So as loyal readers know, I’m a huge horror nut. Movies, books, you name it, I dig them all.
There is one aspect to horror that I’ve found major media does that just really kills the scary feeling though. It sensationalizes the event.
I know, I know, it’s a visual medium and it’s supposed to grab hold of you, so everything has to be big and flashy.
Wrong. Very wrong. I find the more simple something is, the more that is left to my imagination, the more I scare the flipping shit out of myself.
When the internet first came around, you know AOL, and chain mail was just so super huge (this is pre-spam filter days), I would read them all. In fact, I read every email ever sent to me I thought it was so cool getting emails from people. These chain mails were usually pretty silly, or just way to oversappy or rediculous…but no matter what the content was, there was a consequence for not forwarding along. Being a young, gullible child, I would read these possible consequences and scoff. My logical mind ruling out any chance of these silly things actually coming to fruition.
Then my skeptical mind would jump in…and terrorize me into forwarding. I remember one chain mail consequence very vividly because it still freaks me out to this day. Not the consequence itself, but the images and scenarios I worked up. The consquence for not sending the chain letter was:
If you don’t forward this chain letter to 10 people, a little dead girl with no eyes will stand at your bedside at 11pm. When you wake, she will tell you she’s come for your eyes, and with a shark paring knife, will carve them out of your head, leaving you for dead.
Ok, so, that’s fucking scary I don’t care who you are. Imagine, just imagine waking up to see not only a stranger next to your bed watching you slepp, but a little girl with no fucking eyeballs!
So every now and then my scumbag brain remembers this little girl, and my insane imagining of her, and freaks me out over 10 years later. I’ll just be in the shower, washing the shampoo from my hair with my eyes shut, and I think, “Hey, what if when you opened your eyes that little girl with no eyes was standing there watching you”. FUCK THAT! Now I finish this shower as fast as I can, and do everything not to close my eyes for the next 12 hours!
Which brings me to the real purpose of those post. Ghost stories.
As my jaded mind shuns major media ghost stories, and even those silly ghost hunting shows (they are staged), I want real. I want scary, I want your story.
If you just go to Google (glorious, glorious Google) and type in Ghost Story, craptons of sites will pop up. Many of these are sites dedicated to user submitted ghost stories. I ran across one that I wanted to share with you all today because it really just sent a huge chill down my spine.
This is a personal account from someone who refers to herself as ”Kitty” and this was posted on ghoststories.ws (artwork from that site too):
In the history of stupid decisions I’ve made, walking the two and a half miles to my friend’s house at 1 a.m. with no cell phone because the car wasn’t working…well, that probably takes the cake.
My hubby was working and my kids were at my sister’s house for the night. I called him to let him know I was walking to Kelso and that I’d give him another call when I reached the apartment; he didn’t like the idea at all, but he knows he can’t dissuade me when I’ve made up my mind on something like that, so he sighed and asked that I please, please be safe.
It was darker than dark outside. I only had a flashlight to light the way, and that really wasn’t much good, especially because there were no streetlights the way I take to my friend’s. I shone it in patterns to keep myself distracted.
When I reached the house with the dogs, I prepared myself to jump, because they bark every time I pass and it inevitably scares me. I was braced the entire time I walked past, but there was not a sound from the dogs. That made me frown.
Right as I reached the end of the dogs’ fence, I heard a strange set of noises behind me. It made me shudder and want to turn the flashlight on whatever was potentially stalking me, but then again — I didn’t really want to see what it was.
After a few steps, the noises became more distinct. They sounded like the moaning of someone in great pain. I kept walking, faster and faster, until I looked like a goofy speedwalker.
I didn’t get far, because the moaning grew louder and louder, and I finally had to turn and look. I wish I hadn’t.
There was someone on the ground, skittering along spider-like, crawling only on its hands. There was no lower half of a body, just the upper half, a head and a chest and a little bit of sides. It was moaning and shuffling forward after me.
I stood frozen for a split second, but then I turned and ran.
The thing let out a blood-curdling, hair-raising scream and I heard it pick up its speed, galloping along impossible fast on its hand-feet. I had never run so fast in my life, not even in all my days on the track team at school.
I was practically swallowing my heart every other beat. I tried to break through the fog of terror to think rationally. I realized I was just four blocks away from my house, so I bolted for four blocks, and still the thing was following me, screeching and sobbing.
I rounded the corner, and it was still giving chase, cutting in on my path towards the house. The corner store was just a few blocks away, enough of an opposite direction from the creature that I could reach it without being intercepted. I made a beeline towards the store, my breath ragged in my throat.
When I reached the store, I caught my breath and went in. The pay phone was in the back; I ripped it off the hook and jammed a quarter into the slot. My friend picked up, sounding a little sleepy.
“I need a ride,” I said without introduction. “Something’s chasing me. I can’t walk anymore.”
My friend was dead silent for a moment while I panted in her ear.
“Hold on a minute,” she said, and she put me on hold.
I stood in the bad lighting of the corner store, with the screams of the hands-walker echoing in my mind. Finally, my friend clicked back on the line. “Jason’s coming to pick you up,” she said.
I breathed my relieved thanks and hung up, cowering in the corner until I saw the blue truck pull into the parking lot. I practically dove into the front seat and kicked the car like it was a horse. “Drive, Jason!”
I looked in the side view mirror. The thing was there, still galloping towards us, and now it looked pissed. Really pissed.
“J-Jason,” I said, and pointed with a trembling hand to the mirror.
He nodded tightly. “Hang on,” he said.
He floored it. The truck lurched forward, and I gripped the oh-shit handle for dear life, my eyes glued to the mirror. As we went faster and faster, the thing went slower and slower until finally, mercifully, it vanished over the crest of a hill.
I slumped into the seat and found my even breathing again.
I never look back if I hear anything when I’m strolling by myself — which I do only when I must. I just keep walking.
The only other one I’ve read that has really freaked me out was a five part story by a woman. It detailed out her life on a farm, and the hauntings she dealt with on a near daily basis. This was several years ago that I read this, so I don’t remember too many fine details. But what I do remember is the following:
- There was a hole in a tree outside her bedroom window, through that she had many encounters with ghosts, seeing faces in the hole and stuff.
- Shadows…lots of shadows. In one part she was in a barn, and there were these shadowy hands stretching and elongating out from the rafters trying to get her.
Gosh I wish I could remember more. If someone knows of where I can find this again please send a link my way!
Want to read some great ghost stories? Check out these sites:
