Hook, Line, Sinker
.
I was around ten or eleven when this happened and it affected the rest of my life. Since this incident I've always looked for *how did they do that* explanations for unexplainable things.

Let me take you back to 1970

~~~~~~~~~~wavy lines~~~~~~~~~~

They were building the school I eventually went to and it was a massive affair. Room for 1600 kids drawn from all over the district. It was one of the first Comprehensives in Britain.

So one weekend a group of us kids were wandering around this massive construction site. It was kind of eerie - scary.... I can remember looking at the new kitchens with the massive steam-cookers they had. These were big enough to fit at least 20 kids inside - it was disturbing. They looked very like the machines that the Cyber-Men of Doctor Who fame came out of.

I'd had enough. Something about this disturbed me. Time for me to leave. So I told my brother that I was heading back to the pond and he could met me there when they'd finished exploring.

So me and my group of younger kids headed back to the ponds leaving my brother and the older kids still exploring the site.

We waited by the pond, messing about trying to catch frogs and newts and my uneasiness gradually faded. We started to have fun again.

Then I heard it. A crashing through the undergrowth and my brothers voice screaming...

"No..No..NO..NOOOOOOOO......"

He crashed out of the bushes and fell about 20 feet away, his face awash with red. Behind him came Bob, his best mate, and a really tough bastard. He was screaming too as he legged it towards us.

Behind him came the horrors.

I've never shit or pissed myself in fear but I came desperately close to it that day. I can still remember my sphincter tightening, the hairs on my arms and my neck coming up to full bristle stage and the sheer terror of what I saw.

Running out of the bushes were the remaining three of my brothers mates. But they were altered. Their faces and arms were a hideous cracked grey - I could see grey scabs cracking and dropping off as they ran towards us. They were the undead incarnate.

I screamed and took off like a bat out of hell.

I've never been a fast runner but that day I would have left Linford Christie eating dust. I flew.


I eventually came to civilisation and headed straight for the nearest phone box. Tears where streaming down my face as I grabbed the phone and desperately dialled 999. We'd need the police and the army and the Church and - fuck-it - we'd need EVERYONE to try and deal with the undead.

The phone rang a couple of times and the n the operators voice came on with "Emergency - which service please?" and I shouted "EVERYONE...." and then the phone cut out. Bob had followed me and cut the call off.

He took me out of the phonebox and tried to explain that it was all a joke. He was four years older than me and probably weighed twice as much as me and it was all muscle but he was looking at me warily as he tried to calm me down.

Eventually sanity returned as Bob explained that it was all a joke. Nobody was hurt, nobody had been killed and the undead weren't stalking the Earth. We went back to the pond where all was revealed.

The undead effect was my brothers mates covering themselves with a thick layer of slimy mud. As the mud dried in the sun it gave the cracked peeling look that had terrified me.

The spray of red as my brother went down was simply red emulsion that they'd found on the building site.

OK - I was ten or eleven and had a vivid imagination, but nothing, ever, has come even close to the sheer terror of that day.

Gullible? - Yes.

But since then I've always looked for the rational explanation of the odd events that life throws at you.

Woo! - bit of an epic...

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Sat 23 Aug 2008, 14:24, 1 reply)

Reading that...
... I'm reminded of the "Cherry Forever" scene from Porky's, and the zombie one from the 2nd...
(AQ, Tue 26 Aug 2008, 11:44, closed)