INTOCREEP

Just Another Night

2014-04-25T12:43:00.005+03:00

It’s about thirty minutes to midnight when my phone vibrates and starts to blare its ringtone. I jump off the couch and nearly have a heart attack. It’s just another night, one that’s been wonderfully quiet so far. After a chaotic Friday evening that lasted until five in the morning, it’s nice to spend this Saturday alone at home, watching whatever crappy movies are on TV.
I recover and answer it. It’s Mike, though I can barely hear him over the pounding music in the background. “We’re leaving the club now!” he screams. “The girls ditched us and Trent wants to get home early so he can go to church with his family.”
“Sounds good,” I say. “Did you bring enough cash for a cab this time?” Mike’s stories of getting stranded downtown in the middle of the night have become legendary.
“Nah, Jason’s friend has a car. He’s driving us back.”
I frown. “Has he been drinking?”
“Like, one or two beers. He says he’s fine.” He says something to someone nearby, but I can’t make it out. “I’ll be home soon. Don’t worry about staying up for me.”
“Thanks, but I’m not tired. That, and mom and dad told us to always deadbolt the door, and if I do that you won’t be able to get in.”
He laughs. “I’m not sleeping in the front yard again! ‘kay, I’ll be home soon.”
He hangs up and I go back to my movie. There’s something about mindless violence and explosions that just seems so relaxing. Or maybe it’s the fact that school’s finally done for the winter holidays, and my parents wisely decided to go on a cruise with friends for a week before Christmas. Mike and I have the house to ourselves: for him, it means no stern looks when he staggers home reeking of alcohol; for me, it’s no constant reminders to start looking for a job in time for graduation.
The movie goes to its fifteenth commercial and I head to the kitchen for a snack. As I throw a bunch of eggs, cheese and vegetables into a skillet, I hear a loud cracking noise in the backyard. I press my face to the cold, frosty window and look out, but there’s nothing out there but a few bare trees and some fresh-fallen snow. Probably just an animal. It can’t be easy to survive the winter.
My cell phone rings again, so I wander back into the living room to grab it. It’s Mike. I can hear sirens in the background. “Uh, so Jason’s friend kinda, um, lost control of the car.” It sounds like he’s holding the phone half a foot away from his mouth.
“Oh God. What happened?”
“We hit a pole. Car's totaled, but we’re all okay. I think. Cops are here. They’re talking to the driver.” He laughs. “He’s definitely drunk.”
“No kidding.”
“They’re ignoring the rest of us, and there’s a bus here so I’m gonna on and get home.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I pause and grimace. “Wait. Do you know what bus to get on?”
“I’ll figure it out. Will call you when I’m close.” He’s gone, and I go back to the movie.
There’s a lull in the action, when attractive male protagonist and attractive female protagonist engage in an awkward sexual conversation, which might have worked if they had any sort of chemistry, and my mind wanders to my job hunt. A few of my classmates say they know great companies to work for—apparently mechanical engineers are invulnerable to the bad unemployment rate—but I’m really not sure if I just want to jump into things. Travelling would be fun. There’d be something immensely rewarding about sending Mike a photo of me on the beach while he’d be studying for midterms in the middle of October. Totally worth passing up on an easy job for.
A sudden blaring noise comes from the kitchen. I jump up into the thick smell of smoke. The omelette. Damn it. There’s about a foot of black smoke hovering in the kitchen. I run in, pull my burnt snack off the stove and open every window, letting the chilling air in. My creation is little more than ash, so I open the backdoor and throw it out for whatever animals are trying to get through the night. So much for that.
There’s some leftover pasta in the fridge. I’m happy to eat it cold; at this point, I’m better off not heating anything up. I settle down and continue the movie, but my mind’s going back to travelling. I've always wanted to go across the pond, check out Europe, maybe backpack through Germany, see the sights in France, practice my fake accent in Britain. What’s it like there in the summer? Hot, I’d bet, but not any hotter than it is here. Hopefully less humid.
Again, my ringtone snaps me back to the real world. “Now you pick up!” Mike’s shouting, but I can barely hear him. Wherever he is, the reception is terrible. “I’ve been calling for hours!”
I look at the clock and roll my eyes. “You last called forty-five minutes ago. Where are you?”
“I have no idea. The bus is going in the middle of nowhere. I have no idea where any of these stops are. Hell, I don’t even think they’re in English.”
I sigh loudly. Not this again. “How much did you have to drink?”
“Drink? I can’t even…” He trails off, replaced with a loud, harsh static. I pull the phone from my ear. A few seconds later, it disconnects. Whatever. He’ll find a way home.
The movie eventually ends, but it’s just past midnight and I’m hardly tired. Now I’m regretting allowing my roommate to convince me to leave my gaming console at school. This is the perfect sort of boredom for grabbing a sniper rifle and telling twelve-year-olds how great their moms are in bed. And then Mike could have joined right in. He probably spends more time playing than I do, and he doesn’t even live with me. I think my parents are relieved that we’re going to the same school. He’s been trying his absolute best to get his life back on track, and I’m able to be there in case he needs a shoulder to lean on.
A loud scream comes from the backyard. I go back into the now-freezing kitchen and grab a flashlight from the cupboard. I shine it around, but there’s nothing out there. The remains of the omelet are gone, and there are a ton of paw prints around the area. Racoons? Squirrels? Maybe coyotes? Whatever they were, they moved quickly.
The smoke in the kitchen’s gone. I close all the windows and lie back down in the living room. I guess I doze off, because when I wake up it’s one-thirty in the morning. There’s been no contact from Mike, so I give him a call.
“Hello?” Now it’s like he’s talking into a phone on the other side of the room. “Are you there? Please say something!”
“I’m here,” I say slowly. “Have you figured out the way home yet?”
“I can’t.” Despite the low volume, I can hear panic in his voice. “I’ve been riding for days. Maybe weeks, I can’t tell. Transferring from bus to bus. None of them are going anywhere.” I swear, I can hear him whimper. I can’t help but grin. I’m going to hold this against him for YEARS. “I don’t want to get off. There’s something wrong around here. Something dark. It’s waiting for me.”
“Yeah, it’s called the night, and it’s not very friendly to blackout drunks, now is it?”
“Stop it. Just stop…” He fades away.
“Hello? Mike?” I check my phone. It’s still connected. “If you can hear me, just get off and grab a cab, okay?"
He comes back, with a slightly-clearer voice. “We just passed Wedmore. I recognize this place!”
“That’s good, seeing as we drove by it nearly every single day when we were kids.” I sit up, and suddenly I’m feeling groggy. Time for bed. “Anyway, I’m gonna go—“
“No!” he shouts forcefully. “Please stay. Don’t hang up.”
“Okay…” Now I’m wondering if he took any substances beyond alcohol. It’s like he’s combined the hallucinations of shrooms with the depressants of beer. I grimace. It’s what the old Mike would have done.
“Just… just talk to me. How are things at home?”
“They’re good,” I say. “There’s a bunch of animals outside, making lots of noise. I think they’re racoons, but they could be bears. Might want to watch yourself.”
“Cool.” The connection’s even better. “Just went over the bridge. I’m a few stops away.”
“And there you go. Was there any reason to have been concerned?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He pauses. “Man, I cannot wait to get home. I think I can hear my bed calling me.”
“Is it saying ‘Clean me?’”
He laughs, loudly and heartily. “I’m nearly there. Jesus, I’m glad the night is over. Thanks for not hanging up.”
“I’m always here. You know that.”
“It was weird,” he continues, “I couldn’t call or text anyone. I tried to get on Facebook, but it looked really strange. And as soon as you called, I realized where I was. It’s like it came out of nowhere." His voice rises. "And there’s our street! I’ll call you when I’m near the house. Holy crap, that’s dark…” He hangs up. I go to the front window and look out. All the street lights are on, casting their pale-orange tint on the road. I gaze as far down as I can. No sign of him.
I'm about to go and clean up the kitchen, but my phone rings. “Where the hell is our house?”
I throw my free hand up incredulously. “The same place it’s always been, you idiot?”
“I can’t see it. The street is way too dark. I don’t even know if I’m on the sidewalk or the road.”
“What are you talking about? It’s bright as day out there.” I go over to the front door and flick the outside light a few times, showing off our snow-covered driveway, the one Mike was supposed to shovel before heading out. “There. Can you see—“
“I saw it!” he screams. “The light! Turn it back on!” I do so, even though it adds nothing to the overall brightness of our neighbourhood. “I see it. Okay, yeah, I’m close now.”
I look out the window, but still can’t see him. There’s just a pair of headlights coming down the street. “How close are you?”
“Nearly there. Oh, thank God, I’m nearly there.”
The headlights slow down at my driveway. “Are you in a car?”
“No. Do you know how easy a car would have made all of this?”
I scoff. “I think there’s a lot of things that could have made this easier.”
He’s silent for a moment, and then he sighs. “Look, I know what you’re thinking, but I swear, I only had a few drinks.” His voice lowers. “I’m done with that other stuff. I made that promise, and I’m going to keep it.”
“I know.” The car’s pulling into my driveway. It’s the police. What the hell is going on here?
“I’m steps away. The house has never looked so good,” Mike says. The car stops and two officers get out, both struggling on the slippery driveway. They take their caps off and hold them against their chests.
“No…”
“What is it?” Mike asks. “I’m at the driveway. Can you see me?”
The world stops around me. This was supposed to be just another night. Everything I’d done—the movie, the omelet, those animals outside, what I’m going to do when I graduate—had been so inconsequential. That was the point. That was the goddamn point.
The officers are walking up the steps. My throat is suddenly very tight, but I manage to get the words out. “Yeah, bro. I can see you.”
“Awesome. I’ll be there in a minute. Thanks for guiding me home.”
“It’s what I’m here for.” I take a deep breath. “See you soon.”
“Can’t wait.” He hangs up. A few seconds later there’s a knock on the door.
I open it.

Wierd letter.

2013-11-23T14:30:00.000+02:00

I got this letter from an old friend I haven't seen in a long time. I figure that this would be best place to ask for advice. Here's the transcript of the letter:

Hello, Daniel. Haven't seen you for quite some time now.

No time for formalities, though. I need you to do something. Remember that old house we used to hide out in down by the farm? I need you to go there. When you approach the house, try not to make any sound. Go up to the loft and you will find a trunk. In it you will find a small vial, a razor blade, and a folded piece of paper. Take the razor and prick your finger. Touch your forehead and make a dot of blood. DO NOT touch the vial before you do so.

Open the vial and drink it. When you do so your vision will go blurry, but you have to stay calm. Pick up the paper in the trunk and read the first paragraph. It's in German, but I know you won't have trouble with pronouncing it. At this point, you MUST stay calm. You will start to feel closed in and you will start hearing voices. DO NOT listen to what they have to say. Tear the paper into the smallest pieces you can and scatter them on the floor.

When that's done, go downstairs to the "kitchen". You will find a gas can and a lighter. Set fire to the house. No matter what the voices say, you HAVE to set fire to the house. After it starts going, the voices will go away. Then you need to get away from that house as fast as you can.

Good luck,

Tiffany

I'm really freaked out. What should I do?

Op.

Never Sleep With the Door Open

2013-11-13T13:21:00.000+02:00

My mom took the door to my room/ nursery off soon after I was born. Her childhood home had burned down, so she thought this a wise decision. When I was four or five, I remember waking in the middle of the night and feeling anxious. My gaze drifted to my open door frame, where I could clearly see the top of the staircase. It was faintly illuminated by the little plug-in nightlight in the hallway. Seeing the house dark and silent, I started to curl up and go back to sleep when I heard a small pattering. Almost like a tiny dog was trying to climb up the stairs. There was a slight pause in the pattering. Then a face appeared.
An infant sized face, but with very adult-like features stared straight into my room. Its skin was stark white and where its eyes should have been were black, hollow sockets. It simply stood/ hovered at the top of the stairs, peering back at me with...I don't know. Curiosity? Indifference? I couldn't read its expression. Then it was gone. I still remember exactly what it looked like. But I never told my parents what I saw. I just asked for a door.
So many years later...jump to when I had recently turned 22.
I was fairly well off for someone in their early twenties - living in a small, cheaply rented house with two other roommates and my beautiful collie mix named Bella. Since adopting her from the shelter, I had made a habit of leaving my door open at night so she could sleep at the foot of my bed and still leave to get a drink or roam when she wished. Up to this point, I had always slept with the door closed. The event from 17 years before was just a bad memory that had led to paranoid habits. I thought it was about time I let it go. So at first, the occurrences began with what I believed was a mind trick.
In those dream-like moments before sleep descended, I thought I could see a tall shadow at the end of the hallway, watching me. I would fall asleep and not think about it again until the next night. This went on for weeks. At some point, I remember thinking that it was much closer to my doorway than it had been the night before. However, my beautiful Bella was right there, warming my feet every night and keeping her post vigilantly. I stopped looking at the doorway before I'd drift to sleep and dismissed the shadow as a product of before-bed delusions.
One night while my roommates were spending their nights elsewhere, I felt Bella jump off the bed to go roam. This was not unusual and I rolled over to go back to sleep. Sure enough, I felt her leap back on not but two minutes later. But her landing felt different. She kept crawling up towards my head then a heavy weight was on my back and I felt something holding my hands down. I gasped for breath while the air was slowly being pressed out of my lungs.
I thought I was going to pass out. I knew this wasn't Bella and I couldn't scream for help. A squeak escaped my mouth when I felt a breath of air near my right ear, brushing my hair to the side. Shaking from panic and the pain, I heard a deep, hoarse voice whisper in my ear, "You're mine."
The weight instantly lifted and I couldn't roll over fast enough. I took in gulps of air, trying to catch my breath. No one was in my room. The sound of Bella's bark made me jump, but take action - I grabbed the knife under my mattress and went to search the house. Slowly, I moved from each of the bedrooms to the bathroom to the living room to the kitchen and then the laundry room. Neither the shadow nor Bella were in any of them. I heard her bark again, making me jump and look out the sliding glass door that led to the back yard. There she was, tail tucked between her legs and looking up at me, whimpering softly. I dropped the knife, unlocked the door, and hugged her when she leaped back inside.
It was only then that it struck me - I had to unlock the door... I checked and then checked again, disbelieving what I was seeing. Both the back and front doors had been locked. I slept in a hotel room that night. But I was sure to sneak Bella in with me. That was over a year ago. Now, Bella sleeps in my room every night with the door closed. I keep her water dish and a box filled with newspaper in a corner of the room. I still haven't told my roommates what happened. And I don't plan on it. This doesn't involve them. This thing has been after me. But hell, if it decides to turn up again, I plan on fighting.

What is the scariest thing a kid has said to you?

2013-11-12T19:08:00.001+02:00

Two years ago, I was looking through my elementary school yearbook with my 5 year old cousin, when we were at a page with a 2nd grade class, she pointed to a boy's photo and said " that looks just like Nicolas!". When I asked who Nicolas was she just said " The boy in my closet" and kept on looking through the pictures. I almost died.
Op.

Smile to the camera.

2013-11-12T17:11:00.000+02:00

I was living with my parents and sister in Brisbane, Australia at the time (2008, which means I was 19). I remember my dad had just got Foxtel (cable TV in Australia) but only the TV in the lounge room could use the cable box, and I really wanted to somehow get the cable in my room without paying $99 or whatever for a new box. So dad one day went out and bought an AV transmitter/receiver. It was basically a two piece bit of hardware where you would plug this tiny box into the cable TV in the lounge room and it would transmit a video signal to the receiver, connected to the TV in my room. So one Saturday, I decided to connect it.

My younger sister (16 at the time) was the only other person home at the time, upstairs in her room (my room was downstairs). I opened the box, and connected it up. At first I was going back and forth, trying to get the cables right, trying to get the channel right etc, but no luck. Until I finally got something. I remember just sitting there and something started fuzzing in (this is where things start to feel like a horror movie). I remember thinking "oh here we go" and waiting to see the picture come in clearly. As it started fuzzing in, I remembered that this whole time the cable set top box wasn't even on, and that's why it wasn't working this whole time. "But then why was I getting a signal?". It seemed to all hit me at once. As I realised the box was off, the picture fuzzed in, and I saw a bed.

I FREAKED the fuck out, as at first I thought it was my bed. I had recently seen Saw 2, and remembered that scene where she turns on the TV and its a camera filming her in her apartment. That was the first thing I thought of. I sprinted upstairs to my sister, absolutely terrified. I told her to come down and take a look. She came down and we both realized it wasn't my bed. We didn't know who's bed it was, or how I was getting the signal. Obviously it was the Av receiver picking up a camera signal, but we were just so confused as to who/what it was for?
Eventually my parents came home, and we concluded that it would have to be a neighbor, or someone living close by, for us to be receiving the signal. We waited around until about 6pm, and then someone came into the room.

My dad recognized it as one of our neighbors. We still didn't know what the camera was for, but we assumed it had something to do with fidelity. Either his wife or he had set it up to watch the other and see if they were cheating. Either this, or it was to tape themselves having sex. We entertained the idea that he was a murderer and would film himself murdering people in his room, but just to freak eachother out. We'd always make jokes about how one night we'll turn it on and itll just be his face with clown make up on staring at the camera waving, and then him walking out of the bedroom with a knife. This never happened. But what did happen was still super creepy.
We connected to this signal for over a week, but after a few days the novelty kinda wore off. We felt a bit weird watching it, and just resigned to the explanation that it was to catch his wife cheating. Until one day, we turned it on, and realized what we had discovered.
Our neighbors were having a bunch of renovations done to their house. During weekdays they would be out, and there would be workers at the place pretty much all day. It had been like this for over a month. We started watching the feed and saw a man walk into their room. It was the plumber that had been there regularly for the renovations. We didnt think anything of it, until he start opening drawers. I called out to my mum (only person home at the time) and we started watching it. He started getting the wifes underpants and sniffing them, doing all that creepy shit. At first we were like "oh my god, how embarrassing, he's being filmed. will the neighbors see this somehow?" but then what happened next what truly terrifying.
He slowly walked over to the camera and look right down the fucking lens. We were CONVINCED that he knew we were watching. Mum immediately called dad. I kept watching. He started fiddling with it and then put it back down. I told mum that I don't think he knew we were watching, but he's definitely the guy that put the camera there. Dad came home, and by this time the plumber had left. Much to mums pleading, dad went over to the neighbors to tell them what we saw. Mum wanted to completely stay out of it and was terrified, understandably. When we told the neighbors, they had NO IDEA what we were talking about. They allowed dad to go up to their room, and what he found (that was holding the camera) was an installed device in the wall that was designed to monitor water usage (which was completely normal, at the time, as Brisbane had been hit with a drought recently and there were lots of water restrictions, still is now I think). The plumber had installed this into the wall, but had fitted a camera behind it in the wall to watch the bed.
Immediately they called the police, who came over and conducted an investigation. For the next week or so we didn't hear much about it. I spent most of this time just telling my friends, showing them pictures, but truthfully my whole family was scared every night. It was just very creepy thinking that we could have stuff like that hidden in our house. Chances are we didn't, but it was still really scary. After a couple of weeks my mum was speaking to the wife next door and asked what happened with it all. The wife said that the police found out he would, at nights, come to our street and sit in his car (which had really tinted windows) and watch them on his laptop. When mum told me this I got the BIGGEST shivers. The reason was (besides the obvious of a creepy dude sitting his car watching people through a hidden camera) was because on multiple nights, when I had driven home late from my girlfriends or walked home drunk after a night out, I remember seeing a station wagon (don't know if thats what theyre called outside of Australia, but its like a big hatchback car) always about 30m down the street from our house. It was never there during the day, always at night. I'd always walk past it and look at my reflection in the windows, assuming no one was inside. I was always so confused by whos car it was but literally never thought it was anything.
It still scares me so much that it was just this creepy fucking plumber sitting back in there on a laptop watching a hidden camera stream of my neighbors.
Anyway, that's my story. It's all true, and still creeps me out to this day, but my friends and I have a good laugh about it.

Op.

Birthday Gift.

2013-11-12T16:58:00.000+02:00

A quiet cabin deep in the woods.

2013-11-11T20:57:00.001+02:00

My wife was shaking me quietly. I looked around the cabin. The girls must have gone to bed. The fire had burned down to embers. My glass of scotch was still in my hand.
"Something is tapping on the porch." Then I heard it too. I grabbed my ax and lit the lantern. I opened the door expecting a racoon or a skunk, but instead found a boy of about 10 years old.
He stared at me petrified for a moment, then bolted down the path through the woods. I gave chase. He was losing me but I heard him tumble to the ground. I leapt on top of him in a rage.
"Why were you knocking on my porch?" I screamed. "My uncles told me to." He stammered.
I was no longer angry, but confused. "But why?" I asked. "To get you out of the cabin."

Op.

October 29

2013-10-10T19:20:00.003+03:00

I am the youngest of five girls. You'd think that living in a small house with five girls would be difficult, and you would very, very correct. Being the youngest, I missed out on a lot of sibling rivalry growing up. I was just born when three of the five of us were already in their early teens. Being the youngest also means I didn't really connect with any of them - none of them but the oldest, Anne.
Anne always liked to talk about how she practically raised me. She liked to tell me about how she would go get me while I was crying in my crib and watch cartoons with me. She says she was the only sister that was truly excited when Mom told them she was pregnant with me. It's true, the other four were more or less uncaring, or jealous.
Over the years, despite how close we were growing up, Anne started to change. She was laid off of the first good job she had when she was 23 and ever since it was like she was in a downward spiral. She was in an abusive relationship, but she argued that they loved each other. She stuck with him until one particularly bad incident and then moved back home.
When all of this was going on I was only about 9. At that age no one tells you stuff like that. No one said to me, "Anne just lost her job, and was depending on an alcoholic shit to provide for her while he beat her up." So instead, Mom made it seem like Anne coming home was a good thing. I was excited and it meant I got to spend more time with her.
Fast-forward to high school. I meet my future husband, and I've become a different person than I was when I was 9. Anne is working a shitty job and dating and breaking up with multiple guys. I don't talk to my sisters ever at this point. I'm shy, I'm different, and talking on the phone just isn't my thing.
A little after graduation Anne has nearly cut off ties with the family. She's with a divorced man who has three kids. She's taking care of these kids while he uses her car to get back and forth to work. And he beats her. She only calls us when she's drunk. Other than that, she doesn't answer her phone, and tries very hard to cover up any foul-play between the two of them.
When Anne calls me at one in the morning, I'm afraid to answer. She's always weepy and she talks on a loop. She says the same stuff over and over again about how much she loves me, how she was always there for me even when Mom wasn't... These calls lasted for hours. I would lock myself in the bathroom so that my now-husband wouldn't hear how unwell my sister was, but you can't hide four-hour long phone calls that early in the morning.
My sister was very ill. There were a lot of things no one could fix for her. We did the best we could, and even now I can't really come to grips with the idea of Anne not being here anymore. I'm convinced that there was no one in this world she loved more than me, which makes me feel accountable...
On July 7th this year Anne committed suicide. She didn't leave a note for someone to find because she knew her abusive boyfriend would find her first.
Our family quickly got everything ready for her funeral and set the date for that following Tuesday. We were in shock, but we knew there were things that needed to be done. Specifically, we needed to collect her things from their apartment. Mom got the four of us and Dad together for that Saturday to bring boxes and go through her stuff together.
That was when I found the letters she left me.
I'm not sure if this was our family's thing, or if other mothers and fathers do this, but any time we would go on a trip -like summer camp or a sleepover- Mom would buy us cheap cards from the store and write a date on the envelope. The date was when we were supposed to open it. Inside it would be a sweet little note saying "hope you're having fun! miss you!" or something along those lines. It helped with any homesickness and was kind of like a mini Christmas.
That was how Anne fashioned the letters. They had been stacked neatly together and bound with a piece of yellow yarn. The first one said Open on Monday, July 8. I guess she had assumed we'd go through her things the day after.
Tearfully, and with my parents and sisters with me, I opened the letter with shaky hands. I remember how my stomach felt like there were butterflies in it, and I thought I might throw up. I pulled the card out and smiled. It was one of those blank cards with no specific occasion, and it had a cat tangled up in a ball of yellow yarn on the front.
I'm so sorry, it read, I hope you can forgive me. I was so sad, and so unhappy. I know that you're going to live a long and happy life. Love you forever, little girl. Anne.
I was a wreck. Mom couldn't console me, my sisters were speechless, and I was wracked with guilt. I looked through the next few letters that were each dated for Mondays. All of the following Mondays had a letter. Each letter got happier, and more light-hearted than the one before it. It was as if Anne was conveying to me how her life had improved in death. It was strange, but comforting.
I had a letter for every Monday up to August 12th. The following week my letter was dated for that Wednesday. I'd gotten into such a routine that I almost opened it that Monday before my husband pointed it out. It was dated for August 21, our dad's birthday.
It was a birthday card for Dad. It was written and signed just like Anne would have done if she were alive, and it made our father cry.
The next card is where everything changes. The next card was dated for September 11th.
So much death... their faces are so scarred. I've never seen anything like it. So much sadness and mourning. They weren't finished, little girl. They weren't ready.
The card left me shaken and upset. It didn't make any sense. After the sweet and beautiful notes she'd written in all the others, where had this come from? What was she talking about? I had so many questions, but no one to answer them.
My next letter said to open on Wednesday, September 27. I didn't have the chance to open it that morning when I usually opened them because I got a phone call. For months I'd been unemployed and had been looking for a job to help my husband out. That morning our local vet's office called me for an interview. It was the best news I'd gotten in a long time, so I honestly forgot about Anne's letter until I was eating lunch after my interview. I'd gotten the job and was set to start the following Monday.
When I opened the envelope I pulled out a Congratulations! card. The inside was printed with a bunch of cheesy "You did it! Great job! Take a bow!"s and in the corner Anne had written, I'm so proud of you. You'll do great!
I felt elated. This was my first real job. I wasn't a waitress anymore and I was excited to celebrate. It wasn't until I was washing off my plate from lunch that I realized what that card said. There was no way. It didn't make any sense. How could Anne possibly have known?
Coincidence. There was no other explanation.
The most recent card was dated for Monday, October 7. This past Monday. I was relieved after the last two to be going back to the normal Monday's.
This Monday morning was hell. Both my husband and I woke up half an hour late. I was in a huge rush getting ready and shoved the letter into my purse along with a cereal bar. My husband drives a lot for work so instead of going into work his boss assigned him a place near home to drive over to quickly.
I was at the computer in the lobby about to open my letter when my cell phone rang. My husband never calls me during work, since I'm not allowed personal calls, so seeing his number made my heart drop.
It was the city hospital. They said he'd been rushed in from a bad wreck and that I was under his emergency contacts. I told them who I was and told them I would be there in less than fifteen minutes.
At the hospital the receptionist couldn't allow me back. My husband was undergoing intensive surgery after the damage from the wreck. She couldn't provide me with any more details of what had happened, except that there was some head trauma, and that he'd been "pinned in".
I was hysterical, but I managed to calm myself down and take a seat. I knew the doctor would come to me with any information as soon as possible. In the meantime, I needed to let my mother-in-law know, and my own mom.
I reached into my purse for my cell phone and felt Anne's letter. I pulled it out. I opened it.
It was a get-well soon card. There was a bunny with a bandage wrapped around its head. My hands were shaking as I opened the card.
It's going to be fine, baby sister. Sometimes bad things happen in life that you aren't meant to understand. It will only hurt more if you try to make sense of these things. It's not his time yet. I've always taken care of you, and I always will. I promise you that when the time comes, I'll be there for you.
I haven't shown my husband. I haven't mentioned any of this to my Mom, or my sisters. I'm not sure what she means by "when the time comes", but the letters stop on October 29th.

Source

2013-10-09T15:14:00.001+03:00

Hunger

2013-10-02T12:16:00.002+03:00

As a doctor, I’m bound by doctor-patient privilege to not disclose the specifics of what I’m about to tell you. But as a human being, I feel compelled to share. This is, without a doubt, the most horrific story I've ever had the displeasure of being a part of.
It was 2009, and my schedule that day was light. I was just finishing up my lunch when I got a call from a friend and colleague who had his own practice in the same building as me. Sometimes we would send work each other’s way when we knew the other could use it. I was a bit elated at the prospect of him calling me because I had just been going over my books and stressing a bit.
“Are you busy right now? I’d like to send someone up to you,” he said.
“No, my afternoon is barren. What are the details?”
“It’s a walk-in. From the look of it, an eating disorder. Her mother is concerned.”
Eating disorder. Those can be unpleasant. I’d actually had a bulimic throw up in my office once when I stepped out momentarily to check my calendar. Still, I needed the work.
“Alright, send her up.”
I tried to tidy up my desk to make my office look more presentable and professional while I waited. Ten minutes ticked by and no patient showed up, so I stepped out to go looking for her. When I got to the hall, there was a small contingent of people standing around the elevator. They were talking amongst themselves.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The elevator’s broke,” someone said.
Shit, I bet she’s on there, I thought.
“What floor is it stuck on?”
“The tenth and eleventh.”
Yeah, that would be about right. My colleague’s office was on the tenth, three floors down. I knew from experience that it could be anywhere up to an hour before they got the elevator working again. I hoped she wasn’t claustrophobic. Returning to my office, I called downstairs.
“What’s up?” my colleague asked after picking up.
“She’s stuck in the elevator.”
He laughed. “Really? Poor thing.”
“What’s her name?”
“Amelia.” he paused. “Amelia D-something.”
“Alright, thanks. If you got any impressions on her from your brief visit, maybe you can share them later, over drinks?”
“Sure, I--”
“Don’t tell me. I want to form my own opinion first.”
“Okay.”
True to form, an hour and ten minutes later, I heard a loud cheer from the hallway, indicating the elevator had started working again.
I should go make sure she’s alright, I thought to myself, and went out to join the throng of people standing around in the hallway.
There were a lot more people by then, and I couldn’t make my way to the elevator doors or even see them from where I was, but I could hear it when the elevator dinged indicating it was stopping on our floor and the rolling mechanical sound of the doors opening.
There was a loud gasp from the crowd of people, followed by a lot of jabbering.
“Holy shit!” someone said quite loudly.
People started hustling away from from the elevator, shoving past me. I struggled against the tide and made my way to where a number of people were standing around, staring into the elevator cab. As I approached, I could smell this stench... it was like stumbling into the apartment of a recluse who hadn’t come out or bathed for years. It rolled like a wave out of the elevator and cascaded over everyone in the hallway. A young man in a business suit who looked dressed for an interview was covering his mouth and nose with a handkerchief. I skirted around him to see into the elevator.
The woman in the elevator was not at all what I was expecting. Massively obese, she looked like she weighed somewhere around 500-600 lbs. Her face was so puffed up, her eyes were barely visible, just two dark dots above her cheeks. She had frizzed-out, brown hair that still had curlers in it. The notion that I was smelling a recluse seemed all the more plausible at the sight of her.
Her mouth was covered with what looked like greasy barbecue sauce. There was even some sort of gristle at the corners of her lips. There was more of it all over her hands and wiped down the front of her shirt. It looked like she had come straight from an all-you-can-eat rib buffet. Clenched tightly in one of her hands was a big, black trash bag that sagged full of something that seemed to slosh around inside it. The smell coming out of it was nauseating.
The woman stepped out of the elevator, her eyes and nose runny with tears and mucous. I stepped forward while everyone else backed away, horrified.
“Amelia?” I asked her.
She looked at me through her beady, little piggy eyes, her cheeks covered with that vile, red gunk and streaking with tears and opened her mouth. For about three seconds, I had the horrible notion that she was going to vomit an entire barbecue on me.
“I... I was hungry,” she stuttered with a thick, Southern accent.
The young man in the suit heaved involuntarily at the smell of her breath and then strode away, trying to maintain his demeanor.
“That’s okay,” I said, reaching out to help her. “Do you want to talk about it in my office?”
Seeing me reach out to her, she clenched her black trash bag tightly and hugged it to her chest. The contents of it made a sickening squish sound. I could taste my own lunch in the back of my throat.
“Is that, yours?” I asked. “I’m not going to take it.”
She started sobbing. This horrible, almost hob-like squeal of a sob. Honestly, I didn’t want to touch her. I wanted to go back into my office, lock the door and pretend I was glad my afternoon was completely empty. The smell wafting off her and off that bag of spoils was going to be permeating every crevice of my office for days, I just knew it. Still, this was a human being that had come seeking my help, and I was not about to turn her away.
“My office is right down the hall. Why don’t you come with me?” I started walking. In my head, I said, If she doesn’t come with me, fuck it. She can go back to her apartment that’s probably filled with roaches and feces and who knows what other ungodly things, and I’ll find someone else to help.
But she followed me, lumbering on legs that stretched the limits of the sweatpants she had on. I held the door open for her and she waddled in, kneading the contents of that trash bag in her thick sausage fingers, making it belch and splurch. She stopped and just stood there in the middle of my office.
“The elev-v-vator got st-stuck,” she mumbled.
“Yes, I’m sorry about that. I hope you were all right. Thank goodness you brought something to eat, yes?”
She started crying again, squeezing her trash bag and I was afraid it was going to explode and leave god knows what all over my office floor. She nodded as her face turned red and tears poured out of seemingly every pore of her head.
I went and got her a box of tissues and handed her a couple. She tried to take them while still holding onto the bag with both hands.
“Would you like me to hold that?” I offered, praying she’d say no.
She shook her head.
“What do you have in there?” I finally decided to ask.
She huffed and snorted, trying to inhale all the fluid back into her face. Using one of the tissues, she mopped her eyes and mouth, getting blotchy red smears all over the place.
“L-l-left... leftovers...” she stuttered, then her chest started heaving and she threw her head back and started bawling again. Her face was like a fountain. She was so utterly miserable, and I really started to feel bad for her.
“Look,” I said, “getting stuck in that elevator was obviously pretty traumatic.”
Her wailing hit a crescendo.
“So why don’t we postpone things until you’ve calmed down a bit.”
She struggled through her sobbing, “Y-you wanna m-m-meet with me?”
“Well, yes... but not today. Why don’t you go home and try to relax. I don’t think you’re in the right frame of mind right now to talk. But I want to help you. So let’s schedule an appointment for later this week. How does that sound?”
I walked back to my desk and got out one of my cards. Her mouth was quivering and she looked ready to collapse into a pile of screaming phlegm, but she was calming down a bit, just nodding more than anything, and she took my card with the same sticky fingers holding several drippy tissues.
“Th-thank you.” she said quietly. I couldn’t read her face at all. Her features were so red and swollen and wet that she seemed almost blank and expressionless.
“Do you want me to escort you down to the lobby?” I asked, “In case something happens with the elevator again? It should be alright, but I don’t want you to be nervous.”
She shook her head. “That don’t s-seem like a g-g-good idea.”
“Okay.”
And with that, she turned around and waddled out of my office, slowly, sobbing slightly every now and then. With her went that sloshy, black trashbag and with them both went that putrid aroma of filth and squalor. I literally breathed a sigh of relief as I heard the door click shut.
She never called me back.
It was a week later that I finally got around to having drinks with my colleague from downstairs. We were relaxing, having a couple beers, and I suddenly remembered her.
“Oh, thanks by the way.” I said.
“For what?”
“For Amelia.”
“Who?”
“Amelia. Eating disorder? Last week you sent her up to me, remember?”
“Oh, right.” he sipped his beer. “The one who got stuck in the elevator. How did that go?”
“She was a wreck.” I said. “Sobbing and practically hysterical. I talked her into rescheduling, but she hasn’t called me to make an appointment.”
“Did you talk to her mother?”
“No, I didn’t get any information from her. I gave her my card.”
“What did you think?” he asked.
“Classic food dependency.” I said. “Definitely a binge eater. Her face was just all--”
“No, not the mother, I mean Amelia.”
“What?”
“What did you think of Amelia?” he said again.
“I’m telling you what I thought.”
“Amelia, the scrawny twelve year-old girl, you think is a binge eater?”
“What? No, that’s not--”
And then it hit me.
“Was her mother with her?”
“Yeah, I sent them both up to you.”
“They were in the elevator together?”
He looked at me, and the same dawning realization came over his own face.
Needless to say, she never rescheduled. Amelia D-something. Nor did her mother: the nameless, obese woman I met that day at the elevator, smelling like death, covered in gore and carrying her trash bag of sloshing leftovers.
Source.

Jordan is typing... (part 1)

2013-07-16T11:45:00.001+03:00

I don’t use Facebook a lot. At most, I may check my page about two times a week, if that. Recently, my best friend from college had a baby and I’ve been trying to follow the pictures and updates, so I’ve started to use the site a bit more.
A few days ago, I was talking to my friend on the chat. Bored, I was browsing through my contacts with the little green dot beside their names. Most of them were people I had known from high school, the small few I had picked up during college, and the even smaller group I worked with. There was one name that stood out to me, though. Jordan.
I knew Jordan from my freshman year of college. We were in the same history class. Through the course of the semester, we became fast friends. During our time in undergrad, the two of us slowly drifted apart. At the end of last year, however, Jordan was killed in a car accident. He was a great guy.
When I saw that his profile was online, I didn’t think much of it at first. I had a cousin that passed away a few months ago due to cancer, but his wife keeps his profile up for some reason. I think she’s still grieving the loss.
I clicked on Jordan’s name, and immediately I could see a small message history we both shared from over a year ago. His profile picture was of him wearing a birthday hat at my ex-girlfriend’s party. I’m pretty sure he was drunk.
The last message I sent him was from April 6, 2012:
“I’m going to bed….talk to u tomorrow.”
But I didn’t. Even though Jordan and I became estranged, we still had lunch when we could and kept up with each other via Facebook. But life took over. I graduated last May and moved out-of-state to take a job. Jordan stayed behind, and he died in December just after Christmas. I wasn’t able to make it to his funeral.
As I scrolled through our messages, small font appeared at the bottom of the chat window:
“Jordan is typing…”
My heart skipped a beat. I thought maybe I was imagining it, but I heard the message alert sound. I watched the text appear.
“Jordan: Hey”
I froze. My brain went into overdrive. It took me a moment to get my fingers working.
“Me: Who is this?”
Jordan began typing.
“Jordan: its me lol”
My pulse was racing.
“Me: Who? Is this Jordan’s sister?”
There was a pause.
“Jordan: It’s me man”
Jordan was typing.
“Jordan: how are you doing?”
I went to Jordan’s profile to make sure that it wasn’t spam. The only thing I saw were posts from Jordan’s friends from a year ago, saddened by his death.
A new message popped up.
“Jordan: u still there?”
I clicked out of the window and stared at my computer screen for a few moments. After thinking about it, I opened the chat window back up.
“Me: is this someone who has hacked Jordan’s profile?”
“Jordan: no its me lol”
I thought it over.
“Me: prove it.”
For a few minutes, the chat was silent. I thought that maybe I had spooked the person enough to get them to leave me alone.
Then a new message appeared.
“Jordan: in our history class freshman year you had a crush on the girl sitting in front of us but u were too scared to talk to her so you tried to invite her to a party and she said no. you swore me not to tell anyone and I didn’t…”
I almost threw my computer out the window. There was an icy chill that stabbed me in the gut. Jordan was right; I swore him to secrecy in the face of my brutal rejection, and he never told anyone. As far as I know.
“Me: You’re lying.”
“Jordan: I swear I’m not.”
“Me: Jordan died.”
Jordan began typing. Then stopped. I waited.
Jordan never replied.
I unfriended Jordan’s account and put it out of my mind. Frankly, I was a little pissed that Jordan had actually told someone about my incident in history class after all.
That was a few days ago. This morning, I woke up to a friend request. When I opened it up, it was from Jordan’s old profile. I ignored it.
An hour later, (1) New Message:
“Jordan: hey…”
Getting pissed, I replied:
“Me: leave me alone or I will report you.”
“Jordan: it is me I swear”
“Me: Jordan died a year ago!”
Nothing. I was about to block him, just as the new message appeared:
“Jordan: yes I did…i need to tell u something”
Something about those words made me uneasy. I blocked the profile anyway and erased the messages.
A few hours ago, I was video chatting with a friend, when the connection started to fizzle out. Expecting it to be my webcam, I logged in and out and started it back up. When I did, the grainy screen took on a life of its own. I was staring at Jordan’s face. It was a pre-recorded message that I had never seen.
Jordan was sitting in his messy apartment. I could make out the ratty carpet I had spent many drunken nights on. There was a Christmas tree in the background.
“I know we haven’t talked much lately, Peyton, but I hope you get this.” My chest felt tight. Peyton. That’s me. My name.
“You’re probably off in the big city doing your own thing, and I know you’re busy, but you should come down for a visit—”
There was a crash off to the side of the screen. Jordan turned around. I watched his front door fly open. Jordan stood up. The video was shaking. It froze. Raised voices cut in and out. In pixelated frames, I watched a shadow enter Jordan’s apartment. Then the screen went blank and my webcam shut off...

Original post.

Last Call

2013-07-12T16:25:00.004+03:00

“Can you hear me?”
An old woman’s voice. Rushed, nervous, maybe even panicked. I thought it would be on of those calls.
“This is...”
She interrupted me.
“Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Connor, can you hear me?”
Probably senile, I thought.
“Madam, I think you dialled the wrong...”
“Connor, please come down. Please come down. There is somebody at the back door.”
With every sentence her voice seemed to grow more panicked.
“Madam, you dialled...”
“Connor, he is at the door! He’s wearing a mask. I’m scared. Please come down.”
I pressed the ‘help’ button to call my supervisor.
She kept whispering something but I spoke over her, careful to increase the volume to ‘max.’
“Madam,” I said. “This is not Connor. But if you give us your address we can contact the police for you.”
“Connor, I’m scared.” She paused. “Oh, if this is you Elana, please tell your daddy to come down. This is your grandma. Please tell daddy to come down. Please, this is important. This is really important. Please send your daddy down. Tell him there is somebody here. Tell him that please, quickly Elana!”
My supervisor, a young man that went by the name Frazer, arrived and picked up the second set of headphones.
“Madam,” I said. “Please give us your address and...”
“Elana, please, please tell your daddy to come down. Please do that, okay? You know I can’t hear you, please just tell daddy to come down. Please, Elana! Please!”
The screen only showed her city, the local weather, and her name. Mrs. Ansh.
Frazer clicked the ‘caller ID’ button.
The sound of shattering glass rang through the phone.
“Oh god, he broke the door! Connor, he broke the door! Why don’t you do something? Why don’t you do something?”
A number from the other side of the country appeared on the screen. Below it, in red letters were the name and address of a frequent customer.
“Mrs Ansh,” I said. “Please lock yourself...”
I heard footsteps. She shrieked.
A door was slammed shut. A key turned.
Frazer pulled his mobile phone from his pocket and called the police.
“Connor, he’s inside now. He’s inside!”
I saw Frazer speaking into his phone.
The woman’s voice got more shrill.
“Why don’t you come? Please, why don’t you come?”
“Madam,” I said. “Please stay calm, we called the police for you! They will come soon!”
A loud thud.
Mrs. Ansh sobbed.
“Why don’t you come?” she whispered.
Another loud thud. It sounded like wood breaking.
Mrs. Ansh screamed.
Frazer set his mobile down and picked the headphone up again.
“The police will come,” he said.
“He’s in the house,” I said.
“I don’t have anything! Please, I don’t have anything valuable.”
Thud.
“You can have the TV and the jewelery and anything. Please, just...”
Thud.
“My son will be here...”
Thud.
“My son is strong, he knows how to fi...”
A thud. Then a loud crack.
“My son will hurt you! Go away! Leave me...”
Another loud crack. The sound of falling wood.
Mrs. Ansh screamed.
The sound of hollow plastic falling on a hard ground.
Static.
Frazer and I looked at each other with wide eyes.
Then the sound returned.
Her voice was now faint, distant.
“Please don’t hurt me. I don’t have anything.”
Slow, heavy footsteps.
Her voice was high-pitched, almost cracking.
“Why do you do this? Why?”
A loud smacking sound followed. Mrs. Ansh screamed. Something soft and heavy hit the floor.
For at least three minutes there were only three types of noises:
Sobs, thuds and, after every thud, something between a moan and a scream.
Then the sobs stopped.
Then the moans stopped too.
A male voice.
“Why?” he asked.
Then he laughed.
Frazer and I were frozen in place.
“You really ask ‘Why?’”
Another thud.
“You overstayed your welcome in this world.”
Thud.
“You ruin my every day and night with your goddamn helplessness.”
Thud.
“I have to do everything for you. And what do I get in return?”
Thud.
“Elana likes you more than me.”
A louder thud was followed by the distinct sound of shattering bones.
He laughed.
Then footsteps slowly walked away.

Original Thread.

Подъезд

2013-06-05T23:37:00.001+03:00

Я не знаю, кто это был. Я даже понятия не имею, был ли это человек. Я знаю только одно: он действительно есть, и встреча с ним — самое страшное, что может случиться с тобой.

В общем, однажды, я сломал ногу. Вот просто тупо так по синьке решил поспайдерменичать и упал примерно с уровня 3-4 этажа, при этом сломав себе пятку (наверно, самый е*учий перелом из несерьезных). Врачи определили мне сидеть в гипсе 3 месяца. Ну что ж, судьба. Сидя дома, ничем не занимаясь, быстро потерял режим и ложился спать, когда взбредет в голову. И как-то мартовской ночью (было полчетвертого, я это четко запомнил) решил я на костылях прогуляться в подъезд покурить. Надо сказать, что дом мой — обычная девятиэтажка в спальном районе, и уже давно нет дебилов, которые ставят в подъездах лампочки, ибо все равно соседи спи*дят. Из-за этого по ночам в подъезде нашем темно, причем так, что двери напротив не видно. В общем, вышел я, прошел общий коридор и оказался в подъезде. Поставил костыли к стенке, а сам оперся спиной на дверь. И когда прикуривал сигарету, краем глаза на лестнице, ведущей вверх, заметил силуэт. Силуэт явно принадлежал мужчине, и что-то в нем было не так. Я, в принципе, никогда трусом не был и во всякую чушь особо не верил. Поэтому решил, что просто какой-то пьяненький мужик возвращается домой. Ну, думаю, хрен с ним, пусть валит. Стою…10 секунд проходит, в темноте никаких шагов не слышно, а света от уголька сигареты недостаточно, чтобы его толком разглядеть. Ну, я решил зажечь зажигалку. Смотрю: до сих пор стоит, причем не лицом ко мне, а спиной, и нога одна на верхней ступени. В такой позе, как будто он поднимался и, услышав меня, замер в полушаге. Вот тогда-то и посыпались первые кирпичи, но виду я не подал, а решил наорать на него. Почему-то я до сих пор считал, что это просто алкаш, а на тот факт, что он не шевелится уже полминуты, хотя стоит в неудобной позе, я не обратил внимания. Крикнув ему что-то типа «х*ли ты тут встал?», я пригляделся к нему внимательней. И в этот, блин, момент это «существо» повернулось ко мне лицом. Я замер, я ничем не мог пошевелить, даже дышать перестал. И все из-за его лица — оно было страшным: чёрные глаза, бледная кожа, вместо носа и губ были только очертания, именно очертания, как будто их просто дорисовали, причем такой неумелой рукой. Зажигалка погасла, но легче мне от этого не стало. Его лицо в кромешной темноте я видел четко, как днем. Них*я толком не видно: ни его фигуры, ни лестницы, ни лифта, только каждая мелкая деталь его е*учего лица. Вывела меня из ступора обожженная сигаретой рука, но я все еще боялся пошевелиться, стоял и понимал, что если дернусь, то случится что-то очень плохое. Тут он повернулся ко мне всем телом, и, естественно, я не выдержал. Без костылей, с загипсованной ногой, я за секунду допрыгал на одной ноге до двери в свою квартиру, захлопнул ее и вжался в самый дальний уголок коридорчика. Так и сидел, если не спи*деть, минут двадцать. Потихоньку ужас откатил. Я отдышался, посмотрел на трясущиеся руки, вспомнил, что так и не покурил, и достал сигарету. Подымив и полностью успокоившись, подумал, как же я нелепо выгляжу — здоровый парень вжался в угол как котенок, да и вообще, пережитый момент я уже почти что полностью списал на расшатанное воображение из-за двухмесячного одиночества и в душе смеялся над собой. Тут вспомнились костыли, которые остались стоять в подъезде. Ну, думаю, надо сходить, а то спи*дят по-любому. Подскочил к двери, уже решил ее открыть, но тут что-то меня остановило. Думаю, чем черт не шутит, гляну-ка я в глазок. И посмотрел… Да да. Как в самом паршивом американском ужастике. Я посмотрел… и в 5 сантиметрах от меня, смотря мне прямо в глаза, было его лицо…

Что было дальше, мне рассказали уже родители. Их разбудил звонок по телефону в половину пятого ночи, из трубки был слышен мой истерический голос, говорящий полную белиберду. Батек резко сорвался ко мне. По дороге зацепил наряд ментов, сказав, что на меня напали. Когда приехали, дверь была закрыта, отец открыл своим ключом. В коридоре валялись вещи, скинутые с вешалки, и мой гипс (!!!), каким-то образом снятый с моей ноги. Телефон был разбит вдребезги, причем сотовый тоже. Меня нашли полностью невменяемым в углу туалета. Отпоили водкой и отправили в больницу на наркологическую экспертизу. Естественно, ничего не нашли и уже решили ставить мне шизофрению, но тут вмешался отец. В общем, все закончилось вполне нормально.

С тех пор я боюсь и каждый раз, когда выхожу из светлого и шумного лифта в мертвую тишину темного подъезда, жду появление страшных, полностью черных глаз. Когда выношу мусор поздним вечером, жду, что за углом у мусоропровода стоит он. Как всегда повернутый спиной, чуть сгорбившись, в какой-то странной и нелепой позе. И его лицо. Спокойное, нечеловеческое, бледное…

Если учесть, что последний раз я смотрел на часы в 3:30, а чтобы дойти на костылях до подъезда, мне понадобилось как раз 2-3 минуты, то встретились мы с ним в 3:33. Не знаю, может быть, это чушь, но ты уж как-нибудь будь поаккуратнее, когда куришь по ночам в подъезде... И уж точно не совершай моей ошибки. Никогда в таких обстоятельствах не смотри в глазок!!!

Я не знаю, кто это был. Я даже понятия не имею, был ли это человек. Я знаю только одно: он действительно есть, и встреча с ним — самое страшное, что может случится с тобой.

Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv

2013-06-04T16:21:00.002+03:00

В марте 2008 года в главный офис "YouTube" в Cан-Бруно пришло сообщение о человеке, совершившем самоубийство весьма жутким способом - кухонным ножом, вырезав себе предварительно оба глаза. В письме сообщалось, что перед этим он якобы смотрел выложенное на сайт видео со странным названием Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv. Сотрудники YouTube проигнорировали письмо, но через неделю Гугл и Ютюб получили ещё два уведомления о смерти людей при таких же обстоятельствах.
Один из администраторов сайта попытался посмотреть это двухминутное видео, закрыв половину экрана ладонью, и уже на 40 секунде у него необъяснимо началась нервная истерика. Видео было удалено и отправлено на исследование федеральной службы безопасности. Уже после этого в офис пришло ещё несколько уведомлений о случившихся ранее смертях в разных частях света, и во всех случаях люди вначале выдирали себе глаза. Найти пользователя, загрузившего видео так и не удалось.
Для успокоения ажиотажа вокруг видео, YouTube решило оставить короткую версию, состоящую из первых 20 секунд. Её просмотр, как показали эксперименты, не вызывал негативных реакций у людей. На экране в это время появляется лицо мужчины на странном фоне. Перед 22 секундой, он начинает улыбаться. Что идёт дальше - неизвестно.
На волне популярности, разными пользователями была сделана масса пародий на видео, а также фальшивые "полные" версии, состоящие из той же картинки, что и в коротком видео, но растянутой на две минуты.
Изначальная версия видео больше не появлялась нигде в интернете.
Количество жертв первого видео по всему миру точно не известно. Назывались цифры в 16, 47 и даже 153 человека.
Неизвестно также, что именно означают слова "Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv""

"Если вы будете искать это видео, вы почти ничего не найдете. Всё, что вы увидите, это 20-секундное видео, на котором мужчина пристально смотрит на вас и ухмыляется последние 2 секунды. Источник видео не определен. Это лишь часть основного видео.
Полное видео длится 2 минуты, и было удалено администрацией YouTube после жалоб 153 человек, которые после просмотра повредили свои глаза и отправили e-mail с жалобой в главный офис YouTube в Сан-Бруно. Говорят, что эти люди позже покончили с собой. Совершенно не понятно, как они смогли отправить электронные письма, ослепнув. А загадочная надпись, которую несчастные вырезали на своем предплечье, до сих пор не расшифрована.
YouTube не будет удалять 20-секундную версию видео, для удовлетворения любопытства пользователей. Полную версию видео решился посмотреть только один сотрудник Youtube, который начал кричать после 45 секунд. Сейчас этот человек находится под постоянным действием успокоительных препаратов и, видимо, не в состоянии вспомнить, что он увидел. Другие люди, которые находились в одной комнате с ним во время просмотра, быстро отключили видео и всё что можно было слышать, это высокий звук, похожий на бурение. Никто не смел смотреть на экран.
Человек, который загружал видео, никогда не был найден, IP-адрес не сохранился. А мужчина на видео никогда не был идентифицирован.

Это добавляет загадочности, поскольку все, кто видел этот файл, получили ссылку на него в анонимных e-mail'ах. Возникает вопрос, каким образом кому-то удалось загрузить его в Сеть?

Daddy

2013-05-26T10:45:00.001+03:00

How to actually contact Bloody Mary.

2013-05-11T18:19:00.000+03:00

A little bit of backstory

All this saying her name 3 times in the dark is all bullshit. Me and my girlfriend love proving and debunking myths. Its sort of this thing we do every month or so. Especially the creepy ones. I don't, know why, i guess its because it gives us that adrenaline rush. We do everything from video games to strait up rituals and so far the only thing that we have found that is actually legitimate is a creepy glitch in sonic, oh, there's a pretty creepy one in Zelda I bet you guys haven't found, but that's for another time. Anyways last night we were looking up something to try out, when we come across this really odd post page on 4chan (Yes I know, but 4chan can be a good source of info.) This post is about how some chick claims that if you follow these 6 particular steps you can actually summon Bloody Mary. It also gave out all the different precautions you must take before hand. This shit really works.

How to do it

Supplies: A large dark towel (Preferably black), thick red dye , crowbar, at least 3 light sources (Flashlight, candle, match, anything that emits light (Bring as much as you can.)

At 12 am make your way to the desired room. Now, you don't need to be in a bathroom to do this but I highly suggest it. If you are in a room with multiple mirrors this could go bad, very bad. Just make sure there's only one mirror. And there can be absolutely no natural sunlight or it won't work. I'm going to use a bathroom in this example

The dye is a mixture of dirt, milk, blood, does not need to be human. Just get it from the meats department. We got ours from our deli.

Step 1

Have a mate assist you. Do NOT try this by yourself. When you have gathered all your supplies, one person will go inside the room with the supplies and shut themselves inside. The other person will wait right outside the door. Now lay out all your supplies and make one last check to make sure you have them all. Also write out these steps on a paper so you are confident you are doing everything correctly.

Step 2

Now turn on your source of light, whether it's a flashlight or a candle. Un screw the bathroom light bulbs. Now with the thick red dye, pour it on one of your hands. (This is the point of no return) With your dye covered hand make 4 dots on each corner of the mirror. At this time she is already present. She just is not revealing herself yet.

Step 3

After you have made you four dots, run your towel under water and wipe your hands. Keep your crowbar at close distance. Turn all light sources off at this point. Now with your wet towel you will say. "This is the cleanser of the dead." Put it over your head covering your eyes.

Step 4

You will now say. "I wish to speak with the fallen Queen." When you hear a soft voice say "Queen of fallen blood. Queen of hatred" Take the cloth off your head. Make sure you take it off your head.

Step 5

This is the most important step. When you unclothe your eyes DONT yell or panic. If you do, things will go wrong. KEEP CALM. Ask her questions if you wish just remember to be very polite. She mirrors your actions so don't be scared or angry.

Step 6

There are two paths that are taken on this step.

Path 1: If things are getting bad and she threatens you or becomes aggressive you are going to have to smash your mirror. Then yell you to your bud to open the door.

Path 2: Say, "I must depart, your highness." Then she will immediately vanish from the mirror. This doesn't mean she is gone though. She just isn't revealing herself. If you chose to leave after that, she will crawl out of any reflective surface in the house. And most likely kill you. Instead after you say "I must depart, your highness." Find your light emitting device and turn it on to find your light bulbs. Screw them back in. Now one by one, wipe away the red dots. When they are completely gone, you now say. "Flee" You are now safe. She will not come back unless you completely do the ritual over again.

If you do this correctly she will appear. Just remember the information I have given you. If you guys would like. Ill post mine and my girlfriends experience. Just message me or comment.

Stay safe guys. This isn't a joke. If you try this make sure you follow these rules.

Original post.

We're Sorry Kiddo

2013-04-29T16:55:00.000+03:00

I was twelve years old when my parents went on the trip to Texas and left me with my aunt. They were expected to be gone for three weeks and I had to deal with the boring house my aunt lived in. She had no video games, no dvds, and no TV! What did they expect me to do for three weeks while they were out living it up in Texas.

I remember how long those weeks dragged out. Every day seemed to last years as I waited for the three weeks to pass. Then on the third week my aunt told me that my parents wouldn't be coming back for another three weeks. She seemed upset when she said this and I figured it was because she was stuck watching me for an extra three weeks.

The next three weeks weren't as bad. I had met a friend down the street from my aunt's house and he had a PS2 that we would play all day. I was starting to enjoy myself. At the end of the next three weeks I was more than ready to see my parents. A month and a half without them was terrible and I missed my home.

My aunt walked outside as I headed out with my bags packed. I remember how upset I was when she told me that my parents had decided to go to New Mexico for three weeks now as well. I thought they had abandoned me and I started to get depressed.

The next three weeks were just as uneventful as the first three weeks. I had forgotten how my house looked and I had nearly forgotten the faces of my parents. I was ready to go home.

The night before my parents were supposed to be back I was woken up to a tap on my shoulder. I looked up and saw my mom and dad standing over the bed smiling at me. I was so happy to see them and I hopped out of my bed to hug them both.

"We can't stay for long buddy. We have somewhere else we need to go." I remember my dad saying to me.

We walked out to their car and they drove me around for a while. We didn't talk much but I was so happy to be with them even for a little while. When we finally arrived back at my aunt's house I was reluctant to let them leave. I ran into my room and came back with the camera my dad had bought me before they left and i asked them to take a picture with me so i wouldn't forget their faces. I sat the camera on the hood of the car and set the timer on it before hugging my parents and waiting for the flash. After that my dad wrote something on the back of the picture and handed it to me before he and my mom got in the car and drove off.

In the morning I woke up my aunt and told her that my mom and dad visited last night. She looked at me with so much sadness in her face that it worried me.

"You must have been dreaming." She said to me fighting back tears.

"Why?" I asked her.

She hesitated a moment before she answered me. Tears were now rolling down her cheeks. "Your parents died in a car crash on the way to Texas."

I laughed as she said this. There's no way it was a dream. Then I remembered the picture I had taken with my parents and I ran into my room to get it. I grabbed it without looking at it and ran into my aunt's room to show it to her.

"Look, this is proof they were here." I handed her the picture.

When she looked at the picture she screamed and dropped it. Her face turned as white as snow and she covered her mouth. I was confused so I picked up the picture and looked at it.

The picture showed me standing out front of my aunt's house hugging the mutilated figures of my parents. I couldn't believe what I was looking at. I dropped the picture on the floor as my hands went numb. The picture landed upside down and I read the words written on the back.

"We're sorry kiddo."

Credits: Exxile4000

Time Jump

2013-04-27T13:49:00.000+03:00

I’m a time jumper.

I know it’s a bit vague but there’s no other way to put it. Sometimes, when I close my eyes and concentrate, I find myself misplaced in time. It seems to be random. I remember the first time; I must have been about 10. I was sitting at home doing my homework, when I closed my eyes for a second. Suddenly, there was a bright flash behind my eyelids, like when you look at the sun with your eyes closed. I felt wind, and smelt grass, and as I opened my eyes, I realised I was standing in a garden, I think it was on a farm, and a boy about the same age as me, ran up to me. He was a little smaller, but had the same colour hair. There was also a camera round his neck.

“Where did you come from?” He said curiously.

“I’m…not sure…is this a dream?” I replied, convinced I must have fallen asleep. “I don’t think so,” he said. “This is my parents’ house, can I take your picture?” I was a little surprised at how comfortable this kid was talking to a complete stranger that had somehow appeared in his garden, maybe it was because we were about the same age.

“Sure,” I said, a little confused. Is this really a dream? He snapped my photo, and that’s when I noticed that the camera was old, it was one of those that printed out the photo after it took them. He pulled it out and gave it a wave in the air to dry it off. I started to get a headache and closed my eyes again, I heard the boy speak, but it seemed to have an echo to it.

“Are you ok?”

Another bright flash and I opened my eyes, a little bit of confused, plus my head was pounding now. I was in the exact same position I was in when I closed my eyes for the first time, and I looked at the clock, no time had passed. I started to panic a little now, and instinctively looked around my room for the slightest hint that I had fallen asleep. That’s when my eyes fell on a family photo on my windowsill. A thought came to me, a crazy thought, an impossible thought.

I ran into my parents room and looked for the box my parents kept photos in. I quickly located it and looked for the bit where my dad’s old photos were kept, and then I saw it. A photo taken about 20 years ago, of a boy who looked just like me, even wearing the same clothes, standing in a garden looking deep in thought. I never mentioned this to my dad, but I started to notice that, every so often, he would stare at me with a confused look on his face, the same one he wore 20 years earlier, and quickly look away when he realised I’d noticed.

This happened more and more as I got older, and I learnt to be able to turn the random jumps on and off at will. I also noticed a few more stranger things. Once, I was in ancient Egypt, and while investigating the tools they used for crops, I cut my finger. I wasn’t too worried about it, that is until I jumped back into the present. My finger was still cut.

This was when it fully hit me that these were definitely not just dreams, as a tiny part of me had hoped. It was wonderful for a while, going to all these different times. Sometimes I would go to the past, I’ve seen World Wars, World Wonders being built, Abraham Lincolns inauguration speech, Queen Victoria’s coronation, the invention of the lightbulb and so much more.

Sometimes however, I would jump into the future. Obviously I can’t put names to these, or put them in any sort of chronological order, as they’ve not happened yet. Stereotypical hover cars? Yep, we get those. Clean white pavements and buildings in our super-cities? Yep. Not everything is so great though, I’ve seen London reduced to ruins with not a person in sight. Las Vegas reclaimed by the desert. But that’s not the thing that’s bothering me, that’s not the reason I’m writing this entry.

Last time I hurt myself, it made me think, What if I was killed while “on a jump”? What would happen then? As I was thinking this, I blinked, and suddenly found myself in a graveyard, rain pouring on my face. The sky was slate grey and there was something moving ahead of me. I moved closer and saw four men lowering a coffin into an open grave. The sight made me uneasy.

“What’s going on?” I asked cautiously.

“Some guy died, no one turned up for the funeral, poor fella,” He replied. “He was run down by one of them new automobiles, was screamin’ all sorta nonsense before he died, apparently.”

I watched them lower the coffin into the hole, still feeling uneasy, the rain pounding on the scrubbed wood. When they finished lowering, and left to take a break, I walked over to the grave, and stepped over the hole to read the inscription on the little wooden cross that had been used instead of a gravestone.

I felt a cold chill run through my body. It was my name. Written on this stone, was my name. And what made my heart skip a beat was the date of death;

DIED 1911

Somehow, I accidentally jumped into my own future, in the past, in which I died. And since I may not see this happen, I come bearing a warning.

Keep your eye on the sky on the 7th July 2013. You won’t want to miss that.

Credits: danny249

House

2013-04-25T23:45:00.004+03:00

A couple of years ago I bought my first house. It’s a nice, little, colonial home that sits on the outskirts of the city as a reminder of the areas humble beginnings. For the most part I have lived alone and have enjoyed living in such a spacious place on my own. Over the past two years I have added in many installments to bring the house into the modern age on the inside, and out. I have a brand new kitchen with sleek, chrome appliances, a two car garage attached to the western wing of the house, and best of all; it talks. Now this isn’t science fiction by any means it’s actually very simple. Years ago I had a girlfriend who’s dad had made is so their house could talk through speakers. It all ran through a computer that he had setup in the basement that constantly ran a program that was set on timing, and trigger cues. For example: every day at seven in the morning, and six at night the house would automatically announce a weather update. It would also make a clunking sound like a door closing whenever someone entered or exited through the garage, or front door. There were a bunch of other things it could do but to me those were always the most interesting.

About a year ago I decided to install speakers throughout my house and I setup an old dell in my basement that would run the program. It took me a few weeks to get everything setup and once it was all finished I was very anxious to hear it work. I ran upstairs and opened and closed the garage door that led into the house over and over to hear the imitating “clunk” sound it would make every time. I also added a feature that could tell me just how long I was out of the house by sensors that picked up when I walked out of the door and back in. I setup an alarm to wake me up for work every day at six a.m. and it would announce the day’s weather as well. I’d wake up, eat my breakfast, dress appropriately for the weather, and leave around seven. I’d work from eight until four and usually get home around five. Each day I’d walk in greeted by the “clunk” and a chime followed by the house announcing that I had been away for roughly nine and a half hours.

I got use to the daily greetings of the house quickly and found it very welcoming. It was almost like the house and I were friends. I started installing more and more little quirks to the program just so I could hear the house talk more. I’d receive traffic updates along with my morning weather, I also made it so that it said goodnight to me each night around nine. I am not completely proud of that but it gets lonely around here. I also setup a system where it would bark if someone tried to come in while the front door was locked. Things were going great with the house for a while until about a week ago when it started to act up. It started last Wednesday I believe. I was awoke by my alarm followed by my updates and everything seemed fine. But suddenly I jolted when I heard the house make its intruder barking noise. I ran downstairs and looked out the front door but no one was there and the door was locked. I shook it off, ate my breakfast and left for work. When I returned home the house greeted me by telling me how long I was gone, “nine hours,” and told me goodnight when I went to bed. A few days past and everything remained normal. Suddenly I was awoke by the barking in the middle of the night.

I ran downstairs again and turned on the porch lights to see no one there. I was somewhat frustrated and decided to turn the damn barking sounds off because it obviously wasn’t working. I stayed up the rest of the night and spent that Saturday trying to figure out why the sensor was acting up. After a while of frustrated tinkering I dropped the project and just hoped it would stop acting up. The weekend went by without any problems. The house ran baseball stats by me as I sat and read on my sofa, happily enjoying the sun shining through the window behind me. Suddenly the barking went off again. This time I was right next to the door and heard the handle jiggling. I leapt from the sofa and over to the door to find that still, no one was there. I walked outside and did a lap around the house and found nobody. I started to feel shaky and somewhat paranoid. The sound kept freaking me out and I didn’t know how I was going to fix it without shutting the whole system down which I wasn’t about to do.

The rest of the weekend went by without hearing the sound again and I went through my normal work routine Monday. I arrived home at my normal time of five thirty, but something was wrong. As soon as I walked into the house I was met with the “clunk” and the time that had passed since I had left. “Welcome home. You have been away for: one hour.” One hour? I thought nervously. How could that be possible? I was gone all day. How could I have been here an hour earlier and then left right after? Maybe the sensor had failed to pick up that I had left but I know I heard the “clunk” when I had left that morning. I was shaken but not scared. I knew that the house wouldn’t announce how long I had been gone if someone was still here so I figured I was safe. I took a deep breath and moved on from the incident. I ate dinner, listened to the weather report, and went to the bed after my daily, “goodnight.”

After a couple hours of restless sleep I finally dozed off. It wasn’t long after that I was jolted awake by a sound that I know I shouldn’t have heard at that time of night. I sat up in my bed shaking as I heard the familiar noise resonate through the house: “clunk.”

Credits: writersblok

2013-04-22T22:07:00.000+03:00

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Symmetry

2013-04-22T22:06:00.002+03:00

I love symmetry. I’m not sure exactly why but I’ve loved it since I was a kid. Most children are messy and forgetful of their things. Not me. I knew everything has a place and in my room, everything was right where it belongs. My parents didn’t have It. My grandparents didn’t have It either. Not a single person in my family had “It”. I’ve started referring to it as “It” because I truly believe it’s a thing inside me. A stowaway that shouldn't be there but lives inside me. It’s a need. A desire. A longing to be perfect. Perfect on both sides. As an adult, I’m at the point where I can’t live my life normally. I can’t keep a job. Women don’t stay with me because they can’t handle It. Honestly, I don’t care when they leave. They’re messy and make things difficult. They roll over to my side of the bed instead of staying on their own. They leave dishes in one side of the sink but not the other. I can’t work anymore so when they leave for the day, I have to stay home and fix everything. It’s a relief when they leave for good. That feeling never lasts though, eventually It comes back and finds something else that needs fixing. You may be asking, why would I seek out relationships to begin with if I can’t stand them? Well, it’s hard for me to sleep in the middle of the bed all night without moving.

Other than the relationship problem, my life is pretty much in order. I say “pretty much” because there is one last issue that must be dealt with. You see I have what’s called “Heterochromia Iridum” or two different colored irises. My right eye was cornflower blue, my left pale green. Both my parents have cornflower blue eyes, my siblings and cousins as well. My green eye is the broken one. It makes me...unbalanced. Every time I look at myself in the mirror, It stares right back at me. It’s all I think about now. Everything is in its right place except my green little mistake. It didn’t hurt at first when I dug the spoon under my eye. It didn’t even hurt when it popped out and was hanging by my cheek. Was it shock that was keeping the pain away or was it It? I snipped the optic nerve and blotted the warm fluids that were streaming down my face. My vision being cut in half was a strange sensation. What was left of the dangling flesh, I placed back in the now empty hole. I bandaged the wound, rinsed the spoon, and went to sleep.

I woke up...happy. I slept better than I had in years. It was finally done. I was fixed. I got out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. My body ached and my head was on fire. I flipped the switch in the bathroom and the light was blinding. I slowly removed the bandage that was soaked with blood and was sticking to my face like tape. When I looked up to the mirror, my stomach turned. Only then had I realized what I’d done to myself and I couldn't believe it. There was a hole in the left side of my face...but not the right. I was unbalanced. Again. It was much harder digging out the second eye. My hands were shaky and when I dug the spoon in, I missed several times, puncturing my pupil three times before I got the it in the right place. Once the eye popped out, I reached for my scissors to finish the job. The blood from the previous night had dried on the blades, so the scissors didn’t cut very well. You know when you were a kid in elementary school and your teacher made you cut construction paper for art projects? Did you ever try to cut too many pieces at once but the scissors couldn't take it? The blades would kind of fold over each other and the paper would get pinned between them? That’s what happened with my eye. The optic nerve was pinned between the two blades. It was stuck and as I tried desperately and frantically to make it unstuck, I slipped on the blood and started falling to the floor. Reflexes kicked in and I let go of my eye to try to break my fall with my hand. The weight of the stuck scissors on my hanging eye was unbearable. I knew I couldn’t stand it long enough to make it to the kitchen to get a knife. So I pulled. I pulled it straight out of my head. I felt the flesh tear from inside my skull. I felt it rip and spew liquids everywhere. I knew I was crying but there was no telling the tears from the blood from the ocular fluid. When I heard the wet slap of bloody flesh against the tile floor, I knew I was done. I knew It was done. I could live my life now without having to see peoples awful, messy, uneven lives. The relief washed over me and I knew it would last this time. I had never felt this way before, never had this much hope. As I laid in my bathroom on that cold, wet, sticky tile, I smiled for the first time in years.

-Dictated but not read

630-296-7536

2013-04-22T13:34:00.005+03:00

Help me, help me, blah-blah-blah. I won’t bore you with another. Even if I wanted your help, you couldn’t give it to me, because your help is useless.

Why?

Because you’re not a member.

I just wish that I wasn’t either.

It all started innocently enough. With a phone call.

I’d been up for a few hours, unpacking and cleaning, waiting for the plumber to call. I just moved into a cabin and the contractors fucked everything up. Because of that, I now have the wonderful task of making calls to competent people that can fix what the original contractors did wrong.

The phone rang at 12:06.

Not bad, I thought. Usually plumbers don’t bother to call or show up until 5.

When I picked up the phone I didn’t even get a chance to say hello before a woman on the line told me to “Please hold for the next available operator.”

I hopped up and sat on the cabinet in the kitchen. It was one of the few places in the cabin not occupied with boxes. Elevator music leaked into my ear. I’d started to drowse off when the music stopped and a piano chord that sounded like it was three notes that didn’t quite go together played through the receiver twice.

A voice came on the line.

“Welcome to Boothworld Industries. My name is Samantha and I will be your operator today. Name?”

I didn’t know what to say so I told the operator my name.

“Sir, we know who you are. I’m your operator. Please give me a name to access.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“It can be anyone, sir. We just need a name.”

“Uh, okay,” I said. I made up a name. “Harold Withers.”

“Sir, as your operator, I must point out that fictitious names, or the names of people that you don’t know, cannot be used.”

“Used for what?” I asked. How had she known that I’d made up that name? The whole thing felt like it was some sort of prank, but hardly anyone knew my new phone number.

“Remodeling.”

“Remodeling? Is this the plumber?” I asked.

“Welcome to Boothworld Industries. My name is Samantha and I will be your operator today. Name?”

I took that as a yes and gave them the name of an old ex-girlfriend. “Jessica Goodwin.”

I could hear the clicking of a keyboard on the other end of the phone. It sounded like the woman was pounding the thing with her fists. After a few moments of this, she returned.

“Jessica Goodwin,” she said. “Remodeling is scheduled for August 21, 2015. Would you like to reschedule?”

I was silent on my side of the phone. I couldn’t believe this. Someone had to be playing a prank on me.

“Who is this? Is this you, Jessica? Are you playing a prank on me?” I asked.

The woman didn’t respond for a long time. I thought that whoever was on the other end of the phone was holding in a laugh.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Yes or no, Sir?” The woman asked back.

“Yes?” I said, not understanding what the woman was asking.

“I have a Tuesday appointment available. Will that work?”

At this point I thought I was going insane and that it actually was the plumbing company.

“What about today?” I asked. “Do you have anything available for today?”

“Normally we can’t arrange for a reschedule on such short notice, but today we had a cancellation. How does three o’clock work for you?”

“Three o’clock is fine,” I said.

“Three o’clock it is then. Would you like a courtesy call?”

“Sure.”

“Wonderful. We at Boothworld Industries say thanks and welcome to the club. You have a marvelous day.”

That strange chord played twice again and the line went dead. I rolled my eyes and went back to unpacking.

My phone rang at three o’clock on the dot that afternoon.

“Hello?” I said.

“Sir. This is Samantha with Boothworld Industries again. Your courtesy call begins now.”

“What do you-” I began to say, but was cut off by those diminished chords blaring into my ear, then I heard Jessica’s voice.

“Why are you doing this?” Jessica asked. I could hear the tears in her voice.

“Jessica?” I asked.

“Sir,” the operator said. “She cannot hear you. This is a courtesy call. The appointment has already concluded.”

“Please,” Jessica begged. “Please don’t do this. I’ll do anything you want. I’ll-”

Jessica’s voice choked off into a wheeze and all I could hear on the other end of the phone was the rustling of clothing and more wheezing. Eventually it stopped and someone picked up on the other end.

“The scheduled work has been completed,” a man’s voice said. “We at Boothworld Industries say thanks and welcome to the club. You have a marvelous day.”

“Sir?” The operator came back on the line. “Was that to your satisfaction?”

I sat there for a long time, cold sweat dripping down my ribcage. Jessica was my ex, because I walked in on her and my best friend fucking at a party in high school.

I smiled and whispered, “That was perfect.”

“Wonderful,” the operator said. “We at Boothworld Industries aim to serve. Would you like to make another appointment?”

As I stared at the water leaking from the door of the dishwasher, I smiled even bigger.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes I would.”

“Name?”

“Dan. I don’t have a last name. He’s a contractor.”

“Dan Arencibia. July 13, 2032. Would you like to reschedule?”

“Yes,” I said.

“How would Wednesday work for you?”

“Didn’t you say you had a Tuesday appointment available?” I asked.

“I did, but unfortunately that slot has been filled by another member. Would Wednesday work for you?”

“No,” I said. “I have a job interview that day. What about Thursday?”

“Unfortunately Thursday will not work. You are due for remodeling Wednesday night.”

“What?” I asked.

She repeated the exact same thing to me again.

“Can we reschedule my remodeling?” I asked.

“Of course we can, sir,” the woman said. It sounded like she was smiling on the other end of the phone. “There’s always a way.”

I waited for her to tell me how. She didn’t speak.

“HOW?” I asked.

“Boothworld Industries is always looking to add new members. We are, of course, a membership by invitation only club. Sadly, our membership numbers have fallen in recent years. Economic recessions. Wars. Politics. What we would like you to do, in order to avoid your own remodeling appointment, is help us add several new members.”

The light at the end of the tunnel, I thought.

“How many members do you need?” I asked.

“One thousand.”

I choked. “One thousand?”

“Yes, sir. Otherwise we’ll have to keep our scheduled appointment. We must inform you that the member that scheduled this appointment did request a courtesy call.”

Everything stopped at that point for me. All my life I’d just skated by, not doing anything, not making a difference.

My mouth actually dried up. I’d always thought that was just a thing people wrote in books to be dramatic.

It’s not.

“I’ll get you your one thousand members,” I whispered.

“We at Boothworld Industries say thanks and welcome to the club. You have a marvelous day.”

The connection ended.

I hung up the phone and stared at it for a long time. I’m scheduled for remodeling on Wednesday, and somewhere, someone will be getting a courtesy call to listen to my last few breaths if I don’t get one thousand members to join Boothworld Industries.

It’s funny. I’d always wanted to join an elite club. Skull and Bones. New World Order. I'm not sure how I got in, but now I’m a member. I've got until Wednesday to enjoy it.

Like I said at the beginning: even if I wanted your help, you couldn’t give it to me, because you’re not a member.

Membership is by invitation only.

I’m inviting you in.

You can help me.

Just call 630-296-7536.

Credits : boothworld

The Ritual ( Part III )

2013-04-19T22:01:00.002+03:00

Part II

“Got to find the others.” I stated. “No way we can leave ‘em here.” We both helped Tiffany to her feet, “Alright, we stick together and search for the others.”

We began searching, Alexia staying right next to Tiff. The beast already knew we were there so there was no need to remain quiet. We moved through the halls of the 3rd Floor calling for our friends.

We heard the sound of someone running from down the hall; I shined my light and hit Steve right in the eyes with the bright beam. His face had no color and his shirt was covered in blood. I caught him as he reached us and practically collapsed.

“It got Mark,” He stammered out between breaths. “Ripped him in half.” Steve grabbed me and started screaming, “WE’VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE!”

“We’ve got to find Tonya and Jeff.” I told him, “Calm down, we’ll get them and then get out of here.” I tried speaking to him in a calming tone.

“They’re probably dead already!” Steve shouted, “Let’s just go!”

“We’ll be fine if we stick to-” Alexia started saying but was interrupted by a blood curling scream that came from below us. “That’s Tonya!”

I was already starting to run towards the stairs when Steve grabbed me, “NO, IT’LL KILL YOU!”

“We have to get Tonya!”

“SHE’S AS GOOD AS DEAD!” Steve shrieked in my face. Then we heard Tonya scream again. I grabbed Steve’s arm and started dragging him along with me as I began the decent down the stairs.

“If we stick together we’ll be fine!” I told him. Steve tried to fight against me, but I’ve got quite a bit more muscle than he does, so I was able to drag him down the stairs. I let him go when Tonya came into my light. She was still screaming and was trying to get up from the floor, which was covered in blood, as was she. She managed to get to her feet when I saw her, but a leg came out of the darkness and slammed into her legs causing her to fall back to the floor. I noticed that the leg wasn’t attached to anything. I managed to run over to Tonya and shine my light down the hall where I saw it.

It stood over 7 feet tall and its skin was dark and shiny. The thing’s mouth was large and vile looking. Its eyes held a terrible presence, burning terror into my very being. In one of its grotesque hands was Mark’s body, what was left of it, and its other hand pulled the last limb, an arm, and threw it at us. I ducked under the arm and grabbed Tonya, hauling her to her feet.

“RUN!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, shoving Tonya toward the stairs. I heard the thing laugh as we ran down the stairs to the first floor. The exit, we just needed to get out of the building.

I was the last in line as we hit the first floor. Steve was first to the door and tried to open it, it wouldn’t move. Alexia shined her light on it revealing a glob of black goo stuck to the doors, preventing them from being opened.

We heard the laughter of the creature. It was on the stairs, coming for us. Steve took off down one of the hallways that went off of lobby and the rest of us followed. I looked back behind me and shined my light; the creature was following us, scuttling on the walls.

That was not what I wanted to see.

I turned back to make sure I didn’t get separated from everyone else, but I knew that this thing was going to catch us soon if we didn’t manage to get outside. Steve ducked down yet another hallway, continuing to run at a breakneck speed with Tiff, Tonya, and Alexia right behind him, and I was at an ever increasing distance behind them. I heard Steve hit something before I rounded the corner, a door leading outside!

“It’s locked!” Steve wailed, franticly trying to get the door open. “I can’t get it open!” The girls caught up to him and started trying to help get the thing open. The door had a window in it, one with the metal netting in it to keep people from breaking in, or out. Somehow we had made a few turns and I could see into the parking lot, our cars were just a little ways away. Salvation was just one door away.

I skidded to a halt as I reached them and looked back behind us; the monster was nowhere to be seen. “I don’t see the thing.” I called out.

“Maybe we lost it?” Tiff sounded hopeful, almost pleading.

“No, it knows where we are.” Alexia replied. I took up a position to be able to keep a look out as they worked on getting the door open.

The door was at the end of a short hallway, with rooms to both sides and the crossing hallway a little ways away, so I knew that it only had one way to come to get us. I stood, shaking with fear, watching for this thing to come for us.

Mark’s head rolled into the intersection and stopped, his lifeless eyes looking at me, his face frozen in an expression of sheer terror.

I screamed.

So did everyone else.

The Ritual ( Part II )

2013-04-19T20:54:00.002+03:00

Part One

I didn’t believe that some creature had been summoned from the ether to wreak terror on these dunderheaded college students; I figured that someone was playing a prank on them. I mean, they posted it on Facebook, for crying out loud!

It didn’t take long to get there, only about 15 minutes and that was due to hitting every – single – stoplight on the way. It was still raining hard when I parked in the old asylum’s lot. No lights were on in the parking lot and the big building was completely dark. The only sources of illumination were the street lights and the occasional flashes of lightning. We got out into the cold rain, using the small umbrellas we kept in the car as protection against the weather. I pulled our flashlights out of the back of the car. A 3 D Cell LED Mag-Lite for Alexia and a big 6 D Cell Mag-Lite (called Bessie) with the ultra-bright Xenon bulb for me. With our flashlights in hand we headed to the building.

The front entrance wasn’t locked so we stepped inside to the lobby. Alexia tried to call Tiffany but the reception was horrible. The only thing that she could make out was, “It’s coming for me.”

After hanging up, Alexia looked at me and asked, “Time to search, shall we split up?”

“Sure,” was my reply, “That way it can eat us easier.”

“Good,” She said. We both looked around, “I feel like I’m walking into a horror story. Shall we skip to the end and just go down to the basement and-”

A scream from upstairs cut her off. We both headed up the stairs that were in the main lobby of the asylum. There was another scream, one filled with even more terror than the first one. It sounded like it was on the third floor, so we ran that direction. It took a moment on the third floor landing for us to catch our breath. Neither one of us was in good enough shape to really run, much less run up 3 flights of stairs. As my girlfriend and I were wheezing on the landing, my light hit something big and odd looking, but it vanished just as quickly as I saw it.

Tiffany was on the floor against the wall right next to where I saw whatever it was. Alexia went over to her as quickly as she could. Tiff grabbed Alexia and sobbed against her. I continued looking around; keeping an eye out for whatever it was that had run off. Finally after a few moments, Tiffany regained some composure.

“What was that thing?” I asked,

“It was Arke…” Tiffany started to say but was cut off by Alexia.

“Don’t say its name!” She said to Tiff.

Tiffany nodded and continued, “It was the creature that’s summoned by the ritual.” She managed to finally stammer out. I looked at Alexia and she had a very concerned expression.

She looked up spoke in the tone that she uses that I knew better than to argue with, “We need to leave, now!”

The Ritual ( part I )

2013-04-19T19:24:00.000+03:00

I don’t think there’s a college that doesn’t have its share of legends. Stories range from the ghost of the girl who was pregnant with the football coach’s child to the creature that roams a building at night. And everything is said to kill you in the most horrible fashion if you run into it, of course. My school, Miskatonic University, up in Maine, was no exception.

In addition to the obligatory ghost stories of the suicides and murder victims still haunting the grounds, there was a story of an evil creature that liked to torture its victims by scaring them for days on end before killing them. The thing is, you have to call this monster, invite it to hunt you. The monster is called Achildes and it feeds on the terror.

Yeah, that’s brilliant, call up an otherworldly horror to come and torture you.

But there were tons of people who did this and they didn’t die. It was some sort of rite of passage. Frats and Sororities had it as part of their initiation ritual. They would take the new kids out to the old run down building on campus. Despite its sorry state, it still was usable, there just weren’t any classes being held in it. That wasn’t common knowledge, though. The members would send the pledges in and have them call up Achildes. The pledges would do the ritual in the men’s bathroom and then someone in a mask would jump out and scare the bejesus out of them. Most of the time the kids would run screaming out of the building, sometimes they would go deeper into the building and get lost. Which meant that all the lights would have to be turned on and a search would go on until they were found.

What a great way to get people into your frat, give them heart attacks and/or mental issues.

Then my friend Tiffany told me and my girlfriend, Alexia, that she had found the actual ritual and where it was supposed to be done. I didn’t really want anything to do with it, and neither did Alexia. We told Tiff not to do it, that it’s not a good idea to mess with things that aren’t of this world. Of course, she didn’t listen. I remember when it happened, it was at the end of November…

It was a dark and stormy night…

I was lounging on the couch in the apartment that Alexia and I shared just off campus, playing Mass Effect for the twenty-eighth time. Alexia was sitting at her desk nearby, playing some Facebook games on her laptop.

“Remember that ritual Tiffany told us about?” Alexia asked me,

“Vaguely,” was my muttered reply.

“She has a status saying that her, Mark, Tonya, Steve, and Jeff are going to perform it tonight. That was about 3 hours ago.”

“What time is it now?”

“9:27″

“Wonder if they’re still alive.” I wasn’t taking it seriously.

“Probably not.” She said in a similar tone to mine.

A while later the phone rang. It was right next to me, but I was shooting people, so obviously I couldn’t answer it. I quickly checked the caller id. “It’s Tiff,” I said as I tossed it to Alexia and went back to shooting people, but with the volume down a bit more. I didn’t really pay any attention to the call, I was too busy trying to snipe some mercs, and Alexia had gone into another room. Not sure how long the call lasted but it was long enough for me to get out of that area in the game.

“Find a save point,” Alexia called out to me, “We’ve got to go get ‘em.”

“Why?” I asked, saving and shutting down the system.

“They did the ritual and are scared out of their minds.” She replied as she put her coat on and grabbed her purse.

“Okay, so where are they?” I grabbed my coat and keys.

“The old mental hospital.”

“Why am I not surprised?” We went out to the car and started towards the old mental hospital that was just outside of the warehouse district of the city. Alexia reminded me what Tiffany had told us about the ritual.

The location for the ritual has to be a place where great fear has been felt – the mental hospital was perfect for that – and at night with no lights on. You have to have 27 black candles and, after arranging them in a specific pattern, light them. Then everyone who is participating in the ritual has to stand in the middle of the symbol that the candles form and start chanting a challenge to the demon. And you have to use its actual name, not Achildes, which is the bastardized version of it. It takes 27 times of saying the chant for it to work. If it works, then the candles are supposed to go out and then you have to run for your life because the creature/demon/entity/thing is now hunting everyone who took part in the ritual. Supposedly this thing feeds off of the fear that is generated by its hunt and it will try to terrorize you for days before finally killing and eating you, not necessarily in that order either.

From what Tiff told my girlfriend, it succeeded.