Violet Crown Posted October 30, 2019 Share Posted October 30, 2019 (edited) Please contribute the scariest, spookiest, creepiest, or weirdest excerpt from something you've encountered in your own reading. Multiple entries acceptable. Please precede violent, explicit, or otherwise disturbing material with appropriate cautions. Style points for excerpts from sources not generally regarded as spooky. (caution: mild violence) ---------------------- These Indians, and the ones we encountered before, told us a very strange thing which they reckoned had happened about fifteen or sixteen years earlier. They said that a man whom they called "Evil Thing" wandered that land. He had a small body and a beard, but they never were able to see his face. When he came to the house where they were, their hair stood on end and they trembled. Then there appeared at the entrance to the house a burning firebrand. Then he entered and took whomever he wanted and stabbed him three times in the side with a very sharp flint, as wide as a hand and two palms long. He would stick his hands in through the wounds and pull out their guts, and cut a piece of gut about a palm in length, which he would throw onto the embers. Then he would cut his victim three times in the arm, the second cut at the spot where people are bled. He would pull the arm out of its socket and shortly thereafter reset it. Finally he would place his hands on the wounds which they said suddenly healed. They told us that he often appeared among them when they were dancing, sometimes dressed as a woman and other times as a man. Whenever he wanted, he would take a buhio or a dwelling and lift it high. After a while he would let it drop with a great blow. They also told us that they offered him food many times but he never ate. They asked him where he came from and where he lived; he showed them an opening in the ground and said that his house was there below. We laughed a lot and made fun of these things that they told us. When they saw that we did not believe them, they brought many of the people who claimed he had taken them and showed us the marks of the stabbings in those places, just as they had said. --from Cabeza de Vaca, Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition Edited October 30, 2019 by Violet Crown formatting 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted October 30, 2019 Author Share Posted October 30, 2019 The Celestial Stag We know absolutely nothing about the appearance of the Celestial Stag (maybe because nobody has ever had a good look at one), but we do know that these tragic animals live underground in mines and desire nothing more than to reach the light of day. They have the power of speech and implore the miners to help them to the surface. At first, a Celestial Stag attempts to bribe the workmen with the promise of revealing hidden veins of silver and gold; when this gambit fails, the beast becomes troublesome and the miners are forced to overpower it and wall it up in one of the mine galleries. It is also rumored that miners outnumbered by the Stags have been tortured to death. Legend has it that if the Celestial Stag fids its way into the open air, it becomes a foul-smelling liquid that can breed death and pestilence. --from Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MercyA Posted October 30, 2019 Share Posted October 30, 2019 Fun! 🍿 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MercyA Posted October 30, 2019 Share Posted October 30, 2019 This is supposed to be creepy, obviously, but it terrified me when I was little! We had a wonderful children's librarian who would read it at her Halloween parties at the library in the 70's. She'd pull out the same familiar books every year and read them with a flashlight in the dark. Shiver. Then, we had donuts with orange frosting and sprinkles. What could be better? 🙂 Little Orphant Annie James Whitcomb Riley - 1849-1916 Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay, An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away, An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep, An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep; An' all us other childern, when the supper things is done, We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about, An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you Ef you Don't Watch Out! Onc't they was a little boy wouldn't say his prayers,-- So when he went to bed at night, away up stairs, His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl, An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wasn't there at all! An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press, An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'wheres, I guess; But all they ever found was thist his pants an' roundabout-- An' the Gobble-uns'll git you Ef you Don't Watch Out! An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin, An' make fun of ever'one, an' all her blood an' kin; An' onc't, when they was "company," an' ole folks was there, She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care! An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide, They was two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side, An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about! An' the Gobble-uns'll git you Ef you Don't Watch Out! An' little Orphant Annie says when the blaze is blue, An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo! An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray, An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,-- You better mind yer parents, an' yer teachers fond an' dear, An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear, An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about, Er the Gobble-uns'll git you Ef you Don't Watch Out! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted October 30, 2019 Author Share Posted October 30, 2019 I've been reading Symbolist and Decadent writings this year, and ran across this Paul Verlaine poem. Translation is by Lloyd Alexander; original below. Sentimental Conversation In a lonely, frozen park, Two phantoms wander by. Their mouths are slack, their eyes are dead, Their words are barely heard. In a lonely, frozen park, Two shadows whisper of the past. "Love, do you remember our old ecstasy?" "Why should I?" "Does your heart leap when you hear my name? In dreams do you still see my soul?" "No." "What gallant days, what bliss behond words, Lips joined to lips." "Perhaps." "How blue the sky, how bright our hope was then." "Hope, in defeat, has fled. The sky is black." Night alone hears them as they stroll Through the wild oats. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Colloque sentimental Dans le vieux parc solitaire et glacé Deux formes ont tout à l'heure passé. Leurs yeux sont morts et leurs lèvres sont molles, Et l'on entend à peine leurs paroles. Dans le vieux parc solitaire et glacé Deux spectres ont évoqué le passé. - Te souvient-il de notre extase ancienne? - Pourquoi voulez-vous donc qu'il m'en souvienne? - Ton coeur bat-il toujours à mon seul nom? Toujours vois-tu mon âme en rêve? - Non. Ah ! les beaux jours de bonheur indicible Où nous joignions nos bouches ! - C'est possible. - Qu'il était bleu, le ciel, et grand, l'espoir ! - L'espoir a fui, vaincu, vers le ciel noir. Tels ils marchaient dans les avoines folles, Et la nuit seule entendit leurs paroles. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted October 30, 2019 Author Share Posted October 30, 2019 1 hour ago, MercyA said: This is supposed to be creepy, obviously, but it terrified me when I was little! We had a wonderful children's librarian who would read it at her Halloween parties at the library in the 70's. She'd pull out the same familiar books every year and read them with a flashlight in the dark. Shiver. Then, we had donuts with orange frosting and sprinkles. What could be better? Nice contribution. I was permanently scarred by hearing Poe's "The Black Cat" read aloud by a counselor on an overnight camp at a tender age. Ever since then I've loved literature and kept a cat.... 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin M Posted October 30, 2019 Share Posted October 30, 2019 @Violet CrownFun thread. I'll see what I can come up with. @MercyA Love, love, love Little Orphant Annie. It is our family's favorite. Each of my three sisters and I memorized it to recite in class during our Junior high school days. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted October 31, 2019 Share Posted October 31, 2019 Caution: scary and creepy “Once there was a tree, and she loved a little boy.”― Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree Regards, Kareni 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MercyA Posted October 31, 2019 Share Posted October 31, 2019 @Kareni, scary and creepy is right! Here's another disturbing one: "That teenager grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was a grown-up man. He left home and got a house across town. But sometimes on dark nights the mother got into her car and drove across town. If all the lights in her son's house were out, she opened his bedroom window, crawled across the floor, and looked up over the side of his bed. If that great big man was really asleep she picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth." ~I'll Love You Forever by Robert Munsch 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted October 31, 2019 Author Share Posted October 31, 2019 (edited) Into these dreams only it was, with one or two slight exceptions, that any circumstances of physical horror entered. All before had been moral and spiritual terrors. But here the main agents were ugly birds, or snakes, or crocodiles; especially the last. The cursed crocodile became to me the object of more horror than almost all the rest. I was compelled to live with him, and (as was always the case almost in my dreams) for centuries. I escaped sometimes, and found myself in Chinese houses, with cane tables, &c. All the feet of the tables, sofas, &c., soon became instinct with life: the abominable head of the crocodile, and his leering eyes, looked out at me, multiplied into a thousand repetitions; and I stood loathing and fascinated. And so often did this hideous reptile haunt my dreams that many times the very same dream was broken up in the very same way: I heard gentle voices speaking to me (I hear everything when I am sleeping), and instantly I awoke. It was broad noon, and my children were standing, hand in hand, at my bedside—come to show me their coloured shoes, or new frocks, or to let me see them dressed for going out. I protest that so awful was the transition from the damned crocodile, and the other unutterable monsters and abortions of my dreams, to the sight of innocent human natures and of infancy, that in the mighty and sudden revulsion of mind I wept, and could not forbear it, as I kissed their faces. --from Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater [ETA: One might almost suspect De Quincey of having ambivalent feelings about fatherhood] Edited October 31, 2019 by Violet Crown 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emba Posted October 31, 2019 Share Posted October 31, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, MercyA said: @Kareni, scary and creepy is right! Here's another disturbing one: "That teenager grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was a grown-up man. He left home and got a house across town. But sometimes on dark nights the mother got into her car and drove across town. If all the lights in her son's house were out, she opened his bedroom window, crawled across the floor, and looked up over the side of his bed. If that great big man was really asleep she picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth." ~I'll Love You Forever by Robert Munsch Someone gave us this book, because she loved reading it with her kids, but I always thought it was creepy too (and the picture of the mom driving across town with a ladder on top of her car, prepared to break and enter the home of her adult child, if I remember right) Edited October 31, 2019 by emba56 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MercyA Posted October 31, 2019 Share Posted October 31, 2019 1 minute ago, emba56 said: Someone gave us this book, because she loved reading it with her kids, but I always thought it was creepy too (and the picture of the mom driving across town with a ladder on top of her car, prepared to break and enter the home of her adult child, if I remember right) I always feel a *tiny* bit bad when I mock it, because my MIL loves it so, but I find it to be unbelievably creepy! And the scene of her crawling across the floor towards her teenage son as he sleeps--no! Just no. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted October 31, 2019 Author Share Posted October 31, 2019 45 minutes ago, MercyA said: And the scene of her crawling across the floor towards her teenage son as he sleeps--no! Just no. I think I saw that movie--doesn't she crawl out of the tv set, with her long hair in front of her face? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MercyA Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 So, coincidentally, I found myself driving on the James Whitcomb Riley Memorial Highway today! It got me thinking--do I just know him because he's an Indiana poet, or is he well known outside of Indiana as well? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted November 1, 2019 Author Share Posted November 1, 2019 1 hour ago, MercyA said: So, coincidentally, I found myself driving on the James Whitcomb Riley Memorial Highway today! It got me thinking--do I just know him because he's an Indiana poet, or is he well known outside of Indiana as well? No, I think he was well known everywhere, at least when he was well known. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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