Ancestral Memories

It is said that all of us have ancestral memories locked away within us.

Some even argue to say that these memories are kept in consciousnesses separate from our own, or, to put it more simply, in multiple personalities.

To unlock these memories is to gain an infinite amount of wisdom from the mistakes and experiences of the past, but to access the memories, one would have to discover their “other” personalities.

And once they’re awakened, they’ll be wanting a body to STAY awake in….

Chiasma

It wasn’t until I broke down in front of my sister that it occurred to me to use the word ‘haunted’. When I tried to explain what was happening to me, finally articulating the weeks of dread and utter dislocation, I found that no other word would come. Haunted. There’s still a part of me that scoffs and glowers at this, to use the language of folklore; it seems to compress what I’d experienced into a simple banality, a prisoner of language.

I paid cash upfront for the house in West Toluca Lake. Something about the 1930′s Spanish architecture tucked behind the grove of weeping willows triggered a strong association with my childhood ideal of what it meant to be famous and successful in Los Angeles. It was far more than I needed, and I struggled to fill the extra rooms with bedroom sets and elaborate smoking lounges; more out of an obligation to keep up appearances when guests were over than to satisfy myself. I was happy there, for a short while.

My friends stop visiting a few months after I moved in. Increasingly elaborate excuses were spun, and I soon stopped asking. It only occurs to me now that I was doing the same, finding every reason to stay in the house.

There was such a gentle descent into the insanity of it all, that I hardly felt it happening. The unusually stormy winter hit me hard, and long hours in front of the sun lamp seemed to do little to halt my growing feeling of melancholy and nameless unease. I started sleeping later and I abandoned even the pretense of writing, spending long hours in silence on the back porch, listening to the dry rasping of the dead leaves in the cold breeze.

It was the middle of the night when I first saw him. After a long time of lying motionless in the dark, I slowly pulled myself out of bed from an Ambien fog at the sharp urging of my bladder, and shuffled towards the bathroom.

He was in the hall, standing perfectly still, his back to me. His head was cocked slightly to one side as if he was listening, but he showed no signs of seeing me. My heart leapt and my body locked as I tried to comprehend this intrusion. He was walking away from me now, the soft tread of his feet on the carpet the only sound that punctuated the stillness. Less than three seconds had passed from the moment I saw him, to when he turned a corner and was gone.

When I wrenched control from my frozen limbs, I found the house empty, and the doors still locked. Sleep came slowly that night as I tried to convince myself that what I had seen was a product of my medicated and half asleep mind.

He returned the next night, as I lay in bed. I awoke to the sound of the door opening and my eyes snapped open to complete darkness. There was the soft shuffling of feet, and then with a sickening feeling deep in my core, the sound of bed springs softly creaking, as if he had sat at the foot of the bed. Fear held me in place like a vice. There was a sound from far away, a dusty crackling breath of wind.

My mouth went dry and I croaked a small involuntary rasp as I struggled to extricate myself from the sheets that suddenly clung to me. In that naked moment of helpless animal terror, he vanished, leaving a palpable hole in the darkness.

After that night, I was never alone in that house. At the corner of my eyes I saw slow plodding movement, the lumbering gait of a shadow that evaporated as soon as I turned. Rarely at first, but increasingly, I would see him in full view; walking slowly from room to room, sitting motionless on the patio, standing solemnly and silently in odd corners of the house. He would be gone only moments after I registered his presence, simply ceasing to exist, taking with him the tiny muffled sounds of his movements.

I could not describe him now if I tried. He was not vague or indistinct, but utterly unremarkable in every appearance. I can no longer even recall the image of him, only the idea of it all. Beyond the sight, there was an indescribable quality around him, a lingering fog of unease and dread that slowly suffused the house and clouded my mind.

My friends and my family all swear that during the darkest weeks they called me often, increasingly sick with worry. I remember none of it, just the constant crashing waves of dread and shock that weathered away at my reason.

The moment of clarity came on a clear February night. In a near daze, I stumbled towards the sleep, not wanting to stay awake, not wanting to wake up again in this house. I turned out the light, sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed when the miasma of his presence enveloped me.

He was behind me in the dark.

I pressed my eyes tightly together, and exhaled a slow wheeze, trying to calm my racing heart.
The bed behind me bucked with sudden movement and a raspy cough of air, and I leapt away, flinging the light switch upward. The bed, once immaculately made was in shambles, the sheets strewn on the floor.

Something deep inside me seemed to slowly bend and snap, and I grasped at a fragment of epiphany that slipped through my fingers away into the gloom.

I felt suddenly and sharply awake and lucid, like I hadn’t in months. I held onto my momentary courage close as I approached the front door; stepping over the threshold for the first time in weeks brought a faint wave of dizziness, and then I was in the car trying not to look back. As I pulled the car into the street, I turned to the house, the last time I saw it, its lights ablaze in mimicry of life. He was at the window, his hands clasped at his side, a momentary silhouette that vanished with only the soft sway of the curtains.

I was at a motel within an hour and at my sister’s Studio City apartment the next morning. My throat was raw from not speaking for so many days and I croaked out the story to her, embarrassed at the absurdity of the way it all, but swaddled in a profound relief.

Despite the usefulness of it to describe the events, the word ‘haunted’ soon turns sour in my mouth. It never occurred to me to call the intruder a ‘ghost’. This was… something else. Something I can’t explain with the clubs and spears of language. The phantom impression of a right word, the perfect word, seems always at the tip of my tongue, but it never comes. It wasn’t the intruder. It was the house. There’s something wrong with the house itself.

The house is… broken.

Credited to entropyblues!

The Rake

During the summer of 2003, events in the northeastern United States involving a strange, humanlike creature sparked brief local media interest before an apparent blackout was enacted. Little or no information was left intact, as most online and written accounts of the creature were mysteriously destroyed.

Primarily focused in rural New York state, self proclaimed witnesses told stories of thier enounters with a creature of unkown origin. Emotions ranged from extremely traumatic levels of fright and discomfort, to an almost childlike sense of playfulness and curiosity. While their published versions are no longer on record, the memories remained powerful. Several of the involved parties began looking for answers that year.

In early 2006, the collaboration had accumulated nearly two dozen documents dating between the 12th century and present day, spanning 4 continents. In almost all cases, the stories were identical. I’ve been in contact with a member of this group and was able to get some exceprts from their upcoming book.

The Rake
A Suicide Note: 1964
As I prepare to take my life, I feel it necessary to assuage any guilt or pain I have introduced through this act. It is not the fault of anyone other than him. For once I awoke and felt his presence. And once I awoke and saw his form. Once again I awoke and heard his voice, and looked into his eyes. I cannot sleep without fear of what I might next awake to experience. I cannot ever wake. Goodbye.
Found in the same wooden box were two empty envelopes addressed to William and Rose, and one loose personal letter with no envelope.

‘Dearest Linnie,
I have prayed for you. He spoke your name.’

A Journal Entry (translated from Spanish): 1880
I have experience the greatest terror. I have experienced the greatest terror. I have experienced the greatest terror. I see his eyes when I close mine. They are hollow. Black. They saw me and pierced me. His wet hand. I will not sleep. His voice (unintelligible text).

A Mariner’s Log: 1691
He came to me in my sleep. From the foot of my bed I felt a sensation. He took everything. We must return to England. We shall not return here again at the request of the Rake.

From a Witness: 2006
Three years ago, I had just returned from a trip from Niagara Falls with my family for the 4th of July. We were all very exhausted after a long day of driving, so my husband and I put the kids right to bed and called it a night.

At about 4am, I woke up thinking my husband had gotten up to use the restroom. I used the moment to steal back the sheets, only to wake him in the process. I appologized and told him I though he got out of bed. When he turned to face me, he gasped and pulled his feet up from the end of the bed so quickly his knee almost knocked me out of the bed. He then grabbed me and said nothing.

After adjusting to the dark for a half second, I was able to see what caused the strange reaction. At the foot of the bed, sitting and facing away from us, there was what appeared to be a naked man, or a large hairless dog of some sort. It’s body position was disturbing and unnatural, as if it had been hit by a car or something. For some reason, I was not instantly frightened by it, but more concerned as to its condition. At this point I was somewhat under the assumption that we were supposed to help him.
My husband was peering over his arm and knee, tucked into the fetal position, occasionally glancing at me before returning to the creature.

In a flurry of motion, the creature scrambled around the side of the bed, and then crawled quickly in a flailing sort of motion right along the bed until it was less than a foot from my husband’s face. The creature was completely silent for about 30 seconds (or probably closer to 5, it just seemed like a while) just looking at my husband. The creature then placed its hand on his knee and ran into the hallway, leading to the kids’ rooms.

I screamed and ran for the lightswitch, planning to stop him before he hurt my children. When I got to the hallway, the light from the bedroom was enough to see it crouching and hunched over about 20 feet away. He turned around and looked directly at me, covered in blood. I flipped the switch on the wall and saw my daughter Clara.

The creature ran down the stairs while my husband and I rushed to help our daughter. She was very badly injured and spoke only once more in her short life. She said “he is the Rake”.

My husband drove his car into a lake that night, while rushing our daughter to the hospital. He did not survive.

Being a small town, news got around pretty quickly. The police were helpful at first, and the local newspaper took a lot of interest as well. However, the story was never published and the local television news never followed up either.

For several months, my son Justin and I stayed in a hotel near my parent’s house. After we decided to return home, I began looking for answers myself. I eventually located a man in the next town over who had a similar story. We got in contact and began talking about our experiences. He knew of two other people in New York who had seen the creature we now referred to as the Rake.

It took the four of us about two solid years of hunting on the internet and writing letters to come up with a small collection of what we believe to be accounts of the Rake. None of them gave any details, history or follow up. One journal had an entry involving the creature in its first 3 pages, and never mentioned it again. A ship’s log explained nothing of the encounter, saying only that they were told to leave by the Rake. That was the last entry in the log.

There were, however, many instances where the creature’s visit was one of a series of visits with the same person. Multiple people also mentioned being spoken to, my daughter included. This led us to wonder if the Rake had visited any of us before our last encounter.

I set up a digital recorder near my bed and left it running all night, every night, for two weeks. I would tediously scan through the sounds of me rolling around in my bed each day when I woke up. By the end of the second week, I was quite used to the occasional sound of sleep while blurring through the recording at 8 times the normal speed. (This still took almost an hour every day)
On the first day of the third week, I thought I heard something different. What I found was a shrill voice. It was the Rake. I can’t listen to it long enough to even begin to transcribe it. I haven’t let anyone listen to it yet. All I know is that I’ve heard it before, and I now believe that it spoke when it was sitting in front of my husband. I don’t remember hearing anything at the time, but for some reason, the voice on the recorder immediately brings me back to that moment.

The thoughts that must have gone through my daughter’s head make me very upset.

I have not seen the Rake since he ruined my life, but I know that he has been in my room while I slept. I know and fear that one night I’ll wake up to see him staring at me.

You Know That Old Urban Legend?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By: CaptainYetiZombie

Midnight Rendezvous-Day 16

Phew! That was the last of the things that I've piled up.

As you may guess it, I have moved out of the house.

I gotten the hell outta dodge and I will never turn back.

I've gotten all the things that I needed, left a not-so-farewell note behind for Momma, picked up Bushy to bring along with me and just left in the middle of the night.

Well, I gotta have some form of company now, don't I? Bushy pretty much fits the bill.

It wasn't easy to pack the printer, laptop and my clothes in one suitcase, but somehow I managed. Surprisingly.

Guess where I am now?

Bet you can't.

Give up?

I'm at Jan's place.

Yes, that's right, I got the hell outta dodge and moved in to Jan's place.

Or to be more specific, his attic.

Only Jan and I know about this place. Not even his clueless rents know about this attic because it just so happen to be above Jan's room through a trapdoor on his ceiling directly above his bed, and he wasn't about to share this secret place with his rents or anything. I'm the only person he had ever told about this place.

We even had sex in here.

Those were good times.

Definitely the perfect place to not rouse any suspicion.

The electricity and water may be a bit of a problem (though it's still running for the moment), as well as food or whatever, but I'll get my way around it.

Come on, what better way to investigate this phenomena and research on my Slendy-shit than from the source, right?

OK, I admit, it gives me the creeps a little being here, seeing that both Jan and his rents totally hit rock bottom six feet under here, but it was the best place to hide out from Momma and beat the rental and traveling expenses.

It's not like I have anywhere else to go, or wanna go anywhere outta town anyhow.

I'm sure Jan wouldn't mind, and would've wanted me to crash in his place if I ever get outta my own home.

Besides, there may be clues in this house here that might give me a hint as to what all this Slendy-shit is about. Especially Jan's room, where it all began.

Which reminds me, I better grab whatever stuff that is around in Jan's room before they decide to clean up the place. Those crime scene cleaners can really do a number on a dead house and I don't want to lose any precious evidence or clues as to why Jan died.

From what I heard from word of mouth, the boys in blue have already finished processing the place, taking whatever they needed to investigate on Jan and his rents before deciding the verdict of Jan being a psycho and having a meltdown and did a murder-suicide fiasco.

Jan is not a psycho, though he did have a meltdown, and that murder-suicide fiasco had everything to do with whatever he was obsessively researching about.

I'm gonna find out and put an end to it.

I'm printing out all my research from scratch again.

Thank God for internet bookmarks.

Midnight Rendezvous-Day 15

I had an argument with Momma today.

Why, you ask? What did she do this time, you ask?

She totaled my research that's why!

2, 3 weeks of research down the toilet because she decided to go bonkers and tore up all my folders and whatever I had in them and threw them into the fireplace.

I fucking told her not to ever, EVER, enter my room without my permission! I even forced her to sign an agreement on this! And what does she do? I turn my back for one moment to go out and buy myself some take-out for lunch and come back to see her ransacking my room, walking back and forth from my room to the fireplace and tearing up my folders and my research and pictures while sobbing like a fucking scorned 3-year-old. Fucking breach of contract, that's what!

She was absolutely hysterical, screaming and crying like I just gave her a whoop in the ass or something (not that I'm not tempted to) and told me I shouldn't dabble into things that I have no understanding of. I tried to stop her from tearing up anymore of my hard work and she frickin' freaked out and pushed me away like I was some kind of disease.

I told her whatever I research is my own business and none of hers, and I just wanted to find the meaning behind Jan's death, but she wouldn't listen. She screamed back at me to tell me to leave it alone and that Jan's death was just an unfortunate incident of a depressed child. I asked her how would she know whether Jan's depressed or not and she just clammed up and threw the last of my stuff into the fire.

Fucking bitch! What the hell, man?? What the FUCK is her problem??

Fuck, that's it! That's IT!

I'm getting the hell outta dodge.

Midnight Rendezvous-Day 14

Sorry for not logging in on updates or anything. Been researching things like crazy, and something happened that made me gone into withdrawal for a while.

Janphen's funeral was on the way last week. I was expected to attend, but I didn't. I couldn't face the fact that it could've been my fault that he was dead. That I didn't see the signs and allowed it to happen. I just stayed outside the church where the funeral services was done, hearing the preacher droning on and on about blessings and life after death and whatnot (I'm not a sucker for religion, really), and people delivering eulogies for him.

Some of them were bullshit though, just a farce, because I've known Jan long enough to know that some of the things they said are totally not what I know about Jan.

Or maybe it really is something I didn't know about Jan, the other side of him. He did, after all, became my friend not entirely by choice.

Choice...

I remember his words that day I visited him.

Maybe...Maybe I am...I dunno...Maybe I'm just sick of all this...

What was he sick of? Life in general? Me?

Do you KNOW where your dad is? Do you know WHO your dad is? Do you even KNOW WHAT he is? Do you??? DO YOU???!!!

Those were his last words.

His last final words of desperation.

Desperate for me to hear, to understand.

And what did I do? I ditched him, and left him for dead.

I didn't even have the courage to go up to the funeral procession where they carried his and his rents' body to the cemetery to be buried. I just stood somewhere far away and hid behind a couple of trees, watching from my spot as they lowered him six feet under.

When the funeral ended and Jan's relatives who handled the funeral caught sight of me, I got the hell outta dodge.

I'm not gonna stand there and wait for them to scream at my face and rubbing it in that it was all my fault.

I've had enough wallowing in self-pity and beating myself up the past few weeks to know it.

Anywho, I've decided to make print-outs of everything that I have studied about this Slender-freak (including the pictures) and keep them in folders for references later. Heh, the last time I did this was for an assignment at school. Didn't think I'd actually be that hardworking for this shit.

I dunno, maybe making print-outs and studying them helps me cope with the loss, that by studying them, I will know what hit Jan so hard to drive him to this madness, and subsequently be close to him.

I actually showed Momma some of the freaky drawings of the Slender-shit and she totally freaked out, telling me to burn that garbage and ran to her room crying hysterically.

Wonder what was that about?