A young girl walking home from school found a small pile of Polaroid photos lying in the gutter. There were twenty in all, neatly wrapped in a rubber band. She picked them up, and as she walked she started to browse. The first photo was that of a ghostly white man on a black background, standing just far enough away from the camera that she couldn’t make out his features. The girl slid the photo to the back of the stack and looked at the next one. The photo was of the same man now standing a bit closer. The girl flipped through the next several photos quickly. With each one the man in the picture came a bit closer and his features were a bit clearer. Turning the last corner to her house, the girl noticed that the man in the photos seems to be looking at her even when she moved the stack from side to side. It frightened her, but she kept flipping them over, one by one. By the nineteenth picture, the man was so close his face completely filled the frame. His expression was the most horrifying the girl had ever seen. Walking up the driveway, she turned to the last photo. This time, instead of an image, there were two words: “Close enough.” Hearing a scream, the girl’s brother rushed to the door and opened it. All he saw was a pile of photographs lying on the doorstep. The top one looked like an extremely pale version of his sister, but she was standing too far back for him to be sure.

–
Credited to Peter L.

In the small town of Stull, Kansas, there once stood an old one room chapel on top of a hill, surrounded by graves. Beside the church was a cellar that was very difficult to find, as its doors had grass grown upon them. In front of it church was great tree that was always bare. None of the towns members could recall ever having seen a leaf upon its branches.

In the towns earliest years, well before the civil war, there were several farming families that lived there. The minister’s daughter had fallen madly in love with a boy from nearby, but had her heart broken when that young man was discovered to have impregnated a certain flirtatious townsgirl. The two were married, and all the while the reverend’s daughter saw them, happy together, and her hatred brewed until after 9 months of painful endurance, that despise boiled over. Shortly after the young couples child was born the minister’s daughter went to their house.

They greeted her cheerfully but noticed, all too late, how she eyed the child blood-thirstily. She slit the throats of those two who’d made her life so miserable and then dragged their bodies, along with the newborn child, up the hill to the church. She put the bodies in the cellar and left the baby there, between their bodies, to starve to death. She locked the cellar shut and hung herself on the tree in front of the church. The bodies in the cellar were not found for three weeks.

From that day on leaves never grew on that tree. If you walk the graveyard late at night you can just hear the sound of a baby’s chilling cry. The towns people burnt down the tree many years ago, in the hopes of putting the ministers daughter’s spirit to rest. And more recently the church collapsed onto itself, burying the already difficult to find cellar.

Many have looked for its doors, but the few who have found them and ventured beneath its depths have seldom returned, with the exception of a few who came back to the sunlight after 3 weeks beneath- starved nearly to death and covered in blood that was not their own.

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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Driving home from a friends house, you sit at a red light when you hear a familiar tone from your phone, sitting in the passenger seat. A text message. Probably from your friend; you always leave things at their homes. Being a responsible driver, and the light still red, you open the message and wait for a moment for the image to load. Suddenly, a photo pops into view. Red, obscured, strange contrast. And no text accompanying it.

But the light is green, so you close your phone and go back to driving, wondering vaguely what that was, and who would have sent you it. Perhaps someone accidentally took a picture of the inside of their bag or pocket and sent it to you. You’re still caught wondering as you pull up to the next light, also red, and another little tone from your phone. You flip it open, hoping for an apology from a friend, but find yourself waiting as another photo loads on the screen. This one, still mostly red, but textured now with scraps of blue, yet still indiscernible. This time, it takes an impatient honk from behind you before you realize you can pass through the light and be on your way home. Closing the phone, and continue on your way.

You sit uncomfortable now as the tone rings again, at yet another stop signal. You pause, hesitate, and then open the phone. The picture now is suddenly much more clear. That scrap of blue seems to be the ragged edge of a bit of denim, half blood soaked and laying across a pile of entrails, torn straight through the back of a human torso. You can only see from the bottom of the shoulder blade to the tops of the thighs, but its unmistakably human. Blue-white spinal bone smeared in blood, tubes of intestine trailing out between ragged looking spinal tissue and going out of the frame of the picture. You choke back a throat full of bile and throw the phone back into the passenger seat, happy to be on your way again, and dreading the knowledge that you won’t be able to not look as you hear that tone again.

There is some relief as you realize there are no more stoplights before you reach your home. But as you pull up to that red stop sign, the bottom of your stomach drops out and you feel a cold sweat build on the back of your neck. You have already picked up the phone, even before that tell-tale little tone has told you there is a message. The cell vibrates in your hand as you flip it open, your mind gone on auto-pilot, driving home with your eyes on the screen as the newest photo loads. Intestines piled almost artistically to the side of the body, scalp ripped free and no hair discernable, and that sickening contrast of darkening red on blue. For some reason, you expected that, even as you taste bile on the back of your tongue.

Its not as close or obscured. Flesh torn apart by God knows what means, torn denim, and blood soaked so far into the threadbare fabric of a hand-me-down couch. The one you have in your living room. You pull your car into park, hands shaking as you make your way up to your front door. You can’t stop yourself now, your body’s just doing as it normally would, but your finger frantically scrolls down the screen, finding no name, no phone number, and a time dated on the message three minutes from now.

You put the key in the door as you try shrug off your denim jacket.

–
Credited to The Flea!

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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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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As a child, I was always quiet, and my conversations with others would always end up awkward. Because of that, I always preferred to be alone growing up. Which probably explains my strange obsession with toys, being as old as I am. They never talk. They just stare. I have to say though, being alone in an apartment full of figurines can be creepy sometimes.

However, being with my girl for almost two years, she understands my obsession well, but with this much, she would probably be shocked when she first sees them.

That night, she was more than excited to see my house. as we approached the door, she could barely contain her excitement, so without further delay, I swing the front door open. “Make yourself at home.” I say to her, “it’s kind of messy, but its more comfortable than it l-” her face was in shock, then absolute terror as she started to scream.

I tried to calm her, but it just got worse. I was puzzled. is she afraid of my toys? “I understand its a bit strange, but is it that horrifying? I take a quick look in my house but theres nothing horrific. I had to calm her down, as the neighbors were starting to come out. With a quick impulse, I quickly drag her in my house as I try to ease her mind. Her screaming just got louder and louder. At this point, I had no choice but to put my hand over her mouth. She watched me in terror with tears rolling down her face. I turn around and they were all staring at me as well.

…

I’m alone again. I placed her doll on the top shelf above all the others I have dated. Her look made me feel depressed, so I made it face the wall until I was able to get over it.

Early in the morning of August 19, 2005, the body of a young black man approximately 16 or 17 years old was found on Wolfe Street, in downtown Baltimore. The corpse lay in a pool of blood, and was dressed in a pair of loose jean shorts over white cotton boxers, a Baltimore Ravens football jersey bearing the number 77 and the name Ortiz, a pair of white cotton athletic socks and a small gold cross on a chain around the body’s neck. The body wore no shoes, and had no wallet or other identifying possessions. Baltimore City police concluded that the young man had been just another victim of the city’s frequent violent crimes. Nobody came forth to claim or identify the body, and it was passed on to the coroner’s office for autopsy. The coroner’s report concluded that the cause of death was blood loss and trauma caused by three shots to the upper chest, one of which penetrated the heart and the other two the left lung.

So far, so normal, right? Here’s the part the official statement left out: There were, indeed, three entry wounds, but there were no exit wounds, and after a thorough search of the body no slugs or fragments were found, nor was there any heat damage. The young man had been killed by three shots to the chest, but there were never any bullets. The body was never identified.

Postscript: As of this writing, the Baltimore Ravens have never had a player who sported the number 77, or who was named Ortiz.

Do you ever wonder how scary death is? Think about it; it’s the one thing that we truly know absolutely nothing about. Some people may cite religious beliefs of an afterlife and others might claim they just focus on life, but it’s really something that is totally and utterly foreign to us. And what if the religious people are wrong? What if death really is nonexistence… that it’s simply over once the brain dies? Terrifying, huh? Of course, the reasoning goes that you won’t notice it, since you won’t exist.

But… Let’s say a certain someone could expose you to nonexistence. Let’s say this person could actually let you experience the state of not existing and more importantly, let you remember it. He’d probably be able to get you to agree to anything in order to avoid that fate. Tangentially, for certain people near death, their brain activity sometimes ceases completely for about three seconds and then returns, only to shortly die in a more conventional fashion.

As another aside, many hospital orderlies have noticed a man wearing a suit that they have never seen in any catalog or on any person before. Interestingly enough, when you ask them about the suit they will struggle for a moment, then reply that it’s hard to describe, but they are sure they haven’t seen it before. Ask them about the man however, and they will freeze up, spasm violently and reply, “What man?”

You ever seen someone die on camera?

A snuff film is a recording of the actual murder of human being that is subsequently passed around for entertainment purposes. Suicides and accidents don’t count. According to the MPAA, the FCC, the FBI and the ever-lovin’ Snopes.com, there’s no such thing as a snuff film. Yes, this includes Faces of Death Anything you think might count is faked, falsified, or not made for that purpose, such as those tasteless videos you find on shock sites.

This is a lie.

There are, as best as anyone can tell, between 30-40 snuff films floating around out there. The earliest is a silent film on decaying nitrate celluloid, simply titled La mort d’une fille, and bears the date of 1896.

The latest, judging by the hairstyles and the presence of a “Frankie Says Relax” t-shirt, was probably made in 1983 or 1984 and is on Betamax.

The films vary in violence, but they all include seemingly ritualized sex, followed by the slaying of a girl with dirty blonde hair and piercing blue eyes who appears to be around 19 years old.

That’s right…every film has the exact same girl in it.

A gunshot shatters your blissful state of slumber. Blood stains your sheets and crimson runs from the walls and ceiling, and you notice from the blurred vagueness that is your peripheral vision, a body slumped over the foot of your bed. Somebody has been murdered in your room.

Despite the early hour, and the shock of your discovery, you desperately muster the strength to search for the last place you put the phone; you have to call the police before it’s too late.

As you frantically search under cushions, beneath stacks of papers and old CD’s, you realize something is wrong. Suddenly, you feel weak, decrepit, frail, a frailness that brings on intense and unwanted dizziness. You clench your teeth as you search for the phone, but your pain continues lurch at your bones and nag at you. The pain becomes intense, and your vision blurs, and you keel over in pain onto the floor. You are immobile due to the raging and unknown pain clawing at your insides. Helpless.

You sense a living presence in your room now, your sheets rustling, and now footsteps. The debilitated corpse that once lay helpless on your bed, you realize is moving of it’s own volition. It is alive.

In your last moments of consciousness, your last breath of air, you manage to grasp at your stomach, and you feel torn skin, and then raw flesh. And then nothing. There is a gaping hole there.

These are the last things you remembered.

If traveling through the tip of the thumb of Michigan on a night with a full moon, stop at McGraw County Park. The gate will be closed but you can park in front of it. Bring a set of black clothes and change in the change rooms.

When you come out, there will be an old man with olive colored skin and curly dark brown hair and a mustache selling hot dogs in a cart. If you order one, the man will thank you for your patronage and apologize for your loss saying “I’m sure the wake will be nice.” One of your relatives - not necessarily someone close but still someone you know - will have been murdered that night.

Be sure to change back into your other set of clothes, because if you drive away while still dressed in the black clothes you’ll be pulled over by state police and arrested for the murder of your family member and the clothes will be covered in their blood.

You just moved into your new apartment, in a very big city. After a year of this life, you have almost given up hope of making any friends; be it at work or any other means. You feel very lonely. After looking for a peaceful place to spend your time, you find a quiet diner on the outskirts of town. The waitress is very attractive. Also, she seems to be the only employee there, ever. You never see anyone else eat there either, ever. The place is perfect for you.

Making love to her becomes a routine. You go there every night for dinner, and then to see her.

You eventually make other friends, and eat at the diner less and less. After some time you stop going completely.

At a bar with your best friend, you tell him about the fun you had with the waitress at the diner. He says he absolutely must see her. You take him there one night, but the building is in a state of ruin. The front door barely opens. The grimy insides of the diner are disgusting, and, behind the counter, is moldy corpse, reeking of pus and rot.

When the police come to the scene, they interview both you and your friend. You are shocked to hear that the body is of a runaway girl from another province. The police tell you this is a homicide, and that she was also raped dozens of times, after she was killed. The police say they can get a match for DNA and eliminate you as a suspect. You are suddenly very worried.

A young girl is left home alone with only her dog to protect her. When night approaches, she locks all the doors and tries to lock all the windows, but one won’t close. She decides to leave it unlocked and goes to bed. Her dog takes its customary place under her bed.

In the deep of night she awakens to a dripping sound coming from the bathroom. The girl is too scared to go check so she reaches her hand under the bed. She feels a reassuring lick from her dog and falls back to sleep. She reawakens to the dripping sound, reaches her hand down to the dog where she feels the reassuring lick and falls back to sleep. Once more she awakens to the dripping sound. She reaches her hand down and feels the lick of her dog.

Now curious about the dripping sound, she gets up and slowly walks towards the bathroom, the dripping sound getting louder as she approaches. She reaches the bathroom and turns on the light. She is greeted by a horrific sight; hanging from the shower nozzle is her dog, with its throat slit open and its blood dripping into the bathtub.

Something on the bathroom mirror catches her eye she turns around. Written on the bathroom mirror in her dog’s blood are the words “HUMANS CAN LICK TOO”.

–
I remember reading a version of this when I was in grade school, except I think the girl was at a slumber party and the murderer killed all the girls except her (why he spared just her, who knows). It freaked me out for days, and I didn’t even have a dog at the time! So for the sake of nostalgia, here you go. Thanks go out to the person who emailed this to me.

Alone at work late one night, you are putting in a CD to install a program on your computer. The CD is unlabeled though you remember it being labeled like any other mass produced CD.
You put it into the drive, and find it to have no data on it either. Instead of the normal CD spinning sound, it almost sounded like screaming. It’s obviously the wrong CD and you find the real one soon, and continue your work.

Alone again on another night you need to back-up your hard drive on a blank CD, so you put one in. You hear the vaguely familiar screaming noise, but this time your computer screen goes blank for a few seconds, before the entire floor goes dark.

Now the screaming you hear is not coming from a computer drive, it’s coming from down the hall… and it’s getting closer.

ETA: If anyone feels like rewriting this one, give it a shot - I really like the concept, but the execution was really sloppy. If you can do it better, I’ll replace this version with yours.