This morning I stepped out of the shower and this bathroom was fine: white walls, white tiles, sink and counter with toothpaste crusted all over. Three out of the four lightbulbs over the mirror were still good — 100 watt, clear bulb, blinding bright in the small white room. Like always I was late, so I skipped shaving. She liked it when I didn’t shave, anyway. I was thinking about doing mutton chops. She’d get a kick out of that. I passed the mirror and noticed I was grinning. I didn’t even know I was grinning.

I’m in the bathroom tonight before bed and there’s something wrong with the lights. All three are on again but they glow kind of brown and don’t really light up the rest of the room. I should get more bulbs from the kitchen. I should, but I’m busy. The date was shit and she shut her apartment door on me. You’d think that would wipe off the stupid grin from this morning. But I came back in the bathroom and, in the mirror, my face was still doing it. If I touch my face it doesn’t feel like a grin, but there it is in the mirror.

In the brown light it’s hard to make out but — have you ever actually counted how many teeth show when you smile? I lean in close. One, two, three, four — I didn’t know my mouth was so wide. Nine, ten, eleven — I can’t do mutton chops after all. The corners of my lips are out to my ears. It still doesn’t feel like a grin. But keep counting, for curiousity. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight.

There is a certain road near the Everglades in Florida, which, if you drive down it alone in the rain, day or night, you will suddenly have a very real feeling of being completely lost. Your radio will turn to static, your CDs will skip, and your tapes will play slower than normal. If you try to find a map in your car, it will have mysteriously vanished. If you continue forward down the road for more than a minute, you will find that you can’t turn around, and everything behind you is pitch dark. There are no other roads and no other cars. Continuing down the road, you will come upon a fork with no signposts. In the middle of the fork, there will be a man, covered head to foot in various pieces of clothing. The only skin visible will be around his eyes, which will be bright green. You must get out of your car, but do not turn it off or close the door after you. You must approach the man, but stop at least three feet away. You must stand there silently, waiting for him to speak first. If you break the silence first, you will find yourself back on a main road, but you will die within 24 hours. If he speaks first, he will ask you what you require. Tell him that you need to know which road will take you to your destination. He will then ask you what you will offer him in exchange for his assistance.

If you offer him a ride, he and your car will disappear, and you will become the new guardian of the crossroad. If you offer him an umbrella, he will take it and stab you through the chest. If you offer him your love, he will take your heart still beating from your chest and eat it, condemning you to walk the earth without a heart, insane from the pain and loss. You must offer him your loyalty and kneel before him. If you do this, he will close his eyes and bow in return, extending a hand to whichever path will lead you back to safety. If you try to run from him, you will be dead before you reach your car, and your body will be found back in your car in some random location.

Every year, for an unknown number of years, an ad is published in the New York Times Classifieds section. The advertisement is short and lists a seemingly mundane household appliance: a refrigerator, a vacuum, a piece of furniture. A select number of people in the U.S., and indeed the world, search for this advertisement, which contains three keywords seemingly unusual for a simple ad. Once found, these people wait exactly one week for a second ad in the NY Times, also ostensibly a normal–if strangely worded–ad, but combined with the first, provide both a code key and message.

The code, when completed, is a series of numbers, which correspond to the Washington, D.C. Yellow Pages, and page number, column, letter number, etc., and this in turn creates a text message. The text of the message is vague, but contains the following information: soon, a gathering will be held in
Washington, D.C. The searchers are instructed to bring a fellow guest to accompany him/her to the gathering. The destination is a very old hotel in Georgetown, a establishment dating back to the time of the founding fathers.

Sometimes searchers are instructed to bring a scientist, such as a physicist or biologist. Other years the instructions are to bring along an engineer or a doctor; the requested person is always a professional of some kind.

The seekers and their guests are admitted to the restaurant on the appointed night only after giving a password, also in the message, to the masked maitre’d waiting at the entrance. What follows after that is unclear and there are conflicting accounts. The general consensus is that the seekers are rewarded for solving the puzzle, and are made wealthy for the rest of their lives, provided they remain silent about what they discovered. The fate of the professionals is unknown.

There is a Wal-Mart somewhere in Indiana, with a concealed trapdoor in the frozen food section. If you tap on the door three times with your left foot, a voice will ask you for a toll. Open the trap door, put three lemons inside, and close the door. After ten seconds, you will hear a knock on the trapdoor and find a red piece of paper that tells you two of the following three things: the exact location of your death, the manner of your death, or the exact date and time of your death.

In the heart of Washington, there’s a house that used to be owned by a family of five. Nobody really knows what happened to them. Their neighbors at the time say that there were no signs of weirdness or fear in the family. The common testimony is that one day there was nothing wrong. The night that followed, there were very loud noises coming from the house, and although people in the area came to investigate what was keeping them up, the windows were blocked by millions of post-it notes, and the windows would not break. The following day, the house was empty.

Nobody has lived in that house since. But people have gone inside. In every bedroom, there is a mirror facing the corner of the room. If you turn it around, it won’t show your reflection. The area you’ll be standing in will be empty. They say that on the rare occasion, you’ll see the person who used to sleep in that room, mutilated and bandaged from head to toe. If you turn around with your eyes open… All they know is that you don’t exist afterwards.

Somewhere in the world, there is a collection of books. Perhaps it’s in a dusty, unpainted shelf in the back corner of someone’s attic; perhaps it’s in a set of musty boxes in the basement of some tiny, obscure library. It contains a few hundred volumes, all handwritten, ranging from leather-bound volumes with yellowing pages two hundred years old through to modern spiral-bound notebooks. All of them are diaries, some by famous people, some by not-so famous people, but all by the most horrific madmen and murderers the world has ever known. And the collection is growing. For if you ever find it, you will hear a faint scratching sound, coming from the newest volume of the set. This volume will be new, and filled with blank pages, except for the first. On this first page, you will find the beginning of your own diary, written in your own hand.

You jolt awake to some noise off in the distance. You look at your red lettered clock: 3:21. You hear it noise again. Someone’s knocking on your door.

There’s no reason to be afraid, you remind yourself, but you can’t imagine any reason why
someone would be up this late. You quietly walk over to the door.

“Hello?”

Knock, Knock, Knock

“H-hello? Are you home?”

Knock, Knock, Knock

“I… Please be home… Hello?”

She mumbles something

“I need your help!”

Knock, Knock, Knock

You recognize her voice and look out the window. It’s your neighbor, she’s wearing her pajamas and some shining pendant around her neck. She sees you.

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It’s a simple enough thing. It’s all a part of the body’s sleep processes. Sleep Paralysis, right? No big deal, really. Your body produces a chemical that paralyzes your body during R.E.M sleep to prevent you from hurting yourself by thrashing about during your dreams. No big deal.

Okay, so, you opened your eyes and you can’t move your body. It’s the chemicals. Oh, you can keep trying to wriggle those toes, but it’s not happening. Forget it. Just relax. It’ll go away. It’s fine. It’s normal.

Oh, now there’s something pressing on your chest, real hard, it’s making it hard to breath. It’s heavy, so very heavy, whatever’s on your chest. Chemicals. It’s all chemicals. Stop trying to scream, it won’t work. Your throat muscles are paralyzed too. You still can’t breath.

You are staring at a blank ceiling, you can’t stare anywhere else. Shadows flit across your vision, forming shapes you try not to think about. A clawed hand, a flash of jagged, shadowy teeth. All images from your subconscious. A face forming above yours, leering through black void eyes. You think you
hear sibilant whispering. Angry hissing, like a snake that’s been disturbed.

Suddenly, a sharp white light briefly flares in the room as a car pulls down the street, dispelling the shadows. The weight is gone. You can breath, your hands clench sheets.

You feel an eternity has passed by but it was all the work of a moment. You wriggle, just to prove to yourself you can. You sit up, take a deep breath and then laugh a little at yourself. Sleep Paralysis. Stupid.

You turn to shake your spouse awake, eager to share your experience. You feel paralyzed again, but it has nothing to do with Sleep Paralysis. You stare at the blood, the jagged wound in her throat, her wide, staring eyes, mouth opened in soundless scream.

You survived your Old Hag Syndrome.

She didn’t.

—
Credited to C. Noel Huff

And I am always with you.

I was there from the time you were born. I stood in the delivery room, staring down at you before you could even open your eyes to see me. Your parents, relatives and doctors couldn’t see me there, in the corner, watching you with cloudy eyes, but I was there from the time you were born.

And I followed you home.

I was with you always, your constant companion. You played with your toys alone while I stared from all angles in nearby mirrors; my matted, clotted hair with oily sweat that hung off my dented forehead like glue. I was always your constant companion, drifting behind your mother’s car on your ride to preschool. You alone in the bathroom, but I was on the other side of the door, wind whistling through the bruised hole in my throat. My arms twisted and hanging in their sockets as I stood hunched on the other side of the shower curtain. I wait and follow you. I follow and drift behind you.

I’m not seen. I’m almost not-there in light. You never saw me that morning as I sat across from you at the breakfast table, a shiny red clot hanging from an empty tooth socket as I gaped grotesquely at you. I wonder sometimes if you know I’m there. I think you are aware, but you’ll never understand just how close I am.

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In rural southern Illinois a toy company began selling “realistic” baby dolls to expectant mothers. But apparently after the mother had her child the toy baby would start crying. Eventually the “rocking motion” advertised to calm it down wouldn’t work, and you couldn’t get it to stop without shaking it. Eventually when it started crying the parent would have to beat it, and the beatings and thrashings would have to get harder and harder to get it to be quiet. The only thing that seemed to shut the baby doll up permanently was the bash its head against the wall to destroy whatever mechanism triggered the crying. On more than one occasion though, neighbors called the authorities to report child abuse, and when the police arrived they found the bloody remains of infants smeared across the walls and the floor. In most cases the mother couldn’t understand why the police were there, she just “got rid of the stupid doll” as she rocked a baby-shaped bundle in her arms.

One school day, a boy named Tom was sitting in class and doing math. It was six more minutes until after school. As he was doing his homework, something caught his eye.

His desk was next to the window, and he turned and stared outside. It looked liked a picture. When it was home time at the school, he ran to the spot where he saw it. He ran fast so that no one else could grab it.

He picked it up and smiled. It had a picture of the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She had a dress with tights on and red shoes, and her hand was formed into a peace sign.

She was so beautiful he wanted to meet her, so he ran all over the school and asked everyone if they knew her or have ever seen her before. But everyone he asked said “no.” He was devastated.

When he was home, he asked his older sister if she knew the girl, but unfortunately she also said “no.” It was very late, so Tom walked up the stairs, placed the picture on his bedside table and went to sleep.

In the middle of the night Tom was awakened by a tap on his window. It was like a nail tapping. He got scared. After the tapping he heard a giggle. He saw a shadow near his window, so he got out of his bed, walked toward his window, opened it up and followed the giggling. By the time he reached it,
it was gone.

The next day again he asked his neighbors if they knew her. Everybody said, “Sorry, no.” When his mother came home he even asked her if she knew her. She said “no.” He went to his room, placed the picture on his desk and fell asleep.

Once again he was awakened by a tapping. He took the picture and followed the giggling. He walked across the road, when suddenly he got hit by a car. He was dead with the picture in his hand.

The driver got out of the car and tried to help him, but it was too late. Suddenly he saw the picture and picked it up. He smiled. He saw a cute girl holding up three fingers…

You’re in a strange room. You don’t remember how you got there, but you know that you don’t necessarily need to be there. As such, you decide it would be a good idea to leave. You turn around, and find yourself in an enclosed garden with a single row of orange trees on the left, and a single row of apple trees on the right. Behind you, a door covered with locks. Since you have no keys, you head down the only direction available to you.

You walk down the small dirt path, looking forward into the nothingness that awaits you at the end of the path. The fruit becomes more luscious with each step you take. You sniff the air, taking note of the lovely smells as they seem to call out to you. Although it is beckoning you to come forward and
sample some of this beautiful harvest, you feel as though you should know better than to take anything from these trees and decide against it.

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There is an abandoned mental hospital at the top of a hill in Worcester, Massachusetts. Once every 5 years an old rusty box spring appears within the courtyard of the hospital. If you can sneak inside and sleep through the night on the bed, in the morning a man with a shirt that reads “Observe and absolve” will take out his wallet and give you a picture. This picture will show you how you will die. If the picture is of the man standing before you, running won’t help.

The 51st state of the United States, Arcadia, was admitted to statehood on January 17th, 1977. Exactly 4 years to the day later, Arcadia disappeared along with all its residents, and all memory of its existence was erased from every mind in the world. Its precise former location is unknown, though there is rumored to be a map of the type sold in gas stations and convenience stores held under lock and key in the Library of Congress.

Also of note are claims of the sporadic delivery of mail from Arcadia, with modern postmarks, to several major American newspapers, the contents of which are said to be written in an entirely unknown and undecipherable language. Unfortunately, those letters to a one have been misplaced and are not available for examination.

In 1653, Spanish explorers found the ruins of what appeared to be a Mesoamerican step pyramid in what is modern South Carolina. Though the site was far beyond the borders of any known American indigenous populations, it was also of a smaller size than existing Mesoamerican structures and bore an unrecognized form of glyphic decoration. Local natives were familiar with the structure but knew nothing about it.

The Spaniards sought to disassemble the building as a heathen relic and did so, brick by brick, salvaging the materials to construct their own nearby settlement. Deconstruction halted, however, when one brick was uncovered at the core of the structure, carved entirely of black glass. The stone, approximately two feet by three, was impossible to move or even budge by any man or animal.

Attempts were made to dig the stone out from beneath, but excavation revealed that it extended indefinitely into the earth. In frustration, the captain of the explorers fired a glancing blow off of the surface of the stone. The obsidian block was undamaged, but moments after the blow had struck, it silently retracted downwards, sliding downward into a hole that quickly collapsed inward on itself, burying the retreating obsidian column.

The Spaniards interpreted this as an evil omen and abandoned the site, never to return.