Everyone has a horror story of some sort, whether it’s something creepy that’s happened to them personally or just one they heard around a campfire late at night. But there’s a particular flavour of horror story that’s scariest of all – the ones that actually happened.
Sure, these could have perfectly normal explanations, but the fact that no one knows for sure is enough to give me a massive case of the heebie jeebies.
Alright, let’s get into some fucked up shit.
The Westfield Watcher
No, not Westfield the shopping centre, these events took place in the town of Westfield, New Jersey. In June of 2014, the Broaddus family settled on a gorgeous $1.3 million home at 657 Boulevard. Only days later, they received a letter from someone who called themselves “The Watcher”.
As you can probably imagine, anything from anyone who refers to themselves as “The Watcher” is not gonna be a good time. It’s not gonna be like “Hey neighbour, here’s 100 bucks, welcome to the street. Love, The Watcher”. Even that would be creepy as shit.
What they actually received was a claim of ownership from the unknown sender, stating the property “has been the subject of my family for decades”. The letter then went on to talk about “young blood” and other spooky things as you can see from the court documents below.
Fuck. That.
The Woods were the previous owners of the house and copped similar letters from The Watcher. They purposefully withheld the correspondence from the Broaddus family out of fear they’d never be able to sell the house. Total dick move, hence the lawsuit.
That’s not all the Broaddus folks got, either. Two additional letters arrived with some of the weirdest, creepiest ramblings you’ll ever see.
Hmmmm. If you want my advice – and you do – I’d say burn the house down. Pour gasoline inside of the house, and then set it on fire with an implement of your choosing. A match, a lighter, a lit cigarette, whatever the fuck you want.
Long story short, the Broaddus family never moved into the house (look, fair enough) and have obviously been having trouble selling it ever since. It’s been on and off the market over the course of the last couple of years and even reappeared again about a week ago.
The police allegedly investigated as far as they could, but turned up nothing. If it is just some variety of sick prankster, they’re damn well committed to the joke, because earlier this year rental tenants living in the property received a letter that lawyers described as “more derogatory and sinister than any of the previous letters,” but refused to say anymore.
If you’re into fucked up shit like this, you can legitimately buy the place right now for $US1.1 million ($1.4 million), which is $US200,000 ($254,874) below what the Broadduses paid for it two years ago.
Gef The Talking Mongoose
I know what you’re thinking. Surely there’s no such thing as a talking mongoose, let alone one with the name Gef. Look, probably, but hear me out anyway.
Gef revealed himself to the Irving family who lived in Dalby, a town on the Isle of Man, in 1931. The family consisted of James, his wife Margaret and their 12-year-old daughter, Voirrey. In the beginning, they heard strange scratching, growling and what sounded like vocalisations from behind the walls of their farmhouse.
Before we continue, it’s worth noting the house had no electricity, phone or radio and the nearest neighbours lived “over a mile away”. Old mate James figured it was just a rat, so he tried to scare it away to no avail. Over the following days, the sounds began to get gnarlier and even sounded like a dog or baby at times.
After getting rid of it didn’t work, James, assumedly out of frustration, growled at the thing and “it growled right back at him”. Soon after, it began to mimic other animals and even responded to fucking requests from the Irvings. If they said “cat”, it meowed. If they said “bird”, it tweeted and so on.
Eventually, it started talking in a high pitched voice to the family, introducing himself as Gef, a mongoose born in New Delhi, India in 1852. He said he came to the Isle of Man with one of the Irving’s neighbours who brought over a bunch of mongooses to catch mice. According to the little fella himself, he wasn’t a spirit, but rather an “extra, extra clever mongoose”.
James and Margaret only ever caught glimpses of Gef running around the house, but Voirrey was the only one allowed to look at him directly.
After coming to terms with the fact a talking fucking mongoose was not going to leave their home, the family agreed to Gef’s terms – “If you are kind to me, I will bring you good luck. If you are not kind, I shall kill all your poultry. I can get them wherever you put them!” Dead chooks are a massive downer, so naturally, it seemed like a fair enough deal.
Gef became quite the talker after that and even started throwing demands around and using questionable language. He preferred James and Voirrey over Margaret, but was a little prick to all of them if he wanted to be. If James took too long to open the newspaper, he’d yell “Read it out, you fat-headed gnome!”
I don’t know about you, but my patience for a miniature talking asshole living in my house rent-free would wear pretty thin at this point, but the family persevered. It wasn’t all bad, though. Gef would often bring the Irving’s gifts, like 50 dead rabbits he claimed to have strangled with his own tiny pissing hands. When they accused him of having paranormal powers, he told them, “If I were a spirit, I could not kill rabbits.”
He would also listen in on town gossip and report it back to the family, so it turns out Gef was a total narc, too.
As time went on, his ramblings became more and more deranged and his presence came with the added bonus of poltergeist-like incidents around the farmhouse. Margret, growing totally suss on Gef, once said to him “You know, Gef, you are no animal!” To which he replied, “Of course I am not, I am the Holy Ghost!”
Here’s some more of Gef’s cooked dialogue.
The whole town was pretty interested in the talking mongoose because, well, why the fuck wouldn’t they be? Paranormal investigator Harry Price even went to the Irving’s home to poke around a little and while some weird shit went down, there wasn’t enough evidence to confirm or deny Gef’s existence.
Voirrey passed away in 2005, but was always adamant Gef was the real deal. “Yes, there was a little animal who talked and did all those other things,” she said in an interview. “He said he was a mongoose and we should call him Gef… But I do wish he had let us alone.”
Margaret and Voirrey moved out of the farmhouse in 1945 after James died. A man named Mr. Graham bought it in 1947 and reported killing a strange weaselly-looking creature. The little dickhead had it coming.
Creepy-Ass Scratchy Doll
Our resident Spooky Editor (yes, I gave her that title), Mel actually wrote about this one a little while ago and I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to include it. It truly is some fucked up shit.
Debbie Merrick lives in the UK and was once in possession of a doll at the centre of some strange happenings around her home. To me, it doesn’t even look like the classically evil doll you’d see in horror flicks, but hey, that’s why I’m not a haunted doll expert.
She originally bought it for 8 bucks at a second hand store but then had to deal with all of the creepy bullshit that came with it. She detailed the flavour of horror she was dished in an interview with The Sun.
“The smoke alarms keep going off, and one night I heard the floorboards creaking and thought it might have been my daughter Holly up, but when I checked on her she was asleep,” she said. “Then one morning my husband said to me, ‘I’ve got scratches all over my legs’. The scratches do look like they’ve been done by something small, like little doll hand scratches.”
Well that can well and truly get the fuck outta here, which is exactly what the 50-year-old woman thought too. She whacked that haunted bitch straight onto eBay.
“This is a pretty doll in a wedding outfit, but very creepy just something about it,” said the description on the listing. “It’s fair to say we don’t want it in our house anymore, it’s made by franklin mint and in good condition just needs a tidy up.”
In the time between flogging the doll online and continuing to own it, Debbie kept it in the shed. Fuck yeah, haunted sheds are MAD. As you’d imagine, the doll also caused a ruckus in its new digs.
“Then the other day I had to go into the shed to get something, and when I looked in the box the necklace on the doll was completely off and the doll was in a different position, I’m sure. When I’d packed it away I’d made sure the necklace was wrapped around its neck about four times.”
To add more creepiness to this already insane story, the new owners of the doll have reported similar occurrences since bringing the obviously cursed item into their home, including a video of it allegedly speaking. You can check that out at the link below.
My opinion? Explode the doll with dynamite. It must be purged.
