Scroll: A Collection of Creepypasta

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Scroll A

COLLECTION

OF

CREEPYPASTA



For my sister, Elizabeth. I will never not love watching horror movies with you.

“…in here.”


WHAT

EVEN

IS

CREEPYPASTA?

Creepypasta are essentially internet horror stories, passed around on forums and other sites to disturb and frighten readers. The name “Creepypasta” comes from the word “copypasta,” an internet slang term for a block of text that gets copied and pasted over and over again from website to website. Creepypastas are sometimes supplemented with pictures, audio and/or video footage related to the story, typically with gory, distorted, or otherwise shocking content.

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While creepypasta today varies greatly in length and quality, older ones tend to be very short and follow one of the following set of formulas:

ANECDOTES. The narrator remarks on a scary legend, news story, or event from their own past. RITUALS. A list of instructions for the reader, claiming that if they go to a certain place at a certain time, and perform specific actions, something remarkable and/or horrifying will happen. THE “LOST EPISODE.” The narrator tells the story of a never-beforeseen episode or scene from a famous TV show, typically a comedy or children’s cartoon, where the audio and video is heavily distorted and characters begin acting strangely or violently, killing themselves and/or each other. This style of creepypasta has fallen out of favor nowadays, as it is seen as cliché.

A

NOTE

FROM

THE

EDITOR:

With this collection, I wanted to include some popular creepypastas as well as pastas that I randomly stumbled upon and found thoroughly eerie. I hope you “enjoy” what I have collected. Sincerely, Sara Hagale

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Table of Contents

HE MY

STOOD AGAINST WINDOW

ANANSI’S STORY

GOATMAN

IN THE MIDDLE THE NIGHT

BAD

IT’S

14

OF 36

DREAM

42

LOCKED

THE STRANGEST SECURITY TAPE EVER SEEN

6

8

48

I’VE 56


INDIGO

DREAM

72

CANDLE

COVE

80

THE

GHOUL

90

7:05

THE

96

SMILING

MAN

THE GIRL IN PHOTOGRAPH

THE

PALETTE CLEANSERS

106

114

120

7




AUTHOR/ DATE SUBMITTED/ LIKES/ COMMENTS/

10

unknown 2 years ago / 25 Jul 2013 1238 (99% upvoted) 63


He Stood Against My Window

I don't know why I looked up, but when I did I saw him there.

He stood against my window. His forehead rested against the glass, and his eyes were still and light and he smiled a lipstick-red, cartoonish grin. And he just stood there in the window. My wife was upstairs sleeping, my son was in his crib and I couldn't move. I froze and watched him looking past me through the glass. Oh, please no. His smile never moved but he put a hand up and slid it down the glass, watching me. With matted hair and yellow skin and face through the window. I couldn't do anything. I just stayed there, frozen, feet still in the bushes I was pruning, looking into my home.

He stood against my window.

11


justAnotherMuffledVo

/

6032

points

/

2

years

ago

I BEGIN TUCKING HIM INTO BED AND HE TELLS ME, “DADDY CHECK FOR MONSTERS UNDER MY BED.” I LOOK UNDERNEATH FOR HIS AMUSEMENT AND

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SEE HIM, ANOTHER HIM, UNDER THE BED, STARING BACK AT ME QUIVERING AND WHISPERING, “DADDY THERE’S SOMEBODY ON MY BED.”

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AUTHOR/ DATE SUBMITTED/ TIME/ COMMENTS/

16

unknown 3 years ago / 28 Sept 2012 01:31 137


Anansi’s Goatman Story

Here’s my story: >> be 16
 >> be black and have family down in Alabama
 >> they farm and own a huge amount of land down in Huntsville
 >> uncle owns a big house and a bunch of trailers they put out in the woods for hunting or camping
 >> down south cousins suggest that we go out there to camp
 >> know I’m a city kid from Chicago so they tease the fuck out of me
 >> collect food, kill a pig and some chickens, and bring necessities to camp out for a few days
 >> we get to the camp and it’s obvious something is weird
 >> air has this weird electric smell like right before a storm, like ozone

>> we think nothing of it and unpack and go down to a little creek to swim for a few hours
 >> All of a sudden some older white guy and a white teenager come out of the bushes
 >> he has a shotgun in the crook of his arm and says hello and ask us what we’re doing this far back in the woods
 >> tell him about my uncle, who he knows, and say we’re camping out
 >> he tells us we need to be real careful out here and stick together there was a big animal in the woods
 >> His son, who is my age asks if he can stay and hang out with us
 >> he says OK

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I’m going to stop greentexting because the story is fairly long and the format is harder to write in. So we end up playing football. Dicking around with me, there’s the white kid “Tanner”, five of my cousins, and then four of their friends. In total, there were five girls and six boys. We all were around 15 –17. We ended up just dicking the day away. So, we head back to the camp and pulled out some stuff for a campfire, even though the trailers both had kitchenettes. Tanner says that his family’s property sits up against my uncle’s. He wants to run home and ask his dad if he can come out camping with us. My cousin Rooster says he’s going to go with him since it’s going to get dark soon. One of the girls also wants to tag along. It’s about 7 o’clock, and it’s starting to get pretty dark. They take flashlights and take the trail toward Tan’s property. The rest of us chill. We make s’mores, drink and kiss on the girls. About thirty or forty minutes later, there’s the smell of ozone again. You could smell it over the smell of the fire we had started. This really nasty, coppery smell like right after you’ve had a nosebleed and it’s stopped. It wasn’t exactly like dried blood, but it was that nasty metallic, back-of-yourthroat smell. We immediately think that it’s some kind of electrical malfunction, or someone left a hotplate on or some shit. We search the trailers and nothing is on, and we can all smell it. All of a sudden, we can hear people booking down the path toward us, and Rooster, Tan and the girl all come running into the clearing, out of breath. And they don’t even break stride; they all run into the trailer, right by where the fire is. We all get the fuck outta there and into the trailers. They end up calming down; even Rooster is crying his fucking eyes out at this point. All the while, the fire is guttering lower and lower, so my other cousins say fuck it

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and are about to go outside to get the generator out of a shed between the trailers. Tanner goes, “Fuck no! Lock the front door, ain’t nobody else going outside!” He’s been crying too, and his eyes are bloodshot and puffy and his pants are dirty as shit. He goes on to tell us that they went up to his house. His father said sure, he could go out camping, but to make sure they were careful on the way back, and that maybe they should take one of the hunting rifles just in case. Evidently, Tanner had seen something in their yard a few days before. One of their pigs had come up, ripped up and half eaten. They assumed it was just some big cats or coyotes, even though they don’t usually fuck with live animals. He had gone upstairs and packed his stuff, and told his dad they would be OK without the rifle because coyotes avoid people. So they started walking back toward where we were camping. So, Rooster finally stops crying and shaking; the girl already had, but she was just staring out the window with a dumb look on her face. He says they had gotten halfway into the woods toward the camp when they started to hear shit in the forest. It was almost pitch black by this time, so they weren’t sure at first what the fuck it was. The girl says that she heard something in the bushes right off the trail and they all beamed their flashlights over there and there was someone standing back in the woods in a little hollow. Rooster said they shouted at him and told him that he was scaring the fuck out of them and what a dick he was. He says that’s when he realized that the guy was facing away from them. So they keep walking, and they start smelling the nasty coppery ozone smell. They say that they look off into the forest on the opposite side, and it’s a dude standing in the forest, backward slightly closer to the path. So now they start power-walking and Tan keeps going, “I should have taken the fucking rifle.”

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As they’re telling the story, the smell is still super strong even inside the cabin. They say that after they started walking faster, a kind of low gibbering had started coming from both sides of the wood. And as they started booking it back to the trailer, the girl said she had flashed her flashlight out into the woods to the side of them and had seen something jerking itself through the woods. The gibbering just got louder and louder, and when they could see the light from our camp fire, something had come out of the woods about 40 yards behind them onto the track, and they had just flat out ran as hard as they could to the trailer. So we’re out in the fucking woods, and we’re assuming at this point it’s some rednecks or some shit trying to fuck with us. All of a sudden, my other cousin, Junior, starts going on about how he went to school with a native kid that was telling him about the ‘Goatman’ or some shit. We promptly tell him to shut the fuck up because we don’t need any spooky talk right now. But he just keeps going on and on about how it’s the fucking ‘Goatman,’ and how we’re in his woods and blah, blah, blah. Now at the time, I had never heard of this goat man or any of that, but then a couple years ago -- the year before I graduated from college -- I had a Menom for a roommate and I ended up asking him about it. And to sum it up, it’s basically a fucking man with the head of a goat and he can shape shift and he gets among groups of people to terrorize them. It’s also supposed to be kind of like the Wendigo, and it’s bad mojo to even talk about it and even worse if you see it. Keep in mind, I didn’t know this back when I was sixteen. So my cousin is going, “The goat man’s going to get in and fucking get us.” The girls are all terrified and my cousins and I are all fucking trying to figure out if it’s just some hillbillies or if it’s some animal.

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So all of a sudden the smell just goes away. Like to this day, I haven’t even experienced anything like it. Like, usually smells fade away or lessen. It just literally was there one second and then not the second. So it’s after an hour, making it around 9 or 10. We’ve stopped shitting bricks enough to go back outside and stoke the fire again. We figure it was just some assholes trying to fuck with us, so we don’t go back home, because we think if we do, they’ll chase us through the woods or some crazy shit. Nothing else weird happens that night. And we stay another night, and for the main part of the night nothing happens. At about 1 in the morning, we’re outside getting drunk and telling ghost stories. As someone is finishing some 2spooky story -— I don’t remember what about-—the smell comes back. It’s so fucking strong, that one of the girls literally starts vomiting. I stand up, and you can actually feel how clammy the air is. I say we should get inside and this isn’t right; we should have just fucking left. We all go back inside, and we’re standing around. My cousin just keeps going on about how it’s the goat man. And my cousin Rooster tries to shut him the fuck up, and all the while I’m just feeling that something is wrong, and I can’t figure out what the fuck it is. We end up sitting in there for a while; the smell is just as strong, and we’re terrified and all huddled in this camper. We end up cooking brats for everybody because nobody wants to go outside. It’s one of those packs with four brats. We have a total of 3 packs. I grill them up on the stove and give everybody a hot dog. I get mine. After a while, one of my cousins gets up and goes over to the pot to get another one. He starts grumbling about how I get two brats and everybody else only got one, and I look at him like he’s fucking stupid. I tell him that everybody only got one

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because there were only 12 brats, if he wants more he should open up a new pack and cook some more. That’s when the girl that had been out with Rooster and Tan just starts screaming, “OH JESUS, OH LORD, GET IT OUT!” She’s crying and shivering, and then it dawns on the cousin standing up what the fuck is wrong. Me and him both glance around the room, and then I feel my heart fucking

22


sink. I run the fuck out of the cabin and the girl runs out with us. The trailer door is banging against the side of the trailer as everybody books out of the cabin. One of my cousin’s friends ask us what the fuck was wrong. I start counting us. There’s only 11 now. “I shit you not,” my cousin verified. There had been twelve people in the cabin. But being that everybody didn’t really

23


know each other well, nobody had really noticed the whole fucking time that there was an extra person. And then I realized earlier that I had kind of noticed something was off. You know how when you’re just dicking around having a good time that you don’t sweat the smallest shit, and you don’t always keep track of certain stuff? I’m dead sure that someone else had been in the trailer with us, and that they had been there for at least a fucking day, eating with us. What makes it worse is, I could figure out which one because I don’t think anyone ever actually interacted with the other person/the Goat-man. The girl kept praying to Jesus and we’re all sitting outside; eventually we get big-ass sticks and go back in the cabin, but there’s nobody in there. We count again, and there’s 11 people. We go back into the trailer and lock the door. We explain what the fuck happened, and the girl says that she realized too, and that when he was about to say something, the person sitting next to her had grabbed her leg hard and leaned over toward her and said something she couldn’t understand. So we are pretty much scared as fuck as we huddle together, and I fall asleep. When I wake up, the sun is just coming up, and half the people are asleep and the other half are packing our shit up. We all want to walk back home, but like four people want to stay until the sun is all the way up. And some people think that we’re just fucking around and still want to stay at the trailers. I just want to get the fuck out of the woods. The girl’s name was Keira, the one that the Goat-man had touched. Anyway, I asked her if she really thinks it was something bad, and she says she just wants to go home and she doesn’t want to be out in the woods alone for another night. So we decide to split up; the four that want to go can go, but I have to stay because I have the keys to the cabin and it’s my uncle’s and I have to lock up. I’m super pissed

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at this point, because I feel like people aren’t taking this shit seriously, and I definitely didn’t want to be out in the woods for another night. I spend the rest of the day trying to convince the rest of the people— now 4 girls and four guys—to get the fuck out of dodge. Tanner leaves with them to go get a rifle and says he’s going to be back. So there are just 7 of us left by 4 PM. At around 5 PM he hasn’t made it back yet, and we’re getting extremely fucking antsy, and the only reason I stopped begging them to go back was because he went to get a gun. It’s about 5:30 PM or so, when the one cousin that did stay says that the girl Keira is outside. We all look outside, and sure enough, she’s standing by the firepit with her back to the cabin. I’m thinking to myself, if she was so fucking scared, why the hell would she come back? And then I get this nasty feeling in my gut. Keep in mind, the whole time the coppery smell has been gone. Now I realize I can smell just a twinge of it. I say this to the rest of them and everybody -— and these are the people that wanted to stay in the fucking woods after we had the goddamn Goatman in our midst-— is laughing at me and asking if I set this up to scare them. I’m looking at them like, “I’m not fucking bullshitting you at all right now.” I ask them why the fuck would I play like that? So one of the girls goes outside to get Kiera. She gets halfway to her and stops cold. Keira starts heaving; I don’t know how the fuck to describe it. Sort of like if someone with their back turned was laughing without actually making any sound. It was this fact that made me realize there was not a fucking sound in the whole woods; it was dead silent. This was like later in September, so it was still fairly hot at the time, but it was super chilly some days too. And you

25


could usually hear big-ass geese honking or some kind of birds or squirrels chitchatting. So I step out the door and tell her to come back in the fucking trailer right goddamn now. She backs up into the trailer and we lock the fucking door. We pull down all the shades except one, and put a guy there in a chair to watch her. She stands there for another 20 minutes or so. The guy turns to say that she’s still there. And there’s a HUGE fucking bang on the door. We all jump the fuck up and scramble around the living room of the trailer. The banging is super fucking loud. So now my cousin is holding one of the girls and the other two are kinda giggling with nervous laughter and me and the other two guys are shitting brix. Then we hear Tan. He’s screaming. “LET ME THE FUCK IN, STOP FUCKING PLAYING!” So we go over to the door and open it, and he stumbles in with a rifle. There’s nobody else outside. Evidently, he had walked up to the campsite. Nothing weird happened in the forest, but he had seen a girl. Mind you, he said it was not Keira standing there. When he had gotten to the edge of the clearing, she had turned toward him with the slackjawed look and just stared him down, slowly tracking him as he walked around the outside of the clearing towards the camp. He said it wasn’t till he was

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almost halfway to the trailer he had realized that she was getting closer to him. She had started off by the fire, and without him even seeing her move she had been turning, inching closer. He said he just ran the rest of the way back to the cabin thinking it would open. And when he got to the door and it was locked, he turned and it was about half the distance to the door. He looks around the room and then gets super pale. He pulls me to the side and whispers in my ear, “You know there are only seven of us in here, right?” I get that feeling where you stomach drops to your nuts. It had been back inside the trailer while we were sorting out who was going where, and then when we all went outside to talk earlier in the day. It has just slipped right back in. We looked out the window and there is nobody out there. So we recount everyone and then basically, I go over and ask everyone how many people were here earlier. And everybody says 8. I say, “Well, how many are here now?” They all do the count and then realize there are only now seven people in the cabin. So Tan had brought back a couple boxes of ammo and his rifle. And he had told his dad that there was some kind of animal in the forest because he didn’t think his dad would believe him if he said it was Goatman. He says that his cousin is supposed to be coming down in a few hours and that in the morning we can all go back to his place and his cousin will drive us home. Now I’m really fucking terrified, but I at least feel better because we can be American and shoot the fuck out of whatever it is if it comes back. But then my cousin gets into this huge argument with one of the girls because she thinks that I’m trying to be funny and prank them, and that she’s getting really scared and that I’m not funny. He keeps telling her I’m not that kind of person, and she says, “Well, how do we know the girl wasn’t just Tanner in a wig? Or if it’s really the Goatman, how do we know that this is the real

27


Tanner and that Goatman just didn’t kill Tanner in the woods and take his gun?” So we fucking get into a huge argument about this, where me and Tan are like, “We could seriously be in danger because at the very least someone has been sneaking themselves into our fucking trailer without us knowing and mingling with us, and at worst, something bad is in the forest fucking with us.” One of the girls is crying and saying she wants to go right now, and we’re trying to tell her we shouldn’t because none of us are walking through the woods in the middle of the night. At this point the sun is starting to go down and it’s getting a little cloudy out. We eat something and turn on the radio for a while, but we can’t really get a station out there with anything decent. So we turn it off at about the time that Tan’s cousin shows up. He was like 19, I think. At this point, the sun is just barely over the horizon and he has one of those heavy duty lantern flashlights and another rifle. He walks up to the trailer and we whisper to Tan asking if he’s sure that’s his cousin and he says yes. The guy looks behind him and all around the camp, then walks in. He kind of glances at all of us and looks a little confused. He says, “Where’s your other little buddy at? I figured she would meet me up at the cabin. Is she a little slow or something?” He also asked whether we had been cooking blood in the cabin, because it smelled like blood and hot pans all the way up the trail. We are all like fucking “NOPE.” But we ask him what the fuck he’s talking about with the girl he saw. He had come down the same trail Tan had been using, and he had come up on “one of youse guy’s buddies” standing in the middle of the trail, looking at him slack jawed. He had asked her a bunch of questions, but all she did was just look at him. Then, she smiled at him and he

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said he kept walking. She couldn’t seem to keep up with him and kept lagging a little behind him. He said he asked her if she was hurt or something, and if she needed any help. But, she had continued to stare. Eventually, he had been walking and turned around a bend in the trail. But when he turned around and went back to see if she was okay, the trail was empty. He’d assumed she had taken some short cut through the woods to our trailer. We tell him the whole story of what’s been going on. I half expected him to say we were full of shit, but he just listened and then sat down on the couches in the living room. Tanner’s cousin gets back to the girl. He says, when she had kept trying to lag behind him, it had kinda weirded him the fuck out, so he tried to keep her in front of him, but no matter how slow he walked, she was always lagging a little behind. And that he smelled this nasty smell, and it got stronger as he got to the camp. Eventually it got really strong. She had said something really low that he didn’t catch, and when he had turned around she had been right the fuck up on him, and he stepped back from her. It was at this point he asked her if she was okay, and if she wasn’t, him to carry her back the rest of the way, and she just kept staring. He said he reached out for her, as in to grab her on the shoulder, but he must have “misjudged the

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distance” because she was off to the side of where he had put his hand, like she had moved while he was looking dead at her. So at this point, we know this shit’s real, unless Tan is playing a joke, which we can tell he’s not because he’s almost pissing his pants. So they load up their rifles, we eat some more, and we just kind of sit around until about 11. To this fucking day, every time I think about this, I really pray to God that it’s some huge prank that my cousins played on me and just never revealed so I would shit for the rest of my life. At ‘round 11, the stink of copper turns into an actual nasty gross blood-like smell, like cooking blood and singed hair. Tan and his cousin, Reese, get the fuck up instantly and grab the rifles. There’s like a half-knocking, half-clawing at the door, and I shit you not, there’s this voice, and it sounds like when you see those YouTube cats and dogs whose owners teach them how to “talk.” It says in this halting, weirdly toned voice, “Let me the fuck in, stop fucking playing.” It made my fucking nuts creep up against my body, and one of the girls just starts crying and calling on Jesus. It was so fucking obviously not a person talking. It didn’t have the right cadence, and that’s some shit that I never realized until that moment, but all people have a certain cadence when they talk, no matter what language. All people have a certain kind of rhythm to talking. This shit didn’t have any kind of cadence or rhythm. One of those YouTube cats, that’s what the fuck it sounded like outside the door. So now I’m in full on terror mode. We keep yelling outside, “Who is it? Stop fucking around, man!” and it just keeps saying, “in” or “Let me the fuck in” for almost 15 minutes. It sounded like this almost— http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=qff9V27Weaw — just not funny. Sorry for being on a tangent, but if you can’t imagine how this shit sounded, then you can’t imagine how fucked up the whole situation was. 30


So then the smell goes away for a while. And for the next hour or so, you can hear someone basically creeping around in the woods and shit. Every couple minutes it’ll come back into the door, and say something. Finally when the smell fades away, it’s around 2 in the morning right now. Reese says, “Man, fuck this!” and opens the door and walks outside with his rifle. He fires a shot into the air, and says something to the effect of, “In the name of Jesus Christ, go away!” He fires two more times, and then from the woods right up against the river across from the trailer, it sounds like something is slowly jibbering and hooting. Then it starts screaming and it sounds almost like a woman and a cat in a bag screaming together. Like I seriously have never heard any shit like that, and you can hear the brush over that way start to shake, Reese fires over into the treeline and then starts backing into the house. We lock the door, and we can hear this shit keening and screaming. Reese says something had come out of the bushes, super low to the ground and crawling toward the cabin. He had shot at it. Pretty much, that was how the rest of the night went; it was literally screaming constantly for the next two hours, and we could hear shit moving out into the treeline. But it never came back up to the cabin until everyone had finally fallen asleep. Tan had been sitting in the chair watching the door with his rifle; nobody else heard or saw this, and he told me two days later, after the whole thing was over. He said he had been nodding off after the screaming and noises finally stopped, and he had been almost asleep when he saw someone come out of the bathroom and then lay down in the middle of the floor and go to sleep. He just assumed it was one of us and he had nodded off. Then he said he kind of realized something was wrong, and while pretending to be sleeping, he counted us. There were 9 people in the cabin. He basically didn’t want to try to 31


32


shoot at the fucking thing in the cabin and have it kill us all then and there, or have Reese wake up and start shooting and then we kill ourselves. So he just stayed awake all night, pretending to be asleep. He said sometimes, it would stand up and kind of do this weird jittery thing, or heave like it was laughing. But then it would lay back down. The story closes pretty weak, because from my perspective nothing happened. We woke up. And I noticed that Tan was a little jittery, and that he was avoiding looking at all of us. But we ate some breakfast, packed up and started walking to his house. He stayed last in the cabin and said he’d lock up and bring me my uncle’s keys; to just start walking and he’d catch up. Which I didn’t really want to fucking do. We got a little bit up the path, and when he came running up, basically we just jogged back to his house. His cousin took us home. There was a window in the bathroom. Tan had gone back to lock up and looked in there. We were too stupid to lock a screenless window. The window was fucking up when he went in there. I’m guessing it had been doing that all along, waiting for us to fall asleep or slip up and then getting in among us. It walked with us all the Goddamn way back to his house, and then he said it lagged to the back of the group and looked him dead in the eyes before walking into the woods.

33


Gagege

/

3415

points

/

2

years

THE DOCTORS TOLD THE AMPUTEE HE MIGHT EXPERIENCE A PHANTOM LIMB FROM TIME TO TIME.

34

ago


35

NOBODY PREPARED HIM FOR THE MOMENTS THOUGH, WHEN HE FELT COLD FINGERS BRUSH ACROSS HIS PHANTOM HAND.




AUTHOR/ DATE SUBMITTED/ LIKES/ COMMENTS/

38

TeamShadowWind 8 days ago / 12 Oct 2015 13 (85% upvoted) 4


In the Middle of the Night

I was awakened by the annoying chime of my phone at 2 AM. “Fuck,” I muttered. “Who would text me this late?” I lazily reached for my phone, ended up missing it by a hair, and ultimately cursed myself as I heard the phone slip off the nightstand and fall to the floor. I groaned, rolling off my bed and onto the floor, feeling around for it. It must’ve fallen pretty far, I thought. I began to feel for it under the bed. My fingers found the edge of the phone, and I began to tilt it up, hoping to be able to grab it better. As I did, light shone under the bed. That same light reflected off of two frightened eyes, which widened.

39


AnarchistWaffles

/

2125

points

/

2

years

ago

DON’T BE SCARED OF THE MONSTERS, JUST LOOK FOR THEM. LOOK TO YOUR LEFT, TO YOUR RIGHT,

40


UNDER YOUR BED, BEHIND YOUR DRESSER, IN YOUR CLOSET BUT NEVER LOOK UP, SHE HATES BEING SEEN.

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AUTHOR/ DATE SUBMITTED/ TIME/ COMMENTS/

44

unknown 5 years ago / 20 Aug 2010 02:03 70


Bad Dream

“Daddy, I had a bad dream.” You blink your eyes and pull up on your elbows. Your clock glows red in the darkness— it is 3:32 AM. “ do you want to climb into bed and tell me about it?” “No, Daddy.” The oddness of the situation wakes you up more fully. You can barely make out your daughter’s pale form in the darkness of your room. “ why not, sweetie?” “Because in my dream, when I told you about the dream, the thing wearing Mommy’s skin sat up.” For a moment, you feel paralyzed; you cannot take your eyes off of your daughter. The covers behind you begin to shift.

45


/

422

points

/

2

years

ago

WORKING THE NIGHT SHIFT ALONE TONIGHT. THERE IS A FACE

hctet

46


IN THE CELLAR STARING AT THE SECURITY CAMERA.

47




AUTHOR/ DATE SUBMITTED/ LIKES/ COMMENTS/

50

yellavalley 3 years ago / 07 Jan 2012 1625 (98% upvoted) 232


It’s Locked

About ten years ago, I was recently divorced and living alone in a one bedroom apartment. The place was clean and the rent was decent. One of those places that had a doorman; I felt safe there. I was alone and loving it, focused on my career and not on my clingy ex-husband. Things were finally looking up for me. At the time, I was working pretty late at the office and would often stumble into my apartment sleep deprived in the early hours of the morning and wake up by 6:30, sevenish to start the day. I started noticing that in the morning, my door would be unlocked sometimes. I usually dismissed this as my sleep dead brain, thinking that the bed looked more appealing than locking the door. Another thing that I noticed since moving in was that I seemed to misplace things more than I used to, little things like a hairbrush or nail polish, that sort of thing. It wasn’t really that big of a deal, just enough to be a slight annoyance in my day. The longer I lived there, the more frequently I seemed to forget to lock the door. At first, it was every once in a while, then it seemed like an almost daily occurrence. More things went missing, things like pictures, shaving razors and most disturbingly, my underwear. This went on for long enough that I started to get a little paranoid. I started to take the time at night to make sure the door was locked. I got into a habit of every night after I locked the door, to turn the handle three times and say to myself, “It’s locked, it’s locked, it’s

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locked.” Time after time, I would wake up and the door would be unlocked. One time, I even tried staying up all night to watch the door, but I ended up falling asleep on my chair. I decided that my mind was not reliable enough to stay up all night, so I invested in a video camera. I went all out and bought the fanciest camera that I could get my hands on. So one night, I set the camera up, facing the door. I hid the camera under a pile of towels on the floor. I locked the door and went to bed. When I woke up, my apartment looked normal. Nothing missing that I could see. I decided to check the tape. I fast forwarded through hours of footage, not seeing anything. I was just about to give up when I noticed the handle of the door jitter. Then it slowly crept open. A figure slid through the half opened door, and walked towards the camera. It paused, and looked around as if it was listening for something. Then it walked forward into direct view of the camera. I paused the camera, the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck started to rise. I was staring directly into the face of the maintenance man of the building. I could see those big thick glasses and curly hair. I had no doubt who it was. I played the tape a little more. He looked comfortable as he walked around the apartment. Then he turned and walked towards my bedroom and out of the view of the camera. I didn’t know what to do. Sobbing, I called the police. I tried to explain over the phone, but couldn’t. Soon enough, two officers arrived at my doorstep. I told them everything and showed them the tape. I remember seeing the blood drain from their faces. They promised me that I was safe, and that they where going to get this guy. I needed to lay down, but didn’t want to be alone. One of the officers offered to stand outside my apartment door

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as I took a nap. As I was laying in bed, unable to sleep but too drained to move, something kept nagging at me. I laid there for a few minutes, tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable or rest. My mind was racing. Then a realization slowly washed over me and chilled me to the bone. We watched the tape, and saw the man enter my home‌ but we never saw him leave. I froze, then started shaking. I needed to get to the front door. I sat up, and looked around the room. I couldn’t see anyone. I swung my legs over the side of the bed cautiously, my feet hit the cold wood floor and I felt warm breath on my ankles. I raced out of my apartment as fast as I could and to the safety of the police officer. He called for backup. They found the man under my bed, clutching a knife and a Polaroid camera. To this day, I cannot sleep alone.

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/

349

points

/

2

years

ago

“…AT THE ATTIC WINDOW, JUST ABOVE

vulpyx

54


55

MY BEDROOM.”




AUTHOR/ DATE SUBMITTED/ LIKES/ COMMENTS/

58

powerhawkmash 3 years ago / 23 May 2012 2461 (96% upvoted) 423


The Strangest Security Tape I’ve Ever Seen

I work at a gas station in rural Pennsylvania. It’s a boring job, but it’s pretty easy and it pays all right. A few weeks ago, this new guy started; I’ll call him Jeremy. Jeremy is weird. He’s about 25 or 26, and he hardly speaks, but he’s got the creepiest laugh I’ve ever heard. My boss and I have both noticed this, but it’s never been a problem, so there’s not much we can do about it. Customers have never complained about him, and he’s always done his job fairly well. Up until a few weeks ago, anyway—that’s when things started going missing. Employee theft can be a problem at any business that sells consumer goods, and there’s only one person working at a time at this gas station (it’s a pretty small place). About two weeks ago, my boss started noticing that we were short on motor oil. At first, it was a few containers at a time, then entire shelves and boxes from the back room. Pretty soon entire shipments would be gone the day after we got them, and it would always be right after Jeremy’s shifts. My boss has checked the security camera tapes from every single night he worked, but he could never catch him in the act. Jeremy would lock up at closing, then the motor oil would be gone the next day. My boss usually takes the tapes home with him to try and catch Jeremy stealing, but his daughter had a softball game last night, so he asked me to watch the tape for him. He offered to pay me overtime, under-the-table, so obviously I took that offer. There are three cameras, so he gave me

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three different tapes to check. I figured it would be a long night, but I’m trying to save up for vacation, so I really needed the money. I took the tapes home, popped them in an old VCR and sat back. Two days ago (the last time he worked), Jeremy started at 4 PM. Everything seemed pretty normal at first. He counted up his drawer, switched off with the girl who was working before him, and waited for a customer. The first person who came in was Mrs. Templeton (the timestamp on the video read 4:03), a regular. She picked up her cigarettes and a newspaper, and paid with a twenty. Nothing unusual there. The next customer was some local guy named Ron. He drives a motorcycle, usually comes in every few days. He filled up his tank, got a bag of beef jerky, paid with his credit card, and then left. Next was some guy with a cowboy hat. I’d never seen him before, but we get plenty of strangers passing through, just like at any gas station. He got forty dollars worth of diesel fuel, paid with a hundred dollar bill, and went on his way. I sat back and sighed. The only thing more boring than doing this job is watching someone else do it. My boss’s offer was enough to keep me watching though, so I left the tape on. Everything seemed pretty normal. I had a feeling that if Jeremy was stealing motor oil, he knew we were suspicious of him by now. I didn’t expect him to be dumb enough to let us catch him on camera. Things stayed boring and routine until about five o’clock. At 5:03, Mrs. Templeton came back in; she must have forgotten something. But she didn’t. She bought the same pack of cigarettes as before, and the same newspaper. She paid with another twenty. That’s odd, I thought, but then again, she’s a little absent minded. I thought Jeremy should have told her she already got her smokes, but it’s not against the rules to sell somebody the same thing twice. That’s when Ron came in again. He bought another tank of gas (for his motorcycle again—I later checked the outdoor camera because I thought maybe he had another car he wanted to

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fill up) and the same pack of beef jerky. He paid with his credit card again. No big deal, I figured this was just a weird coincidence. Mrs. Templeton is forgetful and Ron probably owns more than one Harley. That’s when the guy in the cowboy hat came back in. I felt a chill run down my spine. “Don’t get diesel, don’t get diesel,” I found myself whispering to my empty living room...but he did. He got forty dollars worth of diesel fuel and paid with another hundred dollar bill. Every move he made was identical to his first visit, right down to the way he scratched his nose before he walked out. Either this guy is rich, owns a lot of trucks, and just moved into town, or something really bizarre was happening. I kept watching. Every customer for the next hour was the same as before. Every single one. I was seriously freaked out, and then at 6:03, Mrs. Templeton walked back in. She bought her cigarettes and newspaper again, and paid with a twenty again. I thought I was going to lose it. I only watched another half hour before I started fast forwarding through the rest. It was all the same. Every customer would come in at the exact same times, exactly one hour apart. Now I know what you’re thinking. That sneaky motherfucker Jeremy had messed with the tapes. He had run a loop of his first hour of business over and over. That wasn’t the case. There are windows around the cash register area that the camera covers, and I watched the sunlight fade as time ran on. Jeremy’s routine didn’t loop over—he swept, mopped, restocked, and did all his duties exactly how you would expect. But the same customers kept coming in. I was panicking at this point. Something was seriously wrong with what I was seeing, and I had no explanation for it. I skipped ahead to when he locked up and walked out to his car. He hadn’t stolen anything, but I kept watching, just to make sure. I fast forwarded one last time, to about midnight.

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At exactly 12:03, out of nowhere, Jeremy’s face pops up on camera. I don’t mean he moved his head into view, I mean that one second the store was empty, the next second his face was all I could see. He wasn’t looking at the camera, he was looking at me, I was sure of it. I screamed and fumbled for the remote. By the time I grabbed it, he was gone, just as soon as he had left. One frame he was there, the next he wasn’t. My hands were shaking like crazy, but I popped in another tape. The other indoor camera shows the back area, by the cash register, and I would be able to see how he got up to put his face in the camera like that. I skipped ahead to 12:03, but there was nothing. I would have been able to see him standing on a chair or something on this tape, but he wasn’t there. I didn’t see him enter the store at all after he left. It’s like he wasn’t really there. He doesn’t know the security code, and no alarms were triggered that night after he locked up. What I did see, however, was that at 12:03, the motor oil vanished off the shelf. All of it. Same as Jeremy’s face, one second it was there and the next it wasn’t. I turned that tape off and went to bed, but I didn’t get a wink of sleep. My body is exhausted right now, but my mind is racing. That tape was undoubtedly the creepiest, most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I work in a few hours. My boss asked me to bring the tapes back in and let him know what I found, but really, what the hell am I going to say? Jeremy works the night shift tonight, directly after me, and the plan is for my boss to come in just before I leave and confront him with me (as I’m supposed to be the one who caught him stealing). I have no idea what I’m going to do. I suppose I’ll have to show my boss the tapes, but I don’t want to watch them with him. I never want to see something like that again. I can’t get the image of Jeremy just smiling directly into the camera out of my mind; it was the creepiest look I’ve ever seen on another human being’s face.

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Anyway, I’m gonna try again to get some last minute sleep before I have to go in and deal with this. I’ll let you guys know what happens... UPDATE (2:49 PM): Updating from my phone, apologies in advance for errors. My boss just finished watching the last of the tapes. I told him what to expect, but you really can’t prepare someone for something like that. He’s scared shitless (I still am too) and Jeremy is due to come in at 4. We’ve got a little over an hour to get our shit together, but neither one of us knows what to say to him. Is he just a fucked up guy who likes to steal motor oil and scare the shit out of people? Or is he something else? I don’t know if this is crazy, but does anyone think he could have anything to do with the time loop? My boss said he never noticed anything like that in the other tapes, but the way he popped up in this one made me think he knew I would be watching. It’s like he wanted me to see what he could do. Like he was showing off or something. The way he smiled into the camera was like a little kid showing you a sandcastle they just built or something. I don’t know, I probably sound crazy. I sure feel the part. I’m going to talk to my boss some more. We have to calm ourselves down and figure out how to handle this. I’ll update again tonight, but I have a really bad feeling about how this is going to play out.

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UPDATE (4:33 PM): No sign of Jeremy. Tried calling him, but his phone has been disconnected. We’re calling the police. UPDATE (5:33 PM): No sign of Jeremy. Tried calling him, but his phone has been disconnected. We’re calling the police. UPDATE (6:33 PM): No sign of Jeremy. Tried calling him, but his phone has been disconnected. We’re calling the police. UPDATE (7:33 PM): No sign of Jeremy. Tried calling him, but his phone has been disconnected. We’re calling the police. UPDATE (8:33 PM): No sign of Jeremy. Tried calling him, but his phone has been disconnected. We’re calling the police.

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UPDATE (10:58 PM): Holy shit. Holy shit holy shit holy shit. I just got home and saw my previous updates. Things make less sense now than ever. Here’s what I can tell you. I went to work, Jeremy never showed up, my boss and I decided to call the police, as you’re well aware. When I picked up the phone to call, though, the sun went out. I shit you not, that’s what I thought happened. Apparently I blacked out for exactly five hours, because when I looked at the clock, it was 9:33. I think I got stuck in Jeremy’s time loop, and then I snapped out of it at the exact point I blacked out, if that makes sense. But that’s when things got really weird. My boss was right next to me when I blacked out, ready to corroborate my story to the cops. When I came to, the phone was in my hand, but it was dead. Not even a dial tone.

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My boss was still right there, but he wasn’t moving. He was standing up, but frozen. I looked at the clock again, and it wasn’t moving. The second hand was stuck on the 12. It was 9:33 exactly. The clock on the register (computer screen) wasn’t moving either. My phone was frozen. There was even a customer at the register, waiting for my boss to get him cigarettes. I’m betting that would have been his fifth pack of the day. I got the fuck out of there. Didn’t lock up, didn’t turn the lights out, and sorry guys, I didn’t grab the security tapes to upload on the internet. Believe me, that was the last thing on my mind. The gas station is on a major highway, and cars were parked all along it, except they weren’t parked, they were frozen. The people inside were sitting still as wax statues. I got in my car and prayed that it would start. Thankfully it did. About halfway home, time started up again. The static from the radio turned into music, like it’s supposed to be, and from what I could tell by listening to the host talk in between songs, no one noticed the time freeze, or whatever it was. I was the only one. Well, I’m sure Jeremy noticed as well. I still have no clue where he is or what he’s doing. I’m hiding in my room and calling the police again in the morning. I don’t know if I ever got through to them before, or if I did, whether they took me seriously. I’m scared for my life at this point. I’ll update tomorrow, if I can. FINAL UPDATE (10:33 AM): I finally fell asleep last night around 4. I have no idea how I did it, I guess exhaustion finally got the best of me. This morning, I woke up to my phone ringing; it was my boss. He’d been calling me since about 6. He woke up when time turned back on last night and immediately called the cops. They came by to see what was wrong and he told them everything. The police around here are all small time

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guys; they were more concerned with the missing motor oil than anything, but my boss figured he would take it, as long as he had their attention. They decided to go looking for Jeremy. We keep all our employees’ applications on file, and since Jeremy just started working here, his was easy to find. They checked the address on it and headed over to his house. You’re not gonna believe what they found. The address Jeremy listed on his application was an empty lot. Or at least now it is. There used to be a house there, but it burned down in 1993. Being a small town, almost everyone remembers that fire. A family of four used to live there way back when. Rumor has it that they had an estranged son who they never really talked about, but I can’t say for sure if that’s true. What I can say is true is that after an insurance investigation, the fire was ruled an arson. The entire house was soaked in oil and torched with a Molotov cocktail. The entire family was sleeping when it happened; none of them survived. They never caught the guy who did it. Rumor has it that when they tried to contact the estranged son, no one could find him. Anyway, my boss called and told me this, and I freaked out. Then he asked me to come to the gas station. “What are you, crazy?” I said, but he assured me that the cops were there with him. Then he dropped a bomb: the FBI were also in town and they were going to talk to me one way or another, so I might as well come in. It was about 7:15, and I wanted to go back to bed, but I figured I wouldn’t be able to sleep much more anyway, so I went down. Four men in suits greeted me and told me to have a seat. We went over everything two or three times until they got all the details down. I told them about Jeremy, the security tape, last night at work. Everything. Finally, after I finished, one of

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the agents said, “Oh Christ, we’ve got another one on our hands.” Then they made me sign a bunch of papers saying I wouldn’t tell anyone about what happened, so I can’t say much more. I might be breaking the law just by posting this. So now I’m home. I’m not sure what to do with myself. That agent’s words when I told him the story are going to haunt me for the rest of my life. Anyway, I’ve got to go. I have some errands to run today, and then I have to go in to work to pick up some tapes. My boss and I think this new guy Jeremy (he’s a complete creep) is stealing motor oil and I have to watch the security footage to see if I can catch him doing it. I have better things to do, but my boss is paying me overtime, under-the-table, and I’m trying to save up for vacation so I could really use the money. It should be pretty simple; the oil always goes missing right after his shifts. I figure I’ll just watch the tapes, catch him in the act, and that will be that.

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69


[deleted]

/

2632

points

/

2

years

ago

YOU GET HOME, TIRED AFTER A LONG DAY’S WORK AND READY FOR A RELAXING NIGHT ALONE.

70


YOU REACH FOR THE LIGHT SWITCH, BUT ANOTHER HAND IS ALREADY THERE.

71




AUTHOR/ DATE SUBMITTED/ TIME/ COMMENTS/

74

Avenging Angel 1 year ago / 29 May 2014 02:40 3


Indigo Dream

It’s a sticky, humid evening as the Sun sets below the trees. The dusk’s clouds are a deep blue, starkly contrasting with the uremic remnants of the day. The forest would bear thin and emaciated trees, struggling to even keep themselves upright. It would otherwise be a mighty sight between the vast verdant flora and the terraces that divide them on either side, dipping into rivers below. Stars begin to poke through breaks in the clouds like tiny pinholes, but the Moon waits patiently to arrive. It’s rather peaceful in spite of shortcomings the humidity provides. Birds sing their bedtime songs just as owls are singing their children awake. It is this transient time of day that is more placid than the first beacons of sunrise or the wholesome rays of midday. But this time of day is all the more dangerous because of how alluring it is. Looking past the quiet ambience of the wind, past the avian chirping, one might just be able to hear heavy, hot exhales breathing down their neck. Turning around would be fruitless; it’s already gone. But the entrance of the forest, it’s right there. The trees droop heavily in an arch, inviting a lonely soul inside. Now the breathing returns. Hotter. Deeper. Wordless, it still manages to convey the personification of nature’s absolute ambiguity. It doesn’t care if you live or die. For millions and millions of years, nature has sat quietly at the extinction of entire species, both by natural causes and at the discretion of human interference. This doesn’t mean

75


nature always keeps itself reserved. All natural disasters have no other culprit, but we as humans can’t point fingers. It’s our regretful ignorance that builds slowly both in the clouds and the deep roots of the earth. To humans, what we can’t see can’t be sentient. But this forest serves no purpose other than to contradict that in its teachings. It represents the sickly innocence of nature, displaying an artifice of weakness at this very exact time and place more deceivingly than the fastest sleight of hand. To turn around at this point reveals nothing. Not nothing in the sense of a physical being, and nor does it end the breathing. It’s a complete absence of light, like being swallowed by the emptiness of the world. The sound turns to hisses on both sides of the brush; it’s deafening. The treetops swell and close shut like swollen wounds. Deeper inside, the spaces between the timbers fuse together into a thick fortress of a canopy, completely enclosing the space. The passage slowly becomes thinner and thinner, eventually creating a path that no human can fit through, like our continuous ignorance amassing until it is irreversible. The hisses are replaced by deep, guttural, top-of-the-lung screaming. And then, there is nothing. Silence. Nothing around, and nothing inside. There is nothing left of this forest. Walls become sharp and grating, their corners inverting inward towards the room’s center in points of mangled and ugly wood. An end seems imminent, but the jagged points halt suddenly. To die now would be a waste of an opportunity to see what could be. The ceiling illuminates brightly in deep, indigo shades, like that of the sky. It’s a black, dead night on the outside now, but time inside the forest is indefinitely hyperbolic. The pungent smell of blossoming cherry trees seeps into the scene. The ceiling arrays in brilliant colors, all capable of being produced by a real sky, and it’s absolutely bewildering. The beauty of a thousand sunsets selflessly presented for all of one person. Seasons rapidly change on the canvas, ranging from blistering summer suns to the desolate

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overcast of winter. Perhaps if we could see past ignorance of nature, we would all be freed of the temptation forced upon us by the opportunity cost of development over the preservation of our true creator. But it is hopeless. We are doomed by the fault of our manufactured human nature. True nature will forever plot and enact the eradication of its biggest mistake: humans. And as those wooden corners burst apart and spear through the flesh and bone of the unfortunate, a cool wind passes over their being. The wind that signifies a new beginning, that the end of our seemingly trivial lives are actually the most important part of our existence. It brings room for something new, something impactful. A cluster of splinters explode in the chest cavity, the heart ceasing function while simultaneously releasing a great wave of fresh blood. This blood is incorporated into the ceiling’s sky, bringing on scarlet tints to a new beginning, a new day. That very next morning, the same sunrise is there for all to see, brandishing a particularly brilliant orange.

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skuppy

/

4346

points

/

2

years

ago

MY DAUGHTER WON’T STOP CRYING AND SCREAMING IN THE

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MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. I VISIT HER GRAVE AND ASK HER TO STOP, BUT IT DOESN’T HELP.

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AUTHOR/ DATE SUBMITTED/ TIME/ COMMENTS/

82

Kris Straub 5 years ago / 08 Aug 2010 20:46 296


Candle Cove

NETNOSTALGIA FORUM — TELEVISION (LOCAL)

Skyshale033 Subject: Candle Cove local kid’s show? Does anyone remember this kid’s show? It was called Candle Cove and I must have been 6 or 7. I never found reference to it anywhere so I think it was on a local station around 1971 or 1972. I lived in Ironton at the time. I don’t remember which station, but I do remember it was on at a weird time, like 4:00 PM. mike_painter65 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? it seems really familiar to me...i grew up outside of ashland and was 9 yrs old in 72. candle cove…was it about pirates? i remember a pirate marionette at the mouth of a cave talking to a little girl Skyshale033 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? YES! Okay I’m not crazy! I remember Pirate Percy. I was always kind of scared of him. He looked like he was built from parts of other dolls, real low-budget. His head was an old porcelain baby doll, looked like an antique that didn’t belong on the body. I don’t remember what station this was! I don’t think it was WTSF though.

83


Jaren_2005 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? Sorry to resurrect this old thread but I know exactly what show you mean, Skyshale. I think Candle Cove ran for only a couple months in ‘71, not ‘72. I was 12 and I watched it a few times with my brother. It was channel 58, whatever station that was. My mom would let me switch to it after the news. Let me see what I remember. It took place in Candle cove, and it was about a little girl who imagined herself to be friends with pirates. The pirate ship was called the Laughingstock, and Pirate Percy wasn’t a very good pirate because he got scared too easily. And there was calliope music constantly playing. Don’t remember the girl’s name. Janice or Jade or something. Think it was Janice. Skyshale033 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? Thank you Jaren!!! Memories flooded back when you mentioned the Laughingstock and channel 58. I remember the bow of the ship was a wooden smiling face, with the lower jaw submerged. It looked like it was swallowing the sea and it had that awful Ed Wynn voice and laugh. I especially remember how jarring it was when they switched from the wooden/plastic model, to the foam puppet version of the head that talked. mike_painter65 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? ha ha i remember now too. ;) do you remember this part skyshale: “you have...to go...INSIDE.” Skyshale033 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? Ugh mike, I got a chill reading that. Yes I remember.

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That’s what the ship always told Percy when there was a spooky place he had to go in, like a cave or a dark room where the treasure was. And the camera would push in on Laughingstock’s face with each pause. YOU HAVE...TO GO... INSIDE. With his two eyes askew and that flopping foam jaw and the fishing line that opened and closed it. Ugh. It just looked so cheap and awful. You guys remember the villain? He had a face that was just a handlebar mustache above really tall, narrow teeth. kevin_hart Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? i honestly, honestly thought the villain was pirate percy. i was about 5 when this show was on. nightmare fuel. Jaren_2005 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? That wasn’t the villain, the puppet with the mustache. That was the villain’s sidekick, Horace Horrible. He had a monocle too, but it was on top of the mustache. I used to think that meant he had only one eye. But yeah, the villain was another marionette. The Skin-Taker. I can’t believe what they let us watch back then. kevin_hart Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? jesus h. christ, the skin taker. what kind of a kids show were we watching? i seriously could not look at the screen when the skin taker showed up. he just descended out of nowhere on his strings, just a dirty skeleton wearing that brown top hat and cape. and his glass eyes that were too big for his skull. christ almighty.

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Skyshale033 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? Wasn’t his top hat and cloak all sewn up crazily? Was that supposed to be children’s skin?? mike_painter65 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? yeah i think so. remember his mouth didn’t open and close, his jaw just slid back and forth. i remember the little girl said “why does your mouth move like that” and the skin-taker didn’t look at the girl but at the camera and said “TO GRIND YOUR SKIN” Skyshale033 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? I’m so relieved that other people remember this terrible show! I used to have this awful memory, a bad dream I had where the opening jingle ended, the show faded in from black, and all the characters were there, but the camera was just cutting to each of their faces, and they were just screaming, and the puppets and marionettes were flailing spastically, and just all screaming, screaming. The girl was just moaning and crying like she had been through hours of this. I woke up many times from that nightmare. I used to wet the bed when I had it. kevin_hart Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? i don’t think that was a dream. i remember that. i remember that was an episode. Skyshale033 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? No no no, not possible. There was no plot or anything, I mean literally just standing in place crying and screaming for the whole show.

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kevin_hart Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? maybe i’m manufacturing the memory because you said that, but i swear to god i remember seeing what you described. they just screamed. Jaren_2005 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? Oh God. Yes. The little girl, Janice, I remember seeing her shake. And the Skin-Taker screaming through his gnashing teeth, his jaw careening so wildly I thought it would come off its wire hinges. I turned it off and it was the last time I watched. I ran to tell my brother and we didn’t have the courage to turn it back on. mike_painter65 Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show? i visited my mom today at the nursing home. i asked her about when i was little in the early 70s, when i was 8 or 9 and if she remembered a kid’s show, candle cove. she said she was surprised i could remember that and i asked why, and she said “because i used to think it was so strange that you said ‘i’m gona go watch candle cove now mom’ and then you would tune the tv to static and juts watch dead air for 30 minutes. you had a big imagination with your little pirate show.”

87


Graboid27

/

1503

points

/

2

years

ago

I CAN’T MOVE, BREATHE, SPEAK OR HEAR AND IT’S SO DARK ALL THE

88


TIME. IF I KNEW IT WOULD BE THIS LONELY, I WOULD HAVE BEEN CREMATED INSTEAD.

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AUTHOR/ DATE SUBMITTED/ TIME/ COMMENTS/

92

Jack Prelutsky 2 years ago / 20 June 2013 11:19 4


The Ghoul

The gruesome ghoul, the grisly ghoul,
 without the slightest noise waits patiently beside the school to feast on girls and boys.
 He lunges fiercely through the air as they come out to play, then grabs a couple by the hair
 and drags them far away.
 He cracks their bones and snaps their backs and squeezes out their lungs, he chews their thumbs like candy snacks and pulls apart their tongues.
 He slices their stomachs
and bites their hearts
 and tears their flesh to shreds, he swallows their toes like toasted tarts and gobbles down their heads.
 Fingers, elbows, hands and knees
 and arms and legs and feet— he eats them with delight and ease, for every part’s a treat.
 And when the gruesome, grisly ghoul has nothing left to chew,
 he hurries to another school and waits…perhaps for you. 93


guztaluz

/

483

points

/

2

years

ago

THERE WAS A PICTURE IN MY PHONE

94


95

I LIVE ALONE.

OF ME SLEEPING.




AUTHOR/ DATE SUBMITTED/ TIME/ COMMENTS/

98

unknown 3 years ago / 02 Mar 2012 18:36 23


7:05

7:05 AM You’re stirred from your Saturday morning slumber by a light buzzing coming from the other side of the room. Almost instinctively, you dash across the room to turn off your vibrating phone. The phone shows one unread text message, from a number you don’t recognize Received: 7:05 I’m not really sure what’s going on. I’m scared— alone. I don’t know what to do anymore. I’ve decided to document what happens with these text messages in the unfortunate event that I am unable to tell the story myself.

You’re struck with an unnerving feeling, but your mind isn’t clear enough to fully comprehend what you’ve just read. It’s too early for this. You decide to head back to bed and deal with all this later. 9:10 AM Your phone’s familiar buzz rings through your head as you wake up to find another unread message. The number is the same as the first message, and the feeling the words give you isn’t much different either.

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Received: 9:10 I’ve decided the bathroom would be a good place to hide. I swear I can hear footsteps coming toward me. I’ve heard them for hours. I need to find a way out, but I’m too afraid to move. It feels like the walls are closing in on me. All I know is that I need to get out of here. It’s not safe.

You’re starting to get worried. You want to help, and you try to reply, but you’re unsure of what to say. You try to shrug the messages off as some kind of prank, but doing so doesn’t seem to make the anxious feelings go away. For now, you decide to go about your day as you normally would. 11:14 AM It’s been two hours. The anxiety has nearly subsided. You find yourself unable to eat. This unexplainable feeling has had an effect on your appetite. Then, right on cue, you hear that same unpleasant sound. Received: 11:15 I decided to run. Just run. I have no plan, but I’ve got to find an exit somewhere. The doors are all locked. Now there’s nowhere else for me to go. I feel cornered, and the footsteps just keep getting louder.

Needless to say, these messages are starting to get to you. You can’t deal with this. You decide to just let it go. Ignore the feelings. Ignore the messages. There is no reason for you to get involved with this. You hear your phone buzz many times in the next few hours, but you try your best to block out the noise.

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4:01 PM Another buzz. The anxiety is becoming overwhelming. Enough is enough. You check your phone to find 4 more unread messages, all from the same number as before. Received: 12:13 I don’t know how long I’ve been running. The footsteps won’t go away. I can’t escape them, no matter how fast I run. They just keep getting louder, and they’re starting to seem ubiquitous.

Received: 1:06 I can’t run anymore. The footsteps are deafening— and there’s pounding on the walls all around me. I must be going insane. There are voices in my head. The halls are speaking to me, but the words are unintelligible.

Received: 2:24 The footsteps, the voices, every sound has stopped. All that’s left is a horrific ringing. My ears have begun to bleed. My hearing is nearly gone and it feels like my vision is beginning to fail as well. Nothing seems to be the color it should be. The once large array of colors has now turned into various shades of black and red. The heat in here is unbearable. I’m drenched in sweat.

Received: 4:01 I’m seeing shadows out of the corner of my eye. The walls are constantly moving. I keep trying to convince myself that this is all just a sick dream, but the heat, the shadows, the blood...it’s all so real. I feel helpless.

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At this point you are convinced that this is no joke. You need to find him— save him— but how? What could you possibly do to help? All you can do right now is wait for the next message. Received: 5:12 I’ve started to pound my head against the wall in an attempt to make the voices stop. I feel like I’m surrounded—constantly watched by someone or something. Make it stop. Please. Just make it all stop.

Received: 5:56 There is so much blood. The pain doesn’t seem to bother me anymore. It’s my only distraction from this madness. I’m beginning to feel numb. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll make it. If you are reading these messages, stay far away from Bellview High School. There is something terribly wrong with this place.

At that moment you realize that whoever this person is, they are not that far from you. You go to that high school. This could be your chance. You could save him. 6:25 PM You’ve made up your mind. You are going to that school. You’ve got no idea what you’re going to do when you get there, but you know that you’ve got to do something. You’ve waited long enough. Received: 6:57 I can’t take this. I can’t stand another second of this nightmare. There is so much blood. I can barely breathe. I’m certain this will all be over soon. It has to be. Blood. So much blood. Make it stop. Please. Just make this madness stop.

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You dart into the school and take a quick look around. The halls seem to be empty. Where is he? You expected to see a blood bath. For the first time you reply to the message: Sent: 7:02 I’m here. I’m at the school. Where are you?!? Almost instantly you hear a buzz.

Received: 7:02 I’m here. I’m at the school. Where are you?!?

At first you’re confused. You re-read the message over and over again. The pieces slowly come together in your mind. The messages you received all day…they were sent from your phone. With that, the door slams shut behind you, and you start to hear footsteps coming after you. Scared and alone, you turn to run, catching a glimpse of the time displayed on the clock overhead: 7:05.

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/

2954

points

/

2

years

BEING BURIED ALIVE WAS BAD ENOUGH. REALIZING

harshcougar

104

ago


I WASN’T ALONE IN MY OWN GRAVE WAS WORSE.

105




AUTHOR/ DATE SUBMITTED/ LIKES/ COMMENTS/

108

blue_tidal 3 years ago / 06 Apr 2012 1219 (98% upvoted) 165


The Smiling Man

About five years ago I lived downtown in a major city in the US. I’ve always been a night person, so I would often find myself bored after my roommate, who was decidedly not a night person, went to sleep. To pass the time, I used to go for long walks and spend the time thinking. I spent four years like that, walking alone at night, and never once had a reason to feel afraid. I always used to joke with my roommate that even the drug dealers in the city were polite. But all of that changed in just a few minutes of one evening. It was a Wednesday, somewhere between one and two in the morning, and I was walking near a police patrolled park quite a ways from my apartment. It was a quiet night, even for a weeknight, with very little traffic and almost no one on foot. The park, as it was most nights, was completely empty. I turned down a short side-street in order to loop back to my apartment when I first noticed him. At the far end of the street, on my side, was the silhouette of a man, dancing. It was a strange dance, similar to a waltz, but he finished each “box� with an odd forward stride. I guess you could say he was dance-walking, headed straight for me. Deciding he was probably drunk, I stepped as close as I could to the road to give him the majority of the sidewalk to pass me by. The closer he got, the more I realized how gracefully he was moving. He was very tall and lanky, and

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wearing an old suit. He danced closer still, until I could make out his face. His eyes were open wide and wild, head tilted back slightly, looking off at the sky. His mouth was formed in a painfully wide cartoon of a smile. Between the eyes and the smile, I decided to cross the street before he danced any closer. I took my eyes off of him to cross the empty street. As I reached the other side, I glanced back…and then stopped dead in my tracks. He had stopped dancing and was standing with one foot in the street, perfectly parallel to me. He was facing me but still looking skyward. Smile still wide on his lips. I was completely and utterly unnerved by this. I started walking again, but kept my eyes on the man. He didn’t move. Once I had put about half a block between us, I turned away from him for a moment to watch the sidewalk in front of me. The street and sidewalk ahead of me were completely empty. Still unnerved, I looked back to where he had been standing to find him gone. For the briefest of moments I felt relieved, until I noticed him. He had crossed the street, and was now slightly crouched down. I couldn’t tell for sure due to the distance and the shadows, but I was certain he was facing me. I had looked away from him for no more than ten seconds, so it was clear that he had moved fast. I was so shocked that I stood there for some time, staring at him. And then he started moving toward me again. He took giant, exaggerated tip-toed steps, as if he were a cartoon character sneaking up on someone. Except he was moving very, very quickly. I’d like to say at this point I ran away or pulled out my pepper spray or my cellphone or anything at all, but I didn’t. I just stood there, completely frozen as the smiling man crept toward me. And then he stopped again, about a car length away from me. Still smiling his smile, still looking to the sky.

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When I finally found my voice, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. What I meant to ask was, “What do you want?!” in an angry, commanding tone. What came out was a whimper: “Whaaat…?” Regardless of whether or not humans can smell fear, they can certainly hear it. I heard it in my own voice, and that only made me more afraid. But he didn’t react to it at all. He just stood there, smiling. And then, after what felt like forever, he turned around, very slowly, and started dance-walking away. Just like that. Not wanting to turn my back to him again, I just watched him go, until he was far enough away to almost be out of sight. And then I realized something. He wasn’t moving away anymore, nor was he dancing. I watched in horror as the distant shape of him grew larger and larger. He was coming back my way. And this time he was running. I ran too. I ran until I was off of the side-road and back onto a better lit road with sparse traffic. Looking behind me then, he was nowhere to be found. The rest of the way home, I kept glancing over my shoulder, always expecting to see his stupid smile, but he was never there. I lived in that city for six months after that night, and I never went out for another walk. There was something about his face that always haunted me. He didn’t look drunk, he didn’t look high. He looked completely and utterly insane. And that’s a very, very scary thing to see.

111


lordatomosk

/

85

points

/

2

years

THEY SAY PRACTICING SMILING IN FRONT OF A MIRROR

112

ago


MAKES YOU FEEL HAPPIER. I WISH MY REFLECTION WOULD JOIN ALONG.

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AUTHOR/ DATE SUBMITTED/ TIME/ COMMENTS/

116

unknown 5 years ago / 09 Aug 2010 03:03 83


The Girl in the Photograph

One school day, a boy named Tom was sitting in class and doing math. It was six more minutes until after school. As he was doing his homework, something caught his eye. His desk was next to the window, and he turned and looked to the grass outside. It looked like a picture. When school was over, he ran to the spot where he saw it. He ran fast so that no one else could grab it. He picked it up and smiled. It had a picture of the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She had a dress with tights on and red shoes, and her hand was formed into a peace sign. She was so beautiful he wanted to meet her, so he ran all over the school and asked everyone if they knew her or have ever seen her before. But everyone he asked said “No.” He was devastated. When he was home, he asked his older sister if she knew the girl, but unfortunately she also said “No.” It was very late, so Tom walked up the stairs, placed the picture on his bedside table and went to sleep. In the middle of the night Tom was awakened by a tap on his window. It was like a nail tapping. He got scared. After the tapping he heard a giggle. He saw a shadow near his window, so he got out of his bed, walked toward his window, opened it up and followed the giggling. By the time he reached it, it was gone.

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The next day again he asked his neighbors if they knew her. Everybody said, “Sorry, no.” When his mother came home he even asked her if she knew her. She said “No.” He went to his room, placed the picture on his desk and fell asleep. Once again he was awakened by a tapping. He took the picture and followed the giggling. He walked across the road, when suddenly he got hit by a car. He was dead with the picture in his hand. The driver got out of the car and tried to help him, but it was too late. Suddenly he saw the picture and picked it up. He saw a cute girl holding up three fingers.

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119




Palette Cleansers

IF YOU’RE FEELING A LITTLE CREEPED OUT RIGHT NOW, IT’S OK. THAT’S PROBABLY NORMAL. IF YOU DON’T FEEL CREEPED OUT, THEN Y O U ’ R E A L R E A D Y T O O C R E E P Y...W H Y ’ D YOU EVEN READ THIS. IF THE FORMER IS TRUE FOR YOU, THEN HERE ARE THREE HILARIOUSLY BAD CREEPYPASTA FOR YOU TO READ. THEY’LL MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER ABOUT LIFE.

BUT FIRST, WHAT CONSTITUTES BAD

EXACTLY CREEPYPASTA?

Bad creepypasta, also known as crappypasta, is, of course, when a creepypasta stops being scary and just begins to enter the realm of stupid. It could be because of cliché overuse, writing the whole thing in caps, being straight up pretentious or straight up ridiculous...anything.

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ALSO, YOU MAY BE WONDERING, IS A PALETTE CLEANSER?

WHAT

My sister came up with the term after we watched a particularly disturbing horror movie (I can’t remember which one). Our minds were craving something funny, innocent, stupid — really just something completely devoid on creepiness. The act of cleansing one’s mind-palette helps to ensure a good night’s sleep.

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Then a Skeleton popped out WARNING: IF YOU HAVE A HEART CONDITION DO NOT READ THIS. YOU WILL DROP THE FLOOR, FLOPPING LIKE A FISH, WHILE CLENCHING YOUR HEART SEEING AS YOU ARE HAVING A HEART ATTACK. ALSO: IF YOU HAVE A SENSITIVE ANUS DO NOT READ THIS; THE BRICK YOU SHAT WILL BE PAINFUL. A FEW YEARS AGO A MAN WAS WALKING DOWN A ROAD BECAUSE HIS CAR BROKE DOWN AND HE SAW A CAR COMING UP BEHIND HIM SO HE STUCK OUT HIS THUMB TO HITCH HIKE AND THE CAR STOPPED AHEAD OF HIM. HE RAN UP TO THE PASSENGER SIDE AND OPENED THE DOOR. WHEN HE OPENED THE DOOR A SKELETON POPPED OUT. ur mom

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Teh day of all teh blod THIS IS THE STORY OF A DAY WHERE THERE WAS ALL THIS BLOOD. A MAN WAS WALKING AROUND AND BLOOD STARTED COMING OUT OF HIM EVERYWHERE. THERE WAS SO MUCH BLOOD THAT IT FILLED UP AN ELEVATOR. HE WENT TO THE STORE AND THERE WAS JUST BLOOD ALL OVER THE PLACE! PEOPLE WERE SLIPPING IN IT AND THEY WERE ALL GROSSED OUT. HE TRIED TO GO SWIMMING AND ALL OF THE SHARKS WENT CRAZY AND BITTENED EVERYBODY. HE GOT CHASED BY ALL THE VAMPIRES EVER. ONE TIME THE BLOOD GOT A KID AND A DOG. AT THE END OF THE DAY EVERYONE DECIDED THEY WOULD SEND HIM TO SPACE SO THAT HE WOULD STOP GETTING BLOOD EVERY WHERE. BUT THEN THE BLOOD FILLED UP SPACE, AND EVERYONE GOT KILLED! THE SCARIEST PART IS THAT THE MAN WAS U!!! (OR HE WAS A LADY IF YOU ARE A LADY) AND YOU FORGOT THAT THIS HAPPENED.

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Then Who Was Phone So ur with ur honey and phone rigns. U anser it doing wit my daughter?” “my dad is ded”,THEN WHO

yur making out wen the n the vioce is “wut r u U tell ur girl n she say WAS PHONE?

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To acquire more creepy feels visit… http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/ Creepypasta_Wiki https://www.reddit.com/r/ shortscarystories/

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https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/ comments/1iwylh/what_is_the_best_ horror_story_you_can_come_up

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SPECIAL THANKS to the people of the Internet for their scary stories and weird perspectives on life. ALSO THANKS to the trolls. Your trolling is always appreciated. EDITED AND DESIGNED by Sara Hagale IMAGERY sourced from Flickr’s DOCUMERICA Project by the Environmental Protection Agency



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