Dare We Share Some Spooky Stories?

[Spookie Monster]

It is fear that defines the Season of the Witch.  Why are we now tugging our collars so close?  Why are we now turning so many lights on, and so early?  Why are we now ensuring that our windows are latched, and latched tight?  Why are we now pulling our blankets higher rather than investigating those mysterious bumps in the night?  No, not just to keep out the chill drizzle; not just because the skies grow gloomier with every passing day; not just to keep the melancholic winds at bay; not just because our beds are so, so warm on crisp nights.

No: Fear now wells within us, and it does so because we understand that there is something to fear.  The Season of the Witch has returned, bringing with her forces strange and thirsty.  They are the tricks; we are the treats.  Even those prepared for what the season promises might never escape her twilight embrace.

Is it hopeless?  Are we helpless?  Maybe; maybe not.  But we are here -- and we are here together.  Why not, then, agree to swap some stories suited to the season while we await our fate?  Maybe you could think about it in terms of surrender, like throwing yourself at the feet of a mad queen in hopes that you'll be spared the executioner's axe.  Maybe you could think about it in terms of defiance, like provoking said queen in hopes that you'll somehow win some deranged respect.  Or maybe you'd just like some company as we're marched out into the mists.

If you recall, we here at Elliquiy once engaged in a round of hyakumonogatari kaidankai, the ancient Japanese tradition where people tell stories amid one hundred candles, extinguishing them as they go.  That went just about as well as we could have asked for, so we began a round of de duizenderotischeprikkennacht, the ancient Dutch tradition where people gather together to tell one thousand spooky stories.  When that one-thousandth story is concluded, we will experience an exceedingly curious visitation from the Otherworld.

So they say.

If you have a spooky story to share, please share it in this thread.  Maybe it happened to you; maybe it happened to someone else.  It can be long or short, simple or complex.  It can be completely true or, in the event that the plain truth doesn't correctly deliver its essence, tweaked, shall we say, so that said essence can be correctly delivered.  Ghost stories, uncanny memories, urban legends, Fortean news, and creepy folktales are the potions that we seek.  Stories can be eerie, gruesome, heartbreaking, or even funny.  You are encouraged to tell multiple stories, although I do ask that you include only one story per post.  Finally, please give credit where credit is due.  Editing or amending a source is perfectly understandable.  Your own stories are not only permitted but especially invited.

So, what do you fear?  In preparation for this year's round of storytelling, I did a bit of research into the phobias of the famous and the infamous.  Are you, for instance, an agoraphobe? -- anxious of unfamiliar people, unfamiliar places, unfamiliar situations?  Well, then, you're in good company: Naturalist Charles Darwin, painter Edvard Munch, novelist Marcel Proust, poet Emily Dickinson, actress Kim Basinger, and actor Macaulay Culkin are among many who struggle, or struggled, with agoraphobia.

As we've already discussed, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt was terrified of Friday the 13th (friggatriskaidekaphobia or paraskevidekatriaphobia -- yes, bizarrely, there are two different words for it).  But he was also a pyrophobe -- afraid of fire.  Even after he was confined to a wheelchair, FDR would conduct drills to practice extinguishing himself and escaping buildings, including the White House.  Businessman and engineer Howard Hughes may be one of the best-known mysophobes -- people preoccupied with germs -- but there are and have been many more out there.  Roman emperor Augustus Caesar had a fear of thunder and lightning, astraphobia, and so too does the musician Madonna.

Less common phobias, although less common, are no less challenging to those who struggle with them.  Napoleon III, president and emperor of France, was terrified of cats (ailurophobia).  Prime minister Margaret Thatcher and writer Roald Dahl were disgusted by beards (pogonophobia).  It's said that businessman and inventor Steve Jobs was a koumpounophobe -- he couldn't stand buttons -- which not only affected his wardrobe choices but might even have spurred the now omnipresent preference for touchscreens over buttons.  Filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock claimed to have been repelled by eggs (ovophobia).  Pioneering psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud was a siderodromophobe -- he was afraid of trains -- which he attributed to having gotten excited when he saw his mother undressing during an overnight train trip when he was two years old.  (Hm.)  Media mogul Oprah Winfrey suffers from globophobia -- a fear of balloons.  Actor Orlando Bloom, as you're all doubtless aware, is afraid of pigs (swinophobia).  Psychologist Timothy Leary was afraid of going to the barber, so he used to cut his own hair.  (Tonsurephobia, maybe, although he was able to cut his own hair, so who knows?)  Actor Matthew McConaughey is afraid of revolving doors.  (Your guess is as good as mine.)

Meanwhile, actor Robert De Niro and basketball player LeBron James are dentophobes -- terrified of going to the dentist -- just like Hitler!  Curse those rabid anti-dentites!  Actor Keanu Reeves is afraid of being alone in the dark.  (Scotophobia, maybe, although the "alone" part probably demands some further qualification.)  And musician Rita Ora is afraid of using the toilet: "I always feel that when I go to the toilet that something's going to come out of the bottom.  I have this thing where I think this tunnel must start from somewhere and sometimes I think, 'What if something comes out of the toilet?'"

"What if?" indeed.

And then there's taphophobia -- the fear of being buried alive.  Think about that!  Waking up cold, groggy, exhausted in a confining box six feet under the daisies.  Would you cry out?  Would you claw the casket lid?  Founding Father George Washington, composer Frédéric Chopin, and writer Hans Christian Anderson all had something of a particular aversion to such a fate, although it's hard to imagine that it's really very popular with anyone.

The fear of death, of course -- thanatophobia -- is oh-so-often the phobia.  So what better place to begin this season's round of spooky storytelling than at, well, the end?  Please join me as I open "The Morgue Door"...


The Morgue Door

Used to work hospital security and we had video cameras accessible in the office.

During body escorts, we kept finding the morgue door open.  That was weird because it was a heavy door that could only be opened with a keycard.  Pathologists were blaming security and security was blaming pathologists for leaving it open, as we were the only two groups with access.  I did a body escort one day, made sure to close the door behind me and went back to work.  Not even a half hour later, the office got a call bitching that the "last guard left the door open."

I swore up and down I didn't and went to check the cameras.  The cameras showed me pulling the door shut, pushing on it and then wiggling the locked handle to ensure it was closed.  I wasn't even out of frame from the camera yet before we could see the door swing ALL the way open, hit the wall and then slowly swing shut until it was slightly ajar.


"The end"...

Spel

[Spookie Monster]

"The end" -- or is it?  Around the world and throughout the ages, many people, perhaps most, have sensed that something awaits us beyond death.  That can be a disturbing concept in itself; in fact, there are people who fear the very notion of an afterlife.  I'm told that this represents a form of apeirophobia, the fear of infinity.

Ghosts.  I ain't 'fraid of no ghost -- I mean, no more than I'm afraid of anyone who's alive, anyhow.  That said, the fear of ghosts, phasmophobia, is hardly unusual.  Just what are ghosts, though?  Excellent question.  That ghosts represent the spirits or the souls of the dead is the prevailing attitude, but diverse theories which presume to explain their (super)nature exist -- consider, for example, The Stone Tape Theory.  It seems plausible that no single theory applies in all cases but that certain theories apply in certain cases.

Regardless of the details, I hope that you'll now ponder a haunting.  Perhaps this haunting takes place in a creaky Victorian mansion silhouetted against a thunderbolt?  Or perhaps in an elegant old hotel teeming with guests who were never quite able to check out?  No, no: This story will concern a haunted jet.  Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 for Miami now boarding...


Ghosts On A Plane?

In December 1972 Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashed into the Florida Everglades.  The aircraft was a Lockheed L-1011-1 TriStar traveling from New York to Miami.  According to the Aviation Safety Network, Eastern Air Lines had 163 passengers and 13 members of crew onboard, totaling 176 occupants altogether.  The flight was largely uneventful, but, on approach to Miami, the flight crew had become fixated on a faulty indication in the cockpit.  They had not realized that the autopilot was disconnected, which ultimately caused the plane to lose altitude and crash.

Although 75 people survived, the accident still resulted in the deaths of 101 occupants, including Captain Robert 'Bob' Loft and Flight Engineer Donald 'Don' Repo.  It was the first fatal crash involving not only the Lockheed TriStar, but, indeed, a widebody aircraft of any kind.  The tragedy was also the second deadliest plane crash in US history at the time, although, today, it now ranks in 16th place.

Days later, the wreckage of the aircraft was retrieved from the swamp, and some of its parts were able to be salvaged, including a galley.  Those still in a sufficiently usable state were used again on the Eastern Air Lines fleet.  After this, sightings started of Bob and Don -- standing in the aisle, cockpit, and galley.

For example, the vice president of Eastern Air Lines once boarded a flight from New York and chatted with a pilot, who he assumed was in charge of that sector.  Later, he recognized that the pilot he'd been speaking to was, in fact, Bob.  How could this have happened?  In any case, it was far from the first time that the deceased pilot had supposedly been spotted after his death.

Another time, a captain was asked to check on a passenger in first class who was in a pilot's uniform.  The senior flight attendant said he was dazed and unresponsive when spoken to and was not on the passenger list.  The captain recognized him as being none other than Bob.  Flight engineer Don Repo is also said to have appeared onboard flights in a strange, supernatural manner.

Stranger things

Meanwhile, a flight attendant on a New York to Miami flight (the very route of the December 1972 crash) opened an overhead locker to find Bob's face peering out at her.  On another flight, a flight attendant is said to have seen Don's face on the oven door.  She called two of her fellow crew members in to witness what she had seen.  He reportedly then said, "Watch out for fire in this plane."

On the returning flight, an engine failed and had to be shut down before it caught fire.  On returning to the galley, another flight attendant saw an engineer fixing the oven.  She asked the flight engineer later about the oven, and he said he hadn't fixed it, and it didn't need to be fixed.  Who could this have been?  As you might expect, she later picked from some photos that Don was the engineer she had seen.

An unexpected presence

On another day, a crew was in the cockpit of an aircraft when they were said to have seen Don sitting with them.  He warned them of a faulty electrical circuit, which was then found and replaced.  There were also reports of Bob having been seen doing his pre-flight checks of the aircraft and telling the ground staff he'd already completed them.  The pilot was unnerved by what had happened and canceled the flight.

While in the cockpit one day, preparing for the flight, another pilot heard loud knocks from under the floor beneath him.  He opened the trap door to see a vision of Don looking at him, which then promptly disappeared.  He wanted to look further and reportedly found a problem that could have caused a serious accident.

Swept under the carpet?

Although the sightings were reported in a Flight Safety Foundation publication, the Eastern Air Lines CEO dismissed the claims, and employees were warned not to talk about the sightings.  The crew had previously been encouraged to report every incident pertaining to the flight in the aircraft log books, and many sightings were recorded.  Mysteriously, the log books started to go missing from the aircraft.

Eventually, all of the salvaged parts were removed from aircraft, and neither Bob nor Don were ever seen again.

"The reports were given by experienced and trustworthy pilots and crew.  We consider them significant.  The appearance of the dead flight engineer (...) was confirmed by the flight engineer." - Flight Safety Foundation


Studies have declared that the fear of public speaking, glossophobia, is one of the most common fears.  It even afflicts, or afflicted, those that we might never have guessed: Prime minister Winston Churchill, Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, actor Laurence Olivier, actress Marilyn Monroe, singer Barbra Streisand, actor Ian Holm.  I hope that you, though, don't wrestle with it -- or, if you do, that you're able to pin it for the duration of the season.  Why?  Well, because I'd love it if you yourself were now willing to tell some tales...

Do you have a spooky story to share?

Spel

[Valerian]

I used to think I lived in a haunted house. At night, I’d wake to the sound of my whispered name. Doors I locked would creak open. Things I loved—the pearl earrings my mother gifted me for graduation; my battered stuffed bunny from childhood; my favorite coffee mug—would disappear, then reappear in strange places.

On top of kitchen cabinets.

Under the bathroom sink.

In the fork of the dead olive tree in the backyard.

Fogged bathroom mirrors revealed messages.

“LEAVE.”

“GET OUT.”

“RUN.”

It seemed a good idea to obey.

The afternoon I moved into my new apartment, a picture fell off the wall. I cut my hand while cleaning up the shattered glass. As I rinsed the cut, I happened to glance in the mirror.

The shadow only lasted a moment. But I know what I saw.

I moved as soon as the lease was up.

I’ve been dozens of places since then. The attic apartment above the coffee shop. The duplex on the shady side of town. The bare-bones cabin in the middle of the woods.

Doesn’t matter where I go. Strange things keep happening. I sage. I sprinkle holy water. I chant blessings in languages my clumsy tongue butchers. Nothing helps. No matter what I try, I see it out of the corner of my eye.

A shadow behind me.

I used to think I lived in a haunted house. I was wrong.

It’s not the house that’s haunted.

[Lilias]

Lacrimosa
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The woman is a mound of dirt and rags pushing a squeaky shopping cart; a lump that moves steadily, slowly forward, as if dragged by an invisible tide. Her long, greasy hair hides her face but Ramon feels her staring at him.

He looks ahead. The best thing to do with the homeless mob littering Vancouver is to ignore it. Give them a buck and the beggars cling to you like barnacles.

“Have you seen my children?” the woman asks.

Her voice, sandpaper against his ears, makes him shiver. His heart jolts as though someone has pricked it with a needle. He keeps on walking, but much faster now. It isn’t until he is shoving the milk inside the fridge that he realizes why the woman’s words have upset him: she reminds him of the Llorona.

He hasn’t thought about her in years, not since he was a child living in Potrero.

Everyone in town had a story about the Llorona. The most common tale was that she drowned her children in the river and afterwards roamed the town, searching for them at night; her pitiful cries are a warning and an omen.

Keep reading...

[Spookie Monster]

Welcome, Valerian and Lilias!  Fantastic that you've come; now the season has truly begun.  And thank you very much for the spooky stuff, of course!  You've started us off with a bang -- or maybe I should say a "Boo!"...

My last contribution involved the tragic crash of a jet.  This isn't the first time that a jet crash has come up in our tangled tales, though.  Back in 2018, for example, we discussed a few weird events surrounding the 1979 crash of American Airlines Flight 191 (here, here (thank you again, Valerian), and here).  Mmm, and a year prior we'd talked about the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 and touched on that of Aeroflot Flight 217, the deadliest aviation disaster to date.  Both of those occurred on... the very same Friday the 13th (October 1972).

Incidentally, another Friday the 13th looms next week.  Friggatriskaidekaphobes / Paraskevidekatriaphobes, mark your calendars!

The fear of flying is another common modern fear.  Many people simply consider it to be a form of acrophobia, the fear of heights.  Others say that it's more complex than that, noting that it can, for instance, involve agoraphobia (mentioned above) and claustrophobia, the fear of confined spaces.  The terms pteromerhanophobia and aviophobia have been proposed, but most just call it "flying anxiety" or, heck, "a fear of flying."  Dictators Kim Jong Il and Muammar Gaddafi, musicians Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash, Michael Jackson, and Cher, boxer Muhammad Ali, actor Tony Curtis, actress Jennifer Aniston, comedienne Whoopi Goldberg, and football coach John Madden all struggle or struggled with it.

("But Spel, it's not flying that scares me," the wags snark.  "It's crashing."  To them I say, "Go fly a kite.")

Flying can be terrifying enough... but what if there were SNAKES ON THE PLANE...?!

Hmmm?!

Hold on -- did I say "snakes"?  I meant "a crocodile"...


Twenty dead in plane crash after crocodile escaped from bag it was being smuggled in

A plane crash which killed 20 people 12 years ago was actually caused by a smuggled crocodile running loose, investigators have said.

The Filair Let L-410 flight came down on August 25 in 2010, after it took off from the capital city of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  It crashed into a house, killing 18 people and two pilots.

At the time, authorities believed the tragedy was caused by low fuel levels.  This was mainly because there was no explosion at any point during the crash.

But now investigations have found the real cause was a crocodile, magazine Jeune Afrique revealed.  A passenger had smuggled the reptile onto the plane in a duffel bag with plans to sell it; but it broke free while the plane was in the air, and all the terrified passengers fled to one side of the plane.

The only person who survived the accident described how everyone followed an air hostess trying to find safety in the cockpit.  This reportedly caused a dramatic shift in the flight's centre of gravity, and the plane came tumbling down.

Somehow, the crocodile survived the crash, but the authorities later killed it with a machete.


The fear of crocodiles specifically is krokodeilophobia.  A broader fear of reptiles is herpetophobia; the fear of snakes is ophidiophobia.  Johnny Cash, afraid of flying, was also apparently an ophidiophobe, just as actor Matt Damon and singer Britney Spears are.

(I'm compelled to mention here that I learned only a couple of weeks ago that Florida has something called the "Nuisance Alligator Hotline": 866-FWC-GATOR.  Might be worth committing to memory if you're an ophidiophobe on your way to the Sunshine State...)

Spel

[Spookie Monster]

Although the fear of flying might indeed be more than just the fear of heights, the fear of heights is in itself yet another common fear.  This next story will particularly appeal to, or particularly repel, you acrophobes -- and those of you who are more than a little suspicious of elevators.  Let's now ascend the 400-foot Gatlinburg Space Needle...


The Gatlinburg Space Needle

In 1968 the city of Gatlinburg, Tennessee began construction on the 407 foot tall Space Needle.  It boasts glass elevators and a 360 foot view of Gatlinburg and The Great Smoky Mountains beyond.  In 1969 it opened its doors and many people took scenic pictures from its top.

In 1991 a local high school graduate got a coveted job on the Space Needle's maintenance crew.  He was very excited and threw himself into his job... literally.

One day, while working on the open elevator shaft, he took a misstep and fell down it onto an oncoming elevator.  The people inside were terrified by the loud bang on the top of their glass elevator car... and then blood began to flow down the sides.  The elevator continued up and stopped about 10 feet from the top of the shaft, pinning and killing the young maintenance worker.  The unfortunate tourists inside were stuck inside the glass elevator with the poor worker's body pinned to the top for three hours.

Employees and tourists say that sometimes the elevator will occasionally and mysteriously stop about 10 feet from the top before moving on and enveloping the inside of the car with the smell of blood.

Then in 2016 a land developer by the name of David Pinyan visited one fair April day.  He rode the elevator to the top and got out at the Observation Deck.  Witnesses say he strolled around the deck, disrobed, and threw himself from the top rail.  Witnesses were horrified when he landed on the awning and was decapitated.

He left no note.  His girlfriend thought he was happy.  All that was left was speculation as to why he took his own life.

Since then, Gatlinburg Police Department get the occasional reports from terrified onlookers that someone just jumped from the tower.  When the police arrive there is never anyone at the base of the Needle, though: whoever or whatever jumps vanishes about halfway down.


Notable acrophobes include the aforementioned Muammar Gaddafi and Matt Damon, musicians Sheryl Crow and Miley Cyrus, actors Liam Neeson and Tobey Maguire, actress Michelle Rodriguez, comedian Zach Galifianakis, singer Zayn Malik, and... engineer Gustave Eiffel, who led the team that designed the Eiffel Tower (330 meters tall) and the Statue of Liberty (93 meters from ground to torch).

We've barely begun our trek toward the dizzying heights that the season teases.  Do you have a spooky story to share?

Spel

[Valerian]

From Reddit:

In high school my friends and I were messing around with a Ouija board one night. We had done it before and nothing remarkable had ever happened. We usually did it to try and scare each other or are girlfriends. We all thought it was a joke. That night there was no one else home except the 7 of us and we were all together around the board. One of the girls there wanted to try it. She had never done it before.

This time was different. The board misspelled some of the words the same way every time. It gave answers that seemed really historically accurate for our town (things we neither knew or cared about). Long story short, the “spirit” claimed it was a 10 year old boy who had died on the property in the 1800s and was buried there too in an unmarked grave (my friends house was on a farm in the edge of town). We were all a little freaked out because the board had never been so detailed and consistent. However, we were still skeptical and we were all assuming one of us was trying to scare the rest.

Finally, my friend asked if the spirit could do something to prove he was there with us. It went to Yes and then spelled out k-n-o-c-k. Then the planchette stopped moving. We just all stared at it silently and then there was a rap-rap-rap on the window right next to us. The lights were on outside and there was absolutely no one out there.

We never touched that f-ing board again.

[Lilias]

Please, Momma
by Chesya Burke

1989

In the car. On the way to see Her.

She scares us. They say . . .

Why do you always do that? I hate when you do that.

Do what?

Narrate our story. Where we’re going. What we’re doing. You know I can hear you. I hate it so much.

But they’ll want to know one day. She said they’ll need to know.

No one cares about you, girl. No one cares about us.

They will.

Cars never bounce around the way they make them appear in the movies. No, instead they glide, more like the lull of a boat on stale waters. And they’re just as loud as the boat’s engine, even with the windows rolled up there are always loud swooshing noises assaulting the senses. The sounds should be calming, like the ocean, but they never are. They are annoying and invading. Or at least it’s what the girls always imagined what the beach and ocean should sound like. They had never been farther than Kentucky Lake, a few hours away from where they were now. The water there was so muddy that you couldn’t see your hands in front of your face and everything that moved within its depths looked like invading, misshapen piranha out to devour your flesh. But the girls loved it so. Except when the motion threatened to make them sick.

The car swerved around a sharp corner, another wave threatening to take over, and the girls swayed in the back, holding on to each other. Their tummies were not holding up well under the stress, though it probably had nothing to do with the car ride and everything to do with their destination. The girls looked at each other, their minds quiet for a moment. There was no need to speak, nothing to say.

In the driver’s seat, the girl’s aunt turned to stare at their mother. Auntie’s eyes, dark and weary, stared for so long that it was scary. As the car veered toward the middle of the street, the lines on the road before them slid by between the tires of the car. After what seemed like a long moment, the woman turned away and righted the car, putting them all back on track.

Keep reading...

[Valerian]

Cistulaphobia: The fear of closets and cupboards.



When I had just turned 6 years old, my family moved from our home town to a larger suburb in a state several hours away. I was still 5 when my parents took me with them to look at the house they would end up buying, and while we were walking through, the little girl whose parents were selling the house invited me to walk with her.

She was about my age or maybe a little older, and she seemed bossy in that big sister way. She showed me the room that would end up being my bedroom, and I remember her being very keen to show me the closet. She said a ghost lived in it, and I had to be very nice to the ghost or it would get me. I did not believe in ghosts (I was afraid of vampires, sharks, and cannibals) so I shrugged her off. She kept trying to make me go into the closet for a closer look, but I said no and went back to my mother’s side.

I don’t remember anything else about the visit, or much leading up to the move, but when we got into the house I was afraid of that closet. I tried to “make friends with it” and made myself a little nest in the floor, and spent time with the closet until I was comfortable. I’m an only child—it’s not like I had siblings to play with. I made friends with trees, and squirrels, why not a closet?

I was a latchkey kid, so I ended up being in the house alone a lot, and strange things were always happening. Granted, strange things were always happening around me everywhere we went—my mother seemed to attract it—so it felt normal to me at the time.

One winter, I had the bright idea to go walking on the ice that had formed on the riverlet that ran a ring around our neighborhood. I fell through the ice three times. The first time, I caught hold of a dock before I went all the way in. The second time, only one leg went in and I was able to scramble back up. The third time, I went all the way in to my shoulders and someone helped me out. I have no description beyond “someone”. No one else was there.

We lived in the house for almost five years, then it was time to move again. I remember feeling like the house was angry that we were leaving. I was 10 when people started coming to visit and view the house, and I was excited to get to show them around like the previous owner’s daughter had shown me around.

When I said as much to my mother, she drew back and asked me to repeat myself, so I told her what I remembered about the little girl waving at me from the doorway to what was my parents’ bedroom, inviting me to follow her into the other upstairs room. My mother paled, visibly and she shook her head saying, “No child lived in this house when we bought it. It was just an older couple. There was no little girl here. You just wandered off on your own when we toured the house and showed back up when we were about finished.”

To this day I could tell you exactly what that little girl looked like, though I only saw her once, but I fully believe she was the ghost in the closet.

[Spookie Monster]

Thank you very much for your latest creepy treats, Valerian and Lilias!  Tasty as always...

For my next offering, I'm going to move from the heights to the depths.  The fear of water, aquaphobia*, is still another common fear.  Although relatively few people are scared of water in general, studies argue that deep water -- the ocean, lakes, rivers, even swimming pools -- can induce anxiety in about half of the population.  Our troubadorable chum Zayn Malik, who as we said above is afraid of heights, is, alas, also afraid of deep water.  Do you have a date with Zayn this weekend?  Might not want to suggest parasailing or cliff diving.  Basketball player Michael Jordan and actress Carmen Elektra, best known for her role as a lifeguard on Baywatch, are a couple of others whose timbers get a little shivered by the thought of Davy Jones's locker.  (Despite the former's height and the latter's inherent buoyancy.)

So let's take a dip in aquaphobia, shall we?  Down, down, down, we go... and Down Under.


The Curse of the Devil's Pool

In beautiful far north Queensland, there's a spot nestled in the Australian bush where the confluence of three streams among a group of boulders creates natural pools of water.  The pools are quite cool, even in the blistering summer months, and after a 1.3 kilometre trek into the famous tourist attraction, just south of Cairns, a swim often beckons.  To tourists, it's known as the Babinda Boulders, but to locals it's referred to by its main attraction: The Devil's Pool.

According to Dreamtime legend and the local Aboriginal community of Babinda, the Devil's Pool has a haunted history.  The tale goes that a beautiful young girl called Oolana from the Yindinji Tribe married a respected elder called Waroonoo.  But shortly after they wed, a young, handsome man from another tribe came into Oolana's life and they fell in love.  Realising their adulterous crime together, they fled into the valleys.

They were caught by the tribe elders, but Oolana broke free from her captors and threw herself into the Babinda Boulders calling for Dyga, her lover, to follow her.  As Dyga hit the waters, her anguished cries for her lost lover turned the still waters into a rushing torrent.

It's said to be one of Australia's most haunted spots, claiming the lives of at least 19 people since 1959.  According to Aboriginal legend, Oolana's spirit still guards the boulders, and her calls to Dyga can still be heard.  All but two of the known victims killed at the popular tourist spot have been male.  Legend says Oolana lures people close to her beautiful waters, as she forever searches for her own lost lover.

The spot where the water foams is believed to be the most lethal during the wet season, but as Aboriginal elders will tell you, it can be dangerous all year round.  Elders colloquially call the haunted spot the "Washing Machine", referring to the undercurrent that makes it near impossible for victims to swim to safety.

Brisbane father Shanon Hoffman, 37, became the pool's 19th victim on October 19, 2020.  His body was found 200m from where he went swimming.  Just seven months earlier in April 2020, Madison Tam, 18, went paddling in the pool and got sucked under the water into a 'chute' that pulled her downstream to a depth of eight metres.  She failed to resurface.

In 2008, Tasmanian man James Bennett was swimming in what his friends described as "calm waters" when he was suddenly pulled backwards by an invisible force towards the rapids at the end of the pool.  The 23-year-old reached for a branch which snapped before his head went under.

It was Bennett's death that finally made authorities declare the site a no-go zone.  A sign was erected that reads: "This creek has claimed many lives.  Wet rocks are extremely slippery.  Beware of rapidly rising water levels.  Do not swim in main creek downstream of this point.  This track leads to lookouts only.  For your safety keep to walking track provided."

Babinda court records show 11 people died between 1959 and 1983, and although most reports suggest there have been 19 fatalities since those records began, it's believed many others have tragically died there, with old newspaper articles suggesting as much.

According to an article in The Cairns Post, a man called T. Winterbottom was swept away in the area in 1933.  "It is problematical as to where the body can be, as the first pool under the falls proper is of a tremendous depth, and, perhaps the body may be lodged in crevices or caves which may exist beneath this water.  A further search of the Devil’s Pool will be made," reads the report.

There are also reports that an eight-year-old boy called John Dominic English drowned in 1940, and Aboriginal locals say another young man vanished after he kicked a plaque commemorating the dead.

In another mysterious disappearance reported -- and referred to by local elders -- with no date attached, a young couple stood together on the rock platform admiring the view over Devil's Pool, when, according to one witness, without warning the waters suddenly rose, sweeping both into the water.  The girl was lucky to survive, but her male companion did not.

Other more recent confirmed victims of the pool include a tourist from Adelaide in 2004, a Sydney businessman in 2006 and Peter McGann, 24, who drowned in the pool's chute in 1979.  As the Brisbane Times reported, he jumped across the short space between the rocks, slipped and went missing.

There's no doubt the spot deep in the Queensland rainforest has a dark history, whether that's because of the tragic legend of two young lovers or because of the natural dangers of the pool.  Both are true, depending on who you ask.


"'The depths'?!  But Spel, the Devil's Pool is only eight meters deep!  Not really 'the depths,' you know?  I mean, the Challenger Deep, for example, is almost eleven thousand -- "

O.K.: I hear you, I hear you, and your point is well-made.  Listen, though, wouldn't you agree that if a watery grave can hold dozens of souls, "shallow" as said grave might seem, it is, in fact, deep enough?

The season's caught us in her current now.  Do you have a spooky story to share?

Spel


* Aquaphobia, in spite of being a naughty hybrid Latin-Greek word, is apparently preferred to the pure Greek hydrophobia because the latter term has long been used to refer to a symptom of late-stage rabies.  Which is also terrifying! -- but not the topic of today's tale.

[Lilias]

Selfies
by Lavie Tidhar

#733

In one of the last pictures I am running. I am running down the street and it is dark, the street lamps are dim and the light oozes down sickly and yellow. I can feel my heart almost bursting in my chest, the taste of something sour and unpleasant in my mouth. I’m running as fast as I can. I have to get away.

The moon is a sickle moon. Its cheek is pockmarked with acne scars. It looks down on me; it hangs overhead like a malformed knife. They’re running behind me and they’re gaining. They’re not even running hard. They spread out around me, they match their pace to mine, easily, without effort. They whisper my name: Ellie, Ellie. Just ahead is the rusty iron gate to the old playground. I used to play on the swings when I was a little girl. They crowd me here. I don’t know if kids still use the swings. I stumble through the gate and into the playground. I just have to keep running but I take a picture then, I can’t help it, I take a picture and it’s just me and the gate and that sickle moon, and no one at all behind me.



“I heard this story about a girl who went mad a few months ago.”

“What girl?”

“Her name was Ellie and she was in my year at school. I didn’t see much of her after that until they found her dead at the bottom of the old playground down my street one night, a few months ago.”

“Oh, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s all right, I really didn’t know her that well. What was funny was, when I saw her, it was only for a moment before they zipped up the bag and took her away. It was her face, see. It was the scariest thing I ever saw, her face. Here, look. Just before they zipped her up I took a photo. Look.”

“. . . That’s disgusting!”

“I didn’t put it on Facebook or anything.”

“Are those eyes?”

“. . .”

“What is she doing with her mouth?”

“I think she’s screaming. She was still holding her phone when they found her, even though she was broken up pretty bad. My cousin Dan works in the lab and he said there were thousands of pictures on her phone. Thousands and thousands.”

“. . .”

“He said the police could construct her last few months almost moment by moment following the pictures. They were mostly selfies. But some of them were pretty weird. Dan said maybe someone Photoshopped them. After a while they didn’t even make sense.”

“That’s pretty vain, though.”

“I guess.”

“. . .”

“You know what the really weird thing was, though?”

“What?”

“A couple of days later I was in the supermarket and I thought I saw her. She was standing in the aisle by the cereal shelves and she was talking on her phone. She was holding a box of Crunchy Nuts. I had this really queasy feeling when I saw her. I mean it couldn’t be her, right? Then it was, like, she knew I was standing there and she turned and she gave me this smile. She had these uneven white teeth and she had her hair in this sort of fringe. She used to be really pretty. But when she turned she looked directly at me and it was her eyes. They were like eggshells, without pupils or an iris, they were just entirely white and empty and flat and she smiled.”

“You’re making it up.”

“I had a can of Coke in my hand and it fell down and burst open, and there was a mess. When I looked up again she’d disappeared.”

“Did you pay for the Coke?”

“Yeah, I paid for the Coke. They buried her a few days later. I didn’t go to the funeral. I mean, like I said, I never really knew her all that well, anyway.”

Keep reading...

[Spookie Monster]

Happy Friday the 13th, ghosts and goblins!  And by that I mean, "Watch out."  Things today are liable to go extry topsy-turvy...

Mmm... today and today and today creeps in.  Makes me think, methinks: Creepy-crawlies give a heck of a lot of us the heebie-jeebies, now don't they?  Indeed, this season of hocus-pocus must count among their dearest haunts.  Have you ever suddenly felt legs and legs and legs scurrying through your hair?  Have you ever pulled back the blankets one morning only to discover that you'd been sharing your bed with a spider or an earwig or a centipede for the last eight hours?  Have you ever reached for a light switch in the dark, or maybe for your towel following a shower, just to find something waiting for you?

Exactly what constitutes a creepy-crawly is up for debate.  Are small rodents creepy-crawlies?  How about small reptiles?  Prolly.  For right now, though, I'm going to concentrate on arthropods -- a hodgepodge of critters including insects and spiders.

Entomophobia is the overall fear of insects, while arachnophobia is the fear of spiders and scorpions and ticks and daddy longlegs and mites "and so on."*  Filmmaker Steven Spielberg is one of many entomophobes: Insects send him running off helter-skelter.  (A hypothesis.)  Actor Johnny Depp and musician Justin Timberlake are two of many arachnophobes: Spiders send them both hopping off harum-scarum.  (An admittedly shakier hypothesis.)

Some poor souls have a special fear of certain types of creepy-crawlies.  Although artist Salvador Dalí disliked all insects, for example, he had a particular aversion to grasshoppers (orthopterophobia), which represented to him fear itself.  Actress Scarlett Johansson "cannot stand" cockroaches (katsaridaphobia).  Actress Nicole Kidman, meanwhile, is a lepidopterophobe: She's terrified of butterflies.

But enough of my jibber-jabber.  For our next tale, I was going to pick the low-hanging fruit that is this news story, which discusses an unfortunate Indian girl and the ants that had taken up residence in her eye sockets.  Being more aural than visual, though, I've decided instead to go with something a little ear-ier.  Please turn it up to eleven for this hubbub out of Ipswich, Blighty...


Spiders blamed after broken siren played creepy nursery rhymes randomly at night to UK townsfolk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkcntJ9Hnhk

Floating in on the wind, yet again, the sound of "It's Raining, It's Pouring" being sung by a child on the creepiest siren in Britain.

The Ipswich Star reports on what one local described as "something from a horror movie":

A tormented mother living in Bramford Road with her two young children has been woken on an almost nightly basis by a tinny, distant rendition of "It's Raining, It's Pouring".  She said the threatening undertone of the song had left her frightened and questioning whether she was imagining things.  After months of torment, she finally reported the unusual complaint to Ipswich Borough Council.

The next time it happened, they scrambled workers to her address and she helped them track down the unnerving music to a loudspeaker installed at "an industrial premises on the neighbouring Farthing Road estate [business park]".  The council subsequently issued a press statement:

This is unique in our experience -- it was difficult to believe a nursery rhyme would be playing in the middle of the night.

But we do take all complaints extremely seriously and asked the residents who contacted us to let us know when it was actually playing so we could investigate properly.

We took a call around midnight and immediately went to the Bramford Road area to find out more -- we did hear the nursery rhyme playing from an industrial premises and it sounded very eerie at that time of night.  We appreciate that people living nearby would find it quite spooky.

The premises' operators blamed spiders:

The sound is only supposed to act as a deterrent for opportunistic thieves that come onto our property, and it's designed only to be heard by people on our private land.  We are now aware of the problem -- the motion sensors were being triggered by spiders crawling across the lenses of our cameras and it looks like we've had it turned up too loudly.  We've spoken to the resident who brought it to our attention and adjusted it so this shouldn't happen again.

The BBC adds that it had gone on for months:

For several months she would hear the rhyme, which would go away only to come again another day.

The woman, who did not wish to be named, said: "The first time I heard it it was the most terrifying thing ever, I went cold and felt sick, and thought 'what on earth was that?'"


I don't know what the technical term is for a fear of nursery rhymes, though evidently such a fear does exist.  If you know, please snatch up your trusty-tricksy Ouija board and get in touch with this ol' ghost!

(A "fun" Easter egg -- sorry, "Halloween treat" -- a "fun" Halloween treat for this tale: If you enter "bramford road ipswich" into Google Maps, you'll find that the default photo features... a car accident.  Quite appropriate for a Friday the 13th, no?)

Spel


* That said, those around me, at least, have generally had a "bugs is bugs" attitude toward the whole taxonomic tangle.  I mean, when have you ever heard, you know, "OH MY GOSH IT'S A SPIDER AND AS A CONFIRMED ARACHNOPHOBE I'M CURRENTLY oh wait that's just a spider cricket i'm totally cool dude..."?

[Spookie Monster]

Let's dilly-dally in the nursery for a moment more.  Although I don't know what the phobia of nursery rhymes is called, I do know what the fear of dolls is called: pediophobia.  This seems to be the golden age of creepy dolls, doesn't it?  Perhaps you yourself have crossed paths with Annabelle, Robert, Okiku, Mandy, or Letta.

Any pediophobes out there?  Well, then, this one's for you.  And just like a doll, it's short and sweet.


Abigail

Little Sally loved her doll Abigail so much.  She was so pretty, with long black hair and bright blue eyes.  They played together every single day...

One afternoon, though, she threw a tantrum and tore her to pieces.  How sad!  Now Abigail has to play by herself.


Oh, and thank you very much for your latest creepy offering, Lilias!  Jeepers, phones were scary enough before they could take photos, you know...?!

Thirteen of thirty-one.  Do you have a spooky story to share?

Spel

[Valerian]

For five or six years, I spent a few weeks every summer at a camp in New Hampshire. Looking back, some of the fondest, most formative experiences of my adolescence occurred there. Summer romances, capture the flag, Fourth of July celebrations. It was all very bucolic.

With that out of the way, my only borderline supernatural experience occurred during my first summer at this camp.

Late one evening (I don’t remember when) and towards the end of my stay, I woke up to someone or something outside the cabin.

For context, I slept on the bottom bunk abutting the front wall of the cabin, with a window just above the bed itself. The “window” was just a cutout with a screen that kept bugs out and a wooden panel that could be lowered when it rained. Extremely makeshift, so it felt like you were sleeping outside most of the time. The cabins were lined up in a row with a single path running along the front of them. This meant that I could hear anything happening outside.

And what I heard that particular night was very clearly the sound of a man moaning, but it didn’t sound like it was coming from an actual person. It was disembodied, booming almost, and it was clearly saying the word “No” but stretched out—more like “Nooooooo!” Like I said, moaning or tortured-sounding.

The voice would oscillate, moving up and down the path—getting closer and louder, then further and quieter, only for the process to repeat itself. I struggle to comprehend how a human could both make this guttural sound and keep it up for so long.

I can’t remember a time when I was so fear-stricken that I couldn’t move. My 10-year old body was frozen solid. My limbs wouldn’t work. At some point, I was able to awaken another camper, who was now made aware of the situation at hand—confirming that it wasn’t just my mind playing tricks. We were both scared, but I think our collective knowledge served as some sort of comfort that allowed me to fall back asleep. By the morning, it was gone.

I went to that camp for another five years or so and never heard that voice again. Rest assured, any time I woke up in the middle of the night during my subsequent stays there, that experience was the first thing that would come to mind.

I can’t and will never be able to make sense of whatever it was I heard that night.

[Lilias]

A Collapse of Horses
by Brian Evenson

I am certain nobody in my family survived. I am certain they burned, that their faces blackened and bubbled, just as did my own. But in their case they did not recover, but perished. You are not one of them, you cannot be, for if you were you would be dead. Why you choose to pretend to be, and what you hope to gain from it: this is what interests me.

X

Now it is your turn to listen to me, to listen to my proofs, though I know you will not be convinced. Imagine this: walking through the countryside one day you come across a paddock. Lying there on their sides, in the dust, unnaturally still, are four horses. All four are prone, with no horses standing. They do not breathe and do not, as far as you can see, move. They are, to all appearances, dead. And yet, on the edge of the paddock, not twenty yards distant, a man fills their trough with water. Are the horses alive and appearances deceptive? Has the man simply not yet turned to see that the horses are dead? Or has he been so shaken by what he has seen that he doesn’t know what to do but proceed as if nothing has happened?

If you turn and walk hurriedly on, leaving before anything decisive happens, what do the horses become for you? They remain both alive and dead, which makes them not quite alive, nor quite dead.

And what, in turn, carrying that paradoxical knowledge in your head, does that make you?

X

I do not think of myself as special, as anything but ordinary. I completed a degree at a third-tier university housed in the town where I grew up. I graduated safely ensconced in the middle of my class. I found passable employment in the same town. I met a woman, married her, had children with her—three or perhaps four, there is some disagreement on that score—and then the two of us fell gradually and gently out of love.

Then came an incident at work, an accident, a so-called freak one. It left me with a broken skull and, for a short time, a certain amount of confusion. I awoke in an unfamiliar place to find myself strapped down. It seemed to me—I will admit this too—it seemed for some time, hours at least, perhaps even days, that I was not in a hospital at all, but in a mental facility.

But my wife, faithful and everpresent, slowly soothed me into a different understanding of my circumstances. My limbs, she insisted, were restrained simply because I had been delirious. Now that I no longer was, the straps could be loosened. Not quite yet, but soon. There was nothing to worry about. I just had to calm down. Soon, everything would return to normal.

Keep reading...

[Valerian]

A tale from New Zealand:

Every now and then I need to travel for work, and because of the nature of my work, it’s usually to places in the middle of nowhere. I fly out of the capital city I call home, at the crack of dawn, and two flights later, I’m driving out to the countryside towards my destination - a small town with a population of about 1200.

The town itself is super tiny: an old pub that doubles as a hotel; a motel across the road; a petrol station and a Four Square (tiny corner store selling overpriced groceries). Because it’s mid-morning, I bypass the town to drive to work (a wind farm nearby). I’m there until the end of my work day, which is about 1800. I’m absolutely exhausted at this stage but the town is only about 5 mins drive away.

As I’m turning out of the farm and onto the main road to head home, a man waves me down. He’s classic Southern bloke: shorts, gumboots, big hat etc. He’s got the red face that suggests he spends most of his time in the sun and the scraggle of beard that says he’d do something with it if he was one of those city fellas with their mochaccinos.

He flags me down and I pull up next to him, wind down my window. “You going left?” he asks me. “Nah, mate, I’m going right.” “Good to hear. Piece of advice, don’t go left. Nothing good will come of it. That’s a dead end, that is.”

This is weird because you *can* go left from where we are. The road leads to a much more populated town than the one I’m going to. I turn to look left, in case of oncoming traffic before I pull out and a car speeds past, heading left. Farmer guy grips the driver’s door before I can pull away. “Don’t go that way. It’s not for you.” I turn to thank him, make sure he won’t get hit as I pull away, but he’s already walking away towards the nearest paddock.

I remember watching him walk away because there isn’t a gate in that part of the paddock - is he going to just jump the fence? Is he moving out of my way? But right when he gets to the fence, a wind kicks up and I get some grit in my eye. I look away from him to clear it, and when I look back, he’s gone.

I pull out onto the road and head to the motel. The motel is owned by the same people who run the pub, so after I park up, I cross the road to the pub to pick up my room key. I figure I’ll ask about this farmer, what he’s talking about.

As soon as I mention a farmer warning me not to turn left, the owner nods. “I haven’t seen him but other folks have. Reckon he’s some kind of ghostly alarm bell.” Mate, I am a young AFAB, in a tiny Southern town all by myself, I don’t wanna hear about ghosts! “Apparently he gives people directions. Ignoring him is said to lead to death.”

Haha yeah right, good yarn, give me my key so I can leave and the locals can have a laugh.

I take the key and check into my motel. I connect to the local WiFi and am scrolling through the regional news when I see that there’s been a fatality on the road, not far from the wind farm. A car came off the road and smashed into a power pole, bringing the pole down on top of the car. Based on where the crash happened, it would have been me if I’d been going left.

[Spookie Monster]

Thank you very much, Valerian and Lilias, for continuing to bring the chill!

Well, for those of you who are still with us, it seems that you made it through Friday the 13th alive.  (If you didn't, my condolences.)  Whereas the fear of Friday the 13th is friggatriskaidekaphobia or paraskevidekatriaphobia, the more general fear of the number thirteen is triskaidekaphobia.  Thirteen isn't the only inauspicious number out there, though, as we've discussed before.  Fear of the number four (tetraphobia) is familiar throughout East Asian cultures, for instance, while in Italy fear of the number seventeen (heptadecaphobia) replaces that of thirteen, which is in fact sometimes regarded as lucky.

But how about... 088-8888-888?  For my eighth contribution this season, on this, its eighteenth day (eh, close enough), I bring you a story that's bound to tingle the spines of you octophobes out there.  Let's whip out our phones and dial up a cursed Bulgarian phone number...

088-8888-888, the "Cursed" Phone Number

Many urban legends about so-called "cursed" phone numbers center around what happens if you call those numbers yourself from another line -- but there's one story floating around out there that takes that premise and twists it: The cursed mobile phone number 088-8888-888 has allegedly been taken out of service because it kills everyone who is assigned it.  There is, of course, more to the story than meets the eye -- there always is -- but the reason the number has gained the reputation for being cursed in the first place is actually very, very real: Within the space of five years, three different people who had 088-8888-888 as their mobile number did actually die in a terrible, tragic fashion.

The phone number in question is a Bulgarian mobile phone number.  Bulgaria does not, as far a I know, have any negative superstitions surrounding the number eight; nor, for that matter, do any other countries.  Indeed, the only locations I could find that do observe certain beliefs about the number view it as a good thing: In some East Asian countries, eight is a lucky number, not an omen of ill fortune.  However, sometimes, an odd or unusual pattern is enough to give birth to superstition -- when it comes to 088-8888-888, it's hard to ignore the deaths associated with it.

The First Death

On Oct. 9, 2001, the first owner of the phone number, former mobile phone company executive Vladimir Grashnov, died in hospital.  His death was unexpected; he was still relatively young, just a month and a half shy of his 49th birthday.

Weirdly, almost every single English language source about the allegedly "cursed" phone number -- including The Telegraph, who, frankly, should know better -- identifies Grashnov as the former CEO of Mobitel.  This, however, is incorrect: According to obituaries published by Standart News, of which Grashnov was a board member, and Bulgarian news agency Novinite, he was the former CEO of Mobiltel -- with an additional L -- also known as Mtel.  Originally founded in 1994 and launched in 1995 under the name Citron, Mobiltel was the first GSM mobile phone operator in Bulgaria; these days, operating as A1, it remains the largest mobile phone operator in the country.  It's based in Sofia, Bulgaria.  Mobitel, meanwhile, is a totally different mobile phone company based in Sri Lanka.

Here is why that matters: Mobiltel is the company that actually operates the 088-8888-888 number.  It was originally issued to Grashnov, who apparently used his own service.

It's not totally clear exactly what the cause of Grashnov's death was.  The obituaries just note that he passed away in hospital after a "prolonged illness"; there's no mention of what that illness was.  Novinite also wrote that Grashnov had apparently been in need of a blood transfusion that was not granted shortly before his death.  Most English language sources cite the cause of death as cancer, although given that these are the same sources that failed to identify the correct company of which Grashnov was formerly CEO, I'm not sure how reliable they are.  Rumors have also circulated that, if it was cancer, it may have been "caused by a business rival using radioactive poisoning," according to The Telegraph.  As far as I know, these rumors have not been substantiated.

What we do know, though, is that Grashnov had been issued the 088-8888-888 mobile number, and later died early and unexpectedly.  And we also know that the same thing happened to the next two owners of the phone number: Bulgarian mobster Konstantin "Samokovetsa" Dimitrov and Konstantin Dishliev.

Twice Is a Coincidence; Three Times Is a Pattern

Konstantin Dimitrov was born on Nov. 21, 1970 in the town of Samokov -- hence the nickname by which he would become known.  By the age of 33, he had become well known in Bulgaria's world of organized crime; after working his way up the ranks of Vasil Iliev Security, or VIS -- an "insurance and security company" thought to be a front for criminal activity -- he developed a reputation for being one of the biggest drug smuggler in the country.  According to Novinite, Dimitrov's people were all over Bulgarian customs during his reign.

And on Dec. 6, 2003, Dimitrov, who had left Bulgaria for the Netherlands on Nov. 7, was gunned down outside the Amsterdam Diamond Center, the largest diamond shop in Amsterdam.  He did not survive the attack.

After Dimitrov's death, the 088-8888-888 phone number was assigned to Konstantin Dishliev, a 28-year-old businessman and real estate entrepreneur -- who was also shot to death after receiving the number: On May 14, 2005, Dishliev was gunned down in front of a restaurant in Sofia.

Like Dimitrov, Dishliev may have had a connection to organized crime.  Many English language sources state that he had secretly been running a huge cocaine trafficking operation -- which, if true, may have been connected to his death.  The Telegraph, for example, reports that Dishliev was assassinated "after £130 million of [cocaine] was intercepted by police on its way into [Bulgaria] from Colombia," while independent investigative journal Bivola noted that Dishliev had been "killed for trying to eliminate Evelin Banev [also known as Brendo] in the drug trafficking business."

Either way, though, the trend -- the pattern -- continued: First Grashnov; then Dimitrov; then Dishliev.

Odd.  Odd, and unsettling.

The Legend Grows

On May 25, 2010, The Telegraph reported that the number 088-8888-888 was "understood to have been dormant while police maintained an open file on Dishliev's killing and his smuggling ring" -- but also that "now, phone bosses are said to have suspended the number for good."  At the time of the piece's publication, the report claimed, people who attempted to dial 088-8888-888 received "a recorded message saying the phone is 'outside network coverage.'"  It's worth noting that Mobiltel / A1 didn't confirm whether or not the number had actually been taken out of service; a spokesperson for the company simply told The Telegraph, "We have no comment to make.  We won't discuss individual numbers."  But it didn't matter: Following that report, the story spread like wildfire, getting picked up by numerous outlets in a matter of days.

Now?

It's been more than eight years since The Telegraph's piece hit the internet, and the legend is still going strong -- even though the question of whether the phone number is in operation now might complicate things somewhat.  Does anyone currently own 088-8888-888?

Well, according to various reverse phone number lookup services, someone does.

His name is Ivan Toshev, and he lives in Bulgaria.  The number is still serviced by "MobilTel AD."

I do not know whether this Ivan Toshev who lives in Bulgaria is the same Ivan Toshev who plays midfield for Bulgaria's Botev Vratsa football club.

I hope it's not.

Because if it is... well, let's just say that the Botev Vratsa club could be in for a very bad time during a future match.

A plus for me: This tale partly quenches my thirst for spooky stories that feature telephones.  O.K., O.K., my favorite phonological stories concern uncanny calls, but pretty much anything that features phones is good by me.  (Thank you again, Lilias, for your own above.)  The fear of talking on the phone, incidentally, is called telephonophobia (please don't be too shocked).

Maybe you yourself are here via phone; maybe you prefer a computer or even a séance.  However you're here, though, I hope that you'll now answer the call and tell us about something creepy that dials your number.  Do you have a spooky story to share?

Spel

[Valerian]

Long ago a family built a substantial home in the area that would be known as Crockett’s Cove, West Virginia. During the Civil War, when the family heard that soldiers could be on their way to the area, they buried their silver and some other wealth near the house to prevent pilfering. For some reason that is unclear, no one retrieved the items after the war, and they were lost. Perhaps the person who hid the treasure died before they could exhume it. This story passed into family lore. Many communities have similar stories. Was there really a treasure? Did anyone ever find it?

In the 1960s, the same family still owned the property, and some descendants thought it would be amusing to look for this legendary family treasure. They brought shovels, beer, and a metal detector. As they began to search for the treasure, they began to feel a sense of dread. Uneasiness crept into their fun. They began to think that what they were doing was wrong. They shook it off and continued with their search but began to talk about these odd sensations. One treasure hunter saw the hair on his arms begin to bristle, and he felt like he was being watched. He continued searching but still felt eyes on him. He tried to ignore this sensation, but then he looked back at the house and saw someone in an upstairs window…watching him. No one was supposed to be in the house because they were all out on the grounds with him, joined in the treasure hunt.

The group stopped their search for treasure and instead searched the house but found no one. There was no intruder inside the home. They went back out to the field, but their metal detector had stopped working. They decided it would be best not to continue their quest. Later that night, one of the group fell over a railing on the grand spiral staircase. He only had bumps and bruises. He insisted he had not fallen but was pushed.

Years later, in the 1980s, the home was unoccupied. Several teens decided it would be fun to sneak inside and look around. When they crept up the front porch stairs in the moonlit night, they found the front door was ajar for them. They paused, daring one another to go inside. One decided he wasn’t afraid and barged in. A loud sudden sound from the porch roof made everyone scream and run back out. They heard another of their friends outside laughing and deduced that he was throwing handfuls of gravel onto the roof. The group chuckled and rested a moment, allowing their hearts to go back into their chests and their legs to stop shaking.

Just then, another member of the group pointed to an upstairs window, screaming. The group dismissed it as another joke but then looked as the witness insisted there was something in there. They fumbled over one another, tripping and shrieking as they made for their car.

There was a man standing in the window watching them. In the same window where the treasure hunters spotted a man 20 years earlier... perhaps in the same window where he had watched over his land a century before that.

A widower lives in the home now. He was married to a woman who was connected to the original family’s descendants. He has quiet evenings of building model airplanes and has friends over occasionally to play cards. He is not troubled by any spirits. He doesn’t believe in ghosts, and he has reverence for the house. He and his wife restored the home to its former beauty during their years living there, and descendants of the original family gather for reunions here.

No one has looked for the treasure lately.

[Lilias]

The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains
by Neil Gaiman

You ask me if I can forgive myself? I can forgive myself for many things. For where I left him. For what I did. But I will not forgive myself for the year that I hated my daughter, when I believed her to have run away, perhaps to the city. During that year I forbade her name to be mentioned, and if her name entered my prayers when I prayed, it was to ask that she would one day learn the meaning of what she had done, of the dishonour that she had brought to my family, of the red that ringed her mother’s eyes.

I hate myself for that, and nothing will ease that, not even what happened that night, on the side of the mountain.

I had searched for nearly ten years, although the trail was cold. I would say that I found him by accident, but I do not believe in accidents. If you walk the path, eventually you must arrive at the cave.

But that was later. First, there was the valley on the mainland, the whitewashed house in the gentle meadow with the burn splashing through it, a house that sat like a square of white sky against the green of the grass and the heather just beginning to purple.

And there was a boy outside the house, picking wool from off a thornbush. He did not see me approaching, and he did not look up until I said, “I used to do that. Gather the wool from the thorn-bushes and twigs. My mother would wash it, then she would make me things with it. A ball, and a doll.”

He turned. He looked shocked, as if I had appeared out of nowhere. And I had not. I had walked many a mile, and had many more miles to go. I said, “I walk quietly. Is this the house of Calum MacInnes?”

The boy nodded, drew himself up to his full height, which was perhaps two fingers bigger than mine, and he said, “I am Calum MacInnes.”

“Is there another of that name? For the Calum MacInnes that I seek is a grown man.”

The boy said nothing, just unknotted a thick clump of sheep’s wool from the clutching fingers of the thorn-bush. I said, “Your father, perhaps? Would he be Calum MacInnes as well?”

The boy was peering at me. “What are you?” he asked.

“I am a small man,” I told him. “But I am a man, nonetheless, and I am here to see Calum MacInnes.”

“Why?” The boy hesitated. Then, “And why are you so small?”

I said, “Because I have something to ask your father. Man’s business.” And I saw a smile start at the tips of his lips. “It’s not a bad thing to be small, young Calum. There was a night when the Campbells came knocking on my door, a whole troop of them, twelve men with knives and sticks, and they demanded of my wife, Morag, that she produce me, as they were there to kill me, in revenge for some imagined slight. And she said, ‘Young Johnnie, run down to the far meadow, and tell your father to come back to the house, that I sent for him.’ And the Campbells watched as the boy ran out the door. They knew that I was a most dangerous person. But nobody had told them that I was a wee man, or if that had been told them, it had not been believed.”

Keep reading...

[Spookie Monster]

Thank you very much, Valerian and Lilias!  Who would have thought that a ghost's blood could get curdled...?!

One phobia that's achieved some momentum over the last few decades is coulrophobia -- the fear of clowns.  Now, clowns aren't new, of course: They show up in civilization's earliest records, and since then they haven't stopped mocking the Same and the Same's values.  Societies throughout the world appear to delight in, even require, the transgressions of tricksters.  Tricksters don masks to snatch away others'; they convert bathos to pathos, like smirking alchemists; they shout lies to whisper truths; they sing truths to silence pretense; they fool fools to deliver wisdom.

And challenging clowns aren't new, either: People have always recognized that "amusing" doesn't necessarily mean "happy" or "positive" or "friendly" or even "good."  In fact, the opposite's the rule: Clowns have traditionally used comedy to remind their audiences of tragedy -- of pride, of conceit, of failure, of selfishness, of malice, of decay, of death.

Further, many notable clowns lived troubled, and troubling, lives.  Joseph Grimaldi, who fashioned himself into the first modern clown back in the early 19th century, openly acknowledged the irony of his despair: "I am grim all day, but I make you laugh at night."  His Bohemian-French contemporary Jean-Gaspard Deburau, who created the legendary Pierrot, was tried for murder in an early celebrity trial after he used his cane to strike and kill a street urchin that had allegedly been insulting him.  (Deburau was acquitted in the end.  That said, the public evidently found the child's death less scandalous than the fact that a mime was willing to speak in order to testify.)  More recently, serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who volunteered as "Pogo" and "Patches" for a variety of causes, murdered at least 33 men and boys.

Challenging clowns aren't new in fiction, either.  Polish painter Jan Matejko finished his celebrated Stańczyk in 1862.  The opera Pagliacci, which premiered in 1892, concerns a clown who murders his wife and her lover during a performance.  Batman's nemesis the Joker first appeared in 1940.  The less said about Ronald McDonald, the better.

However, the consensus is that Stephen King's novel It is what allowed clowns to really start creeping under the skin of the contemporary psyche.  In It -- I mean, in case you've been living under a clown car for the last forty years -- in It, an entity that plagues the town of Derry, Maine often takes the form of a clown who calls himself "Pennywise."  Since It's publication in 1986 and its 1990 television adaptation, creepy clowns have multiplied in fiction and in real life, terrorizing society with mischief and mayhem.  Self-avowed coulrophobes include late chef Anthony Bourdain, rapper Diddy, actor Daniel Radcliffe, and the aforementioned arachnophobe Johnny Depp.

But speaking for myself... I don't get it.  I like clowns.  I think that clowns are fun and funny.  If anything, I should be considered a coulrophile.  Surely, then, this next tale won't scare me a whit...

The Clown Statue

This happened back in about the year 2000.  Jasmine, who'd just turned sixteen, got a gig babysitting for the Garcias in Newport Beach, California.  The Garcias were wealthy and had a very large house  -- you know the sort, with a ridiculous amount of rooms.  Anyways, the parents were going out for a late dinner / movie.  Mr. Garcia told Jasmine that once the children were in bed she should go into this specific room (he didn't really want her wandering around the house) and watch TV there.

Mr. and Mrs. Garcia took off, and soon Jasmine got the kids into bed and went to the room to watch TV.  She tried watching TV, but she was disturbed by a weird clown statue in the corner of the room.  She tried to ignore it for as long as possible, but it started freaking her out so much that she couldn't handle it.

Jasmine broke down and called Mr. Garcia and asked, "Hey, the kids are in bed, but is it okay if I switch rooms?  That clown statue is really creeping me out."

Mr. Garcia said, gravely, "Get the kids, go next door and call 911."

Jasmine asked, "What's going on?"

He responded, "Just go next door and once you call the police, call me back."

Jasmine got the kids, went next door, and called the police.  When the police were on the way, she called Mr. Garcia back and asked, "So, really, what's going on?"

He replied, "We don't have a clown statue."

GAHhh!  That means that there was an evil killer clown in the house, basically!  I just know it!  NooO000OOooo...!

Gah.

Phew.

Ahem.

O.K., O.K., O.K.: I guess that clowns can be a little creepy sometimes.  Still, though, I ask you: Wouldn't it be even creepier to find out that there was some family out there who thought that owning a clown statue was a good idea?  I mean, come on, you know..?

Spel

[Spookie Monster]

"By itself," he said, "pain is not always enough.  There are occasions when a human being will stand out against pain, even to the point of death.  But for everyone there is something unendurable -- something that cannot be contemplated.  Courage and cowardice are not involved.  If you are falling from a height it is not cowardly to clutch at a rope.  If you have come up from deep water it is not cowardly to fill your lungs with air.  It is merely an instinct which cannot be destroyed.  It is the same with the rats.  For you, they are unendurable.  They are a form of pressure that you cannot withstand, even if you wished to.  You will do what is required of you."

No, no, this is not a taste of my next offering; rather, it's an introduction to my next offering.  Maybe you're familiar with it: It's an extract from the 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by essayist and novelist George Orwell.  In the scene, Nineteen Eighty-Four's main antagonist menaces the protagonist with rats, which terrify him more than anything else.

Orwell himself feared and detested rats, but he also admired what he perceived to be their ruthlessness, determination, and cunning.  He invoked them often in his works -- even as he enjoyed killing them when given the opportunity.  The fear of rats and other rodents is called musophobia.  Another purported musophobe? -- producer Walt Disney, whose Mickey Mouse established an empire that's just celebrated its centenary.

No, Nineteen Eighty-Four is not my next offering.  So what is?  Well, as you might remember, I've grown determined to include at least one episode of an old radio show into each of our rounds of storytelling.  Thus far we've tuned in to "The Thing on the Fourble Board" (Quiet Please), "Ghost Hunt" (Suspense), "The House in Cypress Canyon" (Suspense), "Baker's Dozen" (Quiet Please), and "The Inquest" (Quiet Please).  Now?  Now I hope that you'll let "Three Skeleton Key" sink its teeth into you.  This latest episode, incidentally, happens to star a horror icon -- one of my favorites of the genre or, indeed, of any genre.

"That's all!  That's the story!"

Dare you now share a spooky story?

Spel

[Valerian]

A slightly different sort of ghost story:

I spent the first few months of this year living in a small residential treatment center for eating disorders. I’m grateful for the experience; I was suicidal at the time and going there quite literally saved my life. The treatment center was in an old Victorian house in a small mountain town. The kitchen, dining room, therapist offices, and the room we used for therapy groups were downstairs. Upstairs were the bedrooms, a nurse’s office, and a sort of rec room we called the group room, which we were allowed to use in the evenings after the clinical day had ended.

The group room was a classic Victorian living room with high ceilings and tall windows. What had once been a working fireplace now had a little electric fireplace tucked inside. There was a couch, chairs, and a television. Within my first couple of days at the treatment center, the girl who had been there longest started telling me about a ghost named Rachel. Her backstory had been long forgotten and she didn’t seem to have any malevolent purpose; she just hung out in the group room and messed with things.

I spent a lot of time in the group room because it was usually empty and it was the only place I could be alone. I always kept the florescent overhead light off and used a floor lamp. Rachel loved to mess with this lamp, dimming it one moment and then turning it back up a few minutes later. Now, I know what you’re thinking: old house, old wiring. It was easy to attribute the lamp to power surges. Still, I’d always loved the idea of friendly ghosts, so it was fun to pretend Rachel was there. If I was reading a book and she dimmed the lamp, I’d call out, “a little brighter, please, Rachel,” or if she turned it up while I was watching a movie I’d say, “Rachel, could you turn it back down?”

I wasn’t used to having a roommate, so I got into the habit of sneaking into the group room after everyone else was asleep and drifting off on the couch, half-watching some old movie on the television, Rachel tinkering with the lights. There was something weirdly comforting about it. After a few hours, whoever was working night shift would wake me and tell me (kindly) to go back to my own bed.

Only one staff person at a time stayed overnight, mostly cooking and cleaning downstairs. The two women who took turns working night shift were both older and had worked there for many years. I started taking Rachel more seriously after I asked one of the women, half-jokingly, if she was ever scared of Rachel when she was working alone at night. She answered, dead serious, “That’s why I always keep my bible on me while I’m here.”

These women both retired in the course of my stay and new staff members were hired to work the night shift. I mentioned Rachel once and one of the new hires went pale. She told me that while she had been in the kitchen the night before, she heard someone walk up behind her, but there wasn’t anyone there when she turned around. She was so spooked she had avoided the kitchen for the rest of her shift.

After a few weeks, two new patients got admitted and bonded over their love of horror movies. They started spending a lot of time in the group room and watched scary movies there every night. At this point, my roommate had graduated so I mostly stayed in my bedroom and read—I gravitate toward wherever it’s quiet. I did watch one scary movie with the other girls. We had the lamp dimmed to its lowest setting, but it started going crazy, up and down with an intensity I’d never seen before. I later told a staff member about it and she nodded knowingly. “Rachel loves scary movies.”

Now that I was spending less time in the group room, Rachel would come to my bedroom to visit. I would hear a noise like someone stepping into the room and turn to see who was at the door, but nobody would be there. “Hey Rachel,” I’d say softly.

I eventually graduated into a less intensive program where I lived in a condo nearby but still went back to the house every day to attend therapy groups. One of my last days before graduating altogether and moving back home, I got to the house in the morning and walked up to the group room to say hi to the other girls. As soon as I came through the doorway, the bright overhead light snapped on. Nobody was near the light switch. I knew it was Rachel saying hello, or maybe goodbye.

[Lilias]

Abraham's Boys
by Joe Hill

Maximilian searched for them in the carriage house and the cattle shed, even had a look in the springhouse, although he knew almost at first glance he wouldn’t find them there. Rudy wouldn’t hide in a place like that, dank and chill, no windows and so no light, a place that smelled of bats. It was too much like a basement. Rudy never went in their basement back home if he could help it, was afraid the door would shut behind him, and he’d find himself trapped in the suffocating dark.

Max checked the barn last, but they weren’t hiding there either, and when he came into the dooryard, he saw with a shock that dusk had come. He had never imagined it could be so late.

“No more this game,” he shouted. “Rudolf! We have to go.” Only when he said have it came out hoff, a noise like a horse sneezing. He hated the sound of his own voice, envied his younger brother’s confident American pronunciations. Rudolf had been born here, had never seen Amsterdam. Max had lived the first five years of his life there, in a dimly lit apartment that smelled of mildewed velvet curtains and the latrine stink of the canal below.

Max hollered until his throat was raw, but in the end, all his shouting brought only Mrs. Kutchner, who shuffled slowly across the porch, hugging herself for warmth, although it was not cold. When she reached the railing she took it in both hands and sagged forward, using it to hold herself up.

This time last fall, Mrs. Kutchner had been agreeably plump, dimples in her fleshy cheeks, her face always flushed from the heat of the kitchen. Now her face was starved, the skin pulled tight across the skull beneath, her eyes feverish and bird-bright in their bony hollows. Her daughter, Arlene—who at this very moment was hiding with Rudy somewhere—had whispered that her mother kept a tin bucket next to the bed, and when her father carried it to the outhouse in the morning to empty it, it sloshed with a quarter inch of bad-smelling blood.

“You’n go on if you want, dear,” she said. “I’ll tell your brother to run on home when he crawls out from whatever hole he’s in.”

“Did I wake you, Mrs. Kutchner?” he asked. She shook her head, but his guilt was not eased. “I’m sorry to get you out of bed. My loud mouth.” Then, his tone uncertain: “Do you think you should be up?”

“Are you doctorin me, Max Van Helsing? You don’t think I get enough of that from your daddy?” she asked, one corner of her mouth rising in a weak smile.

“No, ma’am. I mean, yes, ma’am.”

Rudy would’ve said something clever to make her whoop with laughter and clap her hands. Rudy belonged on the radio, a child star on someone’s variety program. Max never knew what to say, and anyway, wasn’t suited to comedy. It wasn’t just his accent, although that was a source of constant discomfort for him, one more reason to speak as little as possible. But it was also a matter of temperament; he often found himself unable to fight his way through his own smothering reserve.

“He’s pretty strict about havin you two boys in before dark, isn’t he?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“There’s plenty like him,” she said. “They brung the old country over with them. Although I would have thought a doctor wouldn’t be so superstitious. Educated and all.”

Max suppressed a shudder of revulsion. Saying that his father was superstitious was an understatement of grotesquely funny proportions.

Keep reading...

[Spookie Monster]

Thank you, Valerian and Lilias!  More spooky stuff, and much appreciated.  (And I think that my contribution this time around may-be-could-be related to your own, Valerian...?)

Nosocomephobia: the fear of hospitals.  How ironic that places which exist solely to heal us should prove so intimidating to so many.  Where would we be without hospitals?!  O.K., they're associated with anguish and death.  O.K., they're crowded with stark rooms, harsh fluorescent lights, gleaming syringes and blades and saws, mysterious pills, mysterious injections, mysterious drips, machines that go ping!, shrieking gurneys, basement morgues, objectionable odors, and faces hidden behind masks.  O.K., iatrogenic fatalities and complications are disconcertingly high, even without Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Moreau and Dr. Giggles sklurking around.  Mmm, and a few years ago we talked about how anaesthesia fails far more often than we'd like to admit, leaving paralyzed patients to undergo procedures in agony, didn't we...?

Hmmm...

No no no! -- hospitals are delightful, I'm sure.  And yet the fear of hospitals is indeed quite common.  President Richard Nixon was one (in)famous nosocomephobe: He was convinced that if he were admitted into a hospital, he wouldn't come out alive.  (He actually ended up making it in and out on a number of occasions, no duct-taped doors necessary.  Then again, his 1994 visit to Cornell Medical Center did turn out to be on the trickier side...)

I suppose that that's one consolation.  Maybe you think of hospitals as places of healing; maybe you think of them as a necessary evil.  At least all of us make it out eventually, though -- one way or the other.  Don't we...?

They’re All Still There

I was working in an ICU and had a patient who would only repeat what was said to her, and was with her all night.  One time I went into the room, and she started telling me all the ways she died.  "I died because of a narcotic overdose; I died because I took too much insulin.  I died on a sunny Sunday afternoon," etc.  Then later, she looked up at the ceiling and said, "They're all still there."

I ran out of that room as fast as I could.

If you're still there: Have you a spooky story to share before the Season of the Witch discharges us, whether via the front entrance or the morgue...?

Spel

[Valerian]

Today I learned that the fear of blankets is called lodiculaphobia... though in the case of the story below, perhaps disposophobia, the fear of losing things would be more appropriate.


This is a story about a blanket. It’s not scary — or I, at least, wasn’t scared — but it sure was bewildering. So if someone has an explanation for me, I’d love to have one after all these years.

I live in a big open loft apartment. There’s nothing creepy about it or the building that houses it and 30 other identical units. Built in the early 2000's, my apartment is a big open living space with lofted ceilings and a staircase leading to the open bedroom loft, which overlooks the living space. One of the reasons I feel so safe in my apartment is that everything is open and there’s nowhere to hide; only the bathroom and closet have their own walls/doors. And I have never felt anything off in this space that can’t be explained by the fact that I have a cat — all random noises or movements from the corner of my eye I can attribute to my fluff ball of a cat. Except for this one event:

A couple of years ago, I decided to change the sheets on my bed before going to sleep. I’m a night owl so it was sometime close to 3 a.m., and this was/is pretty normal. So up I trek to the loft with clean sheets and strip the bed. Because of aforementioned cat, I never put anything on the floor that I don’t immediately want covered in fur, so as is my habit, I pull off the top blanket — a white duvet — thoroughly shake it out over the railing so that any accumulated fur will float down to the floor below and spread it over the banister overlooking the living area.

I turn back to my bed, change the sheets, change the shams on my overwhelming collection of pillows, and finally turn back around to pull my duvet off the banister so I can finish making the bed.

Except it’s not there anymore.

Okay, so it must have slipped over the edge and fallen into the living area down below. I peer over the railing. All the lights are off except for my bedroom light, which casts enough dim illumination into the open space below for me to see that there is no duvet down there.

That’s odd. Did I think I put the duvet on the railing, just out of habit, but actually set it down elsewhere? I go into the adjoining bathroom in case I randomly placed it on the counter, but no blanket. I look on either side of my bed, and glance at my dresser. No blanket.

Fine. I turn on the big overhead light that illuminates the entire apartment and take my lazy ass downstairs. I search on either side of the couch, and even under the coffee table in case my cat decided to drag my duvet somewhere. She wouldn’t, she’s as lazy as I am and the queen-sized duvet is too heavy for her. She herself is laying on her favorite cushion by the tv, observing my search curiously.

I’m completely stumped. I trek back upstairs, make a full circuit of my bedroom and even physically run my hands over the banister in case I’m having some kind of selective blindness episode or the duvet has turned invisible.

Finally I just kind of stand in the middle of my bedroom, not knowing what to do or what to think.

“Ha ha, very funny,” I say. “Give it back.” Note, I didn’t actually think anything had taken it — I don’t believe in ghosts or spirits or whatever — but I was just out of ideas.

I stood in place another minute and did one last slow turn, looking at every surface. When I finish, I face the balcony again.

The duvet is hanging on the banister in a tangled pile.

I’m not quite sure what I felt seeing the duvet back — in a pile, when I had originally spread it out — back on the banister. So I just said, “Thank you,” and finished making the stupid bed before it could somehow disappear on me again.

There was no one else in the apartment with me, but I still checked the bathroom and closet and under the bed when I was finished, because WTF?! There was no explanation. I still don’t have one, and it baffles me to this day.

And no, I did not end up going to sleep that night.