I was in Hawaii, snorkeling. The water was clear and warm and every time I dipped my face in the water I could barely believe where I was, what I was doing: peering, in intervals, into an entirely different world, one that teemed with color and life and darting movements. I felt like I was in some sort of dream where I was flying. I floated gently over complicated coral structures and when the seabed dropped away in a startling slope — curving downward into a dark impenetrable blue, where barely-seen white rocks spelled out US NAVY — I was dizzy, and held my arms out like a falling skydiver.

I let myself follow the current over a rocky outcropping, watching a sea turtle swoop birdlike just ahead of me. The waves broke and swirled over my head and the sudden influx of white bubbling foam made me lift my head and peer back at the shore, which was an unexpectedly long distance away. I didn’t know how I’d gotten out so far. In an instant the water stopped being a friendly, magical embrace, and I was frightened.

The noise came from nowhere and everywhere at once: it was a long, spiraling scream that dipped and rose. I’d heard it in a million war movies, a million documentaries; the sound that always signals approaching danger. Death. It traveled through the water and it rushed through the air, it was in my ears, in the waves, it felt like a physical thing that was going to rise up and press me under the ocean’s surface.

My body was panicked. I was cold, and terrified. My brain couldn’t make sense of it: a shark? Did someone see a shark? Was it (I flashed confusedly on the Navy rocks) a submarine?

I started swimming, and it was exactly like a nightmare. I moved my arms and legs as fast as I could but I was going nowhere, my progress was being pulled sideways by the now-angry, now-hungry waters. I raised my head to stare wildly around me, I plunged my face back in the water to peer underneath. My snorkel dipped below a wave and I sucked in warm wet salt, coughing and gagging as I swam.

Never before or since have I been that scared. The noise, it kept going, it was so loud.

Then in a rush I was near shore and my feet could scrape the shell-studded sand, and I was staggering out of the water gasping, my hair plastered across the goggles.

Families sat on towels, children playing happily with plastic buckets. Girls broiled their already-tanned skin; everything smelled of coconut oil. No one glanced at me. The air was silent, the noise was gone.

Later, I learned that it was an air raid siren. Just a test of the emergency system, in case of tsunami.

I felt stupid as hell.

So, what’s the scariest non-scary thing that’s ever happened to YOU?

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Rowen
Rowen
16 years ago

I was about 9 years old and I was at the Carmanah rain forest on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. I was on holiday with my family and a couple of other families and we were all heading back to the parking lot. I said I had to go to the bathroom so my parents said they would wait in the car for me.

When I got to the bathroom, an outhouse, I locked the door, did by business, went to unlock the door and realized… I couldn’t get out! The door wouldn’t budge!

I started to panic. I was TERRIFIED of out houses at that age. I had recently seen an episode of the X-Files where this alien lived in outhouses and ate the people who used them. I was convinced that the alien was hiding in the bottom of the toilet just waiting to get me.

I started to bang on the door. I was screaming, sobbing and I was sure my parents had left without me. About this time I noticed that there was a wasp nest hanging in the corner of the outhouse and there were a few bee’s flying around.

While banging on the door, I head someone on the other side of the door asking me if they could help me. I sobbingly told him that the door was stuck and my parents had left me at the park and there was a monster in the toilet and that the bee’s were going to get me. He explained that the latch was just stuck. He pushed the door in from the outside, and I pulled open the latch.

I shot out of the bathroom like there was a fire under my bum, quickly glanced at the elderly gentleman who had saved me and dashed off to reprimand my parents for almost letting me be eating by the toilet monster.

To this day, I am surprised I can comfortable use an outhouse, though I can’t help but think about the alien in the toilet… every time I go.

Megan
16 years ago

I am always freaking myself out over nothing. A more recent episode happened when I came home for lunch one day. The whole house was quiet except for faint voices coming from the back of the house. I just knew burglars were getting ready to come kill me. I listened quietly and then finally decided it was just the tv. So burglars weren’t going to kill me, but they were laying in the back bedroom enjoying my television. Finally I worked up the nerve to walk back there and I found no burglars or serial killers, just a turned on tv. I have since discovered that my tv turns on by itself after a power outage.

kali
16 years ago

not my story (i’m drawing a non-scary scary blank) but a friend of mine:
with no one else home, she decided on a windy day to put her 1 month old first baby in the swing for Just a Minute while she ran out to the car for the stroller, figuring everything would be fine for that quick instant. she comes back in and BABY IS GONE. completely, absolutely, nowhere in sight. just as she starts to really freak out, her husband calls out from upstairs. turned out that he had gotten home *just* after she left, saw the baby in the swing and took him out to go look for her upstairs. cue her re-entrance to missing baby.

Kari
Kari
16 years ago

I don’t remember enjoying a comment thread as much as this one. Lana, I read yours three times and it still makes me shudder.

I had to really think about this one. The story that keeps coming to mind was a mini road trip I took to my then boyfriend’s small town in Texas while in college. I had a Honda Civic hatchback and there were two other girls in the car, if I remember correctly.

We were going down this two lane Texas “highway” and we came behind this car full of guys that were going too slow for my taste. But I never, EVER pass on those roads unless absolutely necessary and sort of resigned myself to going 55 mph or whatever. Then they slowed down even further, clearly trying to mess with the girls behind them.

Emboldened and encouraged by my passengers, I decided to pass them, which meant passing in a lane of oncoming traffic. I am very much a defensive driver and such type of passing ordinarily makes me nuts. I took a big swill of Diet Coke and went for it.

Except these assholes sped way the fuck up. I was pushing 95 in my little Honda Civic and they matched me. I slowed and they slowed. I couldn’t get in front or back behind them because they matched me, high speed for high speed, slow speed for slow speed. I was terrified that a car would come barreling at me and then….

Yep. Of course. The big semi, in his rightful lane, coming directly at me. Again, two lane road, and these guys were playing some fucked up game of chicken with me. My panic turned to absolute calm, and in the weirdest, most destructive way. I resigned myself to getting into a head on collision and I was utterly calm about it.

Not so much my front seat passenger, who sensed my resignation and she herself panicked. In the very nick of time, she grabbed the wheel and steered us to the grassy median, where I brought the car to a stop.

I have no idea what came over me or why I just sort of accepted my fate as a car crash victim, as that is almost the opposite of my usual instincts. I do remember getting out of the car and pacing around it for a few minutes, then apologizing to the girls for my moment of catatonia.

I haven’t passed a car in the oncoming traffic lane since then – probably 20 years.

Lesley
Lesley
16 years ago

Travelling by shallow boat through a Cuban swamp teeming with crocodiles. This journey, though I chose it out of curiosity like a dumbass fool, was straight out of a Far Side cartoon. I’d never seen crocodiles slither from banks towards me before and I hope I never have the pleasure again.

The only creepier sight was a farm of 30,000 crocodiles, all standing stock still as we stood and looked at them. You could have heard a pin drop. Again, very Far Side. Gary Larson would have loved it.

Robyn
Robyn
16 years ago

Why aren’t you publishing a book?

Trish
Trish
16 years ago

This blog is the most fun I’ve had all day! Thanks for all the good stories.

Erin
Erin
16 years ago

I used to work at an auction house that had a warehouse in the basement. The warehouse part was closed off during the auctions because it was all storage and they didn’t want customers down there, but one night they sold two extra office chairs and sent me down to put them on the conveyor belt and send them upward. The only trick was the lights–you had to the middle of the warehouse to get to the light switches housed in a smaller storage room off the back entrance, and being underground there was no natural light. I felt my way across the room and flicked the lights on when I heard a forceful “Don’t Move.”

My first thoughts are that my cellphone and keys are in my purse under my desk upstairs and that I’m standing near a table of packaged sheet sets which are pretty much useless in terms of self-defense. Shaking, I put my hand on the table in front of me and the voice said, “I said don’t move!”

In some combination of courage and stupidity I decide that my best bet is to kill the lights and make a run for it–chances are I know this place better than he does and large warehouses are full of great places to hide should he turn the lights on before I can reach the stairs. I flick the switches and he says, “Drop your weapon,” as jet towards the stairway. I rushed to my boss who gets a baseball bat and a mag light and goes down to face the man in the storage room.

I was nearly mugged by a motion-activated police bear. I’ll take “Things you never live down at work for 1000,” Alex.

Brenda
16 years ago

I have to tell you one about my sister. When we were in high school she got up before everyone in the house so she could shower first since she took the longest to get ready. My parents and I were all asleep. I just remember waking up to a blood curdling scream. The power had gone out while she was showering and it was dark. She just knew that someone had broken into the house to kill her while she was in the shower. She had recently watched Psycho so I’m sure that added to the fright.

H
H
16 years ago

I already shared a story, but I have to say I LOVE THESE STORIES!!!

Mico
16 years ago

While sailing offshore several days from land in any direction, I woke in the middle of the night and glanced into the cockpit to reassure myself that everything was going well with my husband during his watch. Usually I would find him checking our position on the chart or singing along with Steely Dan on the ipod. (No, we are not in our 60s. Yes, he is a total music nerd.)

Not there. I looked into his berth, where he would sometimes crawl and try to sneak a nap. Berth was empty.

I got up out of bed and climbed into the cockpit, heart beating, and looked forward to the bow. No sign of him.

Now I was contemplating the worst — that he had fallen overboard at sea and I slept blissfully through it. Everyone always asks us if sailing offshore was scary, if there were storms, if we were lonely … the only thing that literally gave me nightmares was the thought of him falling overboard because my chances of maneuvering the boat alone, gently coming up alongside him, and then getting his 180-lb. body on board again were slim. Trying to do it at night? Pretty much no chance.

So, heart in throat, blood pounding in my ears, I just screamed, “Warren!!” in a total panic, already halfway to hysterical tears. He stood up from the crouch he was in near the mast, in the dark indistinguishable from a spare sail bag, and was all like, “What?”

Jem
Jem
16 years ago

I love these stories too. Kari, whoah SHIT! I hope you reported them!

beth
beth
16 years ago

kristalynne just made me think of another one, I’ve totally blocked it out b/c it scared me so much. The difference of a few seconds could have meant everything…

I went camping/rafting up in nantahala for a friends 30th a couple of years ago. Needless to say there was MUCH drinking and shinanigans. I woke up in the middle of the night and the feeling I had was not good. My tummy was churning and had yet to decide whether it was going to send everything up, down or both. There was a portalet at our campsite, but -seriously- this was NOT a portalet situation. I grabbed my toothbrush and flashlight and hustled to the main bathroom, which was probably 200 yards away, around a bend and past a really loud waterfall. I got there and well… yeah. A minute or so later the main bathroom door screeched open. I froze. I listened. I looked under the door, but didn’t see feet. You know when you KNOW there is someone else in the room. I KNEW. The only weapon I had was my toothbrush I held it tight. The door screeched again. I finished the task at hand b/c I didn’t really have a say in that. Brushed my teeth and got the hell out. I was on high alert. I didn’t see anyone, so I started back to the campsite. I was just by the bend and the waterfall – in the shadows where it I couldn’t be seen or heard – and headlights flciked on about five yards behind me. I hadn’t even heard the car. I had a split second to decide which way to run – back to the center of the campsite where there were lights but not so many people or straight ahead through the dark woods back to my friends.
Before I could run, a man got out of the car. Abject terror.
Then relief.
It was a police officer.
He explained that there had been a report of a man exposing himself at a number of sites and attacking a female site worker who had been clsoing up a building. She got away from him and he had headed in the direction of the waterfall, just a short while before.
I’m convinced he saw me go into the restroom and followed me in. And I don’t want to think about what could have happened if I hadn’t have been in the midst of such foulness.
Don’t walk alone in the dark ladies!

Carolyn
16 years ago

I was about 12 years old and it was summertime. I was home alone, (or so I thought), lazed about for a bit, then took a shower. I got dressed in my room, turned off my light, then left the room. I realized I forgot something and went back to my room to retrieve it. Just as I stepped over the threshold of my bedroom, one of my closet doors opened (the sliding accordian kind with the slats) and a man came literally tumbling out and fell onto the floor. I took a few steps backward out of my room, shocked and screaming, totally frozen in fear and unable to even run away. I continued to scream even when I realized it was my brother, then my screams turned into uncontrollable sobbing as he tried to calm me down.

The jerk decided to hide in my closet to give me a good ‘BOO!’ scare while I was in the shower, and while he was in there? YEAH, HE FELL ASLEEP.

Diana
Diana
16 years ago

I have another one….

It was ’95 and I had just turned sixteen and gotten my driver’s license, as did all of my friends. It was our first light snow and I was terrified to drive my car, so I begged my girlfriend to drive us both to and from work.

My girlfriend owned an old Plymouth Duster without working heat or radio. Didn’t bother us much, we just kept blankets in the back seat and the passenger held the old boombox with the awesome double tape deck. haha

On the way home, we are driving down a side street and my friend starts looking at the pretty christmas decorations on all of the houses. Suddenly, the street widened so cars could park on the side of the road. I remember looking ahead and we were aiming directly for the parked cars on the side of the road, but I trusted that my friend was eventually going to swerve to the left where the street was open. Of course, she never did because she was so entranced with one houses beautiful decorations.

No seat belt, plus holding the stupid boombox, left my head slamming directly into the windshield and I blacked out. When I woke up, the engine was basically in our lap and my girlfriend was rocking back and forth saying “I killed her…I killed her” over and over again. I couldn’t get my bearings and figure out what was going on. I tried to open the door to get out of the car, but it wouldn’t open. I realized I had blook pouring out of my nose and ear. Cue MAJOR PANIC ATTACK.

Firemen and police get there and come to my window where I am hyperventilating and screaming “GET THE JAWS OF LIFE….I CAN’T GET OUT OF THE CAR! HURRY! I CAN’T BREATH, I’M GOING TO DIE!”

One fireman looks down and says “Lady, try unlocking the door.” Ummmmm….yeah, forget about the lock.

Then, because I was an expert on all episodes of Rescue 911 (best.show.ever) I am absolutely positive that I am qualified to diagnose myself. When I finally open the door they start asking me questions and I very gravely inform them “I hit my head on the windshield and now my nose and ears are bleeding. You don’t even have to tell me, I know that means brain damage.”

Fireman looks and me and says “Lady, you have no more brain damage right now then you did before this accident. But clearly you might have already had issues.”

Yeah…I was only bleeding because I had scraped my ear and nose on the heating vents.

Completely wasted adrenaline.

(and the irony – the house with the pretty decorations was hosting a holiday party and my girlfriend had singlehandedly caused a chain reaction crashing FIVE of their vehicles that were parked on the side of the road.)

Chrissy
Chrissy
16 years ago

After a fresh snowfall about four years ago, while my husband was out of town skiing with some friends, I decided to shovel our sidewalk. It was late, but I didn’t realize how late because the streetlights were reflecting off the snow banks, making it seem earlier than it was. It was quiet and peaceful outside, the air was cool and crisp, and it felt good to be exerting some energy. So, there I am, lost in my thoughts, shoveling away, when a car pulls up across the street and a guy gets out. His friend stays in the passenger seat. Women’s intuition kicks in and I start feeling nervous. Something doesn’t seem right. He crosses the street and walks toward me. I keep shoveling, wondering if I could use the shovel as a weapon if I had to, wishing I had paid better attention in my self-defense class back in college.
He tells me that his friend’s car broke down and they need a few bucks for gas money.
“For five bucks I can finish shoveling,” he says.
I’m almost done shoveling and tell him thanks, but I’m almost done (and I was).
“We need gas money,” he says again. “I can finish shoveling for you.”
I try to remain calm as I suggest that he ask the neighbor instead. He shakes his head no. I realize he’s not going anywhere and tell him “Let me just go inside the house and see what I have.”
I try not to break into an all-out sprint, my heart racing, and once I’m inside I lock the door behind me. I figure he’ll get the hint and go away.
I am wrong.
A few minutes later, he starts banging on the front door. I’m home alone and scared to death. I sit on the stairwell, frozen with fear. What do I do? What do I do? He’s going to break in and rob me. He’s going to rape me. He’s going to murder me. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.
I do what any self-respecting 29-year-old would do and call my dad. Even though he’s a good 30 minutes away.
“There’s a guy outside banging on the door and I’m home alone and I was just outside shoveling and he wanted gas money and I don’t want to call 911 if it’s not a real emergency and I’m home alone and—”
My dad cut me off, “Call 911.”
“I don’t want to bother them,” I answered. “What if he’s harmless?”
“What if he’s not?” he asked.
Good point.
I told my dad I’d call 911 and call him back. I hung up the landline, took my cell phone to the stairwell, and called the dispatch operator. The dispatcher told me I was the second person from my neighborhood to call with that complaint (so I wasn’t over-reacting!) and wanted to stay on the line with me until an officer arrived. In the meantime, my dad was freaking out and trying to call our landline. And the whole time the guy was outside banging on the door.
An officer arrived, talked to the guys, then sent them on their way. (I watched all of this happen from inside the house. I wasn’t about to go outside again.) I called my dad back and explained that an police officer was there now (I just about gave him a heart attack. I’m sure his imagination was going into over-drive as well.) I went outside just as the @ssholes were driving off. The driver noticed me, WAVED and smiled.
The officer told me that he knew both guys well and they were wanted for crimes in California, but since California doesn’t extradite, we were stuck with them in Minnesota.
“They’re fairly harmless,” the officer tried to reassure me.
All I heard was “wanted for crimes.” I didn’t think to ask what the crimes were.
The officer waited outside my house while I packed an overnight bag (I sure as hell wasn’t going to stay at the house by myself) and drove up to my parents’ house.
That whole winter I was paranoid that they’d return for me, and four years later, I still don’t feel entirely safe in my neighborhood.

Shes
Shes
16 years ago

Totally had to share this one after reading all of the above….the other comments are hilarious and some super scary. Can relate to many about dark objects in night, spooky noises when home alone.
Anyways, we hadn’t lived in our new house for very long. I awoke with a start in the middle of the night, certain I had been awakened by a LOUD noise. Hyperventilating, I crept to the doorjamb of the bedroom, yes, in my birthday suit with a very large maglite flashlight in hand. Husband and dog snore uselessly on bed behind me. I turn the flashlight on, and there, by the front door…..it’s humonguous, bigger than a dog, lying on the doormat inside….I saw eyes, and then fur….I didn’t see any limbs. All the scenarios ran thru my mind-was it a mutant rat? A coyote? How had it gotten in? The basement? the chimmney? if it moved, I was ready to slam the bedroom door and hunt for a bigger weapon…..as my eyes adjusted to the dark and too bright flashlight beam, I finally figured out my husband’s darn DEER HEAD had fallen off the wall and was lying sideways in front of the door. Talk about feeling like an idiot. And the dumb thing put a dent in the wall that is still there to this day!

Joy
Joy
16 years ago

I was waiting at a stop sign at a busy intersection in my car trying to cross the street. All of sudden I heard I loud THUNK. I looked and across the hood of my car was a man and his bike. I thought, “DEAR GOD! Did I just hit him? I cannot believe I hit someone with my car! What was I thinking? I am clearly going to spend some time in jail for this! There goes my future! Wait. My foot has been on the brake the entire time. Hmm…” I got out of the car and helped the man off my car. I thought I was dead meat for sure and could imagine the police showing up at any moment. It must have been my lucky day. He was completely embarrassed because he was not paying attention and ran into my car going very fast on his bike. WHEW!!! Luckily he was fine and only his pride was hurt. What a relief for me.

Bumbling
16 years ago

Ah I remember these from the ClubMom days, and just like I did then, I smiled and chuckled and laughed out loud. And that last one? It made me cry then, and it made me cry today, too.
You are the best.

Amy
Amy
16 years ago

A couple of weeks ago I went snowboarding at a well known skifield in New Zealand that just so happens to be on an active volcano. I was waiting in line for the lift and all of a sudden sirens start going off to evacuate and move to high ground because the bloody volcano is going to erupt. Holy shit, well there was like 100 people trying to high tail it out of the lift queue (which was in a valley, so it seemed we were all going to get washed away in the river of molten lava that was supposedly heading our way) and everyone was falling over each other, but anyway we all got to high ground and waited there for like 20 minutes before we guessed (since there was no eruption/ river of lava) that it was an unannounced evacuation drill. When we got back to the lift queue we were asked by a friendly ski field staffer to rate our evacuation drill experience. Ha.

K.
K.
16 years ago

I’ve never been fond of elevators. When I studied abroad in college, though, it seemed Fate had decided to let me know why.

I was in a country with a disfunctional service sector — during the semester I lived there, the postal workers went on strike for nearly 3 weeks; the garbage collectors for nearly 2; bus drivers too many times to count; — and that’s all I remember. None of the students on the program spoke the language; we didn’t have phones (no cell phones then) in our apartments & our professors lived many blocks away.

I was with some friends, on my way to a party hosted by some other students. It was Sunday afternoon. We entered the elevator just as another group of students arrived, and we all crammed into the small, old-fashioned elevator (the kind with the gates up pull across before the door closes). We were so close to each other, my face was pressed into my friend’s back, & no one could move. The elevator began to climb, slowly, to the party on the top floor. Suddenly, the elevator stoped dead. In between floors. A wave of sheer, utter, and heart-stopping panic immediately washed over me, so much so that I felt my legs weaken and I thought I might pass out.

Images of being stuck like that for DAYS, while someone who can’t speak the language & has no phone tries to find someone who could find an elevator repair man in a city that couldn’t even get the mail delivered. I imagined suffocating. Peeing on myself & suffering utter humiliation — see I really had to go to the bathroom. Then I imagined that we had strained the ancient mechanisms of the elevator, and it had stopped just before it was about to plummet wildly to the concrete floor below. I began to hyperventilate.

A few people began to call for help, and our friends at the party came & yelled to us: we had overloaded the elevator; it happened all the time; and if we just let it go down to the floor below, we could get out. No problem.

We did this, and when the door opened, I shot out of there like a bat out of hell. I was drenched with sweat & prickling from adrenaline, but I was neither stuck in the elevator nor splatted on the bottom of the shaft. I felt a little ridiculous for the major panic attack, but I also was so, so very relieved.

To this day, I avoid elevators as much as possible.

iidly
16 years ago

Driving home from the airport in Portland, and being stuck in commuter traffic on the big huge high bridge in portland, that comes into the city. It was rush hour, raining, and getting dark. There was a traffic jam and we stopped right in the middle of the bridge.

The wind was blowing, and I swore to god I felt the brige move. Later I am told that isn’t possible, but I know I did.

For those brief few moment before traffic began to move, I was sorely tempted to shut the car off,grab my bag, and hoof it off the bridge, as I knew most assuredly again for those fleeting minutes that felt like an eternity that we were going down into the cold dark watery depths of the Columbia River.

sooboo
16 years ago

When I was living in Austin, my friends had this idea that we would go to Mardi Gras, except that we would go to the bayou instead of N.O. The trip was drunken and fun until we ended up in this very small town. They had a Mardi Gras parade and while we waited for it to start we were getting a lot of looks and a couple of rude comments from the locals. I chalked it up to not a lot of outsiders making it this far into the bayou. So the parade starts and at first it looks normal, beads being thrown from floats, costumes etc.. After about the first two floats pass, all of the sudden came the rest of the floats and they all had Klan members on them dressed up in the hoods and robes, except instead of being being white robes, they were Mardi Gras colors. Now my friends and I are considered white, but my husband and I are a little more mixed and we definitely look it, hence the stares. As my panic attack began, I had a visions of nooses, shallow graves, FBI searches, the whole thing. But nothing really happened. We gawked, then we left. Now it’s just a strange story to tell at parties that mostly people don’t believe.

Amy
Amy
16 years ago

another story… when I was in Montreal a couple of years ago my friends and I were walking to a bar at night when I felt somebody jab something in my back and mumble something at me in French. Being a bit of a dumbass and obviously not understanding wtf this guy was saying to me I immediately turned around to see what was up. Well he was trying to mug me, WITH A BANANA. Needless to say I cracked up laughing and told him to piss off.

Nicki
16 years ago

I’ve had A LOT of moments like that, because I’m a scaredy-cat. Sirens, in particular, always strike terror in my heart! But I guess one of the most recent “non-scary scary moments” was on the FOurth of July when Jimmy was shooting off bottle rockets in our backyard. I was all peaceful and happy, and then for some reason I felt like the bottle rocket was going to land on me! I was standing right next to Little Bear, and in an impressively heroic move, I scooped her up and dove out of the way, tripping over a lawn chair in the process. I thought I just saved Little Bear’s life, but when I looked up everyone was staring at me and Little BEar was laughing!