Spookyness

Itching

*Credit to Taryn Davidson on facebook*

You feel that? That tingling sensation under your skin? Yeah – that’s right, the one you felt just then. On your left arm, right? About near your elbow? You don’t know what it is, right? It may be just an itch – or it may be something more sinister. What? No, I’m just an old man talking to himself. Ah…well, the hat stays on. Yeah – it’s a bit of a quirk. Same with the sunglasses. Even though the sun is setting…it gets a bit glary on the streets. You get bit by something? There’s a local legend which…ah, forget it. I don’t want to scare you off. So – here alone? What’s your name then son? Hmm…that’s familiar – don’t know why though. Any family? An accident? That’s a real shame. What? The legend…I don’t know man, it’s a bit creepy. Well, if you’re going to be here you should know the lore…I doubt you’ll stay here for long anyway.

You sure you want to know? OK…I got this information off a friend…who got it off some crazy hoodoo priest who claims he’s a thousand years old. Well, he’s touched I guess. Local legend claims that some guy went on a massacre in the late 1800’s – messily slaughtered his entire family in a bloodbath. When they finally found the bodies they got a shock. They were dead – you can’t really survive pitchfork decapitation – but other than a small line of blood on their necks, they were clean. Had to hunt a while for the murderer though when they found him…he was in a bad way. He was covered with dried blood from head to toe and was muttering about some crazy gypsy he had met. He seemed eager to be taken into custody – but always kept twitching and itching.

You sure you want to keep listening to this? It gets a bit crazy from here – well, crazier. When this guy was being watched – and they had managed to remove most of the blood – he kept complaining of an itch that wouldn’t go away. Now, everyone thought he meant an insect bite – so they ignored him. The thing is – he did get bit by a bug; he just neglected to mention that. So this poor guy keeps itching at his skin and then he let out a yelp of bloody murder – somewhat ironic – and he starts saying that something’s coming out of his skin. All the police thought he was nuts – he did kill his family after all – and they just left him. Now this was before video cameras – hell, it was before pretty much everything. Surveillance then consisted of a guy on the graveyard shift with a gun. The instructions were to shoot if he got violent.

Come next morning and they all got a bit of a shock. The guy was slumped against the far wall of his cell, eyes glazed over and staring at nothing at all. Attempts to rouse him were met with no luck. Eventually, the poor all-night guard had to go in and see what happened. He noticed that the guy was unmoving – but his veins were pulsating strangely under his skin. A quick check of the clothing found a scrap of paper with a couple of paragraphs written on it. A discarded quill lay nearby – but there wasn’t any ink. The guard got out of the cell quickly and the doctor was brought in. The good doc was an ancestor of mine so he wrote all of this down in his journals. It was freaky then; time doesn’t do much to douse the creepiness and sheer body horror. The doc’s checking the pulse of the guy and he notes that it feels like there’s something in his veins – something like worms. He gets laughed at – but all sound is silenced when the guy just…rises. The guy looks messed up – his skin is bulging and his tongue is undulating; he’s drooling pinkish slime and his eyes are rolling madly. He made a few attempts to speak and then finally forces two words out.

“Read…paper”

And his eyes bulge out horribly and his left one pops out. No blood – just a clean socket. The right eye went soon after that. Of course, the police and doctor were freaked so they had the night guard empty his gun into the poor sap. Six shots go into the guy and he doesn’t fall down. What happens next is pure nightmare – the top of the head starts pulsating rapidly and wildly. White…things start coming out. All the cops start shooting the head. Few shots later and the top of the head is blown clean off – revealing maggots. White maggots that had pretty much eaten his brain away to nothing. The guy finally falls over and his skin crumples like a paper bag – revealing the grisly truth. The maggots – or whatever they were – had hollowed out his entire body cavity. Nothing was left. The cops and the doc ran out and set fire to the station. They tried to read the piece of paper – but all they could understand were the words “Gypsy curse”. Next day, a patrol found the body of a young gypsy woman – she’d been strangled and raped repeatedly. Maggots were everywhere but her body. Two cases were linked – but nothing was made of it. Even official records to this day say that the guy was found DOA with his family.

So…how’s the arm? Still itches – don’t it? Well, there’s another thing on that story…I don’t want to tell you though. You sure? OK…it’s another bit of local legend from my friend. He says that the full deal was the gypsy placed a curse on that guy’s soul. That it would forever wander the town, tell his tale to those who would listen and then kill them with the maggots. It would take the form of a relative or a descendant and would spin the yarn. That’s why everyone’s out of the streets now. Yeah, you should go inside. What? No, don’t mind me. I’ll be fine out here. I’m a bit of a local legend around here myself. The itching and swelling should go down in a few days. All right, I will see you around. I’m sure of it.

Let me tip my hat to you good sir. I can see you leave for the nearest pub – even though I can’t really see. I tip my hat to you and feel the light breeze swirl inside my braincase. I won’t infect you…you are one of my descendants. I will try that person over there…the one with the itchy arm.

Or the one reading this.