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rambledown-blog · 10 years ago

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Cellar Door

by Volponi

Add me to the list people with strange, creepy basement stories. Even today, just hearing the word "basement" still sends a slight shiver down my spine, even though it's been about 35 years since the events in my childhood memories occurred. The word "cellar" provokes a similar response in me, although to a slightly lesser degree. [semi-related] quote: In the movie "Donnie Darko", Drew Barrymore's character claims that a famous linguist (it was actually J.R.R. Tolkien) once said that the phrase "Cellar Door" is the most beautiful combination of words in the English language. Well, he was wrong for saying it in the first place, and she was wrong for repeating it and perpetuating the idea that the phrase is somehow beautiful. It's not. It's downright disturbing. FUCK THAT, and FUCK HER, and FUCK THAT MOVIE and FUCK TOLKIEN (even though I really did actually like the movie, and Tolkien). Fuck ALL of them right up the ass for using that phrase. "Cellar Door" is, to me, one of the scariest possible combination of words. [/semi-related] ----------------------- Another goon, (stinkles1112) posted a 'basement' description earlier, which seems very apt - I'd like to quote an excerpt from that post: stinkles1112 posted: Also, there was a basement which had the whole "evil presence" thing going on. My mother flat out refused to go in there after the first time she did, and that was during broad daylight. My father only did with the door open and every light in the vicinity on. I remember vividly the feeling of abject terror I felt the one time, to my memory, that I went in there, not the kind of scared you feel when you're a kid and your mom turns the light out and shuts your room door, but the kind of scared you feel when every horror movie you've ever seen comes to life and coagulates in the form of suffocating, total darkness punctuated by a hundred eyes all staring at you with a deep burning hatred. This is a very good (if understated) description of the feelings invoked. There are some differences; stinkles' basement was cold and seemed to affect everyone, while mine was warm and only affected children. Still, there are enough similarities to make me wonder if our basements may have been siblings born from the very same hell, or perhaps they were even connected at a deeper level; some twisted "dionaea basement" in which each of them was only a small part of a larger entity. ----------------------- OK, That's enough of that particular rant - Here we go, to the much longer ranting.... It's going to be a long story, filled with many irrelevant details that serve no real purpose other than to demonstrate how clearly I remember it; how it has burned itself into my mind. I don't know how many of you are prepared to read the rambling, incoherent ravings of a madman recounting events from the lunacy of his childhood memories, so at this point you have two choices: (a) Skip my post and proceed to the next one; there is no "tl;dr" (b) Sit back, relax, settle in, and prepare yourself for the ride. ----------------------- Introduction & back-story ----------------------- As I mentioned before, my basement story is along the same lines as the "evil presence" mentioned in the post I quoted above. It's quite a bit more complicated than the other basement story back on page 3, where Crotch Apples reported hearing strange noises only to discover that the noises were the result of a brother making out with girls. I'm not saying that there weren't strange noises - there absolutely were, although just how strange is debatable. In retrospect, they may have been (and probably were) perfectly mundane "basement noises", but they did add an element of extra creepiness. Noises like the occasional erratic metallic 'clink' or 'thunk' sound of pipes being tapped on. A steady 'bloop' at about 10-second intervals, suggesting a drip from some unseen leak. The sound of rushing water. All of those were likely just plumbing issues. Less frequently, I would hear a low 'moaning' sound, which quite probably was just wind somehow entering from outside, or circulating in some plumbing vents. Looking back, there are many completely rational explanations for such noises, and it's likely that every old basement in every old house makes noises like these. At the time though, in my young mind, they were unfathomably ominous warning sounds. The erratic 'clink' and 'thunk' tapping noises were intentional, and were designed to stimulate my curiosity; drawing me down into the basement to investigate. The dripping 'bloop' noises were maddeningly loud - much louder than they had any right to be - and were similarly intended to lure me down in the hopes of shutting off whatever infernal faucet was open. The rushing water noises only served to confuse me, but the moaning.... Oh, the moaning - Thankfully, it wasn't as constant as the tapping or the drip, but nevertheless it was horrific. It both drew me and repelled me at the same time. I didn't know if it was the call of someone who needed my help (perhaps the last victim who had made the unwise decision to enter that pit), or if it was a chorus of all the voices of previous victims, warning me to stay away. To make it worse, none of the noises sounded entirely real - They all had an artificial quality, like sound-effects from a movie - Like shaking a piece of sheet-metal to re-create the sound of thunder, or clapping coconut-halves together for the sound of a horse galloping. I could never (and still can't) quite place my finger on it, but something about the noises was always very 'off'. The 'not-quite-right' feeling inherent in the sound may have been due to the shape/acoustics of the room. All sounds coming through the door from below the staircase seemed to be amplified, and a short echo/delay ambiance was applied before the sound waves reached my ears. I didn't understand concepts like 'acoustics' at the time. Maybe the alteration of the sounds were simply due to acoustics of the room, causing the sound waves to resonate in such an unusual fashion.... But then again, maybe the sounds were altered intentionally to disguise their artificiality. Hearing the noises through the open door at the top of the staircase created the feeling that the noises just somehow didn't belong. As if they had actually originated from some other source, elsewhere in the universe, but had been transported into the basement through some rift in space-time. When the door was shut, the noises could (mercifully) no longer be heard at all. The door didn't muffle the noises, but canceled them out altogether. ----------------------- The story begins... ----------------------- During my childhood, my family moved around a lot. My father worked for a government agency that would transfer him to different locations on a fairly regular basis. Every year or two, we'd be in a different city or state, moving into a new home. I was probably about 7 years old when we moved into the house with "the haunted basement". Perhaps "haunted" isn't even the right word to use - It was never really clear to me whether the basement itself was alive, or if something else, something very evil, was residing within the basement. I suppose the distinction is meaningless, because whatever it might have been, it's energy was always focused in that one particular part of the house. I'm not certain exactly when, how or why I came to the conclusion that it was haunted. Only that it terrified me to my very core. At some point within the first week of moving into this new house (before I had become aware of IT), my natural inclinations toward exploring led me toward the basement, just to play around, as children are often wont to do. At the time, the basement was new to me - it was (in my mind) 'unexplored territory', and I was a discoverer. I was a young child, and I didn't know any better - It wasn't until much later that I realized it's a bad idea to intrude into areas where something might prefer to be left alone - a sleeping beast is best left undisturbed - once awoken, the beast will behave in a manner consistent with it's beastly nature. Whatever force it was, it had decided I was unwelcome, and I somehow, instinctively knew it didn't want me around. I got the impression that it didn't like me very much at all - or perhaps it did. Maybe it liked me a little too much. The door to the basement was just outside of the kitchen, in a small utility room/entryway around the corner from the pantry closet. The door's handle was on the left, and hinges on the right. It opened inward toward the stairs, where there was about a 4-foot long platform before the staircase descended along the left wall. Thinking back on it, this was a pretty poor design and potentially dangerous to someone who might have been coming up the stairs. The door opening at the wrong moment could easily knock someone down the staircase, or plummeting over the railing. Of course, I never thought about such things at the time. There was a light-switch on the left wall just inside the door. From the doorway at the top of the staircase I couldn't actually see much of the basement, even if I flipped on the light-switch. The light illuminated the stairs well enough, but not much of the basement itself. That godforsaken room seemed to be shrouded in perpetual darkness. I could just barely make out the shape of the washing machine at the far right of my field of view. The basement stank, as well. Standing atop the stairs, I could smell a very unpleasant musty odor and feel hot, dank air emanating up from within those murky depths. I could also feel a presence, like it was both sentient and secretive. It knew something I didn't, and it wouldn't reveal it's dark secrets unless I went down and succumbed to it's clutches. At times, it seemed only to be playfully mischievous, trying to coax me in. At other times there was no mistaking that it basement had wicked, malevolent intentions. I never actually even set foot inside it; I was too frightened. Just looking down into it, I could feel the small hairs all over my body standing on end, as if even my very skin could sense the danger that lurked within that subterranean crypt, awaiting my arrival. I distinctly remember standing in the doorway at the top of the stairs, staring down into the emptiness, the dark abyss of the unknown and unknowable, desperately trying to muster up enough courage to descend into what I was convinced must be a magical portal to some other world; simultaneously wondrous and terrifying. I could never do it. Fear would paralyze me before I could take even the first step down that foreboding staircase. I would stand there in complete and utter horror, sweating, on the verge of tears, until eventually something would snap and I'd regain just enough control of myself to run away. And run, I did. Every single time. Eventually, my fear of the basement (and whatever unimaginable evils lurked within) extended to even the doorway which lead to that monstrous room. I began to avoid even the door to the basement, as if getting to close to the door would cause me to be sucked in, where I would surely suffer unspeakable atrocities. I would do my best to keep at least five feet away from that malignant, venomous doorway. ----------------------- Friends visiting ----------------------- Much like any other child, I had friends who would come to visit, play, or have the occasional sleepover. On a few occasions (when my parents weren't around, or weren't paying attention) I would dare my friends to enter the basement. None of them ever did. I never told them exactly why the basement was a scary place (and to be honest, I really didn't understand it myself - I still don't). They all seemed very willing to take the dare, but as they approached the door they always faltered. One of them (Paul) came closer than most; and (admittedly) closer than I ever had - He walked down the stairway to almost the halfway point, where he froze. Solid. After a moment, he turned and bolted back up the the stairs. He didn't stop once he reached the kitchen, either. He kept running straight through, and locked himself in the bathroom for 10 or 15 minutes. When he finally came out he was sweating, shaking all over, and unable to maintain eye-contact - with anyone - for the rest of the night. He refused to talk about it. My parents seemed to think that he might be ill, and they called his parents to express their concerns. I don't know exactly what transpired in that phone call, but I guess it was decided that everything was OK, because Paul's parent's didn't come pick him up. At least, not right then. In the middle of the night, Paul woke me up and said that he had to go home. I told him to shut up. I wanted to go back to sleep. He started crying and babbling about wanting to go home. After a little while, the noise woke my parents up. It was tremendously embarrassing to me - I was sure they'd never allow another sleepover after this kid woke them up in the middle of the night with his blubbering. After all, he was my friend, I was the one who invited him here, and now he's causing problems, interrupting their sleep. They told me it was OK, sometimes kids get scared for no reason. They said the best thing to do would be to let him call home, and maybe it would help him to feel better. My father made the phone call. He woke Paul's mother, and explained (as best he could) the situation to her. Then he gave the phone to Paul. Paul immediately started crying, the moment the phone was put into his hand. He begged his mother to come pick him up, that he needed to go home... I can still hear the tone in his voice, and the way he stretched out the vowel "e" in the word "need" and the "o" in "home". He told us all that was feeling sick, but he couldn't look any of us in the eye, and I could see the look of abject terror on his face. I knew it was the basement that had frightened him away from my house. I felt bad for daring him to go down there. He wound up gathering the few belongings he had brought with him, and my father drove him home. Paul and I never spoke much after that - It was almost like we weren't friends anymore, for some reason. Over the short course of time that I lived there, I'd see him at school and he'd usually avert his gaze, as though there was some unspoken thing which he didn't want to acknowledge. In any case, we were never really friends again after that, he seemed to get very uncomfortable around me and distanced himself - In fact, I don't think I ever saw him have any friends at all for the rest of the time I went to school there. [unrelated side-story] quote: It's not really pertinent to the story, but a few years ago, my mother sent me an email containing a web-link to a news story about Paul - She'd stayed in contact with his parents throughout the years. As it turned out, Paul had grown up (as we all do), married a very nice woman, and had 2 children. He also got a job as a schoolteacher in the same town and school district where I first met him. Apparently at some point while he was teaching third-grade students, Paul developed an unhealthy liking of 9-yr-old girls. One of his students had come forward with allegations of molestation, and she was quickly followed by several other girls he had taught. While he was awaiting trial on multiple charges, he died from a self-administered rapid overdose of lead poisoning delivered directly to his brain via the barrel of a shotgun. [/unrelated side-story] ----------------------- Grown-ups didn't know ----------------------- Judging from the reactions of every single one of my childhood friends who ever came into close contact with the basement, we children seemed to be (in some fashion) attuned to the presence of whatever was lurking within it. We could sense it, even though adults were entirely unaware of it, and thus unaffected. My parents never showed any signs of being frightened by the basement at all. I never mentioned my fear to them for a variety of (completely illogical and nonsensical) reasons that I'll attempt to explain later. Occasionally, I'd see my mother coming up from the basement; usually carrying a hamper full of clean laundry. I was in complete awe of how courageous she was, to have willingly gone into (and surprisingly, returned safely from) that abomination beneath the house. I don't recall ever seeing her enter the basement, only seeing her return. I may have just 'blacked-out' any memory of seeing her enter, as the thought would have been too traumatic for my young mind to cope with. I'd like to think that if I'd seen her entering that dreadful tomb, I would have warned her not to go, even pleaded with her if necessary. Truth is, I probably wouldn't have. I would probably have been too afraid to voice my objections, knowing that the basement might hear me. I knew that it was evil, and I knew that it was dangerous, yet I had the suspicion that just maybe, it didn't know that I knew. Somehow, my intuition told me that I'd be safer if I didn't let it find out that I knew about it. As long as it didn't know I was aware of it, I could avoid it - but if it found out that I knew, it would have to get rid of me. For the rest of the time that we lived in that house, I avoided that door like some demonic infectious disease that was absolutely, without-any-doubt, determined to destroy me (or worse). As I said before, I didn't mention my fear to my parents or anyone else. Using my childhood logic, saying it out-loud might awaken "the bad thing" and bring it directly to me, like some unearthly spectral dog-whistle. It seemed to be confined to the basement (for now), perhaps it was even trapped there and unable to come out. Speaking of it aloud might be like "calling it's name", which could free it from it's underground prison and allow it to come for me. I tried my best to hide my fear, because I somehow knew that if my parents found out about that fiendishly diabolical and loathsome entity, then the basement would be forced to deal with them, as well. As old superstitions go, saying something out loud calls it to you, and telling someone else brings it to them. Looking back on it, I suppose they had to know how frightened I was even though I never told them. I don't think they could have possibly not noticed how consciously I avoided that door, and how quickly I moved when I did have to walk by it. ----------------------- Relief at last ----------------------- After about a year, we moved out of that house and to a different state. I still remember that basement (well, what little of it I ever actually saw) in great detail, and I'll never forget how I would become consumed by sheer terror whenever I came into close proximity to it. ----------------------- ----------------------- Update - More recent times A couple of years ago while I was visiting my mother, we were talking and something reminded me of all this. I don't remember what, exactly. I don't even remember what the topic of conversation was at the time, most likely something inconsequential, but something she said, or something I said, or perhaps something on TV reminded me (all it usually takes is hearing the word "basement"). In an off-handed sort of way, I mentioned it to her. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I remember being shocked by the way she reacted to it. What I said was probably something mostly innocuous, like "remember when I was little, how scared I was of the basement". She just stared at me blankly, with a very strange look on her face, and didn't say anything all. After a few seconds (not your usual 'few seconds' - these were seconds that felt like days, or perhaps weeks - timeless, infinite seconds during which I became increasingly uncomfortable), when the silence had reached a deafening crescendo and my discomfort level had peaked, I tried to change the subject. She wouldn't allow that. To my horror, she only stared at me quizzically and asked me to repeat myself. The remainder of the conversation proceeded something like this: quote: "What did you just say?" "Ah - mmm, nevermind, it's nothing - just thinking out loud." "No, you weren't - What did you just say?" "I'm going to get another cup of coffee - do you want one?" "Stop avoiding my question - I want to know what you meant - Something about the basement?" "It's not important, really" "Tell me." "I was just saying how much it scared me when I was little." - [blank stare from mom] - "I was really glad when we moved out of that house." - [blank stare from mom] - "It's silly, I know." "We've never had a basement." Of course, I didn't believe her. I even argued with her a little. I described the door, the stairway, the noises... All to no avail. I tried reminding her of the night that Paul came for a sleepover, and how he had awoken so frightened that he refused to stay - she remembered the night, but she insisted that Paul had just gotten sick. I mentioned that the laundry machines were in the basement - She simply had to remember it; she'd been down there many times. She refused to hear any part of it - She remembered the small utility room outside the kitchen, but according to her, the laundry machines had been located in that room, and there was no door leading to a downward staircase. After a very frustrating conversation, it seemed that there was simply no way I would ever be able to make her remember, and she seemed to give up on trying to convince me. Later that evening, she brought out an old photo album. She sat down with me and went through photos of every house we had lived in while I was growing up. Photos of every location we had ever moved to, every city and state. She could tell me what years we lived in each home and how old I was at the time. She wanted me to point out which house I was talking about. I couldn't identify which particular house it had been. Although I could narrow it down to two possible houses based simply on my age at the time, neither one of them looked like the right house from my memory. The pictures were all familiar to me, I remembered the houses, but I couldn't place precisely which one of them it had been since none of them looked quite right. She could narrow it down to one particular house; being that it was the town where we had met Paul's family. She swore that it didn't have a basement, nor did ANY home we'd EVER lived in. ----------------------- Conclusions ----------------------- I sometimes wonder if perhaps the basement managed to somehow erase itself from her memory - Of course that would mean that it had altered my memory as well, rendering me unable to identify the house in which it dwelt, and thus preventing me from ever disclosing it's whereabouts. I try not to think about it too much, or too often, and I've once again decided that I probably shouldn't ever tell this story out loud. Rationally, I realize that there's no real danger in vocalizing any of this, but a part of me still thinks that there just might be. I have nothing to gain by saying it out loud, but I also stand to lose nothing by remaining silent about it just in case it can still hear me.

#Cellar #Door #Volponi #ghost stories #creepy #basement #fiction?

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rambledown-blog · 10 years ago

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The Dancing Cows

Once again I am posting something that I've thought about posting ever since I first joined this list. I think you will all realize very quickly why I haven't posted it before this. To this day, even I'm not completely sure what is was that I saw. I know what it looked like, but I've found that it's better, for me at least, not to believe that it really was what it looked like. This happened years ago. I really don't remember how old I was at the time, but I don't think I was more that about nine years old. That would put the time of this somewhere during the summer of 1984. My Grandparents ( My Mom's parents ) lived out in the country about fifteen minutes drive from home. I was spending the weekend with my Grandparents. The story that follows occoured on the Friday night of that weekend. It was after dark. I was on the couch, turned around and sitting on my knees, looking out a large picture window. I was waiting on Grandpa to get home from work. Grandma and I were the only two people in the there at the time. As I waited, a dense for began to form. The fog began to grow thicker as time passed. Grandma was getting a bit worried. Grandpa was late getting home and she was afraid he'd have an accident due to low visability brought on by the fog. Several more minutes passed. I was still kneeling on the couch, watching out the window for Grandpa. Then I saw what looked like two lights coming up the road toward the house. At first, I thought it the lights were from the headlights on Grandpa's car. Then I realized that the lights were not the right color. One light seemed to be a lemon yellow, while the other appeared pink. I watched, curious, as the lights moved closer. Then I yelled for Grandma to come to the window and look at them. Grandma was busy preparing supper and didn't want to leave the kitchen. I took another look at the lights, which were still moving closer, and then went to the kitchen to try to convince Grandma to come and see them. At this point, the lights were still not much more than fuzzy colored blobs due to the thick fog. I left the window and ran into the kitchen. I told Grandma that there was a pair of lights approaching the house. She said something along the lines of, "Good. He's finally home." I told her that the lights didn't look like they were from a car. I told her about the odd coloration. Finally, Grandma agreed to go take a look for herself. Running, I got to the window before Grandma did. I resumed my former kneeling possition on the couch before really looking out the window. The light were still there, closer than before. They were just starting to take on a more deffinate shape, like something was imergeing from the fog. Grandma leaned forward for a closer look at the solidifying shapes. I turned to her, asking what the lights were. She didn't know and was begining to act a bit scared by the sight. I turned back to the window. The strange lights were almost to the house by that point. (**Thinking back now, I realize just how bright they must have been to have been visable at the first.** ) Then the lights finally took on a more tangable shape. (**This is the part that REALLY makes me doubt what we THOUGHT we saw**) What we saw looked to be two cows, both bulls, dancing along the road on their hind legs. (**No, this is NOT a joke.**) One was glowing yellow, the other was glowing pink. Each of the "bulls" had a front leg, "arm" draped over the shoulder of the other. They were heading toward the driveway. At this point, Grandma fainted. I only remember giving her a quick look as she collapsed beside me on the couch, then I resumed staring in disbelief and shock at the sight outside. The "bulls" danced along until they got to the driveway, turned as if to make their way up it to the house. Then both just faded away. After some time (**I'm not sure how long exactally, but I don't think it was more than a minute or so**) I turned away from the window to Grandma. She was still unconcious. I had no idea how to revive her. I remember shaking her, as if trying to wake a sleeping person, and talking to her. I do not recall what I said. After a few moments, she began to stir. As Grandma woke up, she turned quickly back to the window. I told her that whatever we had seen was gone. I asked her what HAD we seen. Grandma sat me down on the couch and told me that I was NOT to breath a word of what had happened to Grandpa when he got home. I asked why. Grandma wouldn't give me an answer. She just kept telling me to keep quiet about it. A few minutes later, we heard a car door slam outside. Grandpa was home. Again, Grandma warned me not to say a word to Grandpa about what had happened. Naturally, the moment Grandpa entered the house, I ran straight to him and told him everything that had happened. Grandpa spared only a second to ask Grandma if she were okay. The moment she said "Yes" Grandpa retieved his shotgun and went outside. Grandma began to scold me, very loudly, for disobeying her orders. Several minutes later, Grandpa came back in. He had found nothing. To this day, neither of them will discuss what happened that evening. If that had been the end of the matter, I would have convinced myself years and years ago that both Grandma and I had simply been hallucinating. In fact, not too long after the incident, I had convinced myself of that. Several years after seeing the "bulls" at my Grandparents' house, a friend of mine who I grew up with came to me one day with a story. I'll call this girl "A". (**Both she and I were about twelve when she told me this**) When I lived in Ohio this girl's Grandparents lived directly behind us. "A" lived mostly with her Grandparents during the summer months. Only a one lane alley seperated our two yards. Across this girl's Grandparents' yard was the railroad bed I've posted about a few times in the past. On the other side of the railroad bed was a small farm. (**We lived at the very edge of town**) "A" came to me one day saying that she had seen something very strange the previous night. I asked her what she'd seen. "A" made a long speach about how I'd think she was crazy if she told me. I pointed out that she'd already brought up the subject, obviously, she wanted to tell me. "A" agreed. She said that late the night before she had been unable to sleep and had been looking out of her bedroom window. It began to get foggy. In the fog, "A" claimed to have seen two glowing lights moving across the pasture back at the farm. One light was yellow, the other pink. (**Please keep in mind that I had NOT told anyone about what Grandma and I had seen at this point.**) "A" said that, as the lights got closer to the railroad bed, they began to take on solid shapes. At that point, I was starting to get cold chills. "A" said that she must have been seeing things and that she wouldn't waste time telling me the rest of her story. I insisted that she did. After a few minutes "A" said, almost in tears, that the lights took on the shapes of cows. Bulls. Each bull had a front leg draped over the shoulders of the other. Both appeared to be dancing along on their hind legs. They were moving toward the railraod bed. Toward "A" 's Grandparents' house. "A" said that at that point she had turned away from her window and hid under the blankets until morning. After "A" told me her story, I told her mine own, very similar one. As far as I know, "A" never saw the "bulls" again after that night. I've never seem them again, myself. If not for "A" 's story, I would long since come to believe that what Grandma and I had seen was a hallucination brought on by the dense fog and car headlights or something like that. "A" 's story makes me think again. I don't know WHAT we saw, but I do know that we saw SOMETHING.

#The Dancing Cows #ghost stories #fiction?

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rambledown-blog · 10 years ago

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The Swamp

by pahuyuth

About 18 years ago, my buddy Kyle and I went canoeing down in south Georgia during the summer. The first part of the trip took us down the Satilla, a beautiful black water river with white sandy beaches. That part of the vacation was uneventful. The trip through the Okefenokee Swamp was not, however. Even at the age of 17 we were fairly experienced campers. Every weekend we would hike or float down a river. We never left without first plotting a detailed map and we had the best equipment a couple of teenagers could afford. We always planned for the unexpected and made sure to take an extra couple of days worth of supplies. The trip into the swamp was only going to be a short day trip, leaving early in the morning and returning before dusk. We were totally unprepared for what happened. We set off into the swamp early Saturday morning, leisurely paddling along the well marked canoe trail. We took in the sights of the gorgeous landscape, the beautiful plants and of course we marveled at the alligators. The two of us were loving every minute of our trek. Nearing midday, we became hungry so we paddled away from the trail a short distance, tied up to a tree, and made lunch. After eating our ramen noodles and jerky we relaxed in the canoe, and soon both of us fell asleep. We woke up a couple of hours later and started paddling back to the main path. We thought so, anyway. It didn't take us long to realize that we were lost. Neither of us felt any panic or distress. We had been in worse situtations and never failed to get through them. We were both confident we would soon find our way out of the maze in which we found ourselves. The hours passed and the sun was getting lower in the sky. Still far from panicking, we were growing a bit anxious. We were just chalking it up to another 'Scott and Kyle Adventure'. The sky continued to darken. At this point, we realized that we were going to have to spend the night in the swamp. Again, it was nothing we were really all that concerned about. We knew that the park rangers would be out looking for us the next day since our return time had come and gone. Kyle's family was staying in a nearby lodge, and even though we knew they naturally worried about us, we also knew that they were confident in our abilities and outdoor skills. In the Okefenokee, camping is allowed only on platforms built above the water. That way the gators can't get ya. Obviously, we didn't have the luxury of a platform, so we tied up to another tree and just made ourselves as comfortable as possible in the boat. We passed the time by eating, fishing, and watching the gators. Soon the sun had completely decended and it was night. It was eerily beautiful, and it seemed that Mother Nature had cranked up the volume to 11. The birds, frogs, insects and other swamp creatures became louder and louder. We talked about the sort of things that teenage boys talk about. We laughed and just enjoyed the moments. THUMP. Something hit the bottom of our boat. THUMP THUMP. Again, something hit our boat. Kyle raised our small lantern and we saw what had to have been the largest alligator in the whole freaking swamp swim past. If it was less than 15 feet long I would be surprised. It turned around and came straight at us, hitting the boat again. Kyle grabbed his oar and smacked the water, hoping to scare the damn thing away. The gator seemed to grow even more brazen and aggressive and once again made a pass at our boat, really hitting it hard and rocking it a good bit. I felt like I was in an alligator version of 'Jaws'. We needed a bigger boat, indeed! I too grabbed an oar and we both began beating the hell out of the water. The gator went under us, REALLY knocked the shit out of the boat, and swam away. We thought it had left for good, but it returned after about 5 minutes. We repeated this entire cycle about 4 times. We were really getting scared that this fucker wanted to kill us. It swam away again, and we waited for it to make another strike. Then everything went silent. Instantly. And by silent, I mean there was NOTHING making a sound. Not a fucking peep. Even the mosquitos that had been pestering us by buzzing around our faces had suddenly disappeared. We both looked at each other; our puzzled faces were illuminated by the dim lantern. Neither of us wanted to say anything to break the silence. I don't really think either of us could have said anything, anyway. SPLASH. SPLISH SPLASH. The sound was off to our right, probably 20-30 yards away. That damn gator again, I thought. Thankfully the eerie silence was giving way to some sort of activity. Nope, nothing else made a sound. SPLAAASH. This one sounded heavier; more violent. I told myself it was still just the gator. Kyle whispered. "Why is it so quiet?" I didn't have an answer. Surely, no animal in the swamp was so threatening that even the damn crickets and skeeters shut up. Not even our gator menace had quieted the sounds of the Okefenokee. Of course, as in all movie thrillers, the lantern went out and we couldn't reignite it. And of course, as in all situations like this, the clouds parted and the moon revealed itself. And of course, the two teenage boys who up to this point were relatively unrattled nearly pissed themselves. SPLASH! Something darted through the trees to our right. It was not an animal. Well, if it was an animal it was walking on its hind legs. A bear maybe? "Christ. What in the fuck was that?!" I said, but not too loudly. Didn't want it to hear me. "SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS". Something made a sound like air escaping from a tire. The same figure we saw earlier moved through the trees again. CRACK! THUMP. CRAAACK! The cracks were sharp and violent. The thump was dull and had a hollow tone to it. Still no other sounds in the whole freaking area. "SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS". There it was again, only a little louder. Several minutes passed with nothing happening. Our little part of the world was still deathly silent. PLOP. Something landed in the water right next to our canoe. PLOP. PLOP PLOP PLOP. It became apparent that the thing was throwing pebbles or something at us. Okay, now this is getting fucking ridiculous, I thought. Bears don't fucking throw things. Both Kyle and I simultaneously drew our hunting knives from their sheaths, as if that was going to do anything whatsoever. What happened next was something I will never forget. It is something that both of us wish we had dreamed. It is something that we don't even speak about when we see each other almost 20 years later. Jesus, I'm getting goosebumps and quite nervous even typing this. CLINK. Something landed in our canoe. CLINK CLINK. Two more somethings landed in our canoe. CLINK CLINK CLINK. Ok, enough with FUCKING THROWING SHIT INTO OUR CANOE! It was then we realized that whatever the objects were had come from above, NOT from either side. We looked at each other, our faces so white they rivaled the moon. At the same time, our gazes drew upward. There it was. Sitting in the tree. OUR TREE. The tree to which we were tied. You know that goat in Jurassic Park that was tied up for the T-Rex to eat? Yeah, we were that goat. I swear to christ that this thing must have been a child of the moon. The moon seemed to cast down its light on our friend in particular, illuminating it much more clearly than anything else in the area. It was as if the moon wanted us to see this thing in all its glory. It was humanoid- it had the body of a man with the head of the skull of some kind of animal. It looked kind of like a wolf or coyote or something similar. The eyes glowed yellow, and there was fur covering the shoulders and upper body. This thing was built like a tank, too. Its muscles rippled under its pale skin. It breathed deeply and slowly. In one hand it held some sort of staff that was maybe 3 feet long with a huge knot at one end. Around its neck there was a pouch made from leather. Oh, one thing I should mention is that this tree had no branches on the lower half of the tree where the creature was. It was grasping the tree with one arm, the staff clutched tightly in that hand. Its feet seemed to be dug into the tree trunk. With its free hand, he pointed at us. Keep in mind that Kyle and I were in opposite ends of the boat, but each of us swore that it was looking straight into the eyes of each of us. Strangely, our sense of fear went away once it gazed into us. A sense of calm and 'This is gonna be ok' came over us. Slowly, it withdrew its outstretched hand, opened the pouch around its neck, reached two long fingers inside and took something out. It slowly extended its arm again, and dropped the objects into our boat. "GWAHHHHHHHHHHHHH SSSSSSSSSSSSSKKKKKKKKKKKKKHHHHHH" is the best approximation of the sound it made. It pointed at us again, then pointed off into the distance, to our right. It leapt from the tree, landed with a very quiet splash, and darted off. The clouds gathered around the moon, and all the swamp's inhabitants began making their music once again. Of course, we didn't sleep a wink. We sat in silence for the rest of the night, too awed and scared to speak. The direction it pointed to turned out to be the way back to the trail. The objects in our boat? Alligator teeth. Freshly dug out from a recently dead gator. It was clear that this thing had been watching over us. Once we got back to the canoe center, we told the story of being lost and the gator to the park rangers and Kyle's family. We left the part about our friend out. After we all settled down a bit, we talked to the rangers about the history of the swamp, hoping to gain some insight into what had happened. They mentioned nothing about ghosts, and scoffed at us when we brought it up. They did say that many indian burial mounds have been found, though... some 4000 years old. Anyway, Kyle and I talked it about once and only once after it happened. It was so amazing, unbelievable, and awe inspiring that we have no need to discuss it I guess. As for telling the story, no one would believe us anyway.

#The Swamp #pahuyuth #Skinwalkers #ghost stories #creepy #fiction?

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rambledown-blog · 10 years ago

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The Jungle

by Canis Latran

Another story from the jungle, this one being the one that still gives me nightmares on occasion. Now, I can not really claim this as happening exactly as I remembered it, not in any honest sense. I remember it as happening like so however, which still has me waking on occasion in a cold sweat.

This is back in some weird little island in the Philippines learning jungle survival stuff from the nigridos. My friend Tony and I were getting the hang of some of the finer points of staying alive in a world that wanted you dead and festering with larvae. Tony is a solid guy, the kind of friend your lucky to have. He had my back, I had his, and it didn't matter what stupid shit the other decided to get himself into, he wasn't going into it alone. Seriously the guy was loyal to a fault, still is. This is actually how we ended up in the middle of the bush together god knows how many miles from whatever could be considered civilization and light years away from anything remotely safe. Part of the final test of what you learned out there was to go out alone for a coupla days and make your way back to the village. It was a basic practical test, ideally you had a nigrido shadowing you not too far off making sure you didn't get yourself graved by being an idiot. You'd never know these guys were there though, ever, they knew this territory and knew how to work it. The jungle is dense, profoundly thick. I know you've probably heard stories about how you can walk past like...an entire ruined temple in the middle of South America and never even clue in that its there even though your practically on its doorstep. Its true, you step ten feet from your buddy in the wrong direction, blink wrong and bam, your alone.

We had both done pretty good as far as the nigridos cared, we picked up things fast and weren't shy about doing things most westerners balk at, eating bugs, getting filthy and reaching into mysterious holes to grab whatever might be lurking in there. I had no problem with this as my dad was kind of a nutjob survivalist in my early youth and had a thing for doing things "the Traditional Way," Tony had no problems doing this stuff because he had balls the size of a C-130, loaded with tanks, and driving those tanks were condors with helmets.

Anyways, its time for the practicals, and although we were supposed to solo that noise, Tony and I basically said "no dice we're going in as a pair," to which the nigridos smiled and nodded and agreed that we were smart to demand such a thing. You never go out there alone. I always thought it was kind of a trick question thing anyways, sending your goofy ass out into the dense solo when all throughout the training they go on and on about how you're a dumb shit if you go out there alone. Bonus points for us I guess right?

We get bags over our heads and led to a little riverboat. They rumble us out for a few hours and then unceremoniously dump our asses onto the beach. The nigrido tosses us a knife, stares at us for awhile before making this weird little gesture and buggering off on his boat. I couldn't catch the exact gesture, but it was like a gang sign I guess, quick, fingers all tangled up. His boat was shit, I swear it was made out of warehouse pallets or something the like. Tony and I both figured the guy probably went up river a bit then bailed on his own craft and fixed to shadow us and keep an eye out.

With bravado fed by the others presence we went into the jungle all smiles and ego. We were good, we knew this, we were not afraid and figured this would be fun as hell, and give us some future stories to tell the ladies about and hence get laid. Tony has a knack for direction and the two of us sussed our whereabout after only a few hours. It was daytime, so climbing a tree gave us a pretty decent view. Not a lot to see really, but somehow he figured on a direction we were supposed to go and we headed off. Moving through the jungle can be slow work, in the movies you have to hack your way through shit with a machete like Indiana Jones or some shit. Reality is a bit different. If you know where to step, you can avoid all the work of cutting stuff down. Along fallen logs is pretty good, up roots and the like, but don't ever put your foot alongside something like that, that's snakefood. The nigridos do it at kind of a lazy jog, we were more deliberate but still moving at a pace that was comfortable to us.

We chattered constantly, it wasn't to keep predators away, as far as we knew the island had no real big threats like cats or anything, we did it because Tony and I couldn't shut the fuck up when we were around each other. I'm sure you guys have friends like that. Those two chucklefucks in the back of the classroom in highschool always snickering and loaded with injokes, that was pretty much us, in the jungle...with a single knife and something to prove. The first day was pretty damn uneventful, we didn't eat, and we spent almost the entire time moving. We found water in different places, big cone shaped leaves are good for that, and they typically come with snacks of differing squiggly varieties. We made camp up in the branches of a big goofy ass looking tree, took light watches and slept like babies. I woke up covered in bugs the size of my fingers and Tony fell off his branch and got stuck in the crook of the tree when he woke up, clumsy bastard.

The second day started out like the first, chattering, moving, high spirits. The jungle was getting smellier and bleaker as we went, I think we were close to an estuary or something because there was a briny smell. The soil went from firm with a heavy layer of dead vegetation, to black-brown silt and loose. Tony and I tried making some fire, took us awhile but we did the trick with thread from his shirt and long bendy twig to make a bow with and whatnot. We got some smoldering going, but shit out there was so wet it just made a lot of thick black smoke and never really caught. I figured if we kept some tender dry ontop of our heads or something and maybe found some good dead wood we'd have something worth burning. As time went on we got to talking about old times, funny crap we had done, new ideas for pranks with which to torment our hapless buddies with and the desire to come out of this not only successful but as badass as possible. We didn't want to be the Swiss family fucking Robinson, we wanted Rambo. I mean seriously, how could anyone want anything BUT that. Imagine that crap, coming out of the bush all grim faced and scarred, with like a dead deer over your shoulder and the skulls of your enemies tied around you in a belt made out of human hair. Not that we had enemies local, but I'm sure we could make some right?

That's pretty much us. It was around mid-day Tony and I noticed this weird echo effect with the jungle. It was hard to notice because we never really shut up, but when we talked, there was this weird echo that was soft and sounded far away at first. Until he pointed it out and we started listening more carefully. Every time we talked, there it was, that echo...it wasn't as far away as it initially sounded either, just deceptively soft. We figured it was maybe soundwaves bouncing off the broadleaf plants in the area or something and coming back at us all curved up. We weren't rocket scientists, but we weren't proper dumb either. Tony and I made a game out of it, we'd start chattering at each other and then he'd hold up his hand, fingers splayed and visually countdown with em, we'd stop mid sentence when he hit zero, and could hear the last few words said bounce around us in a weird jungle whisper. At dusks we had been getting kind of tired of the game and blew it off, but before we went up to rest Tony pulled it on me one last time. Normally echoes just kind of stop or trail off right? This time...I dunno, it just kind of looped, and it looped wrong.

The last thing I had been saying to Tony was something along the lines of "I'm a goddamned sexual tyranno-" and cut off. What we heard bouncing around us in that quiet sibilant way was, "I'm a god damned, god damned, god, god, I'm, damned." Tony and I stopped talking and just kind of stared at each other for a bit. We weren't ruling out echoes yet, though over all our time out here doing this training we hadn't ever really heard it before, or mention of it. We were both creeped right the fuck out, and when one of us is creeped, the other picks up on it and the hackles go up. We found ourselves a solid tree and that night we did not pull light watches, we pulled proper. I'm figuring a little after midnight Tony woke me up with a hand on my shoulder.

It's dark at night in the jungle, god damned dark, and noisy. The canopy over head pretty much prevents any good starlight coming through, and the skies are most always fat with gray clouds. The bugs get set to screeching at night and they don't quit for nothing. Underneath our tree something was rooting around in the bushes, even through the bugs we could both hear it. Shuffling, a quiet snort, crunches, snuffling. Sounded like a pig to me and I was set to bark at it and maybe spook it off when Tony's hand on my shoulder tenses. Then I could hear it.

Muttering in between the snuffles. A snort, some bushes rustling and a few low scattered words. Bits and pieces of sentences. It took me a second, but fuck me if it didn't sound like Tony down there pissed off and searching for something he'd lost in the bush. You know when a grumpy ass drops a contact or something and gets to searching for it muttering under his breath, it's like that. Whatever was down there was fucking talking. It wasn't making any sense though, the weirdest fucking thing. "So tits," snortsnort "Yeah the green," shuffle, "Named after fucker," rustle. Then a laugh, and I froze when I heard that. It started with my laugh, which is this goofy Mark Hamill as the Joker thing and ended with Tony's troublemaker's drawl. See we had been bullshitting for the past what, day and a half, and spent a good time laughing our asses off at each other. Whatever the fuck that thing was down there it was like it was trying our voices on for size.

We'd both seen Predator, we'd been quoting that shit for days out here. I can't even begin to count how many times I'd just stop while one of the instructors was explaining something, stare off into the horizon and mutter, "There’s something out there, up in them trees." Which never failed to make Tony laugh like a retard. Military types watch a lot of god damned movies, and your typical boots on the ground motherfucker can quote like a champ. No lie, we can even do crazy shit like quote a movie line for line with a different cast from yet another movie. You haven't lived til you've seen a bunch of petty officers do a scene from Aliens with Thurgood from Half-Baked as the Sarge. We caught the similarities to our situation pretty god damned fast. It was eerie listening to this thing natter about imbecility down there, it had no comprehension of the noises it was making, but it was fucking making them.

Tony slid me the knife and secured himself in his spot and I kept the watch until dawn. The thing trundled off a half hour or so before daybreak. I'm no Apache, but I know knives well enough to be comforted by holding one, but even that didn't break the "oh what the fuck have we gotten ourselves into," gloom that caught us.

The next day was a grim fucking thing. We weren't chattering, we weren't joking around anymore. Nerves were on edge and both of us had to have looked like someone had gutted our favorite dog. Tony did at least, I'm a goofy looking guy so I probably still looked like a run of the mill dork. Believe me, the urge to quote predator was pretty god damned strong but we just couldn't get past the feeling that we needed to be quiet and careful. Tony managed a half-hearted Arnold gargle when we were headed up a ridge, I think in an attempt to beat the gloom, but even that couldn't do it. He does a good Arnold gargle too, for those that don't know what that is, its hard to describe really its like a weirdly accented "Arghlearg" noise done in Arnies manner that's pretty unmistakable when you hear it. Wow, actually writing that down makes it seem so dumb as hell, still funny as all get out though I think.

We didn't hear that weird echo as long as we didn't talk. We were starting to get hungry though, and random bugs wasn't doing much to assuage that. It felt like, I dunno the right description, it felt like we were being bullied if that made any sense. We couldn't talk, we weren't allowed to. That got us both feeling a little pissed off. Tony and I individually aren't anything I'd call cowards, we aren't heroes by any stretch of the word, but were not pussies. Together though, we get stupid brave. I'm sure you might see where this is leading. To us it was a natural shift. It took a few hours of grimly trudging along in the direction we believed was the right way to go for the shift to happen, but it was kind of inevitable. Screw this thing. Screw this stupid talking thing. I broke the silence proper, started bitching about the girls on this island, how they had curves like a dirt road. Tony countered immediately that I lacked the proper gear to drive a dirt road. We started chattering again, this time aggressively, we were defying this damned spooky thing. We began the most ridiculous conversations. How do you properly screw a dolphin? Do you beach it and plug the blowhole? Do you sneak up on it in a zodiac, spear gun it's ass and go at an eye socket? Crap like that. We were uncouth savages. We were listening for that stupid echo, waiting for it.

We were not disappointed. The echoes started up, it was hard to get a location, but the best I could figure was back and towards my side a bit. Tony scored a major victory when he said something along the lines of, "Dance around that flagpole bare-assed and body-painted like I'm a drag-queen paramount." The echo came back as "I'm a drag-queen." Tony stopped in his tracks, turned around and screamed back at it, "YOU'RE FUCKING RIGHT YOUR A DRAG-QUEEN YOU DICK EYED JUNGLE CUNT!" It was liberating, terrifying though. That was the first time we actually addressed the god damned thing. But we did, we addressed it, we acknowledged it as existing and that just sat bad. A small victory but that feeling in our guts, that wasn't the feeling you get when you win a fight. It's the feeling you get when you start a war.

When Tony had called that thing out it was a declaration of war. We both started getting hostile, not towards each other mind you, but towards this whatever the hell it was.

We got to planning, and threatening, vocalizing the horrible things we were planning on doing to it once we caught a hold of it. I distinctly remember Tony saying something along the lines of "I'm strangle this goofy-assed thing, I'ma kill it with my bare hands." I laughed, "Dude what if it's a fuckin' nigrido and he's just screwing with us." Tony just stared at me. I shrugged, couldn't blame him for the sentiment really.

Thing is, we kept going on, we never turned around, neither of us wanted to actually stand our ground or charge off after it. There was this distinct sensation that doing so would have been one helluva bad idea. We were getting hungry though and figured that it was probably time to do something about it. There's a lot to eat in the jungle if you're not shy, frogs, bugs and the like can keep you going like a trail ration, but if you want something with more substance you have to kill it, or if you're some sort of fancy botanist I suppose you can tell a jungle death turnip from a potato and do it that way. We were not botanists, and I only knew which plants could get me high, unconscious or stop bleeding. Tony climbed up a tree and managed to brain some sort of monkey critter with a rock. The guy could be quiet as hell, and the monkey critters out here were curious and stupid. The specific trap we used to catch the monkey off guard was me laying down in a space between some trees and doing my best curly impression from the Three Stooges. You know the thing where you lay on your side, and start running and kind of churn circles while going "whooop whooop whooop." Well, that's what I was doing, which got a few monkeys coming down and looking at us like dude, what the fuck are you doing, and Tony hit one with a rock. We were some crafty bitches.

I managed to start an acceptable fire, previously I had taken our tinder and folded it up in a dry leaf and worn it on my head like an idiot. The campfire was tiny, but it did the trick, I cleaned the monkey critter as best I could and we cooked it old school on some sticks. The sticks caught fire frequently, and a lot of the meat burned to inedible carbon but my god it was good. We cooked the hell out of that monkey, I'm sure it was loaded with parasites, but burning the hell out of it had to help, and I figured we could get purged when we got back to our unit, or hell, just the village if I could boil some water and drop some tabs. The other monkey critters watched us eat, they were quiet, just staring. Probably should have felt bad about that in hindsight, but neither of us was feeling charitable or friendly really. Something about having meat in our bellies and actual fire, albeit a small one made us feel a lot more ready for this weird shit and we got to planning on how we were gonna handle it.

Idea one was to continue on as we were going and maybe just pick up the pace. It was the safest idea by far and Tony figured we had another day until we got to either a shitty road we could navigate off of or a larger river we could follow. Idea two was to cover ourselves in mud, arm ourselves with bows made from roots and shit and ambush the thing. I shit you not, we figured why the hell not. Idea three was to split apart at night, have each person in a different tree and stay up until whatever it was came snooting around. Whoever was in the tree it decided to investigate would signal the other who would come down and murder the hell out of it from the rear. I liked idea three and voted for it, Tony voted for two and the monkey's skull sided with me making it a unanimous vote for idea three, because Tony was Italian and Italians don't get to vote.

There was some threatening of each other's life, but in the end we pretty much settled on our two tree ambush idea.

We didn't move from that site that day. We sharpened some sticks, thick short ones make good spikes. Tony let me keep the knife since I was a bit swifter with it than he was and he carried the spikes. The guy is strong, much stronger than me and I figured he could put those things too much better use than I if he could get a good line up. Figured it would go like this. It would start bothering one or the other of us who would throw a twig at his buddy. Buddy would come down and engage whatever it was, at which point the initial target would drop down and help secure the kill. We went over it a coupla different times, figured out some possible oh-shit secondary plans but really, there wasn't much to it. This thing had been creeping us out for awhile and we wanted it dead, we felt kind of elated by the thought of killing it. Turn the tables on its ass and come out like badasses. We got ourselves motivated and I did something which is I guess kind of embarrassing but whatever. I put on warpaint. I guess that's dorky as hell. I took some of the black-silt soil we had been around, mixed it with monkey-juice and smeared three dark lines across my face. Tony thought I looked kinda badass so he did the same. We used to do this during training and paintball games, hell, once during a hide and go seek game with some corpsman girls at camp Lester we did it. Yes, we played hide and go seek, with the legitimate intent of getting laid by said corpgirls, yes we smeared our face paint on the aforementioned corpgirls. He did a full on handprint on his face, it looked very Conan meets Geronimo meets a Guido. The paint tightened up into pretty solid noticeable lines when the fluids coagulated, which took all of fifteen minutes or so.

Our site was decent too, an opening in the canopy over where we had set our campfire promised that if there was any light to be had that night, we'd be able to make some use of it. We picked out our trees, climbed up there and took a few practice throws with twigs we had nearby. I hit him in the eye, he kept aiming at my balls. Spirits were high, sort of...it was a false high, bravado I think.

Night came, and with it, bugsong. High chirps and cackling buzzes all over the place. I near pissed myself when what I had assumed to be a knot of wood next to my thigh twitched and started this staccato screech that ricocheted off the trees. Was a big assed beetle thing. We lucked out in that cloud cover was lighter than it typically is and we had a good moon. Not bright by any stretch, but more than we had any night previous. We waited. Felt like forever, sitting up in a tree, trying to keep your heartbeat regular. Knowing the second we heard whatever it was we heard we'd get that adrenaline kick to the nuts that would make our whole body start shaking. I'm not sure how long we waited up there before it came. At first I missed it entirely, I was so intent on listening for it I missed it entirely. When I finally zeroed in on the snuffling, rummaging, muttering beneath me I realized I had been hearing it for some time now. It was under me. Me.

I pulled my knife up and crouched on my branch, my free hand making sure for the love of god I had a strong hold on a nearby branch. I took a few minutes to steady myself and really listen. I wanted to make sure of a few things before I alerted Tony. I desperately wanted this thing to be alone, and I wanted to get a general idea of its size. Size wasn't too hard, judging by the heaviness of the rummaging going on beneath me it was man-sized, maybe a bit bigger but lower to the ground. As for the numbers, well fuck...I only heard one. Small comfort that.

I had a pile of little pre-snapped twigs and I grabbed the whole damn thing and tossed it towards Tony's tree. Now, remember I said Tony can be a quiet guy. I had no idea if I had hit him, or if he had started moving, I could only really guess as to the actions over on his end. I got a good grip on the branch with my legs and made to swing under it, do kind of spider man maneuver and maybe stab downwards. It was a bit overelaborate yeah, but I used to climb trees all the time as a kid, and dangling like a douchebag was second nature. Nowadays the dangling not so much, douchebag I still got. Anyways, I'm dangling, I let go with my hands and get ready to knife this fucking thing in the head when I see it.

A huge moment of confusion washed over me when it happened. I damn near went loose and fell off my branch. Tony is looking straight up at me. He's gotta be like, four feet off the ground just looking at me with this blank retarded look on his face. Mind you, its pretty dark, but I can see a face...swear it looked like him, at first. Then I focus on it a bit more and notice. It has no fucking facepaint.

It's not Tony.

Shit, it doesn't even look like Tony's face anymore, it's just A face. But it's a god damned human face, looking up at me, blinking. My blood runs cold and I can feel my body come to a screeching halt. "Tony, get the fuck back up in your tree." I say.

"Up in your tree." It says back, sounding pleased with its god damned self.

I can hear Tony, the real Tony over there in his tree rustle as he gets right the hell back up in the branches. "What the hell is goin' on, what the hell, what the heeeeell is that." He's got this angry nervousness in his voice. I've heard him like this only a few times, usually before we got our collective asses kicked by some angry merchant marines. The thing is still staring at me, and I'm making out more of its body. It's a fucking pig. I mean, it's body. Its got the broad rectangular barrel of a body. Its quadruped though I cant make out the distinct feet, its got a human, or at least human-ish face. "It's a pig Tony, it's just a god damned pig." I say, and the thing is mimicking me just the same as always. I can hear an exasperated sigh over in the other tree and I continue, "It's got a people face though, stay the fuck up in that tree Doc." Doc is a magic word to corpsmen, its a business word and it isn't lightly used, marines call us Doc, but usually only after we've proven ourselves I guess you could say, corpsmen rarely refer to each other as such, unless were trying to elaborate on a point. I was elaborating my point as hard as I could, as calmly as I could, without shitting myself. I was still upside down, if I had shit myself, well...think about how unpleasant it would be to fill your pants and then have it run up your damned back and into your hair. Blech.

Man-face is looking up at me and Tony goes silent over there. We stare at each other for along while before I manage to find purchase and swivel back upright. I'm not looking down anymore, let that thing root around.

I didn't sleep that night.

It left before morning, like it always did and Tony and I went to ground and moved out, as fast as possible. We talked little, only that what I had seen was an unquantifiable thing, I could not predict any actions outcome on something I knew absolutely nothing about. I mean shit, if it had been like a tiger or something ridiculous like that, I could have figured something out, even something stupid, but not this thing. If it had been the nigrido, well, Tony and I would have likely kicked the hell out of him, but I woulda chilled Tony out before he killed him no problem. It wasn't anything I knew though, it was wrong, and bizarre and very disturbing. We immediately initiated idea one. We didn't hunt anymore monkeys, we didn't fish, we didn't eat bugs. We drank sparingly as we went, which gave us some serious dehydration issues. Tony had an idea of where to go and that's where we went, fast.

Thank god for the river, when we found we made so many miles. We weren't playing around anymore either. The first civilian craft we saw, which was this shitty little rickshaw thing, we flagged it, asked for a lift and we got back home.

When we arrived at the village we were haggard, dehydrated, cut up and miserable. This wasn't a big surprise to the nigridos, everybody came back from the practical like that. What bothered them is the man they sent out to watch over us never came back.

That keeps me up some nights.

#The Jungle #canis latran #ghost stories #fiction?

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rambledown-blog · 10 years ago

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Army Man

by H.P. Shivcraft

During my senior year of high school I got a job working at a large department store that I will not name (but if you think for even half a second about âlarge American discount department stores' you can probably guess what it was). I ended up working in the deli. You know how things go when you first get plopped down into a group of people who've known each other for a long time: it's pretty uncomfortable because they have lots of in-jokes or catchphrases that you have no hope in hell of understanding. That's what I thought the Army Man was, an in-joke. You see, whenever there was some sort of accident -- like, say, a woman working in bakery knocking over a stack of boxes, or one of my coworkers in deli dropping an entire eight-piece chicken on the floor on the way to the fryer, it was customary to jokingly grumble "The Army Man did it" and then restack the boxes or throw away the chicken or whatever. I never bothered asking for an explanation since the only thing that makes you feel like more of a loser than not getting an in-joke is asking everyone what an in-joke is all about. After a while, though, I began to understand a little of what the crack meant. Sometimes whenever anyone blamed something on the Army Man, they would put their arms out in front of them and do a sort of pantomime of an on-your-belly-under-barbed-wire boot camp crawl. I took this to mean that that there was an imaginary solider crawling around on the floor of the store, causing all sorts of elfish mishaps, and some past joke to this effect had spawned whatever meme my coworkers were perpetuating. I'd been working for a few months when I finally decided to ask what the Army Man was all about. I was in the break room when one of my coworkers, let's call her Betty, happened to go on lunch. She was about my mom's age and took a motherly interest in my current affairs, so she asked me about how my grades were and if I'd been accepted to any colleges and all that jazz. I humored her while she ate and then, about five minutes before my break ended, asked her about the Army Man. Betty froze up completely, holding her lips really tight, and just shook her head. She refused to say anything about the subject, not even trying to be subtle about it, but Betty was always one for melodrama. I mean, Betty had made the joke along with everyone else; I didn't understand why she wouldn't talk about it now, unless she was being intentionally childish. I dropped the subject and went back to work. A few days later I was in the break room again when Ruth, one of the women working in bakery, happened by. This time she brought up the subject with me, asking if I'd spoken to Betty about the Army Man. I figured it wouldn't make any sense to say otherwise so I said that I had, and that Betty had refused to say anything about it. Ruth just nodded and said, "Well, you know how Betty is." When I said that I didn't Ruth held her hands in front of her like she was praying and began to flap her lips in a silent imitation of prayer. Betty was an ardent Pentecostal, I knew, and instead of swearing had a habit of yelling out "Help me, Jesus!" when she got hot grease on her hand, but why this meant she didn't talk about the Army Man, I had no clue. So Ruth explained: Sometime the year before one of the unloaders working third shift had been moving pallets into the large freezer where we kept all frozen goods that weren't on the shelves; it was common practice to keep the freezer door open for most of the night while the unloaders took stuff from the truck and moved it in. This particular unloader had surprised his coworkers when they found him outside the freezer with the door slammed shut. When they tried to open it he begged them not to and, when they ignored him, he tried to fight them away. At first they thought it was a joke, but soon it became obvious that this guy was desperate for them not to open the freezer door. He refused to tell them exactly what had happened; from the way he talked it sounded like he'd seen an animal sneak into the freezer, though why this would freak him out they couldn't guess. They got the managers on duty that night, explained the situation, and against the unloader's protests, ventured into the freezer. There was nothing in there but boxes, though a few of them had been pulled down from their shelves and smashed, ruining quite a bit of merchandise. The unloader was fired, since it was assumed he'd done something wrong and was trying to shift the blame onto someone else. But before he'd left for good he'd worked a few more days, Ruth told me, and it was during this time he mentioned to some coworkers exactly what he had seen: a shape like a man on his stomach, naked and pale, just disappearing between the plastic flaps that hung down over the freezer door. Of course the unloader could have mistaken a reflection in those same plastic sheets for whatever it was he claimed to have seen, so he was generally laughed at even after he was fired. It became harder to joke when other people began to see and hear it, though. It was just snatches of conversation you might pick up, Ruth told me. The women working the returns desk, for instance, would mention that they thought they heard someone on the floor on the other side of their counter, but since they couldn't see anything it must have been something on the floor -- but they didn't bother looking, because of course it was nothing. Cashiers had similar stories of hearing something move through their checkout lane even though there were no customers, something too low to the ground to be glimpsed over the edge of a counter. Coupled with the description the unloader had given, this was when people began to think of the thing as a person trying to be covert, pulling himself around on his stomach by use of his forearms. This was why they started calling it the Army Man. Betty saw it in the deli. We had a hot case, a metal plexiglass display where we put warm food such as chicken and what-have-you under heatlamps; the top half of the case was filled with pans of food, French fries and so forth, that we served to customers, while the bottom half was filled with boxed eight pieces and rotisseries that the customers could grab on their own. One night while closing, Betty had bent down to clean the glass windows on this section of the hot case. She screamed her all-purpose curse -- "Help me, Jesus!" -- before promptly tumbling back on her ass and twisting her ankle. At first the people working with her thought she'd just slipped, since the deli floor was covered in grease pretty much all the time. Betty was having trouble standing up again so they called in management, who quickly arranged a way to transport Betty to the hospital. While they waited, Betty explained to them what she saw: on the other side of the glass, out on the floor of the store, had been a thing looking back at her. That was what she called it, Ruth told me, not a man but a thing. Betty was out of commission while her leg healed up -- it wasn't broken, just twisted monstrously bad. After a few weeks of general annoyances, a guy working in electronics insisted he'd seen someone crawling around on the merchandise shelves at the back of the department. Thinking it was a customer's kid, he ran over to straighten them out, just as a few plasma TVs were knocked over and shattered. When he told management his story they of course didn't believe him; there was barely enough room on the shelves for the TVs themselves, let alone a person, child or not. He was fired. Four months or so before I started working, one of the mechanics in automotive refused to let a customer take their car back. The customer was naturally pissed and had called the department manager, a man named Rick. As the mechanic later told anyone who would listen, he'd been working on the customer's car when he had to take a leak. Upon returning he'd seen things like fingers poking out from the vehicle's undercarriage, curled around the bumper, but they withdrew before he could do anything about it. He searched the car and found nothing, but when the customer came back he still had his doubts about letting the automobile leave the garage. He laid out the situation privately for Rick, who volunteered to test drive the car first and explained it away to the customer as some new quality control policy. Rick drove fifteen feet into the parking lot before one of the front wheels of the car let out a groan and fell off completely. Needless to say Rick was very much embarrassed and there was a tangle of the usual insurance issues, with the customer blaming the store for tampering with his car. Somehow this was all settled out of court. Rick killed himself two months after the car incident, though no one could say why. He hadn't seemed particularly depressed and he'd been working as hard as ever, but one night he went home and (from what Ruth heard) overdosed on sleeping pills. Ruth had her own ideas, of course: the Army Man had gotten into the car with the intention of leaving the store, but Rick had foiled its plans and so, instead of following the customer home, it had chosen to follow him home instead. This naturally raised more questions than it answered: what the hell was the Army Man, then, and how had it gotten to the store to begin with? Ruth just shook her head and said something like, "Don't ask me. I just bake French bread." And that was that. I quit the deli a few months later to head off to college. In the intervening time I had begun to wonder why people continued to joke about the Army Man, if it had ever existed in the first place and if it was half as serious as Ruth made it out to be. Was it just some way of relieving stress, trying to make it seem less important than it really was, or were they fucking with me? In time it occurred to me that if Ruth was right, if this Army Man could somehow pass between people and places, then there was a chance, however small, that it might come back to the store, or worse, that Rick had brought it back before he killed himself, and if either of those had happened, it could leave again with someone else. Perhaps it was done out of fear, as a superstition. I'd been doing it too, I realized. It was just part of the atmosphere of the deli, part of working with people for an extended period of time: you adopt their references, their in-jokes, their memes. I work in the campus library currently. It's quiet, but I've never heard anything whispering across the carpeted floor. However, when I'm not paying attention while stacking books on a cart, a practice that inevitably leads to a bunch of them falling over, or when the network goes on the fritz and we can't figure out why, I often find myself muttering, "The Army Man did it." I think a few of my coworkers have overheard me, because they've started to say it, too.

#Army Man #H.P. Shivercraft #ghost stories #creepy #fiction?

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rambledown-blog · 10 years ago

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The Rambledown Theater

by cardinalpuck

Okay, I'll post these as I edit them and double-check facts with my friend. I’ve posted in these threads before a few experiences I’ve had in a haunted theatre, but there have been enough requests for me to post the whole story that I’m finally going to do it. A friend and I wrote this out so we could put some sort of capstone on our experiences, to chronicle in our small way the events that we witnessed and lived with for the year and a half the Rambledown Theatre was open. Rambledown is not the real name of the business, but it does bear some resemblance to the actual name. I’m not going to include any place names and I’ll do my best to keep the location secret, because my friend and I truly believe that it would be a very bad idea to go back there today. I didn’t mean to fictionalize this story at all, and everything is just about exact to my memory, but the only way I could write it out was to write it as a story. To make it seem like it happened to a character, not me. I assure you though that everything I wrote about really happened, the Rambledown did exist, and so did all the people. I guess I hope you can get some enjoyment out of it, as it really does make a good story. Anyway, here it is.

Chapter One: Exposition It’s been about three years since I’ve even set foot in the same state as the theatre, but I still get chills when I think about some of the things that I or others saw in the short time it was open. The Rambledown Theatre was a sprawling, three story building that looked like something out of the old west. In fact, it’d been built as a saloon and, as rumor had it, a brothel for the old mining town in which it sat. The mine had dried up, and the town had emptied out, and in the long years since the great western gold rush the buildings had crumbled around the Rambledown until nothing but a few vacant clearings were left to mark the place. The theatre itself, however, survived. Its strong grey stone form had protected it from bullets and fires common in a rowdy cowboy town, and so it protected the Rambledown for the hundred years it sat vacant. It wasn’t until 1998 that a group of enterprising college friends decided that the untouched valley where the old mining town had once survived, only an hour from what had become a midwestern arts capitol, would make a perfect place for a trendy nightspot and dinner theatre. They bought the land and spent four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars clearing trees and brush and debris of a century’s neglect in order to make their business adventure a success. They installed fences around the yawning entrance to the old mine. They built a road out of the valley to connect their little slice of paradise with a major highway. Most of all, they refurbished the old saloon, installing plumbing and wires and every modern amenity that would be required. They changed the shape of the building, carving out a grand thrust theatre where brothel rooms used to be. The bar became a lobby and dance floor. They bought DJ equipment, theatre lighting, sparing absolutely no expense. I remember first coming over the lip of the valley and stopping my car to see these massive flood lights sweeping the far cliffs. The valley was really more of a slash in the earth, the walls cut straight down, five hundred foot bluffs that towered very majestically. The depression where the building sat ended in a V, with the mine entrance burrowing deep into the point. The road entered the valley from the other end, carving its way down the steep hill and affording an awesome view to all who entered it. I was working in a coffee shop and finishing up another year of school when I saw a sign for employment at a new nightspot called the Rambledown Theatre. They were looking for workers of all kind, from actors to bartenders to janitors. I’d always been interested in theatre, and I’d recently become acquainted with booze, so on a whim I called the number and set up an interview. The drive was long and unfamiliar, and I missed the sign a half dozen times before I managed to make the turn into the valley. It was probably twenty miles from the highway, and the small, freshly poured concrete road plunged into a thick wood that blocked out most sunlight for a majority of the drive. You would start to climb a steep hill in your car, gears whirring and car straining until you reached the top of it and suddenly the vast expanse of open space would catch your breath in your throat. The valley was spread out directly ahead, and there were no more trees as far as the eye could see, just dirt and grass and high cliff walls. Night was falling by the time I pulled up in front of the building, all windows blazing with light, and ran up the steps to the lobby doors. One of the group of businessmen greeted me as soon as I entered. They were doing small group interviews, and he led me to a conference room where five or six other young men were waiting. I sat down and we all smiled nervously. A woman walked in and began to speak to us, explaining with a Power-Point slide show the history and aims of the Rambledown theatre. She spoke at length about high art and culture but all of us could only sit with dollar signs in our eyes. She had promised us each twenty dollars an hour for the first six months, working part time to help the theatre run smoothly. We got a tour of the facilities, everything shining and new, but with the charm of history showing through it all. We were excited. Professional actors were to be brought in from as far away as New York and Chicago to perform in classic Broadway plays. She promised a full house every night, people eating and laughing in the lobby before the show and paying big money to sleep in one of the fifty suites housed in the building. Dancing, weddings, a nightclub and all of it a near guarantee. It was to be a new kind of theatre, a hidden jewel of culture close enough to draw the public in from the city and others for hundreds of miles around, and we were going to make it all happen. As we all drove away in the darkness, I stopped at the top of the hill and sat on the roof of my car. The building looked alive, bursting with promise and light from every window. I wouldn’t sleep until I got the phone call that told me I was to work there as the stage manager for the theatre. I would sit up and night thinking about how excited I was, and I would wait. But underneath it all, there was an uneasy feeling about the valley. If the building was a jewel, the valley was coal. As I slid off of my car to start the long drive home, my eyes swept past the Rambledown and fell on a great black hole in the darkness. The mine, I realized. I shivered in spite of myself, watching the pit in my rear view mirror as I drove away.

Chapter Two: The Tour I dressed up for my first day of work and headed over about two weeks later. There wasn’t any need for me to look nice, it was only training, but I felt like I needed to fit and and make a good impression for my bosses. I drove out and found the turn off without any problem, and when I pulled over the ridge and the building came into to view, I was still awed. In the daylight, I could see that the theatre was surrounded by a dozen little outlying buildings. I assumed that these were the luxury suites we’d been told about. A half-mile from the main complex was the mine entrance, which was surrounded by three layers of chain link fence. We’d been told that the shafts were unstable and dangerous, but plans had been set into motion to turn the twisting tunnels into a restaurant and party room, once the proper stabilization had been completed. For now, though, it was blocked off from the world. A tall, muscular man met me on the stairs, introducing himself as Jared and giving me a firm, confident handshake. He was about thirty, with dark hair and these blue eyes that were bright and constantly flitting around. This whole project had been his brainchild, he told me. “I didn’t want to do anything else,” he said, “My great-grandmother used to tell me stories about this town, and for as long as I remember I wanted to come back and do something with this land.” He and four friends from college, who majored in business, accounting, architecture and theater, respectively, had banded together to build there dream out in the west, finding the area and buying it from the long-defunct mining company with grant money they’d received their senior year of college. The man was full of dreams, I could tell, but he also seemed reckless. He’d purchased the area without a moment’s hesitation and was absolutely sure it would make him a millionaire. He asked me what my name was and which job I’d be handling, I told him Cardinalpuck and that I was to be the stage manager. He let out a big laugh and told me he didn’t know a thing about theater, but would trade me off to Andrea, the theater major, for the last part of the tour. He rubbed his hands together anxiously and asked me if I was ready to go, I said yes and we started off. I figured we would head inside through the main doors, but Jared turned and started walking along the side of the building. As we walked around the property I got the sense of how massive it was. The front of the building faced East, towards one of the high cliffs, and stretched out for a long ways. It took us about two minutes to walk from the front door, which just about split the wall in halves, to the Northern corner. He paused to let me catch up when we got there, I was definitely out of shape, and then started walking again. The North wall was half-again as large as the East, with a large deck addition jutting from the second story. “Its an extension of the ballroom,” he told me, “It doubles the dancing space and has a retractable roof for when the weather is nice.” We ducked into a maintenance door halfway to the deck. “This Maintenance tunnel one, this stretches the entire length of the building. Tunnels three and five run parallel to this one, north-south, and tunnels two, four and six intersect it.” “Did you put these in?” I asked. “No, these are left over from before. They actually used to flood these tunnels with just a few inches of water, and use sleds to move barrels and supplies from one end of the building to the other.” “Does that still work?” I asked, curious. He laughed, “No, all of our supplies are dropped off from a loading dock on the west wall, these tunnels are just open so we can get to the breakers, or pipes if there’s a problem.” ——————- I’m including a sketch of the tunnels and map of the building so you can check back on it later. The building really was massive, and it was easy to get turned around so I can imagine you might get lost in my storytelling. The maps are all orientated with west up, sorry These are the tunnels, you can see how they run and intersect. Each closed off space is a room, used for breakers, pipes or just storage. There never seemed to be any rhyme or reason to what was in each room. At the east and west walls of the building, in tunnels 2 and 6, there were stairs leading up. Also on the west wall is a loading bay for supplies, that’s the room right above the number 5. These, aside from the one maintenance door on the north wall in tunnel 1, are the only entrances to the basement. The next is a map of the main floors, which is sort of a split level, with the guest rooms 1-8 and ball room being on the higher portion, and the rest of it at ground level. To reach the ball room and guest rooms, there was a stairway off of the lobby. All the other rooms just had high ceilings to make up for the disparity in space. The space between the ballroom and guest rooms was a low, columned walkway in which we hung art and things from local artists. Sometimes a live band would play here, or we would decorate it with the seasons. The box office was located directly beneath room 2, and there was a large display case of costumes and things from past productions under room 1. Rooms 1 and 2 were both suites.

——————-

Jared led me through the tunnels and pointed out rooms of interest, the breaker boxes and the main wet room, where shining new pipes fed the entire building with hot water. We walked up the narrow stairs at the east wall of tunnel 2, and entered into the staff break room, which was already full of workmen and janitors who were resting for lunch. “The entire building should be up in running by June 1st,” Jared told me, “And we hope to open our first production for the July 4th weekend. Our grand opening will be on the 4th, we bought a fantastic fireworks show.” He took me through the museum, which chronicled the progression of the area with period pictures and rocks from the mine. At the end of the timeline was a picture of Jared and his four friends, smiling and laughing in front of the rebuilt Rambledown. I smiled to myself as we passed into the kitchens. The fires and stores were mostly empty, with only one lone workman making a sandwich on an aluminum table. Across from the kitchens was the storage room and maid service for the guest rooms. The last stop had us cut into the lobby and into the food court area. It wasn’t really a food court, but that’s what Jared called it and so the name stuck. Here were a dozen tables that could be done up for wedding parties or rehearsal dinners. This was the temporary restaurant while the mine was made safe enough for diners. I asked Jared if we were going to see the ball room, but he said no. “That’s the last thing to be finished, the workers have to replace the floor and install our lighting, but they should finish by the end of May.” He brought me back to the lobby and introduced me to Andrea, and pretty, small woman with straight black hair. She was to be the director of all the productions, and hugged me instead of shaking my hand. I followed her to the box office, where she showed me how to use the ticket printer, in case I ever needed to. Then she unlocked the grand doors to the stage itself. There were seats enough for 350, each covered in dark red satin. The curtains were drawn at the proscenium, but the thrust of the stage extended far into the audience. There were no scuff marks on the black stage, this was virgin territory. She led me behind the curtain, babbling as she went. “This has basically been my dream since I was in my first high school production,” she beamed, “To own and run a theater of my own. I’m bringing down actors from the rep theater in the city, where I’ve been working for a while now. Oops, watch your step!” There was a small stair leading down into the recessed shop, where sets were to be built. Past that were the dressing rooms, and past that was the green room, where actors waited for their entrances. It’s important to note now that the green room was installed with a monitor, so that actors could listen for their cues from the stage and know when to enter. Below the monitor was a large screen set into the wall, that was dark for now but would be hooked up to a camera in the technical booth. I thought this all was extremely high tech. Andrea brought me back to the stage and sat me down in one of the seats. “We chose you because you’ve got extensive theater experience, and a basically free schedule,” she said, “You’ll have to be here every night of rehearsal and show, to call cues and help things run smoothly.” I nodded, I’d done all of this before. “Okay,” she smiled, hiding her big secret, “I suppose you’re dying to know, our first show, we just got the rights, is…” she waiting for the mental drum-roll, “Oklahoma!” I barely suppressed a groan. Andrea took me back up to the lobby and hugged me again. She was really very pretty, if a bit old for me. She told me that when rehearsals started, she would call me, and we could really get down to business. The last three weeks of May were a waiting time, they felt like an inward breath to this era of work and progress that I would enjoy, and get paid to experience. Looking back now, those three weeks were probably more like the calm before a storm, the bright clear sky before a long winter. At the time, however, I was completely oblivious to it all.

Chapter Three: Spotlight It was mid-June and we were right in the midst of our rehearsal period when I first noticed that something was off with the old building. We had just finished up a choreography rehearsal, and when the last of the cowboys trickled out through the main entrance, Andrea and I stayed behind to lock things up. I went to clean up the Green Room, just picking things up and moving furniture back in place, (the janitors would deal with the rest in the morning,) when I heard a loud bang from the monitor. I was momentarily surprised, as the monitor really wasn’t being used on a choreography night. The screen was off, but I was still getting clear audio from the speaker. I did a mental check of what was still left to do. Andrea and I had already walked through the theater, picking up stray water bottles and candy-wrapper trash that the actors had left, and I thought that she had locked the doors as we left. It was very possible that she had forgotten something and gone back, so I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t until the bangs started to repeat themselves in a rhythmic pattern that I started to wonder. I finished pushing a couch back against the wall and walked to the screen and flipped it on. The camera was dark, there were no lights on in the theatre. Hmm, very strange, I thought, and left the screen on as I continued to clean. The bangs sounded very like someone in a heavy boot stomping on a wooden floor. I had just about finished cleaning when Andrea walked in the room and became sort of wide-eyed when she saw me. “I thought you were on stage,” she told me before her eyes slid to the monitor. “I thought it was you,” I said, and gave a small shrug. It was strange, I thought, she really seemed scared. Seeing her sort of shivering as she stared into the screen gave me the first inkling that maybe something really bad was going on. She turned her head to look at me when suddenly a light became visible in the camera. The bangs started to move around, like somebody walking in a circle, and I pointed over her shoulder. One spotlight was on, pointed lazily across the room and illuminated the first row of seats and part of the stage. Andrea and I looked at each other and I shrugged again. There really weren’t any words. We walked into the hallway and she opened the door of the theater. When we stepped inside, the banging had stopped. I ran up the stairs to the balcony and hit the off lever on the big spot and the stage plunged into darkness. “Hey!” I yelled, “I can’t see shit!” Andrea didn’t respond, but a few seconds later the house lights came up and I found my way down the stairs. “So, what’s the verdict?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she said, “that was really…weird.” At our next rehearsal, after Andrea and I did our walk through of the seats and stage, I started to head back to the shop area to clean. She held her hand up. “Wait a minute,” she said, and disappeared into the wings. She came back a minute later with a bare bulb set onto a tall iron stand. “This is,” she started. “A ghost light.” I finished. I raised an eyebrow. For centuries theaters have traditionally left a lamp burning center stage when the space was left empty. It was to keep ghosts from taking up a home in the theater that this was done, but the tradition had died out over the last hundred years. “Ah, we can’t be too careful,” she said, her eyes flicking up to the stage left spotlight. I watched as she set the light in the middle of the stage and ran a cord to one of the floor-boxes and plugged it in. The little bulb blared to life. I’m wasn’t sure what people would think of an electric ghost light, but I supposed it would have to do. As we left the stage and started cleaning the Green Room, I flipped on the screen and looked. The little light cast a pale circle into the gloom. I wasn’t sure how it would fare, this little light. I wondered if it could really scare off any ghosts. I chuckled.

Chapter Four: Grand Opening On July 4th, the Rambledown was packed. Hundreds of people had made the long drive to see the grand opening of this new theater, and champagne and hors d’evours were handed out by waiters with big trays. As the fireworks shot off from the high bluff, Andrea and I were busy readying things for our ten o’clock show. Opening night had everyone on edge, but I was doing my best to put everyone at ease. Mark was a guy a little younger than me who’d been hired as house manager. As a stage manager, I was responsible for everything that happened onstage and backstage, while Mike handled the audience and box office. We were sitting around in the technical booth at the back of the audience, just having a glass of champagne and bullshitting about the upcoming show when Mike brought up the ghost light. “What’s up with that,” he asked me suspiciously, “You haven’t actually seen any ghosts, have you?” I laughed, “No, man, it was all Andrea. Something happened that I think spooked her, and she’s pretty superstitious, you know, so-” “What did you see?” he interrupted. “Well,” I started, “Nothing, really. We were cleaning and heard some bangs from the stage, and then a spotlight turned on.” “What?” he exclaimed, “How could you not tell me this?” “Well, it wasn’t really anything,” I said surprised, “Probably just pipes and wiring. You’ve seen the basement, it’s all messed up down there.” Mike got really silent for a while and then drained his glass. “I saw something too.” I was taken aback, “What?” I asked. “I saw something. A ghost, I think.” “You saw a ghost?” “Well, maybe. I don’t know.” “When?” I asked him. “About a week ago. First dress rehearsal. I was walking through the house before the show, you know, making sure there wasn’t anything wrong. Just sort of practicing for tonight,” he looked embarrassed, “I was nervous, I didn’t want to fuck up and get fired. And as I was walking through section two, stage right, you know, I thought I saw someone peeking out from behind the curtains. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned my head it was gone.” “It could have been one of the actors.” I stated. “No, man.” he said, “It was a face, but too-long, you know? It was.. like a horses face. But human. Or not human, I don’t know. It was long, and skinny and grey. And there was a hand, or something. Long spindly finger gripping the curtain, thats what it looked like. And besides that, it was about twenty feet up, near the grid.” I shook my head. “I don’t know, somebody could have been fucking with you.” “Maybe,” he said, “but I don’t know. All I know is that it gave me a really bad feeling. Shivers up my spine, and everything.” We sat quietly for a while as I finished my champagne. We let it stew. Our experiences could have been any number of things, no need to jump straight to the supernatural. Mike stood up and patted me on the back, and then went down to manage the house. After all, he was house manager. I sat in the booth alone for a while, looking out over the stage. I shivered. Very weird. Andrea joined me in the booth, followed by the light and sound guys, and suddenly there was no time to stew about anything. The show went off without any major problem. Curly was late on a cue once, barely, and Andrea cringed. The house was packed, and we made a lot of money. There was a standing ovation. All-in-all, it was a roaring success. Andrea bought me a dozen roses as a gift for all my help, and I hugged her in thanks. She wasn’t really that much older than me, I thought, less than ten years anyway. I shook my head and smiled, she stared at me for a moment, huge grin on her face, and then disappeared, to find her family and other well-wishers. That left me to take care of things backstage. I was cleaning the dressing rooms when the lights in the shop flickered off. The shop was at the end of a the long hallway that bordered the dressing rooms and Green Room. I was wiping down the mirror with Windex when I saw the lights flicker out in the mirror, the doorway directly behind me going dark. For some reason I started to shiver, my eyes glued to the doorway, my hand still on the mirror. I felt cold. All I could think of was the thing Mike had seen in the curtain. I waited for long slender fingers to wrap around the edge of the doorway, maybe followed by a long toothy face that slipped out of the darkness with a murderous grin. In my mind it had white eyes and its skin was waxy and sallow, like a corpse left to rot in milk. As I stared into the mirror, I heard a tick-tick-click from the shop. It reverberated in the high empty space and made me think of fingernails. Tick-tick-click, it echoed, tick-tick-click. I suddenly panicked, imagining that ghosts were invisible to mirrors and I spun around. I found myself face to face with a figure that filled the doorway and let out a yelp. “Hey, man, sorry.” it said. In the half second it took me to turn and face the door, one of the actors, Brian, had slid into the room. I let out a sigh of relief as he moved to pick up his jacket. “Forgot my coat,” he smiled, and started to walk away. He stopped. “Are you alright?” “Yes,” I said, “Yeah. You just scared me.” He laughed, “The lights turned off by themselves, did you see that?” I nodded. “Pretty freaky. Anyway, I’ll see you later. Thanks for a good show.” “Yeah,” I said, “You too.” I watched him walk out of the room and pause for a minute to stare into the dark of the shop, and then start to walk away. “Hey?” I called. “Yeah?” he said, and appeared in the doorway. “Wait up, I’ll walk with you.” “Sure thing,” he said, and I gathered up my things. As we walked down the hallway, away from the shop, we were silent. I tried to listen for the sound I’d heard before, the tick-tick-click, but heard nothing. I shrugged my shoulders hard. I just got spooked. As we hit the door to the columned area beneath the ballroom, I paused. “Still though…” I said to myself, and stared down the hallway. At the end, against the west wall, the fluorescent lights started to flicker to life. I suppose I should have gone back to turn them off, but I was ready to get the fuck out of there. I turned to see Brian looking at me. “You going to get those?” he asked, smirking. “No,” I said. He raised an eyebrow at me and made a “tisk-tisk” motion with his finger. “Fuck you,” I added.

Chapter Five: Things Heat Up I’m not sure what caused the sudden spike in activity and experiences in the Rambledown, but it was obvious that when the weather started to cool down and we settled in for a long fall something else settled in too. We were on our second show, Oklahoma! had made us a lot of money and performances of Beauty and the Beast were set to begin November 1st. I’d made a good impression on the five friends who ran the place, and Andrea especially seemed to like having me around, so I’d been hired full time and given a raise. Taking the job had required me to put school on the back burner for the time being, and so I would often sleep at the Rambledown, (as many of the workers did,) because I had no need to drive back to the city. Sleeping in the guest rooms wasn’t allowed, so I would usually crash on a couch in the Green Room, or when things got too hairy on that side of the building, on the floor of the staff lounge. When I say hairy, I mean that the stage and backstage areas seemed to be a hotbed of creepy-ass activity. I never saw anything akin to Mike’s grey monster, but I would hear things. Oh boy, would I hear things. It was never so bad when other actors would sleep there, which they did after long rehearsals or in-house cast parties, but when you were alone and huddling under blankets on a couch in the middle of nowhere, your mind seems to play tricks on you. Once I thought I heard voices over the monitor, which I had definitely switched off. One night the voices persisted so long that I flipped on the screen to reassure myself that the theater really was empty. Lights would frequently flicker out when people were backstage, and once a room full of actresses had melted into gibbering messes when a voice started whispering “Hey. HEY!” from the dressing room vent. Jared and his architecture major buddy Jeff were working full speed to improve things in the mine. They’d run into trouble when state laws had forbidden them from serving food in the tunnels, so they’d resigned themselves to building a patio restaurant along the entrance, and turning the caves into a dance-floor and bar. Andrea was sort of a mess, after a string of scary experiences that left her drained. It was sad to see her looking so drawn, it obscured her pretty face and made her look older, but after what she described I couldn’t really blame her. Andrea claimed that she’d been locking up one evening when she heard a crash from the booth. She feared that a table had broken and sent the expensive light-board tumbling to the ground, so she quickly unlocked the doors and ran up to see what had happened. When she emerged from the spiral stairs into the booth, she saw a figure sitting in one of the chairs, its feet up, resting on the window. “Hey,” she had yelled nervously, and the figure had spun in its chair, only to disappear. “It was like something folding into itself,” she’d later told me, “like a piece of paper turning sideways.” The only reassurance she’d had that she hadn’t imagined the whole thing was the desk chair spinning around on its bearings, lazily sweeping the room. Myself, I still wasn’t sure that these, dare I say it, ghostly experiences were anything more than pre-show nerves and an old creepy building, but I knew that it was scary to be left alone in the Rambledown, so I spent a lot of my time with Mike or Andrea. We had our first wedding in mid-October. A pretty young black couple was to be wed in the grand ballroom, and so for a full week every guest room and outlying guest house was rented out. Our cooks worked at full speed, and we were to give a special preview of Beauty and the Beast for the wedding party. All of us slept in the Green Room mostly every night, the actors for the most part were amateurs, the professionals of the summer had found jobs for the winter months at larger, big-money playhouses, and so that left us to hold open auditions. It was sort of a bohemian atmosphere that fall, there was nary a day without at least a few of the actors staying the night. The management were new at their jobs, and didn’t really know what to make of our request to sleep there, so they just shrugged and told us not to make a mess. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to smoking up with Mike or some of the actresses late a night, and it really was the kind of life that seemed too good to last. It wasn’t sure enough for me to cancel my rent in the city, but I figured I’d make the best of it while I could, even if it was just for the few short winter months. I ran into Jared the Thursday before our special Friday show. He looked sort of agitated and I asked him how things were proceeding with the wedding. The couple was rich, and their entire family was being treated to five star dinners in the food court every night, and late night dancing and everything. The Rambledown was running at full capacity. “Something weird is going on.” he told me, point blank. “How so?” I wondered. “Guest house five, the guests want to leave.” I pondered for a moment. Guest house five was located to the north of the theater, the closest building to the mine. “Rats?” I guessed. “No,” he shook his head, “That’s the weird part. They won’t say why. They just want us to put them up in the main building.” “So what are you going to do?” “Give them what they want,” he said, “But that leaves us with an open house. I’ve spread word around the wedding party that house five is open, so I’ll know tonight if its going to be filled. Otherwise, you and the actors could take it over, but just for this week.” I smiled widely and crossed my fingers. The guest houses were like condos, two rooms, a full kitchen, the works. Best of all though, each house had a hot-tub. Whatever had happened to the family from house five, it was enough to keep anyone else from moving in. The family had been split up among the eight guest rooms in the main building, and Mike, myself, and a slew of actors and headed over with booze, weed and movies. It was a night of debauchery that you goons would be proud of, swimsuits were not necessary for entrance to the grand hot tub of luxury, and we all got well and truly fucked up. It was two a.m. before things calmed down and we all went to bed in anticipation of the next night’s show. I was sleeping on the floor in the kitchen, having given up the most comfortable spots to my friends. The night passed without incident, and I was almost upset that nothing had happened. I had expected some terrible bloody miner to come stumbling from the gaping shaft and bang on our windows, but no dead miner did. We packed up our things and headed back to the Rambledown. Mike alerted housing that we’d vacated the guest house, and we all set up camp in the Green Room. We’d been chilling there for an hour, just talking and laughing, the actors running lines and fixing costumes, when Mike and Andrea entered, looking grim. They motioned me into the hall. “We’ve got a problem,” Mike said. “What is it?” I asked. Andrea looked gaunt, “The ghost-light.” “Yeah, what about it?” I was confused. Mike licked his lips and looked to Andrea. “Maybe you should just see for yourself,” he said. We walked through the shop and onto the stage, and my breath caught in my throat. The iron frame of the ghost-light had been bent all to shit, the light broken and cord frayed. My head snapped around to look Mike full in the face. “You better not be fucking with me,” I warned him. “You better not be fucking with us,” Andrea said. We all paused, our eyes on each other for a moment. We all bent back to the ghost-light. “Ah,” I said, “Shit.”

Chapter Six: The Storm Our show for the wedding party was fantastic, they all laughed and loved it. We had the rights for the Disney version, so most of the little kids sat up front and sang along. The wedding was beautiful, people cried and laughed and everybody was happy, and then they left. That left us and the production team just two more weeks until we opened. In theater lingo, the week you spend not sleeping, working on the show until the wee hours of the morning is called Hell Week. Ha ha. I’m not sure Andrea slept during Hell Week. She was too busy running over cues and freaking out when an actor flubbed a line that she practically survived on coffee alone. Throughout it all, she still managed to produce a beautiful show, and I think she probably would have been able to keep on as a full time director if the following hadn’t have happened. It was the night before we opened, and Andrea had let the cast and crew off early to rest up. She, Mike and I were walking through the theater, picking up trash and doing last minute checks of sight-lines. Mike had taken to helping us clean up, as he said, “I don’t really have anything better to do.” I took my customary position of cleaning up the Green Room, and Mike handled the dressing rooms. Andrea told us she was going up to the booth to check over the lighting cues one last time, and Mike and I smirked smugly and went off backstage. I turned on the monitor and screen for company while I was cleaning, hearing Andrea muttering to herself was oddly comforting. I had finished, and Mike was helping me vacuum when we heard Andrea scream. My eyes flew to the monitor, and it was dark. I figured we must have blown a fuse or something and we ran back to the stage. “Andrea!” I called, “Is everything okay?” “No,” she said, “It’s fucking dark. I can’t get any of the lights to come on.” “I think we blew a fuse,” I said, “I’m going to have to go to the basement to flip the breakers.” “Fuuuuuuck,” Mike let out a low whistle. We convened backstage and worked out who was going to go to the basement. I won two out of three with a scissors/rock combo that I’m still proud of, and Mike trudged off into the shop to take the stairs down to tunnel 6. I walked back to the stage and plugged in the new ghost-light, after groping around in the dark for a while. “You surviving?” I yelled to the booth. “Yeah,” Andrea yelled back, then added a low “Fuck me.” “Now?” I asked, and I heard her laugh. We sat in silence for a while and I pictured Mike climbing around in those low tunnels. I didn’t envy him at all. “Do you know any good jokes?” I yelled up to Andrea after a while. I waited for her response, but she was oddly quiet. “Hey, you okay up there?” Nothing. “Shit,” I whispered, and called her name. She still didn’t answer. I could barely make out a form in the booth from the light the little pale bulb gave off on stage, but not enough to see if she was passed out or what. “Andrea!” I yelled again, picking up the ghost-light and pulling it as far as I could before its cord snapped taught. I could have unplugged it and moved it to another, closer, floor-box, but that would have left me in thick darkness for a few to many seconds, and if Andrea was hurt or something I wouldn’t want her to freak out as the stage plunged into blackness again. I was just about to leave the light on stage and run up to the booth when the house lights came up again with an audible click, and somewhere far off I heard Mike scream, “Fucking finally!” I blinked in the sudden bright and sprinted through the house and up the spiral stairs to the booth. Andrea was sitting, facing me, with an empty look in her eyes. I stopped, suddenly scared by her expression. “Hey,” I said, softly, “Are you okay?” She looked at me, blankly, and shook her head. “What’s wrong?” I asked, moving closer to her. “I can’t…” She started, “This is just too much. I can’t do this anymore.” “What are you talking about?” “When you left,” she started to cry, “Why did you leave? When you left there was someone here with me.” “I didn’t leave,” I said. “You did, I called your name and you didn’t answer and then I turned around and I could feel someone here. Someone was here!” She started beating at my chest with her hands when Mike appeared from the stairs. “Hey, is everything okay?” he started. “No!” Andrea said, “Someone was HERE!” Mike and I helped her down the steps and into the lobby. I took her theatre keys and locked everything up. When I came back, she was gone. “Where did she go?” I asked Mike. “She left. She’s driving home.” “You didn’t stop her?” He gave me a look. “Okay,” I said, “What the fuck is going on.” Mike shrugged. He took a few steps towards the window, to see if he could spot Andrea leaving, and I knew something was wrong. “Hey,” I said, “What’s on your shoes?” He looked down, his tennis shoes were soaking wet. “I dunno,” he said, “The tunnels were wet.” “Wet?” “Flooded. There’s about two inches of water down there. It sucked. I guess its because of the rain.” “Mike,” I said, “What rain?” “The storm. You didn’t hear it? Huge fucking thunderclaps, I could hear them from the basement.” I just stared at him. He looked back at me and started shaking his head from side to side, his mouth forming words, No, no, no. He ran to the doors and pushed them open, I followed. We stood there for a few moments, looking up. There was beautiful, clear night sky as far as the eye could see.

Chapter Seven: Halloween Andrea’s spot was filled by a stern old man from the city. He wasn’t nearly as pretty as Andrea was, I lamented, but he was a proficient director, and our production of West Side Story the following summer was the best show yet. He had asked right away about our ghost light, and I’d not hesitated to tell him about every experience I could remember. I expected him to laugh in my face, but instead he just nodded and quietly hmm hmmmmed to himself. “I suppose we can’t be too careful,” he’d said, and I’d agreed. A long time had passed since any ghostly had happened, but our newer actors were constantly barraged with stories of our past three productions. In the spring we did a straight play, Oleana by Mamet, Oleana has only two actors, so cast party hi jinks were kept to a minimum. Mike had taken that show off, traveling the west coast with his brother, so I was left to train a new guy. I didn’t attempt to scare him, but I wasn’t really surprised when he’d emerged from the shop looking like a deer in headlights, claiming he’d heard someone call his name while he’d cleaned the dressing rooms. But now Mike was back, and we had a huge cast, and our bohemian lifestyle was restored. We were well into our run, only a week away from closing, when Jared and Jeff had completed the new restaurant. As workers had put up supports and struts, plenty of stories had come out of those caves. A creepy humming noise had been heard in a deep cavern, as well as pale blue lights that seemed to float around. They ended up collapsing the tunnels that were too dangerous, and put up pleasant brick walls to hide the deeper spaces. One young builder had sworn to me he’d heard someone scratching on the other side of his wall as he lay the last few bricks, whispering, “let me out let me out let me out hey let me out.” It wasn’t really something anyone talked about. Mike and I didn’t really talk about Andrea, either. We’d gone into the tunnels the next day to find them bone dry. Mike had never worn those tennis shoes again. Things started to get really bad that fall. There had been a couple of times during the summer where things had happened and I’d been really shaken, but nothing bad enough to make me want to quit. In October, when the restaurant at the mine had opened, we’d started to get a steady stream of guests who would stay for our weekend raves that we hosted in the ballroom. A lot of the money was really hush-hush and under the table, and looking back I was pretty sure that Jared had some sort of drug deal going on to the young couples who came to party, but a stoned audience is better than no audience at all, and so we did very well. Once Upon A Mattress was our show, and we had a professional actress from New York in the role of Winnifred. One afternoon she’d seen a man walk into the dressing room and point at her before disappearing, and we’d all held our breath when she’d emerged from the dressing room out of breath and anxious, but she’d decided that it was the coolest thing she had ever seen and wanted to hold a seance later that evening. Mike and I had decided to sit that one out, but I guess it really didn’t matter because the group of young actors and actresses hadn’t really discovered anything at all. The first strike against me continuing to work at the Rambledown was the night of our Halloween party. We’d set up the whole place as a haunted house, (haha,) and invited people to come and revel drunkenly, which they had. The place was packed, and there was no performance that night, so the actors and crew had all partied with the rest of the guests. When a group of guests asked for a tour of the facility, Jared came to me to ask me to give it to them. I told him I would for a bonus, and he’d just rolled his eyes and waved me off. I took them all around the main floor, gave them a sort of backstage tour of the busy kitchens and theater facilities, and was almost home free when one burly guy had noticed the stairway to tunnel 6. “What’s that?” he asked, and he pointed. “Oh,” I said, “just access to the basement.” “What’s down there?” he wondered. “Nothing, really, storage. Fuse boxes, pipes.” “Can we go?” he asked, and the rest of the group agreed. One of their number was the pretty young girl who I’d been chatting up all night, so I reluctantly agreed to take them down. Oh, fickle heart. The tunnels are dank and dark in the best of conditions, and tonight they were cold and wet. I explained how the floors used to be flooded in the old days, and everyone found it fascinating. We were passing the junction with tunnel 1, when out of the corner of my eye I saw someone slink around the corner to tunnel 4. “Hey,” I said, “Stick with the group.” “We’re all here,” the pretty young girl said. I turned around and counted. Sure enough, everyone was accounted for. I heard a shuffling from tunnel 4 and silently cursed my status as a guide. “Wait here,” I intoned, and started towards the noise. I hoped it was just a lusty cook making it with some hot maid, but my intuition told me otherwise. I got to tunnel 4 and turned towards where I’d seen the shape move to, when I noticed a door half-open. Shit, I thought, shit. I took a step towards the door when a long, grey arm snaked out of the open room. It was impossibly long, seeming to bend with four or five joints, quietly reaching along the wall towards me. I stopped breathing, and the arm seemed to notice. It silently felt along the wall, moving to the floor and brushing up against the far door. I shook my head and when I looked again, it seemed as if the arm were just a smudge on my vision, the way your eyes will make solid objects from nothing in a dark room. I couldn’t shake the image of a dead appendage, though, and so that was the image that solidified in my mind. I waited there, silently, and I heard burly man call after me. “Everything okay?” The arm/smoke/whatever it was reacted to the noise, and withdrew into the room, and the door slammed with a bang. I let out a huge gasp of air and turned heel and walked quickly back to the group. “What was it?” the pretty girl asked. “Just a door left open,” I said, and did my best not to sprint to the stairs.

Chapter Eight: The End Strikes two and three came in November. The noises and half-caught visions that would have made me run screaming a year before had now become happenstance. I’d run into the apparition in the booth twice on my own, the desk chair spinning by the time I’d turned my head to see who was sitting next to me. The novelty of a haunted theater was starting to wear thin for the actors, the professional New Yorker long gone. We were in rehearsal for A Christmas Carol, to be played to the festive holiday crowds and their families, right after a fantastic Christmas feast of ham and stuffing and everything else that goes with the season. The night that prompted me to quit started out normal enough, rehearsal when fine, the actors had left, and Mike and I were cleaning up the backstage area. Strike two was something I saw as I walked from the dressing room to the Green Room, which meant I had to pass through the shop. I was used to all kinds of strange noises from the dark corners of the massive room, but as I bent to pick up the bucket of cleaning supplies I heard someone scream. If I were a lesser man, I probably would have vomited, shit my pants or worse right at that moment. I slowly stood up and looked around the shop. The scream had come from the far north-western corner, where unused flats stood propped up against the wall. I opened my mouth to call for Mike when the scream came again, loud and piercing. It sounded like a man gut-shot. “What the fuck!” I heard Mike curse from the Green Room. I was too scared to move, I’ll admit. I was shaking so hard the cans of cleaner in the bucket were rattling against each other. The scream sounded again, but this time it seemed as if it were far away, like someone screaming down a long tunnel. “Mike,” I whispered. He came running around the corner into the shop and just stared at me. “Are you okay? Was that you?” I shook my head and point towards the corner. When I turned back to look, there was a figure leaning against the flats. The only word I can use to describe it is static-y, like when you turn your TV off and there image distorts for a second, before finally fading away into a tiny blip. Thats what happened to the figure, it blipped out. Mike shook me out of my stasis and pulled me along the hallway. “I’ll finish cleaning, man, don’t worry.” he said, and sat me down in a chair in the lobby. He walked backstage and was gone for a while, while I just sat there, trying to calm down. I wasn’t sure why the scream had startled me so much, but my heart was racing at a million miles an hour and all I wanted to do was run. It seemed that Mike was gone for a long time, but soon enough he came back. “Hey, I promised Manuel I’d walk through the south wall area and lock up, you can stay here if you want, but I have to-” “No,” I said, “I’ll come with you.” I didn’t want to just sit and do nothing, and I’m sure Mike would appreciate the company, and so I went with him. The kitchens were creepy in their own right, bright, sharp steel just hanging from hooks in the open, the walk in freezer was an area I wasn’t even going to touch. Mike went though, locking the three doors. We moved into the museum and did a cursory check. Nothing was out of place. I looked at the picture of the five friends and smiled sadly. I missed Andrea. The last room to check was the staff lounge. The big, bay windows were a bit much for me to handle. I kept expecting a flaming skull to do a flyby before devouring my soul, but nothing happened. We’d survived the south wall without incident. It was only as we were walking back to the lobby that something went wrong. Mike had made the turn to the area under the guest rooms when I’d heard someone call out, fairly loudly, “Hey.” from the museum. I’d turned around without thinking, and behind the glass of the museum room was an open-mouthed man, bloody hand up against the glass and huge, black eyes facing right at me. “Hey.” it said, “Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey.” That was it. Strike three. You’re out. Fuck two-week notices, fuck locking up, fuck the Rambledown. I tore past Mike so fast that he screamed, he later told me he had thought I was a vampire, finally sweeping down to finish him off. I’d run, tripping and falling, into the parking lot, refusing to look around, refusing to lend an eye to the long dark windows. I’d waiting with my back to the building until Mike came up behind me and asked me if I was alright. “No, man. No. I’m quitting.” He shrugged. Mike always shrugged. “Okay, I’m quitting to. I was only sticking it out to see if I could last longer than you, and it looks like I'm the bigger man. “Hey,” I said, “Fuck you.” We looked at each other for a moment and then laughed nervously. We hopped in our cars and drove the long road back to the city, I did not look in my rear view mirror as we drove away, nor did I stop at the top of the ridge to admire the view. I was finished with the Rambledown, it could burn up for all I cared. Mike and I spent the night nursing beers in a bar and promising to write it all down someday.

Mike moved to California, where he’s doing tech work for the Disney concert hall, the one that looks like a big metal ship. I moved away to Minneapolis, where I’m still doing theater stuff, be it acting or stage managing or even writing, I’m happy just surviving. I found out that Andrea moved to France, and I never talked to her again. Talking with some of the other people who worked at the Rambledown afforded some stories I’d never heard. It seems that each section of the building had its own ghosts and events that scared people too much to talk about. The Rambledown closed down that very next month, in December. I emailed Jared and he’d told me it was just “Too much of a burden to keep it going, so we’re selling it back to the state.” Manuel, the museum curator, had told me a different story. “People just couldn’t go inside,” he’d said, “something else had moved in. Not something you want to fuck around with, for sure.” Other people had told me stories of apparitions that appeared at all hours of the day, that last month. Figures that didn’t go away when you looked at them, that spoke to you, that tried to touch you. I figure it was good that I left when I did. The one thing that everybody seems to agree on is that the area is better left untouched. I’m not sure what happened to the buildings, if they’re all still there, rotting, or if someone else had taken them over and tried to start a business of their own, but you can be sure I’ll never go back. Mike and I got this story out over probably too many beers. Its terrible enough to revisit in memory. Take our advice and don’t go looking for the Rambledown.

#Rambledown #Theater #cardinalpuck #ghost stories #creepy #fiction?

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