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Kimmalah posted:This mention of haunted libraries just reminded me of the Willard Library in Evansville, Indiana. Which is apparently so haunted that they've had webcams set up all over the library 24/7 for years. Most of the captures are dumb "orb" stuff or photographic problems, but there's definitely some weird poo poo going on in that place. Anyone seen anything yet? Had this running next to me in work hoping to see more Army-Man. (Even though he's naked and pale in the story  )And only now do I notice the giant text saying, "CAMERAS ARE DOWN!" I'm a god drat idiot. Drunken Baker has a new favorite as of 18:13 on Feb 19, 2015 |
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Feb 19, 2015 18:10
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I remember reading this weird website online when I was in junior high (about 2002-2003ish) called "The Incident". The site was basically a blog detailing someone who claimed to have purchased a book with his surname on the cover (called "The Incident", about spiritualism in the 1890s) and when he opened it up he found all of these weird photographs inside. The pictures were impressive if faked/staged because they were so utterly freaky that they gave me nightmares for years. As the book's subject matter would suggest, the photographs were all scenes from a Victorian-era seance that'd apparently "gone wrong": as in they summoned up demons on accident and whatnot. The captions for the photographs said things like "they thought they could control the spirit world and they were wrong". I wish I could describe what the photographs actually were like and what was in them, but it's difficult to because I'm not actually sure. Anyone remember this? I've tried googling several things about it and no luck. I think his surname was something like "Orlick" or "orluck" or some poo poo like that. Good horror fiction anyway if that's what it was. And no I'm actually not making this up. I promise it was real. Captain Mog has a new favorite as of 18:30 on Feb 19, 2015 |
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Feb 19, 2015 18:22
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Captain Mog posted:I remember reading this weird website online when I was in junior high (about 2002-2003ish) called "The Incident". The site was basically a blog detailing someone who claimed to have purchased a book with his surname on the cover (called "The Incident", about spiritualism in the 1890s) and when he opened it up he found all of these weird photographs inside. The pictures were impressive if faked/staged because they were so utterly freaky that they gave me nightmares for years. As the book's subject matter would suggest, the photographs were all scenes from a Victorian-era seance that'd apparently "gone wrong": as in they summoned up demons on accident and whatnot. The captions for the photographs said things like "they thought they could control the spirit world and they were wrong". I wish I could describe what the photographs actually were like and what was in them, but it's difficult to because I'm not actually sure. I remember exactly what you're talking about and the whole thing was so weird that it stuck in my mind for years even though I forgot most of the details. Fortunately after a lot of googling, I think I found the site! (or possibly a mirror site).   On another note, reading the Black Eyed Kids stuff of course led to things about Slender Man and it's hilarious listening to these researchers trying to explain Something Awful. 
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Feb 19, 2015 19:18
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Kimmalah posted:I remember exactly what you're talking about and the whole thing was so weird that it stuck in my mind for years even though I forgot most of the details. Fortunately after a lot of googling, I think I found the site! (or possibly a mirror site). This is exactly it, thank you! I wonder if anyone's ever found out who made the site?
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Feb 19, 2015 23:29
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Captain Mog posted:This is exactly it, thank you! I wonder if anyone's ever found out who made the site? This popped up randomly while I was skimming through http://www.netsummary.dk/incident/letter.html Balder Olrik posted:DISCLAIMER
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Feb 20, 2015 02:16
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Someone posted this on the San Pedro Poltergeist in the Scary Wiki thread and I thought it was a good read. http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread672735/pg1
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Apr 19, 2015 15:02
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Oh hey I've been looking for this thread! Sorry about the It Is A Mystery link being crappy, my dropbox account decided to delete the file. I'll try to move it to a more permanent spot but for now here's what should be a functional link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ewg1vr4xl8i7l6/It%20Is%20A%20Mystery.pdf?dl=0
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Apr 23, 2015 03:49
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Maybe not so much in the spirit of the thread but is of some relevance. I work at an old Art-House Theatre, about 100 years old by now. As with anything in a particular 'old-town' district of an older city, a lot of ghost tours come to tell people of the haunts and tales of the spooky theatre. Not that I can't see why. Movie theaters are romanticized as homes of dreams and fantasy and drama are blown up in a twisted reflection, shared in a communal experience that has shaped the past century. And people do want to believe that these places, ones that hold so many good memories and experiences even long before and long after them, that they would hold the remnants of the people who have come and gone throughout the decades. And so, the bumps and moans become Ol' Stella, the poor, jilted girl that killed herself infront of her once lover, in the place where such melodrama was projected 30-feet high. Of course, many people who came in, 90% of which didn't really give a poo poo about whatever foreign film we showed ('Ew, subtitles') would ask about if the place was really haunted. I'd always explain, 'We were until we kicked out the hobos and boarded up the attic.' Which was true, a bunch of homeless guys would climb up the fire escape in the alley, and stay in our abestos infested attic. Their milling and ramblings would make it's way down to the theatre, and thus stories and rumors spread as the wont to do. Though, there is one unexplained story by my assistant manger. One evening between movie screenings, picking up the mess between shows. To note, there is one aisle that stretches from the back to the front of the auditorium, and the seats are bisected by it. Anyways, he walked from the back to the front finding nothing strange, and turned back only to find an inexplicable $20 bill that defiantly was not there before. There were several things to note, 1) He did not have any cash on him, 2) The only other person who worked there was busy minding the lobby where money and customers were, 3) Nobody else was in there (and you could tell, it's an old and echo-y theatre, if they're there you'll hear), and 4) You don't just not notice a $20 bill when your working minimum wage at a movie theater. After finding and showing it off to everybody else who worked there, he dubbed it the 'Demon Bill', everyone was to spooked to claim it for their own. I think they just used it to buy a pizza.
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Apr 23, 2015 09:08
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I love Penpal. I like best how the narrator jumps back and forth in time, but each story advances the main plot to the reader, who knows more than the narrator did at the time of each anecdote. Now, a complaint and a question: Complaint: Having his father bury Josh alive was just too much. It doesn't hold up to logic, and as such is like a sour note at the very end of a symphony: - Josh had struggled in the coffin, but had also been ethered. So why didn't the kidnapper wait until Josh was unconscious from the ether to entomb him? He had to have pinned josh in the coffin, closed the lid, ethered him, and held him down while Josh bit his neck THEN Josh goes unconscious before his father comes and can hear his screams. So Josh gets ethered, but still has the whereabouts to inflict a fatal neck wound, but doesn't have the fortitude to stay conscious long enough to get rescued by his father? Too much. Question: What did Josh mean when he said "you left" at the narrator's birthday party? Drunk Nerds has a new favorite as of 03:54 on Apr 28, 2015 |
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Apr 28, 2015 03:52
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SomeJazzyRat posted:
Dead rich hobo in the rafters/attic. He lined his coats with money for warmth, and it fell out and floated down behind the manager's back.
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Apr 28, 2015 03:56
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I noticed a podcast was recommended in the OP and I wanted to add 2 more to the list that I think are pretty good: The NoSleep Podcast reads stories from reddit's /r/nosleep board, primarily the stories that have been voted best of the week. It has a good variety of readers and nice background music. They've also done a reading of the entire Penpals series that's worth a listen. Since Season 3 started you have to pay to hear the full podcast but they graciously left all the earlier ones (that run like an hour or more) free. Updates on Saturdays. They also release special podcasts for free at Halloween and Christmas. Real Ghost Stories Online is run by a husband and wife team to whom you can write or call in with your personal experiences. The husband has a background in radio so he's great at keeping the show lively and entertaining. They recently did a retrospective on one of their most famous callers, "Richard from Chattanooga," whose story is absolutely crazy to hear and I highly recommend it, they play back his calls from start to finish and it just gets weirder. It's free and updates 5 days a week. You can also sign up and pay more to hear their special Saturday broadcasts and view their documentary "Spirits in the Air," about a haunted airport. Hope that's kosher for the thread. No new ghost stories from here because I have the paranormal sensitivity of a wooden spoon. e: I did think my apartment was haunted for a few days but it turns out one of my cats learned how to open cabinets. coronatae has a new favorite as of 06:53 on May 4, 2015 |
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May 4, 2015 06:47
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This would have happened in the late sixties or earlier seventies in Kemper County, Mississippi. A good friend of my father relates a story of an evening he spent in his grandmothers cabin. The cabin had been built decades earlier and expanded, and the back bedroom was one of those expansions. He was sitting on the bed the small room with his back against the wall, reading. Over his right shoulder was a window. He was alone except for his dog, a boxer named Sasha. It was late, and quiet, and he said that he was a bit creeped out when he heard something brush up against the outside wall of the cabin behind him. But he was truly scared when he looked up to see Sasha staring out the window with "eyes as big as dinner plates." He doesn't remember how long they sat there like that, but eventually Sasha laid down again. He never did look out the window until the next morning. His grandmother talked for years and told stories about the "Kemper County Creature," and the Choctaw told old legends of a spirit that appeared as a large cat and would hunt travelers at night.
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May 6, 2015 18:16
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Who would leave a doll out here? She stumbled forward, the surprise of seeing something so out of place interrupting her tears and sniffles. The moonlight shone through the gaps in the treetops. With her eyes long-accustomed to the gloom, she had little trouble picking out the outline of the toy. Maybe it meant there was another little girl out here with her? Someone to play with? Someone to talk to? Someone who knew how to get home? Her tiny shoes made no sound as they moved across the forest floor to where the doll lay. It was a big doll. As big as any she had ever seen. It had been propped up against a tree, its head leaning over to the side. She knelt down to examine it. She frowned with disappointment. It was old and dirty. It was also broken. It looked like the paint had washed off it in the rain, exposing the pale wood underneath. The doll’s eyes had fallen out, there were just holes there. The fingers were very long and thin. She preferred dolls with short, fat fingers, like a baby’s. It wasn’t a nice doll at all. A lot of its hair had also fallen out, though quite a bit was still attached. It was long, dark and curly, a lot like her own. She looked at its dress. Even if it wasn’t so dark, she wouldn’t have been able to make out the colour. It was stained and filthy. It looked like it had been out here a long time. Her own dress was much nicer. It was the same shape, but didn’t have all those stains on it. Even with all the time she had been out here, mummy would have been proud that she had kept it clean. With that thought, the tears welled up again. She never should have run away. She had been here in the forest now for such a long time. Maybe mummy had a new daughter, one that wasn’t naughty, one who wouldn’t run away and get lost? Maybe she wasn’t just lost? Maybe mummy wasn’t looking for her any more? Maybe mummy was hiding. She had been too naughty, and now mummy didn’t want her any more! I’m sorry mummy. The tears turned to sobs. What if this doll belonged to another little girl? One who left it here, because she didn’t like it, because it was ugly? Because it looked like her? What if that little girl was … her replacement? I’m sorry mummy. She took a few moments to compose herself. She was just being silly, as usual. Of course mummy was looking for her. She just needed to keep going. She’d find her mummy. She left the doll where it was. It wasn’t a nice doll, and it was too big for her to carry anyway. She set off once again through the forest. Her tiny shoes made no sound as they moved across the forest floor.
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May 9, 2015 16:04
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This post ended up being way longer than I thought it was going to be, but I'm sorry. I tend to write as I talk, in a kind of stream of consciousness, and there were a few moments where I had to step away for a bit because I was starting to panic at the memory again. Again, sorry for the length! -- My mom blames herself for how skittish I am. She believes that her hobbies during her pregnancy put too much adrenaline in my bloodstream -- and because of that she says I was born afraid. I don't think my mom was allowed very much freedom with her entertainment as a kid, since although both her parents owned motorcycles and loved running them on dunes, they were still West Virginians at heart and incredibly conservative. My mother didn't even own a pair of jeans until she joined the army because my grandpa didn't want her to look homeless or like a factory worker. Anyway, like I said earlier, I'm always afraid. I always behave as if I'm being followed, or watched. Always planning my escape route, sizing up people around me trying to gauge their strength and what their natural reactions to situations would be. I'm very paranoid. Thanks to medication and therapy I can keep a level head and reasonable expectations now, but sometimes I still make those plans. This is very important. I've grown up around murder mysteries and horror movies. I know the Bride of Frankenstein movie poster in our basement more than I know my father. I was never shielded from my mom's love of horror, gore, and the paranormal. She also never made an effort to tell me they were all fake. Even though I know better now, the way I handled the below event is, I believe, due to the fact that although nothing I've seen before this was real, I've still seen some poo poo. Now onto what actually happened. When I was about 3 or 4 years old my grandma and her husband moved into a pretty decent townhouse that was built in the 50s. The neighbors were very friendly, and in fact still live there. Nothing of note actually happened in the house back then and it was a pretty chill place to spend most of my day. I'd sit in the basement on their exercise bike with some celery and peanut butter and watch some Speed Racer until my mom got off work. One night after being picked up I was told to go give Bull (grandma's husband; his name was Bill but when I learned to talk the letter I was hard) a hug. It was a little strange because I usually wasn't told to do that. Things felt “off” around him in a way that I still can't describe. I gave him a hug anyway because I was more afraid of causing a scene than I was of feeling weird, and we headed home. This is a bit of a tangent but I think it's a good example of how react to everything as if it's happened before. That night while I was asleep I had a dream that Bull took me to an aquarium. It had a lot of buildings underneath the tanks so that they were full domes surrounded by fish as you ate, or shopped or whatever. A really pretty place. While we were in one of those buildings the walls started to leak and crack. We were surrounded by sharks that I was pretty sure hadn't been in the tank around us before. The cracks started to spread, and chunks of thick glass began to fall onto the floor allowing water to flood in. The stairs to the outside were still clear, so he pushed me as hard as he could towards them. I didn't want to leave because there was obviously something going wrong and I wanted to try to help. “Go wait outside! I'll be up in a minute!” So I ran outside. That was the last time I ever saw Bull alive. Time passed in the dream as it usually does – quickly and slowly at the same time. I wandered around the park for what felt like hour yelling his name and looking everywhere I could think of for him. I screamed myself hoarse in my desperation. He said he'd catch up, so maybe I just wasn't in the place he wanted to meet up. When I woke up my mom was standing in my bedroom doorway. As I sat up and felt around for my glasses, she calmly told me, “Bull's dead.” I stood up and hugged my mom as tightly as I could but I can't say that I had any reaction. I was sad, of course, since he was one of my favorite people in the world. But I had no physical reaction. I never cried. At his funeral I refused to see him and sat on a bench outside the room listening to the eulogy instead. No one directly told me how he died, so I only learned later while listening to my grandma describe what had happened. Bull liked to sleep in the basement at night because he would set an alarm for 5am to start chores and breakfast, and he wanted to let my grandma sleep without disturbing her. Some time during the night his lungs began to fill with fluid. He drowned, alone on the couch. My grandma found him in the morning when she woke and heard his alarm still going off. By then his lips were blue and he was already gone. Like I said that story was a tangent, but I can't ever talk about him or living here without telling people about Bull. Was that dream a coincidence, or did he really save me from something that night? Now for the real reason I started writing this. After Bull died my grandma waited out the rest of her time at the factory where she worked in order to get a slightly better retirement deal, then she packed up and moved back home to West Virginia. She didn't want or need to sell the house, so she let my mom and I move in for half the cost of actually renting. We lived in the house for at least 5 years with nothing of note really happening. I think a lot of my talking around the issue is that I'm still not entirely comfortable with what happened, and I don't think it's over. But I don't know when she'll be back, and every doorbell or knock at the front door sends my heart racing. A few weeks ago I heard a knock at the door. I stopped 2 stairs from the bottom, using the elevation to look out the window on the door. There was a very grungy looking woman covered in black, brown and grey. I know that sounds like a vague description but her appearance was hard to define at all. It looked like she was wearing rags, and honestly could have blended in perfectly at a homeless shelter. She had a very long, slender jaw ending in a square chin, and hollow cheeks. Her hair was so tangled it looked more like a brown and black lump of steel wool. She's wrong this isn't right she needs to go now go go go go go Her face overwhelmed me with with darkness, even though she was very pale. Everything about her was black. I could see the sun shining on the sidewalk and grass behind her, but none of it touched her. Already I didn't want to answer the door but she saw me through the window. She never looked at me but I know she saw me. So I yelled through the door, “Who is it?” I was still standing on the stairs a few feet away from the door, and hadn't made any move towards opening it. Let me in. Her voice didn't sound like it came through the door – in fact it was a very grainy, hoarse whisper – but I heard it very clearly. Let me in. My mom hates answering the door even more than I do, so I knew she was staying out of sight in the kitchen but still trying to listen in on what we were saying. She hadn't seen the woman at all, and I don't think she heard her voice. The sun chose that moment to hide behind a tree across the street, and our living room lost nearly all of it's ambient light. I probably would have laughed at the “oooo spooky timing” if I hadn't already been wondering if this lady outside was going to stab me or poo poo on our porch. I yelled to my mom, “This woman wants me to let her in!” “Who is it?” My mom's voice was faint from across the house, but as I opened my mouth to repeat the question through the door- Gretel... “Gretel,” I yelled back to my mom. Grains... Grains.” But as the last 's' sound left my lips after saying her last name I heard the locks on the front door click. She still didn't look like she'd moved, but without thinking I threw myself onto the door and held it closed. I honestly couldn't tell you if that did any good. I started screaming at her, “Leave! You're not welcome here!” As I've said before, I've seen some poo poo. My first instinct after hearing a door unlock at the sound of a name is to immediately try to stop that door from opening. And she left. Sleep was very hard to come by over the next few days. I couldn't stop shaking, and every time I heard the mail being dropped off my heart started to race again. I didn't want to walk down my stairs into the living room because I was terrified that I would reach the bottom of the stairs and see her through the window again. I don't I can't don't want to talk about it I don't know how much time passed since most of my time was spent trying to talk myself down. It was a homeless woman. She probably wanted to use the phone or the bathroom. She's probably looking in a YMCA mirror laughing at how she looks pretty scary these days. One afternoon I was on my way back upstairs from the kitchen. As I rounded the corner into the living room and toward the stairs there she was. She looked exactly as she did the last time I saw her, except this time she was in my living room. I was home alone. She was standing between me and the door. This is my house. I was very confused. We've lived here for over 20 years and I've never seen or heard of any previous owners. You owe me for living in my house. I don't think I said anything to her at all. I was frozen with fear and even if someone were home it felt like calling for help wouldn't have mattered. This is my house. Her voice was still a hoarse whisper but clear as a bell. For the first time I saw her move, and it was towards me. I didn't want it why I didn't not This is how you're going to pay me. Every morning you will give me a finger. Chew it off, spit it all out, and give it to me. Put it down the drain. And when you run out of fingers you can start with your other organs. As long as I get paid. Before I could even process what she had just said she was gone. I let out a small laugh because a request like that is completely ridiculous. Chew off a finger every morning? What? It hasn't been very long since I saw her, but I haven't seen her again yet. For those concerned I still have all my fingers, though I do have a bad habit of chewing my thumbs til they bleed. I'd been doing so well at kicking that habit, too. Oh, and one more thing that was kinda weird when we moved in. I didn't know this when my grandma was living here, but after we started sorting through things we found dozens of watches all over the house. They all still worked, surprisingly. It looks like Bull had nailed them to the insides of the walls wherever he could fit them in. He had always been a “just in case” kind of guy, but we've never been able to figure out why there were so many watches in and on the walls. I'm starting to wonder if Bull knew something and never told the rest of us.
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May 12, 2015 00:56
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I grew up in southern Indiana, right along the Ohio River. If you’ve seen the documentary, “Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” we’re talking about the area around that bustling port town that inexplicably borders the Great Plains. Like just about anyone in the Midwest, I spent a lot of time with friends driving for no reason. There’s things out there to see, a memorial to a plane crash out in the middle of nowhere near a barn where Grandma claims an ax murderer lived 60 years ago, a small cave where the Marquis De Lafayette camped after getting dunked in the Ohio River when his steamer forgot how to float, the cotton mill a confederate gunboat managed to lob a shell into during the Great Nautical Drive-by of the Civil War, and there’s even a cave that goes directly under a cemetery where kids would hang out and do things kids everywhere do. You’d think that’d be the setting for something scary, but really it was just another landmark on the under-30 radar. The caves here generally aren’t that big, certainly not a match for Marengo, Wyandotte or Mammoth, which are all around us, but the land beneath our feet here around here still gets pretty empty. A lot of the caves are man-made, personal mine tunnels made by residents to get at the sweet cannel coal the county sits on. As you might expect, some of those guys wound up entombing themselves. Newspapers from back when reported at least one guy who died when his mine got finicky about an open-flame lantern and exploded, and there was also apparently a cantankerous mother mountain lion that some locals decided to seal inside an abandoned mine system with dynamite. Apart from amateur-mining mishaps and folk tales about a race of vengeful subterranean mountain lions, you’ll also hear about ghosts stemming from people who died on the river, or the popular “race track” streets that run along it. I don’t put much stock in them. Sure it sounds bad if you just list body counts, but the area’s just a place where people live, and anywhere that people live, they’ll find a way to die. My “experiences” don’t really have all that much to do with the area’s lore, but I probably wouldn’t have a story at all were I not a history major. For reasons I forgot to remember, I wound up at the old courthouse museum, most likely to interview someone to prove to a professor I could communicate in English. The museum is less a place of history and more of a communal basement where people dump the belongings of dead relatives and occasionally plan community events. It has some interesting things, civil war relics, muskets, knives and even a few uniforms on coat racks. I remember wondering why they weren’t more prominently displayed, and one of the volunteers flatly said that the mannequins they used to use “didn’t work right.” Eh, that was reasonable enough. I was staring at a bright future of unpaid labor myself so I wasn’t about to blame a volunteer for not caring. Apparently the mannequins were just thrown in the basement with all the other barely catalogued crap unfit for display. Everyone told stories about this place, and for once, I actually believed them. The building was old, its acoustics were insane and it relied heavily on natural light from windows. Most of the stories involved things unseen, old school desks slamming downstairs, a woman in high heels that liked to pace the office hallway on the first floor and on a few girls have screamed that they’ve gotten their hair pulled when alone in the basement. Take one guess where the only working bathroom is. I’ll give the architects one thing, when they decided that sunlight is the best way to light a basement, they committed to the notion. The glass front door faces directly down the stairs into the downstairs area, allowing daylight in a fair ways down the long hall that branches out into different storage areas. There’s modern lighting in all the rooms as well, and the bathroom is directly on the left as soon as you hit the floor, but at night you’ll be fumbling through the hall using ambient light from the various rooms to light your path. The bathroom was covered in old posters advertising medicines of yesteryear and apparently the marketing boys at the turn of the century insisted that the faces of angry, crying children was the ticket to sales nirvana. I had barely made it in the room when I started hearing sharp footsteps, like someone walking in high heels but the rhythm was wrong somehow. Now, I wasn’t alone in the museum, and sound carries weird in there. Still, I knew the stories and I knew there was a restroom at the gas station down the road. I was all but on the steps and into daylight when my lizard brain told me to wait, I’d seen something moving at the edge of sunlight down the hall, something low to the ground. The stories were wrong. I didn’t see some Roaring 20s dame standing there, nor did I see the nothing I expected to see. It was a leg. Just a thigh, knee and a foot wearing a high heel “standing” in the middle of a long empty concrete hallway. It was pale, plastic I thought. I reasoned that it must have been a mannequin’s leg, left out for… reasons, that I hadn’t seen when I went down in full paranoid “check every corner” mode because I’m an idiot. Reptile brain insisted that it had seen the drat thing moving though, and I was through arguing the point so I turned my back on it and made for a swift retreat. I started moving a lot quicker when I heard a tip tap sound in my direction. The man I was talking to that day did not object to finishing our conversation at the Wendy's 5 miles away, reassuring me that weird things happen there. He didn't even ask what I'd seen, I guess my face told it all. Well, that’s a lot of words to explain how I once outraced a disembodied leg. Not much epilogue to offer. I never found an excuse or willpower to go back and investigate. Ghosts, if they exist, aren’t things to be made sense of, but I can certainly see why they’d be around in these parts. The only thing that ever draws my thoughts back there is the knowledge that some people occasionally still work in that building after sundown, and people still hear those drat high heels pacing outside the office door, between whoever’s inside and the exit. A friend said a coworker once decided to climb out the window and crawl through the shrubbery than face whatever was on the other side of the door. I can’t say I blame them. Sometimes places and things just don’t work right and you just have to deal with it as best you can.
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May 13, 2015 01:26
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Kimmalah posted:Completely unrelated to your story, but I just wanted to say I still remember and really loved the Quija board thread you did (it's goldmined so shouldn't require archives). Most the images are probably broken now, but I remember a few eerie moments where your spirit friend was spot on about stuff they probably shouldn't have been (like the person who asked about the color of their shoes of all things). The "fear" answer always stuck with me too. There is some weird stuff going on there. I grew up in Evansville, I'm 34 and I've known about the grey lady for as long as I can remember. The ghost is generally seen in the children's section of the library. I've never seen it personally but I have felt cold spots and weird things while there. Besides the ghost it is a really cool library and is worth checking out.
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Jun 5, 2015 22:39
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I’m not much of a writer/story teller, but I want to contribute to the thread in my own small way. When I was a boy, my best friend’s family had a “family (not) ghost story”. His grandpa used to tell it to us and he claimed it was 100% true. He was an honest man, but I always thought it sounded too much like a crummy movie to be true. Sometimes I think about the story and it gives me the willies even though I am an emotionless person who is dead on the inside. Anyway, this story is about my friend’s grandpa’s brother. I forget his name so let’s call him John. The story starts off during a very bad lightning storm with heavy rainfall. In the rural county (in which I grew up) the big story at the time was that there had recently been a murder. The police still hadn’t found the suspected murderer so people were told not to travel alone and stay indoors at night etc. John however was coming home from work at a late shift when his car broke down next to one of the town’s churches. (I know I know). He decided to run in through the pouring rain to try to call for assistance. He opened the large front door, and there was just darkness. All of the lights were out. He tried the switches, and it was no dice. The storm most likely had knocked the power out. The door was unlocked though, so the pastor must be here. He took a few steps into the nave and called out, but got no response. Being a church and all, there are very large windows, and every time lightning would strike, the room would light up. This of course gave him the creeps, but it seemed that the first few flashes revealed he was alone. He sat down on one of the pews to think. He thought that maybe he should go back out to his car and wait for another car to pass by and provide assistance. As he decided what to do, the lightning flashed again. He thought he saw what appeared to be a figure climbing over the pews. This of course frightened the poo poo out of him. He called out again. No response. He squinted in the low light, trying to see if he saw what he thought he saw. Thunder struck loud and it frightened him. Another flash of lightning. No crawling figure. Had it ducked down on the floor or on the bench seat? Or was there nothing at all? More thunder. More Lightning. This time the figure was there, and even worse, it was much closer and crawling faster. Wind and rain and thunder smashed around him. He wasted no time in sprinting out of the church and back into the storm. John always claimed that he heard the sounds of pursuit behind him as he escaped. I forget how he got away. Perhaps another car picked him up. But I do remember that the police were contacted and they checked out the church. The door had been pried open, but no one was there. Now once again let me state that I am unsure of the truthfulness of this story, and I realize that the way I told it sounds like a 10 year old telling stories on the playground. But I have seen the old church (now abandoned) and this story has been told many times by many of my old friend’s relatives as if it is 100% true. Sorry my writing isn’t very exciting, and sorry that the story isn’t actually paranormal.
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Jun 6, 2015 20:46
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Wiggles Von Huggins posted:
That was a good story creepily told, so I'd say it was a good post.
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Jun 8, 2015 07:09
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Been binge-reading the /r/nosleep thread. I wish posts could get negative scores, because I enjoy reading incredibly lovely ones almost as much as I do good ones. Here's one that jumped out at me. There are a few plot holes, but the title drew me in and the story delivered. Definitely an all-time favorite: http://wh.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/38foo5/the_47th_annual_whispering_oaks_bachelor_auction/ The 47th Annual Whispering Oaks Bachelor Auction I used to love my job. I’ve always been the type of person that needs to work for something other than just money, you know? Naturally, taking a job at the Whispering Oaks retirement home was a no-brainer for me. Not only would I be assisting old folks in their most difficult age, but Whispering Oaks boasted the most proficient doctors on staff of any nursing home at the time. The community is known for keeping old folks at their best and healthiest right up until they passed. Whispering Oaks was also where I met my long term boyfriend, Danny. We had seen each other in passing, but our exchanges had never really moved beyond a smile or a brief “hey.” That is, until the one fateful Tuesday when I accidentally bumped into him with a tray of peas and some unidentifiable meat, and it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. Instead of getting angry, he laughed it off and asked if he could have my number in case the stains didn’t come out and he needed to sue. I gave it to him, obviously. We’ve been together since. Let me preface the rest of this story by telling you that I’m really not the jealous type. Well, not under normal circumstances. The unusual circumstance in this particular situation was that Danny was asked to take place in the 47th Annual Whispering Oaks Retirement Home Bachelor Auction. If you’ve seen any sitcom ever, you know the drill. A bunch of lonely (and, in this case, wrinkly and decrepit) ladies place bids on an attractive young fellow, and in return are allowed to basically rent him out for a night. For “charity.” I begged him not to go through with it. Is that selfish? I don’t know. And I didn’t particularly care, if I’m being completely honest. But Danny, being the precious, kind pushover he was, couldn’t say no to them and agreed, despite my misgivings. I was a bit relieved to find out that I was scheduled to work at the auction that night. If I’d shown up otherwise, I’m sure I would have gotten eye rolls and other incredulous responses from the rest of the staff. Upon my arrival, I realized just how lucky the auction was to have him. He was tall and fit, with the biggest brown eyes you’d ever seen. Add a three piece suit, and he made the other guys look like they’d been picked up off the side of the road on the way over. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy. Everyone wanted him—even little old Ms. Myrna, whose eyesight was almost completely gone. Once the bidding on Danny started, the entire room became chaos. I tried to stay out of it, I swear that I did, but I just couldn’t let them have Danny. I bid my entire life savings. The room fell silent. Danny looked at me, beginning, I think, to realize how much his participation had hurt me. He looked like he was about be sick. I heard at least one “oh boy” from one of the nurses, but I tried to ignore it. The silence began to slowly turn to cautious chattering. At first, I started to feel better. I had definitely offered more than anyone else there could. But I learned very quickly that there was something worse than one of these ladies having him for the evening, and that was that they had discovered that they could combine their bids and share him. Tears were imminent. I didn’t know what to do. I knew the situation couldn’t be avoided, but I just couldn’t bear to see him with all of those women. So I ran. I tried to push through, but I quit my job at Whispering Oaks less than a week later. Everyone told me that I was selfish, that I should think of the greater good, etcetera. Maybe they’re right. But it got to be so hard. I loved that boy, really loved him. And to be there every single day and to attend to the very same women from that night—it’s just too much. Mrs. Sophia, now able to play tennis thanks to her brand new hip replacement, Ms. Opal, chewing her food now with her new teeth, and of course, Ms. Myrna, staring at me with those big, brown eyes. I don’t know. Maybe I’m selfish. Or maybe we should just let old folks deteriorate at their own drat natural rate. My all time favorite is probably The Clock in the Woods (too long to repost) https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1nyt4a/the_spire_in_the_woods/ Drunk Nerds has a new favorite as of 02:12 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 02:05
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Drunk Nerds posted:My all time favorite is probably The Clock in the Woods (too long to repost) I don't have any stories of my own to share but this is a really fun read, thank you for linking this.
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Jun 10, 2015 01:26
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Isn't it? Usually, when I read longer creepypastas or whatever, I'm just like "c'mon get to the reveal, already." But with the Spire in the Woods, I was genuinely happy to read along at a normal pace and watch the characters take shape and change. I'll try and link more. I tear through that site after my kids have gone to bed, and it's like 99% crap/1 % gold. It's just I like reading crap horror stories. I read them aloud and my wife and I riff on them. Weird thing actually happened to me this weekend. We have a maid come in and clean every week. Afterwards, she asks if everything is to my liking, and I make a cursory glance at the rooms in my house. It's just for show, so she feels good, as I've never once actually pointed out anything wrong (she works too hard, already). Last weekend, I was doing my usual look through, and I poked my head in the guest room. This was extremely just-for-show, as we haven't had a guest for weeks so she doesn't really have anything to do in there. However, when I looked at the neatly-made bed, on the pillow lay two hoop earrings clasped together. They made kind of a sideways infinity symbol, or, as scientists call it, "the number eight." They didn't look like my wife's so I showed them to the maid. They were hers. But she couldn't remember taking them off. Drunk Nerds has a new favorite as of 01:49 on Jun 10, 2015 |
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Jun 10, 2015 01:39
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Drunk Nerds posted:My all time favorite is probably The Clock in the Woods (too long to repost) I gotta say, the attention to detail is spot-on. It maybe does not help that I could get into my car and be at the road he mentioned within half an hour.
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Jun 10, 2015 04:08
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Drunk Nerds posted:My all time favorite is probably The Clock in the Woods (too long to repost) I would've been a lot happier if I'd known this was going to be 10 parts long BEFORE I started reading it. Instead of going to the grocery store, I spent 4 or 5 hours reading this thinking the end was just up ahead and it just... went... on... and... where is it gently caress gettotheFUCKINGGHOSTALREADY  and then I finished and it was after midnight where I live and my whole afternoon was gone.  It's a pretty good work of amateur short horror fiction, but for some reason I was expecting it to be a real-life ghost story when I started reading it, and as it slowly dawned on me that this wasn't what it was I kinda skipped a bunch of parts looking for the ghost parts. Interesting though that today, you could probably find something like the clock on an island like that with a drone, which would let you save a lot of time and energy, and would be way safer than just looking for it on foot since you could use the drone to pinpoint the approximate location of the spire before covering any ground, thereby reducing the risk of injury and getting yourself lost.  Drunk Nerds posted:Here's one that jumped out at me. There are a few plot holes, but the title drew me in and the story delivered. Definitely an all-time favorite: ... Um...... is this one supposed to be a scary story? Cuz it isn't very scary. I. M. Gei has a new favorite as of 06:45 on Jun 10, 2015 |
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Jun 10, 2015 06:37
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Drunk Nerds posted:My all time favorite is probably The Clock in the Woods (too long to repost) The payoff is pretty weak for how much buildup there is.
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Jun 10, 2015 13:49
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Internet Kraken posted:The Yeah. Way better written than most random internet ghost stories but it got a little creepy at times and not in a good, ghosty sort of way.
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Jun 10, 2015 15:54
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Dr. Gitmo Moneyson posted:... Um...... is this one supposed to be a scary story? Cuz it isn't very scary. I got a Goosebumps / Are You Afraid of the Dark vibe from it. It's the sort of corny "scary story" a kid would tell at a slumber party.
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Jun 10, 2015 16:01
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The whole bit with Alina was really weird and it didn't have to be there.
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Jun 10, 2015 16:44
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AnonSpore posted:The whole bit with Alina was really weird and it didn't have to be there. I'd say its pretty integral to the (bad) story. The story isn't really about the spire in the woods. Its about this goony gently caress not recognizing he's being a creep. The spire just ties elements of the story together, rather poorly. Don't be a rapist or you're gonna get sodomized by a clockwork corpse.
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Jun 10, 2015 17:19
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Internet Kraken posted:I'd say its pretty integral to the (bad) story. The story isn't really about the spire in the woods. Its about this goony gently caress not recognizing he's being a creep. The spire just ties elements of the story together, rather poorly. Important lessons for life ITT
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Jun 10, 2015 19:09
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samu3lk posted:I got a Goosebumps / Are You Afraid of the Dark vibe from it. It's the sort of corny "scary story" a kid would tell at a slumber party. I hope you guys like those kinds of stories then, because I've got a couple! In the mid-2000s (think 2003-2008 or so) I went to a summer camp in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. It's a mountainous, heavily forested, and honestly quite beautiful region, even for a city kid like me. This particular camp was pretty cool, and it was on the shores of a lake in the area--specifically, somewhere near St. Regis Lakes. The nearest town of any note was 2+ hours drive away IIRC, so yeah this was a pretty wooded and isolated area. Apparently that specific area's got some history behind it--according to the rumor mill, it was once used as a base of operations by the Green Mountain Boys, which makes some sense since Vermont was not very far away. It also had some history that the administrators preferred people didn't talk about. David's Girl The most famous story got a bit distorted and I heard a couple of different versions, but they were all so alike and told by people who had nothing to do with each other, so I'm inclined to believe it. Background: at the beginning of every session (there were two, each a month long, running one after the other from early July to early September) campers were supposed to turn in any and all meds to the infirmary so that the nurses could administer them properly rather than leaving a bunch of preteens/early teens to manage their own medicinal intakes. One girl didn't turn her meds in, supposedly because she would deliberately take too many pills and get high off them. She manages to hide this from the administration well enough, until one night when she did her usual thing and ended up sneaking out of her cabin. She went to the lake, where she either decided to go for a swim or lost her balance and fell into the water. Presumably she was either to doped-up to swim or had a seizure--I've heard both, and it doesn't really make a difference--and drowned. The camp, of course, became stricter about turning in meds the following year, and the story entered the camp's mythology. I lived in one particular cabin when I was about 14. It had an L-shaped corridor that connected to all the rooms. Here's my dogshit attempt at a map:  One of my counselors that year was an Englishman named David. He was tall and chubby but built. He'd been a counselor at this camp for some years by that point, so he knew what was what. One morning, we see him rearranging some furniture in his room, and in not much of a talking mood. He was a pretty taciturn guy sometimes, though, so I just chalked it up to him wanting to make some space in his room and not being in a chatty mood because hey, moving furniture around sucks. It wasn't until a few months later, talking with one of my friends, that I heard the full story: David was asleep that night, until he woke up in the wee hours of the morning. When he finally shook off his grogginess, he noticed a girl standing in the hallway--and not just any girl. He'd been working in the camp when that girl drowned, and this girl seemed a bit too familiar. As far as I know, the usual happened: David proceeded to poo poo several bricks, ghost disappears, he makes it through the night shaken up but ultimately no worse for the wear, and we the living got a story to share on Internet comedy forums. Oh, and the furniture in the counselors' room for rearranged to both partially block up the door and give David a clear view of the hallway so he'd be ready in case this girl decided to get a bit closer next time. The sessions that year ended, and David never worked in that camp again. The Cabin on the Hill This was a co-ed camp, and the cabin groups were divided according to age and gender. So Cabin Group X would be for 14-15 year olds, with a corresponding Cabin Group X Boys and Cabin Group X Girls groups. If Cabin Group X was too big, as was often the case with groups not restricted to a single age, then that group got divided into A and B parts. So generally our friends in Cabin Group X were divided into Cabin Group X-A Boys, X-B Boys, X-A Girls, and X-B Girls. One particular group of girls (aged about 15, so by the example I've set out so far they'd be Cabin Group X-B Girls) lived in a cabin that was a bit separate from the main bod of the camp. Not that it was isolated or anything, just that it was further from other cabins than most cabins were to each other. As such, it was on top of a particularly wooded hill that gave off a sort of bad-juju vibe. Probably because it was apart from the rest of the camp. Self-fulfilling prophecy, I guess. There are two stories I know of surrounding this cabin: one is pretty mundane, the other pretty standard. Much as I'd like to get the mundane one out of the way first, it does benefit from the creep factor of the second story, so I'll start with that one. One day, a few friends and I were chatting with a counselor for that group of girls, so this is straight from the horse's mouth: she was in bed reading one night, when she heard her girls start talking in the next room. It was past lights-out and they were supposed to be settling into sleep already, so she calls out to them to be quiet. They promptly pipe down, and she goes back to reading. A bit later, the voices start again. Now she's starting to get a little irritated, so she calls out again for them to pipe down. Again, the girls settle down pretty quickly. Then she hears what sounds like her girls opening and closing their trunks repeatedly. Now she's getting pretty annoyed, and she yells out to them to settle down or there'd be consequences. At that point, the front door opens. Her entire cabin group walks in. They'd been on a field trip to the movie theater all night. Come to think of it, I don't think that counselor returned the following year either. Strange. OK, now for the mundane story: a few years after the last story, I'm working in the camp as an assistant counselor. My job description: cheap labor. Take the maggot-infested garbage bags to the nearby landfill. Fill in for a counselor on his day off. poo poo like that. While not particularly glamorous, the gig did have its perks, and the most satisfying was I basically had free reign to do whatever I wanted as long as I hadn't been assigned to anything. I could walk around the camp to my heart's content, which was nice. So one day I decided to explore the camp a little. Now, by this point the economic crisis was well underway, so fewer people were coming to the camp. I think the camper population fell by half in the six years I was there. As such, some of the cabins were left empty, including--surprise!--the one that was apart from the rest of the camp. By this point I'd heard the stories, and figured I'd poke around. Even if the doors were locked--which they were--I could at least peek through the windows and who knows? Maybe I'd see that ghost girl people were making such a fuss about. I didn't see any spooky spirits, and for the most part the cabin was empty save for some spiders and dust. But there were a few things scattered around here and there: an old hoodie, and some pages torn from a Disney coloring book. The administration probably just didn't bother cleaning out the cabin and all that crap was from the previous summer, when the building was actually occupied, but still. Again, pretty mundane, but it made for a somewhat spooky image given that building's history. That's all my stories. I didn't go back the year after I was an assistant counselor, but that had nothing to do with ghosts or anything like that. In all my six years there, I never experienced anything out of the ordinary, and to be honest I feel kind of cheated in that respect. Maybe I'll go back one day if I have nothing to do for a summer and do some proper ghost-huntin'.
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Jun 10, 2015 19:16
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Dr. Gitmo Moneyson posted:
That's exactly why I liked it. I sat there with your same reaction for a few minutes until I spotted the twist, and then I re-read it and loved it: The old people harvested his parts. The auction was to harvest parts, that's why it mostly consisted of dudes who looked like "they were picked up on the side of the road" I wish the spire in the woods had saved the fact that the clock had actual corpses until a final reveal. That would've been a great punch. Drunk Nerds has a new favorite as of 00:54 on Jun 11, 2015 |
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Jun 11, 2015 00:47
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Drunk Nerds posted:That's exactly why I liked it. I sat there with your same reaction for a few minutes until I spotted the twist, and then I re-read it and loved it I got the twist when I read it, had same 'meh' reaction. Actually, once they pooled their funds I just thought they'd tear him to pieces like hyenas, but I was a little off on the guess.
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Jun 11, 2015 20:47
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Drunk Nerds posted:That's exactly why I liked it. I sat there with your same reaction for a few minutes until I spotted the twist, and then I re-read it and loved it: Nobody missed the twist, the twist was just dumb and didn't make sense.
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Jun 11, 2015 20:51
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Duodecimal posted:I got the twist when I read it, had same 'meh' reaction. Actually, once they pooled their funds I just thought they'd tear him to pieces like hyenas, but I was a little off on the guess. I didn't see it coming, but looking back I can see how if I did the story wouldn't have been that good. AnonSpore posted:Nobody missed the twist, the twist was just dumb and didn't make sense. I alerted Lowtax to the fact that people on this forum sometimes like things that you don't. He's calling an emergency meeting. Drunk Nerds has a new favorite as of 02:58 on Jun 12, 2015 |
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Jun 12, 2015 02:00
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Drunk Nerds posted:I alerted Lowtax to the fact that people on this forum sometimes like things that you don't. He's calling an emergency meeting. oh no, discussion in a discussion forum that disagrees with you. are you ok? do you need an adult?
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Jun 12, 2015 15:39
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Drunk Nerds posted:I didn't see it coming, but looking back I can see how if I did the story wouldn't have been that good. Good.
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Jun 12, 2015 15:40
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Captain Monkey posted:oh no, discussion in a discussion forum that disagrees with you. are you ok? do you need an adult? I implore you to read my response a second time: The guy who actually "discussed" it but disagreed with me, I commented agreeably with and continued the discussion The guy who said "I don't like this, it sucked" I flamed. If you don't like something, go ahead and hate, but simply add something to the discussion. Every single literary work ever has had someone arguing that it sucks, so saying it sucks adds nothing but one's own self-centricism. And people wonder why this thread is perpetually in danger of dying out. C'mon goons... just add something to the discussion if you agree, something more than "it sucked." That's not asking for much
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Jun 13, 2015 03:30
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Internet Kraken posted:I'd say its pretty integral to the (bad) story. The story isn't really about the spire in the woods. Its about this goony gently caress not recognizing he's being a creep. The spire just ties elements of the story together, rather poorly. Yeah, I really liked the story and googled about it a bit and found an interview with the author. Apparently he was intentionally trying to convey the importance of enthusiastic consent and making sure things are mutual, so the story about the clockmaker whose self-image was that of a good man suffering who had made some mistakes is supposed to mirror the behavior of Rob who was sort of a creep and the narrator who was a major creep. You even have the situation where Kerry was kissing his neck as a foil and to show this cuts both ways. I was originally thinking it could have been just as good without the sexual assault angle, and in truth it didn't have to play out exactly the way it did, but I considered it a little and I think it's pretty well-done and respectful and dehumanizes neither nor the perpetrator nor the survivor. I also think it treats mental illness in the same way! I also appreciated the trigger warnings, especially in a community as hostile to compassion as Reddit, ha. Just one dude's POV, tho!
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Jun 13, 2015 22:00
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quote:I think it's pretty well-done and respectful and dehumanizes neither nor the perpetrator nor the survivor. I also think it treats mental illness in the same way! I also appreciated the trigger warnings, especially in a community as hostile to compassion as Reddit, ha. Totally agree with you. I think this is the interview you mentioned.
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Jun 14, 2015 22:06
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Drunk Nerds posted:I implore you to read my response a second time: ok ill call an adult for you
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Jun 14, 2015 22:44
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