Haunted
It’s your first night in your new apartment. Your stuff is still in boxes. Your furniture (with the exception of the mattress on the floor) hasn’t arrived yet. The utilities won’t be turned on until the next day, so you’re making due without. A flashlight and some candles will do for light until you go to sleep. Despite the creepy feeling of being in a dark, empty apartment all alone; you chalk it up to nervousness and try to get some sleep.
A sound wakes you up. You lay there for a moment, waiting to decide if it was real or just your imagination being too loud. When the sound happens again, you check your cell for the time. Two in the morning. You get up, using your cellphone for light, and make your way towards the kitchen; the apparent source of the noises. At first, you think somebody has broken into your apartment, but you choke down your reaction as you stare at the figure. It is a middle-aged man, wearing what amounted to striped pajamas and standing in front of the microwave with his back to you. Although seemingly solid, you can also see through his body. You’re paralyzed; mostly out of fear, but partly out of curiosity.
“Hey,” you finally manage to say. The man looks in your direction, turning slowly. Your eyes open wide as you realize the man has no lower jaw, letting his tongue hang free. Your vision loses focus and the apparition disappears.
A sound wakes you up. It’s your phone vibrating against the floor. It’s morning, or at least light is coming in through the window. You’re back on your mattress and the missed call is from your mother. You’re confused about the night before and still shaking from the experience of what you saw. Was it a dream or did you really see a ghost?
//
Credited to Vaughn, the winner of our 2010 Halloween Contest… tl;dr
Yeah. Um. No.
Probably shouldn\’t watch the Grudge before bed.
This went nowhere, and was more or less boring. Pass.
hm…i don’t feel anything, sorry, bad pasta. not the least bit creepy. I’ve had such dreams. those WERE creepy but reading about it….bah, boring
I thought you had nothing but a mattress. Where’d the microwave come from?
Total waste of time. Pasta was moldy.
wasn’t long enough, I didn’t have time to really get into it.
What’s the point of this story? A guy sleeps in his new apartment for the first time and dreams about a generic ghost standing in his kitchen. Through the first two paragraphs I felt like I’d read this story half a dozen times already but the ending was just utterly lame.
At least it was short and didn’t drag too long, though at the same time it felt too short for that kind of writing style. Sure the writer kept referring to the reader as “You” but it was far from being slightly immersive.
wat
This pasta sucked.
*vomits*
No, but seriously. Why’d you pick this pasta for the Halloween contest? Unless all the other entries were horrible troll pasta, you have no excuse for this kind of crap. Especially on Halloween. Shame on you.
Kind of a letdown for Halloween, I expected to be scared…
This was really just a generic ghost and a bad ending…
Stop. For fuck’s sake, this is awful.
Oh come on.
I started playing the Nightmare on Elm Street theme for this?
It’s just one of those typical “Dohohoho look a ghost BUT IT WAS A DREAAAAMMMMM OR WAS IT?!?!?” pastas, move along people, no paranoia or scary aura here
This guy was the winner? I’d hate to read the losing pastas.
… Did I miss something?
wow…really? did no one else enter the ‘halloween special’? as already pointed out the ghost is generic and the microwave stupidly came from no where. plus i just really hate stories that try and tell me its me going through all this. if i have to wait another full week to get a new pasta im going to be pissed.
Not only was there only three bites of pasta, but there was no sauce and it was all moldy…
good thing it was short though. Eating a whole meal of this crap would have made me sick…
The ghost was using the microwave?
Bah, sorry but bad pasta mate.
Could have been better. I KNEW there was going to be a Creepypasta for Halloween day! This really needed to have more out of the ordinary. A guy sees a ghost and wakes up. Nothing really unique about that. 4/10.
That was just awful.
1 / infinity stars
it was his mom
Too long; didn’t read.
This was creepy.
….
if I had just moved out.
and was living in an empty apartment.
and met all the specifics of the person in this story.
who is apparently me.
…am I really in my room? Or is this all a dream?
boring and bad.
bad and boring. sucked.
Good effort, but you didn’t need to explicitly ask “was it all a dream?” at the end, and maybe the apparition could have done something creepy.
inb4 BUT WHO WAS OLD MAN WITH NO JAW?
But yes, it was obviously a dream. After all, the only thing that was out was the mattress. There was no microwave. Unless the ghost took it out…
Oh God oh God oh God oh God.
My entry was far superior. I deserved to win:
Me and a few buddies were smoking pot and watching the football game. That’s how we spent our Saturday afternoons, for the most part. Then Barry suggested we all try acid for the first time. He had got some acid-stamps from his cousin, and we agreed. The four of us drove around town for several hours, high as fuck and hallucinating. We pulled up to a shady house in the hood, with a funny-looking gnome on the front lawn. We decided to steal it, cause that acid was some trippy shit, and we thought we heard it talking. We decided to throw it in the trunk of the car. When we home, the gnome was still babbling incoherently. We left it in the trunk, and crashed for the night.
When we woke up, we found the body of a 4 year old negro in our trunk.
For those of you bawwwing, I didn’t run the contest – it was a forum thing, so Tower was in charge, but I did notice that there were only three entries, if I read correctly. Plus, people who entered were fucking shit up by submitting entries to both me (for main site, non-contest) and Tower, so they disqualified themselves by getting their shit on the main site before the contest had its run.
So for all of you bitching and moaning about lack of updates or how the pastas suck, think about that: three entries. Over almost the entire month of October.
I’m not pulling from an large, established pool of pastas like I was at the beginning. The site has been up for well over two years at this point and the well is running fucking dry, with the exception of regular contributors like Violent Harvest and the very few forums writers who actually remember to *submit* their work. If you guys don’t write and submit more DECENT pastas (yes, looking at you people who submit one or two run-on typo’d sentences about a stale as fuck topic), I will not post more. So stop bitching at me for not posting as often and try getting off your ass and contributing, or shut the fuck up and deal with the fact that the meme is dying due to too many readers and not enough writers and the fact that /x/ is such a cesspool of shit lately that all it produces are /b/ spammers, 14 year old ‘vampires’, and people freaking out over badly drawn MS Paint art.
TL;DR (in honor of Vaughn): Barely anyone is writing anymore, and when I don’t feel like I’m finding stuff worth archiving, I don’t archive anything. Simple as that. I’d insert one of those ‘deal with it’ macros but derp
well, fuck.
I submitted… SALEM
nobody noticed, eh?
eh???
far fucking scarier than this shit.
Rodina, I hereby crown you Halloween king and give you 3 mellowcreme pumpkins. Enjoy~
Didn’t care for the story, but I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Sarah for her hard work on this website.
I don’t have the nexus of time/talent/interest to contribute but I love reading this site, and I appreciate the hard work that she puts into it.
While I might think a lot of the stories lately haven’t been the greatest, I don’t blame you for that, Sarah, I know you’re just doing your best with what’s submitted.
People losing body parts? Haven’t seen that before.
After reading that the ghost was standing in front of the microwave, am I the only one who half-expected that he was making popcorn?
Sarah, I’m a longtime lurker and that heartfelt post has inspired me to write my first creepypasta.
It’ll be a good creepypasta too, far better than this stale dish.
I have taken dumps scarier than this pasta. In fact, I am taking one RIGHT NOW.
tl;dr
But, seriously, Tower’s reasoning for this being the winning pasta was this:
“It is written in the vain of classic creepypasta. In that it is written for kids with ADHD. Sometimes less is more folks.”
Also,
“Out of all the pastas submitted this was the least bad.”
So it wasn’t up against much. I can say that because I entered a story too.
… how did this win a Halloween contest on a scary story site?
But who was microwave?
But seriously, this sucked ass.
Well I liked it.
This was worse than cancer
THIS FUCKING SUCKS.
I’m not sure what you mean about the well running dry. I’ve sent several really creepy stories over. As a professional writer, I’d think my art is at least good enough that one of them had been used, but no such luck. People will pay for my books, but this site publishes crap like this?
I’m sure a lot of people have be disuaded by the amount of stories that have been turned down.
The microwave makes sense. Most apartments i’ve seen come with appliances such as fridges ovens and microwaves. It’s actually rare to find one without a microwave included. As for the rest of the story, i cant defend that. That’s just shitty writing there.
As long as something is new to read, JE SUIS CONTENT.
Ya’ll sound mad. And Rodina your dead baby negro story sucked. Deal with it.
Anon, we all know you’re lying. You couldn’t sell a book for your life.
And Sarah, if you start to get desperate, just go to Encyclopedia Dramatica’s creepypasta page. They have some good ones.
That’s fucking lame.
No it didn’t. Sarah approved. You suck. Deal with it.
It’s easy to suggest how one could rearrange or tweak certain words or sentences to make the story more effective, but it takes extra effort to build a story from the ground up. If this was the best a Halloween contest could offer, then it’s time to liven things up (“liven” as in goosebump factor). As previously stated, this inspires one to come up with something better. Something that won’t need to be defended for its posting.
Umm, It was boring, but short enough that I didn’t care.
2/10
Far better than WHO WAS PHONE, and the like, but far worse than everything else.
I’m scared!
Sarah- I suggest you man up and stop whingeing.
“All the effort” you put in? Come on! Copying and pasting stories from an e-mail someone has sent you?
You clearly don’t correct spelling, or grammar, so that’s what it basically amounts to.
Don’t knock the people who frequent your site. That’s just ungrateful.
If people aren’t sending you as many stories as you’d like (Though it would appear historically that you’ve turned down PLENTY of decent pastas, so you’ve only got yourself to blame for that) why don’t YOU write one? Have a look through t’Interwebz and see what you can drag up? Why not use pastas from the forums on here! I’ve found a few gems on your forums and I’ve been amazed they didn’t make it onto the main site. I don’t believe it can be as hard as you say to find a story better than this complete tripe, competition or not.
Also, your language is disgusting.
Much like this pasta.
If a good creepypasta is a well paced and written story, then this one is nothing more than a man in a rubber mask jumping out of a closet shouting “boo”
Too abrupt, poor pacing, no atmosphere, you gain some points for having a bit of creativity.
1/10
What if the microwave was actually possessed by a demon, but since its a microwave the only hellish thing it can do is cook your food too hot. That’s what happened to the poor jawless fellow in the story; one day he cooks up a nice healthy choices (more like SATANS CHOICE in this case amirite) meal and as soon as he takes a bite, BAM, his jaw is melted clean off. He was just trying to warn the next tenant about this hellish appliance.
Now the guy has to spend his time on Craigslist (since I know YOU are too poor to afford a brand new one) trying to find a good deal on a new microwave having to deal with white trash faggot rip off artists who are never home when they say they are, live 500 miles out in the sticks, and will probably rob you at gunpoint when you get there, just to get one that barely works as is and that they probably used to cook cats and meth in. Truly a brickshitting scenario and worthy of being the grand master Halloween bankai story
i am dissapoint
@Rodina
Old urban legend is fucking old.
If you\’re going for an entry, at least have an ounce of originality.
Well i think i could have been a lot better, 3/10
Stupid typos. i meant it could have been a lot better
My dearest David:
I never said anything about ‘all the effort’ I put in, though I do spend a fair bit of money keeping this site up (to the tune of $200 a month). So I suppose that counts as my pocketbook making an effort… but back to what I was actually, you know, talking about in my original post: I asked the people who complain but don’t contribute to make an effort and try writing a pasta rather than just bitching and moaning. Try reading things more thoroughly before you respond! It generally helps to make your position more defensible and helps you not look like such an idiot! Hope that helps
But you’re right, me shelling out money to keep the site alive and getting 99% negative feedback and daring to respond to it once in a very rare while makes me “ungrateful”. I should probably start bowing and calling you David-sama for deigning to bestow your impeccable critiques on the authors here who actually take the time to write things for everyone.
I’ve had authors ask for their pieces to be removed due to the amount of absolutely unconstructive, bitchy criticism they received by people who have some sort of horribly misplaced internet entitlement complex… in fact, we’ve lost some of my very favorite pieces and authors that way. It pisses me off.
So no, I don’t feel the need to be ‘grateful’ for those types of comments. Because they’re doing nothing but harming the site by running off people that actually *contribute*.
And believe it or not, I have written pastas – I just don’t think that I’m good enough to main page, so they don’t get posted (except for one – which one is a secret, it was to prove the point to a certain person that I can’t write fiction worth a damn and it succeeded very well in that). Those who can’t do, archive. If I wanted to write, I would start a personal writing blog.
Plus, I’m only talking about the stories that are ACTIVELY SUBMITTED to me. The ones that get posted in the submission thread and/or emailed to me. A lot of the stuff on the forums are never submitted to me, perhaps because they are works in progress, perhaps for other reasons, and that’s their prerogative. I make it very clear that those works are NOT CONSIDERED for the main page. Too many people seem to not be able to ‘get’ this fact.
Like I said, very few entries were submitted for the Halloween contest, and you can check this yourself on the forums if for some reason you don’t believe me. So the people complaining about this pasta winning when Tower had very little to choose from, when none of them could be bothered to even enter one of their pieces, annoy the crap out of me. I could repeat that a few more times until you decide to finally understand it, if you’d like.
—
@MaraquanWocky, I do check that page pretty regularly, but we’ve already archived almost everything there. And, of course, if we post anything that someone has already read, they bawwwww about how ‘stale’ it is.
I still post ‘new’ stuff from there anyway though :3
In all fairness, I don’t think this is that bad of a story, but seriously, there wasn’t anything better to choose from?!
Honestly, I think “and you wake up with a dick in your mouth” would have been a scarier ending….
I was waiting for something about the holocaust because of the mention of striped pj’s. but this was stupid
This was worse than the Holocaust
My 8 year old cousin with aspergers could tell a scarier story. And I’m not exaggerating. This was terrible.
So stupid. And all these small sentences made it look like a telegraph.
bad pasta was just bad.
What is this I don\’t even.
0/10
Contest winner? Are you joking? This is one of the worst I’ve ever read.
After I read the last sentence I was actually looking for a “read more…” link or something. seriously? that was IT?
fucking lame ending.
YES, this was the winner. You know why? Because as stated at least 5 times before, there were only 3 entries submitted. Why cant you fucking understand?
Sorry, but I thought your tongue was supposed to be attached to your lower jaw? And seriously, a person’s imagination cannot be too loud. Want to know why? BECAUSE IT IS ALREADY SILENT.
Bad pasta is bad.
ohh.. its an boring story…. sorry but not good
Wow, sucks that you had no choice but to choose this one. I’d submit my pasta, but it is Pokemon themed and would get trolled to hell if it was put up
Meh, I’ll do it anyways. I’ve grown a thick skin due to the internet, and it seems like these idiots are killing your site. Themed pasta that may only be average is better than no pasta, after all
Sorry but that was utterly pointless.
… Wow, you guys really flamed this mo’trucker, huh?? lol… It was pretty bad, though. Sorry bro.
Yeah it was pretty shit pasta, but honestly if you didnt enter stop complianing and next time enter a geeewwwd one so we all dont have to read shit
Love from BiteMe <3
For all you idiots who ask where the microwave came from, it was a bloody dream for crying out loud, where the fuck are your brains? Are you that stupid?
For all you messed up fucking retards who don’t understand shit, it was a bloody dream for crying out loud, what the fuck are you criticising him for? Just because he said microwave? I bet all of you can’t write better than him so bloody back off you pieces of shit!
For all you messed up fucking retards who don’t understand shit, it was a bloody dream for crying out loud, what the fuck are you criticising him for? Just because he said microwave? I bet all of you can’t write better than him so bloody back off you pieces of shit!
But who was the tongue????
IT’S AGRIPPA