I'm part of a group of like-minded, spooky Halloween people; a group set up by my friend called Creeptober. It's all creepy, all Halloween, all year. She put up this 30 spooky questions set. It was on some guy's youtube, apparently a famous make-up guy? But, I played along and here are my answers. I'll supply some photo's and some explanations which I didn't give in the group (obviously) & I'll made just a few additions of other people's answers that I thought were good. 1. Favourite horror or Halloween-themed song? Psycho Killer by The Talking Heads or Death in the Valley by The Death Riders. You also can't go wrong with Devil Got My Woman by Skip James. 2. Name something you wouldn’t want to run into in a dark forest or in an abandoned building. Just about anything really. Skeksi's, Ammit, The Pale Man, a Ghoul... anything that is pure nightmare fuel really. 3. Have you ever played with a Ouija Board? Nope. I'd wanted to play with one but mom made them sound super creepy (she was forced to play with one, because she received it as a gift as a kid and my grandmother who did believe in creepy stuff, resigned herself to not believe in creepy stuff, and to her it was just a game, so why not play?) My mom probably wasn't the deciding factor. There's Sarah Winchester, who is beyond creepsville to me with her spirit boards and seances and crazy house, because all the spiritualists of the 19th century. It's just creepy. Then there's all the weird lore and urban legends about not being able to get rid of them & contacting people and things you didn't want to contact. No, thank you. 4. Favourite horror monster or villain? Monster: The giant, atomic ants from THEM! & Bride of Frankenstein. Villain: Nosferatu. (another person said Vincent Price any time he's a villain. Good answer). 5. The creepiest thing that’s ever happened while you were alone? (So, a lot of these have happened in my bedrooms. Plural because I've had two in this house. The picture up there is the larger bedroom, initially belonging to The Sister (actually the had the smaller room until I was born), which I took over after she moved out when I was 13. So from 13 to about 27, I occupied that room above. Then I moved back into my childhood bedroom, the smaller one with the playroom/stand ceilinged room. I'll simply denoted if the story happened in the Large Room or the Small Room.) Large Room: - teenager (the above diagram shows the following incident. The O being the CD rack and the X being the entity.) Something falling off my wall and what appeared to be a bipedal creature about 3 feet tall running from my bedroom. I slept facing the door and would leave it open with the hall light on. I'd been asleep and the crashing sound woke me up and I saw that shape running from my room. It was not a cat & it was running on two legs in a hobble-dy fashion. The thing was a CD shelf. It didn't fall and scatter like normal. The CD shelf was all the way across the room like it had been thrown. If it fell off the wall it wouldn't have made it that far. Incidentally, the place where the CD shelf was, is where I saw the creature start running from. It turned right and either went down the hallway or down the stairs. It was just out of view then. Large Room: - teenager I'd set up an altar of the dead, and stupidly put it in my room beside my bed (in the diagram above it would be to the left of the bed, facing the door). I'd find all these weird things when I woke up that I attributed to the cats, even though the cats did not like to be on that table. Things knocked over, random stuff like that. One night I'm trying to fall asleep and this music box, that doesn't work (& even if it did, it can't with the lid on) starts playing. I mean it worked but only like tink, tink, stop. It didn't really work correctly, you got maybe half a second of melody before it would stop. Nope, this was playing the melody for what seemed like years, but was probably only 30 seconds to a minute before I jumped out of bed turned on the light and threw the music box across the room. Then I spent the next half hour, disassembling the entire altar and packing it away, never to have it again. Small Room: - adult Sleep paralysis on one occasion which was scary. It might have been a sleeping ghost (the one's that sit on your chest and suck out your life), because that's what was happening in my dream to wake me up. I'm not a standard believer of paranormal things. I believe things are out there & that might be what pops into my head first, but I also take the time to look at things rationally. It didn't feel like something was pinning me down after I woke up and it didn't feel like anything was there, but it was scary to not be able to move. I was dreaming and it was like I was looking under the covers towards my feet. This creepy hag hand crept up over the edge of the bed, reached out for my foot and with one finger stroked the inside of my right foot. I woke up with a start. There was nothing there, but it did really feel like someone had just stopped touching that exact spot on my foot. Small Room: - child (diagram shows the following incident. O is where I'd be when I heard the friends. X is the only place where I can hear noise.) I'd be in my room playing. I was a kid. I'd be on the floor and from downstairs through the floor, I could hear my friend and her mom. I didn't think they were coming over, but yay. I'd go downstairs and they weren't there and my mom thought I was crazy. Happened several times. I even did experiments. In the exact spot where I'd hear them (middle of my bedroom), I'd crouch or sit on the floor like I was playing when I knew people were downstairs in the kitchen talking. Nothing. I'd do that when I knew people were in the foyer talking. I could hear them, but the sound wasn't coming from down, but via the stair case and under my door. I tried everything and the only time I could hear anything through the floor were when people were in the den (not the kitchen) & it was in the slant room (or what was called the play room. If I'm kneeling on the floor in the slant room I could always hear the telly when it was on in the den or my parents talking. It's still the case today. I think it's because the fireplace runs up along the eaves (to the right of that X) and is more hollow than all the flooring and sheetrock. Small Room: - child I'd hear my name being whispered. Sometimes it sounded like my dad or mom. Other times like people I didn't know. I'd hear it in my room or out in the hallway. I'd go find my parent (I never followed the sound) and asked if they'd been calling for me. I just ignored it when it happened. Closed my door if it was coming from the hall, turned on music. Or if it came from my room, I'd just leave. It eventually ceased. Small Room: - child I'd turn on my bedroom overhead light. The lightbulb didn't blow every time I flipped the switch, but it did happen a lot. It also only ever blew at night, never in daylight. But if I'd flip the switch and the bulb would blow, it would get super bright and then pop and in the split second before it popped and went black there were be shapes swirling around it. I had no explanation for them and the only thing they seemed similar to, were all the ghosts in that Fantasia cartoon about the Devil as the mountain and waking up on Halloween and all the spirits were racing towards him. It could be weird ether or something from the bulb blowing, but no one else could see it and I've not seen it since I was about nine. It's not like lightbulbs changed at that time (like they've changed now from incandescent to LED and other things). It terrified the fuck out of me and I'd scream and close the door and keep screaming in the lit hallway until someone came to change the light bulb. I became scared to turn my bedroom overhead light on. I'd seen other lightbulbs in the house blow, at night, (in our house and other places) and never saw things around it. Just in my bedroom. Small Room: - child I was sleeping in my bed and I was four, possibly five. My bed was next to the window and facing the closet door. (it's, incidentally, in that same positioning now, but I digress). I don't know what made me wake up, but I felt pulled from my dreams and sleep. I had the feeling that I needed to be awake, but I couldn't and mustn't move or talk once I was awake. OK. So, I stayed perfectly still and slightly opened my eyes. Hovering near the ceiling between the foot of my bed and the closet was Slimer. It's all that it reminded me of. Slimer from the 1984 film Ghostbusters. Yet, really what I saw was something green and glowing, something sort of see-through and yet also semi-solid. A head. It wasn't Slimer's whole body, just a huge shape and just his face. It radiated something horrible. It felt angry and evil and absolutely terrible. I just stayed completely still and didn't move and watched it through slit eyes until it wavered away. I would have chalked it up to something logical like still dreaming or it wasn't really there or I was having a nightmare about Slimer. Which is what I did... until I heard The Sisters' story. This bedroom was hers when they first moved here in January of 1980. She moved to the larger room because I was born and would need a room. Her bed was in about the same position (not as close to the window, but more or less the same). She was five. She woke from dreaming with the same feeling. Urgency, but imperative not to move or talk. In the same spot, hovering near the ceiling she was Frankensteins monster. Just his head; his face. Green and glowing, see-through, yet also semi-solid. The feelings coming from it were evil & anger; just terrible and horrible. She stayed still until it wavered away as well. We're about the same age, sleeping in the same spot, seeing a similar glowing green mass with the same feelings emitting from it. We were both pulled from sleep (like it would eat us if we were still sleeping? I don't know), but impressed upon to stay absolutely quiet and to not move (would it also eat us if we were moving or shouting out?). And here's the thing. The Sister has always been afraid of and greatly disliked Frankenstein's Monster, even before this happened. I was petrified of Slimer after having recently seen Ghostbusters (the cartoon version hadn't come out yet, in which Slimer is cool and a friend). So what was it? And apparently what ever it was it was anger and evil and green and glowing and it either made us see what we feared most or else we could only see something horrible it reminded us of, that was also green. Large Room: - adult I was sleeping & my bed was in the top right corner between the west and north windows. I woke up. I was still drowsy, but with a need to get up (not a nightmare, but almost the same urgency) & heard, "Shh.. go back to sleep, we're cleansing." and I felt calm and agreed and went back to sleep. That happened two or three more times. On the final time that I tried to wake up, I heard, "We are finished." and it was like when your ears are stopped up and finally aren't, that was the feeling in the room, cotton headed, though I didn't know it until immediately after they spoke, the room sort of popped out of stuffy mode and I shot up in bed. It didn't feel bad, they seemed nice, whoever they were, but it freaked me out because only then did I feel like I wasn't being put back to sleep, I could actually finish waking up & I'd remembered the previous times of "Shh... go back to sleep, we're cleansing." I also remember the impression of them from my minds eye. It's either what I envisioned every time they were putting me back to sleep, or else I was having an out of body and was actually seeing it before they put me back to sleep. They were colours. They seemed almost like the UrSkeks at the end of The Dark Crystal when they're whole again. How they're just long and trailing like they have no legs and it could be what they're wearing but you also get the impression that it could be how their bodies end? And when the UrSkeks shoot off into the sky and they're like rockets at the ends where there feet and legs should be? It's like they were miniature versions of that, only like a watercolour and I couldn't pin point a single colour for either of them (there were three or four); females and males, but they're faces weren't like the UrSkeks, though they were indistinct. It's like there was a humanoid face, but changing so you couldn't focus on it. It was weird, man. There are other things, not associated with this house, but I still don't feel like speaking about them. 6. If you were dared to spend the night in a “haunted house”, would you do it? Nope. I would've as a teenager, but not anymore. No way. It's cliche, but I've seen too many things and I just don't wish to delve into that world. 7. Are you superstitious? No, but I'm interested in superstitions. 8. Do you ever see figures in your peripheral vision? Yes. 9. Which urban legend scares you the most? People living in the walls of the house. That or the telephone call from the graveyard or The Vanishing Lady. 10. Do you prefer gore or thrillers? Thrillers. 11. Do you believe in multiple dimensions or worlds? Yes. (someone added that they wouldn't mess with them or try to open them. It's weird her mind jumped there, because would the other people in the group who believe in them open one? I'm editing to add, I don't ever want to open or even possibly go to a different dimension. Ever!) 12. Ever made a potion of any sort? I did, from some witchy book back in high school. It didn't work. I think it might have been a love spell? I just remember coming home from school and being in and just outside of the breezeway and filling a pot with dirt. I don't remember anything else you had to do and I'm glad it didn't work. 13. Do you get scared easily? Yes and also no. It depends on the situation. Like I mentioned the Pale Man up there for Q 1. Most creatures in films don't scare me and most creepy things don't scare me, but if it feels familiar, like from my childhood or past lives or I don't know where, then I am certainly scared of it. Watching the film Pan's Labyrinth, while things were creepy, they weren't petrifyingly scary. That creature was. It felt too familiar. I felt like I'd seen or encountered it before. I still hate it. It felt too real. So did the weird dark angel thing in Hellboy II. It was mainly it's double layered voice. It felt hauntingly familiar. Too real. The drowned well girl from The Ring? Same thing. It was the disjointed way in which she walks. Not her drowned look or her hair in her face. There's something about that movement that feels familiar and too real and scares the hell out of me. They've done that movement a lot in film and telly since The Ring came out, but that was the first place I saw it, the first time it sparked what certainly felt like a repressed memory. Otherwise, I do watch things and go, "Oooh, this is gonna get scary!!" & pull my feet up onto the couch or tuck them underneath me, or I'll jump or cry out like most anybody when it's a scare in a film. I like a good scare. I don't like things feeling like they're real. Then I am scared. 14. Have you ever played Bloody Mary? Yes. We played it at my house. In hind-sight that probably wasn't a good idea, considering it was an antique mirror. We didn't see Bloody Mary, but weird things started happening that night after we played it. Was it just because we were hopped up on scary what-if's so that every little noise or thing was a trigger? Possibly. But I know the sounds in my house very well and I heard things that weren't normal house noises. Too many for a normal night in this house (because I've heard odd things before, but not 20 different things in the span of several hours, that's too much). But it'd be little things like creaking where the house doesn't creak. Someone on the stairs when there's no one in the basement or coming down from the second floor. Something sounding like it fell down (some small thing, no loud crash) and investigating to find nothing was amiss. I'll tell ya though, no one was more freaked out than during a different sleep over night when I showed them The Veil of Veronica. These were Catholic School girls (same girls with Bloody Mary), but they weren't that religious (like devout, but perhaps it made them more wary). It's not the real thing, but is said to be a copy of it or it was painted while looking at it and perhaps touched by the real veil. It's old like the early 20th century, but these things are a dime a dozen. It's like touching anything to what is supposedly a holy relic, or someone painting something while in the presence of a holy relic or it's a painting of a painting of a painting that was done of the holy relic. You get the gist. My mom found it at an antique store, so the frame is old. I don't think it's miraculous, but I do think it's creepy. It's the eyes. They change. They're either closed, or then they'll be open. They'll follow you around the room. I know there are painting techniques, but it's still creepy and it just feels creepy. Perhaps the person that owned it wasn't a good person? I don't know how these things work. Those Catholic girls hated that painting as much as me and deemed it THE creepiest thing in my house. I agreed. The Sister and I put a painting over it. It's still in that frame, but it's hidden. It still creeps us out. Mom loved it. But, my mom is rather creepy. 15. Do you believe in demons/the devil? Yes and no. I don't believe in THE devil, but I believe in things called devil and demons, but to me they're just all those evil entities (which some cultures call demons - like Jinn/Jiniri in Arabic traditions are demons). Like The Jersey Devil or Spring Hill Jack (the devil, but not THE devil). I'm only interested in the first because the story goes back to Colonial times. I'm interested because why was the story invented? I'm curious about the folklore about the beginning of this place as a country, with the first Europeans colliding with the Indigenous. I think there's stuff here and I think they brought stuff over with them (not just in story form) and I think some of it's a cobbled together version from both sides of the Atlantic (& not necessarily just in story form). 16. You’re home alone but you hear footsteps in your house, what do you do? Investigate. With some form of weapon. And all the lights on. (one member said, "Count the cats!" - good answer. Of course I'd be ascertaining if the cats are safe and keeping them safe, but I have to figure out what's happening first and need to arm myself and get all the lights on). 17. If you got trapped in one scary movie, which would you choose? It's not scary, but it is spooky-ish, so I'm choosing The House With A Clock In Its Walls. Because there is not a single horror film that I want to relive forever, thank you. 18. If you could only wear one halloween costume for the rest of your life, what would you be? The time I dressed as a Gelfling (The Dark Crystal) - because it was minimal make-up, earth colour capri pants, some flowy, relaxed shirt, no shoes, faerie wings, & a wig. It was an easy costume to put together and wear (no fussy) & I felt like a Gelfling. (I don't have a picture of the full shot or me wearing wings, but yeah this was it.)
19. Would you ever go to a graveyard at night? I have. Wouldn't now. I liked cemeteries, they were cool. Went to one in the mid-Atlantic region that was not cool at all. Creepy and unholy and now I'm very wary of cemeteries, even in the day time. 20. In a zombie apocalypse what is your weapon of choice? Machete. (someone said a tank. I'd be cool with that because I've always wanted a tank). 21. Would you rather go to a Halloween party or go trick or treating? Trick or treating. In theory. Because it was fun once, but you know it wouldn't be now because people don't give candy to adults. So, a Halloween Party. 22. You’re in a horror movie. Are you the final girl, the first to die, the comic relief, the skeptic, the smart one, or the killer? If I play along I'm the smart one who ends up dying. BUT, in my imagination I'm the smart one who's in the story and survives, but on the sidelines, criticizing everyone and I take care of all the kitties so they don't get hurt. (Wait, that would be me in real life though, huh?) 23. Do you have to watch something happy after watching a horror movie so you can go to sleep? Yes. It's how I got into Seinfeld. I absolutely had to watch Unsolved Mysteries, but Robert Stack was kind of spooky and some of the stories were as well. I was eight. I knew I couldn't get to sleep after watching it and what came on after was something not scary, this weird show with these weird New Yorkers and it's what I watched and came to be the only non-late teen or early 20's person that I knew of to even know what the show was or like it around that time. 24. Whilst watching scary movies, are you the person who yells at the characters, the person with their eyes covered the whole time, or the person who falls asleep? Yells at the characters. I have been known to cover my eyes. Things I can't deal with are eyeballs and toe and fingernails (so prying open or ripping out or anything creepy about that, etc). Creepy characters that seem too real. Things happened to animals. I hate when they put an animal into a horror film because then I'm worried about them the entire time. I have been known to stop a movie and never picked it back up if they kill a cat in it. 25. Are you the one who gets scared, or the one who does the scaring? Both. 26. Favorite scary book? I don't really read scary books (I watch scary films), so those kids books Scary Stories to tell in the Dark. 27. How old were you when you saw your first horror movie? I think 3 or 4 and it was one of the Amityville Horror films. I don't remember which one I saw first. Mom was totally into The Warren's and their work supposedly eradicating evils. So, she read all of their books, studied up on them, might have sent a letter and gotten a response. And of course watched all the Amityville Horror films that came out in the 70s and 80s. She would watch horror shows with her little kids in the room (they even took The Sister to see Poltergeist when she was eight, though she didn't want to go and it scarred her - I ended up watching it at a younger age). So, mainly I'd fall asleep on the couch. I remember waking up to the pig silhouette in the rocking chair and at one point the person putting their hand into the garbage disposal and it coming on. I also remember waking up at one point and this creepy hag lady is rushing down the hall towards you (the camera). This could be two separate times and two separate Amityville films, but they both happened around the same time (between ages 3/4 & 6/7) & I can't differentiate. 28. What was your first Halloween costume? A little shepherd boy, though I wanted to be a witch like my mom and sister. 29. What are you going to be for Halloween this year? If I can pull it off (& that's a BIG if) Aughra (from The Dark Crystal) - I've wanted to be her for forever. 30. If you could have a spooky halloween pet (black cat, owl, bat, rat, wolf), what would you pick? Can't I have a cat, a crow, AND a bat? (otherwise, I'll always choose cats).
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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