I guess that counts as scoring in some places...
When I was at University, the local club (The Works) was the sort of place that you had to be totally hammered to even contemplate visiting - you know the sort: sticky floors, music so loud the only place you could hold any kind of conversation was the gents, cut price alcopops and an average clientele IQ well below safe.

One night I was out with a load of the girls from my halls of residence, and had gone to the bar for drinks; when I came back, it was to find one particular friend looking incredibly disturbed - she was wearing a dress that was largely open at the back, and had been chatting away when a total stranger had walked up behind her and licked her from the base of her spine all the way up to her neck. Apparently he was looking at her expectantly when she told him in no uncertain terms to jog right on and never, ever come back.

This must have been about 10 years ago, and to this day I shudder to think about it.
(RathanDog, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 14:32, 9 replies)

Irritates me to no end.
My irrational hatred is when people post to the wrong QOTW. Yes, we know, you're being clever.

Also, it really pisses me off when people call off work and leave me to do their jobs because they have a "migraine". Lady, you don't get migraines. Every single time you complain about having a migraine while you're at work, you sit there and chat with others while you work. If you had an actual migraine you'd be curled up under your desk with tears leaking from your clenched shut eyes and whimpering every time anyone made the slightest noise and probably dry heaving as well. You have a headache. You do NOT have a freaking migraine!
(ladydyani, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 14:31, 2 replies)

Stalked by a killer
For my 30th birthday in February last year myself and a group of friends rented out a youth hostel in the Devil's Punchbowl. For those not in the know the Devil's Punchbowl is a huge valley in the middle of the Surrey countryside, which was actually caused by glacial erosion (I think).The hostel itself is situated right at the bottom of the Punchbowl, and is completely isolated. You can't even park outside, you have to walk half a mile down the steep hill from the car park.

We had a great time, the cottage is ancient, it used to be a broom factory in the old days apparently, and was all low beams and bunk beds. I know a couple of my friends found it creepy, but I was alone in it the first night we got there, and had a very happy time stoking the fire and waiting to be visited by ghosts and ghouls. Sadly, none appeared.

On the second night we had a party, with food and cake and games, and a few of us went for a walk in the moonlight. Still not too creepy, although it was freezing (as I said it was February) so all but two of our party returned to the cottage. About twenty minutes later we were all sitting in the living room when we heard a knock on the window. We all froze, and then concluded it must be one of the others playing around. Just as we had calmed ourselves down, the payphone rang. I answered, and no-one spoke. Laughing it off, I sat back down and we continued our conversation. About ten minutes after that the couple that we had left on the walk returned. I accused them of deliberately trying to scare us, and they denied it.

Later on I stepped out for a smoke with one of my friends. She turned to me and said 'do you know what I like best about this whole place? It's the little teddy bear statue over there.' She stopped abruptly, shone her torch on it and said 'the head. It's gone.'

Sure enough, the teddy statue had been decapitated. At this point I felt a shot of fear that was the culmination of an entire weekend of low level spook.We ran back into the cottage and my friend Fiona (for that is her name) went and grabbed her camera. 'Look!' she said 'evidence!' there was a photo, taken earlier that day of the teddy bear statue, head intact. 'I'll be back!' she said darting back out into the blackness, and returning with a photo of the teddy bear, sans head.

As Fiona was showing the whole room her photos another friend went into the kitchen. 'Oh my god' we heard her exclaim. Rushing into the kitchen to see what was wrong, she simply pointed. The teddy bear head was on the radiator. At this point we were all gobsmacked. All of us were now convinced that outside lurked a malevolent and angry force. Someone that had been watching and waiting, biding its time, intent on ruining our young happiness and destroying our hopes and dreams. Every one of us was convinced we would die there, that night, and no-one would hear our anguished screams. Every one except Andy, who could contain his mirth no longer.

It had been him, he explained. When returning from his moonlit walk he had gone to move the teddy bear statue, to make him stand by the door and scare us. He had noticed the head was detached and taken that opportunity to scare the living bejeesus out of us.

For thirty minutes or more I had been convinced I was living a horror movie. Best birthday present ever, that.
(muppers, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 14:29, 3 replies)

Only in a local rag
could such a story appear.

www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/news/Spirit-wants-family/article-3431559-detail/article.html
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 14:04, 4 replies)

My death dream,
Definitely changed who I am. It was when I was around 16/17. Essentially it begins and I'm in front of a huge grey old fashioned building. There's two large old brick walls leading off either side of it with stone stairs leading up onto them (alongside them). My brothers friend is standing there and points and laughs. When I look around my best friend is just to the side of the building and screams at me to run as the building is falling.

As I run from the building I see the shadow overtake me suddenly as the building falls. Then the whoosh of air and very sudden impact of the building. I now feel like I wrapped in a massive duvet with the heat draining out of me. I suddenly realize I'm dead and with that BANG. I fly down a huge curving tunnel of light.

And into infinity. Now comprehending infinity is massively impressive but looking into the sky at night gives you a pretty good idea of it. Anyway I was a bodiless soul hanging there in complete awe and shock and a little bit frightened to boot. After a while I think what next? On concept/voice/idea booms...

JUDGEMENT.

I woke up sweating.
( dazbrilliantwhites has been meaning to change this..., Mon 11 Apr 2011, 13:57, Reply)

A few years back I worked at Addenbrooke's hospital in Cambridge.
Now, a lot of stuff like pharmacy stores, the training suites, equipment stores, out-of-hours drug cupboard as well as access to certain parts of the hospital for bedbound patients can only be achieved by taking a trip down there.

At the middle of the night, with the motion-sensitive lights flickering on as you walk the silent corridors it's downright eerie.

Actually it's not, it's a lot like the set of an episode of Doctor Who from the late 70's.
I kept expecting to turn around discover I was being followed by a jobbing actor dressed in spray-painted bubblewrap and tinfoil.
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 13:55, 1 reply)

Abandoned ward at Northampton General
A few years ago, I worked at Northampton General Hospital, as an IT Trainer. Some of our equipment was stored in a disused ward in an older part of the hospital, away from the main building. We'd quite often be in there, taking things there to store or collecting stuff we needed.

One day I went up there with one of my colleagues, Jo. We took a couple of boxes of bits and pieces up there, stored it all safely away, then Jo suggested we had a look round the rest of the ward, since we only ever saw the main area where the stuff was all stored.

The first door we went through led to a toilet area. There were 2 cubicles, side by side. Both had the doors open, and were filthy. Eerily silent (it seemed at the time) and about an inch thick in dust, it looked as if we were the first people to see this room for hundreds of years. Each cubicle had a little window with a curtain at it, and the curtain on the left had fallen down on one side. I don't know what it was but it was one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. Jo & I stood looking wordlessly for a good few seconds, then without even realising, we were holding hands. Sorry to disappoint anyone, but there was no sexy-tiem, it was the most innocent and childlike hand-holding you could imagine.

"Shall we go now?" said Jo, to which I replied very much in the affirmative. We didn't bother exploring the rest of the ward...
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 13:49, Reply)

Modern housing developments
With the houses all copy-and-paste clones, built two metres apart. Especially when they have "owner's agreements" that prevent the people living in them painting them or showing any kind of individuality. Horrible.
(gordonjcp, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 13:38, 9 replies)

Night Hike
Many many years ago my parents managed to get rid of me for a few hours every wednesday evening by enrolling me in the Cub Scouts. And then on a Friday evening when I graduated to Scouts. I loved all of it. I learnt to skin rabbits, tie knots, shoot air-rifles and all sorts of fun things that I don't think they let the Scouts do any more on the grounds of safety. One of these being night hikes.

I'd finally worked my way up to 'Patrol Leader' and had my own patrol of 6 , slightly younger, Scouts. One of whom had only just come up from the Cubs. For a night hike, each patrol in the pack would work out a route to a certain spot (in most instances, including this one, a spooky church) and navigate their way there through the dark, leaving at 10pm and aiming to arrive at 12am. The troop leaders would meet us there and drive us back to the scout hut (I have no doubt they spend most of the evening in a local pub waiting for us).

One of the traditions we had on a night hike was, upon arriving at said spooky church at midnight, for all of the troop to sit in a circle in the graveyard and to sing a particular song. Those who had been in a while knew it and it's surprise ending. Those who were new did not but were encouraged to join in. I can't remember all of the words now, but it started:

A woman to a graveyard went
Ooooooo-aaahhhhhhhhhhh
She was old and she was bent
Oooooooo-aaaahhhhhhhhhh

It was sung in a creepy, almost chanting manner and everyone joined in with the Ooooooooo-aahhhhhhhh bits, while the troop leader, Keith, would sing the main bit. The song culminates with the woman finding an open grave and speaking to the corpse inside (upon whom 'worms crawled in and worms crawled out'). The final lyrics were:

The woman to the corpse said
Ooooooo-aaaaahhhhhhhhhh
Will I be like you when I'm dead?
Oooooo-aaahhhhhhhhhhhh
The corpse to the woman said....

At this point, everyone in the know would let out the most blood curdling yell they could, absolutely terrifying anyone who hadn't heard the song before. But this time it seemed Keith had got carried away. "AAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" he yelled along with the rest of us. Then "AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH"! "AGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" as we all looked at him. "AGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YOU LITTLE SH.........BUGGER"!

Turns out my newest Scout, Ben, who'd been sitting near Keith's legs had not only pissed himself with fright, but had also sunk his teeth in to Keith's leg and wouldn't let go.

From that day on Ben was known as Gnasher and Keith had a lovely new set of scars on his leg.
(Big Smurf Brush me daddy-O, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 13:36, 3 replies)

Terrazzo Floors
Especially the one in that wash-room, last door, down that corridor...
If I kept looking at them, the black chips would contort and morph into faces...
(Ymob is a kaburu, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 13:23, Reply)

Staying at my girlfriend's parents, the first time I met them
and being told we were sleeping in their bed.

(They weren't going to be sleeping in it too, I hasten to add. That would go way beyond creepy).
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 13:02, 2 replies)

My mate's parents have a holiday flat in Cornwall.
A couple of years ago he offered me & Mrs V the use of it for our holiday in late September, which was kind.

It being described as a "flat", we figured we'd use it as a drunk tank and take lots of trips, but it's actually the ground floor in a lovely big old Victorian house which has now been split into these flats.

As such, it's got four bedrooms, high ceilings, echoing tiled corridors, and doesn't stop going back until you get to slightly east of Narnia.

As such Mrs V wasn't too keen on taking a shower if I wasn't in the near vicinity (settle down at the back), but best of all, we were instructed to make full use of the real fire in living room, which required me to get coal. From the basement. Which was lit by a couple of very old 40 watt bulbs, down ten stone steps, and then along that corridor. Then turn left. Down to the end. Then turn right. That one there. Not the first or second - the third one.

You know that opening scene of the Sixth Sense, when she get the bottle of wine?

Yeah. Like that.

It was only on our return, thankfully, that my mate decided to tell us about how his brothers little kids had been really freaked out by the "children with dusty clothes" that they'd apparently seen playing around the old well, and outside the door to the basement.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 12:45, 2 replies)

Distant (Murdered) Relatives
My grandfather's uncle was in the merchant navy - he travelled around the world quite a bit, seeing various sights, but ended his days in San Francisco, where he was unlucky enough to get caught up in a bar brawl and get stabbed to death by an unknown assailant - the 1900's were rough times!

My grandfather (his nephew) was also in the merchant navy, and again travelled the world, seeing the sights. One day his ship ended up in San Francisco, and knowing his uncle had been here before him, decided to go for a tour of the town (avoiding any rough drinking dens on the advice of the rest of his family).

As is obligatory in San Francisco he went for a tramcar ride. He boarded the tram and took a seat, looking out at the sights of the city. After a few stops a small, elderly gentleman got on the back of the car and made his way down to the front, looking for a seat. As the tram was quite busy my grandfather got up to offer him a seat. On seeing my grandfather the old man turned white as a sheet, screamed, and jumped off the now fast-moving tram and ran off down the street.

There's a strong family resemblance on that side of the family, and while it might have been pure coincidence, its always nice to think that this elderly man, haunted by a murder committed 30 years earlier, suddenly came face-to-face with the ghost of the man he'd killed all those years ago.
(Mattle, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 12:40, 2 replies)

As a child
I always found "The Singing Ringing Tree" very creepy. Most of you young B3tans won't remember it though .... lucky you.
( Ramsay Tupper, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 12:32, 4 replies)

Years of abuse drives young girl mad
When I was growing up I knew about this girl whose mum had died when she was quite young and after a few years her dad remarried. Her dad’s new wife seemed ok from the outside but horribly abused the girl at home out of the sight of others. It got to the point where she got two other girls to tear up her clothes whilst she was wearing them. She had little to no social interaction with anyone. It drove her so mad that she spent most of her time locked in her room and ended up thinking she could talk to mice. Anyway the glass slipper fit her and she married the prince.
( Peej, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 11:37, 2 replies)

I love that thing you do with your hair
When you're doing your make-up in the morning.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 11:33, 4 replies)

Talking in my sleep
I'm not aware of doing it, so it doesn't creep me out, but it's crept out plenty of other people.

I don't just mumble, apparently, I properly talk, and even reply to people when they speak to me. I once sat up at 2am in a hotel room in Spain and asked where my horse was, then had a whole conversation with my Mum about 'what horse?', 'my horse!, etc., etc.

If you have this habit, I've found it's best to warn anyone you're sharing a room with, as otherwise it really fucks them up when you sit up in bed with a jolt in the middle of the night and start having a conversation with someone who's not there.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 11:23, 12 replies)

Heutoscopy, night terrors, zombie hands
If you want to read something really creepy, read this journal article about heutoscopy - the illusion of meeting your own doppelganger.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1073027/

This particular case study really haunts me - there's just something so fucked up about beating yourself black and blue to work out whether you or your doppelganger is the illusion. For anyone with a sick enough mind or a keen enough curiousity, there are many other similar case studies, and the further work of Peter Brugger provides a very good introduction to the area.

The closest I've ever come to something like this is sleep paralysis (which is common enough, especially in teenagers). One night I spent a terrifying couple of hours, paralyzed between asleep and awake, staring into the brightly lit bedroom and hallucinating that weird black animal apparitions were moving around me and were going to bite my exposed extremities.

Also, I was convinced I was going to suffocate, because in sleep paralysis things like breath control get handed over to the autonomic functions. I was fine really, but certainly very panicked. When you enter sleep paralysis your whole body has gone to sleep but your mind and your senses are still fully awake. Because your body is in sleep mode, you cannot move because of the autonomic function that normally keeps you from moving about in your sleep and falling out of your bed (failure of this function causes sleepwalking, an opposite problems that I have never suffered from).

Just when I was at the height of my terror, the sheer pumping adrenaline was enough for me to wrest back control of my body from my subconscious, and I managed to flip myself onto my back. Just then, I felt a clammy, lifeless zombie hand land on my face.

I bolted upright, completely awake, to find that I had been lying on my arm for so long that it had gone dead. I had flipped it up onto my own face when I tried to lie on my back, and felt like a complete tit.
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 11:05, 5 replies)

My mum
My mum was taken ill one night at around 10pm. Thankfully my sister lived just round the corner and was there within a couple of minutes.

My sister called for an ambulance, and then called me to let me know. I live about 50 miles away and mentioned coming through but my sister told me to hold off for the time being, and she would let me know when they got her to hospital.

She was taken in, but was awake and alert, and not really giving the staff much concern. As it was now well after midnight on a worknight, and feeling a bit happier about my mum's condition, I went to bed. I would phone the hospital first thing and take it from there.

Now I'm usually a heavy sleeper - rarely waking up before my alarm. However that night I woke up with a start, sitting bolt-upright. I checked my watch - it was 3:45am. I checked my phone - no texts or missed calls. I turned over and went back to sleep.

The phone rang 15 minutes later. It was my sister. My mum had taken a turn for the worst and we were to go in to the hospital. I threw my clothes on, jumped in the car, and hit the motorway. I got a call from my brother in law a few mins later to tell me that we were too late, and I wasn't to hurry - she was already gone.

It later transpired that the nurse had checked on her at 3:50am and had not found a pulse, and they had then been working on resuscitating her etc for approx a further 30 mins.

Now I don't usually believe in all that kind of thing, but that still creeps me out when I think about that night. As I say I'm a heavy sleeper but to have woken up at more or less the same time that my mum died is just a little bit chilling.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Mon 11 Apr 2011, 11:01, 1 reply)

Me
I'm creepy. Or at least, I am a creep. I went to Kapow Comic Con on Saturday. I met the wonderful Stewart Lee. I just wish I'd managed something to say to him more than 'I am such a huge fan, thank you' and 'thank you, I am such a huge fan' and 'you're great, I'm such a huge fane' and 'I just wanted to to say thank you, I am such a huge fan'. I am not sure where he went afterwards, but if you need to find him, just follow my tongue, because I suspect he still hasn't managed to dislodge it from his arse.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 10:58, 3 replies)

Psychoville/ League of Gentlemen
Not sure if this has bindun or not, but I'm a big fan of these shows! They've got a great mix of creepiness and hilarity! (Well, I think so anyway!)

The Resident Loon's post with Alber Fish reminded me about David from Psychoville's obsession with murderers: www.bestmurders.co.uk/site.html


Some people find them too dark, e.g. my friend who refused to sleep in the same room as a League of Gentlemen DVD as it had Tubbs and Edward on the front.

Creepiest character for me is Herr Lipp, who's a German teacher preying on teenage boys and ends up burying one alive in the garden with only a small pipe to breathe through. "See you next year Justin".
( awayfromthenumbers, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 10:51, 3 replies)

Creepy....
Duing my times saving the lame and lazy of Laahndan town, I was called with my mate Dave (now works for the Met Police; about the size, weight and temperament of a grizzly bear with scrotum rash) and we were called to a sheltered housing scheme in a rare bit of greenbelt on the London/Essex border.

Anyway, we arrived and walked into the block. Doris (all old women are called Doris) was absolutely fine - just woke up with a bit of asthma and scared herself, so I asked Dave to nip back to the ambulance to grab some paperwork so we could refer her to her own GP the next day.

Dave came back in about 2 minutes later with the paperwork and a look like he'd just been fingered by a poultergheist. He was not a happy camper. I asked him if he was alright, and he just shook his head quickly and stared at the front door.

So, we made Doris a cup of tea and left her in peace. As we walked down the corridor I asked Dave what in the name of God's larger and more fruity left testicle was wrong.

"Dunno Carrot. Just got the creeps going out there. Really felt uncomfortable..."

I suggested that Dave in fact came fully equipped with a womb, cervix and all other relevant female contrivances, but as he said...

"say what you want, it's fucking spooky out there."

Anyway we walked out into the carpark.
In the forest
In the middle of the night
With a wind blowing.
I looked at Dave, his face a mask of terror, mirroring mine.

Without a word, we ran like a pair of crusty paedophiles trying to reach the front row of a Justin Bieber concert, jumped into the ambulance and locked the doors. Without saying a word, Dave gunned the engine and wheelspun a 4 tonne LDV ambulance out of the carpark.

We drove a mile before we both looked at each other and said, in unison

"What if it's in the back?"

"You look"
"Fuck that, YOU look"
"No sodding way"
"OK, on 3? 1...2...3..."

We both turned. Yep, the back of the ambulance was entirely devoid of zombies, shamblers, rabid wolves and other assorted undead/axe murderers.

So, we got spooked by wind....
What a pair of hombots.
( Undercovercarrot got done for gross misconduct on..., Mon 11 Apr 2011, 10:47, 1 reply)

I love things that are a bit like French pancakes.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 10:44, 5 replies)

Phantom Bus
Years ago when I'd just passed my driving test, I was seeing a girl from the next town along. Her parents were stupidly strict and insisted that when we went out I would get her home before midnight etc... In fact, her entire family was a bit odd. When I used to pick her up, they'd all poke their heads through the chain locked door, one head on top of the other - dad at the top, mum under that and her brother under that. They were creepy enough in their own way, although that's not the creepy part of this story.
One night, I'd dropped her off at home, as requested just before midnight, and then started driving home. The road in which she lived was not a main road by a long stretch, more of a suberbian back street.
...and then I saw it. A double decker bus. An odd enough sight on a street like this at any time, let alone at midnight. It also had no lights on, and no-one on it, and was driving like a bat out of hell.
It came to a stop and passed across a crossroads which joined the road to an 'A' road, then shot across into another back street. It was then that I decided to follow it - from a distance - where it quite literally plowed into parked cars, pushing some up in the air, other on top of cars parked in front of them, until it eventually came to a stop under a street light.
It was silent. No-one came running from their house, no cars came down the road. Dead silent.
I got a bit spooked, and drove off in the other direction.
Creepy? Yes, very.
Supernatural?
Not in the slightest.
It turned out that a chap I work with had come out of the pub with a few mates, walked passed the bus station and saw a bus ticking over. Being pissed twats, one of them ran up to the bus, pressed the horn and ran away. No-one came out, so they got inside, and one revved the engine. Still no-one came out, so they decided to take it for a spin.
On the Monday morning, this chap I work with drove to my house to pick me up.
He said, "Guess what happened to me at the weekend?"
I replied, "You nicked a bus."

His face was something else.
(dchurch bah, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 10:38, Reply)

Sugared Almonds
My Nan is about 4'10 of Norfolk prejudice and I don't think she still actually 'believes in black people'.

It came as a bit of a surprise then that she did have quite an 'open-mind' for a bigot. She considered being psychic a pretty ordinary thing rather than a 'gift' and would often tell my Mum and I that we too had the ability if we'd just believe. Kind of like a slightly greener Yoda with 44GGG tits.

My siblings and I would often be forced to listen to stories such as how she knew when her father had died, as he 'visited' her in the middle of the night and told her goodbye, when he lay croaking 50 miles away.

The thing that always creeped us out the most though, was that if she left a room with unguarded biscuits/sweets, whenever she came back she would always know who had stolen what behind her back....
(Galahad is out of his gourd on yellow bentines, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 9:20, 15 replies)

Ninjas In The Dark
One of my creepiest experiences started out with a bad decision....

One evening, as was customary, I left my house to walk my dog, Sparky. Walking along, we came out onto a main thoroughfare. On the sidewalk across the street, passing by in the half-light of the street lamps, I saw six men dressed head-to-toe in black. They had a lethal nonchalance that I disapproved of. These men - jackals, really - seemed not only strange, but menacing too. I decided to follow these assassins from a distance, in order to convey the weight of my disapproval, and by extension, what I presumed to be the neighborhood's disapproval too, by my obdurate witnessing presence.

The ninjas' progress carried them through a well-lit freeway underpass. Sparky and I followed. On the other side of the underpass, the ninjas uncharacteristically scattered into the darkness. They started meandering aimlessly into the darkness for no apparent reason. Indeed, our progress on the walk carried us completely through the cloud of meandering ninjas, so now they were behind us, rather than in front.

One of the ninjas approached and asked for a cigarette. I had none to offer. Nevertheless, he didn't seem that menacing in person. The overall air of menace diminished, and my guard relaxed. Sparky and I pressed on. We came to a dark and desolate street corner, where the view was obscured by large trees....

Ambush! Suddenly ninjas approached from several different directions, handkerchiefs now obscuring their faces. One of the ninjas held at arm's length what appeared in the darkness to be a silver rectangle sporting a small dark circle. It took me several seconds to realize that I was looking at the business end of a pistol.

They seemed nervous; I was petrified. The ninjas demanded that I empty my pockets, but I had only keys; I left my money at home. Then they demanded that I remove my shoes. I did not understand the shoe demand, but I was no longer in a position to remain obdurate, so I complied. (Apparently nighttime pedestrians will sometimes place money in shoes; hence the demand.) Meanwhile, Sparky wagged his tail and attempted to make friends (some protection this canine offered).

Satisfied, the ninjas released the both of us. We walked away into the darkness, and then we started running (me in socks) on a circuitous, kilometer-long path that ended up back at the house (Sparky liked this part of the walk best). I was deeply-worried, because they now had my house key, and my car key, and they knew approximately where I lived. It would be only a matter of time before they located my house, and robbed me again, or stole my car, or perhaps showed me, by example, the power of a pistol.

Arriving home, I quickly opened the hood of the car and disabled it, by pulling fuses. I quickly slammed shut and locked the doors of the house (I had left the back door completely open on this summer's night). Then, I picked up the telephone and called the police.

While talking to the emergency operator, looking out through the windows at my car in the driveway, I saw something that made my blood freeze. Coalescing out of the darkness next to my car, a ninja appeared. The jackals had arrived!

I started shouting, and the ninja saw me through the window. He could see in the half-light that I was talking to someone on the telephone (probably calling the police). He vanished back into the shadows. In a few minutes, the police arrived....

The next day I placed locks on all the windows, and had my door and car locks redone. And I also recovered my shoes; abandoned on the street corner. For the next several nights, though, I was really messed up. I had a hard time sleeping, and once I awoke to what I thought was my doorbell. I called the police again, certain that the ninjas had returned, but I eventually realized that the doorbell was entirely in my sleeping imagination. My mind was fighting phantoms; but not entirely phantoms. Some fears are real.

The main legacy is I no longer follow strangers in order to register my disdain, no matter how they are dressed (unless they are dressed like nymphettes, or something).
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 8:34, 3 replies)

Eternal Darkness
Eternal darkness on the gamecube. They all told me "Don't look in the bathtub." I explored the mansion, saw the bath and walked past, ignoring it. Every time I passed I got a little voice saying "look in, it can't be that bad." this voice got louder, I knew I wasn't going to like it, but still I couldn't stop myself. I MUST know what's in, I MUST.

What was in the tub? Shock, fear, and soiled underwear. Couldn't even look at a bath for weeks, thank god we have a shower.
(Mong goose, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 8:32, 8 replies)

The terrifying Ten O'Clock 'orses!
When my mother was a child, in the late 30s and early 40s, her own mother would frighten her large brood to bed by the fear of the Ten O'Clock 'orses who were on their way and had just passed the Grindleys' house, only half a mile distant, and would soon reach the Wlilliamsons' on the corner...

Our Ma tried scaring my brothers and me with the 'orses in the 60s but it didn't work, possibly because by then horses were unusual in our industrial town.

As a kid I asked my mother what the 'orses were, and why they were dangerous, but she wouldn't tell me.
Later she admitted that she had no idea. She'd never dare question her own mother about it - far too scary!

Anyway...

Thanks to R4's Thinking Allowed programme, I learned last year that the Ten O'Clock 'orses really did exist. They pulled the carts for the night soil collectors who emptied the old-fashioned toilets at the bottom of people's gardens.

Working class etiquette required that these workers were left to do their work unseen, so kids had to be in bed and curtains closed as they passed.

So not only did the 'orses exist, at least up to a few generations ago, the kids really did have to be in bed before they came, or they might see something... unpleasant.

I wonder if my old granny knew what they were? She'd be well over 100 years old now so I bet she did, but she wasn't letting on.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 8:22, 12 replies)

Look and Read
An "edutainment" programme that should be familiar to anyone who attended an English primary school in the late eighties/early nineties - think it was around before then and it definitely carried on a while after (George from Being Human used to be in one particular series.)

Skyhunter, Geordie Racer, there were several different storylines, but the one that sticks in my brain, is 'Through the Dragon's Eye'. You know the story, children paint mural, mural comes to life, children wind up trying to save magical land.

Well, it was all well and good with said children having to solve logic puzzles and the like in order to repair the 'Veetacore' (far too much of this has stuck in my brain).

And then this appears. And then reappears in your nightmares for a good while afterwards. (Though this clip is from the end of the series, so it's not as scary as his first appearance)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz1pGlydYs0

A skull headed thing that zaps people into puddles. Despite the dodgy special effects, it still gives me the shudders.
(Picotee, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 6:35, 7 replies)

Doctors...

I recently had to go for a prostate exam. Dropped my trousers, bent over and felt this horrible pressure in my starfish as the doctor started to examine me.

"Jesus!" I thought. "He's being a bit rough"

Then I realised that I could still feel his hands, one on each of my hips........

Bastard could have at least bought me a drink first....

Cheers

I thenk you. I'll be under the pier all week....
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 5:02, 4 replies)