Scary Stories

Grossenschwamm · **Posted:** Fri Sep 09, 2011 2:18 pm **Post subject:**

As I neared the late Mr. Carson, I could hear his screams echo in my memory. The peculiar thing about him was, he was the only one in the office who's death I didn't deny. It wasn't just his screams...he was obviously no longer with us. He had a dull, grey, withered complexion. I checked the breast pocket of his button-down shirt, mainly because it didn't involve man-handling a corpse. No luck. I looked at his pants pockets and could clearly see the key, on top of his wallet. This was a good indicator that I'd have to move him to get at it. I hate snug pants now more than ever.

Jojobobo · **Posted:** Fri Sep 09, 2011 8:59 pm **Post subject:**

Rather than reach into his pocket and chance touching the dead man's - well that doesn't really bear thinking about - I held his corpse by the shoulders and shook him brusquely to the left hand side. It would seem fortune was with me, rather than drop further into his pocket which was the worst of the two outcomes the key toppled safely onto his green shag carpet. I snagged it from the floor and held it in front of my eyes for a few moments; what mysteries did this little silver object hold for me?

I guess I would have to venture to the bank soon, but not without searching the building for something with which I could build a better idea of what had transpired here. Maybe first I would check the office of Carson senior, and try to find the provenance of that dread smell.

Arthgon · **Posted:** Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:45 pm **Post subject:**

Cautiously I stepped into the office of Senior. The first thing that I noticed is that the room was slightly smaller than Junior, but no less luxurious. On the walls were paintings of alien landscapes that were unknown to me. In the middle of room stood a 18th century desk, made from stern oaken wood.

I could hear the wooden boards croak when I approached the desk. What is that smell? On the desk stood framed photos on the left and some files were scattered on the other side. I immediately saw that they were photos of Senior's family two sons and two daughters. One of them was my old friend.

Picking up the papers, I could see that it was about some legal purchasing of an old house that was in possession of my sister. It seems that it was the old house of my grand-grand parents. Strange. I did not know about this. While putting it in my pocket for further inspection, I walked to the other side of the desk to inspect the drawers.

Edit: Fixed

Arthgon · **Posted:** Wed Sep 14, 2011 11:43 am **Post subject:**

Yes. I am fully aware that this is a double post. Sorry about that, but where is everybody? Or is this rp already dead? I hope not, because it is getting interesting.

Grossenschwamm · **Posted:** Wed Sep 14, 2011 8:07 pm **Post subject:**

Well it took three days for you to post after mine and Jojobobo's. It's only been two so far. Still...
I opened up the drawers and found your standard office fare; notepads, a stapler, some white-out. Nothing too interesting.
I heard the old wooden floor creak, signalling the entrance of a guest. I didn't want to look, but had to, if only to say I was hearing things.
It was my sister, in her hospital gown.
"Sis, I...everyone's dead! You're dead!"
"Not safe...Leave...find the book!"
She disappeared before my eyes.
I started noticing a powerful headache. It made moving difficult. It must've had something to do with that horrible smell.
The building itself seemed to be weakening due to the otherworldly nature of the smell; the walls were crumbling as I looked at them. I got out of the building as fast as I could, both to escape the smell and to keep from getting crushed under a building's worth of rubble.

Jojobobo · **Posted:** Thu Sep 15, 2011 5:49 pm **Post subject:**

The building cascaded to the ground; a mess of broken glass, brick dust and rubble. Whatever had been causing the smell had been swallowed by the building - now that I was out in the fresh air and away from its malign influence my head had become clear. I had to decide what to do next.

I patted down my pockets and retrieved the key, the will and documents pertaining to the purchase of my great grandparents house. No option felt safe, either retrieving the portentous book or visiting the house that my sister had been interested in. Why had she not mentioned it before? What could she have been hiding from me, or protecting me from?
And what of the phantoms I had seen? I sensed no ill will from that of my sister, but certainly my own double had meant me harm. Could I even trust what I had seen was the spirit of my sister, and not just the same thing I had seen entering the building which had now succeeded in tricking me? In any case my sister had left the book to me, even if that spirit had not been her she had meant for me to have the tome.

With that train of thought concluded I had won myself round: I would go next to the States Bank and see what this book had in store for me. With any luck it would also shed some light into the business of the house too.

Arthgon · **Posted:** Thu Sep 15, 2011 9:11 pm **Post subject:**

While I tried to wipe off the dust from my clothes with my hand, I held a taxi to go to the next location...The States Bank. The driver looked surprised when he saw me covered in dust, but luckily he let me in. Some few minutes later, we arrived at the desired destination. I paid the driver and entered the white building. There were not many customers, so I was able to ask a clerk about the safe of my sister. “Do you have the appropriate key in your possession?” he asked me. After I gave him the key, he came back later with a metal box.

Its content consisted of some letters, a worn-out diary and... The book. Immediately I saw that it was an ancient tome. Pitch black and bound in human skin. Alarmed, I took everything before that everyone could see it.

Jojobobo · **Posted:** Fri Sep 16, 2011 12:30 am **Post subject:**

In response to both of you really, I'm game for finishing the story if both of you are? After it's finished I wouldn't mind starting another either, I find distractions from life like this welcome and fun - but if you're not in for it that's cool to.

In hindsight I should have waited - I should have got home and in my private seclusion looked upon the tome. Curiosity however overcame me, and before I had even left the foyer of the bank I took a glimpse.

The book, howling, delivered its message direct to my skull. The headache, that smell, the thing that was myself and not myself being there - they all came to me; not so much a conscious awareness of them being present, but a sensation that seized my body and violated my being. My sight, before I had been overcome, showed me the "language" of the book. It was like nothing I had ever seen, mad pictograms and alien scribbles, nothing a human mind should have to confront if it were to retain a semblance of its former self.

I screamed, how could I do anything but? Paranoia gripped me, everyones' eyes felt searing as they glanced at the mad man in their midst. "Time is running out" - what an understatement. Something big was coming - something other to what people can normally comprehend. I would have to look at my sister's diary and letters, but in my gut I felt sure my great grandparent's house would somehow be pivotal to this whole mess. I slammed the book shut, nothing could make me look upon it further.

Grossenschwamm · **Posted:** Fri Sep 16, 2011 1:10 am **Post subject:**

I regained just enough composure at the moment to register a bank teller reaching under her desk, and then calmly returning to her work at hand.
Police.
I had to get out of there. I had caused quite the scene, and while I understood the reason she triggered the silent alarm, I also didn't feel like I'd be in any position to stop what was coming if I was in a holding cell. I quickly exited the bank and ran a few blocks, then hailed another cab to my grandparent's house.
When got there, I realized I didn't have a key. That was hardly an issue, however. The driveway up to the house was nearly a mile long, and it was the only house at the end of the cul de sac where I was dropped off. It was the product of old money. Still, despite my respect for my grandparents and the architecture of the building, I broke a window and suddenly found myself inside. The furniture was still here, though covered in years of dust. I wiped off a chair and decided to leaf through my sister's diary, hoping to find some more clues. It started out normally enough, your average "I'll write in you every day" thing. She found the book about a week before she noticed she was sick, and things began to change. Fevered predictions of a horrible future, torturous nightmares, and bizarre hallucinations. Her last entries were strangely directed clues, all within the few days before she was put into hospice care. They were written as if she knew I'd eventually read her diary. Every day was a new direction;
"Once you have the book, you'll end up at our family home...You need to take precautions while there to prevent personal injury and madness.
Only read it by candle light, in a room with no mirrors or windows. I found out reading it for too long will cause tremors that violently shatter the glass around you. You must keep reading.
It will put images into your head to prevent comprehension, to confuse you. I don't understand most of it anyway, but I'm hoping, for reality's sake, that you will."
I took a few candles from the dining room and headed into a large closet. I was apprehensive, due to the startling clarity with which the last entries were made, in comparison to the months of madness that came before it. Did she really write this? Then I remembered the look in her eyes as she spoke to me, on her deathbed. It must've been her. She warned me then, she's preparing me now.

Jojobobo · **Posted:** Fri Sep 16, 2011 2:07 am **Post subject:**

I scanned the first few pages in the closet - that sense that something was coming, and all the subsequent other feelings came back; though at least as my sister had informed me this time they were weaker - a headache dully throbbed in my temples but not as violently as in the bank.

I skipped ahead, past the things that made me so deeply unsettled, to something that was more coherent to my mind. A mechanism, made of bronze and now aged with verdigris, was buried deep underground. Cogs, gears and peculiar clockwork - I had no idea of what it all meant but the images in that strange language came to the fore front of my mind. Whether this device had to be disabled or enabled to prevent whatever it was from coming remained to be seen, but regardless I knew I must find it. I rubbed my eyes and my temples, snuffed out the candle flame, and exited the closet - if I required more knowledge from the book I would open it again later but for now my weary mind would not take anymore.

Arthgon · **Posted:** Fri Sep 16, 2011 5:28 pm **Post subject:**

It was already very late in the night when I began to look for a place to rest to regain some of my sanity and rest. With one of the candles with me, I walked the stairs very careful. When I came upstairs, I opened all the doors. One door leads me to the bedroom of my Grand-grand parents. The bedroom was in a typical Victorian style. Like most of the rooms in this house. I placed the candle on the nightstand and went into the bed. Afterwards I blow the candle out and fell in sleep.

Grossenschwamm · **Posted:** Tue Sep 20, 2011 4:47 am **Post subject:**

Sleep was peculiar, in a word. My dreams were somewhat troubling, but I would expect that after what I've been through. If the scenery didn't seem out of place, some of the people I interacted with had strange insight to my conscious predicament.
I remember walking down Main Street, but the cars were all neon colors and had retro-futuristic designs, as if the concept of a car to be made in 2010 was conceived in the late 30's.
I had errands to run, and stopped into the bank. I asked the teller for an account statement to review all of the past month's transactions and make sure I had a balanced checkbook.
"He's watching you. Well, if you can call him a 'he.'"
The balance said one thing, several times over.
TIME IS RUNNING OUT
I looked at my watch, and the bank statement was right! It was 80 past the square root of two, and I hadn't yet been to the grocery store.
As I left, the teller called out to me, saying "You mustn't know, for no one can save you from what you learn!"
I narrowly escaped some dangerous inebriant-addled schoolchildren, armed with algebra flash-cards and sour cream. They sang an interesting playground rhyme, something like
"He's gonna get you and rend your soul,
a heart as black as anthracite coal.
Don't try to fight, for he knows what you fear,
kill them all in less than one year!"
I lost them by running through traffic, between the past-future cars, all the while the drivers screaming at me, "You're not the first to try, but you'll still fail like the rest!"
"He may have mercy if you give up now!"

Arthgon · **Posted:** Sat Sep 24, 2011 11:35 pm **Post subject:**

While I was trying to figure out the underlaying meaning of this peculiar dream I began to hear strange noises. What could it possible be? I climbed out of bed, took the candle of the nightstand and lit it. The noises became clearer when I walked down the stairs and went to the left of the house. There was a wooden stairs leading to the cellar.

Jojobobo · **Posted:** Sun Sep 25, 2011 1:43 am **Post subject:**

I turned on my torch but in moments its dim light winked out. "Damn batteries" I thought to myself, "good thing I smoke." I patted down my pockets and found a book of matches. I took them out of my pocket, the book was light blue with black 1930's style writing, under the faint moonlight I read "Shiela's Super Future Diner! TIME IS RUNNING OUT". Instantly I dropped the book - had that dream been in anyway real, what was real anymore?

I had to pull myself together. I picked the book up and struck a match. I held its soft light tentatively between my fingertips.

I started to walk down the cellar stairs. Cobwebs adorned every cross beam, hardly anyone must had been down here in what looked like a over century. My heart began beating heavily as I noticed suddenly, insidiously, that smell had crept into my nostrils. I swallowed hard, trying to keep my fear in check, and ventured further down.

After a flight of about 30 steps - the cellar was much deeper than it ought to be - I reached the bottom. My match went out so hastily I struck up another. It appeared that something had been digging; there was a hole roughly 3 feet in depth in one of the corners though at it's bottom was only more dirt - evidently whatever had been looking for something had not yet found it. Upon closer inspection I looked at the edges of the hole to see what tool had been employed in the excavtion; to my horror I noticed only claw marks.

Suddenly I became aware of something coming up behind. The smell intensified and accompanying it my headache came back with avengance. Before I could turn around and apprehend what was shadowing me, I felt hot flame meet my fingertips. My match had burnt out.

Grossenschwamm · **Posted:** Sun Sep 25, 2011 2:37 am **Post subject:**

I froze. I could sense whatever it was getting closer, and soon I could feel its breath disturb my hair.
My hands trembled, and I reached back into my pocket for the vintage box of matches. As I turned to face my insidious shadow, I struck another match.
To this day, I can't accurately describe what it was that I saw, despite knowing full well what it was; it took forms that were most practical in either what it had to do or what it must say. It took several forms within the life of the match; myself, my sister, Carson Jr., and a clawed beast. The human forms were unnerving, while the beast could easily have been some large animal unknown to modern science. It remained as the beast, as it seemed to sense my apprehension of its other forms.
The inside of my nostrils burned from the smell. It was as if I had been given smelling salts, if that odor could be combined with the unmistakeable smell of decay and, oddly enough, butternut squash.
An alien thought entered my mind as I caught eyes with the beast.
YOU KNOW SO MUCH, AND YET SO LITTLE. WHAT DO YOU DESIRE, LITTLE THING?
The headache increased in severity. "I...I want my sister's last wishes to be fulfilled. I want to know how to stop what's coming."
The beast appeared to smile by bearing its many teeth in a way similar to a dog, and let out what I'm guessing was a laugh.
ONE CANNOT STOP THE ARRIVAL OF WHAT IS ALREADY HERE...IT EXISTS IN THE THOUGHTS OF MANY.
"Though it doesn't yet physically exist. What are you to this thing? Why are you here?"
I AM AT WORST AN OBSERVER, AT BEST A GUIDE, AND DEATH TO ALL BUT ONE. ONLY ONE SHALL SURVIVE MY PRESENCE, THE REST SHALL DIE. I HAVE GUIDED MANY, AND OBSERVED MANY MORE, TO FIND THE ONE WHO COULD READ THE BOOK AND STOP WHAT IS COMING. YOU HAVE COME CLOSEST, BUT TIME IS RUNNING OUT. THE SLEEP OF YOUR PEOPLE WASTES TOO MUCH TIME, THAT IS WHY I DIG.

Arthgon · **Posted:** Thu Oct 06, 2011 8:30 pm **Post subject:**

Sorry that it took so long to update. I had some technical difficulties with my computer and vacation.

BEWARE, FOR THE TIME IS AT HAND. He said. Before I could ask, "What should I do?" was the beast already gone. While a strong wind blew out my match, I heard something strange in the direction of the hole. What could it be?

I struck another match and began to walk towards the hole to find out what the source of the sound was. The hole was broad and very steep. As I looked down, I saw something at the bottom. By using a rope, which was lying in a cupboard I climbed down.

The ground was wet and strangely enough, it was gray. After awhile I found what I was looking for. It was an old amulet of an evil-looking hound.

Edit: Fixed the grammar and story-wise.

Scary Stories

Who is online