Jane lived in a dorm with her roommate Melissa. Around 9 pm she remembered
that her library book was due today and the library closed at 11 pm. Jane told
Melissa that she was going to the library to return this book and would
probably hang out there for a while. She invited Melissa to come along, but
Melissa declined, having an early class the next day. She asked Jane to kill
the lights on her way out and Jane did so as she left their dorm room. She then
walked across campus to the library. There, she walked into a friend of hers
and talked to him for a while before she realized she had forgotten the book.
It was already after 10 pm so, promising her friend that she would return
shortly, Jane hurried back through the dark to her dorm. When she got to her
room, she remembered that Melissa was asleep. Jane knew exactly where the book
was, on her desk next to Melissa's bed. Not wanting to wake up her roommate she
quietly went in, grabbed her book and left the dorm without turning on the
lights. She then proceeded to go back to the library. She returned her book and
went out for a late dinner with the friend she had previously left at the
library. When Jane returned to her dorm hall, she found a big stir complete
with police and ambulance. An officer took her up to her room. Two things Jane
saw then, were forever printed in her mind: her roommate's mattress drenched
in blood, and some writing on the mirror that hung on the wall in front of her
desk. Scrawled in her blood were the words "Aren't you glad you didn't turn
on the light?"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On a Sunday evening, a young woman was driving herself to a meeting
she had up north the next day when she noticed that she was running low
on gas and didn't know where the next gas station was. Just as she thought
she would have to pull over and sleep the night on the side of the road,
she came across a rather dodgy-looking petrol station.

When she pulled in, the attendant made his way around the car and
seemed to be very distracted when she asked him to fill it up, She even
thought that the man was making faces at her! He finally agreed to get the
gas, but then asked her to pop open the hood of the car because there seemed
to be a problem. Naturally, the woman became a little anxious - she
was all alone in a remote gas station, out in the middle of nowhere and it was
obvious that the attendant was trying to find reasons to keep her there.

He asked her to come look at the engine, because he had to "show her
something". Not wanting to seem hysterical and paranoid, she did as he asked.
As she rounded the front of the car he grabbed her arm and said that her
car needed to be towed to the nearest town and she would have to come into
the office to complete the paperwork. He then put his hand over her mouth
and forced her into the office. She began to bite his hand once they were
inside and he let her go. He explained to her that there was a man crouched
down in the backseat of her car and the attendant didn't want him to know
that he'd been seen.

They called the police who came to arrest the man who, it was later
discovered, was a known serial killer.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Berlin - Just after WWII.

A young woman made the following report to the police. She had met a blind man
at a rally. She claims that they hit it off pretty well and the blind man
asked her for a favor, could she possibly deliver the letter to the address on
the envelope? As it was on her way home, she agreed. She started out to
deliver the letter, but then turned around to ask the man a question. To
her dismay, she spotted him hurrying through the crowd in the opposite
direction-without his dark glasses or white cane. Sensing something seriously
dodgy, she went straight to the police, who raided the address on the envelope,
where they found heaps of human flesh for sale.

What was in the envelope? A note which said "this is the last one I am sending
you today." (The girl, that is...)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Furry Collar
Susan was my best friend. But I try not to think about her.  It is only on
certain nights, when I'm all alone in my room, that I remember.... It was
during Christmas vacation last year when Susan asked me to stay at her house
overnight. She lived in a big, gloomy house set way back from the road. And
she didn't want to be alone there at night. Her parents had gone to visit
some friends and wouldn't be back until the next afternoon. Susan said we
could have a really good time without her parents around. And we did. At
about 12:00 we decided to get dressed for bed. Susan had gotten this velvet
nightrobe for Christmas that had a thick, furry collar. It was blood red
velvet and she looked like someone from a Dracula movie in it. We had been
watching television in the living room, but then we turned it off. We hadn't
noticed it before, but now the downstairs seemed too big, and almost sinister.
We started to go upstairs. Then, all of a sudden, we both ran up the steps to
Susan's room as if something was coming up from behind us. After we closed the
door, we laughed at ourselves. But neither one of us wanted to leave the room
again. We sat down and started to talk. That's when we first heard the noise.
It sounded like somebody sharpening a knife on an old emery stone. We stopped
talking and looked at each other, feeling really scared inside. There was a
thick silence in the room. Suddenly, Susan started to laugh. She said that she
had heard a sound like that in the house before. She said it was probably the
shutters or something. That made me feel better and we started to talk again.
Then we heard it again! SCRRITCH. SCRRITCH. The sound made my teeth vibrate as
if somebody's fingernails were scratching on a chalkboard. But this sound was
much worse. It shrieked up from the dark, lonely rooms below us. SCRRITCH.
Susan got a wild look in her eyes, as though something horrible had come into
her head. Before I could catch her, she ran out of the room, slamming the door
shut and flicking off the light switch. I heard her footsteps as she ran down
the first flight of stairs, and then stop. I sat in the dark, sick with fright.
I called out Susan's name; but my voice was answered by hushed silence. I
didn't want to stay in the dark room alone, but even more I didn't want to
go out into that other darkness. SCRRITCH. I heard it again, that disgusting
sound. Then I heard Susan's footsteps, moving down the next and final flight
of stairs. She went more slowly, as if she didn't really want to. I heard her
reach the bottom. I waited in the room, wondering what Susan was doing. I told
myself she must be all right. You see, the noise had stopped right after I
heard her reach the bottom of the stairs. It didn't come after that. Susan
had probably just fixed the shutter. Maybe she had known for sure about that
all the time. She had just acted strangely to scare me. Maybe she was sitting
on the steps now, laughing at me. I got up and started toward the door to turn
the light on. But a feeling of fear swept over me that held me back like a hand
against my throat. I decided I would wait where I was for Susan to return. I
would wait there until her parents came if necessary. Nothing could make me
leave my darkness for that darker unknown outside the room. Time passed. My
ears strained for a sound and my nerves tingled at imagined shadows. Then I
heard a slow, shuffling noise on the bottom step. Was it Susan? It had to be.
Yet... the footsteps seemed to heavy, too deliberate. My heart began to pound
and for a moment I lost control of my mind. It flew to the most horrible
corners of my imagination and I shook with terror. Then, suddenly, I knew what
I would do. Susan's new nightrobe with the furry collar! I would wait for the
door to open and then I would reach out and touch the person's neck. If I felt
the furry collar, I would know it was Susan--and I would get her back for
scaring me like this. If I didn't feel the furry collar... well, then there
was nothing I could do. The shuffling footsteps had reached the second flight
of stairs. I forced my own feet to take the steps to get near the door of the
room. I felt the skin crawl on my back as the footsteps reached the top step
and moved down the hallway. I braced myself. The door creaked slightly as it
swung open. I reached my arms out and hoped. My fingers closed around the
thick fur of Susan's collar. My body drained with relief. I was so happy; I no
longer wanted to scare her. But as my fingers moved up from the furry collar,
there was nothing.... Only the bloody stump where Susan's head had been.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once there was a man who fell in love with a beautiful girl. And before the
next full moon rose in the sky, they were wed.  To please her husband, the
young wife wore a different gown each night. Sometimes she was dressed in
yellow; other nights she wore red or blue or white. And she always wore a
black velvet ribbon around her slender neck. Day and night she wore that
ribbon, and it was not long before her husband's curiosity got the better
of him. "Why do you always wear that ribbon?" he asked. She smiled a strange
smile and said not a word. At last her husband got angry. And one night he
shouted at his bride. "Take that ribbon off! I'm tired of looking at it."
"You will be sorry if I do," she replied, "so I won't." Every morning at
breakfast, the husband ordered his wife to remove the black velvet ribbon
from around her neck. Every night at dinner he told her the same thing. But
every morning at breakfast and every night at dinner, all his wife would say
was, "You'll be sorry if I do. So I won't." A week had passed. The husband no
longer looked into his wife's eyes. He could only stare at that black velvet
ribbon around her neck. One night as his wife lay sleeping, he tiptoed to her
sewing basket. He took out a pair of scissors. Quickly and quietly, careful
not to awaken her, he bent over his wife's bed

and

SNIP! went the scissors, and the velvet ribbon fell to the floor


and


SNAP! off came her head. It rolled over the floor in the moonlight, wailing tearfully:



"I...told...you...you'd...be...s-o-r-r-y!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the movie, _The Morning After_, Jane Fonda has awakened after a real
bender the night before, to find herself lying in bed with a dead man,
whose body has been dreadfully stabbed many times, leaving the bed
soaked with blood.  Horrified, she sets about cleaning up the body and
room, removing any fingerprints, etc.

A cat comes into the living room as she is preparing to leave, and walks
across the room, then enters a closet.  When she hears the cat's calls
muffled by the closed closet door, she says, "Kitty, how did you close
that door?"  And the answer dawns upon her.
