Love scaring yourself to death? Well, you’re in v. good company as us sickos at P.TV also love to take a terrifying peek into the unknown. ‘Coz whether you believe in the ~paranormal~ or not, you can’t deny that these cooked demon encounter stories are incredibly entertaining, right?
While a demonic yarn is covered in the 6th episode of PEDESTRIAN.TV’s unsolved mysteries podcast All Aussie Mystery Hour entitled “Demons, Gangsters And The Luna Park Ghost Train Disaster” (which you can listen to below) I’ve also gone ahead and compiled all the most cooked demonic tales that Reddit has to offer.
Enter at your own risk…
THE DARK FIGURE
When I was in primary school I shared a queen size bed with my older sister and our family dog (a mutt that looked like a short haired Lassie) would sleep at the foot of our bed every night. When I was about 6 years old, I woke up one night around midnight and saw a dark figure standing at the foot of the bed. The figure was entirely in black without any eyes or a face. I tried to wake my sister up, but she rolled over to go back to sleep. My sister must have accidentally kicked the dog, because the dog woke up and raised her head and started growling at the figure at the foot of the bed. The growling then woke my sister up and she saw the figure and started screaming. When my parents came into the room and turned the light on, nothing was there.
To this day, both my sister and I are adamant that we saw a ghost or other demon in our room. We know we aren’t crazy because the dog saw it too.
DEMON GIRL
I live in a small town in rural Australia. I’m a cyclist and I coordinate sports events, marathons, sell bikes and gear and whatnot. Around 6am this morning I drove my bike up the mountain and on the way I passed a woman sitting by the side of the road. At first I thought she could have been a hitchhiker but there’s no hotels around here and she had no bags.
I stopped my car about 400m away from her, grabbed a bottle of water out of the car boot and walked down to see what was going on. This is the moment I realise she’s one of the most gorgeous women I have ever seen. She was probably about 20. Pale as f**k. Loooong wavy blonde hair to her hips and one of those really German-kinda hourglass figures. Really blue eyes – Like this chick was crazy hot. Was wearing those long summer dresses that beach kids seem to love. Which was frickin weird for the middle of the Australian bush. So I’m walking towards her like ‘Oh my god’ but I’m also thinking ‘What the f**k?’
I hand her the bottle of water and ask if she’s lost or needs a lift back to town. She just STARES. Doesn’t take the water. No blinking. I think ‘Oh s**t, she’s some kind of crazy.’
So I ask her if she ran away from somewhere and she just said “No” and hadn’t blinked yet. So I ask if she’s waiting for someone to come pick her up and she said “No” again. I ask where her house is and she said “Here.” I’m halfway up a mountain. There’s no houses around here. So I was kinda starting to get creeped out by this lady. I walk back to my Jeep, was going to drive back down the mountain (f**k all signal) and call the cops and get them to come sort this lady out. And she follows me. I was like “Look, are you sure you don’t want me to run you back to town?” and she just says “No” again.
So I’m all, “Look, I don’t feel comfortable leaving you here in the middle of nowhere, please let me take you to the police station.” And she just turns around and walks off. Off into the bush. Miles from anywhere. And I’m just sitting there like “what the f**k.”
And then I really started to get scared when the bug & bird noises started to come back. It made me realise I hadn’t heard a single other sound while I was talking with her. Like no magpies, no crickets, no early-morning sounds at ALL.
I hightailed it the f**k out of there and called the local coppers when I reached the bottom of the mountain. Basically just said I saw a woman up the mountain who refused to get in my car, and then I realised how f**ked that sounded and I hung up.
What the hell was that?
THE THIN MAN
When I was 16, I was riding horses with my friend in the field beside her house. The horse threw me and I hit my head, HARD. The next thing I know, I’m on my back in incredible pain staring up at my friend, who is frantically screaming at me. Dazed, my gaze shifted and then refocused on her friend behind her, a tall, thin man wearing a black suit and an old-fashioned, wide-brimmed hat. He was staring unblinking into my eyes over my friend’s shoulder. Days later she came to visit me in the hospital, and I asked her about the man I’d seen. I thought it was the new boyfriend she’d recently told me about. She told me there was no one there but me and her.
-Anonymous
HORRIFICALLY LARGE
I frequently go bushwalking all throughout the Blue Mountains (NSW, Australia) and have done since I was a kid with my dad. Sometimes for shorter walks I go alone. Yeah, that could be dangerous, and as a woman, I could have added risk of being attacked or whatever. But I carry a couple of knives with me so I don’t really feel threatened. And always bring a satellite phone. I just love and crave that feeling of being entirely surrounded by the bush.
Anyway, around ~5 years ago I thought it would be a good idea to do an overnighter walk by myself. S**t idea. The walk was fine, 3 or 4 groups of people came by the other way on the first day. Picked a little area to stay overnight towards dusk. Cut a few ferns back and I had a space to stick my little one person tent. I was maybe 30 metres from the track, mostly out of sight behind trees and such.
The usual wildlife noises were going on as I drifted to sleep, though there was a strange noise – I can only describe it as a bounding sound, like somebody was sprinting through the bush right past me. But it went by WAY too fast with too few steps to carry a person that distance. Also if you’ve ever seen the bush in this part of Australia you’d know there isn’t much space on the ground to walk freely if you’re off the track. You have to at least wade through bushes/ferns etc. Kind of like this So you can’t exactly sprint full speed without eating s**t. I felt a bit uneasy but thought it’s probably just stuff falling from a tree or whatever.
Next morning I had brekky and packed up my things, and kept going along the track. Passed a couple of people going the other way, then was alone again for maybe half an hour. Then I heard the sound of a stick being broken (like from someone stepping on it). The sound came from behind me and to my left, away from the track. I turned around to look and nearly f**king died on my feet.
A fair distance into the bush was something standing there and looking directly at me. I wanted to believe it was a person but it wasn’t. I can’t judge the exact height but it was obviously very tall, I’d guess 9ft. Its skin was dark-grey or brownish. It had a horrifically large head with huge black eyes. I couldn’t see a mouth or anything. Its arms and legs were really long.
I was almost crying, tears welled up in my eyes. Completely frozen, staring at this creature, it was like my legs were locked in position. The longer the stare went on between me and the creature I had this ever heightening feeling of absolute dread, like nothing I’d ever felt before. The fear built up until I could see my heartbeat in veins in my vision, and I suddenly bolted. I SPRINTED away, continuing on the track. I ran and ran and was too scared to look behind me. Tears were streaming from my eyes as I was running away. I didn’t stop until I actually caught up with some people going the same direction as me.
They looked at me and were saying “Oh my god are you alright?” I was f**ked from running so hard for so long. I told them I saw something in the bush and asked if I could walk with them the rest of the way.
It took me 6 months but I did start bushwalking again, but I never go alone these days, lol. You couldn’t pay me to do it.
JUST BLACK
My then-boyfriend, now-husband and I lived in a row apartment above shops in town. Two story building, we lived on the top floor. I always felt the presence of a child. I’d turn around expecting someone to be standing behind me, but I’d instinctively look downward, as if looking for a small person. One night I even heard footsteps running up and down our hallway. My boyfriend didn’t hear it as he had gaming headphones on at the time.
At this time, we kept our door closed and two cats locked out of the bedroom at night. One night I awoke to the sound of a potted plant I had in the room rustling. I wondered if a cat was locked in the room. I checked, and nope, went back to sleep. Woke up again shortly thereafter to a black figure in front of me. I was laying on my side facing the edge of the bed. It looked like a head and shoulders but with no distinct features, just black. I thought it was maybe a cat sitting on the edge of the bed, reached out, but nothing was there. I didn’t feel afraid and went back to sleep. I continued to feel a presence there but never had a visual experience again.
FURNITURE FIEND
I was home alone and in the bath, but I had closed the door so that my dogs wouldn’t run in and try to jump into the bath too. I was in there for a good 45-50 minutes and when I climbed out and opened the door, there had been a table moved right in front of the door, I never heard a thing while it was happening, never even heard my dogs bark and they bark for anything, and they were playing outside which is so strange for them.
-Anoynmous
PORT ARTHUR GHOST TOUR
We did the ghost tour at Port Arthur. It was the final one at 9pm, and it was a f**king TREK. There was a whole lot of sites across the area, a derelict church, old timey houses, an underground sort of makeshift morgue where there was rumours of witchcraft back in the day, and the worst/freakiest place was the (I can’t think of the correct term) dungeon. It was above ground yes but it was the most intensive security complex on the site. We went around all these, and since I’m a pretty fairly overweight, I was freaking out because I kept falling behind in nearly pitch darkness. Me and my wife were pretty unsettled by the end, and then the final place was the dungeon. I was exhausted, and this group of about 60 ghost tourists were at the end of the south wing, listening to the guide. I was buggered, so I was a little behind the rest, sitting on a step. It was unnerving because I kept freaking feeling like someone was standing RIGHT behind me. It got to the point where instead of looking at the guide and listening, I was looking the other way, staring into the darkness, listening. It was a struggle between my fear and laziness, so I sat where I was for the while haha Then all of a sudden, all the 3 or 4 doors going in and out of the dungeon started opening and shutting, slamming so f**king hard, everyone started screaming. I kept sitting, because my laziness knows no bounds, but I screamed the loudest lol. The guide said it’s probably a good idea to leave, so we did. Some of the guests stayed at a hotel on the other side of the site, and they were so freaked out that they asked the guide if they could be guided back. He was like “yea nah” because then he would have had to have walked back by himself.
-KSullivanReddit
OUIJA BOARD HAUNTING
My first experience with a ouija board was at a friend of a friend’s house. I was there with my best friend and her boyfriend at the time. My best friend (we’ll call her Jessa) had grown up in this house which was notoriously haunted. The women who lived there would wake up with scratches on their backs.. they would routinely see the ghost of a little boy…. CRAZY S**T all the damn time. Anyway, Jessa’s childhood friend moved in there when the family moved out. We were there for her housewarming party.
Jessa’s friend had a board. Jessa and I are both pretty spiritual and neither of us wanted to touch it. Nothing was happening so Chuck convinced us to do it, saying we were “witchy”. As soon as we touched it, the cursor started moving. At first it was saying it was a little boy. Jessa and I looked at each other, like “oh f**k”, both of us knowing about the little boy in the house. Suddenly, Chuck was like “oh, man, did you guys feel that?” We all felt it. The air became THICK like, hard to breathe. He described exactly what I felt. It was almost like the air was thick fog or mist, but it was still dry. The board started spelling things like “SLUT – F**K HER – CHEATER – BITCH – F**K YOU – HE F**KED HER”. The cursor was moving more rapidly with every word. Finally, Jessa was like “OK, STOP!!!” and the pointer stopped, dead in its tracks. It stopped to abruptly that my hands slipped off. When I touched it again, it slowly dragged to the bottom of the board, ending on “Goodbye”..
Months later, I was crashing at a friend’s place, K and J. They had a basement apartment and I was crashing their couch. The guys invited over some girls I didn’t know and they wanted to try using a ouija board.
I didn’t want to touch it but it wasn’t working so I finally gave in and decided to try it. As soon as I touched it, the pointer started to move. I was touching the pointer with my friend K. The cursor was moving really slowly, so as a game I said “move faster” and it started moving quickly. I kept saying “faster” and eventually it was moving so fast, my friend touching the cursor was saying “this isn’t funny”, as if I was moving it. I said I wasn’t moving it and he freaked out, releasing the board and the pointer went shooting across the room. At that point, we were all pretty convinced it was real. One of the girls wanted to see more, so we grabbed the cursor and started again.
So then the board asks to speak to a girl named Hailey. The board says “FAMILY – FATHER” and proceeds to spell her dads name. She starts freaking out. The board says it’s sorry about her dad, that her dad is a drug addict and her mum’s a drunk. It says she has to leave her house because her dad is angry. Hailey starts crying and freaking out. The board says goodbye.
We get back to the apartment and Hailey is crying. She tells us that her dad is a coke dealer and her mom is drunk all the time. Her home life is awful, her dad would frequently get drunk and coked up and hit her. She was only 16 or 17 at the time. K and J say she can stay at their place too. Interestingly, months later, Hailey’s mum dropped her off at the apartment complex and she told Hailey that her great grandfather helped build the place. She said he lived there his whole life and died there.
After that night, I started reading about ouija boards. A couple nights later, I went to visit my best friend and her boyfriend at his place, which was walking distance to my apartment. I told them about the whole thing. He says he wants to try it too. Reluctantly, Jessa and I agree. Keeping in mind, we had all been drinking whiskey (yes, I know, this is altogether an AWFUL idea). The cursor starts spelling out “TREES – BROKEN GLASS”. Suddenly, it starts getting violent, spelling out “RAPE – F**K HER TEETH”. Jessa and I tell it to stop and we say goodbye. The cursor drags to “Goodbye” and we put the board away. Suddenly, Chuck is like “OH S**T. Dude, you’re not walking home.” He then explains his interpretation of what the board was saying. On my walk to my friend’s place, like I said, they lived in a basement apartment, so instead of walking through the halls, we’d just go to the living room window and climb in. To get to the window, I would cut through a back clearing, where there were tall trees all over. He’s convinced that there are bad guys in there on that night and that if I walked home, I would get raped, hence the “f**k her teeth” s**t. Needless to say, after that visual, I stayed over.
The next morning when I walked through the clearing there were broken glass bottles all over the place and my friends said they had heard people drinking out there all night.
Anyway, I moved out and Hailey and I became friends. K brought the board over as a “house warming gift”.
One day, my cousin came over to my apartment with her boyfriend at the time. Her boyfriend notices the board in the corner. He asks me about it and I laugh and tell him the whole story. His eyes get all wide and he asks if we can play with it. Being kind of stoned, I agree and we start asking it questions. The pointer starts spelling Jessa’s name. We all get in the car and head over to her place. She’s not home, but Chuck is. I left the board in the car with my cousin and her boyfriend and go to talk to Chuck. He said Jessa was at work until 9 that night but we could come in and wait for her. After the last incident, he was interested to see what was going to happen. When I got to the car, my cousin and her boyfriend said they heard fingers tapping, as if something we were waiting impatiently for me to get back.
We sat around waiting for awhile and Chuck brings out his own board, from the last time I was over. We use it and it says “JESSA – JESSA” and pointing to the “NO” then to the “sun” in the corner of the board. Over and over “no sun, no sun.” Eventually, I figured that it was saying “no light.” I asked if it wanted me to shut off the light and I said “no, we’re not going to do that.” I had read that bad spirits do not like the light. Finally, when Jessa got home, she said she was too tired and didn’t want to try using it. We agreed to leave it alone and brought the board home.
I didn’t like having it in my house, so the next time I went to visit Hailey at K and J’s place, I brought it back. She said she wanted to try it one more time and then we would get rid of it. I agreed. At this point, I was clearly addicted to it for some reason.
So, Hailey and I are at the basement apartment climbing out the window for cigarettes, near the back clearing, with the trees. We go back in and use the board.
The board starts spelling out Hailey’s name, and this time, the spirit says it’s name is Maria. Hailey immediately starts to cry and says “that’s not funny.” I had no idea why or what was going on but the board keeps things. Its saying “TELL THEM I MISS THEM. TELL THEM I LOVE THEM. IM HERE I LOVE THEM”. As Hailey is crying, she explains that her best friends mom, Maria, had died a year ago. I remember the death, it was big news in our high school.
Suddenly, the cursor moved and spelled my name. I asked who it was and the cursor spelled DEB. I read that bad spirits can not tell their names because they don’t have one. If a spirit can spell a name, that it’s usually a good one. I ask how I know her and she says she’s my spirit guide. Hailey says “How do we know you’re real?” And the cursor spells “CIGARETTE” and I said “what do you mean?” and it says “WINDOW”. We look at each other and our hearts sink. I’m like “She knows we smoke outside…” I said “How will we know?” and she said “TREES”. I am like “f**k that” and Hailey says we have to do it.
So, we’re smoking outside, I’m looking into the forest sweating balls in fear thinking I’m going to see a f**king demon face in the branches or something. Eventually we relax but then Hailey, mid-sentence, her face drops and goes white and shes like “f**k f**k f**k get inside NOW”. I f**king toss my cigarette and jump in the window. We close the blinds and we’re breathing super heavy. I’m like “what the f**k happened??” she says that behind me, in the distance, there was a big ass like 100 ft tall tree. There was NO wind, I remember this because I was watching my cigarette smoke go directly up and I was blowing perfect O’s without them disappearing. She says the tree was still then suddenly the WHOLE tree, including the trunk moved back and forth then went back to perfectly still.
I was like “HELL NO.” and after awhile of freaking out, sat back at the board. When we put our fingers on it, it said “did you see?”
We f**king freaked out. It was spelling “it’s ok, I love you, it’s ok, don’t be scared”. Finally, it asked to speak to only me. And for Hailey to go away. Hailey jokingly said “awe, you don’t like me?” and the board said “don’t be sad.”
This story closes pretty weak because in my mind nothing really came of it. When I tried to use the board on my own, nothing happened. I couldn’t move it without the help of Hailey, and my “spirit guide” couldn’t communicate with me. I like to think it was real and my spirit guide Deb was just trying to get me off the board. As I said, we had talked about it a lot and were using it quite a bit. I sometimes wonder what Deb wanted to tell me.
Anyway, that’s it. I haven’t touched one to this day, but I do have a slight obsession with making ouija boards as art.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to sage the fuck out of my apartment to frighten any demon, ghost or vampire away.
