The Fever

When I was a young boy about 8 years old, I had a real bad fever. I felt bloody awful with cold sweats, chills but burning up and shivering at the same time. My temperature was about 103, and I was miserable. Several people kept coming into my bedroom to check on me. My mom was worried, my aunt stopped by, even the neighbors were concerned.

At some point, one of the neighbor’s kids came into my room and stood at the foot of my bed. They were new to the neighborhood so I had never seen the kid. He said he was 7 years old and seemed nice, but I didn’t feel well enough to talk to him. He just stood there saying “when you feel better, we’ll play outside.”

That evening I could hear my mom talking with the neighbor in the kitchen, but the neighbor’s kid was still standing at the foot of my bed as I faded in and out of sleep. I was so sick I couldn’t make out what time it was, but it was dark and I could still hear the neighbor kid just repeatedly whispering “when you feel better, we’ll play outside.”

I guess he stayed there all evening and at some point I woke up and the little boy was sleeping on the floor next to my bed and I faded out again. By morning time my fever broke and I felt much better, but the little boy was gone. I was so happy to not be shivering and freaking out and I was actually hungry so I got out of bed. I walked to the kitchen and my mom was very happy to see me doing better. I told her I was hungry and she made me pancakes, my favorite.

As I poured syrup all over them I asked my mom, “What time did the little boy leave?”

She looked at me puzzled and asked, “What little boy?”

I said, “the neighbor’s kid that was in my room all evening.”

Mom said, “Son, there was no kid in your room yesterday.”

I figured I was dreaming and forgot all about it and tore into my delicious pancakes. Years later, when I was about 15 years old, I recalled that fever and I asked my mom if she remembered that weekend that I was sick and I thought a little boy was in my room. She said, “Yeah, I remember that. I couldn’t tell you then, because you were too young, but I have something to tell you.”

“OK” I replied.

She said, “You know how you asked about the neighbor’s kid that was in your room.”

I said, “Yeah, but I just figured I dreamed all that.”

She said, “Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t, but the neighbor had a 7 year old boy that died and that’s why they moved here, to start over.”

I freaked out and asked, “How did he die?”

Mom said, “From a real bad fever.”

—
Credits to: PincheSpade

Learn From My Experience

I live alone in a rural area where the closest neighbor is eight minutes away. My well maintained house makes it clear there is money here; not too much, but just the right amount. Predictably, periodically, thieves scout the house, make sure there is no one else around besides me, a lonely old man, and strike at night.

They never expect me to be ready for them.

This is the perfect gig, kiddo.

Those who actively hunt are always discovered, even if they only take people who “won’t be missed by anyone” — hobos, hookers, etcetera. It’s a bad idea. You may catch several, and perhaps never make a mistake, but sooner or later, you will take somebody who is missed by someone, be it a relative or even a dutiful cop. And if that doesn’t happen, your hunting pattern will unavoidably arise, and the police will be on to you without you realizing it.

It’s better to be like a spider and wait for the victim to come to you; mine even do part of my own work, by avoiding being seen by anyone. After they disappear, no one ever asks about them, because no one around here misses them. My hunting pattern is clear, yet hidden in plain sight. I’ve been thirty-nine years at this, and no cop, or anyone else, has ever questioned me about anything at all, ever.

It’s not easy being a cannibal these days, but it can be successfully done. Learn from my experience.

—
Credits to: mfarah

The Vending Machine

Joey was walking home, late at night. The darkness of the sleeping city that he was passing through enveloped him as he stared at the fluorescent, blinking traffic lights up ahead. He was hungry, really hungry. Joey was on his way home from a friend’s apartment on the other side of town and had no food to eat there.

After a good couple of swigs of beer with his friend, he wanted to even it out with some hearty food. Bread and rice would have probably done the trick. After a glance in his friend’s fridge and a search in his pantry, all Joey found were two measly yoplaits and some K-bars. He hated that dieting crap. With all the sweetness that it shoves down your throat upon a mere bite, it doesn’t fill you one bit. Joey wanted genuine food but decided it wouldn’t hurt to scarf a couple of the K-bars down with his buddy before heading home. He pondered asking him to let him crash at his place due to how late it was, but decided against it. He wanted real food, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to get any over there. Once he was home, Joey would order in some pizza, lounge around, and fall asleep on his couch while watching the big bang theory.

He ran through the details of what he was going to do at home repeatedly in order to get his mind off of a sudden sense of dread that he couldn’t shake off. Unsuccessful, he eventually gave up. Whatever, he thought to himself. It wasn’t unusual, after all. He was walking through a pitch black city with only streetlights as company. Of course it was scary. He felt so isolated, despite being out on the city streets. There was no-one else walking around, no late bus to pick him up. He hated that feeling of utter loneliness, and it felt amplified at that point. He could say with all honesty that he’d wished he’d been mugged just to be in the company of another human being. Joey heard the clacking of his footsteps on the sidewalk. The howls of the wind fluttered into his eardrums while clumps of darkness crept into his peripheral vision.

When he’d turn to look at them, he’d find something that would perfectly explain it, like the entrance to an alleyway, or some graffiti smeared onto the walls on the other side of the street. Joey laughed at himself for a second while thinking of his shitty situation. He was too stupid to flag a taxi while they were still around, he was too lazy to steal a loose bike leaning on the walls of his friend’s apartment building, and this is where it got him. He started hearing another set of feet on the sidewalk behind him. He told himself it was just the echoes of his own footsteps. He refused to turn around and explained to himself that it was stupid to do so, and that no one was there. He got increasingly nervous the longer he kept hearing them. They were faint enough to be considered imagination, yet he swore to himself that these sounds were really hitting his eardrums.

Click , clack.

Click, clack.

Joey started to panic, and felt his heartbeat quicken. He found that the sounds of the footsteps were coming from a long way away. If he were to see something coming at him, he would simply sprint around the adjacent corner. It would be so far away that if he ran, he would be scott – free. He counted to three in a wavering whisper and turned around, preparing for the worst monstrosity he could think of. What he saw was nothing. His eyes rolled as a wave of embarrassment passed through. It must be the echoes of his own footsteps. His shoulders lowered and he walked with less vigor while making his way back to his apartment. He groaned in frustration at the emptiness of his stomach.

A few minutes passed as Joey shuffled along the sidewalk, completely unafraid. He looked forward to the back to back episodes of big bang theory promised by CITYTV as he gazed into the few windows with the lights still on. He then stopped and cocked his head to the side, as if a song he knew started playing at a grocery store. He heard a dull buzz coming from the alleyway next to him. Joey gazed into the dark mouth of the alley to see what it was. He saw the dim glow of a vending machine. He was overjoyed. This is exactly what he needed to tide him over. He had his heart set on a big bag of beef jerky while walking over to the vending machine.

After looking into the machine, he realized how strange it was. All the bags of snacks were exactly the same. There was no brand recognition or logos that gave you a clue about where the food came from. Every option was just another plain white packet with words printed on to describe what was inside. The words were printed in the same font that you would expect from a typewriter. Joey’s eyes sifted through most of the these packets, coming across names such as ‘Extra Crunchy Chips’, and ‘butterfingers’ until he found a packet with the words ‘beef jerky’ printed onto it. He examined the price below the packet. Joey was surprised at what he found. This beef jerky was nearly ten dollars. Joey, indifferent to the strangeness and expense of the machine, had slipped in a ten dollar bill while muttering that it better be worth every cent. He saw the little beef jerky packet slowly slide towards the glass of the vending machine and then plummet to the receiving slot. Joey anxiously slid his hand into the slot and snatched the food from the machine.

He walked out of the alley and onto the streets again. When he turned his head to take a look at the vending machine, it was nowhere in sight. It’s dull buzz could not be heard. He found it strange, but decided to rationalize it rather than think any more about the vending machine. Instead, Joey told himself that he was probably just imagining things due to how tired he was. After all, it was 1:30 AM at this point. He could have simply walked past the vending machine and looked through the wrong alleyway for it. Yeah, that’s probably what happened.

Joey opened the packet of beef jerky and a strong smell of bacon emanated from it. Joey closed his eyes while taking in the aroma that wafted from the packet. His mouth watered as he stuck his hand inside the little bag and grabbed a piece of jerky.

He found it odd that it smelled of bacon, but he certainly didn’t mind whether it was one or the other. He popped the dry meat into his mouth and found that this was the most delicious dried strip of beef he ever had. A spicy flavor of sorts danced on his tongue as he chewed on the piece of meat. It grew softer and more flavorful the more he chewed on it, and he soon stuffed another piece into his mouth while walking down the dimly lit road home. He devoured the packet. By the time he was finished, Joey was in the parking lot of his residential building. He got into his fifth – floor apartment and climbed into bed immediately. He didn’t need to order pizza or watch the big bang theory in anymore. He was already full.

Joey woke up content and well rested. After taking a shower and getting some clothes on, he went onto the balcony with a cigarette in hand. He always took a couple drags at a cig before going to work. He watched as the smoke he blew swirled and drifted away. After about 30 minutes of smoking, Joey whipped out his phone and examined the time. He then sighed, stubbed his cigarette out, and headed to his car downstairs. He was going to be late for work. He took the stairs down to the parking lot, walked to his car, and started it up. The traffic wasn’t dense, although the drive was lengthy. He arrived at the grocery store and braced himself for the scolding he would receive from his boss. His boss, Marty, looked furious. His face was red, round and tight mouthed. His eyes grew wider with every step Joey took.

‘Damnit, Joe! Late again! I’ll fire you the next time this happens!’

Joey grew irritated.

‘Marty, it was only by 15 minutes.’

His boss lashed out in anger.

‘Only by 15 minutes? That’s fifteen minutes of disservice to my customers! Get to work, you’ve wasted enough time. Not a word, or you’re fired!’

After another seven hours, he went home. It was about 9:30, and Joey was already heading to bed. He drove while listening to some wishy – washy pop song on the radio. The traffic was much more dense, and the headlights of cars went as far as he could see. The song got on his nerves, but he didn’t turn it down. Once he was finally parked in front of his apartment building, he briskly walked across the parking lot and then into his lobby. He then called an elevator. After a few minutes, Joey pondered taking the stairs.

However, it was then that the doors to the elevator opened. Joey thought he saw a pair of bare, dirty feet as the elevator slowly slid open for him. They had brown dirt coming up to the edges of their toes and deep into the quick of each nail. They appeared grotesque, and Joey had smelled something awful as the elevator door opened. He got one last look at those frail, bony feet before the elevator dinged. They disappeared, although the smell of dead tissue still lingered in his nostrils.

Upon entering, he heard the elevator dinging as it journeyed to his floor. He was glad that he had his sweater on. Waves of coolness came in from all sides. Joey felt like he needed a full-on coat. Even though it was spring, this elevator felt like a little remaining pocket of winter. He started to feel increasingly uncomfortable, and listened to the floors passing by as the elevator took him to his hallway. To his horror, Joey heard the distant sound of a little girl laughing for a split second as the elevator zipped past one of the floors. The cool temperature was seeping under his skin by now, and nausea stemmed from the pit of his stomach. He thought about the food he had taken from the vending machine the other night. He examined the meat in retrospect and found it revolting. The nausea took over. He hunched over and threw up as the acid in the vomit seared his throat. He gasped, and another stream of it seeped out his mouth. Joey was dry heaving when he was finally finished. He felt better that it was out of his system. Cleansed, even. The elevator doors opened, and he sprinted out without another second to spare. What was a minute and a half long ride felt like a year long trip.

Joey felt true terror now, and sprinted to his apartment door. He fumbled for his keys and quickly opened it. Once he was inside, he immediately slammed the door shut and locked it. He attempted to rationalize what just happened. He convinced himself that he probably just came into contact with rotten goods at the grocery store. He wanted to keep his mind off of what happened, despite the rationalization. He would never admit that he was terrified, although he certainly was. He locked his bedroom door as well, which was unusual for him. He quickly shut the lights off and stuffed his head under the covers of his bed. Joey felt safe, secure.

This only lasted for about an hour. The quiet, muffled sobbing of a little girl broke the comfortable silence of his room. Fear took hold of him once again. Listening to her sobs filled him with sadness and pity, but fear remained. He was tempted to ask her if she was ok, but something sinister lurked behind these sobs, and no matter how sweet and innocent it sounded, there was no hiding it. The sounds of crying slowly got louder as it crept closer. He pondered staying under the sheets of his bed until morning, but he knew that he was getting out of those blankets somehow. The question was whether he was going to come out of the covers himself, or if something or someone else will do it for him.

He decided to take action. In a sudden burst of courage and anger, Joey ripped the sheets off his head and shot up. The sobbing stopped, and Joey yelled, ‘’GET OUT, GET OUT OF MY HOME!’’. The sinister monstrosity that he had been expecting turned out to be exactly what it sounded like: A harmless, frightened little girl. She could see her thin frame and dirty, rough skin due to the pale moonlight shining through his window. His eyes darted to her tear stained face. The girl had no skin on the left side of her jaw, and the blood dripping out of her wound glistened in the white light. Her torn, plain white gown hung off her gracefully.

‘I’m sorry sir, I was just messin with you ‘cause I was angry. It’s not your fault.’,

She said in between sobs. Joey could hear the tendons in her jaw ripping with every word. He felt waves of guilt. Before he could apologize, she uttered another sentence.

‘I just don’t understand. Why me?’

She then turned her back on him and started to fade into darkness. Before she did, Joey managed to read two words printed onto her pale neck :

Beef Jerky

******* News Report********

A man named Joey Baskerville, aged 27, has jumped off of his fifth floor balcony in the very early hours of the morning. Many of the people that took residence in the building were shocked at the tragedy, as this was very unlike the cheerful man that that they once knew. However, a mrs. Samantha Gunther says that ‘ This is a very tightly wound community, and he was always on the outside, which is strange.’ A young man by the name of Jeff Schoerg came across the appalling site while out for a walk.

Meanwhile, the search for 13 year old girl Diana Folksworth continues without any further clues.

—
Credits to: Shadowstories

The Caldwell House

They Found My Boyfriend

Jezebel Stories: Mysterious Assailant

We have never figured this out. And now, the three living witnesses have to be good and fucking druuuunk to discuss the whole thing.

I was 7, my brother 10, my mom in her early 40s, my grandmother (her mom) in her 60's. So we were all cogent. No one was too young or too senile to not recall this nonsense. Yet, still no bloody answer.

Grandma lived on an isolated country road in NC that was named after her family since they were the only crazy fuckers who lived on the land for about 1000 acres. And I *do* mean crazy. We have stories about relatives that start with, "You remember that time Uncle Bob was in the ditch with a shotgun?" "WHICH TIME?!"

Her house had been empty for several weeks while she'd been visiting us in Florida, but we were all back, spending the weekend with her before trekking back to the Sunshine state. The house is in the foreal country, literally over train-tracks, past a salvage yard and her nearest neighbor (a cousin — everyone is related to everyone who owns a house on the road) ain't within screamin' distance. Yes, that seems to be a real system of measurement — "screaming distance."

It's early in the AM, like just before daybreak. We're awake because these are farm freaks who wake at the crack of dawn from sheer ingrained habit. We're eating cereal when we hear someone pull up outside. Curious, we all run to the big picture window that looks onto the front yard. There is a strange truck there. No one seems to be behind the wheel, though the engine is idling. The truck is... well, old, for one thing. It's old-timey like from maybe the 1930's? You could picture the Joad Family heading to California in this thing. It's rusted but it was probably once painted blue.

We stare at the thing, bewildered. Mom asks grandma if she knows who that is. Nope, not a clue, says grandma. She runs to get the phone to call her cousin and ask him to come up — she thinks maybe it's a hired hand and he's just at the wrong farm. Just as she asks him to come on down, the phone goes dead. Well, that's unsettling.

All at once, there is a loud, insistent banging on the front door. We all scream. My grandma, who is terrifyingly resourceful, huddles us all into the living room, away from a window where anyone can see us. Then, while mom, me and my brother tremble there on the couch, she grabs a serrated bread knife from the kitchen and cautiously approaches the front door. She peeks out a side window, very stealthily. She turns back to us and looks confused. She shakes her head, like, "No one is there." We all kind of breathe easier.

Then EVERY goddamn door in the house is banging — relentlessly. I can still hear it. Rhythmic and terrifying, like all the doors are about to splinter and crack. There were two doors in the basement beneath us, so the sound is also a reverberation at our feet. The three ground-floor doors are shaking — we can see them trembling and jerking on their hinges from our vantage point on the couch. Finally, mom runs to the window — either from a psychotic break with reality or terror, I have no clue. She cries, "Oh thank Christ — Cousin is here!" We run to her and peek out the picture window — there is no one that we can see in the yard, but we can't see all the doors from our viewpoint.

Cousin walks by truck with a shotgun in his hand. Cousin, it should be noted, has pretty much every gun ever made. He looks puzzled, looking at the rear of the truck, then he glances in the cab window and he stops. He goes pale, runs a hand down his face. Then he RUNS towards to house, towards us.

My grandmother flings open the kitchen door as she sees him coming. He shouts, "Everyone get behind the couch! Get DOWN!" He runs past us as we bolt for the couch. The banging starts AGAIN, all the doors and now we can hear the windows rattle. It's like a tornado or the end of the world. We are too scared to even scream. Cousin flings open the front door and fires the huge shotgun, once, BANG, deafening. As he does, the truck roars into life and it sounds like a train. We scramble up; the banging stops, mercifully. Cousin is advancing onto the lawn, gun leveled at the truck. We run behind him, wanting to be out of that shaking, quivering house and near the dude with the gun. The truck peals out, backwards, cutting across the yard and racing into a breakneck speed. Tires sqeal, rubber is burned. Cousin fires again and we all cower behind him. He blows out the back window with the sound of a thousand plates smashing into linoleum but the truck never even hiccups, just roars down the road. No tags, not even a vanity plate on the back.

There was NO ONE behind the wheel of that thing.

We all had a clear view. Everyone agreed. Not a driver in the cab.

Well.

Not anything we could SEE, anyhow.

The police were called. The phone line had been cut. There was not a single boot print in the entire yard except Cousin's, from where he'd run into and out of the house. Cousin reported that there had been no plate but when he looked into the cab, it looked like "something from a horror movie." He said there were all kinds of weird restraints — handcuffs, c-clamps, nylon straps — and he said the floorboards looked covered in what "smelled like" blood to him (Cousin was famous for his keen sense of smell and the window was down, so it's possible).

Cousin said he thought he saw a blur of something out the picture window and ran to fire the first shot, but "missed" because, once he stood there, nothing or no one was on the lawn or in the truck. Then it shot backwards out of the yard and out of our lives, leaving no answers, just a deep sense of unease every time we'd visit.

Grandma and Cousin have passed. Deeply religious people, they stuck by their unchanging versions of the story until they died. My brother, mother and I have never been able to figure it out — neither did the cops, I think it should be noted. We don't know how all the windows and doors were banging, and we don't know why we never saw a SOUL anywhere or how they could get around the sides of the house without leaving a trace in the damp earth.

Credits to Sorcia MacNasty

Jezebel Stories: Charlotte

When I was 8, my family moved into an old Colonial that was built in 1810. My father still lives there. Until I was 17, every before I feel asleep, I would feel pressure next to me as if someone sat down on the bed next to me. This would always be accompanied with a feeling of increased pressure in the air. Although I knew this probably didn't happen to everyone, I didn't think about it much.

Until I got a cat. He was a present for my twelfth birthday. Each night, he would sack out on the bed near my feet. Each night, he would bolt from a dead sleep and glare at something in the doorway before hightailing it out of there. A few moments later, the pressure would return.

Again, while this was a weird thing to happen, I didn't really question it. Maybe the cat was just neurotic. I didn't talk about this nightly occurrence to anyone. However, I did refer this feeling/presence/what have you as "Charlotte." I don't know why.

So one day in the summer when I was thirteen, an elderly man and his middle-aged daughter pull up to our house and explain that the father lived in the house with his aunt while he was a boy and that he raised his family there for a few years. They had been visiting family in the neighborhood, and they wondered if they could take a tour for old times' sake. My mom said sure. She, my sister and I led them around the house, and they recalled different memories.

Afterward, my mom asked them if they remembered strange occurrences or stories about the house. "Like ghosts?" the old man asked and chuckled. His daughter became very quiet and said firmly, "It's not funny, Dad." The man explained that everyone who slept in one bedroom felt a little unsettled, and his daughter interrupted to say that she always felt as if someone sat on the edge of the bed and she tried to go to sleep. Her father said they used to joke that it was just his aunt looking out for them—his Aunt Charlotte.

This confirmed what I had never admitted to myself. I had a freaking ghost that basically tucked me in at night for the previous five years.

Still, going to bed was never freaky or scary. I just tried to ignore the feeling when it came.

Until one night when I was 16. My parents had been going through a weird patch in their marriage, I was feeling depressed, and in general, it was a weird year. I went to bed; after about 20 minutes the cat took his typical bolting exit from the bed, and I felt the familiar pressure on my side.

Then I felt a hand brush through my hair.

Then I ran straight downstairs to the living room where my mom was dozing. She woke up when I burst in the room, saw my face, and asked what was wrong. I told her I had a nightmare and left it at that.

I spent a week sleeping in the guest room. When I got the nerve to go back to my room, I was nearly asleep when I realized I didn't feel the pressure next to me. I did feel pressure in the air. I rolled on my back and saw the figure of a woman in her 60s, wearing a housedress, her hair pulled back in a bun, with her arms folded. She was looking right at me, very concerned. When I found my voice, she disappeared. I said out loud, "I don't care if you stay, but I can NEVER, EVER, EVER see you again." I never did.

However a few years later, after my parents divorced and my dad moved in his girlfriend and her 4 year old son, I wasn't really surprised when she told me her little boy said a lady named Charlotte told him stories at night.

Credits to nearsighted