creepypasta.com

Zero

Istanbul, Turkey
August
09:12:09 AM

I am at a small outdoor cafe just a few hundred yards from the teeming throng of a morning market, just in sight of the Bosporus. I love this city, and all its thick and violent contradictions. The rising heat of the day is already causing the linen of my suit to cling to my legs.

I awoke last night with a change of heart; you are owed an explanation, and even a warning. If I do as I have planned, I and my actions will be vilified, and misunderstood. Please believe me, I am doing this for all the right reasons. You may not see it now, but in ten or twenty years, you will see a new world born. That is worth any sacrifice.

I have done my work here in Turkey, the first of many great cities to see, and I board a plane tomorrow. Don’t bother looking for me here.

Samarkand, Uzbekistan
September
05:04:20 AM

I am in one of the oldest settlements of mankind, and her majesty overwhelms me, just as her descent saddens me. Once the jewel of Alexander’s conquest, and the capital of Tamarlane’s empire, she has fallen into disrepair and goes fallow with neglect. I must confess knowing this already, but forgive my sense of romanticism; I did want to see this place, once.

I have no work to do here; once the junction of trade lanes between East and West, Samarkand has become isolated and useless to me. But the ghosts of her history and past bring me strength and resolve. The case that I carry with me is heavy in my hand, it is my burden, but with each stop, that burden lessens.

I have allowed myself this one folly, leaving the web for a moment, but I will not linger long.

Munich, Germany
September
08:05:18 AM

The city still sleeps late into the morning on Saturday, and in many places the streets are still empty. There is a grand majesty of Munich’s remaining prewar buildings, and I remarked on its beauty to my local driver. “It was a lot nicer before the British bombed us,” he said without a hint of irony. He was at least two generations removed from the war, and did not seem, or want, to understand when I told him that London had the same problem.

Most of humanity is horrified by the specter of the war, of what happened here. They wonder how man could be so inhumane. These people know nothing of the world, or of nature, red in tooth and claw. These are the people that artificially elevate humanity above the animal kingdom, people that maintain an ephemeral barrier between our particular primate sub-grouping, and the rest of life on Earth. I never understood these people.

I deposited one more device downtown, in a massive state-of-the-art theater complex. I hid it carefully, and set the little slaved atomic clock to my own. My flight departs in a few hours, and if you are following me, you will have no luck in Germany.

London, England
October
05:09:19 AM

London shows her war wounds with flat gray office towers, and plain, blocky apartments, yet her age and history bleed through the scars as I stroll down the Thames, scarcely aware of the brackish odor of the oily waters. The trash and detritus in the river don’t sadden me, the way I imagine it would for you.

You draw some artificial line between a hamburger wrapper and the fallen leaves of a tree that I will never understand. You distinguish between nature and humanity in a way that puzzles me. We are nature, our cities, our roads, and our orbital satellites are no different than a termite colony, or a birds nest, except perhaps in scale. There is nothing unique about humanity. I know that I am all but alone in this conceit, but history and nature herself will prove me right.

The devices I planted here are in the Underground; silently waiting for the day to come when I will activate them, and they will open their ceramic filters and gently release their payload into the air. I burned the last decade of my life like a candle to forge the perfect weapon, hardened against the air, hearty and undeniably alive, burning with the will to survive.

I have chosen the stations because the first letters of each station spell my name. Consider it an artist’s signature. I wouldn’t tell you this if I wasn’t sure this would be useless information, and I doubt you have even uncovered who I am.

As always, I will be gone before you arrive.

Continue Reading…

Listening In

For such a turning point in my life, the night I acquired a certain item is cemented in my mind only because of how mundane it was. I didn’t chance upon a dusty tome buried amidst a pile of mouldering books in a university library nor did I chance upon a madman with a basket of trinkets in a Bangladeshi backstreet. I was sat in my underwear, lit only by a dull blue glow from my computer monitor, browsing eBay for nothing in particular.

The music in my ears fluctuated again, the soulful notes of Toxic by Britney Spears being ebbed away, replaced by a strange yet familiar concoction of static and oppressive silence. I rolled my eyes and removed my headphones, tapping them against my palm while muttering half-formed sentences expressing my distain for ever purchasing them. After a few minutes of tapping refused to exorcise the demons in my earpieces, I began to browse for a replacement. I then, on that most unassuming of nights, stumbled upon a posting that would have irrevocable implications for me.

“Wireless Headphones. Unwanted present, only used once. Bought as a gift for my nephew. Only used once, given back to me “Because of the talking in them” Guaranteed good condition, no point letting them go to waste because of an overactive imagination”.

The auction seemed like an amazing deal, only an hour or so left, a fraction of the retail price, paid delivery. I placed a bid and took myself to bed, trusting the late hour to protect me from having my new trinket stolen from me. As it happened, I was right and they arrived a few days later.

That was when things began to happen. As I connected them to my pc, I could feel a strange heaviness to the air, like the charge in the air before a thunderstorm. I dismissed it easily enough; I thought it was simply a symptom of the muggy summer air.

An hour or so later, permitting the things to accrue a decent amount of charge, I placed them on my head, and flicked the power switch. I was surprised to find, however, that there was no background static. There was a deep silence. Childish as the notion seemed at the time, it felt just like the silence of a tomb. There was also the hint of another sound, the raspy hiss of a whisper on the edge of hearing. I cast it from my mind and tested the sound quality by playing a classical piece, the finale to swan lake. To my eternal shame I felt a flutter of relief as the beautiful notes of Tchaikovsky’s ballet cut through the silence. After a few minutes, however, I was pulled away from the reports I was busying myself with as I heard a familiar buzz of static in my ear, only now with a disturbing new sound mixed in.

Voices. Maybe hundreds, all talking at once in a hoarse, drawn out whisper. Some were too fast to comprehend, others too slow. Some were in different languages, some in long-dead tongues of syllables unpronounceable. I broke out in a sweat, eyes wide. I was the subject of these voices, the understandable ones at least. They spoke of my choice of music, the cut of my new clothes, the reports strewn across my desk. One voice cut through the throng however, a dirty sounding diseased rasp. It said only one thing, but it was enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck rise and my heart pound. It said, merely;

“It’s noticed us,”

I threw the headphones from my head and tore from the room. As I did, I heard a burst of oppressive, heavy noise burst from the headphones, a terrifying mix of an air-raid siren and the static screech of an unturned radio.

It was at this point I decided I needed to be out of the house. I bolted down the stairs, leaping the last few. As I fought with the tangle of keys that resided on the small table by my living room door, I heard another sound, or more accurately a lack of it. An oppressive, murky silence had overtook the whole house. Behind me I heard a rising hum as the TV turned itself on, bathing the room in shifting shadows. From the static on the screen the head and shoulders of a man resolved. With a sickening sound of papers and flesh tearing an arm burst forth, implanting a shifting grey and white hand upon the ground with a curiously wet smack. Then the other came through with an equally sickening herald. The figure then began to flail itself forward and back, battering its head against the inside of the screen until it burst through with a sound akin a coconut being hit by a truck. Thus freed, it’s upper half flopped pathetically onto the floor, pulling the remainder of its body through with a series of motions and sounds that made me sick to my stomach.

I felt my legs fail beneath me, slumping to the ground, my car keys pointed forward in a parody of a defensive stance. It came towards me, walking on its hands and feet until I could feel it next to my face, a horrid smelling mist the odour of old books and rotting flesh lurching into my nostrils in a ragged wheeze. I tensed up, waiting to feel jaws on my throat, hands around my neck, anything, but none came. Through trembling lips I managed to force a single question to the strange creature.

“W…Why are you here,” I stammered. I could feel it smiling.

“You heard us,” it said, in a voice full of malice and pain “You listened to us, you’re our toy now,” It laughed, a hollow, empty sound. “Lucky you,” And then, I was alone. I felt the presence go, the oppressive sounds of static and dull silence stripped away leaving the usual night sounds in its wake.

I don’t know how long I lay there, staring at nothing, before sleep overtook me. When next awoke I took the headphones and gave them to a charity shop. A symbolic gesture, for now those terrible spectres visit me nightly, that horrible shifting man their herald, getting their fun from seeing my human fear.

But that brings us to the real reason I’m telling this story. Be careful when you stare into a screen of static, or hear what a rational man would assume to be interference of your headphones, or even when you’re in complete silence. Be careful not to listen to closely, for strange and terrible things lurk in that maelstrom of black and white.

And once they find you, you will never, ever be free.

–
Credited to Obnoxious Brit.

In Between

I’m in between.

One of them bit me. The bastard took a chunk out of my upper arm. The fool probably didn’t even know it was an arm. He probably saw me as a walking turkey leg or something. Oh, but he got his dues. I whacked his useless head off with a crowbar I stole when shit got serious.

It got serious about a month ago, and let me tell you, it happened just the way everyone thought it would happen. Some “contained” little outbreak, then BOOM, everyone I know is staggering around like kangaroos tripping on dextro. Not me, though. I knew I was going to fight it. I did well until about a week ago when Mr. Slobbermouth munched on my bicep.

It amazes even me that I’m so coherent. God, I wish I wasn’t. I’m not like them, but I’m just like them. I have the hunger they have, but I have all the guilt and love of humanity that is going to keep me from surviving.

I’m not even sure that I want to survive anymore. I see them do horrible things, things that are starting to drive me mad, and I either get sick to my stomach or find my mouth watering. I don’t want to live if living means I have to watch the destruction of my kind every day.

But then, this means no more hiding. It’s as if they can sense something in me, like they scan for a zombie membership card and find it on me. They leave me alone. I can walk freely among them.

You know how I said I’m just like them? Well, I’m better than them. I’m smarter and have the ability to gain the trust of humans. I found one yesterday, I know where all the good hiding spots are, you see, and Lord was it happy to see me. It grasped my arm and looked into my eyes, saying it was happy to have found someone to fight with. Making sure none of the no-brains were around, I took it with me and hid with it in a storm cellar. I let it fall asleep, then I broke its neck, busted open its head like a coconut, and tore into its meaty brain. The blood complimented it nicely.

For a few moments, I felt bad for what I had done. I saw his body in that stagnant pool of blood, looking as if he was still sleeping, and felt some remorse for the poor, trusting boy. I wondered about his life before the disaster. Was he happy? Did his family love him? Would he have survived anyway?

That acidic guilt rose in me, a constant reminder of my humanity. But there’s at least one thing zombies and humans have in common: the will to survive. And I’m about to do a much better job than either one of them will.

–
Credited to Clarissa & spawned from PastaLover’s epic zombie story thread here on the forums!

A Camp Fire Story, Of Sorts

December 10th, 2003

My frozen hands tremble as I fumble to work my little butane lighter. The tips of my fingers are raw and bloodied already, and I wince in pain with every failed attempt to spark a flame. Finally, I achieve a jittery fire which impatiently dances atop the lighter. I carefully lower it to my pile of kindling, and the fire cautiously creeps out and spreads until it is a healthy size. I watch it for a while, tending to it until it’s strong. Now, there is enough light to see around me, and enough heat to survive the night.

Here, deep in the forest, with everything frozen and quiet, the only light and sound comes from my fire. It is the whole world to me right now. It dances and sings in a raspy, crackling voice to me and I am happy to enjoy its company. I can almost imagine that I can hear it whispering and babbling happily.

“It’s so cold.”

I must be tired. I’m hearing things. The popping and sizzling of the fire is really beginning to sound like words. Maybe I’m just lonely out here. Maybe I just really want someone to talk to, so I’m hearing coherence in the chaos of the fire. I could have sworn I heard it say -

“It’s so cold.”

There it was again, softer this time. I lean closer to the blaze and its warmth caresses my face, setting me at ease. I’m listening intently now, anxious for what I’ll hear next.

“If you let me die tonight, you‘ll die tonight.”

There was no mistaking it. It said it clearly, albeit in the raspy, singsong voice of a fire consuming wet branches. Yet even as the words become clearer, they become softer, drawing me in closer to make out the next statement. The warmth splashes over me as I inch my face closer, and the frost that had settled in my bones begins to thaw. The fire is speaking constantly now, chattering quietly to itself, and I can only pick out bits of words and portions of sentences.

“Get closer. Watch closely. If I die, you die. I’m the only thing keeping you alive. Pay attention!”

The fire ends its tirade with a loud snap of burning wood and then is quiet. I lean in even closer, eager to receive whatever secret is coming next. The heat is no longer pleasant. It sears me as the flames playfully lick at my face. The fire is being coy, teasing me with its silence to see how long I will wait on it. The smoke reaches into my nostrils and the embers float carelessly from the heart of the fire into my eyes, which are now welling with ash. I don’t care. I just want to hear what comes next.

“Get closer. Pay attention. Watch closely, now more than ever…”

…

December 17th, 2003

“In other news, the charred body of an unidentified man was found deep in the mountainous forests east of the city. Investigators have stated that the man appeared to have caught fire while sitting by his campfire and, inexplicably, did not appear to have made any effort to extinguish himself. His burned remains were found, frozen in position by the icy temperatures, leaning over the ashes of a long extinguished fire. In what is most perhaps the most bizarre detail of the grisly scene, the man is reported to have been found with an ‘expectant‘ smile still on his face.”

–
By David Feuling at www.ss-comic.com

Eternal Dream

Have you ever wondered about what happens when you die?

Well, something does. Your body dies, but your conscience lives on.
The night you die, you will be in an eternal dream. You will live that dream for all eternity, and it will be like reality. Whatever you dreamed that last night will be what you are going to be “living” in for eternity, and you will never wake up again, in the comfort of your house.

Let’s hope you don’t have a nightmare that last night.

Chicken Dinner

A first hand report of the story originally reported in The Montréal Mirror in 1964:

A mother and father decided they needed a break, not having much alone time in the almost a year since their young son, Toby, was born. They wanted to have a night out, dinner, maybe a movie, and the honeymoon suite at a local hotel to possibly give Toby a little brother or sister. They called their most trusted babysitter, who unfortunately was already engaged for the evening. But she did refer a good friend of hers, Opal, who she swore could be trusted. They spoke with the new babysitter and agreed to have her arrive no later than 6:30 so the parents could get an early start.

As the parents got ready to paint the town red, Toby lay on the floor, gnawing on his teething ring in the den off to the back of the house. At shortly after 6:20 the father walked past the open doorway and saw an elderly woman sitting in the rocking chair facing the child, her back to the doorway. The father was slightly startled as his wife hadn’t mentioned the sitter had arrived. He spoke to her as he straightened his tie in the mirror on wall opposite the doorway.

“Oh my, I’m sorry I didn’t hear you come in. We appreciate you coming on such short notice. My wife put some a chicken in the oven for you. The numbers for the restaurant and hotel are on the counter if you need to reach us. We will be home around 9 tomorrow morning. Goodbye Toby, I love you.”

He hurried down the hallway as his wife was coming down the stairs, meeting her at the bottom his wife asked “What were you saying dear”

“Oh nothing, I was just giving the sitter instructions, now we should hurry so we can make our reservation on time.” he replied grabbing his coat as he unlocked the front door.

They went to the car and were in such a rush they didn’t notice the car pull into the drive way not 15 seconds after they pulled out. They proceeded to have the best night out they could remember. The wife become somewhat concerned shortly after arriving at the hotel when she called home and no one answered. The husband calmed her as he pulled her into bed, kissing her neck.

“Don’t worry dear, she’s an older lady and it’s almost 10, she must have gone to bed after putting Toby down.”

**************

The next morning after a nice breakfast they arrived home to find a note on the door. It read:
“I arrived at 6:30 as agreed but no one was home.
If you had made other plans I would have appreciated
if someone had called me.
Opal”

The husband gave his wife a confused look as she put a hand to her mouth and her face turned white. She threw open the front door calling out for her son. There was no reply, in fact there was no sound at all in the house, just the smell or some burned meat. She ran up the stairs as her husband raced to the back of the house the find the kitchen filled with smoke. He turned off the stove and used pot holders to grab the smoldering pan or charred meat and drop it in the sink. His wife came into the kitchen crying into her hands

“He’s not here! Toby’s gone! She took him!”

The husband then took her in his arms as she cried. It was then that he noticed blood on the lid of the trash can. A pit formed in his stomach as he left his wife and opened the trash can. He exhaled as he realized that it was only the chicken his wife had made. It was then that his eyes shot wide open as his wife let out a fresh scream of horror. As he turned toward her, he caught sight of the melted remains of the teething ring on the bottom of the open oven.

In From The Cold

Alec sat in the cold blue glow of the steel chamber, monitors projecting their indecision between camera views outside the small compound. Each switch depicting the bright white of the lunar sands under floodlight, and the unrelenting black of the empty space above. Life in the small research station was similarly dark, oppressively quiet, with nothing but the clicks of recording equipment, inconsistent hums from computer systems, and faint-

CLANG!

The sharp noise from down the hall pierced the envelope of sound that had wrapped Alec in the monitoring room, and the startle had his heart thumping up in his throat. The dizzying adrenaline surge started to calm as he figured one of the backup tapes had probably been vibrated off a shelf by the machinery nearby. Solitary life in a research station had eroded Alec’s sense of tidiness and piles were the easiest sorting method for his work.

He turned his attention back to the screens. The widescreen to the left was depicting a grid of all camera views in small format. Something on feed 42-A caught his attention.

42-A. A form was standing below the camera, looking up. Motionless.

Humanoid, by the looks of it, what would be the head seemed slightly tilted. Alec brought it up on the center view to get a better look, and felt his stomach twist violently in fear.

It was standing still, staring with empty sockets amid a freeze-dried and cracked face of blue skin. It was morbidly recognizable, just enough facial features of his late assistant to make him remember the accident, the airlock seal and the guilt, the attempt to bury the evidence, and the endless solitude that had resulted.

The tilt–obscenely fatal in its arrangement–was due to a neck fracture that had been sustained when the compartment depressurized. The eyes had burst or shriveled with the change, Alec was never sure. He didn’t want to think about it when he had put on his suit and driven the corpse out into the dunes, the direction faced by camera 42-A. He had looked at the flash-frozen skin and abhorrent shapes from the pressure change as little as possible.

But now…now he was staring right into the same grotesque death that had decided to come back. Why? And why was the body just standing there, staring, so motionless? So frozen?

Frozen?

CLANG!!

Frozen! It wasn’t standing still, the feed was frozen! The time stamp on the video wasn’t moving, it was stuck at 16:25. Alec’s fears and mind raced as he looked to the right to check the current clock.

16:40.

CLANG!!

The noise. The time. The rest of the feeds, those that were live, hadn’t shown anything. Alec began to panic. There was an airlock near 42-A, one of a pair, the sister airlock had been his assistant’s coffin. He brought up the access logs, noting with dread that all access keypads had been left active as there had never been anything to keep out. No one knew the codes but the two researchers…

16:28. Access granted, login SRichards, code ******

Inside. It had gained entry 12 minutes ago.

No, wait, not inside, breathed Alec with limited relief, there was no subsequent entry for the inner door. It was still in the airlock. The noise must be it beating on the door! He knew he had to engage the manual lock, keep it out, maybe it would leave.

Summoning up any shred of courage he could manage, Alec stepped out of the monitoring room and turned to face down the sterile metal hallway that ended at the twin airlocks. The black sheen of the thick internal security barrier covered the left entry, while the functional right door sat uncovered, naked and foreboding. The frosted, thick plexiglas porthole …was empty. No hollow eyes, no broken neck or blue flaky skin staring back at him like with the camera. Just silence and solitude.

The silence…the staccato death knell had stopped.

Unsure of what this meant, Alec walked towards the door, an undecided pace between hurriedly reaching the lock mechanism and freezing in place with fear. Every step expecting the face–that horrid, cold, unliving face, bent at the wrong angle–to reappear in the dark transparent circle of the door.

He finally reached the door panel, and with unsteady hands engaged the manual lock. He even dared to peek out the porthole to confirm that it had left. Nothing to see, just the empty airlock and open expanse of sterile lit moonscape outside the external hatch, which sat halfway ajar. A light breeze crept down the hall and stirred Alec’s unkempt hair ever so slightly against the back of his neck as he continued to stare out in fear and disbelief.

It dawned on him as he heard the approaching shuffle of ragged boots on the metal planking back down the hall. The only breezes in the pressurized facility came from airlock use. Rooted in fear, catching hints of ragged research uniform and broken skin behind his own reflection in the porthole, he began to reach again for the airlock door panel…

–
Credited to Amused.

Yeah, So Quit Asking

A homeless man is sitting on a park bench. You are jogging.
As you jog up to him, he holds his hand out and asks for change, you jog on past, pretending that you can’t hear him over your iPod.

Feeling guilty, you stop. You reach into the pocket of your running shorts for a couple of bucks you were saving for a bottle of water. You turn around to jog back to the homeless man.

He is already standing right behind you. The park is suddenly abandoned. His eyes are wriggling masses of wasp larvae, he outstretches his arms, each which are 5 feet in length. His mouth opens inexplicably wide, his lower jaw touching his sternum. The only sound he emits from his gaping mouth is a dial tone.

Before he pulls you into the black cavernous throat of his, you have time to scream,

“Oh god. You were phone!??”

Enclosing

I’m so cold. So very cold. There is no warmth left in this room.

I suppose I should start at the beginning. It started about 2 weeks ago, back when I could still see the sun. I live alone, my parents kicked me out after I dropped out of high school…I always hated high school; the teachers, the kids, all of them…Every last one. They don’t understand you, nor will they ever. Friends…I scoff at the idea, they’re just people who act like they care, but turn around to stab you in the back. Deplorable.

As you can tell, I’m not a people person.

Although maybe it wasn’t their fault, considering my sickness.

Oh, did I not mention my sickness? I guess I spaced it. I’ve always had serious mental problems; as far back as I can remember. I get these…weird images in my head. Sick images…images of murder, sickness, and war. From what I’ve been told by people around me when I’ve had my ‘episodes’, mostly teachers, I spasm and throw myself to the floor, scratching and writhing at everything around me screaming all the while. Of course I don’t remember it, all I remember is the images…I doubt I will ever get any of them out of my mind. These ignorant teachers thought I was merely acting out, seeking attention as it were, as did my classmates. I hated them and they hated me, leading to many fights at school. I even sent a few kids into the hospital.

Ah, my youth.

I live in a dingy rental home in the slums of an unimportant city. My parents don’t visit me anymore, and none of my neighbors can stand being around me for more than a few moments. Nobody ever cared about me and nobody ever will, and I’m content with that.

Back to my current predicament; it was only last month when I saw a doctor about my episodes. He diagnosed me with a wide array of mental disorders, none of which I bothered to ask what they meant; all I knew was that I needed pills and he could give me some. I remember him handing me 3 or 4 bottles of pills or various shapes and colors, but I didn’t take them right away. I waited, thinking maybe, just maybe the images were caused by a troubled childhood, and maybe I had matured out of it, but sure enough in a few days, they came back. Suicide, bombings, and genocide this time. My mind was filled to the brim with disturbing, haunting images; these were some of the worst yet. I was already sobbing in the fetal position by the time my mind comprehended that I might be able to stop this. I couldn’t open my eyes, I didn’t want to see anymore. I remember crawling on my side towards the bathroom, shakily standing up and spilling open my medicine cabinet, spilling the assorted products on the floor. I grasped blindly for the unfamiliar shape of pill bottles, and soon found them. I ripped them open and threw them into my mouth, spilling many on the floor. I collapsed onto the cold tile, losing consciousness. This was a first.

Then, I woke up in my bed. I must’ve thought to myself that I got up and walked into bed, I just didn’t remember it. Maybe. Then it began: I was cold. With my heavy comforter, one of the few things I had invested my small amount of spare money into, should have kept me warm. I always found solace in sleep. I got up and walked into the living room and turned on my TV. Cable was out, should have known. How long had it been since I paid my bills? Still cold, I thought to myself. I walked over to the thermostat and cranked it up, hearing that old familiar sound of the heater pumping warm air. I sat back down, but 15 minutes went by, and I still was cold. I walked over to the heat vent, placing my hand over it; I couldn’t feel any warmth, I couldn’t feel any air coming from the vent, but I could definitely hear it. Ah, my bills, no wonder there was no heat. I could only feel the cold grate of the vent. But then why could I hear it pumping throughout the room?

Might as well call my landlord, I thought to myself, picking up the phone. Dead. “Doesn’t anything in this hell hole work?” I distinctly remember asking myself. It was one of the last things I remember saying out loud. How was I to know what was happening? I walked outside, I don’t remember if it was to grab the morning paper or perhaps to soak up some rays from the sun, but it was at this time I knew something was wrong. It was dead outside. I’m talking Sunday morning in the winter at 4:00 in the morning dead. There was no lights on in the houses, nobody walking outside, no noise. The silence was deafening, cliché as it sounds. I slowly walked back in, afraid to disrupt the perfect silence by too loud of a step. I hadn’t realized till I was back inside, but it was much colder outside then in.

Continue Reading…

Candle Cove

NetNostalgia Forum - Television (local)

Skyshale033
Subject: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
Does anyone remember this kid’s show? It was called Candle Cove and I must have been 6 or 7. I never found reference to it anywhere so I think it was on a local station around 1971 or 1972. I lived in Ironton at the time. I don’t remember which station, but I do remember it was on at a weird time, like 4:00 PM.

mike_painter65
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
it seems really familiar to me…..i grew up outside of ashland and was 9 yrs old in 72. candle cove…was it about pirates? i remember a pirate marionete at the mouth of a cave talking to a little girl

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
YES! Okay I’m not crazy! I remember Pirate Percy. I was always kind of scared of him. He looked like he was built from parts of other dolls, real low-budget. His head was an old porcelain baby doll, looked like an antique that didn’t belong on the body. I don’t remember what station this was! I don’t think it was WTSF though.

Jaren_2005
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
Sorry to ressurect this old thread but I know exactly what show you mean, Skyshale. I think Candle Cove ran for only a couple months in ‘71, not ‘72. I was 12 and I watched it a few times with my brother. It was channel 58, whatever station that was. My mom would let me switch to it after the news. Let me see what I remember.

It took place in Candle cove, and it was about a little girl who imagined herself to be friends with pirates. The pirate ship was called the Laughingstock, and Pirate Percy wasn’t a very good pirate because he got scared too easily. And there was calliope music constantly playing. Don’t remember the girl’s name. Janice or Jade or something. Think it was Janice.

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
Thank you Jaren!!! Memories flooded back when you mentioned the Laughingstock and channel 58. I remember the bow of the ship was a wooden smiling face, with the lower jaw submerged. It looked like it was swallowing the sea and it had that awful Ed Wynn voice and laugh. I especially remember how jarring it was when they switched from the wooden/plastic model, to the foam puppet version of the head that talked.

mike_painter65
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
ha ha i remember now too.  do you remember this part skyshale: “you have…to go…INSIDE.”

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
Ugh mike, I got a chill reading that. Yes I remember. That’s what the ship always told Percy when there was a spooky place he had to go in, like a cave or a dark room where the treasure was. And the camera would push in on Laughingstock’s face with each pause. YOU HAVE… TO GO… INSIDE. With his two eyes askew and that flopping foam jaw and the fishing line that opened and closed it. Ugh. It just looked so cheap and awful.

You guys remember the villain? He had a face that was just a handlebar mustache above really tall, narrow teeth.

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Her

Stop. No, don’t look. It just encourages them.

You know who I’m talking about. Them. More specifically, her. Keep those eyes focused here, don’t look. Don’t even glance. Use your peripherals, because I know you see her. Just at the very edge of your vision?

Glance to the left side of the monitor, but don’t glance beyond it. There, your peripherals should have picked up a bit more. You saw her in the corner, didn’t you? You saw her black hair billowing across her pale face, the loose nightgown she wears over her emaciated frame. She’s been there for a while, just waiting. That’s how they spend their time. The spirits of the damned. The ones unfit for heaven, yet avoiding hell. The ones who walk the Earth with their sins on their shoulders. They live in constant, insurmountable, indescribable pain. The story goes that when St. Peter takes pity on a soul who has committed a grave sin, like murder, rape, torture, cannibalism, or worse, he punishes that soul and sends them back to our plane, to exist among the living until they’ve successfully repented for their sins.  But first, he rips out their eyes, so that they can covet nought. Then he tears their jawbone from their skull, so that they cannot speak evils.

No, don’t look. She has moved closer, but that is only her curiosity. She can’t actually see you, not as you could see her. She sees in outlines, in blurs and motions. Her empty sockets let her see a person’s soul, yet it is useless to her. She lives not on the person, but on the body. Her spirit hungers for communion of the flesh, but she is eternally denied. Only the Savior can be a proper conduit of communion, to satisfy her cravings. She has tried, though. She has tried often in the past. 

She certainly has taken an interest in you, hasn’t she? You see, she feeds on the living. She, like many before her, found humans to alleviate her ailments. She starves for communion, but humans like yourself can work as a…placebo, of sorts. She’ll try to get you to turn, to see into the voids which take residence over where her eyes used to be. She’ll pull you in, hypnotizing you with the dark, hollow sockets. She’ll close in even more, excitedly exhaling on your supple skin. She’ll jab  her rotted teeth into your slender neck and lap the blood with her flopping tongue. I’ll scrape in with my fangs and scoop out your flesh like ice cream. I’ll yelp with glee at the warmth of your innards as I slash into your fatty abdomen. I’ll pull the bones from their sinew and suck the marrow out like a candied filling. I’ll jab my bony fingers into your eyes and take them for my own. I’ll rip your jawbone from your skull and use it as my own. I’ll become whole again, with your help.

But it’ll only work– 
–if you look.

Forgotten

Memories. They’re how we know what has happened. Everything you remember goes in to who you are, why you act the way you do. It’s a shame that people are not afflicted by the things they cannot remember. Especially you.

Memories are funny like that. Sometimes, when something so wonderfully frightening happens to you, your silly mind blocks it out to ‘protect you.’ While it might think it’s doing you a favor, it kills me to see it take those things away from you. Amazing things have happened to you. Horrible things have happened to you.

Even if you’ve forgotten, I will always remember. I was there with you every step of the way. I was standing in the shadows, watching you. Tormenting you. You have such exquisite fear, I can’t get enough of it. Over and over, I put you through the most exciting times of your life, watching each time as you collapse upon yourself in mindless terror. You’re exhilarating. If only I could watch you suffer forever.. But that silly mind of yours. Each time, you forget what fun we’ve had and go on like nothing ever happened. You even read stories about horrific things, and you take pleasure those horrors as I do.

Yet, you could never even fathom how grand it is to watch you endure them. None of those stories could amount up to the terrors you’ve faced. I want to have more fun with you, and spend more time with you. I want to watch you screech in dismay again and again. I want to experience your agony a million times. I only wish you would remember the dread I put in you. I wish that you would remember me, and cry out in the night. It delights me thoroughly every time you see one of my abominations. You’re so resourceful, always finding a way to live without losing any of your limbs. If only I could watch you die as you scream, so scared for your life. If only the last memory you had was of me, making you drown in your fear as you begged for mercy, tears streaming down your face. I’d tell you I love you, and I would thank you for all the great times you’ve let me share with you. I think I would be truly happy as I watched you sink into your final, dying despair.

If you were smart, you wouldn’t turn out those lights and pretend you’re not hearing strange noises. You wouldn’t distract yourself and remain alone, convinced that you’ll be okay. Do you remember what happened the last time you did?

.. No, I suppose you wouldn’t.

–
Credited to Sama

Chemical

If you asked me how long we’ve been down here, I wouldn’t know. We don’t see the sun, and nobody seems to have a watch. It doesn’t matter anyway; we don’t have anywhere to be. For all we know there isn’t anywhere left to be. The surface has surely been overrun with death and decay by now.

There are six of us left. Until just recently there were seven. Her screaming has stopped now and I feel relief. It was hard to sleep with those agonizing screams and the banging on the steel door. Huddled in my blankets, I look around at the other survivors; four men and a woman, all of us unkempt and haggard. At one point we all worked here, but since the accident it’s become our prison. The painfully low amount of food is in a pile in the center of the room, so we can all keep an eye on it to make sure nobody is taking more then we’re allowed per day. There’s enough food for three, maybe four meals. None of us want to think about it. We just stare.

There are no beds, just piles of blankets and paper that make crude sleeping areas. There’s one bathroom at the far end of the complex and it has running water. There are three other rooms, rooms we used to work in, filled with computers and lab equipment that has accumulated a fine layer of dust. We still have power somehow, so all the security cameras and lights still work. Unfortunately none of the computers work because they’ve been shut and locked, as per emergency protocol. Any contact with the outside world is non-existent.

We worked for the military, doing basic chemical research. Somewhere along the line a chemical was leaked, and the results were fatal. People who came into direct contact with the chemical succumbed to vomiting, mild at first, then intense, until they had nothing to excrete except for their own blood. Nobody lasted more then a couple hours once they had touched the chemical. It also spread through saliva, bile and blood, so those with the misfortune of coming into contact with even a single drop are doomed. We had to toss that woman out because we caught her vomiting in the toilet. She said she was pregnant and that it was only morning sickness, but you can’t be sure. Her fiancé, Barry, tried to intervene, calling us animals. We clubbed him over the head, then tied and gagged him to a thick pipe at one end of the room. He strains against the bonds and screams into the gag occasionally, a fierce and wild-eyed look on is face. It’s for his own good and the good of everyone here. He might hurt someone. He needs to be untied and fed eventually, but nobody wants to be the one to do it. So we just sit and stare at the pile of food on the floor that gets lower with each rationed meal. He’s another mouth to feed that we can’t afford.

Everyone is on edge, twitchy and jumpy. Every movement is watched intently, with suspicious and unrelenting eyes. Nobody talks anymore. They just stare. We all know we’re going to die, it’s just a matter of time before hunger or the chemical gets us. It’s all in the backs of our minds, eating away at our sanity.

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