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Tourist Trap

In rural Wisconsin, there is an old abandoned park. Built in the 1920s, it served as the town’s gathering place for everyone.

That is, until a newly developed Train and Tunnel for Tots™ ride was installed in 1932. It was an innocent looking childish train, with one main (mechanized) head car, with three small trolleys pulled behind it. It went around some loops before going into a small tunnel.

But this is where the story gets weird. There were numerous cases of child deaths that year, all of them happening after the child rode on that train system. Some kids went missing in that short tunnel (about ten feet), and others went comatose after leaving. One, upon exiting, was found to be dead. Her dress was covered in what looked like small bloody handprints. Some killed themselves by scratching at their throats until they bled out, and one of them even killed another child before hanging herself with razor wire at the family’s farm.

The park was closed, and the town’s popularity as a tourist town plummeted.

Recently, a team of scientists were sent out to the park. They taped a video camera to the train, and put a new intern in with it, before sending it on its way onto the tracks.

When the train left the tunnel, it was empty, except for the camera.

The last ten seconds were nothing but static, save for the sound of children laughing.

–
Credited to Arachne.

DAY OF ALL THE BLOOD: THE MOVIE

So, uh, who did this?

A Ghost Story

I was an American male on the loose in Belgium in the late 80’s. The tiny village I lived in was called Cambron-Casteau and was only a few kilometers north of the French Frontier. The town was truly nondescript and an ancient abbey remained the only interesting feature it possessed. The abbey’s remains stood on fifty acres of land just beyond the town with a great house, a tower, forests, lakes and catacombs! The latter caught my attention as soon as I learned of them. I investigated the tunnels both historically and physically. Originally, it seems monks in the late 1500’s connected the abbey to the church in nearby town of Lens with underground tunnels, and may even have gone as far as Mons. This is no small feat as Mons rests twenty kilometers from the abbey and Cambron-Casteau. It then appears that Hitler could not leave something like an underground tunnel alone and had it walled up during Belgium’s occupation because too many of his soldiers got lost trying to chase out the resistance fighters. There was evidence of this down some of the underground corridors where a newer wall ended all forward advances or a room was filled floor to ceiling with a pile of rocks. Despite the diminished area of the tunnels they still held my attention and I soon knew every available inch. When I was not in the catacombs I was walking through the abbey’s forests or around the lakes till the late afternoons. It was on one of these lazy Sunday walks that my life changed… forever.

Call me paranoid if you wish, but the late 80’s in Europe was no time for an American to walk around alone. It seems the Nazi Party was not quite as dead as we had been lead to believe and chance encounters with young skinheads became a very real possibility and a very real danger as well. For this reason, I took to carrying a certain semi-automatic friend of mine under my coat on my left side to give a would-be assailant .45 reasons to rethink his position. I will not discuss my occupation at the time, or why I could get away with this, suffice to say that I could, and leave it at that.

I was walking around the largest of the abbey’s lakes late on a Sunday afternoon when I saw a woman about two hundred meters from me near one of the entrances to the tunnels. I could tell she wore a dress, but she had some kind of cloak over it hiding any details of the garment. I did noticed her figure, but few other details. There was no obvious evidence that she was in distress or needed assistance, it was just a feeling I got as I walked toward her, and she moved toward the catacomb door. Reflexively I adjusted the comforting chunk of finely milled steel under my left arm, reassuring myself it was still there even though I knew it was. By the time I reached the door to the tunnels she had disappeared inside with only one glance back at me as I approached. The late afternoon sun was casting many long shadows and I was too far away to see her face clearly, save for her eyes. Her eyes simultaneously bothered me and drew me to her. Loose stones crunched underfoot as I left the paved trail for the gravel road to the catacomb entrance. I did not notice at the time, but she had made no noise on the gravel. My approach to the door had been from the side and I did not actually see her open the door to go in. When I reached the door I had to grasp and engage the metallic thumb latch and swing the door wide on rusty hinges. It never entered my conscious mind that I hadn’t heard the hinges when she went in, but my subconscious was pulling double duty trying to keep me alive by taking over my right arm and moving my hand to the butt of the heavy Colt 1911A1 in my shoulder rig. I had been in these tunnels often enough to know where I was. The entryway beyond the door had two exits. The one on my right led to the greatest area of tunnels. The exit in front of me was little more than a rubble-covered stairway that branched to two separate short passageways that both dead-ended. As I paused for my eyes to adjust I heard a faint indeterminate sound from the direction in front of me. My eyes had not yet righted themselves, but I moved forward anyway… I knew these tunnels… she may need me!

As I moved my eyes cleared and I noticed a feint glow like a match up a tunnel that I knew stopped at some of the Fuhrer’s masonry. When I rounded the last bend I saw her. She had her back to me and she starred at the wall. Her hair was long and straight and the deepest raven black. Her curves were not the kind to get lost in a crowd either. As I stood there memorizing every inch of her she began to turn to me. Her face was a mask of death! There were no eyes in the sockets of her dried skull as she looked at me. There was no skin on the bones of her hands as she raised them toward me. What happened next I pieced together later. My instinctual reaction was to bring up the gun in a perfect weaver stance and dump the entire clip into… it. I also started to back away at the same time and fell. This must have been what I had done, for when I came to my senses I was laying on my back in the pitch dark. I fished a Zippo out of my pocket and surveyed the area. I found no woman, no blood, no appreciable time had passed according to my watch, no rational reason that I could see before and now it was dark, and no real desire to stay in the tunnels one second longer. I quit the catacombs before anyone came to investigate the shots and hurried home. At home I discovered some unnerving facts. I had cut my head when I fell. When I washed the blood out of my hair, I found the most startling gray streak over both of my temples that had not been there mere hours earlier. I really wanted this to just be some kind of horrible dream, but the more time passed; the more I began to remember. This seemed totally opposite to a normal dream that one would usually forget by the end of the morning coffee. This dream was getting more vivid as time passed.

I remembered a sharp pain in my gut and coughing or… no… choking! Yes, that was it… Choking! I was gasping for air! I could not breathe and my poor, sweet little girl, the child I clutched in my arms, dead… My husband… my husband had been taken away and must surely be dead also. My…

WHAT!?!?!?

I nearly fell. What was I thinking? I did not have a child, much less a husband?! Then I saw her. She was standing right next to me… in my own house! She was not the skeleton she had been, her smooth skin was the palest white and now looked as it must have… in life. A little shorter than me, jet black hair, even in death she was beautiful. She was pulling her hand back as if she had been touching my shoulder.

I understand now. The SS must have caught her and other resistance fighters in the tunnels when they walled them up. All she wants is a decent burial. This is not too much to ask. I’m leaving now with a pick and a shovel to do the right thing. The labyrinth beyond the walls is unmapped. I do not know where she died. I only hope she stays around long enough to lead me back out of the tunnels when my work for her is done. If she does not, however, I leave this testament to any who come looking for me that they may at least have a clue as to where my body may lay…

–
Credited to SFC_HeadShot.

The Smooth, Black Stone

At the edge of the Pacific ocean, on some abandoned beach in the tropics, there is a large, smooth rock that sits just beyond the reach of the highest tides. It is not cracked or marked in any way, and the smooth black stone reflects even the faintest of light. It’s curved and formed in just such a way that if you are very careful, you can climb on top of it from the side, and stand on a flat area at the top.

If you stand on the rock when the moon is full and shining, and the water is at its highest point, you can see something in the sea below you. A faint shimmer of light, a flash of something you can’t quite identify. It gets brighter, easier to see as you kneel down and lean closer, over the edge of the rock.

Once you are leaning out further than would probably be safe, your left leg will slip on the slippery stone, and you will fall forward into the light. There is no splash, no sound; you simply disappear into the ocean.

No one knows what happens after you disappear. But there are some who claim to have fallen off the same rock, what seems like a lifetime ago. According to the earthly calendar, they were gone for one day, then washed up on another beach, sometimes half a world away. But their eyes are hardened, and they rarely speak anymore, only occasionally muttering of fiery paths and gibbering demons.

Exit

I know this road better than I know myself. I know each of Interstate 85’s 250 odd miles; I know that it takes me an average of 3 hours and 26 minutes to drive west, from Charlotte to Atlanta, and an average of 3 hours and 29 minutes to make the same trip going eastward. I know the price of gas at a dozen stands, and the closing hours of each fast food shack and greasy diner. I know the curves of each low hill and I know each stand of pine and oak trees. I know the stretching dark of the long winter nights and the wet heat of the summer breeze. I know these things well because they are the totality of my existence now.

I know the names of each exit, westward and east. Batesville, Poplar Springs, Spartanburg. They tick through my head as I pass, but the Silver Creek Road exit is never among them. In three years of this endless loop, it has never appeared again. If I ever begin to doubt that it will, then I have nothing left.

The Silver Creek Road exit doesn’t exist on any map, or at least, it no longer does. It may have once, but like the road itself, it has been razed from the earth and from all memory and record. At the beginning, I spent long anxious days poring over old surveying maps and neighborhood planning documents, searching in vain for any sign of the road, or the exit I know I had taken. When there was nothing left in the libraries and city halls to comb through, no meek county official left to interrogate, wide-eyed and frothing, then I began the drive.

I’ve been through two cars, and have burned through my savings and now survive off a stack of rapidly vanishing credit cards. I have no address to receive bills, and no intention of paying, and have been filling my trunk with small plastic gallon jugs of gas, while the cards are still accepted. When this filthy and battered Oldsmobile gives up the ghost at last, I suppose I will have to learn to hitchhike.

I first took the Silver Creek Road exit three summers ago, on that last night that I was with Bobbie. I have in my head just a few frozen frames of that ride left, her black curls bouncing like springs in the evening breeze, her gapped toothed and freckled smile, and the slow summer crossing into night.

We’d made that drive together a dozen times, between our apartment in Atlanta and her brother in Charlotte. There was nothing remarkable that night. We simply ran low on gas and took the first exit we came across. I remember vividly passing beneath the green and sparkling white letters of the exit sign, and onto the sharp curve of the road.

The street turned perpendicular from the light and noise of the highway into inky darkness of the pine trees. Nothing remarkable to separate it from a hundred other country roads, but as the lights of the car penetrated the darkness, a vague and trembling unease passed through me. The tall rustling pines seemed black even under the blue white of the headlamps, and the road began to rapidly degrade, becoming pocked and uneven just a few dozen yards in.

All the roar and glare from the highway seemed swallowed up behind us, and there were no lights ahead of us for as far as we could see. My insides felt tight and knotted, and I turned to Bobbie. She had her skinny legs tucked to her chest and looked at me, quizzically, one eyebrow raised, with a small crooked smile. Her small bravery seemed to dissipate the chill that had been steadily rising in me.

I looked forward to the road, I felt a sudden sharp pressure on my chest. Stretching out in front of the wan light of the headlamps, the road ended. There was a small field of shattered asphalt slabs, and then the forest swallowed up every trace under a blanket of rotting pine needles. Something twinkled brightly between the trees, and I strained to pick it out of the darkness. It was the smooth chrome of a bumper, attached to a pitted and rusting car, completely enclosed by the towering pines.

A wave of panic and disorientation crawled down my scalp and my knuckles went white on the wheel. Bobbie placed her hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed once.

“Cal,” she said, firm and evenly, “we need to turn around now, honey.”

Continue Reading…

Unit 232

In a nondescript rural corner of the American midwest, in a long row of units at one of the many dilapidated mini storage businesses that dot that dreary landscape, is a unit, Unit 232, with barely-noticable scratches in the concrete in front of the sliding door.

Upon closer inspection of Unit 232, the careful observer will note a few things: the frame around the door to the unit is dinged and bent up along its entire length, to the point that the door cannot be slid open even an inch; the door itself is curiously warped (some describe it as “pinched”) at the center, though not badly enough to see at first glance; the brown-tan paint covers up several much older layers that can be observed where chipping has occurred. An even more careful observer will discover that the entire row of units in which 232 is contained is of an older architectural style than the other rows, indicating that it alone has remianed in place possibly since the inception of the storage facility.

The owner, of course, has a story about Unit 232, although he doesn’t like to tell it. When he was much younger, someone rented the unit–he doesn’t recall who–and then disappeared after that, never paying the next month’s rent. Such things, the owner will say, happen often in his business, for all kinds of reasons, and so he and his boys clipped the flimsy lock from the unit along with several other unpaid lots a few weeks later, intending to sell its contents at blind auction and recoup some of their losses. Unfortunately, even with all three of them grunting and heaving at the door, it would not lift at all. Angry, the owner hired out some heavy machinery to tear the door down instead.

Behind the door, the owner says, was nothing but a solid wall of dull steel. The small backhoe tore the flimsy aluminum door out easily, but barely made a scratch in the metal. Exploratory cuttings elsewhere around the unit revealed that the same metal pressed against every wall. Whatever it was, it seemed practically bolted into the concrrete.

The next revelation was the discovery of a large, plain keyhole set into the block–which, the owner supposes, must actually have something else inside of it–on the side that faced the back of the unit. A locksmith was hired to examine the keyhole, but the moment he began feeling out the hole with his turning tools, he fainted clean away. When he came to an hour or so later, he was in such bad shape that his eyes would not focus and his tongue would not form words, and he was eventually committed to the county mental health ward (back when it was still called an asylum, the owner will say) where he managed to hang himself with a towel a few months later.

Having had quite enough of these goings-on, the owner called in a full-scale demolition service to take out the unit with a bulldozer, but when the vehicle arrived, the engine cut out and could not be started again until it had been towed some miles away. Spooked because of the story about the locksmith, which caused a small local media sensation at the time, the driver decided against trying a second time, and when word got round to the other heavy equipment companies in the area, the owner was left with no one to try and finish the job.

Naturally, he will say, he decided to rent the equipment and have one of his employees take care of it for him instead. But this is where he trails off, every time, and if you press him for the story of that worker, he will say nothing, only staring off out the window of his office as though you are not there at all. In the end, he will say, clearing his throat, he carefully re-paneled the walls, attached a new door, welded it in place and banged up the frame as an added precaution. The “pinching” at the center of the door, he will tell you, seems to happen on its own, but he has learned to stop asking questions about whatever is locked up inside that huge steel box.

Of course, every lock has a key somewhere in the world that fits it. What is inside the cube in Unit 232? Whoever has the key might know; more likely it has been passed along from attic to attic and rummage sale to antique shop so many times that whoever has it has no idea what it is for. Check your garage, basement, attic or junk drawers: almost everyone has a few big, old keys lying in a dark corner somewhere that he or she cannot recall the purpose of. Perhaps one of yours fits the lock hidden inside Unit 232….

Sakonia

January 1st, 1786
1st Entry
My name is James Hawk. I am an English explorer. This is the log of my ship, the Dasadania.

Today, we set sail from Callorack Island, with fresh provisions and repairs. Our objective is simple; to find new islands, or possibly continents, for the Queen. Her majesty has commissioned us to find one island in particular, though; the island known as Sakonia. Why exactly Her Majesty wants us to find this one island is unclear to me; I do not ask questions, though. I simply do as I am told. Callorack Island is, supposedly, close to Sakonia, and so that is the starting point of our expedition for Sakonia. We have already located several other exotic islands. This will be our last island. After this we will return to England. I must end this entry now, for I am required on deck.
James Hawk.

January 2nd, 1786;
Today, I had a most unsettling experience down in the hold. I had gone down to bring up certain objects of dubious legality when there was a thump ahead in the shadows. This in itself was neither disturbing nor unusual; it could be a barrel that fell over, the cat we kept down there to keep out the rats, or, heavens forbid, a rat itself. As I stepped forward, lantern lit, to check, I discovered that it was, in fact, none of these. Nothing was visible within the shadows, or the section, when my lantern chased them away. I looked up in time to see something darting around the crates where I could not follow. I stepped forward, noticing a small white patch of fur, stained with blood. Shifting the crates, I discovered a shocking sight: nothing. Whatever it was, it was long gone, and so, it seemed, was the cat.

January 3rd, 1986;
Today, I am proud to announce that we have sighted what we believe to be Sakonia. It looks like a quite nice place to relax; Perhaps that is why the Queen wishes us to find it. On a rather more grim note, the steersman, Alexander, has gone missing. This leaves us a hand short. We are conducting a search of the entire ship tonight.

January 4th; 1786
Today, I am the herald of tidings both good and bad. The good news is that we have found Alexander in the hold, unconscious. The bad is that he appears to have come down with a fever of sorts. Upon revival, he began shouting and screaming, and now refuses to steer us into the island. Exactly why he does not want to land there is unknown; he simply refuses to move, shouting at us. What he is saying is both disturbing and cryptic; he speaks of the one-eyed torturer, the beast in the hold and other nonsense. However, as long as he remains in such a state, we can not steer into the island. Unfortunately, this is the least of our problems with him. He has injured himself and written cryptic messages in his own blood. The strangest message he has written, however, is “Croatoan > Roanoke < Croatoan.” We do not understand what he means by this, although we do know that Croatoan and Roanoke are two islands discovered years back. However, Alexander has, to the extent of our knowledge, never heard of this.

January 5th; 1786
Today, we woke to the crashing of rocks and wood. We all rushed on deck to discover a grim sight. Alexander had lasher the tiller and wheel in the direction of the island before winding his Crucifix tightly around his hand and committing suicide with a knife. The ship had driven straight into Sakonia. Nobody has been injured, other than Alexander. We are fortunate. After we have salvaged any supplies that we can, we will go ashore.

January 6th; 1786
Today, we went ashore. The island is a pleasant enough place; however, there is a vague unease about the place. We will set camp and sleep on the shore of the island tonight. We have committed Alexander’s body to the sea. The crucifix was in a death grip about his hand, so we simply left it there. Oddly, Alexander had carved a message into his own flesh before he killed himself; It simply said “He comes.”

The island is rather strange; although it is a tropical paradise, I have heard no birds or any other animals. The trees rustle and sway as though in a wind, and yet the wind is blowing in a different direction. We will discover more in the morning.

Continue Reading…

Julia Legare

A few years ago I was spending some time with friends exploring old, supposedly haunted, places. We were at the Edisto First Presbyterian Church, where a girl named Julia Legare was buried in her family mausoleum in 1852.

People reported hearing unearthly screams time and time again, but never investigating the cause of it. Fifteen years later, when they opened the door to the mausoleum to inter the next family member who had died, finding her corpse huddled in the corner next to the door, arms outstretched as if still trying to find the exit.

Well, my friends thought it would be a funny idea to shut the giant stone door (which was originally open) behind me and pick me up in the morning. The bastards left me there… I tried and tried, using all of my strength, but I couldn’t budge it, it had taken four people to put it in place. In the dark, I resigned myself to the night ahead of me.

Now, I normally don’t frighten easily, but sitting there in the relatively small place, surrounded by a looming pressure that I couldn’t begin to explain, the darkness itself seemed to try to consume me. From all around it felt like weight was pressing against my skin, making even breathing hard. I sat in the dark for what must have been hours.

Then I heard the scratches. They were faint at first, I was sure it was my imagination, but soon they became more and more frantic as time passed. I huddled up in one of the corners farthest from the door and tried to cover my ears but nothing could stop the growing cacophony. This all may have lasted for a few minutes, but each second was an unbearable eternity.

Then, a loud scream echoed through the darkness, it was a wail of unrestrained pain and fear. The scratching stopped. For the first time I could distinctly make out the sound of a girl sobbing to herself, the pitiful gasping of one without a shred of hope left.

I felt such sorrow at the moment, such pain, that I think I forgot how to be afraid. In my heart all her suffering seemed to resonate. Inexplicably, I found myself apologizing aloud for everything that had happened to her. Hell, a part of me wanted to reach out and feel for a body to hug, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it for fear that I truly would find one.

I don’t know whether or not she heard me or was even aware of my presence, the sobbing continued and I could again hear fingers against the stone slab that was the tomb door.

I fell asleep at some point, which I felt was a merciful gift from the fates. I’m not sure how long I was out, but I was woken by a loud and powerful thud as the door slammed against the ground outside. I could tell from the light gray outside that daybreak was near, so I must have slept for at least a few hours.

I stumbled outside and went to a small unlocked prayer house. I think previously it was a segregated mini-church, but regardless, I leaned against the door and waited nervously until my ‘friends’ arrived. I approached them as they clustered around the fallen door, two of them were kneeling next to it with faces of shock.

There were bloody streaks covering the interior of the door, some with light scratches from fingernails, many without. I think now that she must have shrieked when they broke away from her hands, but I can’t be sure.

At first, they looked to me, then checked my hands, then nervously glanced at one another. I was rightfully pissed with them and told them every detail of what I remembered, wanting them to know what I had been put through.

Finally, after I grudgingly got into the car and we started to head back, someone spoke up. My friend said to me “We were afraid to say anything, but look at your face.”

I later found out that many times people had tried to permanently seal the entrance to the mausoleum, including enough heavy locks and chains that it would require heavy equipment to remove it, only to have it found torn open with the door lying on the ground once more. This was in the 1980s, the last attempt of many through the decades. It seemed like some force was ensuring that it was impossible to ever repeat the mistakes of the past. This is something I am understandably quite grateful for, but to this very day I am chilled to the bone when I think of what happened that night.

When I reached from the back seat and adjusted the rear-view mirror, I saw that there was blood caked on my face. Just like the streaks upon the stone slab, there were dark red lines on either side, as if someone had gently cradled my face with torn fingers as I slept that night, feeling the warmth of another for the first time in over a hundred years.

The Bay Of Kola

The Bay of Kola, off Murmansk, is a graveyard for old Soviet submarines, which spill nuclear waste out into the Barents Sea. Many a Western explorer has braved the subzero temperatures and biting tainted winds, but few have lived to tell the tale. The locals of Murmansk say that sometimes, when the wind is high and is dashing the grease-iced waves on the choppy waters of the bay, one can hear the voices of those who died as a result of boarding those submarines. The only problem is that only the strongest to go have ever survived, and each one of those surviving visitors to Kola dies within ten weeks of telling their story to the barman at Rokossovsky’s in Murmansk.

–
I know this one won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but I’m currently reading this book about an explorer that vanished off the face of the earth, so this one ~captured my imagination~ and such. Also, you should all read that book, it’s awesome.

The Tundra

The native villagers around these parts say that there’s a stretch of tundra just north of here that is occupied by benevolent spirits. These spirits grant insight and warning to whoever visits them at night, once the sun has disappeared entirely and left the world in jet darkness. I drove out to the middle of the frozen expanse of ice and waited, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever commanded these people’s reverence. They send their children out, bundled in furs to keep from freezing, on the eve of their 15th birthday to seek an audience with these spirits. Once they have achieved this, the children run home to their parents to share the news. From then on these children are considered adults in the village. Engaged couples visit this tundra on the night before their wedding. The entire village stays up all night awaiting their return, as it is upon their return that the couple either decides to proceed with their marriage, or to abandon it. The elderly visit the tundra whenever they are sick or ailing, and often make their condition worse by staying all night in the cold. When they return, however, it is most often with an air of sheer serenity.

So I waited, curious to see what phenomenon might inspire people so powerfully. I waited for hours, bundled in my parka and sitting on the hood of my pickup. I waited until I felt that I was going to freeze to death, even in my thick clothing.

I heard the spirit before I saw it. A crunching of snow in the silence made me jump off my truck and spin around. A hunched, gray-skinned man stood a few meters away. Sad, yellowed eyes stared back at me, set inside a skull from which sprouted only a few greasy hairs. He breathed heavily, with a rattle that shook his fragile ribcage, and one of his arms looked as if it had been messily broken and then neglected, allowing it to knit back together imperfectly. Badly scarred flesh marred his splayed legs. The man stared at me for perhaps ten seconds, breathing in the frigid air and exhaling a sickly dribble of steam, before disappearing when I blinked my eyes.

I spun around, looking for the man, but he was truly gone. Approaching where he had stood, I found a pair of bloody footprints in the snow. Frantic with fear, I got into my pickup and headed for the village as fast as the ice would allow. A few villagers were waiting for me when I arrived, knowing that I had gone out and curious as to what might happen. I hastily got out of my truck and, approaching the nearest villager, I demanded, “What is so benevolent about these spirits? What is so insightful? How do these spirits help you?”

“What did you see?” he asked, the look on his face now mirroring the fear in mine.
“I saw a man, horribly disfigured and desperately sick!” I screamed into his face, and the rest of the villagers around us backed away a step. “Why? What does that mean?” I begged him.
“The spirits show only one thing,” the man explained. “They show their visitors, a year in the future.”

–
Credited to David Feuling.