Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai

Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai
Night of 100 Strange Tales

Note: The first half of stories are original works based on independent research or ritual games but those were highly time consuming so I filled in the second half of the bunch with creepy and copy pastas. Hope you enjoy.

Shadow of a Spider
スパイダーの影

The summertime of old Japan, would bring oppressive heat during the daylight yet not all people longed for the night and the dying sun, for the summer would also bring spirits. Us in the Western world view the Autumn as the time of spirits and that is why I have brought you all here tonight on El Dia del los Muertos. In Edo Japan, people would play Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, or The Night of 100 Strange Tales, and silently, like the smoke from a candle, the spirits would return in the night. This game of dark and flame revolved around the gathered guests illuminating one hundred candles in blue lanterns, dubbed andon, just as you see before you, and telling true ghoulish tales, known as kaidan, from their local village, or perhaps, a more personal experience. As each tale ended, the storyteller would douse a single candle and stare into the mirror on the table. The passing of each story and the gathering darkness was believed to transform the room into a beacon for the ever present hungry dead. The game was said to be a ritual of evocation originally created by the samurai as a test of courage, to see who was brave enough to withstand the gruesome tales and the darkness. As such many participants would stop as the game reached the ninety-ninth tale. We, on the other hand, will be celebrating the lives of those who have passed during the year and throwing a very special party for the spirits always around us with other games as well. Unlike our spiritual ancestors, the samurai, we greet these guests with open arms and welcome them to our story circle this night and make offerings to them and ask their boon in the coming years. But even then, this first story ends with a word of caution. While exactly what was summoned was never made clear, in one of the earliest recordings when the last candle was being put out, a giant hand appeared to come down from the ceiling. While a quick slash of a sword showed that the hand was nothing more than the shadow of a spider, but one has to wonder why in some legends about townsfolk playing this game, one participant would always disappear on the way home… Was it simply the shadow of a spider?

The Raccoon-Fox-Dog
こっくりサン

Japan fever has caught the world by storm influencing and directing the culture and technology of the West for the past few decades as perhaps best evidenced by our current festivities but there was a time when the Spiritualism of the West captivated Japan. This next game we shall play is a child of that period and the son of the infamous Ouija boards of the early 1900s called Kokkuri-san, or the Raccoon-Fox-Dog. This funny and friendly little yokai of modern Japanese legend who is wise as a fox, and loyal as a dog, yet resourceful as the raccoon, from which it carries its amalgamous name, is known to prefer the company of students and children offering no harm to those who chose to seek it’s limited council and do good. Unlike its European parent, Kokkuri-san boards must be made by hand and can only be used once such as those prepared for this party. The players must first inscribe the board with a Torii, the red Shinto style gate sacred to Inarii the divine mother of the Fox and Kokkuri-san himself, and open a window for him to enter the room and then proceed to decorate the board with the phonetic Hiragana alphabet as well as the standard “Hello”, “Goodbye” and similar phrases. When you are ready to begin the game place the coin on the Torii, and one index finger for each of at least three players on the coin, and call to Kokkuri-san asking for him to move the coin if he is present and he will spell out answers to posed questions until he is given his leave by name. So, you might ask, what’s the catch? Kokkuri-san is limited in his knowledge being made of three animals he cannot answer questions about the afterlife or about divinity but he can tell fortunes and answer personal questions - also the board must be cut into forty eight pieces, then burned, after use and the coin used must be spent on charity or good action within three days or face bad luck. Sounds like a better companion than ZoZo wouldn’t you say?

The Queen, the Jester and You
女王、ジェスターとあなた

In standard European etiquette the King would sit at the head of the table, with his Queen on his left and his Jester on his right. This was because the Queen was deemed incapable of defending herself if attacked and the individual at the head of the table would need to defend her but rely on the Jester to protect him - but what would happen when the only defending the King would need was from his Queen or even his own Jester? This game of honesty and deceit is called the Three Kings, or the Queen, the Jester and You, because two nearly identical spirits will whisper indubitably evil falsehoods or unrealistically pure truths into your ears that may only leave you with more questions. In the game you will assume your seat on the central throne, set up in an adjacent darkened room, with the two thrones bearing mirrors at the limits of your peripheral vision, a candle on the floor in front of you, a bottle of salt water in your hands, and a fan at your back. You must then stare straight ahead into the darkness not daring to look at either the angel, or perhaps devil, that has taken their place on each shoulder or the flame below and sky above you. Time is said to be subjective a minute being an inferno or an hour being a paradise and not much difference between the two in these entities’ presence, so you must set the alarm clock with a set time which you will be obligated to remain in your seat until the very minute is up or risk upsetting your Queen and Jester. This audience will continue as long as the candle flame still burns but if you become uncomfortable or threatened in some way by their vision and words, the salt water in your hands can douse the candle flame just as easily as the fan’s breeze can and both are there to protect you. This ritual is believed to provide the brave participants with great truths about the world and themselves, but must wonder why it has also been widely circulated under one more name, the one given by its author: “Please, Don’t Actually Do This.”

The Slit Mouthed Woman
口裂け女

Vanity is perhaps the oldest of the  biblical sins in the West, having itself caused Lucifer’s fall from Heaven, it can be almost as dangerous as the beauty that causes it. Naturally, many cultures warn against it with cautionary tales – perhaps the best known of Japan is a tad older than you might think. The Kuchisake-Onna, otherwise known as the slit mouthed woman, is a well-known yurei whose popularity has skyrocketed since the 1980s when multiple sightings of the beautiful woman with a masked face and her resulting handiwork were found in urbanized Tokyo and its suburbs. The stories go that if an attractive young woman wearing a medical mask or heavy scarf confronts you and demands to know if she is beautiful you must give a noncommittal answer, tell her you are busy, or otherwise distract her to get away for if you say she is not she will kill you but if you say she is then she will ask you the same question. Again, saying yes, will merit a third repetition and a showcase of the Glasgow Smile that is behind her mask at which point your fate will be the same being cut from ear to ear. But the truth is her origins go back to that of this faithful game in the Edo era where she was a woman of renowned beauty of her face and hair, but loose morals, who married a poor samurai to raise her social status but who quickly fell in love with a rich merchant while her husband was away at war. The merchant’s advances culminated in expensive beauty products most notably a pricey mirror but the samurai soon found out about the tryst and killed the merchant. In a desperate effort to spare her fate she shattered the mirror and sliced off her hair but the samurai would not be sated, taking a pair of scissors and slitting her cheek from lip to ear - disfiguring her permanently. In her despair she ended her own life and became a wicked yurei of vanity taking her spite on any foolish enough to think her beautiful in the darkened alleyways of the big city or worse yet to call her, as we shall now do. The Kuchisake-Onna is the Japanese answer to Bloody Mary and she can be made to appear in a darkened mirror by opening and slamming a pair of scissors in front of a mirror and chanting “Your face is a reflection of your ugly soul Kuchisake-Onna” seven times. The only question is will you think she is so beautiful you’d want to join her?

Hitori Kakurenbo
ひとりかくれんぼ

Hide and seek is a common children game where one individual in a group searches and attempts to find the other hidden members of their cohort but this game requires multiple players - there was just never a rule requiring that they be alive to play. Hitori Kakurenbo, otherwise known as “One Man Hide and Seek”, is an Asian summoning ritual in which wandering spirits may take over a specially prepared cloth doll filled with rice and bound with red string and a small bit of you - like a finger nail or hair or in our case blood - the other player, and it’s opponent, inside it, to find you in the darkened and empty house and garner a temporary meal of your energy or offerings. First, you will need to finish the doll by giving it a Name, other than that shared by any other guest or there respective dolls, then place the doll in one of the several basins of water around the house, tell it you will try to find it, three times, and begin the game with a count of ten. Afterwards, try to find your doll and declare its turn has begun, again three times, when it has been tagged and its bindings cut. Then hide in the main room and continue with our storytelling. During the game, which may last up to two hours, make sure to not leave the safety of the house, and keep things as dark and quiet as possible outside of our storytelling to help the spirits manifest themselves. When you feel the end of your turn, or the doll itself, approaching you, the game can be ended by splashing some salt water on the doll and thrice declaring the game over, yourself the winner, but with thanksgiving to the spirit, by Name, for playing along. The doll should then be dried and either discarded by burning or heavily cleansed and kept as a keepsake. While this ritual may be viewed as all good sport and some spooky safe fun the spirit in the doll will be looking for compensation for its efforts in the form of libations or some energy but one should not allow the salt water or scissors too far out of sight in case it wants more. In one extreme version of the game, called the Living Doll game, the doll will not only follow a player around but actually change facial expressions and even speak - all this for the modest gamble of the player’s life.

An Incomplete Body But Complete Mind
不完全なボディが、完全なマインド

Modern technology, none more so than the mobile phone, has made the world smaller than ever so why would it not affect the spirit world as well? The Answer-Man is a modern yurei, originally called Satoru-kun, that doesn’t deal with the nonsense of ritual and prayer instead taking direct phone calls if you’re lucky and willing to wager. Satoru-kun, himself, a spirit of the modern cybernetic era we live in and was born as would never have survived in any other as he was born after parental drug use both premature and horribly disfigured, lacking arms and legs and multiple other things that would make one a human. This initially bad karmic hand he worked hard and turned around, according to legend, growing to be an intelligent and compassionate student and even teacher of all subjects going places but often the target of his peers’ jeers – until the bullying eventually escalated and ended his life tragically. In death, the Answer-Man is much like he was in life, studious and helpful but in great need of limbs and very fond of technology. You see, if you call your own phone number you may get a busy signal or voice mail but if someone calls you while you call another number sometimes something strange happens and you get a direct line to the Answer-Man. For best results, the Japanese guides say, a group of at least three should organize and call the cell phone of person to the right of each individual where most will get a busy tone but one may get a ringing. If this happens he will answer any three questions posed to him on any topic but he will also ask you one in return. The question is supposed to vary from person to person and the difficulty is supposed to vary based on if the person was a bully or defended others from bullies but one thing is the same in all accounts – if you get the question wrong Satoru-kun will reach through the phone and take a limb from you of his choice to complete his own mangled body. Have you ever hoped for a busy signal before and are you starting to?

The Man at Midnight
真夜中の男

In life there are only two things that cannot be avoided Death and Taxes. Or so the saying goes. But ever since before it became a part of our lexicon and we dwelled in the caves, humanity has been running from things and looking over our shoulder. With the advent of technology most people don’t feel a constant feel of danger now a days but some want to and go about manufacturing it for themselves that was how the Midnight Game came about. This game, like the others we have played tonight, calls a spirit, simply called the Man at Midnight, to come and judge the guilty – which we all are in our ways – and exact his vengeance on them if he can find them in the night. This spirit is called by lighting a candle and inscribing your complete name on a sheet of paper which is then exposed to your blood, as we have done with the waivers for this party. Then at the stroke of midnight at the front door of a darkened home you must knock twenty-two times before the clock strikes 12:01am. Then open the door and blow out your candle to welcome our honored guest and quickly seal the portal and relight the flame. The fire, much like it was for our ancestors, is your safety and comfort for if the Midnight Man is near and it is extinguished without being relit in under a minute or without a circle of salt around you, you are soon to be separated from your skin. He also near when you experience sudden cold and see the shadow of man and take heed for once the game has begun he will always be near and moving around is in your best interest. Unlike some of our other party guests the Man at Midnight takes an early night and leaves of his own accord ceasing to bother you at 3:33am exactly when all other spirits become their most active. In the end you may not have to evade him long but the question is can you evade him at all or like the expression at the start of this story will he get you in the end too?

A Game of Ghostly Music
幽霊のような音楽

Its common knowledge that music is used in magic and especially in working with the spirits. What Shaman worth his salt would not operate a special drum and rattle to combat the forces of evil and cure the sick? Well in the1800s with the Spiritualism craze Séances became the fad and none would be complete without the performance of a little spectral music from the great beyond. In this fun little game we will invite the spirits gathered here to show us they are as capable of musical composition as they are of corporeal decomposition by allowing them to play the gathered instruments here for a few drops of our precious blood. Place a few drops of your blood on the instrument of your choice and place them together near sheet music and a scribbled note for the spirits to play a ghostly musical request at precisely midnight. If the game works as planned the ghosts will hear our sympathetic vibrations and gather for a swinging wake playing to their unbeating hearts’ content the provided instruments until sent away with some salt. The ghostly music may perchance be heard on recording so make sure to tape the session after all Madam Leota said it best with “Goblins and Ghoulies from last Halloween, give us a sign, play the Tamborine!”

Aoandon
青行燈

People, much as ourselves here, have gathered on dark nights around a fire to trade stories of evil things since the dawn of time. Some have even learned firsthand that to talk about evil things is to summon them. Perhaps that number will grow tonight with us, my friends and guests, because we have recounted ninety-nine ghoulish and strange tales. With only these last few passing words as a shield from the most special guest of the Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai. In my first story, I told of how the earliest participants, a group of samurai in a cave, were scared off by the shadow of a spider but now I am here to tell you about another curious facet of our evenings’ entertainment and perhaps shed some light on the creature we will be seeing in the coming darkness. While the game strictly requires only one hundred candles, guests, and kaidan, to play, along its development specially tinted blue lanterns, dubbed andon, were made an integral part. This inclusion was because during the Edo period the creature supposed to appear in the darkness was called the Aoandon, literally, the ghostly lady of the blue lantern. The Aoandon was said to be a female spirit with long black hair, two horns poking out of her head, black, sharp teeth, who dressed in a white kimono and carried a blue lantern emblazoned with the character of “Fear” at the top of a staff. Some writers of the time said that she had been a woman consumed by jealousy, cowardice, and vanity, who was transformed into a yokai for turning away in fear before the one hundredth tale could be completed and was thus cursed to haunt these gatherings and the mirror, waiting for her chance to appear taking any cowards or skeptics with her. Now, of course, these lanterns could simply be a manner of setting the mood. An eerie and discomforting light source, or perhaps some lost reference to Japanese folklore or culture, but, they may possibly be a ward and offering to the lady of the blue lantern, the Aoandon – that is why we haven’t played with any. Shall we ask her as the hundredth candle goes out?

Fox Wedding Procession
狐結婚式の行列

While we may consider it a bad omen to see rain or darkness on such a joyous occasion as a wedding, these simply set the stage for a Kitsune no Yomeiri, a Fox Wedding Procession. These mystic events have actually been observed in one form or another around the world throughout time. The wedding of foxes, if occurring in daylight to transport the groom to his bride, are categorized by unusual sunshowers and the clapping of disembodied bamboo as if of thunder from invisible players and the presence of fox paw prints in the otherwise undisturbed mud. Children who drink of the water in these paw prints may gain great cleverness and villages graced by processions in daylight will have many children in the coming year. Processions in the night to transport the bride to the groom, on the other hand, are characterized by strings of ghostly disembodied lanterns, carrying multicolored flames, often several miles in length down the mountainside. It was believed that the more lanterns that were seen the more bountiful the harvest would be the following year and oftentimes people wandering the countryside would find gold coins along the path. But people who attempted to follow these foxfire processions as they went on often found themselves turned around just outside of the village or sometimes would not be found again being made permanent wedding guests. Now, in the world of science we have done away with the Wil-o’-wisp yet there are some that claim the spectacle of foxes may be seen firsthand and perhaps you can as well. Simply spit in a well and weave your fingers together during the events and you may, perchance, view a Kitsune no Yomeiri though the gaps in your fingers. But most stories advise against this—foxes are powerful and clever, but dangerous. A wise person keeps well away because, as one story claims, a young bride grew envious and jealous on her own wedding day after viewing the majesty of the procession firsthand and quickly grew sick and died on the spot, her grave becoming a rest station for the processions ever after. That is why on days when the sun shines bright and the rain falls or on silent nights with ghostly colored lights in the horizon, wise parents advise their children to play indoors. Not for fear of catching a cold but because of something more mysterious.

Kitsune-tsuki
狐 - ツキ

Every culture has a variation on the myth in which a human may lose the shape of their humanity and turn into a wild beast or may have the spirit of an animal and act in a feral manner. Until a little after the end of World War II medical doctors in Japan adamantly acknowledged and seriously treated a suite of symptoms, including shortness of breath, phantom pains, speaking in strange voices, and epileptic fits, very similar to classical demonic possession or clinical lycanthropy in Western civilization. This condition, predominantly affecting religious, uneducated women, is believed to have afflicted tens of thousands impoverished Japanese over several centuries dating back from the Edo period to cases still being reported in the modern day. It is called Kitsune-tsuki, or possession by a fox spirit. The condition was so prevalent, and the symptoms so serious, that death has been reported if the patient did not receive adequate treatment from a particular type of shaman-exorcist a Kitsune-tsukai, or fox user. These magus, often the poorest of the poor, would gain the loyalty of the fox spirits they commanded by finding and caring for a pregnant or injured female fox whose would, in time, allow the individual to name one of her pups and use the animal’s spirit often becoming vastly wealthy and influential as well as passing the gift to their own families so long as the fox spirit was well treated.  But often the cure was seen as a curse for the same Kitsune-tsukai that may have removed the blight was often suspected of placing the attack in the first place and of other witchcraft taught by the fox spirits they commanded. For this reason the fox shamans were openly persecuted being burned out of their homes and banished into the early 1960s. To this day in Japan, careful family background checks of potential marriage or business partners are the norm to avoid the taint of a Kitsune-tsukai bloodline. To bind your family to a tainted family was disastrous—you and all your heirs would now carry the taint and may still be actively discriminated even today. With all this hatred of kitsune-tsukai there may be a reason that kitsune-tsuki is still a legitimate and not unheard of medical diagnosis in Japan.

The Fox Bride
フォックスの花嫁

Western translators and pop culture commonly take the word Kitsune to mean “Fox Spirit” but the truth is that the origins and meaning of the word is a bit more mysterious than that. The word itself can be broken many ways but one translates as “always comes to bed” referring to the beautiful and mysterious wives of samurai warlords. These women of unknown genealogy were found wandering alone at dusk in the wild places or the abandoned streets of the city wearing extraordinary silks and sporting beauty and intellect unparalleled by women of social standing causing any man they came into contact with to fall madly in love with them nearly instantly often resulting in rushed and rumpled weddings and many precious and fair-haired children. The problem was always the dogs and the booze. Man’s best friend was less than approving of man’s wife and would often unmask her as a clever fox who took on human form to seduce a man and bare children. If the hounds did not unveil the deception, consumption of intoxicants would often cause the lady foxes to reveal their still unchanged tails ruining the illusion. Such a magical marriage was seen as taboo and the Fox Brides were run out of the villages and their children drowned in most cases but in a few rare stories the husband, still madly in love with his fox, searching for her beckons that she join him in his bed every night but that she must leave at dawn to which the loyal Fox Bride complies. These mythic unions would go on to produce unnaturally beautiful and wise children, often sporting tails themselves, who would in turn give rise to the cult of Inarii, the Deity of Foxes, in Shinto and the second most important kami in all of Japan. This phenomenon is so widely accepted as true that individuals in Japan may be described as carrying the blood of the foxes as a complement towards their beauty and wit and perhaps some actually do.

Pipe Fox
管狐

Trickerster like characters are common in the collective human psyche and examples can be found in every culture most often where these figures straddle the line between good and evil and acceptance and taboo but they all have one thing in common: they are good at getting what they want for a price. The best known example of this in Western culture is the Cross-Roads demon who will trade your eternal soul for a wish and ten years of life but in these instances few beings surpass the seemingly humble Pipe Fox, or kanko. This miniature weasel-like animal of golden fur and slit eyes has no limbs instead slinking around inside its home, most often a hollowed bamboo pipe or ancestral vase, for potentially centuries at a time when not actively doing its masters bidding. While its movement may seem encumbered the kanko can grant any wish or answer any question due to its immense magic but this power comes at a price for the Pipe Fox survives and feeds off the life force of its master. This little fox may also taint the mind of its master festering greed and envy and causing more wishes to be made. This continuous process often causes tuberculosis like symptoms and eventually death in any who claim ownership over it as the requests made become more frequent or extravagant. Yet the pipe fox is not a malicious creature for if an individual makes a selfless wish at his or her own expense the kanko is freed from its bondage and allowed to become a fully ascended fox of Inari. In many Japanese dramas the issue of control over desire and selflessness against greed, as illustrated with the pipe fox’s near infinite but ultimately fatal powers, is at the fore front, so I have to ask have you ever wanted something badly enough?

Star Balls
星の多摩

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend or so the saying goes but it turns out they are also a Fox’s close companion. Hoshi no tama, literally star jewelry, are magical spheres, as many as seven, that possess not only some or all of a Kitsune’s power and intellect when they transform into human but also form the fox’s soul. These jewels typically resemble a string of fine yellow pearls which turn to plain stone if sold or stolen. Ownership of the sphere by a human grants the individual the fox’s magic and control over the particular fox who is unable to change shape without their gems. If seven are collected from different foxes the individual is entitled to a special wish from the kami Inari but if the gem is kept away from the fox for a year the fox will die and the gem will become cursed. These cursed gems become bound to the family of the owner killing the first born of every generation and causing the others to be dimwitted and ugly and drawing the bane of Inari. Likewise any individual who wears a star ball taken from a fox opens themselves up to possession by the fox, ensuing illness, sterility, and eventual death. That is the reason the Japanese have a superstition against young ladies, especially expecting mothers, to wear precious yellow stones - so much for best friends.

Hitodama
人魂

When hosting a party one of the first and most important considerations that must be made is the guest list, tonight was planned to get a room full of stiffs, but even then guests that may be too easily offended and confused or lost may not see like the ideal choice of participant, but the Hitodama can also be quite gracious. These floating ghostly flames of every color from blue to red to white are said by the Japanese to be the remains of a lost human traveler who seeks repentance for their transgressions in life sometimes by guiding, albeit capaciously, living journeyers across the dark places of the world. Every province of Japan has a unique name for them but a few things are constant; the only thing that is not is whether or not the Hitodama will guide the lost towards safety or to an untimely demise. While the practical parent would warn their child to stay away from ghostly flames in the woods some road weary elders may not be so pragmatic instead clinging to the belief that the Hitodama are bound to this world until their body, and more importantly the treasures hidden away with it, are liberated from the wilderness. Like in most matters, science has taken it upon itself to weighs in and may even explain this type of phenomenon, known as St. Elmo’s Fire or Will-o-Wisps in the West, as phosphorescent fungus or the oxidation of decaying organic matter interacting with the atmosphere but it goes to no length to say that dead bodies are an excellent for the fungi as both a food and possibly a soul source?

No Copies Remain
なしコピーが残らない

What is the worst story that you have ever heard? I mean the type of story that drives men to commit inhumane acts of cruelty against themselves and others – the type of story that haunts the reader to his or her dying day? Perhaps, it is the alleged tales contained in that infamous Lovecraftian tome the Necronomicon, or the unspeakably perverse Grifter video that is making rounds on the worst image boards online, but excluding the ensuing madness and mutilation those stories still circulate this tale is about a story so bad that no one repeats it – because it kills them. From what secondary sources as early as the 1300s say of it, the tale was once called Gozu, which loosely translates as Cowhead, but many more words are dedicated to describing the subsequent effects of the tale and few on its content. It was said that the story would drive both narrator and audience mad with fear and result in death within three days from unspecified causes. For that reason, no copies exist, but one page of the original text appears to have survived until the 1960s when the modern legend says a Japanese middle school history teacher read it out loud to a bus of his students during a field trip causing a crash in the mountainside where they subsequently viciously cannibalized each other and themselves before dying only to be found the following Spring. Perhaps meat is murder or at least causes it.

Yee Naaldlooshii
悪多相の戦士

Humanity learned in the caves the sounds that were made when another member of the tribe was in danger or in pain or need but what if another one also learned those sounds? What if this one started off not as an animal but as human but became something neither were entirely? The Native Americans, most notably the Navajo, believe that not all screams from the wild places of the world may come from the vocal cords of a human or at least from intact vocal cords for their legends, and increasingly many modern reports, tell of a creature known as “It who goes on all fours”, the Yee Naaldlooshii, or simply a Skinwalker. These beings were practitioners of the evil shamanic path known as the Witchery Way in which an individual gains the ability to change shape into that of any creature he or she possess the pelt of for an indefinite amount of time or to otherwise mimic the sight and sound of any creature it makes eye contact with not to mention neigh-immortality and powerful dark magic sustained on the flesh of humans their cattle. These beings, once human, became such by committing atrocities against the tribe, against their blood, and against their very humanity to make themselves something between animal and human namely they must perform murder of a blood relative of the same sex only separated by one generation at most, the must consume human flesh from a living and involuntary host, they must perform incestual necrophilia, and finally they must slit their own throat wrapped in the pelts of animals they have killed for the purpose of taking their shape. So how does one identify a skinwalker? They are only able to mimic words but frequently they carry no meaning for the entity nor is it capable to speak as a human instead sounding like an animal’s call. Likewise, their eyes have a reflective layer in the back much like that of any predator and they move in spasmodic manners lacking fine motor control but have unrivaled speed, patience, and strength along with their supernatural skills making them adept hunters and even capable of blending into society for limited periods. How does one kill such a being? Normal weapons will never end nor even harm such an entity only weapons made of iron and coated in the fine ash of a white oak and bone dust, according to the Navajo, stand a chance of dealing a decisive blow. They are believed to live in the forests and wild places in the middle of the country but reports of encounters with Yee Naaldlooshii are always popular and increasing.

Drowning
溺死

Rushing to the aid of fellow humans in trouble is a natural response for the majority of people that was developed at the dawn of our species to ensure its continuation but sometimes that very action threatens our continued survival especially against intelligent predators who know this and can lie in wait. One such predator is known throughout Japan as Nure-Onna, the Snake Woman. This yokai, like most others of her kind, began life as a human namely an avaricious woman who would marry to increase her social status and on the death of her husband, of which there were many with few explanations to be had for the cause, she would begin to court progressively younger and wealthier men. Until one day she caught the eye of a young monk who fell madly in love with her and pledged his undying love, yet she scorned him for his poverty and chose to marry again. On the day of her wedding, the monk inconsolable confronted the wedding parade and threw himself into a pool of water saying that he would drown himself unless she pulled him out but the haughty woman simply went onwards allowing the monk to die. The spirit of the monk cursed her for her avaricious and murderous ways to shed her skin as she had shed husbands as some sort of snake beast and to subside only in the water perpetually herself drowning. The Nure-Onna took to this curse and to this day, rumors say, haunts beaches, streams, and lakes, feigning a woman drowning until someone reaches or swims out to her where her snake tail wraps around them dragging them down to the depths to feast on them. Perhaps it would be best to reconsider those cries for help heard out at sea.

Occupied?
占領？

S wirlies are a commonly inflicted form of bullying in the West where the bully shoves a person’s head into a toilet and flushes repeatedly soaking them with water. Bullying can of course be found in every culture but the Japanese have a slightly different take on it as frequently the victims of bullying die. One tragic example is the story of Hanako-san a school age girl who was badly neglected at home to the point of partial starvation who was one day locked over a long weekend in the third floor girl’s bathroom by some bullies who found her crying there. Because she was so malnourished she starved over the long weekend when her parents didn’t notice her absence. The ghost of Hanako-san is said to haunt the third stall of the third floor girl’s bathroom in every school now and that anyone entering the bathroom near the end of the school day may hear gentle weeping coming from that stall. If the person were to knock and call out to her, she may just respond, to which most people would open the door and look inside to see this impossible girl but the sight of what greets them varies by region. Most stories say that the intruder finds a small thin girl with black bobbed hair and a red skirt who drags you into the toilet to join her forever while others claim that there is a three-headed lizard impersonating a girl who will eat your flesh, and still others say that the stall is completely empty. Whatever you may find after opening the stall is up for debate but make sure to ask if it’s occupied first for your own good.

Number 1 or Number 2?
番号1つまたは2つの？

Generally, going to the bathroom involves a very basic and instinctual choice about what will occur while there based on fundamental needs thus naturally little thought goes into it but for the Japanese you may be presented with a choice that requires more thought when stepping into a bathroom. A modern malicious yokai, a spirit known as Ako Manto, literally the Red Caped One, although sometimes called Aoi Manto, the Blue Capped One, wearing a golden mask will approach you over your stall and question you as to whether you would like the red or the blue – the object in question varies depending on region but some common ones include paper, cloak, and vest. Should you choose the red you will carved up and bled out over the bathroom or alternatively have strips of your flesh removed as to resemble the garment offered. Should you, alternatively, select the blue you will not be cut but instead suffocated and then drained of blood leaving your skin blue and your tongue swollen. As neither of these are frequently options that individuals seek out when in the rest room the best course of action would be to say neither or a color that wasn’t stated by the masked madman to escape. But be warned, if you say Yellow or Brown you may just have your head shoved into the toilet – so which is it going to be?

Sneakers Under the Stall Door
ストールの下でスニーカー

A tried and true method of determining whether or not a stall is occupied in a crowded bathroom is to look under the door but that only works as long as the occupant has legs. Unfortunately, a fairly common bathroom yurei of Modern Japan, known as Kashima Reiko, roughly the Mask Death Demon, does not have legs and is looking to take yours. In life this yurei was a party girl who enjoyed alcohol, and the company of men but one night she had consumed the former in excess but was denying the latter to a group of thugs who beat her, then raped her in a public bathroom, and then threw her on the Meishin Express train tracks where she was cut in half and died. In death she now haunts bathrooms, and may appear in any that has stalls, searching for her missing legs or any other pair she can get her hands on but like many spirits of Japan she is forced to question you first. She may ask you one of three things; the first is where her legs are to which the response is the Meishin Express, the second is who told you where her legs were to which you respond Kashima Reiko, and the third is what is her name to which you must respond Mask Death Demon. Answer these correctly and the spirit will not trouble you further but may reappear again and questions others at any moment. It is said that within thirty days of hearing this story you will receive a visit from her so make sure to check for shoes under the stall door first.

Slipped in the Shower
シャワーで滑っ

Many injuries occur in one’s own home especially in the ever wet and slippery bathroom. This game, although not a part of tonight’s entertainment, can be played at home it only requires a bathtub and the conjuration of the yurei Daruma-san. Unlike many other yurei, this tall middle aged woman with long flowing black hair only has her left eye and haunts bathtubs not because of some personal transgression but because she slipped in the tub while washing her hair and impaled her other eye through an antique facet killing her. But you can now call her spirit while in the bath for a bit of fun while she chases you to tear out your right eye. The game begins with the player washing his or her hair while chanting her name and saying she fell down, while keeping their eyes closed. Daruma-san will rise from the water behind the player and show them a mental image of the accident. The player must then ask outloud why she fell down, leave the bath, and exit the room with his or her eyes closed. Once the door is closed the player may open their eyes the game will not begin until the following dawn. It is essential to keep the water in the tub as it contains and binds her to you until the end of the game and to not allow anyone else to enter the bathroom or risk facing her. During the day you can see the spirit if you look over your right shoulder but if she gets too close yell out “Tomare”, which will cause her to stop so you can run away and when you tire of the game, and before dusk of that day, you must end it by facing her, saying “Kitta”, making a chopping motion and draining the water from the tub. Make sure the tub is dry next time you don’t want to slip.

Dragging
ドラッグ

There a running joke with body builders in the United States that most of them dedicate themselves to building upper body muscle and ignore their legs - this tale underscores exactly why that may be important and why you may be thankful to have legs at all. The modern Japanese have a yokai known not by its name but by the sound it makes as it drags itself across the subway and train platforms it frequents known as the Teke-Teke. This creature was once believed to be a human woman who, for anything from bad finances to bad grades to bad romance, jumped in front of a train trying to end her life but instead painfully cutting herself in two through the abdomen and rendering herself a cursed monster. The Teke-Teke itself does not have a lower body instead it moves by dragging itself with its fingers and elbows across the tiled floors of the platform at night towards its victims who if they do not get away in time will be sliced in half by a cursed scythe it carries transforming them into another Teke-Teke. Some forms of the legend say this yokai is hideous with black and fetid skin and hideous clawlike nails growing from its hands while others claim that the young woman’s supple skin and loveliness were preserved – advantages she uses to lure unsuspecting young men by posing through window sills on dark nights. Whatever its appearance the Teke-Teke is one of the most feared of the modern yokai for its strength, speed, and due to the lack of ways to outsmart it the only option is to run. Hope you haven’t skipped leg day or you won’t need to worry about it at all anymore.

Please Leave Me Alone
ミー放っておいてください

The Japanese culture has always taken pleasure in the veneration of human like animals such as Human-Face Carp and the Heiki Crab but one animal in particular resembling mankind is considered to be disturbing by many. The Jinmenken, or Human-Faced Dogs, of Japan are a historical phenomenon dating back to the Edo period where many such living dogs were displayed in traveling road shows and many further still could be encountered in the country side. According to eye witnesses these small, brownish dogs, looked scraggily and like a mutt from a distance but up close clearly display a human, vaguely Western, face with a light skin tone. More shockingly, the dogs are capable of speech but are generally less than social. Unlike other yokai that are rude if not directly malicious the Jinmenken simply request privacy or ask that you “Please Leave Me Alone” in a willowy voice and then remain silent even those displayed in the road shows. Modern sightings of the dogs, most frequently in the crowded Shibuya, don’t mention much development on conversational skills but certainly hint at a more elusive nature as no dog has been captured in the modern day. In Edo the birth of a Jinmenken from another normal dog was supposedly witnessed and attested to by a physician but at the time they offered no explanations for the phenomenon – today many abound from misidentification of the Japanese Macaque, to biologically engineered mutants, to the departed spirits of those who died in automobile accidents. Only one thing is certain we don’t know much about the human faced dogs that Japan has been seeing continuously for close to five hundred years but it puts a new spin on man’s best friend.

One Way Ride
ワン•ウェイ•ライド

Stories abound from coast to coast of phantom hitchhikers, spectral apparitions on the side of the road who beg a ride or hail a cab and give directions for the driver to only end up sitting alone in their car outside of a cemetery or on the doorstep of a house informed that their passenger is impossible having passed years ago. Some more well connected spirits like to frequent dance halls instead of the side of the road and ask gentlemen for a ride to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and abandoning them at the gate. Japan’s ghosts are a tad less friendly in this regard by first hailing a cab, and providing the cabbie with a destination they have never heard of with assurance of directions that only increase in complexity with time and finally silence. When the cabbie turns around to stare into what will surely be an empty seat the cab slams into a tree or off a cliff ending the cabbie’s life. Several unexplained cases of fatal crashed taxis outside of their normal route in the countryside in the late 1970s may be to blame for this story although who is to say that this story isn’t to blame for the crashes?

Living Monument
記念碑リビング

The plot of the movie Poltergeist surrounded around a family whose head was an architect designing a housing development that they just moved in to which just so happened to be over an Indian burial ground. This upsets the spirits and causes several unexplainable things to occur that trouble the family and ultimately destroy the housing development. One would think that these sorts of things like that could not happen frequently, especially in a culture that places high respect on ancestor veneration,  but it turns out that in 1968 during remodeling of the Seihoku subway line they found out just how often it does. Up until the end of the 1700s it was customary for important buildings, most notably temples and houses of political power, to be watched over continuously and one way to both ensure that and the longevity of the construction was to perform human sacrifice by sealing an individual into the construction alive. In on-going excavations numerous entire skeletons have been found cemented into the structure work of some residences and places of worship with the evidence pointing towards their internment beginning while they were still living. In 1968 this practice became much more common knowledge as the Seihoku construction crossed into the sub-basement and well of a nearby temple and discovered ten sets of human remains sealed into the mortar work. Further skeletons have been revealed at other sites after the earthquake and subsequent natural disasters. Perhaps these ghosts are more peaceful than some of those that we have encountered so far but that doesn’t go a long way to prove that human remains are a worthwhile building material.

Plentiful Hull
豊富なハル
Being an island, Japan naturally relies on seafood as a major staple in the traditional diet and many supersitions surround fishing. One practical suggestion any fisherman would make is to fish during the darkest and rainiest days as more fish than every can be caught but this suggestion carries an added weight for the Japanese to make sure to throw a fish or two back in water. If they don’t, sometimes a ghostly voice will call to the fishermen as he enters port saying “leave it behind…” and regardless of whether or not they take heed their nets will be empty. Perhaps this is an educational proverb against greed or perhaps this is a very practical suggestion to appease the Kappa. These cryptozooloigcal beasts of Shinto myth haunt bodies of water playing mischevious , if not directly malicious pranks, including everything from looking up the kimonos of women to drowning unlucky swimmers. Accounts of the creature paint it as a solid scaly green humanoid with a head somewhere between that of a turtle and of a bird which is capable of speech and control of water. The Kappa often call behind fishermen on their way to port for minor sacrifices in exchange for their plentiful hull, but if they are less than generous there may be more to it than a simple slip which leads to drowning.

Dead Men Do Tell Tales
死んだ人は物語を教えてください
Urban legends claim that pirates would often bury their treasure on the seashore to prevent officials and others from stealing their plunder but digging can be hard work so often many men were employed but the safest way to keep a secret is in the fewest minds so the laborers were often killed to protect the location and possibly to supernaturally protect the gold believing they could not reveal its location. The Japanese thought differently about this. This tale, sometimes called the Talking Skull, dates back to the 1300s and is only one or many examples of the dead speaking. It was said that a poor traveling monk wandered through the forest after his labors in the village helping to repair after a recent mud slid when he found a rather badly worn skull. Assuming it was a victim of the mudslide the monk took the skull to the cemetery and created a modest but proper grave for it and allowed the episode to slip from his mind. Months later a wealthy merchant approached the temple the monk was a member of and requested his presence for a feast raised in his honor without specifying quite why. The monk, a young man, accepted and journeyed to the opulent home where he dined with his host until suddenly the front doors of the home opened and the host gave a jump forcing the monk to run and hide in a closest. The host explained that he was actually a ghost and the house was formerly his own but that his wealth had been coveted by his brother who murdered him in the night and buried his body along with much of the gold. Emboldened by the story the monk attacked and slayed the younger brother whose ghost recanted his crimes the two brothers then led the monk to the hidden gold which was used to construct a new opulent temple for his order and a proper resting place for both bodies. Sometimes, even the dead feel chatty when shown some compassion.

The Crying Stone
泣くストーン
Highway robbers once posed a serious threat to any and all travelers traversing the land at night. In ancient Japan these brigands were so horrible that they frequently killed regardless of social standing or gender thus comes this tale of the infamous Crying Stone of the Tokaido road. A wealthy woman, heavy with child, was traveling one night to visit her husband a samurai who was stationed at the coast when she was apprehended by a group of thieves that slaughtered her entourage and proceeded to have their way with her on a large smooth stone marking the distance along the route which was then used to crush her skull and belly in. The following day a local monk came upon the atrocity responding to allegations that monsterous wailing had been heard coming from that stone. Instead of the yokai he feared he may encounter he found a small and frail child clutched in the dead arms of his mother which melted his heart and convinced him to raise the both as his own. Many years passed as the boy grew to adulthood yet the villagers and travelers would claim that at night ghostly cries came from the stone. Himself now a monk the boy came to investigate the site not knowing of his own history with it where he was attacked by a group of robbers and nearly murdered if it were not for the stone, itself so cumbersome that only many men working together could move it, lifted from the ground and crushed the robbers allowing him to get away. He subsequently built a shrine to honor the protective yurei of the stone, his mother. From that day no robberies or murders have ever been reported, although many unsolved disappearances of criminals have occurred, on the Tokaido road since the 1400s.

The Abandoned Inn of the Woods
ウッズの放棄されたイン
The Irish believe there is a fairy known as the Redcap who appears otherwise indistinguishable from a stout human male except for his ever present bright red hat. According to legend the Redcap runs an inn only found by the lost and weary in the deepest forests and glades where, every the gracious host, he invites them to stay the night free of charge and cooks for them a meat stew. While the guest feasts the Redcap sneaks behind him or her and removes their scalp and slits their throat collecting the blood in the soup bowl where he then dips his hat to keep its very magical color. As long as the Recap’s hat remains colored with the blood of his victims he is immune to both the banes of sunlight and iron and may enjoy renewed youth but it seems his line of inns does not operate in Japan for the lost there encounter the yokai known as the Long-Tongued Woman. One legend says that two wanderers, a samurai and a carpenter, become lost in the woods when they come across a disheveled house and are greeted by an old grandmotherly crone that takes them in for the night. The woman feeds the two men offering them sake to which the carpenter happily agrees and consumes it in excess while the samurai abstains. He notices that the woman herself does not partake with them instead spending her time at the spinning wheel. Slowly the samurai begins to feel drowsy and joins the already slumbering carpenter in sleep only to be awakened by the slurping sound of the old woman’s impossibly long tongue wrapping around the remains of the carpenter. With a quick slash of his sword the Samurai cuts the tongue and escapes returning with a group of local villagers the next day only to find an empty glade where the house once stood.

Child in the Walls
壁に子供
Children often have imaginary playmates growing up. This is in fact so common that is considered psychologically healthy for the child as it teaches them the basics of socialization yet there may be instances when this as healthy one example being the Zashiki Warashi otherwise known as the Yokai in the Walls. This generally friendly spirit is believed to inhabit the walls and roofs of old houses and schools where young children have played and passed away. It cannot normally be seen by adults but has been reported to take on the form of a child with an exceptionally bulbous head, overly large eyes, elongated fingers, and have an ashen complexion. The Zashiki Warashi are known to meet and befriend a child often becoming his or her sole playmate for a time during which the child often becomes sick and may die if not kept indoors yet the spirit is known to leave sweets and small tokens for the child to play with and to watch over the child, protectively even against its own family in many instances, going so far as to start fires if the child is threatened or if separation between the playmates is attempted from the safety and comfort of the walls. The saying always goes the walls had ears but perhaps they have much, much more in them.

Spirits of the Dead
死者の魂
Ancestor veneration and honoring the dead is the point of today’s festivities and a major caveat of Asian culture – one increasingly abandoned in the civilized world. For the Western world it was believed that on Halloween spirits would wander through the land  and if not properly honored and appeased with offerings of food and sweets the spirits would cause mischief and potentially worse. The Japanese of the Meiji had a similar belief but instead of lumping all the honoring into one day it was spread out into a month during which uncared for spirits, known as Shiryo, would take their vengeance on their family. The question of course is what do spirits without a family do? A particularly violent yurei known as Amamhagi was believed to have been scorned by his family to which his torment lead to their unfortunate ends but now left with no family the Amamhagi had to find something to do with himself thus he wanders the streets of Japan at midnight skinning the feet of any adult he encounters to wear as shoes unless they are protected by their own ancestor spirits or make an offering to him on the spot. Almost as festive, as he is gruesome, this spirit is also known to hunt children for the skin of their hands to make gloves on most holidays after dusk while the adults properly celebrate in private. Maybe there is less to do with veneration of ancestors and more to do with putting the kids in bed early.

Going Up?
上に行きますか？
Elevators are convenient and make life simpler but would you believe that it were possible to use them to go to another world? Well according a popular Japanese myth it is possible by selecting the Fourth Floor, then the Second, then the Sixth, then the Second, then the Tenth, and ultimately the Fifth in an empty elevator with of a building with at least ten floors. According to the game, on the Fifth floor, a beautiful but nondiscrept girl of Asian background but indeterminate age will enter the elevator and you must select the first floor. Instead of going down the elevator will instead go upwards and open its doors on the Tenth floor which will open to reveal it really is the first floor of the building regardless of the direction of your motion. Exiting the elevator you will notice that the girl simply ceased to be sometime during your descending ascent exploring further you will notice that the world is similar to the normal one you inhabit but this version is empty with a red sky and perpetual, indistinct animal sounds that seem to originate from nowhere. Exploration in this world, while fascinating, is not recommended as the individual must return to their own world, some claim this to be a more difficult task than the travel to that world, in the same elevator by reversing that ritual. This game has gained wide spread popularity recently in part due to its numerology where the phonetic pronunciation of the floors equates to Shinigami, the Japanese kami of death but also in part due to the mysterious disappearance of Elisa Lam. A nineteen year old Canadian citizen of Asian origin, parts of Ms. Lam, including her left ankle and right thigh with part of her pelvis, were found in the sealed water tank on the roof of the Cecil hotel, infamous in its own regards, after weeks of complaints about funny tasting water by guests. Ms. Lam’s remains contained no chemical substances and were found in a tank that had to be destroyed simply in the process of opening it. The most mysterious part of the entire affair is that a security video of Ms. Lam was leaked to the internet where she stands, obviously paranoid, in an elevator near the counsel pressing a series of indeterminate floors while the doors are not shown to move for three minutes after which she wanders out, her demeanor clearly different and disappears from view not to be seen alive again. Going up?

Tentacle
触手
Spirits of the departed on land typically take the form of disembodied colorful balls of fire in many cultures yet the shape of those lost at sea is much more open to debate. One common understanding of those to die in a watery grave is that they become part sea animal and must lure others to a similar fate much like the Grecian Sirens whose beauty and singing skills are the stuff of legend yet the Japanese have a slightly different take on that with a yokai known as the Funa. These spirits may appear in one of two shapes, the first in an innocuous cotton ball floating in the surf  and the other is the head and torso of a woman with angular features wearing a white kimono whose lower body and limbs have been transformed into tentacles like that of a squid which she uses to grasp sailors and drag them beneath the waves where she will rip out the seaman’s soul with her suckers in the shape of a pearl to add to the string around her neck only to be freed of the curse when she has gathered one hundred. Perhaps the most infamous of cultural tropes in Japan did not start with erotic art but with firsthand experience by a lucky seaman.

Onibi
火の玉
Many legends recount the exploits of an individual who either died prematurely and escaped hell because of true love or journeyed to hell to recover his true love few of these tales usually end in horror instead of love. There was once a young woman who married a flute player which she loved madly and they were as happy as could be but shortly after the flute player died and the woman inconsolably mourned him night and day for three years vowing to never hear another strain of music if it were not from the lips of her husband. One day the faint aires of the song he had composed for her came drifting through the silk screen of her room and the woman flabbergasted threw open the screen to find a man covered from head to toe in tattered and mismatched clothing that was heavily stained in soot and ash but he was most certainly her husband come back from the grave as she soon found out after laying out an elaborate feast for him. First the man refused to remove his garments which he explained away by claiming the woman would find him much changed. Next the man would not consume food claiming that it was too cold even when it had been burnt to a crisp. Finally, in spite of her best efforts the man seemed to continually loosen ash and soot with every move from his clothing. The woman, finally suspicious, tore off her husband’s coat to discover that he had in fact returned as the rotting corpse that was buried three years and that in the center of his chest burned a bright orb of green flame. The husband’s outrage caused the onibi to spread through his entire body and the home engulfing them both in flame. The woman, now trapped, heard a cackling call saying that she would receive her reunion with her husband yet as their ashes were mingled.

Be Our Guest
アウアゲストである
Throughout history there have been examples of unique items that seemed to have a will and being of their own who have played major roles in our mythic tales many prominent examples include weapons whose power would aid the great warrior kings of the North in battle. Oftentimes, when one thinks of such magical nearly alive items a chipped sake bottle or a roll of cotton does not come to mind but for the Japanese these are only two well-known examples of Tsukumogami a phenomenon where an item of everyday use gains a soul and its own intelligence after one hundred years of service. Typically, these items, technically yokai in their own right, are more interested with continuing their service rather than most things except in the case of waste and abuse. If a Tsukumogami is taken advantage of or not put to its proper use or otherwise disrespected it may team up with other such items and exact a comically hilarious attack on its owner to teach him or her a lesson. Legends of items such as sandals, a comforter, prayer beads, and an umbrella becoming animated and turning on their owners may sound hilarious but the phenomenon could be quite serious as in some instances in Edo Japans deaths have been reported with this as the official cause. Makes the dinner ware seem much more friendly now doesn’t it?

Botan Doro
牡丹ランタンの物語
The genre of Kaidan is characterized by a small group of traditional didactic stories of which few are more infamous than the Tale of the Peony Lantern, the Boran Doro. In this tale a wealthy samurai meets an unearthly beautiful woman and her servant at dusk in the month of ghosts as they walk in the glow of a Peony Lantern. Stricken by her at first glance the samurai vows an unending relationship with the woman who accompanies him home and plays as his consort for the night departing just before dawn. The next night the woman arrives at dusk and the scenario plays through again – this continues for some time until the Samurai’s neighbor becomes curious about the woman. One day the neighbor happens to oversee the woman’s arm in the glow of a lantern, other than her precious peony lantern, and it is revealed to be that of a skeleton. Further espionage reveals that the Samurai has repeatedly committed necrophiliatic acts with this ghostly woman. Consulting a monk the neighbor forces the Samurai to place protective wards around his property during the day which the following night prevent the ghoul from entering. Every subsequent night she calls out to the Samurai in her lovely and unflattering voice until his resolve is broken and instead of removing the wards he chooses to accompany the woman to her home – her grave at the local temple. Come dawn the monks find that his remains, showing signs of long term decay and death, have become permanently intertwined with those of the dead woman he loved.

Hoichi the Earless
耳なし芳一
The genre of Kaidan is characterized by a small group of traditional didactic stories one of the more humorous of which is the tale of Hoichi the Earless. In this tale a Hoichi is an extremely talented blind musician who plays the lute so well that he can convince even goblins to cry yet he as he is talented he is also poor and is forced to live on the kindness of a temple. Every day he would play outside of the temple trying to earn his keep until one day, near dusk a samurai approached Hoichi and offered him a large sum of money if he should entertain his lord that night to which Hoichi readily agrees. Once led to the opulent home he gives one of the best performances of his life, so moved the lord requests his presence on the following night to which Hoichi agrees. Returning the following night lead again by the same Samurai caught the interest of the head monk, a good friend of Hoichi’s, which followed them. The priest discovers to his horror that Hoichi had spent all night playing in the middle of a cemetery for a group of ghosts and that he intends to return again the next night. At daybreak the monk informs Hoichi of what is going on and as means of remedying it he paints all of his body with sacred sutras that make him invisible to ghosts. At dusk the samurai spirit comes once again to fetch the now mostly invisible Hoichi but he can only see the unpainted portion of his ears which he rips off to show his lord that he did in fact bring what he could. Although thoroughly terrified and horribly injured Hoichi would go on to become one of the most famous mythical composers of Japanese lore turning the experience around.

Bancho Sarayashiki
番長にディッシュマンション
The genre of Kaidan is characterized by a small group of traditional didactic stories of which the sorrowful tale of Okiku in Bancho Sarayashiki exemplifies the themes of vengeance and love most poignantly. Okiku was a poor house worker in the employ of a samurai renowned for his wealth most notably for his prized possession of ten heirloom plates who was the continuous victim of the samurai’s lecherous advances. Being a purehearted girl, Okiku refused her master repeatedly until he believed he could win her over by clever stratagem. It was Okiku’s job to take care of the priceless plates so the samurai removed one of the ten himself and waited – when Okiku found the set had been reduced she went into hysterics counting them repeatedly - the failure of such a duty would certain call for her death. Eventually Okiku confronted the samurai who said that the failing could be written off if she gave into him but she again refused and in his rage he killed her and threw her body down a well. Okiku became an Onriyo, or vengeful spirit, and haunted the samurai countinually counting from one to nine but instead of reaching ten she would scream in horror over the lost plate. Some versions of the story say that the spirit was finally dispelled when the samurai in his madness gave her the tenth plate yet others still claim that the spirit haunts the set of plates to this day searching for the lost member.

Ubume
ゴーストの母
Childbirth has always carried some potential risks for both the mother and the child and even modern medicine is not able to always prevent the most tragic of occurrences in this field – death was such a common phenomenon that the Japanese have an entire class of yurei known as Ubume, or ghostly mothers. The Ubume physical appearance differs based on the woman in question but two things are shared among them all: these women died giving birth and their child is the single most important thing to them - although in some instances the two have been separated while in worse ones they are still together. On some occasions it is said that individuals wandering in graveyards at dusk may hear a ghostly cry coming from freshly dug graves and that if the grave is opened a living healthy infant will be found nestled in the arms of its mothers’ corpse although sometimes the Ubume is not so particular and will settle for the nearest baby it can find. If the father, or other caregivers, are capable of preventing the Ubume’s theft in the first place or of retrieving the child the spirit often goes mad with anguish crafting a baby out of grave dirt and leaves which may unnaturally move around and screams terrorizing any and all visitors to the resting place in the early hours of the night. Othertimes the Ubume will pose as a living woman and recruit unsuspecting passing strangers to help her find her child as a ploy to kill them. Talk about a bad mother.

Til Death Do Us Part?
死を分かつ知らせる？
Marriage vows are a sacred and binding contract spoken in love between two people promising themselves for their earthly lives to the other. Few other such vows can be made in the course of a lifetime but this tale recounts another such vow. According to legend there was a happy couple who was very much in love and only newly married living in the isolated woods several days journey from the nearest town. The wife although joyful was in poor and continually worsening health until she was eventually bedridden with fever. Her husband, unable to bare being separated from her waited on her hand and foot until on her final day she uttered that she could simply no longer live yet that she could not stand being away from husband and thus they promised that whoever shall die first will be kept inside the cottage living along aside the other until his or her time shall come. The wife died first from her sickness but the husband, ever dutiful, kept his word to her keeping her body in their bed and with time her spirit would come to speak to him and make requests from her remains. By far the favorite thing of the ghost’s was to watch the stars with her husband who would carry her body to the porch. One day a traveling salesman who got lost in the woods met the husband and begged a place to stay for the evening. The husband hesitated but eventually agreed and ran into the forest to obtain some extra firewood leaving the salesman in the presence of his wife’s remains. The yurei spoke up to the salesman who in fright grappled the skeleton and threw her out of the cottage just as the husband returned. This forceful ejection expelled her spirit to move on but crushed her husband who was never the same after losing his ghostly wife. Til death do us part or afterwards?

Drinking Oil
飲酒オイル
Borrowing money is something that no one would ever like to do willing but sometimes circumstances arise where it is required and thus the story of Yube of the Burning Grave. Yube was a poor man who worked hard but could not make enough to support himself or his family. In an attempt to better his lot in life Yube approached the wealthiest man in his village, an oil seller, for a loan to begin his own business which was given freely. At the end of the period of the loan Yube’s lucky had not turned around so he went again to the oil seller to beg an extension. The oil seller, less than kindly, told him that the extension would only be granted if Yube would prove his commitment and need to it by drinking five cups of oil otherwise he must pay the loan back in full that moment. Without option Yube consumed cup after cup of oil until all five were finished but he doubled over in pain and quickly died. The authorities of the time acknowledged the fault of the oil seller but instead of killing him they made him responsible for Yube’s family and funeral. The day of the burial the oil seller place flowers onto Yube’s monument when suddenly a fireball rose from the ground and the plot of land caught flame burning a pale green. The mourners all horrorified fled in terror but the oil seller who had been standing on the grave was not as lucky being badly burnt up in the blaze he died on the spot but the grave continued to blaze for hours, then days, and finally for the entire length of the agreed upon extension and only then were the villagers able to reclaim the oil seller’s charred bones from the monument. Almost makes interest on bank loans sound friendly.

ライト切替スイッチ

You get home after a long day’s work and ready for a relaxing night alone. You reach for the light switch, but another hand is already there.

Don’t Blink
点滅しないでください


I just saw my reflection blink.

Closest
近い

You hear your mom calling you into the Kitchen. As you are heading down the stairs you hear a whisper from the closest saying “Don’t go down there honey, I heard it too.”

Phantom Limb Syndrome
幻肢症候群

The doctor told the amputee he might experience a phantom limb from time to time. Nobody prepared him for the moments though, when he felt cold fingers brush across his phantom hand.

Heavy Breathing
荒い息遣い

She asked me why I was breathing so heavy. I wasn’t.

Death
死

The heart attack came and went, knocking Mike into unconsciousness, and as he awoke he could hear the graveside service around him. Somehow the casket was translucent to him and he recognized some of his friends, but his body would not move and he realized with terror what death really was.

Under the Bed
ベッドの下

I began tucking him into bed and he tells me “Daddy check for monsters under my bed.” I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, “Daddy there’s somebody on my bed.”

Screaming
絶叫

My daughter won’t stop crying and screaming in the middle of the night. I visit her grave and ask her to stop, but it doesn’t help.

Ice
氷

When I finally grabbed her in the darkness, I swam back to the surface. It never occurred to me how fast the ice could freeze over.

Breaking and Entering
住居侵入

After working a hard day I came home to find my girlfriend cradling our child. I didn’t know which was more frightening, seeing my dead girlfriend and stillborn child, or knowing someone broke into my apartment to put them there.

Knock
ノック

The last man on earth sat alone in a room.  There was a knock on the door.

Eat Your Greens

My mother always told me to eat my greens. Like most I was a fussy and picky child and didn’t want anything to do with the disgusting looking mass of otherworldly slime that she slopped onto my plate every meal. Give me meat, give me dinner rolls, anything but that! “Eat your greens so you grow up big and strong. If all you eat is meat and sweets, you’ll just turn into an aggressive thug,” she always told me. Well, I certainly didn’t want to be a thug. I was a nice person, you know. I was always polite to everyone and always patient too. I couldn’t stand those jerks who played football and stuffed other kids into lockers. “You’ll just have to repay them with kindness and outlast them with patience,” my mother always advised. Well Mother, I guess you were right. I will be more kind and patient than all the thugs and jerks. See? I invited the jerk over for dinner. Wasn’t that nice of me mother? I’ll even eat all my greens this time to make doubly sure that I won’t turn into a thug! I just wish that it didn’t take so long for the human body to turn green. I’m getting really hungry and my dessert will soon spoil, Mother.

All He Wants

The sweet old lady rocks rhythmically in her recliner. Her head nods often in approval as she agrees wholeheartedly with her favorite evangelist late this evening. This has been Mrs. Weatherford’s routine every night since her late husband left her alone and vulnerable. The preacher is hitting his groove on this exciting paid advertisement, “The love of God is unyielding! His Grace is amazing because it is neither earned nor taken. No it is free! All He requires is that you receive his gift. All Christ wants from you is to understand that you are not condemned and to go forth and make the world a better place through love and compassion through the word of the Lord!” The sweet old lady increases her rocking pace in childlike excitement as the words of the Lord ring true in her heart. As she turns and gestures to the young Girl Scout tied to the dining room chair, she can sense the Holy Spirit’s message getting through by the tears of joy streaming down the saved child’s cheeks.


The Cry

She lay still in the darkness, not daring to make a single sound. For hours she had lay awake in her pitch black room, shivering with terror. She held herself tightly as to not ruffle the sheets which she griped with vise-like strength. She chewed on her tongue as to insure that her teeth not chatter, ignoring the taste of her own warm, salty blood. She dared not make the softest whisper for fear of unsettling the beast which sat in the corner of her chamber. She awoke hours ago to a faint breeze, which tingled down her spine, rattling her core and suddenly was shook by a hot burst of air rushing against her skin. The shock of the chill and sudden burn startled her as she awoke to the sight of bright yellow-green eyes that watched over her that night. For hours now, she had gripped her sheets, depressed on her tongue and has been sweating drops of terror from her skin. She felt the heavy yellow glow press down upon her like a mega-tonne, perversely watching her cower under her soft quilt. She began to grow tired and her eyelids dropped and she was finally at rest for the first time in hours. When she opened her eyes again the yellow light blinded her and without a sound, her demonic intruder was face to face with her; in this moment she shrieked out a primal scream of sheer terror which the creature bathed in with great pleasure, as it seemed to feed on her very fear. The next morning she awoke perfectly fine as if nothing had occurred that night. She assured herself it was simply a nightmare. As she stood up she realized that the window was open, and in that moment she felt the cold breeze that awoke her last night. That’s when she saw the claw marks which scratched her window frame and ran up and down the bricks of the side of her house. She took a deep breath and prepared to let out a scream like the scream she unleashed that night but, to her horror she was incapable of uttering a single sound. The creature had devoured her voice.

4:03

It was 4:03 in the morning and I woke up screaming. It was my dream. In my dream, I watched everyone I ever knew or loved be killed by the creature. It had a short fat body, and long slender arms, which ended with claws that looked more like swords than claws. Its eyes were slits that glowed red in the darkness, and its teeth were long like horns, and sharp like steak knives. It looked at me before it killed them, and laughed each time before it ripped apart my loved ones with its sharp claws. How had it found us? It tricked me into letting it into my home, by mimicking the voice of my father; it couldn’t come in without permission it told me after it ripped out my Mother’s heart. The dream ended with the creature laughing its evil cackle and slowly walking towards me, dragging its claws on the floor, I screamed, and sat up. I was in my room, in my bed, safe again. 4:03, I hear a knock at the door, I froze up instantly. “Tommy, I heard you screaming, are you alright?” I heard my mother say. What a relief, Mom’s here. “I’m fine Mom, just a bad dream” I replied, the relief washing over me. “Okay honey, I got you a glass of water, do you want it? Mom said back to me “Sure, come in” I said. And as those words left my mouth, I remembered that it was September, and I had moved back into my college dorm 3 weeks ago.

Déjà Vu

Almost everyone has had a moment of déjà vu. Going about your business, you travel to school or work, or are simply strolling through the place you call home when something catches your attention. You’re sure you’ve seen it before yet you’re unable to recall when or where. You dismiss it, convinced that your memory is playing tricks on you. You convince yourself that it’s simply a vague recollection of a similar past event. Nine out of ten times you will be correct, but once in a while the déjà vu will leave behind an uneasiness that nestles itself in the back of your head. When you tell your friends or family they too dismiss it as a figment of your imagination. You pay no more heed to it, pushing the restlessness to the far reaches of your consciousness. There it will sit, unattended by the safeguards of your mind. At the end of your day you go to bed with a self-imposed idea of safety; fully believing that whatever you felt will pass after a night’s sleep. The next day you wake, feeling refreshed. The world is as it has always been, or so it would seem. The déjà vu has already slipped from your memory and you even recall what the uneasiness had felt like. You drink your coffee or tea, do your usual morning rituals, say farewell for the day to your family and then go to school or work. But as the door closes behind you, there are faint whispers. They fade with each step forward you take and while you believe you can just make out their meaning, you again dismiss it as overactive imagination. “He doesn’t remember,” they say with unearthly low volume. “My dear, he will never remember.”

Where a Kid Can Be a Kid

When I was a child my father owned a janitorial company that worked almost every night at our local Showbiz Pizza Place/Chuck E. Cheese’s. He would often bring me to work with him so I could play all of the arcade games without having to wait in line. He’d even spark up the towering animatronics and let me watch them play their “Happy Birthday” songs and other quaint jingles. It was so much fun…until the curtains closed and it went dark. A part of me hated not being able to see the fake animals, especially the wolf and big gorilla playing the keyboard. It would get so dark once all of those circus lights stopped undulating, but knowing they were hiding behind the curtains severely spooked me. Another part of me was glad I couldn’t see them, with their large plastic grins, bulging eyes and blink-less stares that trapped the false joy of their act. Anything that can remain that happy in the dark, imprisoned by crimson drapes, and frozen in time until the puppeteer presses “go” is just sinister in nature. Even the empty arcade, full of fantastic memories of the day past, sits dark, quiet and abandoned. There is something very unsettling about a place that can bequeath equal parts joy and dread when the sun sets and the doors are locked. I’ve long since taken over my father’s company and we still hold the contract for this haunted place. Tonight is the first time I’ve brought my young son with me to work so he can enjoy the arcade like I once did. My hope is that when my son finally builds up the courage to pull back the curtain to view those plastic beasts, he isn’t greeted with the same malevolent stare that looked down unnaturally upon me.

Sokushinbutsu

Scattered throughout Northern Japan are two dozen mummified Japanese monks known as Sokushinbutsu. Followers of Shugendô, an ancient form of Buddhism, the monks died in the ultimate act of self-denial. For three years the priests would eat a special diet consisting only of nuts and seeds, while taking part in a regimen of rigorous physical activity that stripped them of their body fat. They then ate only bark and roots for another three years and began drinking a poisonous tea made from the sap of the Urushi tree, normally used to lacquer bowls. This caused vomiting and a rapid loss of bodily fluids, and most importantly, it killed off any maggots that might cause the body to decay after death. Finally, a self-mummifying monk would lock himself in a stone tomb barely larger than his body, where he would not move from the lotus position. His only connection to the outside world was an air tube and a bell. Each day he rang a bell to let those outside know that he was still alive. When the bell stopped ringing, the tube was removed and the tomb sealed. Not all monks who attempted self-mummification were successful. When the tombs were finally opened, some bodies were found to have rotted. These monks were resealed in their tombs. They were respected for their endurance, but they were not worshiped. Those monks who had succeeded in mummifying themselves were raised to the status of Buddha, put on display, and tended to by their followers. The Japanese government outlawed Sokushunbutsu in the late 19th century, though the practice apparently continued into the 20th.

The Grove

In the heart of the Rockies, lies a grove of trees growing in a perfect circle. A grove that, aside from this geometric oddity, appears perfectly innocuous from the outside. If one should step foot into this grove however, the inside with be as dark as any moonless night in those mountain woods, even on the brightest summer’s day. Those who have mistakenly wandered into the grove are rarely in any condition to say what happens inside, many simply never come out. However, if you are very brave, or very foolish, you can attempt to camp within the grove. Go in with your eyes shut tight, lie down in your sleeping bag, and no matter what you hear, no matter what you feel, do not open them again. If you somehow manage to find your way to sleep before the grove takes your sanity or your life, you will awaken in the middle of the day to the light of the sun on your face in a the middle of a grove; a grove that, aside from growing in a perfect circle, and containing your heart’s one greatest desire, is perfectly innocuous. If one should step foot outside this grove however, they will find the outside to be dark as any moonless night in those mountain woods.

The Woman in the Oven

During the summer of 1983, in a quiet town near Minneapolis, Minnesota, the charred body of a woman was found inside the kitchen stove of a small farmhouse. A video camera was also found in the kitchen, standing on a tripod, pointing at the oven. No tape was found inside the camera at the time. Although the scene was originally labeled as a homicide by police, an unmarked VHS tape was later discovered at the bottom of the farm's well, which had apparently dried up earlier that year. Despite its worn condition, and the fact that it contained no audio, police were still able to view the contents of the tape. It depicted a woman recording herself in front of a video camera, seemingly using the same camera that the police found in the kitchen. After positioning the camera to include both her and her kitchen stove in its view, she  turned on the oven, opened the door, crawled inside, and then closed the door behind her. After eight minutes into the video, the oven could be seen shaking violently. At this point thick, black smoke emanated from it. For the remaining forty-five minutes of video, until the batteries in the camera died, it remained in its stationary position. To avoid disturbing the local community, the police never released any information about the tape, or even the fact that it was found. Police were also not able to determine who put the tape in the well, or why the height and stature of the woman in the video did not come close to matching the body that they had found in the oven.

Key Game

Should you ever despair of life so much that you want to die, you have the means at hand and yearn to end your life, you have written a suicide note to those you will leave behind and you are prepared to die… at that moment, stop. Get a pair of scissors. Cut away at the note until you end up with a piece of paper in the shape of a key. Go to a door, any one will do. Push the paper key forward and turn your hand as if unlocking an imaginary lock. The lock is real. Open the door. There you will find it. The other earth. The one that awaits to replace this one when it dies. That death is inevitable, but in the meantime the other earth will belong to you. Be warned: the other earth is very different from this one.

Third Wish

An elderly man was sitting alone on a dark path. He wasn’t certain of which direction to go, and he’d forgotten both where he was traveling to and who he was. He’d sat down for a moment to rest his weary legs, and suddenly looked up to see an elderly woman before him. She grinned toothlessly and with a cackle, spoke: “Now your *third* wish. What will it be?” "Third wish?" The man was baffled. "How can it be a third wish if I haven’t had a first and second wish?" "You’ve had two wishes already," the hag said, "but your second wish was for me to return everything to the way it was before you had made your first wish. That’s why you remember nothing; because everything is the way it was before you made any wishes." She cackled at the poor man. "So it is that you have one wish left." "All right," he said, "I don’t believe this, but there’s no harm in wishing. I wish to know who I am." "Funny," said the old woman as she granted his wish and disappeared forever. "That was your first wish."

An Apple a Day

Have you ever heard the expression “an apple a day keeps the Doctor away?” Most assume, with no reason to think otherwise, that it is simply an easy-to-remember rhyme that stresses the importance of eating healthily to young children. But the saying did not originate as a harmless reminder. It was born in a frontier town in the early years of the gold rush, where food was scarce and money even scarcer. One August, when a bad drought had struck the region, a series of bloody killings swept through the town. Every night, a single house would be broken into, and anyone who saw the invader would be swiftly, brutally slain. Nothing was ever stolen, save for a few scraps of food. After two weeks of this, the local grocer set out a few apples and a glass of milk in the town square overnight. He then hid in the tower of the church, hoping to catch a glimpse of anyone who came by. Fighting fatigue, the grocer waited for any sign of life below. Just after midnight, he was rewarded by a chilling sight; a man, carrying a black bag stuffed with dully shining metal tools and covered from head to foot in cloth bandages, staggered into view. He paused at the sight of the apples and milk, then whipped his head around, as if looking for the one who dared to patronize him. Seized with fear, the grocer ducked out of sight, staying hidden ‘til sunrise. The strange man had only taken one of the apples, and didn’t even touch the glass of milk. No houses were broken into, and no one was killed. For decades, the town continued to place out an apple or two every night, even long after a single apple stopped disappearing.

A Chat Over Dinner

If you are the type who eats out regularly, one day a stranger might join you at the table. This stranger will always appear to be of your age and sex, and he (if it is a he) will only appear if you are alone. No matter what style of restaurant it is, he will always be carrying his own plate of food. After a few seconds, he will look directly at you and say, “You seem like an interesting person. May I know you better?” Say yes, and he will begin to ask you questions about yourself in between bites. These questions will be innocuous enough at first: what your name is, what you do for a living, and so forth, but should you open your mouth to answer, you will be forced to tell the truth, even if you do not consciously know what the truth is. Remain silent, and the stranger will scowl at you, pick up his plate, and leave. You will never see him again. If you do indulge his questions, however, they will grow darker and darker as the food leaves his plate, and it will become harder and harder to resist answering. Do not attempt to leave the table before he does under any circumstances. When his plate is clean, he will stand up to leave, but not before asking you one last, irresistible question: “What would drive you to take your own life?” You will instantly be aware that you will be able to lie in response to this one question, and I suggest you do, for whatever you describe will come to pass within the week. Those who are canny may use this chat to gain whatever they desire, but know that if the happenstance you name does not drive you to suicide, the stranger will start guessing as to what will. And consider how much he now knows about you.

Control

She goes to these places and studies the issues, and after learning them teaches the nurses, the doctors, the administrators, the teachers, the social workers, the firemen, the paramedics and the cops, all of the things they need to know about the challenge that has arisen. She shows them how to prevent contamination and nosocomial infections. She shows them how to avoid taking home the deadly diseases that pop up all over the world for what are originally unknown reasons and in which they find themselves on the front lines battling to prevent further spreading of each insidious and deadly condition.She teaches them to find out what it is, where it came from, who brought it into their lives, and how to get rid of it with the fewest deaths and cluster outbreaks as possible. She shows them how to do all of that without catching it themselves. She was sent to work during the SARS epidemic in Toronto in 2002, the first ten years of AIDS in Canada, the minor and not publicly known outbreaks of flu and pnuemonia, MRSA and VRE and other deadly conditions ( including seven patients with Ebola in Northern Ontario ). The diseases spread throughout various facilities all over the country have been her enemies, but have also been her bread and butter. She has her house, her cottage, her car, her horses, her trips and her wardrobe all earned from working with sick and dying people. She enjoys that part of her life to such a degree that the steps taken in her field to prevent the outbreaks and/or treat them, have always concerned her greatly. She works with some of the most brilliant medical minds in the world. Leaps and bounds have been made in the treatment of certain diseases with the invention of stronger antibiotics and the discovery of important steps that can be taken to avoid an epidemic. Throughout all of this, none of her peers, not a single one, have ever figured it out. Indeed, they seem to have forgotten the most basic of principles in the fight against infectious disease...it only takes one person to give that infection legs. All it's really taken, all of these years, is her.

Always Hungry

I wish I could move. Every thread of my being wants to move, but the fear holds me in place. Living this moment a mile a minute, like watching a train speed past you. He stares at me, watching. Inching ever closer. I glance left and right. There is no escape, I hid myself in here on purpose to keep safe. Now I'm trapped. The way I came in is the only way out, and it is standing in my way. Do I charge through? Or just accept my fate? He's closer now, I can smell it. It drools, slowly reaching towards me. My breath shortens, my brain stutters. I still want to run, but I stand here. I'm gone already, I know it. It's hand reaches me, nails digging into my shoulder. The smell is disgusting. It's teeth bite down on my chest. Why didn't I run? It's too late now, I'm one of them.


No Vacancy

It was an unassuming door, constructed from thin planks of heavily lacquered cherry wood. It had no carvings or ornamentation, just a heavy and black iron door knob. There was no peep hole or door knocker - the person who lived here did not intend to ever answer the door. There was a mail slot near the bottom, but long ago someone had mounted a now rusty iron plate over it. With the absence of a conduit for delivery a mound of multicolored brochures had collected on the ground, with titles like Make Him Known, Reach out for Hope, and Take Direction. A red neon sign had been hastily mounted above the door. It read, with authority: "No Vacancy." Seeing no other options available, you pick up one of the brochures, place it in your coat pocket, and turn back down the black road you had just spent several days traversing.
You were alone at first, but now others have joined you. Hundreds of thousands of others. Each one had read the authoritative "No Vacancy" and turned back down the road that ran like a midnight ribbon into the distance. At the end of this road is a black train that has never ran its tracks, but now coal burns in the boiler for the first time. A flashing red sign indicates the one and only departure: "Now leaving Hell. Next stop Earth."


Carving Contest

Entry #1 is a well-executed, but mundane piece. The snaggle-toothed grin, while traditional, is largely uninspired. Still, the technique is admirable, and the premise is a classic. 6/10 Entry #2 is a master class in the art. See how the the outer layer has been thinned, but not cut away, to show the intricate swirls and patterns when properly lit. The lighting causes the “eyes” to dance wildly, creating an unsettling effect. 9/10 Entry #3 is a slap-dash job. The knife work is jagged and uneven, particularly around the remains of the neck, which have not been cleared away. The eyes and brain have not been removed for the candle. While the rictus of the face has left a permanent, gruesome scream that would seem at home on a quality carver’s project, here it seems more likely a remnant of the harvesting. Unacceptable work. 2/10


Eternally

I open my eyes to the darkness around me. I'm dead, I must be. I saw the doctors above me scrambling, felt the pain deep in my stomach, saw the blood pouring from all the holes in me. I remember going numb, and the life slipping away until all I could do was try to breath. I shook from the very memory of it all. My eyes adjusted and i was able to finally see where I was, in the bed of a very dark hospital room. Than a nurse walked in and smiled at me. "Well look who's already up." she said cheerfully. "Wait, am I not dead." I stammered, confused and suddenly weary. "Of course you are, silly," she replied just as cheerfully. "Oh," it was okay though, I had already accepted it. "Well I guess its better than living forever," I laughed, trying to move on to whatever was next. "Silly," she said as I noticed the blood staining my shirt and felt the convulsions again. "What could possibly be worse than dying eternally?"


Dream on a loop

My friend told me about the worst nightmare he had ever had. In the dream he was walking alone in a desert. Somehow he was carrying a spear in his hand…After some time he saw someone crouching on the sand in the distance. As he had been feeling quite lonely he quickly ran up to the man. But when he bent over to help him up he saw that the man was no other than himself. In an instant he was overcome with fear and without further thought hacked the man to death with the spear. He then started running, trying to get away as far from the place as possible. However he soon stumbled and sprained his ankle. There was nothing he could do except crouch down and stay still -. And while he was at it he casually looked up and spotted, in the distance, his double walking towards him with a spear in his hand… then he woke up.


This Time

A young couple had a baby, but as they were poor and could not afford to keep it, they decided to kill it… They went to a lake in the dead of night and having rowed a boat to the middle of it, dropped the baby into the water, while the mother kept murmuring; “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” over and over again. Some years passed and the couple decided to marry. Between them they had a new baby girl and the family was living happily together. When the little girl became four years-old, she suddenly started pestering her parents to take her to the lake. The parents were reluctant to go, but finally gave in because the girl was so persistent. As soon as they arrived at the lake the girl said, “Daddy, I want to be on that!” pointing at a boat. Again reluctantly the couple gave in to her entreaty. They were in the middle of the lake when the girl said; “Daddy, I want a wee-wee.” The father, not knowing what else to do, lifted her up above the water so that she could do it, checking first that no one was around. And it was that very moment, when the father’s hands were wrapped underneath the girl’s knees, and both were facing the water, the daughter looked back at her father over the shoulder and said; “Please don’t drop me this time.”

A Mirror Ritual

Prepare four panels of mirror and one candle. Place the mirrors in such a way that when viewed from above they form a square with each side measuring 15cm in length and facing East, West, South and North respectively. Turn off the light and between 12:46 am to 1:13 am, that is for 27 minutes, put the lighted candle inside the square. Then something very terrifying will appear in the mirrors. Once there was someone who tried this ritual but seeing the image shocked him so much that it turned him mute; and so what was really reflected in the mirrors still remains unknown. The terror drove him to gorge out his both eyes while he was held in hospital. The only words he managed to utter before he died were; “I wish I had never seen it.”


The Red Crayon

This is a story I heard from my friend, who works in an estate agent. There was a flat he was in charge of, and one of its rooms always gave him a strange feeling every time he stepped in it. Something was not quite right about it, but he could not put a finger on what it was. Then one day he thought he found out the reason; he spotted that the passage next to the room was about one metre shorter than it should be. He went to the end of the corridor and knocked on the wall. And from the sound being made he deduced that there was a small space between the original wall and the one he was knocking on. He thought that was odd and decided to investigate further. Having first got permission from his boss, he pulled down the wall. “I would have felt better if I’d found a skeleton or something in there,” my friend told me later about his experience. In reality what he found inside was a certain word, repeated again and again, written all over the walls. “Mummy mummy mummy mummy mummy mummy mummy mummy mummy……,”so the word ran endlessly, in red crayon. In the end they decided to put the wall back into place, leaving the place as it was, without erasing the words. After that he promptly handed over the charge of the property to other colleague.


Children on the Bus

It was past ten in the evening. I thought I was the only passenger on the bus, but I heard children's voices from behind. The children were apparently talking about a ghost story. Child A: "…. and if you turn around, the ghost will snatch you away and carry you to the afterworld!" I recognized the voice. I often saw these children on the same bus after work. They went to a crammer. Child B: "Then that's easy. All you have to do is make sure you don't turn around." Child A: "Yes, but I heard you can't help but turn around. The ghost would try all sorts of tricks on you to get you turn around." It was nearly the bus stop where these two usually got off. But it looked like they didn't notice it. I thought I should warn them because I didn't want them to go home late. So I turned around and said, "you are getting off here aren't you?" Child A: "See, I told you so."


The Wardrobe

This happened to me when I was still in primary school and was babysitting my little brother while our parents were out. We were bored so we decided to play hide-and-seek. I became "it" and started looking for my brother. I entered my parent's bedroom and opened a wardrobe crammed full of clothes. I thrust my hand into it when immediately another hand reached out from inside and gripped mine. I tried to pull him out shouting, " come on! get out!" But he wouldn't come out no matter how hard I pulled. He was hidden behind all the clothes and didn't speak a word either, and I started wondering what was wrong with him. Just then a voice called me from behind, "what are you doing there?" It was my little brother standing in the door way. I panicked and shook myself free of the grip and we rushed out of the house together. Needless to say, I couldn't go inside again until my parents came home. What was that hand? Did it belong to a burglar, or……?


On a Rainy Day

I was standing by a crossroads waiting for the light to turn green. On the opposite side I saw a man standing just like myself, but his whole body was enveloped by some shadowy black mist. No one else around him seemed to notice it. "God, that looks real bad," I thought, and hiding my face behind the umbrella I innocently tried to walk past him, when he glided towards me and whispered, "You saw it, didn't you?" as we passed each other. I was terrified. Really.


Elongated Faces

Many classic horror icons, such as Geiger's Xenomorphs, Silent Hill's Pyramid Head, and other disturbing creatures, share common characteristics. Pale skin, dark, sunken eyes, elongated faces, sharp teeth, and the like. These images inspire horror and revulsion in many, and with good reason. The characteristics shared by these faces are imprinted in the human mind. Many things frighten humans instinctively. The fear is natural, and does not need to be reinforced in order to terrify. The fears are species-wide, stemming from dark times in the past when lightning could mean the burning of your tree home, thunder could be the approaching gallops of a stampede, predators could hide in darkness, and heights could make poor footing lethal. The question you have to ask yourself is this: What happened, deep in the hidden eras before history began, that could effect the entire human race so evenly as to give the entire species a deep, instinctual, and lasting fear of pale beings with dark, sunken eyes, razor sharp teeth, and elongated faces?


You are Not the One

Late one night after working overtime in an office, a man called F picked up a taxi. The taxi driver was a friendly man, and for a while they merrily chatted away.
Sometime later the taxi began to climb up a dark hill. Now woods surrounded them on both sides and there was no other car around. Then the taxi driver suddenly said to F in a serious tone of voice, "Listen. In this place you mustn't look outside the windows. Got it?" F was perplexed at the driver's abrupt change of mood and "Yes.."was all he could reply. The taxi drove on through the woods. F began to feel uneasy and asked the driver, "Why shouldn't I see outside?" But the driver didn't respond. F was getting spooked. It was just then he heard a strange groan coming from outside the window beside him. F was startled and looked at the window in spite of himself. Then he saw, spread out on the window, a large, angry face. When it saw F, it cried, "You are not the one!" F lost consciousness immediately and could not remember what happened afterwards. Apparently on that road on the hill there was a hit-and-run accident not long ago which had left one man dead, and the killer was still at large. Since then the dead man had been appearing on the road every night, looking for his killer.

Holding My Hand

Something makes me open my eyes. I can see my alarm clock clearly from across the room. 2:43 AM. Dammit. I close my eyes again, but something still isn't right. I don't have to piss. Maybe if I turn over. Then I feel it. Someone is holding my hand. I sleep on my stomach, with my arm hanging off the side of the bed. Now I'm awake, wide awake, and someone is holding my left hand. The hand is cold, far too cold for a night in August. It holds my hand lightly, but with force. My fingertips are pressed against thin, clammy skin, like frozen poultry. Though I can't see them, it seems like the fingers are longer than they should be, wrapping much farther around my hand than should be possible. I feel ragged fingernails touching my palm. How many? Six? Seven? I should yell in surprise, but I don't move. Somehow the room is darker than it was before. I am completely still. I hear the faint buzz of my alarm clock, but I can't make out the numbers any more. The hand moves. It grips me tighter. I black out. I awaken at my usual time, piss, and shower as always. But after my shower, I just cannot seem to get my left hand dry.


The Odd Homeless Man

He was sitting across from me on the 7:50 bus to midtown. I'd never seen him before, but I usually had my iPod with me, for the express purpose of not having to look at people. He was wearing the generic uniform of the homeless person, coats atop coats, nothing fitting exactly. His eyes fixed on the middle distance as he mumbled something to himself. He seemed not to acknowledge the fact that I was staring at him, or that no one else on the bus noticed him at all. His mouth worked ceaselessly, words falling out, unheard and unheeded. Just as I moved to pull the stop line, he jerked upright and looked directly at me. I was pinned. His eyes were bloodshot and dry. He seemed to be drawing closer, though I was sure neither of us moved. His rapid mouth-breathing poured into my ears like saltwater. As his eyes came ever closer to my face, I saw that they were not real eyes, they were wooden. Painted pupils and irises from a carnival catalog. His lips were impossibly dry, cracked and peeling. Inside his mouth there was no tongue. A knot of cobweb and dust, strung through his teeth yet still elastic. An oddly pleasant smell. Darkness. He was still mumbling as I left the bus. I never saw him again.


The Blind Man’s Favor

In Berlin, after World War II, money was short, supplies were tight, and it seemed like everyone was hungry. At that time, people were telling the tale of a young woman who saw a blind man picking his way through a crowd. The two started to talk. The man asked her for a favor: could she deliver the letter to the address on the envelope? Well, it was on her way home, so she agreed. She started out to deliver the message, when she turned around to see if there was anything else the blind man needed. But she spotted him hurrying through the crowd without his smoked glasses or white cane. She went to the police, who raided the address on the envelope, where they found heaps of human flesh for sale. And what was in the envelope? “This is the last one I am sending you today.”

Humans Can Lick Too

A young girl is left home alone with only her dog to protect her. When night approaches, she locks all the doors and tries to lock all the windows, but one won’t close. She decides to leave it unlocked and goes to bed. Her dog takes its customary place under her bed. In the deep of night she awakens to a dripping sound coming from the bathroom. The girl is too scared to go check so she reaches her hand under the bed. She feels a reassuring lick from her dog and falls back to sleep. She reawakens to the dripping sound, reaches her hand down to the dog where she feels the reassuring lick and falls back to sleep. Once more she awakens to the dripping sound. She reaches her hand down and feels the lick of her dog. Now curious about the dripping sound, she gets up and slowly walks towards the bathroom, the dripping sound getting louder as she approaches. She reaches the bathroom and turns on the light. She is greeted by a horrific sight; hanging from the shower nozzle is her dog, with its throat slit open and its blood dripping into the bathtub. Something on the bathroom mirror catches her eye she turns around. Written on the bathroom mirror in her dog’s blood are the words “HUMANS CAN LICK TOO”.

Sky Scrapers

The Home Insurance Building, built in 1885 and demolished in 1931, was widely considered to be the world's first skyscraper, and for good reason. Several days before the building opened to the public, William LeBaron Jenney, the building's architect, took a stroll on the roof. As he looked across the then-diminutive Chicago landscape, he yawned and stretched his arms above his head, unexpectedly bumping something above him. Jenney was not standing near any roof structures at the time. He extended his hand upward and came into contact with a "transparent, glass-like surface, warm to the touch." His hand left smoky handprints that quickly disappeared from this mystery surface, and he scratched off some of the material with his fingernail, reporting that it was "dense, but weightless, and ha[d] a pleasant aroma." When Jenney returned to the roof with several others to verify his claims, he could not locate the mystery surface again. Jenney did not return to the roof of the Home Insurance Building until five years later, when two stories were added to the building's original ten stories. He once again searched for the mystery surface, with no luck. Before leaving the roof for what would be the last time, Jenney felt "an odd sensation of being watched."


The Meteor

In 1990, a small meteorite was sighted in the night sky by the Hubble telescope. It appeared to be on a collision course with earth, but calculations showed that it was far too small and moving far too slowly to be a threat to our home planet. In 1997, the long-forgotten meteorite entered the atmosphere. It did not burn away, as scientists predicted; it barely even grew warm. Even so, it landed without drawing much attention on the outskirts of a village in the middle of Africa, on the edge of the Sahara. Three months later, a safari expedition vanished while en route through the jungle. They never reached their checkpoint, within walking distance from the desert. A research team in 1998 happened on the impact crater of the meteorite by chance. They detected high levels of radiation in the crater, though they could not identify what element had caused it. They drove to the nearby village to warn the locals of the danger, but the settlement was completely empty. Not a soul nor a body could be found for miles around. The only evidence of life left, current or past, were the long-abandoned grass huts, and a great number of footprints leading into the sands of the Sahara. None of the footprints could be matched against any living creature on record.


The Devil's Circle

There exists a spot in all forests, called “The Devil’s Circle” which is ubiquitous and yet nowhere at the same time. You may find it one day, for it to be gone the next. The spot is nothing more than a circle of evenly spaced stones, however, nothing lives inside of these stones-it is just barren dirt. During the day, it’s OK to touch it, and even stand within the circle. If you plant something in it, the next day it will be dead. The real secret to the circle is if you put someone’s hair within it. Then the next day, they will die. Perhaps they die mysteriously in their sleep, or maybe even a car accident. However, in doing so, you give up your soul to the devil. You ask yourself now “Is this true?”, but the more important question you must ask is, “Is it worth it?”


The Reanimated Corpse

Somewhere in the middle of the Desert in Nevada, there’s a place where, if you look to the west at sunset you’ll be able to make out a tiny, house-shaped structure in the far distance, Wait for the sun to set completely and then you must WALK straight towards that structure without deviating. As the night wears on, you will hear groans and cries of pain in the distance. Ignore them. You must continue to move towards where you saw the building. The night will seem much longer than any normal night, but if you continue walking until the sun comes up again behind you, you’ll find yourself suddenly in front of a battered, dusty shack. Inside, you will find no windows or doors (including the one you just came though) and in the center of the room will be a body. Reports of the decay vary from recently dead to a skeleton with clothes.You might recognize the clothes or possibly the face. This body is yours. You can inspect it for as long as you dare. Check it for wounds or clues to your death… check its pockets for clues about your future if you wish. But you must figure out how to leave the room and do it before your corpse awakens. If you make it out of the room, you’ll find yourself back at the edge of the desert where you started. But if your corpse stirs before you can find the way out, you’ll be trapped in that room for eternity while your corpse is allowed to roam free. What does a corpse do with a second chance at life, you ask? Well, remember those groans and cries you heard crossing the desert? A reanimated corpse has to eat, too…


The Black Stone

In 1653, Spanish explorers found the ruins of what appeared to be a Mesoamerican step pyramid in what is modern South Carolina. Though the site was far beyond the borders of any known American indigenous populations, it was also of a smaller size than existing Mesoamerican structures and bore an unrecognized form of glyphic decoration. Local natives were familiar with the structure but knew nothing about it. The Spaniards sought to disassemble the building as a heathen relic and did so, brick by brick, salvaging the materials to construct their own nearby settlement. Deconstruction halted, however, when one brick was uncovered at the core of the structure, carved entirely of black glass. The stone, approximately two feet by three, was impossible to move or even budge by any man or animal. Attempts were made to dig the stone out from beneath, but excavation revealed that it extended indefinitely into the earth. In frustration, the captain of the explorers fired a glancing blow off of the surface of the stone. The obsidian block was undamaged, but moments after the blow had struck, it silently retracted downwards, sliding downward into a hole that quickly collapsed inward on itself, burying the retreating obsidian column. The Spaniards interpreted this as an evil omen and abandoned the site, never to return.


Explaining Away

You wake up to a strange scratching at your window. You sit up, and look blankly at your wall, which is in perfect order. You lean slightly to one side and tilt your head to hear the sound better. You realize it's just the tree's leaves scratching your window; after all it's a windy night. You lay back down, and after about five minutes a tapping noise awakens you once more. You repeat what you just did, you lean over and tilt your head; it's definitely a tapping. For a minute you become paranoid, but you realize that after all it is winter, so a majority of the foliage has died and fallen off; it's just a bare branch hitting your window. You're just about to lay back down, when you hear a hissing. Of course, it's just the wind blowing through the dead leaves, and the "hissing" is just the leaves rustling among one another. You laugh to yourself, and lay back down. But then, you jump straight out of bed in a cold sweat. You don't have a tree outside your window.

Parties

Two dormmates in college were in the same science class. The teacher had just reminded them about the midterm the next day when one dormmate — let's call her Juli — got asked to this big bash by the hottest guy in school. The other dormmate, Meg, had pretty much no interest in going and, being a diligent student, she took notes on what the midterm was about. After the entire period of flirting with her date, Juli was totally unprepared for her test, while Meg was completely prepared for a major study date with her books. At the end of the day, Juli spent hours getting ready for the party while Meg started studying. Juli tried to get Meg to go, but she was insistent that she would study and pass the test. The girls were rather close and Juli didn't like leaving Meg alone to be bored while she was out having a blast. Juli finally gave up, using the excuse that she would cram in homeroom the next day. Juli went to the party and had the time of her life with her date. She headed back to the dorm around 2 a.m. and decided not to wake Meg. She went to bed nervous about the midterm and decided she would wake up early to ask Meg for help. She woke up and went to wake Meg. Meg was lying on her stomach, apparently sound asleep. Juli rolled Meg over to reveal Meg's terrified face. Juli, concerned, turned on the desk lamp. Meg's study stuff was still open and had blood all over it. Meg had been slaughtered. Juli, in horror, fell to the floor and looked up to see, written on the wall in Meg's blood: "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the lights?"

The Hook

A teenage boy drove his date to a dark and deserted Lovers' Lane for a make-out session. He turned on the radio for mood music, leaned over to whisper in the girl's ear, and began kissing her. A short while later, the music suddenly stopped mid-song. After a moment of silence an announcer's voice came on, warning in an ominous tone that a convicted murderer had just escaped from the state insane asylum which happened to be located within a half-mile of Lovers' Lane  and urging that anyone who notices a man wearing a stainless steel hook in place of his missing right hand should immediately report his whereabouts to the police. The girl became frightened and asked to be taken home. The boy, feeling bold, locked all the doors instead and, assuring his date they would be safe, attempted to kiss her again. She became frantic and pushed him away, insisting that they leave. Relenting, the boy peevishly jerked the car into gear and spun its wheels as he pulled out of the parking space. When they arrived at the girl's house she got out of the car, and, reaching to close the door, began to scream uncontrollably. The boy ran to her side to see what was wrong and there, dangling from the door handle, was a bloody hook.

Newly Weds

Susan and Ned were driving through a wooded empty section of highway. Lightning flashed, thunder roared, the sky went dark in the torrential downpour. “We’d better stop,” said Susan. Ned nodded his head in agreement. He stepped on the brake, and suddenly the car started to slide on the slick pavement. They plunged off the road and slid to a halt at the bottom of an incline. Pale and shaking, Ned quickly turned to check if Susan was all right.  When she nodded, Ned relaxed and looked through the rain soaked windows. “I’m going to see how bad it is,” he told Susan, and when out into the storm. She saw his blurry figure in the headlight, walking around the front of the car. A moment later, he jumped in beside her, soaking wet. “The car’s not badly damaged, but we’re wheel-deep in mud,” he said. “I’m going to have to go for help.” Susan swallowed nervously. There would be no quick rescue here. He told her to turn off the headlights and lock the doors until he returned. Axe Murder Hollow. Although Ned hadn’t said the name aloud, they both knew what he had been thinking when he told her to lock the car. This was the place where a man had once taken an axe and hacked his wife to death in a jealous rage over an alleged affair. Supposedly, the axe-wielding spirit of the husband continued to haunt this section of the road. Outside the car, Susan heard a shriek, a loud thump, and a strange gurgling noise. But she couldn’t see anything in the darkness. Frightened, she shrank down into her seat. She sat in silence for a while, and then she noticed another sound.  It was a soft sound, like something being blown by the wind. Suddenly, the car was illuminated by a bright light. An official sounding voice told her to get out of the car. Ned must have found a police officer. Susan unlocked the door and stepped out of the car.  As her eyes adjusted to the bright light, she saw it. Hanging by his feet from the tree next to the car was the dead body of Ned.  His bloody throat had been cut so deeply that he was nearly decapitated. The wind swung his corpse back and forth so that it thumped against the tree. Susan screamed and ran toward the voice and the light. As she drew close, she realized the light was not coming from a flashlight. Standing there was the glowing figure of a man with a smile on his face and a large, solid, and definitely real axe in his hands. She backed away from the glowing figure until she bumped into the car. “Playing around when my back was turned,” the ghost whispered, stroking the sharp blade of the axe with his fingers. “You’ve been very naughty.” The last thing she saw was the glint of the axe blade in the eerie, incandescent light.

The Storm Hag

She lurks below the surface of the lake near Presque Isle, her lithe form forever swimming through the weeds and the mire. Pale and green of skin, her yellow eyes shine luminously in the dark, and her thin long arms wrap themselves around the unwary, while foul-green pointed teeth sink into soft flesh and sharp nails at the end of long bony fingers stroke you into the deepest sleep there is. She is called by many names, but to sailors of Lake Erie, she is known as the Storm Hag. The creature is a sea witch, an evil Jenny Greenteeth who summoned the storms and pulled shipwrecked sailors down into her evil embrace to live with her forever at the bottom of the lake. Sometimes she waits until the calm right after the storm to attack. When the sailors relax their guard, lulled into thinking that the danger had passed with the storm, the Storm Hag bursts forth from the dark waters of the lake, spewing forth lightening and wind like venom. And the ship will vanish - never to be seen again. There is only one warning before she strikes. If you listen closely, you can hear her singing against the harsh wind and the thrashing waves:  "Come into the water, love, Dance beneath the waves, Where dwell the bones of sailor-lads  Inside my saffron cave."  If you can, flee immediately, for the Storm Hag is right beside you. If you cannot, then pray to your God for mercy, for the Storm Hag will grant you none. Her whirlpool will suck down your ship, and her long green arms will lovingly stroke you into the depths of the lake, where she will feast on your body among the weeds.

The White Lady

In the early 1800s, the White Lady and her daughter were supposed to have lived on the land where the Durand Eastman Park -- part of Irondequoit and Rochester -- now stands. One day, the daughter disappeared. Convinced that the girl had been raped and murdered by a local farmer, the mother searched the marshy lands day after day, trying to discover where her child's body was buried. She took with her two German shepherd dogs to aid in her search, but she never found a trace of her daughter. Finally, in her grief, the mother threw herself off a cliff into lake Ontario and died. Her dogs pined for their mistress and shortly joined her in the grave. After death, the mother's spirit returned to continue the search for her child. People say that on foggy nights, the White Lady rises from the small Durand Lake which faces Lake Ontario. She is accompanied by her dogs and together they roam through the Durand Eastman park, still searching for her missing daughter. The White Lady is not a friendly spirit. She dislikes men and often seeks vengeance against the males visiting the park on her daughter's behalf . There have been reports of the White Lady chasing men into the lake, shaking their cars, and making their lives miserable until they leave the park. She has never touched any females accompanying these unfortunate fellows.

Haunted Doll

In 1897, a family named Otto lived in a nearby house in Key West, Florida. They owned a plantation and had a lot of servants working for them who they treated very badly. One servant girl gave their son, Gene, a present of a doll. What the Ottos didn’t realise was that this servant girl knew voodoo. Gene's full name was Robert Eugene Otto. His parents had always called him "Gene", so he decided to give the doll his real name, "Robert". Many Strange things began to occur in the Otto household. Many neighbors claimed to see Robert move about from window to window, when the family were out. Gene began to blame Robert for mishaps that would occur. The Otto's claimed to hear the doll giggle, and swear they caught glimpses of the doll running about the house. Gene began to have nightmares and scream out in the night, when his parents would enter the room, they would find furniture over turned, their child in a fright, and Robert at the foot of the bed, with his glaring gaze! "Robert Did It".... The doll was eventually put up into the attic. Where he resided for many years. But Robert had other plans. Visitors that entered the house could hear something walking back and forth in the attic, and strange giggling sounds. Guests no longer wanted to visit the Otto home. Gene Otto died in 1972.The home was sold to a new family, and the tale of Robert had died do.... But Robert waited patiently up in the attic to be discovered, once again. The 10 year old daughter of the new owners. Was quick to find Robert in the attic. It was not long before Robert unleashed his displeasure on the child… The little girl claiming that the doll tortured her, and made her life a hell. Even after more than thirty years later, she steadfastly claims that "the doll was alive and wanted to kill her." Robert, still dressed in his white sailor's suit and clutching his stuffed lion, lives quite comfortably, though well guarded, at the Key West Martello Museum. Employees at the museum continue to give accounts of Robert being up to his old tricks still today....

The Guests

A young man and his wife were on a trip to visit his mother. Usually they arrived in time for supper. They had gotten a late start, and now it was getting dark. They decided to look for a place to stay overnight and go on in the morning. Just off the road, they saw a small house in the woods. "Maybe they rent rooms", the wife said. So they stopped to ask. An elderly man and woman came to the door. They didn't rent rooms, they said. But they would be glad to have them stay overnight as their guests. They had plenty of room, and they would enjoy the company. The old woman made coffee, brought out some cake, and the four of them talked for awhile. Then the young couple were taken to their room. They explained that they wanted to pay for this, but the old man said he would not accept any money. The young couple got up early the next morning before their hosts had awakened. On a table near the front door, they left an envelope with some money in it for the room. Then they went on to the next town. They stopped at a restaurant and had breakfast. When they told the owner where they had stayed, he was shocked. "That can't be", he said. "That house burned to the ground ten years ago, the old man and woman who lived there died in the fire." The young couple could not believe it. So they went back to the house. Only now there was no house. All they found was a burned-out shell. They stood staring at the ruins trying to understand what had happened. Then the woman started screaming! In the rubble was a badly burned table, on the table was the envelope they had left there that morning!

Something Was Wrong

One morning, John Sullivan found himself walking along a street downtown. He could not explain what he was doing there, or how he got there, or where he had been earlier. He didn't even know what time it was.  He saw a woman walking toward him and stopped her. "I'm afraid I forgot my watch," he said, and smiled. "Can you please tell me the time?" When she saw him, she screamed and ran.  The he noticed that other people were afraid of him. When they saw him coming, they flattened themselves against a building, or ran across the street to stay out of his way.  "There must be something wrong with me," John thought. "I'd better go home."  He hailed a taxi, but the driver took one look at him and sped away. "This is crazy!" he said to himself.  John did not understand what was going on, and it scared him. "Maybe someone at home can come and pick me up." he thought. He found a telephone and called home, expecting his wife to answer. Instead, a strange voice answered. "Is Mrs. Sullivan there?" he asked.  "I'm sorry, she isn't," the voice said. "Her husband died a few days ago in a horrible car crash, she's at his funeral.

The Woman in Gray

Two gentlemen were working in the town's small general store. The store was quiet and no customers were shopping until she walked in. A small frail woman dressed in grey entered the store, and proceeded toward the dairy section, saying nothing. She picked up a glass container of milk and, without paying for it or even glancing at the gentlemen, walked out of the store. The men, surprised by the woman's thievery, hurried out of the store after her...but she was gone. A few days later, the incident occurred again. The same small woman dressed in the same grey dress entered the store, grabbed a glass container of milk, and left without paying. Again the men tried to follow after her, but she was nowhere to be seen. After a couple of weeks, she appeared once again. The same small woman, dressed in the same grey dress, entered the store, paid no attention to the men, snatched a glass container of milk, and vanished out the door. The men, slightly more prepared this time, quickly followed the woman out of the store. She hurried down the town's main street and the men found themselves having to run to keep up with her. She hastily turned down a dirt path, just at the edge of the woods. This is where the men lost her. They trekked on further and came to a small cemetery neither of them knew existed. Suddenly, they heard a small noise. Concentrating, they identified it as a baby's cry...it was coming from the ground. The ground from which it was coming from was in front of a fresh gravestone marking the death of a mother and her infant who were buried together. Unsure of what else to do. the men quickly found shovels and exhumed the coffin. The crying became louder as they dug. When they reached the coffin, they pried off the lid and inside found the small, grey-dressed woman...dead...with a live, crying infant in her arms...and three empty glass containers of milk. The poor child was mistakenly buried alive and the spirit of her deceased mother kept her alive until she was found.