Only a few days until Halloween, so I have one more horrifying story to close out the month. A comment on the Phantom Skimmer from my friend Ernie inspired me to share this disturbing story from our college days.

We grew up and attended college in the Midwest and due to the many rivers that run through the cities, heavy rains and high waters would sometimes drive sewer rats to the surface to instill a little fright in the local neighborhoods. The evening news would run stories about encounters such as a man being chased around his yard while trying to take out the trash. If you’ve never seen a sewer rat, these are no pet-type mice; these rats can be the size of a large cat. It’s pretty freakish.

In college I shared the ground floor of an old Victorian manor with two of my friends. The upstairs unit housed four guys we went to school with, so it was a party house to boot. It was probably built in the early 1900s and I loved it but the house came with the typical problems like old bathrooms and creaky floors, oh and it had a coffin closet! But that’s another story.

Anyway, upon my return from a weekend trip I was immediately informed that there had been an incident at the house. My roommates proceeded to tell me an unbelievable story that I was incredible thankful I missed. You know the one about the baby alligator in the sewer? That might not be an urban legend. I have changed names for identity protection…

Apparently, Sarah went to use the bathroom on evening and when she lifted up the toilet cover, a rat jumped out of the toilet! She screamed and ran into the hall and found Krista coming to see what was going on. They grabbed a broom and peaked into the bathroom but the door had been left open and the rat was no longer in there. They began to tip toe from room to room and found it in Krista’s bedroom. Sarah picked up a blanket and threw it on the rat so now it was trapped! What I’m about to tell you may be disturbing, so if you have a weak stomach, you may want to stop reading this now. Okay, I warned you… At a loss for what to do next (and you know that when stuff like this happens you are not thinking clearly) Krista picked up one of those cinder blocks (you know the kind used in the 80’s to make shelves and stuff) and threw it on the rat. The rest you can figure out.

Forever traumatized just by hearing the story, I hesitate for a moment every time I have to lift the lid of the toilet. And forget going to the bathroom in the dark! Ernie and I remember the tale clearly to this day even though it was 10 years ago. The strangest thing is that Krista claims she doesn’t remember it. We have decided that she has traumatic stress syndrome and has blocked the memory. After all, she was the one who committed murder…

So just to let you all know, until Leonard agrees to venture with me into the realm of fear-blogging, I am forced to express my obsession with all things creepy on Cubunga. And being that it is now October, I feel that I have a right to start a scary story discussion.

I am met with moans of exasperation from my friends whenever I beg, “Tell me a scary story!” …typically followed by the response, “I don’t know any”. This is never actually the case. Once you get talking, it all starts spewing out. Sometimes I have to ignite the discussion by offering a story of my own. I have countless experiences from my college years spent renting an apartment that was actually part of a converted (haunted) convent, but this is not the time nor the site to get into that. How about a short, funny one to accommodate both genres?

For this story to make sense, I need to give you a brief description of my living room. The couch actually backs to the beginning of the hall, so there is no wall directly behind it, and it faces a floor to ceiling bow window that looks out to the backyard.

So I was home alone one night, sitting on the couch, talking on the phone. The TV was off, so the house was quiet besides the sound of my voice. As you would expect (being that the lights were on inside), the window became a mirror that reflected the room.

Suddenly I became aware of something strange in the reflection from the window. I could see myself sitting on the couch, and I could see the shelves on the far wall behind me. But between the wall and the couch, something was moving just above my head.

Now here is one of those situations where, after the fact, you think about the unrealistic reactions displayed in horror movies and compare them to your own. This is the second time in my life that I have been faced with the situation of someone or something being dangerously close to me. Both times I completely froze.

The voice on the other end of the line faded away as that cold feeling of adrenaline washed over me. Now, I believe that burst of energy is supposed to propel me up and away from the threat right? Not me. I just sat there, like a dummy, staring at the form behind me for what seemed like forever (as it always does). Then my brain reprocessed the perception and allowed me to see the reality of the situation.

The outside was merging with the inside, because (of course) if there is light outside you can see that too… The neighbor in the house on the other side of my fence was cleaning his pool. The object behind me was actually the top of his skimming net pole. After a brief sigh of relief, I laughed at myself for like 5 minutes. But it makes you wonder… what would have happened if it was real?

The other day I was next door talking to a friend in another department and I asked if she had any snacks. She told me that they can’t keep food at their desks anymore because there are rats in the office! Maybe she said mice, but still, so freaky! Apparently, people were finding boxes of crackers and bags of cookies with little holes chewed through them. Even food stored in the upper cabinets was being targeted, which made me wonder how the mice climb up there… But anyway, maintenance came and put mouse traps under their desks. I’m pretty sure I would not want a mouse trap under my desk - it’s real funny until someone loses a toe.

So I’m totally freaked out now. I work in another building, technically, but it’s connected to the infested one, so how long before the mice make it over to my cubicle? It was at this point that I began to hear the faint cries of a very sick and hungry animal under my desk (no, I’m not making this up). Paralyzed with fear, I kept calling people over to hear the noise, but, oddly, it never happened when others were around. This went on for over an hour until I was physically jumping out of my cube, yelling “THERE ARE MICE UNDER MY DESK!”

My meltdown finally ended when a colleague confessed to rigging one of those moo boxes with a string and hiding it under my desk. Every few minutes he would pull the string and create the sick animal sound at the back corner of my cube. Dane, if you are reading this, you will pay!