You know it's been since October of 1996 when we last did this. I asked a bunch of our No-Fi Pals to send in new stories for this issue and here they are. But beware...you may have to sleep with the lights on tonight...although that may not have anything to do with these stories. Maybe there is something wrong with your lightswitch?
By Miss Kitty Diggins:
The first ghostly encounter that I remember happened when i was ten years old. I was living in house that had belonged to an extended family member. The house was built by a woman around 1890, who I believe lived there until she died.Then, the house was occupied by The Bogess family, who had been considered extended family by ours. The matriarch was named Kate.She was a very fiesty stubborn woman, who remained that way until she died. She had long white hair, that she wore in braids that hung straight down her shoulders. She died when I was six years old and I attended her funeral (one of many throughout my childhood).At the age of ten, I was living in her old house,with my mother and stepfather. I often heard footsteps and the sound of furniture being moved upstairs, which was basically an abandoned part of the house, needless to say, I was always terrified.
One morning, before school, I went to the basement to feed my German Sheperd, Minnie, who had a litter of puppies. I was always afraid of this basement. I fed the dog and was petting her , when I realised that she was stiff and staring straight ahead. I shook her and said her name a few times, she was still rigid and didn't respond to me. I looked in the direction of where she was looking,and there on the stairs , stood my deceased grandmother, dressed as she was the day she died.
Sheer terror raced through me, and I had no way out but to take the stairs back into the house. By this time,she had faded away. I gathered up what little courage I had in me,and ran like hell up the stairs. From that time on, everytime I passed the door, which was all the time,as it was on the way to the kitchen, I was filled with fear, and always looked away when I walked past.
For some reason, Theatres go on record for being some of the most haunted, and I have several experiences which abide by that statement. Several years back , I was living temporaily in the Paris Theater in Portland Oregon. I was involved in the place on a number of levels,and at this particular time, found myself homeless. The Theater was built around 1911. it had been home to many things. It was a Vaudeville house, a porn theater, a playhouse and briefly, a strip club. At the time I was there it was home to a regular Cabaret, and several bands as well.
The "Bedroom" was a tiny room next to what used to be the Lighting panel. My first night there, I had sat talking with the director of the club till the wee hours , and while we were talking, I took my hair down, and put all the bobby pins on the table. I had thought maybe I should take them with me,but decided to leave them. My friend, the Director, left and I locked him out and went upstairs to bed. The next morning, I made coffee, and went to sit at the table where we had sat the night before and the bobby pins were gone.On my second night, I was alone in the theater. I went out to get a drink before closing time and came back shortly after 2:00 am. It was February and it was freezing cold. I locked the gates that were on the outside, and then wrapped the chain around the inner doors with a padlock, put the ring of keys in my pocket and went up to bed, covering myself witht he long coat in addition to the blankets. About ten minutes went by, when i heard someone come into the theater via the front door. Alarmed, I wondered who the hell would be coming in at this hour. I thought maybe it's the directors roommate, bringing a date here...I lay in bed and listened. I heard nothing at all. Then, I heard footsteps on the carpet. I started to feel strange and worried, then heard nothing.
I decided that this was really not right , so I decided to prepare for the worst. I slid my knife into my sleeve and crept up to get a look through the window, which gave a view into almost every part of the theater. I saw nothing as I held my breath and tried to be as silent as possible. Then, I heard a noise, but still could see nothing. After about fifteen minutes of this suspence, I gave up and crawled back into bed and fell asleep. Inthe moring I awoke and heard the sound of something 'Clink" at the foot of the bed, as if something had been pushed off onto the floor...
(Awwww... she left us hanging there?!? She promised to continue this one so we'll have to have a part 2 of this story next month or so! Until then you can check out her website at www.kittydiggins.com ~ yr editor, Chris Beyond)
By Ronald of Panty Lions:
It was a beautiful spring day and my girlfriend and I were walking along Hollywood Blvd.
when we happened to run into a crowd of folks dedicating a star to Ray Bradbury. They were just finishing up and we ran over to get close to Charlton Heston who looked tired and old. We got close and felt it would be lame to bother an old man who no longer resembled the young virile astronaut "Taylor". Just as we were turning to leave, a man appeared. As if from a red cloud coughed up from the rusty innards of Los Angeles he appeared. He moved toward Charlton holding a piece of paper and a pen. When he passed us we saw it. Protruding from the back of his head with his long stringy hair draped over it was this pulsating mound of flesh that could have been another head if it had had eyes nose and mouth. On the surface was a band-aid strategically placed to keep the evil in. We left in a panic and I accidentally called my girlfriend "mom", but now when I look back on that strange day I think to myself . . . he seemed nice.By Tamra of Lucid Nation:
First time I visited Pacific Coast Highway Club out of nowhere I had this panic attack thinking I was about to die. Then I realized how much the area resembled where I was abducted and almost murdered. So when we opened for Red Monkey I did a medley of Night Prowler and Sonic Youth's "Pacific Coast Highway". None of the music snobs in attendance had ever heard of the song. Now that's scary!
By Creekbird of The Centimeters:
I am haunted by a large black dog. Since the early
90's, I have on many occasions (well over 50 times!) been visited by it. It is always at night and I am always completely alone, walking the streets in an area with no cars driving by or any activity whatsoever. The dog is never tied up or fenced; just out in the streets standing completely still and staring at me.By No-Fi pal Curie
so one glorious day, me and my friends were leaving Melrose avenue. we were cruising down melrose in our 1995 green ford taurus, a major hooptie. when, this fancy shamancy
BMW convertible drives up rearing its horrible expensive engine which nicely seated the ONE and ONLY BRITNEY SPEARS. we approached this situation very delicately by busting out all our cameras which convenintly was in the car and started snapping away like crazy paprazzi's. she was very rude and had crazy potholes on her mistakenly off set face. how do we know she was rude?? well..we rolled down our rattling windows and began asking her the most obvious question..."Are U BRITNEY?"...she went on denying it wasnt her and gave us looks as if we were stalking her. PLEASE...Britney can kiss my fake breast. GUYS...she is not that attractive. she's pretty much scary. AHHHBy No-Fi "Staffwriter" Ryan Lies
On Halloween a few years ago, my girlfriend at the time gave me a nice Halloween card and put a note in it for me. The note began, “Ryan, I love you and would do anything for you, I want you to know that. My time with you has been wonderful and I hope it continues to be.” Then it goes on, “I have something I need to tell you, but just remember, I love you … I’m pregnant.” My blood froze, my face whitened and I couldn’t breathe. She looked at me with utmost sincerity and tried to smile. Then she said, “keep reading.” So I did and the note said “So, with that mind, I should also tell you … I’m kidding.” Man, that was the scariest moment of my life
By No-Fi "Coverstar" Claire Donner:
So Sunday afternoon is guppie day at the donner-marion household. This is a term we came up with that is a conflation of “gay” and “yuppie”, because that’s what steve and Andrew are all about – antiquing, reading Martha stewart, starbuck’s coffe, and of course gay sex. Sunday is the day we are all free to indulge in these things (mostly). As per usual we headed off to the barn sale, which for those who don’t know is a big barn on the outskirts of red hook, filled with all sorts of junk from old rusty scythes to antique cars. We were scouting coffee tables just like all the other guppies present, but mostly we were looking for this very special object stevie discovered a few days prior, but for some reason hesitated to purchase.
There it was, waiting for us: a portrait of jfk, martin luther king jr and a third who we took to be jimmy carter standing together – which obviously never happened, the image seems to be spliced together TIME covers, and the three busts float in a totally white space. It’s made out of old warped unfinished cardboard, and set into a hideous tin lace frame with a small light bulb mounted at the top which should illuminate their grave visages but actually just draws attention to the fact that they exist in a void and throws these garish black shadows
off of each warped ridge on the plain. It now hangs on our mint green wall above our yellow velvet couch overlooking our oriental rug. But before that – we made our purchase and decided to stop by the antique store across the street, which had a lot of furniture strewn across the lawn of the actual business structure and the Victorian mansion belonging to the proprietors. We pulled in and had no idea where to park; we wound up pulling in to the house lot, which made us nervous. We got out of our car and passed in front of two nearly identical adolescents, a boy and girl in striped polo shirts and jeans who looked at us wordlessly, expressionlessly.We took this as some sort of approval and moved on to the actual store. When we walked in to the little shanty in which business was done, the girl had materialized behind the counter and regarded us with the same impenetrable mask. We left pretty quickly, feeling incredibly creeped out, and decided to investigate the rotting timber and toys surrounding the structure. I then witnessed the girl running with the boy about fifty feet away, whispering gleefully to each other and disappearing behind their house, clearly off to commit some crime against nature. Being completely without help and feeling unsettled, we decided to leave. As we entered the lot, we were able to see that behind their house was a gigantic pyre with flames leaping 15’ in the air, spread across the 20’ base.
C: what the hell is that??
S: getinthecargetinthecargetinthecar
Postscript: I recently had amy searles in to the house to behold our new acquisition. After she screamed, she informed me that the third man who we thought might have been jimmy carter is bobby kennedy – meaning that the theme is not heroes of an era, but rather murder victims of an era. Wonderful.
pictures tweaked by chris beyond
