Mutilated Skull
I'm walking along the street, whistling a happy tune. There's a large lorry parked by the side of the fairly narrow pavement, but there's room to squeeze past between it and the fence. As I pass, suddenly something lolls out of a gap in the wooden slats, mere inches from my face.

I look up. It's pink and fleshy, with clumps of hair sprouting from it. It's scarred and caked in filth, but in a flash I recognise it as a deformed, shrivelled human head. Worse, where the eye should be there's just a gaping, empty socket, caked in blood.

I let out a yell that caused cyclists to swerve and a flock of birds to wheel frantically into the air. Lurching back against the fence beside me, I cower as far away from this ghastly apparition as I can.

And from there I can see that it is, in fact, the nose of a curious cow. The "eye socket" was its nostril.

Bastard.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 2 Nov 2015, 9:03, 2 replies)

At university I had quite long hair
which, untouched by the caresses of Pantene 2-in-1 or any other fancy cosmetics, was a lanky mess of medusa-like tendrils.

To take advantage of this, I bought a sleeveless black dress, some elbow-length velvet gloves and a big floppy witch's hat. The whole outfit contrasted nicely with my size 12 army boots, in which I clomped my way around a pub crawl in Portsmouth one chilly Halloween.

Portsmouth's pubs fall into two categories. Tacky shitholes that cash in on idiotic student drunkenness, and Victorian relics patronised by toothless thugs who hate students with a passion. When planning a pub crawl, you keep your route strictly within the zone of student bars; taking inane student bollocks into a "real" pub is asking for a pint glass in the face.

I took a wrong turn. I don't know how, maybe I tripped over my army boot laces or got sidetracked by my own startling reflection in a shop window, but I ended up separated from the pack of slutty schoolgirls and Jesus impersonators that make up a typical student halloween. And I ended up in The Wrong Pub.

I spent the rest of the night perched on the lap of a gurning ex-punk or ex-docker (or ex-whatever Portsmouth residents used to be when they still classed as humans), sipping pints he bought me and giggling in my best tranny's accent as he felt up the grapefruit I'd stuffed into my bra. I'm not sure if he ever realised I was a bloke or not, or how close our bollocks were considering how thin my dress was.
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Mon 26 Oct 2015, 10:56, 8 replies)

my mrs and I moved into a rental house few years ago
which was creepy weird in quite a few ways, but it suited us in many ways and was in a great area between huge mansions etc, and the rent was a bargain, i had friends living within 2 blocks of us paying 3 times what we paid for a 1 bedroom bedsit, but we got a 5 bedroom house with huge yard and garage. ok the place had a lot of things that normally would have been fixed up if requested by tenants but we had a kind of agreement with the landlord that if i maintained the place and didnt need anything fixed, the rent would stay the same. my mrs was in the backyard one day digging a plot for a vegetable garden
when she freaked out and came running inside.. she had found bones in the ground that looked like they were hacked up and burnt with clothes attached to them, so i went out and sure enough.. bones.. human.. jaw bones with teeth, pelvis, spine.. so we moved the veggie garden elsewhere, kept our mouths shut and reburied them. like i said it was really great rent and we didnt want to run the risk of police knocking down the house to dig up the yard..
( R2Dtard Poor kids are as smart as white kids, Wed 28 Oct 2015, 20:41, 6 replies)

Too scary for the kids on the doorstep
If you want to terrify the trick or treaters at Halloween, wear a rubber devil mask and growl at them.

When they say 'Poo, that's just a mask!' whip it off, to reveal a further horse-head mask underneath.

The horse mask suddenly pops out, giving an effect like when the bloke in Beetlejuice pulls his face out into a beak.

We frightened so many children so severely with that one that we're seriously expecting to be sued.
Even the teenagers were thoroughly rattled.

Mr Quar was half-suffocated but it was worth it.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Wed 4 Nov 2015, 19:29, 4 replies)

And again (but still haven't been back to the hotel)
This is a recent experience and, when I went through it, I wished that the 'creepy' qotw was still open. But, I write it here anyway because you can go check out the hotel for yourselves next time you are in central London and see how you react. I, for one, was shitting myself.

My colleagues at work (feeling in a generous mood) treated me to a weekend at the Lanesborough hotel in Knightsbridge for my Birthday..basically a swanky boys weekend. I had no idea about this hotel, but it's seriously luxurious. When you arrive, a butler in a penguin suit unpacks everything for you and your ’outfit for the evening’ is pressed.. You are given personalized stationary ( complete with business cards) so that when you go shopping, you can leave a card for the packages to be delivered. No minibar, but a range of large crystal decanters..etc etc. Each floor has that butler on standby and I must admit I got used to having my own personal Jeeves quite quickly

The first day and evening, we lapped it up..We sat in the bar drinking martinis and generally behaving like ponces. Went to sleep in a massive bed feeling very good about life.The next day, in the afternoon, I was walking out of my room and as I was locking the door, noticed five middle aged women standing in the corridor looking around them smiling. As I was walking towards them to get to the lift, I thought their manner was a bit odd (no one really hangs about in hotel corridors) and asked if they were lost in a friendly way. They laughed self-consciously and told me that they used to work on this floor when it was a hospital. I must have looked surprised, and so they nattered on, taking out an old photo album to show me, full of b&w photos of themselves in uniforms reminiscent of Carry On Nurse movies... They told me that they had come down to London for the weekend and the management of the hotel had let them walk around for old times sake. I asked them what my floor was and they said it was the ward used when people were in and out of intensive care, and pointed out the window to the curving road where the ambulances would come in. They were reminiscing as much to each other as to me and one of them mentioned ”Wasn't the grey lady on this floor?” and another one said ”no” just as they remembered that I was still standing there. Of course, I had to ask ”who was the grey lady?” and they all went quiet. Realising they had put their foot in it, they started by telling me that it was all ”ok”, there had been a service by a priest when they had started converting it to a hotel and then told me (still standing there, really wishing I hadn't asked the question) that they always knew when a patient in intensive care wasn't going to make it because they would ask the nurses ”who is the kind lady in the grey uniform?”. Many patients had given them several descriptions such that they reckoned that ”she” was wearing the uniform of a nurse in the crimean war, when the hospital was originally built.

So, all excited, I went to join my colleagues in the hotel bar. One of them is mega superstitious, and whilst going a shade of grey himself, he asked for the concierge to come and have a word. I related what the nurses had told me and this concierge spoke quietly and rather seriously that, yes, there had been ”instances” in the 17 years he had been working there. The official line was that there is ”nothing” to worry about, but he said that a number of staff had seen things that had ”really scared them” (his words) resulting in them handing in their notices and just walking out.

I asked what the most recent one was and he told us this:

Two weeks before, a ”well known politician” was in town with his entourage. The concierge was on the night shift and this big shot came downstairs in the middle of the night, in his pajamas, out of breath. He insisted that there was a woman in his room. Being who he was, there was extra security present 24/7 and they immediately went up to investigate. They returned saying the room was empty and the concierge meanwhile tried to reassure the frightened politician that, look, when we look at the computer records of the use of your key-card, no one has entered the room through the door. To which he replied ”she didn't come through the door, she came in through the wall”. He refused to go back upstairs and they had to wake his staff to pack up all his stuff and he checked out immediately.

At this point, I am beginning to get decidedly unsettled. The rational part of me said, ”don't be silly, perfectly simple explanation to all of this”. But, having a casual encounter with the nurses, seeing their photo album made me superimpose the vision of a hospital (and a Victorian one at that) onto the luxury facade that had been built up. Add to that a concierge who seemed to confirm what these strangers had told me was too much of a coincidence.

We carried on drinking and enjoying ourselves, but as the day progressed, all three of use were getting more and more quiet, and lost in our thoughts, knowing that at some point we would have to walk upstairs to our rooms in, what was to us now: essentially a haunted house

The irrational side of me took over when I did so. I have to admit I was really scared. I went through the normal routine of getting to bed (brushing teeth, having a piss), in quiet terror, my heart hammering away and I refused to look at any mirrors (or the walls for that matter). I did not sleep a wink but lay under the quilt, every single sound amplified by my imagination

The next day, my colleagues looked as knackered as I felt. We were happy to check out..

I know, they might have all been taking the piss...that thought did not help at the time

When you go visit it, think of a hospital and the layout of the place will make sense. In addition, ask if you can see the special luxury cigar smoking room in the basement. It's at the end of a long corridor and has no windows but set up with leather sofas and industrial strength extractors. The concierge told us it used to be the morgue.
(sabre32, Wed 28 Oct 2015, 7:50, 8 replies)

When I was young I was visiting my grandparents and went by train
I wasn't used to travelling by myself, and the fact that it was dark and I appeared to be the only one the carriage made the whole thing feel intimidating. We hadn't been going long when I could sense a prescence behind me, something just on the edge of my peripheral vision. Now terrified I turned my head around slowly and there it was: A glowing skull! I stood bolt upright and was about to run when a man's voice came out of the darkness, "Sit the fuck back down kid, or I'll kick you off the ride"
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Mon 26 Oct 2015, 20:09, 4 replies)

Kids get told not to talk to strangers on 364 days a year
On one day they are encouraged to knock on strangers doors.

Well, they're asking for it.
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Mon 26 Oct 2015, 18:39, 2 replies)

Halloween is all about...
A couple of weeks before Halloween I took the six year old sproglet with me shopping. I found myself being dragged and nagged towards the Halloween costumes.

I gave into the inevitable and sproglet settled on a "scary bride" type of outfit. Appropriate makeup was sweetly requested and we settled for a pack of white, red and black face paint.

In the checkout queue Little'un asked how the completed makeup should look I went into an explanation of how the face should be white with black around the eyes and mouth with little trickles of red "blood" in order to look really scary. "Dad", she replied "Halloween isn't just about looking scary, it's also about Jesus and God!"
( Vambo, Tue 3 Nov 2015, 22:31, 2 replies)

My family used to have a cottage out on the Welsh borders
Staying there as a child was pretty scary - it was very isolated, down a track at the edge of a forest, at night it got so dark that you couldn't see your own hand in front of your face and the toilet was outside in a shed that was invariably infested with huge, horrible spiders.

Scarier than that though, was being trapped as an adult at a recent family barbecue by a slightly dotty aunt while she recalled all the times she'd felt the presence of spirits there, how it was haunted by this ghost and that ghost, how there was a spectral carriage with horses that used to ride up and down the track at night etc. etc. while I had to keep nodding with a straight face.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 2 Nov 2015, 12:06, 10 replies)

As an American, that time is rapidly approaching.
The most scared I will be is if Trump gets the nod. At that point I'm emigrating.
( Wanderer, Sat 31 Oct 2015, 14:21, 8 replies)

I see Dead People
Well i am a funeral director
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Fri 30 Oct 2015, 13:25, 3 replies)

I just used latex gloves to masturbate.
I don't know why I bought them but it seemed like the natural thing to do with them. It wasn't great. They occassionally pulled at my pubic hair. I would guess this was because they have more friction than skin. I once saw a voyeur porn video of someone lacking motor skills getting pulled off by a nurse wearing similar gloves. While I enjoyed the video I couldn't simultaneously roleplay as the nurse and the spastic so it was difficult to fantasize about.

My scariest halloween memory was last halloween. My doorbell rang and a little girl awaited me. I had forgotten all about halloween and was confused for a moment. I had to tell her I didn't have anything for her. Her mother was hanging back and called out her, there was anxiety in her voice. The scary part was realising that I'd just killed a little bit of the magic in the child's life and that her mother might have seen me as a potential threat.
(hieronymus bosch pcmechanic 4ver in ar harts, goodnite sweet angle, Wed 28 Oct 2015, 18:46, 2 replies)

Teh London Dungeon
Early-80s-ish, happened to be wearing my plain black hoodie (with my graffiti crew name on the back). Tried standing very, very still in corners, looking down, until someone stopped to examine me. Then jazz hands and a smile.

Did exactly what I'd hoped it would. So I did it a lot.
(CADmonkey rollllllllled another one, just like the other one, Wed 28 Oct 2015, 16:39, Reply)

A couple of weeks ago while waking from some sort of cheese-induced fever dream
I spied the palely translucent figure of a greyish spectre approaching beside my bed who I proceeded to kick upside the head from my prone position.

No contact of course, but it was a sweet strike which, had the phantasm not been a figment of my imagination which evaporated like the morning mist as I became fully conscious, would have sat that spook right on his arse.
(Ronnie Spleen MMMMNEURRGH I AM A GAY SPAZ AND I LOVE IT UP MY BU, Tue 27 Oct 2015, 1:40, 4 replies)

ghosts don't scare me
nor do monsters, ghouls, zombies, werewolves et al. i had life-sized freddy krueger posters on my bedroom walls when i was a kid and i still collect horror films.
do you know what scares me?
watership down.
i fucking hate that film, freaky cunt rabbits tearing each other to pieces? no fucking thanks!
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Mon 26 Oct 2015, 15:38, 20 replies)