Thursday, October 21, 2010

What Scares You?

Listening to you all talk about the mice and little creepy critters that give you the creeps made me curious about other scary stories that you all might want to share.  It's Halloween and the best time for creepy tales.  It doesn't have to be a ghost story or anything, but I love sharing stories.  I'll start...
~~~~~~~
When I was a little kid we used to live in the ghetto.  I went to a small neighborhood school.  Lots of times my mother would pick me and my little sister up from school, sometimes she'd send a cab but there were days when I had to walk home.  I was shy, didn't have tons of friends and most of them lived at the 'bottom of the hill' which was just the projects.  My family had recently moved to the 'top' of the hill which is where new Townhomes had been built.  It was nice, but still the ghetto.  It was also a longer walk. 

When there was no cab, and my mother wasn't waiting for me, I began my long walk up the hill (as instructed by my mother.)  To get to the top of the hill you had to pass a vacant and condemned building.  In that building another little girl that was just my age (seven) had been raped and murdered.  I used to have to walk past that building and as I got close to it I began to agonize over it and relive her horror in my mind.  It was a different time when you didn't get arrested for leaving your kid home alone and it was okay to give them a key to the house in order to let themselves in.

But as I saw the building looming ahead I'd prepare to run past it.  Each time my ears would begin to ring and my senses became sensitized.  I know that girl wasn't in there but it seemed that I could feel her and see her.  I couldn't breath until the building was safely behind me.  And that is my first horror story.

39 comments:

  1. When I was six, my mom took us trick or treating around the neighborhood. I'm from a small town in Arkansas, close to the Louisiana state line..so it really is a small town. Well, my sister and I wanted to go to my grandparents house to trick or treat. It was only a few blocks away so we decided to go.

    My grandparents live in a old white house. And to make it the typical cliche, they have tons of cats. There's an old trailer on the other side of the fence by their house. It's been vacant for years. They told me the lady who lived in there was killed and no one would rent it.

    Well, when we get to their street, the trailer beside their house has a light on. My mom walks towards it and I tell her that no one lives there, but she assumes someone must since their light is on.

    Everyone knows the porch light on means come and get some candy. Light off...no candy for you.

    So we walk up there and I knock on the door. Nothing. I knocked again and still nothing. So my mom says, "Maybe you're right."

    As I walk down the stairs, I look back. When I do, I see a woman staring out of the curtain. I screamed so loud that my mom stopped and looked at me. And then...the light on the porch went out.

    We never went to my grandparents to trick or treat. And when we did go the next day, they told us that no one lived in that house. And hadn't for years. There was no way a woman could have been there. Shortly after the trailer was moved and I'm convinced I saw a ghost.

    I don't care what anyone says.

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  2. I am from Jamaica and was raised in one of the parts that you would call "country". Everyone is superstitious because everyone has seen or experienced something out of the ordinary. Here's my experience. When I was about 7, I was in the school yard playing roughly with a little girl about my age. While playing she had a bump or something and during our rough housing it burst. I really don't remember the whole story, but I remember her telling me her dead mother put it there to remember her by and she was going to get me. Of course me as a kid I didn't believe her I blew it off and continued with my day as usual and forgot about it. Later that night in my sleep I was visited by the girl's mother. She wasn't mean, it wasn't a frightening experience it just felt peaceful. She laughed and played with me basically all night. My cousins told me when I woke up that they heard me laughing and playing in my sleep. Here's the weird part, I remember she kissed me on my cheek or somewhere in that area on my face. After that I have three warts on the side of my mouth that no one remembers being there before. They never grow and after awhile you don't pay attention to them because they are a part of me just like that little girl's bump were a part of her that no one noticed. There are other scary things that have been seen and heard, but that one I can vouch happened to me. I have one from my brother that is crazy, but I will post later.

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  3. Not much seems to scare me, but once when I was canoeing in Florida a huge alligator swam right under the canoe and bumped it. I felt a kind of fear at that moment I don't remember ever feeling before or since. Because the water was dark I didn't see the gator until it was nosing under the canoe, and the surprise made it worse.

    JG

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  4. I am working on this as a basis for a short story. I am from the deep south where superstition is still the authority. My family does not believe an any of it, but my grandfather could never deny this as a true story.
    In the 1930's my great-grandmother got ill. Her large body began to waste away. She became convinced her illness was due to "root" being cast on her by her husbands latest lover. G-grandma called her two sons and sent them to a specific house. The boys aged 11 and 9 did as they were told and went to the root lady, explaining the mystery illness. The woman mixed up something and rubbed it on a wooden stake. She gave them the stake and told them to go to a location deeper into the woods miles away, with the instruction to drive the stake in the ground there. The deeper the stake went the sicker the caster of the root on their mother would get. Neither boy believed in the nonsense but they did as they were told. When they reached the destination my grandfather, the eldest, barely tapped the stake in the ground and turned for the long walk home. His brother said "Oh hell", turned, picked up a stone and pounded the stake in the ground until it was flush with the earth. They then made their way home. Great-grandmother was up, cooking breakfast, eager to get her beautiful fat back on. Great-grandfathers lover died suddenly that night, around the same time my grand-aunts saw their mother revived.
    Grand-daddy always shrugged saying the mind is powerful. But here is what disturbs me, there was no way the lover knew what was being done by my family. Second the walk in the woods was long, it took all night, so great grandma was in the dark as well. Third grand-daddy never would say what the payment was. I cannot bring myself to think it was all a coincidence.

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  5. Okay so I admit to being a bit of a scaredy cat but I think my all time worst fear is to walk in the dark. Do not take this to mean I am scared of the dark, I'm not I am scared to walk in the dark. When my daughters were born they had health problems and the hospital we used was a catholic hospital, we spent alot of time there. It was covered in catholic memorabilia and is well over 75yrs old so there is alway contruction going on for improvements to the older wings. I have alot of trouble sleeping so when my daughters were admitted I would alway go for walks around in the middle of the night, to stretch my legs and have a moment peaces. One night I stumbled on to a floor that was being renovated and it was completely empty, I thought nothing of it and continued to walk reflecting on my hellish day, when all the sudden the lights went off! Automatically I froze and listened thinking someone must have been there to turn them off but I heard nothing so I called out to let someone know I was there and got no reply. I started having a full out panic attack. I finally sat down on the floor and scooted on my butt to the wall to catch my bearings. Then as a I reached the wall a light down towards the elevator turned on, giving a little light to guide me. Man let me tell you, you have never seen a chubby girl run so fast in all your life! Then right as I got there the light went out again, being in full run mode I didn't stop in time and ran smack into the wall, giving myself a bloody nose (and later 2 black eyes) but I found the button for the elevator after a little bit of a search in the dark. I never did find out why those lights went off like that and needless to say I never walked alone in the middle of the night at that hopital again.

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  6. Good scary stories. I enjoyed reading them while I was at work...um...not working. More more more!!!

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  7. Well when I was 17 I started having these horrible nightmares every night. During the nightmares I would wake up but somehow still be asleep. My eyes wouldn't open, my body wouldn't move! I was completely immobile. The dream would still be going on but I would be aware of everything around me. I stayed up late on night trying not to go to sleep because I really didn't want it happening again, but of course it ended up happening again. I was being chased by some evil women just like all of the nightmares and suddenly this man, oh what a man he was lol, showed up and somehow he saved me. I remember bumping into him as I ran then seeing a lot of red and hearing screaming, it was terrifying. Suddenly I was alone with him and we were standing in front of my house. He was HUUGE really tall and all muscle, he smiled at me and told me I was safe and reached out and pulled my hand to his chest. I suddenly woke up and my hand was in the middle of the air and I SWEAR I could feel the heat from his body on my palm.

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  8. Hubba hubba, Natalie. That dream had a happy ending!

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  9. And I have never had a dream like that again, THANK GOD. But what I wouldn't give to have that man back in my dreams, lool

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  10. of course those dreams ain't funny, but i would want one again, just to see what the tall handsome stranger would do *winks*

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  11. This is a true story that happened to me.

    About 3 or 4 years ago I decided to watch the movie The Ring. I was single, my son called the movie 'Butt' and had no desire to watch it with me. My daughter lost interest in it after the first five minutes so I was left alone in the basement to watch it alone.

    The imagery of the movie really screwed with my head. As I lay in my bed (in the basement) I kept imagining things creeping out of the corners. I figured my daughter was going to be afraid and come down in the middle of the night and climb into bed with me (and was sorta hoping for it!). Sure enough at about 4am I heard walking around upstairs. I kept waiting and waiting for her to come downstairs but she didn't.

    Finally I go upstairs to see why she's still roaming around in the middle of the night. First thing I notice is that the lights are on...what I did not notice is that the front door was open, glass and blood was on the pane where someone had smashed their fist through in order to unlock the door. What I didn't notice is that both of my kids were still in bed and there was a stranger in my son's room...talking to him. By the time that I realized that I had come upstairs with no baseball bat, wearing just panties and a t-shirt, it was too late.

    It was that feeling like JG was describing; a feeling like nothing else--a fear that taste like copper and blood, a feeling that lets you know that you are helpless because there is just you and your two kids and a stranger in your house standing right there in your child's room.

    ...to be continued...

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  12. This isn't a ghost story but it scared me. A few years ago I went camping with my best friend and some other folks. It was a really nice campsite in the Mountains. by a lake. When nightfall hit everyone decided they wanted to play hide and seek. I'm not one for running around in the woods at night(seen 1 too many slasher movies for that), but since I didn't want to be by myself at the tent I went along. We were having a great time playing everyone was found except for 1 person. So we all started searching for him together. There were other people camping at the campsite so we had to try and be quiet so we wouldn't disturb them too much. We started walking through the trees in the middle of the site and out of nowhere this dog started growling. I was next to my bestie and we both dropped down to the grass. My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest I was so scared. My friend reached out and grabbed my hand as we heard the growling dog start to get closer to where we were laying down. Then we see a flashlight going over the grass where we were laying. A few mins later the owner of the dog calls him and they both go back in the tent. I was so scared, my legs were wobbly and my hands were shaking. Then we burst out laughing and started back to our spot. When we finally got back to the tent the missing person was sitting there waiting for us. Needless to say I slept in the car that night and never went camping again.

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  13. what do you mean to be continued? lol. I need it to be continued now.

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  14. So, as many people have already said...I too am from the South. Arkansas to be exact. For that reason unexplainable things are the norm. My family has always had things going on. Not really scary, but interesting.

    1.When my uncle remembers his dreams something happens in them that is always bad. The house that my mom, sisters, and I live in has been in my family for years. It's really old and has gas heaters. One day out of the blue my uncle calls crying and screaming in the phone. He tells my mom to check the heaters because he had a bad dream about the house blowing up and killing all of us. My mom is the most calm about EVERYTHING. So she tells me to make a bowl of soapy water to check the connections of the heaters. If the water bubbles that means that gas is escaping. So I check, and every single one of them bubbles. We have seven gas heaters in my home. I don't think I've seen my mom that shaken up.

    2. My youngest sister Makayla is VERY sensitive. She used to scare the hell out of me when we were younger. She could tell you who was going to call you about what before the phone rang. Who was going to visit the house, stuff like that. I used to hate letting my sisters, sleep in the bed with me. So one night she comes in my room. I think I'm about 13 or 14. 'Please let me sleep with you Kolby. I'm scared.' Normally, I would say get the hell out of my room, but that night something in her voice wasn't right, and I felt the strongest urge to let her sleep in the bed with me. My mouth just couldn't form no if I tried. So she crawls in to bed with me. I ask her what's wrong now. She's 6 or 7 at the time. I swear to you...in a voice that sounded...I don't know...older than time or something like that..'They want to get me and you.' That is her answer. Now, I wasn't scared of what she said but how she sounded. After that night with my sister I have always been don't know more aware than normal call it paranoid.

    Last point cause I've probably taken up to much time with this already, but I like telling my experiences. So my sister and I Makayla are in the backyard reading on blankets. It's really quiet with insects and birds chirping and a very nice slight breeze. The breeze stops and it gets deathly quiet. Now if y'all are from this south it's strange that something like this happens outside..means there's a predator or something around. My sister sits up looks around..stares at something in the distance for a long time. She turns to me with her eyes closed head tilted the side like she's listening to something. She's says..."You need to tell mom about your scratches." I've never mentioned the scratches I get on my right wrist. I reply "What did you say?" She says, "You heard me." I told my mom a few days later...that for a long time I would get three long bloody scratches on my wrist. I don't know where they came from and they would burn sometimes. She told my that my great-grandma has the same thing. My great-grandma found out about my scratches, and told me that I will live a life that others won't believe because I'm open enough for the unseen but not sensitive enough to notice signs. She told my mom that when I sleep to open a bible up. I have slept with an open bible in my room since I was 15 and never got the scratches anymore. If I happen to sleep over a friends house, or a hotel, somewhere that isn't my room with an open bible...the scratches come back with a vengeance.

    Okay I'll stop now cause this is long as hell. I really wanted to tell my demon story, but another time.

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  15. Kim, I can't believe you did that. To be continued? Are you kidding? Get to writing, posthaste.

    And you're right about the taste of real fear.

    JG

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  16. I don't really scare to easily so I don't have many stories of me actually being afraid. I'm from this small butt crack town in Florida and I've been camping and have gators come up to me tent at night and almost stepped on snakes and bugs are an everyday thing.

    One Halloween we met some new people in the neighborhood and did a pre trick or treating because Halloween was on a Sunday. We had one new person with us and we told him to meet us at 7 the next night so we could go again.

    The next night 7 came and went so we all left. While we were going walking around he went to the house and asked for us and my mom said, "How did you know them?" He said, "I met them last night." My mom started to say that was impossible because we'd died about 10 years ago on the night before Halloween.

    He was so freaked out thinking that he'd seen ghosts and was walking and talking with us. He then saw us coming down the street and he said, "Don't you see them right there?" My mom looked right passed us and said, "See what?

    When mom told us what happened we all laughed so hard. He was so scared and thought we were really ghosts.

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  17. Mo....that shit is too funny!!!

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  18. @ kolby- I'm about to come to your house and perform an exorcism. The power of Christ compels you! :P

    @ kim- girl, imma hurt you if you dont finish that story. :(

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  19. These stories are great! Some funny some spooky, and I've been reading them while at work and putting my customers on hold while I finish the important business of reading. I'm going to get myself in trouble! Let me finish that story I started:

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  20. ~CONTINUED STORY~

    As I'm heading towards the kid's bedrooms I can hear the exchange between this stranger in my house and my son. She is saying;

    "How did I get here?"

    My son is responding very casually. "You walked in the door."

    "Where am I?"

    "My room."

    "I know that! But who are you?"

    "Kim's son."

    Then she hears me approach and turns to me with a look of fear and confusion on her face. She's a young black woman that I've never seen before, standing in my son's bedroom holding a conversation with him. He's still in his bunkbed. I immediately look at him to see if he's ok, and he's about 11 at the time and is just looking at me like, 'it's 5 am can I go back to sleep? Can you please deal with this...and btw, it took you long enough to get up here!'

    "How did you get in my house?" I ask calmly as I stand there in nothing but panties in a t-shirt...

    "I don't know. That's what I'm trying to figure out, Ma'ame. I was somewhere else and I just appeared here." She was a very polite criminal.

    I take her out to the livingroom, and wrap myself up in a flannel blanket. She doesn't appear dangerous so I try to get to the bottom of this mystery.

    It becomes scary for me when I notice that she is not wearing shoes and has pristine white socks. Shit, it's 5am and I admit that I wasn't thinking all that sensibly, but I begin to wonder if she just mysteriously appeared in the house myself...

    Then my daughter comes out of her bedroom. She is about 8 or 9 and she stands at the entrance silently glaring at the woman. I was just about to tell her to go back to bed when she begins collecting her prized video game collection, never letting her eyes move from this stranger.

    Before she leaves the room my daughter looks at me and then looks at the door, 'like hey, stupid, did you look at the door and see the broken glass?' And then she angrily returns to her room. I find this hysterically funny; a stranger breaks into the house, no one calls for Mom to come up and investigate...but you come out and rescue your video games. Yeah...

    Oh yeah, the scary part...her shoes are sitting neatly in the corner like she thought she was at home and she becomes very tired. She reminds me of that criminal Goldilocks that breaks into the bear's house and then has the audacity to go to sleep. But that didn't scare me. What scared me is when she said,

    "I was with two kids. I don't know where they are."

    If this had been a movie, the music would have gotten loud at that moment. You see, it's winter, snow outside...

    "Lady! Where are your kids. Stay with me here, are they outside? Are they in a car? Did you leave them at home?!"

    "I don't know." She says fearfully.

    I run outside to the porch searching for half frozen babies. And I see her tracks in the fresh snow, and only her tracks. I look up and down the street for a car with no snow on it...don't see one.

    After a while I managed to get a phone number from her, otherwise I told her I'd have to call the police. I wasn't sending her outside in that condition alone. So I call this guy--turns out he just lives 3 houses down from mine (in a house that looks just like mine incidentally) and he says he's not coming to get her because she is just messed up on drugs and is always doing stuff like this. I end up walking her down to his house.

    When I went to work and told this story, everyone was unanimous that they would have either a) called the cops, b)beat her with a baseball bat. But the situation just didn't warrant that. I looked through the eyes of my kids for my response. They were ok, so I was able to remain ok. Now had they been screaming and terrified, then my reaction would have been different. And yes, I own up to the fact that I'm a bleeding heart pacifist.

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  21. I think your story has to be the scariest one here. I'm pretty sure of it. I'm not sure what I would have done if I had found her w/ my kids. You are very brave. I commend you for being calm and keeping the situation under control.

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  22. I have been thinking about this and I think the scariest story I have for you guys was when one of my favorite story tellers went on her blog and said she had writers block. I had nightmares for days! I still have them.
    My life w/o her stories has become a barren wasteland of misery! Come back sweet muse to our story teller, that we may again be entertained at your whim.
    lol Hows the writer's block Pep?

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  23. Lol!
    Alas...the writers block has not cleared up. But then how can it when there's a mouse in the basement not to mention the other stressors in my life? I'm writing but it takes 3x as long to get quality work out. Even with my musical muse.

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  24. When i was a kid,i would have the same dreams for years.as i grew older.they lessened.in my dream i was a guy,i even knew i had black hair.i was freezing.there was snow everywhere.my green coat i had on was itchy to my skin.beside me was a chain fence,beyond that a building with all the windows blown out.i knew that someone was in there watching me,and i also knew it was war time.i went to see someone about these dreams that i used to have.she said in my past life i was a german solider.daft things like rubbing his hands a certain way when he was cold,i do the excact same thing as him.she said i wasn't supposed to remember his memories,in this life.he got killed.by that fence.a shot to the head by a sniper.when i was born.i have small hole near my ear.its never closed up.that was where he got shot.fancy a german man getting reborn in a black woman's body.lol. Another story.i had just moved in to a house with my then boyfriend.in the middle of the night,i woke up from a dead sleep.i was sleeping in the fetal position.someone was tucking me in !!! I could hear my boyfriend in the next room,so it wasn't him.but i sensed that the person who was tucking my back and slowly moving to my feet,was a harmless old woman who used to live in the house.i could sense she meant no harm.didn't stop me from shitting me self.am not keen on ghosts.lol.when she was coming to the front of my legs.i quickly jumped up and ran for the door.that was the last time i felt or sensed her.erin.x

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  25. Thank God it was a confused young woman who broke into your house. I was thinking it was probably a male. Glad to hear no real harm was done, Kim.

    JG

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  26. As a child, I was alway frightened by this re-occurring dream that featured my father. It started up a year or so after he was killed in a car accident and I was around 10 years old. In the dream, I would be outside playing by myself and would look up and see my father walking down the road towards our house. He is always in his military uniform(he was buried in it). And when he gets close to our house I always run inside to my bedroom. In my dream, I am very frightened to see him which is weird because he was my favorite person in the world when he was alive. In the dream, nobody else is at home so I lock my door and stand in the center of the room. My father never tries to force his way into the house he just walks to one of the windows in my room and starts talking to me. He looks so sad and worried and he always asked about the same person. My older sister Terry. He wants to know how she is doing and if I had seen her. For some reason I won't answer his questions and just stare at him. He starts looking agitated and keeps stressing that I need to watch out for her and make sure she is ok. After he is done he turns away and is gone. I was spooked out by this dream for years and always wondered why he was never worried about our oldest sister or me(the baby). But now as I see how our lives have turned out, Terry was really the sister to be worried about and the one we have to search for every few months.

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  27. For the longest I was scared to go to the bathroom at night. Then for a while I would leave the door cracked.

    My great-grandmother lived in an area called Black Bottom in Detroit. Her house was pretty old when I was in middle school. It had to be built sometime in the early 1900s. Her house was located next door to an abandon auto repair shop. It turned into a garbage dump over the years; it contained old cars and just miscellaneous BS. Anyway one winter she had a very bad rat infestation from the repair shop. Her solutions to the rat influx were traps and borrowing my uncles cat Xadore a cat.

    One weekend all the great-grandkids were staying over. I had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. I am sitting on the toilet and when I noticed Xadore going behind the tub. I said Xadore what are you doing (I have a very bad habit of talking to pets)? Of course he didn’t answer but the big ass rat that decided to climb the wall was all the answer I needed. I started screaming and no one could open the door to help me. Finally the guy (Bo) that rented the flat upstairs came down and kicked in the door. The entire time the rat stayed hooked on the wall. That night I learned rats can climb any kind of wall except steel. I also learned to leave the door cracked or hold it until morning.

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  28. Bwahahah...I would have sheeted myself if I saw that climbing the wall of the room where I was stuck....and yes my house does need an exorcism..I should tell my demon with zoot(sp?)suit story, but I'm plumb tired after my plan ride.. Ho-Z if you aren't busy or have a story...I would love to hear...

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  29. The idea of a giant rat on the wall would have traumatized me! Kolby, you probably won't see Ho-Z cuz he is seriously stressed with school and the many projects that he's working on. And that story where the Mom played that evil practical joke on that kid was seriously EVIL and I loved it! Now that's my kind of Mom!

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  30. Wow what am I scared of: Don't laugh, but they are the lil orange thingys hanging of the end of the bums tray that get bigger and bigger in The Wiz. Everytime I would see The Wiz I'd have to fast forward it. Not until recently did i get over my fear of them.

    Then there are times whem im sleep, like rem sleep and i need to get up for some reason, and i can't. One time when i felt the urge, i sleep on my stomach, to get up i opened my eyes and tried to get up on all fours but there was something just pushing me down. A extreme weight just keeps me down. So i close my eyes and roll over to my back and i try this way, to like roll up but can't. I dont see or hear anything but there is something there.

    In 85 my mom passed away, all of a sudden. She had a brain aneurysm.She complained of a headache that morning and died that night. Well my sister who was closer to my mom, because she is older, was standing in the living room after everyone left the house that night and she says she seen our mother. I dont believe her, hell im only 9, but my aunt (moms sis) says that she seen her too. One night before the funeral my sister is in the living room again, and the lamp we have gets real bright then blows out. She says that she just saw her again. In the mirror of our living room. Freaakkkyy.
    Another freaky thing is when my mom passed I didnt goto the funeral. I stayed home with my moms cousin who is a JW and she wasnt going to the church. So i never saw what they buried her in. I dream about her often and what she wore, so one day while my aunt(moms sis) was visiting and I tell her what my mother had on. She looks at me like she seen a ghost. I describe to her that she is in a cream dress flowy like and she looks at me like 'how did you know'. She says that is exactly what they buried her in.

    Ohh last thing. My mom and sister look exactly alike. So when my sister went to prom she picked out her prom dress and its a white dress kinda like Tinkerbellish with rinestones and sequence very 90's. Well any way when we were cleaning up and going through pictures we come across pictures of my mom when she went to prom. They had on the same dress and they same hairstyle. Me and my sister just looked at it and looked at her prom picture and then that tingle that goes up our spine. I know freaky right.

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  31. I bought my grandparent's old house. I've always been 'sensitive' to the otherwordly--which is not abnormal since most in my family are too. This will always be 'Grandma's house' with fond memories and warm comfort. After my grandfather's death I bought it. I was my grandfather's favorite. He was a very very bad person though. But all I know is that he called me Suga Suga and let me wake him up by biting his cheeks.

    After moving in (I moved to the basement and let the kids have the 2 upstairs bedrooms), the feeling of well being remained. People would comment that even the basement felt warm and cozy. Everyone feels good coming into this house.

    But a few months after moving in I began to feel as if someone was in the basement with me. It would wake me up. It didn't scare me, but when I get that feeling, there is something there. Period. I just can't see it.

    Shortly after, the kids began to complain about not being able to sleep. My son said that he couldn't sleep because someone kept coming into his room every night waking him up. I asked who and he said that no one was ever there. I immediately asked my daughter and she said that someone was always in the hall talking and she had a hard time sleeping because of it.

    I talked to my sister who sent me some sage to burn and we did a 'smudging' of the house. I knew it was my Grandfather and the smudging didn't work. So I had to think on whether or not I'd done anything to disrupt the 'balance' of the house. (I'm not as new age as I sound--I just know what I know).

    My grandfather bought his house, paid it off in half the time, not an easy thing for a black man to do in the fifties. And I realized that I had done alot of complaining about the strange way that he'd rewired the house so that you couldn't turn off just one breaker but all of the power. Bars on the windows, strange concoctions in the workshop (I actually found a bucket of gunpowder! It scared me so bad.)

    I'd done more complaining and decided that I hadn't given him the respect due to his accomplishments. So one night I had a long talk with my grandfather. I apologized, and told him I loved him and was happy that I was living in his house.

    The well being instantly returned. I asked the kids several weeks later and they said they could sleep again.

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  32. continuation...

    My now ex-boyfriend moved into the house. He's a good person and a good friend, but can be an asshole. He complained about the house and then my grandfather; questioning his sanity. I reminded him that my grandfather had made many accomplishments. By my then boyfriend was just a negative person in general.

    This is an Appalachian countryboy--big freaking mountain boy that is fearless and tough, right? Lol, he bounces in a redneck bar! So why did my house scare and humble him? LOL!

    It started when he fell asleep on the couch. The cat climbed under the blanket and up his leg. Then he gave me a strange look and said, when he opened his eyes the cat was sitting on the floor and there was not anything under the cover.

    I just told him that he was dreaming and laughed it off. But he kept telling the same story over and over until he could no longer sleep on the couch. Then it started happening while he was in bed. He'd complain that Icarus had snuck down the stairs and was messing with him. But no. The cat was not there.

    Next he started waking me up in the middle of the night to ask me if I heard the noise. I'd listen for a noise, and ask him what he'd heard. It was knocking and it was coming from the wall next to the bed, which incidentally led outside.

    I listened for a while then went back to sleep. He woke me up again! This time he was anxious and I could see that he was scared. He could not believe that I couldn't hear it (he almost sounded accusatory)that it would stop when I woke up. Then he flat out asked me why strange things happened to only him.

    That's when I told him about the story previously mentioned. He listened for once. I told him that he was disrespecting my grandfather by his comments and thoughts.

    And then with all sincerity he stood up and apologized and acknowledged my grandfather's accomplishments and said that he had nothing but respect for him.

    He has never heard the knocking or been plagued by an invisible cat crawling under his covers.

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  33. An invisible cat!!!!!!!!! Hell to the no!

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  34. this is a true story...and Funny lol

    So my parents moved into their new house and my mom was pregant with me at the time and every time my dad went to work my mom would hear noises she would hear foot steps on the wooden floors and when she told my father my dad would just blow her off saying she just hearing things, so one night my mom was in her rocking chair reading and when she glance up she saw a spirit of a older woman and a lil boy and when my mom told my father what she saw he didnt believe her saying she was just seeing things until one night my dad was home from work and all of a sudden our Chandelier in living room started moving back and forth really fast and my dad saw this and my mom was like "see, i told you" and so my dad faced the living room watching the moving Chandelier and said "IF YOUR ASS AINT PAYING RENT THEN GET OUT" and then BAM! the Chandelier stop moving right after he said that. we found out who the spirit was it was a older woman that died our house before we moved in but we dont know abt the lil boy spirit my mom saw.....

    Nikki XD

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  35. omg! i am laughing so hard Nikki! I love your Dad!

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  36. there's a lot here that would make wonderful stories *hint hint*

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  37. My grandparents farmhouse was a relic from the olden days, from the cast iron stove to the scary old outhouse. All us kids knew to "go" before it got dark out otherwise it was a scary walk all the way to the other end of the backyard where the outhouse was located. Well one night I forgot didn't I? My 2 older brothers aka 'the Twin Scrotes' decided to mess with me by explaining why no one "goes" at night. Apparently we used to have an uncle but he mysteriously disappeared. Our grandparents searched everywhere on the farm before grand-dad found our uncle's shoe in the outhouse. Realizing what must have happened and knowing there was no way of our uncle ever being rescued because the hole from the outhouse went straight down to hell (hence the evil smell) grand-dad decided to name the outhouse in memory of our late uncle - John.

    (Keep in mind these are two 12yr old boys explaining this to their 9yr old baby sister)

    Now the reason why no one goes at night is because Uncle John's spirit haunts the outhouse ONLY at night and if you go, you can hear scratching because that's him trying to crawl out of the crapper.

    I never made it to the toilet that night...

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  38. That is funny! I love that story! I'm sure I'd tell a similar story if I was a 12 yr old 'Scrote'

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  39. Part 2
    Fast forward to Xmas last year at the farm. The Scrotes and I were reminiscing about our childhood when the subject of the old outhouse came up and of course, that night... (Yeah, I'll never live that one down, even though nana forgave me for 'watering' her gardenias)

    So Grand-dad's busy laughing his ass off at us until we get to the part about the weird scratching noises. With a twinkle in his eye he tells us that one night nana went down to the outhouse and came back screaming her head off. After calming her down, she told him that she was minding her own business (she ALWAYS says that!) when she heard a scratching noise. She looked up... and saw a pair of glowing eyes staring back at her. By now he's figured out what the culprit is but decides to humour nana by making a big show of grabbing his gun and doing some investigating. Apparently nana disturbed a possum who had been making himself comfortable in the rafters of the outhouse.

    Grand-dad, being a big ol' softy, decided to let the possum stay and jokingly named him Uncle John, telling his kids (my dad and his siblings) to stay clear of the outhouse at night because Uncle John was visiting.

    And so the legend of the outhouse was born.

    Lasharda

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