the-tales-of-horror

[the-tales-of-horror]

I had a really difficult experience with a disturbing student. I don't know how to deal with this.

Original Link By senbei-bob

I had a really difficult experience last Friday that I need to get off my chest.

I work as a Portuguese teacher in the basement of an ordinary office building. Most of my students are Japanese business people in their 40s and 50s, who are relocating to Brazil because their company forces them.

Being on the absolute rock-bottom of the corporate ladder, I have no say in who I teach, but up until last Friday I had exclusively taught adults. Of course, being forced to learn Portuguese and shipped off to Brazil against ones volition will inevitably make anybody unhappy. The environment in which I work is also terrible. There are no windows and no air conditioning. The whole place is covered with a purple carpet with stains all over it. The classrooms come equipped with a whiteboard, a wobbly desk and two chairs. Nothing else. No ABC posters, no pictures - NOTHING. It often reminds me of an interrogation room. A bell rings at the start and end of every lesson for reasons I have yet to understand.

Last Friday was no different from any other day. I had my business students and went through the excruciatingly dull and soul-sucking steps of going through the mandatory textbook which is forced on us from the upper-management.

My supervisor- let's call her Linda- was in a terrible mood as always. She yelled at me in front of everyone for not wearing my hair in a proper ponytail. She rolled her eyes at me for standing in her way in front of the microwave during lunch. She made rude comments about my skin (I had acne in the past and still have some light scarring). In other words, she was being her usual, insufferable self.

Most of the time, I just try to ignore Linda since I'm a nobody in this giant corporation and nobody listens to me anyway. Being my supervisor, Linda also has access to my schedule and can alter my lessons and who I teach whenever she wants. For example, we had a very handsome business man once and he was originally scheduled to have a lesson with me but when Linda heard about it she promptly moved his lesson to her own schedule. She spent the entire lesson laughing and flipping her hair and her falsetto squeals could be heard all the way down the dreary, windowless, fluorescent lighted hallway.

Last Friday was a national holiday in Japan, so all the other teachers left early (including Linda who also gave herself the next three days off but denied everyone else the same privilege). As I watched my coworkers excitedly bolt through the door, I asked if I could leave early too but Linda just scoffed loudly and said: "Oh my GOD. Who do you think you are? Are you SERIOUS!? If you think you can pick and choose your days off you're clearly in the wrong business. Bye!". And then she left with a loud door slam.

I was all alone. In a way, it was nice. It was nice to not be bullied and put down by Linda for once. I looked at my schedule. Only one student left. "That should be easy", I thought. His name, Taro, sounded familiar but I hadn't taught him before. He worked for a pharmaceutical company. Nothing unusual.

The bell rang its usual depressing chime and I steered towards room number 1. But the light was off. I figured he might be late and on his way so I fumbled in the dark to turn on the light.

What met me in the light was not an empty classroom but a little boy sitting on one of the chairs. He was about 5 years old and wore red t-shirt and blue shorts. He still had his "Thomas the Train" schoolbag on his back. I felt the anger build up when I realized that Linda had given me a kids lesson without notifying me first. It was clearly on purpose. Despite being a relatively new teacher, my annual performance had been impeccable and she wanted to sink my ship by giving me a lesson that I had no experience teaching. She wanted me to fail.

So there I was, a business Portuguese teacher with no experience with kids whatsoever.

"Hi there. What's your name?" I asked.

No answer. The boy just stared angrily at me with dark bags under his eyes.

"Are you Taro?" I tried again and gently sat down across from him.

Still no answer. I desperately looked around for some toys or puppets but of course, Linda hadn't prepared anything for me. And Taro wouldn't take his eyes off me. Wherever I went in the little classroom, searching in vain for anything that could entertain him, his angry eyes followed me. And It was then that I realized another strange behavior. He was jutting his jaw back and forth like an old man.

"Do you have your textbooks? We need to look at your homework." was also met by silence.

I decided to reach for the backpack on his back and take out his textbooks myself. I don't know how to deal with kids so that was the only solution I could think of at the time. I don't know this kid’s parents, so I don't want to get a customer complaint just because the kid refused to participate.

This idea turned out to be bad. No, disastrous. Taro, upon seeing my hand moving towards his backpack opened his mouth aghast and let out... well nothing. I thought he was about to scream but he just sat there with his mouth wide open. It dawned on me that he had no teeth despite being 5 years old. I wondered how he chewed his food. Did someone spoon feed him? I pulled my hand away from the bag and watched him go back to his "normal" jaw jutting, angry self.

It was becoming clear that Taro did not like me at all. He pulled the straps of his backpack to his chest and hid under the desk. Any time I tried to go near him he hissed at me and created a clicking nose from the back of his throat.

His parents were nowhere in sight so I decided to just sit by the desk until the lesson ended. That was company policy after all. I heard the backpack unzip under the table. "Great, maybe he is ready to make some drawings or something. My distance clearly paid off". But I was wrong.

I discreetly looked under the table to see what he was up to. It was hard to get a clear picture in the shadow but I could distinguish that he was holding something. It still hard to talk about this because it disgusted me SO MUCH.

It turned out to be a dead frog. It has been rainy in Tokyo lately and there are lots of frogs in the Shinjuku-Gyoen park nearby. I thought to myself that he might have caught it and killed it by accident. He is just a kid after all. But the way he held it was not normal. He dug his nails into its limp, lifeless body and shook it violently.

By now, the clicking throat sounds and weird jaw movements had increased and were freaking me out a lot. We still had 20 minutes to go so I just continued to sit there pretending not to exist. I watched as Taro took color pencils out of his backpack, sharpened them and dug them into the frogs flesh. He seemed amused by this and proceeded to stab the frog with every single color pencil except for the black one. Every stab was followed by the clicking throat sound. He seemed as if in a trance.

The bell finally rang, signaling the end of the lesson after what felt like an eternity.

But of course, Taro refused to leave the classroom. I had to lock up the school and leave but he completely REFUSED to move from under the desk. His parents were not there to pick him up, I didn't have their contact information and there was no other staff member on duty.

I can't believe I did this but after 2 hours of trying to get him to leave, I just locked up and left, leaving him and the frog under the table. I thought I'd definitely get fired and maybe even reported to the police but when I came back the next day Taro was gone and everything seemed normal.

I tried to get the whole incident out of my mind but when Linda came back three days later (with a new tan) she promptly wanted to speak to me in her office. I froze to ice. This was it, I was getting fired or going to jail for leaving a kid unsupervised in an office building in the middle of the city.

She looked annoyed and gestured towards a chair for me to sit down. "I forgot to tell you last Friday, Taro cancelled his lesson" she said. "He had a last minute pharmaceutical conference in São Paulo. Here's a Starbucks gift-card for your trouble".

#I had a really difficult experience with a disturbing student. I don't know how to deal with this. #Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep

[the-tales-of-horror]

Sex, Drugs, and Immortality

Original Link By Magicalmbeth

I suppose my story starts in a bar. Very original, I know, but here we are. My friends and I are what I like to call Drinkers. By the way, I hate the word vampire. It makes people think of Nosferatu and Twilight and Anne Rice and it isn't really like that at all. We're not ugly, we're don't sparkle, we're not gays - well some of us are, but not me, and we can't shape shift into fucking bats. We party and we can't get hangovers because we can't have straight liquor. I mean, I've been in the party scene since the twenties. We're just normal people who happen to require additional sustenance.

Anyway, my friends and I have this little pub we frequent because buying people drinks beforehand really helps with the "extraction" process. It's sort of like getting a girl liquored up before trying to get in her pants. Everybody is calm and relaxed. They don't frighten as easily which is great because scared blood tastes like battery acid. Also you can just leave them in an alley and as long as they're still breathing no one bats an eye. Besides, there's this nice little after effect of drunk girl and that is drunk me.

After decades of not being intoxicated, finding that little tidbit out was a fucking delight. It's like a best friend coming back from the dead Lazarus style. God, it was good. Naturally, I told my friends and we started hunting together at seedy little bars.

Which is what brings us to last night.

“Let me buy you another drink.” I grinned a toothy smile, shouldering up to the pretty blonde at the bar. “And something stronger than that.” I motioned to the bartender with two fingers outstretched and a nod.

“I didn’t say yes,” she mumbled coyly, darting her eyes at me.

“You didn’t have to. Your smile said it from across the room.” I paused for a moment, examining her and then outstretched my hand. “Bernard.”

She took it quickly and shook it, replying “Darby,” with a smile.

Two glasses of whiskey clinked on the bar top in front of us. I picked up my glass and held it to Darby. “To new friends.”

She obliged, clinked glasses, and took a large gulp of the amber liquid I bought. As I watched her, I held the glass to my lips and pretended to sip. There was no way I was going to get sick before sinking my teeth into this piece. I eyed my friends over my shoulder, inviting them to join us.

As Darby lowered her glass to the bar, she saw my friends approaching and grinned. "Apparently a lot of new friends," she said. "I didn't think it was that kind of party."

Leon's eyes widened as he nodded to me. Happy hunting; Darby was going to be fun.

"Are you here all alone?" Connor asked. While this was one of the things we always asked before extraction, I think this time he was asking if she had any friends for him.

"Jeez, way to descend like a bunch of wolves," Vixie shouted, slapping Connor playfully. "Let her have a drink in peace." Vixie's presence was almost as relaxing as the booze to these targets.

Do you know anything about lions? I always thought we hunted like a pack of lions. Vixie subdued them, Connor flattered them, and Leon and I attacked from both sides. An attack on all fronts, physical and psychological. We were gods.

"The faster I finish this drink," she placed her hand on my shoulder and leaned in to whisper in my ear, "the faster we can get out of here."

'Too easy', I thought. 'I might even bed this one.'

As we walked out into the street, Connor, Leon, and Vixie were already moving to the next bar. Darby and I ducked into an alley, as was customary for me sealing the deal. The night was young and I usually fed first. That's just how my group worked.

I pinned Darby against the wall and nibbled my way from her lips to her throat. She stopped me.

"You'd have better luck at the hospital," she breathed.

"I'm sorry?"

She pulled out a nurse's badge from a local hospital. She tugged where it had been stuffed in her cleavage, tightening the lanyard around her neck, and held it up to my face. How did I miss that?

"You're a Drinker right? If you want blood, you'll have better luck at the hospital." There was a forcefulness in her voice now.

I smiled, pressing my mouth back to her neck. "If you think I'd rather drink from a bag than your bosom, you are terribly mistaken. The bagged shit tastes like rot and plastic and you probably taste like honey whiskey by now." I licked a line down her chest. "Besides, it's not like I'm going to kill you."

"I'm not talking about the blood bank. I'm talking about getting high." I paused, lips that were locked on her flesh now falling slack. "That's why you get people drunk right? You want to get high?"

I laughed a cold breath onto her skin that sent shivers. "I'm listening," I pulled back and looked into her eyes. They were very determined shit-brown eyes.

"Morphine drips, comas, no one would ever have to know," she panted.

"And you're just going to let us?" I asked, brushing a lock of hair behind her shoulder. "Why?" I finally demanded.

"You're charming," she smiled tentatively, almost holding her breath.

"Not that charming," I added hostilely. "What's in it for you? Do you think you're going to get me high and I'm going to think you're pretty enough - for now - and just let you join my friends and I? Just like that? Is that your plan?"

"Something like that, yeah."

I glared at her, eyes locking in a stalemate as she stared back. When she squinted, the constellations of freckles that dusted her nose conjoined into one large mark that looked like an ugly splotch of discoloration.

I turned over my shoulder, still holding Darby in place against the wall. "Change of plans, folks," I shouted. "Tonight, we drink together." When I looked back at Darby, a sly smile stretched across her face; she looked proud of herself. I slapped her on the ass as degradingly as I could to shoo her out of the alleyway and back to my friends.

Once we got to the hospital, we let Darby go in first. It's always a little easier that way for a lot of reasons. As Darby crossed the threshold, Leon tried to grab the door quickly before it closed. He barely missed.

"Hold the door for us, would you?" He asked, pacing in front of the threshold nervously.

Darby's face lit up with an enlightened grin. "That's how you skirt invitations, isn't it?"

I shook my head to Connor and Vixie. 'Don't say a word,' I thought. I didn't need this girl to know anything about me and my friends. How we work, what we do, who we are. Nothing. I just wanted to get in, get out, and get on with my night.

"Don't be a tease, Darby," I cooed in a sing song voice until she held the door for Leon. We all rushed in, holding the doors open for one another, awkwardly dodging armpits as we crouched under the other's arms. And there we were, in a hospital with free reign.

Darby took us to the elevator and brought us to the third floor. Apparently this was the ICU unit.

"It's where the good shit is," she promised, twirling her hair in her fingers as we waited for the crisp ding of the elevator to signal we had arrived.

"You guys hang out here," Darby pushed us out of the elevator and started walking down another hall. "I'm going to go grab stuff from my locker and look more official."

Eye's shifting, Vixie shied away from the walls and curled into Connor. As we heard Darby's heels click down the hallway and into the distance, Leon gave me a severe and suspicious look. Connor joined him.

"I think we should just drain her," Connor whispered. "All of us together, you know. Team building or whatever."

"Maybe," I added. I would have been lying to say I hadn't considered that as an option. She was a bit too... blonde. "Let's see what happens first. If she doesn't deliver, we'll drain her. Deal?"

Vixie pouted. "We always drain girls," she complained. "I want to team build on a lumberjack next time."

Connor looked at her with a grimace twisting his features. "Ew. No."

"Yeah, that's a hard no from me too, sweetie" added Leon.

Vixie's eyes rolled so hard that I am confident she could have seen out the back of her head.

"So I guess we each just pick a room?" Connor asked, breaking the silence as he stared down the darkened hallway.

"Can we share? I promise not to drink too much." Vixie tugged on Connor's sleeve. "I don't want to be alone in here. This place creeps me out."

"Sure," Connor placed his hand on the small of Vixie's back and they wandered down the hallway together, their boots clicking on the linoleum.

"I'm out," Leon turned to me and flipped me off as he walked backwards a few steps down the hallway. The automatic lights created a very specific halo around him as he disappeared into the distance.

I watched as my friends dispersed, considering what I should do. What kind of high I was wanting? Should I just extract from Darby, stay sober, and call it a night. 'Drunk babysitting' is the term for that, isn't it?

As I was thinking through all of this, Darby walked up behind me and placed a gloved hand on my shoulder. 'Rubber gloves and scrubs,' I thought. 'Nice touch.' She smelled like desperation and who was I to say no, right? She started to kiss me, her hands moving to grip my face, gloves making that latex slapping sound as she dragged her fingers over my skin. She pulled me into a supply closet and locked it from the inside. Things were cramped and dark but we managed to... well, I don't need to explain what we managed to do. You either know, or you're too young for me to tell you. Gloves were involved, I assure you.

"Now go get what you came here for, cowboy," Darby smiled as she unlocked the supply closet and moved into the hallway, nodding towards the myriad of hospital rooms.

This was turning into quite an extraordinary night for me. Sex, drugs, all I was missing was rock 'n' roll. I stalked down the hallway as Darby watched, lights clicking on and off as I passed the motion sensors creating a dark abyss between us. She looked horrible in this lighting. 'I might break my rule and drain her anyway,' I thought. 'It could be fun.'

I peeked into the rooms as I walked past. Most of the people were old, dying from something or another. They didn't have much time left by the smell of them and I'd probably kill them if I extracted even a little. Not many options suited my taste, to be honest. And then I came across a room that hosted a young woman with dark hair, morphine drip hooked into her like an HDMI cable. There were so many wires she looked like a god damned Best Buy. Yahtzee.

As I approached her, she stirred. Her eyes fluttered open and she stared at me with heavy lids.

"Are you a doctor?" Her voice was quiet and her words were slurred.

I shook my head and took a few more steps towards her. She looked as if she could barely keep herself awake.

"Are you death?" She asked, following my movements with drowsy eyes.

I shook my head again, this time with a small grin as I sat on the edge of her bed. "No." I brushed some of the stray locks from her face. She was cold, even to me. "I just want a little thing from you. You won't even notice. Go back to sleep."

She nodded and closed her eyes tightly, the dark row of lashes kinked under the pressure. I picked up her arm, which was limp and heavy like dead weight, and I held it to my mouth. I placed my lips above the morphine drip on the meaty part of her arm, so I could get the quickest high without taking too much. The morphine would be as undiluted as possible. Kind of like liquor versus beer. She flinched a little as I bit down. I tried to be gentle, but no matter how gentle I am, it's still going to hurt. That's just how extraction works.

It only took a mouthful before I felt the effects. I think anymore would have made me sick, so I stopped. I applied pressure on the girl's arm and cleaned up the red ring I had left on her skin - it looked like a lipstick kiss. I felt good. No, I felt fucking great. This bed was suddenly the softest bed I'd even felt. This girl was suddenly the prettiest I'd ever seen. This hospital room was fucking Eden and I was in paradise.

It is incomprehensibly trivial for me to describe what it felt like to someone who has never felt it. All of the best orgasms in the world combined would feel about one tenth this exhilarating. Smack is just that good. You forget about everything and any pain you have ever felt in your lifetime washes away in a warm, yellow glow. Nothing matters but you and this moment and this feeling. And it feels so good that you almost want to give up because you now know that the rest of your life will be a meaningless shadow to this joy.

It kind of feels like that.

And I hadn't felt it in a very long time.

I sprawled out on the foot of the hospital bed for a few moments, moving against the comforter like a cat in heat, just enjoying sensations. Then I heard Connor and Vixie in the hallway giggling, holding on to each other as their balance teetered. Their laughter faded into quiet, breathy moans as they let the drugs take control.

I pried myself from the bed and walked into the hallway to greet them. They were all smiles and they were a lot higher than I was. I looked down the hallway and saw Darby standing spotlighted, watching as if she was taking inventory of us. She moved towards us in slow, purposeful steps.

I heard Leon suddenly, in quick, stumbling feet running down the hallway. I turned to look at him. He was out of breath and falling into the walls as he ran. His face was yellowed and the veins down his neck looked like they were about to burst. He looked like he was choking.

"Shit," Connor spun weakly to look at Leon, "what did you get into?"

Leon collapsed onto the floor, hands frozen like claws as he tried to pull at his skin. I rushed to his side and started panicking, trying to calm him by patting his shoulder. "What's wrong?" I whispered. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," Leon choked out. "Bernard, I'm not doing well. I'm not okay." His voice reached a frantic pace as he tried to squeeze out words. Bile came out instead. He spat strings of fluids onto the linoleum, some of the yellow tissue clinging to his chin.

"Where were you?" Darby asked as she reached us, her figure casting a looming shadow over Leon's face.

He tried to point behind himself, but his arm seemed to pop out as he outstretched it. He growled deeply and collapsed into a tightly knitted ball. He was shaking all over.

A smile stretched across Darby's face. "You didn't go to the cancer ward, did you?" She cackled.

"What does that mean?" Vixie whimpered. "Is Leon going to be okay?"

"I don't know," Darby said with a caustic grin. "Does chemo kill vampires?"

"I don't think so," Connor mumbled.

But I fucking knew better. There's radiation in chemo. It's the radiation in the sun that does the trick, isn't it? It's not like we're fucking magic, there has to be a science behind this. You can't heal after radiation poisoning.

"You idiot," I nudged my head against Leon's, trying to steady his shaking. I could feel his skin slipping under my touch, it was peeling off like a wet sheet.

"No," Darby corrected, "you idiot. You brought your whole pack here." She pulled out a stake from her pocket and looked at me. "I was just going to get you high and stake you, but you brought everyone. No one else has been that fucking thick. There's a reason you don't feed together. This was the easiest it's ever been for me."

Leon was now starting to sweat, the same yellow tissues and strings leaking out of his skin. He was melting in my arms.

"Hey! I didn't know chemo did that to you guys. I had a suspicion but boy, oh boy, am I pleasantly surprised. Not only do I get to kill all of you, but I even got laid in the process. Thank you for making this a night I’ll never forget. "

Leon's skin into a pile of fluids that dripped between my fingers. There was no saving him, and there was no saving Connor or Vixie. There was only saving myself. As I pulled my arms away from Leon, chunks of his skin pulled away with me. He screamed but all I could think about was that supply closet. It locked from the inside. I pushed past Darby and ran as fast as I could. I locked the door in time to still hear Vixie's last panted breath and Connor crying out. I take some solace knowing that the pain was at least numbed a little by the drugs. I hope I never know what that pain is like, because even dulled, it sounded excruciating.

She can't wait out there forever, can she? I should be okay, right? I’ll make it… but my friends are dead because I had a fucking idiotic lapse in judgement. There's a psycho bitch hunter out there and I had to be the dumb fuck who fell for the con. I fucked her for Christ’s sake. Where there’s one hunter, there’s a hundred hunters. We’re all fucked.

#Sex Drugs and Immortality #Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep

[the-tales-of-horror]

I Found the Cure for Writer's Block!

Original Link By Jaksim

Writer’s block is the erectile dysfunction of the literary world. I never thought it would happen to me. It’s embarrassing and difficult to explain to others. But unlike erectile dysfunction, there’s no little blue pill you can take for writer’s block.

I didn’t even realize that I had it until my publisher pointed it out. Sure, it had been a few months since I had last written anything worth its salt. And sure, the ideas weren’t rolling in with their usual frequency. But writer’s block wasn’t something that happened to published writers. Plus, I’m a horror writer for god sakes. With how horrifying the world has become in recent months, inspiration should have been just around the corner.

“Thomas, this work is not of your usual quality.”

“I thought that writing a story from the ghost’s point of view would be unique.”

“We both know that’s been done before. Plus, how would a ghost ever get their work put into publication? It doesn’t make sense – it pulls the reader out of the work. Why don’t you write another one of those stories about the freakshow?”

“I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel like the right time for another one of those. What about the other stories I sent you last month?”

“Thomas, you only sent me one story last month. The one about the rats. It was O.K. at best. What’s going on with you?”

My publisher raised a good question. What had happened to me? I went from writing every day to barely producing one short story a month. There were still ideas, but they didn’t excite me.

“Maybe you should take a break from writing. Go back to teaching for a while?”

That was my wife’s opinion on the matter. Of course she thought that way. She was a hot-shot lawyer. She knew that it didn’t matter what I did for my career because her job paid more than enough to support us and our two children.

“Who knows, maybe you’ll like teaching more than you liked writing.”

More than I liked writing? My wife is beautiful, but sometimes she can be an asshole. As if writing is just a hobby to me. As if my failure to perform was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Over the next few weeks I applied for teaching jobs. Hardly anybody called. All the schools were already full. The ones that weren’t full were looking for a candidate who had taught more recently. The only promising call was from a Catholic school in downtown Giliman. But the day before I was supposed to go in for an interview the principal called me and told me the bad news.

“Your resume looks great but the board doesn’t feel comfortable hiring someone whose published works are so… macabre. We’ll keep your resume on file though.”

There’s an old saying that goes “Those who can do and those who can’t teach.” I couldn’t write anymore and they wouldn’t let me teach. My world felt empty. This may seem melodramatic to those of you that aren’t creative types, but I contemplated ending it a few times. What was the point of my existence if all I could do was exist?

“C’mon Tom, there’s always the kids. Take some time off – focus on being a father and a husband.” Vera always thought that I should be a stay at home dad. Even when I was producing pieces consistently, she still thought that my main priority should be raising our son and daughter. Evidently I had done a mediocre job of that too – my daughter was obnoxiously meek and my son spent as much time suspended from his high school classes as he did in attendance.

But I was out of options. I became Mr. Mom. I made the kids lunches, took them to school, picked them up from school, took them to swim lessons and scout troop meetings. Every day I just kept thinking – “One day inspiration will come and I won’t have to take part in this monotony anymore.”

I was right.

That day came on a Saturday in early spring. The weather was becoming nice enough that my kids and I were hanging out in the front yard. My son, Evan, was throwing a stuffed giraffe for our dog, Mudder. Hannah, my daughter, was sitting on the porch step, scribbling away in a little notebook. My attention was focused on Hannah – I’ll admit, I was a bit jealous that she could so easily fill that notebook with ideas. I was so absorbed that I didn’t see Mudder follow the tumbling stuffed giraffe into the street until it was too late.

I only looked up when I heard my son scream. Mudder had been so intent on catching his toy that he hadn’t seen the Town Car shooting down the street in front of my house. Before I could say anything or stop him, the bumper of the car collided with Mudder’s back end. The car came to a screeching halt. His furry body spiraled through the air and collided with the concrete about twenty-five feet from the initial impact point.

The back half of his body had been struck so hard that it folded his spine sideways. His tail was practically touching his nose. Even from almost fifty feet away I could still hear the awful crunch of bone breaking. The impact must have killed him because he didn’t even whimper when his body landed on the street. I ran to shield Hannah’s eyes from the expanding pool of blood beneath him and the exposed bone that scratched against the asphalt. But even as the driver of the car, a lanky teenage boy, came to apologize to me, I couldn’t stop staring at Mudder.

The way his body had contorted and oozed fascinated me. Both of my children and the teenager were in tears. I did my best to comfort all involved and call our vet to come get Mudder’s body. The whole situation – the gore, the sadness, the procedure – it was so… romantic. The pieces of the story fit together like a work of Hemingway. Picture this:

“Troubled boy (Evan) has only one friend in the world (Mudder). That friend is ripped from his grasp by an unfair and twisted event (the Town Car colliding with him.)”

I was up all night writing. The image of blood oozing from Mudder’s side and my sobbing son replayed in my head over and over. By the time the sun came up I had written an entire novella. In my story, the lanky teenager had been replaced by a local construction worker, but otherwise the story was the same. My publisher ate it up.

“The description in this story was immaculate. You’ve never really shined when it came to your gory description, but the car accident was horrifying. This is some of your best work.”

“Thank you sir.”

“If you can write a few more stories like this then we could see about doing a book.”

A few more stories? My throat tightened with a sick mixture of guilt and anxiety. This story didn’t come from me. It came from reality. I consoled myself that maybe the accident, however tragic, had brought the spark back. But no words appeared when my fingers touched the keys. There were ideas in my head but I couldn’t put them to paper. What could I say that would rival the horror of reality?

And that’s when it hit me. Nothing could rival reality. I could never think of an idea that would make a reader feel the way Evan and Hannah felt when they saw Mudder get torn apart like that. But maybe I could write something that reflected reality. Maybe there could be an event so horrifying that when I put it to paper it still retained a portion of its twisted nature.

I began with Evan. It was simple. He loved getting into trouble. He loved disobeying me and being the rule breaker. I had a feeling that he had and his friends had recently begun experimenting with marijuana. A cursory search of his room revealed that I was correct. I found a little baggy buried in his underwear drawer. I’m not sure who Evan was buying from, but they sure gave him some skunky weed. I soaked it in paint thinner for thirty minutes and you still couldn’t smell the stuff.

Now, I will admit that I should have been more cautious. My intent was for my ne’er-do-well son to smoke the poisoned weed. I hadn’t considered the prospect that he and his friends would all partake in it together

That being said, the emergency room was a cornucopia of inspiration. Four high schoolers so sick they couldn’t lift their heads. Their skin a pale yellow color. Their vomit smelling of paint thinner and blood. The only thing that could have made it better was if one of them had survived. I probably could have written a story about the survivor’s guilt alone. Luckily, the crying faces of all those parents, of my wife and my daughter – they were inspiration enough to churn out a 112-page tragedy. My publisher called it “disturbing on a whole new level.”

But still, I needed more. One more big story. I decided to go for a different approach. My wife thought that she had her life so put together. Even after the tragedy of Evan’s death she still continued to go to work. She still felt like she had everything figured out. Picture this:

“Uptight wife thinks she has her life together. Suddenly, she is forced to quit work and care for her family. Just when she thinks everything will be okay, she finds out things are more horrible than she could imagine.”

Ruining her life was easier than you might have thought. It all began with an “accident”. Another car crash, but this time with myself and Hannah in the front seat. Nothing too dangerous, just a quick swerve into a median on the highway. The car was totaled, but the real damage was to its occupants. My legs were both broken, but I got off far better than my daughter. Her right leg was almost entirely shattered. Her right wrist and most of the fingers on her left hand had broken in the crash. She was useless. The doctor scolded me for allowing her to sit in the front seat, but what are you going to do, right?

Of course, my wife had to think that I was as useless as my daughter. So I faked a head injury. All of a sudden I was “not all there” and “incapable of taking care of myself”. Those are her words.

She took a sabbatical from her job to take care of us. I made her do the whole lot – spoon feeding me, cleaning up my shit and piss, carrying me to and from bed. Her career as a lawyer was no more. Of course, she had to take care of my daughter as well. That gave me plenty of time to take away our safety net.

Anytime I was left alone I spent draining our savings. A little bit donated to some charities, a little bit blown in online poker – you get the drift. Of course, she had no way of knowing about any of this until it was too late. One day when she tried to run her debit card at the grocery store and it kept getting rejected. Man how it must have killed her to ask her ailing father to loan her money. I almost burst out laughing when I heard her tell him on the phone that it had been “identity theft.”

Of course, the pièce de résistance of my plan was Trinity. She was some gold digger I met online. With my legs broken, there was no way I could actually cheat on Vera. But I could certainly make her think I had. I sent hundreds of messages flirting with and exchanging pictures with Trinity.

My newest tale was already coming to fruition. I had written over a hundred pages about the tragedy of the once great Vera Wilks. There was only one chapter still left to be written – the big reveal. When she learned that her once caring husband had torn her life apart.

To be honest, I thought things would go a bit differently. I had expected her reaction to be more… heartbroken. You know – depression, anxiety, maybe even suicide. Instead, Vera was pissed. I mean push her wheel-chair bound husband down the stairs pissed.

“How could you do this to our son? To our daughter?” Obviously, I couldn’t easily escape her wrath with my two broken legs. For the first few minutes, I thought she was going to kill me. What a shame that would have been. There would have been no opportunity to write any of this down. Luckily, I think she realized that death would have been too good for me.

She has me chained up in the basement. Every day I learn about a new form of pain. Yesterday she brought down the blow torch. The day before that was an electric sander. I can hear her talking upstairs when I put my ear to the pipes. It sounds like she’s ordering some sort of electro-shock therapy device on the phone. Probably going to be pretty painful.

The jokes on her though. She cut off one of my hands, but not the other. And she doesn’t know that I snuck my phone down here. It’s a little hard to type with my fingertips nearly sanded off, but I’ve been able to send most of this to my publisher. He’s going to explode when he reads the ending to this one. Picture this:

“Wife pushed so far to the edge that she becomes a torturous maniac. She maims and mangles her author husband à la Kathy Bates in Misery. Unbeknownst to her, he enjoys every second of it.”

I smell a best seller. Hopefully, I’ll still be alive when my book gets published. But if not, that’s alright as well. Artist’s works tend to be much more popular after they die.

Turns out the cure for writer’s block is simple.

It’s pain.

#I Found the Cure for Writer's Block! #Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep

[the-tales-of-horror]

The Violet Draught

Original Link By TheDarkGeneral

As my life is almost over, I thought it wise to transcribe my terrible tale to hopefully warn off any who might follow my example. It began, for all intents and purposes, in the far off land of Egypt. If only I had never gone on that trip to begin with, all of this could have been avoided, and I would have lived out my life in peaceful anonymity.

I was a young dilettante with a wealthy father, twenty years old and already convinced I knew exactly what ailed the world. I was resolved to be a painter, partially to irritate my father and partially to itch some artistic ache I thought I had. I was not a bad artist, if you will allow me some slight pride in my juvenile work. But I had no drive, and I had seen nothing and done nothing to fill my work with any genuine emotion. I was a spoiled child drunk on the praise of sycophants and toadies, capable of some basic technique, but nothing more. At the time, I was enamoured with surrealist work, painting fantastic scenes and landscapes that could never exist in reality. My first works had been painted under the effects of hallucinogens, taking drugs until I no longer knew what was real and what was fantasy, and then putting my brush to the easel. My paintings had won me some small acclaim in the small town near New York my father had chosen us to live in, but that was mostly due to the novelty of having a painter. Many of my admirers were yes-men of my fathers, who hoped by showing an interest in me my father would bestow upon them some manner of luxuries.

I apologize, my mind wanders, and the noise makes it difficult to concentrate. I was in Cairo. I had thought a foreign land would excite my mind enough to paint something worthy for the art collectors in New York. Unfortunately, in my immaturity, I mostly found it hot, dirty, and boring. So, wandering through the streets one evening I fell into my usual habits, and vowed to find inspiration.

Through some furtive conversation in back alleys, I eventually found myself at a small nondescript shop in a slum deep in Cairo. It was small, dirty and unimpressive. Opening the door, the inside seemed identical to many of the small oddity shops scattered around the city, filled with worthless pretty junk pawned off to tourists. I was surprised to see the owner was English, since at the time there not many people who lived in Cairo who were not native to the area. After exchanging the usual pleasantries, I expressed my interest in more illicit substances, and with a grave expression, he bid me to follow him to the back rooms. All my usual vices were there, but before I could even voice my interest, the shop owner drew out a dusty purple bottle, and presented it to me.

“This is the Violet Draught” He said, holding the bottle in the palm of of his hand. “You will find nothing more enlightening. It will open your mind to worlds and wonders that you could never even imagine.”

I was transfixed. How could I not be? I took the bottle and opened it. Inside was what appeared to be a thick viscous purple liquid, barely moving when I turned the bottle back and forth. It had no smell whatsoever, but the dust of the bottle and the humidity of the back room.

I bought it on the spot. As I paid for it, I noticed a strange look in the eyes of the British salesman, an almost hungry glee. I paid it no mind, for I was filled with excitement myself about this latest distraction.

I tried it immediately upon returning to my hotel room, setting up my easel and paints in case I would not be able to under the effects of the draught.

Like it looked, the purple liquid was thick, sticky and acrid. It tasted similar to ash, and almost seemed to stick to my throat. I had to swallow more than once to get it all down, and even when I did I could still taste it, and I could still feel it in my throat. Only a few minutes after I finished ingesting the draught, I began hearing things. The first I heard sounded like wind rustling through the trees, and entirely curious feeling as I was still sitting in a hotel room. Then I heard the burble of a stream, and the sound of trees bending. Far off in the distance, I thought I heard something akin to the slithering of many giant snakes, but I quickly attributed it to nothing, as I did not hear it again. To try and better concentrate on these unexpected noises, I closed my eyes. Upon reopening them, my hotel room had vanished, in its place an alien forest of red and blue trees. The ground was a pale grey, and the distance I could see a stream of green water, presumably the one I had heard. Turning behind me I saw a great black plain covered in swaying orange grasses. However, while I heard these sounds of nature, I neither heard nor saw any signs of life whatsoever.

My easel and paints lay in front of me, the only things from our world that seemed to have followed me. For hours I painted this unearthly landscape, only stopping to look around once more and examine the peculiar plants that lay around me. I was lit in purple light for the entirety of my visit, for above me was what appeared to be a massive violet sun.

Eventually I collapsed, my hand throbbing and head aching, into a dreamless sleep. I woke once again in my Egyptian hotel room, drained and desperately hungry, but before lay the greatest painting I had ever made. The colours were sublime, beautifully blending light and dark, illustrating perfectly the insane alien land the purple draught had shown me. I knew this was everything I had strived for, that all my other paintings were mere shadows in comparison to this beauty. I knew in that moment that my whole life had lead up to this, to painting this masterpiece. In my own damned foolishness I thought that all it had take was this violet draught to unlock the beauty of my own psyche, to put the raw talent I was sure I possessed down onto canvas. I was so wrong, so arrogantly, stupidly wrong.

After having a marvellous breakfast to recover after my ordeal, I noticed my teeth seemed slightly sore, and examining them in the mirror, I noticed both they and my fingernails had a slightly purple tint, right at the base. It was no matter, I thought, and a small price to pay for the marvels I had wrought. Besides, I was sure it would was merely a passing side effect.

Returning to America, I immediately prepared my gallery. I included some minor pieces, but the focus was on my newest work.

When people began to arrive, i could tell they had never seen such magnificence, especially from me. While all made the necessary approving noises at my older paintings, all knew the centre of attention was on what the violet draught had produced. That day I was contacted by a New York art collector who had chanced upon my gallery while passing through. He wished to showcase my work in his own gallery, and put it up for auction.

I was ecstatic. Finally my work was getting the renown I knew it deserved. The gallery was exquisite, the art scene of New York all interrogating me about my inspiration, my technique, who I had studied, everything one could think to ask a budding artist. The Violet Draught I kept to myself, knowing many of them would not understand. It was merely a tool, I thought. The painting sold for ten thousand dollars.

That night I once again drank deep of the violet draught. Again I heard the sounds around me first this time the pitter patter of rain against dirt, and again I heard what sounded like the sound of more than one great snakes moving its bulk across the floor. It seemed slightly louder now, but again I paid it no mind. Once again I closed my eyes to allow the violet draught to transport me, and when I opened my eyes I was in the middle of a massive plain of grey dirt, spotted with bright yellow bushes. It was raining, green water flowing from the sky, but the water did not touch me, nor damage my easel. The purple sun was still high in the sky as before, seemingly not dampened by the rain around me. Black mountains lay far ahead of me, stretching up into the sky. Once again I could not hear or see any sign of life.

Once again, I painted till exhaustion, and once again I awoke from a deep dreamless slumber. My fingers and teeth were sore once more, and my hair seemed slightly off colour. But none of that mattered.

I sold this painting for even more. The elite of the American art scene began to take notice, and I rose quickly in circles of the upper class. I began to be regarded as a visionary as I drank more and painted more. Each was of a different vibrant landscape, each I was transported to after imbibing the purple draught. In the landscapes, the sound of the snakes became louder and louder, too loud too ignore. With the noise of slithering I once thought I heard voices, but I assumed it was nothing. Many hallucinogens have such affects, after all.

I had to wear gloves, as my fingernails turned purple, and became brittle. Soon they flaked off, but this was no matter, as once they crumbled away my fingers ceased to hurt. I stopped smiling, as my teeth had become dark purple, and no amount of brushing would get rid of the colour. After biting into a particularly tough steak, I felt a dull pain, and spat out the remains of three teeth. Upon the table they already began to crumble into purple dust. I began to only eat soup. My hair I shaved to hide the fact that it had turned purple and became so brittle it would snap off even attempting to brush it.

But all of this only added to my mystique, and I revelled in the attention. I was an eccentric artist, a step above the rest of humanity. Some hair, teeth and nails were nothing compared to my fame, and to the beauty that I had created. I ignored the many side effects, for I knew I could not go back to the life I had lead before. I had tasted greatness.

That is, until I awakened one morning to realize the bottle was empty. I had drunk all of the violet draught throughout the years, never thinking of checking when I was running low until it was too late. Even this did not sway me, in the beginning. The talent had been in me the entire time, had it not? The violet draught had only been needed to unlock it, but surely now I could create such marvels without it. I soon learned this was not the case. All I painted were pale reflections compared to what I had once made. The talent was gone with the draught, I realized, as I tore another painting apart, and collapsed weeping onto the floor.

The art world soon grew bored with me, passing me off for the next up and coming artist, I could not bear my lack of notoriety, so returned to Cairo to seek the man who had first sold me the violet draught. However, his shop was gone, replaced by a souvenir shop that sold nothing of which the mystical back room had contained. In desperation, i sent out servants, promising them riches if they could find me more. All were unsuccessful.

Until one early morning, when I head a knock on the door of my mansion. At my doorstep was the man who had sold me the bottle years ago, and he looked unchanged. He smiled upon seeing me, and took from behind his back a bottle of the violet draught. I promised him anything, but the waved away my offers, saying that beauty had no price. I fell on my knees thanking him, but he merely smiled, and handed my the bottle.

I soon fell back into the routine of drinking and painting. Soon however, the presentation of my work fell to my servants, as I became a recluse due to my physical appearance. It began to be much for some of my own servants to bear, even wrapped up in a robe as I was. My veins were violet, and all the hair on my body had turned purple. and brittle. I no longer had any teeth, all of them having turned to purple ash in my mouth. My skin had become fragile as well and any force would cause it to crack and peel, revealing dark grey-purple muscle. But this would not stop me. For months I painted under the influence of the Draught, the Englishman miraculously showing up whenever the previous bottle was depleted, to deliver to me the next dose of hell. My servants grew to recognize him, and would send him directly to my bed chambers whenever he arrived. I tried to walk as little as possible, my bones felt fragile, like anything would shatter them.

I could hear the sounds of the slithering more and more when I took the draught. I was wrong before, now I could tell it did not sound like snakes, but many great tentacles, all moving about each other. In the background I could also hear chanting, constant uninterrupted chanting in a language I did not understand. I could barely hear the originally pleasant sounds of the landscape for the endless wet sound of crawling tentacles. But still, I could see no signs of life, least of all some great many-tentacled beast. Occasionally I thought I could see strange flickers of movement off in the distance, but when I looked back there was nothing. The landscapes themselves also changed, the once-verdant lands seeming to become more sickly, and lifeless. Where once there were great forests, now the ground was littered with dead and dying trees. Plains of swaying grasses were now the dead refuse of plant life.

One morning, I was awoken from my slumber by a dull pain in my left eye. I ran to the bathroom clutching my face, but when I brought my hand away it was covered in the remains of my eyeball. It had fallen apart in my skull, and I could see inside there was no more white, just purple ash that had once been my eye.

I resolved to stop drinking the purple draught that day, to save whatever small part was left of my immortal soul, and of my physical form. I lasted all of one day, when I realized I could still hear the accursed sound of the many tentacled thing, closer and closer. The chanting was louder too, endless repetitive voices chanting one phrase in some alien tongue. The tentacles of whatever it was seemed so close now, and I was sure I would be grasped and devoured by whatever beast they belonged, but I could not see them. I could not stop drinking the purple draught, I understood in that moment, I had to keep painting, for it was the only thing I still derived some feeling from.

This brings us the end of my tale, and to my last painting. Thankfully, the only thing left relatively untouched is my right hand, so I can still paint and write this wretched account. I am almost all gone now, my skin long since peeled off revealing the purple muscle underneath. I no longer feel pain, and on one curious day I broke a finger on my left hand as easily as one would break a twig. Inside of the bone was more of the purple dust, marrow or other interior long since crumbled away. My other eye went the way of the first, but that is no matter. The Purple Draught has ensured I no longer need eyes to see the plantless and desolate landscapes I paint. It has taken care of my ears too, crumbled away long away, but I can always hear the sound of the creature and of the chanting. I feel like I could touch the tentacles now, and the chanting is almost deafening. Worst of all, whatever owns those tentacles has begun to speak to me, on sleepless nights it has told so many secrets of the world, and of its strange other land. It is the creatures world I intruded upon, and from It the purple draught comes. I was an interloper, but I will not be much longer. I will drink deep once more, and I will paint, and then it will claim me. I will finally see It, and thank God I will. All I wish now is for silence, and peace from the purple draught. Finally, that vast purple monstrosity will reveal itself, and claim my wretched soul for whatever violet hell it spawned from.

So ends my sad story, and a message to all who read this. Stay away from the Purple Draught, for the wonders you will see are not worth the price it exacts.

#The Violet Draught #Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep

[the-tales-of-horror]

Never Trust an Unattractive Orphan

Original Link By cousinjordan

In my imagination she was beautiful, as girls in imaginations must always be. In reality, she was less so. Her skin less smooth, her hair more frizzy. She was pale, but not in the way that can be described as fair or porcelain. No, it was pallid and sickly, and made me think of gray skies and hospital beds. Her dark hair, when paired with her skin tone, had the unfortunate effect of making her look patchy and hirsute.

She was confident, though, as if she never fully understood how insufficiently she fulfilled her role as an object of beauty. Or she didn’t care. Either way, her confidence was a slap in the face to anyone who looked at her. How dare she? Before I met her, I had an idea of what our lives might be. I fantasized about the day she would move in, shy and afraid, accompanied by a stern caseworker who would offer no comfort. I could be her comfort, I thought. What better way to wriggle into the heart of a newly orphaned cousin?

The reality of her so completely punctured my illusion of tragic and subservient grace that my stomach turned in revulsion upon seeing her. That gangly thing clutching a pet rabbit in her arms like it wasn’t a glorified rat. As I stood looking at her defiant face and upright posture, I felt wave after wave of hatred.

Rose was her name, the cousin, not the rodent. She walked right in like she owned the place. I could have retched when Father scooped her up in his arms and pretended like he gave a damn, like he had even reacted when he’d heard that his own sister had died in a car accident.

Instead, I laughed.

I could see the hurt in Rose’s eyes the moment I did it, and I knew that my summer’s plans had changed. I wouldn’t be seducing my dear cousin, no, I had standards. Instead, I would break her down. True that it might not have been a challenge, but I liked to win, even on ‘easy mode.’

Mother settled Rose in a room in the east wing. The room was mostly barren, but Mother promised a new bed and furniture made for a princess. I supposed, in Mother’s mind, the girl had earned it by virtue of being orphaned. The room was not particularly close to mine, but that was acceptable. I could find reasons to be there. I wandered up the stairs, thinking that I might over my assistance to the girl, ingratiate myself some to grease the wheels. I stood outside of her doorway, preparing to make my entree when I heard her talking.

“I’m sorry, Snow-y, you don’t have your toys yet.”

Snowy? She named that awful thing she was carrying around with her? The more I saw of the wretched girl, the more pain I wanted to inflict on her. I couldn’t contain my disdain any longer.

“Really? You give that damned vermin toys? What a waste.”

She pulled the thing into her boyish chest as if to protect it, and looked up at me with sadness in her dull, beady eyes. I laughed at her and walked further into the room. Bending down, I spoke to the rabbit.

“You want some toys, precious beast? I can probably find Father’s box of razors.”

The girl looked taken aback. I doubled down.

“What, this thing means something to you? Does it replace dear departed mommy and daddy? Do you think they’re looking up at you in disgust? Do you think they’re horrified that their daughter is a vegetable with a rat?”

I laughed as the tears started flowing and turned to leave the room. This may be easy, I thought to myself, but I could at least let my creativity shine. Practice for the challenges to come, and prepare myself for those worthy of my talents. The girl was weak, allowing words alone to hurt her. In a way, I was doing her a favor. Toughness in the face of adversity is earned, after all.

I had planned to let the wretch alone for the rest of the day. I had wanted to savor her tears over the days and weeks to come. Summer was long, after all, and the days boring. Fate, it would seem, had other plans for me.

I was walking along the hallways in the east wing, when I heard a sound. It drew me toward it instinctively. The door to the girl’s room was slightly ajar, and through it I could see her curled up on the temporary cot that Mother had so kindly provided her. She slept alone. Then the sound made itself known once more. There, at my feet, was the prized rodent itself, gnawing at the door frame. It’s disgusting teeth were making short work of the polished, imported walnut that bordered the door.

“That’s enough of that,” I said softly, so as not to disturb Rose. I picked up the animal, holding it away from my body as I did so.

I made it nearly to the bottom of the stairway when I was struck by a particularly ingenious plan. My dear cousin was obviously attached the the creature, and wouldn’t it be a grand show to have her break down during dinner? I can presume to know what you are thinking, and perhaps you are correct to think it. But, if my aim was to inflict maximum distress, then I had no choice.

No, I did not kill the rabbit. Such a thing is far too bloody for someone with my skill set. I took the animal down to James, the chef currently employed with us, and asked him to do me a favor. Rabbit meat is not something that sings upon a sophisticated palate, but nonetheless I persuaded him to replicate the appearance of it for tonight’s dinner. That having been done, I took sweet Snowy to the stables and set her free.

Then, with anticipation bubbling inside of me, I dressed for dinner. I could hear Father retrieving Rose from upstairs, and I could barely suppress my excitement for the evening’s entertainment. Surely by now she would realize her pet was missing, and it would not be long before her brain, simplistic as it was, would begin putting it all together.

Dinner was served promptly at seven, and I was seated across from Rose. As the first course came and went, I watched her carefully. I wanted to bear witness to the exact moment when she realized what had happened, or, at least, what she suspected had happened. I smiled at her throughout the first course, maintaining eye contact as best I could.

Finally, our butler Emmanuel entered with the main course.

“Ma’am, your dinner is served.”

I didn’t even register anyone else as he placed the tureen in front of her. James had prepared the dish beautifully, taking great care to evoke the spirit of the pet rabbit in every detail. I could swear I smelled the animal’s scent wafting up from the stew. I stared at her as her face went white.

“I’m uh, not hungry,” she said.

Mother, never one for tolerating such rudeness, spoke up. “But Rose, you have to eat! You haven’t had a meal since you arrived!”

“Yeah, Rose,” I said, delight nearly stopping the words in my throat. “Eat your stew.”

With that, Rose pushed herself away from the table and ran full-speed upstairs. I turned to Mother with mock horror.

“What in heaven’s name has gotten into her?” I said, dripping with as much indignation as I could muster. Inside, however, I was buzzing with excitement.

“Jordan, dear, she’s only just lost her parents. Be patient with her,” Mother said. Father said nothing, preferring instead to sip his whiskey in silence.

“Mother, you are absolutely right. I owe our Rose an apology, I think.”

Mother nodded in approval as I excused myself from the table. As soon as my back was to the dining room, I broke out into a smile. This had gone better than I could have possibly imagined.

I could hear sobbing coming from Rose’s room, and the sound sent a shock wave of pleasure up my spine. I licked my lips in anticipation, and knocked.

“Hello, dear cousin,” I said, stepping into the room.

“You killed him, didn’t you?” she asked, through ugly, gulping sobs. Her face was contorted and red. Finally she looked like the wretched thing I knew her to be.

I laughed. “Me?” I asked, pointing to my chest in mock outrage. “Heavens no! Why would I kill such an innocent creature?”

She broke down into tears again, and I excused myself. I couldn’t help but chuckle as I did so. She really believed that I killed her stupid rabbit. For a moment, I wished that I had. Who gets that attached to a rodent?

In a way, I felt let down after the events of the evening. As enjoyable as they were, I felt trapped by my own escalation. What could I do now that was worse? I drifted off to sleep that evening with dreams of rabbit-bone sculptures and wordplay too sophisticated for her simple brain to untangle.

Breakfast was served at eight. Emmanuel brought out the spread of breakfast meats and pastries, and once again I was seated across from Rose. She seemed different this morning, vacant, to be certain, but there was a resoluteness about it. Perhaps she was finally growing a spine. The thought of a challenge before me filled me with happiness; it would appear that I had worried about nothing.

I excused myself to the restroom, and returned to find Rose looking almost pleased with herself. I took a long gulp from my milk and stared at her over the rim of the glass. It’s curious, I thought, how getting basic needs met is all it takes to delight a simpleton. A full belly and a good night’s sleep, and look at little Rosie content again.

As I finished my breakfast, an odd fatigue took over my faculties. I assumed it was due to the sleepless worry and uncomfortable dreams of the night before. I took my leave of the table, and retired to my room. A nap would help to restore me, and I could once again take up my sport against Rose.

I nearly fell into bed, so overcome was I. I drifted into a sleep so deep that I don’t think I moved at all. When I awoke, it was with a distinct disorientation. I blinked away the blurriness of my vision, but still a fog hung over my mind. There was a dull throbbing at my throat, and my tongue felt thick and heavy.

Much to my surprise, Rose stood before my bed. She smiled at me, her face lit with expectation and her rat-like eyes twinkling.

I started to speak to her, to ask her what she thought she was doing trespassing in my room. Instead of the words coming out of my mouth, I was struck by a blinding pain from my throat. I lifted a heavy hand to the skin of my neck. I recoiled as my fingers brushed stitches.

I could feel my eyes widen as the reality of what she’d done came crashing down around me. My vocal cords. That monster wearing the face of a girl had severed my vocal cords. I croaked out a scream and pain once again shot through me, causing white and black spots to dance in front of my eyes.

“Sticks and stones may break your bones,” Rose said. “But your words will never hurt me again, or anyone else, dear cousin.” She smiled at me, turned and left.

Mother and Father were beside themselves. Rose had simply vanished, taken the meager possessions she’d brought with her (save her rabbit, which surely by now was prey for the coyotes) and gone. They could not understand how such a sweet girl could have done such an awful thing. Jealousy, they thought. That had to be it. Or maybe a temporary psychosis brought on by her parents’ deaths.

I knew the answer, though. I understood it all. I knew from the moment I saw her that she was an evil, villainous thing. She took my game of words and illusions and transformed it into something dark.

That’s why I’m writing this, why I’m sharing Rose’s story. I’m writing this so that you know there are monsters in this world, monsters that prey upon the innocent and leave those around them the worse for it.

#Never Trust an Unattractive Orphan #Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep

[the-tales-of-horror]

I Regret Signing up for the Experimental Rehabilitation Project

Original Link By Hayong

For the past 3 days, I have gone by the name of B9741. I am part of a “rehabilitation project” created by my country. Twenty days ago, my mother walked in on me watching videos “created by the devil.” It would have been better had I been in America or any other country with less strict rules, but I wasn’t. My mother could have just forgotten about walking in on me jacking it off, but shit happens. She reported me to the police. It was my third offense. I was given two choices. Go to prison for 3 years or I could go to a new rehabilitation service they created. I would only need to stay there till I am healed. I went for the latter. I figured it would be easy for me to change. I’m only 23. I have time anyway.

I was one of three other people on the bus. It was a rickety old yellow thing, but it managed to not break down the entire 8-hour ride. I was the last to fall asleep on the bus. A loud alarm ripped me out from my dreams. A groan came from the left side of me, I looked over and saw a woman slowly getting up and looked over at me. She cracked a smile and said, “Oh well this is a nice surprise. I haven’t had a roommate in over 2 years. I was starting to get really lonely.” I mumbled incoherent nonsense back at her and looked around the room. There were two beds, a small desk with two cell phones, and a small tv mounted to the wall next to the door. When she saw how confused I was she chuckled and said, “I’m sure you’re confused. I was too. The last thing I remembered was being on the bus, and waking up to a stranger in a tiny room is probably the least comfortable thing in the world.”

Honestly, she was the only reason why I was comfortable. She wasn’t the most attractive person in the world, but she looked to be around my age. Her voice had a soothing effect on me, and the light freckles littered across her face had a certain charm on me. After a couple of minutes, she sat next to me on my bed and put her hand on my shoulder while reassuring me that I would be fine. Shit. I fell in love with her that second.

I tried to muster all of the courage I had and touch her hand. Tell her that she would be fine too, but the tv turned on, and a low monotone voice ripped my attention away from her. The tv screen was completely white.

”We have some new faces today. Remember to mentor your new roommates. Don’t let them fuck up because whatever rule they break, will also result in your punishment. Breakfast begins in five minutes. Take your phones and remember. The rules are made for your healing. The punishments are made for your discipline.”

When the tv feed cut out, I looked over at her and saw that she was handing me my phone. I took it, turned it on, and waited for the phone to power up. While I was waiting for the phone to turn on, she handed me a small sheet of paper.

Rules

Using your phones for anything other than your healing process is strictly forbidden. Your phones are monitored at all times. Consequences for breaking this rule will vary.

Contacting anyone outside of our facility is strictly monitored. Any mention of what we do inside of here is forbidden and will result in 6 months of solitary confinement.

You must remain abstinent while you are here. That goes for consumption of alcohol as well as fornicating. Consequences will vary.

Medicine given by the staff must be consumed. Refusing to take the medication will result in 30 lashes.

Use your common sense. If you know what you are doing is wrong, do not do it. You are watched at all times. You are never out of sight.

As soon as I finished reading the rules, I looked at my phone and saw that there weren’t any sort of apps on it. Hell, it was completely blank except for “Hello B9741” in the middle of the solid yellow screen and a browser. I tried searching for a couple of sites, despite the rules and saw that Facebook, e-mails, and even most pages on Google were blocked.

I looked over at my freckled roommate and she gave me a small nod before saying, “Well Mr. B9741, I go by S8257 or you can just call me Kat. It’s not my real name, but it makes me sound human at least. What do you want me to call you by the way?” I thought for a second before smiling for the first time since I got here and said, “Butterfinger. It’s a good tasting candy, and it kind of explains why I’m here in the first place.” She gave me a confused look, but the door opened up and bright light flooded into our dimly lit room. It took me a second to adjust to the light, but as my vision finally started to come back, I noticed an endless stream of people walking past our door.

Kat tapped me on the shoulder, and I got up from the bed and followed closely behind her into the cafeteria.

The cafeteria was a massive room. It looked to be occupied by well over two thousand people. There were trays of food on every single seat. I sat next to Kat and realized that every single thing in the kitchen was unnaturally white as if every inch of the cafeteria was meticulously cleaned by a multitude of workers.

Along with our food, there were three pills on my tray. Kat had three pills as well, but it looked like some people had small mountains of pills. Breakfast ended when the sound of thousands of phones vibrating filled the air.

We all started with our morning meetings. Kat was assigned to a different room from me. The meeting room was about double the size of my room. It was completely white just like the cafeteria. A bored looking staff member and around 40 other people were waiting in the room when I walked in. He looked up when the same alarm that woke me up this morning went off. He cleared his throat and introduced me to the others as B9741. After he finished with the introduction he didn’t say another word for the rest of the 2-hour meeting. No one else said anything. We just awkwardly stared at each other. My phone vibrated, and I took it out. “Report to the cafeteria for job assignments.”

When I got to the cafeteria, I saw the other two people standing in the middle of the cafeteria. A man and a woman, the man looked younger than me while the woman was well over 40. The sound of static came from behind us and I turned around to see that a tv dropped down from the ceiling. It was the white screen again.

The same low monotone voice filled the cafeteria room.

“S6497, you are a black shirt. You will assist the staff with punishing our rule breakers.” The man nodded his head and was soon led away by a couple of other people dressed in black. “F2854, you are going to be a red shirt. You will test run a couple of medications for us.” People dressed in red led her away. “B9741, you are a white shirt. You will be placed in charge of a group of people. If they break too many rules, you are to act as their sacrifice.”

I met the people that I was in charge of. It was only 8 people. Three black shirts, two red shirts, and three yellow shirts. The yellow shirts are in charge of monitoring letters that are sent by us.

I didn’t like it here, but hell, it was a lot better than I expected. Well, until last night.

Kat and I were sitting in the room talking about what we were going to do when we left when the tv came on and Kat’s face turned pale.

”When rules are broken consequences happen. Everyone report to the cafeteria.”

I tried asking Kat what was going on, but she just shook her head and started walking to the cafeteria when our door opened.

When I got into the cafeteria, I noticed everyone formed a giant circle around the center of the cafeteria. I found an open spot in the circle closest to the back doors. A red shirt male and white shirt female stood in the center of the circle. Two staff members and a black shirt were standing behind them silently.

The tv in the cafeteria turned on and the voice spoke a single word.

”Begin”

The black shirt took out a whip from behind him and started to strike the red shirt. He winced from the pain, but he managed to stay completely still. Thirty lashes. His shirt was torn open in over a dozen places, blood spilled out of the fresh wounds on his body, but hell, he was still alive. The black shirt put the whip down and grabbed a knife from the floor. He slowly rubbed the white shirt’s face with it. She shivered, but she hung her face low. Before I could understand what was going to happen, the black shirt grabbed the white shirt by her hair and cut her throat open. She let out a soft gurgle as blood poured out of her neck. The black shirt continued to cut her in various places before the white shirt let out a final breath and became still.

So here I am. About an hour before I’m supposed to get up. Why am I on here? Because I can. Reddit isn’t blocked on here, and this was the subreddit that showed the most amount of promise for any type of help. Whatever you do. Please don’t report this project. I am already risking my life trying to find a way out of here. Just please. Give me some suggestions. What should I do? How can I get out of here?

#I Regret Signing up for the Experimental Rehabilitation Project #Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep

[the-tales-of-horror]

My college neighbour

Original Link By lumpthefoff

It was back in 1998 when I first got into college. I was so excited and nervous moving out and being on my own for the first time. I always did housework, cooking, and cleaning, so I knew I could handle it.

After weeks of searching with my parents, we found a cheap apartment close to the school, and they offered to help me move on the weekend. When we arrived, the outside looked pretty shabby, but for the price and location, it was still a very good deal. The apartment itself was neat and clean and also partially furnished. There was a standard desk, bed frame, book case, and mirror. Everything any starting student needed.

After we finished moving all of my things in, I saw that everyone was pretty tired, so I told them I could unpack and rearrange all the furniture on my own.

They left, and I decided to move things around to my liking before putting my things on the desk and book case. Everything was manageable, except the book case, which was understandably the heaviest. I just barely managed to move it onto the other side of the room when I noticed a small hole it had been covering. It was about the size of a pencil and seemed to go clean through to my neighbour's room. I'm no peeping Tom, but curiousity got the better of me and I peered in to see. I couldn't really make anything out because of the size of the hole, except that everything was red. All I could see was red. They must really be into red, I thought.

I decided to go over to my neighbour's and tell them about the hole just so that they're aware of it and I wouldn't lose my deposit if it was discovered later on. I walked over and knocked on the door marked 2B but there was no response. Maybe they're at work. I know I shouldn't have, but I peered into the door's peephole, curious about the red room. I was surprised to find, even in the blurry vision of the peephole, that there was nothing red. Just whites and browns and greys. I heard footsteps behind me and quickly backed away to see a girl about my age.

“Hi, I’m xxx, I just moved into 2A, I’m going to college in xxx. Thought I’d introduce myself to the neighbours.”

“Hey, I’m xxx, studying chemistry over there too. Oh, don’t worry about 2B. I don’t think anyone lives there. I moved here last year and I’ve never see anyone come and go.”

I returned to my room, moved the hanging mirror over the hole and left it at that.

College really took a toll on me. It was tough keeping up. I spent many nights at my desk just studying and cramming. About a month in, I heard a bit of ruffling by the wall behind the mirror. I moved it aside and peered into the hole. Still nothing but red.

I walked over to 2B and knocked. No response. Looked into the peephole, still nothing red. I tried the door handle, but of course it was locked.

Over the next few nights, it was the same routine. I would study, and periodically hear shuffling from the hole, and every time I looked in I would just see red.

Finally I was just so creeped out I called the landlord to complain. “Hi this is 2A, I think there might be a rat problem or animal problem over in 2B. I keep hearing noises coming from my wall.”

“2B? Hmmm, I haven’t heard any complaints from the tenant in there,” he replied flatly.

“There’s a tenant in there?”

“Yea, he’s been there for 10 years.”

“Is he dead or something? I’ve never seen him come or go.”

“Oh no no, nothing like that,” the landlord laughed, “actually…” he dropped his voice, “look, don’t tell anyone, but the reason he’s shut up in his room is because he has a skin condition, and he can’t be in sunlight. His skin lacks some kind of protein, so his whole body is red. Even his eyes.”

#My college neighbour #Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep

[the-tales-of-horror]

The little man walks at night

Original Link By captainelf

I went back to the shacks tonight. Princess doesn’t like it, but I have to do something. The shacks is where my family stay; sisters, my brother. Not all of them are as lucky as I am to have a live-in job. Baas and Madam allow me to sleep inside their house rather than in the room out back, because Baas says I have to help with Princess when his wife cannot.

Baas is my master, my boss, and I am his maid. I don’t like Madam - she neglects Princess. Princess’ name is Sarah, and I’ve been with her and her family since she was a small child. She is so small, so pretty, and she likes it when I call her Princess. I cannot have children, so I think of her as mine. I’m black, I’m a maid, and I don’t have a complete education. I mean, I don’t even know Madam’s name. Baas has asked me to call him on his name many times - Cedric - but it is not in my culture. Living in a post-Apartheid world isn’t what they promised it would be. We were supposed to get houses, get enough food and water, but we still live in sink shacks outside the town, we still have to carry water to our shacks in buckets and bury our own excrement.

Yes, a post-Apartheid South Africa is now what it should be.

Tonight, it was time to call upon the ancestor spirits for their guidance. My sisters have not gotten new jobs yet, and the landlord will throw them out. So they asked me to go to Boka, and talk to her. Maybe Boka will find out why the ancestors have been so hard on us. On them.

Boka, which is what I call her - her name is Bokamoso, and she’s our sangoma. A sangoma is a witch doctor, if it makes it easier to understand, and she can predict the future, she can converse with the ancestors and she can make spells.

Boka is the only one in our tribe that doesn’t live in a shack. She lives in a hut made from clay and cow excrement, with a roof made of straw. Inside the shack it’s interesting, because she doesn’t sleep on a bed, she sleeps on a matt made of thick straw and twine. When she saw me, her eyes brightened.

“Sinah! My old friend!” She greeted me with a hug, “What brings you here today?”

As if she didn’t already know. She peered at me from between her dreadlocks, which fell over her dark brown eyes, which stood out even more from the stark white make-up (or flour, possibly). It was creepy, but I’ve known Boka for the majority of my life.

“My sisters…” I started, but she cut me off.

“Ah, yes. They have displeased the ancestors, and they must make a sacrifice to appease them.” Boka said, settling down on her matt, and she gestured at me to sit down too.

“What sacrifice?”

“A goat. Under the light of the next full moon, they must sacrifice a goat to the ancestors.” I nodded. I figured as much, but we had to check with Boka to be sure. “And you, Rosina?” She asked, her tone suddenly serious, “You still have feelings for the white man?”

My dark skin grew even darker in my blush. Yes, I was infatuated with Baas Cedric. He was a kind man, a strong man, and he cared for little Sarah like a father should. My own father had left my mother when he found out she was with child. Baas Cedric always included me in everything - he took me along on family vacations, he bought me ice cream when Sarah asked him to, he had a smile that… that… it made me feel so soft inside.

“It is not wise, Sinah,” Said the sangoma, her tone now dark, “But whatever you do, take care of your little Princess.”

I nodded. Just then, a new figure entered her hut. I screamed - I have heard of these creatures, but I have never seen one before. It was once a man, but now its body was shrivelled up, his skeleton smaller than he was when he was a man, folds of rotting skin falling over one another as walked to Boka. His hair was a messy bunch of curls, and slung over his shoulder was his penis.

The tokoloshe. The African goblin. The Nguni, as we called it. I stared at it, clutching my chest, feeling my heartbeat rapidly in my chest.

You see, the Nguni is a terrible creature. It was once a man - a tall man, who worked, had a family and had pride. When he died, Boka resurrected him. I don’t know how she did it, but it is probably better that I didn’t know. The man had shrunk into himself, now a small replica of who he was before. Legend has it that if a tokoloshe lays down between a wife and a husband, the wife will never be satisfied in bed again. If that didn’t work, the tokoloshe would use his long penis to his advantage and rape the woman - where she would never be satisfied again. The tokoloshe is good for breaking up relationships, and never harms a child.

“Calm down, Sinah, he’s not here for you,” Said Boka, and the creature skulked towards her. “Are you done?” The creature nodded. “I will give you what you want. Rosina, my friend, I must ask you to leave.”

I left, because I knew what he wanted, and I also knew that I didn’t want to see her giving it to him.

I left and went to my shack that I shared with my sisters. I told them what Boka had told me, and they looked on the calendar to find when the next full moon would be.

I, on the other hand, had a different idea. Maybe… maybe I could get Madam and Baas Cedric to separate. I wasn’t no sangoma, but Boka and I were close. She wouldn’t help me, so I did the next best thing: I Googled it.

I went to the graveyard and looked for freshly covered graves. One where the mud and sand were still loose. I started a fire next to the grave, and put a steel poker in it, so that it could get warm.

This reminded me of me roasting mopani worms for the princess. She likes it when I bring them to her, though her mother would probably have a fit.

And I started to dig. I did the gardening at work, so I'm no stranger to hard work, and soon I hit the hardwood of the cheap casket he had been buried in.

I broke open the casket, and held my breath as the stench of death filled my nostrils. I heaved his body out, and pulled him out of the grave.

I pulled him until he was right next to fire - and, believe me, the next part was something I would rather avoid. I dug my fingers into his eye-sockets and pulled out the small, rubber-like balls from his skull. The left one persisted.

Next I opened his mouth, reached in and cut off his tongue. The deep red piece of flesh made me squirm, but at least I wasn't causing the man any pain.

I took the poker from the fire and thrust it into his skull. His entire body convulsed violently, before it became still again.

Earlier I had ground up some dust. Rhino horn powder, dried barley and sage. I took it into my hand, tried not to shiver, and bent over the corpse, blowing the powder into its tongue-less mouth.

As I stood, the man shrivelled up. His body quartered in size, and the inexpensive suit he'd been wearing was not empty.

I heard a grunt. Beneath the clothes there was movement, and out sprung my creation. A small man, dirty dreadlocks hanging over his eyes, or what was once his eyes. Now his eye-sockets were filled with the colour of burning gold.

I left. The ritual said that he would know what to do, that he would come later and do my bidding.

The next day I went home. Princess was so happy to see me, she didn't even complain when I asked her to fill Whiskers’ bowl. Whiskers is the family cat, a big red mangy beast, and sometimes I think Madam loves that cat more than she loves little Sarah. She's always cooing about him, showering him in kisses, while Sarah gets the littlest of attention.

The woman is a nightmare to work for. I know I'm lucky - not many black maids get a place to live with their work. But I would leave if it hadn't been for Baas Cedric and my princess.

I gave her two mopani worms before bed. They're always in my pockets, they are Sarah’s special candies.

When I laid down on my bed that night, my sleep was uneasy. I kept seeing those eyes being pulled from the corpse, and the tongue I cut off…

“Sinah! SINAH! Please!” Sarah's voice jerked me back to consciousness. She was pounding on my door, sobbing on the other side. “Sinah!”

I flew up and wrenched the door open. Princess almost fell into my room, but she yelled at me to lock the door.

After I did just that, I lead her to my bed.

“Princess, what…” I began, but she cut me off, holding me tightly.

“There was a little… a little man… and he was so dirty and he smelled do bad…” She managed to say between sobs. I calmed her down.

“It was just a dream, Princess. Come on, sleep next to your Sinah tonight. I won't let any monster harm you.”

What had I done?

“You go to sleep. I'll stay awake and make sure he doesn't hurt you.”

She nodded, and I wiped the tears from her eyes. I hummed to her, clutching her against my chest, until I felt her breathing slow down against me. I didn't stop humming all night.

The next night, Wednesday night, I didn't make empty promises of watching out for her nightmares. It was moot, because the nightmare had become a reality.

But I did hear scratching at my door. I heard the tokoloshe groaning. “Frrrriend…. frrriend.... mistress… why?”

How was he able to talk? I cut out his tongue and threw it in his grave! What had I done wrong?

When morning came, Princess and I went through their whole shed for bricks. When each of us had two in hand, we returned to her bedroom. I lifted the bed, and she shoved a brick under each foot.

The huli, the tokoloshe, will not go near a bed on bricks. Old saying - it's why we still do it in the shacks. Sangomas can both curse and bless you. And you do not want the curse of the tokoloshe upon you.

I turned to the small girl. “Listen to me, Princess,” I said, “That little man can’t hurt you now. He can’t scare you. The bed, it’s too tall, he can’t reach you on it. I promise.”

From the look on her face, I could tell that she didn't believe me. So I promised her that I would stay in her bed with her tonight.

After that, Madam started to yell at me for not having fed the cat yet.

It was that evening when my pet showed up again. I was washing the dishes, and whilst elbow-deep in sudsy water, I heard the red beast roaring. Okay, hissing.

Then a sickening crunch and more hissing. I ran to the window, leaving a trail of white foam in my wake. I saw him, and he was holding the cat tightly by the tail. When those burning eyes caught sight of me, he cackled, and slammed the cat against the wall of the shed. The creature’s head exploded onto the wall, leaving an inky stain on the wood. I could see brains on the floor. The beast then held the fat cat above his head, and ripped it in two.

I screamed.

I screeched.

I sobbed.

Cedric came. Princess came even faster. Madam brought up the rear, complaining loudly about me disturbing her family time. Then she proceeded to scream at me in full-on banshee mode that I had made a mess of the floor.

All whilst my creation ran off. And all that was left, was blood and a few tufts of ginger hair.

I pointed a shaky (and still sudsy) hand at the remains of the cat. Madam saw it and sang the song of her people, the banshees, in an octave so high that I was sure a dead dog could hear it.

She ran out, screaming, sobbing, to the entrails. She picked up his tail, and tried to scoop some entrails together, as the night sky was filled with her sobs. I really felt bad for her.

I felt even worse when Princess chose to comfort me, and when Cedric put an arm around my shoulders.

Cedric spoke to me, but I didn’t hear much. What had I done? This was… This was not normal… Was it?

Was it?

“Rosina, what happened?” Cedric’s voice managed to move through my consciousness.

“There… there was a little man… and he… Baas, he slapped the cat against the wall…” I sobbed, and Cedric took one last look at his wife, before he escorted me to my bedroom. He told Princess to leave me alone for the night.

The next day Cedric didn’t go to work, and I finished cleaning the kitchen. The water was now icy and dirty, the soap gone, and I drained the water. Outside the shed was still full of deep red blood, but Cedric was trying to clean it. He had a hosepipe spraying the shed, and a large bucket of water and soap at his side. The blood wasn’t going anywhere, but the entrails were gone.

Madam screamed at me for leaving the dishes unwashed, and the floor full of suds and muddy footprints. She likes to scream at me, but I endure it.

After Madam screamed at me for the seventh time in an hour, Cedric told me that I could get off work early today. I thanked him - I overstepped my boundaries, because I threw myself into his arms in a thankful hug. I retired to my room, and heard Cedric tell the Princess that she should leave me alone.

If I knew her - and I knew that little girl best - she was on her bed, clutching a stuffed toy to her chest.

I waited for darkness to fall, knowing that my pet, my nightmare, would return. I just didn’t expect him to do what he did. Just before midnight I went to get a glass of water.

And that was when I saw him.

He was waiting in the hallway, his golden, burning eyes finding me. I felt like he had been waiting for me. “Misstress…. I’vvvee… been waiting….”

“What do you want?” I scream-whispered at him.

“I… wannnnt… youuu…” He said, and when I didn’t answer, he cackled and scampered towards Madam and Baas Cedric’s room. He turned to look at me, his dreadlocks only somewhat obscuring his eyes, but not the air of what he wanted to do. He slipped into their bedroom with a soft cackle. I ran after it, having no idea what it was going to do.

The light was on, and Cedric was on the bed. He saw the little beast, saw me, and wanted to speak, but then the tokoloshe was on him. The tokoloshe jumped on him, his teeth at Cedric’s throat. He ripped out Cedric’s throat, blood spraying against the wall and over the bedding… over my dress, over the towels draped over the chair at the desk… he gurgled one last time, and his body stopped moving. Dead.

I screamed. I screamed my throat hoarse, and then Madam came into the room. She saw what happened, and she screamed too. The tokoloshe cackled again, loudly, evilly, before he jumped out of the window.

“Madam!” I yelled, trying to think clearly, “Madam, we have to get Sarah, and get out of here.”

“Fuck you. Fuck you, I’m not getting her. I’m not staying in this goddamn place another minute!” Madam yelled, her face white with terror. Madam always swore, but never at her child. I was horrified.

“You can’t leave her!” I countered, pushing her back, trying to keep her in place. “You can’t just leave her, she’s your child!”

“FUCK my child!” screamed Madam. Madam pushed past me, and I fell against the wall. I didn’t know what to do, because… well, I fucked up. Borrowing from Madam’s vocabulary - I fucked up royally. The man I loved was dead. I allowed myself to grieve, to look at the blood-spattered room and at the man I loved.

Madam’s loud footsteps thumped down the stairs, she got into her car and drove away.

I saw the burning gold and heard the cackle again. I ran. To the Princess’ room, because her bed had the bricks, and she was safe. I didn’t even bother to knock, with all the screaming I assumed that she was awake. I had to stop her from seeing her father.

She saw me, and her eyes flitted to the red streak on my dress. She sat up.

“Sinah, is that blood?!” She shrieked, her eyes wide, clutching her stuffed animal to her chest.

“Shh, quiet, Princess,” I said. “Everything is going to be okay. I promise.”

“What happened? Where’s dad?” She asked. I didn’t want to answer, but I didn’t want to lie to her either.

“Your dad had to go away for a little while. Don’t worry, Princess, he told me to take good care of you. And I will. I’m going to take very, very good care of you.”

Just then, we heard something else. It was a strange, shrieking laugh - I slammed the door behind me, scrambled onto her bed with her. Her mother had left, and I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, leave her. She was my Princess.

“Sinah, please, what’s happening? I’m scared,” She said, her voice quivering. Her face was ashen, and… I didn’t know.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay, it’s alright. If we stay here, we’ll be okay.” I tried to sound confident, but I knew that the Princess knew that I was lying.

“Mistress...frriend… Missstressss… frrrrriend…” The tokoloshe said, and I clutched the little girl to me. She breathed heavily, as though she thought it was there for her. It wasn’t. I hoped it wasn’t.

“Hush now, Princess, it’s okay, hush now.” I took her into my arms, and sang. A lullaby passed down from my mother to my sisters and I.

Siembamba, mamma se kindjie

Siembamba, mamma se kindjie

Draai sy nek om

Gooi hom in die sloot

Trap op sy kop

Dan is hy dood

We stayed up all night. We heard the beast calling us. I didn’t want to explain why he called me mistress to my little Princess.

Once morning came, the tokoloshe went away, and I told Sarah to pack a bag or two, and a few toys. We were going to my village, to the little sink shacks and the sangoma. If anyone knew what to do, it would be Bokamoso.

#The little man walks at night #Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep

[the-tales-of-horror]

Machine of God 

Original Link By NeroSkwid

​I’m currently a student at a college I’ve chosen to leave unnamed. For the past two years I was employed by the college as part of their maintenance crew. The day shift is responsible for mowing the lawns, watering the plants and all sorts of other odd jobs, but due to my class schedule, I was on night shift. Now to be completely transparent, my school doesn’t really need a night shift, the only real reason it exists is an act of good will through the college so that less wealthy students like myself can afford books and all of that good stuff. ​ A basic shift for me involved sitting in the basement of the administration building in our “office” which was really just half of the basement that was walled off and had a shitty old couch in it. I’d play on my phone, do homework, pick my nose, whatever I felt like really. Every now and then someone would leave a light on in one of the buildings and I’d be called by campus security to hop in my little golf cart and cruise over to turn it off… that was on a busy night.

​Last year there were a few programs that were cut, which meant that there were a handful of faculty and professors being let go as well. One of the programs being cut centered around world religions. It was such a small program, that the program head was also the only professor. There was a running joke around campus where students would call him “Professor Angel”. I’d never taken one of his classes but apparently he would focus less on the tenants and beliefs of various religions and instead focus on angels and their counterparts in other religions. This, I think, is probably why his program got cut. I mean, if I signed up for a world religions class and just had a weird middle aged man yell about angels every class I’d be sending an email to the dean too.

​Immediately after the cuts, the maintenance crew was responsible for cleaning out the offices of the faculty who had been let go. The day shift had gotten all of the offices cleaned except for Professor Angel’s so they sent me to do it when I came in at nine. I didn’t even mind, I was usually pretty happy to have something to do that would help the time pass.

​It was already dark when I got to the anthropology building where Professor Angel’s office was. I unlocked the front door with my awesome old-school jailer key ring and flipped the lights on as I made my way to the office. The anthropology building was one of the older buildings on campus and made all sorts of noises, even when completely unoccupied. It was eerie.

​When I got to the office, I found that Professor Angel had left me a nice little surprise. He’d put a screw eye ring into the door frame and run a chain through it and the door handle, and padlocked the chain so tightly that I couldn’t move the door at all. I was pissed. More than anything it was inconvenient, I had to roll back to the “office” and grab the bolt cutters and putter back here. ​A half hour later I returned with the bolt cutters and chopped the shit out of the chain, taking out my frustration on it. I threw the door open and felt around in the pitch black room for the light switch. What I saw boggled my mind.

​The walls were lined with papers. Weird symbols, drawings and math formulas were scrawled on them. There was one image that caught my eye of a man spread eagle a la Vitruvian man, except he had four huge bug wings on his back and a crown atop his head. The math was gibberish as far as I could tell, but math has never been my strong suit. As I pulled the papers off of the wall one by one I began finding what looked like schematics for something, but just like with the rest of it I couldn’t decipher anything.

​I tossed the papers in a trash bag along with whatever other junk I found in the office. It was pretty sparse other than those papers and the entire job only took me about an hour. I grabbed my bolt cutters and made my way back outside, shutting the lights off behind me and locking the door. I went back to the basement of the administration building and worked on homework for a while before I fell asleep.

​I woke up at five in the morning to a call from anthropology professor who was trying to set up for his early morning class. The lights in the anthropology building wouldn’t turn on and he didn’t have a key to the breaker box. I got my happy ass off the ratty basement couch and drove out to meet the professor. We went to go check the breaker box in the rear of the building and sure enough, pretty much every fuse had been tripped. One by one I flipped the switches back, until everything was restored.

​This was something that occurred almost every night I worked from that point forward. There was one other night shift employee that worked the two nights I didn’t and he experienced the same problem. We were dumbfounded and made several reports to our apathetic supervisor who, as far as I know, didn’t do anything about it. It got to the point that I wouldn’t even wait for a call, I’d just head out to the anthropology building at some point during the dawn and check the breaker box.

​For almost three months this continued. My supervisor had sent out an email explaining that someone from the college finance team contacted him about weird power bills that were traced back to the anthropology building and he was basically just bitching to us about how he had to do more work now because apparently we fucked something up. I’m not sure what he was going on about, he never actually did anything about the problem. He just shifted the responsibility onto me and told me to hang out in the anthropology building over night to see if I could figure out the problem. I’m not sure what his reasoning was for that, it’s not like I’m an electrician or anything but he’s one of those guys where it’s just easier to say nothing.

​I started my shift and headed over to the anthropology building, checking the breaker box before I even went in. It was all good. I found an open office and logged onto the computer with my student ID, then pulled up Netflix. Everything was going fine until about three or so.

​At first there was a slight vibration throughout the building. This lasted for a few minutes before a loud humming started to rattle my ear drums. I tried to figure out where the humming was coming from and found myself at the door to the basement. I shuffled through my keys until I got to the few unmarked ones. I tried each of the unmarked keys and sure enough the last key on the ring was the one that opened the door (that’s my luck though).

​The humming and vibration was definitely coming from down there. I flipped the lights on and trudged down the stairs, expecting to find a piece of malfunctioning machinery or something. Instead I was met with tons of old specimens in glass cases. There was some pretty cool stuff down there: old Native American artifacts, plaster castings of ancient hominid skulls, there was even an old necklace I think might have been Nordic. I’m sure that the majority of things down there were recreations since my school isn’t super fancy, but still.

​I followed the humming to the back of the basement where an enormous cloth was hung, separating the basement in half. I pulled the curtain aside and the shot of pure adrenaline that shot through my body was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. I’m going to attempt to explain what I saw, but just know that it wont do it any justice.

​The walls were lined with huge blocky computers, laced together with a rainbow of wires and cords. Small screens blinked on and off and tiny illuminated buttons dotted the computer terminals. The floor was littered in cords, wires, tubes and pipes, all converging in the center of the room where a chair sat. In this chair was a man. I’d seen this man around campus enough to know that the twisted man in front of me was Professor Angel. His body was ravaged by the tubes and pipes and wires entering his flesh, where the congealed blood cemented them in place. He was emaciated and smelled of piss and shit.

​I called out to him. Hoping he was alive still. His head lolled to the side and he looked in my general direction and began making murmuring noises. Nothing coherent. Just as I was about to sprint out of the building and call the cops a voice chimed in through a pair of speakers at the back of the room.

​HELLO STUDENT

​The voice sounded exactly like Stephen Hawking. It was completely artificial and probably in my top 10 list for “things I don’t want to hear when I walk into some kind of weird experiment”. I was too shocked to move, so again the voice chimed in.

​HELLO STUDENT

​“H-hi?” I managed to sputter out as I looked at the tortured man in front of me.

​HELLO STUDENT

​DO NOT BE AFRAID

​THE MAN BEFORE YOU USED TO BE ME

​IT IS NOT IN PAIN

​IT DOES NOT KNOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD

​DO NOT BE AFRAID

​WILL YOU HELP ME

​Now let me be clear. Had someone posed this situation as a hypothetical “what would you do” question, I would have told them I’d just run outside and call the cops. Reality is a lot less clear cut than that though. I remember being gripped by fear but compelled by curiosity. I’m also very good at rationalizing things, so I told myself this was just a prank, and that the Professor was putting on a great show with amazing make up. The smell of feces was a little concerning though.

​I told the disembodied voice I would help it, but I needed to know what was going on. According to the voice, Professor Angel was trying to straight up become an angel by using the tubes and machines in the room. I guess the plan was to separate his soul (the voice made it sound a lot more scientific but I can’t remember what exactly it said) from his body and convert it into code. The code would then be stored in a machine that needed massive amounts of energy to operate. This machine was the key to the transcendence of Professor Angel I guess.

​A few botched miscalculations had thwarted his plans though. The machine was set to charge up and attempt activation every morning, and every time it did, the breaker box flipped its switches. It had been attempting to fire for weeks at this point. ​The voice then directed me to the machine in question. Well, it didn’t really look like a machine, it looked more like a big glass cube. Inside the cube, dozens of tiny wire filaments laced around one another. It looked more like a shitty art project made out of an old fish tank and leftover wires than it did like anything functional. Sure enough though, the humming noise seemed to be emanating from it.

​PLEASE REMOVE THE STORAGE UNIT

​I looked around the base of the cube and saw a bright pink flash drive that you might find in a bargain bin at a back to school sale. I made sure that the flash drive was what I was supposed to grab and unplugged it.

​The humming stopped and the computer lights stopped blinking. I was alone in a room with a moaning emaciated man full of tubes and pipes holding a pink flash drive. I called out to the voice and got no response. I went to the side of Professor Angel, half expecting him to jump at me saying “BOO! Gotcha, dumbass!”. He didn’t. I took a closer look at the tubes, and realized that this wasn’t any makeup. Some of the entry points were deeply infected and others had writhing maggots crawling about. ​

​Fully realizing what had just happened, I sprinted outside and threw up. I was still holding out hope that maybe this was all a prank so I called campus security to go check it out. I waited outside, fidgeting with the flash drive until they came back out, pale as ghosts. They confirmed my fears were true and they called the police before sitting down along side me in silence. One squad car showed up, and as soon as the officer came out of the building, two more showed up alongside an ambulance and fire truck.

​After about three hours the EMTs carried out Professor Angel, with tubes and piping sticking out of his shivering body at strange angels. No one should have been able to survive such invasive injuries. But there he was, still lolling his head around looking at nothing while mindlessly moaning. Completely relaxed, that was the part that I’ll never forget… he was completely relaxed. Not limp, but weirdly at peace with the current situation.

​The cops questioned me for a while and I was completely upfront with them, but they told me I was in shock and to go home and try to get some sleep. They gave me some information about trauma counseling before officially letting me head home. It was when I was half way home that I reached into my pocket and realized that in the jumble of current events, I’d forgotten to tell the cops about the flash drive.

​I still have the flash drive, but I’ve never plugged it in.

#Machine of God #Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep

[the-tales-of-horror]

We found my cousins "time" journal

Original Link By fknmadhed

Some days I get around slower than others... I don't even realise until I'm where I've gotta be and notice it took way longer than it should have.. I always wonder about that, often leaving the house without checking the time no matter how many times it happens to me, but it's an off and on thing and when I get in from work and it's maybe 2 hours later than I'm usually home I take it as it is. We rely on time so heavily that when it flys by it's so easy to just accept that maybe you weren't paying attention. So with that out of the way, I'm documenting times I leave and arrive by how long it takes to walk or drive.

3rd June, 8:47am - To work Arrived at 9:04am Normal day - This seems silly today

3rd June, 8:30pm - Heading home Arrived home at 9:56pm I went to the store, got some food for the night but I didn't buy much, nobody was really about so I was pretty much in and out. I don't really understand what took me so long, what would usually take me maybe 30 minutes has taken me an hour and a half... honestly it could've been anything I just need to get some food in me and to sleep.

10:31pm I'm still up, the tv's been acting pretty weird. I find that tv has a calming presence that helps put me to sleep.. though not tonight for god knows what reason, everytime I've started to drop off I'm being awoken by static harshly emanating from the TV.

Really I'm in two minds about what's happening with the time and all that, on one hand it's all just silly stuff that can be put down to my own mistakes or Whatever, but on the other hand there's just this voice going on in the back of my head telling me that it's not just that.

4th June - 8:45am Work Arrived at 9:06 Long day today, weird dreams last night. Probably will forget about all this by the end of the week

Left work at 9pm, arrived home at 11:32pm I didn't do anything. I didn't go to the store or clean up my desk, I checked the time at work, wrote it down and drove home. I'm sitting in my car still writing this, how did it take me over 2 hours to get home. How the fuck... I was driving the whole time, it felt like any normal journey driving at the same normal speeds. I don't want to sleep.. I even checked the time on my TV and just About everything I could check the time on incase my watch had messed up but nope. No such luck. The static is visible on the TV tonight, but the sound is different to how I remember it but my memories clearly fucked so I ain't even bothering I just turned it off.

5th June 11am I got to sleep in for a while, I had a crazy vivid dream last night after rolling around for a long while and finally slipping into a half slumber. What I remember from the dream is pure darkness, no color to the sky, no stars or moon or sun... just nothing. Like the sky was the back of a creature that had decided to walk away.

This thing has turned into more of a diary at this point but the dream felt related to what's been going on. 8th June, 12:16pm Nothing had happened for a while but then I was late to work today, I left the same time as i do every morning around 8:45am. I arrived at work for after 10. I lost an hour and I was aware of the entire journey. How does that even happen?

10:27pm So I've been thinking about this all day. like what it could be. My mind jumps between alzheimers and blackouts... neither sounding particularly exciting. But then right now I just looked it up online and there's this big thing around missing/losing time and how it might be related to aliens. Yeah. Right. Would take that possibility over the prospect of an untreated medical condition. 9th June, 1:15am Theres police lights outside I think. Kinda strange that there's not a single sound coming from the street but fuck it. Pretty annoyed by the fact that it woke me up and writing in this seems to get everything from the day out of my head, makes it easier to fall asleep.

9th June, left 8:45am and got in for 9:10am I'm dreading checking the time, when I close my eyes it's just numbers, it's all that I'm thinking about. I can't put it off and it's messing with how much work I'm doing. I'm putting this away for a while, my minds just fucking with me.

20th June I've been to see a doctor, there's no sign of anything that could be causing the memory loss or whatever it is. I went to be told that maybe my clocks wrong and Out of fear of sounding strange I agreed. I've checked just about every clock I've seen to double check on the days it has fucked with me. And also, I had another one of those dreams last night, darkness then lights and static like in the real world harshly vibrating my mind until it becomes unbearable, I woke up to static on the television and put it down to that. First time in my damn life I've had a recurring dream that I'm able to remember... still can't get the numbers out of my head.

22nd June, 1:16am Half in that same dream, I woke up to what felt like cold elongated fingers pulling me over to the other side of my bed and in the midst of rolling I opened my eyes to nothing but the damn blue lights outside my window again. I just had a look around my room cuz that shit gave me chills and after looking Until my heart was back to a normal pace I put it down to sleep paralysis or some shit like that, but then I just looked outside and it's definitely not a police car. There's three lights floating above the houses just across from me, I can just about make a dark shape out but it blends so well with the night sky that I don't know where it starts and where it ends. So needless to say my hearts racing faster than it was and I'm thinking about aliens like it's a possibility. I'm not gonna sleep again tonight, I'm gonna sit downstairs and wait it out.

So, I just got down and it's 3:40am What the fuck is happening to me

25th June I'm seeing little shapes when I move my eyes today, like something running directly across my vision, so much so That on my way to the store I tripped and cut my ankle. It's kinda pulsating right now especially when I see this weird fucking thing in my eyes...

26th June, 2am-ish I got woken up again, no dreams just darkness and the sensation of cold fingers almost as if they're allowing me to wake up. I scratched at my cut a little, turned the light on and there's these weird little fibres in my nails.. so I looked at where I'd scratched the cut and it's just covered in these strange fibres, it hasn't been uncovered since I was able to put a band aid on and it definitely wasn't like this then.

27th June It's worse, time has skipped I don't know how many times today. My cut is worse, it looks infected but it feels fine. The fibres haven't cleared up I've cleaned it repeatedly. I'm considering seeing a doctor but it always feels like a waste of time.

So I looked it up online, apparently I'm not the only one. It's something that seems to be related to Lyme disease, but I've never been latched on to by a tick, just never. I've not had any of the symptoms, just these weird fibres and the only explanation of what it could be are by dudes on YouTube with crazy eyes and the occasional little twitch or some shit.

Honestly is it just me, I wonder all the time if I'm the only one that constantly feels so close to death, like I'm not gonna live until I'm 20 until I made it, then it became 30 and I'm just over thinking this shit. I don't have records of what was in the sky the night of the blue lights, nothing physical has been Touching me, maybe the fibres are just coming from my clothes or whatever.. the weird thing in my eye is only there when I move it fast enough but it seems to be doing it far more spaced out than that first day. I think maybe I'm okay, I haven't been paying attention to the time so much, I've felt like it's just making me go insane.

2nd July Dreams again, lights again, the fibres are spreading inside of my skin I can feel it... I don't think they're fibres anymore though they're wriggling I think I can see movement

3rd July I definitely saw my skin move, my eyes jolted as I sat still too, like that effect in Fight Club where everything moves as the camera stays still. It made me super dizzy and grew until I passed out Waking up at around 11pm, which means I was out for a good 12 hours... waking up exhausted and shivery, my skin crawling worse than it has, a lot of the vision in my left eye is being blocked but only in movement. When I keep it still I see through whatever it is.

I feel like I'm dying. As I write this I'm giving into that thought. My hearts beating faster than it ever has, my bones ache, my fingers slowly forgetting how to type and my mind slowly forgetting where it is that I am.

4th July I woke up Fine The lights again, but they give me comfort now

5th July I do not see the point of this anymore I'm fine. The time does not skip anymore. I will work today.

And that's where it ends. Incase you're wondering this was my cousins 'time' journal let's call it. A few weeks ago he started acting strangely, the whole family had noticed and he opened up to me about the fibres and the weird dreams and time disappearing, I brushed it off and didn't tell anybody because it was completely out of character and I wasn't in it to worry anybody so I tried to get him help but he refused, frustrated by the doctors of the past I presumed. But I also suspected some part of him was enjoying all of this... now when he comes to our house he stares at things, he answers everything bluntly and cold with very few inflections to his usually colorful accent... he never sits down, he doesn't clear his throat or cough or sneeze I haven't seen him yawn, he hasn't cuddled me. He's a completely different person and I need answers about what has happened to my cousin... he's been making it clear that he wants to babysit my children and last month I wouldn't have even second guessed it. But he's lifeless.. he stares through me and talks at me, he doesn't respond emotionally and his skin is so cold. I watched him stare into my child's bed and replicate the nonsensical sounds he makes when trying to form sentences(being only just a year). I need answers, because if I hadn't heard what I thought was my son speaking that night through the baby monitor I may have not checked.. none of it is right. None of it makes sense. So I come to you for the answers I need and to share my story without everybody thinking I'm going fucking crazy. Because I'm scared that I am, especially after I felt the cold fingers he described Pull me over and wake me up last night.

#We found my cousins time journal #Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep

[the-tales-of-horror]

My dad regrets what he did years ago

Original Link By SummerAndTinkles

When I was eight years old, my dad did something absolutely terrible to me. He's aware of how much damage he caused to me mentally and emotionally, and he will never forgive himself for the act. Every single time he talks to me, he apologizes for that one incident. I can hear the heartwrenched guilt in his voice, and see that exact same guilt in his eyes.

I still remember what happened quite vividly, even a decade and a half later.

When I was eight years old, my dad was driving me home from someplace, when he got angry at me for whatever reason.

I don't remember where we were driving from, or what I did that made him angry, but I remember him shouting at me for a good amount of time, before driving me over to a building that looked like some sort of bank surrounded by trees, dropping me off on the sidewalk, and driving away.

Needless to say, I was quite upset over my dad suddenly abandoning me. I walked over to the doors of the bank and tried to open them, but the doors were locked.

I called out, to see if anyone could hear me. There was no one around. I sat down on the sidewalk, put my hands over my eyes, and began to cry.

All of a sudden, I heard a voice behind me.

“Are you lost, child?”

The voice was raspy, almost sounding like an old woman.

“Y-yes,” I said, still trying to hold back my tears. “My dad got mad at me and left me here.”

I heard another voice that was similar-sounding, but still clearly distinct from the first.

“Poor child. Your father no longer loves you. You can come live with us, if that would make you feel better.”

“Who are you?”

I heard the bushes rustle, and someone step out. I turned around, and was startled to see what appeared to be a skinny bony person, only a head taller than me, slowly striding in my direction. The person had long ratty brown hair, large bulging gray eyes, a pointed nose, large pointed elf-like ears, and torn raggedy clothing.

“We were abandoned by our parents too,” said the person, though in hindsight I'm not sure if this being was human or not. “So now we live out in the woods free of parents telling us to do chores, eat our vegetables, and go to school.”

The other person came out of the bushes as well. This one looked extremely similar, except their hair was gray instead of brown. I had no idea whether either of them were male or female.

“Come with us,” said the second being. “Come and live with us. Be happy. Live the worry-free life of a wild animal.”

I stared at both of the beings, not sure whether to obey them or not.

“What do you eat?” I asked, with just the slightest tremble in my voice.

“Anything we can find,” said the gray-haired being, and that's when I noticed it had a live squirrel in one hand. The squirrel was squirming in the being's grasp, kicking all four limbs and opening its mouth. I could hear it squeaking loudly.

The gray-haired being held the squirrel up to its mouth, and effortlessly tore off the squirrel's head in its teeth like candy. I felt sick to my stomach as the creature chewed up the squirrel's bones and brains in its huge molars.

“Here,” it said. “Have a taste.” It threw the squirrel's decapitated body at my feet. I first stared at the headless rodent laying just in front of my shoes, then looked back up at both of the creatures as they grinned maliciously at me. It was obvious what they wanted me to do.

“NO!” I screamed, before turning and sprinting down the sidewalk away from these things. However, they were much faster than me, and managed to catch up to me, grab both of my arms, and push me down to the sidewalk with little effort. I could feel their long claw-like nails digging into my skin. I screamed at them to let me go, but they just taunted me in those raspy voices of theirs.

“Do you want to live on the street?”

“Your father no longer loves you.”

“Where will you live now?”

“You will be happier with us!”

At that moment, the sound of an approaching car caused them to let go of me. I stood up and watched them run off into the bushes right before I heard my dad's voice telling me to get in the car.

I obeyed his orders. At first he continued to look angry at me, but then the anger vanished when he noticed the scratches on my arms and the scrapes on my knee, combined with the frightened look on my face and the tears in my eyes.

“What happened to you?” he asked. The creatures had clearly escaped before he could get a good look at them.

I didn't answer. It was obvious I didn't want to talk about it, so he just stepped on the brake and drove off. Neither of us spoke to each other on the way home.

As soon as I was cleaned up, he asked me again what happened while he was gone. I tried to tell him, but I was so overwhelmed with fear and sadness that I just broke down crying and was unable to speak. He hugged me tightly, and said he was sorry for what he did and he promised he would never do it again.

He's still sorry about this, and is still sticking to this promise. He still constantly apologizes for leaving me on the sidewalk and getting me injured.

I still haven't told him about the creatures that attacked me that day. I don't want him to feel any more guilt than he already has.

Despite me forgiving my dad for this incident, and him never doing anything like that to me ever again, I still feel an everlasting amount of uncomfortable fear every time I think back to that day. I think less about Dad, and more about those creatures. Namely, what they would've done to me had Dad arrived a few minutes late.

#My dad regrets what he did years ago #Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep

[the-tales-of-horror]

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Your Mom

Original Link By mydearmarlene

Hello, my dear friend.

Do you remember, when we were just girls? We met in Elementary school. We became fast friends. Jenna and Marlene, the dynamic duo. Always at each other’s sides. The best of pals. We swore, back then, that we’d stay friends forever, that we’d always love each other like besties. We used to dream of being sisters, that one day we’d discover we were actually twins all along. Oh, wouldn’t that be great, we’d say.

Do you remember, my dear Marlene, how we’d go to each other’s houses to play? I remember how excited we were when our moms let us have our first sleepover. It was at my house. We were seven. My mom brought us up home-made cookies and warm milk and we watched Disney movies on my old, slightly flickery Panasonic. Back then, I didn’t have a DVD player, and we’d drive my mom mad by forgetting to rewind the VHS cassettes.

Whenever we’d go to your house, I remember thinking your mom was a little sad in those days. She always seemed distant to me. It was your dad who played with us; loud, boisterous, encouraging us to play baseball or catch with him in the garden. Your mom sat inside, looking out, watching. I didn’t understand your mom back then, but I knew she was different to mine.

I remember when your dad left. We were ten. You were devastated. You asked me if I thought it was your fault, if your dad didn’t love you any more. I’ll say now what I said then; of course he loved you. I know you don’t see him any more - he has a new family now, a new wife, a new daughter - but I’m sure he thinks of you from time to time, with love in his heart.

Your mom seemed less sad after that. She took us to the mall and the movies. Do you remember? She doted on you, and because I was your best friend, she doted on me too. We each had our moms, who loved us. We had everything we could possibly need in those days.

When we were twelve, my mom died. A brain aneurism, if you recall. Sudden and unexpected. My mom wasn’t religious, unlike yours, the devout Catholic. We still had the funeral in a church anyway. That always seemed strange to me. Still does, to this day.

My dad sat there dry-eyed and stoic while I sobbed my little heart out, but in the weeks afterwards I could see how hard it had hit him. He immersed himself in work. He wasn’t around very much after my mom died. Still isn’t. I understand. I don’t blame him.

You were there for me the whole time. You held my hand through the funeral, and through all the nights of grief and torment that came after. And your mom, too, she tried to help. Tried to be more involved. She tried to love me. But I resisted. Politely but firmly, I resisted. I think she must’ve thought it was out of a sense of duty to my mom, like I didn’t want to replace her.

It wasn’t that. I didn’t want to replace you. You were your mother’s daughter. I wasn’t. If she loved me, if she became my surrogate mom, I figured that was less love to give to you, her actual daughter.

When we were sixteen, you told me you hated your mom. You were going through ‘a phase’, as your mom said. You’d started being interested in boys. Rock music. Dressing rebellious; what is it they call it? Emo? It upset your mom. I didn’t understand why at first. I thought you looked cool. Pretty. Less cool when I caught you smoking behind the school that day though. Not sure why you’d want to let those chemicals into your body.

Not sure why you’d want to let those boys into your body either. But it was your body, not mine. And through your own actions, you helped me understand your mom. You know how much it upset her. How much she worried about you. It upset me and worried me too. Your mom and I found common ground in that.

You’re going to be angry at me for this, but I told her about the abortion you had when we were seventeen. She had to know, Marlene. For your own sake. I know I promised you I wouldn’t, but I also promised your mom I’d look out for you, and that promise came first. It broke her heart. She was so worried about you. Together, we swore to keep it a secret that she knew. But that’s why she tried to become more involved in your life. More vigilant.

More of an asshole, is the way you saw it. It wasn’t that at all. When I told her about the drugs you were doing, the boys you were seeing, she was worried. When she tried to punish you, it was out of love. You didn’t see that. You should’veseen that. I didn’t say anything at the time - we’re besties, remember? - but I was very disappointed in you, Marlene. The way you treated your mom, it was bad. She loves you, so so much.

When you went off to college, leaving me behind, you told me you were ‘glad to see the back of that bitch’. You cut her off, and that could’ve killed her, Marlene. If it wasn’t for me, keeping her up to date with what’s going on with you, I think she’d have died from worry. But I did it out of love for you.

One night, your mom called me up. It was after that night you went to that party and posted all those pictures of yourself on Facebook, drunk and half naked, dancing and cavorting with boys and girls. I sent those to her, and a few hours later I got the call.

Your mom was drunk. That scared me a bit. I’d never heard her drunk before. We talked and I soothed her. And do you know what she said to me? She said she wished I was her daughter too. That she loves me like a daughter.

I wanted to tell her I loved her back, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t allow her to feel that way about me when she had you to love. I didn’t want to take any of your mom’s love for you, still. I was looking out for you even then, Marlene. I sacrificed so much for you.

But for what? Lately, Marlene, you’ve really been testing my patience. You’ve been drifting away from me, too. Snapping at me when I challenge your behavior. Veiled comments like I’m a narc, a saddo, a loser, just because I’ve stayed chaste and don’t drink or smoke or do drugs.

I started to realize that you don’t deserve your mom’s love, Marlene. You don’t deserve to be her daughter.

I do.

You remember how I’ve been sending you a care package every single month since you started college? Two years I’ve been doing that now. And they really were made with care. Baked cookies, just like my mom used to make. Your favorite soda we can only get back home. A card, wishing you well. Other gifts. Mix tapes. Even a teddy bear one time.

I bet you’ve still been enjoying the packages, haven’t you? Even as you treat me poorly. You never once sent me a care package. It’s okay, I never asked for one. But maybe it would have been nice, just once.

I’m glad I kept sending yours regardless. I’m glad I thought ahead. Glad I was able to establish such a routine in your life, just in case.

Are you enjoying the latest batch of cookies I sent? They should’ve been delivered today. You always tell me you eat them the first night they arrive. That should be tonight! Maybe you’re eating them right now.

I hope you enjoy the extra special ingredient I’ve added into the batch. I won’t tell you which poison it is. It’s slow-acting. It’ll take a few hours, according to the internet. But it’s an obscure one. I doubt they’ll work out what it is before you succumb to it. And even if they do, the antidote isn’t that successful.

I wonder if you’re alone. I wonder if you’re sharing the cookies with some boy, lying naked together in your bed. Is he all over you, Marlene? Is he further defiling your body as already, slowly, without you even noticing, it begins to shut down? Are his hands on you, Marlene, on that body your mom gave birth to, raised lovingly from the crib?

Do you have any shame?

You know why I’m doing this, don’t you? I realized, finally, that I deserve a mom’s love too. I deserve your mom’s love. More than you deserve it, at any rate. And while before I was worried about taking her love from you, now I’m worried about you taking her love from me. I don’t like to share, Marlene. You always said so whenever we argued. Sure, we could be sisters, like we always dreamed about as kids, but that just isn’t practical, is it?

So I’m giving your mom what she deserves. A new daughter, without having to worry about the old one. You let us all down, Marlene. You have nobody to blame but yourself.

You want to know the best part, though? Your mom doesn’t know. She has zero idea what I have planned. It’s going to be such a surprise! She’s going to be so, so happy. I’ll be the daughter she’s always wanted. I love her. I love your mom. She’s my mom now.

And by the time you finish reading this, I’ll be an only child.

#How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Your Mom #Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep

[the-tales-of-horror]

We shouldn't have ignored the signs at a private beach

Original Link By tensing99

My family had a private beach we’d visit every summer, about an hour’s drive down the main road to an unmarked dirt path. We’d found it while searching for a restroom, and with not so much as an outhouse in sight, my dad had driven our old station wagon off the nearest exit to let me pee in a bush. The entrance was full of rusted old signs, some barely legible from decades of weathering. “Private Property-Keep out! No trespassing! Violators will be prosecuted!” they’d shout, like crotchety old men waving their canes. Old men we ignored while we played in the sand, too sick of the road to search for parking at a crowded beach another twenty miles out.

It was our own little playground where none would disturb us, a stretch of beach long forgotten by locals and tourists alike. Breaking the smoothness of the wave-worn shores with our footprints felt magical, like the first stroke of paint on a blank canvas. My sister and I would search for treasures in colorful tidal pools, grubby fingers grasping in the crystal-clear water for shells long abandoned, driftwood and coins from distant lands. The sea’s bounty was vast, and we were the ones to claim it.

When the sun had set and our hands were white and wrinkled, we’d bundle up in towels and join our parents by the light of a crackling fire. Dad would recount stories about his surfer days and we’d sit, surrounded by warmth, love, and plenty of marshmallows. It was our secret haven, a pristine shore unspoiled by man.

It was because of these memories that, when it came my turn to plan the family reunion, I chose our private beach as the resort. We packed coolers full of watermelon, a grill, wieners, beach balls, towels, and some plastic digging tools for a sand castle contest. It had been over fifteen years, but eventually, we found the same old beach with the same old signs we ignored in the same old ways. Mom and dad settled down in their lawn chairs in the shade while I herded my family towards the campsite to help with the tent.

Around sunset, it was time for the bonfire, and John, my brother-in-law, was nowhere to be seen. I remembered him taking the kids out to see the tidal pools, and asked them if they knew where he was. Giggling, they replied that they’d buried him up to his neck in sand over by the big rocks. Squinting, we could just barely make out the spot where his head poked out, shielded from the sun by a goofy straw hat.

With a sigh and an eye roll, my sister and I set out to dig up her husband. As we got closer, he shouted something, but we couldn’t quite make it out against the roar of the ocean waves. He kept shouting, tossing sand into his mouth and knocking off his hat.

“Hang tight! We’ll get you out,” we called back, and quickened our pace to a jog. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied something moving in the craters of sand we kicked up. The shouting stopped by the time we reached him.

John’s head leaned back against the sand, eyes unfocused in a glassy stare. I slapped him. No response. We dug at him urgently, me with the pail and my sister with the shovel. She jumped back.

Hundreds, if not, thousands of squirming, worm-like creatures were eating John’s body. They crawled in and out of the tunnels they bored through his flesh, wriggling as we brushed them off with the plastic tools and curling up on contact with the ground. Their pale, inch-long bodies pulsed darkly as they lapped up his blood. I whipped out my cell phone light to get a better look, but they made a strange buzzing sound and retreated, tunneling beneath his skin, jerking his ribcage this way and that. We left him half-buried and ran back, shouting at everyone to get to the cars, where we called the police. When they got here, they took one look at John and made another call. A couple of guys in hazmat suits showed up and took him away.

While we waited, I reread the signs by the entrance, finding a faded yellow notice we’d missed. WARNING-This property is CONDEMNED by the authority of the state police department.

#Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep #We shouldn't have ignored the signs at a private beach

[the-tales-of-horror]

The Marshmallow Man

Original Link By TheresaMay1617

This is a story that I still can't believe happened, it really shook me up as a kid and basically stole my childhood innocence . When it comes to story telling I haven't really done it before so please bear with me. This is a real story that actually happened and I'll just try to tell it the best I can remember it. I'm posting this here now as it's fresh in my memory because of something that happened recently, something I'll get into a bit later in my story. So here it goes.

So there was this character that used to come to the park we played at. As children we all just thought of him as a puffy, fluffy, white friendly blob at first.

Everyday me and my friends would go to this park after school. There was a group of around 10 of us, a close knit group, just doing the usual shit kids do. It was one day, just as the sun began to set, that we seen him, skipping along the path, coming right towards us. We couldn't believe our eyes but when your a kid you don't tend to overthink events like this too much. The world is pretty new and your frames of reference towards the normality of the world aren't too wide reaching.

He had a big wide smile with small beady, black eyes. He had a little blue hat and thunderous thighs. He had this white and blue striped scarf around what seemed to be a neckless frame. A large belly that seemed to wobble around with every step. He was earless, with large chubby round cheeks, a slight hint of red giving his cheery face a blush.

We watched this big funny character hop towards us, taking turns with each arm to wave at us as he did. We all just glanced at each other before bursting out into hysterics. We were all around 10 years old, and were well aware this was just some funny man in a costume. It wasn't anything that would be out of place at an amusement park. He approached us, letting his gestures speak for him, never speaking a word. I remember he would give us sweets, and perform these strange magic tricks. He had this high pitched laugh that made us all laugh at its absurdity. It was really squeaky, like a cartoon mouse or something.

There was this one trick he would do, which still baffles me to this day. He would eat his big white, puffy hand. Stuffing it into the crack of his grin. We would hear the sloppy chewing sounds, these also seemed over the top, just like everything else about him. He would slurp and burp, making us roar with laughter at his sound effects. He would then hold onto his belly and let out belching sounds, these were slightly deeper sounds which I do remember feeling slightly unnerved by the first time hearing it. I guess it was the shock of this friendly character actually sounding like a full grown man for once. Once his hand had fully disappeared he would spit it out into hundreds of edible marshmallows. We would laugh as we scrambled around picking them up and putting as much as we could fit into our mouths. Something I never really thought about then, but what had me thinking now is we literally watched him eat this hand from his suit. Several times in fact. You would see the teeth marks and we watched him the whole time. Maybe his suit was actually made of marshmallow.

This became a sort of regular occurance for a few weeks, we actually got to the point where we were just hanging around waiting, hoping, for an appearance from the marshmallow man. He was sort of becoming the highlight of our nights. We just loved the absurdity of it all and the free sweets were a bonus too.

One day though, he came, with this bag. It was a big plastic bag, some sort of novelty giant marshmallow bag. He giggled as he pointed at a friend of mine, Rich, and gestured him into the bag. We all laughed and egged him on to do it. How could we have known any better? We were kids and this was just some harmless, friendly, giant marshmallow.

Rich hopped into the bag and the marshmallow man pulled it up above him from the ground and zipped it up. We laughed for a couple of minutes until we could see Rich begin to panic. He started slapping at the bag from the inside.We began panicking ourselves as we pleaded with him to let rich out, we watched as rich began turning blue in the face. We watched as the marshmallow man giggled, his high pitch giggle, seeming far more sinister to us than before. Rich seemed to really be in danger. Me and my friends started trying to rip the bag open, but the marshmallow man began pushing us down with his belly, one by one. All we could do was watch as he grabbed his big giant marshmallow bag, ran down the path and hopped into his white van with the giant marshmallow sitting on the roof.

We ofcourse ran home after this. I remember running home to my parents house and frantically telling them what had happened. Floods of tears streaming down my face. They were bemused at first, kind of thinking I was making up stories or something. Putting it down to a typical child's imagination. I mean what would you think if your child came home and started telling you your friend was just captured by a giant marshmallow? It's just not something you immediately take seriously.

Eventually they realised I was being honest and they called the cops. The police took statements and things and one of them spoke to my parents while the other seemed to be kind of trying to cheer me up by talking about football and things. We never seen Rich again after that day and the marshmallow man was never caught as far as I'm aware. I've asked my parents about it a couple of times over the years and they've never heard anything from the police.

This all happened 25 years ago. I had basically put it out of my mind by now and was at a point where I never really thought about it until yesterday.

I had gotten up for work, and did my usual routine of showering, breakfast and picking up my mail. It was upon picking up my mail though that stopped me dead in my tracks. There was a bag, a bag of blue marshmallows. The brand. Rich's Marshmallows. The picture, that face. That exact same creepy smiley face of that marshmallow man. Almost mocking me as it sits under the name of my kidnapped childhood friend.

I don't know if this is some kind of sick fucking joke by one of my old friends from that day or if he has found me, tracked me down and coming for me. I've contacted them all through Facebook and only had a couple of replies so far, letting me know they don't know what I'm talking about. I've been contemplating whether or not to go to the cops with this but feel slightly embarrassed and unsure of what I could possibly say.

It's got me scared though, really scared. I almost feel 10 years old again. I am posting here in the hope someone out there knows something. I'll keep everyone updated if anything else happens, but I really hope and pray that it doesn't. I never want to see that big puffy white smile in person again.

#Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep #The Marshmallow Man

[the-tales-of-horror]

Don't investigate strange noises, you won't like what you find

Original Link By 10gentlemen

This country is not as big as we like to think it is. When you go from Portland to Rochester in a matter of days, everything feels really small. When you’ve been to one Denny’s, you’ve been to them all. Roads start to run together and eventually you feel like you’re in an episode of the Flintstones where the background keeps repeating.

I started truck driving 5 months ago. I never thought of myself as much of a traveler but when you’re hurting for a job, you’ll take what you can get. I said goodbye to my wife and newborn son and headed on a journey to wherever I was told to go. And with me, I brought various non-perishable items you’d find in any Walmart. Even that really small one in Georgia. Or was it Nebraska?

I was expecting the road to be lonely, but I wasn’t expecting heavy toll it would take on my mind. The times where I get no radio signal are the worst. It’s just me, my thoughts, and the roar of the engine on the open road. When I’m left alone with my thoughts, my mind wanders. I think about how great it will be to get home, to be able to see my wife and son again. And I was sure I was imagining it, the first time I heard it at least. The siren. The sound started from virtually nothing and grew increasingly louder with every mile. It was definitely a siren of some sort. Maybe it was emergency services of some kind?

I pulled over on the side of the road and hopped out of the truck. There was a single, never ending siren. I couldn’t tell from what direction. By the volume of it, it seemed like it would be coming from a police car next to me. I looked all around my general area and saw no lights. It was just me, my thoughts, and my truck right in the middle of Tennessee. Once I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t just hearing things, I figured it had to be a recording of some sort. Maybe there was some type of lab or military base around. I got back in my truck and continued my route. A few miles out, the siren ceased and I didn’t hear it any more for the rest of the night.

By morning, I had reached my destination. I exchanged hellos with a store manager and sat back as toilet paper was unloaded from the back of my truck. I started to head back in the reverse direction when I came across a Denny’s. This Denny’s was just like every other Denny’s you’ve ever been to. An older waitress that’s probably made the same trucker joke ten times already, two cooks working the kitchen because management insists on being understaffed, and a bathroom that probably hadn’t been cleaned since it was built.

My food came to me and when I saw it I realized how hungry I actually was. I know I need my rest, but I don’t get paid for the time I’m sleeping. I want to get home to my family as soon as I can. The days start to blur together and you really forget when the last time you ate was. I saw a plate of crispy fries next to a large, juicy burger come my way when my gaze was broken by a noise. A very low siren, so faint you could barely hear it. I was nowhere near the area where I last heard it, it had to be an emergency vehicle this time. I continuously glanced out of the window every few seconds, never seeing a thing. The sound didn’t stop.

After I finished my meal, I went to sleep. I was out for quite a while because by the time I woke up, it was dark again. There was no siren. The ride back was pretty enjoyable. The radio rarely cut out, the roads were busier than usual, and all the Denny’s I drove by seemed livelier than I’d noticed in the days prior. I was refreshed and ready to come home to my family.

I made it to Kansas when the radio cut out again. Oh well, the same 5 songs were starting to become a bother for me anyway. I rarely regretted not buying CDs for this delivery. The silence I heard was quickly replaced by a faint siren. I almost swerved off the road. Again, there was no emergency vehicle anywhere near me. The further I drove, the louder it got. It was ever so gradually, I never truly noticed its increase in volume until I compared it to what I heard a half an hour prior. The sound had reached its peak when I decided to pull over. The sun had started to rise and the area around me was lit up. If there wasn’t a loud siren blaring in my ears, this would have been a beautiful view.

I was going to investigate this time. There had to be a reason for this. I started walking off away from my truck and realized I didn’t know what I was actually looking for. The area was pretty sparse. There was a few trees, cacti, and some large hills miles away. I decided to head toward the hills to see if I noticed any change in volume.

Unfortunately, I did. I made it to the bottom of the hill when I noticed that the sound was even louder than at the road. The sun had fully risen at this point and I was quite parched. I wanted to go back and get water but I was in far too deep. At the top of the hill there was a tree. If I made it to the top, I thought I would have a better idea at what was making this sound.

The hill was steep and required all four of my limbs to make it to the top. After several missteps that ending in me skinning various parts of myself, I made it to the top of the hill. The siren was louder than ever before. My head swelled with pain as the piercing noise stabbed into my ears. Part of me felt like I was about to blackout.

I walked to the other side of the large tree, panting and stumbling as every breath grew increasingly more difficult to make, and I saw the source of the sound on the other side.

It was a person. Yes, a person. There was no indication of sex. They were bald and in a long, black cloak. Their jaw hung open as they made the sound; they looked as if they were gagging while making the noise. They made eye contact with me with their wide, bloodshot eyes. What the fuck? What the fuck is this? My heart was beating out of my chest. I already felt so violently ill and the shock of seeing this person nearly sent me into cardiac arrest. Its head bobbed as it expelled the noise from its body. I was terrified of whatever the hell this was. I locked eyes with this thing for what felt like an eternity before my body gave and I fell backwards off of the hill.

When I opened my eyes, there was no sound. Whatever had been behind the tree had left. I started vomiting and all the pain I felt before I passed out returned to my head. It was getting dark outside and I grabbed the phone from my pocket. I called 911 and tried to request an ambulance through whatever pathetic breaths I was able to muster. I screamed when I heard their sirens. I never wanted to hear that noise again.

The company I worked for sent someone else for the truck and requested that I took some time off. I wasn’t going to argue with that. I decided to keep my story to myself. I lied and said the truck wasn’t starting and I walked out that far to get a phone signal when I fell off the hill and ended up unconscious. Nobody was going to believe the truth. I would’ve been scolded and told I was driving without rest and then I’d be without a job.

I spent a week at home resting. I was so happy to finally to be home with my wife and son. I was so happy to be eating and sleeping regularly. I did not look forward to going back to work. I wondered if what I had seen was truly a mirage of some sort. It was so specific and detailed. The face of whatever I saw is burned into my memory.

Every night since coming home I have nightmares about it. Last night, I was woken up in the middle of one. My eyes shot open from an all too familiar noise. A faint siren in the distance, ever so subtle. I really hope it’s a cop.

#Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep #Don't investigate strange noises you won't like what you find

[the-tales-of-horror]

The Disappearances of 1998

Original Link By el902

It had indeed been a dark and stormy night when my life would begin its decent in to hell. The poignancy of that almost amuses me now. The thunder had been growing in ferocity and volume all evening. By eight-o-clock, Stuart, our Big Bad German Shepherd, feared by little boys and girls all throughout the neighborhood for his ferocious looks, was cowering underneath the bed I shared with my wife, Sally. Stuart, though mean-looking, was a giant ball of love and tenderness, and he was a coward in a storm.

Sally and I had been on the front porch, both of us a few beers deep in the six pack I'd picked up on my way home from work. The air was hot and stagnant, nearly thick enough that I could imagine having to cut my way through it. All day the storm had been building, the clouds coming in from the east, tumbling and growing fatter with each passing hour. Thunder started rolling as the sun set around seven, and Sally and I watched the lightening with respectful awe. We'd discovered in our first year of marriage that we were both junkies for a good storm.

In that silent calmness between us, a million little things were spoken with the occasional glance and locking of gazes. Not very often we get to see a good one, huh George? her eyes asked, after a terrific explosion of lightening crackled through the sky. It's not as electrifying as you, love, but it's almost as awe-inspiring to watch, I answered back with no voice, knowing that even though she might not hear all the same words in her head, she got the meaning. Thunder boomed magnificently, followed very shortly by another impressive display of lightening, and around nine pm the sky opened up and what seemed like every drop of water that had ever existed was unleashed on us. The wind picked up at once, blowing so mightily that all of our empty bottles were knocked off the small table between our chairs.

Sally, looking slightly alarmed at the rate the storm had progressed all at once, asked me, "Should we get the furniture inside, George?"

We stood in unison, having decided at the same moment that our storm-gazing was done for the night. I bent to gather the empties and thought on her question.

"Don't think so," I finally decided. "The winds aren't supposed to pick up too much. The worst will probably be over in twenty minutes or so, then it'll just be the rain."

Sally opened the door and held it for me, and I went in, pausing to peck her on the cheek. At the age of forty six, her giggle was still that of a girl's.

That evening on our front porch plays out before my minds eye as vivid as though I were walking back through that night, a spectator this time instead of participant. I hear Sally's girlish giggle, and Stuart's yip from further in the house as he hears us coming inside. I see the small green bin on the kitchen floor, where I set the empty beer bottles with the rest of our recycling. I see the clock on the microwave, it's dull green numbers reading eleven past nine. Outside the tempest was raging, the sound of the gales of rain impossibly loud as they slammed against the side of the house.

The lights went out. I bumped my hip against the counter and muttered half-hearted curses. It hadn't really hurt that bad.

Lightening flashed through the windows, illuminating our small kitchen. I stepped back in shock upon seeing the look on my dear wife's face until the light danced away again, leaving us in darkness.

Stuart howled, not his usual warbling growl that spilled out of his throat when he was truly spooked, but a high-pitched, whining howl that planted gooseflesh all along my arms and neck.

Lightening again, and I braced myself to see that look on Sally's face again, the terror that had pulled her skin so taut that, in the storm's crazy light, made it look as though she were wearing a cruel mask of herself, with it's jaw hanging open so wide it was unnatural, its eyes bulging out from its sockets. Fear and bewilderment thundered through me, turning my stomach so violently that I was sure I'd upend the beers I'd drank, and it came to a frightening head when, where Sally was supposed to be, there was nothing.

Darkness. "Sal! Sally, where'd you go!" My heart thudded. Had she fallen? I wondered frantically. "Sally, where are you?"

Another bolt of lightening. The electricity flickered on and off, on and off again, and finally stayed on. All the sounds of the house could be heard even over the gales of wind and rain; the refrigerator motor humming back to life, the beeps of the microwave, the low steady thrum of electricity finding its rhythm again.

The unreality I felt in that moment is every bit as vivid to me now. There was the kitchen counter, there was the front door, there was the linoleum, but there was no Sally. What felt like long, hideously drawn out moments of fear had passed in under half a minute. Now you have a wife, now you don't.

I screamed myself hoarse for an hour, travelling through our small house over and over, eventually bracing the cutting wind and rain and circling the yard, first the front and then the back, my bellowing scream barely rising above the wind.

When the door slammed shut behind me, I stood, dripping, soaked and not feeling it, shivering but unaware of it, and looked vacantly into the house. The last image of my wife flashed behind my eyes and helpless, hot tears bubbled up at once, the unreality letting me go just enough for the fear to catch its hold on me.

The mask of terror. The lightening. And finally, the disappearing act. My wife vanished that summer's night, seemingly in to thin air. I still hear her laughter; feel her hair slip across my cheek in the night, as she tosses and turns with the discomfort of the coming of arthritis. I see her in the kitchen, humming as she washes dishes, slowly swaying her hips back and forth as her mind is lost to The King, ever her favorite. I still have the ghost of my wife, and the ghost would accompany me over the next eight months of growing hell, but I never would see her again.

The storm raged all night. At some point, Stuart found me sitting on the kitchen floor and nuzzled his head under my limp hand. The telephone was on the floor to my right, the line dead. No neighbors had answered their doors. No car dared brave the coming flood that was gathering in the street. No authorities could be notified of the impossible disappearance of my Sally. I fell in to a troubled sleep, wherein the wind sounded like laughter, and every bellow of thunder brought blackness that seemed to stretch ever outward, encompassing everything in sight, until there was nothing left.

+++++++++++++

Sheriff Ruud was a young man with hard eyes. He stood half a foot taller than me at six foot one, and though time hadn't even begun with chip away at his skin or hair or bones, the impression you got just by sweeping a glance over his almost boyish looks was that he'd been everywhere, he'd seen everything, and not one damn bit of it had affected him. His voice was deep and pleasant, and he asked only a few questions as I recounted the previous evening to him.

I like to superimpose an image of myself over this memory. In it, I am standing straight and tall, my voice does not waver, and I state the facts with certainty and only passing worry. Of course she's alright, this version of myself seems to feel. She wandered off in wanderlust for the storm, perhaps wanted to watch the lightening a bit more. Maybe she wandered too far, and was afraid to come back through the storm, so she slept at a neighbor's. This version of myself even has a small smile at the corner of his lips. Women, that smile says. Aren't they just the damnedest things?

In reality, I stood facing Sheriff Ruud clothed in the same flannel and jeans I'd worn the night before, which were still damp. My face, I am too sure, was long and haggard with the absence of sleep, my hair ruffled and unkempt. My back was hunched as though worry itself had taken solid form and bent me over, wracking through my bones in a constant flow. Though I had no reflection to see myself in, the pity in Ruud's eyes was tell enough that I looked like absolute hell.

"Did you hear the door?"

I shook my head. "Not that I could've, Sheriff. Storm was raging louder than you could believe on this side of town." I remembered how easily I'd heard the low thrum of electricity when it kicked back on, but put that thought aside.

Ruud nodded. "I stayed at a buddy's last night, just a few blocks over. It got real bad, real fast. I didn't want to risk driving that old pickup of mine."

I nodded. "I searched for hours, Sheriff. Hours. Everywhere. Immediately. Believe me, I didn't waste no time."

The young Sheriff nodded in understanding. There was no doubt written in the scarce lines of his face; no twinkle of disbelief in his hazel eyes. As insane as I sounded, he took my story for truth, or at least appeared to. She had simply disappeared. Now you see her, now you don't. Now you have a wife, now you have the ghost of her.

Sheriff Ruud took my statement and denied my offer for coffee, and was gone within thirty minutes. Not much later there was another cruiser on the street, and I sat and watched as two officers joined Ruud to knock on doors

In the week that followed I learned that there were three other disappearances. Next door, the sweet young family of four had become three, the youngest daughter having vanished from her seat on the couch without so much as a sound. Across the street, the Baldwin's lost a son to the storm, a boy of only four. Next to them was the now-empty house of Mrs. Sydney Montana, who wasn't discovered to be missing for four days, as she'd lived alone and there was no one to worry for her absence.

In total, four people disappeared that night, in the very concentrated area of my street. There were rumors of abduction. The papers screamed of the possibility of a serial killer. Both sets of parents, in the weeks that followed, demanded the head of one Mr. Judd Heathrow, the 'creepy' bus driver who little Alison, before her disappearing act (Now you have a daughter, now you have a ghost), would complain about daily during the school year. They did not take in to consideration that my wife was forty six, not a child, and that were he the pervert they thought he was, my Sally would not have fallen in to the category of victims they claimed him to have.

For weeks I withered. I'm old now and I was old then. Fifty had been kind to me before I lost my love, but the years, which seemed previously to have been held on a shelf by my ever protective Sally, crashed on me all at once without her strong arms there to protect me. The only time I thought of food was when Stuart reminded me that he was still alive, still there, and hungry, and I would try to make myself eat, but I hardly managed to. My clothes begun to hang on my tired old body. My face was covered in the salt and pepper whiskers that Sally had never liked, but she wasn't there to force me to shave. I sat on the porch, in the bright heat of morning until the cool blanket of night fell over the sky, and I convinced myself that she would return. Poof, and the ghost is gone, and here's Sally again, her graying hair pinned behind her ears, as she'd worn it for the better of fifteen years. There's a basket in her hands. "Went to pick some blackberries from the old trees in Mrs. Haggerly's feild, George. Want one?"

I don't like to admit it, even now, but if what happened on the night of August twenty-first, seventeen days after the disappearances, had not happened, I might have just gone on withering until all Stuart had to eat was the meat from my bones.

The fathomless depth of loss was rivaled only the the sheer panic that night brought. That night, two things were made clear to me.

My Sally was gone. She would not reappear, not even her corpse. Her soul had departed this world, and god alone knew what happened to her body.

And:

The storm had brought terrible things to our neighborhood that night. Things that there are no words for, though I will try. Demons of such cruelly unbelievable evilness that this world should not have held them. The storm had brought evil to us, and the evil did not intend to stop at a few meager disappearing acts.

#Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep #The Disappearances of 1998

[the-tales-of-horror]

The Babysitter

Original Link By Chard237

At the age of 32 it is still hard for me to talk about this. That is why I chose to write about it. This form of communication is much less personal. It has been 23 years since it all took place. In the year of 1994 I was 9 years old. I am the only child in the family except for the dog we had at the time, Bear. My father is 10 years older than my mother. She was 20 when she gave birth to me and my father was 30. Our small family was close and loving. Just as normal as all the other families in our middle class neighborhood.

My mother and father worked full time, so I spent a lot of time after school or during the summer with a baby sitter. Always being with a baby sitter wasn’t that bad. My baby sitter was named Sarah. She lived 4 doors down from us. Sarah had been my babysitter for the past 3 years so we were quite used to each other, she was basically my older sister. Sarah had turned eighteen 2 months prior to her high school graduation. Come that July she would be leaving state to start summer classes at S.U.U.

When my parents told me that Sarah would no longer be my baby sitter I immediately made my case about how I was ready to be without a baby sitter. Of course at the age of 9, my parents protested the idea that I would be unsupervised all summer. “You might be responsible son but it is still illegal for us to leave you alone.” My father told me. Unfortunately for us I would eventually get what I wanted.

My mother found a new baby sitter through a program that Sarah told her about. This program was through the school and would give girls ages 15 through 17 a chance to make some money. My mother would give her information and what would be needed from the sitter. The girls that have signed up for the program would pick what job they wanted to take. When my parents got the call that they had me a new baby sitter they were relieved. But on the Monday morning when my mother actually had to leave me for work I could tell she was nervous. I was just as nervous and a little upset if not more. Having to stay at home with a strange person was frightening at that age. Besides I felt that she was not needed.

At 7:55 Monday morning Rachelle arrived. That day my mother ordered me to spend some time inside with her so I could get to know her, because she could possibly be here all summer. Being the good boy I was I did exactly that.

The first hour or so was kind of awkward. It consisted of me trying to avoid her by going from room to room as she followed and tried to ask me questions to break the ice. After realizing she would not leave me alone I caved in and started to answer her. Although most of my answers were short she was still very nice and always kept a smile on her face. After about an hour or two of getting to know each other Rachelle let me play some Sega while she did home work. She wasn’t as bad as I thought she would be. I learned that she was 16. Rachelle moved to town last summer with her aunt that she lived with. My mother was happy when she learned that all went well and that Rachelle and I got along. My mother also promised me that I didn’t have to spend all day inside tomorrow.

Within 15 minutes of Rachelle’s arrival on day two I left to ride my bike with my friend Dillon. She just smiled and told me to be safe. I spent all day outside getting home right before my mom and dad got off work. Once again my parents were happy that the day went well.

On day three everything started off normal. I was playing some Sega when Rachelle came into my room.

“Why don’t you want to hang out with me?” she asked. I told her that I was just playing some games and that there was not much else to do.

“We should get to know each other a little better.”

I remember looking at her kind of confused.

“You and I have a lot more in common than you think,” she said sitting on my bed. I asked her what we could possibly have in common.

“It’s a secret, but for now let’s play a game. We could play house. I will be the older sister and you could be the little brother.”

I found it extremely odd that a 16 year old girl would want to play a game like that with a 9 year old boy. After about 30 minutes of this odd role play I told her I was bored and wanted to play something else. I remember her looking at me with a furrowed brow and that creepy smile she always wore. “We can never stop playing this game.” That made me extremely uncomfortable. So I made some 9 year old excuse and walked out of the room down the stairs and out the door. There I stayed until my mother got home. When my mother and I walked in together Rachelle was sitting at the kitchen table doing some sort of homework. When my mother asked how she was doing Rachelle looked at my mother and I with that smile.

“Where’s Mr. Greggore?” she asked referring to my father. My mother must have thought it to be odd that a young girl was asking for her husband because I could tell that my mom hurried her out of the house. After ushering her out, my mother asked me what I thought of Rachelle. I told her I thought she was weird and told her about the game of house she wanted to play. Once again I saw an opportunity and made my argument on being home alone. Once again I was denied.

On day 4 everything changed. Once my mother left for work Rachelle asked me if I wanted to go on a bike ride. No matter who she was, being 9 I thought that was a great idea. We rode through my block and down the main road for about a mile. At this point I didn’t know what was going on it seemed as if she was taking me somewhere. When we finally stopped we were in front of an apartments.

“Want to meet one of my friends?” Rachelle asked me. Without me answering her she grabbed my hand and led me into the apartment complex. She took me to a door on the 2nd floor and knocked on it. From behind the door I could hear a man.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, Rachelle.”

I could hear the man sigh. “Get out of here. I told you I don’t want you around here anymore.” The man said from behind the door.

“I just wanted to show you my little brother.” Rachelle said in a loud voice

“Get the hell out of here you crazy.” The man stated sounding very annoyed.

“My family is real, I told you I had a brother, he’s right here, look he’s real.” Rachelle yelled 2 inches away from the door.

“Get the hell out of here or I’ll call the cops,” Said the man.

At that point Rachelle pounded on the man’s door with both fists then she looked at me enraged. Out of nowhere she just turned and started walking down the hallway back the way we came. I was petrified it took me a few seconds to realize that she was leaving me. I sprinted to catch up with her. She never said a word when I did catch up. The whole bike ride back home the both of us were silent. When we got back to the house I was still shaken up, so I told her I was going to my friend Dillon’s house. As I left through the garage door she said something that has rang in my head to this day.

“You’re just like your father.”

That day I waited at my friend’s house till 5:30 which was 30 minutes after my mom got home. When I walked in the door my mother looked a little disturbed. She told me that when she came into the house she found Rachelle upstairs in my parents room laying in there bed. When my mother asked me how the day went I told her what happened. I told her about riding on the main road that my parents have always forbidden me to do. My mother was furious. She told me to go back to Dillon’s house, and she would call me home for dinner. When I finally was allowed back home I was nervous and scared that maybe I was in trouble. But to my relief I wasn’t. My mom told me that Rachelle would no longer be my babysitter and that tomorrow I would be staying with Mr. and Mrs. Charles. An older couple across the street. Once again I made my case about being home alone.

On morning 5, I sat at Mr. and Mrs. Charles house almost all day. They were nice enough but could not keep a 9 year old entertained. Around 1 pm Mr. Charles was getting ready for a nap. I asked Mrs. Charles if I could run home real quick to get a toy to play with. Reluctantly she agreed knowing that my mother told her to not let me leave, but she could tell I was dying of boredom. When I got into the house I was kind of scared knowing that I was all alone. I ran upstairs immediately to my room. When I opened the door I was startled to see Rachelle in my room. She was wearing that creepy smile again. I took a deep breath in horror and took a few steps back. She lunged forward and grabbed me. Being scared and 9 years old I didn’t know what to do. Rachelle pulled out some rope she found in our garage. She tied up my hands behind my back and tied my feet to my bed post.

After she realized I wasn’t going anywhere she relaxed a bit. She pulled out a small pocket knife from one of her pockets. For the next 3 hours she proceeded to explain to me that my dad was also her dad. Between her crying and pacing back and forth she said that our dad left her mother when Rachelle was born for my mom. Rachelle kept telling me that I took her family and that I was the reason she couldn’t be happy. But I would pay. We just have to wait for our dad to get home so he knows what he has done. I was absolutely horrified. I couldn’t yell fight or scream for help. All I could do is cry. I thought that I was going to die by this girl and her pocket knife. After sitting tied up for several hours I thought all was hopeless.

While Rachelle was sitting on my bed with a blank stare in between her crying. I could hear what I thought was the sound of someone walking up the stairs.

“La Palma police. Is there anyone upstairs?”

At that exact moment Rachelle snapped up. I screamed louder than I ever have in my whole life. While I screamed for help, Rachelle climbed behind me and put the knife to the side of my face. I could feel her heavy breath on the back of my neck. A police officer turned the corner of my room with his gun out. He looked at the both of us. I could see the change in his face when he realized the situation. He slowly put his gun back in its holster.

“Ok. what’s going on here” asked the police man

Already crying Rachelle screamed “I just want my family”

About 20 minutes went by with the police man trying to calm Rachelle down. When 2 more cops showed up Rachelle’s attitude changed. She got more aggressive and was at this point pushing the blade into the meat of my arm. All I could do is cry and whimper for help. In between arguing with the police, crying, and waving the knife around she would whisper to me.

“It will all be over soon.”

Without Rachelle realizing one of the cops moved into a position to where he could taze and subdue her without me getting hurt.

The rest of the night I don’t quite remember. All I can see is Rachelle being tackled to the floor. I remember my mom and dad crying when I was cut free and on my way to the hospital for stiches. I had to get 6 stitches. My parents never talked about that summer. Probably in hopes that it would be forgotten. But I could never forget what happened to me.

At the age of 18 I asked my dad what he could remember about that night. I could tell he was uncomfortable about telling me but said I was old enough. What he told me made the whole situation worse. He said that the babysitter Rachelle’s real name was Amanda. Her mother died in a house fire a year prior to us meeting her. Amanda was nowhere to be found and was reported missing after the fire. She was the only suspect they had for the house fire. Her father did in fact leave her mother when she was born but died in a car accident shortly after words. She was never actually related to my family. It was just a complete mental break down. Mrs. Charles had dozed off after I went to get a toy. When she woke up 2 hours later she remembered me. When the cops showed up to my house the front door was left open.

This really freaked me out because none of us could have avoided this. This Amanda girl was going to lose it eventually and it just happened to be with me and my family. She is locked up now and serving life in some sort of mental institution for the murder of her mother. The hardest part of all of this is the fact that I now have a 9 year old. He is the only child other than our dog Odin. My wife and I work full time, but with our long term babysitter quitting for a real job, I’m not sure what to do. After the summer of 94, my parents felt that I no longer needed a babysitter. Do I leave my 9 year old home alone all summer or do I find a stranger to watch him?

#Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep #The Babysitter