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Fir Fanacht The Waiting Men A young man stepped in from a warm, drenching spring rain. He was all raincoat and slick cloth, and his nervous face relaxed as my father comforted him that he should pay no mind to the mud he tracked in. It was the type of spring that crept in through the baseboards as worms tried to escape the water, the type of spring that rots bread, the type of spring that makes one wish for the dry heat of summer. But, it is not all bad, for this was the first Spring that Toye Toole’s began importing Duncaster stone bottled beer that has been cooled in the creek behind the bar. Oh, the head on it! The young man showed himself to be quite fit and olive skinned - the mark of a farmer, or perhaps a farmers son. He had the air of a joker about him, saying a joke about the rain. We had heard all the jokes about the rain - for many farmers had come visiting and asking my father if he could do anything to make the rain stop. Too much rain is not a joke to wheat farmers. It was with a certain caution that my father asked what he would be able to help the young man with - no man can stop the rain, no human can interfere with the court of lady Anu and Llyr. [A reference to when the earth god Anu asked the water/sea god Llyr for rain because she was thirsty - Llyr lusted for her, and made it rain in torrents in an attempt to wash her into the sea]. “Dillon Lynn is my name, sir, and I come on behalf of my father. He is...ill, sir, in the head - my brothers and I think. But it comforted him when I said I would bring you to him. You will come, won’t you?” asked the young man. “I can hardly agree blindly! What is the matter with Master Lynn?” Asked my father. “He is ill sir, and my brothers and I believe he would get better if...well, if he would sleep. He sleeps in stints during the day, but stays awake at night under...under the stairs, sir. With a candle.” “Surely he has a reason for this?” pressed my father. “He thinks...I wish you’d ask him directly? No? He believes that there are people outside of our house at night, sir. The first time it happened (almost 3 weeks ago) he gave me such a start that I ran out with my brothers - all of us armed with rods. But we didn’t see a soul, sir. And after that, it was almost every night. This week was the first that he took to sleeping under the stairs, he says that ‘they will find a way in the house, mark my words Dill!’” Dillon was clearly upset by the story, as he was embarrassed to explain his father’s behavior to us. My father did not flinch though, or laugh, or smile. “I see. We’ll come, if we can find a cart that isn’t half sunk in mud - eh?” Said my father. I cannot abide rain jokes. *** We arrived at sundown - the red Irish sun somehow finding the one hole in the clouds, nearly a palms width above the ground, to shine in a red blaze across the tips of a modest estate of barley flags which were hanging limp under the weight of rain. The house itself was not of particular build - from the outside it looked like a simple 2 story cottage. Its one characteristic was a single great window - nearly a man’s height and wide - that overlooked the front lawn which was a mix of brilliant green moss and mud. It stood alone atop a hill, surrounded by the barley. In this large window stood a man, he was built like a tree and had a stiff, well shaved beard. As we climbed out of the cart he stood in the doorway to meet us. I noticed that he did not cross the threshold of the door. As we got closer, his face resolved into a mass of smiling wrinkles that had been stretched by worry. “Master Lynn, I presume?” Said my father. “One in the same. Lia?” He asked in a booming voice - surely there was the blood of the north Irish hill in him. “I am he. I am also hungry - I have brought some salted ham, if you would enjoy some?” Said my father. “Ah! My youngest has a stew going, it will go together fine.” Such is the talk of the Irish country. During the dinner, our host continually kept glancing at the wall behind him. I took it as a nervous tendency, but my father seemed to take note of it. “Sons, would you leave Lia and I?” Asked Lynn. And now, in hushed tones, “Lia - you cannot help. You should not have come. I see that now. They are too many in number now.. They…” He paused and looked at the wall. I now noticed that there had been a deep groove carved into it - a groove that the sunlight cast through the window was approaching. “They are waiting for something.” My father had begun tapping his pipe, “And this is the first time you have seen them?” “Yes. No. Not truly - when I was a young boy, my, nearly 60 years ago - I once woke up screaming that there were men outside my window. I don’t remember the event, but my mother always joked about it.” “Hmm. Yes, surely just the imagination of a child.” “But this is not my imagination!” Said Lynn, hitting his hands upon the table - causing the forks to jump. “I would not be here if I thought that.” Said my father, as he struck his match and lit his pipe. Lynn cast another nervous glance at the wall. “I’ll be going now, to hide.” He whispered. “Hide like a coward. What would Aileen think of me. She was the stronger of the two of us, you know.” “That's often the case.” Said my father in a comforting tone. Lynn retired back into the house, presumably under his stairs. My father sat on a large seat in the living room, and had me open up the pack that I have carried all these years. He rummaged through it, and emerged from it a tiny brass mirror. He sat it on his knee, and began smoking in earnest. *** For nearly two hours we waited. My father, who seemingly had no concept of time beyond when he needed a new bowl of tobacco, sat calmly.The little brass mirror lay on his knee, and he stared at it. I reclined beside him and watched out the window for any sign of movement. “Hmm.” He said. He threw the mirror to me, “Turn your back to the window, and look at the reflection. Do not be afraid.” I did as he said, and I was afraid. Yellowed by the reflecting of the brass was the image of several men standing in the dark - very, very close to the window. Their faces were thin and fallen, but their eyes were acute and seemed to look directly back at me. With a single movement, they vanished. My father was standing by me now, and took the brass out of my shaking hands. “They cannot be long dead. They still cling to life.” He walked from window to window now, pausing for a moment at each and peering in the reflection before moving on. “Although I’ve never seen so many. They will not be fooled by the mirror much longer, but we have seen what we need.” “What do we do?” I asked. My father handed the brass back to me - I was careful not to look into it. “They are held at bay by the guard of a cared-for house - Master Lynn does not lie about the strength of his wife. A man’s arm keeps away the burglars, a mother’s arm - so much more.” He sat again, in thought. “I do not think they will go away though.” Said my father sullenly. “When a spirit desires your death, there is very little we can do. They will follow you to the ends of the earth. They are a disease that cannot be cured.” “Then I will go to them.” Said a deep whisper from behind us. “I will hide no longer.” Lynn had emerged from the hall, scaring both my father and I. “I do not recommend it.” Started my father. But Lynn was already at the door, he swung it open and ran outside. Immediately he began to scream, and fell to his knees - barely two feet from the door, and still on the stone porch. The commotion was enough to bring his sons running. “Do not go to him! Do not go, if you value your life!” Shouted my father, but the boys did not listen. They went and tried to pull their father back. They struggled against a great weight - surely more than the weight of their father. In a moment of fright, and perhaps curiosity, I turned and glanced at the the little mirror. Within it I saw only terror - many hands seemed to be pulling at the father and his boys. Everywhere there was a twisting movement of bodies - they weaved and slithered between the son’s legs. Then - one’s eyes caught mine in the mirror. It was the look of a dog eating a fresh kill, looking only to see if you are competition. The scream trailed, and was covered now by the grunts of the boys and a sound of slipping mud. “Enough! Ardaionn a ghrian! [The sun rises!]” Shouted my father, from his soul as he has tried to teach me. The spirits in the brass seemed to vanish like candles before a storm - but only long enough for the boys to fall in with their father, a tide of eyes and teeth flowing at their ankles. My father slammed the door. They were, all of them, covered in mud. The youngest son began to vomit, and the oldest clutched at his fathers wrist and neck. “He’s dead! He’s dead!” *** We returned home the next morning in a dark mood. I have thrown the brass mirror away into the mud, and I am determined to destroy every object of sheen in our house when we return. My father is in an ill mood, and believes that he could have saved the late Master Lynn. When I ask how, he is silent. The oldest son has said he will arrange a funeral. My father said the body should be burned, but the son said he will be buried. *** It is four days later, the rain has stopped. My father and I are at the pub, he is drinking beer. His spirits have improved. I am still very much affected though - everywhere I look for the terrible wisps. The decorated glasses on the bar make it particularly hard to make sure that all the reflections are those of flesh. Tewbrainer has a new favorite as of 03:56 on Jul 24, 2014 |
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Jul 23, 2014 04:12
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cowboythreespeech posted:God drat you. Thanks  Khazar-khum posted:Seconding Goonbumps. My cousin and I actually tried to look that up in the city records a week after our library visit, but there was no record of the name change. We spent the next month or so after the library trying to make heads or tails of everything we had seen and found out, and we had a couple of theories about the road name changing: 1. The fire at the Hinckley house was a chemical fire, and alcohols and some metal salts are known to produce a blue flame. The name may have changed after the house fire. 2. Perhaps the new road name is a reference to that weird light box. We don't know exactly when the name changed, but I'd strongly suspect it was after the house fire. No idea why it was proposed or what the neighbors thought about it. While driving down that road again just a couple of weeks ago, I got the strong feeling that there aren't too many residents, even if there are houses. David Hinckley may have never had very many neighbors out there. Now that I think about it, I guess it's also possible that Hinckley himself changed the sign after the accident...aren't there some websites where you can order street signs? InediblePenguin posted:don't you have to do rabies testing post-mortem because the way you do it is by testing brain tissue I just looked it up, and you're right. I guess I misremembered the newspaper article. Revisiting these high school memories has actually caused some things to shake loose, and I realized today that I've got a few more creepy stories to tell about this town, though they didn't happen to me. I'll type them up for you guys when I have some time.
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Jul 23, 2014 04:13
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It's a Tewbrainer story! ...it's a drat good Tewbrainer story. Thanks!
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Jul 23, 2014 04:19
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Man, we've seen some good new sppok stories up here. I was kinda skeptical to be honest, but hey, thanks everyone who's posted!
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Jul 23, 2014 15:18
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Tewbrainer posted:Fir Fanacht Really wonderful story, just two little typos there. Great stuff!!
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Jul 24, 2014 03:14
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JohnnyCanuck posted:It's a Tewbrainer story! SlothBear posted:Really wonderful story, just two little typos there. Great stuff!!
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Jul 24, 2014 03:59
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Tewbrainer posted:Glad you enjoyed it! Tewbrainer, I love these stories. Ever thought about collecting them into a book?
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Jul 25, 2014 08:25
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Your Sledgehammer posted:Revisiting these high school memories has actually caused some things to shake loose, and I realized today that I've got a few more creepy stories to tell about this town, though they didn't happen to me. I'll type them up for you guys when I have some time. Hell yes- that is some quality freakiness you've posted so far.
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Jul 28, 2014 01:52
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As halloween gets just a bit closer, I really hope this thread becomes more active. Though I don't have any stories of my own, I'm curious as to if there have ever been any good stories from threads in the past regionally focused in or around Philadelphia.
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Aug 10, 2014 19:50
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Ask and ye shall receive! (Though this isn't about Philadelphia, SylvainMustach  ) Sorry this took so long folks, I figured I’d probably better do some research downtown in regard to the place I’m writing about, so it took a little longer than expected. This one is pretty long and I had originally intended it to be three posts, but since I already wrote them all up anyway (and since I kept you guys waiting), here’s the whole thing.A Bad Patch Reading the various incarnations of this thread, what is most striking to me is how pain, tragedy, and terror can become inevitably bound up with places. Sometimes a piece of land is just rotten, for whatever reason. Sometimes the way a place feels can tell you far more than the facts can. In this highly technical, scientific day and age, we’re all apt to be skeptical of such claims (for good reason), but you ask the old-timers in your life about those kinds of places (every town has one), and they’ll give you a weary grin. It’s a Bad Patch, they’ll say. A bad patch of land, stay away from there. Bad things happen to people there. In my town, there’s an old, dilapidated mansion of sorts that has developed a pretty startling reputation. Every five-year-old hides their eyes when their parents drive past it (I certainly did). Take a poll at the local high schools, and every third kid will have a story about how they totally broke in there with their buddies and saw a ghost. All the locals know about the old haunted house out on 56. It’s called the Woodmen Circle Home. Built in 1928, the home was funded by an auxiliary group connected to the Woodmen of the World Fraternal Organization in order to house widows and orphans. With the Great Depression just around the corner, the timing couldn’t have been better. Apparently, it was a pretty majestic place back in the day:   And here’s how it looks today:     The last one is obviously filtered, but it gives you a pretty good idea of how the place feels. I got all these from a quick Google search, and you can find all sorts of interesting stuff. The local news stations did a story during an open house type thing a few years back, and it looks like some foolhardy Urbex types have explored the building and uploaded the results to Youtube. Poke around enough, and you’re also sure to find some investigations by amateur ghost hunters. Urban legends abound. The restless spirits of former residents haunt the grounds. It was still in service when it caught fire, killing everyone inside. In the 80s cults used it to conduct rituals. I’ve heard all sorts of stories about it. Now, all the Serious Adults in town know those are just stories, and are quick to tell you so when questioned. The facts about the place don’t really match the unsettling images. The doors were shuttered long before it caught fire in the 70s. Whispers about cult activity are almost certainly the result of an occasional drug user who uses the place to shoot up. Teens have vandalized and graffitied the place all to hell over the last few decades, so of course it looks bad. And yet… …And yet… …If you dig up the historical documents related to its founding and try to follow the money trail, you won’t come up with any answers… …The orphanage records show a bizarre string of accidents involving children in the 30s. A few kids even died. One kid fell over the banister on the second floor and landed on his head, and the kids who saw it swore up and down he was pushed, though not by a person... …When it caught fire in the 70s, an article in one of the local papers had a curious little fact buried in the middle of a lengthy paragraph; a local Catholic priest was questioned about possible arson but was cleared on all counts... …When police responded to a reported disturbance at the building in the mid-80s, they arrived to find a goat skull in the main entryway and pig’s blood smeared everywhere... If you dig deep enough in the Internet results, you’ll get the unmistakable sense that the place has a dark underbelly. Buried in some Youtube comments on one of the Urbex videos, another guy who broke into the building claims that a huge orange tabby with unusually intelligent eyes appeared the moment he entered the building, and followed him everywhere until he finally left. And what you’ll read lots about, if you care to, are bad feelings. Over and over again, bad feelings. “Decided to check the place out, got some seriously weird vibes, got the hell out” is a common refrain. When I was a teenager, nearly everyone at school claimed to have gone inside or knew someone who did. The neighbors are known to keep a close eye on the place to prevent kids from getting in and vandalizing it further, so deep down, I think all of us realized that the stories about sneaking onto the property at night were bullshit. Macho stuff to impress girls, nothing more. However, that meant that Woodmen Circle Home would come up as a topic of conversation every Halloween. And at that Halloween party in 2004, it didn’t take long once everyone started telling their stories of ghosts and hauntings. As my cousin and I sat in silence with thoughts of the weird stuff we’d come across on a road out behind the mall, a few people told their stories about breaking into the haunted house out on old 56. The group laughed and the girls screamed at all the right points, but when Blake started telling his story about Woodmen Circle Home, everybody got quiet. Not Welcome Let me tell you a little bit about my friend Blake. He was one of those teenagers who just struck you as being a little bit older and wiser. It certainly didn’t hurt that he looked to be in his twenties; in fact, he was occasionally able to score alcohol for parties. It was more than that, though…he just seemed to be more aware, is the best way I can describe it. He was easily one of the most popular guys in school, and the only person I knew who could shift between all the cliques without damaging his reputation in any of them. Everyone liked him, and for good reason. He was quick with a joke, and he always made sure that you were in on it. He talked to everyone, and never seemed to have anything negative to say about others. More than anything, though, I think kids respected him. He marched to the beat of his own drummer, and you’d catch him staring off into the distance frequently. He was somewhat of a trendsetter, and if Blake thought something was cool, then everyone thought it was cool (imagine the relief among nerds like me when Blake went through a serious gaming phase!). When he was being serious, he didn’t joke around, and everyone knew he wasn’t a bullshitter like most of us were. Which is why it got so serious at that party when he started talking about the time he went into Woodmen Circle Home. He was the kind of guy – probably the only one at school – who would actually set foot on that property because he was genuinely curious. It had happened on a Wednesday night, just a week or so before the party. Blake had heard the rumors about the place and didn’t believe them, and he wanted to double-check his own intuition about it. He was sure that the creepiest thing he’d find would be offensive graffiti or maybe a used needle or two. It was past 11 when he rolled up, and he planned his entrance carefully. He parked on an adjacent street in a neighborhood, and then climbed over the fence at the back of the property. He was sure if he’d tried to get onto the property from the highway side, he’d be spotted and asked to leave. As soon as his feet touched the ground on the other side, he got a strong premonition that he should leave. He felt it had more to do with possibly getting caught than anything he’d find in the building, though, so he went inside anyway. After all, he’d taken all the necessary precautions when sneaking onto the property. It was a mess inside, he told us. Half destroyed staircases, graffiti everywhere, crumbling bricks. As he went down a hallway, his light illuminated a bit of graffiti that said “YOU ARE NOT WELCOME” in letters that bled and trailed downwards. All just dumb teenage stuff, he told us. In another room, he saw some needles and spoons. His beliefs about the building confirmed, he was making his way back to the front of the building when he spotted a staircase he’d missed earlier. This one was intact, and lead downwards to a level below the ground floor. At the front of the stairwell was a large wall painting of Raggedy Ann and Andy, a little bit of history from the orphanage days. The years had not been kind to them; the paintings were faded and the faces were gone save the eyes. He shined his light down the staircase and saw some more child-oriented paintings in the room below. Maybe a playroom or something, he thought as he walked down the stairs to check it out. He was right. Cubby holes adorned one wall, and there were a few chests where toys were inevitably put away still intact on the floor, though dusty and devoid of any toys. The only really curious thing was that the room lacked windows and seemed to be underground, so he figured maybe it was a room meant for rainy days. And then he shined his light in the far corner. A solid pool of candle wax was all over the floor, and all the old burned out candles that rested above had melted together. There were nearly a hundred of them, stacked halfway up the wall. In the center of it all were various animal skulls. It was a shrine, and not at all a happy kind. In front of it, a pentagram was marked in the floor, with candles at each point. In the center of the pentagram, the floor was stained a deep red, and he thought he could make out some hair strewn about. His heart leaped up in his throat and he did that thing we all do when we’re afraid – he strained his ears to see if he could catch any hint that he wasn’t alone. And at the absolute edge of his hearing, he thought he could hear a baby crying. He said he just stood frozen for a second, and sort of braced himself, as if he were about to be beset on all sides. When the initial shock wore off, he took a deep breath and did his best to gather himself so he could make his way back out. He turned around. I’ll try to match his description here as best I can. He said that when he turned and the flashlight shone across the opposite wall (the one with the happy paintings), he just got a feeling of wrongness. He froze. His senses were trying to tell him something, and he knew he was in trouble. He finally noticed the problem. The circle of his flashlight was not a circle anymore. The leftmost edge of the light on the wall was misshapen. There was more shadow than there should have been, he said. And as he stood there looking, the left edge of shadow shifted – took a step, I remember him telling us. As it moved, he could sense an outline of arms and legs. The man-shaped shadow moved away from the flashlight beam, and down the dark part of the wall, and suddenly the beam of light on the wall was a circle again. He ran. He was so desperate to get out that he banged himself up pretty good and dropped his flashlight trying to get up the stairs, and the only thing guiding him to the outside was the moonlight pouring in through the door he left open out in the main entryway. He ran as hard as he could, peeled out getting down the neighborhood street, and wasn’t able to sleep at all when he finally got home. Storytime was over after that, and the mood of the party changed. We all left soon after, and I tried to put Blake’s story behind me. Unfortunately for Blake, he wouldn’t have a chance to put his story behind him. Something had followed him home. Hey Mister Weeks passed. Halloween came and went. Before we all knew it, it was Thanksgiving, and my family was delighted that the Cowboys didn’t embarrass us on national TV. When everyone returned to school, it was abundantly clear that Senioritis was setting in. I think that’s why I didn’t notice the change in Blake at first. Blake was among those of us who’d done early college applications and had already received an acceptance letter, so it was only natural that he wouldn’t care much about his grades anymore. He was failing assignments that he’d routinely make 100s on before. However, it was in that short week before Christmas Break that I realized that he looked really tired, and he wasn’t talking to people much anymore. I asked him about it at lunch one day. He stared blearily at me, then hesitated and averted his gaze, and when he finally looked back at me, I could swear he was about to cry. “You can’t tell anyone,” he told me. I shook my head in an affirmation and tried to look encouraging, and it was only when I suggested that we move away lest someone should hear that he finally felt comfortable enough to unload whatever was on his mind. It had all started night before last, he said. He was in his bed with his eyes closed, and he found himself in that strange territory that we all know as the edge of sleep. He’d heard a child giggle and thought he was dreaming. He heard it again, louder this time, and opened his eyes. “Hey!” a child’s voice said. It was coming from the closet. “Hey mister, whatcha doin in my room?” it said as it rapped on the closet door. Blake was sleep-addled and was convinced he was hallucinating at this point. He peered around his room, and everything was in place. The child behind his closet door continued to plead with him. Woodmen Circle Home was the furthest thing from his mind as he got up to open the closet door. Turning on the closet light and poking around in there would surely allow him to convince himself that he was just hearing things. He opened the door, and immediately felt a child’s hand tug at his leg. He looked down. He found himself staring right into two black holes. They weren’t exactly empty eye sockets, he told me. It was like they had a gravity to them, like they’d suck you in. Surrounding them was the child’s face. As he recoiled in horror, the kid opened its mouth. “Hey mister!” it exclaimed. He slammed the closet door closed and wretched. The room fell silent. Ticking clocks and the occasional groan as the fridge kicked on in the kitchen. Blake stood there breathing slowly and deeply. Ten minutes passed before he dared to open the closet door again, but he found exactly what he expected. Nothing. He lay back down in bed and tried to calm himself. After an hour, he was finally able to convince himself that it hadn’t happened. He knew about sleep paralysis and all that, it was probably just some weird variation he’d experienced. Maybe he’d even been asleep the whole time. He drifted off to sleep. Sleep paralysis or no, the next night, he was prepared. “I’m not a superstitious guy,” he told me. Nevertheless, he’d crushed up a few cloves of garlic and spread them at the feet of the closet door. He’d also dug a crucifix necklace he used to wear when he was eight out of his dresser drawer and put that around his neck. With the light on in his room and closet, he’d poured over every last nook and cranny to make sure everything was where it should be. When he was finally satisfied, the clock had already slunk past midnight, and he turned his lights off to go to bed. The kid didn’t wait until he was almost asleep this time. As soon as his light was off and his head hit the pillow, he heard a giggle. “C’mon mister, why won’t you play with me?” it pleaded. It knocked on the closet door. Maybe if I just don’t acknowledge it, it’ll go away, Blake thought. He was long past believing that he was merely hallucinating. After five minutes of knocking and pleading, he heard the sound that he dreaded, that sound that we all dread as children trying to go to sleep. The doorknob on the closet slowly turned. The door opened, and there the child stood with its inky midnight eyes. Blake froze up and braced himself for all the bad things he imagined would come next. The child giggled, and that’s when Blake actually dared to take a closer look at its eyes. The blackness was running down its cheeks like teardrops. Blake didn’t dare to move or even breathe. The features on the child’s face contorted in pain and fear. “Where are you taking me, mister?” it whined. Blake didn’t dare close his eyes for fear of what might happen if he did. He was forced to watch in horror as the black teardrops grew and took over the child’s body. As they did, the child grew in stature, until Blake realized he was staring at that same man-shaped shadow he’d seen at Woodmen Circle Home. It took a step to the side and slowly sank into the wall. Not like a shadow on the wall, he told me. It actually became part of the wall, melted into it. Once it had melded itself with the wall, it began slowly but steadily walking through the wall, making its way around the room towards Blake’s headboard. Icy fear finally jolted Blake into action. He leapt up from the bed and bolted out of his room. When his parents woke up the next morning, they found him asleep on the couch. On his way out the door, he’d apparently set the lock inside his room and then closed the door. They had to pry open his window so that he could get back in there and unlock it. He told me he must have blacked out, because he didn’t really remember anything past jumping up from his bed. He’d given his parents some shoddy excuse for his behavior and then rushed off to school. “I don’t know what I’m going to do tonight,” he told me as he put his head in his hands. I did my best to console him. The bell rang and everyone started to head back to class. I walked with him the whole way throwing out suggestions. He obviously shouldn’t sleep in his room, and he should probably tell his parents and see if they could help. He agreed that those were all good ideas, and by then we’d reached his classroom. I was in a different class down the hall. I told him good luck and waved goodbye. We didn’t have any of the same classes the next day, and I never bumped into him in the hallway. After that it was Christmas Break, and I’d all but forgotten about Blake’s troubles when classes resumed two weeks later. That is, until none of us could find Blake. He wasn’t in any of his classes. He didn’t return phone calls, texts, or emails. Everyone was confused and worried. Three days later, we finally learned from teachers that his family had moved away. Apparently his dad was promoted to the corporate home office. “At Christmastime?” we asked. The teachers just shrugged their shoulders. Here’s the thing about Woodmen Circle Home: people think the neighbors keep teenagers away in order to keep the building from being further defaced, but I know the real reason is in order to protect kids from what is inside. Your Sledgehammer has a new favorite as of 05:46 on Aug 11, 2014 |
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Aug 11, 2014 05:20
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SylvainMustach posted:As halloween gets just a bit closer, I really hope this thread becomes more active. http://philadelphiaghosts.org/
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Aug 12, 2014 07:47
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The GBS ghost threads are seriously one of my favourite places on the internet, for years and years now. Keep em coming! Tewbrainer, Onic - got any more?
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Aug 13, 2014 17:44
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Are you from Sherman or Denison TX? I had "GhostHunters" from Dallas come up and check out woodmen's circle,we hopped the nonexistent fence and they taped poo poo and were "gently caress this it sucks", we had better poltergeists in our house as poltergeists. Although, I knew a chick who said she went "home from work and there was all these civil war people" in costumes or something to explain the garb, and they were "everywhere, good god, civil war poo poo was everywhere" to quote her, without the movie getup. She assumed there was a war, like in the civil war ages, that they were aping. And it was all in good fun.
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Aug 15, 2014 23:50
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Just caught up on the last couple pages and there are some seriously good stories being told right now. Shame the thread doesn't get the same kind of traffic it got before, but glad to see there's still some good poo poo being told
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Aug 18, 2014 04:59
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Watching I've been a member of these forums a long time and I've seen prominent posters come and go. Some of them I interacted with, some of them I didn't, but the ones that interested me I watched fairly intently either way. Sometimes it was for the schadenfreude; there is nothing quite the same as a rising star burning out and crashing. Maybe that is what started getting me attention I did not want. Perhaps it was bad luck but I apologize, I am getting ahead of myself. I have this memory, though I forget exactly when it happened. Perhaps this last summer, or the one before that. A bit of background, for that one. I have been attending college for a while and am unemployed. My summers are mostly reading whatever strikes me which, more often than I would admit in polite company, seems to be the forums. They are entertaining and I do learn something from time to time. Other than that it's books on math and science. I'm a huge nerd, I'll admit it, and we are watching the world more than I interact with it. Some people are just like that. I wonder, however, if it is the isolation that brought them to me. See, I can't tell you exactly when this happened, or even if it did, if that makes sense. The memories are foggy, like a bad dream. Sometimes I wonder if this is why people hate being alone, because of what comes to keep you company, but again, I am getting ahead of myself. It started when I decided to finally get my own place, closer to the school, instead of renting a spare room. It was a typical summer where I had no classes and no job, just living off of extra grant or loan money. Being dirt poor has a few perks. Anyway, I was on a stretch where I did little but read the forums for a few days in a row. Stop to eat, shower, or poo poo, then go back to reading and occasionally posting. I didn't think much of it at the time but I noticed a strange pattern where posts would frequently have parts of my forums name early on and the phrase "we are watching," sometimes out of context. I thought little of it the first few times it happened but when I saw it several times in an evening on the last day of that stretch I was freaked out just enough to log off the forums and not come back for a week. I chalked it up to coincidence, really, and came back. I didn't see it again for a few days after that, though I wasn't closely watching. Then, while reading a politics thread, I tried to quote a post that fit that pattern. I thought little of it until I clicked quote. It attributed the post to me and only said "we are watching." The last thing I remember of that day was driving directly to the nearest bar, drinking cheap beer until I could barely stand, then staggering home and passing out on my couch. I got a parking ticket out of it too, though that I just ignored until the day before it would have been due. I had largely forgotten about the evening before, apparently successfully drinking away a memory. Which was odd, as alcohol never really affected my memory at all. I browsed the forums for a bit while I had my breakfast and coffee, as I typically do. It took about half an hour before I noticed that I had a private message but when I went into the private message screen all it said was that it was from the user "We Are Watching." There was no tag and there was no message title. I stared at it long enough for my cereal to get soggy. I closed the window and tried to forget about it but when I found another pattern message while we were watching another thread I went back to my private messages. It was gone. I searched for the user We Are Watching but no such user existed. Searching for posts containing the phrase just led to a lot of otherwise normal posts. None of them actually fit the pattern. Now I was confused; I was a little scared. That was weird. No way that was coincidence or a prank. I started to search for it, any clue I could find. Not like I had much better to do. The semester was weeks and weeks away. Well, I did have better things to do than post on a forum, but this just seemed to insane to ignore. I started to look specifically for the posts. I scrolled through thread after thread after thread but got no hooks. After a while, I poured a glass of wine, read a programming book for a few hours, then came back to the forums. When I logged in there was only one forum; it was titled We Are Watching. Out loud I said "Who are you?" Then another forum appeared. It was titled We Know. I closed the window in a panic and rushed out, almost knocking the wine over. I was a bit buzzed by that point after hours of sipping and reading but drove off anyway. That was just too weird to confront. I drove off into the night, not coming back home for...I think at least 36 hours. About two days, I think, though I left some time in the night and didn't bother looking at a clock. Either way, trying to live on nothing but fast food is bad for the college student's wallet and worse on the college student's stomach. I also felt disgusting and wanted to shower. After an hour of hot water, scrubbing, and fresh clothes I sat down to notice that I hadn't actually closed the forums but now they looked normal. I had gotten a private message during that time. I was terrified to check but it turned out it was just from a real world friend who is also a member. Apparently he had tried to call me but I never grabbed my phone, which was still attached to the charger when I got back. Sometimes I forget my phone because, to be honest, I hate the drat thing. Anyway, I still have the message; it says "Hey man, we were drinking on my balcony when we watched you drive past like you saw a ghost. I tried to call you but you didn't answer. You cool?" I didn't say much in reply, just that it was personal and I didn't want to talk about it. I tried to put it out of my mind and, for a few days, actually succeeded. Whatever was going on, it was harmless, maybe some weird prank by the admins. Until, after a few days, the steam in the shower briefly said "We are watching." I jumped out of the shower, turned the water off as fast as I could, and charged out of the bathroom. I could have sworn I saw a second reflection in the mirror on my way out but I told myself I imagined it. That and the text in the steam. I was just on edge. Whoever was playing that prank on the forums was awful. It was getting to me. Then I made the mistake of looking out the window. It had reflections. At least two of them, vague, foggy humanoid figures with faces that were totally featureless except for eyes. Staring at me. I stared in silence for, I don't know, seconds, minutes? Maybe an hour? It was hard to tell. Then a third one, more solid, somehow more real crept up behind them. I lost it when the fourth floated up to the window, only this one was real, I was sure of it. It looked like steam, floated up to the window, disturbing the pine needles, dust, and pebbles around the window. I crashed out of my apartment and stumbled down the hall, still in my towel, still damp from the shower. It was summer so the place was mostly empty but luck would have it that a young woman was walking down the hall; a fellow student choosing to stay for the summer rather than just living here like I did. It was awkward as hell but it at least knocked me back to my senses. "Uh..." I stammered. "Sorry, I'm all out of clean underwear, just checking to see if my laundry is dry." It was a lie and a pretty terrible one but thankfully the laundry room wasn't exactly close to where we were at the moment. She looked at me, obviously kind of confused by the situation, then shrugged and went "meh" and headed for her apartment. I walked to the laundry room to at least attempt to keep appearances but swore I could feel her staring at me the whole time. I didn't dare look back. Fortunately there was a laundry basket and a spinning dryer so I at least had an excuse. I stepped out to head back to my apartment, wondering just what the hell to do next. I put on some comfortable clothes and had some coffee before daring to look directly at that window again. There was nothing in it. Watcher The next day I started seeing the occasional post by a user called TheWatcher. Nobody seemed to quote him. Well, I don't actually know it was a him, of course, but I'll just say him. A few posts seemed to address whatever points TheWatcher made but in a roundabout sort of way. Generally the points were things you could read into other posts or things other posters alluded to. After a few more days TheWatcher began to post in more of the threads that I did, sometimes ones that I only read. The posts seemed to veer further and further off the topics of whatever threads they were in, approaching the realm of the absurd. Still, nobody quoted him and eventually he seemed to be largely ignoring the contents of the thread and posting increasingly incomprehensible nonsense. Before long the posts were nothing but gibberish. He never got banned, he never got probated, and nobody else seemed to notice. In every other way it seemed to be a normal account. That is, until somebody quoted him. This is where things are the blurriest. I cannot give you a time frame. This may have been hours or days, perhaps weeks. I can only tell you what happened. Judging by the empty bottles I found laying around my apartment and the baskets of dirty clothes when the semester began I can assume it was an ordeal. I never got evicted, I was not malnourished, and my bank account still had funds so I was, at the very least, tending my affairs. I do not, however, remember much of this period. Apparently I had been gone for over a week before anybody had noticed. A friend suggested a missing person report before they found me unconscious in the park. But, again, I am getting ahead of myself. TheWatcher continued to post gibberish that I could not bring myself to ask anybody else if they saw. Then, as I said, somebody quoted him. The account name was "Watch." He (again, I don't know if it was a he or what, exactly he was) quoted a wall of gibberish text with the phrase "We are watching. We know. Watch and you will know. Do not watch and we will be displeased." I stood up, hit the power button on my computer and walked out of the apartment. Only when I opened the door the woman that had seen me in the towel was there. Just...standing. Staring. She was across the hall, just standing perfectly still. I had no idea how long she had been there. Then she started smiling but it wasn't friendly. The smile just kept...going. It got too big for her face. I slammed the door and crawled out the window. This was all getting too weird. There was no way this was coincidence but how could it be real? I wondered if I was just losing my mind. Mental illness ran through various parts of my family. Was I just coming unhinged? I walked for a while. Hours, I think, nowhere in particular. It was mostly in circles, all told, but when the sun started going down began to head back home. I did not grab my keys and, if I wanted to get far away, I had to have them to get my car. Thing is, I wanted answers. I wanted to know what was going on. I was going to confront TheWatcher. The user actually existed and that meant I could message him...her...it. Whatever the hell it was. Fog started to roll off the river as the day wore on. It does that sometimes in August so I'm guessing that's what time of the summer it was. Fall and the semester was coming along. That was comforting, at least. Back to the life I knew, hanging out with friends who would come back from wherever they were from. I was sure we would drink beer while we were watching bad movies. The fog got unseasonably thick then started...I don't know how to describe it...walking at me. No one else was around and there was no traffic. There was this odd ring beyond me where the fog was somehow thicker and seemed to have eyes. They never got closer than fifteen feet away. I just told myself I was imagining it and headed back to the apartment building. It wasn't late enough for anything to be locked down, thankfully, so I could just head on in and get to my apartment, hoping I left it unlocked. I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, though the fog stayed outside. I glanced out the front windows of the building only to see...well...normal fog. As I approached the door to my apartment I looked down the hall to see that woman from before poking her head around the corner. She smiled and mouthed the words "I know" before disappearing back around the corner. I ran down the hall and turned the corner only to see nobody there. Had I imagined that? I shook my head a moment, trying to console myself. I knew that woman. She was in one of my classes the year before. She was real. I was not going crazy. I headed back to my apartment, wanting nothing more than a quiet sit down, a cup of coffee, and maybe some sleep. The first thing I noticed was that parking ticket. I had almost forgotten about it but fortunately the local area did not have a particularly short time period for paying the drat things. I opened it to see what the damage was but was greeted by a yellow slip of paper that simply read WE ARE WATCHING. There was no way that was a hallucination. I wanted to know what the hell was going on and I figured TheWatcher, or maybe Watch somehow knew, whoever or whatever they were. I went right to the forums and started with TheWatcher. I sent him - it - her - whatever, just one message; "Who are you?" Within seconds I got a reply. "You know." Watched That was all it took. I did know. TheWatcher, or Watch, I was not sure which, was that woman. Or maybe both accounts were the same person. I had only seen one post by Watch but either way, she was obviously connected to it all. We watched for her around the building whenever I could but she didn't seem to turn up. I was not sure which apartment she lived in. Then I remembered that I had a local friend in a class with her so I figured I would ask him. Fortunately she was physically attractive so I could easily just say I was interested in her after seeing her around town. I asked about her but was not prepared for the answer. He told me she had died shortly after finals that semester and that I must have seen somebody else. I just agreed and went home. That was too much. I knew it was the same woman. It had to be her. I dug around in what assignments and records I could find, class lists, whatever, to find her name. It took some time but I found her name. And then her obituary. He was right. She was dead. Apparently she had also lived in the building, in an apartment around the corner from mine. She was an IT major and had run a forum though nobody seemed to know what its name was or what it was for. I decided to see if anybody lived in that apartment at the moment so I stepped out. Only to find her standing there. Smiling. Staring. There was that fog as well. It was like people were showering in the halls. It sounded like all of the washers were on. Maybe that's where the fog came from? No. But there she was, a dead woman, staring at me. No wonder she could have a smile with such a size, with such raw malice. What kind of woman left behind this kind of spirit? I figured if she could harm me physically she would have by now so I just stepped past her, keeping my eyes on her. She just stared as I walked down the hall. The fog things, whatever they were, all turned and watched us go. I felt...odd, suddenly. Almost plural. As I approached the door to the apartment I reached up to knock on it, only to find her standing beside me. I hadn't seen her move. She was just suddenly...there...when I glanced over. She looked at me, no smile, dead serious. "No one lives there now," she said. "I died there. It was awful. You do not need to know the details. Just...watch." I stared. What the hell was I supposed to be watching? I was not concerned; she was a ghost at this point, not physical. She was either something bizarre and supernatural or a hallucination. Or both. Who even knows what weird poo poo reality can come up with behind all the weird physics? Then she stepped toward me. "You will know," she said quietly. Then she lunged forward and grabbed my shirt. I felt panic. I froze. How the hell was that possible? There was no doubt at that point. This was real. You can't hallucinate your shirt being grabbed and somebody pulling you forward. "You will watch," she said as the smile came back. "We are watching. You will know." The smile grew...and grew. She opened her mouth as if to speak... ..then there was darkness. I remember nothing else between then and the day before classes started. A friend of mine just happened to find me under a bush in the park, barely coherent, wearing dirty and torn clothes that he didn't recognize. He shook me awake, asked me what was wrong. I couldn't speak or think properly. I was disoriented. He walked me home, made me some coffee, and parked me on my couch. We talked about random stuff, I don't remember what, before he told me to clean myself up, get some sleep, and call him in the morning. I figured it was a good idea and turned on the shower. After half an hour, maybe longer, the fog creatures came back, only this time they were comforting. They felt like friends. We watched each other, just being there. They were no longer unsettling. Even the reflections of ones not there no longer bothered me. They showed me things the likes of which I never would have imagined. After I felt clean enough I figured it was time to check my e-mail, the forums, see if anybody had sent me a message while I was out. That and find out how long I was gone, how long the ordeal was. I was already logged in. I made a few posts before noticing the account name. I was TheWatcher. I tried to log in my regular account but all that happened was TheWatcher logged in. It was odd but felt somehow...normal. I made a few posts, most of which largely got ignored. Granted, classes started the next day and it was late so I did not post much. But I have one thing to say to you: We are watching. ToxicSlurpee has a new favorite as of 10:49 on Aug 18, 2014 |
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Aug 18, 2014 10:08
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Does anyone remember a creepy story about a video game with mysterious origins and a really strange storyline?
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Aug 18, 2014 14:54
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Pfirti86 posted:Does anyone remember a creepy story about a video game with mysterious origins and a really strange storyline? There's a few. Polybius Killswitch Majestic Pale Luna Haunted Majora's Mask There's also the Video Game Hoaxes and Urban Legends thread which has some stuff.
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Aug 18, 2014 15:33
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Erghh posted:There's a few. That's it! I was specifically looking for Killswitch; most of the supernatural gaming stories are lame, but for some reason I thought that one was pretty well done. Polybius is a classic too.
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Aug 18, 2014 19:21
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TheWatcher posted:Story
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Aug 19, 2014 02:34
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Ayin posted:These database errors are getting out of control We are watching.
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Aug 19, 2014 08:28
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I’m not usually one to tell stories, that is, I don’t ever have stories to tell. I listen intently and childlike to others as they recount tales of being alone in the wilderness, hearing and seeing the strangest things imaginable. However I have never had any stories of that nature for myself. I guess this is the closest I have. The past week I’ve been laid up with a pretty bad cold. Fever, unending sore throat and cough, just pure misery and lack of energy. My room started to reek of stale air and sickness, so the other night I keep my window cracked to let in some oxygen and fresh air. Usually I don’t do this, as the basement is the only safe haven from summertime humidity, but the air outside felt as if it was cooling, and the smallest hints of fall and the scent of dead leaves began to waft through. Perfect. Just what I need to start feeling better. I inhaled, and the mixture of sweet cool breeze and codeine put me right to sleep. Before I go on I should explain a bit of how my room is set up. I live in my parents’ basement, just as a 23 year old college drop out with $15,000 of debt would. So I have a small goon cave set up in the basement. The house is a single story that sits on a hill, giving me a tiny window to the back yard from the bedroom, and the family room a large walk out slider. My parents own about 10 acres of property, 5 of them being cleared yard that is a favorite of the local deer family, probably due to the large garden and raspberry patch that sits on the hill. When I was younger I used to avoid cutting the grass in certain patterns, as I was sure the aliens would find my back yard a perfect landing spot. The other 5 acres is the front of the forests just outside of town where there are many fantastic mountain bike trails. In the 12 years I’ve lived here, I’ve seen and heard many things from those woods, coyote families that sound like children being brutally murdered, screech owls dive bombing some small rodents scurrying across our field, and pulling in my car at night to see several pairs of eyes staring at me from a couple hundred feet away. For the most part, I’m used to strange wilderness right outside my window. So, as the night progressed, I wake up every so often, hearing thunder in the distance and feeling the air grow wetter. Good, thunderstorms are beautiful and calming, I wouldn’t mind falling back asleep to one. I drift off, and some time later I wake up to the storm in full force, and my parents’ dog pawing at my sides for comfort. I try to sleep again, and focus on the sound of the storm, however, something is off. Alongside the patter of rain was a different sound, a very irregular one. SCHLUUUK SCHLUUUK. Like boots trudging through a bog. SCHLUUUK SCHLUUUK. It was right outside my window, and I was too unnerved to look at those translucent bamboo curtains. I knew it was probably some deer that had wandered a bit too close to the house for shelter SCHLUUUK SCHLUUUK but on the other hand, it didn’t sound much like little deer hooves. SCHLUUUUUK and very rarely did deer pace back and forth next to my window. gently caress this, I was going to tell that animal to gently caress right off, I’m too ill for this. So I crept to the bottom of my window and mustered the biggest “gently caress off!” that I could, still avoiding looking at the blinds. I knew if I saw a shadow, I would turn in to a 10 year old again and run screaming upstairs to mom and dad. I inhaled, and yelled as loud as I could. But nothing came out, no more than a small whimper of “go away” ever passed these lips. SCHLUUUK SCHLUUK SCHLUUUK SCHLUUK I tried again. “Get away from my loving room” but it was a whisper. What the gently caress was wrong with me? Did I lose my voice? I opened my eyes. Really? I must have been in crazy opiate imagination land, a place I knew all too well from my drug exploits in my college years. I was still in bed SCHLUUUK SCHLUUUK but that loving noise, that pacing was still right outside my window. I covered my head and reached to my dog for comfort. She was long gone. I hoped she had just scurried off to weather the storm in the living room, and that she had been there at all. The noise quickly stopped, thank God. I had a few minutes of peace. Maybe I could take this chance to take a piss and travel to the guest room upstairs. I mustered up what courage I could and flipped over to bolt out my door. poo poo. I could see it, its massive silhouette hovering in my window. Staring at me, trying to find me through the blinds. My gut had been punched, I resisted the urge to cough and draw more attention. Although I couldn’t have had more attention if I was flailing my hands in the air and making fart noises at it. There was no figure to it, just large and moving very slightly, just enough to know it wasn’t a strange trick of the light. There was no sneaking out anymore, I ran. I darted out of my bedroom in to the family room. I didn’t bother to check if it followed me to the slider. I ran up the stairs feeling it watch me, I had that feeling that it was right on my ankles, ready snatch me up if I tripped. I shut the basement door behind me, sorry Blue fish, but you were a small sacrifice to make. After a moment to compose myself, I finally relieved myself in the main bathroom and made my way to the guest bedroom, only after helping myself to a large dose of Xanax. One look inside and I realized that the guest room might not be the best decision. Large windows with no curtains, I wasn’t doing that. I finally decided on the main living room, the couch faced away from the windows and there was a deck behind me to separate me and the back yard. I curled up on the couch and pressed my eyes closed. About 5 minutes after settling in to my fetal position on the couch, I heard it. It was no longer the sound of boots in mud but a THUD THUD making its way across the deck. I could see it now, I would be on the front page of our town’s little newspaper. “WOMAN MISSING. SUSPECT KILLER BIGFOOT” THUD THUD I could hear it through the closed window and feel it’s glare burning through the back of the couch. I froze, my back was ice. Whatever this thing was knew exactly where I was and for some reason wanted to scare the crap out of me. I heard a light tap on the window. Then a scratch. I wasn’t going to get caught up looking at whatever it was again. I decided to crawl, yes crawl, out of the living room. I had 2 choices left, the futon in the kitchen, or crawling in to my parents’ bed like a child. I opted for the futon, I scurried across the floor and in to the entryway, getting up on to my feet and bolting to the kitchen, quickly shutting all the blinds and turning off the pantry lights. I sat up on the futon, not making a noise, not sleeping. THUD THUD I heard it through the dining room THUD THUD it was leaving the deck. Then nothing but the soothing hum of the fridge. I’m not sure when I finally fell asleep but I sat up for a good hour or so, expecting to hear it on our front porch, to see that dark shadow appear through the blinds. It never did. I hope whatever it is had travelled far away from here, I sure won’t be riding the trails in the back woods any time soon. I’m not usually one to tell stories, and I prefer to keep it like that.
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Sep 5, 2014 22:08
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My Little Puni posted:THUD THUD Oh gosh, this really had me spooked especially reading it on a soggy, thunder stormy evening. Did you ever check the deck or backyard for any sort of muddy foot/paw prints? I would have lost my poo poo if that happened to me and then I found footprints in the mud or on the deck!
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Sep 6, 2014 05:22
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Thinking on it now, I probably should have alerted my father and got out the rifle. I'm so used to nothing happening in my town that it may have been a burgler/rapist/person who means to do harm, as there have been several reports of people making camp in the unfinished houses nearby. I did go out to check for footprints in the day, there was nothing though. The storm would have carried off any evidence anyway, there were several more that rolled through during the early morning hours. The next day while my mother and I were working in the gardens, there was a whole bunch of loud rustling and shrieking of animals coming from the woods, which was pretty unnerving, probably just some predator getting it's kill back there. There was one thing I did find oddly coincidental. My mother, who has been known to have strange psychic dreams sometimes, said she dreamed about me crying in the rain that night, yelling but no noise came out.
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Sep 6, 2014 16:46
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Well its been almost a year since I last posted about the strange goings on at the little casino I work at. Forgive any typos, I'm on my phone. The reason I'm on my phone is the tribe broke ground for construction of a new casino and it falls on me to provide site security. I'm currently sitting here typing up this post and occasionally glancing down the hill at our little casino in progress. In the name of progress and profit, a legit motherfucking graveyard was relocated to accommodate this project. I know that sounds like a set up to a horror story but graveyard relocation for construction purposes is a fairly normal thing. I've noticed some odd things out here at the building site, same as I've noticed odd things at the casino itself. It seems almost like the old myths the Indians tell me get stuck up in my head, constantly coming back when I'm scrambling for an explanation of that nights weirdness. Its always the little things. Stuff i can blow off as a trick of the light, an overactive imagination. Maybe i catch a glimpse of someone down at the build site. I gather up my flashlight and start the walk down the hill through the little valley full of trees to get there. Once im down into the valley i cant see much of the site, just the lone floodlight throwing shafts of light through the trees. You hear things out in those trees, and your mind goes straight to all the stories you've been told about the wendigo, the deer woman, the loving chupacabra for chrissake. When I got to the edge of the clearing I could see the silhouette in the doorway. Now that I was closer I realized something I hadn't noticed up at my safe little security trailer; The proportions were off. I mean, these were the main doors into the new casino, at least 8 feet tall if not higher and this guys head is drat near touching the top of the frame. I stood there in the trees just staring for a minute. I honestly wanted no part of it. I wanted to go back up to the trailer, get in my car, and gently caress off home. Let me clarify: I am not a loving action hero. This guy turns around and heads deeper into the casino, walking towards my floodlight. I hear him walking, its just a click, click, click like a dog on a hardwood floor. I figure gently caress it, I'll go call real cops and let them figure it out. I'm turning and knock over a sawhorse left at the edge of the clearing, and about scare myself to death. The clicking inside stops. I stand and consider the merits of running like a child. I hear two more clicks, then I hear a crash and there's no more lights. I ran so loving hard towards the trailer and threw myself through the door so hard that I thought I broke my shoulder. Then I hear it. Grunting, then a low moan. I hear something crashing around. A loving terrible banging wafting up from the valley. I stared down at the site waiting to see something rushing up to me. Straining to make my eyes pierce the impenetrable gloom. I saw nothing. The next morning myself and my relief officer went to go check the site. I told him I thought someone was down there the night before and we wanted to make sure they werent hiding anywhere. When we got to site I found the floodlight, it was battered beyond recognition. I mean this thing was hosed up. It was bent in half and all its glass was shattered. There were dents in the metal drafting table nearby with little flecks of yellow paint in them. We chalked it up to wind and we don't really talk about it. A new light was bought and is burning down there as I type this, though it seems to have been moved by the wind, cause its not pointing towards the main entrance anymore. I know I have to go down there and check it soon.
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Sep 8, 2014 05:27
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Khazar-khum posted:Tewbrainer, I love these stories. Ever thought about collecting them into a book? I have played with the idea of publishing a second [Red Cross] Goonbumps II, but I don't feel like we have enough content for it yet. The stars aligned for that 2010 thread, and there were so many great contributors to Goonbumps I that I don't think we could ever out-do it. As for my own stories, they don't belong in a book - they belong in firelight whispers told in the fall air, over the last glowing coals of two year dried cedar logs. Speaking of fall, I should have another story tomorrow or Monday to post...
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Sep 14, 2014 03:31
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Cinn Ard The Tall Ones “The weather is too bad! We’ll halt! Halt!” We heard the postman yell from the wagon in front of us. “Coming to a halt!” Yelled my father backwards. “Aye!” Came a voice from the snow behind us. “Pull er’ along side if you can, off the road a bit!” My father gently shook the reins on our pony, knocking snow off her shoulders. A night of hard rains and a day of freezing snow had turned Ulster into Cailleach’s plaid. Now, in the evening dark, the snow had become almost a solid mass - we could only just see the lantern hung on the back of the postman’s wagon before us. Torrents of wet ice had tinged its light a whitish blue. We pulled up to the left of the postman and his driver. “God, its a cold bitch tonight. MacHannigen is going to skin us for not leaving earlier.” Said Killick, the postman. “He can pull the letters himself if he’s got an issue with it. He’ll have the train pulling em’ soon anyways, the rotter.” Said his driver. “Dry the pony off and put a blanket on her.” My father whispered to me. I jumped cautiously off the drivers bench - the night before I fell flat in the mud - but was met with frozen sod beneath the snow. I dug around in the back of our cargo until I found a stiff brush and blanket, hopping out just in time for the carriage behind us to pull alongside. “I should home in bed with my wife, with a warm fire going.” Said Killick. “Eh, that doesn’t sound too bad.” Said the driver. “Then you better get off your feet and get a fire going.” Said Killick. “I meant being in bed with your wife!” Yelled the driver, dodging a handful of snow thrown by the postman. “And how’s his royal highness this evening?” Said the postman to our new arrival. The new driver smiled, and a quiet laugh could be heard beneath the hiss of snow. He was referring to the shadowed figure that sat in the back of the third carriage. He was the son of a wealthy landowner in Letterkenny, who had passed on with only a single reference to his will. By the look of his face over the entirety of the trip, this had been his first experience with being outdoors in bad conditions. Another testament to this was his carriage - which had shone a crystalline black at the beginning of our journey and now had a broken window on its left side. My fathers wagon, which was carved seemingly out of a single block of oak, had seen worse. Beside him, in the cabin, sat a large hound that was enjoying the trip immensely. All of us jumped at the baying of a wild dog - so loud it must have been mere feet from us in the blizzard. It gave several short, high pitch barks that ended in a shrill howl. Inside the son’s carriage, the hound started barking back before it was hit sharply on the nose. “Blighter! What’s the idea? Out hunting in this?” Shouted Killick. My father’s face had gone rigid, “No - that is a warning call. He’s telling the pack that they are in danger.” “He better - I’ll have him for a coat if he gets close.” But my father could not be consoled. While the fire was started, I hastily bound up small bundles of Mugwort and St. John’s Wort and hung them from the outside of the carriages, as well bundling them in small cloth bags, giving them to the member’s of our party. “Ceart go leor” [all is well], “Tapadh leat” [thank you]. I was greeted with kindness from everyone but the landowner’s son. “What is this?” He asked, stretching his hand out from a deep fur coat. “A charm, sir - my father wishes for each of us to have one.” “It smells hideous, what is it for?” “Protection, sir.” “I won’t carry it, I won’t have my clothes smell like a barn. What will the lawyers think of me?” I bowed, and went on my way, conscious of the looks that the other travelers were giving the son. It is not wise to turn down a Fear Leighis’ help. Especially not on a cold, dark highway. *** It took nearly an hour for the fire to get going. Luckily my father and the postman both carried dried pine, so we didn’t have to worry about digging in the snow for wood. The horses stood with their heads to the fire, and the six of us sat quietly eating bacon and barley meal under a spare canvas cloth that my father had stretched between two carriages. The snow was still falling heavily, and after the sun had set it gave the appearance that we were sitting on a piece of ice floating in a black sea. Venhing, the land owner’s son, sat upright and looked out into the darkness. His dog, which had been sleeping by him, was also startled up and looked off into the dark. “Did anyone else hear that?” He said. “I could have sworn I heard someone singing.” We all listened carefully - but I heard nothing but the falling snow. Even the wild animals had shut deep in their dens. “Just the wind, I guess.” Said Killick uneasily. I looked around at the calmly falling snow - no wind at all. “Could have been that dog again.” Said the son’s driver. “Maybe...it sounded so very much like a person. Like they were singing, only it was so loud that it carried over the...” Venhing said, almost dreamily. “Perhaps I should go look, just be sure.” “Are you dense? You won’t be able…” started Killick, but my father stopped him with a glance. “Point for me, where you heard the voices.” Said my father. Venhing pointed out towards where the forest met the road - perhaps 20 feet away. My father reached into the side of our wagon and pulled out a length of old cloth, and wrapped it tightly around the end of an iced stick. He lit the end, making a torch, and threw it towards the woods. The world went quiet - perhaps, in the first second, I saw the white lines of snowed trees. The torch provided only enough light to see the base of the trunks. In the next second, I noticed that several of the trunks weren’t trunks at all, they had ankles and knees (which I had first seen as knots), and were wrapped in smooth pale skin. The knees would have been nearly to a mans waist. In the third second, the world went crazy. From where the torch landed came hums in unison, like a church choir from dry throats, and I saw many long thin faces, hanging from many thin snake-like necks, descend to look at the torch before it went out.. The barely human faces held an expression of puzzlement, and each carried two giant reflective eyes that danced in the torchlight. The hound with us went into a frenzy, and tore through his collar - flew like an arrow out of the firelight into the darkness. The horses were stamping and screaming, causing Killick to break out of his fear and pull their chords tight. The humming got louder, and began to vibrate in tone as the dog got closer. The barking was then replaced with a panicked cry, a cry that my ears followed up, up, up off the ground. There was a great smash and cracking of branches, and the dog went quiet. The horses were whimpering now, too afraid to break the silence. Another smash. And another. A choir hum sunk quieter now, an even tone, but it was moving away from us now. Slowly, deeper into the forest. I found I was gripping my fathers arm tightly, and let go - rubbing the soreness from my hands. The other men were silent - as many men are after seeing these things - and simply stared into the darkness where the figures had been, and at the footprints of the hound. They were quickly filling up with snow. *** None of us slept that night, but in fits and nightmares, and as the sun arose on a clear sky we were greeted again with horror. The hound had been torn roughly in half, its muzzle and two front legs were hung limp from an elm, almost the height of three men. The back half lay somewhere in the snow beneath, in which the blood had melted deep crimson holes. My father left us to load up the wagons, and went to look at the remains. I was relieved that he didn’t ask me to go with him. Finally we were moving again (after wedging out Venhing’s carriage from the frozen mud). My father pulled a bone out of his pocket and handed it to me. It was still sticky with marrow. “Thats the femur of the dog.” Said my father. I almost dropped it in sickness. “See the marks on it - the marks of teeth, but none that I’ve seen.” He rubbed his index finger along the row. It appeared that the beast had two rows of all molars, both on their top and bottom jaws. “None of the hound had been eaten - and those teeth aren’t those of a beast with the taste for flesh. But, if the beasts had no taste for flesh, then why tear the hound apart? Why bite into the bone? Their height would explain the teeth - better to get at leaves.” “Maybe the fall has been hard on them?” I ventured. “They looked very thin.” “Perhaps - I have seen cows eat the bones of their own before, if they were poorly fed.” My father fell into silence at this. “Let us hope, then, that they never develop the taste for men.” Tewbrainer has a new favorite as of 23:38 on Sep 16, 2014 |
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Sep 15, 2014 00:33
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Hello, I'm hoping someone can help me find a story that was posted in one of the ghost story threads within the past couple of years. I think it was a repost from a "strange experiences" thread. It was about a kid whose grandmother had two houses - one day the grandmother opened a door in the garage or something & on the other side was her second house which was in another state. She took the kids blanket and tossed it into the other side. I think the grandmother passed away & the kid always begged to go to the other house and find the blanket but the house was sold. Any help is really appreciated!!
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Sep 15, 2014 03:06
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Tewbrainer, your stories are always a special treat. Thank you.
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Sep 15, 2014 03:09
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I love all of his stories. Never stop posting them, Tewbrainer. I've opened the ? under his name in a different tab and I'll spend the rest of the night enjoying them all over again.
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Sep 15, 2014 03:48
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Oh man, I've been looking for a thread like this for a while, the last time I saw one was I think the 2012 thread in GBS. While it's not exactly a ghost story per se, last night I was struck with inspiration and created VOID CHEF, a Twitter of out-of-context cooking instructions from a Boschian Hell cookbook/blogosphere/food network, etc, and I have no idea how to promo myself on Twitter, so I might as well post it here. Follow it if you like it, I'm pretty excited about it and plan on actually spacing out updates once I have a couple dozen tweets of backlog/hook. As for actual spooky stories, here's one I wrote a long while ago that I like a lot. Living Habitually On the particularly warm night of August 12, 1952, Everett Greene passed away quietly on his back porch in rural Illinois, slouched over in his favorite cedar chair, glasses landing neatly in his lap. A man of intense habit, the 84 year-old suffered from no notable medical conditions, and was survived only by his wife, Margaret, who was spending a week with her sisters in Chicago as she did every year. Decomposition began quickly in the summer heat. All manner of insects appeared and laid claim to the empty husk, and no small number of vermin or woodland creatures dropped by for small samplings of flesh. The bloating corpse began to rip and tear, releasing its cache back into nature as corpses tend to do. It was three days after Mr Greene’s death, however, that something highly peculiar happened. He woke up. Overcoming the impossibly crushing weight of death, the body of Everett Greene pried itself from the now fluid-soaked cedar chair, shook the rats off its head and the worms from its gut, and walked inside. What force drove the cadaver to do such a thing is hard to say. The elderly Mr Greene was pious from a young age and had gone out of his way to not anger anything or anyone, never mind the fact that he was much too soft-spoken and considerate to be capable of such a thing, nor that he lived too secluded a life to come in contact with the occult. He was no man of science, having been born just three lots down from where he died and tending fields in the interim. The only logical explanation – if you could call it that – was that the body of Everett Greene moved only out of habit. When Everett’s mind had given up on the uphill climb of life, his aging body had not. Its muscles moved independent of any free will, continuing through the same daily routine the man had adhered to for the past twenty-two years. The fact that Everett himself no longer inhabited his shell didn’t seem to bother it. For several days, the body traipsed around the Greene home doing as it would any other day: in the evenings, it brushed its teeth, loosening and unfastening the old bones from their sockets; in the mornings, it showered, succeeding not in washing out the distinct odor of decay but only in leaving swatches of rotting flesh on the towel; in the afternoons, it attempted to smoke cigars, inhaling with collapsing, torn lungs, not noticing when it lit its hand alight, charring it to the wrist. Had it been any other time of year and any other man, the carcass would have continued on in this state of purgatory until it collapsed, still twitching to satisfy its incessant urges. But for the body of Everett Greene, there was a change in schedule due. On the Monday following Everett’s death, after another wheezing endeavor into the realm of tobacco (now considerably more difficult considering its jaw had fallen off the evening prior), the shambling corpse tucked itself into a musty closet, now the cleanest and best-smelling chamber in the building. For you see, Everett had married a woman of habit in her own right. Every year when Margaret Greene returned from her sisters’, Everett would greet his beloved by hiding – all in good nature, of course. She would take the bait and call out for him, play-search the house, and find him in the same closet she did every year, feigning surprise as he leapt out to embrace her. Outside, a car door slammed. High heels paced up the gravel road to the house and the front door creaked open, releasing moist, putrid air. “Everett?” Heavy Lobster has a new favorite as of 01:13 on Sep 16, 2014 |
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Sep 15, 2014 23:44
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Tewbrainer posted:As for my own stories, they don't belong in a book - they belong in firelight whispers told in the fall air, over the last glowing coals of two year dried cedar logs. Speaking of fall, I should have another story tomorrow or Monday to post... And that's why they must be gathered and preserved, so that future generations of firelit people can hear them, and wonder.
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Sep 16, 2014 03:34
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Heavy Lobster posted:Oh man, I've been looking for a thread like this for a while, the last time I saw one was I think the 2012 thread in GBS. Well, now they're together again. So it's a happy ending!
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Sep 16, 2014 03:35
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Phoneposting, so please forgive spelling mistakes. A bit of background, just in case. I work overnights in a group home for the mentally ill. I have six clients here with various illnesses including schizophrenia, pyschosis, etc. My shift starts at 11pm and goes until the next morning. The house is fairly old, no idea on the exact age and is owned by the company I work for. There is a history of disturbing and violent behaviors and there have been two deaths that I'm aware of. One was someone passing away in ther sleep, but the other was someone choking to death at the dinner table. Until recently I worked alone overnight. Honestly, once you become attuned to the clients, their moods and triggers, it's fairly peaceful. Most of the night consists of bedchecks, smoke breaks, bad tv and staying awake. With two of us here, it breaks the monotony some and also gives us a bit of security. Anyway, this is my second year at this site. Last fall I always having trouble around 3 to 4am, feeling tired, basically hitting the wall. When I felt tired, I would always get up, grab a smoke, drink some reheated coffee or soda, or just prepare the food for the next day. I spend most of my shift in a recliner and across the room to the right is the doorway that goes upstairs. Last year, whether from tiredness, a bit of a sinus infection or something truly paranormal, I saw movement come out of the closed door and walk across the living room and beside where I sat and into the dining area. Needless to say I didn't have trouble staying awake that night. There were also several instances of feeling watched, noises like someone coming down the steps and nobody being there when I opened the door to tell them to go back to bed, and the one instance that actually bothered me. When I was going downstairs for breakfast and lunch makings, I felt a distinct pair of hands on my back, one on my shoulder and one on my left shoulder blade. It didn't shove or push, but there was a distinct feeling of pressure. Since another worker was hired for overnights, I was wondering if she would experience anything. In the past month, we've had the following: While preparing lunch, there was a loud thump from the wall separating the kitchen from the dining room. When I went to investigate, I found several books that were in our filing cabinet in the floor as if they had fallen out. But the cabinet was on the opposite side of the room. My coworker was out smoking, when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and glanced over. She said one of the rocking chairs on the porch was rocking and she saw what appeared to be crossed legs in the chair, the right fading away before the bottom cuff, the left continuing on over a sock and the top of a slipper, and a pair of folded hands in a non existent lap. She came back in white as a sheet and almost passed out. When I placed our blood sat/pulse rate meter on her finger, her pulse rate was in the 150s and blood sats down in the 80s. Dont know if that caused what she saw or she genuinely saw something. (I'm still skeptical, even after what I've experienced. I can't change that.) Last week, around 4:30 in the morning, we were watching tv, she was sitting on the couch, I was in the recliner, when we heard the distinct sound of someone stepping off the bottom step. I glanced over, confused that I didn't hear any other steps, and saw..poo poo, I don't know. It wasn't fog, it wasn't a shadow, it was just movement. I can't explain it any better than that. We both watched it come from the doorway, between us and into the dining room. Last Thursday, while making sandwiches we heard what can only be described as a fart sound come out of the empty area between the toaster and microwave. We looked at each other and laughed. Other staff have reported things like the doorknob on the front door moving as if someone outside is trying to come in, but there is no sound from the screendoor opening to allow access to the doorknob. For myself, I'm of the opinion that it's either something or nothing. I know that's a dissatisfying conclusion, but I've never felt..threatened or in danger. There IS an intangible sense of otherness when these things are happening, everyone in the house has mentioned that, staff and patients alike. I try not to let it color the job, because it's already stressful enough when you're dealing with people with these types of illnesses, and it's really just part of it for me anymore. There are a few employees who flat out refuse to work overnights here, but so far it's never scared me bad enough to make me quit or transfer. I probably jinxed myself by saying that.
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Oct 7, 2014 09:12
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gileadexile posted:Phoneposting, so please forgive spelling mistakes. Maybe the diner wants to make sure no one else chokes?
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Oct 12, 2014 08:08
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I've posted before in the thread, about some of the weird things I've experienced, mostly in Roma, Queensland but this poo poo takes the cake. A couple of weeks ago I was going to go Brisbane (my states capital city - Queensland, Australia) by plane for a union meeting, but I'd be away for a few days and my wife is studying her masters degree (in med science if anyone is interested) and she wasn't looking forward to studying/doing assessment with our 2 kids running around (aged 2 and 3) without my help. So I contacted my parents who live in Mitchell (89km west of Roma) and they agreed to take the boys for a few days. My dad was supposed to come pick them up but got caught up doing something so I drove them out to Mitchell. That was fine, I had a nice visit and stayed for dinner, then left at around 7pm. As I left Mitchell I realised that the light in the back of the car was still on. The car is a 2013 model Holden Captiva, an AWD SUV and I guess one of the kids must have pressed the light on while we were unloading their stuff from the back. I was going to pull over and turn it off but decided to wait since the sides of the road are pretty lovely out there and I didn't want to get a flat tire. Anyway, I continued along for a while and for those playing at home with a map, I had just gone through Amby (kind of like a halfway point between Mitchell and Roma, it's a town with a pub, a general store and a fire station, not much else) when I glanced in my rear view mirror and did a double take. There was a woman sitting in the rear passenger seat. I got a good long look in the mirror. She looked like she could be pretty, but her face itself was just shadows, I think because of the light on in the back of the vehicle. She wore a black off the shoulder shirt/blouse. She had a long neck, and the shirt had I suppose what you'd call a medium neckline. Her hair was black or dark, with a fringe. She sat and just looked out the window. After getting a good look and making sure I wasn't seeing a trick of the light or something, I did a shoulder check, and yep, still there real as anything. So now I'm freaking out. I know there was no-one in the car when I left Mitchell, and I didn't stop at all. I decided to talk. I asked her if I could help her, and if she was alright. No answer. She just kept staring out the window. I didn't stop, I just kept driving, mirror checking constantly and shoulder checking occasionally to make sure I wasn't halucinating. At one point she noiselessly and instantly switched sides, and was sitting behind me, which freaked me out even more. But she just kept staring out the window, but then she went back to the other side again. She stayed there until we got to Muckadilla (pub, police station, town hall) and I checked my speed to slow down as we passed through, and she was gone when I looked up. Never came back. I a critic, I'll admit that, but I have zero explanation for that. I never felt in danger or threatened, just really freaked that there was someone I didn't know in my car. She never even looked at me. This is the only first-hand experience I've had that I can't just pass off as something explainable.
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Oct 13, 2014 07:41
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Jesus, that's freaky. Have you done any research on the road to see if you can figure who she is?
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Oct 14, 2014 18:08
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This isn't going to be as good as other stories posted here but it's the best one I've got and my only personal experience. In hindsight, it's actually pretty tame. I work at a heritage site. Multiple old buildings filled with old stuff and employees wear period dress to teach people about the past and all that jazz. It's a pretty neat job that I enjoy. Naturally, because of the age of the museum buildings lots of ghost stories get passed around. That sort of thing has never really bothered me, I've worked several jobs that where I've been alone in creepy places and my experience has been that most 'ghosts' are a result of over-active imaginations and stupid people. Usually in combination. Any time a visitor has some sort of experience, I ignore it. Because for some reason when people go to a place where education happens, they leave their brains at the front door. "Look at all the spirit orbs in my picture!" that's because you're in a grist mill, my dear. We make flour here. "I felt something in that house because I had trouble breathing!" could it have anything to do that we just lit the fire and the whole front part of the house is filled with wood smoke? And my personal favourite "I'm a medium and this house is filled with the spirits of people that the doctor couldn't save!" well that's really interesting because this wasn't ever a doctor's house. This is just where we keep all of our old-timey doctor stuff. You get the idea. People's imaginations go crazy because in all the movies, old buildings are haunted. Fact. Just the way it is. Stories from co-workers, I treat with caution. Some people I wouldn't trust at all, some people are pretty level-headed and I just ignore it because it has never directly affected me. A common story that gets passed around is of the ghost of a woman attached to a cradle. Supposedly, you can only hear it when there are no visitors in the house and it doesn't happen all the time. Whoever happens to be working will be downstairs doing set-up and they will hear a woman singing softly as if crooning to a baby to go to sleep. No one can ever hear the words, just enough to identify the sound as a woman quietly singing a lullaby or shushing lightly. Whenever the employee goes upstairs to investigate, there isn't anything. Occasionally, the crooning woman will be accompanied by the sound of the cradle rocking, a low and rhythmic creaking. Again, when you go up to check, there's nothing there. The sounds will start again as soon as you have both feet down on the first floor foyer. People don't usually go up to check a second time. Interestingly, a guy named Sam decided to test the cradle to see if it was indeed producing the creaking sounds. He went into the master bedroom and began to rock the cradle to the same rhythm that he had heard downstairs that morning. Perfect match. There isn't really anything else up there that could have made the sound. The cradle is the only thing with moving parts. People aren't always too keen to work in that particular house. Now, I told you that story so that I could tell you my story. I just wanted to explain a bit about where I work. All of the buildings are old. Most have the original wood windows with heavy glass and no bug screens. All the houses are full of period furniture and they're all in various stages of neglect because of our inadequate budget. Lack of maintenance doesn't really explain my experience. I was talking to my co-worker, Rebecca, one day about the cradle thing. I told her that I had never really experienced anything at work, even when I'd been alone in the buildings. She agreed that a lot of it was nonsense imagined by people who watched too many horror movies. Then we started talking about a particular building that we use to do special half-day programs with pre-booked groups. An old log cabin, original exterior with modified interior to accommodate more people. Cooking and food-related activities downstairs and cloth/textile activities upstairs. I said that I had been the first one there many times and had set-up and waited for co-workers without incident. It didn't bother me. Rebecca smiled. "Have you ever wondered about the books in the peach basket?" I knew which ones she was talking about. A bunch of old school textbooks from the 19th and early 20th centuries that were kept upstairs on a table. You know how you can buy peaches in those little baskets made out of thin wood? I think it's balsa wood or something. The books were kept in one of those. I'd always assumed they were there so that it was easier to keep them all together, in case we wanted to show them to a visitor or something. They are sort of cool and sometimes people ask about those sorts of things. "Well, no. I just assumed that they're in the basket because there's no bookcase or anything up on the second floor." And all of the cabinets are full of supplies and all sorts of the kind of crap that a museum acquires over the years. "They're in the basket because they kept falling onto the floor. It didn't matter if we put them in the middle of the table, at the back closest to the wall, wherever. They kept sliding off onto the floor. It never happened during a program but doing set-up and clean-up, if you turned your back all the books would slide off the table. It upset people so someone decided to put them in the peach basket. Hasn't happened since." Well, that's weird but nothing to write home about. Maybe the table isn't level or something. Remember what I said about the maintenance budget? The same problem applied to having things replaced. After Rebecca tells about the books and a few other little stories, I forget all about them and I do a special program in the cabin three or four times without and nothing happens. The stories don't bother me, even when I remember them. Except this one time. I've been working there for years and this is the only time. I'm willing to accept that there is an explanation but I sure as hell have had trouble thinking of one. Special programming in the log house and I'm the first person there so I take the key to open up. After we're done in the evenings, the cleaners come in, sweep, clean bathrooms, close windows if we've missed any, that sort of thing. They also lock up when they're finished so whichever one of us is there first in the mornings has to unlock and get the fire going. I like being the first person, the setting is beautiful and laying the fire is my favourite chore. So I walk over. Everything is normal, the lock is done up on the front door and all the windows are shut. I unlock and turn on all the lights. After I throw my coat and bag onto the kitchen table, I start the process of getting our old pig of a wood stove up to temperature. I love that stove and the smell of the smoke so I putter over this as long as I can. As I'm breaking kindling to size, I become aware of another sound. I stop my work and stand still for a moment, trying to parse what I'm hearing. It's a sort of thumping noise and it's coming from the second floor. poo poo. That family of angry squirrels has gotten in because someone left a window open. At least, that's what I initially thought. Well, if it is those rear end in a top hat squirrels I'm just going to finish setting up the kitchen and maybe by then they'll have gone back out the window and I won't have to deal with them beyond shutting it. Cowardly? Definitely. But they were really angry squirrels. Like, take revenge upon all humans angry. I've always said we should have them shot. Survival of the best adapted, bitches. I go back to the stove. Thump Thump Thump That doesn't sound like squirrels. It's too steady. It isn't the frenzied movements of an animal stuck inside. There's a deliberate pace to it. Then I realize - footsteps. I'm hearing footsteps. I shook my head to clear out pre-coffee cobwebs and make sure I'm not imagining. Thump Thump Thump Footsteps. There's no mistaking it. I remembered the stories and for the first time, they bothered me. But so did the not knowing. I opened the door to the staircase and flicked the light on. Deciding that it was better not to think about what I was doing, I took the stairs two at a time and came to the second floor landing. Nothing. There's no interior walls up there so I could see the whole second story. There was nothing and the windows were all closed and locked. So I went back downstairs, unnerved. There was silence for a few moments and the sound of footsteps started again. I didn't want to go up again and find nothing because that would have made it worse somehow. I decide to go down to the basement and get the kitchen supplies. I open the door to the basement staircase. The light switch is a few steps down, invisible on the painted walls but easy to find when you know where it is. I should tell you that the stairs themselves are pitch black until you turn that switch. Today, there was something wrong with that darkness on the stairs. Today, it wasn't as easy as turning a light on. That pitch black leered over the threshold and I couldn't make myself reach for the light. I shut the door and quietly dropped the latch in place. I had decided that I didn't want to make too much noise, to draw attention. The air felt different. Not heavy or stuffy like the describe in novels but menacing. Something wanted the space to itself. It didn't want to drive me out, it just didn't want me to be in, if that makes any sense. There was no growling voice telling me to leave but I knew that I wasn't welcome in the house. Overhead, the foot steps had started again, that same steady pace across the empty second floor. I grabbed my stuff off the table. I think that I was afraid to leave it and find all my things tampered with and strewn about inside. That would have made things more personal. I shut the door and did some work outside until someone else showed up. Deborah was an older woman who had worked there for at least a decade. Sheepishly, I told her about the footsteps and mentioned how silly I thought I was being. Deborah listened and smiling, told me about the peach baskets. *holy poo poo way longer than I meant it to be, sorry*
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Oct 14, 2014 19:40
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Mister Bung posted:Jesus, that's freaky. Have you done any research on the road to see if you can figure who she is? Yeah, but I can't seem to find anything except for maybe a few deaths back in the early 1900 near Amby, but this woman was dressed too modern. My google-fu is admittedly weak, but I spent a good hour or so looking online after it happened, and again when I saw your message to see if I'd missed something, but nope. The haircut and blouse give me a 90's vibe, I dunno, but I guess it could be anytime from 60's onward. Certainly no-one has kicked it out that way in the last 10 years, I'm pretty sure I'd remember that.
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Oct 17, 2014 06:32
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princecoo posted:The haircut and blouse give me a 90's vibe, I dunno, but I guess it could be anytime from 60's onward. Certainly no-one has kicked it out that way in the last 10 years, I'm pretty sure I'd remember that. Maybe you could look at Missing Persons reports? Not sure if that's something you could check online or if it'd have to be hard copy...
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Oct 21, 2014 16:51
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| # ? Apr 20, 2024 01:21 |
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Okay, this is pretty drat bland, but it's probably the weirdest/most ghost-y thing that's ever actually happened to me... This was... what, about twelve years ago? Anyway, I was on holiday with my family at the time. We'd gone to a place near the sea; we were renting a cottage for the week - it was blue, I remember that. Very vivid blue, kinda garish. So, we got there, we moved all our poo poo out of the car and into the cottage and got comfortable. Everything was totally normal, I should note. No creepy vibes, no odd noises, none of that stuff. On the third day we were there though... We'd been down to the beach early in the morning to watch the sun rise, and we were walking back up to have breakfast. The path from the beach let you view the cottage from quite a distance; from that angle you could mostly see the 'left' wall (left when you were approaching from the front, I've no idea if it was north/south/whatever). That wall had one window in it, on the upper of the two floors. This was an old building, so all the windows were pretty small. And as we were walking up, I saw something move behind the window. I asked my dad if he'd seen it, but said he hadn't. Then he paused for a moment, and said "Which room is that, anyway?" We all looked at each other, and it became apparent that no-one was actually sure. So, when we got back to the house, we went down to that end of the building and looked. The upper floor was basically linear; you had stairs at the 'right' end of the house, the bathroom on the right-hand side of the stairs, and then a corridor leading down to the 'left' off which you could reach all the bedrooms. But when we compared the bedrooms on either side, and paced out the length of the corridor, it was clear that there was some space unaccounted for. We knocked on the wall at the end of the corridor, but it didn't sound hollow. I suggested getting a ladder and climbing up to look in the window from outside, but my parents couldn't be bothered. Anyway, we didn't manage to find the window, or any obvious sign of a boarded up door or anything. The rest of the holiday passed basically without incident. I did think I saw movement in that window one more time afterwards, but I was kinda twitchy about it by then anyway. When we handed the keys back to the landlady, who had owned the building since the 40s, and who had grown up there, my dad asked her if there was a missing room on the end, and she said no, not that she knew of. Nor could she recall where the window on that side of the house was; indeed, she didn't remember there being a window there at all. She actually dug out some photographs of the house from some decades ago, and there was no window there. And that's that, really. Not terrifying, I know, but strange anyway.
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Oct 21, 2014 20:16
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