Scary Shit You Find Online

[al_Ussa]

And no... I'm not talking about someone's coprophilia fetish.

Sometimes - especially late at night when I'm wrestling with another bout of insomnia - I like to surf the web and read ghost stories and those other short little blurbs about monsters or UFOs or conspiracy theories or weird artifacts that people proport to be 'true phenomena.' Whether they are or aren't they tend to be damned good reads.

Well the other night I came across this little gem:

The Bwystfel
When I was a child, I lived in Radnorshire, one of seven children and the youngest of six girls. As my parents had six other girls and an infant boy to take care of, they left me to myself, and I ran about like a wild thing. Not that they didn’t love me, but they had other things to do.

I was about five when I began to see the Bwystfel. It roamed about the farm, slipping in the shadows, and the only way to see it was to look for the shapes that were darker than the spaces between stars. Its mad eyes were like coal sparks, it laughed like a goat in pain, and it was always angry. I watched it from a distance: one spring, I saw it kill a nest of sparrows – closing its hands about the nest until the little naked birds smothered on its flesh — one summer, it poisoned the sheep, biting the ewes’ legs until rot and infection ate into their flesh that no about of doctoring could fix. Later, it skulked into the shed and sliced the handyman’s chest open, then danced his blood up the walls and over the rafters. My parents said it was an accident, but knew better. “The Bwystfel did it,” I told my father, and he boxed my ears for being a liar. No one believed me at all. . . except the Bwystfel itself.

It grew angrier. At night, it crept into my room, giggling and ripping the blankets away and pinching me. I shared a bed with two of my sisters – we didn’t all have separate rooms like you do – and when the Bwystfel came, we shivered together, too afraid to move until morning. We were very little girls, and nobody trusted us with a candle, so we had no way to drive the thing away. It tormented us in whispers, calling us names and telling us we were bad children, because our prayers that it would leave us be weren’t answered. My sisters refused to speak a word of it, and they wore the Bwystfel-inflicted bruises like jewellery – saying they’d fallen over or been bitten by the cat.

I decided I would have to find the Bwystfel myself and scare it away. I took the statuette of Florence Nightingale that my mother gave us to hold when we were sick and a stone with a hole in it, both for luck. As it turned out, I would need the luck.

I walked for ages, got lost, and eventually stumbled into a small wooded copse where I had never been before. Under the trees it was cold air, and pine needles and dried leaves lay thick upon the patchy grass. I clutch Florence. . . and then I saw the bones.

Bleached and ancient, they lay scattered in a circle: small bones, large bones, bones half buried in the loam, bones with scraps of dried flesh still clinging to them. A sheep skeleton hung suspended in the tangle of a blackberry bush, and canes had grown through the eye sockets of birds. I started to cry – I knew I’d found the den of the Bwystfel.

The Bwystfel appeared from nowhere, crouched down on the tawny grass like a cat about to pounce. The ivory of the bones jutted up around it like little fingers, clawing, trying to drag it down. “You’d better run, small girl,” the Bwystfel hissed. “Better run, or your brother-boy will break his bones, snap-snap.” It vanished, only to appear again, behind me. Terrified, I flung my lucky stone at it; the stone passed right through its head, and the ghoul screamed.

I’d seen enough. I bolted, dropping Florence, rushing headlong towards where I thought the nearest road should be. Once there, I kept going, my skirt ripped to ribbons by thorns and my legs stung with nettles, until, turning a corner, I ran smack into my grandfather. He was a big man, my grandfather, and he swung me off my feet and held me as I sobbed.

“What’s wrong, darling?” he asked, when I calmed some. I told him of the Bwystfel and what it had said, and instead of being angry, as my father had been, he listened. His brow furrowed. “Are you feeling brave, darling? Do you think you could be brave for me?” When I nodded, he had me show him were I’d gone – then he sat me on a bank and gave me his best silver snuff box to hold. “I’m going after the Bwystfel,” he told her. “You stay here in the sunshine and I’ll be back soon. If any bad bwcy comes, you hit it with that.”

So I waited, shaking, afraid for my granddaddy and afraid of the Bwystfel and afraid of what Mother would do if I lost Florence. Finally, back Grandad came; flushed, and bleeding from a hundred cuts on his hands. He looked angry, more angry then I’d ever seen him, for he was the mildest of men. “The Bwystfel-beast is dead again,” he told me, “and under the soil where it belongs.” He spat upon the earth and ground the moisture in with his boot heel.

“What do you mean, dead again?” I asked.

Grandad was quiet for a time, then he said. “The Bwystfel was a damned one who hurt small things because he loved pain. When I was a boy, Old Thomas killed him, but Young Thomas found where he lay and let him out. I’ll sort him out for good soon and he won’t bother you any more.” When he arrived at my father’s house, he made excuses for my torn dress and tear-stained face, saying I’d been attacked by a dog, and Florence had been broken as I’d tried to escape.

And then, without another word, he went to the shed and fetched the dead handyman’s bottle of whiskey and gun powder and a box of matches.

I never went back, but I heard of a fire that burned bone den trees to the ground.

Too good... too good.

Theres a whole bunch more posted over at this site. Enjoy. Your not going to be sleeping any time soon

 

[al_Ussa]

Another clever one I found from Ichor Falls. I especially like the way that the author used forum posts to capture the feel of nostalgia and weirdness. It actually seems like something they would have shown on TV... hell it almost makes you feel like its something YOU should remember. Fucking brilliant.

Candle Cove
NetNostalgia Forum - Television (local)

Skyshale033
Subject: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
Does anyone remember this kid’s show? It was called Candle Cove and I must have been 6 or 7. I never found reference to it anywhere so I think it was on a local station around 1971 or 1972. I lived in Ironton at the time. I don’t remember which station, but I do remember it was on at a weird time, like 4:00 PM.

mike_painter65
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
it seems really familiar to me…..i grew up outside of ashland and was 9 yrs old in 72. candle cove…was it about pirates? i remember a pirate marionete at the mouth of a cave talking to a little girl

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
YES! Okay I’m not crazy! I remember Pirate Percy. I was always kind of scared of him. He looked like he was built from parts of other dolls, real low-budget. His head was an old porcelain baby doll, looked like an antique that didn’t belong on the body. I don’t remember what station this was! I don’t think it was WTSF though.

Jaren_2005
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
Sorry to ressurect this old thread but I know exactly what show you mean, Skyshale. I think Candle Cove ran for only a couple months in ‘71, not ‘72. I was 12 and I watched it a few times with my brother. It was channel 58, whatever station that was. My mom would let me switch to it after the news. Let me see what I remember.

It took place in Candle cove, and it was about a little girl who imagined herself to be friends with pirates. The pirate ship was called the Laughingstock, and Pirate Percy wasn’t a very good pirate because he got scared too easily. And there was calliope music constantly playing. Don’t remember the girl’s name. Janice or Jade or something. Think it was Janice.

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
Thank you Jaren!!! Memories flooded back when you mentioned the Laughingstock and channel 58. I remember the bow of the ship was a wooden smiling face, with the lower jaw submerged. It looked like it was swallowing the sea and it had that awful Ed Wynn voice and laugh. I especially remember how jarring it was when they switched from the wooden/plastic model, to the foam puppet version of the head that talked.

mike_painter65
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
ha ha i remember now too. do you remember this part skyshale: “you have…to go…INSIDE.”

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
Ugh mike, I got a chill reading that. Yes I remember. That’s what the ship always told Percy when there was a spooky place he had to go in, like a cave or a dark room where the treasure was. And the camera would push in on Laughingstock’s face with each pause. YOU HAVE… TO GO… INSIDE. With his two eyes askew and that flopping foam jaw and the fishing line that opened and closed it. Ugh. It just looked so cheap and awful.

You guys remember the villain? He had a face that was just a handlebar mustache above really tall, narrow teeth.

kevin_hart
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
i honestly, honestly thought the villain was pirate percy. i was about 5 when this show was on. nightmare fuel.

Jaren_2005
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
That wasn’t the villain, the puppet with the mustache. That was the villain’s sidekick, Horace Horrible. He had a monocle too, but it was on top of the mustache. I used to think that meant he had only one eye.

But yeah, the villain was another marionette. The Skin-Taker. I can’t believe what they let us watch back then.

kevin_hart
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
jesus h. christ, the skin taker. what kind of a kids show were we watching? i seriously could not look at the screen when the skin taker showed up. he just descended out of nowhere on his strings, just a dirty skeleton wearing that brown top hat and cape. and his glass eyes that were too big for his skull. christ almighty.

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
Wasn’t his top hat and cloak all sewn up crazily? Was that supposed to be children’s skin??

mike_painter65
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
yeah i think so. rememer his mouth didn’t open and close, his jaw just slid back and foth. i remember the little girl said “why does your mouth move like that” and the skin-taker didn’t look at the girl but at the camera and said “TO GRIND YOUR SKIN”

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
I’m so relieved that other people remember this terrible show!

I used to have this awful memory, a bad dream I had where the opening jingle ended, the show faded in from black, and all the characters were there, but the camera was just cutting to each of their faces, and they were just screaming, and the puppets and marionettes were flailing spastically, and just all screaming, screaming. The girl was just moaning and crying like she had been through hours of this. I woke up many times from that nightmare. I used to wet the bed when I had it.

kevin_hart
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
i don’t think that was a dream. i remember that. i remember that was an episode.

Skyshale033
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
No no no, not possible. There was no plot or anything, I mean literally just standing in place crying and screaming for the whole show.

kevin_hart
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
maybe i’m manufacturing the memory because you said that, but i swear to god i remember seeing what you described. they just screamed.

Jaren_2005
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
Oh God. Yes. The little girl, Janice, I remember seeing her shake. And the Skin-Taker screaming through his gnashing teeth, his jaw careening so wildly I thought it would come off its wire hinges. I turned it off and it was the last time I watched. I ran to tell my brother and we didn’t have the courage to turn it back on.

mike_painter65
Subject: Re: Candle Cove local kid’s show?
i visited my mom today at the nursing home. i asked her about when i was littel in the early 70s, when i was 8 or 9 and if she remebered a kid’s show, candle cove. she said she was suprised i could remember that and i asked why, and she said “because i used to think it was so strange that you said ‘i’m gona go watch candle cove now mom’ and then you would tune the tv to static and juts watch dead air for 30 minutes. you had a big imagination with your little pirate show.”

Apparently there's a whole book of Ichor Falls stories. Must get my hands on that some time soon.

 

[Trinique_Fire]

Go read up on Springheel Jack. Scary shit.