Tag: Ghosts

Vahalla Rising: The Boy & The Bridge

The Boy stood perfectly still in the pitch black as his eyes strained to make out any detail through the omnipresent darkness. Ever so slowly the Boy’s eyes adjusted enough that he could see two long lines of light outlining some sort of Bridge stretching out into the ocean of darkness before him.

The lights were in fact torches wagging an eternal war to illuminate just a small fraction of all encompassing gloom. The Boy cautiously crept towards the edge of the Bridge shuffling his feet as if he was a institutionalized mental patient from the 1970’s doing the Thorazine Shuffle.

The Boy stopped just short of walking onto the actual Bridge itself, and found the Torches flames were burning in black and white utterly devoid of any color. The dull white of the ghostly flickering flames were all there that contrasted with the infinite night.

The Boy stood there a minute trying to remember anything about life before finding himself abducted into this Endless Abyss. The more the Boy struggled trying to force himself to remember the farther the memories seemed to dance just out of his grasp.

He had no recollection of his Mother or any family member for that matter. He couldn’t remember where he grew up, any possible friends,where he went to school, currently lived or even simply what his name was. This was horribly disorienting. The Boy’s immature mind hadn’t yet to even remotely begin to understand what was happening to him.

Seeing no other option other than to cross the Bridge in front of him the Boy cautiously lowered his foot down as he took his first step upon the mysterious Bridge. As soon as his heal planted itself the Boy heard a low variety of horrible and troubling sounds rising invisible from the Bridge itself. The Boy heard the deep growls like a rabid badger with only its next meal in mind, but there were other accompanying the aggressive growls. There were moans that resembled those of animal suffering a lingering and painful death, and above those were savage Banshee likes howling wails.

The Boy froze in a paralyzing fear as time seemed to stand still. He knew he was no match the bevy of Beasts hiding in the shadows, yet he was so scared he had become immobile like a living human statue incapable of movement. The panic set in as the Boy’s young brain began to run through countless scenarios of carnage, violence, and death at the hands  of the unseen Evils laying in wait beyond his field of vision in the ceaseless oppression of the lightless Abyss.

What the Boy saw next was the things of Nightmares so overwhelmingly ominous that they haunt the dreamer for the rest of their days until death. The deck of the Bridge started to ripple and roll as it transformed into a dark liquid sludge before the Boy’s eyes. The Boy clenched his eyes shut trying to maintain his own sanity until they burst open frantically out of fear desperately searching for viable dangerous threats.

To the Boy’s horror saw were several emaciated looking ghouls pulling themselves up out of the sludge straining to free themselves. They sinister Spirits had large empty eye sockets, and large deformed mouths that hung open displaying multiple rows of rotting teeth. The Spirits crept towards the Boy their spindly limbs outstretched like a bunch of bastardized beggars wondering the barren and empty streets as they starve. Their feeble bodies slowly wasting away ravaged by a overpowering and unsatisfied hunger.

Adrenaline flowed freely through the Boys veins like high test rocket fuel as his fight or flight principal reached a feverish pitch. The Boy felt a building power within himself that could alleviate the crippling terror that encased him to make a run for it. Where he ran was of no concern as long as it was away from the frightful Fiend’s as their gray skin stretched precariously across their skeletal frames as their twisted gnarled limbs contorting as they groped the air with their long, thin spectral fingers, and clawed at the foreboding sludge that now comprised the Bridge’s deck.

The Boy turned to run he looked back to see how far a ways behind him were the evil entities, and saw something standing behind the gaggle of Ghouls that terrified him to the point he involuntary lost control of his bladder. As the warm stream of urine ran down his legs the Boy couldn’t take his eyes off of what loomed behind the ghastly Ghouls like an executioner about to bring his Ax down upon the neck of the guilty. The creature standing behind the grizzly Ghouls was a Tall human like form with a height of at least 7 feet tall, yet it had no discernible features thus resembling more of a shadow than any mortal man.

The Shadow Man strode through the gang of Ghouls with no opposition or resistance as he made his way to the front of them. Once The Shadow Man reached a several feet in front of the gangly Ghouls he immediately blocked their path by blocking the way off the Bridge.

Next he knelt down on one knee and plunged his hands deep into his torso. After a minute The Shadow Man pulled his hands out from with in his chest, and in them he held a small variety of colorfully decorated bowls. In each bowl there was some money, a piece or two of fruit, a tiny bit of tobacco, and several sticks of lit incense. The Shadow Man then proceeded to set the bowls down upon the Bridge’s deck spreading them out over approximately a yard or so before returning to a standing position once again.

To the Boy’s amazement as each of the abominations reached the end of the Bridge they each gravitated towards one of the bowls that the Shadow Man had laid down. The monstrous specters picked up each one of the bowls and carried it in their hands with their freakish fingers wrapped around it like mutated tree roots. Once the ghastly Ghoul had a bowl in their possession they crawled, slithered or dragged themselves  back onto the Bridge sinking back into the sickening Sludge. When the last of the gruesome Ghouls had descended from view succumbing to the Sludge the Bridge’s deck re-solidified instantly.

The Shadow Man walked purposefully over to the Boy. He then leaned down and whispered hoarsely

“Always be sure to put out an offering to feed The Hungry Ghosts”

Look For Valhalla Rising : The Boy and The Shadow Man COMING SOON.

Thanks for Reading,

Les Sober  

The Tale of the Small Town MothMan Mural

When We moved from the Southern Swamp to the Southern Country one of the advantages of the move was there were several structures located out back behind our new home offices. There was a large one car garage which We unceremoniously designated for the usual trivial shit like  Lawn Mowers, Various garden tools, Paint cans, and for a few months 2 large puppies (who now have their own Dog House complete with Heater and Air Conditioning)

The second structure was a run of the mill silver, 10 foot high, 20 foot long, 8 foot wide, sheet metal shed supported by an internal  basic wooden frame. When We purchased the property the shithead previous owners failed to give us among many other things the keys to unlock said shed. We could see through the 4 small windows (2 per side) and do a very general assessment. From what we could see the only real issue other than getting a new lock was the plywood floor was rotten in 2 separate places and would need patching.

Once We got the shed lock changed and were able to enter the structure things looked as if the shed was worser for the wear than We had anticipated. Even if it needed more TLC than We thought it was still a viable option to be My Art Studio (Yes I paint and Draw in a variety of various mediums such as CharCoal or Oil Paints. I have recently decided that it is at this point in my life I will be pursuing Sculpting as creating a 3 dimensional project is going to be fucking awesome and intense.) The first thing I did was load it up with all my various art supplies (Canvases, Paints, Brushes, Assortment of Project Materials etc.), but the floor fix would take time, and I have NO PATIENCE, NON AT ALL. Its A Virtue I was born without and I’m totally fucking fine with that.

It took less than a day before I was wallowing in frustrated boredom and thought to myself that if I couldn’t currently use the shed I could still in the mean time decorate the outside. I drove to the local hardware store in the neighboring town and loaded up on Spray Paint big time. I had no idea what I was going to Paint on the side of the shed so first I selected which side I would do first. The rightsize of the shed made a small alleyway between it and the garage so space to work was limited. The same was true of the back of the shed even more so as our fence came in even closer proximity than the garaged and the sheds right wall. That left me with the choice of either the front or the left side of the shed to choose from. I chose the left side since it was bigger and had the best area in which to work.

I walked around the to the left side of the shed and stood there just looking at the shed without a thought in my mind waiting. It didn’t take long before an idea popped into my head MOTHMEN/MOTHMAN. Now before the first fool blurts out how much they loved the movie “The Mothman Prophecies” shut the fuck up. True it was a some what decent movie, but the Mothman is not solely limited to the Point Pleasant, West Virginia 1967 Silver Bridge Collapse that killed 46 people. The Mothman or Mothmen if you will have been seen in different areas before an impending disaster strikes such places as Chernobyl circling Reactor 4, before 9/11 in New York City, The I-35 Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and The Swine Flue Outbreak in Mexico in 2009 for instance.

Now I don’t claim to believe or not believe in such things as UFO’s, Ghost’s, Monsters or Cryptozoology but it all fun food for thought because who actually knows, and all I’m saying is I don’t know. What I do know is I utterly LOVE UNDERDOGS and to me the Mothman is just that, The Underdog of Cryptozoology. The main debate surrounding the Mothman is simply this is the Mothman coming and bringing death/doom/disaster with it OR is the Mothman a supernatural being/creature that comes to WARN US of immediate impending danger?! I hold with the latter of the two believes myself. It all added up to a quick decision that the mural I’d Spray Paint on the side of the shed would be The Mothman. (Yet myths, legends and lore interest me to no end ever fueling the fires of my undying curiosity.)

I should take a moment to add that the left side of the shed faced the street in a small neighborhood in a tiny town located along the Bible Belt. For this reason and this reason alone I wrote “Mothman” across its chest because while the Mothman was enough to turn many a head I didn’t want (nor need for that matter) for the locals to think the new guy was painting Devils or Demons on the side of his shed.

In a few days the Mothman was finished and I decided the silver background was fucking up my visual of the Mothman. I thought about background colors to use (My wife suggested blue and I should have listened, but I was thinking Navy Blue not say Sky Blue) and some how I chose Orange. On top of using Orange for the background I used a VERY DEEP AND INTENSE shade only to realize when it was all said and done the Orange background made it look more demonic than I’d liked or intended. I didn’t want to change the mural so Mothman with Orange background and all remained vigilantly watching the passerby on the road for months.

Unfortunately upon a proper inspection of the shed, the shed was found to be structurally unsound. The floor was completely shot and would need total replacement. The supporting wood infrastructure was compromised beyond belief. This was apparently due to the fact the previous owner had tried to wire up the shed with electricity themselves and fucked it up causing a fucking fire. The fire had burned a majority of the roof supports right through so if you tapped on them with a hammer they disintegrated.

I called my contractor and informed him that the shed was shot and I’d need his help tearing it down so as We could replace it. 3 or4 days later my contractor showed up with a small handful of workers who set off demolishing the rickety old shed. It only took them a few mere hours to reduce the standing structure into piles of scrap.

That evening I was talking on the phone to my Brother in the Great Northern New Yonder and he asked what was new. I told him about the failing inspection of the doomed shed and that it had been torn down and hauled off. I also told him that for a split second I thought about asking my contractor if the Mothman Mural could be salvaged, but in the end I just let it go. My Brother started laughing, not in an at me type manner, but a “He hasn’t figured it out yet” kind of way. Once he paused to catch his breath I asked him what he found so fucking amusing about the whole ordeal?! I had spent all the time and effort to paint the Mothman mural just to have it crushed and carted away in the end.  He responded by saying that if I believed the Mothman was a Warning of impending danger, then painted one on the side of the shed, and then ultimately the shed met its demise then it followed my Mothman belief to a tee.

I couldn’t help laughing because he was dead right. A dilapidated shed, a Mothman Mural painted upon it, and 4 moths later the shed and the mural are gone having been destroyed in the dismantling process.

 

Thanks For Das Read,

Les Sober  

Gullah Supernatural Tradition

If your ever in Charleston South Carolina do yourself a favor and as you travel around the city, look at the porch (top and bottom) and you will see a pattern quickly emerging. Predominately the underside of the porch ceilings are painted a light blue reminiscent  of the sky on a clear summers morning, BUT WHY???

Charleston was influenced greatly by the Gullah culture brought to the city through the slavery trade. In Gullah culture there is a superstition/belief that at under the dark cloak of night when man is most vulnerable as he sleeps vile and villainous spirits (christian minded people would call them demons, while others might see the spirits as ghosts) lurk luridly looking for human victims. Now the Gullah people devised a extremely simple and effective approach to warding off these nightly terrors, they just painted the undersides of all porches of the house with light sky blue paint.

The reason was a simple as the remedy, see with the porch ceilings being sky blue any evil entity who set foot on said porch would look up and see the sky blue paint. The paint was intended to fool the malevolent monsters into thinking it was day time and thusly they couldn’t harm the occupants of the house as during the day the spiteful spirits must remain trapped in the after life.