Cold

Initially, it started out as a simple distortion and dialogue between a friend and I. They were a good friend of mine and we were talking on AIM when it happened.

I signed onto my account late one night around three or four AM because I couldn't sleep and I noticed my friend was online. For argument's sake, let's call her Janna1300. I say for argument's sake because I honestly don't remember what the hell her username was.

Anyway, she was on and I didn't pay too much attention. She's my ex-girlfriend, you see. I dated her about 2 1/2 years ago. She and I had a good run, but we broke up on pretty poor terms. I didn't want to delete her, though. I always had hope we might end up back together again.

I ignored her and my AIM was pretty much empty. I didn't intend to talk to anyone unless they personally contacted me - at this time of night, it would have been just rude to IM anyone.

I scanned the internet for a while, looking for something to entertain myself with until I fell asleep. I figured cool songs/videos on Youtube would put me to sleep and creepy stories would keep me awake, so it was a win/win at this point. I couldn't find anything, of course, but my fruitless search had done me in for the night. I was about to pass out.

That's when it happened.

An AIM window popped open with a loud BING. it was Janna1300. The following is a quick excerpt of what she and I exchanged back and forth.

Janna1300: Hey

Me: Hey

Janna1300: What's up?

Me: Nothing, you?

Janna1300: Nothing.

Janna1300: It's really cold in my house.

Me: Haha

Janna1300: -.- Shut up, it's freezing.

Me: Get under a blanket

Janna1300: I am

Janna1300: Like 4

Janna1300: And my snuggie :D

Me: Loser

Janna1300: You're just jealous I can use the computer WHILE keeping my arms warm.

Janna1300: At. The. Same. Time.

Janna1300: :D

Me: LOL

Me: I hate you

Janna1300: Nah, it's cool

Then she disappeared for around ten minutes. I sent her a couple of messages with no reply.

Me: lol

Me: So anything else new?

Me: You fall asleep?

Me: Well, goodnight lol

I closed my computer and didn't turn my AIM off, as I frequently never did. Before the laptop went to sleep, however, I got another audible bing.

Janna1300:

It was a blank message, which was odd for her. I began messaging her back and some really strange stuff began to happen.

Me: Hey? You there?

Me: ...

Janna1300: //

Me: hello?

Janna1300: Hey

Me: What happened there?

Janna1300: What do you mean?

Me: You like, sent two blank texts?

Janna1300: No I didn't?

Me: Yeah, hold on

Me: "Janna1300: " "Janna1300: //"

Me: See?

Janna1300: That's weird. I didn't even type it.

Me: Really?

Janna1300: Yeah.

Me: Maybe a virus?

Me: or maybe you're just crazy

Me: lol

Janna1300: Shut up asshole

Me: <3

Janna1300:

Me: :(

Janna1300: <333333

Me: <3333

Janna1300: Its really cold in my house.

It was now that she started repeating stuff. I won't dull you with the information and what she said, but basically it was disturbing and creepy. She was a good girl - like an A student. For her to be having short term memory loss about what she said to me not even a day ago was really weird. She was hostile about it, too.

Janna1300: It's really cold here.

Me: Yes, I know

Janna1300: How do you know?

Me: You've told me like 5 times

Jana1300: No I haven't?

Me: Yes you have lol

Me: It's cool though

Me: Idc

Janna1300: Idk what your talking about

Janna1300: But if you're gonna be childish about it

Janna1300: Then I ////'';a's;

Me: Wait can you repeat that last bit?

Janna1300: What?

Me: It didn't come through right

Janna1300: I said

Janna1300: Then you can shut the fuck up because I don't feel like dealing with it

She was pissed. Needless to say, I was still convinced her computer had a virus. Something was up with her AIM, too, so I assumed she was either:

• Extremely tired and therefore forgetting little things
• Her computer had some sort of virus that was pissing her off, so she was very short tempered.

Hell, it could have been both for all I know. I chocked it up to nothing and mentioned to her that I was about to sign off. There was silence for about ten minutes, so I assumed she wasn't going to say goodbye because she was angry. That was her way these days. It hurt, but I sort of didn't care. That's when she started replying again.

Janna1300: Wait

It took her about twenty minutes to respond again.

Janna1300: Can I ask you something>

Me: Yeah, what's up?

Janna1300: What degrees is it outside?

Me: I don't know, maybe 50?

It doesn't sound cold, but coming right out of summer it was a frigid atmosphere out there.

Janna1300: My fingers, I can't feel them. And I can see my breathe

Me: Woah

Me: Cold house lol

Janna1300: Shu p

Janna1300: itsreally old

Me: You should probably go to bed

Me: Save your fingers some

Janna1300: Cant slep

Me: :/

It was about 5:30 coming on 6:00. I was exhausted, but I didn't want to leave her to be cold. She sounded scared, too. I know that sound dumb, but she sounded legitimately worried and scared. I should have listened.

Me: Look, I'm exhausted and I can tell you are.

Janna1300: My nail fell off.

Me: What?

Janna1300: Hold on, I'll forward yiup apixturw

She sent me a picture of her hand. Her fingers were a dark blue toward the tips, ranging on black and possibly frostbitten. The nail on her ring finger had completely fallen off. It was disgusting.

Me: Oh my god! Janna!

Janna1300: I knw

Her replies started coming in really fast. She seemed scared, almost.

Janna1300: ajdhsaihfaf

Janna1300: /////''''-=++______

Me: Janna?

Janna1300: Hlp

Me: What?

Janna1300: Cn i seeyio

Me: Do you want me to come over?

Janna1300: Wbecam

Me: On aim?

Janna1300: No, its acting reay weord

Me: I agree

Janna1300:

Janna1300:

Janna1300:

She sent me about a hundred blank texts before her AIM went dead. I wasn't about to go to sleep. I was worried for her.

I heard a bang. Fuck. I'm afraid of the dark and I heard a bang. A loud one, too. It was coming from the other room, like someone was walking into the house and closing the door in frustration. I didn't want to leave my computer for fear that Janna might return, but I didn't want to not leave my computer for fear of what might be in my house.

I choked up a reasonable excuse in my head: my parents would have heard the house if it was anything but my imagination. If I didn't hear anything for another maybe...ten minutes, I would check.

It was then that I received a Skype message. You know what Skype is, right? It's like a telephone or something you can video chat with people on your computer. We used to use it because she lives 45 minutes from me. I haven't used Skype since she left me though.

I got a message from Janna1300 - a video request. I clicked yes and a video opened up. My image appeared first and it took a couple minutes to see hers.

She was shivering, her breath easily visible. She was panting, as if in fear; I would have been, too. She was crying, ice forming around her eyes in extreme cold. I didn't know what to say.

It was silent for a few moments. She leaned in closer to the image, as if squinting to see me. "I can't see you," I heard from her, but the video had become corrupted by something and a small distoring sound was starting over it.

The sound was like the humming of a bird, but in a metalic and painful way. After a minute of that and my stunned appearance, my picture froze as well. Now, in regular intervals, the sound of a pig squealing and a grinding of gears against smooth metal could be heard overlapping. At each interval, the camera's pictures would become darker. It was weird. I could hear Janna crying.

"Don't cry," I said in a low tone. I don't know if she heard me. She continued to cry. "You need to get outside. It's warmer out there than inside the house, from the sounds of it."

I'm a very grounded and down to earth person, but to be honest, I don't know what I thought. I - it wasn't right. She wasn't right, she wasn't Janna. She was, something...different. And there's no way the house she's in was THAT cold.

I was incredibly worried. Suddenly, the sound cut out and the video cut back in on hers. She was sitting, silently quivering, and it was clearly still extremely cold. Her skin, on the tip of her nose, was dark black and dead. It was peeling away to a pure white below it.

She was wobbling, slowly but it was noticeable. Her eyes were sunken in, in a black shape. Behind her there was a figure. A disturbingly white figure. It was standing in her window, and as it slinked away, the camera cut.

Static buzzed into my ear and then my Skype message cut out. I was freaked out. I needed to know what happened, and needed to make sure that Janna was okay. I scrambled out of bed.

It was now I heard a faint scratching out in the hallway. A very faint one, as if a person had scratched all their nails off, and had to keep scratching out of fear. It was low, and consistent. I took a hugely deep breathe, and grabbed my doorknob.

It was freezing. By freezing, I meant FUCKING. FREEZING. I pulled my hand back and breathed out, watching my breath form into a small haze below my mouth. I was scared now.

I blinked slowly, closing my eyes and opening the door. As it opened, I felt the most intense feeling of my entire life. It was pure hatred, pure evil. An energy flow of death, and an equal pressure on my chest. All the lights in my house were off, every single one.

And being that it was winter, it was absolutely pitch black and completely silent. I didn't want to turn the lights on, but I felt as though I had to. I exited my room slowly, feeling not he wall for the light switch. When I reached it, I clicked it on.

Empty. Thank god.

The house was empty and I was crazy. Good. I'd rather be crazy than dead any day. I began to gather my things to leave the house. Even though I knew I wasn't going to be killed, I needed to get to Janna's house to make sure she was okay.

She looked half dead and that…thing….in the back of her image. I needed to make sure she was okay. I turned off the lights as I left, being that I was sneaking out, and decided to rush out the back door.

I reached the backdoor and a feeling of dread fell over me. The scratching, that horrible scratching that will never leave my mind, was there in front of me. Something, something small and frail, something snow white, was sitting on its butt outside. Its arms and legs each led to hands, all bleeding because of the scraping on my door.

Then the creature looked at me.

(This story is credited to a person called Guiv.)

Like the Raven

Dear whoever can see this text,
I need help.

It started a week ago, I know. Why not go to a hospital? How can I?

September 23, 2011
It began. I woke up in a cold swet, the taste of adrenaline and sleep in my mouth. The taste was potent and relentless. I couldn't remember my dream, but it must have been some shit. I was crying. My face was red.

I breathed in and went to the bathroom. When I looked in the mirror, I noticed my eyes were darker. It wasn't just the iris, but the pupil and whites, too. They were a kind of grey...a silver, if you will. Yes. Silver.

September 24 - 26
I can't sleep. My eyes are engulfed in black - not white, no blue iris...just black. I'm alone and scared shitless. My body aches. I can't take it anymore. There are lacerations forming on my shoulders. They're deep. They smell of blood and rotting flesh. I'm in so much agony.

September 27
Kill me, please. I'm choking up blood. The stains cover my chest, covering my breasts. I can't wear a shirt or bra any more.The pain is too intense.

September 30
I passed out in a pool of blood. I can barely breathe. These things, they're like wings. They stick out of the cuts. They're like a raven's wings - black, big, and devilish. I'm going to die - if not by this, then by suicide.

HELP.

(This story is credited to a person called Midnight Agony.)

Notebook

If you're reading this, then either I've escaped and this is old news because I've been on plenty of news shows, or it means I've died and you've found this. If it is the latter of the two, LEAVE IMMEDIATELY.

Have you ever seen or found something you believe you shouldn't have? Most people will tell you they haven't, but I'm not one of those people. I've recently took up urban exploring due to some peer pressure and, for a while, it was actually fun. That is, until we found Lab 1508. If I'm right, that means it's just one of many labs.

You see, we found the lab while taking a road trip from Maine to California. We stopped at a lot of different places to check them out. This stop in particular, though, was in Hamilton, Ohio. The place we found was called Taylor's school. All I know about it is that it looks abandoned and condemned from the outside.

We went in through a gate that led into the basement. The first thing we saw was three old fuse box-type things that were labeled Basement, 1st Floor, and 2nd Floor. I joked around and pushed all three up. The place actually had power. That surprised me and my buddies Bill and Rick because the building had obviously been closed for quite some time.

We walked straight up the first set of stairs we saw and reached the first floor. The first two floors weren't anything special; the only thing that stood out was the mold on the ceiling. We went back to the basement and started to explore the rest of the place when we found the old gym.

It was filled with stuff. We found various medical vials, which confused me, but I just ignored it. I would later come to regret this. We sifted through mountains of stuff and made our way to the middle of the room.

Rick was the first to notice the hatch in the middle of the floor. We opened it slowly and made our way down the stairs. The weird thing about this place was that all of the walls were black. Neon white arrows and writing adorned the walls.

We continued walking until we reached a crossroads where the path split into eight different directions: Kennel, Lab 1508, Observatory, Gene Splicing, Reanimation, Mutation Studies, Offices, Human Resources, and Waste Disposal.

We decided to split up, which was a major mistake. I made my way to Lab 1508. Rick was heading to the Kennel and Bill was going toward Human Resources. The hallway I was heading down was very long; it took a good ten minutes to reach my destination. I entered Lab 1508 and saw the last thing I expected.

I saw myself standing in the middle of the room. It wasn't me, however; it looked...wrong. I couldn't place what was off about this other me, this doppelganger. It just looked strange in my eyes.

The next thing I knew, the doppelganger lunged toward me. I barely moved out of the way as it tried to grab my throat. I ran out of there as fast as possible. I'm now hiding in the offices.

I'm going to try to escape this place. I have no clue what happened to Bill or Rick. I believe they're probably dead. I just found a document on my way out, though. It's something about splicing human subjects with different animals. I'm putting the part I believe pertains to this situation in this notebook.

[This notebook was found inside a school a friend and I recently explored. In fact, it was right by the basement gate. We thought it seemed creepy, so we submitted it here.

The only thing we could confirm was that the school does still have power running to it. We got too scared after reading the first two sences to go much farther into the school.

Whoever owns the building probably left the notebook there to scare off kids, seeing as we found no body lying around. We also didn't find any document, which makes us believe the story is a hoax. However, you can go to the school yourself and find out whether or not it's true.]

(This story is credited to a person called Brandon.)

Announcement

I tried taking up the task of updating all the coding on all 500+ stories and after the third day, I failed. My hands simply hurt too much to continue, and even now they still kind of hurt. I may have given myself carpal tunnel.

So, I'm trying to take a long break from typing as much as I can. I would've gone in and started getting stories again, but this happened and now I can't really spend much time editing stories and whatnot.

Also, the email I've listed as the one to send stories to is getting pretty spammed up. In addition, the email has been semi-blocked because of spam being sent from it due to some random hotmail-specific virus that likes to spread itself by sending emails in bulk from your own email. I may make a new email for the soul purpose of gathering stories.

So, I do need some help with gathering stories and all that. If you want to help me, add me to your contacts and IM me. I need to get to know you so I know I can trust you with helping, first, but that's probably understandable.

I really apologize for not having any new stories lately. Thanks in advance for understanding, go die in a fire if you don't understand.

EDIT: EVERYONE WILL HAVE TO RESEND THEIR STORIES TO ME. I'VE SWITCHED TO A NEW EMAIL: crappypasta@live.com.

EDIT: ...Great, now the Blog Archive is broken again.

Vintage PC

I recently received some old PC from my neighbor. He said he didn't need it, along with something about not knowing he even had it. Apparently, he was looking through his attic and found it, but it wasn't there before then.

I've taken the PC home and cleaned it up a bit. Inside the case was some kind of note taped tho the hard drive. It was a confirmation lottery ticket with 7 numbers: 67, 85, 82, 83, 69, 68, and 46. However, these numbers aren't listed in any lottery I know of.

When I turned the PC on through the ON/OFF switch, I heard a loud cracking noise inside the case. After a few seconds, the BIOS showed up. I was relieved, as you can never be sure what happens when a PC cracks.

Anyway, it booted into DOS. There were a few files and folders, excluding system ones: CUR~1, TEST.TXT, 29A.ASM, README.TXT, OPEN.ME, FILE_ID.DIZ, VOLKOV.COM, LYNX.COM and TURN.OFF.

It looked like Volkov and Lynx were programs for general use. I opened the text files to see what was inside, but all I found was garbage. Some kind of virus or trojan probably attempted to overwrite files, no matter what was in them. However, FILE_ID.DIZ contained the numbers on the lottery ticket.

29A.ASM contained some assembler code. I recall that 29A (666 when converted from hex to dec) was a virus developer group. The previous owner of this PC probably managed to leak something from them. There wasn't any ASM-compiling program on the computer, so he didn't look like he was part of that group.

I decided to copy the file onto a floppy, but it just didn't seem to work. Every time I tried to insert a floppy disc, it ejected itself after five seconds. I forced it inside and managed to get a copy of it, all 253KBs of it. I've given the floppy to a friend and he told me he'd take a look at it.

The day after, he said he never saw anything like what was in that code. It's supposed to play some kind of sound, which is nearly impossible on such an old PC, and some graphical effect, which is nearly impossible as well.

He managed to compile it into a working form, but there was one major problem: It's self-destructive. When it runs once, it takes over the whole PC. As the PC I got it from was just in DOS, I decided to run it anyway. Nothing happened, but I still wish I didn't run it in the first place.

I've notice something strange on my PC (not the old one where I just ran that program, but the newer one I've had). Where it would show the status of the PC, there was a little icon that looked like something burning. There was also some kind of fire animation on some windows.

I immediately checked the case, but there wasn't any fire or smoke inside (no, PCs don't have fire/smoke sensors, but I had to check anyway). I've rebooted, hoping it would boot safely. When it got to the desktop, I heard a program error sound (from the Windows 9x theme Underwater, for those who still remember. My PC was running Windows ME) and it repeated a couple of times.

I was shocked. Afterward, it played some kind of low quality screaming and showed something like pink bubbles (I have no idea why) and the man from the Underwater theme choking. After another reboot, I heard the PC's fan behaving like it was dead and the computer turned off.

I blacked out after that and awoke in my bed, as if I had just been sleeping (I was still in my clothes, though). It was around 4 or 5 AM, from what I could guess. There was a loud sound downstairs, so I went down there. It felt like the floor was wet.

When I got downstairs, my PC played a loud sound. I tried to turn it off, but all of the switches were gone, as if someone ripped them off. I went to the power panel to go from there, but those switches were ripped off, too. It was impossible to stop the sound that way, so I went to unplug the PC. However, I noticed something coming from the kitchen.

To get rid of the confusion, the path from my room to the PC was hall > stairs > entrance hall > living room > dining room > study. Another thing is that the living room, dining room, and study were merged without doors leading into them.

Whatever was coming from the kitchen looked human. No, it wasn't me, since shadows drop from a different angle and there weren't any windows beind me. It was holding a gun and pointing at me. It was kind of hard to notice in the dark, but I could tell it WAS moving. I wasn't moving at all.

It shot at me and missed, but there was no sound of a bullet ricocheting around. I panicked and ran to my parents room, though nobody was there. Again, the floor was wet. I locked the doors and began to hear strange murmuring behind it. It seems like that thing won't force open the door, however.

The only way to get out now is through the balcony. Even if it's possible for most, I was too weak to jump down to the other balcony below (we had two balconies and the second was right below). Though if I had to die, I reasoned, it was better to die by jumping than by being shot. So, I jumped. Luckily, I survived.

I ran away with an old bike. I biked to the middle of town to get a rest in whatever place had the nicest music and lights. I don't like it when there's no light; it scares me a little. Sure, I read creepy stories on the internet, but I get really freaked out if there aren't any lights on.

After some reast, I noticed something about my wallet. It was wet. How I didn't feel that before, I don't know. I checked inside it and found a small knife and some little bones. The bones were completely cleaned of all blood and meat. I felt kind of guilty about it, but I didn't even know if I had done anything or not.

Finally, morning came. I decided to get home before my parents woke up. However, when I got to the front doors, there were more bones. Just bones and skulls. I started to panic and immediately called the police department, asking what was going on and if my dad was there (he works there).

They told me he was 20 minutes late. They came and checked out the bones, but after an analysis they concluded the bones were too clean to find out who they belonged to. The police could only speculate at that point.

I tried to call my friend. No reply. I was kind of worried this affected him, too, so I went to his house. Again, I saw bones. This time, however, they weren't clean. They were full of blood. I got inside his house and checked his PC; he was searching online for some kind of satanic summoning rituals or something.

The webpages he was visiting were gone, with only the page titles available. However, there was a text file open that had those same lotto numbers. I realized it was actually a character key code. After a few moments of thinking, I came up with the letters that spelled one word: CURSE.

After heavily searching through my friend's PC, I noticed that all the cached images were of an image I hated a lot. Back in 2000, before we had a computer, I was in the study. That used to be my room, if you couldn't guess.

In front of my bed was a picture of a crying kid. I have to say that image is really creepy, but I don't know where it is. It might be possible that it's still in the attic. After finishing up, I went back to the door. I noticed blood on the carpet. Upon further investigation, I noticed my wallet had blood on it too. I took a look at the knife again.

It was bloody.

(This story is credited to a person called TomKTW)

Long Jack

The Slender Man meme reminds me of a story my great-grandmother (who we used to call tiny grandma, since she was Yoda-ish) used to tell about a monster named Long Jack. I know Slender Man was started on Something Awful, but certain images and aspects remind me of that old ghost story.

I should caution that I didn't actually hear the story first-hand. When I was little, we lived for a while at my grandmother's house while my parents were sorting out a divorce. My great-grandmother lived down the road. The power would reliably go out during big winter storms in those days, and tiny grandma would come over and we'd sit in the fire and wait it out.

The old folks would tell stories and read books. I was only four or five, so tiny grandma would only tell the story of Long Jack after I fell asleep. My older brother and cousins would tell it to me later.

Now, tiny grandma and the rest of us live in the Pacific Northwest, way out in the boonies. She herself was an infant when her parents brought her out west. They were homesteaders.

There's an old dageurrotype of her as a child, standing with the rest of her class in front of a one-room log schoolhouse. There are huge, old growth trees behind her and lots of dark shadows. It's still very gloomy in the winter months in the PNW, even though the trees are much thinner these days.

Long Jack, whatever he is now, was originally a person. I don't know his real name. In that time in history, families lived by themselves in the woods, miles away from each other. However, there were a lot of people coming and going (other homesteaders, people looking for logging jobs, prospectors on the way to a gold rush, etc.).

There weren't hotels except in the bigger cities, either. When you slept, it was either in your own camp or some courteous homesteader would give you a place to sleep. Maybe violent crime wasn't an issue back then, or maybe people were more naive, but the guy who would become Long Jack was a murderer.

There had been a great string of murders in the region; whole families were slaughtered. Sometimes Native Americans would be blamed, as there were still some isolated Indian wars going on, but it didn't really look like that. It looked like people were inviting someone in and he ended up murdering them in their sleep.

Obviously, detective work wasn't big back then. In any case, sometimes it would be weeks or months before they discovered the bodies. The killer would be long gone by then.

I don't know if this one guy, Long Jack or whatever his name was, killed all of them. He did kill at least one family, though, and was caught (literally) red handed near the town of Bellingham, where my family is from.

They used to lynch people in those days. Usually it was black people. In the PNW, where there weren't a lot of black people, it was more often Chinese or East Indian men. Occasionally they lynched white men, even though they had a proper court system at the time.

It was risky to do and the vigilatntes did risk some blowback, especially for lynching white men. The local sheriff, John Larrabee, led the murderer out of his cell at night and took him out of town with a posse to some cliffs a couple miles outside the south side of town. They built a primitive gallows with an extra long rope, with the intent to hang him off the cliff extra high.

The hangman that day was a local eccentric by the name of Dan Harris. They picked him because he was a retiard sailor and knew everything there was to know about ropes and knots. He volunteered for the job, too. As a sailor, he had specifally been a whaler and had a morbid fascination with flesh and how to disassemble and render it.

If the posse had known that, they probably wouldn't have taken him on for the job. Dan Harris didn't just put a noose around the condemned man's neck. He put small nooses made of cord around each of his fingers and at the end of each cord was a heavy lead weight.,/p>

Around each wrist was a length of rope with a heavy stone. At each ankle was a rope attached to even heavier shoes. The posse watched Harris do all this, but they did not know what he was doing. Even Larrabee didn't have the forethought to object.

It came time to hang the man and somebody in the posse finally pushed. The man fell quickly to his doom. The posse expected to hear the sharp crack of a breaking neck, but all they heard was the sound of counting, in Harris' low voice. He had tied the noose to strange, not break. 1...2...3...4...

They heard a loud crack, almost like a shot. 7...8...9...10... Then they heard another. It wasn't the man's neck, but his legs dislocating from his hip. 14...15...16... They heard more pops and cracks. His shoulders dislocating, then his elbows followed by his ankles.

21...22...23... Then his fingers dislocated at each knuckle, sounding a bit like popcorn. Choking grunts could still be heard coming from the man; he was still alive and conscious throughout this. 36...37...38... Harris' voice became louder as his audience became more enraptured in the spectacle.

When he came to 43, there was the loudest crack of all. The makeshift gibbet broke and the murderer, all the weights, and rope went tumbling down the cliff face. His neck and limbs twisted and flailed into impossible angles. In the darkness, they could barely make out his corpse at the bottom. It was a horrific sight.

His limbs had all been stretched to awful, fantastical lengths, all intertwined with the ropes and each other. It was too dark to retrieve the body and, by the next day, animals had gotten to it and carried it away.

This is where my great-grandmother comes in. They used to tell her the ghost of Long Jack haunted those woods, abducting defenseless people if they so much as set foot there. They said that he would count as he stalked up behind you.

1...2...3...4... She heard him once, as she walked the long distance home from school one fall afternoon. 14...15...16... According to the story, you couldn't look back or he'd get you. You had to run as fast as you could, and ran she did.

21...22...23... The counting continued. It was like he was whispering, but it was still getting louder and it seemed he was right behind her. 27...28... She could hear his footfalls; his pace was much longer than her's - longer than any adult's.

She could tell from the rhythm that his legs were impossibly long. His arms and legs must be bending in some unnatural motion. She got to the door of their cabin...37...38...and slammed the door shut. Silence. She knew that if Long Jack had gotten to 43, she would have died.

There were other kids that got lost in those woods those days and they were never found. None of the adults ever mentioned Long Jack, but she had her thoughts to herself.

So that's the story of Long Jack, as my great-grandmother told it...or at least as my brother and cousins re-told it. I don't believe in ghosts myself, but I always liked the story. I haven't found any mention of such a murderer in the local archives but, then again, I wouldn't really expect to. Some of the other historic names, though, do check out...

39...40...41...

Swirls

You have asked me several times, constable, what occurred on the 3rd of June, and I apologise that it is only now that I am able to relate the events to you. However, the events that led up to the crime in question were much too painful to recollect, and I still shudder when I think of that... thing.

But I know that I have to get this story off my chest, or the nightmares will never stop. However, the story does not start on the 3rd of June. It starts nearly one month before, on the 5th of May...

At the time, I worked as a short story writer, paid by the word. I specialized in the genre of macabre horror, and thus had a peculiar imagination and a slight dose of superstition, which may have been a catalyst to the events that followed. I used my income mainly to support my wife Margaret and I, a quaint happy family of two, soon to be three. You see, Margaret was expecting a baby. I bought pregnancy charms for her (for did I not say that I am somewhat superstitious?) as well as medicine to lessen her pains.

However, I also had a hobby that I used a significant portion of my pay to indulge myself in. This hobby was that of collecting queer and weird objects. Many of the visitors who have seen my collection that are not artists or poets have recoiled in horror at the strange objects that I have bought or imported from different parts of the globe.

These include, among others, a Haitian voodoo doll from the far reaches of Hispanolia, a copy of the Voynich Manuscript, a collection of shrunken heads including Shuar, Achuar and Aguarana tribe creations and the head of a multi-eyed moose from South America.

My wife, as much as she loves me, regularly remarks that the collection that I have may be too macabre for the ordinary taste, and that I should throw the things out, or sell them. And, as much as I love Margaret and regularly give in to her many wishes, I simply could not follow this particular want of hers, as these antiques of mine were far too valuable to simply be disposed of.

On May 5th, I went to a nearby flea market to look for queer items to add to my collection as well as to look for more birth charms for dear Margaret. The flea market sold many things that ordinary people no longer wanted, things which I have come to find regularly consisted of objects strange and eldritch, which were perfect for my collection.

As I looked through the items that came in that day, my eyes fell on a glass sphere. It was about an inch and a half in radius, and I could barely conceal the entire thing in the palm of my hand. Inside the sphere perpetually swirled a mass of a mud-textured substance of many different colours.

Green, blue, purple, brown, all the colors came together and mixed and swirled and separated. I was immediately captivated by the spherical object. I had to have it. I handed twenty bills to the shopkeeper, told him to keep the change, and hurried home with my newfound treasure.

I burst in the door just as Margaret was preparing dinner. I smiled warmly, remarking that whatever she was cooking smelled lovely, as I placed the sphere carefully on the dining table. I then told her not to strain herself, and helped her carry the dishes to the table.

I remember her remarking on the strange artifact, and I saying that I believed that such a captivating artifact would bring us good luck, which we needed, for the child was due to be born the next month. And I remember both of us settling down onto our chairs, eating and enjoying the good company.

But even as I enjoyed Margaret’s company, I could not help but occasionally glance at the patterns forming on the glass sphere. After dinner, I excused myself and brought the sphere to my study to examine it. It induced a nearly hypnotic effect upon my person.

The only effect I can compare with that of looking into the sphere is the mind-numbing and mind-dilapidating relaxing sensation of marijuana. And indeed, I fancied the swirls themselves similar to a hallucination that could only be conjured by one under the ill effect of psychedelic substances. The swirls were almost dream-like, and I could not help myself from looking deep within them into another richer world inhabited by the weird and the unknown.

At first, I only looked at the swirls for minutes at a time. However, as the days progressed, I started looking at them for longer and longer periods of time, feeling myself being pulled into the sphere's spell. I neglected my job and did not write a single story in the entirety of May, and very slowly, I began to neglect Margaret as well.

It got to the point where I would place the sphere upon my study table and look at it, and before I knew it, I would have spent hours looking at the thing, even though it felt like less than a minute! The swirls were consuming my life, and with it, my mind. I say this for I began to get strange revelations from the sphere. The swirls formed images, and, I know it sounds mad, but those images were always of evil things.

Killers. Demons. Sickness. Once I even fancied I saw Lucifer, his horrid and ghastly appearance made manifest through the swirls! I could not take my eyes off the new evils that continuously formed before my eyes!

As I have said, as the days wore on, I grew more and more distant from Margaret. She regularly attempted to bring me out of my seclusion, even going so far as to encourage me to go out to purchase more things to add to my collection, but I remained adamant and stayed in my study all day, only stepping outside to eat.

She grew more and more desperate, telling me that it was unhealthy to look at such a thing for so long a time. And finally, as my interest towards the sphere reached certain heights, her cheerful demeanor dissipated, and she stopped smiling. As I look back now, I regret how I ignored her warnings. It was childish, and if I had only listened to her, I may have prevented what would then follow.

It was on the night of June the 2nd, one day before the actual incident. Staring into my glass sphere as always, I sensed that there was something different about the swirls. I could not place my finger on it, but I was positive that on that night, there was an inherently larger malevolence than there ever had been within that glass sphere.

I watched intently the swirling of the substance as it started molding itself into what I assumed would be the paragon of all evil, when I heard Margaret cry out painfully from outside my chambers. Even though I have grown distant from her, deep within my heart I still loved and cared for her, and on hearing those inhumane shrieks, I feared the worst.

I rushed out through the door to find Margaret groaning in a fetal-like position on the floor. She was breaking water! In my desperation, I took Margaret up in my arms and ran out the front door, not even bothering to lock it. We got into my car, and I sped as fast as I could to the hospital, with her in the backseat crying in pain.

The doctors and nurses carried dear Margaret in a stretcher to the maternity ward, where I accompanied them as they prepared to assist my wife in childbirth. For the first time in a month, the glass sphere was not in my possession. I was not even thinking about it, for my heart and my soul were fraught with worry for Margaret!

I knew she was due, she had been carrying the baby for nine months, and yet, because of my obsession with the glass sphere, I completely disregarded any reason and completely neglected her! Tears in my eyes, I sat by her side, telling her to be strong, and that I was there for her.

Hearing these words, she smiled for the first time in a long while. And finally, with much effort, she gave birth to a lovely baby boy, with a cross shaped birthmark on his right arm. Margaret, though in pain, smiled, and remarked that the cross was surely a good omen. Then, having used up all her energy, she promptly fell asleep. I stayed by her side till morning, cradling the baby boy in my arms.

The next day, we returned home from the hospital in high spirits. We finally had a family! I knew that I had to give attention to my new child, and hurried to my study to put the glass sphere on my collection rack so that it would not disrupt my thoughts any further.

And then I saw what the glass sphere beheld. I uttered a low guttural sound from deep within my bosom. It was the sound of terror, the sound of the betrayed. I fell onto my knees as I beheld the atrocity before me. The contents of the glass sphere, the glass sphere that had only prophesized to me great evil, had not changed from last night. The swirling substance had been held in place, such that it looked as if time had stopped in the sphere. And what had it formed, that horrified me so? I will tell you.

It had formed a baby boy with a cross-shaped birthmark on his right arm.

I ran out like a madman at that instant. My mind was so muddled, the actual events are so hazy… But I remember seizing from the baby from Margaret, and running to my study, locking the door behind me. I remember grabbing the oriental knife that hung from my collection. I remember stabbing the demon, over and over and over.

I remember its smile as I stabbed it. Yes, its smile. A most terrible smile, like the smile of a predator that had lured its prey into a trap… And most singularly of all, I remember the shrieks from outside my door. Pained, coarse, high-pitched shrieks, then a halting, eerie silence. It was only later that I found out that my wife had died from shock.

As you can see, constable, even as I tell the story, I shudder and I weep. Even the mere recollection of it pains my heart so! I have no evidence that what I have said is true. I know that I will be hanged. And I welcome the respite of death, constable; I embrace it, for sweet, sweet death will finally rid me of my grief, my sorrow and most importantly, the nightmares that I have at night… Nightmares of a laughing baby boy with a cross-shaped birthmark on his right arm, molding substance in a glass sphere into forms and shapes of infinite evil!

(This story is credited to a person called Necronophore. It's their first story, so be nice.)