Pissing in the dark
My mate Jack used to be a student in Dundee. One night, he came stumbling out of the pub, a bit worse for wear. As often happens, the cold air suddenly made him desperate to pee, so he proceeded in a roughly straight line to the nearest public convenience.

Those of you who are familiar with the city will know of the pyramid in Westport, just outside the Globe pub. It's an underground public toilet, topped by a pyramidal structure, and to reach the toilets you obviously have to go down stairs.

Jack made it to the pyramid, and fumbled down the stair in the pitch dark. On reaching the bottom, he found his way impeded by a large iron gate, which was locked for the night. This, in hindsight, also explained why the lights were off. Needs must though, and so he decided he really had to release the pressure in his bladder, and being out of public view he decided to do the deed there and then.

Down with his fly, out with his cock and....ohh, the relief.

Which was interrupted a few seconds later by a cry of "Haw-what-the-fuckin'-hell-ye're-pishing-on-me-ya-cunt" from a tramp who'd thought he'd found a nice place to sleep for the night, out of sight and sheltered from the wind. Jack, being past the point of no return, continued his urination but aimed in a different direction until he could muster up enough prostate power to stem the flow. Then legged it quickly up the stairs again, as the tramp, now steaming somewhat, chased him.

I think he pees in public these days. Or maybe he carries a torch.

Jack reminded me of this story last night. Shame I hadn't remembered a couple of weeks back, as it would have fitted the Tramps QotW better. But no matter.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 12:25, 1 reply)

Not so scary hallucinations
Hello. This is my first post on here - just thought you should know.

Over the last 6 years or so I've started developing some interesting hallucinations during the night. I normally wake up in the middle of the night and see things flying around or floating towards me. These hallucinations used to take on the form of quite harrowing beasts - a barking vicious dog, prehistoric insects, thousands of snakes, etc.

However as I've become more familiar with them I seem to be getting it slightly under control. I will wake up and see these things, then stare them down until they eventually disappear (usually when I'm fully awake). Recently they've also been moving away from the giant insects and becoming a lot less harrowing too. In the last 3 weeks I've had hallucinations as follows:

- Flip-flops floating towards me out my cupboard
- A baby's hand coming out of my bedside cabinet
- A Corby Trouser Press

Chilling!
(lonely_monkey, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 12:23, 8 replies)

I'll never throw a flat party again.
I was having a party at my apartment a while back, and(as I am wont to do)I got smashed. As the night went on, I decided i was ready to turn in for the night, seeing as everyone else was either on their way out or was crashed for the night.

I went to get into my bed, and felt several unnecessary limbs. I thought this strange, even in my drunken state, because I was very much single at the time. As I fumbled to turn on the lights, I am shown a very distraught couple in my bed, completely nude and evidently in the midst of copulating. Not knowing what else to say or do, and my mind not registering it was my bed, I said "I'll just be going now," and opted for passing out on the balcony instead because my couch was already full taken. Sometimes my friends are cunts.
(ev1lpoptart is known to contain at least 24 carcinogens, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 11:47, 1 reply)

Panic
My ex-girlfriend was one for screaming in her sleep. Shat me right up every time, especially when she cried out warnings like some demented soothsayer. Assualts, single yelps, death, protestation...all of these things woke me up with a start next to a sleeping lady, and it's hard to get back to sleep when your heart is racing.

"Don't hurt my mum!"
"No!"
"Leave me alone!"
etc ad nauseum.

I never once did anything to warrant this behaviour. 'Twasn't me, yr'onour.
(Land of Green Ginger It's dreamy weather, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 11:16, Reply)

My brother
Sneaking down to get a glass of water in the middle of the night. He decided not to switch the lights on in order not to wake anyone, and so failed to notice that the dog had left a large turd in the middle of the kitchen floor. He said later that the sensation of treading in it, barefoot, was 'like cold toothpaste curling between my toes'.
He didn't even clean it up, and so in the morning the evidence of his mishap was there for all the world to see, like Man Friday's lone footprint on the beach.

This was twenty years ago, and it still makes me smile every single time I think about it.
(davywavy, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 10:51, 4 replies)

The reply where Mon stops an (alleged) alien abduction
As of last year my eldest son started a phase of looking into info on UFO’s and other unexplained phenomena. At the same time Virgin (The TV Channel) started showing the X files from the beginning so I thought it would be a good idea for him to watch some episodes (I have seen most of them before and had a list of ones I would not let him watch until he was older).

We tuned into the first episode, which was the one where people were being abducted in the middle of the night by some bloke that took them to a forest where aliens beamed them up using a bright light. My son loved it and made his way to bed afterwards in the dark (He shares a room with his baby brother so he won’t put the lights on and wake him up). Unfortunately as sonny boy got curled up in bed the entire room was engulfed in light, believing that he was about to be abducted and probed he screamed his lungs out for me (What the hell I could have done against aliens is beyond me).

I calmed him down and looked out the window for the source of the problem. Outside his window was my wife who had gone into the back garden for a cig and accidentally activated the security light at the wrong time.

Bit of a reverse on the usual tales so far as he was more comfortable in the dark.
(mon bison powered by magnets, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 10:33, Reply)

Monkey
I spent an evening out and about, and came home a little stoned.

All was good. I rolled my good night J and chuffed it in bed as normal. Then something weird happened. There was a spider monkey looking out of my cupboard at me.

We stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, but was merely 3 or 4 hours as i unblinkingly watched the primate.

I somehow got to sleep, still worried that if i disturbed him, he would eat my face off as i slept.

The morning sun came, and took away my fear.

It was a towel and a t-shirt, that were trying to escape the wardrobe together. I was convinced. And proved wrong. I am such a sap sometimes.
( bazza van der trance , ooh baby baby, baby baby. Get up on this., Tue 28 Jul 2009, 10:09, Reply)

Missing Time and Alien Cleaners
First post after years, must be nearly a decade, of lurking, but 2 stories to tell and both 100% true…

Not much strange generally happens to me, I now work as a professional Engineer and am usually the one to come up with the logical explanation when strange things appear to be happening, to the extent I may almost be compared to a male, non-ginger, Scully... Anyway, back on topic:

There is a disused quarry quayside on a cliff on a hill called the Little Orme near Llandudno that is about 15 minutes walk from my mum’s house. Now this place is ultra picturesque in the sunlight, but becomes somewhat spooky in fog or in darkness. There are a scattering of signs warning that on average 1 person a year dies on there. If this wasn’t enough of a portent of doom, there is a late 19th Century memorial to some kid who fell off on a secluded part of the hill and a rock with strange writing painted on it on another part. ( I always used to put the rock down to kids messing about). It has a reputation as a suicide hotspot and just 10 days ago the police removed a body that I’ve heard couldn’t immediately be identified as male or female… Anyway, rewind near enough exactly 10 years…

I do a lot of fishing and the old quayside is a comfortable spot to try and catch some tea, it was Jul ’99 and around dusk (9.30ish) when I decided to have a snack and a drink. I can remember getting a coke and some crisps out of my tackle box and then…

Nothing

Next active event that I knew about was that it was dark, the time past 11pm and I had an empty can and packet of crisps next to me. Somehow I had lost 90 mins of time. The full moon now appearing above the cliffs above did not help the spooky feeling either… I started using logic on the situation and was trying to convince myself that I had merely dropped off to sleep and ‘sleep ate’ my snacks. As I was winding in one of my rods a piercing shriek penetrated the air that could only be described as the noise you would imagine someone would make if they were being ripped apart, alive. Logic departed, kit was packed up and I was hell bent on getting home, quickly.

My next problem was there are only 2 ways off the quayside and both of them involve climbing up 30ft of cliff bank onto where the old quarry had been, right where this shriek had come from. As I reached the brow of the bank I turned off my lamp and headlight ( a torch attached to a band around your head) and made off by the moonlight, 6” filleting knife grasped firmly in one hand. At this point I could see the rock with the weird writing was glowing a dull green colour, what was more concerning however was seeing the predator like movement of a sheep sized animal in the moonlit shadows 150m away.

There are 2 paths on that quarry that lead off the hill onto the estate, and they converge near the gate at the end, this animal was on the other one keeping abreast of me but gradually getting closer and closer as I headed for safety. It was within 10m of me when I put my headlight back on and shone the beam on it. I swear some of the light went straight through it and I was looking at a translucent grey, wolf like creature with the brightest green cats eyes you ever saw. At this it turned away and ran off and I ran in the other direction onto the nearby estate…

Next morning logic had returned and was telling me that I’d heard a vixen on heat (there are foxes about) and that in my spooked state I had actually been tracked by a wild fox or even a sheep and that my imagination did the rest. So I took my dog for a walk, no trace of anything untoward until I got the rock with the writing, my usually fearless dog wouldn’t go near it. I had a look and was chilled to find a fresh bunch of flowers laid, what looked like dried blood on the base of the rock and most scary of all a fresh bit of writing on the rock that looks very much like the symbol for Scorpio, my star sign…

Didn’t fish that area after darkness for a very long time after that…

Anyway, the following year I’m back at Uni and sharing a kitchen and dining room with 7 other people in Self Catered Halls in Liverpool. All was great, as was par for the course I was out down the pub with some course mates one Friday night, arriving back in the flat in a merrily drunk way about midnight to find my flatmates had all gone into town. Not possessing the money to go and find them I made myself a brew, went to my bedroom on the 1st floor, locked the door behind me, drank my tea and went to bed.

I woke up standing up in pitch darkness, one red LED light was the only illumination I had. A quick fumble around my surroundings made me realise that I was in a room approx 4’ by 4’ and that there was stuff on the floor. Just to make this sound even more like one of those old Spectrum text adventure games I was just wearing a pair of boxer shorts. Further feeling around of my environment found me a heavy metallic cylinder.

Logic kicked in, and it was scared…

It had remembered I’d gone to bed, it knew my window was security locked not to open out more than about 6”s and it knew I’d locked the door. I was now in a dark, confined room, with no obvious door. Logic knew that I couldn’t of been kidnapped (Not that anyone would of got more than a few tins of Tesco Value Baked Beans for me anyway) as I would’ve woken up if someone had broken into my room. Logic came to the very disturbing conclusion that the only rational explanation for my predicament was that I had been abducted by aliens who had teleported me out of my room and I was now on their ship away in the stars. This rather annoyed me as I was meant to be watching the football on Saturday.

Anyway, I decided not to accept whatever fate these extra-terrestrial beings had in store for me, anal probes definitely did not appeal. So I grabbed the metal cylinder and started hitting the walls with it. This I did, in pitch darkness, for a good 30 minutes until I heard footsteps getting closer and closer outside. I moved my metallic weapon ready to strike down whatever ungodly creature that had deemed to hold me captive. Slowly light appeared and the outline of a door appeared. I braced myself ready for an explosion of violence in my attempt to escape the alien menace, only to be greeted by the confused face of my American flatmate who I’d woken up by making a racket with a fire extinguisher whilst trapped in the cleaner’s cupboard at 4am in the morning.

Sleepwalking is a marvellous thing at times. I still can’t explain why I thought it necessary to go to the kitchen first, collect all the tea spoons and hide them under the vacuum cleaner before going back to normal sleep standing up in a cleaner’s cupboard…

Length… Well I can’t see both ends at once…
(Reinforced-Plastic, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 10:08, 3 replies)

switch the lights on next time...
When i was a student way back, I was sneaking out of the house early to go to Football or Hockey practice on a Saturday morning.

The house was one of those 70s throw backs with an open stair case and those awful non-solid doors.

In the half light i tiptoed downstairs holding all my kit attempted to walk into the kitchen as the door was wide open and BANG! I walked straight into the door.

Seconds past as I swore quietly but ferociously. No noise from upstairs. Good, I haven't woken everyone else up. Off to town then.

Carefully opening the door, grabbing crash hat and off to the practice pitch.

About half an hour later the phone rang - 'Twicey, what did you do to the door?'

- 'Nothing just walked into it, hard!'

- 'It's got a hole in it the dog can walk through'

- 'Fuck!'

Apparently my knee, toe and hockey stick had passed through the door.

We lived for about 4 months with a kind of reverse stable door, so no bottom section and a complete top section that still shut. This lead to many more injuries - mainly drunken.

Apologies for lenght - I think the stick was about 4ft.
(twiceydrinker hmmm is it pint time?, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 9:34, Reply)

jesus!

I must have been about 4 or 5 when i woke in the middle of the night to see, for some unknown reason why i thought it was, Jesus Christ himself. I was terrified. I thought he'd come for me and this was the end. Scared, I hid my head under the covers and hoped he would go back to Heaven. Even to this day i haven’t been as scared as i was that night. You know when you cant even shout for help, you don’t want to even breathe. I don’t think i even cried, i didn’t dare. I have no idea how i got to sleep.

When i woke up in the morning, where Jesus had stood was my dressing gown hanging on the back of the door.
(KellieFo zomgz11!, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 7:42, 1 reply)

Bloody Love the Dark
I got back from visiting relatives in Wexford, Ireland yesterday. Their place is utterly rural, much more so than the place i grew up in in the middle of the Pennines. At night there's literally not a single street lamp within 10 miles and it's just so dark and black that if you're indoors you cannot see your arm infront of your face, no matter how long you let your night-vision adjust.
The total blackness is just so relaxing and peaceful, best few nights sleep i've had in years. *shrug* no horror story, sorry. Just made me realise how 'bright' nighttime is here in urban land.
( Shiodome has realised numbers in names aren't cool., Tue 28 Jul 2009, 5:07, 2 replies)

bindun?
It was a strange day, I had got up in the evening and I had nothing to say, when I went back to bed the next morning I felt the same way. We where in a rut, so my missus and I decided to head out for a night and do something different. I wasn’t looking the best so I decided I probably should change my clothes and while I was at it my hair and if I could find away my face.

We headed to a club that had an open fire and an indoor shooting range. Unfortunately when we got there the fire had not been lit as they had run out of matches and as everyone knows you can’t start a fire without a spark. My wife had a go at the indoor shooting range and the weapon she used was very nice, I asked her where she had got it and she told me that this guns for hire.

The music started up and it was some old Bruce Springsteen tracks, we bopped around together having a great time but, the fuse for the lights blew and the club went totally black but, the music kept playing. I twirled my missus around and started to fox trot with her, we having so much fun, just dancing in the dark.
(bad_advice QOTW survivor from the first trollocost!, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 3:44, 1 reply)

Synthesizer noise explosion
I've played keyboards since I was a nipper. When I was about 12 or 13 I had my shiny new Casio synth set up in my room, complete with huge closed-back headphones. I would tinkle away happily for hours composing tunes, lost in the aural fug of cheesy, formulaic three-chord music*

One hot, humid day that summer I'd been practicing after dinner. Before retiring to my wanking fortress bed I opened the windows and switched on a tall pedestal fan I'd picked up at a thrift sale, placing the headphones on the convenient handle on top of it instead of their usual home on the floor. The fan was a bit wonky and unstable with only three of its four base legs intact, but it worked fine. I left the keyboard switched on, probably through sheer laziness.

Much later and probably after a couple of wanks I was soundly asleep. My slumber was broken by a strong gust of wind slamming into the curtains, which brushed against the fan. I opened my bleary eyes just in time to see the rotating fan falling slowly towards the keyboard. The headphones were yanked from their jack and the fan crashed into the keyboard, pressing several keys to produce a fucking terrifying Hammer Horror 'shock cut' dischord sting followed shortly by the clattering noise of the fan itself hitting the deck. That was bad enough and undoubtedly woke the entire house (if not the street), but a moment later the room was filled with terrible electronic music playing at full volume. The cunting fan had pressed the demo button on the way down too.

I leapt out of bed into the darkness, accompanied by a rousing 80s synth ensemble blaring out of the surprisingly powerful built-in speakers. Unable to locate the power button, I yanked the plug out at the socket just as it entered a crescendo. Fucking noisy bastard.

*I'm better now
( chart cat has an itch, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 3:19, 6 replies)

Zombie Assaults and rather po'd girlfriends
This one goes back a few years; I had rather an obsession with the oncoming Zombie Apocalypse. Mostly from the Zombie Survival Guide and watching too many zombie flicks. Anyway, I was a young lad and had just moved out of home for the first time with my then girlfriend of 6 months.

Now, I've always been rather active in my sleep, carrying out full conversations or just yelling random things at people. (Was also informed that I have engaged in carnal acts while completely asleep). Fortunately, my then girlfriend was blissfully unaware of any of this, and recounted this story to me in shock the following morning.

It was the middle of the night, after having fallen asleep reading the zombie survival guide, I suddenly and without warning leap clear out of our bed, ran to the door and pushed our rather substantial wardrobe in front of it in a blind panic waking up the missus, who comes to calm me down. At this point, without saying a thing I heft our king sized bed onto its side and ram it against the wall. Satisfied with this act, I turned to my partner who asks (well, screams. Apparently she doesn't get sleep walker etiquette)

"What the hell?" to which I calmly replied
"Didn't you watch the news? We're under attack. They're coming".
"Who's coming?" asks my rather indignant girlfriend.
"The living dead!"

She doesn't tell me what happened after this, but I woke up the following morning with a rather peculiar bruise on my jaw.
(dragoom, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 2:58, 1 reply)

never share a room with my sister
there is something very creepy and decidedly sinister about a tiny blonde woman, fast asleep, laughing the most evil, chuckly laugh imaginable.
she may be my little sister, but until i moved out, she regularly freaked me right the fuck out with her nocturnal sniggering :(
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 1:25, Reply)

My uncle's forest
My uncle lives in the Pacific North West of the USA, in the San Juan Islands. If you've ever seen "Wargames" then you'll have seen them as the place where Professor Falken lives. Anyway...

He lives in a house in the forest. It's only 20m from the road but it's still in the forest. My Dad and I went to visit back in 1986, and we went for a stroll around the forest, so that Uncle could show us his tree farming techniques. (Actually quite interesting.)

Twilight fell fast on the way back, and we have about quarter of a mile to get back through the forest. And Uncle starts talking about evolved reflexes for danger, and how the forest at night is just about the worst place for a plains ape to be caught.

About how, in every shadow, we see something there to get us.

About how, in every pit in the ground there is a snake.

Now, I'm pretty rational, and so is my Dad. Uncle is hyper-rational - he was a University Professor. The only animals I ever saw on the island were chipmunks, although there is a family of racoons nearby too, apparently.

And yet we ended up practically running home having psyched each other out so much with tales of things that weren't there.

So, when someone has a perfectly rational explanation of something scary, I think back to that night and realise that it's not the rational part of your mind that works you adrenal glands. So we need to cut everyone some slack.

Especially in the dark.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Mon 27 Jul 2009, 22:13, 1 reply)

You've been talking in your sleep...
Four o' clock in the morning... as Andrew Eldritch once intoned menacingly on the track 'After Hours' (I think). It's the middle of winter, it's pitch black in our room, save for the glow coming from the LCD on the alarm, and I'm gradually awoken by some barely distinguishable mumblings from the missus; an incoherent mixture of English and Greek (for some reason she speaks Greek when she's sleep-talking, it's quite amusing). I'm lying there, half amused by the barely-coherent ramblings, but half pissed off as I know that if I don't get back to sleep within the next ten minutes then I'm going to lie awake until just before the alarm goes off at seven.

The murmerings continue unabated, becoming more random and more incomprehensible than Paul Gascoigne on a lucid day. I try giving her a gentle prod (quiet at the back), but to no avail.

She'll stop soon, I think. She usually does.

But no. Fifteen more minutes of dogged chuntering and she still hasn't stopped. At this point I'm about to contemplate getting up and kipping on the sofa, when suddenly she sits bolt upright, a look of collosal indignation on her face (I can make this out as my eyes have gradually got used to the darkness), and to no-one in particular venomously announces...

OH, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!!

Then there's a brief pause as she sits there shaking her head disapprovingly, before laying back down and finally drifting off into a fitful slumber.

I didn't manage to get back to sleep properly after that. I was too busy giggling like a 12 year old.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Mon 27 Jul 2009, 21:08, 8 replies)

The Very Worstest Thing About The Dark?
Is not being able to see the spilled Lego on the child's bedroom floor.

Ow. Fucking OW!!
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Mon 27 Jul 2009, 20:11, 4 replies)

In a dark, dark house in a dark, dark wood...
But seriously, after reading QOTW for ages I think it's about time that I shared a true story with you about some very serious events which occurred in my younger years.

So, on to the story proper: I was abducted when I was 4 years old and kept in small dark room. (Seriously, this is not a Mad Cann joke).

When I was 4 my mum had met a new man (Tom) and after 18 months of a long distance relationship we had all (me Mum, me brother and me) upped sticks and relocated to an idyllic little town close to Newton Abbot in Cornwall. Things were great! Having moved from Blackburn up north, the change of scenery and warm weather were a god send: You could play out until really late because it didn’t get dark for ages, you could play out in your shorts and T-shirt from dawn until dusk without getting cold, the sea was nearby, playing fields and countryside were abundant. Because it was a small community in which everyone knew everyone else, all was nice, peaceful, normal and safe. Life was good for our little crew for a change and even at 4 years old I could tell that Mum was happier than she had been for a long time.

Anywho, while playing in the local vicinity me and my brother made friends with all the other kids in the area including the brother and sister team of Tom, aged 7 and little Susie aged 3 or 4yrs. These were nice kids and we enjoyed hanging out and doing the things that kids growing up in the countryside will do. We would sometimes go to their house and watch videos or play with their legos or in the paddling pool they had out back of the house. They would come to our house and sometimes my mum would make us toys from cleverly folded and cut newspapers.

Tom and Susie’s dad was a little man. One of those little men that can’t control his temper very well and is apt to over react at quite the smallest thing. Generally, he was noticeably tense and often displayed outward signs of a nervous internal battle of some kind or stress perhaps (he was a bit loco, really).

Tom and Susie’s mum was a trophy wife with enormous breasts, revealing clothes and hideous breath. The sort of woman who you could imagine being beaten by her husband for some percieved misdemeanor, but who would then side with her husband and turn on the police or any other good samaritan who might have come to her aid.

One day, Tom and Susie had been out with their parents to a car boot sale and returned in the afternoon with a particularly poor selection of second hand toys. I don’t remember what Tom received but Susie had one of those push-me-pull-you-ride-along-trolley affairs with wooden bricks with letters and numbers painted on them. By this time me and my brother were well in to Thundercats and pirates so weren’t really interested in their new toys and so brother disappears to play down the street with someone other kids and leaves me with . The next bit is a bit of a blur but after a while Toms dad is screaming bloody murder because something has happened to Susies new toy - Its broken.

It must be about 7 or 8pm now (this was years ago before the days of blatant scare mongering in the media so it was not unusual for us to be playing out this late especially in summer) and my brother comes to look for me because it’s time for tea. He can’t find me, I’m not with Tom and Susie (who have been ordered to bed for being naughty, I’m not over at James’ house and I’m not down the road with Simon and Martin.

That’s because I’m in a dark cupboard under the basement stairs deep below the house where Tom and Susie live.

In his infinite wisdom and total ineptitude my friend’s Father had coerced me in to the house and then begun screaming at his kids because of the damage to their brand new toys. I was only little and screaming adults really shit me up when I was a little boy so I stayed schtum. I remained quiet as he sent the little ones off to bed with no dinner and and asked me if I was scared of the dark... I wasn’t but I couldn’t answer anyway because I was too scared of this screaming madman. He grabbed me roughly by the neck and dragged me down stairs “where I could sit and think about owning up to this heinous crime” before my mum got here (I didn’t do it by the way, it was probably already broken).

So in to this cupboard I go to await my parents to come and pick me up and give me a good hiding (for fuckskates, I was even more scared of my mum than this look so I just sat there in the dark and waited for my mum to come round and kick my arse all the way home. And I waited. And waited. . .

Meanwhile back at the ranch, our tea is going cold and my mum us having a bit of a freak out over the disappearance of one of her offspring.

After a bit of calming down, Mum and Tom (step dad) are canvassing the neighbourhood looking for me because “he can’t have gone far...” (They didn’t call the police at this stage as in those days parents took responsibility for their children and usually looked in the usual hangouts and phoned friends etc before calling the fuzz and dumping responsibility on them filing a missing persons report). Brother Shaun is waiting at home in case I return of my own accord.

My stepdad checks at Tom and Susie’s first (last place I was seen) and “No Mr. M0rre, he hasn’t been here for more than an hour and a bit” says my kidnapper. (I actually hear this exchange but am too scared to call out fearing more trouble when I am finally caught).

They check the rest of our friend’s houses, then the swings, the park, the bottom of the long road where we lived (where we were expressly forbidden from going) and every other conceivable place they can think of. After a searching everywhere, twice, it’s almost time to call the police when one of our neighbours returns in his car and pipes up with:

“I’m sure that I saw Mr. Tom and Susie’s dad talking Aroe inside their house about dinner time, have you checked over there?”

Hmmmm, thinks mum (who is training to be a barrister at the time) and turns to confront my step-father... “I thought you had checked over there already – For fuckskates Tom (Step dad) what are you playing at?”

Tom replies with “I did and they told me.... Wait here”.

Mum: “No, you can get ta fuck – I’m going over there meself...” (Mum still had her strong northern accent then) So Mum trots over to the house in question and hammers on the door... My step dad is following closely behind.

Although I have scant memory of this next bit I have subsequently been filled in from my older brother, my stepdad, family members and my mum (less so my mum as she feels guilty ((she shouldn’t)) and doesn’t like to talk about it).

Mum: “Excuse me Mr. Tom & Susie’s Dad” but our good friend and neighbour has assured us that Aroe did not come home from your garden today but was seen entering your house less than 2 hours ago. With you. For the last time, is Aroe here?”

T&S DAD: “Do you know that I spent £100 today on toys for my kids and SOMEONE has broken them? I’m not made of money you know and I can’t be doing with. . . ).

Mum: “Broken what? What are you talking about? If my son is in your house, you will be in very serious trouble and I will ensure that....

T&S DAD: “Ensure what? Are you threatening me?”

My stepdad: “Mum, go home and wait for me there – I will be back shortly” (he doesn’t call my mum “mum” that would be weird, he calls her by her christian name but anyway, I’m not putting that down in writing here).

By this time I’m tired, hungry and really need a wee. The floor is cold and feels wet and my biggest fear, spiders, could be descending on me from above at any moment! A short time later I hear my name being called from upstairs and hey it’s my step dad Tom shouting out to me....

“Aroe, Aroe! Are you in there?”

I can tell I am not in trouble because if I was it would be mum calling my name and delivering the beats, not Tom.

“TOOOOOOOOOM! I’m down here!”

BANG BANG! “Get out of my AAARGH, FFFucccking let go of my arrrrrrgargle!”

Next thing I know the cupboard is unlocked and there’s Tom turning on the light!

Tom: Hello “Aroe, what are you doing down here, eh?”

Me: “Um, I dunno”

Tom: “You mean that you DON’T know – “dunno” is not a real word. Well never mind that, teas getting cold let’s get you home”.

And that’s it. We walk halfway back to our little house and there’s mum running down the path to greet us.

Mum: “Oh my god you found him!Where have you been?If you ever go anywhere ever again your in serious trouble melado!”

Tom: “I’m just off to have a quick word with Mr. Tom and Susies dad, back in a minute”.

And he was. Tom came back a while later all covered in blood and with a nasty set of bruises on his left hand. Mum put Toms blood stained shirt and jeans in the washing machine on a hot wash with lots of bleach and we sat down to have a nice meal of beef and red peppers with rice (or mash for me and my brother).

The police came around to question Tom about an apparent assault as we were finishing up our tea but they didn’t stay for long. They left after a quick chat with my parents and went over the road to talk to Tom and Susie’s mum about the welfare of her kids.

No one saw the evil man for a few days afterwards, the car didn’t move from the driveway and it looked like he wasn’t going to work anymore. He surfaced a few days later but wouldn’t hang around in the street for long. I remember he had a very lumpy face, was wearing sunglasses even though it was dark out. And his mouth was all funny looking like he was munching on cotton wool.

To my parent’s surprise, I wasn’t affected by the “ordeal” at all until many years later when my brother reminded me about it. I had very little memory of it but got the details from asking around and speaking to stepdad Tom. For a while I was tempted to go back and unleash an epic arse kicking of my own but found out that his wife had left him not long afterwards and he had suffered from alcoholism and depression so it just didn’t seem worth it.

Until we moved away to live in in London, I wasn’t scared of playing out and I still hung around with Tom & Susie whenever I wanted. Their dad never looked at me let alone spoke another word to me again.

Surprisingly I am not and was never afraid of the dark. Spiders still shit me up though.

The End.

(Please don’t feel sorry for me, I have always been fine with this and came to no harm whatsoever. Writing this has caused a tear or two but only for my dear Mum who I love very much. Over all it’s been very cathartic. Maybe next week I will write a story about losing someone you love in a car crash or something equally maudlin but until then, keep smiling people).

/Length.
/Line breaks
(aroe_m0rre, Mon 27 Jul 2009, 17:38, 11 replies)

Temporary paralysis
Every so often I sleep in a position that cuts the blood flow off to either my arm or my leg. This results in the blood starved limb to go completely numb and unusable.

It's usually my arm and for the first few times it was a bit of a novelty: for any of you who have seen Gone In Sixty Seconds I was able to try out "The Stranger". It doesn't work - numb arm/hand = no grip.

My leg going numb has only happened a few times but the results are always spectacular. I'll sit up, swing my legs around, step out of bed and end up in a cursey/sweary pile on the floor. This is particularly fun in the middle of the night when you need the toilet and twice I have had to drag myself across the floor to the bathroom because my damn leg wouldn't work.
(Angio can smell your fear just by looking at you., Mon 27 Jul 2009, 17:12, 11 replies)

The dark, the ring and the scared shitless
Going back a few years now I did something truly evil in the dark and I have still not had my apology accepted.

After spending a lovely boozy night out with my friend Ana we had made it back to her flat in the wee hours of the morning a little how shall we say, inebriated and in a bit of a silly mood.

Zigzagging up her garden path Ana was at the front door struggling with her keys while I wandered up to the living room window and spied her hubby and his mates all crashed out on the sofas watching a film. I proceeded to wave manically at the guys expecting one of them to notice me and let us in – this didn’t happen. It was then I realised they couldn’t see me through the window as it was so dark outside so I did what any sensible well-adjusted grownup would do and pulled faces at them and stuck my fingers up, Ana hearing my hysterical giggles staggered over and joined in.

After a few minutes I stopped being a dick and noticed what they were watching on the TV, it was The Ring. Ahaahahahaaaaa thought I – bloody brilliant! Seeing as I had seen the film already I knew roughly how far they were into it and I realised that in about 5 minutes time the phone would ring on the screen. I rummaged crazily for my mobile whilst filling in Ana on my dastardly plan.

The second the phone appeared on the screen and we could just about hear it ringing through the window I frantically rang Ana’s other half and we prayed that he had his mobile phone near him… he did. We watched with glee as all the guys started giggling nervously and pointed at his phone. He picked it up, pressed the call button and I put on my best spooky voice and whispered ‘In seven days you will die’ I then hung up the phone and me and Ana threw ourselves against the window in unison, scaring the shit out of every guy in the room and making them produce high pitch squeals that would make a 4 year old girl proud!!

It goes down in history as being the most successful prank I have every played to this day and if mentioned around the boys it always receives the same response – ‘we knew it was you, I wasn’t scared’… sure, sure! Mwah ha haaaa!
(Flim-Flam the Magnificent "You is talking loco and I like it!", Mon 27 Jul 2009, 17:06, 23 replies)

in the dark you can't see my cans
This story certainly won't score me in any points in the "unquestionably feminine" category but here goes.

1987, the summer I turned 18, I was sitting on a golf course drinking and smoking weed with a bunch of other kids, some of whom went to other high schools and I didn't know very well. The fact that it was so dark and visibility was so limited was actually comforting to me, it endowed everyone with a sort of "invisibility".

Earlier in the day, I had gotten a root perm, a technique that allowed my New Jersey girl hair to reach unprecedented voluminous heights. A girl started talking to me, we made suburban teenager small talk. This consisted of, in New Jersey in the summer of 1987 of the benefits of hair product, the awesomeness of Bon Jovi and of course how drunk we were both getting.
And then.....she asked me if I wanted to take a walk. How odd. Girls don't take walks with other girls....Oh. Oooooooooh. Oh I see. Now, today as a woman of the world, I would relish this sapphic invitation. Back then though, I assumed she thought I was a dude. A dude who agreed with her that Jon Bon Jovi was "oh my god, so fucking hot". It's also possible she mistook me for a heavy metal lesbian. I'll never know.

Unfortunately, this was not the first time I was mistaken for a boy or man, and not the last, but thankfully, it was the ONLY time it happened in the dark.
(persnickety I Am The Seaward, Mon 27 Jul 2009, 16:55, Reply)

Unfamiliar buildings, skunk and unseen terrors of the night.
This isn't one of my proudest moments i have to admit, although from time to time i do wonder what was going through my mind.

Travel back in time a few years and I find myself as the assistant manager of a pub in Rainford. This was a decent new job, social, well paid but long hours although I managed to secure full access and rent free digs in the flat above the pub, which had far too many rooms for my meagre posessions. I basically occupied two rooms of the flat and left the other three rooms empty (one or two half decorated), which was always a bit disconcerting and sometimes creepy.

So needless to say, i enjoyed my space to a degree, although i never seemed to get much sleep (presumably because there was 24 hour access to alcohol in the pub below me) and the fact that it was quite an old building..

Anyhoo, for a few weeks i reaped the pleasures of such a position, very often not seeing my boss for days as he spent most of the time playing golf or driving around in his BMW, so this left me practically in charge of the pub. Now in Rainford when a customer tells you to 'get yourself a drink', they don't mean take fifty pence, they mean get a drink. And for a while i would accept their kindly offer, but after a while i realised that it simply was not possible to manage a business whilst bladdered, so i would usually just leave my pre-paid drink in the keg, slowly tallying them up.

At one point i seem to remember having about thirty or so drinks in the keg and wondering how/when i would drink them all. Now at that point in my life, i had recently discovered the joys of cannabis but didn't have a clue as to how to roll a joint. But luckily a customer who frequencted said public house was also a smoker and after a little debate, I realised that in exchange for a pint of two, he would bring me a few ready made joints for me to smoke after hours.
So i would trade my free beer for free weed. Perfect.

Perfect... that is until he failed to tell me about the mind-blowing skunk he had loaded into one particular bad boy. I went to my room after locking up the old pub, ensuring all the rooms were empty and locked the safe before nipping up to my bedroom for a 'chill'.

I lit it up, lay down on my bed and played a few of my favourite songs on the stereo, taking epic drags of this new-fangled 'skunk' joint and unwinding, letting my muscles relax after a rather tough day. But i'd never smoked skunk before, i'd usually smoked weak stuff and usually shared a join with friends.

But not tonight baby, tonight was the night i went insanely paranoid.
A few minutes later, i felt anxious... My heart was racing... something was wrong. Something didn't feel right.
I was always paranoid about burglars, and now strange sounds out in the hallway, a kind of scratching sound did little to reassure me.

'Oh shit!', thought I. I'm being burgled... I tip toed across my room and put my ear to the door. Yes, definately... It certainly wasn't my over active imagination, nor the drugs. There was definately something outside my room... something nasty, ominous and unseen.

What to do? Ring the police... No. The room smelled of skunk. So i did what any man would do, i grabbed a miniature sized cricket bat that i kept under my bed and slowly opened my bedroom door ready to strike the invader, but all i was confronted with was oppressive darkness.

Phew... it WAS just my imagination. I kicked myself for being a fool and went back to my room and sat down and had another epic drag of the skunk joint (as no doubt it would calm my jangled nerves). But no sooner had sat down and relaxed, there it was again... A loud scratching/rustling sound, somewhere outside my door.
What the fuck was it?
It didn't really sound human. My heart was now pumping against my rib cage, there was something evil playing with my mind. This wasn't right. My meagre cricket back might be good for hitting burglars but it now felt useless in my hands.

I listened closely, it was like a rustling sound... Maybe some form of giant bird. What the fuck was a giant bird doing in my home?
I was at this point having a paranoid break down. I paced my room, unable to control the cold panic that fluttered my weakening heart.

Ok... i formed a plan. I would either:

A) jump out of my window

B) Run out of my room, armed with the crap cricket bat

C) Be found curled up in the corner of the room, arm outstretched in a grotesque maddened state.

I went for B.

So, i tip toed to my door, sprang it open and ran into the dark corridor (possibly yelling something) and tripped over something soft and dark that made a horrific crackling sound. Aaaaargh.... I scrambled to my feet, i'd lost my weapon, i bounced blindly off the wall, stumbling to the light switch that lay six feet away on the far wall... Oh god, i could still hear it shuffling behind me. I was doomed.... My fingers scraped the wall, feeling for the plastic texture of the light switch, terror creeping behind me....

Yes ladies and gentlemen, that was the night i had been terrified of a bin bag containing the scrapings of wall paper that was gently rustling in the breeze from an open window somewhere in the flat.

Fuck.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Mon 27 Jul 2009, 16:52, Reply)

Poor people
I was awoken by an argument being conducted outside my flat. A man and a woman, I believe they were a couple. She was quite loud, he was very very loud.

She shouted "well what if he [performs a particular action]"
He bellowed "if he does that i'll cutting his fucking head off"

"Oh good", I thought, "My Newcastle simulator has arrived"
(teebie jeebie, Mon 27 Jul 2009, 16:44, 1 reply)

mrgibbles has just reminded me of this one
I used to be a regular at a sadly now closed West End nightclub called The End. The End was particularly special in that everyone was always completely off their faces and the bouncers really didn't give a crap. The fact that the toilet cubicles had a little shelf at the perfect height for, and with no apparent purpose other than to snort illegal substances off will give you an idea of this club's drugs policy.

About a year ago I got into taking ketamine. For those of you not familiar with the stuff, I've found that the best way to describe it is that it is a funny little drug in that it has wildly different effects on different people and that it is highly dose dependent. If you take a little bit it kind of shifts reality by a degree or two - you see the world just a tiny bit differently to normal, but you still know what's going on. If you take a bit more of it, it's a bit like being drunk with some hallucinogenic effects. And if you take a lot of it you end up in a k-hole, which I'm sure most of you will have heard of. Due to not wanting to end up in a k-hole, particularly outside of the safety of my own home, I had been rather careful with the stuff and always erred on the side of caution with it - you can always take more if you don't get enough of a buzz from it, but you can't untake it if you've taken too much.

One night I was in The End which had one of the darkest main rooms known to man and in the corners of the dance floor it was even darker. Due to the lax drugs policy, and the fact that you only saw a bouncer in the main room when they were trying to get you to leave at the end of the night, I decided that it would be a good idea to take some k in the corner rather than fight through the crowd to get to the toilets. Due to the fact that it was pitch dark, I couldn't really see what I was doing and when I snorted a bump it felt like it might have been a little bit more than I would usually take. Oh bugger, I thought but a few minutes later I still felt ok so I started to relax a bit thinking that I'd gotten away with it. And then it hit me like a tonne of bricks. I had just enough time to ask me mate to watch me and grab onto a conveniently place speaker for dear life. I spent the next half an hour or so hugging said speaker and being entirely disconnected from my body. For a while I thought I was part of the speaker and for a while I even thought I was part of the music, it was really one of the most intense experiences of my life. So this is the story of how the dark put me in my first k-hole, luckily it was in The End and not another club or I would have found myself wandering the London streets in a k-hole. I imagine that this would have been even scarier than the time I found myself wandering around San Antonio in a k-hole, but that's a story for a different QOTW.
(mmm....beer, Mon 27 Jul 2009, 16:44, Reply)

Scaredy Cats
I used to get scared playing Aliens on the Spectrum. I was 10.

My other half gets scared playing Luigi's Mansion on the GameCube. She's 31.
( scoshi pretending to diet since, Mon 27 Jul 2009, 16:26, 1 reply)

When I was a child, a boy at my school was run over and killed
A few nights later I saw him standing on my front lawn, I watched him from my bedroom window. I wanted to go and tell my parents but I knew they would be angry at me for being awake and out of bed.

More than 25 year have passed since that night and I have put it down to an overly vivid dream. I am now a grown man with my own house, but on clear moonlit nights I shudder at the thought of looking out of my bedroom window at the lawn.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Mon 27 Jul 2009, 16:26, 2 replies)

Spirits
Not quite in the dark, but in her mind a lot of this happens during the night...

A friend's mother complains occasionally about the resident poltergeist in their house moving things around into strange places. A tea towel for example, will move from the drawer in the kitchen into the bedroom, or the TV remote being removed and deposited in the garage.

Funny thing is, the mischievous ghoul nearly always helps itself to the drinks cabinet as well.

Which annoys her no end, as she rather likes glass or five herself every evening.
(Neil_E_There didn't the Aussies used to be good at cricket?, Mon 27 Jul 2009, 16:15, 1 reply)

The Rats by James Herbert
Left me awake a few nights after that. So did Lair.
( Methylene Blue - electrohead, Mon 27 Jul 2009, 16:14, 1 reply)