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![Just Another NightBy reddit user vital_dualI loved this story, it gave me the chills and made my heart drop at the same time. [[MORE]]It’s about thirty minutes to midnight when my phone vibrates and starts to blare its ringtone. I jump off the couch and nearly have a heart attack. It’s just another night, one that’s been wonderfully quiet so far. After a chaotic Friday evening that lasted until five in the morning, it’s nice to spend this Saturday alone at home, watching whatever crappy movies are on TV.I recover and answer it. It’s Mike, though I can barely hear him over the pounding music in the background. “We’re leaving the club now!” he screams. “The girls ditched us and Trent wants to get home early so he can go to church with his family.”“Sounds good,” I say. “Did you bring enough cash for a cab this time?” Mike’s stories of getting stranded downtown in the middle of the night have become legendary.“Nah, Jason’s friend has a car. He’s driving us back.”I frown. “Has he been drinking?”“Like, one or two beers. He says he’s fine.” He says something to someone nearby, but I can’t make it out. “I’ll be home soon. Don’t worry about staying up for me.”“Thanks, but I’m not tired. That, and mom and dad told us to always deadbolt the door, and if I do that you won’t be able to get in.”He laughs. “I’m not sleeping in the front yard again! ‘kay, I’ll be home soon.”He hangs up and I go back to my movie. There’s something about mindless violence and explosions that just seems so relaxing. Or maybe it’s the fact that school’s finally done for the winter holidays, and my parents wisely decided to go on a cruise with friends for a week before Christmas. Mike and I have the house to ourselves: for him, it means no stern looks when he staggers home reeking of alcohol; for me, it’s no constant reminders to start looking for a job in time for graduation.The movie goes to its fifteenth commercial and I head to the kitchen for a snack. As I throw a bunch of eggs, cheese and vegetables into a skillet, I hear a loud cracking noise in the backyard. I press my face to the cold, frosty window and look out, but there’s nothing out there but a few bare trees and some fresh-fallen snow. Probably just an animal. It can’t be easy to survive the winter.My cell phone rings again, so I wander back into the living room to grab it. It’s Mike. I can hear sirens in the background. “Uh, so Jason’s friend kinda, um, lost control of the car.” It sounds like he’s holding the phone half a foot away from his mouth.“Oh God. What happened?”“We hit a pole. Car’s totaled, but we’re all okay. I think. Cops are here. They’re talking to the driver.” He laughs. “He’s definitely drunk.”“No kidding.”“They’re ignoring the rest of us, and there’s a bus here so I’m gonna on and get home.”“Sounds like a plan.” I pause and grimace. “Wait. Do you know what bus to get on?”“I’ll figure it out. Will call you when I’m close.” He’s gone, and I go back to the movie.There’s a lull in the action, when attractive male protagonist and attractive female protagonist engage in an awkward sexual conversation, which might have worked if they had any sort of chemistry, and my mind wanders to my job hunt. A few of my classmates say they know great companies to work for—apparently mechanical engineers are invulnerable to the bad unemployment rate—but I’m really not sure if I just want to jump into things. Travelling would be fun. There’d be something immensely rewarding about sending Mike a photo of me on the beach while he’d be studying for midterms in the middle of October. Totally worth passing up on an easy job for.A sudden blaring noise comes from the kitchen. I jump up into the thick smell of smoke. The omelette. Damn it. There’s about a foot of black smoke hovering in the kitchen. I run in, pull my burnt snack off the stove and open every window, letting the chilling air in. My creation is little more than ash, so I open the backdoor and throw it out for whatever animals are trying to get through the night. So much for that.There’s some leftover pasta in the fridge. I’m happy to eat it cold; at this point, I’m better off not heating anything up. I settle down and continue the movie, but my mind’s going back to travelling. I’ve always wanted to go across the pond, check out Europe, maybe backpack through Germany, see the sights in France, practice my fake accent in Britain. What’s it like there in the summer? Hot, I’d bet, but not any hotter than it is here. Hopefully less humid.Again, my ringtone snaps me back to the real world. “Now you pick up!” Mike’s shouting, but I can barely hear him. Wherever he is, the reception is terrible. “I’ve been calling for hours!”I look at the clock and roll my eyes. “You last called forty-five minutes ago. Where are you?”“I have no idea. The bus is going in the middle of nowhere. I have no idea where any of these stops are. Hell, I don’t even think they’re in English.”I sigh loudly. Not this again. “How much did you have to drink?”“Drink? I can’t even…” He trails off, replaced with a loud, harsh static. I pull the phone from my ear. A few seconds later, it disconnects. Whatever. He’ll find a way home.The movie eventually ends, but it’s just past midnight and I’m hardly tired. Now I’m regretting allowing my roommate to convince me to leave my gaming console at school. This is the perfect sort of boredom for grabbing a sniper rifle and telling twelve-year-olds how great their moms are in bed. And then Mike could have joined right in. He probably spends more time playing than I do, and he doesn’t even live with me. I think my parents are relieved that we’re going to the same school. He’s been trying his absolute best to get his life back on track, and I’m able to be there in case he needs a shoulder to lean on.A loud scream comes from the backyard. I go back into the now-freezing kitchen and grab a flashlight from the cupboard. I shine it around, but there’s nothing out there. The remains of the omelet are gone, and there are a ton of paw prints around the area. Racoons? Squirrels? Maybe coyotes? Whatever they were, they moved quickly.The smoke in the kitchen’s gone. I close all the windows and lie back down in the living room. I guess I doze off, because when I wake up it’s one-thirty in the morning. There’s been no contact from Mike, so I give him a call.“Hello?” Now it’s like he’s talking into a phone on the other side of the room. “Are you there? Please say something!”“I’m here,” I say slowly. “Have you figured out the way home yet?”“I can’t.” Despite the low volume, I can hear panic in his voice. “I’ve been riding for days. Maybe weeks, I can’t tell. Transferring from bus to bus. None of them are going anywhere.” I swear, I can hear him whimper. I can’t help but grin. I’m going to hold this against him for YEARS. “I don’t want to get off. There’s something wrong around here. Something dark. It’s waiting for me.”“Yeah, it’s called the night, and it’s not very friendly to blackout drunks, now is it?”“Stop it. Just stop…” He fades away.“Hello? Mike?” I check my phone. It’s still connected. “If you can hear me, just get off and grab a cab, okay?“He comes back, with a slightly-clearer voice. “We just passed Wedmore. I recognize this place!”“That’s good, seeing as we drove by it nearly every single day when we were kids.” I sit up, and suddenly I’m feeling groggy. Time for bed. “Anyway, I’m gonna go—““No!” he shouts forcefully. “Please stay. Don’t hang up.”“Okay…” Now I’m wondering if he took any substances beyond alcohol. It’s like he’s combined the hallucinations of shrooms with the depressants of beer. I grimace. It’s what the old Mike would have done.“Just… just talk to me. How are things at home?”“They’re good,” I say. “There’s a bunch of animals outside, making lots of noise. I think they’re racoons, but they could be bears. Might want to watch yourself.”“Cool.” The connection’s even better. “Just went over the bridge. I’m a few stops away.”“And there you go. Was there any reason to have been concerned?”“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He pauses. “Man, I cannot wait to get home. I think I can hear my bed calling me.”“Is it saying ‘Clean me?’”He laughs, loudly and heartily. “I’m nearly there. Jesus, I’m glad the night is over. Thanks for not hanging up.”“I’m always here. You know that.”“It was weird,” he continues, “I couldn’t call or text anyone. I tried to get on Facebook, but it looked really strange. And as soon as you called, I realized where I was. It’s like it came out of nowhere.” His voice rises. “And there’s our street! I’ll call you when I’m near the house. Holy crap, that’s dark…” He hangs up. I go to the front window and look out. All the street lights are on, casting their pale-orange tint on the road. I gaze as far down as I can. No sign of him.I’m about to go and clean up the kitchen, but my phone rings. “Where the hell is our house?”I throw my free hand up incredulously. “The same place it’s always been, you idiot?”“I can’t see it. The street is way too dark. I don’t even know if I’m on the sidewalk or the road.”“What are you talking about? It’s bright as day out there.” I go over to the front door and flick the outside light a few times, showing off our snow-covered driveway, the one Mike was supposed to shovel before heading out. “There. Can you see—““I saw it!” he screams. “The light! Turn it back on!” I do so, even though it adds nothing to the overall brightness of our neighbourhood. “I see it. Okay, yeah, I’m close now.”I look out the window, but still can’t see him. There’s just a pair of headlights coming down the street. “How close are you?”“Nearly there. Oh, thank God, I’m nearly there.”The headlights slow down at my driveway. “Are you in a car?”“No. Do you know how easy a car would have made all of this?”I scoff. “I think there’s a lot of things that could have made this easier.”He’s silent for a moment, and then he sighs. “Look, I know what you’re thinking, but I swear, I only had a few drinks.” His voice lowers. “I’m done with that other stuff. I made that promise, and I’m going to keep it.”“I know.” The car’s pulling into my driveway. It’s the police. What the hell is going on here?“I’m steps away. The house has never looked so good,” Mike says. The car stops and two officers get out, both struggling on the slippery driveway. They take their caps off and hold them against their chests.“No…”“What is it?” Mike asks. “I’m at the driveway. Can you see me?”The world stops around me. This was supposed to be just another night. Everything I’d done—the movie, the omelet, those animals outside, what I’m going to do when I graduate—had been so inconsequential. That was the point. That was the goddamn point.The officers are walking up the steps. My throat is suddenly very tight, but I manage to get the words out. “Yeah, bro. I can see you.”“Awesome. I’ll be there in a minute. Thanks for guiding me home.”“It’s what I’m here for.” I take a deep breath. “See you soon.”“Can’t wait.” He hangs up. A few seconds later there’s a knock on the door.I open it.In case you didn’t understand: The brother and the other friends died in the crash and are ghosts. The police are only talking to the driver and ignoring the others. Because the others are dead. His brother is on the buses surrounded by darkness, then he sees a light and follows it. He’s walking into "the light”. The police officers at the narrator’s door are there to tell him that his brother is dead.](https://sixpenceee.com/files/d0451f325b00c02c5f7a1517d05bc24b/tumblr_niftyrhhmx1s1vn29o1_400.jpg)
Just Another Night
By reddit user vital_dual
I loved this story, it gave me the chills and made my heart drop at the same time.
![I Know My Parents Loved Me Very Much But… By reddit user atbestI was one of seven kids and I have to say my folks weren’t very smart, trying to raise all of us on a single substitute teacher’s salary. But they loved us very much. I know because they often said so. They tossed around the words so much they might have been punctuation to everything else they said.[[MORE]]On birthdays our mom and dad would gather us up and tell us the story of how we joined the family with many interjected eye rolls from the older kids who’d heard it a million times and “yucks!” from the younger ones.“You came into our family howling and covered in your mother’s blood. Boy, did you have a set of lungs on you!”That sort of thing.We didn’t have much and what we had was shared, hand-me-downs that were kept until they were shreds which were then used as rags. Nothing wasted. We moved a lot, too. As I got older I put two and two together and realized that the vagrancy was because we’d have to skip town before angry landlords came after us for missed rent.So yeah, things were tight but so were we. My big sister talked to me every day over the phone even when she left for college. My brothers were always there for me when the neighborhood kids would pick fights. Those kids were mean in the way only kids could be. A lot of it had to do with neighborhood gossip that we were all bastards from various affairs my mom had had. I guess I can see why they might have thought that; line us all up and we don’t really look all that related. But my parents were crazy in love and I knew they’d never even consider cheating.There was only one more after me. Mom didn’t let on that we were having another sibling until well into things. Wanted to be sure about it, I guessed. I was surprised they were having another one - I was a pre-teen by then and thought I’d be the baby of the family forever. The poor kid was going to be the same age as their neice, my sister having just had her first when mom made the announcement.A month of waiting on our mom hand and foot, fussing about cradles and baby names. Then my parents went away for a few days and when they got back I had a little brother.When I laid eyes on him I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew what healthy newborns looked like from the pictures of my sister’s baby girl. My new brother did not look like a healthy newborn.If I knew then what I knew now I would have told someone. Child services, a teacher maybe. But I was blissfully, even willfully ignorant, and I did nothing.I tried to treat my baby brother like one of the family, I really did. But I think it was a relief for everybody when I moved out a few years later. Too much tension.Five weeks before graduation I got the call. Come home quick. Mom has cancer. I dropped everything to go to her. Wouldn’t you?My sister become a doctor, did I mention that? She basically moved in to be mom’s full time nurse. From the pursed lipped expression she gave me when she greeted me the door I knew it was bad.Ma kept her head up but within months she was gone. I remember my sister staying up very late, looking over mom’s medical information and muttering about how impossible it all was. I didn’t understand then. I do now.Shortly after the funeral my dad took the last of her meds into the bathroom and followed her. He left us a letter, the bastard.After the police and the ambulance left I watched my oldest brother read it before chucking the letter in the fireplace. He said we didn’t need to know why dad did what he did. That all we had to know was how much he loved us and mom. He looked right at my sister as he said it.The sick feeling that had been sitting coiled in my gut for eight years solidified. Later, when I dug my mother’s medical records out of the trash I finally understood that feeling.My mom had a history of ovarian cancer in her family. Hell, my mom had a lot of bad medical history. What must have been the most devastating to her was the infertility it caused. Not after my youngest brother, oh no. Two years before the oldest. She always did tell me that she wanted a big family.The low profile job my dad worked. The constant moving. The way we all looked different. The pregnancies not announced before time. The birthday stories. The suicide.The way my baby brother had looked the day my parents brought him home. Not like a real newborn. Like a TV newborn. Like a baby already two or three months old.And finally the thing I looked up later, after I had gotten thoroughly drunk. The string of murders that followed my family’s trail the whole time.We all came into the family crying and covered in our mother’s blood. But not the blood of the woman who raised us.](https://sixpenceee.com/files/dc83df98a770fb2cad277e304a758999/tumblr_nib6dgmcvs1s1vn29o1_500.jpg)
I Know My Parents Loved Me Very Much But…
By reddit user atbest
I was one of seven kids and I have to say my folks weren’t very smart, trying to raise all of us on a single substitute teacher’s salary. But they loved us very much. I know because they often said so. They tossed around the words so much they might have been punctuation to everything else they said.
![My daughter died on her sixth birthday. A man just handed me photos of her seventh.An exceptionally fantastic, creepy story. By reddit user somethingstraange. The authors tumblr can be found here.[[MORE]]I cannot describe to you how I feel right now. What I’m experiencing is so detached from the normal, I’m almost convinced I’ve finally gone insane.Almost.My wife, Bea, died during childbirth. She was gorgeous, funny, intelligent – stubborn. A woman whose laugh was so loud eating in restaurants was a challenge, and whose stare was so intense it made my hands shake. I lost her, as she gave birth to our daughter.Sam.Of course, I could have resented Sam. For taking away what was once mine in a way nothing else can be. For taking what was so truly and utterly pure. But I didn’t. I knew Bea wouldn’t have wanted any resentment. She wouldn’t have wanted our only child to have a life ruined by hate.But this isn’t about grief. This isn’t about the physical sucker punch of losing forever something you loved. This is about something far more sinister.My daughter was lively, always running and screaming, leaping up and down the climbing frame – causing havoc in her nursery classes. So for her sixth birthday, a trip with friends to the movies had left her so pent up with energy I could barely keep up with her as she dipped and dodged between people on the pavement. She’d occasionally turn back, through the sea of people and shout “Daddy, come on!” in a tone that was almost petulant. I couldn’t help but love her.I tried to chase her, I really did. She was too busy looking at me when she dashed out into the road, and the bus didn’t have time to stop. A sickening crunch, and the world fell silent. I cradled her broken form in my arms, too numb to weep, too hurt to move. All I could feel was the warm blood gently seep into my clothes. In the state of shock I was in, I could just think about how I was going to wash my jeans. It sounds horrid, I know – but a loss like that tears everything away from you and leaves you with only the bare thought process that make us human.The next week was a blur. I cannot place a single memory to a time, in between friends and family extending their condolences, and the howling sobs of mine that would break out at any moment – a door slamming, the gentle hum of the fridge or voices laughing on the radio.I attended her funeral dressed all in black. By dressed, I don’t mean merely clothes, my very essence was dark. I couldn’t feel, or think and the day continued as I went through the motions, like a dying man treading water. Everyone wanted to tell me about Sam, and how perfect she was – what an angel she was, as if I didn’t know. As if I didn’t realise what a gift my own daughter was.The man, stood out from the rest, as he walked up to me and handed me this large leather book. I assumed, at the time, he was a parent of one of Sam’s friends, handing me a collection of their photos together. Or maybe I was too numb to even process his cold hands, and how he never mentioned my daughter once.For a month, I was lost. I drank, and stayed in our now empty apartment alone, watching old boxsets – too numb now to even cry. It was only when my sister arrived, when she held my hand and talked to me that I began to come out of my shell. She’d sit and listen to the most inane things I said, and gently coaxed me out of my depression. Not completely, but enough for me to begin to live what was almost a real life again.That was when I opened the book. I’d decided to remember Sam for all the joy she gave, and was prepared to reflect on her life without feeling miserable.I opened to the first page. It was essentially a binder, full of Polaroid photos of my daughter growing up. I furrowed my brow. They were taken from a distance, blurred slightly – and I was in a few of them.I began to feel sick, but hoped that the following photos would provide some explanation. I came up with every excuse of how the man obtained these photos, desperate to view the moments of my daughter’s life without a sense of trepidation. The photos grew closer and closer to my daughter’s birthday. I could see the day I gave her a tiny bike after she turned five, and the skinned knees that ensued. The book had so many more pages, that I assumed the rest were empty.But there was a photo of her just before the movies on her sixth birthday - I could recognise the pink raincoat she insisted on wearing, and my hands on her shoulders.There was no photo of the crash.Instead, her life continued inside this book. Her seventh birthday had a photo of me and her in the garden, covered in paint – with a huge canvas on the floor and an extremely messy painting. Her seventh birthday.Her seventh birthday.The reality of what I was seeing hit me then and I slammed the book shut. I sat there, at the kitchen table staring at the leather. This must be some sadistic photoshop, I hoped, someone had taken the time to pull a horrid prank on me. I say I hoped, because essentially – I couldn’t believe the other explanation. If there even was one.Gritting my teeth, I decided I had nothing to lose and kept reading.I can’t explain the emotions I felt whilst I read accurately, listening to the sound of the page turning. I can try, but nothing could prepare you for something like this.Her life continued, showing her losing her baby teeth, her first day of senior school. My turning of the pages became more frenzied, and I began to notice something. The photographer was getting closer. Closer to her. As she grew older – not in every photo, but a general trend – the photographer was getting closer and closer. More daring, perhaps.She was beautiful. Stunning. As a teenager she looked just like her mother, all curls and smiles. I grew older too, but the photos began to include me less and less.Her sixteenth birthday was strange. A group of her friends, sitting outside, drinking from little plastic cups at a picnic. But there was someone in the background. Near the bushes of the park where this was taken, a dark figure stood. You wouldn’t have noticed him, if not for the small shadow he cast on the grass.I leant back for a moment and exhaled. This was too weird. I’d been so caught up in watching my little girl grow up I hadn’t thought about how this would end. Moments like this, are so utterly surreal that sometimes you remove yourself from them. I almost felt like I was watching myself read these, like this was a dream, or a program on the television.I continued.The dark figure became more and more present in each photograph. I could almost make out features. His presence was towering, and as I turned the page I expected to see him disappear. But instead, as the photographs grew closer to her eighteenth (each birthday was marked by a caption underneath the Polaroid saying “Another year.”) she was no longer somewhere I recognised.Instead, the photos were of her in a dimly lit house. Her face contorted by fear, striking all sorts of weird poses. Sometimes she would be dressed like an ancient queen or she would be dressed like a maid scrubbing the floors, the figure was there even closer now. His legs, or his arm would appear in each and every one. No matter how she was dressed, in every photo her face had this desperately pained expression. It killed me. There were bruises on her face. She looked thin, ill even.I couldn’t do it.This was sick. Properly sick.My girl.I soldiered on.The last photo I looked at, before I slammed the book shut and swore to never, ever look at it again was of her eighteenth. The caption underneath read “At last!” in sloppy writing.She was looking straight at the camera, crying. She was on her knees, dressed in a black evening dress – with an apple in her mouth and her hands bound behind her back. Her makeup was ruined by her tears. It was as if she was pleading me, begging me to help. But I couldn’t.I closed the book and left the room, my whole body convulsing with sobs.I couldn’t call the police, of course. She was dead.The thing that keeps me up at night, isn’t the content of what I saw.It’s that there were so many pages left.Here is the link to the story](https://sixpenceee.com/files/3d463c7a4fa5704a947ccbc34acc1a8f/tumblr_ni1gavc4df1s1vn29o2_500.jpg)
My daughter died on her sixth birthday. A man just handed me photos of her seventh.
An exceptionally fantastic, creepy story.
By reddit user somethingstraange. The authors tumblr can be found here.
The Brave Ones by scarymaxx
Here they come again, the brave ones. Another Halloween night, and the kids are back, here to prove their fearlessness. The old house’s floorboards creak beneath their sneakers.
Only half an hour until midnight, so I have to work fast. I start with their flashlight, blowing lightly against it, so that it flickers, but this inspires little more than a nervous giggle.
Fifteen minutes until midnight. Time to take things up a notch. I hover up to the ceiling, and will my body into flesh. My every nerve is on fire, but they’ve given me no choice. I force drops of blood to trickle out my nose, but the boys below don’t notice. I knock against the ceiling, but they won’t even look up.
“I thought this place was supposed to be haunted,” says the leader. “What a joke.”
Five minutes until midnight. I’m running out of time. With the last of my strength, I scream—so loud that they finally turn to look up at me. I like to think I put on a good show: I sway on an invisible noose, and the blood flows freely from my nostrils now. A couple of drops hit a skinny one with a crew cut. The boys scream and run into the night, just in time.
Below me, I hear the Thing turn, its disappointment palpable. For now, it sleeps. But one day, I will fail. The boys will be too brave, and I won’t scare them out in time. One day they will wake it.
![The Guardians, by reddit user DarkAlliGator He awoke to the huge, insect like creatures looming over his bed and screamed his lungs out. They hastily left the room and he stayed up all night, shaking and wondering if it had been a dream.[[MORE]]The next morning, there was a tap on the door. Gathering his courage, he opened it to see one of them gently place a plate filled with fried breakfast on the floor, then retreat to a safe distance. Bewildered, he accepted the gift. The creatures chittered excitedly.This happened every day for weeks. At first he was worried they were fattening him up, but after a particularly greasy breakfast left him clutching his chest from heartburn, they were replaced with fresh fruit. As well as cooking, they poured hot steamy baths for him and even tucked him in when he went to bed. It was bizarre.One night, he awoke to gunshots and screaming. He raced downstairs to find a decapitated burglar being devoured by the insects. He was sickened, but disposed of the remains as best he could. He knew they had just been protecting him.One morning the creatures wouldn’t let him leave his room. He lay down, confused but trusting as they ushered him back into bed. Whatever their motives, they weren’t going to hurt him.Hours later a burning pain spread throughout his body. It felt like his stomach was filled with razor wire. The insects chittered as he spasmed and moaned. It was only when he felt a terrible squirming feeling beneath his skin that he realised the insects hadn’t been protecting him. They had been protecting their young.](https://sixpenceee.com/files/10d844ecf171e906b47e6aa26e22e8fb/tumblr_ndat17k1qj1s1vn29o1_500.jpg)
The Guardians, by reddit user DarkAlliGator
He awoke to the huge, insect like creatures looming over his bed and screamed his lungs out. They hastily left the room and he stayed up all night, shaking and wondering if it had been a dream.
![A Story to Scare My Son, by reddit user OvenFriend“Son, we need to have a chat about Internet Safety.” I slowly crumpled down onto the floor next to him. His laptop was open and he was playing Minecraft on a public server. His eyes were locked into the action. Comments scrolled down the side of the screen in a chat box. “Son, can you stop your game for a minute?”[[MORE]]He exited the world, closed the laptop, and looked up at me. “Dad, is this going to be another cheesy scary story?”“Whhaaaat?” I faked hurt feelings for a second, and then grinned at him, “I thought you liked my cautionary tales?” He grew up listening to my stories about children who encountered witches, ghosts, werewolves, and trolls. Like many generations of parents, I used scary stories to reinforce morals and teach lessons about safety. Single dads like me should use all the parenting tools at their disposal.He scrunched his face a little, “They were fine when I was six. But now that I’m getting older, they don’t scare me anymore. They seem kinda silly. If you are going to tell a story about the Internet, can you make it really, really scary!?” I squinted at him incredulously. He folded his arms, “Dad. I’m ten and I can handle it.”“hmm… okay… I’ll try.”I began, “Once upon a time, there was a boy named Colby….” His expression indicated that he wasn’t impressed with the terror of the introduction. He sighed deeply and settled in for one of Dad’s cheesy stories. I continued…Colby went online and joined several children’s websites. After a while, he started talking to other kids in-game and on the message boards. He made friends with another ten year old boy named Helper23. They liked the same video games and shows. They laughed at each other’s jokes. They explored new games together.After several months of friendship, Colby gave Helper23 six diamonds in a game they were playing. This was a very generous gift. Colby’s birthday was coming up and Helper23 wanted to send him a cool present in real life. Colby figured it wouldn’t hurt to give Helper23 his home address - as long as he promised not to tell it to any strangers or grownups. Helper23 swore he wouldn’t tell anyone else, not even his own parents, and set about mailing the package.I paused the story and asked my son, “Do you think that was a good idea?” “No!” he said shaking his head vigorously. In spite of himself, he was getting into the story.Well neither did Colby. Colby felt guilty about giving away his home address - and his guilt began to grow. And grow. By the time he put on his pajamas the next night, his guilt and fear were larger than anything else in his life. He resolved to admit the truth to his parents. The punishment would be steep, but it was worth it to have a clear conscience. He squirmed in his bed as he waited for his parents to tuck him in.My son knew the scary part was coming up. In spite of his tough talk, he leaned forward wide-eyed. I spoke quietly and deliberately.He heard all the noises of the house. The washing machine bounced around in the laundry room. Branches scraped against the brick outside his room. His baby brother cooed in the nursery. And there were some other noises he couldn’t… quite… pinpoint. Finally, his dad’s footsteps echoed down the hall. “Hey Dad?” He called out nervously. “I have something to tell you.”His dad stuck his head in the doorway at a weird angle. In the darkness, his mouth didn’t seem to move and the eyes were all wrong. “Yes, son” The voice was way off, too. “Are you okay, Dad?” The boy asked. “Uh-huh” sung the father in his strangely affected voice. Colby pulled his covers up defensively. “Ummm… Is Mom around?”“Here I am!” Mom’s head popped into the doorway below Dad’s. Her voice was an unnatural falsetto. “Were you about to tell us that you gave our home address to Helper23? You shouldn’t have done that! We TOLD you never to give out personal information on the Internet!”She continued, “He wasn’t really a kid! He just pretended to be one. Do you know what he did? He came to our house, broke in, and murdered both of us! Just so he could spend some time with you!”A fat man in a wet jacket emerged in the child’s doorway holding the two severed heads. Colby shrieked and gasped as the man dropped the heads on the ground, unsheathed his knife, and moved into the room to work on the boy.My son screamed too. He twisted his hands defensively over his face. But we were just getting started with the story.After several hours, the boy was almost dead and his screams had become whimpers. The killer noticed the wailing of a baby in another room and removed his knife from Colby. This was a special treat. He had never murdered a baby before and was excited about the prospect. Helper23 left Colby to die and followed the cries through the house like a homing beacon.In the nursery, he walked to the crib, picked the baby up, and held it in his arms. He moved towards the changing table to get a better look. But as he held the baby, the crying died down. The baby looked up and smiled. Helper23 had never held a baby, but he gently bounced it in his arms like a pro. He wiped his bloody hands on the blanket so he could stroke the baby’s cheek, “Hey there, sweet little guy.” The beautiful rage of sadism melted into something warmer and softer.He walked out of the nursery, took the baby home, named him William, and raised him as his very own.After I finished the story, my son was visibly shaken. Between ragged staccato breaths, he stammered, “But Dad, MY name’s William.” I gave him a classic dad-wink and tousled his hair. “Of course it is, son.” William ran up the stairs to his bedroom in a fury of sobs.But deep down… I think he liked the story.](https://sixpenceee.com/files/0473a08ac694cf2892754afa311384d8/tumblr_nd8z49cbyy1s1vn29o1_500.jpg)
A Story to Scare My Son, by reddit user OvenFriend
“Son, we need to have a chat about Internet Safety.” I slowly crumpled down onto the floor next to him. His laptop was open and he was playing Minecraft on a public server. His eyes were locked into the action. Comments scrolled down the side of the screen in a chat box. “Son, can you stop your game for a minute?”
![DARKNESSOne of my favorite creepy stories. Author: David.It all started after moving into my new house. Yeah, that’s pretty cliche. Believe me, I know, but it’s what happened. I never experienced anything supernatural before and, though interested, I never really expected anything to happen to me.[[MORE]]I was able to rent the house for pretty cheap. I didn’t think anything of it because it was old and not in the best of neighborhoods so I guessed I just got a good deal. After moving everything in, things were fine for a while.I don’t remember exactly when it started because it seemed so minor at the time. I’d leave a light on in the kitchen or the bathroom and come back to find it off. Honestly, I thought I was just forgetting that I turned them off already when I came back. After a while, I began to wonder and started leaving a couple lights on on purpose. Sometimes, nothing would happen. Sometimes, I’d come back to find the lights turned off.By now, I figured out that something was off. I wasn’t really scared, but just confused. I thought maybe something was wrong with the electronics. I started leaving lights on a bit more often (freakin’ killed my PG&E bill) because I thought I might be able to get some sign of why they would randomly shut off. That’s when it started to take another turn.The first real time I remember something crazy happening was when I left the kitchen and living room light on while I was asleep. I woke up to a deep, rumbling growl coming from the kitchen. Now, from the bedroom, you can see down the hall to the living room and that room is connected to the kitchen. I remember waking up and thinking that there was an animal or something in my house. I looked down the hall toward the living room to see the light darker. Somebody had flicked off the light from the kitchen. Another low growl came, this time from the living room and I nearly screamed as I saw something bold across the length of the hall opening and then the living room light went out. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was though. It just seemed like a black shadow or something. It didn’t really matter. I was scared shitless. I bolted from my bed then and threw on the bedroom light, expecting something to be in this room and getting ready to come after me.Nothing. There wasn’t anything in the room. I let out a low breath and then I slowly moved down the hall into the living room. Once I got to the end, I practically bolted to throw on the light switch there. Again, nothing. Kitchen next and, once again, nothing!I was starting to think I dreamed all of it before I went to turn off the kitchen light and stopped. Now, I was a grown man but here I was terrified to turn off that switch. And I’ll admit it, I slept with all the lights on that night.That was a mistake.When I woke up the next morning, all the lights were off once again. I went to push myself out of bed and winced as my body felt sore. I pulled the sheets off to see long red marks running down along my legs and arms. It looked like something scratched me in the night. That terrified the hell out of me but not nearly so much as when I saw what happened.Every light I left on was smashed.Every lightbulb that was on last night was broken, every lamp knocked over and smashed in. My breath caught in my throat as I looked around. Something was fucked up as hell here. And something tried to…well do something to me. I called in for work that day and went to immediately replace all the lights.I didn’t know what to do then. I thought about leaving but, and I know this probably sounds stupid, but this was my home. It was my first time away from my family and this was MY home. I couldn’t give it up. So…I stayed.Even as it got worse.Even though I was begining to become terrified of the dark, I couldn’t really sleep with the light on me at night in the bedroom. I’d leave other lights on though, like in the hall, or the living room giving myself enough to see pretty well in my darker room. And, almost every night, I’d wake up in the middle of the night to hear something growling and prowling around the living room and then the lights would shut off. I didn’t want to go look. I was terrified at the thought of being in the same room with whatever was in there. So I curled up in bed and prayed it never came in.One night, after this went on for a while, I had it. I bought a gun and turned on every light in the house. Then I sat down in the middle of the living room with my gun in my lap and a baseball bat sitting next to me. I waited. There was nothing at first for a long time. At around 2 in the morning I began to hear it. Oddly, it was behind me. I turned and peeked toward the hall to my bedroom and could hear that familiar growl. I swallowed and held my gun in one hand and the bat in the other and slowly began to step around to get a better view of bedroom from the living room. As I began to get a view of my bed, I heard a loud THUMP! followed by an inhuman roar. I, being the brave man I was, jumped back and away from the hallway. I wanted to end this all but, dear god I didn’t want to deal with that thing! I could hear tearing and smashing but, and I don’t know how I caught it, but I did manage to hear an audible “click”. And then nothing. Slowly, I went back to peek down the hall and the light was off once again. A deep breath and I ventured forth, my weapons ready.When I came to my bedroom and flicked the light back on, I gasped. My bed was ravaged, torn completely apart. It was like some animal had jumped into it and just ripped it to shreds. I stepped forward to look at what was left of my bed and just stood in shock for who knows when. It wasn’t until I heard the sound of a familiar growl that I turned around. Standing near my door, right at the light switch, was when I finally saw it.It was a man, a white and rotting man with a mangled body that looked like he had once been a dog’s chewtoy staring at me. I was too in shock to even raise my weapons. He stared at me for just a moment and then…flicked off the light. I screamed. I’m not even ashamed to admit it. I screamed and bolted. I didn’t care of that was where that…man…had been standing. I ran right past where I had seen him, swinging my bat like a madman. I nearly put a hole in the hallway as I ran through into the safe light of the hall. I turned to look back then, just in time to see him once again near the hall’s light switch. He turned that one off too. By then, I didn’t want to fight. I wanted to be safe. I burst past the living room and into the brightness of my kitchen.I heard the sound of growling and scratching nearly all around me then and I knew he was coming back. I looked back to once again see that mangled and rotten corpse of a man turn off another light with a broken finger and plunge me into terrifying darkness. I broke for the living room.This was going to be my final stand. I’d have to fight here. I drew close to the standing lamp that was my last line of defense. It hated the dark so I’d stay right here. Next to this comforting standing lamp. I waited for it to turn off but…it never did. I looked around and…quiet. Nothing but quiet. I turned then to look at that saving grace of a lamp that refused to yield. I started to find myself laughing, a crazy but ALIVE laught and I thought I’d finally be ok. Stepped closer and I swear I almost hugged that lamp.Until I saw it.I heard the growl first coming not from behind me but in front! From that lamp. My eyes widened and I stared as the light from that lamp intensified. I stumbled back and, I don’t know what happened but I think I tripped on something. I just know I found myself flat on my back staring up at that bright, intense light. It wasn’t comforting any longer. Just hot and heavy and bright…I thought it was going to burn me away. And then it came.I don’t have words to describe what poured from that lamp’s light. It was hideous, twisted, and filled with rage. I know I’ll never forget those eyes though. Bright, hot, and white…two glowing circles of pure malice. It hated me. It hated everything about me. And not just me. It hated all of us. Every human being. But it was stuck here. And it would lash out at what it could. Me. I don’t know how I knew this but…I just knew. I lunged for me and I prepared myself for a painful death.“CLICK!”The light went out. Once again, darkness. Sweet, quiet, relaxing darkness. I stayed on the ground for a long moment, letting my eyes adjust as I kept my gaze fixated on where my standing lamp was. As the seconds passed, I could start to make him out. That mangled man standing by the lamp, one torn hand upon the switch as he looked down at me.I understood then. I understood what it all meant. Everything that happened. The man pulled his hand away from it and then pointed and mangled finger toward it before, very clearly, shaking his head from side to side. All I could find myself doing was nodding.He wasn’t the one trying to harm me. All this time, all those instances, he was trying to protect me. That creature could only come in the light. And this mangled man had been trying to keep me safe. He didn’t want someone else to repeat his mistakes.I moved out the very next day and never looked back. Whatever it was, it was confined to that house and, so far, nothing has come at me from another light source. However, that thing will always stick with me in my mind. Every night, in my new apartment, I made a habit of wondering around the house, making sure every light is off, every curtain is closed, and made sure to plunge myself in quiet, comforting, and safe pitch darkness. (Link to Story)](https://sixpenceee.com/files/12e326cc194145b4ce3fa5ee09a4b331/tumblr_ncxic9i7ch1s1vn29o1_500.png)
DARKNESS
One of my favorite creepy stories. Author: David.
It all started after moving into my new house. Yeah, that’s pretty cliche. Believe me, I know, but it’s what happened. I never experienced anything supernatural before and, though interested, I never really expected anything to happen to me.
![CREEPY TINY TALES, by reddit user IPostAtMidnightUnfurlShe usually enjoyed unfurling a fresh sheet over her bed, swishing it out like they do in those detergent commercials. Tonight, however, as the sheet settled down onto the empty mattress, it outlined the contours of a body.Then it sat up.[[MORE]]ylim3Little Emily vanished last year. Now they’re pouring new sidewalks in my neighborhood, and I’ve found her name in the wet cement, written in remembrance. But it was written in reverse. And from below.Cold as HellAfter centuries spent crawling through an endless desert, the Devil appeared and offered the man a glass of cold water. Though suspicious, he savored every drop, and afterwards he looked up gratefully.“Why this kindness?” he asked the Devil through cracked, scabbed-over lips.The Devil smiled and patted him on the head.“Because you had forgotten kindness existed.”Then he was alone again, and the moisture remaining in his mouth turned to sand.(Link to story, there are more tiny tales here) (Compilation of Creepy Short Stories)(Compilation of Creepy Short Stories Part 2)](https://sixpenceee.com/files/4fbd93ca281bd434bc208312c0b48eab/tumblr_ncn8q7zm4x1s1vn29o1_500.jpg)
CREEPY TINY TALES, by reddit user IPostAtMidnight
Unfurl
She usually enjoyed unfurling a fresh sheet over her bed, swishing it out like they do in those detergent commercials. Tonight, however, as the sheet settled down onto the empty mattress, it outlined the contours of a body.
Then it sat up.
![ROCKING HORSE CREEKThis story isn’t like the rest of the stories I’ve posted here. It isn’t “creepy”, it’s hauntingly beautiful. It’s a long read but every word is worth it. [[MORE]]by reddit user The_Dalek_EmperorMy brother Teddy died on December 11th, 1999 during our annual family Christmas party. He was 12 and I was 9. I wish I could say it wasn’t my fault, but at the end of the day, the whole thing had been my idea.I’m from Woodbury, Minnesota as is my entire extended family. Every Christmas my parents would host a holiday party to eat, drink and gossip. It was always a boring event but I loved seeing all my cousins. The adults usually stuck us kids in the basement or the loft but that year my brother convinced them to let us go sledding at the park instead.We bundled up in our purple Vikings parkas and loaded up the sleds with blankets and our pockets with hand-warmer packets. Then me, my brother, and our cousins Mike and Jeff set off for the sledding hill which was about a half mile down the road.As soon as we were out of view of the house, Teddy stopped.“You guys wanna do something fun?” He asked.“Hell yeah!”“Of course!”“I want to go sledding.“ I muttered."Yeah, well, sledding is for babies,” said Jeff."That’s what I was thinking too!” His brother added.Teddy smiled. “Good. Because I want to take you guys somewhere way more awesome.”“Where are we going?” I asked nervously. “Mom and dad will get mad if they look for us in the park and we’re not there.”“They wont look, they’re too drunk,” Teddy laughed."But-”“I think we should go to Rocking Horse Creek.“ He added coolly.Rocking Horse Creek was actually more of a small river than creek but it had been called that for as long as I can remember. The creek had been named by neighborhood kids who’d found an almost life-sized rocking horse sitting abandoned and half submerged in the water. No one knew where it had come from just as no one knew the actual name of the river. Because no one had ever been stupid enough to tell their parents that they went there."But Rocking Horse Creek is almost an hour walk from here!” I whined. I was already cold and didn’t feel like walking that far.Mike snorted. “Pfft, don’t be a baby. There’re extra blankets if you’re cold plus hand-warmer packets in your pockets.”“Yeah,” Jeff added, “and if you want we can pull you along in the sled just like the baby you are!”Mike and Jeff laughed. But Teddy didn’t and he punched Jeff in the arm.“Stop it, you guys! I’m not a baby! And why go to the creek anyway? It’s probably ice.”“Because it will look hella cool!” Teddy said."Yeah, I want to go!” said Mike. “We could tie our jacket strings to some sticks and go ice fishing!”“Yeah!”“Well, I‘m really good at ice fishing,” I lied, “So I have to go so I can help you.”“Sure you are.” Jeff rolled his eyes.The walk didn’t take an hour; it was more like 35 minutes, though it did feel longer due to the cold. When we approached we saw that the river was indeed frozen over. The ice looked several feet thick, though it was hard to tell. Jeff and Mike were really excited about it and kept testing their weight on the thinner ice of the riverbank.I sat down on my sled and drew a couple blankets around me.* I’m smaller than them so I’m colder*, I justified to myself. Ted, Mike and Jeff stood on the riverbank and threw rocks onto the ice to see if they could break it. When they failed to produce even the smallest crack, Jeff announced it was time to play Ricochet Dare.I hated Ricochet Dare. As soon as Jeff suggested it I felt a cold stone drop into the pit of my stomach. Ricochet Dare was something we’d been playing since we were little kids. The rules stated that if you were dared to do something and you didn’t do it the game would end and you would be the new "Wuss” (and this ridicule would go on for weeks or even months). However, if you did do it then you got to dare someone in return. Generally, the dares start off mild but with every round the stakes get higher. The game would only end when someone inevitably wussed out. And, of course, that person was usually me.But not this time, I thought as I shrugged off the blankets and stood up, pushing my hat up from my eyes. I had to redeem myself and make Teddy proud. I had to show them I wasn’t a baby.“Come on!” Jeff yelled at me. “You go first!”“Okay. What’s the dare?” I asked with false bravado.“Hmm…"Jeff said. "Okay, you have to take 3 steps out onto the ice.”I eyed the frozen river warily. “Three steps?”“Yep, and not baby steps, real steps.”“Stop it, I’m not a baby!”“Then prove it.”I took my first step lightly and paid close attention to the give of the slippery mass beneath me. There was none that I could feel and the ice made no sound of protest underneath my feet. I took the two last steps quickly and then turned around and half-skated back to shore. My brother gave me a huge smile and a high five.I dared Mike to take 4 and half steps. Mike dared Ted to do 6 steps. Ted dared Jeff to do 10 steps. And then Jeff dared me to walk all the way to the opposite shore. The ice hadn’t made a sound since we had started the game, instead remaining as silent as death. Still, there was something unsettling stringing through the cold air and the silence.I stalled for as long as I could, trying to decide if I should complain. Jeff’s dare was actually two dares and I didn’t think that was fair. Technically I would have to do it twice: once to get to the opposite shore and once to get back. I was afraid of falling through to the cold water I knew was raging by under the ice.“Come one, don’t be a baby, just do it.” Mike said.“Little baby-waby afraid of the icy-wisy?” Jeff mocked.“Stop it you guys, I’m not a baby! This dare isn’t fair - it’s two dares!”My voice was drowned out by Jeff and Mike’s mock baby cries. I looked at Teddy for help but he was laughing.Laughing. My older brother didn’t even attempt to stick up for me, he was joining in with them!I felt my lower lip wobble and tears fill my eyes.* Don’t cry! Babies cry, you’re not a baby!* I jerked my head back to river so they couldn’t see my red face and traitorous tears. I felt a sob begin to bubble up through my throat and I knew I couldn’t let them hear it.I would die before I’d let them see me cry.I took a deep breath and ran across the ice as fast as I could. And for a moment I actually hoped I did fall through. They would be in so much trouble and they would feel so sorry that they’d made fun of me and called me a baby. With every slap of my boot I listened for the telltale sound of cracking ice. But none came and before I knew it I was on the other side.I raised my fists in the air triumphantly and waited to hear their cheers. When I turned to look back, they were still standing in a circle together, laughing. They hadn’t even been watching me. They missed the entire dare.And I wanted to cry all over again.I swallowed the tears and was about to yell that I wanted to go home. But just then, I noticed something dangling from the tree above them. How had I forgotten? I was the only one who’d noticed it and I realized it was my ticket to revenge and redemption. But who to dare?I stood silently watching them as they joked with each other and pointed at each of them in turn, silently mouthing to myself.“Eeny, meeny miny, moe, catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers let him go, eeny meeny miny moe.”My finger landed on Teddy. Good, I thought. He’s supposed to be my brother, he deserves it the most.I cleared my throat.“I dare…” I yelled across the small river, interrupting them. They turned to look at me, almost surprised to see me standing on the other shore. So they had forgotten about me.“I dare,” I started with renewed anger, “TEDDY to rope swing across the creek and land on this side.”There was silence as, in tandem, all three looked up at the rope hanging from the tree above them. During the summer we would take turns swinging on it and cannon-balling into the water; and if you pushed off the tree hard enough, you could actually make it to the other side of the creek. I’d seen my brother do it many times.Teddy’s eyes got wide and he looked at me as if I’d sentenced him to death. Jeff and Mike immediately started prodding him, telling him not to be a wuss. I smiled smugly from the other side of the river. I hoped he’d fail the dare. It’d be just what he deserved.It didn’t take much name calling for Teddy to climb the tree and grab onto the rope. He tested it a few times and then hung on it with all of his weight. It held like it always had.“When I get over there I’m going to dare you to do jumping jacks in the middle of the creek!” He yelled at me. That’s when I realized my mistake. If Teddy dared me to do that I would most certainly wuss out and then they’d tease me until Easter. I sent a silent prayer up to God that Teddy didn’t make it to this side of the river.“On three!” Mike yelled to Teddy.I watched Teddy count silently to himself and then push off from the tree as hard as he could. He swung in a long, deep arc just like he always did. I watched the scene with my fingers crossed, hoping the rope wouldn’t go far enough and that he would have to land back on the other riverbank, his dare unfilled and the game ended. But I could tell immediately that he was going to make it and somberly stepped backward to make room for him to land.And then suddenly the loudest sound I’ve ever heard before or since rang through the air like a gunshot.GROANSNAPTeddy broke through as soon as he hit the ice and the rope and tree branch followed him down into the darkness below. I felt my feet moving under me as I slipped and slid my way out to where he’d gone in, sheer panic crushing my chest like a vice. All three of us were on our bellies groping into the angry, jagged hole within 10 seconds. We searched the watery void but all we could feel was the tree branch below us. And within a minute, we couldn’t feel anything at all- our hands and arms had gone numb.Jeff pulled Mike and I to our feet and started running for the sleds.“Leave his sled here, we need to get out of here now!”I felt cold and dead. I stumbled blindly toward the sound of my cousin’s voice. “We need to save Teddy. I want Teddy. He’s in the ice. We have to get mom and dad.” But I was blubbering so badly by the end that I doubt they understood a word of it. And despite my slurred protests, I followed them through the woods, confused and cold.But after a while I couldn’t feel the cold anymore. I couldn’t feel any pain, in my heart or my body. In fact, I couldn’t feel anything at all.Mike didn’t say a word for the entire walk back but Jeff went on and on about the “plan”.We would just say that Teddy decided to go home before us and that he had said he was going to take a shortcut through the woods - the other woods on the far side of the road.I just nodded for awhile, even smiled at his plan. God, to this day I don’t know why I smiled. We were almost home by the time I began to process what he was saying.“No. I have to tell dad to save Teddy.” I told him. I was surprised by how flat my voice sounded.Mike just kept walking forward in a daze but Jeff whirled on me.“It’s too late to save him but you can save yourself! It’s your fault this happened because it was your dare. They will take you to jail for murder and put you on death row; it’s an open and shut case. You can’t tell anyone anything. Ever.”And I don’t know why I believed him, but I did.The hardest part of the day wasn’t watching my brother die or the long, cold walk home. The hardest part by far was pretending like nothing was wrong when we got there.What do you mean you haven’t seen Teddy? He should have been back by now, he started home an hour before us.I couldn’t keep my poker face for very long, though, and I started crying. My dad thought it was because I was so cold that my skin had begun to turn white.The adults immediately mounted a search of the woods between our house and the park, which of course, turned up nothing. By nightfall they had called the police.Search and Rescue searched the wrong woods for the next 24 hours because they believed our story. The sledding hill had been crowded that day but a couple of people were sure they’d seen us there.The day after that they intended to search the other side of the forest - the side Teddy was actually on - but a blizzard rolled in overnight and that search was called off. My parents were told that where ever Teddy was, he was most certainly dead.Parents in the neighborhood stopped letting their children play in the woods, even in the summer. My own parents wouldn’t let me leave the house for a year. I grew up angry and spiteful. I hated everyone, but no one more than myself. I applied to college just to get away from my parents, whose constant love and support felt vile and wrong to me. I wished they would have another kid so they could give their love to someone deserving and stop talking about Teddy all the time.I got into U of M. My grades sucked and I drank a lot. My parents pressured me to excel since I was their last horse in the race. I never returned their calls or emails.I lived with the guilt; just barely, but I lived with it. If nothing else, I could take a bit of pride in the fact that I was surviving.Drunkenly one night, I finally told a couple of my close friends about it. They agreed that it wasn’t my fault, that shit happens, and that Teddy wouldn’t want me to dwell on it. I made the dare, but he climbed the rope.That night was a turning point for me. After being validated by people who actually knew the truth, I cut back on the drinking and I picked up my grades for the last two semesters. And somehow, it was enough to graduate.A year later I got an invitation to an engagement party at my parent’s house. Cousin Jeff was getting married to a girl he’d met in the navy and I was “invited to celebrate their love” with them. As much as I always hated going back home, I wanted to support Jeff. Somehow, just knowing that he was living a full life despite our shared burden made me feel hopeful, like I could too.The party was quieter and more reserved than the parties my parents threw when we were kids. They had become less fun since Teddy’s death: more refined, more somber. Jeff was quieter than I remembered, too, but he was clearly happy with his new fiancé, who seemed like a very nice girl. And though a wide smile was spread across his face, his eyes betrayed a certain guardedness, especially when he looked at me.I got up the courage to talk to him only once. We shared an awkward hug and I congratulated him on his engagement and asked him about his brother. Jeff told me that Mike was addicted to heroin and living in Arizona somewhere. I said that it seemed Mike had never really recovered. Jeff said he didn’t know what I was talking about and walked away.I spent the rest of the party hugging relatives, making small talk and pretending to drink (sobriety is suspect in my family). After awhile I went outside to take in a cigarette and a moment of peace. And in the secrecy of the autumn air, I started to cry.This party should be boisterous and loud. My parents should be lively and laughing. Mike should be running around the party daring people to take mystery shots. I should be cheerfully telling stories from college and talking about my plans for graduate school. And Teddy should be here instead of lying dead at the bottom of a river bed.I flicked my cigarette under my car and wiped the wetness from my cheeks. I knew what I had to do and where I had to go.I had to see the river that had haunted me since I was nine. Had anyone been back to Rocking Horse Creek? Was Teddy’s sled still there? Had they replaced the rope? Had the creek dried up? This was my worst fear. It had secrets I didn’t want to live to see revealed. I lit another cigarette as I walked and began to list all the reasons this was a bad idea. I spent the hike either begging myself to find the strength to turn around or begging for the courage to continue on.I arrived at Teddy’s grave before I was ready.The creek was loud and the water was moving quickly - recent rain in the area to blame, no doubt. The rocking horse itself was in bad shape. Only its head was visible above the water now and it was so rotted you could barely tell what it was anymore. No one had replaced the rope.I sat down next to the creek and took it all in. It was hard to believe this was the same place from which I still woke up screaming. It seemed to have healed since taking Teddy’s life. If it could heal, maybe I could heal too. The tree was so full you wouldn’t think it’d ever lost a single branch. The creek innocently bubbled by, full of life and vigor. Everything here was so different than I remembered.Even the rocking horse.Where the toy had once been cheerful, almost animated, it was now just a morbid, misshapen head. Its eyes were pointed directly at me and they bore a soulless stare right through me. It sent an involuntary shudder through my body and I turned away from the horse’s head in revulsion, I immediately saw what the horse had been looking at: a sliver of red plastic jutting out of the ground behind me.Teddy’s sled.My reaction was visceral and I had to lean over and vomit in the grass beside me. It was real. It had happened. Had I been pretending it wasn’t real? Was that why I had really come here? To pretend that the past was gone and didn’t matter anymore? How could I forget that what this place really was?I stumbled to my feet and began walking down the riverbank away from the buried sled, pausing every few feet to dry heave. I just wanted to get away from it, that thing that was all that remained of my brother. Everything that used to be Teddy lay at the bottom of the river now. I pulled a cigarette from my pack with shaking hands. As I tried to light it I tripped over something and fell forward, my cigarette rolling down the riverbank and into the water.It was a rope. And I knew right away that it was Teddy’s rope.I kicked it away from me, it was worse than the sled. If I had anything left to throw up, I know I would have. The end of the rope lay deteriorating on the riverbank with the length of it disappearing into the murky water of the river. And maybe I am morbid or sick or crazy, but I suddenly I decided that I wanted to know, I wanted to see.I crawled over to it and picked it up. It felt just as it did all those summers ago when I used to swing from it into the water as Teddy clapped from the shoreline.I began to pull the rope out of the river.The water was fast moving and the rope was heavy. The creek didn’t want to give up its secrets so easily and it rebelled against my efforts. Still I pulled harder. Just as I felt I was coming to the end of it, something long and thin breached the surface of the river. I saw it for only a moment before the rotted rope snapped and it sank back into the dark abyss.I almost dove in after it. But as I stood on the riverbank, my brain screaming at me, I realized what I’d almost done. What if that was Teddy? Would I want to see?Breaking from my trance, I hurled the rest of the rope into the water and fled into the woods. My lungs struggled to draw breath and the trees began to spin around me. I anxiously lit yet another cigarette and let the shudders wrack through my body as I waited for the nicotine to calm me.I stood there, in the middle of the woods, the broken rope 20 feet behind me at the bottom of the river and took short drags off my cigarette. And when my breathing had become bearable again, I felt someone watching me.It was Teddy, of course. He sat with his back against a tree, faded purple parka still bright in the mid afternoon sun, and in some parts bleached almost as white as his bones. Ripped foil from an opened hand-warmer packet was clutched in his hand, still remaining after all these years. He stared at me accusingly; the deep eye sockets of his skull were somehow not empty, instead they held a knowing consciousness that said he knew what we had done. He knew we’d left him to die.But we hadn’t known that, Teddy! We hadn’t! We didn’t know you crawled out of the river. We didn’t know you were freezing to death as we ran home to bury our secrets! We would have saved you, Teddy, if we had known! You know that. We would have saved you!I yell this at the skeleton, in my head or out loud I’m not entirely sure. But Teddy just sits there staring me; thirty yards from the rocking horse, twenty yards from the broken tree. And I know he’ll sit here forever. Because Jeff and Mike don’t need to know that our sins are far more terrible than we’d ever thought. I know it is only my burden to bear. And I can tell as he watches at me in the fading sunlight that Teddy agrees.(LINK TO STORY)](https://sixpenceee.com/files/7f715d23d2d0ff261db7a7da972059b6/tumblr_ncdvccfxba1s1vn29o1_500.jpg)
ROCKING HORSE CREEK
This story isn’t like the rest of the stories I’ve posted here. It isn’t “creepy”, it’s hauntingly beautiful. It’s a long read but every word is worth it.
![Why You Can’t Talk to the Deadby reddit user daydalia[[MORE]]My aunt was a con artist and she learned from the best - her father. Grandpa never made it big but he lived for the game. Staying under the radar was probably what made sure he never did get caught. Not once. He was so proud of that.Mom didn’t take up the family business. She got religion instead and married a tax accountant. It’s so ironic that it sounds like a joke but it’s true; dad was the best for helping out with math homework. Mom’s more colourful relations were kept at a figurative arm’s length throughout my childhood lest they corrupted me into following a more interesting life path.Aunt Cassie was the only one who could wiggle her way into my life. She was fully licenced as a psychologist, which made her a smidge more respectable. But Aunt Cassie used her ability to read a person in a whole different way, one probably not intended by the university who issued her degree.Aunt Cassie was a bona fide Psychic.She had a shop and everything. Crystals, herbs, candles. Anything you needed to fill the mystic void in your life could be bought for a healthy markup at her little store. There was even a private room in the back that was used for readings and seances.Because both my folks worked I would often get dropped off at the shop where I would help Aunt Cassie out with those little shows. Anything from messing with the lights to knocking on walls. Playing with the thermostat was my idea and it was an effective one. Customers came to get chills down their spine, didn’t they? Why not provide?Cassie helped me become the skeptic I am today. Showed me all the behind the scenes sleight of hand stuff. We’d watch daytime talk shows with magicians and mediums and Cassie would explain every step from a basic rundown of cold readings to how to spot an audience plant.After one particularly convincing episode I asked the natural question. Couldn’t some of it be real? My aunt’s reply was firm.“The dead don’t talk, kiddo. Anyone who claims otherwise is blowing smoke out of their ass.”It was her conviction, more than anything, that made me believe her.There was only one client I ever saw my aunt refuse. He was old, bald and stooped. Took his hat off when he came inside and twisted it in his hands as he talked. Cassie tensed up immediately when she saw him.The man claimed to have worked in the prison systems. Death row. He’d been responsible for carrying out the final punishments of the worst convicted criminals on the planet. In his old age this tormented him, ate at his soul. He wanted Cassie to contact the souls of the ones he’d killed so he could apologize and beg forgiveness before he joined them.My aunt threw the most epic fit. I’d never seen her so mad! She hollered and threw things. Shouting for him to get OUT OUT OUT OUT SHUT UP GET OUTI hid under the counter with my hands over my ears until he left. Later I thought her reaction was one of fear because of the man’s job. An executioner has to be a con artist’s worst fear.Eventually I got found out. I wanted to put on a magic show for my folks and stupidly I thought I’d do a Medium bit where I pretended to talk to Grandpa for mom since she missed him so much. Huge mistake. Mom freaked the hell out and banned me from seeing her sister ever again.I’d left some textbooks at the shop though so I got to run in and grab them while mom fumed in the car outside. Aunt Cassie didn’t even have to ask what was wrong. She could read my face, after all. I gave her a hug and a teary snot-filled goodbye. She did tell me one last secret though.“Kiddo, there’s a curse in this family that gets passed like a torch. I hope to whatever gods might be out there that I don’t pass it on to you when I go.”We didn’t get to talk again for more than nine years. That’s when facebook entered the popular public sphere and no parental ban could keep me from trying to reconnect. It was awkward. She’d had a tough go of life; diagnosed with a schizoid disorder that took her business from her. To pay bills she went legitimate and with her business went all her zest and playful passion for life.One day I got home to a message waiting in my inbox that made my stomach drop to the floor.“I love you, kiddo. Remember what I told you.”I dialled her number, already crying. No answer. Didn’t stop me from dialing again and again and again and again…I was too much of a mess to tell my mom. The police did that for me the next day. Car accident. Drunk driver.The funeral was a blur. Relatives I’d never seen in the flesh packed the church. I sat between my parents in the front row and wracked my brain trying to figure out what it was my aunt wanted me to remember.We followed the hearse to the cemetery in dead silence. The priest did the last little speeches and then I was left alone by her headstone, still straining to remember. Snatches of my parent’s conversation floated in and out of my attention span. If only Cassie hadn’t been so cryptic.“-expecting such a small turnout. It’s a shame.”Small turnout? That bothered me. The service had practically been stuffed to the rafters. I turned around to say something and finally understood.Behind my parents there was a whole host of people, all standing and staring dead ahead. My parents weren’t paying them the slightest attention. The priest muttered some soothing condolences and excused himself, walking right through the thick of the crowd without disturbing a single soul.At the head of the group, looking just like the day I’d seen her last was Cassie. All the ‘rest in peace’ sentiment in the world wouldn’t have done her any good. He mouth was wide, wide, wide open and just like that I knew. I know what the family curse is. I know why the dead don’t talk.They’re too busy screaming.(Link to Story)](https://sixpenceee.com/files/66c778cb7dcb6d76938a1332fcb5ec0d/tumblr_nej4hx57hu1s1vn29o1_500.jpg)