Scary Stories

Well, let me start by saying that as a child, I had an extremely over active imagination. I used to have to lie in bed as a child and ignore the little noises I thought I had heard or roll over, burying my face in the wall if I were to feel a strange warm stale draft, as if someone’s breath, on my tightly clenched eyelids. The worst was the night’s with a full moon. See, in the pitch black, I could make myself ignore things, but when the moonlight shone through my window, things got a little worse. With just enough light to fuel my fear, I would see something standing at the edge of my room, then get up the nerve to sprint to the light switch just to prove to myself that it was nothing. Most times it was my rain coat hanging from the floor lamp, or a thin strip of brighter moonlight casting a figure on my bookshelves.

One night I’ll always remember, I was sitting in bed sweating. It was summer but I refused to take off the covers, feeling as if they would protect me. I laid there with my eyes closed trying to ignore the clock out in the dining room that was louder than I’d ever noticed before, “TIC-TIC-SCRAPE, TIC-TIC-SCRAPE”. As I laid there, I suddenly had an image to go along with the sound. I pictured some sort of injured animal with long claws limping around my bedroom, “TIC-TIC-SCRAPE.” I very quickly opened my eyes and glanced down beside the bed. Nothing. But as I quickly surveyed the room I saw something much more startling. A figure standing about halfway between the foot of my bed and the bedroom door (and the lights witch). It looked very pail and very thin. It stood staring at me through one shattered pink eye. It looked like it had it’s arm raised trying to shade it’s eyes against the light from the window.

I sat in bed, freaking at first, wanting to scream but remembering the constant warnings from my parents about letting my imagination run away with me. I didn’t dare trying to make it to the light switch with this thing standing between me and it. I would just have to stare at it and figure out what it really was. I spent hours in this room every day, surely I could think of what would cause this optical illusion in the dark. As I sat watching and trembling slightly, I guess the moon must have moved from behind some clouds outside, because brighter light started to creep across the bedroom. I thought to myself, “great, now I’ll be able to see what it really is.” As the light stretched across the apparition’s face I could see just a little more… I could see what looked like a smile. I started to whimper slightly and shove as much of my body up by my pillow as possible. I stilled tried to be a big boy and not be scared, but then whatever it was dropped down out of sight, beneath the bed’s footboard! There was nothing that could keep me from screaming then, but a massive asthma attack did limit me to just one. As my parents made it into the bedroom and had to rush me to the emergency room, and due to the asthma, never questioned why I was screaming. I convinced myself it was a nightmare and half buried myself down between the wall and my bed to sleep for the next month.

To this day, my room has to be pitch black and I can’t have any clocks that make noise.

(Sent in by Christopher)