Scary stories (dont read if you are easily scared)

[Horologium]

I don't think The Theater is a real game because if you look it up, the only related searches to that story/creepypasta is the place where you can read the same thing at the creepypasta website.
I've head of the Lavender Town syndrome too.

[Saamany]

o___o Creepy....*Glances around, frightened to see the Swirly Head Man* I dare somebody to search 'Swirly Head Man' on Google Images and tell us all exactly what comes up. e.e

[just'marley]

This is called horror call

Annie went to the heartford's house to babysit there baby boy camdyn. She was 15 and camdyn was 2. It was late and camdyn was upstairs sleeping while Annie watched the news. Suddenly the phone rang. Annie answered, "Hello?"
the voice on the other end was raspy, "where's the baby Annie? You shouldn't leave him alone when there's a killer on the loose! I'm coming for you!" the voice cackled. Annie screamed and ran up to baby camdyn.

He was alright. Annie sighed and brought the baby down stairs with her. She called the police and they instructed her to lock all the doors and turn on all the lights until they got there. Annie had just finished locking everything up when the phone rang again. She thought it was camdyn's parents but she answered to "I'm getting closer!"

Annie hung up and called the cops. They told her to stay calm and hide somewhere with no windows. Annie took baby camdyn into a closest. The phone rang. She didn't answer. The answering machine came on, it was the police, "Annie! get out now! the calls have been coming from inside the house! get out get out!"

When the cops arrived they found baby camdyn and annie dead in the closest, a phone bleeped next to them, "I gotcha ya!"

OMG!!!! *crys* THT SCARED ME!!!

[just'marley]

Here's one called The Theater. It's not by me though.

Have you ever heard of an old PC game called “The Theater”? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Probably because many people say it doesn’t even exist. You see, The Theater is an old computer game released around the same time as Doom. Today, if you ever find it, it’s only available on crappy bootleg CD-ROMs, which, more often than naught don’t even actually contain the game. The actual legitimate copies that they say were released back in the day feature a blank cover with nothing but the sprite of what has since been named the ‘the Ticket-Taker’. He is simply a poorly drawn, pixelated Caucasian, bald man with large red lips wearing a red vest over a white shirt and black pants. He is completely emotionless, though some say that if you smash the disc his face is shown as angry the next time you look at the cover. But this is just dismissed as an urban myth. What is peculiar about The Theater, though, is that there is no developer named on the jewel case, nor a game description on the back. It is simply the Ticket-Taker on a white backdrop on both sides.

The game was initially known for its inability to install correctly. The installation process immediately locks up the computer when the user reaches the licensing agreement. Also strange about the licensing agreement for The Theater is that whenever the development studio is supposed to be named, the text is simply a blank line. Anyways, most people who have claimed to owning one of the original CDs say that they figured out how to install the game by simply rebooting their computer on the licensing agreement with the disc still inside. Then they are prompted to press ‘I AGREE’ on startup. Then they continue with the installation. The game then starts up without any introduction besides a main menu that is simply the sprite of a movie theater’s exterior on an empty city street. The title fades in and then the 3 menu buttons ‘NEW GAME, LOAD, OPTIONS’. Selecting OPTIONS immediately crashes the game to the desktop. LOAD is said not to function at all. Even if you do have a saved game, nothing happens when you press it. Thus, NEW GAME is the only working menu option.

Once it is selected you are in the first person view. You are standing in an empty movie theater lobby, with the exception of the Ticket-Taker standing in front of a dark hallway which one can only assume leads to the theaters themselves. There’s nothing to do but look at the poorly-drawn, mostly illegible movie posters or approach the Ticket-Taker. Once the player moves towards the Ticket-Taker a very low-quality sound clip plays saying “THANK YOU PLEASE ENJOY THE MOVIE” along with a speechbox saying the same thing. You then walk into the hallway and the screen fades to black and you’re back in the empty lobby and you do the exact thing again and again and again.

While this may sound like a really horrible game, a number of peculiar things occur as you continue to play it. The number of times that you have to continue into the hall after giving your ticket to the Ticket-Taker before the strange events happen is unknown. Most state that it’s completely random and could take anywhere from the first playthrough to the four hundredth. What happens, though, has deeply disturbed some players.

The first occurrence is when the player fades back in after walking into the hallway. This time they will notice the Ticket-Taker is completely absent. The player then, without any other options, decides to walk into the dark hallway. The sound clip and text box mentioned previously still play in the absence of the Ticket-Taker, but when the player walks into the hallways the screen does not fade out. It goes pitch black as they walk deeper into the hall, but the player’s footstep sound clip is still playing as they continue to push the up button on their keyboard. Those claiming to have played the original game report to have felt extremely uncomfortable walking down the hallway, anticipating the whole way something horrible happening. Well, eventually the player is unable to move forward. There is nothing for a few moments before a strange sprite that is described as ‘the Ticket-Taker but with a swirl for a face’ appears and stands before the player. The original players of the game say their bodies immediately froze up and their stomachs churned they saw this sprite (which has been appropriately named the ‘Swirly Head Man’). Nothing happens as the Swirly Head Man stands before them. Then suddenly a piercing screech plays as the game glitches out. This lasts for a few minutes, with the screeching being continuous. Then the player is abruptly returned to the lobby with all the sounds and graphics being as they should be.

The game continues normally for the next couple of ‘cycles’ of entering the hallway, with a couple of the original players claiming the Swirly Head Man would briefly appear and disappear in the corner of the screen as a brisk ‘yelp’ sound effect plays. Then, at some point after meeting the Swirly Head Man, the player sees the Ticket-Taker pacing back and forth (though there is no walking animation – the sprite’s limbs are completely static, so he just hops up and down slightly as a substitute) with his eyes being wide and his mouth open to simulate a worried facial expression. Some players noted that the movie posters had been replaced with images of the Swirly Head Man, which caused them to immediately turn their character’s head away from the posters and approach the Ticket-Taker. Then another, different, low-quality sound clip plays, but the speech box contains nothing but corrupted characters that cause whatever text that would have been in the box to be completely illegible. Due to the extremely low quality of the sound, it is debated by players what exactly the Ticket-Taker says at this point, though it is widely agreed that he says ‘NEVER REACH THE OTHER LEVELS’. Then the screen fades out once again and returns the player back to their starting point in the lobby, but the Ticket-Taker is gone and the hallway is blocked by a large brick wall sprite. Touching the brick wall will immediately crash the game. And that’s all there is to it. No one knows what the ‘Other Levels’ are or how to gain access to them, nor is it known why the Swirly Head Man causes such acute fear in those who have seen him in the game. All the original copies of The Theater have either been lost or destroyed. But the creepiest part is the fact that is that all the original players of the game claim to occasionally see a brief glimpse of the Swirly Head Man out of the corner of their eyes…

Is it a real game?

[JDsalamander]

0_0

The swirly head man:

[Saamany]

0__0 *Gets all scared of it because he's all....Weird, and that I'll see him*

I won't see him in the corner of my eye alot, will I?
Since I didn't play the original game...?

*Sobs*

[just'marley]

how is tht scary?

[Donnie Darko]

I DID NOT WRITE THIS** And by the way, The Theatre is a real game.

I was playing Minecraft. I spawned in a new world I had just created. It was a nice place with overhangs, lots of sugarcane, and loads of trees. It was easy to make a house. I surrounded it with sugarcane to add a bit of privacy, and added paintings to add a little more class. It was a nice place all in all. One thing disturbed me, though.

The entire world, for all its size and scenery, was utterly mobless. I found no pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, so I couldnt even make myself a bed to get through the nights quicker. It was so dull that I wished I could hear the familiar "SSSsssss..." of the Creeper.

One night, I was keeping watch on the balcony of my house, armed with an Iron Sword, when I saw something moving in the Trees nearby. It appeared to be a player, judging by the shape of the creature. But that was impossible. I was on a single player server. And it had no name plate above it. I took out my bow and shot a few arrows at it, almost immediately, it was in front of me, its eyes glowing red. I took out my Iron Sword and struck it. It made the default Player's damage sound, then simply disappeared. No puff of smoke or anything like that. It was as if it had disconnected itself for getting struck by me.

However, it did drop something. I walked over and picked it up. It was a diamond, but instead of the bright blue coloring, it was pitch black. This didnt bother me, a diamond was a diamond. I went up to the crafting table, planning to make myself a Jukebox, or Diamond Shovel. I never got the chance. The game crashed, and I had to reboot my entire computer. After I was finished though, the Minecraft Program was still there. I entered to see if my world was there. It wasnt. Instead, was, where my old world was, a new one. You know what it was called?
BLACK DIAMOND. D:



AGAIN, I did NOT write this!*

[just'marley]

Well, this story is more creepy then scary, but I'll tell you anyway.
One day, this man rents a house and moves in. He found a hole in the wall; he was about to call the landowner to complain, but he looked outside of the hole, which showed the house across the street, and he saw a pretty girl in a night gown with brown hair dancing outside. He decided against calling the landlord, because he wanted to continue looking through the hole to watch the pretty girl dancing. For the next few days, he kept on looking through the hole to spy on the girl, who was dancing in the night gown every day. Then, one day he looked through the hole, again, but didn't see the girl dancing; he just saw a bunch of red. The next day, he looked through the hole, again, but the girl was no longer dancing outside. Finally, he decided to call the landlord to complain about the hole. On the phone, the man asked the landlord, "Who is the girl who lives across the street?" The landlord replied, "Oh, that is my niece. She has brown hair, she always wears a night gown, and she has red eyes." The girl had been looking through the hole that day.

-------

In the late 1800s, there was a middle-aged man who lived in the woods by himself. The only companions he had were his three hunting dogs. It took a day and a night to travel into the town outside the forest, so he only left his two-room cabin to get food and other supplies when he really needed to.
One night, the man looked in the cupboard and realized that he had no food left in his cabin. Cursing himself for being so careless, he decided that it was much to dark to start for town or go hunting now, and he would just have to go to bed hungry and wait until tomorrow.
About an hour later, the man was sitting in the main room of his cabin, cursing himself for not going to town sooner, when he heard a peculiar noise. It sounded like scurrying, as if an animal were running about the room. His three hunting dogs were outside, sleeping under the porch like they always did.
The man searched for the source of the noise, and behind his recliner he saw the stranges animal he had ever laid eyes on.
The animal was the size of a cat with a long, pointy face, like a fox. All of its teeth were razor sharp and the fangs protruded from its mouth. Its eyes were big as owl's eyes and bright green, so bright it seemed like they were glowing in the dim light. The animal had paws that looked almost like tiny human hands, only with long, black claws. Its ears were enormous, like a jackrabbit's. But the thing that the man noticed most about this strange beast was its enormous tail, he guessed it was six feet long, coiled round and round itself.
The creature regarded him calmly for quite some time, as he stared at it in awe. He had never seen something that looked even remotely the same in all his life.
Just then, a thought came to him: he would kill it and have it for dinner!
Quick as a flash, he rushed to the 'kitchen' portion of his main room and grabbed his butcher knife off of the shelf. The creature, realizing what was happening, let out a terrifying hiss that froze the man in his tracks. It almost sounded like a human scream.
The man chased the thing around his house for a full minute before it finally slipped away through a hole in the log wall, where he presumed it had entered his house from.
The thing barely escaped, but not before the man cut off its tail. He heard it go screaming away into the forest.
Being a shrewd man, he realized that the tail had some very good meat on it, and decided he would skin it and cook it for dinner.
That was what he did, and he went to bed full and quite satisfied with himself.

But in all the excitement, he'd forgotten to patch up the hole in his wall...

That night, the man awoke to a scurrying sound in his main room. Now, his bedroom was separate from the main room of his cabin, he'd built the addition on himself so as to have more private living space. He could hear scurrying around his main room, even through the thick bedroom door. As he listened, he realized with just a hint of cold fear that he had forgotten to patch up the hole in the wall.
Just then, an eerie, singsong voice rang through the still air of the cabin, "taily-po, taily-po, who's got my taily-po?"
The man was so frightened that he jumped out of bed, grabbed his shotgun, and threw open the door to his room, hoping to catch whoever was messing around with him red-handed.
All he saw was a black shadow scurry, fast as lightning, through the hole in the wall.
Shouting out, he sent his dogs after whatever it was, hearing them go barking off into the night. The man sat up for an hour. Only two of his dogs came back.
Thoroughly scared now, the man blocked the hole as best he could with a stack of logs for the fire and let the dogs into the house to sleep in the main cabin. Then, trying to ease his racing mind, he went back into his room and tried to sleep.
Not ten minutes later, the sound of the stack of logs crashing down and his dogs whining and cowering like scared puppies reached his ears.
There was a scurrying sound, then the eerie, singsong voice said (sounding much closer now than it had been the last time), "taily-po, taily-po, who's got my taily-po?"
The man, once again, jumped out of bed with his shotgun, but just missed that black shadow running through the reopened hole in the wall. Furious and frightened, the man sent his two dogs out after the creature.
An hour later, one dog returned.
The man brought moved his heavy chair in front of the hole in the wall, the dog into his room to sleep by his bed, and tried to calm himself.
Not five minutes later, the sound of the heavy chair scraping across the dirt floor of the cabin reached his ears. The voice, now sounding very close to his bedroom door, sang out, "taily-po, taily-po, who's got my taily-po?"
Terrified, the man flung his bedroom door open and sent his dog after the creature.
It never returned.
Desparate, the man blocked the hole with all he could find in his home, bolted his door shut, locked himself in his room, and sat on his bed with his shotgun.
Not three minutes later, a scurrying sound reached his ears. The voice, now just outside his bedroom door, sang out, "taily-po, taily-po, who's got my taily-po?"
The man remained silent, shaking with fear.
There was scratching on the door, and then the doorknob slowly began to turn.
"Taily-po, taily-po, who's got my taily-po?"
The man aimed his shotgun at the door. It wasn't loaded. It was useless against the terror. He threw it to the ground. All too late, he realized that he could have used it to hit the creature, but now it was across the room and he was too afraid to stand up.
The door was wide open now. A black shadow scurried across the floor.
"Taily-po, taily-po, who's got my taily-po?"
The creature climbed up to the foot of his bed, staring at him with glowing green eyes. It was smiling, showing rows of razor-sharp teeth. "Taily-po, taily-po," it said, "you've got my taily-po."
It climbed across his legs, up to his stomach.
Terrified, the man managed to scream out, "I haven't got it! I haven't got your taily-po!"
The creature spread its clawed, human-like hand and placed its claws against the man's stomach. Grinning, it whispered, "yes you do."

A month later, a woman from town noticed that the man hadn't come there for a very long time, so she decided to check on him to make sure he was okay.
As she was riding out into the forest, she found a most ghastly sight. A dead dog on the side of the path.
She rode on, but soon she found another dead dog, and very soon a third.
Shuddering, she hurried along to the man's cabin to make sure he was okay.
With a scream, she found him in his bedroom, his sheets soaked in blood, a look of horror frozen on his face forever. His stomach had been cut open by something razor sharp.
She rode back to town with all the speed she could, to inform the people of the town and get the man a proper burial.
As she was riding through the trees, she heard - or thought she heard - an eerie, singsong voice sing out through the trees, "taily-po, taily-po, now I've got my taily-po..."

[Donnie Darko]

Check this out: (THIS GOES WITH THE MYTH OF "THE THEATRE" GAME)

NOT WRITTEN BY ME!

It’s not something whispered about in certain circles, it’s not something that comes in a plain-looking jewel case, it’s not by a nameless untraceable developer… and it’s certainly not supernatural.

The game in question is indeed called The Theatre (r before e), and was developed by a company called Salida Software. I’m fairly certain it’s an English company, despite the Spanish name. As far as I know, all they made was learning software (I have a maths suite from them somewhere around here), so The Theatre was probably meant to be some sort of edumentainment game. The game was obviously never finished, probably from lack of funding or the whole company going under.

The description in the story is actually pretty accurate; it’s in a first-person perspective, with flat sprites in a 3D(ish) environment, and glitchy as hell. The Ticket Taker has an egg-shaped body, and one of his hands.is huge and misshapen, I think to look like he’s reaching toward you for your ticket. The description of the Swirly Head Man is also accurate, just a glitched version of the Ticket Taker, but I saw a few people saying that he looks like Giygas… That’s not the case. The features of his face are just swirled, and are red because his lips are gigantic. I have absolutely no idea why this happens, because while there are a few character sprites in the game’s resources, that isn’t one of them. Oh, and just to clarify, the sprite is a bit creepy. That’s all. It’s not terrifying, it’s never filled me with a sense of dread, it’s just a bit creepy.

The game plays pretty much exactly as stated in the story; so accurately, in fact, that I think the author just downloaded it somewhere and decided to make a scary story of his experiences. I’ll admit that some things in it can be unsettling, but not OMG crap-yer-pants scary. Like I said, the game is unfinished, and very glitchy.

I think the idea is to select a movie from the posters on the wall, enter the theater, and play a minigame. The minigames are glitchy (and missing resources) to the point of being almost unplayable, but there doesn’t seem to be a time limit on any of them, so you just have to plow through until you’ve done something right enough times to be dumped into the lobby. What’s described in the story is what happens if you don’t select a movie; you’ll be allowed to enter the theater, but since the parameter of which game to load hasn’t been set you’ll just be dumped back into the lobby.

Here’s where it gets a bit weird. If you continue to enter the theater without choosing a movie, odd, sometimes creepy things WILL happen. I’m not sure why, but if I were to make an educated guess it would be that glitching past the minigames like this causes variables to reach values that they weren’t meant to, resulting in things appearing where they shouldn’t. Or, y’know, the game is just glitched to hell and back. It’s been years, but here are some of the effects I can remember:

-The Swirly Head Ma

-Movie posters appearing out of their frame

-Textures changing color

-Legitimately disturbing audio issue

-Other character

-Oher areas

The last two are obviously the most interesting ones. Sometimes you’ll spawn in a small room with a black floor and green walls, which will crash the game if touched. Sometimes you’ll appear in a room similar to the lobby, with a concession stand… kind of. There’s a woman behind the counter, with an incredibly poorly-drawn popcorn machine and soda fountain, but it’s all just an image on the wall. It’s basically just a big yellow concession stand mural. I don’t remember if you can interact with it or not.

The only character that appears with talking about is a guy in a brown jacket, who appears on the sidewalk outside the lobby. Looking back, I don’t think the story mentioned this, but to the left of where you start out the wall is a row of glass doors looking out onto the street outside the theater. If you glitch past the minigames enough, a man in weird-looking jacket (I think it’s supposed to be tweed? it’s a mess) with a huge smile on his face will be just on the other side of the doors, staring at you. I mean a HUGE smile, like Freaky Fred or Spark Brushel (Google image search if you want).

…Actually, since he has the same body shape as the Ticket Taker, he looks a bit like the mayor from The Nightmare Before Christmas. His smile isn’t creepy though, it’s just broad; what IS creepy are his eyes. While the Ticket Taker, ash tray, and other sprites will always face you, the smiling guy is anchored in place like one of the walls. His eyes, however, are always staring right at you. Just thinking about that gives me chills… Okay, okay, while there’s nothing overtly scary or supernatural about the game itself, that’s one thing that I will admit legitimately scares me. Like a porcelain doll…

Ahem. That’s pretty much all there is to The Theatre. If you can find it somewhere, I’d recommend downloading it just to see what it’s like. Oh! One thing I’d forgotten… As stated in the story, getting the thing to run is, to say the least, difficult. I think someone got a hold of all of the code and resources and just compiled it and added their own installer or something. Again, there’s nothing paranormal about the installation, it just doesn’t work well
I DID NOT WRITE THISSS!