spooky-pasta-blog

[spooky-pasta-blog]

RIP

Hi guys, My blog is unfortunately one of those that is locked out because I have to change my password, and yet the email I used to create it is no longer accessible to me. I still have access to this blog on my phone, but that is changing as of today. This will be my LAST POST AHHHHH BUT, my hope is to keep spookypasta alive, and if any of you are interested you can find PART DEUX at spookypastatoo.tumblr.com. I know it's really ugly right now but it's a work in progress, I just got a new job and apartment and only so much time to tumblr, despite how much to the contrary this long-winded post may indicate. So yeah, I'll be there, and I hope to see you on the other side. I can't believe how many of you there are now and I'm really sad to have to give this blog up. It's been a blast. Thanks dewds.

[spooky-pasta-blog]

[spooky-pasta-blog]

Persuaded

It’s been two weeks since this whole thing started.

It all started with a tanker accident. It was all over the news. Everyone thought it was just another oil spill. There were plenty of volunteers – plenty of people wanting to help the poor, defenseless animals. Plenty of victims. Within hours of the tanker accident, it started happening. The animals had gone crazy; they were scratching and biting the clean-up volunteers. They said it was an adverse effect of whatever was in that tanker.

Rescue workers were still trying to get the crew out of the ship. They could hear screaming inside. There were screams to open the doors, but that’s when it all went to hell: as soon as they cut the door out.

There was six minutes of broadcast before it went silent – six minutes of screaming and agony. The ship crew attacked the rescue workers like rabid baboons. They were breaking bones and tearing flesh. The people on the shore weren’t fairing any better. Those that had been attacked by animals were attacking everyone else. It was worse than any war zone report; it was sheer brutality, and yet the broadcast still went on for six minutes. There was six minutes, then blank faces. Nobody could explain what was happening. They tried to continue the regular news, the economy, the weather, and a cute human interest story, but they couldn’t make us unsee what we saw.

I tried to continue with my regular existence, but every time I switched on the news or walked by a news stand, it was there: this big mystery. They had some explanations: it was an infection, or maybe brain parasites, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t an infection we were afraid of, it was them.

Four days after the initial report, a state of emergency was raised… and yet, we’ve all seen this before. It’s in every zombie movie ever. People didn’t know who to trust. People were stockpiling food and weapons. Some tried to flee, but it seems every zombie movie was right. They didn’t make it. Three days later, they arrived in my town.

I expected moans, shuffling corpses, and dismemberment, but that’s where the movies lied. They ran through the streets, screaming. I remember running to my front door as fast as I could, locking, barricading, and doing anything to make sure it would stay shut, and then I headed for the window. I was on the second story and I could see the carnage. They were unstoppable. They were aware.

A group of them made their way through a building across the street. They jumped straight through plate glass windows. Even the shards slicing through them made no difference; they just kept coming. My barricade wasn’t going to hold. I rushed around my flat, grabbing supplies and jamming them into the most secure room. I went back for one last look across the street, and I wish I hadn’t. In a second story window, my face met one of theirs. They knew where I was. I quickly dashed into the room and locked the door.

I don’t have any kind of panic room or a secure basement, so the safest place I could think of was my bathroom. There were no windows, and only one door, which had a lock. I had filled my sink and bathtub full of water so I could stay for a while. I sat there in the dark room with the distant screams in my ears.

I began to feel like I may have overreacted; it had been two hours with no sign of them. It actually got quieter and I thought they had moved on. Maybe I could leave the room and get to the kitchen. I could grab some more food to wait it out. A crash came from the front door. There was the sound of someone running full force into the door and knocking down the barrier behind it. There was a couple more crashes before I knew they were inside. There were rapid footsteps moving around the flat, a couple of screams and then a bang on the wall beside me. My eyes were open to their widest, even in the pitch black darkness of the room. There was another bang, and then another. They knew I was there and they knew I was scared.

This was the zombie nightmare I had been expecting from the start. I had nowhere to run. There was only so much time before they would break in. I sat with my back to the door, hoping my extra weight would make it harder for them to get in. Then it got worse.

“Why don’t you open the door?”

There was a voice on the opposite side of the door. There were no screams or moans, just a quiet, whispery voice. And then more of them.

“We’ve come for you.” “You’ll be happier if you open the door.” “It’s not so bad…”

The whispery voices became a cacophony of noise trying to persuade me, to break me, to fool me. I had heard that the moaning of zombies would drive people insane but this was worse – a siren call. I sat in the darkness and hoped and prayed that they’d get bored… but they don’t get bored and they don’t leave. I managed to use the mirror to peek under the door, only to be greeted by horrible unblinking eyes, blood-smeared faces, screams, and more horrible whispers. That was two days ago.

I don’t know what to do anymore… maybe it won’t be so bad…

[spooky-pasta-blog]

[spooky-pasta-blog]

THE KING COME DOWN

It was about three weeks ago. I was on Google, looking for some funny sites to look at, when I found my way to an image board. Everyone there spoke in extremely cryptic nonsense. They said things like, “Hiel, I saw them tonight. Holdings hand we are up in high 99924028 THE KING COME DOWN”.

That one phrase, “the king come down”, was used frequently. At first, I thought it was spam because of the number strings that preceded it, but its use was way too frequent and erratic to be spam. There would be typos and, in addition, the numbers didn’t appear to be random.

In the end, I decided I’d see what was going on with the site. I posted in what appeared to be a “random” board much like /b/ (there were no discernible themes amongst the images and posts). I said, “Hello, I’m new and I was looking to start a funny thread,” and asked people to post their funniest pictures.

That was when it started. I remember the first reply very clearly. It said, “Good to see. U join the HELP! HELP!” From there, it only got weirder. I was told to ignore “the grafts.” I assumed this was some sort of inside joke. After this, people posted seemingly random numbers and letters, as well as characters from different languages.

I had no idea what was going on when that phrase popped up again – numbers followed by “the king come down.”

Following that, my power cut off. It was a complete blackout. It freaked me out, but I went ahead and checked the fuses. The switches had just flipped. I flipped them back and returned to my PC. On the screen was a video of a young boy. He was Caucasian and looked to be no older than ten years.

I sat down, creeped out but feeling curious. Strangely, the boy smiled and appeared to speak. I couldn’t hear anything, so I turned up the volume of my speakers. I could only just hear what he was saying, so I turned up the volume to max. It was only a faint whisper. His lips moved slowly.

I pushed my ear closer to try and figure out what he said, but he suddenly shouted. It was a booming and terrifying voice screaming at me like a demonic god. Then the image changed. The boy was crying, his eyes bleeding heavily as white arms tore the skin from his face.

The power cut out again.

Again, it was the fuses. When I got the power back, everything was normal. My PC booted normally and nothing creepy happened with it. No videos of kids whispering or anything.

That’s when I started receiving the emails. They were extremely cryptic and filled with random numbers much like the image board posts. I got and email that was, surprisingly, in regular English. It said, “JUST PASS IT ON. JUST FUCKING PASS IT ON.” I didn’t know what it meant.

I got up to get a drink and froze in fear. From my ceiling hung a man, his body swinging gently. On my wall, written in dried blood were the words “THE KING COME DOWN”. I blinked and the sight was gone. For weeks, this continued.

I went back to the image board. I was sure I was going out of my mind. I was just about ready to commit myself to a fucking asylum when I read a post in coherent English that said something like, “Pass on the king. Pass on the king.”

The thread 404’d before I could even get to it. I went to make a new thread and, when I began typing, the words in my mind were not what appeared in the box. My fingers typed words by their own volition. I typed two things: “HGHSUTHS” and “4918484 THE KING COME DOWN”.

Then, somehow, I realized I was passing it on. The crazy hallucination stopped. I was good. I learned how to be safe.

I’m sorry…

HAKKSITMS 44919174 THE KING COME DOWN

[spooky-pasta-blog]

[spooky-pasta-blog]

Never Turn Around

I live on the top floor of a five-story apartment building in a moderately big city. My apartment is a one bedroom with a fairly large living room with big windows out towards the street and the opposing building. That building has a small parking lot up front, so it is not directly across from mine, which I kind of like because of the privacy.

Being a night owl, I like to sit up late with my laptop. Sometimes I peek out the window at the building across, looking for lit windows and wondering if anyone else out there is doing the graveyard shift. Last night, I wish I hadn’t.

I usually sit with my laptop facing the windows. For the last couple of nights I had, in the corner of my eye, been seeing a sparsely lit window in the building across and in it some sort of movement. Last night, my curiousness got the best of me, so I put my computer down and went over to the window to check it out. Surely enough, you could see someone waving, but just barely. The window was dimly lit, but you could definitely see some movement. I thought about it for a second and went to get a pair of binoculars. After some searching I found a pair and went back to the window, putting them to my eyes.

I located the window and got a better look at what was in it. It appeared to be a person, lit up by a candle. I couldn’t make out the person’s face, but he was waving. At me, apparently, because after I had locked onto him with the binoculars he stopped waving for a second and then pointed at me. I felt a chill go down my spine.

This was fucking creepy.

He pointed at me and then made a circling motion with his finger. He kept doing this over and over until I realized he was signaling for me to turn around. I reacted out of instinct and quickly turned around, as if I really were expecting something to lurk behind me. Nothing was there but darkness, obviously, so I chuckled to myself and turned back to the window with my binoculars only to find it empty, except for the candle slowly fading out.

I jumped back and dropped the binoculars on the floor, the noise of the impact spooking me even more. “What the fuck,” I thought to myself as I went back to my computer. I put on some music to calm me down and surfed around a bit more until I looked at the time and realized it was about to get light out. I put my computer down and made my way through a small hallway that led to my bathroom. I didn’t have any lights on, but as I approached the bathroom I noticed a flickering light underneath the door.

My body froze. Even if I did forget to turn off the bathroom light, a light bulb could not produce that kind of lighting. I slowly walked up to the door, took a deep breath, and lightly pushed it open. I stepped inside and, to my horror, I found a candle sitting in the sink, revealing a message scribbled on the mirror.

“NEVER TURN AROUND”

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[spooky-pasta-blog]

The Journal of Gabriel Orwell

I’m writing these entries to keep what little sanity I have left in me. Each day I feel it slipping away, like trying to hold water cupped in your hands. Writing about my predicament is much easier than explaining it to people, especially when doing so quickly leads to the label of insanity. No, I am not insane. At first, I didn’t know how to deal with it. In fact, I still remember the first time I saw it… or rather, when it saw me.

I had a long drive ahead of me. It was already approaching 1:00AM. Having virtually no sleep from partying the night before, I thought the best idea would be to stop at a motel. After a slightly awkward conversation at the front desk, I was sitting in the bed of room 250. The mattress was springy, the television was an antique, and the room smelled awful; this place was a shithole. I didn’t complain, though. Exhaustion was beginning to take its hold, and I would only spend one night here, after all. I quickly fell sound asleep.

What was that noise? I awoke, not to the sound of my cell phone alarm, but to static. My eyes focused on the digital clock: it read 3:33AM. The room was slightly illuminated. I sat up to find the TV displaying that all-too-familiar black and white static. I must have rolled onto the remote. I searched frantically for it, wanting to return to my peaceful slumber. I lifted the covers and looked around, but to no avail. Placing the covers back down, I jumped. The TV was no longer showing static. Instead, it screened a black and white middle-aged face, cropped to show only its eyes; it blinked. The eyebrows did not suggest any sort of malignant demeanor. However, I was inexplicably terrified of it.

It seemed the remote had made its way to the floor. I picked it up and immediately attempted to change what was on screen. Green numbers – representing the channel – popped up in the right-hand corner. The number changed, but the image did not. Without further investigation, I turned the television off. I had difficulty sleeping for the remainder of the evening.

At first, I just thought it was some kind of joke. It couldn’t be real. No fucking way. At the front desk, while returning the key, I noticed a TV behind the owner. It was displaying that same face. It blinked. I asked the man what he thought about what was on screen. “Yeah, I tell ya, the weather looks pretty bad if you have a long drive.” My blood ran cold. Did he not see those glaring eyes? “You feelin’ alright, son?”

On my drive to my university, I rationalized. It had to be the cable in the motel. Maybe it was the only thing showing, and the owner was playing some nasty trick on me. It had to be. This was, of course, before the sounds started. Trying to get my mind off of what happened,  I turned on the radio. Static. Maybe I’ll just pop in a Frank Sinatra CD instead. Static. Great, I think. My car’s sound system is fucked. Oh, how I wish it were that easy.

I only started to question my sanity when I got to school. In the dining halls, every TV was displaying that face. In the computer labs, every monitor was displaying that face. My roommate’s new HD television was showing that face. It blinked. Of course, I asked everyone about it. They just gawked at me, confused. Some laughed, thinking I was toying with them. I have never felt more desperate.

It had been three days since my stay at the hotel. I walked past my floor’s lobby; people were huddled around the big screen, occasionally laughing at whatever it was they were watching. All I could see was that face. It blinked. All I could hear was roaring static.

My MP3 player doesn’t play music. I can’t hold conversations on my cell phone because all I can hear is static. Static… that’s what It was at first. Soon, the sounds started to change. One day, instead of static, I hear a man saying a series of random numbers in a monotone voice. A week later, I hear a woman screaming as she is stabbed to death. I can hear the blade cutting through her flesh and the footsteps of her killer. The sounds change, but the images on the screen don’t. All screens just show that face. It blinked. I’m losing my fucking mind.

Today, I hear a man mumbling gibberish. I sit in my room, staring deep into the eyes that stare back at me on my computer monitor. Now I understand why I’m going crazy. It’s not the sounds or this face staring at me, it’s why. Why me? What did I do to deserve this? Was it because I stopped going to church? Was it because I stayed at the motel? Whose fucking face is in every screen I see? All of these unanswered questions are what are picking away at my sanity.

I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take the sounds, that face (it blinked), or how I pretend everything is okay. I haven’t slept in days. I yearn for the alluring sensation of peace and quiet. No more assault on my senses. I thought of Van Gogh.

These handwritten pages were found scattered around the room of Gabriel Orwell – the same location where he took his own life. Investigators found him lying on the floor, his eyes gouged out, both his tympanic membranes in each inner ear punctured, and his wrists slashed. There were also two HD monitors in the room; both were shattered and damaged beyond repair by Orwell’s fists.

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[spooky-pasta-blog]

Ashes

The following is a transcription from several pages of a burnt personal diary that was found next to the remains of an Angela S. Yorke. Police officers entered Ms. Yorke’s apartment at 113 Cherry Lane on July 28th after she had been reported missing for several days. The interior of the apartment had apparently been completely destroyed in a fire, although none of the neighbors had reported seeing flames. In the corner of the bedroom the officers found a large pile of ash that was later identified, through dental records, to be the body of Ms. Yorke.

From the charred hand of the corpse the officers recovered a badly damaged diary which she had apparently been writing in throughout the period of her disappearance. Experts have been unable to determine the cause of the fire, nor the reason why it damaged only the inside of one apartment, leaving the exterior and all surrounding rooms unharmed. In an effort to solve the mystery, the diary underwent an extensive restoration to repair and copy the charred pages.

The diary of Ms. Angela Yorke:

EXTERIOR COVER: [Both front and back covers of the diary had sustained fire damage that erased any possible writing]

INTERIOR FRONT COVER: [Angela penned a small note to herself in the corner:] Hooray! I’ve finally moved into the new apartment! I bought this diary to prove to myself, when I’m old and senile, that I really did it. I really made it on my own in the world. So, congratulations girl! You made it! Sincerely Yours(self), Angela S.

JUNE 30th, [Every entry up to this date was mostly irrecoverable. The few sentences that were restored pertained to Ms. Yorke’s feelings about work and making new friends.] …and she says that we’ll have to plan something for this weekend.

JULY 1st, [Majority of this page was destroyed] …what a good idea. I told her I would call Susan and Andre to see if they would want to come along. I can’t believe that in the months I’ve lived here, I never bothered to explore the national park that sits almost literally outside my door! I suppose my job has kept me so busy I feel I don’t have time for hiking with friends. Well, that changes tomorrow. Here’s a reminder to myself to buy some new boots so I have even less of an excuse to stay indoors.

JULY 2nd, Too exhausted to write much. Me, Susan, Hillary and Andre spent all day in the woods. We got lost at one point, which is why we got back so late. However, I feel that it was a lucky break: we ran across this really old looking cabin right beside a creek. It kind of freaked us out at first, but Susan said that there wasn’t any record of a cabin in the area and that we must’ve run across some ancient hunter’s woodhouse. Tomorrow we’re all returning to explore it more fully. Maybe if we collect enough information about it, we can get mentioned in the locals. Meanwhile, I’ll be treating the blisters all over my heel. I really do need new boots.

JULY 3rd, What a strange day. It took us forever to find the path we had accidentally stumbled across the day before. When we finally got to where the cabin had stood, it was gone. In its place there was a big mound of ash spread all over the grass. We stomped all over it trying to find clues, but all I could find was scorched wood and melted nails. Susan found a burnt doll, with only its blue glass eyes still untouched. That freaked us out. Then, Andre kicked apart a small pile of charcoal and found a tooth inside. Well, we booked it back to the main trail pretty fast after that. In the darkness beneath the trees, I think our imaginations must have run a little wild; of course, once we were all in the sunlight again we realized we must have taken the wrong trail and run across the ruins of another cabin, which must have burned down a long time ago. Still, sitting in my bedroom at night, thinking about that patch of burnt wood, makes me shiver.

JULY 4th, What a shitty 4th of July. Work was a pain in the ass. I came home all angry at my boss, ready to collapse on my couch and watch bad TV, when I noticed a trail of black footprints all over my carpet. It spooked me until I realized that the prints were from my own shoes. Somehow, I managed to track ash all over my floor and not notice it until tonight. I thought the hike would’ve been enough to get that crap off my shoes. Damn damn damn damn damn. Also, when I was relaxing in the bath, I found black stains between my toes. I couldn’t get them out completely, but I’m not as worried about that as much as the carpet. I pulled out all the bottles under the sink, but none of my cleaners could get the stuff out. I’ll have to go rent a carpet cleaner tomorrow and get the stain out before the landlady sees it. Curse you, white carpet!

JULY 5th, What a fucking mess. I picked up a carpet cleaner before I got home and prepared to exact vengeance against those dark marks on the floor. Now, as a monument to all my efforts, I have a huge black smear across my living room. Fucking carpet cleaner. Maybe I’ll call Susan and Hillary tomorrow and ask if they have the same problem. I’m too upset to write anymore.

JULY 6th, Something weird is going on with that stain. I can’t be sure, but it looks like it spread a little further. I noticed small bumps of some black substance in the middle of the spot; when I touched one, it crumbled under my finger. I think the ash is melting the carpet somehow. I spent the rest of the evening looking on the Internet looking up things like “powderized acids” and “burnt carbon deposit hydroxide reactions”. Ugh. Unfortunately, Atilla the boss is making me finish a huge project for him by Friday, so I won’t have time to clean up the place until next weekend. Even worse, that stain is still on the bottom of my feet and my girlfriends, for once, weren’t home. Addendum: I just noticed that I had some of the black stuff on my hands and now there’re sooty handprints all over the walls. Goddamn.

JULY 7th, [This page was mostly destroyed.] ……………………………………………tain is definitely spreading bigger, but………………………………………………………………………………………………………..so my boss is expecting me to do i………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………like I care, but it doesn’t make my job any easier, especially considering all of the reports I have to do at the same time. And Susan’s absence doesn’t help at all, you’d think that she could at least call me since I’m pulling her slack. To top off this shitty week, some……………………………………………………………………………………..with the cable. I turn it on and all I can see is static, with some weird crackling in the background. I’d call the landla………………………….he carpet s………………………..bly throw my ass out. Finally, I think whatever weird chemical is in that soot is damaging my feet, the skin on the bottom is white and starting to peel off and they feel all tingly, but I just can’t afford to take time to see a d………………………no time to wr…………………………………………………………….

JULY 8th, [A large hole had been scorched in the middle of the page] Oh god, I opened my door and screamed out loud. Whatever was in that soot is eating through the floor and walls. Huge scorch marks are spreading across my floor. There’s charcoal everywhere. The place smelled like a fire pit so I opened a window; a draft blew in and stirred up a huge cloud of dust that coated everything, including me. So I shut myself into my bedroom, which so far is free of burns, and sat down with the phone book. I tried to call Susan again, but on the other end all I could hear was a strange crackling sound. Next I c…………………………………………………haz-ma……………………………………..cords are burn……………………………………………………………..nough of this shit, tomorrow I’m skipping work and driving to the police station, after I get someone sent by my place to clean up what is CLEARLY a chemical hazard. I’m going to the doctor’s to get my feet checked out, they hurt constantly now, and a white-fringed black burn is creeping around my toes. I’m pretty scared. Addendum: I can’t sleep. I could almost swear I hear a popping, crackling sound coming from the living room.

JULY 9th, I’m so fucking scared. I don’t know what the hell is going on. I woke up this morning and it was dark outside. I thought the pain creeping up my legs had roused me early in the morning, but when I glanced at the clock it said 9 PM. How the fuck had I managed to sleep through the entire day? I decided I would go to the police anyway. When I left my bedroom I nearly fainted, the entire living room was scorched black and white. Huge patches of charcoal were lumped on the ground and dripping off the walls. As I walked towards the door, pieces of ash rained down on my head. The horrible smell of burnt flesh and hair permeated everything. I got in my car and drove to the police station, but a few minutes later I realized I was lost. It was my own neighborhood, how the fuck did I manage to get lost? I drove and drove in the dark, trying to find anything recognizable. I had just given up hope and started to cry when I noticed I was back home. The row of apartments stood directly in front of me. I sped away down a random road, stomping the gas pedal, but no matter where I went, how fast I went, I kept passing the apartment again and again. After driving for hours, the car finally ran out of gas and coasted to a stop. Right outside my own front door. I don’t even remember turning into the parking lot. When I walked inside the clock said 10 PM. What the hell is happening to me? My fingers are itchy. The tips look stained black. I can’t call anyone, the ash burnt through the cords. I’m trying to sleep, but that crackling sound is coming from the walls. It sounds like a fire.

JULY 10th, [Burned away.]

JULY 11th, [The corner of the page was burnt away.] ……………………………………………………………e last two days, I just sat in my bedroom and stared at the door, beyond I could……………………..the sounds of a fire, but whenever I looked into the living room, there was just the ash, swirling through the air. Everything’s burned: the couch is nothing but a pile of dust, and the TV is slowly melting into a puddle of plastic. I had to go to the fridge to bring back food. I kicked my way through the pile of ash heaped into the corners. Oh god, I swear I saw a gray hand rise up and grab at me before a gust of wind blew it apart. The scorch marks are spreading into my bedroom, the door is almost completely burnt through, but there’s no fire, no heat. I lost feeling in my feet, but when I touch them flakes of dried, white skin peel off. My hands are so painful; they crinkle when I move them. That crackling in the walls is growing louder, and I swear I can hear the sound of someone screaming.

JULY 12th, [Burnt away.]

JULY 13th, [Several holes are burnt into the page.] I can’t escape it. The bedroom is almost as burnt away as the rest of the apartment. I woke up this morning as a pile of ash…………………………………………..e foot of my bed. As I looked at it, a face began to form. It grinned at me and…………………………..an out into the living room and crouched in the corner. I sat hunched there until I fell asleep again. When I woke up, there was a gray hand lying on my shoulder. In the corner of my vision, something was staring at me. I screamed and it disappeared in a swirling cloud, but the shape of a hand was burnt………………..y shoulder. I ran out of the apartment into the night, not caring where I ended up………………………………….hen I fell…………om exhaustion. I realized I was back in the forest. The cabin…………………………………..e. Orange light poured out of its grimy windows and smoke drifted from the chimney. I crawled towards it; inside I could hear that awful crackling sound. An…………………………..eone screaming. Suddenly, I was standing at the door. As it opened, a blast of wind knock………..nside. The door shut behind me. The inside of the cabin was………………………………………………a flame. I stood in the middle of the wooden floor as flames spread around me, consuming everything. Something gra…….me from behind. Turning, I saw a burning bo……………..rawling its way up my legs. Its skin was burnt black, red liquid oozing out along lines that……………………est and arms. It looked at me and screamed as flames danced around its head, its eyes withering away, its tongue burning…………………………………………..stump. I kicked it away, it fell onto the floor and broke into smoldering pieces. The cabin burned away around me, flaming timbers falling to the floor. The entire building colla………………………..a cloud of sparks. As the dust cleared I looked arou………………………I was back in my own burnt apartment. A pile of ash shape……………………………….body lay by my feet. I have barricaded myself in the bedroom, but the dust creeps und…………………………………………………………………..

JULY 14th, I can hear something stalking across the living room.

JULY 15th, [Burnt away.]

JULY 16th, [Burnt away.]

JULY 17th, [Burnt away.]

JULY 18th, [Damaged] I tried to run away again. As I left the house, I saw something gray walking across the living room towards me. I ran……………………………………….night. The cabin was there again. I didn’t want to go in, but somethi…………………………out of the woods at me. The place was on fire and the screaming thing attacked me. I closed my eyes until the place burnt down. The burns on my bo…………………………………ve spread everywhere but my face. It hurts so mu…………………………..b…………………ou………………………………………………………ead.

JULY 20th, [Badly damaged.] Wh…………………………………e god………………………….ve?.....................................................WHY………………………………………..PA………………………O!.....................................................................................................................eath…………………………

JULY 21st, [The entry consists entirely of a drawing of the nature preserve behind Ms. Yorke’s house. Several trails are traced and a red circle is labeled “the cabin”. Despite an extensive search of the park, no cabin or area of burnt ash has been found.]

JULY 22nd, I can only lie in the piles of mounting ash. Sometimes I see a gray form creep by, but I can’t do anything about it. My legs are falling off. I want to die.

JULY 23rd, [No entry.]

JULY 24th, [No entry. A rough sketch of a grinning face was drawn in the corner of the page. Above it was the caption, “it’s in the ashes”.]

JULY 25th, [This entry was nearly illegible due to the nature of the writing. Experts have suggested this section was written with the pen in her mouth.] One of my arms snapped off like burnt charcoal. I’m breaking apart. My mind feels cloudy. At least the pain is fading. I can see something black and gray looking at me from the corner. I thought it was smiling, but now I can see its lips are burnt off. I can’t move. I lie on the floor as pieces of the ceiling flake off and drift down. Covering everything. Small things of ash and bone skitter along the walls.

JULY 26th, [This entry is also nearly illegible.] I, Angela Sylvia Yorke, do swear, as my last will and testament, the following: That all of my pos…………………………………………….ove………………………a………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. [Unfortunately, a large burn in the shape of a hand print is scorched into the page, destroying the contents of what is apparently Ms. Yorke’s will. Interestingly, the size of the print is much larger than Ms. Yorke’s hands. Of course, due to the deteriorating condition of the corpse, this claim could not be verified.]

[The remaining pages of the diary are either blank or burned away.]

Two days after the last entry, officers found the badly burned body of Angela Yorke. At the request of the owner, a cleanup team was sent to repair the damaged apartment after the investigation was closed due to a lack of evidence. A good deal of time and effort was spent trying to find “Susan” and the other people Ms. Yorke mentions in her document, but to no avail. No cause of the fire has been determined.

:::UPDATE::: The badly damaged diary has apparently disintegrated in the evidence locker, leaving a small burn mark on the shelf. Sanitation personnel claim that they are unable to remove the blemish.

[spooky-pasta-blog]

[spooky-pasta-blog]

[spooky-pasta-blog]

Something Pale and Silent

I recently moved into a new apartment and, having very little money, had to settle for the only habitable place in a row of almost derelict buildings. The street was all but abandoned, but I’m pretty sure there were squatters two doors down. My building was the only one not boarded up and, compared to the others, it had potential. There was no electricity when I moved in, no curtains and no carpets, but at least the water was running. It was a particularly tough time in my life (which I won’t go into) and I was grateful for a fresh start. I could really make a go of it here once I got some furniture in.

The first night, I decided to sleep there, even without a mattress and only a few candles to find my way around, although I could have probably found the bathroom by smell alone. After setting up camp in what I suppose was the living room, I tucked into a gourmet meal consisting of cold beans and dry crackers, promising myself that once the sun came up, things would seem more homey and I could start unpacking.

After exploring the shelves and cupboards for treasure, and finding only a handful of those plastic curtain pegs and a shoebox full of old rent-books (presumably left behind by the landlord), I decided to perch myself in a corner and use my jacket as a makeshift bed. Trying to sleep, hunched over, with nothing to look at but a bare, pitch-black window wasn’t easy, and the thought of what might be lurking out there on the old industrial estate kept my attention firmly on that window the entire night. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much and decided to look around some more.

I found a box of old, sepia photos in the fireplace, each with six people standing at the same window, mouths open, and a pale shape in the reflection that I couldn’t quite make out. I decided to take my mind off of it, since these old photos gave me the creeps anyway.

By the second night, I was starting to feel more comfortable in the old place, and although most of my stuff was still in boxes and I still had no furniture, carpets or curtains, the daylight had given me the chance to explore properly and I spent most of my time planning how it would eventually look. I’d even nailed an old blanket over that window to keep any prying eyes out, and to stop my imagination running wild.

By candlelight, I occupied myself by reading the faint scrawlings in the old rent-books I’d found, since it was the only form of entertainment available, but what I found was quite interesting: dating back around five years were six books in total, one for each tenant, and in every one, just a single entry. Rend and bond was paid for one month, then nothing but blank pages. Something wasn’t right. All six previous tenants stayed only a month or less.

Feeling somewhat creeped out, I decided to take a piss before my last candle disappeared completely, and made my way across the hall to that awful bathroom, watching my shadow keenly dance along the peeling walls ahead of me, until we met again at a heavy wooden door. I covered my mouth and walked in. The stench was so thick I could taste it and as I unzipped my pants, the last candle went out.

Now, to this day, I’m not sure where I pissed exactly, but I can tell you it was the fastest piss I’d ever taken; not only was I in pitch darkness, but I could only hold my breath for so long. I ran out of there as fast as I could, but where was I running to? The realization came that I had no candles left and, with it, a thick blackness enveloped the walls and the one flickering glow of the apartment had abandoned me.

The hollow creak of the floorboards began to sound like whispers, and the peeling damp on every surface felt alive to the touch as I blindly ran my hand along the wall. Feeling a familiar bump, I pushed open the living room door and made my way carefully towards the window. Maybe a streetlight or a passing car would light the room, if I could just remove the blanket I’d nailed up earlier...

That window, which had made me so uncomfortable, was now my only hope for light. Reaching my hand through the darkness to pull the blanket away, I felt only a cold pane of glass. The blanket was gone and, as my eyes adjusted, I saw it: on the other side of the bare, black window was something pale and silent, its mouth open, waiting for my next move.

[spooky-pasta-blog]

[spooky-pasta-blog]

Wolves of the Stillwood

There are no wolves in the Stillwood.

The gray wolves of Virginia were made extinct over a hundred years ago. According to the regular surveys by the National Forestry Service, no sign of any such animal has been found since 1900. The occasional reports of large predators, just after dusk or late at night, usually by the occasional hiker or party of campers in the Stillwood (residents of Lower Alethia, nearest the woods like myself, know better than to try), receive the same tired reply from animal control.

“There are no wolves in the Stillwood.”

When a pet gets lost in the dark of the Stillwood and never returns, or worse, is found mauled, the blame falls on the usual suspects: foxes, wild dogs, or teenagers with too much time and too little compassion. A few years back, when the Bradleys, a little family brand new to the falls, had their boy David go missing from their own backyard, never finding more than scraps of his jacket and a little blood at the edge of the forest. The official response was adamant: this was a kidnapping, not an animal attack. Old-timers like me just shook our heads and muttered to ourselves,

“There are no wolves in the Stillwood.”

So, if you want to sleep at night this close to the forest, keep your doors locked tight and your shutters closed fast, if just to buy some peace of mind and to stop you from catching a glimpse of the Stillwood late at night. And should you find yourself walking near or - God forbid - through the woods some evening, head home as quickly as you can. Try to ignore the sounds of the night wind, howling as it does... it will only make your imagination run wild, after all. And should you see what cannot be polychrome eyes, shining through the mists from the underbrush or somehow in the branches above, or even through the gaze of your windows, take what comfort you can in this thought:

There are no wolves in the Stillwood.

[spooky-pasta-blog]