chapotraphouse

okay i have a true story to tell

so i was driving home, late at night, after finishing a shift at the bar i worked in, hungry and tired from work. so i dont know what i actually saw.

but while i was driving, something scuttled across the road in front of me. it was really weird, and i couldnt see very well because it was at the edge of my headlights. but it looked to be a meter tall, with two very long skinny legs, like a heron or something, and a small round torso. so, could have been a heron, there are some of those around - but it ran on its legs in a way that birds dont. like, it scittered across the road like a person. birds dont run that fast, and herons certainly dont.

it was probably a dog or something, and i just didnt see right, because, like i said, i was hungry, tired, and irritated from work, and it was dark. but the way it moved was very weird.

maybe it was some kind of homunculus

I have the scariest story to tell you (warning: very scary):

I know a scary story that easily beats Lovecraft's work, that involves a voracious, life-destroying, insatiably hungry entity that has billions of thralls, millions of high priests, yet for all the prayer and prophecy put forward by such devotees, is utterly indifferent to such lowly creatures and continues to consume and destroy and expand.

A short but fun kids-are-scary story.

When our oldest was 1-2yo, we were reading some Halloween themed picture book and having them point at the pictures.

"Where is the bat?"

points at bat on page

"That's right! Now where is the skeleton?"

points at skeleton on page

"Great! Now where is the ghost?"

instantly turns and points over my shoulder towards the empty corner of the room

"..................heh, how about the ghost in the book buddy..."

points at ghost on page

I have a true story from when I was a kid.

So I grew up on an island on a remote farm. The only way to get there was with a ferry and we often had to come home alone in the dark after hobbies or school.

One night I was biking home from the ferry along the dark forest road. I had a hard time seeing where I was because my bike light was broken. The only light was moonlight that just barely allowed me to see where the side of the road was, I was all alone.

Then, all of a sudden, even that smallest light just went out. It felt like someone flipped a switch. It got so dark that I was no longer able to see where I was going and it freaked me out so bad. It felt like I wasn't alone and like there was someone behind me.

When I finally made my way all the way to our farm road, I was very scared. I started to see better coming out of the forest, so I started driving faster. It still felt like there was someone behind me.

When I got very close to home, maybe 400 meters away or so, I clearly felt something crab my bike from behind. This force or whatever it was, started pushing my bike, it felt so strong. I panicked and just drove like the wind. Once I got to the front of our old farmhouse I had difficulties stopping because the push from behind felt so strong.

I forced the bike to fall to one side and ran inside as fast I could, never daring to look behind me.

There was once a skeleton. It did, a scary dance.

Once I stopped in a subway and I hate all the sudden choices you gotta make so I usually just focus on some sort of meal deal on the menu and stick to it, which is how I ended up with some sort of sandwich drenched in sweet chilli sauce. There are alot of things which my shitty genetics has decided to punish me for eating but that sugar filled syrup is my mortal nemesis, this sandwich is my world killer. I still eat it though, because every aftermath from consuming it is so bad that I basically turn into a feral animal, slipping only back into consciousness when the macrobiome regains control of the micro, plus I just got peer-pressured into paying five quid for this sandwich Im gonna eat it.

I dont even get halfway through my foot long chicken filled hyper-laxative before my gastric system attempts to depart my torso, at this point the IBS blinders slip on and I am suddenly completely removed of all social anxiety, I am prepared to shit in a bucket in front of the whole store and god if it will allow me to return to the pretence that I am in control of my own bodily functions (and finish the rest of the sandwich). In this tiny subway there is only one door, right in front of the extremely long queue of people waiting to pay too much for not-bread and horrifically square meat. It has bathroom signs on it, but there is no way this door that a couple of teenagers are currently leaning against is the bathroom surely? They may as well have put windows in so the unwilling spectators could get a good look at the horrors they are hearing.

I do not care, I am a meat machine born to shit, I rush the teenagers leaning against the door, scattering them in my wake as I slam the door shut and turn to discover there is no lock.

There is no lock

For a moment I fall back on my instinctual irish catholic childhood and begin to categorically list all the transgressions against the Pope that could have led me into this tiny section of hell. Is it friday? Is this because I ate meat on a friday? Why dont I know what day it is? Jesus Sam you need to get your life together. Then Gut-Brain resumes control and my world narrows to the disabled friendly toilet that is dangerously far from this unlocked door. If it swings open, I will be at the mercy of the non-shitters beyond that door. Forever haunted by the smug denial and hatred as they turn their disgust for their own base needs outward on to me, they will put me down like the animal I am and I will welcome it.

In this moment I am the most in tune with my own body as I will ever be. My muscles sing with power as I perform the shameful act. My eyes see clearly now, I do not just see a door rattling in the breeze, I see the ancient wooden soul trapped within, and it sees me. I am in its mercy, in this moment it would be so easy for it to yield to the wind that buffets it everytime another queue obsessed Anglo enters this slophouse and expose me to the world entire. I am part of the cancer that killed its kind and it would only be just in taking its revenge on me, even as I silently plead for the opposite I know this is true.

The door begins to shake violently, more than just mere wind, someone is trying to get in. I yell and scream and plead and beg with the stranger on the other side of the door not to enter, but they are deaf to my cries. Perhaps they are not a man at all, but another walking vessel for the hunger that drove me down this dark path, seeking their own escape. My only saving grace is the broken nature of the door, the very thing that caused this whole mess in this first place. Unseen forces batter that door and jiggle the handle, they even succeed at one point, the seal cracks and the world burns, but only for a moment. I slam the door shut and abandon that moment to the void, I excise that reality and form a new one where the door remained closed and I can still pretend to be human.

The ordeal has passed, I carefully rebuild my facade of decency as I wash my hands and destroy the evidence. Now that the forebrain has regained control, the oceanic fear of the judgement of strangers comes rushing back in. Surely they heard my pleas, surely they know.

But as I open the bathroom door, braced to be beaten by a mob of retched sallow cheeked Liverpudlians for my crimes, I see nothing but the barely held but tamped down rage of the average English Queue Enjoyer. All is bliss in the court of Subway, I stumble out into the cold air and rejoin my friends. Are they my friends anymore? I have aged a lifetime in that bathroom, I am a different man from when I entered, a broken man. When I enquire about the door, they look at me in puzzlement.

"No one was at the door, and we didnt hear anything"

Did I imagine the whole thing? Was it some vision of a darker world, a message to change my ways before it was too late?

I begin to eat my sandwich.

Please stop scaring me.

A spectre is haunting Europe... the spectre of communism.

Nobody was there, but there was a shoe, sticking out of the mud, just a few feet behind him.

Maybe the shoe was from one kf those feet

Once upon a time I was poopin so I head to Hex dot bear for some quality entertainment....

504 gateway timeout

This isn’t that scary but it’s real and spooked me at the time. Two years ago I was on a date and I was driving us up a wooded mountain road to an overlook late at night. We were looking forward to the view because it was a moonless night and we’d be overlooking our town, but yeah just pitch black out. I’m driving pretty slow given the type of road and conditions, lots of turns and switchbacks yknow. Anyways we round a corner and on the side of the road is this huge hideous creature. It is pale, at least 6 feet long, 4 legged but standing on its hind legs, with wrinkly skin and no discernible fur. My first thought was that it was a mangy bear, but it was larger than the black bears we have here and some of its features and movements were absolutely unlike any bear I’ve seen. Its legs were less thick and structured more like those of a dog or cat that had been scaled up. Its face also didn’t look like it had a snout, but was more human like almost? I don’t know how to describe it but it was ugly, unnatural, and terrifying. It looked towards us as we rounded the corner, then turned quickly with an action I can only describe as a snapping motion and ran into the bushes adjacent to it. Overall the interaction was only a few seconds but I think about it every time I drive or hike in that area. I tell myself it was a bear with some sort of skin disease but deep down I don’t believe that at all. Anyway we had a nice time at the overlook after that, but every rustle and snap we heard that night had me on edge lol

Boo!