tales from the darkside

okay...

really busy, but wanted to post something so as to keep up with the swiftly crumbling schedule of three times a week (i'll get it back, really!) working days with my pal, jeff, we have a lot of fun and talk a lot. the other day he mentioned that he had seen a 2 hour block of old "tales from the darkside" episodes on scifi. man, i used to love that show and remember the opening being one of the creepiest parts about it; the dark, foreboding landscape being twisted into a negative of itself, the chilling music, that guy's freaky voice...
i think they're all on dvd. i'll hafta check.

anyway, reminded me of the two stories that follow, both, again, from paranormal at about.com.
neither one of them really well written, but they are stories well-told as they conjure up vivid images and convey some very unsettling sensations.


Something Under the Bed_by Wil
"I thought I was going crazy. After so many years, I found, or should say read, that someone else had been visited. I think I was about 9 or 10 when I was first visited. To give some background to this story, I was living in Oklahoma and was sharing a bedroom with my younger sister. I had stayed up late, it being a Friday and no school. My father told me to make sure that when I went to bed to turn out all the lights. My sister was already in the room asleep. I, being like any other kid back then, turned on all the lights in the rest of the house and made my way through turning lights out. I got upstairs and turned to make sure I hadn't left any on.
I headed to the room and climbed in bed. It might have been maybe 10 to 15 minutes later that I felt something grab my foot from under my bed! The beds were the old wooden bunk beds that had been taken down and butted up together. Just thinking about it still sends shivers through my body. My sister and I had a habit of sleeping like the other. One foot and one arm off the beds. That is when I felt something from under my bed grab my foot and ankle and start pulling me under. I had grabbed the side of my bed for I was halfway under it before I was able to scream for my father to come. I remember never feeling the floor under the bed.
When my dad came into the room, he grabbed me and started pulling me back toward him.... with very little success for the effort, but with the next effort he placed his arms under mine and wrapped his around my chest and pulled really hard and I seemed to fly out from under the bed. My father, to this day, still doesn't want to talk about it, or if he does he just says it was all a bad dream that I was having. But I know and even then knew better."


Sinister Being_by Paul D.
"It was when I was about nine. I slept in the big double bed with my mum for a couple of years after my dad died. He didn't die in the house; he had a heart attack and passed away in hospital. One night I was sleeping and all I remember is that I was suddenly standing looking out the window of my mum's bedroom, holding the blinds open and looking out over the garden and the street. The house is directly on a corner, and on the road running perpendicular and away from ours I saw someone walking up toward our street.
All I really remember is that this "person" walked two blocks in about two seconds, he flashed forward as if he were in fast forward, and then suddenly appeared directly in front of me in the garden. He didn't jump the wall or anything, he just flickered and disappeared from the corner and appeared in the garden. I don't remember anything about his face, but I remember that he had a really sinister looking smile.
The person I was looking at seemed to be male and average height and weight. As soon as he appeared in the garden, he started appearing in three different spots in the garden, spaced evenly like the points an equilateral triangle. Every time he appeared at the next point of the triangle he would physically look the same, the same evil grin on his face, but the clothes he was wearing would change.
I just remember feeling really scared and I could not take my eyes off of him. My mum called out to me to ask why I was looking out the window and I looked at her, then back out the window and he was gone. I've never really experienced anything as freaky or seemingly concrete to me since then. I don't know if there is a possibility I was maybe sleepwalking and my mum speaking to me just woke me up. Those are the only strange stories I can recall."


of course, either or both of them could easily be waved away as dreams. or half-dreams--those nightmares you start having before you even fall asleep. they are both in bed, asleep at the onset, and one even claims to be a sleepwalker.
i was a sleepwalker--or am. i think it's like alchoholism, you're never, ever cured of it. i used to walk a lot as a kid and well into my twenties. my mom or my roommates would find me in the weirdest places. when i was 8 my mom watched me get dressed and head down the street for school--at 2 in the morning. when i was about 22 my roommate and his girlfriend looked out the window to see me walking across the snow-covered field next to our house in the moonlight. i would often wake up to find pine needles and grass in my bed and my feet dirty and not remember a thing about it.

well, that's not true. the next day i would sometimes remember what i saw or where i woke up (or sorta woke up), staring at a wall or the shed in the backyard. i remember waking up one night laying across our washer and dryer down in the laundry room, my dog, gretchen, having folllowed me and laying at my feet watching me. she musta thought i was doing something weird. and, yes, once my roommate followed me out to my car, in the dead of night, middle of winter, keys in hand, going to...? work, i guess...? who knows.

but i do think that there's a darkside. a place you can get to only when you're falling asleep. certain things you can see only when your mind is in just the right state. you have to be just on the edge to get there. but i bet you've seen some things there. no?
i bet you will.

more tomorrow.
if all goes well.


smell ya later~
todd