Vampires and Robots

Well, here we are. It's Halloween and I've been saving my spookiest true story for today. Now, to preface, this is going to be a somewhat long story. I originally started writing this as part of a book idea that never panned out and while I was writing, I went off on a bunch of tangents about where I was living at the time. I've tried to clean them up as much as I could, but in case it still comes out as a meandering adventure in word salad, here are a few highlights you need to know: My apartment was on the third floor of a house in what could have been considered a "bad" neighborhood, but several locked doors existed between me and the street. This was the late nineties.  I had a land line and dial-up internet. The house was old and there were MANY housing code violations, including two separate front doors (one of which opened to my bedroom), crawlspaces with exposed wires and nails presented as "storage space," and most notably, a ceiling la...

Most hardcore ghost hunters and those of us who want to believe will tell you that ghosts are more than just ethereal visions of people in posh Victorian garb quietly reading in the library. Sometimes the presence of otherworldly spirits appear as unusually cold spots, floating orbs, or even sounds. In fact, one of the most popular bits of "proof" that ghosts exist come in the form of sounds and patterns in EMF fields. Which of course, can usually be attributed to auditory pareidolia.  Pareidolia is the perception of patterns out of randomness. Whenever you hear about someone who has seen the face of Elvis on their toast or the miraculous emergence of Jesus from the knotty pine of their paneling, that’s pareidolia. This can also happen with sound. Everything from the washing machine spin cycle to the sound of cars passing by creates white noise. Anyone concentrating hard enough is going to be able to pick out paying close enough attention is going to hear something in th...

Hello fellow humans! In this, the second creepy but true story, I'm going to go way back to when I was a wee kid. Okay, well I was about 14 and not so very wee by that age, but it was still a long time ago. The internet didn't exist, but my insomnia still did. It was mid-summer and we'd just moved into a new house. I occupied what had originally been a den or rumpus room on the first floor, while the rest of my family all had rooms on the second floor. Being that I was a teenager, I considered this really cool and hoped to eventually meet friends so I could take advantage of the fact that my room was tailor made for sneaking out. This was, of course, years before I would become old, jaded, and a bit paranoid and realize that being the only one on the first floor meant that I was easy pickin's for ax murderers and serial killers. As such, it never occurred to me to be even the least bit concerned about leaving my windows wide open while I slept. After all, it was the...

I always say I'm going to blog more and well, it's painfully obvious by the months and months that go by between posts that I'm not good at keeping that promise. But here I am now, making an attempt. Warning, seriously spooky things ahead. Well, sort of spooky, but if you scare easily, this is your warning. This is Sally, guardian of the gates of heckin' frightful things. Pass her at your own risk. You see, it's October, which for me is the one month out of the year that I allow myself to indulge my creepy side. I'll spend the whole month binge reading creepy pasta, urban legends, paranormal accounts, and a whole bunch of other supernatural silliness. And since I've got a few creepy tales of my own, I've decided that for the whole month, I'll do one post a week.  This first one was inspired by, of all things, the Jenna and Julien podcast. This week they were getting in the spirit of creep by reading some creepy stories off Reddit, mo...