Riddles



[1]

A buddy of mine and I were talking, and somebody said we should go take some ghost photos, so we went to this old house on a mountain road where there'd been a murder.

We went late at night, and then we went from the front hall to the living room, to the bath, the toilet, the kitchen, the father's study, then up to the second floor, and then the children's rooms and parents room, then back downstairs to the first floor. Then we each took a photo of us with the house behind us.

Then the next day, we looked at the photos and we were surprised.

There was nothing.

I mean, we were in the photos. Just there weren't any ghosts or anything.

"Isn't that weird?" "Maybe they like, went to heaven, or something?" "Yeah maybe. We can't take any more ghost photos, then. That was a waste of time." "Not really. I saw a house that was pretty far from the rest. We can go their next." "Seriously? It empty?" "'course not. There were people there. Let's go tonight." "Okay, got it. I'll get ready."

I can't wait. This'll be a lot of fun.



[2]

My sister's an art teacher, and she rented a two bedroom cheap apartment to use as a studio. She never lived there, she just used it as a place to paint. Since I was hard up for a place to stay, she was nice and gave me one of the rooms.

So I moved my stuff in in the morning, and then went off to work. I came home excited, ready to enjoy my new place. My sister had told me to be really careful with the locks, so I locked the door with the deadbolt and chain. I made myself some instant ramen with the water heater in the kitchen, and then read some comics until it was time for bed. I checked the door and the gas, and went to sleep.

Around 2 or 3 in the morning, I heard the deadbolt unlock from teh front door. My sister had come to paint. I heard her go to the bedroom next to mine, the one she used as a studio. I'd been in there earlier, it was empty except for some canvas and paints.

I was tired and I had work again the next morning, so I stayed in bed. I could hear her mumbling and laughing to herself.

"Man, artists are weird people," I said to myself as I fell asleep again. When I woke up in the morning, my sister was gone and I was alone in the apartment. I got up and got ready, and then went out the front door.

It was only when I turned around to lock it that I realized, and I was suddenly terrified.

I never went back into the apartment after that.



[3]

At the end of June, a college student was found dead in his apartment. He'd been dead for at least a month, and his body was found in a bad state of decay. The cops called his brother Tatsuya in to identify the body, and while he was there they played the messages on the deceased's answering machine.

3/14: A message from his mother talking about a trip they took when he was little. It cut off midway. 3/16: An invitation to a trip by a friend. 3/21: A message from his father, that his grandpa wanted to see him. 4/25: A message from his friend saying that he needed to go to school. 5/1: A message from his mother telling him to call his brother Tatsuya.

That was all that was on the tape. "The calls from your parents were always at around 2:00 AM, the detective said. Tatsuya nodded.

"My parents died when we were both little..."



[4]

One day, when I was little, my sister's crying was bugging me so I killed her and threw her in a well.

The next day the body was gone.

Five years later, I got in a fight with a friend over something stupid, and I killed him too. I threw his body in the well, and the next day, it was gone.

Ten years later, I accidentally got a chick pregnant when we were drunk. I killed her and threw her body in the well, and the next day it was gone.

Fifteen years later, I had this boss who was a dick. I killed him and threw him in the well. The next day his body was gone.

Twenty years later, my mom was getting old and she needed to be put in a home. I didn't want to pay the money, so I killed her and threw her body in the well.

The next day, it was still there.



[5]

It's been a crappy day. I woke up late, I skipped breakfast, and I think I forgot to lock the door, too. And to make matters worse, my boss yelled at me again today. All the girls in the office hate him. The bald bastard. "I wonder if he's that guy who keeps stalking me?" I say to myself as I go home.

Home, of course, is a cheap apartment with a living kitchen and a seperate bedroom, and not even a window facing outside. Not that I care. It's cheap. I unlock the door and go inside.

The place is trashed. Somebody must've broken this morning... Crap. I'm tired. I'll just call the police tomorrow.

I decide to skip breakfast and head for the bedroom.



[6]

I got run over by a hit-and-run driver, and I had to go to the hospital for a month. When I finally got out, a good buddy of came over to hang out.

"Sorry I couldn't go see you in the hospital." "It's cool, man." "Did you see the guy who did it?" "Nah, it was too sudden. I don't remember." "I see." "You be careful too, buddy." "Yeah, I will. Anyway, it's getting late, so I'm gonna head home. Next time I'll go see you." "Thanks."



[7]

It's five minutes to midnight, and I'm on an express train on the outskirts of Tokyo. It's just me and a few other people, and then this one guy gets on. When he gets in, he looks around and suddenly has this terrified expression on his face as the doors close behind him.

He walks up to a woman, "Excuse me ma'am. Are you 28?" "That's exactly right," the woman says. "How could you tell?" He ignores her and turns to the man next to me, "And you, you're 45?" "Why yes, that's right." He looks to me, "And you're 35." "That's correct. But how do you know?" "And you miss, you're 50?" "Yes, that's right. But I'll be turning 51 tomorrow, in five minutes."

When she says this the man goes white as a sheet.

"I have a special power: I can see how long each of you is going to live."



[8]

An old man says to me, "Wanna play a game?

Here's the rules. I've got a bunch of boxes, and inside one of them is the prize money. The boxes are heavy and strong, too heavy to ever open with your hands, but there are axes and welding torches and all kinds of things around them, and you can take as much time as you want. When you find the money it's yours."

Well, I don't see any way I can lose then. Worst case, I spend a night opening boxes.

"By the way, there are a ton of boxes, but if you give me 50$ I'll start you right next to the prize money."

Even better! I take out my wallet and give the old guy 50$.

The game starts. The prize money is right in front of my eyes.



[9]

I hate being in crowds when it's hot. Hate it. I'm exhausted from work, and then I have to ride the rush hour train home. I stagger back to my apartment building, and I go inside and wait for the elevator. There's another friggin' crowd here. An old woman and her husband, two kids in elementary school, a college student, a businessman in a suit, and a mom with a kid on her back and another holding her hand.

We all get inside, and just as the doors are about to close this cute girl in a white dress slips past them. The weight buzzer goes off. Well, that makes sense. This thing's got a limit of 9 adults. She looks embarrassed and tries to get off, but I smile and step out of the elevator. As the doors close she's smiling back at me. Very cute. I honestly just didn't want to be stuck on a full elevator, but still, totally worth it. I take the next elevator up and go back to my place. The TV's on, and the news is talking about some chick that's gone missing.



[10]

Two years ago, a good friend of mine was riding his motorcycle, and he crashed into a tree and died. It was really sudden.

The day after the funeral, five of us went to his place and sorted through his stuff. The guy loved taking pictures, and he had tons of photos of the canpus, the local parts, landscapes, that sort of thing.

There was one that was kind of weird, though. It was a photo of his bathroom mirror. Just a straight on-shot of a full body mirror, reflecting back on an empty bathroom. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it, but it did feel strange. Is it because maybe you don't see that many photos of mirrors?



[11]

Two of my friends and I, we'll call 'em A and B, went ghost hunting in this old house where there'd been a murder one late one night. "Hey, I heard the killer really butchered these guys. I bet their ghosts must be really pissed off."

"Yeah, it was a massacre. He stabbed the husband's eyes out, and then killed the mother with a big knife, and then he strangled the kids." "But A, didn't you say you weren't scared off ghosts?" I said as we wandered around the house with just a single flashlight. We went through the kitchen, and down to the room where the murders occured. I could've sworn I could still see blood on the walls.

The place was creepy, but we didn't see anything weird. On the way out, I turned to A.

"Hey, I didn't see anything spooky, did you?" "Not me." "I didn't either." "I didn't see a thing." So there was nothing, then. Kinda lame, but a part of me feels relieved.



[12]

I got out of jail yesterday.

I killed five people, but since I was a minor they let me go after four years.

At the time it was on all the news. I really do feel bad about it, and I've decided to get a job as soon as I can to help my family.

Why do I have to help my family when I'm barely over 18? After I did it, my parents got fired, and my sister couldn't pay tuition and had to drop out of college. For four years they've been living off of savings, and never going out of the house except to buy food. And then their savings ran out six months ago, and since then they've been living off of salt and tap water.

I figured they all must have me, but when I got back they were acting like nothing's happened. My mom was laughing her butt off at a sitcom, and my sister was drying her hair while she talked to somebody on the phone. My dad was smiling at them while he drank from a bottle of beer.

Man, if I don't find work soon...



[13]

Friend: "I'm really sorry about this." Me: "Hey, stop it!" Friend: "My sister... she's sick. I need the money." Me: "Are you okay man? Snap out of it." Friend: "......Thanks." Me: "I can lend you like a thousand bucks, if you want it." Friend: "Thanks man. And like, well..." Me: "Here, take the rest of my dinner if you want it." Friend: "Thanks." Me: "What are you talking about? I mean, we're best pals right?" Friend: "I'm thinking of killing myself... If you weren't here I was gonna do it." Me: "Hey, don't worry about it." Friend: "Sorry to bug you this late at night."



[14]

My kid's weird. He's got this habit of pointing at faces sometimes, like in a picture or on TV.

It was only a little while ago that I learned whenever he points at somebody like that, they're gonna die within three days. Like today, when I went to turn on the TV, my son was pointing on the screen.

When I turned it on there was a US senator, talking about a civil rights bill.

Hmm, so he's gonna die too huh?



[15]

I've been really tired lately, so I took some time off work and went to England. I checked into a nice three story hotel after a long day of sightseeing, and just collapsed in bed.

Around 3:00 AM I heard some noise, and I look outside. The police are everywhere. They're yelling up at me that there's been a robbery and murder on the second floor. I'm on the top level, and I can see that the cops have the stairs and elevators locked down. Should be fine then.

I'm going back to bed. Hope they catch the guy.



[16]

My wife was attacked by a burglar when I was on my way home from work. She fought him off with a butcher knife, though. When I went to pick her up from the police station, she said, "When I heard the buzzer I thought it was you, but then there was somebody else he jumped me as soon as I opened the door!"

"You must've been so scared," I said, and I held her tightly.



[17]

One day I got an email from a buddy with a video file attached. In the video, he rigs a noose from the ceiling, climbs a chair, sticks his head in it and kicks the chair out. Then the movie ends.



[18]

"I was taking a shower when I heard a scream from the living room. I got out of the bath and ran over the naked. When I got there, there was a man in a mask, and my mom, sister, and dad all lay on the floor dead. When the man saw me he jumped out the window. I collapsed on the floor, pale."



[19]

There's a road I take on my way home from work that goes by a big abandoned apartment building that they're going to tear down. A lot of people commit suicide by jumping off of it, and a bunch of my co-workers say they've seen ghosts. There's no light around, and it's pretty creepy at night.

One night I was stuck late at work, and I didn't get off until about eleven. I was walking home past that apartment when I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye.

I looked up, and I could see a silhoutte on the building. "!?" I thought my heart was going to stop. It was definitely a person. Is it a ghost... I said to myself? And then they jumped off. I heard the horrible sound of a body hitting concrete, and I saw a woman laying on the ground.

I called 911 and ran over there. She was covered in blood and her arms were bent in weird ways. She wasn't a ghost, but it was still pretty scary. I could see a bunch of people looking down at me from above, they must've heard the crash.

The ambulance came and took her away, and I went home, but that night I was too freaked out to sleep.

I called the hospital the next day, and they said she was badly hurt but survived. I'm so glad... it would've been horrible if she'd died.



[20]

I know this isn't exactly an uncommon problem, but my mom treats my wife like crap. Whenever we come over to visit she never sets out a place for her, and today she tried to stuff her in a closet because she was "cleaning"!

This last one was too much for me. "Mom! Don't treat Ayanami that way!"

My mom looked at me and said, "Ayanami? Who's that?"

So rude. I just can't believe it.



[21]

I'm a courier, and sometimes my job takes me into bad parts of town. One day, I was delivering a package to this crappy old apartment building in a bad area of Tokyo. It was hot and I was feeling lazy, so I decided to take the elevator. I pushed the open button and the doors opened immediately. But as soon as they did, this woman ran out screaming with this crazy look on her face. She ran out of the building before I could say a word.

Who knows what THAT was about. Maybe it was some yakuza thing? Like they were whoring her out or something? Who knows what goes on in a run down old hellhole like this.

I looked inside the elevator, just to check for scary murderers. Nope, nothing. Oh well.

I get inside and hit the button for my floor.



[22]

When I was a kid, I had a friend who I'd always walk home with, and on the way home we'd always talk.

"Hey, we've got finals next week, right? You wanna come study with me?"

"Nah, tomorrow's the release date for Final Fantasy 1, so I'm gonna skip school and buy it."

"Dude, you do nothing but play video games all night, and you sleep in class, and you still always get As. How does that work?" "Actually, I can see the future. I know what'll be on the tests so I can tell the answers."

"Wow, that's amazing! You should go bet on horses and make like a million bucks!"

"Dude, calm down. It's a joke."

Sure enough, the next day he skipped class, and he still got straight As on his finals next week. Looking back, I should've known.



[23]

So I was bored, and I decided to take some ghost photos in an abandoned building near me. There was a room on the top floor that looked pretty haunted to me, so I set the camera in the middle and took three photos, one right after another. I left the building after that, and I didn't see any ghosts or anything.

I got the photos developed the next day, and I shivered when I saw them. Two of them had nothing unusual, but one of them had this creepy looking Japanese doll, sitting in the window and smiling at me. I sure as hell hadn't seen any dolls when I was there.

I got pretty freaked out, so I went back to the building next day when it was light, this time with a couple friends and ready to run the hell towards the exit if we saw anything. We got to the top floor, and I sighed in relief. It wasn't a ghost or anything at all. It was just a real old Japanese doll, that one of the previous owners had placed on the windowsill.

Aww, and for a second I thought I had a real ghost picture on my hands.



[24]

August, 1904. I found a strange diary in my home. I moved here six years ago after I married. A short while after, we had a daughter. Sadly, I lost both my wife and my daughter when the ship they were on sank two years ago. The house was empty now, and I decided to renovate it before I sold it to someone else. When the workers were knocking out a wall in the room that had been my wife's, a strange diary fell down from the ceiling. They gave the diary to me. Its handwriting was definitely my wife's.

This is what it said. 7/15: My life with you begins now. (This was the day we married.) 9/21: I was made to be with you. 12/9: Even so, I will never let you go. 2/23: Not long now. 2/29: Do you understand?

When I finished reading, I was so scared I gave up on selling the house and packed up right then and there, to move to a distant town.



[25]

There are two sisters (not identical and yes, blood related); let's call them Martha and Bertha. Martha is older than Bertha. They are at their mother's funeral when Martha see's a man whom she falls in love with at first sight. After, she tries to look for this strange man and asks everybody about him but gets nowhere. 6 months of tedious searching she gives up and then 2 months after, Bertha dies. Why is Bertha dead?



[26]

I live in Osaka, Japan and often use the subway to go to work in the morning. One day, when I was waiting for the train, I noticed a homeless man standing in a corner of the subway station, muttering to himself as people passed by. He was holding out a cup and seemed to be begging for spare change.

A fat woman passed by the homeless man and I distinctly heard him say, “Pig.”

Wow, I thought to myself. This homeless man is insulting people and he still expects them to give him money?

Then a tall businessman went by and the homeless guy muttered, “Human.”

Human? I can’t argue with that. Obviously, he was human.

The next day, I arrived early at the subway station and had some time to kill, so I decided to stand close to the homeless man and listen to his strange mutterings.

A thin, haggard-looking man passed in front of him and I heard the homeless guy mutter, “Cow.”

Cow? I thought. The man was much too skinny to be a cow. He looked more like a turkey or a chicken to me.

A minute or so later, a fat man went by and the homeless man said, “Potato.”

Potato? I was under the impression that he called all fat people “Pig”.

That day, at work, I couldn’t stop thinking about the homeless man and his puzzling behavior. I kept trying to find some logic or pattern in what he was muttering.

Perhaps he has some kind of psychic ability, I thought. Maybe he knows what these people were in a previous life. In Japan, many people believe in reincarnation.

I observed the homeless man many times and began to think my theory was right. I often heard him calling people things like “Rabbit” or “Onion” or “Sheep” or “Tomato”.

One day, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to ask him what was going on.

As I walked up to him, he looked at me and said “Bread.”

I tossed some money into his cup and asked him if he had some kind of psychic ability.

The homeless man smiled and said, “Yes, indeed. I do have a psychic ability. It is an ability I obtained years ago. But it is not what you might expect. I can’t tell the future or read minds or anything like that.”

“Then what is your ability?” I asked eagerly.

“The ability is merely to know the last thing somebody ate.” he said.

I laughed because I realized he was right. He said “Bread.” The last thing I had eaten for breakfast that day was toast. I walked away shaking my head. Of all the psychic abilities someone could have, that one must be the most useless.



[27]

I'm an important business man, and very rich. Because of my standing, I have to have bodyguards watching my premises at all times. A couple of days ago, one of the guards I had on watch burst into my office and told me that he just had a dream that there was somebody hiding in my closet and was going to kill me.

So we checked my closet and, sure enough, there was a guy there with a gun, so we restrained him till the police could come and take him away.

And the guard? I fired him.



[28]

Many years ago there was a rich old man who lived alone in a mansion on top of a hill. One night the police received a call that the man had committed suicide. When they arrived on the scene the old man's butler answered the door. He said he had been working late, cleaning up the kitchen, when he heard a shot ring out. He ran up the stairs and was horrified to find his employer dead.

The police asked to see the body, and the butler took them upstairs to the old man's bedroom.

The old man was sitting slumped over his desk. There was a pool of blood around him and a bullet wound in his temple. A gun was sitting on the table beside the man's right hand. Near his left there was a tape recorder. They dusted it for finger prints and found only the man's fingerprints on it.

One of the policemen pressed the button on the man's tape recorder. They heard the old man's voice saying, "My name is Samuel Richardson, I'm lonely and unhappy so I've decided to leave this cruel world. I'm sorry. May god have mercy on my soul." A second later, they heard the sound of a gunshot. After listening to the tape they arrested the butler for murder.

Why?



[29]

I have never believed in the paranormal. Ghosts, demons, aliens? It all seemed so stupid and fake to me. One of my friends is all superstitious about this and tries to convince me that this stuff is real and I should go look for a ghost or something on my own.

So whatever, I told him why not - just so I could prove him wrong and make him shut up. He told me there was an abandoned house a few blocks away from here that was alleged to be the home of a murdered woman years ago.

That night, I grabbed a tape recorder and flashlight and set off to explore the house and see if i could commune with a 'ghost'. I climbed through a window on the side of the house, crawled in and turned my light on.

The house was really desolate and empty. Definitely abandoned. The only thing in the house was police tape covering the entrance of the staircase. The room at the top must of been where the scene of the murder took place. I tear it off and walk up the stairs into the room.

Dead silence. This seems the best place to communicate with a ghost, I thought to myself, so I began recording with the recorder. "Hello? If there is a ghost in here, show me a sign and make a sound."

I stood there for about 10 seconds waiting for something.

Nothing.

I stop the recording and wait a moment. I press play.

"Hello? If there is a ghost in here, show me a sign and make a sound."

Silence.

My heart sinks. I run out as fast as I can and don't look back. I had never been so afraid in my life.



[30]

Yesterday, I went to the library to look up some horror novels. I asked the librarian where the horror section was, and she directed me to a collection of shelves towards the far end of the building against a wall.

I was browsing through the titles there when I came across a gap in the books, and noticed a beautiful girl on the other side peering hrough at me on the other side. Our eyes met for a brief moment and she smiled. My social awkwardness got the better of me and I turned around, blushing, and looked at other books away from her. I tried to work up the courage to talk to her, but in the end I just picked up a couple of books and brought them to the counter.

I wish I wasn't such a wimp. If I had talked to her, maybe I could've gotten her number...



[31]

I'm a huge believer in the supernatural, but my friend (we'll call him Joe) always used to tease me about it. Well, not any more.

I made him try this ritual I found online. The idea is simple : you sit in a circle of salt in a darkened room, with four candles at the cardinal points. He was pretty reluctant to try it at first, but he came round eventually.

I explained that it was really important for Joe to stay in the circle while I did the ritual. He called bull, but I made sure that he stayed put. He is my best friend, after all.

Anyway, the whole thing was pretty disappointing. Nothing really happened - at least not that I could see. Joe looked really pale though.

It's funny. He hasn't really hung out with me since. I haven't heard a word out of him for weeks now. Then again, I guess that just proves that I was right all along.



[32]

My girlfriend is kind of dumb. She called me up today saying that she was really scared about those murders on the news. You know, the ones by that serial killer. All the TV Shows are saying that he kidnapped his victims from their houses and kept them tied up for weeks before killing them and dumping the bodies in the river.

But it wasn't the killer she was worried about - it was the victims.

Apparently she'd heard some stupid story about how the ghosts of people who've died in violent ways sometimes come back looking for vengeance on the ones who killed them. She's really scared because her house backs onto the graveyard, and she figures they'd find her first.

I told her not to be silly. The whole idea of ghosts is ridiculous. And even if the victims could rise up from the dead, they wouldn't be in a position to come after anyone with their limbs sliced off.

She said that wasn't a very funny joke, but she seemed reassured. Like I said, she's kind of dumb.



[33]