Dare We Share Some Spooky Stories?

[Spookie Monster]

It was late at night, and I was lying in bed, half-asleep, listening to a cricket chirp outside my window.  He chirped more and more languidly, then at last stopped.  Nothing else had changed, at least as far as I could tell: The cool night hadn't grown colder; the cricket hadn't been scared into silence by a passing fox or a possum foraging for food.  Why had he chosen that moment to abandon his serenade?

It was late at night, and I was lying in bed, half-asleep, listening to the breeze rustle the shriveling leaves.  Suddenly a songbird in a nearby nest cried out -- not in pain, I felt, but rather from surprise.  Had she been stolen from a pleasant dream?  Or had she perhaps escaped a nightmare?  She piped; soon after she piped again; she then piped a final time.  Was her return to sleep accompanied by hope, or by trepidation?

It was late at night, and I was lying in bed, half-asleep, listening to a tomcat yowl in the distance.  There was no growling, no hissing, no screeching -- only that pensive yowl, over and over.  He then abruptly fell silent.  Just why had he been yowling?  And just why had he chosen that moment to stop?  Had his fortunes taken a turn for the better, or for the worse?

What is fate?  And what is it to be resigned to one's fate, whether said fate is lovely or terrifying?

With their songs, that cricket, that bird, that cat made clear to me that the Season of the Witch had once more descended.  Whether we embrace it or detest it is irrelevant: The nights will grow longer; chill mists will caress our clammy flesh; raindrops will coax out our tears and mingle with them; capricious winds will whisk away what paltry hopes we had remaining.  The world's curtains will be drawn back and we will be forced to face what's been waiting behind them.

To lament our fate -- or to celebrate it, if you are of that rather naughty disposition -- I suggest that we share some spooky stories.  For a few years we 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 hoped, 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 a wonderful and strange visitation from the Otherworld.

So they say.

If you have a spooky story to offer, please post it in this thread.  It might have happened to you; it might have happened to your friend's roommate's boss's sister; it might have happened to... well, to anyone else, really.  It can be brief or long, simple or intricate.  It can be true or perhaps true from certain points of view and less true from others.  Ghost stories, urban legends, spine-chilling parables, wine-chilling parables, and tales of woe are all welcome.  Stories can be disconcerting, gory, even amusing.  I would be delighted if you told multiple stories, although I do ask that you include only one story per post for the benefit of the spectral accountants.  Finally, please give credit where credit is due.  Editing a source is perfectly acceptable.  Your own stories are not only permitted but preferred.

I won the initiative check, so I'll begin.

Accurate premonitions can creep us out in different ways.  Some people just flat out don't like the idea of paranormal stuff.  Other people have no problem with paranormal stuff but don't like the idea that we don't have free will -- that the future is set, exactly as the past is.  Yet there have been uncannily accurate premonitions, and these hint that at least some future events are preordained.  One documented premonition concerns the crash of American Airlines Flight 191; I'll be using this as a source.


Dreaming of Flight 191

The single worst airline disaster in American history occurred on May 25th, 1979, when American Airlines Flight 191 fell from the sky, killing all 271 people onboard.  The DC-10 took off at 3:02 p.m. for a non-stop flight to Los Angeles, California; at an altitude of 200 feet, however, while climbing and traveling a little more than 200 miles an hour, the left wing engine separated from and damaged the left wing and then tumbled in flames along the concrete runway.  Witnesses said that after the engine fell off, the floundering craft went into a bank, nosed down, and erupted into a pillar of flame as it hit the ground a half-mile northwest of the airport.  It slammed into a converted hangar just east of a mobile home park.  Two trailer homes were destroyed when hit by flaming debris.  In addition, rescue workers found two bodies on the site of the Courtney-Velo Excavating Company; they were believed to have been employees of the firm, which occupied one of the old hangars.

Before May 1979, David Booth had led an average life.  He was married and raising a family.  He had never had precognitive dreams before.  But one morning, he was jarred awake by a dream of an impending airline crash:

"On the morning of May 16th, I had a dream.  I'm looking out to my right over a field and there's this great big jet and it wasn't making the noise that it should.  It wasn't a feeling of impending doom or that it was going to crash or anything.  It just wasn't making the sound that it should.  It just turns, with its wing up in the air, goes on its back and then it goes straight into the ground and explodes.  When the explosion would begin to die out, that's when I would begin to wake up," he said.

The next night he went to bed exhausted hoping that this night was more restful and that he wouldn't have the dream again.  He did dream it again, though, and when he woke up, he discovered that he had been crying.  The main feeling that he had was urgency -- feeling compelled to do something -- to act.

As the week progressed and the dream repeated itself every night, David found it harder to ignore but still kept the dream to himself.

Tuesday, May 22nd, David had the dream for the seventh night in a row.  He felt that he could have no peace until he did something.  David contacted the Cincinnati office of the Federal Aviation Administration and spoke to facilities manager, Paul Williams.

"The first thing David described to me was the type of aircraft he thought it was.  First of all he identified it as an American Airlines plane.  I asked him if he knew specifically what type of aircraft it was but David didn't know one type of aircraft from another," said Williams.

Williams asked David to search his dream in an effort to try to retrieve more information about the type of aircraft or any other details he could remember.  But each night it came back frustratingly the same.  All that week they spent hours reviewing the details.  He described an aircraft with an engine in the tail and Williams identified that as a Boeing 727 or a DC-10.

At the start of the Memorial Day weekend, David had the dream for the tenth time.  Somehow he knew he would never have the dream again.  He was on the brink of a nervous collapse and went home from work early that day.  It was four o'clock -- three o'clock at Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

When Williams received the news from Chicago, he was sure that what David Booth had described to him before the fact had actually come to pass.


You know, that actually wasn't the only spooky thing that happened in connection with Flight 191 -- but those other stories are for another time.

Spel

[Spookie Monster]

Right now I'd like to bring you a tale that takes place on October 1, which itself marks the onset of our morbid story time here at Elliquiy.  While not as catastrophic as the crash of a passenger jet, it does involve, well, death.  Death is, of course, the fate of anyone that's been born (sorry Gilgamesh, Qin Shi Huang, Ponce de León, Elizabeth Báthory, Ray Kurzweil, et al., but congratulations, I guess, Tithonus).  Not all of us are going to get grimly reaped in a jet crash, but we are all going to die, even if "We would prefer not to," to paraphrase Bartleby, the scrivener.  The story is called "This Is Maria," and it was originally told by Libraryanneagain here.


This Is Maria

My husband and I live in a small, unincorporated town on the outskirts of a bigger city.  Although we are almost 50 years old, we are 30 to 40 years younger than any of our near neighbors.  Most of them have grandchildren who visit regularly and drive them wherever they need to go.  Not so for the man I usually just called "Professor."  His wife, Elena, died 12 years ago.  I only knew her briefly, but she and the Professor were one of those "Life Goals" kind of couples.  I loved spending time with them.  They were both so erudite, and witty, and clearly still deeply in love.  Elena's passing hit her husband hard.  For the last year, he had been battling cancer.  With no bus service in our rural area, and cabs from town an expensive, long wait, I ended up driving him to doctors.

The Professor had been in the U.S. since his 20s, but he still retained a charming foreign accent.  My name, he pronounced as "AWN-eh."  Usually, when he phoned me, he would say "Good afternoon, AWN-eh."  Sometimes, he would call in the wee hours, in pain, able only to gasp "AWN-eh!"  I would drop the phone and run to his house to help him with his meds or take him to the city's emergency room.  He was adamant about NOT staying away from home.  He knew the end was near and he wanted to go in his own bed.

On October first, at almost 4 a.m., my cell phone rang, showing the Professor's number.  When I answered, a strange voice asked, "AWN-eh?"

"Yes," I answered. "Professor?"

"No!" The voice giggled.  "This is Maria.  I'm taking him tonight."

Then I... woke up?  I was sitting up in bed, with the phone in my hand.  My husband and our dog were sleeping soundly.  So, the phone hadn't really rung.  Or had it?  I started to call the Professor, but if he was managing to get some sleep, I didn't want to disturb him.  So I got up and dressed quietly, and the dog and I slipped out to the backyard.  I could see the Professor's house from there.  No lights were on, and everything was quiet.  I wasn't comfortable, though, so I went ahead and dialed.  Twenty-five rings, no answer.  Damn.  I knew then.  I went back in and woke my husband.  We walked to the house and knocked.  Nothing.  We had to phone the sheriff's.  They broke in.  The Professor had died, seemingly peacefully, in bed.

Because of our unincorporated location, any of the chores which would fall to professionals in an urban area are taken up by neighbors here.  So, that evening, with a deputy's supervision, the families on our block began to sort through the Professor's papers.  We needed the "deed" to his burial plot and any kind of will or link to distant relations.  I looked through a small scrapbook of old photos that was on his nightstand.  There was no "Cousin Marco from the old country," or "nephew Bob, NYC, 1997."  It was mostly pictures of Elena and the Professor.  And their never-spoken-of young daughter Maria, who had died in Oaxaca, in 1971.


Do you have a spooky story to share?

Spel

[Lilias]

[Lilias]

[Valerian]

Speaking of that particular doomed flight....

The Ghosts of American Airlines Flight 191

On May 25, 1979, an American Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-10, Flight 191 was scheduled to fly from O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, to Los Angeles International Airport. Shortly after V1, the engine assembly completely separated from the aircraft causing extensive damage to the hydraulic system. The aircraft crashed moments after takeoff. All 258 passengers and 13 crew on board were killed, along with two people on the ground.

According to one person I spoke to, this is one crash site that has to be visited to understand the eerie nature of the surrounding landscape. It’s claimed that at certain times, the temperature will suddenly drop and be followed by very identifiable screams from within an open field.
Motorists on a nearby highway claim that the side of the road is often occupied by strange floating lights and haunting figures. Some local residents report knocking on their doors and other unexplained phenomena around their homes. According to some reports, some residents were confronted by lost figures at their homes that said that they “had to find their luggage” or “had to make a connection” before disappearing.

One local Chicago company takes ghost-hunters to the crash site where they camp out nearby. Numerous photographs and video are evidence to the claims made.

[CaptainErotica]

I used to do "Survival Games" - two teams with airsoft rifles battling it out. We usually had a group of about twelve of us who would go to a large park situatedhigh up in the hills near Yokosuka, Japan. One night there ended up only being three of us and since we didn't have enough players we decided to go exploring instead.

Around midnight we were headed back to our cars. It was very dark with our flashlights being our only source of light. Suddenly we heard people running through leaves and giggling coming from the ravine next to us. This ravine was very steep and narrow and was about one hundred feet deep. We stopped and shined our lights into the ravine. The sounds stopped and we didn't see anyone. We started walking again and after a few moments it happened again. Once more we shined the lights over the ravine and called out, but all was quiet. When it happened again we unloaded our guns into the ravine. At least one thousand plastic bee bees. As soon as we turned to walk again it happened a fourth time. At this point we decided to leave the area with great haste.

[Lilias]

[Spookie Monster]

Wow!  Thank you very much, Lilias, Valerian, and CaptainErotica, for starting us off with a fang (too feeble a pun, even for me) sang (doesn't make sense) plang (not a word, apparently) wang (ummm... no) bang (oh well).  Creepy stuff indeed!

All right, fellow ghosts and goblins, here's the deal: For a gunga-galunga long time I resisted encouraging you guys to make our round of storytelling multimedia; that is, I tried not to dissuade you from including audio recordings and videos and so on, but I didn't explicitly support your doing so, either, and I myself only posted texty thingees.  I just didn't want such great threads getting watered down with pictures of haunted clown dolls and animated GIFs of CGI ghosts, you know?

That said, people have posted multimedia stuff in the past, and it was... well, great.  (I don't know what I would have done if it had been cruddy²; possibly sobbed while gorging myself on cookies.)  And it isn't too hard to trust the people that frequent these threads or the members of Elliquiy in general: Everyone here seems both well-meaning and sensible.  Finally... I mean, this is the 20th century, after all, right?  Therefore --

Wait, wait, wait: You're telling me that it's already the 21st century in the World of the Living?!  Just how long have I been gone?!

Yikes.  Yes, then: The time has certainly come.  Text-based stuff is still super, naturally, but please don't hesitate to post creepy videos and audio recordings and even pictures.  I ask only that you use your discretion.  If you bring us a picture, for example, please give us some background on it; likewise, please refrain from posting too many thirteen-hour playlists of YouTube videos that provide irrefutable evidence that reptile people from Saturn have been secretly using telepathy and hypnosis to manipulate orange juice futures since 1947 (as terrifying as that would doubtless be).  Spooky stories are what we seek.

With that in mind, I myself offer "The Thing on the Fourble Board," the most famous episode of the excellent fantasy / horror radio program Quiet Please, which ran during the late 1940s.  It's twenty, twenty-five minutes long, but don't worry: You'll be able to recoup that time when you can't get to sleep tonight.


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


Do you have a spooky story to share?

Spel

[Lilias]

Another microfic...

[Valerian]

Here's a lovely, disturbing little horror comic by Emily Carroll, all about brotherly love...

[QuackKing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8QZ0kNUhsk

The scariest stories are ones that are real. (Or, at least, are based on events that actually happened).

David Paulides runs a series based on missing person cases within U.S. national parks. He may sometimes stretch the truth or make assumptions but the cases he discusses or covers are very real, spooky, and interesting. Missing person cases and kidnappings in general are, perhaps tragically, a gold mine of mystery and speculation.

[Lilias]

[Valerian]

Glamis Castle in Scotland -- childhood home of the late Queen Mother -- is said to be one of the most haunted places in the United Kingdom.  Here is just one such scary tale:

The tale of Alexander Lindsay, the 4th Earl of Crawford is by far one of the most popular ghost stories of Glamis.  Known as “Earl Beardie”, Alexander Lindsay is alleged to have been a cruel, evil man with a wicked temperament and a searing bloodlust.  Born to nobility and of a particularly influential character, he was involved in the battles against King James II as part of the Douglas clan uprisings.  It is alleged that he once had a house-servant stripped naked and forced to run around in the grounds for his and the other Earls’ entertainment.  The poor man was chased down by Earl Beardie, his guests, and their hunting dogs.  His screams rang out over the land as he was stabbed with spears and literally torn apart by the dogs, defenceless and stricken by mortal fear.

It is further alleged that the display was watched by the noblewomen from the safety of the castle, where they laughed in delight.  What happened to the body after the hunt was over does not appear to be recorded, but is more than likely he would have been eaten by the dogs or other animals on the land.  The ghost of this manservant is reputed to be that of ‘Jack the Runner’ – a spirit who runs through the halls at night screaming in pain and terror.

The Earl’s indulgences in vices lead us directly to his own ghost story, as it was whilst gambling that Earl Beardie is reported to have met his demise.  There are various different takes on how the story begins, but they all centre around a game of cards being played late on a Saturday night at the castle.  The legend leads us to believe the Earl was forewarned by a servant that it was close to midnight, and that gambling on the Sabbath was sacrilege.  The Earl is said to have scoffed at the servant, ordering him out of the room.  Again, depending on the story you read or hear, either the other players take heed and leave, or they do not, and the game continues.

At the stroke of midnight, a cloaked devil appears out of thin air, taking both Earl Beardie and his playing companions back to the underworld where are destined to gamble for all eternity.  Sounds such as shouting, stomping feet, banging doors and swearing are all reported to come from the West Tower of the castle – the alleged site of the card game.  There have also been reports of residents and guests sighting a bearded man wandering the castle, again, believed to be the spirit of Earl Beardie, and others have even described being touched by the spectre itself.

[Lilias]

[Oniya]

Spoilered for size

There is a house in Oberlin, Ohio that is haunted.  The haunts are not your typical wailing, restless spirits, but rather, people who have lived there in days gone by who just simply didn't want to leave.  There are music boxes that play themselves (under the spoiler).  There are windows that open and close.  But two stories stand out to me in particular:  An artist was staying alone at the house (it's available on AirBnB, although it's not advertised as haunted), and they fell asleep in one of the parlor chairs.  When they woke, a blanket had been neatly tucked around them.

The other is even more endearing.  Two spirits from different eras - one a widow, and the other a bachelor - each a nearly life-long resident of the house, can be heard in EVP recordings of the house.  Mostly, they argue gently about the decor.

So I am told.

[Valerian]

First used as a settlement around 850 AD, then becoming a royal residence in the 12th century, and a military barracks in the 17th century, Edinburgh Castle has seen its fair share of death, battles, torture and executions over the years.

One of Edinburgh Castle’s most famous ghost stories concerns a young bagpiper who disappeared without a trace. Several hundred years ago, some secret tunnels were found beneath Edinburgh Castle, leading towards Holyrood House at the bottom of the Royal Mile. As the opening to the tunnel was so small, a young boy was sent down with his bagpipes to investigate. He played the pipes loudly as he walked through the tunnel, so people above ground could work out where the tunnel went.

The pipes stopped abruptly when they reached the Tron Kirk and, although search parties were sent to find the boy, he was never seen again. With the piper presumed dead, the tunnel was blocked up – but many people still report hearing the faint, ghostly sound of underground bagpipes to this day. Others have allegedly heard the sound of drums around Edinburgh Castle, with a few visitors even claiming they caught a glimpse of a headless drummer boy. Legend has it that whenever the drummer boy’s ghost is spotted, the castle is about to come under attack – he was first seen in 1650, shortly before Oliver Cromwell attacked Edinburgh Castle.

[Spookie Monster]

More skin-crawling stuff, guys!  Thank you very much.  I'm glad that we're all here together!  I mean, "safety in numbers" and everything, right...?

Then again, sometimes not being alone is worse than being alone, I guess, as is the case in this next story...


The Nature Photographer

A friend of mine is a budding nature photographer.  She loves to go out into the wilderness and take pictures of animals and plants.  A few months ago, she decided to spend the weekend taking photos in a remote part of the forest.  This meant that she would have to camp for the night alone in the woods.

She was looking forward to the awesome photo opportunities she would find with all of the interesting trees and wildlife in that area.  It would make a welcome addition to her portfolio.  She was not afraid to be alone during the night because she had camped on her own many times before.  She pitched her tent in the middle of a small clearing and spent the weekend taking photos.

Back at home she scrolled through the photos on her laptop.  Suddenly her blood ran cold.  There were several pictures that she didn't recognize; these pictures were of her, asleep in her tent.


Hmmm... I think that I'll double up once again...

Spel

[Spookie Monster]

Being alone can be frightening; not being alone can be frightening.  But what about, say, being "beside yourself"?  I offer you (both of "you," if necessary) "A Glitch in the Matrix"...


A Glitch in the Matrix

It happened in early 2000 when I was working at a juvenile detention center in a small town in Oklahoma as a corrections officer.  I was working nights at the time and went to work at nine p.m.

This one night when I arrived for work my supervisor looked confused and asked me what I was doing there.  I said "I work tonight."  And he said "But they said you called in a few hours ago saying that you were sick."  I was a bit confused and said "It must have been someone else and they got the message wrong."  After everyone else showed up for work that night it was a bit more weird, but we carried on as usual and assigned everyone their places for the night; I went to work in the control room where I usually work.  The control room is the center of the prison that has direct control over the cameras, doors, phones and everything.

After I relieved the guard on duty and settled in for the night, I looked at the message that said I called in.  It said that I had called at 6:50 and said that I had gotten sick while out cleaning up after the storm.  There had been a storm the night before and it was a bit bad, but not anything that I had to go out to clean up.  It was truly weird.

The supervisor came into the control about that time.  He was also a friend of mine outside work and we started talking about it, and how odd it was.  I decided to call my wife at home and tell her about it while he was still sitting there.  I picked up the phone and dialed.  After two rings a man picked up the phone and with a raspy voice said "Hello?"  I did not know what to say for a few seconds.  I looked at the phone to make sure I dialed the right number, and I had.  After a few seconds the person said "Hello?" again in the same raspy voice.  I said "Hello.  Who is this?"  "This is Taylor.  Who is this?" the person said.  My head started spinning because my name is Taylor also.  I said in almost a scream "Where is Ann?"  He said "Ann's in bed.  Who is this?"  I dropped the phone and told my supervisor to ring me out, I had to get home, and I took off towards the door.  I could hear Dave pick up the phone behind me and say "Hello?" followed soon after by "What the fuck!" rather loudly.  I ran to my car and drove home faster then what was legal, my mind racing the entire time.

I busted through the door and my wife was sitting watching t.v. and was shocked at me being home.  I asked her who was there and she said no one has been here.  After a rather long talk with my wife, I went to call the prison to tell them what was going on, but the phone was dead.

I went back to work and when I came in Dave was acting weird and asked me "How the hell are you doing this?"  He told me that when I left, he picked up the phone and the person on the other end sounded like me.  He kinda freaked out and hung up the phone.  A minute later as he could see my car leaving the parking lot, I had called back from home and asked what the fuck was going on.  He said that I was a bit irate and said I was sick and did not feel like playing these games and was telling him to stop prank calling me and hung up.  After convincing him I had no idea what was going on we went back to work.

Later, I find out that the phone line for my area had been knocked down the night before by the storm.  This is absolutely the strangest thing that has ever happened to me.


Do you have a spooky story to share?

Spel

[Valerian]

This took place when I was about 10 years old. My mom had filed for divorce, but she only had a part-time job so finding a place to stay that was affordable and available immediately was tough. A friend of hers told her that she and her husband had a mobile home that was currently sitting empty and we could use it until we figured out something else.

I didn’t like the house. Part of this I’m sure was due to my parents’ divorce and having my life turned upside down, but it was also just the house itself. We lived in a mountain town, and this mobile home was up a steep mile-long driveway. Beautiful pine trees surrounded it, but the house itself looked abandoned and out of place. It had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, so I got a room and my mom took the bedroom with the attached bathroom. It was a very ‘70s home, with wood paneling and dated fixtures. There were also areas that showed strange damage, like holes in the wall that were badly patched up. For whatever reason, I immediately refused to use the hallway bathroom. I wouldn’t even step into it. My mom never really asked me why or questioned it, but let me use her bathroom.

Anyway, my mom was gone a lot trying to find whatever work she could, so I would be home alone a lot after school and on the weekends.  My mom always told me not to answer the door, but I should always answer the phone in case it was her. So when the phone rang one afternoon, I figured it would be my mom since no one else really had our number yet. There was a woman on the phone who sounded very concerned.

“Hello, this is 911, returning your call. We received your call, but we got disconnected,” the woman said.

I immediately got a sick feeling. I told her that I did not call 911, and she asked me if there was anyone else in the house who might have called. I said I was home alone, but I started to get really worried that maybe I wasn’t. She said she would dispatch police to our address just to make sure everything was okay.

At that point, I was terrified to be in the house, so I sat outside and nervously waited for the police, who showed up in about 15-20 minutes. The officer asked me if I had called 911, and I said “no,” but they claimed I had called them. The officer just shrugged, and said, “This kind of thing sometimes happens. They say that it can’t, that the numbers can’t get mixed up, but it happens.” He did a cursory glance around the house and left.

I tried to convince myself that the officer was right. It was just a mixed-up phone call, and hopefully whoever did actually call got the help they needed.

About a month later, the same thing happened. I got another phone call from 911, saying they had received a phone call from my number. I told them again that it must have been a mistake. The woman on the phone scolded me, telling me that 911 wasn’t something to play around with. She didn’t dispatch any police this time, even though I was again really worried someone was in the house.

I don’t know why, but I always kept the hallway bathroom door closed.  As I was checking the house, I just knew someone was in that bathroom. I was terrified. Part of me felt like I needed to open the door to check, maybe to prove myself wrong, but I was too afraid. It was so quiet in the house, that after a few minutes I swore I could hear faint little sounds coming from inside, like a kind of shuffling noise. I asked my mom to check the bathroom when she got home and she quickly looked inside. She made me come and look to see that it was empty and I was letting my imagination get the better of me.

The 911 calls happened three more times, and only when I was home alone. The fourth time the dispatcher told me I could face criminal charges for what I was doing and they would contact my parents. I hung up the phone sobbing and terrified. I had that feeling like someone was in the house again, but if I called 911, they probably wouldn’t even show up. It was like someone was playing a horrible, twisted joke on me. I sat and watched the bathroom door again, hearing noises like someone dragging their fingers across the door.

I decided to try and leave the bathroom door open so I wouldn’t get so freaked out by the thought that someone was in there. Then I got the fifth 911 call. This time though, after I hung up the phone with the dispatcher, the bathroom door slammed shut.

I ran. I ran all the way down our steep driveway and found a place to wait till my mom pulled into the drive. When she arrived, she was angry with me for leaving the house, but she saw how upset I was. I think maybe she thought I was acting out due to the stress of the divorce. I refused to be alone in the house again though, so we worked it out so I would stay later at school or go to a nearby friend’s house till she got off work. Not long after this, we got a notice from my mom’s friend that we needed to move out of the house because she her mom needed a place to stay. I was so grateful to be moving out. I told my mom she needed to tell her friend that someone was wrong with the house, but my mom thought that was a ridiculous way to pay back someone’s generosity.

We moved around a lot the next few years and tried to forget about that house. It wasn’t until I was older that I really thought about it. I witnessed an accident and had to call 911 and the fear and paranoia all came flooding back. I decided to do some research, which honestly, I wish I had never done. A few years before we moved in, a woman was killed in that house in some kind of “domestic dispute.” It was days, though, before she was found, shut up in the bathroom.

[Spookie Monster]

Thank you very much, Valerian!  As you doubtless remember, I find spooky stories about spooky phone calls unusually spooky...

I opened this year's round of storytelling with some talk about fate and premonitions, and I'd now like to return to that subject.  A little over fifty years ago a terrible tragedy occurred when a mountain of coal waste collapsed and flowed into the village of Aberfan, Wales, killing 144 people.  In the aftermath, people throughout the United Kingdom detailed their premonitions of the event.  I'll generally be drawing from this, which itself contains material from Wikipedia and elsewhere, and this.


I Dreamt I Went to School and There Was No School There

On the 21st of October 1966, 144 people, 116 of them children, were killed when a man-made mountain of coal waste slid onto the village of Aberfan in South Wales.  The elementary school building was the first structure in its path and the school was demolished by a thousand tons of black mud.  The pupils of Pantglas Junior School had arrived only minutes earlier for the last day before the half-term holiday; they had just left the assembly hall, where they had been singing "All Things Bright and Beautiful."  Everyone could hear the roar of the approaching landslide; some at the school thought it was a jet about to crash and one teacher ordered his class to hide under their desks.  Gaynor Minett, then an eight-year-old at the school, later recalled:

"It was a tremendous rumbling sound and all the school went dead.  You could hear a pin drop.  Everyone just froze in their seats.  I just managed to get up and I reached the end of my desk when the sound got louder and nearer, until I could see the black out of the window.  I can't remember any more but I woke up to find that a horrible nightmare had just begun in front of my eyes."

After the main landslide stopped, frantic parents rushed to the scene and began digging through the rubble, some clawing at the debris with their bare hands, trying to uncover buried children.  Police from Merthyr Tydfil arrived soon after and took charge of the search-and-rescue operations; as news spread, hundreds of people drove to Aberfan to try to help, but their efforts were largely in vain.  A few children were pulled out alive in the first hour, but no survivors were found after 11am.

The final death toll was 144.  In addition to five of their teachers, 116 of the dead were children between the ages of seven and ten -- almost half of the children at the Pantglas Junior School.

Not long after the disaster, the London Evening Standard carried an unusual appeal, which was widely circulated: Would people who had experienced premonitions of the Aberfan disaster kindly write?  Within two weeks there were 60 serious replies, including 36 describing dreams which Dr. John Barker, a London psychiatrist, compiled in chart form for the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research:

"Dream of screaming children buried by avalanche of coal in mining village.  Woke up screaming."
"Dream of school, screaming children and 'creeping black slimy substance.'"
"Frightening dream of children standing by building below black mountain.  Hundreds of black horses then thunder down hillside."
"Dream of scenery resembling Aberfan, desolation, children and women mourning in a hall."
"Dream of name 'Aberfan' and desolate rows of houses."

Many respondents had described their precognitive experiences to a relative, friend, or neighbor before the disaster.  One Plymouth housewife had such a dream seven days before the mountain moved.  She said, "I saw an old school house nestling in a valley and then a Welsh miner.  After this I saw an avalanche of coal hurtling down the mountainside.  I saw the rescue operations.  I had the impression of a little boy who was left behind and saved.  I could never forget him."  The following day she gave a full account of her dream to friends at her church social club; six witnesses confirmed this.  When the tragedy was shown on television, the woman recognized the young boy and one of the rescuers she had seen clearly in her dream.

On Thursday afternoon, October 20th, a London television performer suddenly cancelled a pretaped comedy show set for a Saturday broadcast.  The show was about a Welsh mining village, and the actor had a "feeling" that it shouldn't be on the air.

Friday, at 4am, a London woman woke up gasping for air and thought the walls of her bedroom were caving in.  At almost the same moment, a Mrs. Sybil Brown in Brighton had a terrifying nightmare of a screaming child in a telephone booth.  Another child was walking toward the dreamer, and following him was a "black, billowing mass."  Mrs. Brown woke her husband and said, "something terrible has happened."  He reassured her that they had heard no bad news, but she couldn't sleep the rest of the night.  At the same time, an elderly man living in northwestern England was having an unusual dream: He saw, spelled out in a brilliant light, A-B-E-R-F-A-N.  The word meant nothing to him until he heard a radio broadcast later that day.

Perhaps the best-known premonition of the disaster is that of 9-year-old girl Eryl Mai Jones.  On Thursday morning Eryl woke up and said to her mother, "Mummy, let me tell you about my dream last night."  Her mother answered, "Darling, I have no time now.  Tell me later."  The child replied, "No, Mummy, you must listen.  I dreamed I went to school and there was no school there.  Something black had come down all over it!"

Eryl's mother recalled that two weeks prior the child had made another strange remark: "Mummy, I'm not afraid to die."  Her mother had said, "Why do you talk of dying, and you so young?"  Eryl had repeated, "I'm not afraid to die.  I shall be with Peter and June."  Peter and June were her classmates.

On Friday Eryl Mai Jones was dead, having been crushed along with her classmates beneath tons of pitch black coal debris.  Eryl and her friends Peter and June were buried side-by-side in a mass grave, just as she had predicted.


Do you have a spooky story to share?

Spel

[Lilias]

[Spookie Monster]

Thank you very much, Lilias!  Not only do we have cannibals carving up cannibals, but we also get a visit from the adorable Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog!

The next story that I bring you is about a key holder.  Criminy, I really like the appellation key holder -- it sounds archetypal, folkloric -- you can easily imagine some questing knights' encounter with a key holder in front of a crumbling, fog-shrouded castle during some eerie chapter of Arthurian legend (one not involving the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog, presumably).  This story, though, doesn't involve knights but rather cops; there's no castle but rather some doctors' offices; it takes place not in the mists of time but rather not long ago...


The Key Holder

Myself and a buddy on my squad responded to an alarm.  The incident location was an old office type building that had been converted to doctor's offices.  There was a pharmacy attached to it.  Our dispatch received a motion signal from an upstairs office.  Key holder arrives on scene and we go in to secure the building.  The stairs were locked behind a door that, of course, the key holder didn't have keys too, so we took the elevator up to the second floor (not the most tactically sound option, I know).

Elevator opens to a pitch black hallway... except for one overhead light at the end of the hall.  We start checking doors, and so far all are secured.  We get to the last office, and sure enough, the door is unlocked.  We make entry and observe it to be an unused office.  The door opened to a sizable waiting room and reception area.  There were about 10 or 12 exam rooms, all cleared with no hiccups.

We exit the office and immediately, something seems off.  That is when I realize the overhead light at our end of the hallway that had been on was now off, replaced by another light over by the elevators.  I look at my squad mate and he is completely white.  I ask him what is wrong and he says, "Weren't all those doors we just checked closed and locked?"  I tell him yay, so buddy says, "Well now they're all standing open."  Sure enough, all the offices down the hallway we had just checked were now standing open.  Pucker factor sinks in at this point.

So we start clearing offices and securing offices.  We finish the last office, and on our way out, just before we turn the corner to get into the waiting area, the main door just slams shut.  Then, our radios start going nuts with some kind of static feedback.  Now I just want to get the hell out of there.

We get back in the elevator and head down to the first floor to make contact with the key holder again.  However, key holder is nowhere to be found.  I contact dispatch and request a call back number for the key holder so I can advise him of what we found.  Dispatch states that the key holder was still enroute to us and was advising an eta of 5 minutes.  I advise dispatch that we had already been out with the key holder.  Dispatch requests I give them a call.

I call dispatch and she tells me that there is no way we were out with a key holder.  She states that the alarm company had only just made contact with one.  Eventually, the "real" key holder arrives on scene and I ask her about the man that had let us in the building (the first key holder).  She asked me to describe him, so I did.  She states that that sounds like one of the doctors that used to lease the office on the second floor AT THE END OF THE HALL.  She then states that he had committed suicide at his summer home several days ago.


Do you have a spooky story to share?

Spel

[Valerian]

How about another spooky phone call story?   ::)

I used to work at a small warehouse with one other person. One day, my partner was being transferred, so that meant I would have to take the night shift. Before he left, he told me about the pay phone that was out in front. It would always ring at 4:17 am, and would only ring once.

My partner said it was probably just the phone company making sure it worked, but he never knew since he never answered it. So, on my first night of the night shift, I waited out in front of the door. He was right; at 4:17 am, the pay phone rang, but only once. The next night, I decided to answer.

When it was 4:15, I went out to the pay phone, and looked at my watch until it turned 4:17. The phone rang, and I picked it up. There was no answer, just the faint noise of breathing. After a few moments of silence, I said, “Hello?”

Soon I gave up and hung up the phone. For the next few nights, I went out to the phone, saying hello for a while, then giving up and going back inside. Soon, I stopped going outside, but the phone continued to ring. Weeks later, I decided to try answering the phone again.

When it rang, I picked it up and said hello over and over again, as fast as I could. There was no reply, and I was about to give up when I heard another voice, a deep, husky one.

The voice said my full name, first, middle, and last. I slammed the receiver down.

After that night, the pay phone never rang again.

[Spookie Monster]

Thank you very much, Valerian!  I just can't seem to get enough of spooky phone call stories!

Well, every Season of the Witch promises a full moon or two, and ours has come.  It urges us to stay outside a little later than we might otherwise, to stray a little deeper into the woods, where silvery moonlight filters through what leaves remain.  Since things are going to get pretty hairy, I think that I'm going to get hairy.  I --

Well, I mean, I'm already hairy, granted, but --

I mean --

What I mean is --

All right, listen, this is what I mean: I would now like to offer a couple of stories about hairy critters.  I will not be posting anything about Tom Selleck.  Instead, I want to talk about people who shapeshift into monstrous llamas as a consequence of their incestuous lusts.

I mean, that's why we're all here, right?  To talk about people who shapeshift into monstrous llamas as a consequence of their incestuous lusts?

I'm going to draw upon this as a source.  (I considered doing more research on incest-loving were-llamas, but the FBI file on me is probably thick enough as it is.)


The Jarjacha

Tonight, we are hunting the Jarjacha.

My Uncle Pedro called together all the men of the village and they arrived one by one, weapons in hand.  My uncle carried a metal crucifix sharpened to a point on the bottom end.

When all were gathered with ropes, machetes, picks, and axes in hand, Uncle Pedro turned to us and warned: "Remember, all of you.  When we find it... do not look it in the eyes!"

How did I come to be standing here, in the Junín village where I was born, surrounded by men with weapons prepared to hunt down a supposedly mythical beast?

You see, I'm only 20 years old, and I haven't seen my family since I started university in the capital city of Lima two years ago.  This is the first real holiday I've had and I jumped at the chance to return to Junín for a few weeks.  I hopped on the overnight bus in Lima but couldn't sleep at all from the excitement of returning home to my peaceful mountain village.

I should have known from the stories my grandparents told me that there were more than just wild animals out there in the darkness deepened by the surrounding mountain walls.

Indeed, I had heard more recent rumors about an aloof brother and sister that lived down the road from us.  The locals were saying that they were involved in, well, scandalous relations that shouldn't occur between two people of the same blood.  I dismissed it as local gossip not worthy of attention -- nothing but petty farmers, I thought.

My two years in the capital were already turning me into an arrogant city dweller.

The first few days home passed uneventfully.  I spent the days eating, talking, and helping in the fields with my extended family.  Some of the students who visit their rural provinces from university don't like working on the farm.  I, however, found comfort in the work after being away so long.

It began with a sound in the night.  I woke up suddenly a few hours before dawn to a horrible cry I'd never heard before.

"Haaaar... Haaar... Haaaar..."

It sounded far away but it startled me.  It seemed neither human nor animal, but something in-between.

Then I realized it wasn't the sound that startled me, but a cold chill that had suddenly passed over me.  I looked out the window and could have sworn I saw something turn the corner around the house.  However, I saw and heard nothing more.

I had almost forgotten the incident until two days later.  A young villager only 16 years old was found less than a kilometer away from the village.  He was dead, a look of fear on his face -- or at least on what remained of it.  Nearly half of his head and skull were eaten away, as if someone, or something, had taken a bite out of it and sucked out the insides.

It was around this time that everyone in the village started noticing that the brother and sister down the road from us were acting very strangely.  Especially the brother.  His sister, who was normally as reclusive as her sibling, even reached out for help.

She explained his strange behavior at home: sudden bursts of anger in which he would destroy things in the house.  He was also speaking to her in a rough, growling voice that was not his own.

Word got around about the siblings and the strange death of the young man.  My Uncle Pedro, a respected leader in the village, called a meeting of only his most trusted friends and family members.  He opened the meeting with:

"I know what has happened to the young man who is acting strangely.  I also know what happened to the boy they found yesterday."

He explained that for the crime of incest, the brother had been cursed by a higher power.  At night, the young man was transforming into the creature known as the Jarjacha.  He said that when it makes eye contact with its victims they are paralyzed, and the Jarjacha proceeds to devour the brains of the immobilized person.  Everyone understood that this is what had happened to the young man they had found dead the day before.

That's why we are gathered together tonight, and that's why my Uncle Pedro is holding a metal crucifix with a sharp point.  He says driving it into the monster's heart is the only way to kill it.

He says it has the body of a llama with powerful claws and a human-like face.  The creature emits a terrible cry of "har har har" that sounds far away when the creature is near and close when the creature is far away.  That's when I realized, the sound I'd heard that night and the chill I'd felt had been from the immediate presence of the Jarjacha.

We found the Jarjacha after hours of searching.  It was exactly as my uncle had described and I couldn't believe my eyes.  There were nine of us: three approached with ropes to tie the creature down while four others came wielding their metal weapons.  I stayed back with my uncle who still held the metal crucifix.

Two of the men in front had forgotten my uncle's warning and charged in while looking the creature directly in the eyes.  It frantically bit into their skulls with razor sharp teeth while they were frozen in place.

Our numbers eventually overwhelmed the Jarjacha.  When it was tied down, my uncle approached and plunged the metal crucifix into its heart, killing it instantly.  It was buried there along with the crucifix, and our village was safe again.

Since then, everyone believes in the tale of the Jarjacha.  They warn their children and grandchildren of the curse and the terrible consequences of the sin of incest.  One thing I know for sure, I will never see the mountains the same way again.  The scenery is beautiful, the sky infinite, the food warms the heart and the belly -- but I'll never forget the dark magic that still courses through the rivers of the silent mountains.


Let this be a lesson!

Spel

[Spookie Monster]

I'm not convinced that Bigfoots -- uh, "Bigfeet"? -- hmmm...

I'm not convinced that Sasquatches skulk around much more often during the Season of the Witch than they do at any other time, but they certainly are mysterious, and who among us would like to suddenly meet one deep in the wilderness?  (That question is rhetorical, of course -- I know just how much some of you would.)  Now, we could talk about a 1995 Sasquatch encounter involving Playmate Anna Marie Goddard, when footage was shot that allegedly shows a big ol' beastie which may or may not exhibit an "erect penis" (?!).  However, this is a family site (well, it is for jarjachas, anyhow), so I'd rather that we talked about a different encounter -- one claimed by Davy Crockett.

Mmm, that Davy Crockett.  Frontiersman.  U.S. House representative.  Hero of the Alamo.  Eponym of the inaccurate gun that troops would have used to fire "tiny" nuclear warheads a mile or two (scary indeed).  In a letter to his brother-in-law, Crockett told of a bizarre encounter with an "ape man" in Texas -- one so bizarre that it evidently compelled him to renounce "all beef and hog" for a day or so!  (That's a big deal for a manly man.)


Wherein Davy Crockett Meets an "Ape Man"

...

William and I were pushing through some thicket, clearing the way, when I sat down to mop my brow.  I sat for a spell, watching as William made his good and fine progress.  I removed my boots and sat with my rations, thinking the afternoon a fine time to lunch.  As the birds whistled and chirped, and I ate my small and meager ration, I tapped my axe upon the opposite end of the felled tree I rested upon.

Whether it was the axe's disturbance or possibly the heat of the sun which caused an apparition to slowly form in front of my eyes, I know not.  As a Christian man, I swear to you, Abe, that what spirit came upon me was the shape and shade of a large ape man, the likes we might expect among the more bellicose and hostile Indian tribes in the Territories.  The shade formed into the most deformed and ugly countenance.  Covered in wild hair, with small and needling eyes, large broken rows of teeth, and the height of three foundlings, I spit upon the ground the bread I was eating.

The monster then addressed a warning to me.  Abner, it told me to return from Texas, to flee this Fort and to abandon this lost cause.  When I began to question this, the creature spread upon the wind like the morning steam swirls off a frog pond.  I swear to you, Abner, that whatever meat or sausage disagreed with me that afternoon, I swore off all beef and hog for a day or so afterward.

...



Out of curiosity, what do you think would happen if a Sasquatch was bitten by a werewolf... or perhaps consumed with incestuous lusts?  Answers on a postcard.

Do you have a spooky story to share?

Spel