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English professors have told me that born-writers can sit by a computer and make up a story in an hour, without even having to think. Their stories flow like water from their finger tips. I am most definitely not a born-writer. People like me, people without born artistic talent– we need pain to create. We need horrible tragedies to write our stories. This is how we profit. We take our mothers’ deaths and make the widest selling and most beloved children’s books of all time. We need…

My cousin recently moved here from Secunderabad, India. On a recent road trip exploring America, we were shootin shit and exchanging ghost stories and laughing at similarities and differences between American ghost stories and Indian ghost stories when I asked her if she’s ever experienced anything supernatural. Her eyes widened as she averted her eyes to the window. Just when the silence was about to be too much for me, she softly responded “Yes. A few. One is troubling.”

When I was a child my family moved to a big old two-floor house, with big empty rooms and creaking floorboards. Both my parents worked so I was often alone when I came home from school. One early evening when I came home the house was still dark. I called out, “Mum?” and heard her sing song voice say “Yeeeeees?” from upstairs. I called her again as I climbed the stairs to see which room she was in, and again got the same “Yeeeeees?” reply.

I’ve always loved the movies. As a film fan, my attention would instantly snap to the TV when I caught a commercial for an upcoming movie. Most of the mindless, overproduced garbage Hollywood churns out is pretty forgettable, so whenever I discovered an indie film with a relatively fresh concept, I was excited to see something different.

Normally you sleep soundly, but the thunderstorm raging outside is stirring you from your sleep. You begin to doze, then another crash jolts you awake. The cycle lasts most of the night. So you lay there, eyes open and outward, looking at your room stretching out before you in oblong shadows. Your eyes move from nameless object, to object, until you reach your mirror, sitting adjacent to you across the room.

During the summer of 1983, in a quiet town near Minneapolis, Minnesota, the charred body of a woman was found inside the kitchen stove of a small farmhouse. A video camera was also found in the kitchen, standing on a tripod and pointing at the oven. No tape was found inside the camera at the time. Although the scene was originally labeled as a homicide by police, an unmarked VHS tape was later discovered at the bottom of the farm’s well (which had apparently dried up earlier that year).

I work at a recently built city parking garage and transit hub, and late at night it is my job to lock everything up until the morning, and patrol the dark building alone with just a radio linked to the local police department. It’s a very simple procedure that takes maybe 10 minutes to lock up everything, with 15 minute walkthroughs every hour.

My life seemed like it was going pretty well. I had just received my bachelor’s degree at the state college, and received the fairly well-paying job as an office manager. The thing is, something felt like it was missing from my life… I wanted love. I wanted to have a wife to keep me company, but the only women I knew worked at the office—and were drop-dead ugly.

One school day, a boy named Tom was sitting in class and doing math. It was six more minutes until school let out. As he was doing his homework, something caught his eye. His desk was next to the window, and he turned and looked to the grass outside. It looked like a picture. When school was over, he ran to the spot where he saw it. He ran fast so that no one else could grab it.

In the winter of 1944, with overtaxed supply lines in the Ardennes, a medic in the German army had completely run out of plasma, bandages and antiseptic. During one particularly bad round of mortar fire, his encampment was a bloodbath. Those who survived claimed to have heard, above the screams and barked commands of their lieutenant, someone cackling with almost girlish glee.

One afternoon, a couple was traveling on by car when at a far distance they saw a woman in the middle of the road, waving frantically.

The following are the final excerpts from the journal of Dr. Arnold Richards, who, at sixty-seven years old and in perfect health, was found dead in his bedroom, lying in a pool of his own blood, a single sleeping pill in his hand. The incidents surrounding the events reported in his diary were investigated thoroughly, but the case was never solved.

From: —— @ —— .com Re: entries/information requested re: compiling psychological profile Written below are the journal entries of Christopher Young, brother of Daryl Young, found saved as individual files on his personal computer, with file names Prologue.doc, Ch1.doc, Ch2.doc, etc. Apart from being compiled into one document, they have not been altered in any way. — Prologue

She was beautiful. She had a great face, great body, and her hair, goodness gracious, her hair! It was so silky, long, and so absolutely perfect. The entire school knew this. She knew it. Her younger sister did, too.

Mr. Angel sat next to me on the park bench. He is my best friend. I pointed to an old man that sat across from me. “What’s he doing Mr. Angel?” An unlit cigarette sat in the corner of the man’s mouth. His eyes were withered with age as he stared blankly at nothing. Mr. Angel leaned close to me as he whispered into my ear. “He’s looking for a woman he lost a long time ago.” He cooed. His words felt warm against my cheek as I smiled up at him. I liked his secrets; Mr. Angel knew everything.

The following are diary entries taken from a leather-bound notebook that was recovered from an abandoned house awaiting demolition. -- Jun. 6, 1984 Maybe I’m paranoid, I don’t know. I’m just going to write these; maybe it will help me figure out what’s going on. Last night, something really strange happened in the morgue.

A beautiful young girl is left home alone with only her dog to protect her. On the news that night, they announced there is a serial killer on the loose in the area. Before she goes to bed, she locks all the doors and tries to lock all the windows, but the one in the basement won’t lock. She decides to leave it unlocked, but locks the basement door and goes to bed. Her dog takes its customary place under her bed.

Before I begin to relay the details of this ritual, I should probably explain that you need to be in a certain state of mind for it to work. I’m sure a lot of you out there will know what I mean, even though I am not the best person to be explaining human emotions. It’s a kind of churning, constant emptiness. A feeling that although you have no desire to die, life simply “takes too long” and you would rather another option. It is very important that you feel this way, when undertaking the…

I would have never known had I not seen it with my own eyes. The dream catcher. Not the things we hang in our windows, those awful summer camp crafts projects made of sticks and ropes and feathers and such. No. The dream catcher whom nobody has dared to see, imagine or come to understand. To call it a person would be an insult to all things real. Then again it is as real as the people it claims. More so the children…

If you ever are in an area of absolute quiet, still your breathing and move not a muscle. After a few seconds, you will notice that the silence has a sort of “sound” of its own, a kind of empty ringing tone. This is nothing unique; everyone will hear this, given the proper setting. An informed person will tell you that your brain is trying to interpret the lack of stimuli to your hearing and so creates a bit of a filler sound. This ringing sound actually serves a more arcane purpose, covering…