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Scarey Stories
In anticipation of Halloween, here are some scarey (and not so scarey) stories about Halloween!
The history of the Jack O Lantern
The Irish brought the tradition of the Jack O'Lantern to America. But, the original Jack O'Lantern was not a pumpkin.The Jack O'Lantern legend goes back hundreds of years in Irish History. As the story goes, Stingy Jack was a miserable, old drunk who liked to play tricks on everyone: family, friends, his mother and even the Devil himself. One day, he tricked the Devil into climbing up an apple tree. Once the Devil climbed up the apple tree, Stingy Jack hurriedly placed crosses around the trunk of the tree. The Devil was then unable to get down the tree. Stingy Jack made the Devil promise him not to take his soul when he died. Once the devil promised not to take his soul, Stingy Jack removed the crosses and let the Devil down.
Many years later, when Jack finally died, he went to the pearly gates of Heaven and was told by Saint Peter that he was too mean and too cruel and had led a miserable and worthless life on earth. He was not allowed to enter heaven. He then went down to Hell and the Devil. The Devil kept his promise and would not allow him to enter Hell. Now Jack was scared and had nowhere to go but to wander about forever in the darkness between heaven and hell. He asked the Devil how he could leave as there was no light. The Devil tossed him an ember from the flames of Hell to help him light his way. Jack placed the ember in a hollowed out Turnip, one of his favorite foods which he always carried around with him whenever he could steal one. For that day onward, Stingy Jack roamed the earth without a resting place, lighting his way as he went with his "Jack O'Lantern".
On all Hallow's eve, the Irish hollowed out Turnips, rutabagas, gourds, potatoes and beets. They placed a light in them to ward off evil spirits and keep Stingy Jack away. These were the original Jack O'Lanterns. In the 1800's a couple of waves of Irish immigrants came to America. The Irish immigrants quickly discovered that Pumpkins were bigger and easier to carve out. So they used pumpkins for Jack O'Lanterns.
The Last Kiss
Late one night, a young man was driving home along a dark country road. It was a Saturday
night and it was raining. As he rounded a long curve, his headlights lit up a young woman
standing at the side of the road. She was wearing a white dress and was all wet from the rain.
He thought he knew what had happened: The girl had quarreled with her date and had chosen to
walk home rather than stay with the guy. The young man skidded to a stop before the young woman
could even raised her hand to thumb a ride.
He leaned over and opened the door for her to get in.
She slid into the seat and shut the door. With a smile she said, "Would you take me home? I
just live a mile down the road."
That was when he noticed how pretty she was. He almost couldn't think of anything to say, she
was so pretty. He said, "Sure."
He took off his letter jacket and offered it to her. She leaned forward and draped it around
her shoulders. It was too crowded in the front seat for her to put her arms into the sleeves.
The boy dropped the car into gear, and he still hadn't thought of anything to say when they
passes the church and the graveyard and came to a two story house.
"This is my house," she said.
They stopped, and he got out and walked her to the door. They stood looking at each other for
a moment and before he could think of a way to ask her for a kiss, she leaned over and kissed
him. He was so surprised that she had opened the screen door, opened the front door, and gone
inside the house before he could speak. He realized that she was still wearing his letter jacket
and for a moment he thought about knocking on the door. But the house was dark, her parents
were probably asleep, and she might get into trouble for getting in so late if he woke them.
Besides, the jacket gave him the perfect excuse to come see her again.
Sunday morning, about time for church, he came back to the house and knocked on the door. A
tired, sad-looking woman answered. He asked if he could talk to the ladies daughter.
"My daughter is dead," said the woman. "She died one year ago last night in a car wreck one
mile down the road or so at the long curve."
"That's not possible!" said the man. "I gave her a ride home last night!"
"If you don't believe me," said the woman, "go look for yourself. She's buried in the graveyard
there in the third row."
The young man walked into the cemetery. In the third row of headstones, he found what he was
looking for.
A pink marble headstone was inscribed with the name Laurie, and over the rounded corners of
the stone was his letter jacket.
High Beams
The girl driving the old blue sedan was a senior at the high school.
She lived on a farm about eight miles away and used the car to drive back and forth.
She had driven into town that night to see a basketball game.
Now she was on her way home. As she pulled away from the school,
she noticed a red pick-up truck follow her out of the parking lot.
A few minutes later the truck was still behind her.
"I guess we're going in the same direction," she thought.
She began to watch the truck in the mirror.
When she changed her speed, the driver of the truck changed his speed.
When she passed a car, so did he.
Then he turned on his high beams, flooding her car with light.
He left them on for almost a minute. "He probably wants to pass me," she thought.
But she was becoming uneasy.
Usually she drove over a back road. Not too many people went that way.
But when she turned onto the road, so did the truck.
"I've got to get away from him," she thought, and she began to drive faster.
The he turned his high beams on again. After a minute, he turned them off.
Then he turned then on again and off again.
She drove even faster, but the truck driver stayed right on behind her.
The he turned his high beams on again. Once more her car was ablaze with light.
"What is he doing?" she wondered. "What does he want?" Then he turned them off again.
But a minute later he had them on again, and he left them on.
At last she pulled into her driveway, and the truck pulled in right behind her.
She jumped from the car and ran to the house.
"Call the Police!" she screamed at her father.
Out in the driveway she could see the driver of the truck. He had a gun in his hand.
When the police arrived, they started to arrest him, be he pointed to the girl's car.
"You don't want me, " he said. "You want him."
Crouched behind the driver's seat, there was a man with a knife.
As the driver of the truck explained it,
the man slipped into the girl's car just before she left the school.
He saw it happen, but there was no way he could stop it.
He thought about getting the police, but he was afraid to leave her. So he followed her.
Each time the man in the back seat reached up to overpower her,
the driver of the truck turned on his high beams. The man dropped down,
afraid that someone might see him.
The story begins with a man (Mr Pennycook) arriving at a country cottage on a beautiful sunny day, where there's a small gathering of people who have just played THIO. He immediately spoils the atmosphere by banging on about a recurring dream he's been having. Luckily, everyone's very British (apart from the obligatorily Germanic psychiatrist) and they start breezily trying to explain why he's not a nutter and how it's probably all got a perfectly natural explaination, probably involving the drinking of lots of tea and THIO.
"Well, I must say it's very disappointing not to be one of the leading characters in a sort of supernatural drama after all," says one particularly dotty old dear, without drawing breath or indeed bothering to act.
Much talk of seeing the future starts more talk of spooky occurrences that have happened to the assorted members of the gathering, and the terror begins...
Story 1:
After a particularly nasty car racing accident, our hero wakes up in hospital and within seconds he's fallen in love with his nurse and is calling her "darling". This being the 1940s when men were all tweed-wearing, pipe-smoking Brylcreemed racing drivers and nurses were all called Jasmine, she doesn't seem to mind.
It's evening, and he starts to read a book. Then suddenly notices that the clock says 4.15 - and it's daylight outside. Looking through the window, he's shocked to see a hearse parked right outside. The driver looks up, and cheerily comments: "Just room for one inside, sir".
He sits down, and when he looks up the time is back to normal and it's dark outside. "Am I going crackers?" he asks himself, before shrugging it off in a stiff-upper-lipped kind of way.
The next day he's discharged, but as he waits for a bus to take him home, he asks for the time and doesn't like the answer. He likes it even less when the bus conductor looks very familiar...
After the unsettling beginning to the film, this is horror painted with much broader strokes. But it's only an hors d'euvre... Back at the cottage, the Pennycook's dream is being broken again and again - this time with the arrival of the "penniless brunette" he predicted. All he can say is that his "dream becomes a nightmare" later on... "a nightmare of horror". But he can't remember why other than his THIO shot was 50yds from the target!
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