- Joined
- Jul 3, 2025
- Messages
- 25
- Reaction score
- 18
More stories of the madness(ever read SHADE THE CHANGING MAN?)
30 odd years ago I was in a shop queue, behind a ten year old lad I did not know. He turned to me and said "Hello Bob" in a funny voice. I told him my name was in fact Bob. I had to show him my library card to prove it. He was very happy.
Maybe 20 years later I was walking through town and there was a four year old boy in a pushchair. He saw me and pointed at me and started shouting "IT'S THE BULLY! IT'S THE BULLY!"
What did he see? What did he know?
Maybe a few months ago another toddler in a pushchair started waving at me in a friendly manner...but his face was a mask of terror. That tickles me.
What did he see?
A few years ago I had a dream that someone other than Robert Englund would play Freddy Krueger(blasphemy). This actor had something to do with superheroes and rain.
Years later Jackie Earl Haley played Krueger. Before that he had a lead role in WATCHMEN. It re-started his career. There is a particular scene in WATCHMEN of an unmasked Rorschach in the rain that I like. I believe he's holding up a sign with "The End Is Nigh" on it. Or something equally pleasing to me.
Around 2015 I was listening to a cryptozoology podcast and wished my city would have its own monster like Nessie or Mothman. I visualised this monster lurking on the outskirts of the city. Half man half animal.
A year later people began to report seeing a large werewolf on the outskirts of the city. Red glowing eyes, one guy said he saw it leap an 8 foot fence with a dead alsation in its jaws. All the sightings were made near Barmston Drain, which I used to live next to and held symbolic resonances for me. People figured it was Old Stinker: a legendary werewolf that lurks in the north of England.
I contacted a local investigator into the supernatural and told him about my wish for a resident monster. He said charitably "be careful what you wish for."
In the 90's I read an interview with my favourite horror writer Ramsey Campbell. In it he was asked if he believed in the kind of ghosts he wrote about. He said he didn't believe in the supernatural. I was very disappointed. How could he write about something so dear to my heart and not believe? How dare he?
A year later I read another, newer, interview with him and he was asked the same question. Now he wasn't so sure. He had slept in the spare room one night. He experienced an old woman lying in the bed with him, a ghostly kitten at the end of the bed and witnessed a coin manifesting in mid air that dropped to the ground.
I was pleased his eyes had been opened.
When I was 19 I committed a silly crime that got me involved with the police.
Not long later I made a new friend. I told him that I had been in trouble with the law but didn't give him details. I kept dangling this undisclosed fact.
One day I was volunteering with an amateur dramatics group and I was stuffing invites into envelopes. I noticed a name and address on a database I recognised. It was someone close to my new friend. I informed him that I had accidentally memorised her details. He wasn't too concerned. I had imparted earlier to my friend that I thought the woman in question maybe had a thing for me. He hadn't liked that. I perhaps had been a little crude in my language.
A couple of weeks later he told me that this woman had been receiving strange phone calls and that he wished they would stop. I could tell by the way he said it that he suspected me. He was suggesting I stop phoning her. I wasn't phoning her.
It just so happens that my silly crime involved sending threatening letters. Although the courts had to charge me with that because there is no such crime as attempted assault. It's complicated.
The phone calls stopped soon after by the way.
Paranoia? Coincidence? Safe words used by the inexperienced. By now I don't have the luxury of doubt. And the events were apt: as a teen I would ring people and play a tape of a man laughing madly. Those people I chose from the phone book had the surnames of girls from my school. Girls I had taken a fancy to. I assumed I was playing that laughing man tape to them in my sick mind.
About ten years ago the Social Services inspected my flat and deemed it too small to live in. Apparently it wasn't even registered as a flat but in fact as a storage room. They gave me a date by which I had to move out. I made no effort to look for another home. As someone who worries a lot that was out of keeping with me. Becoming homeless is a big fear of mine and is obviously a serious situation for anyone. So I was acting odd. Acting like I had nothing to worry about.
A few weeks before my date to move out a guy in my house went mad and bust up his flat. The landlord chucked him out and re-decorated. Another resident I did not know told me that the flat was available. I rang the landlord and moved in a few days before the date to vacate my old defunct flat. It all seemed too convenient. It then transpired that someone was stealing my mail and that the new flat was perfect for me to look out of to see the postman coming. The old flat was at the back of the building with no view of the front door. Also I realised that I dreamt about moving into this flat years before!
Seems there is a helping hidden hand in my life as well as a mischief maker. Maybe they are the same entity.
As Ian Brown from The Stone Roses sang in I WANT TO BE ADORED "I don't have to sell my soul, he's already in me."
And can summon up enough ectoplasm to make phone calls too it seems...but where did he get the coins to pay for it? From Ramsey Campbell's spare room ghost of course!
Hah! I tweeted Campbell this "We had such fun with you in your spare room."
He didn't respond. People aren't weird enough...just yet.
Not long to go though.
30 odd years ago I was in a shop queue, behind a ten year old lad I did not know. He turned to me and said "Hello Bob" in a funny voice. I told him my name was in fact Bob. I had to show him my library card to prove it. He was very happy.
Maybe 20 years later I was walking through town and there was a four year old boy in a pushchair. He saw me and pointed at me and started shouting "IT'S THE BULLY! IT'S THE BULLY!"
What did he see? What did he know?
Maybe a few months ago another toddler in a pushchair started waving at me in a friendly manner...but his face was a mask of terror. That tickles me.
What did he see?
A few years ago I had a dream that someone other than Robert Englund would play Freddy Krueger(blasphemy). This actor had something to do with superheroes and rain.
Years later Jackie Earl Haley played Krueger. Before that he had a lead role in WATCHMEN. It re-started his career. There is a particular scene in WATCHMEN of an unmasked Rorschach in the rain that I like. I believe he's holding up a sign with "The End Is Nigh" on it. Or something equally pleasing to me.
Around 2015 I was listening to a cryptozoology podcast and wished my city would have its own monster like Nessie or Mothman. I visualised this monster lurking on the outskirts of the city. Half man half animal.
A year later people began to report seeing a large werewolf on the outskirts of the city. Red glowing eyes, one guy said he saw it leap an 8 foot fence with a dead alsation in its jaws. All the sightings were made near Barmston Drain, which I used to live next to and held symbolic resonances for me. People figured it was Old Stinker: a legendary werewolf that lurks in the north of England.
I contacted a local investigator into the supernatural and told him about my wish for a resident monster. He said charitably "be careful what you wish for."
In the 90's I read an interview with my favourite horror writer Ramsey Campbell. In it he was asked if he believed in the kind of ghosts he wrote about. He said he didn't believe in the supernatural. I was very disappointed. How could he write about something so dear to my heart and not believe? How dare he?
A year later I read another, newer, interview with him and he was asked the same question. Now he wasn't so sure. He had slept in the spare room one night. He experienced an old woman lying in the bed with him, a ghostly kitten at the end of the bed and witnessed a coin manifesting in mid air that dropped to the ground.
I was pleased his eyes had been opened.
When I was 19 I committed a silly crime that got me involved with the police.
Not long later I made a new friend. I told him that I had been in trouble with the law but didn't give him details. I kept dangling this undisclosed fact.
One day I was volunteering with an amateur dramatics group and I was stuffing invites into envelopes. I noticed a name and address on a database I recognised. It was someone close to my new friend. I informed him that I had accidentally memorised her details. He wasn't too concerned. I had imparted earlier to my friend that I thought the woman in question maybe had a thing for me. He hadn't liked that. I perhaps had been a little crude in my language.
A couple of weeks later he told me that this woman had been receiving strange phone calls and that he wished they would stop. I could tell by the way he said it that he suspected me. He was suggesting I stop phoning her. I wasn't phoning her.
It just so happens that my silly crime involved sending threatening letters. Although the courts had to charge me with that because there is no such crime as attempted assault. It's complicated.
The phone calls stopped soon after by the way.
Paranoia? Coincidence? Safe words used by the inexperienced. By now I don't have the luxury of doubt. And the events were apt: as a teen I would ring people and play a tape of a man laughing madly. Those people I chose from the phone book had the surnames of girls from my school. Girls I had taken a fancy to. I assumed I was playing that laughing man tape to them in my sick mind.
About ten years ago the Social Services inspected my flat and deemed it too small to live in. Apparently it wasn't even registered as a flat but in fact as a storage room. They gave me a date by which I had to move out. I made no effort to look for another home. As someone who worries a lot that was out of keeping with me. Becoming homeless is a big fear of mine and is obviously a serious situation for anyone. So I was acting odd. Acting like I had nothing to worry about.
A few weeks before my date to move out a guy in my house went mad and bust up his flat. The landlord chucked him out and re-decorated. Another resident I did not know told me that the flat was available. I rang the landlord and moved in a few days before the date to vacate my old defunct flat. It all seemed too convenient. It then transpired that someone was stealing my mail and that the new flat was perfect for me to look out of to see the postman coming. The old flat was at the back of the building with no view of the front door. Also I realised that I dreamt about moving into this flat years before!
Seems there is a helping hidden hand in my life as well as a mischief maker. Maybe they are the same entity.
As Ian Brown from The Stone Roses sang in I WANT TO BE ADORED "I don't have to sell my soul, he's already in me."
And can summon up enough ectoplasm to make phone calls too it seems...but where did he get the coins to pay for it? From Ramsey Campbell's spare room ghost of course!
Hah! I tweeted Campbell this "We had such fun with you in your spare room."
He didn't respond. People aren't weird enough...just yet.
Not long to go though.