For some odd reason, when I was a kid I was scared to death of bats. I had to sleep with the light on until I was around 11 years old( Because bats hate the light don’t you know?).
After I’d gotten over that I’ve always loved to have my bed parallel to a wall so I could dangle my arm or leg next to th-Ke wall and feel the cold. The only thing that still creeps me out is open windows. I don’t mean that the window is open and there’s a breeze…heck I could care less about that. I mean looking out a curtainless, blindless window at night and seeing someone(or something) staring back at me. Jeebus!
-K
I find it creepy to walk in the dark. So before turn out the light, I scan my path to the bed very carefully. I’m worried that I’ll feel something brush against my ankles. Ecchhh!
Ever since I learned that vampires don’t reflect in mirrors, I’ve been slightly worried about looking into a mirror and not seeing myself. It has nothing to do with vampires, it’s just that the idea of not seeing myself in a mirror is so freaking creepy! :eek:
When I was a kid I wasn’t worried about monsters under the bed or the hatchet man. I had to stay wrapped completely up in sheets except for my head because vampires might bite my neck. Now that I am an adult I no longer worry about vampires, but if I let a limb dangle my lunatic former alley-cat will attack it. He occasionally will go after my feet even under the covers if they move. And if I shut him out of the bedroom, he scratches at the door until he gets it open or gets let in.
I used to believe that there was a Neanderthal man (literally- I mean an individual of the species Homo Sapiens Neanderthalis) who would wait outside my window until I climbed up the ladder to my loft bed. Then, he would show his face, and I would be momentarily startled. I was scared of being momentarily startled, for some strange reason.
I don’t recall ever being afraid of anything under the bed, but I was (even in my teens!) scared of walking by my mother’s Blazer in the dark. There was enough room under there for a murderer to hid under there :dubious:
And when I was really young I was terrified of the stuffed clown (Jack, as in Jack in the Box is 3’ from head to toes) that was made for me when I was born. You’ve seen Poltergeist, right? Jack wanted me dead, I was sure of it. And killer clowns only strike at night, when you’re all alone… I used to tie him up and throw him in the closet. Now I’m pretty sure it had to do with extreme stress- since we were caring for my dying great-grandmother at the time and alzheimer’s is a hard disease to deal with- but I revisited the fear of Jack when I was in my late teens because I thought I saw him move in my peripheral vision one night, and after that couldn’t sleep unless he was locked in the closet down stairs. I’m not scared of him now. mostly. Although, I keep him because I have a bad feeling about throwing him away… Remember folks, it’s hard for killer clowns to get you while you sleep if you take the proper precautions.
It makes me feel better to pretend everyone is as neurotic as I am.
The Hatchet Man doesn’t live under the bed. He lives in the bathroom, ready to get you as you take a shower when nobody else is home. His close friend in the bathroom is Rotting Old Crone, who bides her time in the bathtub, lying there when the curtain is drawn, only to lure you to her rotting carcass when you see the faint fluttering of the shower curtain and you can’t help but checking to see why it’s moving when there is no breeze.
The Giant Meat Hook Man lives under the bed. He’s the one who is going to impale your ankle on his giant bloody meat hook if you should be so stupid as to leisurely saunter into bed after turning out the overhead light. You can avoid this by taking a flying leap into the middle of the bed. However, if you should happen to foolishly dangle your ankle over the edge, Giant Meat Hook Man will reach up and close his giant meat hook around your defenseless ankle and pull you underneath, never to be seen again.
Giant Meat Hook Man’s buddy under the bed is Big Sharp Knife Man. BSKM has a long sharp serrated knife ready to plunge upward through the mattress and disembowel you. This is why you have to be careful when sleeping on your stomach.
Then there’s the Vampire in the Closet, who is waiting for the sheets to fall away from your neck so that he can drink your blood. When he’s got a day off, the Werewolf takes his place.
Hmmf! Should the Hatchet Man attempt to attack me as I shower, he will be stunned into immobility by the sight of me naked.
I keep the curtain open to prevent the mold from spreading. I doubt even Rotting Old Crone, could abide the presence of Funky Orange Mold That Will Not Die.
Between all the stuff I stored under my bed, and the fact that there’s only a space of 5 inches or so between the bottom of the box spring and the floor, there’s barely room for a giant meathook let alone a man to wield it.
Clearly, you know nothing about knives. You’d need one heck of a knife to stab through a matress. A knife long enough to stab through mattress, and box spring would be too long to position vertically underneath a bed. Disembowelling through a mattress is darn near impossible. The amount of physical strength needed, and the strong blade required, to carve through both flesh, mattress and box spring would be incredible.
Besides Missbunny what you should really worry about is your shadow- how when you sleep it tries to gather enough strength to finally crawl inside your skin and switch places with you- to make you the silent puppet whose desperate screams no one can hear.
I never had a Hatchet Man/Dangling Limb fear as a child. For as long as I can remember, I’ve used the one-leg-out temperature equalizing method, and if my foot happened to dangle off the bed, so be it. I usually had so much crap underneath my bed that I was supremely confident nothing could get to me. I also had my big brother across the hall–he may have been a monster in his own right during the daytime, but I was pretty sure that if I screamed in the night, he would come save me.
I’ve been living alone for a few years now, and fears I thought I should have outgrown come bubbling up to the surface on occasion. I cannot close the shower curtain unless I’m actually in the shower. Anything could hide in there. Yet strangely, I feel just fine taking a shower with the bathroom door wide open.
But I still have the Guy-In-The-Backseat fear. Can’t get over it. I check the backseat before I get into the car at night, and if someone flashes their high beams at me on a dark road, I have to spend the next ten minutes reassuring myself that there’s no way anyone could have gotten into the backseat while the car was in motion. Then I spend another ten minutes trying to remember if I’d checked the trunk.
There was a story I read, oh . . . . a goodly number of years ago, about two interplanetary problem solvers. They had been friends since age 2 or so. They were sent to investigate the loss of communications from some far off and newly populated planet.
When they landed they found everyone was dead. Looking around it was obvious that they had all gone crazy and attacked each other but a large number were killed by something on a planet that had no life.
Further investigation, and some very odd things that happened to them, lead them to the conclusion that something in the air made your wildest imaginings and fears come to actual life.
They jumped back in their ship and took off only to discover that some of the plane’t air had got in the ship and infected them. But they only had to survive for two or three hours and the ship’s air would be cleaned up.
Their monster (which took physical shape on their rocket shortly after take off) took the form of an, “under the bed thingie,” that they had invented at age 6. It was the perfect monster. Totally bloodthirsty and immune to any pleas or begging. No weapon could harm it No door could seal tight enough to keep it out.
Even though the effect would die out shortly they appeared doomed as it wasn’t possible to hide on the small ship for the necessary time.
But then . . . . our heros remembered the only defense.
No “under the bed thingie.” can hurt you if you stay totally under the covers.
DocCathode, all your “explanations” of how certain things the Hatchet Man and the Knife Man and the Meat Hook Man do are impossible are, of course, meaningless. You obviously are not aware of their supernatural powers. OF COURSE Big Sharp Knife Man has a knife that can easily slice through a box spring, mattress, and then plunge into your pale soft belly - he’s Big Sharp Knife Man, for heaven’s sake! Giant Meat Hook Man doesn’t need a spacious abode under your bed - he can easily squish into any available space, no matter how small, and his giant meat hook is at the end of an arm that has no problem reaching over, up, and into your ankle. It doesn’t matter if such an arm would have to be five feet long on a person - he’s NOT a person, he’s a evil meat-hook-welding demon who is cackling in glee at the thought of imprisoning you under the bed so he can carve out your innards with his hook.
And Rotting Old Crone looooves funky orange mold. How do you think she got rotted in the first place???
There’s no place for logic in the world of scary monsters. You’ll see, later on tonight, unless you manage to keep your unwashed ankles and neck covered up.
I’ll concede the points on Meat Hook Man and Big Sharp Knife Man. But, you haven’t seen my shower. This isn’t simply ‘funk orange mold’ it is The Funky Orange Mold That Will Not Die. Tilex? Ha! Bleach? Ha! Comet? Ha? Visiting relatives for two months and thus not using my shower and depriving it of water? It just got bigger.
Besides, as I’ve already said- I don’t fear these things. They fear me. What does darkness matter to a bat? When a creature can hear a moth in the next room flap its wings, how do you catch it unaware? What does a being with a human-sized larynx capable of ultrasonic shouts have to fear from a werewolf? Vampires? The vampire bats of the Americas have razor sharp fangs, saliva that acts as an anticoagulant, and aren’t repelled by garlic or religious symbols, nor harmed by sunlight. (This has gotten them an undeserved bad reputation, and they feed on cattle, horses etc rather than humans. They also slice the skin open and lick blood off as it surfaces, rather than chomping in and sucking.) However, a roughly six foot tall member of Homo Chiroptera is more than a match for any closet dwelling vamp.
