Thank you for posting this. Malachi Martin has always fascinated me, and "Hostage to the Devil" is one of my favorite books.

Probably a dupe, but meh...

Original Creepy Thread Archived

Its Halloween night!  Someone has to have a scary experience to share with us tonight.

I love this thread, and about the only thing I can think of that would make it more awesome as it approaches the 50-page mark would be for M1-Ed to come back with more of his excellent stories.

OK.  I've been reading this for a while so time to contribute.

Here's a collection of two sentences scary stories.  Some really good.


Two sentences scary stories.

Instead of bumping a thread by saying "Bump," lets say "Bump in the night."

The last man in the world sat alone, reading.

There was a knock at the door.

Not spooky or scary, but just weird.



So just bought a new house this summer...been here for a few months now.



One room in the house, my son's room, always has a weird smell. It started as a smell of lavender...now it's a thick smell of cigarette smoke.



When we moved in, we changed out all the carpet in the house...so kind of weird.



Only thing that really makes me wonder is the woman we bought it from had her son living with her....and he died not long before she put it up for sale. We can't figure out how he died...

OK, it's been a while since this was posted here, and the new guys may not have read it.

Ted's Caving Diary

I started reading it.....should I stop?

No, you should keep reading. It's best when read well into the night.

The later the better.

Bump in the night and Happy Halloween!

I probably posted this before, but this thread doesn't have one of my bookmarks in it, so here we go again



In my early 20's, I went through a wandering stage. I had just graduated from college and couldn't find a job anywhere. Rather than go a couple hundred dollars into the hole every month paying for rent while searching for a job, I decided to pack up what few belongings I owned and head out to see the country. This is something I can't recommend enough. Stay off the interstates, hop a train from time to time, and hitchhike with no particular destination in mind. It was this kind of aimless wandering that led me to the pine barrens of New Jersey.

If you've never experienced them, the Barrens are an amazing place. Huge stands of oak and evergreen trees, many older than time itself, grow out of that strange, sickly soil. Sugar sand, the locals call it. In the rainy season it forms quicksand, and in the dry season it can still swallow farm machinery whole. Of the few farms I saw out there, all looked like they had seen better times, and many looked like they had sat untouched for decades. Yet there was something alluring about the place, a sort of ancient secret I was afforded glimpses of in the shadows when the wind stirred the trees. The sort of movement at the edge of your vision that follows you throughout the day, but disappears as soon as you turn your head.

From time to time as I hiked down old dusty roads, an old pickup truck or rusted out car would bound over a hill toward me. Most times the driver would eye me suspiciously and speed up as they approached. Occasionally the driver would stop to talk to me for a few minutes.

``What'r ya doin out here?'' one old toothless man clad in overalls asked me.

``Wandering around, seein what there is to see'' I replied.

The old man spat a putrid brown stream into the dust. ``Tain't nothin to see round here. Least nothin you wanna be see'in.''

When I asked the old man what that meant, he made a gutteral, throaty sound. I wasn't sure if he was choking on his tobacco or bothered at the question, but he didn't answer. He offered me a ride in his pickup the way I had come, back into town, but when I declined he spat in the dirt again and sped off, shaking his head.

My eventual plan was to make it to Delaware some time that summer and meet up with some extended family there, but I was in no hurry. In truth I had been in heaven these last few weeks, taking my time heading south and exploring anything that caught my eye. I had explored every abandoned building and every cave I had seen. I had half my weight in powerbars in my pack, but over the last two months I had honed my skills at trapping rabbits and gathering wild edibles, sitting up late at night beside my camp fire, and sleeping beneath the stars. The night sky in an area so devoid of human influence is beyond compare. But tonight there were clouds moving in, and the sun was disappearing faster than I had grown accustomed to.

When the deep roar of thunder shook the valley, I knew I had better find shelter. In the failing sunlight I could see in the distance some structures at the top of a hill. I ran the half mile distance and was disappointed to see that the ancient house and barn were in terrible shape. The roof of the barn had completely collapsed, and the upper two floors of the three storey house had collapsed into a mangle of ancient wood. Still, the house was my best option, so I made my way toward it as the heavens began to open up. As I'd seen on other properties in the area, this house had a small cemetary in the yard. I ran toward the gaping front door of the dilapidated house, carefully making my way between the headstones. When lightning flashed, I was able to make out the name "Kallikak" on several of the headstones which the elements hadn't completely erased.

When I got inside, the floor was spongy but felt solid enough to hold my weight. I took off my pack and set it near the door, caught my breath, and had a look around. The hinges of the front door had long since rusted away, but I was able to fit the door back into the opening enough to hopefully keep the wind and rain out. At one end of the room, there was a stone fireplace and chimney which was solidly constructed, but I had no wood for a fire. Next to the fireplace was a stairwell, full of rubble and cobwebs. I didn't dare apply my weight to those steps as many had rotted to nothing under their own pitiful weight. Opposite the front door was an opening to an old kitchen of sorts, but when I tried to approach it my foot went clean through the floor and I decided to stay put until the storm blew itself out.

The remains of the upper floor did an adequate job of keeping the ground floor dry, and I Was able to arrange my sleeping bag so that very little water draining from the upper floors managed to land on it. I got out my harmonica and played for a few minutes, then stopped, apprehensive. I didn't know what I was afraid of, but something had chilled me to my core. Outside the storm continued to build in intensity. My eyes were focused on that stairwell; seeing nothing in darkness and flashblinded when lightening struck.

I must have fallen asleep at some point, because of a sudden I came to with a searing pain in my neck from leaning my ahead against the wall for so long. Outside the storm continued to pound down its fury upon the earth. As I sat there rubbing my neck, I began to chuckle at myself for getting wrapped up in the superstition of the area when I heard it.

At first I heard indiscriminate movement upstairs, in the ruins of the upper two floors. I was just about to write it off as rats when it suddently stopped. I froze in place, daring only to move my eyes, and even then just barely. After thirty seconds of paralytic fear, I smiled at myself again and was just about to settle into my sleeping bag when I looked toward the stairs. At the top of the doorway were a pair of glowing red orbs, staring at me. Very slowly they closed down to horizontal slits, then opened up again, wider than before. I can't tell you how long I sat there, staring at it, it staring at me. It could have been seconds or hours. Eventually my lower-level self-preservation skills began to kick in, and subconsciously I started reaching for the knife on my belt. Our eyes locked, my hand progressed inch by inch toward my only means of defending myself. Neither of us blinked for what felt like hours, while the storm raged on. I prayed for another lightning strike, so that I might catch even a glimpse of my advesary, but despite the ferocity of the rain, the darkness was absolute.

When at last my hand reassuringly touched the hilt of my knife, it seemed as if the very fabric of existence was ripped to shreds. The creature began bellowing in the most unearthly, mind-numbing shriek I have ever heard. Knowing I had only one chance, in one fluid motion I released the snap that held my knife in place and released an inside overhand throw I had practiced during years of mis-spent adolescence. I heard a sickening wet *thunk* and the shrieking increased in volume a hundredfold. As I smashed the rotten door to pieces I heard the creature flapping against the wall and screaming. Just as I wrenched the remains of the door open a great flash of lightning struck and all around the house I saw piles of bones, feathers, and fur.

I ran as I had never run before nor since. I ran until my veins pumped acid and my limbs were stone. I couldn't see where I was going, but I could follow the dirt road by the sounds of the sugar sand slurping roadside debris in the ditches. I didn't dare look over my shoulder. When the sun finally rose, I collapsed in the road, heaving, oblivious to the downpour.

I awoke with a start to the sound of a car horn blaring inches from my head. I leapt to my feet and spun around to see the old man from yesterday, holding his sides with laughter. When I opened my mouth to speak, he motioned with his thumb to the back of his truck. I climbed without a word and he began to drive.

The events of the previous night began to replay themselves in my head. What in the hell had happened? No matter how many times I considered what I saw, none of it made any sense. As we drove, I realized how far I had run in the dark. It must have been nearly 10 miles. I was angry with myself for being so terrified by a dream. That's the only thing it could have been! Approached from this angle, everything fit into place. I'd experienced a 'false awakeneing' as I had so many times in the past when experimenting with dream herbs. I'd had a nightmare and woken up with the adrenaline pumping and abandoned all of my gear in an old house.

I suddenly realized that the truck had sat motionless for quite some time and the old man was turned around in his seat staring at me. I looked up at him and he grinned. With sickening horror I realized that we were at the bottom of the hill on which that wretched house sat. I jumped out of the pickup and thanked the old man, who drove off. I slowly walked up the muddy path that led to the house, composing myself.

When I reached the yard, I saw the old piles of bones which had shocked me the previous night during the storm. Of course there were coyotes and foxes in the area, and I had hunted a couple of wild turkeys. The critters probably had their dens around here and had been using the house as a wind break.

Inside the house, everything appeared as I had left it. My sleeping bag, my pack, and my harmonica sitting on the floor, and I could see my knife sticking out of the wall across the room. I packed everything up and put on my back pack, then walked over to the stairs and pulled my knife out of the wall. I was about to return it to the sheath on my belt when I looked at the blade and noticed the dried-on blood and the clump of oily black hair stuck in it.

Terrible writing.

Like a train wreck, I cannot stop reading!

Thank you for your valuable input.

It really is. You didn't write that, did you?

Cannot read past page 9. Won't load to page 10, so foul stench and a panic ascent out of the cave and I'm left hanging.

Not talking about Ted's diary here, but Phurba's hippy trip across America.

I know.

I did. Once again, let me thank you for your review. There's no greater feedback than two words - that's the essence of critical peer review. I'll surely incorporate the valuable lessons learned into my next short story.

I enjoyed it. What happened after you pulled the knife out?

That wasn't a review.
Just a short comment.  Do you really want a real literary review?

 

Tell me what you mean.  That s really bad writing.
I'll not apologize for that.

What are you autistic? Stop being an ass.




 
 

This is one  that always stuck with me from the archived thread from "jakjakman."


Okay, here's my story. I guess It's been long enough that I can type it out without freaking out.

This happened a while ago in the fall, so about a two years ago. I love hiking in the fall, it reminds me a lot of hunting with my dad. The tree colors, the cool air, the smells... It's all so much better than any other time of the year. Anyway, I always go hiking alone. I like the time to think, I like to explore whatever catches my eye, and I like to work to my own pace without having to cater to anyone else's timeline or stamina. I always take a pack with plenty of water, a little survival kit, flashlight, tp––the normal outdoor stuff. I also carry a large fixed blade knife on the shoulder strap and a Smith and & Wesson M&P9 on my hip. Yes, it gets me strange looks on the trails sometimes, but those hippies can kiss my ass if they think I'm going to wander around in the mountains unarmed.

So it's around the beginning of October and I'm in Salt Lake City. I have a Friday off from work and I decide to re-do a hike I'd done previously in the spring: Bells Canyon near Sandy, Utah. The trail starts down near the entrance to Little Cottonwood canyon but the trail works up a steep, narrow draw nearly to the top of the mountain peek without ever going over into Little Cottonwood itself. Bells canyon is built like a giant chute cut out of brilliant white granite. There's a reservoir near the bottom where most weekend warriors will climb the half mile to have a picnic and then go home. There's also a reservoir at the top, which is the final goal for the serious hiker. Behind the lower reservoir the canyon begins to climb rather sharply with gorgeous, huge granite formations rising to either side. Along the trail up there are a couple waterfalls which bring the more tenacious crowds, but past that you rarely see anybody on the trail, even on the busy weekends. About three and a half miles (and 3000ft) up the canyon it levels out into a bowl with a beautiful little meadow and some aspen groves. This is as far as I'd made it the first time that spring before turning back because I was pooped and out of time. The trail continues up the south side of the bowl for an incredibly steep two-mile, 1500ft gain until you reach the upper reservoir.

I hit the trailhead around around 9:30am and began the hike up. The colors were quite breath-taking. The scrub oak was showing various shades of red and orange and the aspen trees were a brilliant shade of yellow. It was a clear day and the sun lit up the leaves all around the canyon. I met a few people on their way down, but never saw anyone ahead or behind me on their way up. I finally reached the bowl area around noon. By that time I was snagging the fine spider-web lines across the trail so I knew where was nobody ahead of me on the trail. I was alone on the mountain and it felt awesome.

After wandering around the bowl area and taking some photos, I started on the switchback trail which lead up the bowl's southern side. The switchback eventually led out onto a ridge of smooth granite which fell away to the right into a deeper crease in the draw I was following up. On the opposite side there were areas of rockslide with chunks of the granite ranging from couch size down to basketball. There were sparse areas of aspen and pine throughout the whole area, with intermittent patches of scrub oak. Following the granite ridge up was a stone cold bitch of a hike, the thing kept going up and up. It was like god's own stairmaster. Luckily the scenery helped out and it was quite pleasant to sit on a rock and gaze back down the curving canyon.

Eventually the trail peaked over the lip of the bowl and I reached the reservoir. It's quite neat, there's a dam built out of hand-carved chunks of granite on the one end, with the body of water filling the area behind it. Being fall time the reservoir was quite low and there was hardly any water. Unfortunately during the spring when the reservoir would be full the whole area is covered in snow and would make an awkward hike. By the spillway there was an area of old mortar with names and dates which were carved when the dam was built. The names were dated at Sept 1938. So those poor shmucks hiked up the mountain about 70 years ago with all their tools and when they got there they cut, carved, hauled, and placed enough large blocks of stone to build the dam. Wow, my hat's off to them. I explored around a bit more and found another tiny pond off to the side which was still full. It was green with algae, but pretty cool nonetheless. By that time it was getting midway through the afternoon and I only had about four hours of light left in the day, so I decided it was time to go. My legs were pretty tired so I knew it was going to suck on the way down, but at least I wasn't going up anymore.

I found a different trail than the one I came up on leading back down from the dam. Although I was eager to get back down I decided to follow it to see if it was better than the one I came up on. As it moved over the lip of the bowl down into steeper area I could see that this one lead across the bottom of the gorge down along several areas of huge granite boulders piled up at the base of the ridges. Not quite as easy, but still pretty neat. I was working across a flow of particularly large boulders when I stopped for a drink and a snack. The boulders where huge, about the size of a kitchen or dumptruck. I had to be careful working my way across them, some parts required a scramble or small jump, with most of it requiring hands and feet. The chucks of rock were large and oddly shaped enough that they left deep black crevices and spaces underneath them. The last thing I wanted to do was slip because anyway you fell would mean something would get broken.

The boulder I was on was pretty big and jutted out above the others. I took my pack off and sat down, taking a pull from a water bottle and started in on some sort of energy bar. The mountain ridge to the south was pretty high and steep so it block the afternoon sun where I was sitting. There was still plenty of light but the shadows were growing long and the crevasses all around me under the boulders were now pretty much black. As I'm munching away I hear some sort of rustling sound down from what seems like the boulder below the one I'm sitting on. It's quiet for a few more minutes and then I hear it again. I'm almost done with the energy bar, and I'm thinking 'squirrel,' so I toss the last piece of of the energy bar down onto the boulder below mine. I watch it for a minute while I take a drink of water, but the sound doesn't come back and the bit of energy bar just sits there. Oh well. I shove everything back into the pack and zip it up. I'm just about to swing it around on my back when I glance down and my heart almost stops. A pale white arm, a human arm, thin and grimy reaches up out of the crevice and snatches the chunk of energy bar and disappears back into the blackness.

I think I shouted something like "WHAT THE F*CK!!!" or "F*CK ME!!!" at the top of my lungs, and my M&P9 suddenly appeared in my hands. I threw the pack on and adrenaline is like spewing out of my eyeballs. I do remember hearing a weird 'chuffing' or breathing sound a coming up underneath me couple times as I did a mad scramble to get off those damn rocks. In my mind's eye I kept seeing a bony white hand reaching up and snagging my arm or leg or something. I knew if I slipped or missed a jump I'd fall into one of those cracks and then that thing whatever it was would have me. When I hit the trail on the other side of the boulder flow I looked back once. For the space of two heartbeats I saw nothing. And then what had looked like a smaller boulder in the middle of the rock flow moved and dropped out of sight behind a larger rock. After that, I was gone. Despite being tired before I practically flew down the canyon. It's probably good I didn't meet anyone on the way down because my gun was in my hand the whole time and I was very, very jumpy.

Haven't been up that trail since, and there's no way in hell I'll ever go back up there. I have no idea what that thing was. To this day I can't walk across boulder patches like that when I'm hiking or hunting. I keep seeing that white hand reaching up out of the blackness...

Could'a been a chick.

Just sayin'.

Nah. Woulda gone for his wallet then instead.

It is a fascinating novel. There are quite a few good Malachi Martin interviews.

Speaking of that,

I enjoyed the story. And I had no problem with the writing of it.



Everybody's a critic.

I have to agree with this. PLEASE don't get this thread locked with retarded comments.

It really is. His worth with historical fiction, most notably "David" really changed the way I thought of some Biblical characters. I'll give that interview a listen as well.

I dont see anything wrong with what phurba wrote.

Nothing I said was a CoC violation.
The others calling me names could be, but I don't take offense (note-Mods).

And yes, I have had two psychiatrists label me as high-function autistic (ASP), and no, I don't know why people are so upset at my comments.

Due to popular demand, I won't explicate.

You don't?

It's because you are shitting in an otherwise awesome thread.

That's why.

Is this a true story?

Nope, just a really good story.  http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ted-the-caver

It's going to be a movie!

http://newfilmsint.com/default.aspx

Party pooper!

Please, let's get back to the creepy.

I have something to add later this evening as I have had something happen recently that I just can't explain.

I see. For future reference, this thread is neither the time nor the place for comments on a particular writing style or pointing out if you feel it meets your expectations. People are taking the time to share personal stories, so let's afford them basic common courtesy.

Looking forward to it.

Another one for you guys. I haven't listened to it yet, so if it sucks, let me know.






I think I'm the only one in this thread that hasn't witnessed anything remotely paranormal. I'd like to stop being a skeptic.

Thanks for another interview. I don't think my experiences were anything "special"...they just creeped the hell out of me and reinforced my belief in the spiritual world.

hope they do a good job of it,I've read the story several times over the years and always enjoy it



 

Grister?