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I gave her the doll on her birthday.
She loved it at first, told me it was so beautiful. That it’s hair was so soft and the dress was so pretty. She wouldn’t let it out of her sight for days. During the day she set it on the table, so she could see it while cleaning the house. During the night it sat next to the bed, looking at us sleep with big blue unmoving eyes.
But my wife’s love for the doll soon changed. Soon I noticed something was bothering here. I asked of course, but she wouldn’t tell me at first, said she was just being silly. But day after day she closed herself more and more for me. Until I couldn’t take it anymore. I pressed her, told her she would tell me what was going on right now or I would drag her to a doctor.

She finally broke and crying words came spilling out.
She then told me it was the doll. It scared her. She told me she had the feeling it was constantly watching her. Sometimes it even seemed like it moved.
This worried me and I went to take a look at the doll.
It sat motionless on the little table in the bedroom. The big blue eyes unchanged. I couldn’t help but sigh from relief a bit. Of course she’s not moving, she couldn’t have been.
I went to turn away, but then saw a tiny movement from the corner of my eye.
I turned back to the doll, picking it up from the table. I held my face close to the doll’s, staring into the eyes.
Something was moving.
I tried to concentrate, tried to look closer.
Yes, there it definately was, movement. But not from the eye itself, it was behind the eye.
Before I could register this the eye burst and out of it spilled at least ten wriggling maggots.
I dropped the doll in shock, backing away instinctively.

My wife yelled from the other room, asking me what was going on. I yelled back at her not to worry. I picked up the doll again, using a tissue to wipe away the maggots. Inside I saw more, pressing against the skin and the plastic outer layer.

So soon already. I had hoped she would have lasted longer.
I will have to get a new one for her, maybe keep it alive at first. That way it’ll last longer for sure.
While I throw away the old doll, I think about how my wife always says she loves the thick blonde curls of little Katie down the block.
Doesn’t she also have blue eyes?

There was a hunter in the woods, who, after a long day hunting, was in the middle of an immense forest. It was getting dark, and having lost his bearings, he decided to head in one direction until he was clear of the increasingly oppressive foliage. After a what seemed like hours, he came across a cabin in a small clearing. Realizing how dark it had grown, he decided to see if he could stay there for the night. He approached, and found the door ajar. Nobody was inside. The hunter flopped down on the single bed, deciding to explain himself to the owner in the morning. As he looked around, he was suprised to see the walls adorned by many portraits, all painted in incredible detail. Without exception, they appeared to be staring down at him, their features twisted into looks of hatred. Staring back, he grew increasingly uncomfortable. Making a concerted effort to ignore the many hateful faces, he turned to face the wall, and exhausted, he fell into a restless sleep.

Face down in an unfamiliar bed, he turned blinking in unexpected sunlight. Looking up, he discovered that the cabin had no portraits, only windows.

When I was in the 5th grade, our class would get to spend a week at a camp. Only people from our class/school would go.

All that week, there’d been a lot of talk about a girl who had drowned in the lagoon a few years back. I heard a lot of weird stuff from other kids (scratching at the bottom of kayaks/hearing yelling and splashing at night with no one there) Most of this I chalked up to other kids my age being retarded. The counselors wouldn’t talk to us about it.

One night we were supposed to have a guy come talk to us about snakes and lizards (for a night session). We had punch, and cookies, and waited on him for a long time. The counselors told us he wasn’t coming, but they weren’t sure what happened to him. (they didn’t get a phone call, I never found out why he didn’t show up) So we all milled around in the main lodge instead.

A girl I didn’t recognize approached me, and asked me out of the blue if I’d heard about the story of the girl that drowned in the lagoon. I had, and relayed it to her briefly. And she told me that the story I heard wasn’t true, that the girl had been meeting her boyfriend (we weren’t allowed to be out at night with the boys, or hold hands, etc.) and they’d had a fight.

It’s been since fifth grade, but I’m pretty sure the kid left her to drown.

The story (and the way the girl was talking) got to me for some reason. Also, the girl who had died was supposed to have long black hair and glasses (which the person I was talking to did).

After she walked away, I picked her out from the other students again and told her “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

She replied, “I do.”

After that, she wandered off and I couldn’t find her any more. I asked about her with my classmates, and also spent a few weeks after I got back trying to scout her out in the cafeteria (I skipped class one day so I could kind of scout all the lunch periods), but I never saw her again.

I’d like to add, there are some incongruent things:

The girl also said some really bizarre things, like that that the ghost of the girl could possess the girls at the lodge during the full moon if it fell on a Wednesday (thank god it wasn’t Wednesday).

Also, as far as I can tell, no one was ever drowned in that lagoon. I haven’t been able to find information on it since, just the string of reports from the other kids and the creepy girl that disappeared.
twisted

bump

there was a man i couldn't see
i wish he would stop staring at me
oh why oh wont he go away
where is he, why can't he stay?
maybe because i'm insane
said the man who was insane
but who is the man who is not there?
i don't know, maybe you need a scare
because if the man is not yourself,
you should look behind yourself
because the man who was not there
really likes a real good scare
actually he says
you should not look
because i may be in that book
that's lying open on your floor
just because I'm in the path of your door.
i saw a man just yesterday
who was not there.
how I'd wish he'd go away.
maybe i really am insane
or maybe its you who is insane.

sweet dreams.

"Daddy, I had a bad dream."
You blink your eyes and pull up on your elbows. Your clock glows red in the darkness—it's 3:23.
"Do you want to climb into bed and tell me about it?"
"No, Daddy."
The oddness of the situation wakes you up more fully. You can barely make out your daughter's pale form in the darkness of your room. "Why not, sweetie?"
"Because in my dream, when I told you about the dream, the thing wearing Mommy's skin sat up."
For a moment, you feel paralyzed; you can't take your eyes off of your
daughter. Then the covers behind you begin to shift…

bump biggrin

If you grew up in the country as I did, you’ve heard it. The one about some bridge or some location, usually in a valley and almost always near water, where something horrible supposedly happened to a mother and her baby, and at night if you are quiet you can hear a baby crying or a woman calling for her child? Yeah, that one. It’s a great excuse to take your girlfriend out to a dark secluded location, get her all scared and have her jump in your lap. When she feels all safe and secure, the panties come right off, right? Scary places always landed me the choice a** back in the day. Know what I mean bro?

Yeah well, I know what really happened, and I know the place where it occurred. You see, there’s this old bridge down in a valley that crosses a small river. It’s not far from here, If you want I can take you out there. Yeah, we can go tonight.

The legend usually says a mother was rushing her sick baby to the hospital and ran her car off the bridge. The story also goes that the mother got out of the car, but drowned after repeatedly trying to find her baby in the dark water. The next morning the police found the car and the two bodies after a farmer called the wreck in. Years later teenagers used to hang out in the fields on the north side of the bridge, and they told stories of hearing a woman screaming “Oh god MY BABY SOMEONE PLEASE HELP OH GOD MY BABY”. There are variations, but this is usually the gist of the tale. Well, the truth is, the valley was haunted a long time before anything like that ever happened, and it wasn’t haunted by some woman screaming for her lost baby. Not then at least.

You see, out in the country here, there’s things that never see the light of day. Things not meant for mortal eyes. They wander the countryside looking for food. They feed on humans you see. They wear the skin of their kills, look just like us. Once it’s on them you can’t tell them apart from us. What they look like under the skin, nobody alive now knows.

The woman in the story, she WAS rushing her baby to the hospital, and she did wreck, but she didn’t run off the bridge. She came close though, and she seemed to be in luck, as a truck came along just minutes after she ran off the road and smacked a tree. Her lights were still on, and the driver of the truck spotted her waving in the middle of the road. What happens next, well… it’s pretty horrible. You see the driver of the truck, well, he was one of those things, and he was wearing the previous owner’s skin. He pulls over, offers to help. The mother is on the verge of passin’ out, so he helps her get the baby out of the car. He found it impossible to resist the tender, sweet flesh of one so young. The smell of it’s innocence was too much, and its appetite overtook it. He ate the baby right there in front of the mother. Jaws split like some sort of horrible giant snake, bit it right in half, swallowed it in two bites. Right in front of that poor woman. That’s where the screams come from you see. Right before he ate her too. Of course, she didn’t die so quick, being a much bigger meal than a little baby.

The real horror of these things is, once they eat you, your soul or whatever, it doesn’t move on like it does after a normal death. It lingers, you see. How do I know all of this? Well, I grew up around here. My grandfather told me all about it. He was one of the cops that found the car, you see. He ran across one of those things here in town once. Said it looked like a person, just didn’t seem to move right. His grandmother was an old Indian wise woman, she told him stories of the skin walkers when he was a child. Said he’d know when he met one.

So you want to see the place? It’s just a few miles from here. Yeah, hop in the truck, I’ll take you out there. She’s a beaut ain’t she? Belonged to my grandpa too, she’s a 55 Chevy. Restored it myself. Finish your drink, we’ll head out there In my truck.

The hiker exclaim

I was through hiking the Appalachian Trail last year, when I got lost and found myself off the trail, in a strange, dark hollow with heavy moss and one running stream. It was getting dark, and starting to rain. I found a cave just above the creek bed, and there were no bear-tracks, so I went in for shelter.

Sometime in the night, a bear DID come, right into the cave, and I had no way out! Keeping my head, I crawled deeper into the cave and found a passage too small for the bear to fit. It led to a long crawl way ending in a little alcove.

I had no light, and was terrified. But the sound of the bear in the bigger room faded away. This new room was cozy, with what felt like mounds of soft moss and crackly leaves all over the floor. A breeze blew through, and the leaves, though I couldn’t see them, seemed to move all over, they tickled me all night long, making it hard to sleep.

The next morning I crept back out to see if the bear was gone - he was. So I exited back into the hollow. I had a terrible rash all over my body from the itchy bedding I had slept on, and couldn’t stop scratching as I gathered my stuff and went down the creek looking for a road and some directions back to the trail.

I found another trail along the creek, and in a few hours, it ended at a dirt road. There I rested, trying to decide which way to walk for help. My skin was bleeding in spots now, and pustules were forming at the itchiest places. I thought I might need some cream or something.

A Game Warden jeep came around the bend, and when the Warden saw me sitting at the trail head, he stopped.

“You planning on going up there?” he asked, gesturing up the trail I had come down.

“No, actually-” I began, but the itching on my skin made me stop short to scratch.

“Well, if you are, just stay the hell clear of Spider-Nest Cave.”

My damnation came in the form of a bottle.

No, not like that.

When I was a child my best friend lived next to a little junkyard. Great place for a kid to hang out, a junkyard. Full of mystery and exciting discoveries, and if you find anything nice nobody minds if you take it, except your parents, obviously. Well, not my friend’s mom. Most of their bowls and plates came from that junkyard. But anyway.

One day a bunch of us were hanging out, dismantling a car. Some of us might have been interested in the parts, I just thought breaking stuff was great. When we’d got the engine strewn everywhere we set to work on the interior. Under one of the seats was a little glass bottle, full of some green, bubbly liquid.

Curiosity trumped hygiene in those days. I uncorked it and sniffed it. The smell was pleasant, minty, a little floral. One kid, Jackie, dared me to drink it. It was a double-dog dare. I had to.

The taste was also pleasant, and it warmed me on the way down. My body was filled with a strange, pleasant tingling. Nothing else happened, not until that night.

First effect, I couldn’t sleep. I haven’t needed sleep since. It’s all right. I get a lot done.

Second effect, a month later. I started to cough things up. I was playing alone in the woods and I hacked up blood. Then there were chunks in the blood. Then I was puking. The entirety of my coiled long intestine came snaking up as I sat there quivering, tears on my cheeks, struggling to breathe, literally puking my guts up. My mouth seemed to unhinge like a snake’s to accommodate my lungs. My heart was on my sleeve. The bloodstain would never have come out if I hadn’t abandoned the clothes I was wearing. The police searched frantically for a missing person, but never found a thing.

I wasn’t empty when I finished, though. New organs built up inside me. I could feel them, I could see them when I closed my eyes, nameless lumps and spirals springing out of nothing.

Third effect. Two months later. I began to crave the water. I can’t possibly describe the feeling of thirsty skin, but it was a desperate thirst. I left my parents’ house one night and walked and walked until I came to a swamp. I moved in. The murky, bug-filled waters feel like home now, as they did all those years ago. I sit under the water, watching the fish and salamanders get eaten by herons, looking at the surface waiting for my prey.

I’m sure you know what the fourth effect was. I’m typing this on the cell-phone of my latest victim. She was delicious. She smelled like fresh melons.

A camp fire story of sorts...

December 10th, 2003

My frozen hands tremble as I fumble to work my little butane lighter. The tips of my fingers are raw and bloodied already, and I wince in pain with every failed attempt to spark a flame. Finally, I achieve a jittery fire which impatiently dances atop the lighter. I carefully lower it to my pile of kindling, and the fire cautiously creeps out and spreads until it is a healthy size. I watch it for a while, tending to it until it’s strong. Now, there is enough light to see around me, and enough heat to survive the night.

Here, deep in the forest, with everything frozen and quiet, the only light and sound comes from my fire. It is the whole world to me right now. It dances and sings in a raspy, crackling voice to me and I am happy to enjoy its company. I can almost imagine that I can hear it whispering and babbling happily.

“It’s so cold.”

I must be tired. I’m hearing things. The popping and sizzling of the fire is really beginning to sound like words. Maybe I’m just lonely out here. Maybe I just really want someone to talk to, so I’m hearing coherence in the chaos of the fire. I could have sworn I heard it say -

“It’s so cold.”

There it was again, softer this time. I lean closer to the blaze and its warmth caresses my face, setting me at ease. I’m listening intently now, anxious for what I’ll hear next.

“If you let me die tonight, you‘ll die tonight.”

There was no mistaking it. It said it clearly, albeit in the raspy, singsong voice of a fire consuming wet branches. Yet even as the words become clearer, they become softer, drawing me in closer to make out the next statement. The warmth splashes over me as I inch my face closer, and the frost that had settled in my bones begins to thaw. The fire is speaking constantly now, chattering quietly to itself, and I can only pick out bits of words and portions of sentences.

“Get closer. Watch closely. If I die, you die. I’m the only thing keeping you alive. Pay attention!”

The fire ends its tirade with a loud snap of burning wood and then is quiet. I lean in even closer, eager to receive whatever secret is coming next. The heat is no longer pleasant. It sears me as the flames playfully lick at my face. The fire is being coy, teasing me with its silence to see how long I will wait on it. The smoke reaches into my nostrils and the embers float carelessly from the heart of the fire into my eyes, which are now welling with ash. I don’t care. I just want to hear what comes next.

“Get closer. Pay attention. Watch closely, now more than ever…”

…

December 17th, 2003

“In other news, the charred body of an unidentified man was found deep in the mountainous forests east of the city. Investigators have stated that the man appeared to have caught fire while sitting by his campfire and, inexplicably, did not appear to have made any effort to extinguish himself. His burned remains were found, frozen in position by the icy temperatures, leaning over the ashes of a long extinguished fire. In what is most perhaps the most bizarre detail of the grisly scene, the man is reported to have been found with an ‘expectant‘ smile still on his face.”