Scary stories that rely on the speaker making scary sounds

Cafe Society
1

As I was waking up this evening I had an old ghost story going through my head. This story used to give me nightmares as a kid, mainly because it involved a repetetive, scary sound, that the teller of the story would use over and over again to great effect.

Do you have any favorite gost/scary stories that employ this device? If so, share them here!

Here’s the story as best I can remember it (with a few of my own embellishments) in the spoiler box below:

One day when my friend James was walking to the store he swore he heard a sound off in the distance but couldn’t quite place it. It sounded sort of like…

tap…tap…shhhhhhhhhhhhh

Well he made it to the store to buy some milk and bread that his mom asked him to pick up. As he was walking back home he heard that same sound again!

tap…tap…shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

And as he walked home, when things were quiet and with every few steps he took, it got a little louder and little closer!

tap…tap…shhhhhh

Tap…Tap…SHhhhh

So evidently at about halfway home he starts getting legitimately creeped out because every time he stopped and turned around there was nothing there, and the sound would stop. But as he turned around and started walking again, he would hear it again!

TAP…TAP…SHHHH

He was close to home as the sound was getting really loud… and so he just lost it and broke into a full sprint. But even as he was running and the wind was rushing past his ears he kept hearing the sound, and it was getting faster and faster the faster he ran!

TAP…TAP…SHHTAP.TAP.SHH TAPTAPSH TAPTAPSH

Just as it seemed like the sound was going to catch right up to him, he burst through his front door and slammed it shut. He only realized after a few minutes of catching his breath that he had dropped the milk and bread at some point, but he said that no way in hell was he going back to look for it. When he was telling me about this story, I could tell it was no joke because he really did look like he was afraid for his life.

Well, I didn’t believe it at first but then I remembered a story that my grandpa told me when I was a little kid, way before James and his family moved into town and before we met…

You see, evidently, in the neighborhood I grew up, there was this old Vietnam vet who had lost both his hands and his legs in combat. He died probably about 15 years before I was born, and lived just a couple houses down from us. He used to like to sit out on his porch, and neighborhood kids would tease him about his hooks he had instead of hands, and make fun of him for having stumps instead of legs.

It was pretty bad; these kids were just rotten to the core and picked on this guy every single day he sat outside on his porch. Well, shortly after this old vet died, the kids started dying in gruesome deaths, my grandpa told me. He said that one day one of these kids would be out in the neighborhood by themselves, and then they’d be found dead, guts spilled everywhere as if something had slashed right through their bellies. The police never found any clues or any evidence, and all the deaths were cold cases!

Grandpa said that it was probably the old veteran getting his revenge. He said that in life, he couldn’t get around very well… what without having any legs or proper hands, he couldn’t even use a wheelchair very well. But in death, well this guy didn’t even NEED a wheelchair. He just dragged himself on the ground… reaching out each hook one and a time, digging into the ground, and then pulling himself forward.

So Grandpa told me to be nice to my elders, or else the “tap tap shhhhh” monster would get me. I remembered being really scared as a little kid when grandpa told me this story… but I had kind of forgotten it until James was talking to me about what happened to him on his way to the store. I asked him to make the sound he heard and James kept saying, “Tap, tap, shhhh…”

Well the shivers were running up me at that sound, and I told him everything my grandpa told me. I think he believed me because later he went and told his Mom about it. She didn’t believe a word of it though. In fact, she thought that James just made the whole thing up to get out of being in trouble for not bringing home any milk or bread from the store as asked. “I bet you just spent the money on something else, didn’t you!” He swore up and down and promised that he was telling the truth so she said, “fine I’ll give you one more chance. You can make it up to me by going to the store tomorrow and getting the milk and bread for REAL this time.”

James called me and told me about all this that night, told me what his mom said and how he begged her not to make him go. I told him I’d go with him. I can’t believe I forgot. I can’t believe he went by himself…

I can imagine what happened to him the following day. I bet as he was walking to the store he heard that sound, off in the distance

tap… tap… shhhhh…

And I bet as he got to the store, the sound got louder and louder.

Tap… Tap… Shhhh…

I bet he could hear that old vet dragging himself along the ground, faster and faster as he tried to speed up

Tap… Tap… Sh…[/spoiler] Tap. Tap. Sh. TapTapSh [spoiler]TAPTAPSH

I know he made it to the store. They found the bread and milk next to his body. He didn’t drop them this time.

I guess he probably felt safe at that point. Probably believed that he was going to make it home safely too. He was just going to cling to the milk and bread and run as fast as he could, I bet that’s exactly what he did. Too bad it wasn’t fast enough.

I guess the last thing he heard was that sound. That creepy tapping sound… tapping and dragging. Tap tap shhh…

tap…[/spoiler] Tap… [spoiler]SHHHHHHHHH…

I didn’t see it, but when they found his body evidently he had spelled something out in blood and intestines. A message for his mom. “I told you there was a taptapshhh…”

I’m telling you all this because I think I heard a sound the other day when I was walking home from the store… and it sounded a lot like

tap… tap… SSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

2

Huh, that’s a pretty good one. I haven’t got anything quite like that - not directly, anyway - but what it immediately brings to mind is Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart. Like I said, it doesn’t do the onomatopoeia as such, but the sound is described to some effect.

3

I wish I had a story to share, but I don’t. I have to tell you, though, that is one fantastic scary story! I can see how the right storyteller could leave lasting scars in the minds of his audience with that one.

4

Heh, that reminds me of the Japanese urban legend of Teke-Teke. The legend is that a girl got cut in half by a subway train*, and now her spirit is only the top half of her body, which carries a scythe. If you encounter her, she’ll quickly crawl towards you and cut you in half, mimicking her own death. Her name is “teke-teke” because that’s the onomatopoeic sound of a person crawling on their elbows (kind of like “tap tap tap tap tap tap”).

There is another story I’ve heard like yours, it was about an old man who lost his toe, and the noises were a distant (growing louder) “who took my toe?” ending with an abrupt “YOU HAVE IT!” But I can’t recall the whole thing.

  • One thing I’ve noticed about Japanese urban legends is that they’re not big on motivation for their ghosts. It’s not “kids laughed at them, so now they’re vengeful.” It tends to just be “Someone died somehow, may not have even been out of malice or particularly gruesome, now everyone is fucked equally because life is a cruel bitch. Sweet dreams!”
5

That was a good story. :slight_smile:

6

Haha thanks Jragon.

Now that you mention it, I think my grandpa told me a story about somebody taking their “golden toe” and did end it with a scary “YOU HAVE IT” which is giving me goosebumps! Hahaha. So thank you for reminding me of that.

The japanese teke-teke story sounds very creepy <_< Crawling on your ELBOWS… while carrying a scythe! Very scary!

7

Can’t think of any that are very scary, but it reminds me of one I told my kids, to great effect. I told them very seriously and at length about something that had happened to me years ago, how I’d been walking in the woods and met a rabid dog. It chased me and bit me on the neck and I almost died! Wanna see the scar? (as I lift up my hair and they lean in closer) GrrrrRAH RAH RAHR!

8

When I tell the story of “The Monkey’s Paw”, for the bit where the couple’s son has returned from the grave and is slowly approaching the house, I drag my feet along the ground, softly at first but louder as he approaches the house and the husband searches frantically for the paw.

For those who don’t know the story, in broad terms without filling in all the details: a fisherman meets a sailor, who tells the fisherman that he has a magic talisman, a mummified old monkey’s paw, that he obtained from a mysterious location overseas, which grants three wishes to whoever owns it. Hearing that, the fisherman happily takes the paw, as the sailor laughs, warning him to make his wishes carefully, for every wish has a consequence.

The man takes the paw home and tells the story to his wife, saying that they must think hard about what to wish for. His wife, not really believing the story, decides to test it, grabs the paw and says, “I wish for a thousand poundsAAAAAAHHHHHH!!” For at that moment, the paw twitches violently in her hand, and she drops it, instantly regretting taking it so lightly. That night, a man knocks on their door, telling them he is from the mill where their son works. There was a horrible accident, and their son was killed; in compensation, the mill has sent them a thousand pounds.

Naturally, the woman is horrified, and the grief-stricken couple buries their son. Weeks pass, as she blames herself for her son’s death with her careless wish, and though her husband argues that the paw is evil and can’t be trusted, she grabs the paw and makes another wish, “I wish our son were alive again!” The man knocks the paw from her hand, but too late, as the paw again twitches violently.

That pitch-black evening, far in the distance, they hear a sound. As it becomes clearer, they realize that the sound is slow, dragging footsteps, approaching their house. “It’s our son, coming back to us!” the woman cries. “Don’t you understand what you’ve done?!” the man says. “What’s returning is not our son, but a thing that has lain a month in the grave!” As the footsteps draw nearer and nearer, the man struggles to keep his wife away from the bolted door. Finally, desperately, he dives for the bed, reaching under it, searching for the monkey’s paw. His wife begins to unbolt the door. At last, as the footsteps reach the threshold and his wife draws the last lock, his fingers find the paw and close around it. “I WISH OUR SON WAS DEAD!!!”

The door bangs open, and he hears his wife let out a long, desperate cry…for there is nothing outside but wind and darkness.

9

Do you circle around behind your audience as you do so?

One of the most effective campfire ghost-story tellings I’ve seen didn’t really involve sound effects, but the guy told it from outside the circle around the fire, rather than from the middle. Even if you turned to watch him, he kept moving in and out of the flickering shadows, and your eyes never really adapted to the dark, because he was across the fire from you part of the time. If you didn’t turn, you spent half the time listening to a voice drifting from behind you, mingled with soft footsteps and the rustling of leaves–except when he paused for a moment behind someone.

10

Am I the only one who remembers “Guess what I do, with my bloody lips and finnnnnngers?”

11

Not quite the same thing, but if you were to read aloud A Child’s Nightmare by Robert Graves, you’d want to give some kind of emphasis to the sound of “Cat!..Cat!..Cat!..” Damn creepy little bit of poetry!