#1
Turns out she was just doing that thing cats do when they have the whole house to themselves and want to... declare they've claimed it? I have NO idea, but the first time I heard it, I thought she was dying. I jumped out of bed and ran to her, thinking she was in the throes of death. Nope, perfectly happy to see me. Just screaming for no reason.
I learned to tune them out. But when she'd meow when she was going to puke? Oh, I learned that HELLA fast and would jump out of bed and run to her to catch the puke as fast as I could after that.
Then in her last months, she didn't meow at all. I got to sleep in.
And then she died in my arms without a peep two weeks ago.
I miss her morning wails of "DIS MY HAUWSE, HEER ME ROAR".
#2
A few days ago, netizen u/Stlouizsin asked the question of the AskReddit community: "What is the scariest sound you’ve ever heard in the middle of the night?", and the resulting thread has already collected almost two thousand different stories, scary and not so, as well as a lively discussion about them all. And today we, Bored Panda, are making a selection of the most interesting of them, especially for you.
#4
Then I heard the scream again, closer this time. It was so loud I d**n near pissed myself too, it startled me so bad. I looked up, and there was a g*****n owl just sitting there on a branch minding its own business, screaming like a woman in a slasher flick. Weirdest combination of terrified and stupid I've ever felt.
#5
Bonus if it's on your ceiling above the bed and it's falling on you.
#6
Well, of course, we are all adults, and we understand perfectly well that literally behind every strange sound in the night there’s something extremely simple and real (even if very dangerous - like a bear prowling through the night forest). But our subconscious (and at this level many of us still remain little frightened kids) sometimes doesn’t let us believe it.
Once upon a time, many thousands of years ago, our distant ancestors, sitting in cold wet caves and hearing the howling of the wind and other terrible sounds outside, came up with legends for themselves.
This is how spirits and gods appeared, mighty heroes, who split the sky with stone axes in wrath, and terrible half-beasts, half-monsters, thirsting for hot human blood outside the cave. For the night, as you may know, is dark and full of terrors.
#7
#8
#9
Today, after thousands of years, we are no longer such believers, as our brain has come a long way with evolution - but the body, its physiological reactions in many ways remain the same as they were during the Stone Age. As one writer reasonably noted, "The human psyche is nothing more than a random plaque on the endocrine glands..."
So now, having heard some incomprehensible sound in the middle of the night, instead of calmly getting up, turning on the light and going to figure out what the hell is going on, we sometimes just curl up in horror under the blanket, wanting only one thing - for this horror to end or go away as soon as possible.
And then it turns out, of course, that it was just a showdown between raccoons outside the window...
#10
When she has one of those nightmares, she screams, "No!" and begs for the person in her nightmare to stop. I have woken her up during a nightmare to try to help her, but she becomes very combative, like she's still trying to defend herself. She has injured me on multiple occasions, so I only wake her up now if the nightmare seems to be particularly distressing.
Fortunately, they've gotten less frequent over the years, but I hate that she has ever had to endure this.
#11
#12
Alfred Hitchcock, the great master of horror movies, understood the nature of horror perfectly well, and therefore very rarely did any zombies, ghouls or other undead appear on his screen. Because horror isn't really about some scary creature willing to devour you. Real horror is when your subconscious hears a sound and paints the pictures in your head.
Just take the maestro's most famous film, "The Birds." Why did those seagulls suddenly go crazy and start attacking a simple house en masse? The original story by Daphne du Maurier at least hints at the reasons (even if it's very vague), but in the movie the birds just attack. Silently and for no reason, making everything that happens even more eerie.
The same thing happens in many of the stories in this list. Yes, it could be a dog, a coyote, a fox, a drunken neighbor, or the aforementioned raccoons. But hey, what does that matter when we wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night?
#13
#14
Happened to me a few times now. Scary as hell.
#15
Anyway, I had woke up for no reason to find my beagle dog at the foot of my bed, growling very low and quiet. So I laid still.
I heard whispering of like clothes, when you walk they swish. That noise.
Watched as some man stood in the doorway to mine and my sister's bedroom, walked down, did the same to my parents and brothers bedrooms and then left with a very quiet click of the sliding glass door in the kitchen.
The swish/whisper of someone walking quietly and the click of that door is why in the last 35 years I've always locked everything.
Okay, now how about sharing your own scary auditory memories? Because I'll never believe that you haven't had anything like that in your entire life. In the end, we are all human and no matter how fearless we are, we’re still afraid of something and somewhere deep down inside.
So now, please feel free to share your own chilling stories in the comments below, or just read these tales of ours - and don't forget to check the locks in the evening before you go to bed. Just in case, because you know, anything can actually happen...
#16
Apparently the Amazon delivery guy was on his phone as he dropped my package off.
#17
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