In the creeps, willies and heebie-jeebies we trust

I think this office is bugged
During Halloween we can all take special pleasure in scaring ourselves, and each other, under the guise of a national holiday. Of course the fallout may mean leaving the lights on all night after a deliciously frightening movie. Or checking under the bed for monsters after that last chapter in your Stephen King novel. But what happens after a timely visit from a rather large, scurrying, scuttling, icky little visitor? Well, you'll just have to see for yourself…

It’s like a Liger on steroids…with rabies.
I bet if I asked around enough I wouldn’t be the only one who grew up in complete and utter fear of the WAMPUS CAT. The mere mention of the fabled feline still sends shivers down my spine and keeps me on guard at night.
 
According to my dad and every other adult who enjoyed scaring small children, the Wampus Cat is like a cougar or a mountain lion but its fur is jet black (at least in my neck of the woods) and it’s big. Seriously, like really big, with huge eyes that glow red as fire. It sits at the edge of the woods…just waiting…staring…ready to lunge at the first kid it finds catching lightning bugs, playing flashlight tag or just running to get the evening paper out of the mailbox. It can even sit high up in the trees so you’ll never see it coming when it pounces down on top of you. And don’t even try to outrun it—impossible. Some even say it has six legs for increased speed and agility. What does it do when it gets a kid? Your guess is as good as mine, and I hope I never find out.
 
As a kid, I steadfastly believed in the Wampus Cat. I wanted to gather as much information as possible so I was prepared with a strong defense when the moment came. There wasn’t the luxury of the Internet so research was hard work. I will never forget going through every encyclopedia at school on library days—nothing. Science and animal books—nope. Dictionary—forget it. I even went to the thesaurus and almanac—zilch. I remember my last resort, a set of new encyclopedias at my aunt’s house in North Carolina. I waited impatiently for our yearly visit down there just to look at the one set of books I hadn’t referred to yet—and again, disappointment! The Wampus Cat even had a hold on the publishing industry! The horror!
 
I never learned what I wanted to about the Wampus Cat but maybe all I ever need to know is to be afraid—very afraid. The last I heard, there was one spotted in a tree alongside my brother’s driveway last summer. My brother didn’t see it, but my youngest nephew did and that kid doesn’t lie. I haven’t seen one in a very long time but I still get the chills when I’m visiting my folks and need to run outside at night. I definitely come from the school of thought that believes the moment you think something doesn’t exist is the moment you’re most vulnerable. Maybe that’s yet another thing adding to the enigma of the Wampus Cat—it can only be seen by 6 year-olds and adult scaredy-pants.
 
*Special thanks to Matthew Keyser, age 6, for his contributions and willingness to relive his eye-witness account.

Lorie

Big Brother is watching you read this blog
I’m terrified of sharing with the world what I am terrified of. Back in high school, I read George Orwell’s 1984, which centers around the totalitarian regime called the “Party.” To make a classic novel very short, the protagonist, Winston, is arrested by the Party. Despite confessing to all sorts of made up crimes Winston never betrays his lover Julia. However the Party has a surprise in store for him. At some point in his past, he shared what he was terrified of most— rats —to some other employee. That employee probably posing as an innocent chief creative officer just collecting stories for his CEO passed his fears onto the Party.

Poor Winston. He thought he outfoxed his torturers only to have a cage put over his head filled with rats. He folded like the proverbial cardboard suitcase screaming “Do it to Julia!” I felt horrible for days. Well maybe hours. How could a man betray his lover and know she would now be subjected to unspeakable cruelty? How? Well we know the why – because he shared his worst fear with some chief creative officer. It would be as if I shared the nightmare I have experienced since I was a little boy. The one about the evil giant snow cone monster...

Ernest

Where’s Saint Patrick when you need him?
I have a paralyzing fear of snakes - original I know. But they truly cause me angst and make me crazy tense. And living near the river doesn't help. After the dog got bit by a copperhead and I had to take him to the emergency vet (he survived), I was welcomed home by a five foot black snake curled up on the back steps. I declared to my husband at the top of my lungs that "WE ARE MOVING" to which he replied "but black snakes won't hurt you." It doesn't matter. I think they should all be removed. I can't go into "reptile houses" at the zoo, I can't touch gardener snakes, etc. I had to leave the Maymont Nature Center recently when they brought one out for people to pet. My husband and 6-month-old son were more than happy to pet it…I ran for air.

My other not-so-original fear is haunted houses. I think I must have repressed a particularly bad experience because I can't even go on the ones designed for children where you sit in a little car and it's Oscar the grouch dressed like a vampire. I have never made it through a haunted house - sometimes not even 3 feet inside. Every time I think I can get over this fear, I have to be lead out of the haunted house because I'm weeping in the corner. Yes, I'm that person.

Lois

Real ghost stories, Part One
I personally don't trust what I can't see. GHOSTS! I'm actually getting the willies writing this out in fear that one of them may read this and grab my shoulder. A house we owned in Nashville a few years back was definitely haunted and I've never been the same since. Some "being" would knock on doors in front of me, turn on the stove, unlock doors and open them, give me cold blasts of air in the shower (Hello I'm naked, inappropriate!), call an invisible vintage telephone in the basement and even walk around upstairs when I knew I was home alone... should I go on? It wasn't uncommon to find me curled up in a ball with a baseball bat clenched in my hands on nights I was staying there alone. I guess the positive thing was that it never touched me. Whew, that would have sent me over the edge. When we were shopping for a home in Chattanooga, my husband and I made sure to check out the "vibe" of the home before we fell in love with it. So far so good with this one. We've gone an entire year with no activity. I still keep my baseball bat near my bed just in case.

Desiree

No running. No diving. No shrieking in fear.
I trust that I will always be afraid of the "deep end" of a swimming pool. As a very small child, we went to the Outer Banks on vacation and, from what I recall, there was a swimming pool we played in just steps away from the beach. (Yeah right.) I was new to this swimming pool thing but it had a big, beautiful, blue slide that I was petrified to try at the same time I was excited beyond belief. I got up the gumption and went down the slide. Awesome! Then the Jaws theme came on....I felt something touch my toe and it wasn't my dad or my brother who were the only others in the pool at the time. OMG!!! What IS IT???!!!! I freaked out—scrambling in terror towards the refuge of the concrete edge of the pool. I don't recall touching the bottom and didn't even look back to see if something was after me. I managed to get myself to safety only to find out it was a little ol’ crab. Needless to say though, I did not go down the slide again. That crab scarred me for life. I am absolutely positive that it is the reason I am afraid of the deep end of a pool or dark water in general—eternally convinced that if I go in, something will get me. 

Mary

It’s a fine line between fear and O.C.D.
I only have one fear that some (not me) would call irrational. I've had it as long as I can remember. 

Always put the left sock and/or shoe on first or something tragic will happen.

Jason

Real ghost stories, Part Two
Random things make my skin crawl (possessed dolls, Gollum, wooden wheelchairs, etc.) – but living in haunted houses may be the most terrifying thing for a 5-year-old. The first two houses I lived in as a child were haunted, but it’s the second house that I remember most. And unfortunately, for my twin sister and me (and yes, we’ve heard all the jokes about The Shining), the door to the attic was located in our room.

My mother tried to keep the stories from us. Once my uncle visited overnight was awoken to a piano playing. He was sleeping in the TV room at the back of the house and the piano was located in the living room at the front. He thought it was my sister and I goofing off – but when he got up, no one was there. Another time my mother was taking down Christmas decorations in the living room, and someone played one long, loud note on the piano. A family friend who happened to be a minister was visiting at the same time and also heard the piano. After that he went through the house blessing each room. When he was done, my mother went back to taking down the Christmas tree and just a little while later the piano once again, played one long, loud note.

This prompted a visit from a local paranormal investigation group. They had a guest speaker come to give a talk. When they arrived he and several other members saw a man standing on the landing at the top of the stairs. When he didn’t come down and join the presentation, they asked my mother who the man was – she told them nobody else lived here and asked them what he looked like.

Soon after she asked the neighbors about the people that had lived in the house before us.

The man who lived there before us had actually built the house and he was described as looking like Mr. Peepers. Which was the same description the paranormal group gave my mother.

We used to play in the attic (we’ve heard all the Flowers in the Attic references too), until we started hearing the footsteps. My sister and I would play hide-and-go seek. It was the typical creepy attic and the boxes and huge space kept the game going for hours. But during the quiet moments, we’d hear footsteps and boxes being moved. My bed faced the attic door and my 5-year-old mind convinced myself that as long as I had my stuffed animals, the footsteps couldn’t hurt me. To this day I sleep completely still, like I did to keep my stuffed animals from falling off my bed in the middle of the night.

Kym

Comments

[kym]

I'm with Lois, when I was 6 a black snake fell out of a tree on and nearly landed on top of me. So not cool. :p