|
Post by Nalkarj on Apr 3, 2018 16:40:09 GMT
I decided to re-format this thread for any and all scary stories you may have—real or made up. Enjoy! Or, if they really scare you…
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Apr 3, 2018 18:28:46 GMT
“So Stuffy in Here”
|
|
|
Post by Primemovermithrax Pejorative on Apr 4, 2018 3:31:46 GMT
One evening in 2004 I made the mistake of watching one of those Iraqi beheading videos that were going the rounds on the internet. It disturbed me profoundly and I couldn't sleep well. My bed was in a small room on the bottom floor--in the back of a house. There was a door to the secluded backyard right next to my room. Well, it's after 1 am, when suddenly the door knob to the back door starts rattling. I heard voices, the door knob was tried a couple of times. Then it stopped.
No more sleep for me that night!
True story.
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Apr 5, 2018 20:12:43 GMT
“Like a Picture-Postcard”
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
@Deleted
Posts: 0
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2018 23:31:10 GMT
Somebody's been reading The Shining.
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Apr 5, 2018 23:41:43 GMT
Somebody's been reading The Shining. I...wasn’t actually thinking of that, to be honest. I’ve never read the book. But now that you mention it I see what you mean. Though that kind of thing doesn’t happen in the book, right?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
@Deleted
Posts: 0
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2018 23:43:46 GMT
Somebody's been reading The Shining. I...wasn’t actually thinking of that, to be honest. I’ve never read the book. But now that you mention it I see what you mean. Though that kind of thing doesn’t happen in the book, right? IIRC, there are ghosts of masked guests going up and down in the elevator.
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Apr 6, 2018 1:20:58 GMT
@nxnwrocks
Well, I’ll say once and for all I never read The Shining before writing that story. A few points, too: the people, including the masked woman in front, do not ride up and down the elevator. And I should note that I never write that they are ghosts.
I do hope you enjoyed “So Stuffy in Here” and “Like a Picture-Postcard.”
|
|
|
Post by BATouttaheck on Apr 6, 2018 2:15:39 GMT
I do hope you enjoyed “So Stuffy in Here” and “Like a Picture-Postcard.” Did INDEED ! I really enjoy your original stories very very much ! Especially the shiver ones because they are quietly y
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Apr 6, 2018 2:22:32 GMT
I do hope you enjoyed “So Stuffy in Here” and “Like a Picture-Postcard.” Did INDEED ! I really enjoy your original stories very very much ! Especially the shiver ones because they are quietly y That’s the effect I’m aiming for! Thanks, Bat.
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Apr 6, 2018 17:53:56 GMT
One evening in 2004 I made the mistake of watching one of those Iraqi beheading videos that were going the rounds on the internet. It disturbed me profoundly and I couldn't sleep well. My bed was in a small room on the bottom floor--in the back of a house. There was a door to the secluded backyard right next to my room. Well, it's after 1 am, when suddenly the door knob to the back door starts rattling. I heard voices, the door knob was tried a couple of times. Then it stopped. No more sleep for me that night! True story. Oh, I definitely know that kind of thing, Prime (or shall I call you “Gruffimus”? “Gruff” ain’t exactly nice ). Some terrible experiences we can have in the dark… When I was really young, I was sleeping downstairs by the fireside one night in October when I woke up in the middle of the night—a little later than midnight, maybe. I went and put another log on the fire and then heard a loud bang outside. I pretty much froze right then and there and waited, and I heard someone stomping with heavy boots on my porch. Scared me half to death. I took a few moments, recollected myself, and finally got up enough courage to go and look—and there was no one there. It’s not anything supernatural, as anyone could have run away, but I still don’t know who it was. I ran upstairs and woke up my parents; my father went and checked outside, but there was no one around. So I don’t know what these things are you hear in the night, but everything just gets creepier. I wish I found out who it was stomping with boots at midnight—maybe neighborhood kids or something, playing pranks?
|
|
|
Post by Primemovermithrax Pejorative on Apr 6, 2018 18:03:59 GMT
Oh, I definitely know that kind of thing, Prime (or shall I call you “Gruffimus”? “Gruff” ain’t exactly nice ). Some terrible experiences we can have in the dark… When I was really young, I was sleeping downstairs by the fireside one night in October when I woke up in the middle of the night—a little later than midnight, maybe. I went and put another log on the fire and then heard a loud bang outside. I pretty much froze right then and there and waited, and I heard someone stomping with heavy boots on my porch. Scared me half to death. I took a few moments, recollected myself, and finally got up enough courage to go and look—and there was no one there. It’s not anything supernatural, as anyone could have run away, but I still don’t know who it was. I ran upstairs and woke up my parents; my father went and checked outside, but there was no one around. So I don’t know what these things are you hear in the night, but everything just gets creepier. I wish I found out who it was stomping with boots at midnight—maybe neighborhood kids or something, playing pranks? You can call me Prime, or you can call me Grime, or you can call me PrimeGrime, but you dont hasta call me Johnson. I remember another spooky thing--it snowed, and the following morning I looked out and saw footprints in the backyard, leading around the edge of the back fence and right up to the back door of the house. That was creepy.
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Apr 18, 2018 16:31:59 GMT
“Ex Umbris”
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Apr 19, 2018 21:24:16 GMT
I suppose “Ex Umbris” left everyone speechless…? Seriously, I don’t mean to post only my own stuff here; anyone and everyone is welcome to chime in and share a story.
|
|
|
Post by BATouttaheck on Apr 19, 2018 21:48:44 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Apr 20, 2018 4:07:31 GMT
Thanks kindly, BATouttaheck. It was one of the easiest to write, mostly because most of it (with the exception of the cardinal, notably, and some of the character details) is a true story.
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Jul 20, 2018 13:07:57 GMT
“Captain Gair” —Russell Kirk, Confessions of a Bohemian Tory
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Jul 20, 2018 14:23:06 GMT
I have tried, thus far probably unfruitfully, to create some kind of descriptor or nomenclature for the kind of spooky story that I enjoy and that I write—which is not really “horror,” the gross and gory, and more the “pleasing terror,” as M.R. James called it, that I mention in the subject line.
I usually call it a “ghost story,” but not all of them include ghosts, and that’s the problem. I’m referring to what Dreyer meant when he said this: And I think I’ve found it in Russell Kirk’s term for the genre, a “ghostly tale.” Ghostly, not ghost, because it need not have ghosts, and tale, not story, because it conjures up a sense of the ancestral and the mystic, reaching far back in time and far deep into the depths of our souls.
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Jul 20, 2018 14:37:48 GMT
Kirk, one of my long-time favorite writers, wrote two excellent essays on the ghostly tale, but I prefer this second and less-often-reprinted (apologies for the length, but it may serve rather as a manifesto for this sort of thing):
|
|
geralmar
Sophomore
@geralmar
Posts: 322
Likes: 153
|
Post by geralmar on Jul 29, 2018 19:55:43 GMT
Not really a story, but many years ago I was up in the middle of a windy night, lights out, watching the original Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff on tv. At a key "monster moment" the wind caught the edge of the large sliding screen door I had forgotten to latch and slooooowwwly slid it open behind me. Closest I ever came to a heart attack.
|
|