#creepy

The listing said SLEEPS 2 in capitals, the way you write a warning before you understand it. Mira found the cabin. Four hours north, at the end of a gravel road that gave up and became a suggestion for the last half mile. No neighbours in any direction. A woodstove, a hand pump over the sink, and two mugs on the shelf. Two chairs at the table. Two plates, two forks, two towels folded to the same width. Two of everything, arranged like an answer to a question nobody had asked.

Most people know about Disney's famous parks. Fewer know that Disney has experimented with smaller attractions around Florida. These included traveling exhibits, promotional experiences, and temporary entertainment venues. Most were documented, but some quietly vanished.  Growing up in St. Petersburg, an older neighbor occasionally mentioned one place when Disney came up. Oswald's Play House. Whenever someone brought it up, the conversation always ended the same way.  "...It closed after…

It was Halloween in the year 2015. I remember waking up at 7AM, feeling stoked for Halloween and watching Charlie Brown. I saw people from outside my neighborhood decorating at the last minute because a lot of people like slacking on Halloween.

I want you to imagine this. At 3:04 a.m. You open your eyes with a deep breath, released into the room like a coin dropped into a deep well. To your left, the window sits—a sheet of slate framed by curtains that almost meet, sealing in a night as dense and unleavened as wet soil. Moonless, starless space stretches beyond the glass. Across the room, the wardrobe doors rest slightly ajar, holding an interior that is blacker than black.

Tap tap tap. James peels his gritty eyelids back and stares up at the blank ceiling. He considers putting something up there. A poster maybe, like he had as a child. It would make sense, given how much time he spends staring at the ceiling above his bed. Sleepless nights, bed rotting, and the three AM wake up call from some animal tapping its way through the walls.

​Jason pulled out of the parking lot next to the "Dark Valley" roadside diner. Sitting beside him in the navy-blue Jeep was his friend, Caroline. They had just stopped there to grab their favorite beef steaks—it was pretty much their weekend ritual. Both were in excellent spirits as Jason slipped the key into the ignition and tried to start the car.

My brother could wear my voice before he could find his own. Our mother would call us down to dinner and he would answer in my throat, and she would set the table for one boy twice. At nine I heard him explaining me to our father. Not reporting. Explaining, the way you explain weather. He used my voice, and the words were mine, arranged the way I would never have arranged them, and he was right about every one. I asked how. He said, I listen. I am always listening.

She arrived without warning one day, tall and pale with a pretty face. Dark hair hanging down, tangling with the wind. It was a Sunday, the only day the mines of Gavinvill were closed. With slender hands curled, she rapped her knuckles on the door. And when it opened, she would simply ask: “Need a stitchin’? Need a fix’en?”

By WedgeOverPotato

The attic hatch didn’t just open; it fell away with a deafening crack, dangling by a single, twisted hinge. I scrambled backward, my heels drumming against the dusty floorboards until my spine hit the cold glass of the circular window. The creature didn't climb in. Instead, it reached up with those impossible, elongated fingers and gripped the edge of the opening. It pulled itself up just enough for me to see the top of its head—the same smooth, featureless grey skin, pulsing like a heartbeat.

The attic floorboards are thin, but the silence is thinner. I’ve been up here for three hours. The vibrating stopped, which is worse. Now, the only sound is a rhythmic thump-drag, thump-drag coming from the hallway directly below the attic hatch.