David Lang’s two children, George, 8, and Sarah, 11, were playing in the yard when Lang and his wife came out of the vine-covered brick house. He spoke to the children and then started walking out across the pasture. At this time, Judge August Peck, and Lang’s brother-in-law came driving up the lane in a buggy. The judge saw Lang in the field and was about to call out to him when it happened.

Lang vanished from the face of the earth.

One minute he was standing in an open field with no trees, stones, or fences. The next, he was simply gone. Lang’s wife and the two men immediately ran to the spot to check that he might have fallen through a hole in the ground. There was no such hole. Mrs. Lang went hysterical and was taken into the house. Neighbors were called out to help, scores of people searched the field, but to no avail. A surveyor and geologist examined the field and found limestone bedrock a few feet underground without a single fracture in it. For a month the search carried on. All the Lang servants quit in fear. A year later, the grass where Lang was standing had grown high and thick in a circle 20′ in diameter. No farm animal would graze there, and it seemed free of insects.

One day in August, 1881, Sarah and George approached the green circle and called out “Father, are you anywhere around?” They repeated the question 4 times. Hearing no answer, they began to walk away…when they heard a faint cry for help from out of nowhere. Quickly, the children ran to get their mother and pulled her outside. They called to their father again. And he answered. For several days, the family returned, and each day when they called, the answering voice became fainter, until finally there was no response at all.

There’s a dark forest deep in the heart of the Rockies, surrounded on all sides by mountains. In the center of the forest is a lake on the shores of which you will find a large black stone. If you swim out into the center of the lake, the stone will drag you down into the darkness.

You will emerge from shadows in the alley of a frightening dark city of heavily arched roofs and buildings built on stilts. You must not talk to a single citizen of this city, or you shall be trapped there forever. The citizenry is horrid and mutated, and they will leer and curse at you, and their hideous and deformed women shall offer you unknown and horrible lewdnesses.

At the edge of this city is a highway. Walk down the left side of the road (yes, against traffic) with your thumb out and a man in a dark truck shall pick you up and drive you back the way you came. The city will be gone, and he will take you to any place on Earth as long as you can name it and there’s a road there.

Since before I could remember, I’ve wanted to be a mother. It seemed my whole childhood and teenager years were spent yearning for a child of my own. By the time I was nine, I had names–and color schemes for the nursery–picked out. All I needed was someone to make them with. But college was disappointing. I went through a whole string of bad boyfriends and bad father material. Getting on with my career didn’t seem to help much. I realized, though–when I was twenty-seven, and there were no suitable prospects on the line–that, technically, I did not need a man to have a
child with. Just a very particular product of his. I found a sperm donor bank, chose the best prospect they had, got out my turkey baster and… well… hoped for the best.

I was overjoyed when my first pregnancy test came out positive. My doctor was surprised to see me coming in sooner than he’d expected. Before I was four weeks along, I had the nursery painted, and the furniture set up. Toys and diapers, bottles and books, bibs and coveralls. I had everything a new mother would need.

I couldn’t explain all the weight I was losing. I kept getting thinner–everything except for my belly. My friends all joked that it had to be at least twins. Or the biggest baby they’d ever seen.

I got weary of the kicking somewhere in the third trimester. And the scratching.

Just one more week until my due date.

I just wish it would stop gnawing.

Every individual will make 16 choices in their lifetime that will forever alter the course of humanity. No more than 16, no less than 16. These choices will be small, and at the time of decision, will mean nothing. They won’t have to be choices which result in action, they could be choices that result in inaction. But months, years along the way, when the full impact of your decisions and the chain reaction of events they have caused are felt… you may have been the one who caused the end of the world. And you will never know.

You are home alone, and you hear on the news about the profile of a murderer who is on the loose.
You look out the sliding glass doors to your backyard, and you notice a man standing out in the snow. He fits the profile of the murderer exactly, and he is smiling at you.

You gulp, picking up the phone to your right and dialing 911. You look back out the glass as you press the phone to your ear, and notice he is much closer to you now.

You then drop the phone in shock.

There are no footprints in the snow.

It’s his reflection.

You’re at work alone, when you suddenly hear the copy machine start up. You walk out to take a look at what’s going on and see several copies filling the tray. Picking up one of the pieces of paper you discover that it is a copy of a picture depicting you sitting in your office chair, dead, with your eyes torn out and your throat cut. The others are the same picture, but taken from increasingly bizarre angles.

There is no original picture in the copy machine. In fact, the machine has been out of toner for a week.

There are stories about a certain kind of hitchhiker - they only ever appear at night on quiet roads, seeming to flicker into existence in the very edge of headlights, never carrying a sign, always with an expression of deep despondency on their faces, swathed in a heavy coat and long pants, usually with gloves. If you stop, they will seem cordial enough, polite, but hardly chatty. They will assure you that the next town or city along your route will be a fine spot to leave them. Normal enough. Unless you try killing them.

They die easily enough. But look underneath their clothes, and you will see that their skin is marred with lines of scars, forming repeating patterns that are unsettling to look at, and even more unsettling in the context of their skin. They have no wallets, no identification. If you slice their belly open, however, they’re different inside. There’s no blood, no muscle, only a hollow cavity containing a single object. The object varies. Examples include a single coin, heavy and golden and engraved with runes nobody could ever decipher. A diamond gem with fractal edges that slice bare flesh to ribbons. A small vase, quite unbreakable, that smells of the ocean and is always damp…

Once you possess a hitchhiker’s object, you’ll find yourself always driving the quiet roads at night. You’ll never mean to, but somehow, you just will. The lure of possessing a second one will hum quietly in your head. You’ll strain to catch sight of a figure appearing in your headlights, try to resist the impulse to stop, and sometimes you might. But sometimes you won’t. You’ll try telling yourself that this is just a normal person on an adventure, someone who ran out of petrol. The logical part of your brain will scream at what you’re doing. You’ll smile and nod and they’ll get into the car and you’ll slowly, casually, reach under the seat or across to the glove box…

I was six, maybe seven years old when this happened. My family had just gotten back from visiting my aunt’s house. My cousins were watching a scary movie in the basement, and even though my parents said I would get scared, I snuck downstairs and watched some of it. I don’t remember what part I saw, but there were little monsters with teeth that would eat people in their sleep.

When we left for home it was dark outside and my parents scolded me for watching that movie. I secretly hoped they would keep scolding me, because I was feeling sleepy and didn’t want those things to eat me. We got home fine and my parents even managed to calm me down enough to the point where when my bedtime came around I could go to sleep.

I fell asleep almost immediately and slept pretty well. I woke up sometime during the night. Knowing where everything is in my house I didn’t turn the lights on, but instead used the street light coming in the windows. I went to the bathroom and then got a glass of water. As I was putting the glass in the dishwasher, something pricked my hand. I pulled my hand back and switched on the lights, but there was nothing in the dishwasher.

I looked at my hand and it had four little indents on the top and bottom where something had broken through the skin. Since that day I’ve had little bumps on my skin where the marks were, and I always remember to turn the lights on.

A strange ringtone plays on your cell phone, you reach for it but whoever it was must have hung up, a wrong number maybe. You look at the phone anyway. You’ve missed a call. You listen to it. When you put the phone to your ear. Suddenly you hear a scream of pain, you toss the cell across the room, but you can still hear it.

When you finally pick the phone up you see who the call was from, you realize who’s voice it was.

Yours.

It was her eyes that first attracted me to her. I didn’t believe in love, but the
first time I gazed into her beautiful green eyes I knew she was the one.

I loved seeing myself reflected in those eyes, looking deep into her soul and
knowing I was a part of it. It’s kinda stupid, but I even wrote poetry about them. I
don’t remember much, but I told her “There’s so much life within your eyes, and so
much love”.

Oh God, I loved the way the light danced within them. I just couldn’t imagine not
being able to stare dreamily into them.

Now if I could just find a box that was half as beautiful as her eyes, I could stop
carrying them round in my pocket.

They say that somewhere in western America, some say in Utah, others say on the California coast, there’s a small motel on the side of the road.

When you go inside, it’s decorated in very common hotel attire, with the paneling and old fashioned key-lock doors.

The thing is, there’s a room in there for everybody. Everybody has a reservation for exactly when they show up, and the number of rooms available is always one more than the number of people there. One person to a room, that is the rule.

It’s said that the song “Hotel California” is based off this motel, though you *can* leave this particular motel.

I wouldn’t advise looking at a mirror for at least a month after doing so, though.

In a private terminal at the Port of Boston there is a houseboat. This houseboat has been anchored there, permanently, for at least 50 years. The eccentric owner has maintained all fees and taxes and is in good standing with the Port Authority.

Still, even if the owner wasn’t financially responsible, no one would ask them to depart. Despite the owner’s friendly, hospitable, if odd nature, there is a persistent air of unease around the boat and the area of the Port surrounding.

Very few people have taken the owner up on offers of hospitality, but those who do recount a wholly unbelievable tale: When you step into the houseboat, it’s as if you’re sent backwards 50 years in time. Looking out windows depicts a cityscape of antiquity and the television receives live broadcasts of programs of the era (including news programs). If you look out the open door, you see the city as it stands today. When the door closes, you can see the 50 year old skyline through the port opening.

Some visitors who spend time with the owner notice something particularly disturbing: an almost uncanny resemblance to their host, despite obvious age differences. Though this is odd, the owner is friendly and trustworthy (ignoring the air of unease most feel), so it isn’t surprising if casual friendships build between a guest and the proprietor.

All this would, of course, be very strange and worthy of note, but dismissed as some form of elaborate hoax or illusion, if it weren’t for one additional detail. Whenever someone elects to spend the night in this houseboat after an evening of conversation and a few drinks, they are never heard from again.

When the guest awakens in the morning, the owner is nowhere to be found and suddenly, the city skyline never changes back to its contemporary appearance when exiting the boat. Under the bed there is a briefcase full of $100 bills with a letter stapled to a list.

The letter simply reads, “You have 50 years to follow these instructions if you wish to free yourself from this hell. The clock is ticking. Get to work.”

There’s a mail box somewhere in the city which can solve your direst problems.

Which city? That depends on who you ask. There may even be more than one, who knows? Anyway, this mail box isn’t emptied anymore - the mail service has completely forgotten about it. But it clings on. It is located in some relatively unlikely place so you won’t spot it immediately. Mail you put inside it won’t go anywhere.

But the box is special. Write a letter about your most pressing problems to the persons in charge of dealing with it: write to your significant other, your boss, the IRS, and get it all off your chest. Ride yourself into deep shit with that letter. You’ll see that the problem will dissolve soon, in some way you hadn’t thought likely.

The snag of course is that you can’t really be sure whether you have found the right mail box until you try it. And if you haven’t things are going to get much worse once your letter gets delivered…

Kuchisake-Onna is the legend of a Japanese woman, mutilated by her jealous samurai husband who murdered her for infidelity scarring her horribly and leaving her repulsive.

Her jealous Ghost still haunts places in Japan, usually on foggy nights, wearing a surgical mask when she will approach people and ask shyly: “Watashi kirei?” (Am i beautiful?) The person usually responds, yes.

She then pulls down her mask to reveal an ear to ear grin, cut by her jealous husband to mar her for her life. “Even like this?” she will persist. If you answer no. She will take a pair of scissors, and cut the same gruesome smile into your own face. If you answer yes, she will disappear, and the second you go home will reappear at your door and finish the job.

The only way of confusing Kuchisake-Onna is to say: You are average, which will confuse this mysterious Onryo. Or to present her with hard amber candy, or say ‘Pomade’ six times will shall make her flee.

She has been seen from the 1970’s til the early 2000’s, often seen lurking near children whose innocent answer of yes when asked if she is ugly, will lead to their deaths.

When you are admitted to a hospital, they place on your wrist a white wristband with your name on it. But there are other different colored wristbands which symbolizes other things. The red wristbands are placed on dead people.

There was one surgeon who worked on night shift in a school hospital. He had just finished an operation and was on his way down to the basement. He entered the elevator and there was just one other person there. He casually chatted with the woman while the elevator descended. When the elevator door opened another woman was about to enter when the doctor slammed the close button and punched the button to the highest floor. Surprised, the woman reprimanded the doctor for being rude and asked why he did not let the other woman in.

The doctor said “that was the woman i just operated on. She died while I was doing the operation. Didn’t you see the red wristband she was wearing?”

The woman smiled and raised her arm “something like this?”