What scared you when you were a child?

[Bret]

Fears, fears, fears.

That shapeless pile of clothes laying in my closet that, in the dark, appears to be some small, humanoid gremlin that sat motionless waiting for me to fall asleep.

Porcelain dolls that sat staring at me with expressionless faces and eyes, dark and disturbing.

A stuffed clown I was certain I'd wake up one night to find sitting on my chest, staring down into my eyes. I locked it in my closet every night, but I knew that every night it grew angrier.

Nightmares, nightmares.

I was spending time with my younger brother when I noticed he was acting funny. I mentioned it to him and he laughed. He ripped his face off revealing green rot.

My family was disappearing one by one and I was all alone in a huge house. I never saw him, but I knew that somewhere in the shadows there was a man with a knife.

I was being chased by something that sounded like a clothes-dryer. I ran through my grandparents' house and hid behind a couch, but I heard it getting closer. And closer. And closer.

Peace,
Bret

[nEo]

The clothes in darkness... I mentioned Sheckley before, because his characters feared the same thing - the pile of clothes left on a chair that in the dark appeared to be a deformed figure of a man. I always needed to switch light again to amke sure that it is just clothes...

[Tim Denee]

Hospitals. Especially at night. Cold, empty hospital corridors. People in hospitals.

Open outdoor spaces at night. Like big park fields under moonlight. They appear safe, but you're so far from cover, hiding places, or a friendly house.

The loo flushing. I was terrified of being in the room when the toilet started flushing. I thought there were a family of three vague monsters, who would grab me and kill me, living in the closet opposite the loo. They could only get out when the loo flushed, and the loud noise meant that no-one would hear me scream.

After seeing the movie 'Witches', I was terrified of witches and old ladies, especially that cranky old dutch one that lived over the fence.

[Bog-fiend]

Nightmares: One where my entire family (and eveyone else I met) had been replaced by aliens/monsters who looked exactly like the real people - except they turned insideout, bellybutton first.  They kept on trying to gain my trust but I didn't believe any of them.

Also, had one (that recurred in a strange way - more later) where I was leading a group of people I knew through a castle and they decided to bed down for the night in a room that had little mine carts on the floor.  There wasn't enough, so I had to sleep on the floor, and I didn't want to sleep on one anyway (they made me worried).  Right enough, in the middle of the 'night' the carts rolled through a secret door in the room and emerged moments later from another - empty except for a few bloodstains.
It recurred several years later, same castle, similar/same people and same room with mine carts.  This time I managed to convince them not to sleep in the carts and we filled them with bags of flour instead.  We all stayed up to watch and sure enough, the carts dissapered only to return with scattered flour in the bottom.

Night time fears: I slept on the top bunk and being that close to the ceiling I would see lots of pairs of red eyes looking down on me from the ceiling when the lights went off.

Nightime protectors: Had two 'imaginary friends' that would protect me.  There were more like small gods that I didn't actually communicate with, but they protected me anyway.  One was the constellation Orion (someone told me it was a warrior) and the other was the soldier that my Dad painted on my cupboard door because 'kids like that kind of thing'.

My brothers greatest childhood fear: He was scared of triangles.  Yes, the geometric, three sided shape scared him.  Being a typical older sister I played on that fear as best I could.

Once went up to the 'haunted farm' with my friends and scared the living daylights out of them by telling them that there may well have been skeletons under the rotten floorboards, just waiting to reach up and grab their ankles.  They only stepped on the stone paving after that.

I love scaring people - always have ;)

[J B Bell]

Funny how others have problems with the bathroom.

For me, it wasn't the toilet flushing.  It was the exhaust fan.  I thought ghosts would come out of it, and dreamed about them--they were rather comical-looking, purple with square-rimmed glasses, but the scared the hell out of me.

My brother used to open the bathroom door, flick off the light (there were no windows), and turn on the fan, then close the door, all before I could try to get out.  And laugh.  That didn't help, of course.

It's amazing how vibrant the world is, before we build up a sturdy catalog of stereotypes to attribute every creak and half-seen bogeyman to.

--JB

[Dios-Flakk]

Ah, that good old movie THE WITCHES.  I saw that when I was in grade 2 or seomthing. Scared the CRAP out of me!  I was terrified of it.

 I had a nightmare that involved these weird monsters.  They were kind of like heads that (instead of necks) had two legs.  So they were walking heads.  But they were really monstrous and evil, grey and rough and bumpy.  They were all over the place, and I kept seeing them in the shadows.  Then they started to come out and I ran away with my friend and we tried to avoid them.  I somehow got to my old school and they trapped up in the little Portable school room and my Grade 4 teacher looked all deformed and not unlike the monsters.  I think they got us. :O

I also had another recurring one that involved those things from CRITTERS.  Except they would be a person.  Well, the persons chest would look like the creatuers and of course they had shirts on so I nefer knew who WAS on of these monsters.  They would basically melt out of the persons chest and come after me............It was weird because I have never even SEEN Critters.  :P oh well, maybe this is a warning for me to NEVER watch it!

[JimmyB]

At the top of the stairs we used to have two mirrors facing each other, and I was always sure that something was about to come from the last reflection I could see and take me away into the mirror. Sometimes I convinced myself I could actually catch a glimpse as I dashed past.

And the ceiling, we had one of those ceilings done by taking a rollerbrush thing and swirling it around, and since I was on the top bunk of a bunk bed I was sure there were these hundreds of faces all looking down on me.

[MK Snyder]

Giant ants coming and eating me and my family on camping trips.

(I saw "Them" at exactly the right age to mess me up good.)

Yep, that pile of clothes that looks like a skull...

My room didn't have a closet. I am grateful.

[Comte]

My Felix the cat wall clock.  You know the kind the one with the black cat that had the big eyes that would move as the clock ticked...the tail would also swish to the eyes.  Good lord that thing used to creep the hell out of me, it even gave me nightmares.  I still sudder to think about it.

[matsuhito]

i've always been afraid of mirrors, and when i were smaller,
i was convinced that when i wasnt looking, my reflection looked back at
me in a hideous grin whith it's eyes wide open.
this fear has haunted me as long as i can remember.

another thing i was afraid of was vampires, i too used to sleep whith my neck covered, cause then they couldnt reach it.

also, when i was almost falling asleep in my bed with my eyes closed, and it was so quiet that i could hear/feel my pulse,
i imagined it was a great line of robed creatures marching into my room. but they would just stand there by my bed
and look at me. but when i opened my eyes they were gone. weird..

i was quite afraid of zombies and the living dead too..

[Enoch]

Aliens.  The greys in particular.  I used to imagine them wandering around my room or standing over me silently.  I slept with the blanket over my head, but the longer I had my head under the blanket the closer I imagined the aliens get.  But if I pulled the blanket off and looked around they would be shot all the way to where they started.

Bathroom fears:  The shower curtain.  I'd be really afraid of opening it up, you never know what would be behind it.

Basement fears:  The opening to the well or whatever the hell that opening in the basement is.  I was always afraid of falling into that on accident when I played downstairs.

Most movies wouldn't haunt me after watching them.  I had a cool little cure for scary movies.  I just imagined the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles flying in and kicking the baddie's ass.

-Joshua

[Antekvist]

When it turned dark and I was supposed to sleep, I imagened that someone was standing somewhere in my room. Just a person, very evil of course, standing and waiting for something... The cloth forming figures in the dark is also a classic and turned me into panic on several occasions. (Reaching for the lightswitch in panic)

[magistrate]

In the town that I grew up in there was an old cotton mill that had been burned by the Union army as it marched through Georgia. The mill was relocated a few miles away but the ruins were left to rot in place.
 The main feature of this particular mill was that it was one of the first to use heavy machinery as opposed to manpower. The driving force behind this machine was the waterfall nestled in the woods a short distance away.
 Now this old mill was built in terraces going down to the water line where pre civil war (as well as post) pipelines stretched off in the distance in both directions, many of them going out across the water as well. The upper portions of the mill were comprised of non mechanical buildings and gutted out offices and such, The terrace walls were lined with Georgia red clay bricks which were made on site, the bricks themselves after so much time took on an ancient look and blackened to a pitch color blending in with the dank vegetation that surrounded the mill site.
  As you descend further down the terraces and closer to the river the buildings grew in size some of which, even in their ruined state were as big as a modern house. Each building was comprised of Red Clay brick and old tin and the faint remains of rotting timber, it was in these buildings that the big machines they used to manufacture the cotton were to be found. They were twisted metal hulks, with pipes reaching out like some great mechanical octopus, charred black by the fires that laid the mill to waste and the passing of time.  You could still find Civil war relics consisting of old machine bits and railroad spikes, and buckles. If you were lucky you could even find musket balls or arrowheads that belonged to the Indians that made their home in the area and the surrounding caves long before the Mill was ever built.
  The old Mill was the focus of countless local legends and stories ranging from runaway slaves to hippies and free love in the sixties but the two most memorable were the stories of the Cave Indians and the tale of Soap Sally. It was these stories that were to source of most of the children's nightmares in my hometown.
  It was said that the Indians were driven off their lands and were forced to leave behind many of the sick and old during the trail of tears. The spirits of those who were left behind to die are said to haunt the area to this day and are the source of unexplained sounds and feelings when one happens to draw near. I imagine that most every town that ever had a native population has a similar story as this but the story of Soap Sally is, to the best of my knowledge a uniquely local story and as such I have to wonder is there is not some grain of truth to it.
 It is said that Sally was a beautiful young slave girl who caught the eye of a plantations owners visiting relative. One day, Sally was making soap in a large wooden cauldron. Now soap in those days was made of raw lie, which is very powerful and very painful to the skin if you are not careful. The stranger saw Sally at her chores and approached her, flattering her, calling her pretty and sweet and all the things that young women, even slave women liked to hear. All the while though Sally kept at her chores never returning his conversation. This made the stranger angry but also exited him and so he pressed himself harder and harder until he had taken hold of her arms and was forcing himself on her. If she would not return his "affection" then he would have to force it. Sally was so afraid of this; she was a slave after all and could get into terrible trouble if she refused him, but she knew that he was wrong and so in a crying fit she struck out at him and raked her fingernails down his face, leaving a trail of blood on his cheek. At this he became furious and slapped her, she struggled but was not strong enough to break free and so she began to cry. Seeing Sally's tears the stranger panicked and shoved her down, knocking her into the large wooden cauldron of boiling Lie Soap, where she drown in terrible agony as the Lie burned her flesh into a horrible mockery of her former beauty, he then disposed of her scarred body in the river.
  This story was always handed down as a matter of fact and as I have said I cannot find any other similar one from another area so I think that there must be some truth to this. The nightmare part of the story is this.
  They say that if you are ever naughty or if you should ever go out after dark alone or stray to near the old Mill, and yes the story is always that the plantation was on of the many near the cotton mill along the river, then Soap Sally might hear you from the depths of the water and come to snatch you away so that she can continue to make her soap for all eternity. One last thing, Lie was not the only ingredient used in the making of Old Lie soap, you would also needed raw animal fat! Perhaps Soap Sally really does exist, somewhere beneath the murky water below the falls, down by the Old Cotton Mill.

[Shreyas Sampat]

Nightmare...

I'm walking around, in the school or my house, and every time I make the circuit someone else is missing.

Someone is always in the kitchen, but I don't notice, yet.

And then I know: they're eating the others  And now I know, so they have to eat me too.

[Judd]

I had this gap between my bed and the wall and I was sure that something down there was scampering when the lights went out and I couldn't see all the way down to the floor.

Scared, I crawled into bed with my parents and woke up at dawn, blue early-morning light was filling the room.  A hand was peeking out from under a pillow.  In the mass of blankets, sheets and pillows I couldn't tell that it was my father's hand, only a spidery hand that looked blue in the light.

I then realized that little hands, disconnected from wrists, were what was scampering next to my bed.