Have You Ever Had The Hell Scared Out Of You?

[McAvennie]

The worst scare I ever had was in a car park in Liverpool during the 80's.
We were travelling along the motorway towards the Wallasey tunnel when we overtook an old battered black van. The driver was the most forboding character I had ever seen. He turned to look at us as we went past and my blood froze when I made eye contact with him. Even my husband was creeped out by him.
We parked in a car park in the business area. My husband went off to his office and I went up to do some shopping. It was the run up before Christmas so it was dark when I returned alone to the cark park. It had gone 5 so it was pretty well empty. I turned round a corner to go to my car when I saw parked right next to it the old black van, with the driver sitting stock still inside it. He was just staring through the windscreen at a blank wall.
There were no other cars in that part of the car park so feeling panic starting to rise I walked as fast as I could out of the car park and up to my husbands office nearby. I waited for his meeting to finish and we went back to the car together. The van was still there but the driver was no longer in the cab. The van was so close to our car that my husband could not open the drivers door and had to use the passenger door and shuffle over.
We used the old Birkenhead tunnel on our return trip and were freaked out again when my husband saw that the van was right behind us in the tunnel. He held back so that it went ahead of us at the toll booths and watched where it went. We took another route.

That is one of the creepier stories I've read on here. What exactly did the driver look like? I'm imagining Marv from Sin City...

Last year, maybe year before I was driving back from Sunderland to London. Got to the M18 link through from A1 to M1 and seem to remember around there encountering a battered old Vauxhall. It overtook me and then pulled in front and just held me up, so I overtook. Then it overtook again, and this continued through the M18, onto M1 and to the roadworks in Derbyshire when eventually I thought fuck it and just let it go. I must stress at this stage it was just standard overtaking, not dangerous.

Anyway got out the other side of the roadworks and met the car again, and again as soon as I had passed it sped up and was on my tail to get passed. This was seriously pissing me off so I just thought fudge it and overtook and then floored it, was probably going at about erm, 77mph, for a good while and had well and truly lost this prick. Carried on all the way to the turning for Hemel Hempstead where I was exiting, began to slow down for the roadworks there and what do you know, from absolutely nowhere this Vauxhall appears and cuts me up!

Never saw the driver's face which makes it all a bit Duel-esque, and most likely nothing more sinister than one of the many absolute wankers who populate the M1. But still I found it very odd.

 

[tilly50]

Sorry to disappoint but the driver was weedy, rake thin in fact. He had grizzled grey hair, bit unkempt, a pointed beaky nose and thin mouth. His skin was pale, but yellowish and fairly wrinkled, especially around the eyes. His eyes were very dark in colour and quite large in his face. He had a rather blank stare, sort of looking through you rather than at you.

 

[harryashburn]

@ttaarraass and Mythopoeka: re: Commodor 64: to quote jack nicholson from "Goin' South":

No. You don't understand. It was a joke. A joke is when you make somebody laugh." :lol:

 

[Mythopoeika]

I didn't laugh 'cos I believe (with serious hacking) that it is possible to browse the Internet and send emails with a Commodore 64. Thought you were serious...

 

[McAvennie]

Sorry to disappoint but the driver was weedy, rake thin in fact. He had grizzled grey hair, bit unkempt, a pointed beaky nose and thin mouth. His skin was pale, but yellowish and fairly wrinkled, especially around the eyes. His eyes were very dark in colour and quite large in his face. He had a rather blank stare, sort of looking through you rather than at you.

That is possibly even more frightening...

Sounds a bit like Peter Tobin in fact!

 

[Spookdaddy]

When I was growing up the countryside near my parents home was my playground. At eight I was already wandering over the moors quite happily on my own.

I must have been a bit older - maybe eleven or twelve - when I was dropping off the hill I had to climb in order to get down onto a disused railway line that ran through the valley that leads to a local reservoir. This railway line was used by dog-walkers and being near a local beauty spot, was popular with tourists, so it wasn't unusual to see people.

On the day in question - which was sunny and warm - the only people I could see as I descended were a boy of about sixteen and the older man who was with him - who were walking in a direction that would intersect with mine once I'd reached the track. At this point we were about a mile apart and I was aware of them before they were of me. However, when they did become aware of me their reaction seemed a little strange: they stopped in their tracks looking up at me - one of them pointed, they turned their heads towards each other as if talking, and then set off walking again, both their faces were raised towards me.

I lost sight of them behind a hillock and thought no more of it until, almost as I'd reached the track, I saw the boy's head appear to the side of me behind a little rise. They must have quickened their pace, or even run, to get where they were in relation to me and the younger man had obviously climbed a little way off the path onto the moor - the older man was still on the track.

Anyway, at this point the boy said three words - totally inconsequential in themselves - which still send a shiver down my spine over thirty years later.

He's over here!

As an adult I've been in many hazardous situations but the almost explosive surge of instinct I experienced at that moment (and actually possibly just before I heard the words) was unlike anything I've felt since, and I was down the hill over the path, passing only a few feet in front of the older man, and into the lower valley like a hare. I ran what must be about five miles to a car park I knew would be busy on such a sunny day. The Ice Cream van man, who would have known me by sight, obviously sussed something was wrong and gave me a free ice-cream and a can of something.

I had to walk back home over the moors but I went by way of the ridges so I could see all around me.

Possibly because the individual elements of the experiences seemed so inconsequential, I never told anyone - in fact, that's the first time I've ever related the experience.

Not much of a story - it would be much more if it were possible to describe that all-consuming surge of instinct.

 

[Anome]

@ttaarraass and Mythopoeka: re: Commodor 64: to quote jack nicholson from "Goin' South":

No. You don't understand. It was a joke. A joke is when you make somebody laugh." :lol:

So in what way was it a joke, then?

Anyway, you can surf the internet with a Commodore 64, although functionality is a bit limited. And the lack of lower case characters makes anything you post a bit "shouty".

 

[shambles]

I happen to think that the OP is full of shit. Do I win a subscription?

 

[Mythopoeika]

@ttaarraass and Mythopoeka: re: Commodor 64: to quote jack nicholson from "Goin' South":

No. You don't understand. It was a joke. A joke is when you make somebody laugh." :lol:

So in what way was it a joke, then?

Anyway, you can surf the internet with a Commodore 64, although functionality is a bit limited. And the lack of lower case characters makes anything you post a bit "shouty".

Wasn't that the C-16? I seem to recall being able to type normally on my C-64.
I remember that the Apple II only had capitals.

 

[taras]

The C64 let you switch between lower and upper case, but not use both simultaneously. If I recall correctly, you had to press Shift + Commodore key to switch them.

 

[McAvennie]

I still have my commodore 64 in the loft with a box full of superb cassette games. Sadly something went wrong with it and it stopped working. Yet I still keep it over 20 years later... :S

 

[harryashburn]

commodore 64

In my ignorance, I assumed nobody used a commodore 64, and even few would know what it was. It was my lame attempt to make a joke just bringing up the Commodore 64, as you would joke about your new 8-track player.

@ttaarraass and Mythopoeka: re: Commodor 64: to quote jack nicholson from "Goin' South":

No. You don't understand. It was a joke. A joke is when you make somebody laugh." :lol:

So in what way was it a joke, then?

Anyway, you can surf the internet with a Commodore 64, although functionality is a bit limited. And the lack of lower case characters makes anything you post a bit "shouty".

Wasn't that the C-16? I seem to recall being able to type normally on my C-64.
I remember that the Apple II only had capitals.

 

[escargot]

You should know by now - whatever weird habit you randomly mock, someone on here will ask why you're picking on them! :lol:

 

[danny_cogdon]

Re: commodore 64

In my ignorance, I assumed nobody used a commodore 64, and even few would know what it was. It was my lame attempt to make a joke just bringing up the Commodore 64, as you would joke about your new 8-track player.

I used a C64. My brother bought one and it was the most high-tech thing I had ever seen!

Before that I was using a Commodeore Pet 2001 and a teletype with punch tape unit from school connected by phone to the mainfraim at Sunderland Poly.

The kids these days... they don't know they are born!

 

[jeff544]

Not much of a story - it would be much more if it were possible to describe that all-consuming surge of instinct.

On the contrary - this is an excellent account imho, I know what you mean by the surge of instict, of all the scary situations that I can remember being in (none as percieveably (sp?) as perilous as yours thankfully) I can hear like a ping in my head as the realisation of the danger happens.

On reflection, do you think it is possible that they could really have meant you harm, or maybe they were looking for a dog or some thing? (that you were not aware they had with them).

 

[escargot]

The kids these days... they don't know they are born!

So true. My son was in hysterics laughing when his father explained at length how we used to select a song before CDs...

- Look at record sleeve
- select song
- notice which side it's on
- count how many 'tracks' along it is
- get up off sofa
- walk to record player
- lift up arm of record player
- count along the tracks to the required song
- carefully lower stylus onto record
- dash back to sofa, sit down, listen to song
- repeat as necessary

:lol:

 

[harryashburn]

@Spookdaddy: you said " ... gave me a free ice-cream and a can of something. "

So, what was in the can?

 

[harryashburn]

to jeff544 and spookdaddy

Not much of a story - it would be much more if it were possible to describe that all-consuming surge of instinct.

On the contrary - this is an excellent account imho, I know what you mean by the surge of instict, of all the scary situations that I can remember being in (none as percieveably (sp?) as perilous as yours thankfully) I can hear like a ping in my head as the realisation of the danger happens.

On reflection, do you think it is possible that they could really have meant you harm, or maybe they were looking for a dog or some thing? (that you were not aware they had with them).

I'm not the suspicious type; I think I would have met them and see what happens. I'd worry I might spend the rest of my life wondering what they wanted. Even though I;m old, Im not really fearful of violence.

 

[Spookdaddy]

...On reflection, do you think it is possible that they could really have meant you harm, or maybe they were looking for a dog or some thing? (that you were not aware they had with them).

There are, of course, several scenarios in which would entail benign intent in the two men, all of which could be true. All I can say is that at that specific point my instincts took over completely and told me not under any circumstances to hedge my bets.

I should emphasise that I quite a shy child, but not at all fearful - I know that sounds contradictory, but I suspect some people, having been of a similar disposition, will know exactly what I mean.

Also, although I was probably around eleven at the time, this would have been in the 70's and well before the days of paedonoia. I mean, we all knew that there were people out there to be avoided but in those days we saw it as an outside risk - like being hit by a meteor - rather than a constant one. (Incidentally, I'm not saying we were right - obviously there was a lot more of it about than was talked about - but the subject wasn't as burned into the collective conscience as much as deeply as it became later on.)

What I'm trying to say is that I didn't see that figure appear over the rise, hear the words 'he's over here', and think 'paedo - run' - I didn't think much of anything, I just ran, because every ounce of me told me that's what I should do.

 

[chez1807]

This happened to me around the early 1980s at an ordinary suburban school yard in the Midlands when I was around the age of nine or ten.

I had a bit of difficulty with writing as a child (dyslexia, unrecognised until l I was older, but that doesn't really have anything to do with this tale, apart from explaining any typos/spelling mistakes etc in this post) but loved reading and would always have a book on the go. Sometimes I would get so into a particular book I was reading that I would literally have trouble putting it down until I had finished it, even going so far as once trying to read it
on the walk home from school! Very often if I was into a particularly good book I would forgo playing with my school friends at lunch time and take myself off to a quiet part of the school field away from the disturbance of the other children to happily get lost once again in the pages of the book I was reading.

This day I had taken myself about half way up the school field to sit on a small ridge next to the long jump pit. Just behind the long jump was a chain link fence, behind which was gardens belonging to a row of average sized 1940s semi detached houses. Sitting where I was I had a very good view right into the gardens, and into the rear windows of the houses themselves, but on this day I was not really taking any notice being far to keen to get back to my book. I remember it was a bright summer day, no wind. (It is funny how I can remember certain things from my childhood with vivid clarity, but I can't remember what the hell I just walked into my living room for :lol: )

I was soon lost in the pages, the outside world blocked out, when suddenly something stirred me from the tale I was reading. It was a sound that at first hearing barely managed a second thought but after I heard it again I put down my book and listened.


I heard it again. A distinct breath. Not an ordinary breath. It sounded rasping, like a gasp for air. I was puzzled at first. Didn't know what to make of it. I sat listening..Nothing. I began to think that I had imagined it or misheard something else, but then I was surprised to hear it again.. I began to feel a little unnerved. It was a horrible sound, clearly audible. It seemed to be coming from the direction of the chain link fence. Curious but slightly nervous I put down my book, got up and walked towards the fence to investigate. I inspected the area where the breath seemed to come from. Just grass on both sides of the fence. No bushes or shrubs either side where anything could hide.I was about to dismiss the sound and walk away when it happened again. This time it was much louder and seemed to be coming from right in front of me just the other side of the fence. I was suddenly overcome with fear. I have no idea why, but to me at the time there felt like something was very wrong with that sound. It was a horrible
feeling, something I had never felt in my life up to that point. It went from my head to my toes, and it really did feel like the hair on the back of my neck prickled.

I bolted. Ran as fast as I could away from the fence. I found one of the dinner ladies and babbled out the story of what I had heard. She took my hand and marched me back to the area by the fence where I had heard the breath.
She had a good look about the area, and finding nothing declared that it was probably a hedgehog or something that had scared me. I secretly wondered how it could be a hedgehog when there was nowhere for it to hide but could see that it was no good protesting that fact with an adult.

We had just turned our backs to walk away when I heard the breath again. Loud and clear and horrible from right next to us.

"There you go!! Did you hear that?!!" I cried out

With a puzzled look on her face she told me she had heard nothing. I couldn't believe it. How could she not have heard it? It seemed to come from right next to us and was loud enough that there was no way she couldn't have heard it.

I think she was getting a little bored with me now, and obviously putting it down to an over-active imagination of a child she said that maybe if the area bothered me so much I shouldn't sit there and then walked off.

I knew what I had heard, and after she had gone was not going to hang around there for much longer. I picked up my discarded book and ran to the school library, where I spend the remainder of lunch time, spooked, and a little cheesed off at the dinner lady for not believing me and the way she had seemed to dismiss my experience.

I later plucked up the courage to tell my school friends about what I had heard, and after school we all went to inspect the area by the fence. Neither me or any of the others heard anything that time.

In fact I never heard it again, but to be honest for all the remaining time I attended that school I avoided the area next to the long jump pit as much as I could.


I make no explanation as to what it was. It could have been childish imagination but I will never forget the overwhelming sense of panic and fear that washed over me when I head that sound. It seems as clear in my memory now as it did back then when it first happened. In fact, if I ever went back for a visit I think I would be still be a little reluctant to go and check out that fence :?

 

[poozler]

Great story, Chez. (And not bad for an ex-dyslexic, I might add.) Could there have been animals lurking about? Could you have compared the noise to any animal sound you've ever heard or was it human-ish?

Your story sort of reminds me of something similar (but not so weird): Some friends and I were walking late at night up a low mountain (at the top of which we lived) through a heavily wooded area on the east coast of Canada. There was no light except the moon, and it was not very bright at that. We heard something walking parallel to us along the path, in the bushes beside us. We listened, stopped, 'it' would walk a little bit and stop, too. Walk a little bit, rustle rustle rustle. stop. And on and on until we just freaked out and ran all the way back down the mountainside making as much noise as we could.

We suspected a lynx. A bit scary (even a house cat can do serious harm to a person--I have the scars) but not creepy. YOURS is creepy.

 

[chez1807]

Thank you Poozler I still have a bit of difficulty with writing things by hand, but using a computer makes things much easier for me, plus finding a really good adult learning class several yeas ago helped me immensely.

I have since experienced a sound very similar to the breath I though I heard all that time ago. For many years I worked as a care assistant in a nursing home giving palliative care for EMI and terminally ill residents. On many occasions I have been caring for a person in the last few hours of their life, and as their body begins to shut down they go through a period of Kussmaul breathing (deep, gasp-like breathing) often companied by a rattling or bubbly sound. Not pleasant to hear at first but something you eventually get used to.


Now I am going on memory here, and as we all realise memory can be subjective, but in my mind the breath I heard in the school yard sounded much like that.

 

[Limelight]

A distinct breath. Not an ordinary breath. It sounded rasping, like a gasp for air.

Just a thought chez, but some birds make utterly mental sounds. Here's a link to vid of a baby barn owl making noises similar to what you describe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_k9RIGr2M&NR=1
The dinner lady might have just denied hearing it as well cos she hadn't the faintest what it was and didn't want to freak you out further.

 

[chez1807]

Just a thought chez, but some birds make utterly mental sounds. Here's a link to vid of a baby barn owl making noises similar to what you describe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_k9RIGr2M&NR=1
The dinner lady might have just denied hearing it as well cos she hadn't the faintest what it was and didn't want to freak you out further.

Nice one! That does sound a lot like the sound I heard, but it also had a kind of bubbly rattling tone to it as well. I think you could be right in thinking it may have been a bird.

The dinner lady was quite dismissive, and didn't show any sound of having heard it (I was quite an intuitive child and if she had been trying to cover the fact that she did hear it I would have picked up on it)

However, I reckon she was in her sixties, and was most probably a little mutt 'n' jeff as my old Dad would say :lol:

 

[LordRsmacker]

When I was growing up the countryside near my parents home was my playground. At eight I was already wandering over the moors quite happily on my own.. etc

This tale resonates with me, I can identify with that feeling totally. As kids, me and my mates roamed for miles across fields and a little used branch railway line, and we'd build dens in undergrowth etc. Sometimes we came across dens built by others, far superior to ours, more like survival shelters, complete with trapdoors and leaves as camoflage etc. We were told to stay away from them, that whoever had made them might be unstable. (This was around the time First Blood came out, and there had also been a chap who shot some people in Yorkshire then hid out in the woods, using his army survival skills to make hideouts, so the idea of nutters rampaging and living off the land was fresh)
Consequently, we'd be on the look-out for "Loonies", and we'd see some strange characters, people who may, or may not, have been "not all there". Most wouldn't even know we were watching, we'd hide and let them pass before carrying on looking for birds' nests or non-ripped up copies of Fiesta - the Holy Grail for any 10 yr old back then. (Perhaps I'm viewed as a nutcase by hidden kids when I'm walking the dog in the pissing rain, muttering to myself about my shitty life?!)

Spookdaddy's post speaks of where the people turned to face each other, and it might just be the way it reads, but it was behaviour like this that spooked me as a kid. It seems too robotic, un-natural, exaggerated, not like two people simply walking and talking. To have a flanking move pulled would have scared the crap out of me too, especially if someone would have had to run to do it, there's just too much interest there for my liking, not just someone crossing your path whilst out walking.

Yes, HarryAshburn, you might go and see what they want now, but as a kid? Naaah, I'd have been off like a rocket too, the alarm klaxon inside me would have been blaring, perhaps that's why I'm here today, because I used to heed those feelings as a kid to stay away from certain people/places at certain times, or run, without trying to figure out why.

 

[mr_macabre]

Spookdaddy your story sent shivers down my spine too, but more for what wasn't described than what was. I've said it before on this forum, but to me it's always these slightly mundane scenarios which are most terrifying, because your imaginination is compelled to fill in the blanks. We'll never know what might have happened next, or even if they were interested in you personally at all, but the capacity for our imaginations to go into overdrive with these sorts of stories takes us (well me at least!) to some very dark places.

 

[Susie_27]

Hiya,

I developed sleep paralysis a few years back and I am sure that most of you aware of the main symptoms (waking up and being unable to move, hearing a loud buzzing or vibration throughout your body, having visual or auditory hallucinations and having a sense of not being alone or that there is a malevolent presence in your room etc) but the first time I experienced I didn’t know anything about it and I was terrified.

I woke up on my left side and instantly felt that there was someone behind me. I knew it with all certainly. At first I thought that it was my Mum (who had passed away a few years earlier) and I was actually kinda happy. Anyway I decided to do what I usually did when I was a kid and I thought that there was someone on my room, I pretended to be a sleep and ignore it. Suddenly I felt a pressure on the back of my neck and it started to get worse and then I realized that this couldn’t be my mum cause she would not hurt me and this is point that I started to get scared. I cried out “stop it you’re hurting me” cause I got the feeling that it knew that I was trying to ignore it and I turned round and saw her.

Well you know the film “The Railway Children” and that pinafore thing that the girls wear? Well she was wearing that and I distinctly remember her hair being dark and medium length, kinda lanky and dirty looking. I remember her hair so vividly cause she had no face! It was like someone had taken a black marker pen and just rubbed it out. Well I stared at her and although she had no eyes I knew that she was looking at me and she suddenly moved towards me and I decided sod being brave I started to scream . Anyway she disappeared and I spent the rest of the morning to frightened to get out of my bed (my side light wasn’t working either so that didn’t help). That was the first time and I have suffered from it ever since, with the paralysis, buzzing etc developing over time. I have seen a monk, a skeleton, a figure of a woman who just radiated light and a black mass hovering over me which absolutely petrified me. That was probably the most scary thing that has happened to me.

On the other hand I also had an experience when my eyes were closed and there was a blinding light shining through my eye lids and I hear children laughing (nicely) and I felt such peace. It was kinda wonderful.

 

[danny_cogdon]

Hi Susie, there is a big difference between sleep paralysis and Night Terrors.

Sleep paralysis is simply waking up and being unable to move. Distressing, yes, but nowhere near the levels of horror that Night Terrors elevate you to.

I'm a bit confused that in your second paragraph you said 'I cried out “stop it you’re hurting me"'

Anyone suffering sleep paralysis or Night Terrors wouldn't be able to do this.

Time and time again I have tried to scream for help but have been unable to do so.

I've suffered from hypnopompic halucinations for decades and not once have I ever been able to cry out anything. Nor have I heard of any other sufferer be able to do this yet still stay in a hypnopompic/sleep paralysis/Night Terror state. The whole point is you are unable to move any muscle in your body (excluding heart and lungs) so how could you have cried out?

 

[coaly]

I think the crying out, as with the visions, were all dreamed. significantly so, if you read that she saw the woman in petticoat and described the hair in detail, but the lamp wasn't on or working. typically, lamps don't work in dreams. Possibly due to not having any light stimulation in the sleep etc.

 

[danny_cogdon]

I think the crying out, as with the visions, were all dreamed. significantly so, if you read that she saw the woman in petticoat and described the hair in detail, but the lamp wasn't on or working. typically, lamps don't work in dreams. Possibly due to not having any light stimulation in the sleep etc.

With all due respect, coaly, if you've never experienced Night Terrors then you have no idea what you are talking about.

I don't mean that in any derogatory way. You just have no idea! I've talked about my experiences with many people who haven't gone through the same thing and NONE of them understand how real it seems.

If it was a dream it wasn't Night Terrors or sleep paralysis. If she cried out it wasn't Night Terrors or sleep paralysis.

This is possibly the most misunderstood condition by those who have not experienced it.