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Dare We Share Some Spooky Stories?

Started by Spookie Monster, October 01, 2022, 05:34:37 AM

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Spookie Monster

Well, we've turned on the radio, so let's indulge in our annual tradition: an episode of an old radio show.  Some years back we started with the Quiet Please episode "The Thing on the Fourble Board"; next came the Suspense episode "Ghost Hunt"; following that, "The House in Cypress Canyon" (Suspense); last year we listened to "Baker's Dozen" (Quiet Please).  You are now invited to tune in for... "The Inquest."



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GVZFuvFpsA



Fate has decreed that we all are due to attend an inquest sooner or later.  In the meantime: Do you have a spooky story to share?

Spel
Like Elliquiy?
My ONs and OFFs
~ R.I.P., Cam ~ ~ R.I.P., Judi ~ ~ R.I.P., Steph ~

Valerian

Waterfront Station is one of the most haunted buildings in downtown Vancouver. Built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1915, the station was the Pacific terminus for their transcontinental passenger trains from Toronto and Montreal until it was taken over by VIA Rail in 1979. Today, this heritage building is a busy hub that connects passengers between the city’s various public transportation systems.

The Waterfront Station is a grand place, built in an era when travelling by train had a sense of class and elegance. The west side of the building housed restaurants and a dance hall. The east wing contained full-time residences and lodging for travellers. Today, a restaurant occupies the east wing on the street level. On the upper floors, some rooms are taken up by business offices. The rest are either vacant or used for storage.

In modern times, the station’s night security guards have witnessed apparitions and poltergeist-like activities.

One night, a guard saw the ghost of a woman in a 1920s flapper dress. She was dancing alone in a corridor on the west side of the building. He could hear the sound of 1920s music playing as she danced. When he approached her, the music stopped and she suddenly vanished.

Another security guard received the fright of his life while patrolling the northwest corner of the building. As he entered an empty room with nothing but his flashlight to light the way, he encountered the ghost of an old woman. She was glowing phosphorous white and had a mournful look on her face. As he stood stupefied, she reached out to him. Completely terrified, he ran from the room.

On an upper floor in the east side of the building, another guard experienced poltergeist-like activity while on night patrol. As he walked through a room used to store a number of old desks, the desks moved together behind him without a sound. When he turned to make his way back through the room and realized he was blocked by the desks, the stunned and badly frightened security guard leapt on top of the desks and ran from the room.

In addition to these encounters, various guards have heard the sounds of phantom footsteps walking on the tiled floors of the building late at night when nobody else is around. Others have seen the ghosts of three little old ladies sitting on a station bench, as if waiting for a train that never arrives.

Outside the Waterfront Station, on the multiple railway tracks north of the building, the ghost of a rail worker is sometimes seen on rainy nights. In 1928, the unfortunate brakeman, Hub Clark, was killed while he was making repairs in the rail yard. He slipped on the wet tracks and was knocked unconscious. Horrifically, a passenger train came along and ran him over, decapitating him. Since then, some have reported seeing the headless brakeman roaming the tracks, his lantern glowing in his hand. Does he think he’s still on the job or, worse, is the poor man looking for his lost head?
"To live honorably, to harm no one, to give to each his due."
~ Ulpian, c. 530 CE

Oniya

Found in a 'Sexy Witch' costume package:

Every year around this time, empty big-box stores turn into Halloween super-centers.  They appear, seemingly overnight, only to disappear just as quickly when Halloween is over.  Perhaps you've wondered about this phenomenon, or the way that the interiors are always the same, with the identical racks of tired costume concepts, like the one that you're holding now.

Well, one year, I went to one of these stores on Halloween night, just before closing.  It was a madhouse, with customers scrounging for last-minute bargains, and it was fairly easy to slip into an alcove and conceal myself until I heard the front door lock.

I was expecting that some employee would be around shortly, and I'd be discovered and escorted out, but hours seemed to pass, and no one approached my hideout.  Nervously, I checked my phone for the time.  After midnight.  Did they just lock up and leave?  No one counting the drawer?  No one cleaning up the rifled bins or checking for spilled candy?

Hesitantly, I crept out of the racks of identical vampire capes and made my way to the front of the store.  Nobody was here.  I was surprised that there wasn't a motion detector alarm going off – although it might have been a silent one.  I tried the front door, thinking I might be able to make my getaway before the cops showed up.  It was locked, as I expected, but there was something weird about the front windows...

I pressed my face to the glass, and - the parking lot wasn't there.  No lights, no cars - no pavement!  I couldn't even see the sidewalk in front of the store!  It was as if the entire store had been yanked out and put - somewhere.

It's been five years since then.  Every October, the front doors open, and a new crop of customers and employees show up, and every November first, the last person leaves and the store goes  - elsewhere.  I know this, because I hear them talking about what's going on in the world outside.  No one questions my presence, even the employees who run into me in the mornings.  They talk to me, sure, but if I try to explain my situation, they think I'm kidding.  I'm putting this paper in here as a last resort.

You see, I can't leave.  If I try walking out the front door, I find myself in the back room.  The loading dock leads to another back room - or maybe the same one.  The truth is - they're all the same store!
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Spookie Monster

Thank you very much, Valerian and Oniya!  Creepy and fun!

Radios can spook us with static and with enigmatic voices and with radio shows; so too can they spook us with songs.  Are you familiar with the uneasy murmurs that arose following the release of 1933's "Gloomy Sunday"?  Concerned parties remarked upon the sheer number of suicides associated with the song: People would take their lives while listening to it or quote its lyrics in their suicide notes.  Ultimately even the composer, Rezső Seress, killed himself.

Although certain jurisdictions responded by banning airplay of the song, it only grew in popularity.  Its best-known English translation added a hopeful element, but that has done little to diminish its fearsome reputation.  So, on this gloomy Sunday, let us listen dreamily to "Gloomy Sunday."



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ2AuLaClmk

This Song's a Killer: The Strange Tale of "Gloomy Sunday"

In Vienna, a teenage girl drowned herself while clutching a piece of sheet music.  In Budapest, a shopkeeper killed himself and left a note that quoted from the lyrics of the same song.  In London, a woman overdosed while listening to a record of the song over and over.

The piece of music that connects all these deaths is the notorious "Gloomy Sunday."  Nicknamed the "Hungarian suicide song," it has been linked to over one hundred suicides, including the one of the man who composed it.

Of course, this might all be an urban legend.

One thing's for sure, though.  The composer of "Gloomy Sunday," Rezso Seress, did take his life, and the success of his greatest hit may have been a contributing factor.

Sad Songs Say So Much

In 1933, the Hungarian-born Seress (né Rudi Spitzer) was a 34-year-old struggling songwriter.  Some accounts have him living in Paris, others Budapest.  The story goes that after his girlfriend left him, he was so depressed that he wrote the melody that became "Gloomy Sunday."  A minor-key ribbon of blue smoke, the tune was given an equally melancholy lyric -- in Hungarian -- by Seress's friend, the poet Laszlo Javor.  Some reports claim it was Javor's girlfriend who left him, inspiring the song as a poem first.  Others say that Seress wrote his own lyric, about war and apocalypse, then Javor later changed it to a heartbreak ballad.

Whatever the case, "Szomorú Vasárnap," as it was titled, didn't make much of a splash at first.  But two years later, a recorded version by Pál Kálmar was connected to a rash of suicides in Hungary.  The song was then allegedly banned.  Short of learning Hungarian and trawling through Budapest newspapers from the 1930s, it is impossible to verify any of this (Hungary does historically have one of the higher suicide rates in the world -- approximately 46 out of every 100,000 people take their own lives there every year).

But it certainly makes for a juicy story.  And it did at the time, too, because music publishers from America and England soon came calling.

Tin Pan Alley tunesmith Sam M. Lewis and British theater lyricist Desmond Carter each wrote an English translation of the song.  It was Lewis's version, recorded in 1936 by Hal Kemp and his Orchestra, that caught on.

Sam Lewis, best known for chirpy hits such as "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," stayed close to the bitter despair of the original.  Here's his second verse:

Gloomy is Sunday, with shadows I spend it all
My heart and I have decided to end it all
Soon there'll be candles and prayers that are sad, I know
Let them not weep, let them know that I'm glad to go
Death is no dream, for in death I'm caressing you
With the last breath of my soul I'll be blessing you


Lewis did make one concession to commerciality by tacking on a ray of light that beamed into the tune's darkness:

Dreaming
I was only dreaming
I wake and I find you asleep
In the deep of my heart, dear
Darling, I hope that my dream never haunted you
My heart is telling you how much I wanted you
Gloomy Sunday


In 1941, Billie Holiday recorded the definitive version of "Gloomy Sunday."  Having the hard-living Lady Day associated with the song certainly upped the tragedy ante.  Despite conflicting reports, the song was never officially banned in the U.S., though it was in England.  In the early '40s, the BBC deemed the song "too upsetting" for the public, then later said that only instrumental versions could be played on the radio.

What Became of Rezso Seress?

During World War II, Seress was put in a labor camp by the Nazis; he survived.  After that, he worked in the theater and the circus, where he was a trapeze artist.  He later returned to songwriting, though he never had another hit as big as "Gloomy Sunday."

In fact, the story goes that when the song first became a success, Seress attempted to reconcile with the ex who inspired it.  Shortly after, he heard that she had poisoned herself, and there was a copy of the sheet music of the song nearby (in other versions of the story, she left a note with just two words: "Gloomy Sunday").  Whether that's true or not, Seress himself did commit suicide, in 1968, jumping from the window of a Budapest apartment building.

Seress once wrote of his conflicted emotions towards his morbid masterpiece: "I stand in the midst of this deadly success as an accused man.  This fatal fame hurts me.  I cried all of the disappointments of my heart into this song, and it seems that others with feelings like mine have found their own hurt in it."



Are we only dreaming...?

Spel
Like Elliquiy?
My ONs and OFFs
~ R.I.P., Cam ~ ~ R.I.P., Judi ~ ~ R.I.P., Steph ~

Spookie Monster

Even musical instruments can serve as conduits to the Other Side.  Please brace yourselves for this next story -- that of a deceitful, murderous, preternatural tuba...!

Hang on... that doesn't sound right.  Let me check my notes, here...

O.K.; no; back up.  Forget the tuba.  Please don't think about any tubas right now, preternatural or mundane.

I meant to say this: You know of Benjamin Franklin, right? -- Founding Father of the United States, printer, writer, scientist, philosopher, politician, diplomat, postman, "air bather"?  Well, among his many hats was, of course, that of an inventor: He came up with the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, the reach extender, the pro / con list, the odometer, the urinary catheter... and the glass harmonica.

The glass harmonica.  Quite unlike the free reed wind instrument developed half of a century later, the glass harmonica is constructed from a series of nested glass bowls.  Some claim that it drives players and listeners insane -- pushing the lively into "melancholic moods," and pushing those already in "melancholic moods" deeper into despair.  Shall we take the risk?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQemvyyJ--g



I hope that you're still with us!  I hope, too, that you now have something spooky to share...

Spel
Like Elliquiy?
My ONs and OFFs
~ R.I.P., Cam ~ ~ R.I.P., Judi ~ ~ R.I.P., Steph ~

Valerian

Found on trueghosttales.com:

When I was 18 I had a girlfriend who lived 20 miles away at Park Gate. To get to, and from there I regularly used the train from Cosham to Swanwick station. To get home on this particular Sunday evening, I arrived at 11:00 pm on Swanwick station. It is a fairly remote and dingy station and it was unusual for anybody else to be there at this hour, but a lady in her late 40's or early 50's was seated waiting for the last train. She was about 5ft 4 inches tall, of plump build, with permed hair, and was wearing a "camel" coat and was carrying a very large canvas shopping bag, which had a tartan pattern on.

I sat down to wait for the train (which were frequently late). After a few minutes the lady asked if there was a train as she "had to get back to Portsmouth". I told her that I was also waiting for the same train and that it should be along soon. Several times she asked the same question and reinforced that she "must get back to Portsmouth". When the train eventually did arrive, she remained seated but became very agitated and began to cry. I told her that this was the last train, but several times between sobs she repeated: "I can't go back". I asked if I could help, and suggested that if she got on the train that perhaps we could talk about any problems she had. But again she said "I can't go back". Meanwhile the guard had got off of the train to point out that this was the last train on that night and that if I was getting on I should hurry (from his angle he probably couldn't see the lady). Reluctantly I got on the train, and as it pulled out of the station I could see her sobbing.

On the journey home I felt guilty about leaving her, as she was obviously very upset about something. On arriving home at Cosham I telephoned the Police at Park Gate and briefly related the story and asked if perhaps somebody could visit the railway station and see if she was ok. I gave a description of her height, dress, and the bag she was carrying. I assumed that perhaps some domestic dispute was the cause of her distress.

On arriving home from work the next evening (Monday) my mother drew my attention to an article in the local paper, "The Evening News". She knew that I caught the train from Swanwick and this article was appealing for witnesses to an accident near that station. I immediately recognized the photograph included in the article as the lady from the previous evening, the description of her clothing, height, dress and bag also matched perfectly. The article was appealing for witnesses to an accident where the lady had been killed whilst walking along the railway lines.... ON THE SATURDAY EVENING.

I telephoned the newspaper and suggested that they had confused the dates, and that I had spoken to the lady, they checked and to my surprise insisted that the accident had been on Saturday. I then telephoned the police who listened to my story, and indeed confirmed that I had reported the incident on Sunday evening, however were adamant that the incident had occurred on Saturday.

I caught the bus after this.
"To live honorably, to harm no one, to give to each his due."
~ Ulpian, c. 530 CE

Lilias

“Where are you?!” I scream.

Panicked, I run through the abandoned farm. I can’t find her. Not in the old house. Not in the barn.

I run into the empty field, heart racing. As I scan the area, I run into a mound of dirt and trip, sprawling to the ground.

Getting up, it hits me. Abandoned farm. I tripped over freshly tilled earth.

Crouching down, I start frantically clawing with my hands. Scooping handfuls of dirt, I hit something hard. Wood.

”Are you in there?!” I cry, pressing my ear to the wood. I hear muffled cries.

I start digging again, but realize it’s taking too long. Looking around, I see a garden shed. I sprint to it, ripping the door open. I see a shovel, still caked in dirt. Probably the same one that bastard buried her with. I grab it.

Running back, I started digging with purpose. Soon the wooden box is exposed. I toss the shovel, and rip open the crate.

She stares back at me, eyes wide. Bound. Gagged. But alive. I sigh with relief. Thank God.

I reach into my bag, pulling out my rag and chloroform. I crouch down, placing it over her face. She struggles, faints. I toss her over my shoulder.

”Ah, hell!” My brother says as I walk back to the truck with a smirk. “You found her!”

”Yup. You almost had me though!” I laugh.

”All right. My turn. Where did you put her?”

I gesture to the creek area. “Somewhere over there. Drowning’s an issue though.”

”Jerk!” he says, running off. I smile, watching him go. I love adult Hide and Seek.

(By KMApok on Reddit)
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
~Wendell Berry

Double Os <> Double As (updated Feb 20) <> The Hoard <> 50 Tales 2024 <> The Lab <> ELLUIKI

Valerian

Also found on on Reddit:

My son is a couple months shy of his third birthday. This past Saturday morning he was sleeping next to me. He wakes up and rolls over, big smile and throws his arm around my neck. "Mommy?"

"Yeah, buddy?"

"I'm going to sacrifice you."

".....did you just say sacrifice?"

He can't pronounce f, it sounds like s. But he used the word properly. He slowly gets up and stands over me and gives me this creepy grin. Then he GROWLS, "I need to sacrifice You."

"Where did you hear that word, pal?"

I'm thinking he's going to say daycare. Nope.

"The monster outside."
"To live honorably, to harm no one, to give to each his due."
~ Ulpian, c. 530 CE

Spookie Monster

Thank you very much, Valerian and Lilias, for your latest spooky tales!

Last Sunday my contributions included Billie Holiday's famous rendition of the (cursed?) song "Gloomy Sunday."  Holiday had an unusually eventful and difficult life; she detailed her experiences in her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues, which was published only a few years before her death in 1959 at age 44.  Among her memories was a strange incident that had occurred when her mother, Sadie, died about ten years prior...



Lady Sings the Blues

It was only a few days later in a Washington hotel that I suddenly knew I was alone for good.  I don't believe in ghosts or spirits, but I believe what happened that night.  We had finished the last show at the Howard Theater and Joe and I went back to our hotel.  We were just sitting there when suddenly I felt my mother come up behind me and put her hand on my shoulder.  And I knew she was dead.

I turned to Joe.  "Mama just left and she's dead," I told him.

"You're crazy," he told me.  "You must be blowing your top."

"You listen to what I said," I told him, "and goddamit you better be good to me because you're all I've got now."

The next morning when we got to the theater for the first show I could see everybody was ducking me.  Our road manager had gotten June Richmond, who has her own club in Paris now, Baby White, and somebody else to stand by and take my place in case I fainted.  I saw everybody acting strange, so I just walked up to the road manager and told him Mama was dead and I told him exactly what time she died the night before.

He blew his top, raised hell with everybody backstage.  He swore somebody must have told me.  But nobody had told me nothing.  And everybody knew it.



Do you feel that? -- those frigid fingers wrapping around our own shoulders?  The Season of the Witch is letting us know that it will likewise soon depart, at least for a time...

Soon, though -- not yet.  Have you a spooky story to share before it slips away?

Spel
Like Elliquiy?
My ONs and OFFs
~ R.I.P., Cam ~ ~ R.I.P., Judi ~ ~ R.I.P., Steph ~

Valerian

On South Bass Island, near Put-in-Bay, Ohio, is a beautiful Queen Anne-style lighthouse and tower. But the curious tale behind the deaths of the tower's first keeper and his assistant is a mystery we'll probably never solve.  The light keeper, an experienced naval officer named Harry H. Riley, assumed his duties with the initial July 10, 1897 lighting of the light.  Details of what happened next differ a bit from source to source, but the basic story and its sad result remains the same.

Riley hired a man named Sam Anderson, who also worked part-time at Hotel Victory, to help maintain the grounds and light at South Bass.  Anderson was at the lighthouse for about three weeks, living in the basement with some live snakes he collected on the island, when the area fell under quarantine because of a small pox outbreak during the summer of 1898.

An agitated Anderson reportedly tried to leave the lighthouse for a safer area, but troops sent to enforce the quarantine order sent him back.  He walked back to the lighthouse, but he refused to enter it. He stayed outside, howling loudly, according to at least one report.

The noise suddenly stopped late that night.  Searchers found Anderson's body at the bottom of a cliff near the lighthouse the next day.

Two days later, police in Sandusky, Ohio found light keeper Riley wandering around town, and they arrested him on drunk and disorderly charges.  Officials soon committed the distraught light keeper to a state mental hospital.  If he knew anything of what had happened to Anderson, he never spoke of it -- and was perhaps unable to speak of it.

Today, the most haunted part of the lighthouse is said to be the basement -- no longer open to the public -- where, perhaps, Anderson's unquiet spirit can still be found.  But Riley himself still walks the grounds as well, and is often seen going about his old duties of tending the lamp and the house.
"To live honorably, to harm no one, to give to each his due."
~ Ulpian, c. 530 CE

Lilias

Hello, my dear. You do not know who I am, but I know you. I am one of the three demons that were assigned to you at birth. You see, some people in this world are destined for greatness, destined to live happy, fulfilling lives. You, I am afraid, are not one of those people, and it is our job to make sure of that.

Who are we? Oh yes, of course, how rude of me. Allow me to introduce us: Shame is my younger brother, the demon on your left shoulder. Shame tells you that you’re a freak; that those thought you have are not normal; that you will never fit in. Shame whispered into your ear when your mother found you playing with yourself as a child. Shame is the one who makes you hate yourself. Fear sits on your right shoulder. He is my older brother, as old as life itself. Fear fills every dark corner with monsters, turns every stranger on a dark street into a murderer. Fear stops you from telling your crush how you feel. He tells you it is better not to try than let people see you fail. Fear makes you build your own prison.

Who am I, then? I am the worst of your demons, but you see me as a friend. You turn to me when you have nothing else, because I live in your heart. I am the one who forces you to endure. The one who prolongs your torment.

Sincerely, Hope.

(By MrGarm on Reddit)
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
~Wendell Berry

Double Os <> Double As (updated Feb 20) <> The Hoard <> 50 Tales 2024 <> The Lab <> ELLUIKI

Valerian

"My Father Punished Me When I Talked to Ghosts", by Edwin Crowe



I’ve been blind since birth. As I grew up, everything was described to me in such vivid detail that I didn’t even realize why it was that important to see, especially having no reference point to compare it. We lived in a single-floor ranch house, that’s what Father told me. In my mind, of course, I could see, although unlike how a sighted person could. I had spatial awareness. I knew where my bedroom was, where the bathroom, living room and kitchen were. Each wall had its own texture. I don’t know if that was done on purpose, or if I could feel things others never noticed.

I rarely fell over. Only if Father, or one of the visitors, put something somewhere they shouldn’t have. It was usually the visitors, and Father would shout.

They visited infrequently, and only briefly when they did. Father said I shouldn’t speak to them, that it unsettled him. He’d worry when I saw something he didn’t, saw it with my ears or by touch.

Ellie was the first. She seemed very sweet. She asked me my name and why my face was so messed up. She was in the living room. I could hear where she sat from her breaths. Harsh nasal sounds, as if her nose was blocked. When father had a cold, he’d always breath through his mouth, big labored breaths, as he wasn’t used to it.

When people mentioned my face, I always touched it, trying to work out why it was so strange to them. When I asked if I could touch theirs, there was always a pause. I guessed sighted people never did that. Why would they need to?

When I asked Ellie if I could touch her face, she reluctantly agreed, but moments later Father entered the room and asked me who I was speaking to. I told him, “Nobody.” He would always punish me when I spoke about them. I think it scared him. He’d take my arm and march me off. I’d be knocked off-balance and disoriented, to the point where when he finally set me down, my hands would frantically search my surroundings until I knew where I was. It was usually my bedroom, though every now and then he’d leave me outside, in the middle of nowhere. That was the worst. I would be lost and scared. He told me about the road that ran in front of the house, and explained that the sounds I heard were cars, that they’d kill me if they touched me. Those sounds were my only means of recognizing my surroundings. I waited until I heard one, and then knew which way to run back to the house.

I heard Ellie that evening. She whispered to me, saying she was scared. I whispered back, but she didn’t hear.

I asked Father about Ellie. He didn’t want to talk about her. I asked him why. He didn’t reply. When I told him that she asked about my face, he asked me how I responded. I told him I wanted to touch hers. He laughed, though I knew he wasn’t happy. I could hear the difference. When you laugh for pleasure, your mouth is wide open. When you pretend, your mouth is almost closed. To me, the difference is obvious.

It wasn’t until I was older that he explained.

He said we lived in a special place, connected to the “other world”. That sometimes dead people slip through, people who died in pain and wanted to reach the living. He explained that because I couldn’t see, I was able to tune in to that. That they knew I was listening when others weren’t. He said I had to ignore it. Otherwise, he told me, they’d latch on and never leave me. All the dead want is to be alive again, he said. It was dangerous, and they would trick me. He said he knew how to deal with them, but he couldn’t help if they became attached to me.

Alex appeared to me a few years later. She told me she was lost and didn’t know where she was. I told her I wasn’t allowed to speak to her. Still, she pleaded for help. I kept quiet, knowing what would happen if I said anything. “Did you speak to them?” Father asked. Though I was upset, I told him no. I wished I could help her. I knew what it was like to be lost, and it scared me.

Alex didn’t whisper to me at all. I’d ignored her, and she ignored me. Father saved me, and I was thankful.

After Alex, I knew what I needed to do, so I did it. The spirits stopped bothering me after that, for a very long time. That was, until Sarah appeared.

Sarah didn’t give me a chance to be quiet. I was on my own, sitting in the living room and listening to the television. “Help,” she said. “I need to find a way out.” I stayed silent. “You can hear me, can’t you?” she asked, surprised.

“I’m not allowed to speak to you,” I told her.

“Please,” she begged. “I’m scared, I’m lost. I want to see my daddy.” I gripped the arms of the chair and told her I wasn’t allowed.

“He’s dead,” she said. I didn’t answer. “Your father is dead,” she said again.

I wasn’t going to fall for it. I heard banging from around the room as things began to fly, and the shelves began to shake. “Stop it!” I shouted. And it did.

“Please help me leave,” she said.

I wasn’t going to talk to her. I did the only thing I thought would help. I unlocked the front door, hoping she’d run out and get lost, just like I would do. When I heard from her no more, I locked the door and sat back down. I listened intently for any signs she was still there. Except for the sounds of the TV, it was silent.

I hated when my heart raced. I became all too aware of the tick-tock feeling of the rise and fall within my chest, like it was about to explode. When I heard my father’s voice, I screamed.

“Son,” he said, “I need your help. I think I’m dying.”

I did what he told me to do; I didn’t speak. If he did die, he’d never leave me. Instead, I raced out into the open air and shouted for help. I shouted until my voice was hoarse. I heard the sounds of cars racing along the road in front of my house. I shouted until I heard someone respond. It was a woman.

“What’s wrong?” they asked. I told them I think my father was dying. They asked what had happened to my face. I pleaded with them to help me, and they promised they would.

I sat down on the grass and waited. Sometime later, the woman returned to me and asked if she could hold my hand. “I’m so sorry,” she told me. I heard the sounds of sirens, and of people rushing. I asked what was going on. The woman said she was there for me.

As the noise died down, a man asked me a question. “I’m a paramedic,” he said. “What happened to your face?” I told him I was fine. He asked if I was sure, and I told him I was. He asked if I minded him touching my face. I said it was okay.

A moment later, I felt a pressure release from around my forehead and the air felt cold against my skin. It sounded as if he were peeling an orange. I imagined that in my head and worried he’d expose my insides. I screamed and asked what he was doing. He told me everything was going to be okay, and the woman squeezed my hand, telling me to be brave.

I didn’t know what it was I was experiencing. I felt a tight pain within my head, like when you smash your shin against something hard, followed by something I’ve come to understand as “bright”. It hurt so much. I began to cry.

“What happened to your eyes?” the paramedic asked. I said I was blind. He asked to check them. The pain returned when he examined them.

“Do you know him? the man asked the woman who had helped me. She told him that I had been screaming for help and that she had come to my aid, but that she had never met me before.

“How long have you had your eye injury?” he asked me. I told him I’d been blind from birth. He asked me if I could see his fingers. I told him no. He asked if I could open my eyes. I said I didn’t know what he meant. He asked if he could open them for me. I didn’t respond. Then I felt his fingers on my face, fingers covered in something rubbery. Suddenly, it became “bright” again. I screamed.

He tried to calm me. The woman squeezed my hand again. I didn’t know what was happening. Things I couldn’t describe came to me. It was like it always was, but multiplied one hundred-fold, and so much more real. I carried on screaming as a fuzzy form came into view.

“Just breathe, okay?” the paramedic said. “Everything will be fine. When was the last time you saw?” As my heart began to calm and my breathing slowed, I became distracted by what I was experiencing. It overwhelmed me. I wanted to cry, and I did. “How long has it been?” he asked again.

“I’ve never seen anything before,” I told him.


* * * * * *

I was told to keep an eye mask on for most of the day, only taking it off at night at first, to allow my eyes time to adjust. At the same time, I was placed in the custody of my aunt and uncle, and didn’t even know it at first. They were shocked at what happened to me, and that I had never attended school.

The past few years have been a rollercoaster ride. The doctors said I may never have perfect vision, though what little I have is a Godsend, and I’ll take what I can get. I’ve only recently been learning to read and write, so I apologize if my English isn’t the greatest. It’s the best I can do.

I’ve been asking my aunt what happened to my father, but all she says is that he died of a heart attack. I asked what sort of man he was. She says he was her brother and she’ll love him no matter what. My uncle doesn’t want to talk about him at all.

I’ve been using the computer a lot recently, and really enjoying the internet. I can’t believe such a thing exists. After being so lonely for so long, I can talk to whoever I want, when I want, though I’m wary of that. After all, how do I know if who I’m speaking to is alive? No one seems to share my father’s concerns about that.

Today I was on a forum discussing the spirit world – I was so happy to find people who I could relate to – and someone curious about my username sent me a link to an article on a true-crime website. It was about my father, and mentioned me by name. They asked me who I was, and if I was the same person. According to the article, my mother had gone missing soon after my birth. It said I’d been bound so that I couldn’t see. That my father always wanted a daughter.

They found fourteen bodies in the basement. They said one got away, a girl by the name of Sarah Frank. She was the one to call the police. They found Father’s car parked around the back of the house. They supposed he carried his victims into the basement via the storm entrance and left them there. Sarah had managed to get away after she agreed to be his daughter following four days of sustained torture. She stabbed him with a knife he’d placed on the counter to butter some toast.

I didn’t want to believe it. And I am not sure I would have, if it weren’t for the names of the victims, two of which stuck out: Ellie Farmer and Alex Riddle. I’d spoken to them both in the living room.

To this day, I wonder if my father had been honest with me about a single thing in his life. Throughout it all, one question remains above all others.

Did I speak to Ellie and Alex before, or after, he killed them
"To live honorably, to harm no one, to give to each his due."
~ Ulpian, c. 530 CE

Lilias

#37
In 1941, somewhere above the treeline in the Karava mountains, a group of soldiers from Argithea, returning from the front, found themselves caught in a blizzard, an unnaturally vicious one for the time of year. Night had fallen, there was no moon in sight, and the men didn't dare light their lanterns, because it was said that those mountainsides were dedicated to the Lady of Darkness. Walking blind, trusting their sure mountain feet and some impromptu walking sticks, they managed to find the entrance of a stone hut. They knocked and shouted, to find out if the building was occupied, but there was no answer. The frozen lock broke with a single blow of a water-smoothed stone, and the travellers crept in to shelter from the snow. Only after closing the door behind them did they dare light their lanterns, to exploor the inside of their unexpected shelter.

Their first impression, that it was a hut, must have been wrong, because such a grand room certainly did not belong in a shepherd's dwelling. All around them the walls were smooth, like those of rich houses, and looked strong enough to stand even against the bludgeons of giants. A huge fireplace dominated the opposite wall, and the piles of human bones all around made the place look like a mausoleum. And when they looked up, they were overcome with such awe that their legs were almost paralysed: as high up as the lantern flame could illuminate, there was no ceiling to be seen.

The men put their gear away in a corner and started a fire in the fireplace, which was loaded with dry wood, as if fate had provided for their comfort. They rolled out their blankets on the floor before the hearth and lay down to sleep, blessing the gods. Only the youngest, little more than a beardless boy, couldn't sleep; his eyes kept getting drawn to the bones and the limber shadows that coiled restlessly in empty eye sockets. That boy was from a nearby village and had heard the stories about grand houses that could only be found at night, but he didn't dare tell the others anything.

When the fire started to die down, well fed with tasty wood, the boy, who couldn't sleep a wink, put on his cape and went outside to look for some big log, something to last until morning. With his own steaming breath as his only guide, he found behind the house five big logs, as many as the travellers. He gathered them in his arms and ran for the door. In his haste, he dropped one, but he didn't bother with it and just left it outside the building.

After he fed the fire and finally felt sleep circling him, his blood froze for a moment: he thought he saw four childish figures, hazy and swarthy, step out of the flames, one from each log, and gloat evilly down at his companions. But exhaustion calmed him down, convincing him he had already begun to dream.

When he woke up, shortly before sunrise, he saw a woman dressed all in black standing by the fireplace. She was motionless, and her face was covered with a black veil. The boy sprang up and went to nudge the sleeping bundles next to him, but they rattled, as if there were bare bones wrapped in the blankets, not people. Then he heard the woman's voice, grating and sarcastic, urging him to unroll the blankets, to spread out the tablecloths. Great terror gripped him; he dashed for the door, leaving his gear behind, and rushed out into the frozen dawn. He was the only one of that group who made it home; the families of the others still look for the hut every time it snows, hoping at least to collect the bones of the unfortunates, to have something to put in their graves, that gape empty.

~Words by the research team behind Pagan Rituals in Thessaly. Greek original here. Translation by yours truly.
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
~Wendell Berry

Double Os <> Double As (updated Feb 20) <> The Hoard <> 50 Tales 2024 <> The Lab <> ELLUIKI

Spookie Monster

Thank you so much, Valerian and Lilias!

So... just who was phone?  Hunh.  Are we really that much closer to the truth?  Let's conclude this Season of the Witch's round of yarnspinnin' with a couple of stories that pose the question.  First up...



Static on the Line

My uncle works for dispatch in my town and he recently told my family of the weirdest call he's ever gotten.  He says that he had received a call from a landline one night and when he answered it there was only static on the other end.  This happened two more times.  Finally, he calls a squad to go check out the address from the caller ID.  When the cops got there and walked into the house they immediately saw that there was a dead body.  The person had been dead for 5 months.

The craziest part about it was that there was no electricity or any other utility working.  So there is no way they should have been able to get those calls into dispatch.  But if they hadn't, who knows how long that person's body would have stayed there.



"Who knows?"  These mysterious callers certainly are mysterious...!

Spel
Like Elliquiy?
My ONs and OFFs
~ R.I.P., Cam ~ ~ R.I.P., Judi ~ ~ R.I.P., Steph ~

Spookie Monster

Light grows in the east!  It appears that this next offering must, alas, be the final one of the season.  I'm going to draw from this collection of "glitch in the Matrix" stories.  It's interesting (well, it's interesting to me, at any rate) how spookiness evolves with the times.  Ghosts and witches and demons and vampires and fairies and werewolves and goblins and so on continue to lurk in the murky margins, true, but they've been joined by "technological" entities: UFOs (sorry -- "UAPs") and aliens, AIs and robots, and, indeed, "the Matrix."

(If you want another glitch in the Matrix: The Matrix was released 23 years ago!  How the heck did that happen...?!)




An Odd Night at the Hotel

I work as a security/nighttime attendant at an apartment building.  It's 24 stories and one of the oldest buildings in the city.

One night I'm sitting here when the phone rings at about 3 AM, and I answer "Hello this is Rick at the front desk how can I help you?" the voice on the other end sounded female, but was totally garbled and the only bit I could make out was "23rd floor."  I tried to tell the person I couldn't understand them, and asked what apartment they were in, but again garbled response and "23rd floor."  After the 3rd time of trying to understand them and the same response, I said since I couldn't understand them I'd come up and to meet me in the hallway.

So I go to the main elevators, and both are up on the (surprise) 23rd floor.  Luckily, we have an older service elevator and it's only on the 7th floor so I call it down.  I get it and hit the button for the 23rd floor, but it won't move and the inner door won't close, so I go to unlock the reset panel and boom we start going up, door still open.  I'm freaking out, and the elevator is shaking because it goes pretty fast and is old.  As I'm going up, I just stay towards the back and finally I reach floor 23.

I step out, door closes just fine, and I look around the hallway.  There's nobody around.  I walk along slowly trying to listen for anyone awake who might've called, but there's nothing.  So now I head the opposite direction and go towards where the regular elevators are and when I get to them they are just sitting there with their doors open.  I was pretty freaked out but I knew it could just be the elevators on the fritz, so I get in and figure I'll just reset them when I get to floor 1 when I hear the sound of the back stairwell closing.

So I quickly get out and go to the stairwell and lo and behold, no one's there, but the maintenance door to the machine room is ajar, and at that time I'm the only one in the building with a key.  At the top of the building is a large machine room housing all the really really loud machinery that does stuff in the building and allows access to the roof.  I don't like going into it because it's creepy as fuck and no one ever goes there, so at this point I'm seriously freaked out but I muster up and head in.

I shout "Hello?!" and there's no response.  The lights in this room flicker because they're shitty florescent so I can't see well either, but at the end of the room I can make out the roof access door and sure as shit, It's slightly open.  So I slowly continue forward checking the space in between each machine as I walk by, and there's no one there so I open the roof access door.  I can't see anyone ahead of me on the roof but there is a slight wrap around and if there was a jumper or something I needed to be sure so I step out and leave the door ajar like it was.

Almost immediately, the door is pulled shut.  Now I might've written it off as wind or something, but this door is hard to shut and hard to open.  Really hard.  I immediately grab the handle and hank it open, slam it behind me and run straight for the maintenance door.  It automatically locks when it's closed so I slam it shut too and go back to the 23rd floor hallway, get into an elevator (doors still open) and go all the way down to the first floor.  I go back to the main lobby and as soon as I sit down, the phone rings.  I pick it up, don't say a word, and sure as hell garbled voice again only audibly saying "23rd floor."  I hung up the phone, turned the ringer off and spent the rest of the evening just staring at the parking garage security monitor.



Time to check out of l'Hôtel des Esprits.  Thank you again, Valerian, Lilias, Azy, and Oniya -- and thank you, too, GloomCookie, for your creepy contribution that I somehow missed until last night (?!)!  (I am very sorry about that.)  And thank you, of course, you silent listeners; "silent," I say -- although I'm pret-ty sure that I heard your heavy breathing once or twice. (Uh... wait... you were breathing heavily because you were scared, weren't you...?!)  I hope that all of you were bewitched by 2022's wander through the Other Side.

Yes, yes: Time to check out.  For better or for worse, though -- I'll let you decide which -- we already have reservations for next year.  Perhaps then we'll reassemble for another round of fun and fear...?

Spel
Like Elliquiy?
My ONs and OFFs
~ R.I.P., Cam ~ ~ R.I.P., Judi ~ ~ R.I.P., Steph ~