Things That Almost Scared The Pee-widdle Out Of You

In My Humble Opinion
41

When I was very young I was watching a scary movie. It was very well crafted piece of cinema that made you use your imagination for the scary part. Anyway, I jumped out of the chair and was treated to a large black dog who coincidentally was rudely awakened by the weight of a small child landing on him. All I saw out of the corner of my eye was a large black beast emiting a shriek I’ve never heard from an animal.

Recently I’ve been in my buddy’s twin engine aircraft when he lost an engine on takeoff. Under these conditions the plane wants to bank in the direction of the failing engine which makes it difficult to bring it back in line with the runway. There are 2 options, land near the runway and rip the gear out or clean up the drag and remain flying. We cleared the tree’s by maybe 10 feet. I could see the prop wash moving the branches.

42

A number of years ago, I walked into the front hall. It was dark and I saw something on the floor. I bent over to pick it up and something slammed into my back and I smacked my head on the newel post.

There was a lot of screaming, some scuffling, a repeat of the smacked head. My husband turned on the light from the top of the stairs and saw me wrestling with the coat that was on the floor, while Halley stood on my back like a sailor on a storm-wracked ship.

That same cat likes to sit on top of that same newel post and reach out to try to hug the heads of unwary passersby. There has been quite a lot of shrieking in my front hall through the years, including one plumber.

43

One night, after recently reading Stephen King’s It, which features a monster that comes out of a sewer, I was walking home in the dark when I saw, in the sewer… eyes. There was a pair of eyes looking out at me from the sewer. In that moment, I swear my heart stopped. Alone, middle of the night, and something is looking at me from out of the sewer grate. ARgh!

Then the raccoon who was ogling me crawled out and humped across the street like they do. I damn near fainted.

44

In my younger days, my friends and I engaged in activities which preferred privacy. Abandoned buildings were favored for the latter. This particular building had been a church, one of the better constructed big old-timey numbers. Its charm was greatly enhanced by the fact that it was across the street from, and the roof well above, the local police station, so we could make noise and obscene gestures directed at our mortal enemies without fear of discovery. The point here is that we were on the roof of a 50-ft building which was also on the top of a hill, affording a splendid view all around.

One cloudy summer night, my friend and I chose to partake of flammables, in the still air underneath the trap door which led to the roof. After achieving our desired mental state, we ascended- AND THERE IT WAS.

Looking out over the city, we could easily gauge size and range- hundreds of feet across, perhaps 2-2½ miles distant, altitude <2000 ft. A vertical gray disc, surrounded by multicolored flashing lights. And completely silent; not even a quiet buzzing. It was slowly moving toward us. And we could NOT MOVE. Our muscles, our voices, had failed us, except for our eyes; THOSE were wide open. The Aliens have landed, for REAL this time. NOW what do we do? This question was asked- no, THOUGHT- in emotions of utter terror and panic. WHAT DO WE DO NOW?!

We were not hallucinating, and the explanation did come, in time. And it wasn’t the drugs, either! I treasure those moments of fear… :cool:

45

I was in Florence, and I went to the Museum of Pain and Torture for a laugh. It was made of two floors, and the building itself with very small. While on the top floor, I could see the person working there at all times, and since it was like a freaking closet, if anybody came in the door, I’d see them, too.

Anyway, the top floor had some life-like dummies with various plagues and injuries, some pretty startling videos. It mainly focused on peasant-life and how peasants lived (and died) while the Medici family ruled Florence. It was all pretty interesting. Once you go through that, you descend a rickety flight of stairs into a dwelling that apparently used to be an actual “home”. It was very dank and very dark. The museum gave yo a pair of earphones for the audio tour, and you walk through this cramped little space listening to how people used to eat and sleep and live (and die) in homes like this. Then the guy on the tape says “That’s the end of the tour, but feel free to look around.”

So, it’s utterly silent. I’m all alone in this place that could have been just a replica of peasants’ dwellings, but I think it was real. I feel like I can see and hear all the people who died horrible deaths there and slept on the floor in a pile of flesh and lice and feces and whatever else.

I have never been so creeped out in my life. And I had a strange moment of clarity. If anybody came downstairs, or God forbid, touched me, I would start screaming. And I wouldn’t be able to stop. I felt like my spine was trying to crawl out of my body, and I couldn’t really breathe. So I just kept telling myself, “Don’t lose it. Get upstairs. Don’t lose it. Get upstairs.”

I very calmly ascended the stairs, very calmly handed the nice lady my earphones, and then fled.

46

Well, what was the explanation, The Them?

47

Besides the time I went blind? :smiley:

Right after college I did Americorps*VISTA and worked with NH Reads. One of the events we did storytelling at was at Four-Tree island. I suppose it’s a pretty spot, but the island shears off the sides, and the water is a good twelve feet below and almost completely covered with large craggy rocks.

One of the little kids we read to was a very energetic toddler (somewhere between 1.5 and 2 years old) who annoyed us by stomping on books. I think we were all relieved when his mother took him and his slightly older brother off to do something else.

At least until we were eating lunch about an hour later. I looked up to see this small familar figure running as fast as he could - right for the ridge way above the water. His mother, completely obvious as she talked to a friend, didn’t even notice he was gone.

Since it seemed rather unlikely that a toddler would weather a twelve foot drop into the ocean or onto rocks without a scratch I got to see how fast I could run as I ran to over take him least he think me chasing him was a game and an incentive to run faster. I got ahold of him about 4 feet from the edge. A moment later his mother realized what happened and came running herself. She appologized profusely, but I still left thinking she was a careless idiot.

It still gives me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think of what could have happened if no one had noticed what he was doing.

48

I was walking through the house one night last week, turning off lights before bed. It was already dark in the livingroom, but I had to go that way towards the kitchen. As I passed the front door, I glance out the fanlight and saw something like a giant spider with big hairy legs perched on the outside of the door. I was both :eek: & :confused: Then I was :o when I realized it was our Christmas wreath.

49

My parent’s house, where I grew up, originally had the upstairs simply as one big bedroom. Over the decades, that was piece by piece turned into three bedrooms, a hall closet, and a bathroom, resulting in a number of cramped, strange angles. For example, and relevant to the story, if the hall closet door is open, it almost entirely blocks the bathroom door.

One evening when I was living at home, my parents had gone out and I treated myself to a luxurious bath. Bubbles, I brought my CD player into the bathroom, the works. A nice long, mellow soak. Finally, I got out of the tub, wrapped myself in a nice fluffy towel, opened the bathroom door - and almost shrieked, because someone was right in front of me, in the doorway of the bathroom, gloomed in the dark of the hallway!

It was my reflection in the mirror on the closet door, which tends to swing itself open. The door is immediately perpendicular to the bathroom door, and when it’s open, that’s all you can see from the bathroom.

So, feeling a bit silly, I push the door closed - and there’s someone coming out of my parent’s bedroom! I scream and step backwards, groping for the bathroom door to put something between me and this figure.

My mother gasps and steps back into her bedroom, and for a moment we both stand there gaping and shaking.

Turns out my parents had gotten home while I was in the bath, and I was so immersed in my relaxing I didn’t hear them come in, and I’d shocked the hell out of my unsuspecting mother, who had no idea why I screamed at her. My dad came upstairs, confirmed neither of us were in fact in any danger, and declared us both silly people.

There was also the time that I came to the late-night conclusion that my friend’s dog was a crazed rapist-murderer trying to break into the house, but that was very long ago.

50

I mentioned this once elsewhere:

One time at work I was peering intently into the microscope at a biopsy slide, when an ant walked over it into my field of view.

Magnified 400 times. Close enough to grab my eyeball (seemingly).
That’ll wake you up.

51

Why yes, yes I have. It’s amazing how frightening that is. We now have a strict knock-on-the-door policy.

My husband has a small fig tree, houseplant-sized, that normally sits in a stand by the window. Right now it has just one large leaf at the top - about the size of a big guy’s hand, and oval in shape. We moved it to the high countertop in the kitchen to use the stand for our little xmas tree, so that the top of the leaf probably reaches about six feet from the floor. Unbelievably, I’ve startled myself at least twice, catching a glimpse of it and interpreting it as a person standing there.

Last week I was getting my daughter into the carseat to go to school. Car was parked in the garage, I was in my usual stance, sitting on the back seat with one foot in the car and one on the garage floor. I felt a sensation like something tapping the top of my outside foot. I figured it was the loop of my shoelaces bumping the bottom of the open car door. When the kid was buckled, I looked down, and a bird flew off my foot out the garage door! And I screamed like a little girl, scaring the shit out of my daughter. Luckily she was reassured when I spent the next five minutes laughing. Damn little finch must have been under the car when we came out, and thought my foot was something inanimate, until it moved.

Oh well, it could have been worse.

52

Looking up to see a partially-malfunctioned reserve parachute following a high-speed malfunction of my main canopy as a student skydiver.

Having a small child dart out in front of my car from between some parked vehicles.

As a kid I was at home alone one night watching “Halloween”. There’s a scene where Jamie Lee Curtis is hiding in a closet and suddenly Michael Myers starts shaking the doors trying to break in. At exactly that instant there was a small earthquake and the closet door in the TV room banged open/closed a few times.

In all of these cases all people involved walked away from it.

53

Many moons ago, I worked private security. On my patrol list was a warehouse that was used for storage for various materials related to health campaigns. It was an old Quonset-hut type building in a bad part of town, with one light dead center in the building. Tree branches scratched on the roof when the wind blew. Basically a scary place, and we had to walk all the way to the back wall and punch a time clock (fire prevention, more than anything).

One night, I pulled up, opened the door and drew my .38 on a dummy standing just inside the door. It was for their anti-smoking campaign. It would inhale from a lit cigarette, had a glass chest and lungs so you could see the smoke, etc. After I calmed down, I realized that even more humor was to be had. I knew my supervisor would be in later that night to change the timeclock’s punch card. So I moved the dummy over to a position right by the door. And put a stick in its hand (well, it was a cardboard tube, but close enough). And then boogied on down the road to my next stop.

About 45 minutes later, I get a call on the radio from my super. His voice sounds strained and he wants to meet me at the warehouse. I say “10-4”, head that way and get there about 5 minutes later. He’s sitting in his car and he doesn’t look good. I start playing innocent.

“Hey, Steve. Damn, did that dummy scare you? Some sunnuvabitch at TDH has got a warped sense of humor. I damn near shot…that…thing…”.

He had shot it. Twice, in the chest. :eek: :eek:

And then pissed himself.

I ran into him about ten years later and finally admitted that I had been scared by it, but I was the one who hid it by the door. He broke out laughing and said, “I know. It was just the kind of crap you would pull. But I have never been so scared in my entire life as I was that night.”

54

Back when I was in the USAF, I shared a house with three other guys. In the garage, there was the washer and dryer and a Slam Man. It’s important to note the red lights where eyes would be. I had washed, among other things, my baseball cap. I found that if I let it dry hanging up by a hook, it would get distorted. I saw the slam man sitting there and decided, that his human sized head was a perfect place for my hat to sit while it dried.

So, I pulled the slam man away from the wall a bit, put my hat on him and went in the house.

My roomate was working mid shift and left for work at 10:30PM. Immediatley after he went into the garage I heard a “AAAAAHHHHHHHH!” followed by a thunk - THUNK!

My roomate explained to me later that when he walked out into the garage, without turning on the lights, something caught his eye. When he turned around, the street lights coming in through the window reflected off the red lenses in the slam man’s eye sockets. He reacted by punching the slam man in the face. Since the slam man rocks a bit when you hit it, his punch cause it to rear back and then tilt forward, which in his mind was the fire eyed demon thing attacking him!

The first thunk was him punching the slam man. The second THUNK was him retreating full bore into his truck.

55

Just remembered this:

Years ago I did cable installs. One day the customer wanted an extra outlet in the room that used to be the carport before they closed it in. Pop a hole in the foundation wall, shove the wire through, crawl under the house and pull it on through; done it a million times.

The crawl space was TIGHT but I’ve been in tight places before. Also the lady’s dryer was vented under the house and she was washing and drying clothes. Hot, dusty dryer lint coated everything. This time I had to crawl over the sewer line to get to the front corner of the house where I could see the wire that I had shoved through. It LOOKED like there was enough room. I got stuck; my back was against the floor and my chest was against the pipe. I just kept shoving myself forward until I realized that I COULDN’T BREATH and I COULDN’T BACK UP! My rational mind kept saying, exhale and push, you can get through. My hind brain was saying, “YOU’RE GOING TO #*&^%&$$#'n DIE UNDER HERE!” I finally popped through, grabbed the wire and turned around to face the only way out; the way I came in. I couldn’t put it off because I felt the panic creeping up on me.

On the way out, I got &%##@^&*'n stuck AGAIN! The next thing I remember is kneeling on all fours out in her back yard chest heaving, covered with dirt and dryer lint, sweat pouring, shaking and crying for Pete’s sake! She came running out and asked me if I was ok. I told her that I didn’t know. She said the last TWO installers wouldn’t run that wire because it was too tight under the house. I said, “Those… BASTARDS!” She laughed like that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. For some crazy reason, I started laughing too; that helped me catch my breath.

After this, I assigned myself (I was the field supervisor) to do disconnects only. No more under houses for me; I just can’t handle it.

56

Hehe…due to our elevation, and the odd light effects of the overcast night…we were seeing the Goodyear Blimp head-on. Yipes…

THE FUCKING ALIENS ARE LANDING RIGHT NOW AND THEY MAY BE **HOSTILE!**The rush was reallysomething… :eek:

57

Hey, don’t go calling me an alien.

58

I was hunting from a blind I was unfamiliar with in the Hill Country earlier this Fall and unfortunately had to make doodie just before sunrise. It’s kinda dark and scary out there and you’re suddenly remembering every tale of lunatics escaped from asylums as you’re out there alone and cold and with your pants around your ankles.

Little did I know but a deer corn feeder was right behind me as I’m trying to make loaf and all of a sudden that damn timer goes off and with a loud WWWWHHHHEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! the fan spins and scatters corn all over me and half the county. I think my poop landed about ten feet from where I’d been.

That’s what people with constipation need to do, just go squat in the dark next to a deer feeder.