I read the Communist Manifesto

Now I think every bump in the night is a spectre haunting Europe.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 24 Feb 2007, 7:14, Reply)

The boxing day storm of 1998
I was on night shift in the control tower at Glasgow Airport. Seeing the roof of the fire section hanger opposite me collapse and then minutes later hearing an ominous thumping noise from the shaking building I was in did actually scare me.
The thumping was being caused by a 6 foot square section of the floor below me being ripped apart by the winds.
I did survive the shift intact though.
But was later given a bollocking for "Not ensuring that all the met equipment in our enclosure outside was safe."
( stuj (^(^;;^)^) GO TEAM SPIDERS!(^(^;;^)^), Sat 24 Feb 2007, 7:06, Reply)

I was scared last week

by some goths. I'm a bit of a brain-dead conformist, and so they totally blew my mind, and shattered my narrow preconceptions.

It was quite similar to an incident which occured when I was persecuting some pagans for their beliefs, as I frequently do.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 24 Feb 2007, 6:58, Reply)

I keep having nightmares
that the War on Terror will end.

Luckily my girlfriend's there to reassure me that that'll never happen.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 24 Feb 2007, 6:14, Reply)

Ages ago, Tiverton, Ashley Cottage
College. Devon. 300 Miles away from home. I was first to arrive at the 18th century cottage that would be home for a year. Middle of nowhere. it's already early evening, and dark.

No problem, i get to choose the best room. A quick scout and i'm sorted.

but the place doesn't feel easy. it feels... mhmm... creepy...

then i start to wonder, after a few hours as we do in situations like these... and after my 15th coffee and after no-one arrives... if i should actually do a more thorough check around the house before i retire to bed...

i pick up a knife. as you do. and go around the rooms, opening wardrobes... looking under beds...

i work myself up into a bit of a state as i do this...

then i return downstairs and try to lock the front door... and fail. the key doesn't fit, so i go out the side door, into the field, now armed not only with a knife but also a motorcross boot, i make it to the front door and lock it from the other side...

i return inside.

The i realise whilst locking the front door i left the side door open, and have to do another search of the house.

nothing. phew.

it is at this point, all locked in and safe, i notice the under stairs cupboard. it's big enough for a person to stand in....

there was no shitting way i was going to bed without checking it.

i check it. it's clear. just an ancient hoover inside and some old carpet. phew.

i make another coffee... the last one before bed, and sit down thinking myself pretty stupid and it is at this point the under stairs cupboard door flies open and the hoover falls out. i'm about 5 feet away from it and shit myself throwing scalding coffee fucking everywhere.

i didn't sleep very well that night. and as it turned out the place was haunted, but that's another story.
(Nobody Likes Mortal Wombat, Sat 24 Feb 2007, 6:05, Reply)

too much base
Last year after my first real dabble of base (and at the time came to the conclusion that i liked it) I came home and eat my breakfast and set about a last minute bit of uni work. Then i started to feel a bit shitty, so i ended up spending most of the day vegetated in bed (not asleep obviously). At one point I see something move by my desk, then i see it again. Then i start shitting it thinking its a rat, i then confused many things with rats, my socks, the upturned bit of carpet in the corner of the room. I then go and tell my mates and they think i have gone mental, not helped by the fact a bit later i told them that my duvet made a face at me (it did, although i knew it wasnt real). That is the first time in ages i have ever been scared.

Not being able to sleep for a few days was a bit of a shitter aswell.
( Slippery Mick ‏, Sat 24 Feb 2007, 5:30, Reply)

One time by accident I saw
the naked jungle. Keith Chegwin. Nude. Just.......no
(Vin diesel touches my tra la la shove a bastard in it, Sat 24 Feb 2007, 5:27, Reply)

Once...
I went to the dentist.

That is all.
(godders loves you, children, Sat 24 Feb 2007, 4:46, Reply)

The last real, real scare I had
came about 4 years ago at a skate park.

I was riding the miniramp, which at its highest point was seven feet tall. The back of the ramp faced onto the street course, which was about perhaps 8 feet down, possibly a little more. Between the top of the ramp and this 8 foot drop to solid concrete was a waist high wooden rail.

I'm skating this ramp and practising my front side axle stalls, which is a trick in which I ride to the coping of the ramp (the metal bar that runs the length of the top of the ramp) and stop with your axles sat perpendicular on the bar (like a 50-50 grind, but not moving).

Unfortunately I was going too fast, and I had to step backwards off my board.

But I was still going too fast, and my body weight carried me another step backwards.

And my arse met with the railing.

And I was still going fast.

In one quick see-saw motion I was over the railing, upside down, falling head first towards a solid concrete floor occupied by many street-style skaters riding way faster than any human being has business riding. Suddenly my perception of time skews and everything goes into a blurry slow-mo.

I feel my arms grasping for something with which I might take purchase, but nothing but the unforgiving flat panel face of the miniramps back is found. In my haze of adrenaline and cold sweat, I resign myself to a head on impact with the cold concrete.

Thud! My head hits something, but it's not concrete. It felt more like a ply of thin wood. My eyes are closed, but I can tell I'm still upside down. There's a constricting tightness around my belly. I open my eyes and try to figure out where I am. I'm hanging upside down by the waistband of my trousers, which had caught on a vertical beam of wood that run the height of the ramp. I manage to reach up and grab the edge of the miniramp, then flip my legs backwards and do a kind of mini somersault, landing shakily on my feet, and eventually stumbling onto my arse. But I'm pretty much unhurt. There's a scrape on my back, another on my elbow, and my guts hurt a bit, but all that is infinitely preferably to an 8 foot head on impact with a solid floor.

I was always a little more conservative with my speed when doing axle stalls after that.
( MarkyH feels like the H in Bob Hoskins' name, Sat 24 Feb 2007, 2:57, Reply)

Last night,
listening to Down The Line's last in series on BBC radio's listen again player thing. Not been so scared since I was 10.
(MNNNNGGH, Sat 24 Feb 2007, 2:56, Reply)

Just over the weekend...
I was with my girlfriend and we were watching the newer version of King Kong. I nearly crapped myself watching a giant slug engulf some guys head and arm. I felt sick.
(Subway Riding the rails underground, Sat 24 Feb 2007, 1:20, Reply)

Scared?
Was I scared rolling down the hill, testing my nerve by seeing how long I could keep my fingers off the brakes?

Nope.

Was I scared when the ground got bumpier and my bike was moving at speed over fist sized lumps of sharp flint, being knocked off line like a pinball?

Nope.

Was I even slightly nervous when I hit the rooty path at double the speed I was used to?

Maybe a teensy bit...

Perhaps I was shitting it when I realised I was upside down and nine feet in the air, with nothing underneath me but rocks and dirt?

Actually no. I recall thinking how I'd probably break a shoulder and maybe a wrist. But fear was something I didn't have time to feel.

No, I got scared AFTER I landed. I'd travelled a total of twenty feet before hitting the ground head first, closely followed by my bike. The realisation that I'd come very close to cashing my chips kicked in when I got back on the saddle and tried to negotiate something no more taxing than hopping up a kerb. I cut the ride short, anxious to get back to safety and acutely aware that 100 quid's worth of carbon re-inforced helmet was split in three and hanging uselessly around my ears. Not to mention that my ribs were beginning to hurt (I'd cracked two and sustained a minor concussion, plus various cuts and bruises. I was very lucky).

Since then I haven't quite been the same. Every time I hit something remotely sketchy I'm shitting it.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Sat 24 Feb 2007, 0:57, Reply)

Hammer man
In the alleys near me at university, there was an attack a few years back against a few students by a hammer-wielding psycho who badly injured some people. Although true, this is one of those stories the second-years tell you in Fresher's Week to scare a few people.

I didn't really worry about this, as I'm a big guy and nothing has happened for ages, not to mention the fact that lots of people have to walk down the alleys. Regardless, walking to the union in the first week, I was with some girls who were really scared of the supposed threat posed by the hammer man, including a girl who was so scared she was gripping to my arm. I would have been happy with that if she was fit, but she really, really wasn't. I guess that gave me someone to be scared of, although it was not the hammer man!
(I have a face also had a sig on, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 23:49, Reply)

A mate and me
A few years back we were sodding about by the stairs at school and all of a sudden he pointed out a box to me on the wall. We opened it up and lo and behold - it was the security system thing for the building we were in. After a few minutes we got past the pin code (1234. honestly...) and started going through the options. One of these was "Sound alarm".

"Go on, push it." I said, not expecting him to actually do it. And if it did the worst that would happen is the alarm going off just in this small building we were in, right?

Wrong. He pushed it, and all of a sudden the fire alarm across the whole school erupted and hundreds of kids were flooding out of wherever they were, moving to the field. Me and him promptly crapped ourselves. Him especially. We spent the rest of the day in fear of eventually being called to the headmaster's office, it never did come though.

The funniest part though is that he had red ink on his hands after a mishap involving a red pen breaking in the last lesson. This left dirty red fingerprints all over the keys of the security-box-thing. If the school had only been wise enough to locate the source of the alarm, he would have LITERALLY been caught red-handed.
(I have a face also had a sig on, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 23:40, Reply)

the joy of vintage bikes
while crusing down the middle lane of the M25 at about 7pm (after dark) a lorry driver waved at me and pointed at my bike, as it was a a 70's honda cruiser I'd restored myself not that long before I thought he might be a biker and waved back.

as the next 4 drivers did this I realised I should probably see why and saw I had no lights on at all, not one!
if you've never tried traveling on the m25 while being ,to all intents and purposes, invsible to other traffic then your probably better off for it.

Always check your lights before you leave.
realy,
every time.
(Dr Worm, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 23:38, Reply)

stoned nonsense
After deciding to take a job abroad for six months, I had a going away party thrown in my honour, to which all of my friends showed up. Even my boyfriend's sisters came along to wish me well.
So what was the lasting memory I left with everyone?
A smug but eloquent speech? Nope.
Their lasting image will be of me stoned out of my tree and clinging to my bloke whilst hiding my face and screaming "Get that fucking sock monkey away from me. It's got no fucking EYES!"

I was hysterical and cried with fear.
I have absolutely no idea why.
(DippyFi, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 22:52, Reply)

Wuh-oh
I just looked at my bank balance.

New pants, please.
(A Good Egg, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 22:42, Reply)

I am a wuss Part I
I can get panicky very easily but try to hide it, seeing as how I'm a big strong American.

I've had the shit scared out of me numerous times. If you know me, you know I'm pretty hard of hearing. The first full day I wore my new state of the art hearing aids, I was alone in the house, grading papers. I realized I could hear deep heavy breathing somewhere in the room. I froze and held my breath. It stopped. I started breathing again and the noise started up again. "Oh my God, a madman's in my house and he's watching me!!!"

I tried to turn around slowly while listening to the rapidly increasing mouthbreathing. Uh oh, I now heard furtive rustling like he was creeping towards me. I got cold from the adrenalin rush and cappillary squeeze. I thought wildly about what I had on the dining room table I could use as a weapon, then I noticed the breathing coincided with my own and the rustling only happened when I moved.

I had been so damn deaf before I was unfamiliar with hearing my OWN breathing and rustling of my own clothes. What an rsehoal.
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 22:42, Reply)

found a body...
After watching the old texas chain saw massacre with my policeman ex and his female housemate, he decided that it would be a good idea to go for a walk, in the pitch dark along the river by this flat.

I hate the dark at the best of times, but this pathway had the river on one side and foilage and train tracks on the other. (With no bloody streetlamps) Strangly enough there is a random house before the path ends - looks like it shouldn't be there, there are also bars on the window - very scary.

As we were walking along the path, my ex was scaring us by joking that we were going to be sliced and diced by the occupants of this house. i was already scared by nothing prepared me for what happened next...

next thing i know his female housemate has stopped in her tracks - whats that on the edge of the path... it was a body!
i've never been so scared before in my life, thinking that perhaps the 'dead' man was a trap so the peope in the house can come out and butcher us!

next thing i know my policeman ex is poking it asking him if hes ok... to which he replies with a grunt. ex then decides that as he is off duty its too much hassle to deal with and starts to walk off....
we follow, but have to go back that way to get home - ex decides if he is still there when we come back he will do something.

cut a long story short the man hasnt moved. friend and i have to walk along path to wait for ambulance. Ex discovered the man discharged himself from the local mental hospital and had decided to take all his medication with a bottle of brandy and felt sleepy....

lesson learnt: never watch a scary film and go walking down dark paths at night!
(VodkaMargarine When there is no Brandy Butter..., Fri 23 Feb 2007, 22:00, Reply)

I don't really do scared
Being six-feet-three helps rather helps with this. However, when I was about nine or so, and consequently somewhat shorter than I am now, I was walking home from school past the local fire station. The doors swung open, the lights flashed, the sirens wailed. SHIIIIIIT! I swear I have never ran faster than that since.
( Parmesan Quality b4 Quantity, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 21:34, Reply)

You really can't out-run a forest fire
Couple of years ago in the spring I was looking around the woods on our property and decided it needed tidying up. And there's no better way of tidying up dead tree branches than a good old bonfire, is there?

Mrs Spankengine wasn't having it though. Oh no. "Fires are dangerous" she said. "So you shouldn't".

What does she know?

So I very diligently scraped a 12-foot circle in the leaves, down to the damp earth. Nice and damp, I thought. After all the snow had recently melted so it was safe. But to make it even safer I had the hose lined up and ready.

What could be safer?

Turns out quite a lot. My little bonfire had been burning for just a few minutes when suddenly it jumped out of the circle and into the very dry leaves. By the time I ran to the tap to turn the hose on it was about 5 times the size of my original fire, and moving scarily fast. You know how they say you can't outrun a forest fire? Well, 'they' are right.

I was cacking myself so badly I couldn't actually speak down the telephone to the emergency services. Absolutely stark-staring terrified.

Then Fireman Sam and his boys arrived with a real hose to put the fire out, and the helpful comment that if they'd got there 5 minutes later they'd be looking at a major forest fire. But by this point I was cacking myself again knowing that my wife was out shopping and could be back any minute. The firemen actually left about 5 minutes before she got home.

Not sure how I thought I would be able to hide half a burned acre from her, to be honest.

I get bombarded with news reports on forest fires now from all my friends. And I don't play with matches anymore.

Utterly, utterly terrifying experience.
(Thomas_The_Spankengine, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 21:31, Reply)

ooh
thought of a more recent one. My youngest son decided to be breech with just a week or 2 to go until his birth. Now I am absolutely petrified beyond belief of epidurals. His awkward postion increased the chance of a caesarean and an epidural a fair bit (I decided if he was bum first I would try a vaginal birth, but not if he was feet first). Thank goodness a bit of homeopathy and bum in the air action got the little man to turn round and had a lovely homebirth instead. It was close though.
( moogy boobles, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 21:10, Reply)

I think
my most scared moment was aged 7, sneakily watching the news about Chernobyl, then reading When The Wind Blows. I couldn't sleep for weeks. Even now that book gives me teh fear.
( moogy boobles, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 21:04, Reply)

Sleep Walking
Last Night i was out on the razz, got mondo pissed and staggered home. Had myself a shoddily made ham sandwhich then striped off to the generic male sleeping attire (boxers) and fell drunkenly to sleep. Skip 2 hours later i wake up outside the front door of the block of flats... Err... WTF!!! Standing outside in Newcastle, in February wearing nought but my undies. absolutely Shite myself, the moment of stomach sinking, pan spanging realisation that i'm locked out at 4 in the morning. Freaked out... (fortunately my screams of Fuck and Shit were heard by a flatmate through his open window and he saved my cold cold ass.)
( King of Beasts Your Farther's Brother's Gerbil's Former Room Mate, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 20:36, Reply)

Scared Convent girls
Each year the boys’ school next door put on a Shakespearean production and if you were in the Sixth Form at the girls’ school, you were allowed to take part.

The year they decided to do A Midsummer Night’s Dream I was cast as Hippolyta – the Amazon Queen married to Theseus.

Many weeks of rehearsals culminated in the final week of performances for the public and on the night of the last show a cast party was held afterwards.


The cast party was held in the boys’ Sixth Form Common room – a hut in the extensive grounds of the school.

And as the boys’ school had very different rules and regulations to our school, the boys in the Sixth form were both allowed to smoke in their Common room and, it appeared, to drink too.


Halfway through the party I remembered that I had left a bottle of wine in our “dressing room”.

We had been given the use of an empty dorm up in the attic of the school (and yes, I believe that Hogwarts was modelled on the school – Harry Potter movies always give me flashbacks).

So I told a couple of the boys and they offered to take me back up to the room to get the wine…..


Three of us set out from the hut, it was completely pitch dark outside and silent except for the sound of the sea (the school was on the coast).

We found the back door that had been left open for the boys and began to make our way through the dark corridors.

The main building is Victorian and downstairs all the floors are stone, there is also a chapel which we had to walk past, in the dark.

I’ve never been particularly fond of darkened enclosed spaces so I was rather nervous and held on tight to my two escorts….


We made our way up the stairs past the dormitories (including the Sixth form dorms where I had a previous encounter…) and we carried on up to the attics.

Once there I started to search for the wine I had left, but the boys had other ideas…..I was still wearing my costume – an Elizabethan dress with a tight fitting bodice which was constricting my breathing.

One of the boys offered to help me get changed out of my costume, he turned me around and began to unlace my dress until it was loose enough to slip to the floor.

I stood there in the tiny dark attic room, almost naked and cold, although not for long as the boys kept me warm with their hot breath and eager bodies….


Finally when we left we decided to leave by the main door of the building as it was closer; giggling a little we made our way when suddenly a tall dark figure appeared - a monk with his hood up.

All three of us screamed and ran for the door, we went to grab the handle when another hooded figure appeared….we managed to get out of the door and ran like hell back towards the hut.

Halfway there we stopped and looked back, no one was following us, and we were safe….


It was a warm night; the grounds were full of secluded spots.

Has anyone told you how fear and adrenaline is an aphrodisiac? We never made it back to the party….
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 19:58, Reply)

Silent watcher
Woke up in the middle of the night to find someone stood at the side of the bed, right next to my head.
Sh1t myself.
I actually let out a girly style aaaaargh!, then my protective family man instinct kicked in and I tried to swing a punch at the persons stomach, while leaping naked out of bed.
Luckily for me, my wife has quicker reflexes than i do, and she pushed me off balance so my punch missed, and i ended up in a heap on the floor.
Also lucky for my youngest daughter, who had sleepwalked into the room and nearly got a pasting from her sleepy dad.
(turtles head is touching cloth poked a dwarf on the forehead at, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 19:17, Reply)

Sadokooooooo!
I used to live in a large halls of residence when I was in uni, with a mix of students from all over but mostly Korean. We spent a lot of time watching horror films and one of the girls acquired the name 'Sadako'(it was the time of The Ring remake) for her creepy gliding about.

Very early one morning I got up to use the loo. It was very dark and the long corridor connected the newer fifties-built part of the building to the older Victorian bit. I rounded a corner and bumped into a small Asian girl gliding along, long straight hair covering her face. Eeek! I nearly weed there and then!

She changed her expression ever so slightly then just carried on gliding away. Unnatural girl!

I used to hold it in after that!
(Medibot, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 19:10, Reply)

Oh fuck
I'm really scared right now, because I just know that there are going to be a load of stories posted here about people or people they know being told they are going to die or something and I'll get really depressed and want to drink loads and then do something really stupid. I'll let you know what I do later.
( Normanator Bad case of trapped wind since, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 19:10, Reply)

Baby
Not much scares me. Even in my job (midwife). Scaredest I think I've ever been:

Newly qualified, in clinic, routine examination, all well, go to listen in to the baby's heartbeat and it is fine- adn then plummets to 60bpm (about half what it should be). We call an ambulance. It is 5pm, week before Christmas in South London. The ambulance had trouble a) getting to us and b) finding the clinic. At the time I just felt like my stomach had dropped out, and I was shaking uncontrollably all evening. Result of case- neenaw into hosptial and crash caesarean section, baby needed full resuscitation, total fluke we'd heard the fetal distress.

If anyone saw the episode of Bodies on BBC where you hear the baby die on the monitor, THAT was what it sounded like. Births and stuff like that are dead scary for the parents etc but the only time I really worry is when I am scared cos then you know it's really tits up. Usually you can reassure people- it's a lot harder to do that when you are cacking yourself, I can tell you.
(Clarabelle is reverting to type on, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 18:40, Reply)

sleeping downstairs
I still live at home with my parents and my two younger sisters. As i only came back from uni last year and there is no room in our house, i sleep in the downstairs bedroom, in the extension.

One of my biggest fears is someone or thing at my window, a mysterious face staring at me.

Now anyone or thing can walk down our drive and knock on my window or even smash the double glazing. So when one night i was asleep, i was awoken to the sound of scratching on my windown and i about shat myself.

At first i ignored it, thinking its foxes in the bin. I fall asleep again, then a light tapping starts,then stops, then starts again softly tapping. Then a knock and another loud banging.
I sit upright in bed, literally gasping for air as i'm so petrified i am hyperventalating. The sound of a window, my window opening hits me then a muffled whispering and another knock.

I run like fuck upstairs, half naked, crying, swearing, can't breathe....

Its my pissed up sister trying to get my attention as she forgot her key.

Girth, length? nearly a whole log!
( squiddylyd Once you pop you can't stop!, Fri 23 Feb 2007, 18:28, Reply)