things you heard as a kid that scared the bejeezus out of you but no one knew

Mother being a busy woman, she would send me to Maria's after school some days. It wasn't so much babysitting as a place with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, juice boxes, a TV and adult supervision.

Maria wouldn't say much to me. She was in her late 20s, and I suppose a woman in her late 20s doesn't have much to say to a nine-year-old boy. But when she would sit on the sofa, next to me, curling her legs up underneath her and tilting her head as we watched Power Rangers, I could smell her coconut moisturizer and knew I loved her.

Sometimes, Maria would run to the store. She'd run out of peanut butter or jelly or juice boxes or TVs, and she always aimed to please. She trusted me in her apartment because she trusted me. Maybe, looking back, that's why I loved her, that and the coconut moisturizer.

His graying pubic hair protruded from the tight leather straps holding his testicles in place. They stood at attention, as though I had frightened him when I walked in the door to Maria's bedroom while she was out that October day. I've taken to call him Arthur because his erect penis was clamped tightly, like a sword in a stone. Arthur was chained to a dresser in Maria's bedroom that Tuesday afternoon, and I suppose she forgot him there. I'm not quite sure how.

He had lashes across his back, and the beads of sweat dripping down his wrinkled skin would cause the open wounds to burn. He twitched as I watched him, the sun cast behind him and me in his bent-over shadow. I wasn't despondent or scared, not immediately. I stood and watched him, red ball tightly bound to his mouth, glint in his eye that suggested I had interupted something private, something special.

I never told anyone, not Maria, not Mother, not friends or psychiatrists, about Arthur. I figured he would tell Maria, if she ever let him speak. But we never talked about it or acknowledged it any way, and I never went back in her bedroom. It's been two decades. I haven't looked at a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or juice box the same since.

 

I remember sitting in the living room alone with the TV on at about 7 or 8. On HBO was The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, an Orson Welles narrated show about Nostradamus. The creepy music, images and Orson Welles voice scared the shit out of me and gave me nightmares for years.

 

I don't know the name of the movie with the scene that scared the bejeezus out of me or the circumstances in which I saw it (maybe one of you can help with the former). In it, in the dark a young woman was running away from a man (men?) chasing her. I think she might have been in the woods. The part that scared me most was the chilling way the man called her name - "Christabel." I was about 6 at the time and I was afraid to go outside in the dark for a long time after that.

 

The first dream I ever remember was a nightmare about the sandbox my parent just put in behind our house. At a lot of farms in the country, instead of a box they'll just fill an old tractor tire with sand for kids to play in because they're so big. Right after we got it, I had this awful dream that the sand-tire -- I guess turned into a classic monster and chased my mom and I around. I can still see it in my head 25 years later.

The second is not for people who get sqeamish with animals. It was a total accident, but it was awful. So......











I snuck into one of our barns one day and heard my dad talking to a bunch of his farmer friends. It was early spring and we were just getting the machinery ready for haying. My dad was telling everyone how he started one of the tractors and he saw a cat run away. When he turned on the hay baler, a whole bunch of awful spewed everywhere. I can't believe I'm typing this -- but it the cat had had kittens in the chaf (like hay bits I guess) in the spring, and when the baler got going......well.
I guess I kind of gasped when he finished, and my dad turned around and had that "oh shit" look on his face. I ran screaming up to the house to tell my mom. This isn't something you keep to yourself when you're an only child on a rural farm and most of your friends are small, cuddily animals. That really screwed me up.
Thank you all for taking part in my childhood trauma.

 

So was she at least a six?

In all seriousness, is this true?

 

Well, it's no fun if you ask. Let's say, based on certain things from my life.

 

Gremlins got me good when I was a kid. Those bastards jumping out of the Christmas Tree and getting nuked in the microwave put a hurtin' on me. Been terrified of horror movies since.
I can watch Gremlins now, and most of it is funny, but the memories prevent me from full enjoyment. I still get nightmares from those bastards.

 

Don't know if it's true, but that was hilarious.

Well done.

 

At around age 8 I tore the tag off our family sofa that read "do not tear off under penalty of law". Till this day I am afraid that the sheriff will come to my door and arrest me.

 

Believe it or not, I watched the William Castle schlock horror classic 'The Tingler' on TV when I was very young, and it scared me. It was the idea of being terrified but being unable to scream - it really got to me.

I used to love watching old, funky horror movies on TV. That was one of the few that really got to me.
I can recall snippets of another that had something to do with being buried alive, but I've never been able to find out what movie it is. My recall of it is very sketchy.

 

When I was probably 4, I overheard my parents talking about how the guy down the street hurt children. The only thing I knew about the guy was that he drove an El Camino. To this day, I associate El Caminos with child abusers.

 

For me, it was Jaws. Peeped it on a free HBO weekend. I had been sent to bed so the adults could watch it, but I snuck back downstairs and watched, hidden behind our living room couch. Now, we were nowhere near water -- freakin' middle of rural Ohio -- but I had shark nightmares for weeks. I'd curse the experience, but also saw my first boobies that night. Free HBO gaveth, free HBO taketh away.