was used to all kinds of strange noises from the dark corners of the massive room, but as I bent to pick up the bucket of cleaning supplies I heard someone scream.

If I were a lesser man, I probably would have vomited, poo poo my pants or worse right at that moment. I slowly stood up and looked around the shop. The scream had come from the far north-western corner, where unused flats stood propped up against the wall. I opened my mouth to call for Mike when the scream came again, loud and piercing. It sounded like a man gut-shot.

“What the gently caress!” I heard Mike curse from the Green Room.

I was too scared to move, I’ll admit. I was shaking so hard the cans of cleaner in the bucket were rattling against each other. The scream sounded again, but this time it seemed as if it were far away, like someone screaming down a long tunnel.
“Mike,” I whispered.

He came running around the corner into the shop and just stared at me.

“Are you okay? Was that you?”

I shook my head and point towards the corner. When I turned back to look, there was a figure leaning against the flats. The only word I can use to describe it is static-y, like when you turn your TV off and there image distorts for a second, before finally fading away into a tiny blip. Thats what happened to the figure, it blipped out.

Mike shook me out of my stasis and pulled me along the hallway.

“I’ll finish cleaning, man, don’t worry.” he said, and sat me down in a chair in the lobby.

He walked backstage and was gone for a while, while I just sat there, trying to calm down. I wasn’t sure why the scream had startled me so much, but my heart was racing at a million miles an hour and all I wanted to do was run. It seemed that Mike was gone for a long time, but soon enough he came back.

“Hey, I promised Manuel I’d walk through the south wall area and lock up, you can stay here if you want, but I have to-”

“No,” I said, “I’ll come with you.” I didn’t want to just sit and do nothing, and I’m sure Mike would appreciate the company, and so I went with him.

The kitchens were creepy in their own right, bright, sharp steel just hanging from hooks in the open, the walk in freezer was an area I wasn’t even going to touch. Mike went though, locking the three doors. We moved into the museum and did a cursory check. Nothing was out of place. I looked at the picture of the five friends and smiled sadly. I missed Andrea. The last room to check was the staff lounge. The big, bay windows were a bit much for me to handle. I kept expecting a flaming skull to do a flyby before devouring my soul, but nothing happened. We’d survived the south wall without incident.

It was only as we were walking back to the lobby that something went wrong. Mike had made the turn to the area under the guest rooms when I’d heard someone call out, fairly loudly, “Hey.” from the museum. I’d turned around without thinking, and behind the glass of the museum room was an openmouthed man, bloody hand up against the glass and huge, black eyes facing right at me.

“Hey.” it said, “Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey.”

That was it. Strike three. You’re out. gently caress two-week notices, gently caress locking up, gently caress the Rambledown. I tore past Mike so fast that he screamed, he later told me he had thought I was a vampire, finally sweeping down to finish him off. I’d run, tripping and falling, into the parking lot, refusing to look around, refusing to lend an eye to the long dark windows. I’d waiting with my back to the building until Mike came up behind me and asked me if I was alright.

“No, man. No. I’m quitting.”

He shrugged. Mike always shrugged. “Okay, I’m quitting to. I was only sticking it out to see if I could last longer than you, and it looks like I'm the bigger man.

“Hey,” I said, “gently caress you.”

We looked at each other for a moment and then laughed nervously. We hopped in our cars and drove the long road back to the city, I did not look in my rear view mirror as we drove away, nor did I stop at the top of the ridge to admire the view. I was finished with the Rambledown, it could burn up for all I cared.
Mike and I spent the night nursing beers in a bar and promising to write it all down someday.

Mike moved to California, where he’s doing tech work for the Disney concert hall, the one that looks like a big metal ship.

I moved away to Minneapolis, where I’m still doing theatre stuff, be it acting or stage managing or even writing, I’m happy just surviving.

I found out that Andrea moved to France, and I never talked to her again.

Talking with some of the other people who worked at the Rambledown afforded some stories I’d never heard. It seems that each section of the building had its own ghosts and events that scared people too much to talk about. The Rambledown closed down that very next month, in December. I emailed Jared and he’d told me it was just “Too much of a burden to keep it going, so we’re selling it back to the state.” Manuel, the museum curator, had told me a different story.

“People just couldn’t go inside,” he’d said, “something else had moved in. Not something you want to gently caress around with, for sure.”

Other people had told me stories of apparitions that appeared at all hours of the day, that last month. Figures that didn’t go away when you looked at them, that spoke to you, that tried to touch you. I figure it was good that I left when I did.

The one thing that everybody seems to agree on is that the area is better left untouched. I’m not sure what happened to the buildings, if they’re all still there, rotting, or if someone else had taken them over and tried to start a business of their own, but you can be sure I’ll never go back. Mike and I got this story out over probably too many beers. Its terrible enough to revisit in memory. Take our advice and don’t go looking for the Rambledown.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Stairs
Oct 13, 2004
Oh God that was amazing. I had to move from my den to the front room halfway through reading because the other room had windows behind me. Truly one of the most scary stories I've read on here!

Also, gently caress you, because it's 2 AM and I have to be up at 6 and oh poo poo I can't sleep now gently caress.

CatStacking
Jan 9, 2010

~A Purely Preposterous Pussy~
I don't get scared by stories often. I run a horror blog and love horror in general.

That said...gently caress the Rambledown.

That is one of the scariest things I've read in my life, and I'm basically waiting on edge for my boyfriend to get home from work so I won't be alone. I'm refusing to move from my room right now, and half expecting to hear some sort of sound from somewhere else in the house.

I don't know what it is about that story but it got me. It really really got me.

Stairs
Oct 13, 2004

cuntvalet posted:

I don't get scared by stories often. I run a horror blog and love horror in general.

That said...gently caress the Rambledown.

That is one of the scariest things I've read in my life, and I'm basically waiting on edge for my boyfriend to get home from work so I won't be alone. I'm refusing to move from my room right now, and half expecting to hear some sort of sound from somewhere else in the house.

I don't know what it is about that story but it got me. It really really got me.

For me it's the "hey, hey!" stuff in the vents and in the dark. I had a nightmare last night where I was in my laundry room, which has a 4' by 6' crawl space opening that's mostly uncovered. I was doing laundry in the dream and that drat voice started calling to me from that black dank hole to hell.

I'm getting men in to board it over on the weekend.

GaiaFag
Jun 20, 2007
KING OF THE FURRIES (AUTOPILOT ON BITCH)
Fuuuuuuck! I'm alone in the office tonight, and the lights keep going out because they are motion-activated and set to shut off after a certain amount of time. Every time they go off, I'm expecting pale, impossibly long arms to reach over the cube behind me and rest on my shoulders. gently caress the Rambledown! Probably one one of my favorites to come out of one of these threads in some time! If you find more stories, I would be stoked to read them!

Hazo
Dec 30, 2004

SCIENCE



I've just been finding them while rereading old ghost threads little by little. Check the list I posted on the first page. I'm on the Skinwalker thread right now, which has a ton of great ones, and some fantastic art too that I think I actually have saved (the alligator teeth story comes to mind) so I'll post them when I get to them. You should check it out. I really like the stories that have a spooky atmospheric outdoor setting as opposed to "I woke up and saw a shadow in my room," so it's one of my favorite threads. I just don't want to flood this incarnation with reposts, but I don't really have any stories of my own.

Here's a couple from early in the thread if you don't have archives:

-------

The-Mole:


Drums at Night

The following story was first told to me by a good friend who went on a therapeutic wilderness program trip in eastern Oregon. Therapeutic wilderness programs basically take kids between 12 and 18 and dump them in the woods and make them live under tarps and make fires by rubbing sticks together (which really works). There is also a lot of hiking and therapizing. They tend to be pretty drat serious and solemn places.

Anyways, my friend Robert was at this program in the middle of nowhere Oregon and the entire group was getting ready to go to bed in the shelter they had made out of a tarp. One of the staff (who all had hippy-native-american-earth-names like "yellow water under buffallo" or "Purple Sage..." that sorta stuff) we'll call Rain, after taking everyone's shoes and pants so they couldnt run away at night, started playing her flute like she did most nights. She sat out for about half an hour playing the flute literally a hundred miles from any town bigger than Brothers Oregon (population 13 or something). After about half an hour of playing, drum beats could be heard in the woods. Like the sound of hitting a big leather drum with a big stick. They would be regular and would speed up and slow down and sometimes would be in a rhythym.

Being in the absolutely middle of nowhere, they got scared. Like really, really scared. It was night and seriously dark. Both staff and kids alike got so scared they tore down camp in the middle of the night, packed it up and hiked ten miles away AT NIGHT IN THE DARK. The drumbeats followed them about half of the way.

Not the scariest story, I know a couple that are a lot worse, but the thing that gets me about this story is that I later met Rain when she started working at a boarding school I used to go to. She had not met Robert in three or four years and told me the identical story. Both Robert and Rain swore that what they heard absolutely and without a doubt was drums. I also later met another kid who went to the same program a few weeks later who said people were still scared about that incident when he arrived.


-----


cardinalpuck:


I have a friend from my boy scout days, mostly Native American and really really chill. We would commonly go out to the middle of the wilderness and hike around for weeks, building fires with sticks and cooking fish that we had to catch from streams and things like this.

I remember one summer our trip took us to the BWWCA at the very top of Minnesota, which, to those of you who don't know what it is, is about a billion square miles of absolute desolation. Woods stretched as far as you could see, pocked with large lakes and islands. Our canoe trip had us rowing out to a smallish island and living there for a few days. We'd jump off of rocks into the water and whittle and talk and laugh during the day, and at night we would return to our tents that were pitched about fifty yards from the water in a clearing in the trees.

One morning we all woke up and put on our swimming suits and walked down to the water to splash around and sort of get clean. While I was in the water, I saw my friend shivering alone outside of the water, sitting on a long log that looked like the remnants of a fallen tree or something, so I climbed up the bank and went to talk to him. He was pale and quiet, like he'd seen some sort of ghost, so I asked him if he was alright and he recounted this story, which to me seems fairly related to this Skinwalker thing.

Apparently, he'd been awoken in the middle of the night with the burning need to piss, so he slipped on some pants and shoes and exited his tent to find a nice tree to go on. While he was standing, about fifty feet away from the tents at the edge of the woods, he heard the far off call of a loon, something fairly common in northern Minnesota. Now, if you are not familiar with what a loon sounds like, I would reccommend googling it, because it is the lonliest, most mournful sound in the world and will scare the poo poo out of you on normal occasions. He began to get nervous, for no good reason, and willed himself to piss faster, when the loon call came again, louder and closer, and again, louder and closer, until it seemed to be directly over his head.

He finished, pulled his junk back inside his pants and buckled up and was looking up in preparation to run all the way back to his tent, when he saw it: a naked man, covered from head to toes with black tattoos, wearing a buffallo skull over his face like some sort of mask, crouching at head level on the low branch of a tree inches away from him. There was a long moment of silence where he just stared into the face of the mask, before the man sort of curved his back and let out a long, mournful loon cry. My friend tore off back towards his tent, panting and shivering and trying to keep from throwing up and when he got to the zippered entrance he chanced one last look towards the woods, and, of course, there was nothing there.

He told me all this in a low voice, without a hint of irony or any clue that it might just be a ghost story. He didn't mention the name Skinwalker, but he did tell me later that his grandfather, a traditional Navajo man, sat him down in the middle of his kitchen and blessed him for a full hour after he recounted the tale.

It sounds fantastic, but the kid had no reason to lie to me and if he was faking his signs of distress and terror throughout the rest of the trip, whenever we heard a loon call, he was a drat fine actor. Take it, I guess, for what you will.

SomeDrunkenMick
Apr 21, 2008

Love the ghost story thread, I'm just reading through 50 foot ants stuff because I like the first story about the base up on the side of a mountain.
But the whole thing is getting weirdly sexual and it's kind of turning into some sort of masturbatory Mary Sue self insert action story. Should I stay reading does it get better?

Stairs
Oct 13, 2004

SomeDrunkenMick posted:

Love the ghost story thread, I'm just reading through 50 foot ants stuff because I like the first story about the base up on the side of a mountain.
But the whole thing is getting weirdly sexual and it's kind of turning into some sort of masturbatory Mary Sue self insert action story. Should I stay reading does it get better?

It is totally a masturbatory Mary Sue action story, but that's why so many of us like it (or hate it). Personally I enjoy it for what it is: the novelization of the cheesiest action movie ever. It's the ghost story version of what the Expendables should have been. As for getting better, it pretty much stays sex-and-violence throughout with the occasional new character, one of which is a usually naked, half leprechaun, cold-immune, faerie queene, sex demon who uses Celtic Woman juju to get herself into the Army and tries to gently caress Tandy (I'm really not exagerrating).

Just to warn you though, it's long. Like really, really long.

A 50S RAYGUN
Aug 22, 2011
The 50FA stuff is an example of bad writing written well. I used to try to follow it but it's hard to not grimace at a lot of it and the constant 'oh my goodness post more!' after every update just made me sad.

Hazo
Dec 30, 2004

SCIENCE



The 50FA/Humper Monkey (I think they're the same person, but the lore goes that they're brothers except Humper Monkey died and saw Tandy on his deathbed...? Or something like that?) stories eventually got shifted to Creative Convention because of that reason. He's a great writer and sure knows how to paint a scene but the whole over-the-top Duke Nukem persona got annoying after a while, I guess. It's also posted out of order, which is hard to get into.


I'm still digging around on old hard drives for the original goon-made art from the 2007 skinwalker thread; so far I've only come up with this. There was much more but I don't think I saved nearly as much as I'd thought, unfortunately.

SomeDrunkenMick
Apr 21, 2008

Ah, I think I'll give the rest a miss so. Pity I enjoyed the creepiness of the first one, and even the cheesy over the top action has its merits. But it just reads like someone's wank material too much.

Hazo
Dec 30, 2004

SCIENCE



pahuyuth:


About 18 years ago, my buddy Kyle and I went canoeing down in south Georgia during the summer. The first part of the trip took us down the Satilla, a beautiful black water river with white sandy beaches. That part of the vacation was uneventful. The trip through the Okefenokee Swamp was not, however.

Even at the age of 17 we were fairly experienced campers. Every weekend we would hike or float down a river. We never left without first plotting a detailed map and we had the best equipment a couple of teenagers could afford. We always planned for the unexpected and made sure to take an extra couple of days worth of supplies. The trip into the swamp was only going to be a short day trip, leaving early in the morning and returning before dusk. We were totally unprepared for what happened.

We set off into the swamp early Saturday morning, leisurely paddling along the well marked canoe trail. We took in the sights of the gorgeous landscape, the beautiful plants and of course we marveled at the alligators. The two of us were loving every minute of our trek. Nearing midday, we became hungry so we paddled away from the trail a short distance, tied up to a tree, and made lunch.

After eating our ramen noodles and jerky we relaxed in the canoe, and soon both of us fell asleep. We woke up a couple of hours later and started paddling back to the main path. We thought so, anyway.

It didn't take us long to realize that we were lost. Neither of us felt any panic or distress. We had been in worse situtations and never failed to get through them. We were both confident we would soon find our way out of the maze in which we found ourselves.

The hours passed and the sun was getting lower in the sky. Still far from panicking, we were growing a bit anxious. We were just chalking it up to another 'Scott and Kyle Adventure'.

The sky continued to darken. At this point, we realized that we were going to have to spend the night in the swamp. Again, it was nothing we were really all that concerned about. We knew that the park rangers would be out looking for us the next day since our return time had come and gone. Kyle's family was staying in a nearby lodge, and even though we knew they naturally worried about us, we also knew that they were confident in our abilities and outdoor skills.

In the Okefenokee, camping is allowed only on platforms built above the water. That way the gators can't get ya. Obviously, we didn't have the luxury of a platform, so we tied up to another tree and just made ourselves as comfortable as possible in the boat.

We passed the time by eating, fishing, and watching the gators. Soon the sun had completely decended and it was night. It was eerily beautiful, and it seemed that Mother Nature had cranked up the volume to 11. The birds, frogs, insects and other swamp creatures became louder and louder. We talked about the sort of things that teenage boys talk about. We laughed and just enjoyed the moments.

THUMP.

Something hit the bottom of our boat.

THUMP THUMP.

Again, something hit our boat. Kyle raised our small lantern and we saw what had to have been the largest alligator in the whole freaking swamp swim past. If it was less than 15 feet long I would be surprised. It turned around and came straight at us, hitting the boat again. Kyle grabbed his oar and smacked the water, hoping to scare the drat thing away. The gator seemed to grow even more brazen and aggressive and once again made a pass at our boat, really hitting it hard and rocking it a good bit. I felt like I was in an alligator version of 'Jaws'. We needed a bigger boat, indeed! I too grabbed an oar and we both began beating the hell out of the water. The gator went under us, REALLY knocked the poo poo out of the boat, and swam away. We thought it had left for good, but it returned after about 5 minutes. We repeated this entire cycle about 4 times. We were really getting scared that this fucker wanted to kill us. It swam away again, and we waited for it to make another strike.

Then everything went silent. Instantly. And by silent, I mean there was NOTHING making a sound. Not a loving peep. Even the mosquitos that had been pestering us by buzzing around our faces had suddenly disappeared. We both looked at each other; our puzzled faces were illuminated by the dim lantern. Neither of us wanted to say anything to break the silence. I don't really think either of us could have said anything, anyway.

SPLASH. SPLISH SPLASH. The sound was off to our right, probably 20-30 yards away. That drat gator again, I thought. Thankfully the eerie silence was giving way to some sort of activity. Nope, nothing else made a sound. SPLAAASH. This one sounded heavier; more violent. I told myself it was still just the gator.

Kyle whispered. "Why is it so quiet?"
I didn't have an answer. Surely, no animal in the swamp was so threatening that even the drat crickets and skeeters shut up. Not even our gator menace had quieted the sounds of the Okefenokee.

Of course, as in all movie thrillers, the lantern went out and we couldn't reignite it. And of course, as in all situations like this, the clouds parted and the moon revealed itself.

And of course, the two teenage boys who up to this point were relatively unrattled nearly pissed themselves.

SPLASH! Something darted through the trees to our right. It was not an animal. Well, if it was an animal it was walking on its hind legs. A bear maybe?

"Christ. What in the gently caress was that?!" I said, but not too loudly. Didn't want it to hear me.

"SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS". Something made a sound like air escaping from a tire. The same figure we saw earlier moved through the trees again.

CRACK! THUMP. CRAAACK! The cracks were sharp and violent. The thump was dull and had a hollow tone to it. Still no other sounds in the whole freaking area.

"SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS". There it was again, only a little louder.


Several minutes passed with nothing happening. Our little part of the world was still deathly silent.


PLOP.

Something landed in the water right next to our canoe.

PLOP.

PLOP PLOP PLOP.

It became apparent that the thing was throwing pebbles or something at us.
Okay, now this is getting loving ridiculous, I thought. Bears don't loving throw things. Both Kyle and I simultaneously drew our hunting knives from their sheaths, as if that was going to do anything whatsoever.

What happened next was something I will never forget. It is something that both of us wish we had dreamed. It is something that we don't even speak about when we see each other almost 20 years later. Jesus, I'm getting goosebumps and quite nervous even typing this.

CLINK.

Something landed in our canoe. CLINK CLINK. Two more somethings landed in our canoe. CLINK CLINK CLINK. Ok, enough with loving THROWING poo poo INTO OUR CANOE!

It was then we realized that whatever the objects were had come from above, NOT from either side. We looked at each other, our faces so white they rivaled the moon. At the same time, our gazes drew upward.

There it was. Sitting in the tree. OUR TREE. The tree to which we were tied. You know that goat in Jurassic Park that was tied up for the T-Rex to eat? Yeah, we were that goat.

I swear to christ that this thing must have been a child of the moon. The moon seemed to cast down its light on our friend in particular, illuminating it much more clearly than anything else in the area. It was as if the moon wanted us to see this thing in all its glory.

It was humanoid- it had the body of a man with the head of the skull of some kind of animal. It looked kind of like a wolf or coyote or something similar. The eyes glowed yellow, and there was fur covering the shoulders and upper body. This thing was built like a tank, too. Its muscles rippled under its pale skin. It breathed deeply and slowly. In one hand it held some sort of staff that was maybe 3 feet long with a huge knot at one end. Around its neck there was a pouch made from leather.

Oh, one thing I should mention is that this tree had no branches on the lower half of the tree where the creature was. It was grasping the tree with one arm, the staff clutched tightly in that hand. Its feet seemed to be dug into the tree trunk.
With its free hand, he pointed at us. Keep in mind that Kyle and I were in opposite ends of the boat, but each of us swore that it was looking straight into the eyes of each of us. Strangely, our sense of fear went away once it gazed into us. A sense of calm and 'This is gonna be ok' came over us. Slowly, it withdrew its outstretched hand, opened the pouch around its neck, reached two long fingers inside and took something out. It slowly extended its arm again, and dropped the objects into our boat.

"GWAHHHHHHHHHHHHH SSSSSSSSSSSSSKKKKKKKKKKKKKHHHHHH" is the best approximation of the sound it made. It pointed at us again, then pointed off into the distance, to our right.

It leapt from the tree, landed with a very quiet splash, and darted off. The clouds gathered around the moon, and all the swamp's inhabitants began making their music once again.

Of course, we didn't sleep a wink. We sat in silence for the rest of the night, too awed and scared to speak.

The direction it pointed to turned out to be the way back to the trail.

The objects in our boat? Alligator teeth. Freshly dug out from a recently dead gator.

It was clear that this thing had been watching over us.

Once we got back to the canoe center, we told the story of being lost and the gator to the park rangers and Kyle's family. We left the part about our friend out. After we all settled down a bit, we talked to the rangers about the history of the swamp, hoping to gain some insight into what had happened. They mentioned nothing about ghosts, and scoffed at us when we brought it up. They did say that many indian burial mounds have been found, though... some 4000 years old.

Anyway, Kyle and I talked it about once and only once after it happened. It was so amazing, unbelievable, and awe inspiring that we have no need to discuss it I guess. As for telling the story, no one would believe us anyway.



Mister Bung
Jun 7, 2004

What about the children foo'?
That was a great story. I love the idea that there's weird poo poo hidden just out if view in all the places we see as 'normal'.

I hope we keep getting more stories, the original threads were always my favourite part of the forums. There were some excellent stories from one guy who lived out in a rural area and had a haunted farm, those were creepy as hell.
On that note, I've not been back for some time - what the hell happened to GBS? Seems like it's haunted by the ghosts of FYADs past...

Flaccid Trip
Apr 29, 2008

Mister Bung posted:

On that note, I've not been back for some time - what the hell happened to GBS? Seems like it's haunted by the ghosts of FYADs past...

FYAD burst.


Anyone have anything saved from an old cryptids/generally creepy thread that popped up in GBS a few years ago? I remember there was one story about a weird white dog-centipede thing that they saw in (I think) an empty lot.

There was another story I read in one of the old ghost stories threads, which unfortunately isn't on Not Hot But Spicy, about the poster as a child with a group of friends, and they come across I want to say old foundations or structures, and the one kid is later found dead in it.

Cmdr Tomalak
Aug 13, 2007

How long shall we stare at each other across the Neutral Zone?

cuntvalet posted:

Ooo, I want to hear more about Roma if you have more stories.

I don't have a lot of time right now, but just a quickie:

I work in a call centre in an abandoned mall. The mall has a...history of being cursed. There's a legend that says that natives were chased off their land to make for the development of the downtown core of my city. A native woman apparently cursed the area saying no business would ever thrive where the mall was eventually built.

And it never has.

Movie theaters, coffee shops, stores, barely anything has survived even when the downtown became the main hub for the local university.

So that's a bit odd.

I was sitting at my desk one day, it was pretty quiet, and we had a shitload of down time between calls, when out of nowhere there was this blood curdling scream. It somehow sounded close and far away at the same time.

Theresa, the girl who sits beside me turned and asked "You heard that too, right?" And I know a few other people who sit around us commented on it too, and looked really concerned.

Nothing else seemed to come of it but a bunch of us felt uneasy all day.

Nothing spectacular, but a fair few odd things have happened at this call centre.

I dunno probably don't have a call centre in the middle of an abandoned mall on cursed land. :iiam:


Brantford, Ontario, right? My family is from there (my grandparents still live there) and I grew up hearing all the native stuff, including the story about the curse.

My grandparents' house is from around 1865, it's always been in the family, and several people have died in it, but as far as we know, there's no ghosts. (Well, my grandma SWORE she saw someone walking through the hall once last year, but it was most likely just a really vivid dream)

However, my grandma also claims that back when she was a little girl, the house behind them was haunted with the sound of ducks quacking. Nothing else, just ghostly ducks quacking. The owners had a priest come in and bless the house, and they never heard it again. Weird.

Hazo
Dec 30, 2004

SCIENCE



Drum posted:

FYAD burst.


Anyone have anything saved from an old cryptids/generally creepy thread that popped up in GBS a few years ago? I remember there was one story about a weird white dog-centipede thing that they saw in (I think) an empty lot.

There was another story I read in one of the old ghost stories threads, which unfortunately isn't on Not Hot But Spicy, about the poster as a child with a group of friends, and they come across I want to say old foundations or structures, and the one kid is later found dead in it.
Neither of these are ringing a bell for me, but I'll keep a lookout. Too bad archives search is still down. Can you narrow it down to a time frame?

JohnnyCanuck
May 28, 2004

Strong And/Or Free
Back when Allahu SnackBar was still LoungieMu, he told us all about The Blue Man.
(Archives required, thread was from 2004!)

quote:

This has happened maybe a hundred or more times since I was ten years old. I'm 23 now. Honestly, I've long since stopped writing this off as simply a morbid nightmare, and I am genuinely worried that it might be something else. Right now, I've double-locked the front and back doors, and I've locked myself in my room. My gun is under my pillow, and I'm simply too scared to sleep now.

First, I guess I should tell you all about my night visitor - the Blue Man. I don't know what Blue Man is, so speculation at this point is probably useless. All I know right now is that it is in the most vivid dream I have ever had in my life. This dream recurs EXACTLY THE SAME WAY, and has done so for years on end.

It all goes down like this, each time:

I wake in my bed for whatever reason. Maybe I'm uncomfortable, hot, or thirsty. Maybe I need to go pee. My eyes open, and it is there, at the side of my bed. The sudden shock of it is unavoidable each time, and as identical as these visitations are, the initial fear is always new and more horrifying.

The Blue Man is quite tall. I'd wager about 7 feet or so. As tall as it is, its also hideously gaunt and emaciated. The way its skin just collapses over its bones looks like the survivors of Auschwitz or something. You could almost count the bones. The head is long and bald, and no ears are visible. The eyes are heavily receeded into the eye sockets, and what little can be seen are small and beady. Both the nose and the mouth are slits, and barely interrupt the face. It's fingers are long and spidery, about seven inches long each. Its skin is hairless, and the tone is a pale, almost iridescent blue. It gives the faintest impression of glowing in the dark of my room.

The Blue Man reaches for me slowly with an outstretched finger. After the wave of initial fear burns through me, I always seem to bolt out of bed to avoid it. I run out of my room, through the hallway, etc. I know I've got a boost on it each time, but when I look back, it's right there behind me as if I never moved. This is the horrible part. Its irrelevant of however fast I may run or not. The thing is on my heels the moment I glance back. Its like it's traveling without moving, as Frank Herbert would say. Its always eventual that I get cornered by Blue Man. When this happens, it slowly advances on me, reaching at my forehead with a finger...

...and then I wake up :(

As I said before, I've had this same exact dream over 100 times since I was ten. Nothing in it changes. The details are all the same. On top of that, I'm pretty sure that every dream I've had since the Blue Man visited me has been a nightmare. I can't remember a single dream I've had that wasn't horrifying.

I have no idea what Blue Man is.

A person, or person in a suit? Absolutely not.

Alien? Possibly, sure. I am mortified of the prospect of alien abduction and/or greys. Blue Man aside, its really the only thing that scares me.

Ghost? I don't believe in them, but I suppose it could be.

Subconcious? This is the most likely answer. Even if this is the case, Blue Man would have to be something wired pretty loving hard into my system. Is this the kind of poo poo where people repress memories? If so, what the gently caress could be so horrible in my somewhat-charmed life to make Blue Man blot it out of my skull?

Something else?

At this moment, I'm awake by virtue of fear only. I'll always manage a month or two without a visit, and then it will return again at random. The more I have this waking terror, the more I'm worried that this will be the time where I finally find out what Blue Man is.

I do not want to know this. I just want to be left alone. I want the Blue Man to leave, but its been thirteen years, and whatever it is, it's not likely to do that any time soon. :(

Shmorky posted:

Flaccid Trip
Apr 29, 2008

Hazo posted:

Neither of these are ringing a bell for me, but I'll keep a lookout. Too bad archives search is still down. Can you narrow it down to a time frame?

I want to say around 2010-2011.

CratSock
Aug 5, 2004

Sock Wielding Assassin

I didn't know the thread moved to PYF until I saw a link... too bad, it won't get as much attention here. :( We need more new stories! Isn't GBS fixed yet? Sort of?

Tewbrainer
Apr 1, 2010
Why, hello there Ghost Story Thread. I was wondering where you went off to...

Dam'gaist'lainn [The Beautiful Trap Spider]

Summer had come to the isle, and my father went North with the season to make our yearly round. We were living out of a friend of my father's house for close to a week, near the southern border of Leitrim (if memory serves). The countryside had taken nicely to an early summer - the grass was filled in like a green blanket along the hills, and the trees stood in a calm comfort that we can only wish to have.

We had received news from a run-ahead that there was a foreigner coming to talk to my father, and he begged that we would wait to leave - there was a promise of handsome pay, as the runner showed my father some silver pence that he had been giving to give the message. So, we waited - enjoying the weather among friends. It was no hard task.

Our client finally arrived after noon the next day, riding in a rugged cart pulled by a stout horse. The card was manned by two (quite Irish) drivers. They concealed between them a polished black-jack, something I took of interest, as this was a farming community which did not seem to have any share violence. The man who emerged from the cart was obviously foreign - both in nationality and in manner - as he was wearing a trim grey suit and coat, with a small traveling hat. He hopped gingerly down from the cart and came to our door.

"Ahh! You must be Monsieur Lee-ah, my friend, thank you for awaiting! My name is Jaque Luellion" Said the man, in a deeper voice than my fathers that seemed to resonate deep within his chest. He vigorously shook my fathers hand, who guided him inside. After our visitor had lunched (he was famished - we gathered he had drove through the night) he sat to tell us his story.

"I'll thank you, my friends, again for listening to this little story. I'm sure I will only need a peu - eh - minimum of your efforts. You see, I have recently purchased an estate from the MacKleath family north of here, with an interest of setting down a line. You see, I am from Belgium natively - but due to political reasons, I was obliged to take an estate off the mainland. Ah, tea! Excellent!" Our guest took a moment to sip the cup provided by the house owner, and nodded approvingly.

"May I ask why you had to leave Belgium?" My father questioned.

"I...will speak frankly to you, sir, but please pardon a lack of detail. Would it suffice to say that I supported a loosing side of a conflict?"

The answer pleased my father, who leaned back in his chair and waved his hand at our visitor to continue.

"I have spent most of the last 6 months having a small quarters built for myself and my family. Now that the house is almost complete, I have decided (at my wife's nagging) to raise sheep. She is infatuated with the devils. But, I must agree, as our home has no source of income and the family money won't last forever. We are no sheep herders (Ah! Do not act surprised!) so we hired a shepherd (highly recommended by Monsieur MacKleath) who, in turn, hired three local boys as help. With our initial investment, we purchased 120 'Tooling Black Heads' at his guidance. He promises me the wool will sell, and the meat should be delicious!" During this time our guest finished his tea, and now his face hardened.

"But, now the point of the visit, one...no...two nights ago one of our sheep boys went missing. Scott DuGinion (our shepherd) did not seem trouble by it, and assured us that the boy had been - eh, désobéissant? - and he would find another in the morning. But, the next morning, Scott took me outside out of hearing, and told me he had found the remains of the boy. I was, you can expect, shocked by this - and said that of course we would have a burial. Scott agreed but...and he is quite stern about this...he said you must come, that he believes there is something evil in this boys death. Eh, the imagination of the natives?" Jaque said with a nervous laugh - noticing too late into the joke that he was in a room with two.

"Can you tell me the details of the boys death?" Asked my father.

"My apologies, no. Scott has not shown us the location, and has refused to let any of the boys work."

"You understand this is difficult if I do not know what to bring?"

"Again - my apologies. If you could simply visit, I would be more than happy to provide anything you require."

I could sense my father laughing inwardly at this - for the things my father might require were quite difficult to purchase.

"We will come."

---

The journey to the Luellion estate proved wonderful - it was a smooth road up until the driveway, and the weather was a traveler's blessing. On the driveway, we could see in the distance a two story house, sparkling on the hill with a fresh coat of white paint. A man was walking towards us - tan, and strong - with a gentle and soothing gait that benefitted his profession of shepherd. He carried a basket with him, which he hung from a staff balanced on his shoulder. Behind him trailed a sheep, which he pulled along on a plant cord.

"Ah! My dear DuGinion, we have returned! There have been no new developments, I hope?" Yelled our host from the car window.

"Non, sir!" We heard back.

"Driver, slow the cart as we reach him, please."

As we came to rest, Scott opened the door and helped my father down from the cart. We all stretched (the trip was nearly a full day), and he offered us some simple sandwiches from his basket - but only some, he left the rest untouched.

Once we had finished, my father asked Scott to take us to the body. He looked nervously at the sun, which was 5 thumbs from on the horizon, but then appeared to make up his mind and nodded. "We'll have to be quick though. Sir," He said to my father. He then turned to Luellion, "The country is rough back there. I'd get back to the wife if I were you, we'll be back quick."

We left a disappointed 'Monsieur Luellion' at his cart while we struck out to the hills. DuGinion deserved the recommendation he had received from MacKleath, as he never once stopped to check his directions. The sheep, even though it was newly under him, followed in an easy and trusting way. Within his gentle walk, there was a nervousness.

"Whats all this, Scott?" Started my father. "What have you found?"

"We're almost there, father, please wait until then."

DuGinion spoke the truth - for just a short way after, we came upon the boy. I gasped at the strangeness of the scene. The boy was, from the ribs down, submerged in the earth. The part of his corpse above was hideously dried - like that of a much older corpse. His face was locked in an agony I cannot imagine, and his arms lay outstretched from his chest, thin with jutting bones. The fingernails had been torn off, and the ground around them was raked with bloody stains. It appeared that he had been pulled underground unwillingly - and, indeed, the grass around him was torn and uprooted. The scent of blood and dried sod lingered. From what I could see, he was close to 11 - nearly the same age as myself.

My father was walking in slow circles around the corpse, inspecting the ground carefully. He paused at some moments and closed his eyes - feeling for evil.

"I thought you wouldn't believe me if I told you, sir." Said Scott, looking towards the sunset. "It came back last night and took a sheep. I climbed up in the oak across and waited all night. If you'd like, I've got enough for us to do the same." The three of us turned towards the sheep Scott had brought with him, which was lazily eating grass behind us.

"We will - but first you must tell me everything." Said my father, steadying me while he started rummaging through the pack I carried.

---

The sun was setting on the fields, which lit up like gems at its passing. First green, then yellow, then red...now they passed into lavender, as night fell upon them.

"You have seen the red spider, Lia?" Whispered Scott from a branch below me. "You have seen it put web around its hole, and catch crickets?"

"I have." Whispered my father.

"This is a red spider that hunts bigger game!" Nerves and excitement mingled in that statement. The thoroughbred Irishman at his best!

"I hope we had enough." Whispered my father. We all peered out the field before us, on a single ewe that was mindlessly laying in the shade of a small tree. Though I could not see it, I knew that from its neck hung a single leather pouch - within were four silver nails, each wrapped in clean bandages and tied with pieces of my father's hair. A silver nail was the killer of the unnatural beast, the bandage for those summoned by blood, the hair to tell the bringer who destroyed its pet. My father believed that this beast had long outlived its master, judging by the size needed to kill a sheep (or boy). There was something comforting in this to me, though, for the physical beasts (while often more dangerous) did not terrify me in the way that spirits did.

"It comes!"

There was little light left, but the night was clear and the stars cast a faint shadow upon the greens. I could hear a silent, very silent, sound of...perhaps running water? My minds eye gave me a picture of some formless beast moving through the sod easily. My eyes were drawn to movement - I could see a faint gleaming of grass blades move as something large passed below them. The ewe nervously bleated - it was nothing more than a shadow, and at its bleat the grass stilled. I strained forward against the ropes that tied my legs to the branch , to get a better look.

Then, I saw a shadow rise near the sheep. It was round in shape - I strained forward to see it. It looked, as close as I could tell, as if another sheep had emerged from the ground. I heard it, next, and the noise raised the hairs on my neck.

Its noise was like "Ba' ak' ak' ak' ak' ahhhh..." as it came across the dark hills. It was, in both ways, similar and nothing like that of a normal sheep. I think, looking back on it now, it reminded me of a cricket instead.

The sheep bleated back at it, and began to approach the new shadow.

There was a sudden crunching noise, and both shadows were gone.

Fear grew in me, as I began to hear the sound like running water. The grass began moving again, and I could see it moving towards us! We had made no noise - we had not moved - surely it was going to pass us by? Closer, closer it got. The sound got deeper - louder. I could see the grass moving less than 30 yards away. Suddenly it stopped.

I was barely breathing - I could hear nothing of DuGinion or my father in the branches below me. Then...something arose from the grass. I jumped, at first, as I thought it was a woman in a robe. She rose, in a straight line, out of the soil. Her face was dark, and in no way looked like skin.

"Cuidi' cuidi' cuidi' udi' diuuuuuu...." [cuidiú = help] She said, but the voice was nothing from this world. It was hollow and toneless - a voice emitted by a beast that did not understand it.

"Arga' arga' arga' gataaaaa..." [argat = silver]. She said, and this time I could hear something like coins clinking together - but the noise was not metallic, and instead sounded like two pieces of flint chipping.

"Gneiesssss.....gneiessss....." [could mean 'sex', but its a different spelling than I know]. At this, the figure of the woman began to rock from side to side, and her robe fell down to reveal her body. The body was made of the same material as the face - it looked like smooth tree bark. Unreflective to the starlight.

She tried each of the three again, this time approaching us closer. I could see the dirt swell beneath her - her feed dragged behind as she floated towards us.

"Cuidi' cuidi' arga' gneiessssssSSSSEEEE!" This time she ended in a scream, and whatever was holding her up smashed her body against the ground - she broke like pottery. The ground trembled, and the screaming increased. Smoke began to rise from the ground, and small pits of white flame erupted. Below me, I could hear Scott yelling in terror as he struggled against the sleep-ropes to get away.

The screaming subsided, and the ground now emptied to form a pit nearly three yards across. Foul smoke drifted up from the ruin. I could hear my father chanting on his inward and outward breaths.

---

We slept in the tree that night, none of us daring to leave until the sun was well past dawn. A gentle summer rain had come before morning, and in the morning a small pool of reddish-brown water had gathered at the bottom of the pit. My father spoke with Scott, and told him to dry a juniper tree to burn over the pit, and to not let any sheep near it, nor should any animal's blood be shed without reason within sight of it. Luellion paid my father well (trying on several occasions to gather what had happened that night)- and provided us with his cart to take back to our digs.

My father spoke to me, "It's disappointing, isn't it?"

"That the boy died?" I ventured - my father normally did not speak to me, unless teaching.

"That we did not get to see the rest of the creature."

"I would never hope to see the rest of it - I wish I hadn't seen the little I did!"

My father laughed, and lit his pipe. "That may be so - but don't deny curiosity out of fear."

CatStacking
Jan 9, 2010

~A Purely Preposterous Pussy~

Cmdr Tomalak posted:

Brantford, Ontario, right? My family is from there (my grandparents still live there) and I grew up hearing all the native stuff, including the story about the curse.

My grandparents' house is from around 1865, it's always been in the family, and several people have died in it, but as far as we know, there's no ghosts. (Well, my grandma SWORE she saw someone walking through the hall once last year, but it was most likely just a really vivid dream)

However, my grandma also claims that back when she was a little girl, the house behind them was haunted with the sound of ducks quacking. Nothing else, just ghostly ducks quacking. The owners had a priest come in and bless the house, and they never heard it again. Weird.

Yes! The Harriet house story happened in that hole of a city too! Small world!

54 40 or fuck
Jan 4, 2012

No Yanda's allowed
Had to proctor an exam today. Gave me a chance to read through the thread. More please, as I have another exam to watch over tomorrow.

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005
Am I allowed to request a story? I'm looking for a story that someone linked to a long time ago...these two guys were communicating via texts and emails and one of them slowly became more and more obsessed with an old, derelict house that was near where they lived. The story ends with him going in there and being attacked by something--and then the house tries to lure the OTHER guy in.

I'm sorry if I'm being so vague, but it was a really cool story and I'd like to show it to someone.

PantsOptional
Dec 27, 2012

All I wanna do is make you bounce
It wasn't Dionaea House, was it?

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005

Yes! Thank you!

Hazo
Dec 30, 2004

SCIENCE



Still no luck on dog centipede, but hey Missing Name I found Onic's corn crib in the 2008 thread!


---------


A new ghost thread. Spiffy, been waiting for a new one to roll around so I can post some more of my stories.

I'm sure a lot of you know of my epic thousand year battle with the ghost that lives in my house. The last time I posted, it was busy loving with my weatherproofing. Stuff has happened since then, but I will save that for later.
For now, I have an older tale to tell. So without further adieu, I give you:

Corn crib on Haunted Mound

Cheesy title, but it's a good story. The farm I live on is quite old, as some of you know. Around 100 years old to be exact. My great grandfather owned this farm, and 4 others a very long time ago. He was forced to sell 4 of them during the great depression, but came out of it with money in his pocket, unlike most people. This farm was passed down to my grandfather, then his father, and then me. So there is a lot of history on this place.

Anyway, the farm includes the original corn crib. For those of you who don't know what a corn crib is, just imagine a building that looks like a barn. It is about
40 feet tall, it has 2 sides that are devoted to corn storage. They are like big bunkers, where whole ear corn is stored after the harvest. The middle of it is a big drive through gap. There is a grain elevator system running from the ground, up to the top. And at the very top, there are big holding areas for various grains. So basically, you could pull your wagons into the corn-crib. Open a hatch on the ceiling, and let the grain flow out with ease. It was a very good setup back in the day.

These days though, the corn crib is an old, decrepit building. I have been meaning to have it burnt to the ground for a long time now, but I never got around to having the fire department demolish it. It is old, and missing boards off the sides where the corn ears are held. I keep an old skid loader parked in the middle. The upper part of the building is still in great shape though.
The first thing that I found really weird about this building is the lack of pigeons.

Pigeons run rampart around these parts. They inhabit anything that could be considered shelter. The beasts live in my machine shed, nursery, old confinement building. They will not go near the corn-crib though. It's just so weird. It would be a perfect shelter from the elements.

Alright, enough of this boring back story poo poo that most of you probably skipped anyway.

My first problem with the corn crib happened when I was around 8 years old. This thing was like a jungle gym to me. There was boards draped around in it that I could swing from, or walk across. And if you crawled up the latter all the way to the top, you could get a perfect view of everything.
So, I was out there one day, playing around in it. When I decided to venture to the top. This was not something my dad wanted me to do. It was very dangerous. I started to make my way up the ladder, which is about a foot and a half wide, so it's not an easy climb.

I get up about half way, and hear noise bellow me. I kind of peak over my shoulder and see nothing. So, I keep moving upwards. I felt a hand wrap around my ankle and pull me down very hard. I start to fall. Not such a good thing. Underneath me was piles of sheet metal. I frantically grab for the ladder as I plummet to the cuts and boo-boos that waited below me. I finally get a grip on a rung and stop myself from falling. At that point I'm pretty much in tears. I'm shaking as I'm trying to get out of there.

I made it out and went to the house. My father asked me what the hell was wrong. There was no way I could tell him what I was doing in the corn crib. I didn't want to suffer the wrath of his belt. I don't remember what I told him, but it wasn't what I was doing. I had no clue what had happened in there. In the end I just put it off as me slipping, and my mind playing tricks on me.

I still played in it whenever I could. Being on a farm in Iowa..there just wasn't much to do. Years flew by, and I stopped playing in it. I did however start using it for better activities. Shooting pigeons.

Pigeons. I hate the things. they poo poo all over the buildings they get in, and drag nest crap with them. They just make a big mess out of anywhere they inhabit. So by the age of 15 or 16 I think, I had taken to shooting them from the top of the corn crib. It was a perfect deal too. I could sit at the very top, look right out a window towards the hog nursery. Which they loved to live in. They would pop out of the vents on the top and bask in the sun. That's when I would pick them off with an old 22 rifle. Then it was off to the fox hole by my creek, where I would leave the pigeons for the hungry fox and her pups.

Heartwarming in a twisted way huh.

So, one day I was up there. Picking off pigeons, having a grand old redneck time. I was doing great, everything was peachy for late fall. Then it got humid. going from 50 crisp degrees to humid in an instant is weird. Most of the poo poo I read, people say it gets cold. Well, I don't know if ghosts are choosy or what, but it gets humid around here in my experience.

So, there I am, sweaty now while wondering what is going on. I feel the 2x12 I'm sitting on hop up. Like if someone had picked up one end and dropped it suddenly. This wasn't a good thing. It was a good 12 foot drop to the bottom of the grain bins up top, and I was on a board set over the gap. I set my rifle against the elevator, and look around. There is nothing near me. Then it happens again. This time I get tipsy and have to grab the board with both hands.
loving thing started doing it really fast now. As if someone had hold of one end and was banging the board up and down. I was filling my pants by now. I just held on for dear life. It seemed like it went on forever, but it stopped after about 20 seconds. As soon as it did, I jumped over to the ladder and made my way down.

After I got down, I realized I had left my rifle up there. A mint condition Remington Nylon 11, that my dad had given me from when he was a kid. No way was I letting the frost that night get to it. So, I was forced to go back up the ladder to retrieve it.

I reach the top, and go to grab the rifle. It was loving gone. I just stood on the ladder in shock. The thing couldn't have fallen anywhere. I get up on the board that I was sitting on, and cautiously walk across it, while holding the beam above me for assurance. I go near the 2nd grain bin, look down, and theres the riffle, propped up in the corner of it.
Well, what the mighty hell!? I do not trust those grain holders. There's no real support under them. So, I really didn't want to walk on it, or put weight on it. I didn't have much of a choice though. I pulled the old makeshift ladder out of the first grain bin, and lower it into the 2nd one. I slowly make my way down the ladder. I reach the bottom and put weight on the floor. It creaks a bit, but seems solid enough.

I start slowly walking towards my gun, and reach it just fine. I pick it up and examine it. Everything on it is fine. I empty the round out before I sling it over my shoulder. I turn around just in time for the ladder to hit me in the loving face. Imagine if you will; Someone is up where I just came from and pushed the ladder off where it was leaned against. That is what happened, but it clocked me. Now I'm in this grain bin, bleeding out of my forehead like a stuck hog, I'm pissed off, and scared. A nail had caught me right below the hair line. I still have a scar/bump till this day on the spot.

I set the ladder back up and scrambled back up it, to be met with hot horrible breath in my face. Goosebumps raced over me, but there was nothing in front of me.
I quickly hauled rear end back down to the main floor, making sure to step on a loving nail in the process. At that point I'm more or less, hopping across old sheet metal and tires. I get out, and just lay on the ground panting and in pain.

One trip to the hospital later. I have 3 butterfly stitches in my forehead, and a nice tetanus shot. That corn crib seriously loving hates me. My father brings me back from the hospital later that night. We pull into the drive, and the corn crib is worse than when we left. One of the huge doors on the front of it is laying on the ground, and the other is twisted off to one side. He pulls up to it and shines the trucks lights on it.

We get out, and I hobble over to it. It looked like the door that was laying on the ground was ripped off out of the metal slide it was in. After further inspection we could see that the metal it was mounted on was bent outward. As if someone had ran a vehicle through it and pushed the door out. We were both baffled. My father chalked it up to the age of the corn crib. I on the other hand knew this wasn't anything natural. I didn't feel like standing near this thing anymore that night, so I went inside and tried to sleep as best as I could.

Many Years Later:

I was outside in the summer grilling. Cooking up some good Iowa Chops. I'm not one for cooking with stoves and ovens, so I mostly live on a grill diet. It's around 10 o'clock at night. It was a great night too. Stars were shinning, there was no wind, and it was about 72 degrees. It was perfect. I'm standing there, taking in the good atmosphere when I hear this noise. It came from the corn crib of the damned.

The building is around...50 yards from my house, so I look up over the grill at the building. I see nothing out of the ordinary, but that noise is still persisting. It sounded sort of like a raccoon, or some other large vermin. I hate raccoons, skunks, opposums, whatever. All those things could have rabbis, which I don't want around my farm. So, I kept my eye on the corn crib.
This noise just kept going on, with a few breaks in between. Then the screaming started. Oh god, that noise. It was like the critter that was in there was getting sliced open by a dull blade, but mixed with the sound of an old women screaming her lungs out.

Something started banging around in there. As if concrete blocks were being thrown against the walls of the building. I grab my big light and shine it up into the only window near the top facing me. I see two glowing eyes for just a half a second, then they whip down back into the building.

OH WHAT THE HELL!

Those eyes. They glowed a bright white. Heres the really hosed up part. The light I was using was some 1,000,000 halogen spotlight. It lit up the side of the corn crib like daytime, but that window was just pitch black. Save for those horrible eyes. The noises didn't stop after I used the light. That poo poo continued for a good minute. I was very antsy at that point to say the least. I didn't know what to do. Should I run inside and cower, or stay out here and make sure whatever is in the corn crib doesn't steal my pork chops!

So I stayed with the food. Cooked it as normal, but kept my senses at their peak. When they were cooked, I shut the grill off and walked inside. Each time I got through one of my 3 doors leading into my house I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand, and had an adrenaline rush. It felt like something was about to grab me whenever I had may back turned. I'm sure you all know that feeling.

I know that I ate some of my food, but couldn't stomach it all after what I had just witnessed. The next day I went to the corn crib to investigate. By this time I had taken all the sheet metal out, and replaced it with the skid loader, some old tires, and other random items. It was still bothersome to get to the ladder, but I made it. I cautiously climbed it up to the top, and peaked around inside.

Blood, everywhere. Like if you had water balloons filled with blood, and threw them against the walls. I looked down into one of the grain bins, and there lay the remains of something in several pieces. I think it was a raccoon, but I'm still not sure to this day. It was kind of, charred black. It was caked in blood, and was mutilated beyond recognition.
I look around at all this blood. I didn't think you could get that much out of a small animal. Well, I was right. I look in the other bin and theres a pile of dead animals. They all looked about the same.

At this point I'm thinking the chupacabra or some poo poo is living in the my corn crib. I am in no mood, or good state of mind to clear the remnants of animals out of the building. I just make my way out of there, and stay the hell away from it for a while.

Still, every night I go outside I can hear what sounds like fast, skittering footsteps in the building. Also agonizingly long scratching noises, and what sounds like celery breaking. That breaking noise just echoed throughout the farm.

I'm a complete loving moron. Because I went back inside that cursed building a few weeks later. The light was on inside of it. This single bulb that is 30 years old was turned on. How in the hell does that work. I don't even have power running to the building anymore. This should have tipped me off. But nope, I'm pretty dumb like that. It was at night too. Oh Goody!

As soon as I get inside of the building the light goes off, and I hear quick running in the upstairs part. I leave. Fast. No way am I getting drug upstairs and slammed against walls, till I'm a red stain. I back away from the corn crib, and towards my yard light. Something at the top catches my eye. I look up and see that the old glass globe around the lightning rod is glowing. This really beautiful color. Something I've never seen before, and still haven't seen to this day.

I'm just standing there, mesmerized by this glow. I couldn't pry my eyes away from it.

"Hahhhksssss" Whispers in my ear.

I whip around and see nothing. I'm doing a full 360, but there is nothing around me. "Enough of this poo poo", I say to myself. I started screaming and cursing at the top of my lungs. I was getting pretty sick of this scary poo poo. I went on a pretty rage induced tangent for quite a while. Until my yard light went out and it turned complete pitch dark. Oh good, a mercury light goes out on a whim. It sure was my lucky night!

I walked back to the house. Not ran, I walked. I heard poo poo behind me, clomping after me. I didn't turn around. I just kept swearing up a storm. The noise would get right up behind me then stop. then about 10 feet later it would repeat. I got to my house, opened up the first door and shut it. My 2nd door opened for me. Oh dandy! I get into it, and close it. The 3rd door was locked. I had to kick it down, which was easy, with how old it was.

As soon as I got inside I felt at ease. Whatever was loving with me must not have followed me inside. The inside ghost that I still deal with was probably territorial or something. He gets to gently caress with me inside, while the other gets my outside time. After that night, nothing much happened for a while. I would still hear the random noise from the corn crib, but nothing too big. Friends that I would have out would hear stuff, and get a little freaked out. None of them wanted to go into it, no matter how plastered we were.

One night however, we sort of saw what was in there. We were standing around the good old grill at about midnight. It was a severe case of the drunken munchies that drove us to grill top sirloin. It was a calm early fall night.
We all stopped talking because the banging had started in the corn crib. My one friend asked if there was an animal in it. I told him to wait and see. So we watched intently.

Instantly the one door left on the front flew over to the side and out came this huge black figure. It was hauling rear end towards us. Imagine if you will, a buffalo running full speed at you. That's what I would compare it to. It got within 20 feet of our scrambling asses, before it took an immediate turn right, and plowed into my cornfield. You could see corn stalks bending in the moonlight as whatever it was took off through the field.

I went from making GBS threads myself to laughing at my friends, who were terrified. I had somewhat gotten used to this poo poo by now, so it wasn't much of a surprise to me. They all left shortly afterwards though, for apparent reasons. I kept an eye on the crib that night though, but didn't see the thing that came out of it return.

The morning yielded an great thing. The field had a nice path cut through it. The path was about as wide as a large SUV, and went in about 30 feet then just stopped. Real nice of that thing to wreck my perfect field so close to harvest.

That was the last major incident with the corn crib. Since then I just hear noises, and see a moving shadow in the window on top, but that is about it.

So there you have it. The story of the corn crib. I hope you enjoyed it. I have plenty more to tell. And an update to the story about the rear end in a top hat ghost in my upstairs. I'll do those some time soon here.

Also, if you want pictures of the corn crib, just let me know. I can give you guys a full tour as soon as daylight...I'm not going in there at night.


--------


Here's his next post, but the pictures are dead. However I think there might be some sort of witchcraft that makes imageshack images viewable, which is what I think we were using for hosting back then.


---------


I have returned from my picture taking fiesta. What started as a simple thing, turned into 2 hours of bullshit. First off, as soon as I set foot outside and start walking towards the corn crib, the wind goes from a slight breeze to about 40 mph winds. Combine that with the fact that it was already zero degrees out, and you have an uncomfortable situation.

So, I trudged my rear end over to the corn crib, through the blistering wind. And thats what leads us to the first picture.

This is the beast itself. Around 100 years old, and still standing. At first glance, you might be thinking: "That doesn't looks safe to go inside of" Well, you're right, it's not. If you look at the very top, you can see the lightning rod, with the glass globe around it. That's the thing that was glowing that one night.
Also, notice the door that is on the front of the building. As you can see, it is split in half. One section is sitting in the middle of the opening, while the other is barely hanging off to the side.
That blackness up towards the top is the window that I saw those eyes in, and that I still see stuff moving around in.


Here is a side view of the corn crib. You see that large opening at the top? That is my destination. That is where the bad poo poo happens.


Well, guess it's time to move on to the next picture.

Here is the inside of the ground floor. As you can see it is very messy. It is full of crap like, old tires, boards, a metal grain bin, and a skid loader cage. The vertical Grey things you see are the elevators that tote the grain up top. In between those is where the ladder is located.


So, I cautiously made my way through the crap and to the ladder.
I tilted the camera up, so you can see what I have to climb. I notice that there is now a board above me, perched between two other boards. Upon closer inspection, I can see that it has been ripped from the wall at the top.


I made my way up the ladder to the top, and whipped out the camera to start taking pictures. No go. The brand new batteries were dead. That's when the swearing started. It's not easy or safe to get all the way up there, and it was loving cold and windy. So, I made my way back down, and spent a good half hour looking for new batteries. I ended up having to steal some from a flashlight.

I made my way back into the corn crib, and to the top of it.

The first picture from the top is of my trusty old 2x12 board that had a jumping fit while I was sitting on it.
As you can see, it is covered in snow, and is over the gap between the grain bins that I would talk about.
Also, while I am taking these pictures I am standing on a single ladder rung thats not too big as you will soon see.


Well, I plopped my rear end down on the 2x12, since it seemed sturdy as ever. I then snapped a picture of what was directly below me. I'd have to fall through all this poo poo if I slipped.


I peaked out of the window at the very top, and snapped a picture of the view outside. That red building is where I used to shoot the pigeons that polluted my farm. The top of that yard light pole you see, is about 35 feet at the peak. So you can sort of gauge how high up I am.


I swing over and take a picture of what I'm holding onto this entire time. The ladder just isn't really that big at all.


I look upward, and see the light poking through the ceiling of the corn crib. At this point, the very top is about 10 feet above me still. You could continue up the little ladder, but I wasn't going to do that. It's only nailed to the side of the rickety old elevator.


Speaking of the elevator, here it is. It is a simple design. Small metal buckets on each side of me. They operate with a belt and chain, that attaches to a wooden pulley. They have gotten quite rusty over the years though.


I muster all the testicular fortitude that I can, and grab a hold of a chain swinging in front of me. While holding onto I, I lean out over the first grain bin in hopes of taking a picture.
As you can see in the picture, the bottom is covered in snow, about 2 feet worth I would estimate.


I glance down and see something odd. To me it looks like a bunch of blood splattered onto the snow below me. What makes this strange, is there is no evidence of animals in the corn crib at all. No footprints, feces, or nesting. The splattered stuff in the picture is spread out over a 10 foot square area.


I glance over to the right, and notice something sticking out of the other grain bin. It's the dastardly ladder that smacked me in the face that horrible night. As you can see there isn't much to it. It's a bunch of old boards nailed to a couple of 2x4s. Here is what bugged me. The last time I was up here, it was sticking out of the other grain bin, the one with all the blood or whatever in it.


Upon further inspection of the grain bin with the ladder in it, I see some things. Also, take notice that I'm standing on that old 2x12 at this point. Not fun at all. Anyway, the shovel that is in the bottom was not there. I have been looking for that shovel for about a year now. How it got up there, I don't know. I also notice that the window is busted out and laying on the floor of the bin.
The last time i checked, the window was fine. There wasn't any glass missing out of it, and it was still mounted in the window up top.
The white round thing thats sitting next to the shovel is what caught my eye next. It's a skull of some kind. Probably from one of the animals that got thrashed up there. Now, do you see all that black chunks of whatever? That is the charred animal remains that I was talking about. Most are still hidden under the snow, but as you can see, there is still some visible.


Next I kind of hung over the side of an old plank, and took a picture of the holding area in the corn crib. Each side has these. They used to house entire ears of corn. Now they are used for storing old firewood, and other such things. You can see though, why I called it a jungle gym though. There is all sorts of stuff for a kid to hang from/play around on in it.


Before I left the corn crib, I made sure to walk over to the one end, and take a picture of what I call "The Den". This is in the upper part, and I won't go in there. I never have, and probably never will. Right when I got close to it, I heard creaking in there that wasn't caused by the wind. It sounded like something slowly pacing around.
I quickly snapped a picture.
You see that. It's really loving dark in there! The rest of the corn crib is always lit up on the inside, but not that space. It's been pitch black in there, for as long as I can remember.


Well, there you have it. That is the corn crib in all it's glory. This post more or less turned into a "rural exploration" but oh well. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them. I might even develop enough balls, to take some pictures in there at night.

But before I leave...

Fan Service.


--------


I'm still reading through the thread, I'll update as I find more.

DoubleNegative
Jan 27, 2010

The most virtuous child in the entire world.

Hazo posted:

Still no luck on dog centipede,

For what it's worth, the dogipede story is in the Goonbumps book one of the previous threads produced.

Actually, I can't believe Amazon is still selling these things.

Hazo
Dec 30, 2004

SCIENCE



The images for the Corn Crib story were stored on Waffleimages, not imageshack. Still can't figure out how to make them appear though.

SourceElement posted:

For what it's worth, the dogipede story is in the Goonbumps book one of the previous threads produced.

Actually, I can't believe Amazon is still selling these things.
Well there we go. If someone bought this book then they could just scan it.

edit: And HumperMonkey/50FAnt's stories are on sale for 12 bucks.

IshmaelZarkov
Jun 20, 2013

My personal ghost story is potentially one of the least ominous, uncreepy, not spoooooooooky things that has happened to anyone yet still falls under the category of ghost story. If I told this story by a camp fire with a torch under my chin, I would cure people of their fear of the dark.

Hold on to your hats.

I was working installing cable in hotels in a time before DSL was common (making me a hero to those who wanted grainy low budget pornography on demand) and having a lot of trouble with one room. No matter what I was doing, leading the cable to this one specific room was just a pain in the arse. The conduit was getting caught on poo poo whenever we were running it through the ceiling space. The new TV we installed refused to work, forcing us to try another, then another. I lost the crimps to attach the cable to the doohicky that plugs into the tv, even known I put them down right next to me. Even when we got past all of this, the reception was always lovely - even through a perfectly good cable - and was prone to dropouts. We shrugged, understanding that we'd get paid even if we didn't fix any problems, and moved on.

On the way out of the hotel that evening, one of the staff jokingly asked if we had any problems in that room. It had a reputation for being haunted after a salesman had killed himself in the room eighty years earlier and anyone trying to upgrade the room would find themselves having difficulty, as the spirit within preferred the room to stay as it was.

That was my only time dealing with something that could well have been paranormal. The only thought I had at the time wasn't a panicked "DEAR BABY JESUS GHOSTS ARE REAL!!!" but "Man, ghosts are loving arseholes."

CatStacking
Jan 9, 2010

~A Purely Preposterous Pussy~
They are. They really are.

Back when I was in highschool, I was stressing out pretty badly. Exams, lovely on again off again relationship, you know. Teen stuff. I was having a hard time sleeping and I think I probably nodded off around 2:30 or so in the morning. I was in a pretty deep sleep when all of a sudden I heard knocking. I didn't just hear it, I felt it.

My bedroom was on the upper level of the house and it's floors had some thick carpet. There was this loud, hollow thump thump thump which kinda shook the bed a bit, as it felt like somebody was knocking on the floor.

It woke me up but I sort of figured maybe something had fallen off of my dresser; I had some rocks my step grandpa painted for me, so it was probably one of those.

I couldn't see if it was, we live on a dark street and I was beyond exhausted. I rolled over and figured whatever, I'd pick it up in the morning.

Morning comes and there's nothing out of place, nothing on the floor, and grandpa Duern's painted rocks were still on my dresser collecting dust as always.

That's the sort of stuff I've experienced at that house. Definitely not as violent and creepy as the Harriet house but just kinda unnecessary and inconvenient. Thanks, ghost!

coronatae
Oct 14, 2012

Hazo posted:

The images for the Corn Crib story were stored on Waffleimages, not imageshack. Still can't figure out how to make them appear though.

I saved a copy of the It Is a Mystery compilation back before the download link was lost to the ages, which had all of Onic's pictures in pretty high quality. I'm re-posting all his comments about each picture as they were formatted in the pdf to give them a little more context.
---

So, I trudged my rear end over to the corn crib, through the blistering wind. And thats what leads us to the first picture.

This is the beast itself. Around 100 years old, and still standing. At first glance, you might be thinking: "That doesn't looks safe to go inside of" Well, you're right, it's not. If you look at the very top, you can see the lightning rod, with the glass globe around it. That's the thing that was glowing that one night.
Also, notice the door that is on the front of the building. As you can see, it is split in half. One section is sitting in the middle of the opening, while the other is barely hanging off to the side.
That blackness up towards the top is the window that I saw those eyes in, and that I still see stuff moving around in.

Here is a side view of the corn crib. You see that large opening at the top? That is my destination. That is where the bad poo poo happens.



Well, guess it's time to move on to the next picture.

Here is the inside of the ground floor. As you can see it is very messy. It is full of crap like, old tires, boards, a metal grain bin, and a skid loader cage. The vertical Grey things you see are the elevators that tote the grain up top. In between those is where the ladder is located.



So, I cautiously made my way through the crap and to the ladder.
I tilted the camera up, so you can see what I have to climb. I notice that there is now a board above me, perched between two other boards. Upon closer inspection, I can see that it has been ripped from the wall at the top.



I made my way up the ladder to the top, and whipped out the camera to start taking pictures. No go. The brand new batteries were dead. That's when the swearing started. It's not easy or safe to get all the way up there, and it was loving cold and windy. So, I made my way back down, and spent a good half hour looking for new batteries. I ended up having to steal some from a flashlight.

I made my way back into the corn crib, and to the top of it.

The first picture from the top is of my trusty old 2x12 board that had a jumping fit while I was sitting on it. As you can see, it is covered in snow, and is over the gap between the grain bins that I would talk about. Also, while I am taking these pictures I am standing on a single ladder rung that's not too big as you will soon see.



Well, I plopped my rear end down on the 2x12, since it seemed sturdy as ever. I then snapped a picture of what was directly below me. I'd have to fall through all this poo poo if I slipped.



I peeked out of the window at the very top, and snapped a picture of the view outside. That red building is where I used to shoot the pigeons that polluted my farm. The top of that yard light pole you see, is about 35 feet at the peak. So you can sort of gauge how high up I am.



I swing over and take a picture of what I'm holding onto this entire time. The ladder just isn't really that big at all.



I look upward, and see the light poking through the ceiling of the corn crib. At this point, the very top is about 10 feet above me still. You could continue up the little ladder, but I wasn't going to do that. It's only nailed to the side of the rickety old elevator.



Speaking of the elevator, here it is. It is a simple design. Small metal buckets on each side of me. They operate with a belt and chain, that attaches to a wooden pulley. They have gotten quite rusty over the years though.



I muster all the testicular fortitude that I can, and grab a hold of a chain swinging in front of me. While holding onto it, I lean out over the first grain bin in hopes of taking a picture.

As you can see in the picture, the bottom is covered in snow, about 2 feet worth I would estimate.



I glance down and see something odd. To me it looks like a bunch of blood splattered onto the snow below me. What makes this strange, is there is no evidence of animals in the corn crib at all. No footprints, feces, or nesting. The splattered stuff in the picture is spread out over a 10 foot square area.



I glance over to the right, and notice something sticking out of the other grain bin. It's the dastardly ladder that smacked me in the face that horrible night. As you can see there isn't much to it. It's a bunch of old boards nailed to a couple of 2x4s. Here is what bugged me. The last time I was up here, it was sticking out of the other grain bin, the one with all the blood or whatever in it.



Upon further inspection of the grain bin with the ladder in it, I see some things. Also, take notice that I'm standing on that old 2x12 at this point. Not fun at all. Anyway, the shovel that is in the bottom was not there. I have been looking for that shovel for about a year now. How it got up there, I don't know. I also notice that the window is busted out and laying on the floor of the bin. The last time i checked, the window was fine. There wasn't any glass missing out of it, and it was still mounted in the window up top.

The white round thing that's sitting next to the shovel is what caught my eye next. It's a skull of some kind. Probably from one of the animals that got thrashed up there. Now, do you see all that black chunks of whatever? That is the charred animal remains that I was talking about. Most are still hidden under the snow, but as you can see, there is still some visible.



Next I kind of hung over the side of an old plank, and took a picture of the holding area in the corn crib. Each side has these. They used to house entire ears of corn. Now they are used for storing old firewood, and other such things. You can see though, why I called it a jungle gym though. There is all sorts of stuff for a kid to hang from/play around on in it.



Before I left the corn crib, I made sure to walk over to the one end, and take a picture of what I call "The Den". This is in the upper part, and I won't go in there. I never have, and probably never will. Right when I got close to it, I heard creaking in there that wasn't caused by the wind. It sounded like something slowly pacing around. I quickly snapped a picture.

You see that. It's really loving dark in there! The rest of the corn crib is always lit up on the inside, but not that space. It's been pitch black in there, for as long as I can remember.



Well, there you have it. That is the corn crib in all it's glory. This post more or less turned into a "rural exploration" but oh well. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them. I might even develop enough balls, to take some pictures in there at night.

But before I leave...

Fan Service.

Missing Name
Jan 5, 2013


coronatae posted:

corn crib, complete with images

loving thank you.

Hazo
Dec 30, 2004

SCIENCE



Nice! Thanks for uploading those, I've been trying to find them for ages. One other thing:

coronatae posted:

It Is a Mystery compilation
What is this and can you upload it somewhere?

coronatae
Oct 14, 2012

Sure thing! It's a massive pdf of goon ghost stories from '04-'05 and '11. I think NoodleIncident is the one who originally made this file but I don't remember clearly. Anyways here is a dropbox link!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ewg1vr4xl8i7l6/It%20Is%20A%20Mystery.pdf

I highly recommend another Onic story, "Camp Hell."

FluxFaun
Apr 7, 2010


Hazo posted:

Nice! Thanks for uploading those, I've been trying to find them for ages. One other thing:
What is this and can you upload it somewhere?

Seconding. Would love to read though it and scare myself shitless all night.

E;FB. Thank you!

deadwing
Mar 5, 2007

coronatae posted:

Sure thing! It's a massive pdf of goon ghost stories from '04-'05 and '11. I think NoodleIncident is the one who originally made this file but I don't remember clearly. Anyways here is a dropbox link!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ewg1vr4xl8i7l6/It%20Is%20A%20Mystery.pdf

I highly recommend another Onic story, "Camp Hell."

Oh god I had forgotten about the Tar Lady story :gonk:

scopes
Jun 5, 2004

coronatae posted:

Sure thing! It's a massive pdf of goon ghost stories from '04-'05 and '11. I think NoodleIncident is the one who originally made this file but I don't remember clearly. Anyways here is a dropbox link!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ewg1vr4xl8i7l6/It%20Is%20A%20Mystery.pdf

I highly recommend another Onic story, "Camp Hell."

This is great, thanks. Can't believe how many of these I remember reading.

From Camp Hell:

quote:

I couldn't take a dump no matter how hard I tried. It wasn't constipation, I just didn't have to go. It was weird. I'm just letting you guys know I was having trouble pooping.

Mister Bung
Jun 7, 2004

What about the children foo'?
Tewbrainer is back! Keep the Gaelic stuff coming, I really love those stories!

Last Chance
Dec 31, 2004

Glad I found this thread again!

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Onic
Mar 11, 2006

coronatae posted:

Old pictures of my farm.

Hahahhahaha wow, I'm glad someone saved all these old pictures of my corn-crib before waffleimages died. Thanks a bunch.

I'm still kicking around and am going to pound out some new stories soon, so stick around the thread if you're interested in new content from me within the week.

  • Locked thread