giant cuddle spider, flickr
If something is creepy, it will cause a sensation of repulsion, horror, or fear. It’s sort of like when you look down at your arm and discover a huge ugly spider with fangs that are dripping with venom crawling on you. But not all creepy things are bugs. There are so many other things that can send chills up your spine and make you look around in horror, wondering if anything else or someone else is in the room with you.
Ghosts haven’t chased after me nor have monsters tried to kill me, but during my life, I have had experiences that I consider creepy.
Slightly Creepy
The first time something that I would consider creepy happened to me after my mom died. Only eight and a half years old, I was traumatized by her death. There were a handful of times when items in my room changed places. No, I didn’t witness them floating across the room or anything like that, but they weren’t where I left them.
narrow country road in England, wikimedia commons
This next slightly creepy thing happened when I lived in England. While going down a country road—and there are lots of those in England—we saw this huge dog. We were pretty sure it was an Irish Wolfhound, and it ran across the road right in front of us. We mentioned it to some locals and they informed us that we had seen their local ghost dog. They said this dog’s owner had been murdered and that the dog had been chasing after his killers ever since.
Were they telling us the truth? I’m not completely sure, but we were living in England where ghosts and ghost stories abound.
Slightly More Creepy
Have you ever had a hair dryer that turned on when no one was around? My last hair dryer did that. It’s favorite time to do that was when no one else was in the same room with it. Maybe it was a ghost who wanted to dry her hair? Or maybe it was some malfunction. Once that particular hair dryer was replaced by a new one, it didn’t happen anymore.
Criminal Minds, wikimedia commons
One evening, I was in my living room watching an episode of Criminal Minds, one of my favorite shows. My dogs wanted out, so I went in the dining room and let all three of them outside into the back yard. After a few minutes, my boxer/shepherd mix (now deceased) and my wiener beagle barked to let me know they wanted back in, so I opened the door for them and then went back to my show.
It was another ten minutes or so before I heard Pip, my ancient Australian shepherd—we refer to him as Pipthuselah, the Ancient of Dogs—bark to let me know he was ready to come back in the house. I paused my show and went to let him in. When I saw the door, I froze. The screen door was closed. Was that unusual? Yes. The screen door hadn’t been closed for years; we just left it slid open. Could Pip have closed it? No. It wouldn’t close easily and would have made a lot of noise. There had been no noise.
I slid the screen door open again, and Pip came inside. Of course, questions ran through my mind as to how that could have happened, and I still have no clue. There was no one hiding on my land—yes, it was checked—and none of the dogs barked to alert me that something was out there that didn’t belong. Maybe it was a friendly ghost that just wanted to let me know it was hanging around.
huge spider web, wikimedia commons
This next incident would qualify as distressingly creepy for someone who had arachnophobia, but since I’m over that, it only made me yell and made my heart flutter for a few moments. I was walking down the road one beautiful fall morning. It was barely daylight, but my dogs and I were already taking our morning walk down my road that has woods on each side of it. Spiders seem to be more abundant at this time of year, so I was watching for spider webs above my head and for ones that might be so low down that we would walk through them. The sunlight shone through the trees ahead of me just in time to keep me from walking into a spider web larger than any I had seen before. This web stretched across the entire road!
When I stopped, my nose was mere millimeters from the creator of this magnificent web. I backtracked as fast as I could. Once my heart was close to beating normally again, I picked up a stick from the side of the road and took down the web while being careful not to kill the one who had spun it. I asked her to please build her next creation on the side of the road, not across it.
Distressingly Creepy and Heartbreaking
Softly and Tenderly is a book I wrote. Part one of the book was finished in January 2013. That part of the book opens with the death of my mom, which really happened. The morning my dad discovered she had died, he ran down the stairs screaming for an ambulance. At the end of part one, there is another death: my grandmother. But she isn’t the one who originally died at that point in the book, my dad is.
The evening of the day I finished part one, my brother called me. The same stairs that my dad had run down the morning he discovered my mom had died, he had fallen down. And he was dead.
I’m not sure if you can understand how that made me feel. I had just written that my dad died, and then he did. The ending had to change. Was my dad dying by falling down the stairs when he did a coincidence? I’m pretty sure it was, but it wasn’t a very nice one.
Ultimately Creepy
How many of you detest spiders? I’ve known people who would rather burn down their house than be in it with a spider. I used to be slightly arachnophobic, but that fear disappeared years ago the first time I killed a spider with my bare hands.
Road Through the Woods, Lisa Binion
Jogging used to be part of my daily exercise routine. I would do laps on my road, which has trees on both sides. One morning I came in from jogging and reached up to wipe the sweat off the right side of my face, and my hand brushed over my ear. There were legs sticking out of my ear. I freaked.
I had no clue what had crawled back in my ear, but it had legs. And it just wouldn’t stay still. Each time it decided to move around in there, my balance was thrown off and I would fall to my knees. That evening, it finally crawled out as I poured peroxide in my ear for what seemed like the millionth time. Whatever it was crawled across my face when it exited my ear, and I screamed. My daughter came running in. “Mom! It was a spider!” I’m not sure which was worse: my daughter letting me know that a spider had been in my ear or just knowing that some unknown creepy crawly had in there.
My fear of spiders had been conquered for quite some time, but that doesn’t mean I was comfortable knowing that one had been inside my ear for most of the day. When a friend commented, “Gee, I hope it didn’t lay eggs in there,” that really made my day. (I hope you could hear the intended sarcasm glaring through that statement.)
Amazon Link: Softly and Tenderly
girl writing, etc.usf.edu
Make Your Own List of Creepy Events
Now it is your turn to make your own list of events. Has anything creepy ever happened to you? Is there at least one event in your life that gave you the shivers? Maybe there is one that not only gave you the shivers but caused you to lose sleep. Divide these events into categories if you need.
Either on your computer or in a notebook (one made of paper), list these creepy events. Go back and choose at least one event that a story is already forming in your mind for. Now write that story.
