Ever wandered alone on the streets at the dead of night? Well, if you encounter a wizened figure in tattered robes and a hood, and you just can’t seem to make out his face no matter which way you look at it, pay your respects. This man is infact Death himself. He only appears to sole travelers at the stroke of 3:33am, so most go their entire lives without ever seeing him “in the flesh”, so to speak.

If you’re brave enough to speak to him, he may take out an hourglass from his robe. The hourglass represents how much longer you have left to live. If there is plenty of sand in the upper glass, it means you still have a long time left to go before inevitability claims you. But if he takes out an hourglass that contains black flowing sand, then run as fast and as far as you can to the one you love before he finds you. And he will find you.

If you are the type who eats out regularly, one day a stranger might join you at the table. This stranger will always appear to be of your age and sex, and he (if it is a he) will only appear if you are alone. No matter what style of restaurant it is, he will always be carrying his own plate of food.

After a few seconds, he will look directly at you and say, “You seem like an interesting person. May I know you better?” Say yes, and he will begin to ask you questions about yourself in between bites. These questions will be innocuous enough at first: what your name is, what you do for a living, and so forth, but should you open your mouth to answer, you will be forced to tell the truth, even if you do not consciously know what the truth is. Remain silent, and the stranger will scowl at you, pick up his plate, and leave. You will never see him again. If you do indulge his questions, however, they will grow darker and darker as the food leaves his plate, and it will become harder and harder to resist answering. Do not attempt to leave the table before he does under any circumstances.

When his plate is clean, he will stand up to leave, but not before asking you one last, irresistible question: “What would drive you to take your own life?” You will instantly be aware that you will be able to lie in response to this one question, and I suggest you do, for whatever you describe will come to pass within the week. Those who are canny may use this chat to gain whatever they desire, but know that if the happenstance you name does not drive you to suicide, the stranger will start guessing as to what will. And consider how much he now knows about you.

–
Credited to Peter L.

This is the tale of an incident that occurred to me a few years ago, when I was a younger man, and convinced that the world was exactly as I saw it, and worked exactly as I was told it worked.

I had just finished my undergraduate degree at a college I shall not name, in the middle of Wales. Though my degree was interesting enough, I really wanted to leave behind the books and the academia, and immerse myself in the study and practical research of the paranormal. Though my funds were slight, at best, and my student loan needed repaying, on returning to London, I placed an advertisement in my local gazette, asking for anyone who had experienced paranormal phenomena, and didn’t mind talking about it to give me a call. I couldn’t offer anything in the way of a reward for their troubles, but I did promise to buy them a drink or two while we talked over what they had experienced.

It didn’t take long for me to receive my first and only caller, and to be honest, I was quite surprised that my ad had this much success. But I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. The call came while my mobile was turned off, but a number had been left on voicemail, and a few days later, I called back. I didn’t want to respond immediately, though I don’t know why. Perhaps I wanted to seem more professional. Like I had a hundred people on a waiting list or something.

Anyway, I called the next evening, and was greeted by the voice of a young man, who identified himself as Theo Twining. I asked if we could meet, but he declined, with a dry and solemn chuckle. I told him that it didn’t matter, and that we could conduct the conversation just as easily by telephone. Perhaps he was shy, I told myself. His situation was this:

Since about two weeks ago, he (and he paused for a good minute or two before recanting his tale, repeatedly telling me that I would think him stupid) had started to see worms, regular earthworms, across his path. I at first thought him a little bit paranoid before I heard the particulars of the tale. Not just outside, not just crossing his path, but in all manner of places. If he made a cup of coffee, there would be an earthworm, dried and boiled at the bottom of the cup. When he woke, he woke to find himself covered with five or six of them, and when he sat at his desk, they would crawl toward him from beneath the monitor screen, and from under his keyboard. He told me of how he lived in a neat-ish studio apartment on the third floor, and how this only happened very recently.

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You stumble into the kitchen, covered in sweat. Mind racing. Heart thumping. Christ, could he have followed me here? You think. How did he even find me?

A moment passes. One thing is certain.

He’s not here now.

Your stomach rumbles. Even someone in your position has to eat. Your refrigerator door cries as you tug it open. You peer through the shelves. A jug of tea catches your eye. You take a swig, right out of the container. Your mother won’t know.

The tea tastes sharper than usual. You examine the label. Black tea. She bought the wrong kind. You shrug, reach for some leftovers. Flip the TV on in the other room as you slide them into the microwave. The five o’ clock news plays in the background. It might say something about him.

The usual teary story about the war. Some presidential candidate is coming to your town. You count down the numbers on the microwave. 5, 4…

“And, finally, tonight a food contamination alert for all residents in this county.”

…3, 2…

“A shipment of Lipton’s Black Tea delivered to local stores has tested positive for traces of the ebola solanum virus. This super-strain of the disease causes painful sores on the underarms, neck and groin followed by profuse bleeding from all orifices. The survival rate once infected is less than 10%. I repeat, Lipton’s Black Tea has been pulled from the shelves but any resident who purchased the tea is advised to call the Center for Health Control to dispose of it immediately.”

1.

You tug open the fridge once more and look at the tea you just drank.

Lipton’s. That’s not the kind your mother usually buys.

“Authorities report the shipment was tainted by an unidentified biological expert who remains at large.”

He’s not here now. You think. The jug of tea falls to the floor.

But he was.

–

Credited to Alice Wilde.

It is said that all of us have ancestral memories locked away within us. Some even argue to say that these memories are kept in consciousnesses separate from our own, or, to put it more simply, in multiple personalities. To unlock these memories is to gain an infinite amount of wisdom from the mistakes and experiences of the past, but to access the memories, one would have to discover their “other” personalities, and once they’re awakened, they’ll be wanting a body to STAY awake in….

–

Credited to SugarD.

It wasn’t until I broke down in front of my sister that it occurred to me to use the word ‘haunted’. When I tried to explain what was happening to me, finally articulating the weeks of dread and utter dislocation, I found that no other word would come. Haunted. There’s still a part of me that scoffs and glowers at this, to use the language of folklore; it seems to compress what I’d experienced into a simple banality, a prisoner of language.

I paid cash upfront for the house in West Toluca Lake. Something about the 1930’s Spanish architecture tucked behind the grove of weeping willows triggered a strong association with my childhood ideal of what it meant to be famous and successful in Los Angeles. It was far more than I needed, and I struggled to fill the extra rooms with bedroom sets and elaborate smoking lounges; more out of an obligation to keep up appearances when guests were over than to satisfy myself. I was happy there, for a short while.

My friends stop visiting a few months after I moved in. Increasingly elaborate excuses were spun, and I soon stopped asking. It only occurs to me now that I was doing the same, finding every reason to stay in the house.

There was such a gentle descent into the insanity of it all, that I hardly felt it happening. The unusually stormy winter hit me hard, and long hours in front of the sun lamp seemed to do little to halt my growing feeling of melancholy and nameless unease. I started sleeping later and I abandoned even the pretense of writing, spending long hours in silence on the back porch, listening to the dry rasping of the dead leaves in the cold breeze.

It was the middle of the night when I first saw him. After a long time of lying motionless in the dark, I slowly pulled myself out of bed from an Ambien fog at the sharp urging of my bladder, and shuffled towards the bathroom.

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We’ve all experienced it, right? That sudden feeling like someone is looking you. A chill runs up your spine, and you are convinced that you have to find the source of the sensation. You look around and see someone just randomly staring at you. At gives you even more of a spook, but, after a few seconds of awkwardness, it subsides. You and the person go your separate ways, never to see one another ever again.

Or are you?

Why is it that we get that sensation when we make eye contact with another human being? I will tell you why. Its because they aren’t human beings. Not. At. All.

They look just like us, talk like us, act like us. But there is something strange about these creatures that mock us. They are each destined to certain people in their lives, they know not of who they are or what they look like. Just ordinary people, like you and I. When they find one of those people, the two of them make eye contact. At that moment, they are linked to you by a mortal bond. That is, if you die, the human, then they die.

Well that’s not so bad, now is it? I mean, if I was linked to someone by those means, I would personally try and protect the person. Wouldn’t you?

Remember that chill? That eerie feeling of ice shooting up your spine and back down again. That is your memories and your future, both of which are being copied at that moment and stored into their minds. Yet again, so what? Now they know all of your personal secrets. Its not like they will do anything, save for steal your money or something. But no one ever does that, really they don’t.

Imagine this. Say you met someone the other day, a random person. Who’s to say that’s not the next Hitler? If I was to be endowed with all of the mindset of that person…I wouldn’t care if I died, as long as I took them with me.

Then again…maybe its not so bad. Sure, it’s rare, but there are defiantly good people out there, they are just hard to find. And, if I was to see an extreme goodness in someone’s heart, I would want to protect them. For my life, yes, but for theirs as well. Like a guardian angel, right?

Just…remember one thing. If anything, remember what I am about to tell you, because if you are like me, it will change the way you think about your life and the way you live. It may even save you from being struck down by one of THEM.

Humanity is inherently evil.

10:30 PM. Late in the Summer Season. It’s storming outside. My favorite time of year and my favorite kind of weather. Whenever it storms I just have to smile. Storms are beautiful, or at least I used to think so.

Almost all the lights in the apartment were off, and I’m just talking to some friends over AIM. Then suddenly it became very very cold. As if the storm from outside was creeping thru the door. I just figure there was a temperature drop because of the storm, so I toss on a sweatshirt. After about 30 minutes or so I’m still freezing cold.

I start to get this feeling.

It’s a feeling we all have felt before.

The feeling that someone is staring at you.

The feeling that this someone is not very far away.

The feeling that if you turn your head the slightest bit, you would see them.

I shrug this feeling off because I am an extremely paranoid person and I get this feeling all the time. I continue to converse with my friends, I even mentioned this sensation that I currently had, and my friends naturally laugh at me saying I need to stop being a baby. The sympathetic ones say it will go away eventually and not to worry. I waited awhile…it did not go away. In fact it increased.

It felt like something was consuming the very Happiness within me.

Like something was filling me with Dread.

That chilling Terror we all felt as children when the lights were turned out.

A true Fear of the Dark.

But it’s not the dark we are afraid of….but of what lurks in the dark

I almost couldn’t take it anymore. Here I am, almost a grown man, and I’m jumping at shadows. It’s ridiculous, but as ridiculous as it seems, I still have this little voice in the back of my head telling me that maybe I have a reason to be afraid. Maybe I should turn around and see if there’s actually anything there.

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The clock stared at me with its red eyes, shouting to me that he would arrive soon. He always comes at the witching hour. Of course I didn’t know that the witching hour was three in the morning till I told my friend about my night time wanderer. The witching hour is the time of night when God is at his weakest and all the imps and minions come out. This man was obviously not a three horned demon, nor was he an evil servant of the devil. He looked old, and lonely. I felt bad for him. He was probably homeless with no family or friends to speak of.

Every night he’s there, just sitting in our backyard. Every night I want to go outside and talk to him, but I can’t seem to work up the courage. He just sits on the tire swing, muttering to himself. He looks so lonely. Luckily I have no trees near my window, or anything that could block my view of him. My friend says it’s a trap to lure me outside. He says that a little kid like me isn’t thinking straight this late at night, so obviously; this prince of darkness wants an easy meal. He just wants me to come outside and, wham, I’m a nighttime snack.

Maybe he has a point though. Not about the evil part, but about the unsafe part. The old man might be crazy. I’m sure being homeless takes its toll on your body. I can’t see him that well from window either. I’ll sleep on it, maybe tomorrow night I’ll go and see if he’s harmless or not.

The bed looked so comfortable I couldn’t help but to flop down onto it. I lay there, waiting for the sand man to put his special dust in my eyes to carry me off to dream land. The wind was blowing really hard outside. I could here a tree branch tapping on my window. I bet the man was cold. I wonder if he is smart enough to find shelter. My eyes began to become extremely heavy, but the tree branch’s tapping kept drawing me out of my inner peace. I stared blankly into the cold darkness, when a sudden chill traced its way down my spine. I don’t have a tree anywhere near my window.

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The doorbell rings, and you get up from where you sat staring stonily into space. You already know who is at your door, and why he is there. You open it, nodding numbly to the man. You make a note in your head that the man looks… sneaky, but you assume that must be because he’s a lawyer. You show him into your living room, dreading what is to come. The man hands you a CD he produces from his briefcase, and sets what looks like a birdcage on your coffee table. You can not see what is inside the cage, as it is covered in a blanket of embroidered silk. The man sits as you put the disc into your stereo and press play.

You hear the sound of stressed breathing from the speakers as you take your seat. The lawyer hasn’t said a word, but you know the breathing to be that of your late friend, the last breathes of your friend. You can hear something in the background, behind your friend’s heavy breathes, as if someone, or something, was scratching at a door. You wonder if you’re hearing things, as the sound is barely audible in the recording. You look up as you hear her voice, as if she was in the room with you, as if she was alive.

“The date is September the first of two thousand eight.” Her voice is shaky, every word she speaks is saturated with fear, “This is my last will and testament. Now, I don’t have much time. They’re almost here, so I’ll dispense the formalities and get on with what I have to say. This is the last day of my life, as you have probably already figured out.”

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I rushed over to the wall to flick the light switch. Something was in my room, watching me. It was lurking somewhere behind me, sitting in the shadows, and staring at me. This was more than just paranoia. There was definitely something there. I could almost envision it wrapping its arms around me and dragging me into some terrifying abyss. I sat in my chair and stared at my shadow on the ground in front of me. I watched as another shadow slowly grew over my shoulder, never taking on any definite shape. I looked back up and stared at my computer screen. I thought maybe that if I believed it wasn’t there, it would just go away. I held my breath, and tried to engross myself in reading the article on the website in front of me. I couldn’t help but notice how my computer screen showed a reflection of what was in front of it. I couldn’t help but notice the worried look on my face. I couldn’t help but notice the thing hovering behind me, staring at the back of my head. I could tell it knew I knew it was there. I screamed and threw myself against the wall, and slid to the bottom. I was crying now.

Scanning the room, I searched for the thing that was behind me, but I found nothing. My room was empty, except for a mirror. My eyes lingered over the mirror on the wall across from me. I watched my black fan twirl around and around through the mirror. I watched how the shadow of the fan moved all around the room. I watched how the mirror slowly began to tilt till I could see myself in it… I watched as a dark scaly hand grasped my shoulder. I was entranced by my own reflection. All I could do was sit there as I watched the black abomination cup my face. I screamed at my reflection to move as I watched a face made from the darkness itself whisper into my reflection’s ear. I gazed in horror as my reflection stood up and walked to the window. I gasped in pain when he smashed the glass with his fist. I tried to hide my eyes when I saw him pick up a broken piece of glass. I tried to look away when he forced me to stare into his eyes. I sensed his thoughts in my head. They said to me that if I was afraid to look, then I don’t need to look. Everything became tinted red when my reflection brought the jagged object across his eyelids. Yet, there was no blood. Not for him. He just smiled. He walked back over to the black abomination; it again drew him near and whispered into his ear. I could see it chuckle. I cried in despair when I saw a tear roll down my reflection’s face. I cried in pain when he jabbed the jagged glass into his throat.

I awoke in a cold sweat, and rushed to the wall to flick the light switch.

Do you know what a Cordyceps is? I didn’t either until 20 minutes ago. It’s a family of thousands of different types of fungus, grows all around the word in various rainforests and jungles. The awful thing about them is they’re parasitic, they grow on other animals. An ant happens to run into some spores, and then it starts to colonize his insides, starting with his brain. At some point, the ant starts to act visibly ill; standing in place and shivering, or walking in circles. If a fellow colony member sees him in this condition, he will be dragged to the border of the colony and exiled.

Then, when it’s almost over, the ant weakly climbs as high as he can up the vines, and locks his body on tight. Finally, he dies, and the fungus emerges from the back of his head, bursting forth like a long and foul fruit. After a short time, the little stalk spews forth its own spores, leaving the mummified and broken ant clinging to the stalk, his eye cavities filled with drying fungus.

I mention this because last night, when I was up on the roof of my apartment complex, I found my brother’s body.

He’s been back from 18 months on duty in the Philippines for less than three days. This was the first I’d seen him. My parents called me up the day before yesterday to tell me that he was on his way up. They told me he’d stayed in his room since he got home, and then suddenly got up and announced he was on his way to see me. They thought he was drunk, I’d thought he’d never made it.

He must have come straight up to the roof and died, by the smell of it. I was just finishing a cigarette, all torn up with anxiety and head throbbing, and when the acrid smoke vanished I caught a whiff of rot on the hot wind. It took me just a few minutes before I’d found him; face down behind the vents and fans. A slimy gray column rose up obscenely from the base of his skull, and a frozen waterfall of roots and tendrils was dangling from his eye sockets and mouth. At the top of stalk was small arrangement of feathery wisps, a white powder drifting idly from it tips.

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In Beantown, Nebraska, a town with a population of just over 200, there lives a man named Jack Black. Not THE Jack Black, of course, but just a guy named Jack Black.

At 10:06 PM on January 4th of 2014, Mr. Black’s phone will ring. Upon picking up the reciever, Jack will suddenly be able to comprehend the TRUE definition of infinity, and for a split second will be able to truly understand how long an eternity is.

The massive strain on the collective conscience of existence that this paradox will create will actually cause the fabric of space-time to collapse on itself, creating a NEW universe identical to ours, but starting at the beginning of time.

This universe will proceed to exist until the exact moment in time that humans would identify as 10:06 PM on January 4th, 2014 C.E., at which point an alternate Jack Black will pick up his alternate phone, thus comprehending infinity and starting the whole process over again.

You’re in your room late at night. You’ve been on the computer for a while now, and it’s almost time to get some sleep. The light behind you is still blazing, cutting a swath through the oppressive darkness of whatever ridiculous hour of the morning it is. In a sleep-deprived haze, you amble over to the light switch and flick it off, and instantly realize you screwed up. Your headphones are lying on the floor, and without the light to see them you’ll probably step on and crush them. Resolving to turn the light back on so you can grab them, you spend less than a second in near-perfect darkness as this goes through your mind. Then you flick the light back on.

You’re not in your room, anymore. It’s as if fifty years of disrepair have ravaged your once-loved living space. You’re also surrounded. You can’t really see them, mostly just their shadows are visible as they crouch on all fours all around you. The only features you can make out are hundreds of mouths of jagged, grinning teeth, and a set of glowing, red eyes to go with each twisted smile. You almost have time to scream. Almost.

–
Credited to James V.

Somewhere in New York City there is an old homeless man missing both his legs from the knees down, whose spot along the streets is the corner of Lexington and East 21st, near Granmercy Park. Approach him after nightfall, give him some change (NO pennies, NO dimes) and ask him, “What did you see on the other side?” He will then tell you all about his travels to other realms and times, where he lost his legs, how he lost his money.

It is up to you whether to believe him or not, but as you listen you’ll find yourself being drawn in with every story. You must stay alert, or the old man will notice your inattentiveness, and with a scowl he will stop imparting his wisdom; he will chase you as fast as he can, tottering on his stubs. The other reason why you must stay alert is to check the time. Before midnight you must interrupt him (do NOT let him finish whatever story he’s telling you at the moment) and say “I’ve heard enough, old man. Good day and good luck”, then walk away.

Make at least two left-hand turns around the block before going about your business. You must do this, because anyone who has stayed to listen past midnight is never seen again, at least not in this particular plane of existence.