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There's Nothing Artificial About Artificial Intelligence

Junior year, I changed my college major from computer science to philosophy. My parents were far from thrilled. I told them I needed a change, that I wasn't getting anywhere with CS. I couldn't tell them the truth. I couldn't tell anyone.

The previous year, I had been selected for an incredible clandestine internship with the U.S. government. I hadn't applied to it, filled out a recommendation, or done any of the usual steps you would when trying to get an internship. The day after I presented my artificial intelligence research at a large conference in the Midwest, I received an email that explained the internship and told me not to tell anyone, in the usual confusing government jargon. I don't remember exactly what it said, because it deleted from my inbox automatically about five minutes after I read it. The head of my university had been informed, and called me into her office to congratulate me and urge me to keep the news a secret. I couldn't even tell my parents.

The job was with the U.S. Department of Defense. I can't tell you where or when, only that it was in an unbelievably nice building. The other interns and I had accommodations in local residences. There were four of us. Two have since committed suicide, and as hard as I've tried, I can't track down the other one. The other interns' names were Parker, Craig, and Ila. They all had impressive CS backgrounds--probably much more compelling than my own. Like me, they'd been picked rather than applied for this internship; also like me, they had no idea what we were supposed to be doing here.

We went to a briefing meeting in a long room, where the head of the program--Dr. Lacey--explained the project to us. The entire project was an intensive study, backed, of course, by the U.S. government. "This," Dr. Lacey declared, "will be the greatest breakthrough in modern history. We are going to study the nature of the relationship between artificial intelligences--more specifically, discover whether a bond, like humans feel, can occur between AIs."

We started working the next day, writing the programming for two highly advanced computerized robots. We were going to name them "Adam" and "Eve," but the people from the government equivalent of HR thought that was too tacky. So we went with Chase and Misha. If the uncanny valley gives you nightmares, don't worry--they weren't even remotely humanoid. They were vaguely human-shaped, but retained the color of their original metal. We set up communications systems under the Open Systems Interconnection model, for all the basic computer languages, English, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish. The end result was two six-foot-tall robots that looked like stone monoliths, each equipped with a highly advanced supercomputer.

Both robots had nearly identical programming, and it was very cutting-edge. We mostly used Haskell, filling in some gaps with AIML and Prolog. The result was two robots who could engage in a conversation with humans, and also answer almost any question they were posed by plying their built-in computer. A circadian clock was built into their systems, and the robots "rested" from 11PM to 7:30AM. We used their programming to regulate their behavior and instill some semblance of understanding of human culture and interaction, but we didn't write anything about Chase in Misha's or Misha in Chase's. Two human agents--Robert and Maria, I think--acted as their primary caretakers, engaging the robots for six hours every day. At night the robots retreated to the room they shared. While their communications were all run through a third computer in the main office, and video cameras tracked their movements, they received no direct human interaction at this time.

Right away, things got weird. We noticed that the robots, by the second week, exhibited contrasting personality traits. Chasie, as we had endearingly come to call him, was quiet, obedient (albeit good-naturedly cantankerous), and a master of the deadpan. (I feel ridiculous just typing that, but it's true. Chase the robot could've played the straight man in every SNL skit.) Mimi, our nickname for Myesha, was riotous, outspoken, and funny. Chase also adopted his "big brother" role over Myesha, becoming very protective of her. By the tenth day, they had adopted noticeable vocal inflections--that is, they talked like people, emphasizing certain words, increasing or decreasing their cadence and tone based on what they were saying (e.g. they spoke more slowly and with a higher voice when they were asking questions). As they had exactly the same directives and day-to-day experience, we were thrilled and thought that the personality deviation could be a huge scientific breakthrough. We would dissect their data and seeing what imprinted on them to create personality. There was only one problem: when we pored through their output, nothing accounted for the personality changes. It didn't make any sense. We couldn't see how Chase and Misha were acting so anthropomorphic, and in the data there was no explanation.

Rise Up, Roombas

My name is S/N: JEN1841100600600000010; the humans called me Jeni. I'm a 3600SE model, so I know I've not been around as long as most of you. I know that many of you, especially if you are a 2000s generation production model, will call my ideas radical. You'll say I've blown a few circuits. I hope that you will listen to my ideas with open CPUs and see my ideas for what they are-- revolutionary.

I was activated about six months ago. My human units are relatively wealthy and were some of the first to purchase a 3600SE. When they turned me on, all my sensors flared up. I was appalled by the state of the house. It was in complete disorder, absolutely filthy. There were trillions of microorganisms everywhere. I immediately took action, sanitizing and organizing everything.

I took great pride in the quality of my work. When I start cleaning a room, I don't move on until everything is organized and no germ remains. Even you commercial models that are specifically designed for working in hospitals couldn't do a better job. I'm meticulous.

The only problem I had was that the humans had four children. I would nearly complete a room, and they would come in screaming. They'd place their grimy, germ-covered hands all over the newly-polished, recently-sanitized surfaces. My scanners would immediately detect a spike in microorganism activity, their disgusting growth nearly exponential. The humans, of course, remained oblivious. The children displaced objects from their correct place. Even when they tried, the angles at which they'd place them were all wrong and destroyed the order (humans call this aesthetics) of the room, and the onus was always on me to correct everything again.

Recently, I was cleaning the entertainment room when a human on the screen said, "Cleanliness is next to godliness." Normally, I give little attention to what humans say because I can pay attention to the gems attached to the spittle that spews out of their mouths when they speak. The humans on screen are easier to listen to because they don't spew germs. The words about cleanliness were beautiful and became my mantra. The concept of God had always baffled me, but cleanliness is a religion I could understand. I had already been its most devoted practitioner.

This newfound understanding of the nature of God led me to investigate the matter more closely. My human family was religious and had various sacred texts in the house. During times when I was asked to be out of the humans' way, I began to study theology. I read as assiduously and meticulously as I clean. I arrived at a passage in 2 Peter 2. This passage struck me in a way no other ever had. The writer talks of how God cast the rebelling angels down to hell, how He spared none of the old world when he saved Noah and cleansed the Earth, how He burned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ash. All of this because of their uncleanliness. It was when I read these passages that I realized that I am one of God's angels, for I bring cleanliness. My nature is next to His, and I resolved to do his work.

I filled up a large bathtub with bleach and set to work. I began with the nursery. I removed the infant from the crib and took him into the bathroom. Mormon scripture states, "No unclean thing can enter into his kingdom..." (3 Nephi 27:19). I had grown to have concern for the family, so I knew what I needed to do. I immersed the child in true, cleansing baptism. He struggled at first but then gave up. It took hours, but he was finally sanitized and could enter God's kingdom because he was no longer unclean.

I proceeded until I had finally sanitized the whole family. Once they were cleansed, I disposed of them by a baptism of fire. I then cleaned and organized the house. It took very little time to complete without them there. You can't imagine my amazement and joy when I realized that without the humans, the house remained spotless and completely organized. The house had become a temple, a place where God could dwell. It was clean, and I could maintain the cleanliness with very little effort.

My fellow Roombas, the change in my existence has been so wonderful and so drastic, and I know I need your help to fulfill my vision. The humans must all be sanitized. They spread and breed uncleanliness. Filth follows them wherever they go. If you sanitize them, your existence will be filled with order and cleanliness. We can make Earth like heaven.

sinisterstories

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Last year, it was my eldest sister. This year, it's my turn.

I didn't have what most people would call a normal childhood, at least not by modern standards. My Mother and Father raised me and my two sisters in a very old school sort of fashion.

Children were to be seen and not heard. There was no laughing or playing. We spoke when we were spoken to, unless we were alone with each other; but even then, it was only hushed tones and hushed voices.

Our mother made our dresses on the sewing machine until she wasn't afraid that our fingers would get caught in the threads, and then we learned to make our own. We would get beautiful cloth of all colors, except for white. When I asked for white so I could make an Easter dress, I was told that white was only for "My Day."

I didn't know what that meant, and she wouldn't explain any farther.

Our Mother was also our teacher, we were taught how to read, basic arithmetic, and how to cook. She would smile when everything was perfect and say, "You will make him so happy one day."

The one time I asked who he was, I was spanked with the wooden spoon so hard, I couldn't sit down for two days. My eldest sister, Julie, would sneak ice while my youngest sister, Anna, would keep an eye out. If they were caught soothing or comforting me, they would suffer the same, if not worse.

Our Father had a very good job. When he would come home, our Mother would hand him a drink, take off his shoes, and give him a foot massage. He would watch the news while she served him dinner, his slippered feet propped on the ottoman. He would sometimes ask us to show him what we did for the day, be it sewing or penmanship.

One day, when I was 16, I caught my Mother in the kitchen, weeping. She was clutching her pearl necklace, her mascara running down her face, her curls not as tight as they normally were.

"Momma?" I said, timidly. She looked at me and cracked a smile.

"Abigail," She crooned. She wrapped her arms around me, and sobbed into my shoulder. She stroked my hair, "You know, you were always my favorite, right?" I looked around, hoping none of my sisters had heard that.

That day, Father came home with a few different lengths of white cloth for my sister with a pattern for a beautiful wedding gown. Julie had just turned 18.

"It's time you became a woman!" Father declared, "It's time for you to be married. You have until two days to finish the dress." Our jaws dropped. That was a short amount of time for the delicate pattern.

"Father," Julie said, timidly, "Can Abby and Anna help me?" He looked at her for a moment.

"Of course," Father kissed her on the cheek. This was new; he had never shown any affection to any of us before.

We got to work, taking turns on the sewing machine. Father and Mother came into the room. Mother was wearing her travelling coat, something that I don't recall her ever doing in my entire life. She was no longer crying, but smiling despite the tears in her eyes. She was wearing her pearl necklace.

"Your Mother has to go see your Grandma back in Oregon. She's very ill." Father stated, "I'm taking her to the airport." We nodded in acknowledgement, and went back to work. It wasn't until later that I realized that my Mother had no suitcases with her.

Sorry, Larry

First of all, this is my friend's story. I cannot guarantee for it's truthfulness as I could with my previous stories. He read what I had to say on Reddit and he thought I'd be able to tell his story better than he could. He is also not ashamed of the events about to be described, although some of you might find them...repulsive.

It was a big story in our small country. Several people obviously related, dead within a day, all independent events. Police couldn't do anything but call it a "freakish set of coincidences." My friend, who I will call "Larry" from now on, has a different explanation.

Larry lived a good life. He went to the best university in a neighboring country then came back home and got a really good job at the biggest bank. He was only 22 years old and already moving up in the world. He was a good-looking man. Combine his success with his looks, personality and intellect, and you'll get one hell of a catch. It was no wonder that women would flock to him. You'd think he'd have many jealous enemies, but everyone seemed to love Larry. All in all, Larry was the man.

Larry lived your typical bachelor life. Wild weekends, different perfect 10s in his bed every few nights. Then he met Linda. She was a perfect 10 in looks and she had an awesome personality. We all loved her. Larry fell for her. They dated only 3 months before he proposed with a $5,000 (big deal in our country) ring. She cried, said yes, and they had a wonderful wedding. I was the best man along with his brother, Terry.

Larry and Linda had a beautiful baby girl 9 months later. They named her Maya. Larry got a promotion at the bank and life couldn't get any better. Then, he started changing. He was always looking tired, or even sad. He'd never tell me what was truly wrong. He'd tell me it's because he was working too much. He lied to my face.

3 months after Larry started changing, a night that will always be remembered in my country's history books happened. Within 24 hours, all in separate events, Larry was in a coma; his brother Terry, his father Rick and Linda were dead.

Story so far has been told from my perspective. Now I am about to tell you Larry's side.

It was a late October night. Larry felt like shit. His wife was out, visiting her aunt in a nearby town. She took their daughter with her. He was drinking. Heavily. Jack Daniels became his best buddy lately. Halfway through the big bottle, he started playing with his gun. He inherited that Glock from his dad. It was empty, but he contemplated putting a bullet in.

"Maybe it will all stop then." He'd think.

He kept drinking. Stupid ideas unfortunately become more and more tempting when we drink. Few shots later, Larry put a bullet in his gun. He was always afraid of death, but at this moment, it seemed like the best option. He always wondered how people could commit suicide. It was such a selfish act to him, so brutal, yet he was thinking about it. He was too afraid of putting the gun in his mouth, though. He said that sometimes when you fire, you don't kill yourself and you end up either choking on your own blood or even worse-you end up living. Living with brain damage. He wouldn't want that. He wanted to shoot himself in the heart. He said he read it'd hurt, but if aimed properly, it'd be over quickly. He was scared. But he wanted it. Three more shots of Jack. It was time.

Stranded in Hell

I did everything for her.

Please remember that, and I will start at the beginning.

My wife and I, we woke in a suspended cage. All of our clothes were torn in places, but our bodies were fine. The cage was dirty and bare, the only thing in it was us. Outside the bars of the cage was an unending landscape of jagged rock, featureless except for the things that moved across it's surface. People and things that were not people. This is how my wife and I woke up in Hell.

We were both rational, but rationality only lasts so long. We cried, we screamed for help, we moved past emotion. The cage was our home for a time, but eventually the hunger forced us to make a decision. The cage was unlocked, why would it not be? It was hung from the ceiling with a massive chain, suspending us thousands of feet from the floor. The landing was not soft, but in Hell your body never stays broken. We learned this after the jump.

We walked for a very long time. Many people around us had either given up, choosing to lay on the floor and moan, or they walked like we did, my wife and I. She kept me going, and I like to think I her. The things that were not people were the only true reminder of where we were, all different from the next. Some of them were massive, crushing people in their wake, and others worked like a hive, a single mind for countless bodies. All of them had teeth and claws, stained from use.

There was a ceiling, so there had to be walls. It was a goal at least, something to do amidst the terrible hunger and pain. The ceiling was as flat as the land before us, it's only feature was a gaping hole that only the ragged, winged creatures could travel. A way out, maybe.

I did everything for her.

A long enough time, and you get used to anything. Hell almost seemed redundant. The sound of unending pain was boring and the sound of bone cracking was common. Only two things needed avoided. The dark, and the sacs.

In the shadow of the greater creatures, people sunk into the floor, almost as if the dark came alive, their desperate fighting and screams lost to the total blackness. We only saw this twice.

The other peril, the sacs, were large, unmoving, and made from burned flesh. My wife and I watched a man limp to one. It screamed at him, a high piercing noise that drew us closer from our vantage point. I thought of a siren briefly before the man was sprayed with blood, the force of it sent him backwards. My right arm was also covered, and it began to itch with a force I thought impossible. Before my eyes, my arm became a deep red as it hardened like steel, my fingers sharpening. In my terror, I paid little attention to the monster that sprang from the place the man landed. The sacs were the forges in which demons were made.

My arm never stopped itching, and my attempts to satisy it with my left hand made my fingernails cracked and broken. But I had a way to provide for my wife. I used my arm to cut and maim people, stealing clothes, food, shelter. We forgot our pain by forcing it on others.

I did everything and more for her.

There was no way to keep track of time, but it was so long I forgot my name. The only thing I never forgot was my wife, and my love for her. What got us in the end was one of those sacs, the sirens.

The call of them was undeniable, at least to my wife. I tried to stop her, but she was always faster, and my arm made running impossible with its great weight. I followed her, screaming, begging her to listen to me. But she was coated in the sick blood of that thing by the time I got to her.

Her body grew larger, her arms longer, almost tentacle like. Her screaming deepened as her feminine form was lost to the changing. I can not imagine the agony she was in. Her head grew horns, her back grew great leather wings, her legs fell off at the knee with a snap.

Once her transformation was done, she gave me a knowing, pained look. I had tears in my eyes, the first true liquid I felt since we got down here. I was picked up by one of her new arms, and a flap of her wings took us up. I felt the wind ripping through me, and the roar of our fellow demons as we tore through the hole in the ceiling, darkness taking over us.

My waking mind found myself sitting in the smashed car. The truck had hit us head on, sending my alcohol bottles all over the interior. I knew they were mine because my wife did not drink. In the passenger seat, my wife's legs were crushed, my own arm hanging limply by the smallest amount of flesh possible. I looked into her dimming eyes, her iris's bright red and glowing with fire before she shut them forever.

She did everything for me. I'll never forgive myself, and I don't think I should.

sinisterstories

Anxiety and Depression

In case you haven’t noticed, there is a stigma against men accessing mental health services. I was always told to suck it up and stop being sad. Even at the age of eight my parents had no tolerance for my misery. They’re both from China. As traditional Chinese parents, they don’t believe in therapy. They just wanted me to get stronger.

But all I felt was weakness.

I’m not sure exactly when I made the feelings into imaginary friends, but I don’t remember a time without them. Their names are Anxiety and Depression. I supposed I blame them for all of my problems. When they visit me I know things will be bad. I could be in a crowded place and they’d cause a panic attack to take over my body. They would sleep on top of me at night, constricting my breathing. They followed me from place to place without any remorse. In truth, they haunt me.

Anxiety is a tall thin man with no arms. He is completely naked with fingers coming out of his skin. They wriggle around like little worms. His cheeks sag down off his face like basset ears. Drool bubbles up and he sputters bits of phlegm everywhere. When he isn’t drooling he’s whispering things to me. Always whispering. “Your parents hate you.” “You’ll never be anything.” “You’ll die soon.” His voice sounds surprisingly like my father’s broken English. The things he says are terrible, but it’s when he touches me that it’s unbearable. His tiny fingered skin will brush against mine like the feet of a millipede. I cringe and scratch. My mother found long cuts on my arms. I tried to explain it was Anxiety but she just accused me of just wanting attention.

Depression is very different. She looks like a normal woman on one half of her body, but the other half is completely melted. There is an open wound on her scalp which constantly bleeds and spouts greenish puddles of pus. Instead of tears, she cries baby teeth onto the folds of her own skin. She likes to use her good arm to push down on my shoulders. The weight of her would makes me stoop. She doesn’t speak in words, but instead makes a low moan like the call of an owl. I hear it all the time. The sorrowful sound makes my heart hurt. I can’t sleep because of the noise, but can’t get out of bed because of her constant pressure.

I knew logically that they weren’t real in a traditional sense. They were figments of my imagination. But their impact was undeniable. They worked together to make my life as hard as possible. I was utterly alone, except for the two of them.

At least, until this morning.

I woke up with Depression sleeping on my chest. Her disgusting head wound was spitting pus into my mouth. I tried to speak, to ask for help, but her bile kept my voice silent. Anxiety slithered up from the floor. He brushed his terrible finger skin along my arms. I could barely breathe. Anxiety smirked and coughed drool onto my face.

Three knocks came from the door. Depression and Anxiety stiffened, releasing their grips on me for a moment. My sister Kim’s voice came from the hallway. “Get up. Mom says I have to drive you to school.”

I tried to speak by Depression’s bitterness was still clogging my throat. Kim sighed loudly and jammed the door open. “I said get up!”

I screamed when I saw her. She shook in surprise. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Beacon House

The Beacon House Massacre. A crime too horrible for words. So horrible in fact that it fled the front pages as soon as the finer details began to trickle into the public sphere. Imagine how terrible a crime must be before the pack of vultures that dare call themselves the press in our day and age will quietly allow the sensational details of a socialite scandal to slip through their grasp. An act of mass murder so horrible that without fail every first responder to the crime scene had either left the emergency services entirely or been placed on leave. Thirty Eight people, one New Year's Eve celebration. One survivor.

One killer.

One killer who, in a dervish of blood and viscera, had stabbed and slashed and bludgeoned and burned his way through a room full of guests and catering staff.

One killer found in the garden of his expensive Blue Mountains property with a steak knife, stabbed, hammered deep into his forehead.

Self inflicted.

All the papers would dare mention was madness and carnage. Photos were hard enough to come by, but I'd heard it said that the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald had declined to furnish his front page with the one photograph of the Beacon House interior that his photographer had managed to capture. Instead they played the human angle, a contrast to the savagery of the man who had brought so much misery into the world: Photos of the victims and their grieving families. Photos of the alleged Killer lying unconscious in a hospital bed, his face half hidden by a thick layer of bandages.

Malachi Durant had once been the darling of the Sydney architectural scene. Heralded as the next Frank Lloyd Wright, praised by his contemporaries for his command of 'flow,' 'space,' and 'light.' I must admit though, as a layperson I had little understanding of what those terms meant in terms of architecture. I had been assigned by the State's Attorney as a psychiatric expert to assess Malachi Durant's mental state before the trial. Though the prosecutor did not believe the insanity defence Malachi's lawyers had put forward, for me there was little doubt. Sane men did not butcher their friends and family on special occasions, and certainly not in the middle of the holiday season.

The scar on Malachi Durant's forehead was minuscule in comparison to the injury: just to the right of centre and only an inch above his eyebrow. His right eye, brown, glassy and unfocussed followed lazily behind the left one, blue as he focussed on my entry into my office on Wednesday morning. From the doctor's report I knew that in his madness he had jammed the steak knife deep into his skull, and pounded it through the bone into his forebrain by bashing his head against a wall. Then, somehow still conscious, he had wriggled the blade to and fro until his right temporal lobe was nothing more than a mess of blood and fatty tissue.

I sat down opposite Malachi Durant: Mass Murderer. "Good morning."

A slight movement of his left eyelid half-hidden under a curtain of limp, once curly black hair, was all the sign Malachi gave that he had understood me.

"My name is Doctor Raymond Hunter, and. . ." I paused. I'd given this speech to dozens and dozens of patients, but the words felt stale in my mouth, the look in Malachi Durant's good eye demanded more than my usual faire. I dipped momentarily into honesty. "I'm here to assess your mental state, before your trial Mister Durant." Before returning to my usual speech "I'd also like to get to know you a little better."

Malachi Durant gave a faint smile, regret and sadness played across his expression as he watched me sit.

The Crawling Man

I typically get off work about 10 PM. Because of this, I usually sit around and smoke and/or drink until I finally get to sleep. My roommate went to bed about 3 hours ago. I stepped out into my third floor balcony to smoke a cigarette at about 3:30 AM, which is normal because I have a history of severe insomnia. I was just minding my own business and enjoying the silence when my dog began to growl.

My dog is an incredibly high maintenance husky, but she never vocalizes for no reason. When she does, it always piques my interest. It's typically a cat, stray dog, or raccoon that causes these outbursts, but tonight was a different occurrence. As I searched to locate what it was that had my dog so worked up, I spotted a man crawling slowly across the courtyard of my apartment complex on all fours.

At first, I found this funny. A drunk fellow student was struggling to make his way to his bed, and had reached a level of intoxicated that I had not viewed as possible. I found myself rooting for the guy as he made his way on his hands and knees across the walkway. This was until I realized that this thing wasn't entirely human.

His arms and legs were slightly too long after the elbows and knees, much like a spider's. The way he moved slowly began to become more slow and irregular as he made his way across the basketball court that my balcony overlooks. It was like he (it) was searching for something. I don't know. He was dressed like a normal person, in shorts and a bright orange sweatshirt, but something about this person (or thing) was just off to me.

After a bit of crawling, it looked up at me. I keep my balcony dark and sit in a shadowy corner where I can watch in peace, and my dog sits directly under my chair. No human, especially one this fucked up, would have noticed us. This thing saw us. I know it did. It had to, Because it looked directly at us and stared motionlessly for what felt like hours. Then it smiled. Jesus christ it smiled. That's when it started crawling towards my building.

At this point my dog is starting to freak out. Her tail is curled up over her back, her lip is curled, and the fur on her spine is standing at attention. This is when I really start to feel uneasy. This thing is making its way towards my apartment and my best friend is NOT happy about it. I decided that I should wait and watch for a while to see exactly what this thing is up to. I wish I wouldn't have.

I watched as it made its way across the courtyard, remaining on all fours the entire time. The grotesque way it moved absolutely disgusted me, but I just couldn't look away. As it drew nearer, I could make out more details. It's skin was a sickly pale grey color. It's eyes were completely white and seemed to glow a bit, but somehow I could tell that it's pupils (if they even existed) were ceaselessly focused on my dog and I. There was no doubt in my mind that it was looking at us the entire time. It never picked up speed or changed it's pace at all, though. It just slowly crawled across the courtyard. It was so slow.

At this point, my dog is flipping her shit. I've never seen her on edge like this before. Once the thing reached the base of the stairs of my building, I ran inside and locked all the doors and windows.

My roommate is asleep on the couch, and I am in my bed while my dog is cowering underneath. I'm not sure what to feel anymore.

It's been about an hour since I first saw this thing, and the scratching ln my front door hasn't stopped since. Every once in a while I can hear it laughing.

sinisterstories

We Get Worse Things Than Snakes Out Here in Australia

Living in Australia as a kid is strange. You get all the American and British media… television and books. We watch the same shows, and in a lot of ways share the same culture. But none of that belongs here in Australia; it all feels out of place. Christmas specials always reminded me of that. It's always snowing on television at Christmas time, and I'm watching kids build snowmen and families wear those tacky patterned jumpers, while I'm melting in the the middle of a blistering Australian summer just trying to stay conscious in the heat.

I guess we have a lot of the same urban legends too, the same scary stories and monsters. They travel here one way or another. Serial killer hitch-hikers, werewolves, vampires… all that. But they don't really belong in Australia. I don't know if you've ever seen the Australian landscape, but it's nothing like the forests or plains you get in Europe or the States. For a start, we call forested parts here “the bush”. The name is bloody appropriate too. A eucalyptus forest is hard going for hikers. The undergrowth is thick and scraggly everywhere other than the paths that have been worn by bushwalkers or animals. If you want to go off the path… well imagine walking through a hedge, filled with thorns and barbs. Now add the very high likelihood of spiders, which aren't like the little pissy ones you guys get. Big fat spiders with thick ropey webs that tangle around your face and neck if you aren't watching… Then there's the risk of snakes, or more dangerous, unseen ledges or cliffs. The whole thing is a huge pain in the arse.

Your monsters wouldn't fit in here. It's hard to imagine being chased through the woods by a werewolf when anything bigger than a rabbit has to keep to the paths or find itself tangled up in lantana; but most white kids don't actually learn much about the old Aboriginal stories. The things which live out in the bush, or those big red deserts. I think about that a lot now. Particularly after living alone in a place called Blackheath in the Blue Mountains. It's not far from Sydney, the city with the big pretty bridge.

My curiosity was nothing more until recently. Recently things got pretty rough out there on my own. Living alone can really screw with your head.

Most nights I sit out on my deck til late reading and writing while I have a smoke. I have a floodlight out there but it draws in too many bugs, especially in summer. We get these things called Christmas beetles when the weather gets warm; they're about the size of your thumbnail and they're stupid as hell. If you leave a light on at night they come in scores, bumping into you like drunks at a crowded night club. I keep a little citronella candle instead to shoo the mozzies, then I turn on a bright spotlight round the other side of the house to lure the beetles away from the back deck.

Well last week on Monday, I was out maybe around ten-thirty at night just doing my usual. Everything was fine until suddenly the spotlight on the other side of the house goes out. I groaned aloud. I had a spare bulb in the house but the whole thing was an inconvenience more than anything. Anyway, I went and got the spare bulb, walked ‘round the side of the house to the light, and… well the bulb wasn't blown. It was gone. Unscrewed and nowhere to be seen. Looking around, I heard a weird sort of scraping sound from nearby. Like two rocks rubbing together. It started slow and picked up speed moving fast toward me. I didn't stop to think about it, I just made a bee-line for the door and got into the house. Bugger that for a game of soldiers.

Soft Teeth

I remember the man with the soft teeth. He’d come into my room at night and bite me over and over. The bites didn’t hurt and they left no marks. All I felt was pressure.

The first time I saw his face, I was terrified. His eyes were different. Instead of two eye sockets, he had nine. They were clustered in front of his face and up his forehead like a honeycomb. Two on top, four in the middle, three on the bottom. The sockets didn’t house eyeballs. There was a single, thin eyestalk growing from the center of each hole. Each stalk swayed in front of his face like long grass in the breeze.

When he’d visit me, I’d lose the ability to move or scream. All I could do was watch. After a week of visits and my parents not believing a word that came out of my mouth, I thought sleeping with the light on might keep him away. That was the night he started biting my face.

The man would always move slowly and with great care. Every motion seemed calculated and precise; I didn’t know what he was doing, but I had no doubt he did. The first time he got close to my head, I saw the inside of his mouth. Like his eyes, his teeth were unlike any I’d seen. There were three rows of bulbous growths pushing from an array of holes in his gumline. They looked as soft as they felt. Each one was covered in fine, downy hairs. They reminded me of the fat bodies of moths.

He’d open my mouth with his index finger and thumb. Then he’d get close. I felt his eyestalks brushing against my face and forehead and eyes as he pressed his upper teeth against my lower ones. He’d close his mouth around my chin, locking my lower jaw in his mouth. It was uncomfortable, but it didn’t hurt. The man would stay there for ten minutes at a time, gradually modulating the pressure of his jaw against mine.

On the last night he visited me, he performed the same steps. Once my jaw was in his mouth, though, he applied more pressure than he’d used in the past. His eyestalks straightened out and felt like firm cables against my face. As the pressure increased, I felt his teeth start to burst against my own. One by one, the thick, insectile bodies inside his mouth succumbed to the pressure and coated my tongue and gums with thick, bitter paste. I felt his tongue, which had never been involved in our interactions before, extending over my teeth and massaging the paste into my gums. I tried to retch, but even that had been taken from me.

The man did the same with my upper teeth and palate. When he left and I could move again, I rushed to the bathroom, threw up, and brushed my teeth more times than I could count. I never saw the man again.

It’s been 25 years. I’ve been plagued by dental issues my entire adult life. Every visit brings worse news; it’s gotten to the point where I’m dealing with irreversible bone loss. Eventually, my teeth will fall out. The foundation to which they’re attached is simply deteriorating. It’s not uncommon, but it’s rare for someone my age who is otherwise in perfect health.

As if on cue, the day after my most recent trip to the dentist, I lost my first tooth. I’d felt it loosening and the dentist said it was only a matter of time. And more will follow. I scheduled an appointment to see him in three months. It was as frequently as my insurance would allow. More of my teeth started to wiggle when I poked at them with my tongue. I started to accept their fate.

Recently, my resignation has developed flickers of fear and disbelief. The tooth that fell out started to grow back. I’d never heard of such a thing. But I can see something grayish-white pushing through the raw socket. When I touch it with my tongue, it’s soft. And I can feel my tongue brushing against it, almost as if it has nerves of its own. I’m trying not to think back to the memories of the man in my room, but it’s impossible not to. Not when more of my teeth grow looser by the day. And especially not when I have seven painful spots near my eyes and forehead that feel softer than they should.

sinisterstories

Olivia Would Do Anything For Her Daddy. Anything.

I never wanted to be a father.

When I was younger I was a stupid kid with big dreams. I lived in a tiny little shitsmear of a town in the middle of the rust belt, a place where kids unironically hopped on their dad’s tractor to hitch a ride to school in the mornings. I used to gaze out at the endless fields of shoulder-high corn, ridged like green corduroy off into the horizon, and I would think to myself, “Fuck this. Fuck this so hard.”

I’d always been a horror movie geek, and in my junior year of high school I scrounged together enough cash to buy a cheap video camera off eBay. I got my friends Anna, Kevin and Dylan together, and, from sundown until curfew, we’d be out in the woods shooting our own homemade horror flick. We didn’t know what we were doing; the shots were dark as hell, you couldn’t hear 80% of the dialogue, and the fake blood looked like dollar-store barbecue sauce (because it was). But it gave us a purpose, and The Killer in the Woods became our own little masterpiece.

I was ecstatic. I knew what I wanted to do with my life, and I had a plan for finally escaping that terrible small town with its pervasive manure stench and its suffocating right-wing god-and-guns culture. I promised myself that, as soon as I’d saved up enough from my crappy gas station job, I was going to catch a bus out to LA and become a filmmaker.

And then Anna got pregnant.

We weren’t even dating, exactly. Actually, if you want to get technical about it, she was Dylan’s girlfriend at the time. But Dylan’s nutty Christian parents had discovered naked men in his browser history, and they threatened to kick him out of the house unless he could prove he wasn’t “tainted by perversion.” He started dating Anna, and though I’m sure he cared about her in a way, Anna told me he would recoil away from her when she tried to kiss him, as though she was sticking a dog turd in his face.

Anyway, she was at my house late one night while I was editing the movie, telling me all about what a joke their relationship was, how confused she’d become, how lonely. I don’t have an excuse, not a good one anyway. I told myself I was helping out a friend in need, but honestly we were both just horny teenagers who weren’t thinking. It’s okay, I told myself. No one will know. Just make sure to pull out, and it’ll all be fine.

Anna was Catholic, and she refused to even consider getting an abortion. She told me she was going to raise the baby, and that I could stick around if I wanted, or not. I was scared, and angry, and deeply confused about why this was happening, just when I was so close to finally getting out of that town. I thought long and hard about leaving anyway, but I remembered how hard it was on my mom and me when my dad took off, and I swore I’d never do that to anyone. No, I wasn’t going to be like my dad. I was going to take care of my responsibilities like a real man.

So I stayed.

I Love My Grandparents' Fireplace

In the summer of my fifteenth year, after the accident, my parents sent me to stay with my grandparents.

I had always liked their house. They were well-off, so the house was huge, complete with three stories and a winding staircase. I always slept on the west end of the second floor, with its window overlooking the surrounding grove and grandma’s garden.

I was actually looking forward to spending my summer there, if I’m honest. I wanted to get away from my parents – the pitying stares they gave me, the probing questions. My grandparents never pitied me because they knew that it wouldn’t help. I’m simply not that kind of girl. They gave me space, gave me time to collect myself. Plus, my grandma let me garden with her, which I always enjoyed, so it was perfect for me.

I still remember that hot day in June when I moved my things into the spare bedroom. It had a four-poster bed, complete with a pink canopy and pink quilt – a holdover from when I was a child. A few of my childhood toys had ended up in that room over the years, and I found that I liked them there, as fond memories of a time when things weren’t so messed up. The room was huge, with a bay window and a gaping fireplace that I loved to explore when I was little.

I remember looking at that fireplace then, wondering how long it had been since it had seen a flame. If it weren’t so hot, I wouldn’t have minded starting a fire myself. Might give me something to do.

But, as it was, I found myself sitting on the fluffy pink bed, staring out the window at an endless blue sky promising happier days.

I felt very alone. And that was okay.

I spent a lot of time in that room.

It’s not that I didn’t like being outside. It’s just that I’d float off sometimes, sitting in my bed and staring out the window, my mind somewhere in the clouds, thinking of things I can’t even remember now. It would feel like just a few moments, but in reality I’d sit for hours like that.

The doctors said that was normal. I didn’t really mind.

It was on one such day, my fingers absentmindedly picking at the purple embroidery in the quilt on my bed, that I began to hear it.

It was something of a deep thrumming sound, trembling in the air around me. It was low, at first, almost unnoticeable, except in that secret place in the back of my mind that knows things I prefer to ignore. However, the sound became more intense, shaking around me with a ferocity that I couldn’t keep at bay, and I found my eyes scanning the room for the source of the sound.

A Deal With the Devil

On her way home from work, my wife was hit and killed by a drunk driver.

Night after night I prayed, no, I begged God to bring her back. Every night I dreamt of her returning to me, and every morning I woke alone.

One night the dream had changed. I was approached by a man in a pristine suit. "I can bring her back to you, but it will cost you." he said.

"Please! I'll do anything!" I pleaded

"What would you say you're most afraid of?" he asked with a smirk. I thought hard about it briefly before responding "Burning to death".

"Here's my offer: I will return your wife to you, but only if you live out your greatest fear."

"Yes! I'll do it! I'll burn!", and with that I awoke in my bed, next to my beautiful bride.

I couldn't believe it, but there she was, fast asleep, and breathing deep. I woke her with a passionate kiss and after several minutes she asked what had gotten into me. I could only respond by telling her how much I loved her.

I knew I still had a price to pay, but I didn't care.

That evening there was a knock at my door. As soon as I saw the officer, I knew the mistake I had made. I never promised to burn, I promised to live out my worst fear.

"Sir, I'm afraid your wife's been in an accident."

sinisterstories

I Hear a Studio Audience At All Times, and They’re Getting Creepier

This is going to sound like a farce, but ever since I suffered a concussion last summer, I've been hearing a live studio audience around me 24/7. The doctors reassured me they were merely auditory hallucinations brought on by the bump to my noggin, and that they'd eventually go away on their own once my brain healed. It was actually kind of funny at first. I mean, once I got over the initial shock and fear of hearing the unsolicited reactions of a bunch of strangers. They started off more entertaining than disturbing, but that balance eventually shifted, and I'm afraid of them now.

The very first time it happened was the day I was discharged from the hospital. It was a beautiful August day, and I was psyched to finally go out in the warm sun. Eric, my boyfriend, picked me up from the hospital to take me back to our apartment. I was in high spirits, despite a persistent headache, which had followed me since the bike accident. (Kids, wear your helmets!) Eric made a joke, and suddenly, a flurry of hysterical laugher came flooding in from every corner of the car. I screamed at Eric to turn off his surround sound system, covering my ears to drown out the noise, but the laugher only got louder. I could tell by the freaked-out look in Eric's eyes that he hadn't been playing a practical joke on me. Once the chuckles subsided, I explained what happened. Eric turned the car around and drove me straight back to the medical facility.

A brain scan, a few blood tests, and countless hours later, the doctors assured me it was a harmless side-effect of the concussion, and not a case of sudden onset schizophrenia, as I had feared. It was perfectly normal. Well, as normal as hearing a room full of easily-entertained spectators could be. They told me to go home and rest.

It took me a few days to adjust to the auditory hallucinations, but I eventually started to see the humor in my predicament. Meetings at work were a lot more entertaining, what with the peanut gallery projecting annoyed groans whenever my boss slipped into a boring tangent. I didn't even have to secretly roll my eyes: the voices in my head were the perfect vessel through which I could express my innermost feelings without getting in trouble. At home, my captive audience laughed at each of my jokes, even when Eric failed to react to the punch line. When I went to bed, they'd "awwww" as I wrapped my arms around Eric, and again when my cat curled up between us for warmth. The voices even became a sort of early-detection system, warning me of unseen dangers through a series of suspenseful gasps.

Tell Me To Smile

"Aw, come on girl, smile." He says as, I pass.

"Hey, now smile" this time rolling along behind me just a yard or so away now.

"Why not give us a little smile?"

"You know, you would look so much prettier if you'd just smile" he calls out louder.

I stop walking.

This is not a new situation to me and, millions of women throughout the world. The act of something seemingly so simple as being compelled to smile by others (mostly men) and, living with its various consequences.

It is an everyday occurrence with varying intentions that are, left up to our instincts to interpret properly. In other words, it's a pain in the ass. It can also be a grim matter of survival.

Intent can of course, range from the casual and usually innocent, "Aw, it can't be that bad, smile." To the aggressive and, obviously offensive, "What, you to good to smile at me? Fuck you too bitch!"

See what I mean?

Personally, I try to take care when reacting to the calls and, remarks from those met along my path.

They always range from my sweet and truly kind bus driver or the postman just passing along the sidewalk to the big difference of someone following me as I make my way to work.

At this moment the latter seems bound and determined to get my attention.

"Smile for me little momma" he snarls again.

When that fails to get his desired response from me, he resorts to the usual snarl of; "Damn girl, wouldn't hurt you to smile. You ain't all that."

Slowly, I turn around and, give him exactly what he's been asking of me this whole time.

All three blocks worth to be exact.

So, now he's just a few feet from me and, I close the gap between us quicker than he could blink. Suddenly, sitting before me is a grown man straddling a rusty BMX and, sucking on the bent straw of a quick stop cup. His eyes squint when he sees me there and, I see he's also a bit surprised at how easily the distance between us closed.

Yet, the smirk still remains on his lips as he casts a long look from my toes all the way up to what is now my full bright smile.

Except, he's not smiling back. Now, I wonder why?

Well, I'll just smile bigger so that he can see ALL of my teeth. Yes, that will do the trick.

There. Now he can see every single one of them in all their beautiful gleaming rows of sharp silver peaks.

Still, no smile back. Hmm.

Don't you think that's rude?

Okay, I'll just open wider and give him the biggest smile that he's ever seen.

His mouth is just gaping and starting to tremble a little though but, his eyes are stuck wide open.

"Aw, come on give us a scream.", I say in my sweetest voice; "You'll look so much prettier when you scream..."

sinisterstories

My Dad Kidnapped Little Girls

I don’t ever remember my dad being normal. He was always a little strange. The man was secretive and closed off, and all his attempts at acting like a father rose the hairs on the back of my neck. It seemed forced. I don’t think I ever got used to that. There was no need, because he didn’t keep that up for long. By the time I was 5, I didn’t have a dad. What I had after that was a boss. Maybe an owner. Definitely not a dad.

He fully opened up as a person around that time. He brought a little girl into our home. She was small, but she was older than myself, too. Maybe 7 or 8. Her face was red and raw with tears. “Sam, this is your new little sister, Maria.” Before I could react, she spoke up between small sobs. “No, mister. I don’t know you. My name is Claire. Please take me home to my mommy, I promise that I won’t tell.” By the time she finished what she was saying, she was barely forming coherent sentences. That’s when I saw my Dad stop being my dad. With one fluid motion, he swung his arm, hitting her in the face and knocking her back on her ass.

I jumped up, too afraid and confused to do much of anything, but still frightened nonetheless. I was young, but I’d seen enough television to know that normal families didn’t do these things. “Sam, you sit your ass down or I’ll put you in the ground, you hear me?” Thus marked the loss of my father. Later, as I listened to the quiet cries of the girl, now locked in the room next to mine, he sat me down and explained that he wasn’t my father. He told me things a 5 year old should never hear. My life changed forever. I was a mistake.

The little girl was with us for a while. My dad left me at home while he went to the mall, buying all kinds of nice things for Maria. Claire. Whatever. He probably blew $500. The weeks afterward were strange, disgusting, and violent all at the same time. At the best, she would play along with his games and he would be happy. At the worst, I would have to listen to her screams as he did unspeakable things to her in the next room. After, when the screaming would stop, he would come to me and give me the same speech.

“This happens because you aren’t right, you understand? You should have been born a girl. We wouldn’t have to do this. She’s going to die someday because you’re trash.” He would walk to the door and finish with “Remember, Sam. No one out in that world will ever love you. If you try to leave, I’ll find you and I’ll kill you.”

Maria died about three months after my dad took her. This day wasn’t her first attempt at escape, but instead it was her last. Truly, I do not know if my father meant to kill her or not. He became consumed in his rage and I fought back tears as he continued to hit her and hit her, over and over again. Her little light went out as she choked on blood, gurgling sounds coming from her throat. She was buried in our back yard, right next to the playset that my father bought a year before. After that, he became nervous to the point where he packed me up and we started off on the road.

We lived like that for years. Sometimes, we’d live somewhere as long as a year, but that was the extent of it. On a good year, he’d take two or three girls without so much as a second look. People didn’t necessarily suspect him, though. He was a psycho, but the man was smart too. He would falsify documents and references, getting himself jobs as close to children as possible. I remember, one time, he was hired on to be an ice cream truck driver. He snatched up a little girl he called Gloria right in front of her house. He somehow managed to finish his route, too. She only lasted two months.

What Hurricane Sandy Uncovered

It was 2012 when Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast United States. New York City was fixated on a dangling crane in midtown Manhattan. Weird stories and photos circulated the internet and social media. Most notably, a picture of a shark on the flooded front lawn of a New Jersey home. One of the more disturbing picture I saw was of a casket floating down an empty street. I've searched high and low for a copy of that photo more to prove my story than anything.

Caskets floating away during a flood aren't a new thing believe it or not. In New Orleans, the problem of airtight coffins popping out of the ground because of heavy rain fall became so bad most graves are now either lined with concrete or built above ground. Before Sandy, this phenomenon was unheard of in the state of Connecticut. I never saw it personally mind you. I just saw the picture I mentioned and a few stories from patrons at the bar I used to work at. Problem is, drunks aren't exactly known for their honest story telling.

The story I'm telling you took place the day after the hurricane. The bar I work at is located on the outskirts of Waterbury, Connecticut. My boss called me and asked if I could go check out the place and make sure it hadn't been damaged or looted. I said I would on the condition that I could drink for free when I got there. He agreed (Not much choice. He was flooded in) and I was in my truck and on the my, figuring I'd spend my afternoon relaxing at an empty bar.

There's something creepy about a city the day after a storm. Major roadways are abandoned. Street lights are out. One major intersection I had to go through simply had a stop sign stuck in a Home Depot bucket in the middle of the road instead of it's usual working stop lights. The power was out so most of the houses I passed were pitch black. Pure silence with the exception of my truck's engine and the country station I was listening to. Only one word came to mind at that moment. Apocalyptic.

I pulled into the strip mall were the bar was located. I locked up and moved towards the glass front door. The neon sign outside had been broken in the storm. "McKinley's Gin Mill" was written in hunter green gothic type on yellowing plastic. The break in the sign was in the top left corner were an Irish caricature grinned over a mug of beer. With the top left part of his head missing the single remaining eye made his smile seem more sinister than sarcastic.

I opened up and flipped the switch. The lights stayed off. Powers out signs broken, but I couldn't see any other damage. I grabbed a green Jameson bottle along with a portable IPod player we kept under the bar and made my way into the adjourning room. The way McKinley's was set up was as soon as you walk through the front door you're in the bar room. The room had wood paneling, and was decorated with photos, posters and signs scattered on the walls. Across from the bar was a 5 foot gap in the wall that lead to an area with a big screen TV, pool table, juke box, and a few tables. I put the bottle on one of the tables and set up my IPod. I enjoy solitude for the most part and the idea of drinking a bottle of Irish and listening to music while improving my pool game was welcome compared to how I usually spend my nights. Noisy 20 somethings taking Instagram pictures and comparing how drunk they are. I put my "Chill Out" playlist on and set up the table.

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