Maggots
By Mariko Eguchi
When I was a high school student, I lived in an old house. One night, I studied at night. It was a hot and humid night. I stood up to go to bathroom and walked to the door, when I stepped on something. I looked at the sole of my bare foot and found a maggot stuck on it. The maggot was still alive. I threw it away and shouted, “Mom!”
My mother came to me out of the kitchen. She asked, “What’s the matter?” I said, “There was a maggot on the floor!”
Then I felt something fall on my hair. I stroked my hair. I found a shiny white maggot between my fingers. Horrified, I shook it off madly, shouting “Oh, no!”
Then my mother said, “Look!”
I looked up and I saw a patch of maggots wiggling on the ceiling, just about to fall down. They were extremely disgusting.
She said, “there is something up there.”
Bravely, she opened the closet door and climbed on the upper board. She pushed up the ceiling board, stuck her head in the attic. I followed her. She shone the attic floor with a flashlight. The musty and dusty smell came to my nose.
On the other side of the ceiling, there was a mound of maggots eating a dead rat.
A Centipede
By Riku Nagata
When I was a junior high school student, I came home always tired from my club activities. I used to stay up to midnight, but on that day I slept earlier than usual, because I was really tired.
I went to the bathroom before going to bed. Then I noticed the window was open. So I closed it. Then I went into my bed, plugged my ears with earphones, then tried to sleep listening to music.
After a short time, I was getting sleepy. Then I felt something on my right arm. I thought the earphone cord, and I swung it off. Soon I fell asleep.
After that, I felt something on my neck. I thought the earphone cord hit me again, so I shook it off. However, that think moved from the neck to the mouth. I tried to remove it, but it moved from the mouth to the ear, and then to the nose.
I got annoyed and caught it with my right hand. I turned on the light and was alarmed at the identity of it. It was a big centipede!
I got panicked and tried to throw it out of the window. I tried to open the window near my bed. That centipede is moving to my shoulder!
I shook my arm madly and it was thrown to the wall. As a result, I lost sight of the centipede. It hid itself somewhere in my bedroom. But I heard it moving around.
I was so scared that I ran out of the room. On that night, I slept on the living room sofa.
The next morning, I looked around inside of my bedroom for the centipede. I found a dead centipede. The body was broken into pieces. At first, I was relived. But it was different from the one I saw the previous night. The dead one was smaller. The one I saw was at least 10 centimeter long.
A Spider
By Kazuya Miyashita
In one cold and silent night, I didn’t feel good. So I finished my work earlier and came home. It was two o’clock midnight. My apartment was very old. I went upstairs.
I opened the door. My room was dark and silent. I heard some spooky sounds. It sounded like a rustle of old paper. I was scared, so I immediately turn on the light.
My room was quiet. Nothing was moving. But I certainly heard something. Then I heard the same noise again! Something was there! I got panicked. I said “What was it? What was it?” Fearfully I looked around.
At the corner of the room I saw an enormous spider. It had long legs. It ran toward me!
I really hate spiders! I rushed out of my room.
I must kill the spider, I thought. I took a long broom and got into the room again, trying to kill the spider.
When I tried to poke the spider, it suddenly jumped at me. I madly swung the broom!
The broom that I shook somehow hit the spider. The spider stopped moving. I thought the spider was dead.
Then using the broom, I tried to throw it into a trash box. Suddenly the spider started to move! The spider was pretending to be dead!
In a hurry I knocked it many times… many times… all over the place. The spider was dead. I threw it away in the trush box in a hurry.
When I took a deep breath, I heard another sound from behind.
“Ruffles, ruffles…”
Alone in a Dormitory
By Sayuri Kakuta
I live in a dormitory where a lot of international students live. One summer night I was unable to sleep. It was a quiet night, because all residents went back to their home countries. I was the only person in the building.
So, I started to watch YouTube videos. I found myself watching make-up videos for about 2 hours, but I was so awake that I couldn’t sleep at all. So, I decided to watch something else. Then I was attracted to a war movie, remembering that the end of the World War II came on a hot summer day. I thought I should watch a war movie to learn how people lived during the war. I started to watch the movie in my silent room. I heard only movie sounds.
In the movie, people were killed by guns. I was watching some people without arms or legs or other parts of the body. I was listening to roars of airplanes and shots. Then, suddenly I heard noise. I felt something was moving outside of my room. But I didn’t know what was moving. The noise became bigger and bigger. I couldn’t help remembering a scary scene in the war movie. I couldn’t move and held my stuffed bear. But my stuffed bear couldn’t help me, because it couldn’t move too. I froze on my bed with my teddy bear.
After a while, the sound stopped. I was a little relieved and I went out of my room in order to check the cause of noise. I walked through the dark hallway alone.
In the kitchen water was dropping slowly. Then something moved again with big sounds. I was upset and went back to my room, but I couldn’t open the door of my room, because my hands were so wet with sweat.
At that time, the door of the room next to mine opened slowly with dull sounds. It should not open, because the student in the room was not here. I knew she went back to her country during summer vacation. I cried out for help. Then the student who standing in front of me cried out too.
After that, I learned she came back to Japan earlier and used the washing machine at night.
The Door of my Apartment
By Himeka Fuchi
One day, I went home after my part-time job. It was already dark, so I ran home.
I was panting when I arrived at my apartment. I inserted the key and I tried to open the door.
However, when I grasped the doorknob, the door opened. I was surprised, because I didn’t turn the key, yet. I felt a spine-tingling chill. I thought that someone was in my home.
So, I called my friend who lived next door and entered the room together, but there was no one. I called my mother on the phone and talked about this thing. My mother was afraid.
Two hours later, the bell of my home rang. I thought of a man who wanted to open my house standing with a knife in his hand. I didn’t open the door. The dell rang many times. My heartbeat was faster, but it didn’t stop ringing. So, I reluctantly peek at the peephole and I could see two policemen there. I got quite relieved to discover so and opened the door.
The policeman said it might be a case, but I wanted to believe that I had forgotten closing the door. So, I told the policeman that I thought I just had forgotten locking the door and asked him not to worry about it.
The next day, when I went to university, I double checked the lock with my friend. I thought that everything would be okay.
I went to my part-time job, and came back as usual at night. I said to myself that that day everything would be okay, and I told it to myself again and again.
However, when I grasped the door, the door was not locked. The door was not locked. It was the second time that the door was not locked. I felt a spine-chilling fear. This time I didn’t forget locking the door because I had my friend check the door closed. I thought that my house was in danger and I couldn’t live in this house. So, I stayed at my friend’s house for a while.
Phone calls at Night
By Shusuke Toda
It was a humid and spooky night. I was exhausted in my apartment. On that night at about half past eleven, I got a phone call from the number I didn’t know. I did not answer. Then I just left it and went to bed since I had class the next day, but my phone started to ring again in the mid-night. It made me little scared so I tried to pretend I could not hear.
The phone stopped ringing but after a while I heard the noise of something knocking outside. I listened to the sound since I could not sleep because of the mysterious phone call. I noticed that the sound was the noise of someone or something knocking on my window. I could not believe it because my room had a porch and the porch was about three meters high from the ground! It made me more scared, but the terrible night would not finish.
The phone call came again from the same unknown number. I was freaking out by the phone call and the knocking of the window. I wanted to try to ask my friend for help, but my phone was ringing at the moment and I was afraid my phone was hacked.
I tried to run away out of my house. Just I was about to to get out of my house, I heard another knocking sound knocking on the next door. It came closer and closer to my door. I was locked in my room without a way to get out of the house or to call someone for the help. I was so scared in the house alone.
I went to the bed and crawled inside the bed trying to pass this horrible night and wait for the light of the shining morning, but I heard another sound in the knocking of the window, door, and the phone.
I thought I was going mad because of the noise. Then I found the origin of the sound. It was my alarm. I was just having a horrible nightmare.
