Hi again everyone!

I feel like typing tonight, so here's Summer Scare Stories III. This is a (hopefully not too inaccurate) transcript of a night some friends and I told stories. As usual, I was the one to bring up the ghost/scary story subject...

OPEN DISCUSSION OF THE SUPERNATURAL

Participants: Me, Travis, Mark, Wayne, and Stephanie
Place: My house in Espanola, NM.

Me: Did I ever tell you guys about time I saw a white ape running alongside of my car...

All: YES!!

Travis: I was with you, dumbass.

Me: Oh. (Note: I posted that event last fall. Obiwan archived it, but if anyone wants it, let me know.)

[ARCHIVER'S NOTE: The story mentioned above is available in the archives, and is called "white.ape".]

Mark: Hmm. I absolutely can't stand driving at night. One time when I was driving home from school (Note: about 300 miles), I got freaked out pretty bad. I had my cowboy hat sittin on the back deck of my car. Anyways, I took a look in the rear-view mirror and saw a nasty hag wearing my hat. She had silver hair, glowing red eyes, white skin and fangs. My first reaction was to reach back and punch her, and when I did, she dissapeared. I figured I was seeing things until I realized that my hat was gone. To this day I have no Idea where it is.

Here we all kind of uttered expletives and such. Steph clung on to Mark a little tighter.

Steph: Well, here's something that happened to my Dad. When he was working at Los Alamos (Note: about 20 mi. away, all uphill), he had to be at work at six in the morning. One day he was running late and was driving pretty fast. He was coming around the corner right before the horseshoe (it's a very winding road) and *bam* he hit something. At first he thought it was a deer, but when he went out to check, there was no body of any sort and there was no damage to his truck. As he was looking around, he heard what sounded like an old woman moaning. Scared that he hit a person, he looked around for a few minutes and then realized that the sound was coming from the middle of the road, but there was nothing there. He decided that hanging around wouldn't be a good idea so he jumped in the truck and took off as fast as he could.

Hmms, wows, yeeshs and other comments exchanged...

Me: What's the CrimeStoppers number? I'm turning her dad in for hit and run on a bruja!!

Throw pillows were used on me, literally. Steph shot a look that melted the paint on the wall behind me.

Travis: Nothing's really happened to me... Wait! Once when me and Krissy (Trav's older sister) were out playing something creepy happened. We were goofing out behind our old house in the bosque (mini-forest that grows alongside a river) for an hour or two--just doing stuff kids do. Krissy decided she wanted to go inside to watch TV, but I wanted to stay out for longer. "Fine," she said, "You just better hope the kokoman doesn't come and eat you." Hey, we were young. Anyways, she took off to the house and I thought, "I'll show her I'm not afraid." I stayed out for maybe five or ten minutes longer and then decided my ego wasn't worth becoming dinner, so I took off. When I was halfway across the backyard, I heard Krissy call me. I turned around and saw her at the edge of the bosque beckoning for me to go back. I got mad 'cause I figured that she was hiding in order to scare me, and ended up losing me. I wanted nothing to do with her at that point, so I just turned back around and went in to watch TV. When I got to the living room, she was there watching cartoons. There was no way she could've beaten me back. I was about fifty feet from the door and she was at least 100 yards away.

Me: That wasn't the only weird thing that happened to you. You were with me when I saw the white ape, dumbass.

Trav: Oh.

Wayne: The only thing weird that happened to me was when I went up to Bandolier at night with Kim and we saw balls of fire bouncing around.

Mark: And...

Wayne: Oh. Uh, that's it.

Travis: You have to work on your presentation, man.

Wayne: Thanks.

Steph: What about you, Andrew, we usually can't get you to shut up about this stuff.

Travis: Yeah! No kidding.

Mark: Alright Drew, scare us.

I was at a loss. They had all heard my stories before. So I improvised and told the Phantom Hitchhiker story with the variation that if you didn't stop for her, she'd appear in the back seat. I said her stomping ground was a road nearby and that she was buried in the graveyard by my house. To my surprise, no one had heard it and they were all freaked by it, especially when I told them I did stop for her, loaned her my coat, and retrieved it from my Uncle who found it in the graveyard. Travis stayed the night at my house, meaning Wayne had to drive to Los Alamos by himself (he had to drive by the graveyard, through the Hitchhiker road, and the road in Steph's story). I laughed when he later told me he almost peed himself on the way home. Mark wasn't affected (Hell, he tried punching the hag in his backseat) and Steph had nighmares. Travis didn't mention anything. And me? Well heck, I read this newsgroup every night before I go to bed, so I'm used to it.

I didn't say I don't get scared, just that I'm used to it.

Well folks, the hour is late, and this is longer than I anticipated, so until next time, have a good night! (I sound like I'm announcing the end of a TV show)

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-   Drew                   |                                         -
-   Mechanical Engineer    |    "God help us, we're in the hands     -
-   (student) at large     |     of engineers!"                      -
-                          |           --Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park  -
-   amontoya@NMSU.edu      |                                         -
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