scarystory.pdf

Lili tanghe || Spring 2025

User @slutforbaudelaire posted:

Have you ever heard of the Bongcheon-dong ghost? Supposedly she was a woman who lost her baby, or her husband, or both. So she threw herself off the top floor of her apartment building. Now apparently if you walk on Bongcheon-dong street after midnight, she’ll follow you home, screaming for her baby. It’s supposed to be true, anyways. I saw it on a chat thread.

I like to drive alone after dark. The marine layer rolls in and you can’t see more than five feet in front of you. Even the high beams of the cars coming towards you aren’t seen until it’s too late. Sometimes I do it because I like it. Sometimes I do it because it’s my friend Lara’s party tonight, and I’m trying to make it to her house even though I’m already half an hour late. Lara lives in one of those bougie neighborhoods where you have to go on all these one lane winding roads through the hills to get to her mini mansion. The roads are made for people to stay in after dark.

I’m taking the turns slow because someone told me last week about a girl who smashed her car through a fence. She didn’t die though, but her friend was in the seat and her face is like, totally fucked up now. So that’s fresh in my head. I’m playing my slow songs and ignoring the sense that something bad is about to happen, and I’m doing it so well that I almost miss the shouting coming from the right side of the road.

My high beams are on so it’s hard as fuck to see and I quickly switch the setting in the case that it’s an incoming driver and there’s a flash where I see a figure on the side of the street. I’m driving past so all I get is the flash. All I see is a reaching hand and a red smear of a mouth.

I think I wanted to be the kind of person who would have turned around. I had this idea in my head that if something like this (not exactly this, but something like it) happened, I would have turned around and gotten out. But it happened too fast. The car was moving, it’s a one lane road, I wouldn’t have been able to turn around even if I wanted to and who’s to say I didn’t want to, anyways?.

I read online about this girl who heard noises coming from outside her house when she was home alone one night. It sounded like a woman crying, or a stray dog. She kept asking other people in the thread for advice, and finally decided to go outside even though everyone was telling her what a terrible idea that was. She stopped posting after that. My friend said it was fake.

I shut my eyes, just for a second, just as I drive past.

I make it to the party and it’s bright and I’m laughing and talking and all my friends are giving me a hard time for being so late, and I try not to flinch at the stained mouths from the wine coolers in the pantry. I don’t tell anyone about the shouting because the whole thing sounds stupid in this brightly lit kitchen in this oh-so-secure house. I lie down for a second and wake up smelling like the vodka someone spilled all over the couch the night before. I never like hanging around after the party is over, so I give my regards to a semiconscious Lara and head out. It’s early, and the gray is still there from the fog rolling in. I don’t play music on the drive back- my head hurts too much. There’s only one route out of the place, through the gate, back to my home. I take the turns slow, and I try to check my blind spots without really looking for too long at what’s around me. I want to go fast through that one stretch where I saw those thin arms reaching out but my foot is limp on the gas pedal. There’s nothing on the side of the road. I feel sick even though I have no reason to be.

I got home around eight in the morning. I’m resisting the urge to google Cather’s neighborhood, because I already know what I’ll find and I don’t know if it’ll be comforting or not. I showered and I didn’t think about it. I went back to sleep and didn't dream about reaching hands or a bright red mouth.