i am a heron. i haev a long neck and i pick fish out of the water w/ my beak. if you dont repost this comment on 10 other pages i will fly into your kitchen tonight and make a mess of your pots and pans

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(couldn’t quite find anything worth being the halloween pasta, so we’re going to the opposite extreme. hope everyone has a good night!)

In a dilapidated office building somewhere in Connecticut is one of the few elevators in the Western world that has a button labeled ‘13′ amongst its choices of floors. If you enter after midnight, crawling through the loosely boarded up window on the South side of the building, you will find the elevator doors standing open, with soft florescent lighting and muzak spilling from it, even though nothing else in the whole of the building seems to have power.

You can, if you choose, pick through the debris of raucous teenaged parties and office meetings past. The path seems to be mostly cleared through the broken, dirty, stained and vintage office furniture and burned out joints, cigarettes and crushed beer cans, all the way to the light in the door.

All of the buttons work in the elevator, and will take you to its designated floor–despite the creaking of the cables–though there seems to be a layer of grime on their plastic covers. All but the button labeled ‘13′, which seems to glow brightly.

No one’s quite sure if that one goes to the thirteenth floor. But there’s a story about a group of high school teenagers who had a party after their prom there, in the early nineties. A dare was made, and four of them piled into the rickety elevator, taking it to the thirteenth floor. When they came back down again, they were pale and shaking, but all of them swore they’d seen nothing more than a normal office floor, covered in dust and shadows. Two of them died in an accident on the car ride home that night. Another, three weeks later, took a bottle of pills from the medicine cabinet, climbed into a hot bath, slit her wrists and dropped her hair dryer into the water with her. The fourth disappeared from the face of the planet two months later. None of them said anything of what they’d seen on the thirteenth level of the building, and when asked, would only ascertain (loudly, if necessary) that nothing had happened.

But you can, if you so choose, crawl in through the window and see for yourself.

–
Credited to Flea.

I never saw the ocean till I was nineteen, and if I ever see it again it will be too goddamn soon. I was a child, coming out of the train, fresh from Amarillo, into San Diego and all her glory. The sight of it, all that water and the blind crushing power of the surf, filled me with dread. I’d seen water before, lakes, plenty big, but that was nothing like this. I don’t think I can describe what it was like that first time, and further more, I’m not sure I care too.

You can imagine the state I was in when a few weeks later they gave me a rifle and put me on a boat. When I stopped vomiting up everything that I ate, I decided that I might not kill myself after all. Not being able to see the land, and that ceaseless chaotic, rocking of the waves; I remember thinking that the war had to be a step up from this. Kids can be so fucking stupid.

I had such a giddy sense of glee when I saw the island, and it’s solid banks. They transferred us to a smaller boat in the middle of the night, just our undersized company with our rucksacks and rifles and not a word. We just took a ride right into it, just because they asked us to. The lieutenants herded us into our platoons on the decks and briefed us: the island had been lost. That was exactly how he put it. Somehow in the grand plan for the Pacific, this one tiny speck of earth, only recently discovered and unmapped, had gotten lost in the shuffle; a singularly perfect clerical error was all it took. It was extremely unlikely, he stressed, that the Japanese had gotten a hold of it, being so far east and south of their current borders, but a recent fly over reported what looked like an airfield in the central plateau.

We hit the beach in the middle of the night. I’d heard talk of landings before, and I’m not ashamed to tell, I was scared shitless. I don’t know quite what I expected, but it wasn’t we got, that thick, heavy silence. Behind the lapping of the waves and the wind in the trees, there was… nothing, no birds, no insects. Just deathly stillness.

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If you’re lucky, you’ll never know about it. Your life will be spent in the bliss that can only come from the ignorance of the dark horrors that scratch and gnaw at the edges of reality. You’ll never hear the dark whispers coming from the closet; never feel the cold chill creeping along your spine. You’ll never pause at a turn in the hallway because you know that if you look down it, you’ll see something that shouldn’t be there. Something that creeps, stalks, and skulks in the shadows. Something that, once it sees you, will never stop coming for you. It won’t come for you when you are sleeping. It wants you to know it’s there. It wants you to hear the relentless sound of its footsteps, the panting of its breath. It wants to smell your fear, to hear your whimper, and to see the horror on your face as it approaches.

If you’ve any sense at all, you won’t try to find it. You’ll never pay attention to the sounds. You won’t try to catch sight of those things that flit by the corner of your eye. Your ignorance will be your shield and your protection. Do not be overly curious; discount the sounds as the quirks of an old house, or the heating system, or any other excuse you can think of. Whatever you do, don’t believe. Because once you believe, they’ll become real. Once you inquire into their existence, they will solidify. And once you finally uncover them for what they are…

They’ll come for you.

I don’t have much time left. I’m hoping the blood will drain out of my wrists before they can get to me again, but I can’t be certain. Oh god, it’s so cold. I’m losing a lot of blood. But I have to finish. You have to read this. Maybe you can stop them.

It all started about a month ago. I was frantically trying to finish a writing assignment for Social Studies that was due next period, writing so fast I thought I’d snap my pen in two. I think the paper was on World War II. Amazing that I can remember things like that, through all of this, isn’t it? Nevermind. It doesn’t matter. As I wrote this paper, I began to notice something odd. I was making a lot of mistakes. You’ll have to excuse my digression for a moment, but I need to explain something: I never make mistakes when I write. Teachers use words like “impeccable” and “exceptional” to describe my conventions. That’s why I was finding this odd. And what’s more, they were all errors in capitalization, which served only to confuse me more. I hadn’t capitalized the beginnings of sentences, proper nouns anything. But, capitals were cropping up sporadically throughout my writing. I had words like “gErmans” or “alliaNce”, without the faintest clue why. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I quickly corrected my mistakes and finished the paper.

In fact, I didn’t even think of the incident when it happened again. I was commenting my friend’s new MySpace picture. In the middle of typing up some inside joke, I noticed that my capitalization was once again awry. Scanning through it, I noticed something else odd: The word “hello” had been capitalized entirely. Figuring I’d just go back and finish it when I was done typing, I started again. And again, my finger would hit the “shift” key unbidden. When I checked my typing again, I looked closer. My mind began to subconsciously piece together the capital letters. Imagine my surprise when I realized that it formed a message. It read, “GLAD WE HAVE YOUR ATTENTION”. What I did then could only be described as a double-take whilst being completely still. Not knowing what had begun then, I signed off and promptly went to sleep, chalking it up to an overactive imagination.

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It’s been a while since I had anything like human contact, so I’ll attempt to be as brief as I can. At least the sound of typing is noise, and the echoes it produces are the nearest thing to a reply I’ve had in months.

I lost my job back in August. The dollar’s dropping, the economy’s poor, and son, you just aren’t a competitive investment anymore.

I’m young and I don’t have bills, so I took it in stride. The days of day zero closure notices and no parachutes were stories I’d only heard from my bitterest relatives, and besides, it’s hard to feel betrayed when you grow up learning these things really are only business. I collected my generous severance and decided to take a week off or so. A few years of being on call made me appreciate the value of a vacation, whatever form it was in, and my girlfriend and I had our savings.

Like any self respecting nerd, the week quickly became a blur of pizza orders every two days, progressing day by day into a schedule defined by creeping nocturnalness. The girl complained, but she often did. To be perfectly honest, her sleeping form in the bedroom soon became far more familiar to me than her waking self, a persona I now only encountered during the blurry hours just before I slept and just after I woke.

A week became two weeks, then a month. Slowly, the creaks and groans and occasionally startling shuffles of the old apartment building we lived in lost their frightening nature. I’d always been the horror junky, and I suppose my jaded nature made such assimilations much more graceful. In time, even the intermittantly flickering streetlights and faint chatter or the distant televisions, conversations, apparitions, or whatever existed in the building became more reassuring than unsettlings. I even began to fancy the old stain in the bathroom linoleum, which the landlord swore was wine and I believed was blood, had begun to fade.

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It has been reported that some victims of rape, during the act, would retreat into a fantasy world from which they could not WAKE UP. In this catatonic state, the victim lived in a world just like their normal one, except they weren’t being raped. The only way that they realized they needed to WAKE UP was a note they found in their fantasy world. It would tell them about their condition, and tell them to WAKE UP. Even then, it would often take months until they were ready to discard their fantasy world and PLEASE WAKE UP

There was a time when I believed running might help; if I could pack up my few belongings and burn the rest under cover of darkness and flee, I could start over somewhere new. But in this bleak frostbitten place, I admit to myself, truly, that I cannot outrun him, that I can never escape him. And should I slip into the warm embrace of doubt after an unnaturally long stretch of peaceful, empty days, he will be only too happy to remind me of this.

There’s almost nothing left he can take from me. The days before him are fading like an aged photograph now, a hazy yellow dream of stability and happiness with a long future of happy possibilities stretched ahead. Today, I am huddled in the eaves of a collapsing barn in the Yukon Territory, desperately trying to start a fire with sodden and rotting hay. The more I burn now, the less I have to use as a blanket. It is a delicate balance that I have not quite mastered.

I hitchhiked across the border two months ago, and have been making my way north steadily. Going any other direction than north is no longer an option. I do not know what I will do when I reach the Artic Ocean. Perhaps continue across the sea ice, if it has not thinned to the point of breaking. What I cannot do, ever, is return to my life, to Seattle. I can never see my son again.

It seems absurd to think that just less than a year ago, my life was unfractured, whole. The pieces of my life were trite and predictable. I was an insomniac, and used to lie awake staring at the ceiling, chewing over my doubts and secret fears: that I may not be able to keep up house payments, that I may not love my wife any longer, that I would repeat my father’s failures with my son. These phantoms of doubt and fear filled my bleeding stomach with ragged holes that I recall now with almost fond nostalgia. How easy it all was, then.

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In Corona, California there once was a road known by most locals as the Never Ending Road. Specifically, the road’s true name was Lester Road. Now, over twenty years later, the landscape of Corona has changed, and the Never Ending Road is no more. However, years ago, Lester Road was an unlit road that people claimed became a never ending road when driven at night. The people who made such a drive were never seen from again.

The legend became so well-known that people refused to even drive Lester Road during the day. One night, like many teens my age, I drove up Lester Road, but only a short distance, and in my headlights it did look like it went on forever. Frightened, I quickly turned around, because if I continued up the road, I thought I might never return again.

Perpetuation of the legend convinced local law enforcement to investigate. Lester Road took a sharp left turn at its end, and there were no guard rails. Beyond the curve lay a canyon, and on the other side of the canyon was another road that lined up so well with Lester Road that when viewed from the correct angle, especially at night, the canyon vanished from sight, and the road seemed to continue on up and over the hill on the other side of the canyon. Upon investigation of the canyon, dozens of cars were found, fallen to their doom, with the decomposing bodies of the victims still strapped to their seats.

Every time you exhale, a little bit of your soul escapes. Luckily, you almost always inhale it back before anyone else gets to it. Almost.

Ever fogged up a mirror with your breath?

Don’t do that.

There is rumor of a great palace unfound deep in the deserts in Egypt. A massive complex of four-thousand rooms protects the single most prized possession of ancient Egypt. The Blood Mirror.

It is said every thousand years, a great hero of mankind must make his way down to this mirror, and stand before it in pick blackness at 19:06 June 6th (6/6 - at 6:66) and behold their own death. Their own image appears to slowly distort, screaming a horrible silent scream as their teeth and skin melt away leaving streams of blood to run down the mirror and pool at the bottom.

Gazing into this pool of blood on the other side of the mirror of their own blood will allow them to view the Antichrist’s birthplace, which they will then scream out in horrible screams of pain for an hour and six minutes, before their heart stops.

If the Antichrist isn’t stopped, all of mankind is doomed to an even worse fate.

it has been exactly 940 years from June 6th since this last happened, the next date is 2066, but the location has been lost. The hero will find this place, but we must be there to hear his screams, or we are lost…

06/06/2006

Deep beneath the New Mexican desert, there is a lost city in a dark cavern. Many have journeyed to the deep city, some have returned, some have not, completely vanished without a trace. As for what happened to the builders of the city, no one knows for sure. What I do know, is that I have walked the rubble strewn streets, and I have heard the cries in the dark, inhuman shrieks. I have no clue what these creatures that make these sounds are. I’ve been told that pictograms in the cavern suggest they were slaves to the builders, but like I said no one knows.

Eventually the random cries in the dark began to take a toll on me and I fled the cavern, returned home, and until today told only a few close friends of what I’d seen, and heard. Now, as I walk down the darkened streets of my hometown, I’ve begun to hear the creatures again. They are calling me back to the cavern.

The time is coming.

They say that the olfactory senses (the sense of smell) is the sense closest linked to memory. Go on eBay, or to a high-end antiques dealer. Find an item made a good amount of time before you were born that was hermetically sealed, vacuum packed or tightly packaged in some way. Make sure you are in surroundings of completely neutral smell with little or no wind. Open the package. The smell should hearken back to your collective subconscious or memory of a past life.

If you are successful in choosing the right item, with the right smell, you will have at least a memory flash, or likely a memory flood of years before you were born.

In the most deserted part of Wyoming there is a restaurant. There are no roads leading to it, no signs advertising it. It’s just there, in the open. Walk inside however, and you will learn two things. One, it’s jam packed with people talking, eating and enjoying themselves. Two, the entire place looks like it’s a scene from the 50’s including the people, the food, the newspapers, the music, everything. Take a seat, observe the atmosphere, relax.

When the waitress comes to get your order, make it a cheeseburger with mashed potatoes. Afterwards, a red-haired lady should ask you to dance to a tune on the juke-box. Find the song on it that has the same number as your current age, pick it, then dance you heart out. When the song ends, a flash of light with engulf the whole scene, and you will be standing outside your home the following morning. You now should have the power of clairvoyance for the remaining year.

If you didn’t do this correctly, then woe is you. For you also missed out on the best meal you’ll ever eat.

While honeymooning in Maine, my wife and I stopped in the picturesque town of Boothbay on a particularly dreary and rainy day. Since our planned picnic was out of the question, we sought shelter in a dilapidated little antique store near the harbour. While my wife inspected the large chests and side tables near the door, I eagerly examined the antique tools and seafaring equipment inside the glass sales counter at the back. Being a collector of optics and mariner’s instruments, I hoped to find a sextant, or perhaps an old leather-bound telescope.

A particularly interesting piece caught my eye. It appeared to be a heavy brass flashlight, bearing a worn brown patina but remarkably modern in design. I asked the shopkeeper, but he could only tell me it was found in the same old sailor’s chest as several of the compasses and the sextant also on display. He inquired as to whether I would like to purchase it for five dollars, or perhaps have it for free. “It’s worthless to me, nobody wants it.” When I remarked about the price, he sighed wearily, and then reached into the cabinet and retrieved it for me.

“Here, see for yerself, feller.”

The craftsmanship was wonderful—quite durable and apparently hand-made, perhaps originating from somewhere in Europe. Worn lettering indicated it might be German, or perhaps Austrian, in origin. I twisted the bulb housing and a weak red beam swept out. Poking it into a dark corner of the shop, I was greeted with fantastic monotone swirls, moving and entwining with each other like a pit of eels. As I stared further into this unusual projector-kaleidescope, my fanciful mind invented ghoulish faces and sinuous, gnarled tendrils.

Shutting the device off, I turned excitedly to the shopkeeper. “Fantastic!” I said. “It must have an oil filter of sorts in front of the lens! I have two Victorian kalediscopes, but none that are illuminated like this.”

“You don’t get it, do you? Nobody gets it. They all come back to return it after a while.” The shopkeeper leaned on the counter and I could see that he was breathing heavily and perspiring. “They all think it’s some sort of trick… till they start seeing it when the light’s off.”

“That ain’t no projection, mister. That… damned thing, that light… it ain’t makin’ up those creatures. It’s just lettin’ your eyes see what’s already there.”