Dark horror stories from the Northern California town of Sandcastle where good and evil fight over the souls of the townspeople.
Welcome to Scary Story Time. Tonight’s story is about the blackout in California where Sandcastle was definitely a participant. Unlike the other areas where people gathered together and had a little fun, some members of the Sandcastle community were plagued by a new threat to their existence. A very hungry threat.
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Now let’s begin.
~~~ 1 ~~~
There was nothing but darkness surrounding Cassie Bale’s home as she pulled into her driveway. It was a long, horrendous day at work as she had to answer calls at the power company explaining to residents why their power would be shut off for the next five long days. If people would simply understand that the combination of dry heat, dry grass, and wind creates the worst condition for any kind of catalyst including overheating hedge trimmers, tossed cigarettes, or even the dreaded dry lightning strike then her day would be a lot less stressful.
As she unlocked her door she thought about walking straight over to her liquor cabinet and start her night with a nice shot of tequila. Instead, she tried the light switch and sighed as she stared into the dark hallway. She already knew there would be no power in town, but on the way home from work 32 miles away she had hoped they changed their minds. Not a chance.
The bright light from her cell phone lit up the hallway as she stepped into her kitchen. While lighting a candle and switching off her phone, she swore something was off. After lighting a few more candles, she looked around the room and noticed the knife drawer was open. Grabbing the large kitchen knife, she turned on her cell phone again and began looking around the house. Figuring she had left it open before leaving for work, she took the knife into the living room along with a candle and her phone.
At first, she didn’t notice him sitting in the corner of the room. As Cassie placed the candle on the table next to the armchair, she saw his hand. It was shaking just ever so softly and was so white she could almost see it in the dark while her eyes adjusted to the dim moonlight. Stepping back in fear, she pointed the knife toward the intruder and shook it at him.
“What do you want?”
“Cassie, it’s Don,’ his voice shook as much as his hand.
“Don? What’s wrong with you?” she held the candle up to his face and studied the dark eyes and pale skin. He looked like he had died and come back from the grave.
“I don’t feel good, Cassie. My lights went out at home and as I was trying to find a flashlight in the garage some freak jumped out of nowhere and bit my neck.” he pulled down the turtle neck and showed her the oozing wound. It was bleeding all down his shirt and soaking the cloth. A mix of pus and blood festered around the outside of the bite.
Cassie held back the bile as she backed away slowly and looked at her phone. She began dialing 911 when Don pulled the phone from her hand. “What are you…”
“Don’t.” Don’s voice was suddenly raspy and thick. He coughed and wheezed a few times then began to shake violently until his eyes rolled back into his head. The wound looked like it was getting bigger as the skin around it was turning black. Don’s face was suddenly a very pale shade of gray and the veins around the wound and his face were black, still pumping something although it didn’t look like blood.
Cassie stepped back and looked for her phone. He was still gripping it with his left hand and as she tried to pull it out of his grasp, he grabbed her arm with his other hand. She watched his face contort and twitch until his mouth was wide open with black liquid oozing from his lips.
“Oh Don, what happened to you?” she cried as she pried his fingers off of her wrist. He squeezed tighter and leaned forward toward her. At first, she thought he was going to fall over until she felt his teeth rip into her skin. Cassie screamed at the pain and yanked her arm back, leaving freshly torn skin between his teeth.
Cradling her arm and screaming, she ran into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. In the dark, she felt around for a towel and turned on the water. Stifling back her tears, she shoved her arm under the running water and then wrapped it up in the towel. The pain was unbearable. She crawled into the bathtub and squeezed her eyes shut while listening for her neighbor or whatever that thing was in her house. Her eyelids jerked open at the sound of scratching at the bathroom door. She could faintly see fingers probing under the door in the moonlight. Cassie was afraid to even breathe in fear he might hear her so she continued to hold her breath.
A few moments later the scratching stopped and dragging footsteps started down the hall. Letting out a quick breath, Cassie stood and slowly stepped out of the tub. She was feeling a little dizzy and looked down at her arm. It didn’t look too bad–at least not as bad as his festering neck. What the hell was going on? What in the world was wrong with her neighbor?
Knowing that she had to get antibiotics for the bite, Cassie opened the bathroom door a crack and noticed he was gone. She felt her way through the hall and into the living room, grabbing her phone off the floor along the way. The candles were still lit in the kitchen which made a shimmering glow off the knife she had placed on the table earlier. Grabbing the knife by the handle, she noticed something moving in the reflection of the blade. Carefully, she tiptoed across the floor and into the kitchen, plunging the knife into the gut of the person.
“Cass, what that hell?” her boyfriend grabbed at his stomach and slowly dropped to the floor.
“Oh God, no, Troy!” she cried out. Despite the sudden pain in her soul, she looked desperate at the bleeding wound on his belly and began to grow hungry at the sight.
Her mind screamed as she knelt down to the floor and lapped up the blood coming from his belly. With a hand on each side of the gash, she pulled his torso open then slowly pressed her face inside. With each bite from her mouth, her sobs slowly quieted and only a growing hunger remained. Dropping down to his knees next to her, Don joined in on the feast, only grunting a reply.
As they lapped up the rest of Troy’s entrails and began tearing at his arms and legs, blue and red lights flashed inside the house. Cassie, now oblivious to any human interaction, looked up the lights for a moment then back at her prey. Taking one last look at Troy, she stabbed him in the eye with her finger then pulled it out of the socket.
A voice echoed through the open door. “Is everyone all right in there? Screaming was reported.”
Cassie looked over at the cop coming through the door as Don knocked the eyeball from her hand then picked it up, squishing it between his fingers.
“What the…” the cop began to squeeze the portable microphone attached to his shoulder when Cassie lunged at him. Two shots rang out from his pistol as she knocked him down then began to tear at the flesh on his face.
“Help! Officer down. I’m down!” he managed to yell as he squeezed the mic and then screamed as the flesh was torn from his neck.
~~~ 2 ~~~
As Cassie devoured the rest of Troy’s limp body and started on the cop, Lt. Reggie Drummond and Police Chief Casey Weinsfield came rushing through the door. Both noticed the bloody scene immediately. “Stop! Stop what you’re doing. This is the police! Stand up and put your hands behind your head or I will shoot you.”
Cass turned for a brief moment then continued to scoop the liver from Troy’s torso. Both Casey and Reggie fire bullets into the woman, knocking her down next to the body. In the corner of his eye, Casey noticed a third catatonic person grab Reggie’s shoulder. The mouth dripping with black ooze was inches away from Reggie’s neck when Casey fired twice into the skull of the attacker then once again into its chest as it dropped to the floor.
“What the hell is going on here?” Reggie said as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
Casey noticed the beat cop with his half-eaten face begin to twitch and move as well as the woman he just put at least four bullets into stood up. With one shot to her head, she dropped dead to the floor. Before the cop on the ground could move anymore, Reggie pushed him over and threw a pair of handcuffs on the cop’s wrists. He gnashed at Reggie’s ankles with his teeth while Casey shook his head in disbelief.
“Put my belt around his mouth so he can’t bite anything.” Casey tossed his belt at Reggie then dispatched the EMTs. “Bring body bags and, hell, I’m going to quarantine the area. Bring what you need to. I don’t know what it is, just suit up.”
~~~ 3 ~~~
It was almost midnight before the EMTs arrived. With the power out all over town, the house lights were off as were the street lights. Sandcastle was dark. The three bodies of the residents were brought back in one ambulance and put inside an airtight chamber at the hospital. The cop with his face half eaten off, Office Randal Billings, was also brought into the chamber, but not in a body bag. By orders of the police chief, Billings was strapped down to the table. His heartbeat was very faint but fast and his breathing was shallow, but at least he was still alive.
Doctor Flint hated the idea of wearing quarantine gear and working under generator lights, but he really had no other choice. The city’s power was shut down for the night on direct orders from the governor and there was nothing the hospital could do to stop the plan. With 3 mothers giving birth and two emergency surgeries, they had to limit the resources and make do with what they had. All of the doctors were on call that night just for emergencies. Flint was one of them. He was happily snug in his down covers when the call came in.
“I hope you’re happy that you woke me up from my slumber,” he grumbled as he pushed the last dead body into the cold chamber.
Billings rustled on the table behind the doctor and for a moment, Flint felt a little panicked. “Nonsense!” he said with a long breath. As he turned around, he noticed the flesh of the cop was now a stone grey color and there was a trickle of black ooze coming from the hole in his cheek. As Flint moved closer to the man on the table, he grabbed a pair of thick rubber gloves and put them on. The beat cop wrestled with the straps but still couldn’t break free from the hold they had on him.
“Would you like a glass of water?” Flint stepped reluctantly toward the writhing body on the table.
Instead of an answer, the cop grunted and snapped in Flint’s direction. As he stepped closer, the cop forced his arms up and snapped both of the straps. He jumped at Flint, but as his legs were still held down by the ankles Billings fell off the table, bringing it down with him, and smacked his head on the corner of the marble sink, cracking his head open. Brain fluid trickled from the crack in his skull, but that didn’t stop Billings. His fingers turned white as he pulled himself, and the medical table, toward the doctor.
“Oh shit!” Doctor Flint limped across the room and out the door, locking it behind him.
~~~ 4 ~~~
Casey, and the rest of the police officers left at the house searched the place for more people. The German Shepherd K9’s didn’t want to go anywhere near the mess made on the carpet by the deceased. In fact, they shied away from the mess and tried to run outside. As he was watching the dogs flip out, a woman dressed in black came to the door.
“This is a crime scene, ma’am. Did you not see the yellow tape?” Reggie motioned for the woman to go back outside.
“Is Cassie okay?”
“And you are?” Casey put his hand on her back and led her back outside. He gave her the once over noticing the pentagram tattoo with an eye in the middle to the left of her sternum, over her heart.
“Amanda. My name is Amanda. I’m her friend.” the woman said, pulling back her long black hair into a ponytail.
“No, she’s not. And you should be home. It isn’t safe out tonight during the blackout.”
“That’s fine. I’m protected.”
“Are you now? Is that what the tattoo is about? The one on your chest?”
“That is the symbol of my coven, officer. Do you have a problem with that?” she smirked. For a moment he swore her eyes briefly turned black.
“Not at all, as long as you’re not involved in this murder and you aren’t doing any harm.”
He noticed tears appearing in the corners of the woman’s eyes. “Of course not! She was my friend. I was coming over to check to see if she wanted to continue our little ritual.”
“Ritual?” Casey asked.
“Yeah, we were having some wine last night and got a little drunk. We put a hex on our neighbor Don. It was just a joke. He’s a total jerk. Maybe you should see if he was the one who did this?”
“You said Don. Donald Bishop? The man who lives next door right there?” Casey pointed toward the other victim’s house.
“Yes, that one. he’s a complete idiot. He’s always complaining about my rotties and everything else so we had a little bit of fun. I live on the other side of him. He threatens us daily, but he’s harmless. At least I thought so.”
“Don is dead, too. Come down to the station with us. We have power, coffee, and donuts.” he laughed for a second.
“W T F? Donald? Well damn! Maybe it worked after all,” she put her hand over her mouth. “No, that’s not right. It was a joke. I wouldn’t really want that to happen to him. And Cassie. My God. What did we do?”
“You tell me,” Casey offered for her to get into the back of his car.
“I have to go feed my dogs first, officer.” She started to walk away and Casey followed.
“Mind if I come along?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No, no you don’t.
Amanda’s house was only a two-minute walk away. When she opened the door, Casey immediately smelled cinnamon and cloves. Inside, it was dark except for the tall pillar candles lit in the middle of the dining room table and a few held inside wall sconces. Amanda pulled out a few pieces of beef from the refrigerator and chopped them up then poured some brown gravy over the meat. She took one of the sconces off of the wall and used it to light the way to the backyard. Casey followed right behind her.
“You might want to back away, officer. They don’t like strangers.” she stepped out on the back porch and put down the dishes. Two very large rottweilers began slurping up the food. For a second she laughed and pet the back of the closest dog with her long red nails.
Casey watched her, almost feeling entranced by her grace. He suddenly felt relaxed, more so than ever before. He noticed her slender yet shapely body and smiled.
“What’s wrong, officer? Having second thoughts about taking me in?”
Her question pulled him out of the trance. “No ma’am. I’m just wondering why I’ve never seen you before. Are you finished? We need to get going. The later it gets the more trouble I have to deal with in town. I’d rather not have you down there when the hoods come out.”
~~~ 5 ~~~
Amanda sat gracefully at the long table with her legs crossed and hands placed flat on top of the fake wood. While it was easier to work with nature on real material, this man-made work would do. She noticed the red light on the camera in the corner of the room and smiled then winked. She was not only clairvoyant, but empathic, and she felt the attraction Casey had for her. Oddly enough, she had a dream about him the night before and having never met him before piqued her curiosity.
“Miss Allarie…”
“That’s Alarie,” she corrected him. “It’s French.”
“Forgive me,” he smiled. “Miss Alarie, I just wanted to get the details from you of what happened the night before. You’re not being accused of anything but you were the last person to see him alive. My deputy says that according to Don’s boss, he never showed up for work. What happened?”
She studied him for a moment, sending alluring thoughts she knew he felt as she watched him shuffle nervously after sitting down in front of her. With a quirk in her smile, Amanda started her story. “Don was always a jerk. He yelled at me all of the time for my dogs no matter what they did. One time he even threatened to poison them. Yesterday, Cass and I were sitting out in my backyard having a bottle of wine and he just started in on us, mumbling something about dogs and his shotgun. She started asking him about what he was talking about and he just started screaming at her for no reason. He said, and I quote, ‘the moment you two witches die or move out will be the happiest day of my life!’ and then he went inside.
“And then what happened?” Casey leaned forward. Amanda thought he might grab for her hand but then he pulled away and leaned back.
“Cass and I grabbed a few candles and a black crystal shard. We joked around about zombies coming out of the grave to get him. It was really immature and stupid but we had fun. Most of the time we were drinking and goofing off.”
She watched him flip his pen around his fingers and wondered just how talented those fingers could be. Casey then looked at her as if he knew what she was thinking and smiled. “Zombies?”
“Yeah, I know. It’s dumb but more fun than vampires or werewolves since none of them are real.”
“What happened after that?”
Amanda suddenly felt an odd feeling of fear inside the man sitting across from her. The mood he expressed gave her goosebumps. “What do you mean? What happened to Cass? And Don?”
“We don’t know exactly. They looked like they had been dead several days and had bite marks on them with some kind of black liquid bleeding from their organs. We won’t know for a few days what that black liquid is due to the power blackout. Her boyfriend Troy was killed, too. Did you bring him up in this so-called spell casting?”
“Um…no. Of course not. It was all a joke.” Amanda bit her lip. She didn’t want to talk about it any longer. Had she caused this to happen?
“Your um…coven. Where are they?”
Amanda rubbed the tattoo on the inside of her wrist. About the only violent task she ever had to do was give herself a tattoo of a moon on her wrist then get one over her heart by their tattoo artist. She stared hard at the police chief trying to read his thoughts without any results except warmth and the desire to protect. “They’re all over, but we are peaceful. We don’t talk about hurting people and I certainly don’t know how to cast a zombie spell. That would require blowfish poison and they don’t eat people.”
“Ever hear of bath salts?” he laughed.
By the tone of his voice, she couldn’t tell if he was joking or serious. She let out a stifled laugh and then crossed her arms, unwilling to let him see into her heart.
“Well, that’s all I have for you. I just wanted to see how you fit into all of this since you’re her friend and a neighbor. I don’t see any reason to hold you for anything. You might want to consider staying somewhere else during the power outage with whatever is going on in your neighborhood.” he stood and adjusted his tie before offering to help Amanda up out of her chair.
“I’ll be fine. I have my dogs who need me there,” she said and then let out a scoff. “And who knows? Maybe spells that actually work.”
~~~ 6 ~~~
After Casey dropped Amelia off at her house, she went inside and lit a set of candles as well as a few lanterns. While she didn’t want to run out of the candles, she had a lot of kerosene on hand that would probably last until the next few days. She thought about her time at the station and realized that she really was being interrogated by that cop. Hopefully, her thoughts had sedated him enough to not understand that she was capable of performing psychic magic as that would make her even more suspicious. She really had no intention of causing any harm to anyone. She didn’t even think the spell would work, especially using an Ouija board of all things!
As she poured a glass of wine and held the black crystal shard tightly in her hand, a vision came into her head. It was a woman with a white flowing dress and long, red hair. Her skin was damp and covered in moss. The air was thick and heavy and as she tried to breathe, she realized the woman’s hand was pressing against her heart. The tattoo burned as her mind screamed out to Casey. Just then, the phone rang and the woman in white disappeared. Pouring salt around in a circle, Amanda grasped her cell phone and answered. It was Casey Weinstein.
“Hey Amanda, one more thing.”
“Yes?” she breathed heavily into the phone, ready to answer anything as he just saved her life.
“Do you want to have dinner tomorrow night?”
She laughed and agreed. He didn’t know it, but he just saved her from the lady of the lake and she wanted to thank him any way she could.
Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this story, head on over to the website at www.scarystorytime.com and make a comment. You can also leave a review on Apple Podcasts, formerly iTunes. Your review might be read during the end of the show or you can call in your comments to 707-776-6592, that is 707-SPOOKYBOO-22, and your comment will be played in your own voice.
I’d also love it if you checked out the San Francisco Bay Area’s punk band Stay Out. You’ll love their music.
Stay tuned for another edition of Sandcastle. Be sure to tell your friends and visit our little group on the facebook group Scary Stories, Creepypasta, and Other Bits of Horror where I welcome you to share your own scary stories.
That’s all for tonight. I’ll see you in your nightmares.
This story is a special edition available on Stereo Dread hosted by Dezombified. Be sure to subscribe when listening!
Looking back at when I lived in Sandcastle, California I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t frightened. I had moved there when my parents died in a horrible freak car accident on the way to visit my grandparents in Sandcastle. I wasn’t with them at the time and had I been I wouldn’t be here today.
Before my parents had died, they used to laugh about how they escaped Sandcastle and moved on to better things. My dad took a job at a computer company in San Jose in the 80s when he was 18 and my mom, who was only 17 at the time, followed him. I guess they got lucky because he quickly became the CEO of this huge company and life was nice for all of us. Mom didn’t have to work and I went to a local private school which was really hard to get into.
I had never been to Sandcastle to visit my extended family. My parents told me they never wanted to go back there because it was an evil place. Bad things happened there. They wouldn’t even bring me to visit or meet my grandparents on either side. They weren’t superstitious or anything, they just hated it in the old beach town. Many of their friends died while they were growing up–too many for such a small area it seemed–and as the people died, more people showed up. It was like a quota had to be filled and released. With every death, a new life was born or new faces moved in.
Then it happened. My maternal grandmother passed away. Mom was in shambles. She still loved her mother, but after her friend Sandy died she never wanted to go back. Ever. The accident was still vivid in her mind. It was Homecoming 1984. Sandy was supposed to be the homecoming queen, but she didn’t show up for the football float. They continued anyway and the homecoming king stood next to the empty throne until the screaming in the stands started. There was Sandy, dragging on the back of the homecoming float with a rope around her neck.
The tires of the small truck had already smashed part of her face. The drivers of the float claimed they thought she was the speed bump until they actually went over the real one. It was hard to see with all of the mascot feathers and paper decoration around the window of the truck. They kept on driving until they heard the crowd screaming stop.
Sandy’s head caved in with brain matter stuck to the tires, but there was still enough left of her chin and head to keep the rope intact as the pulled the body across the track around the football field. Tom, the homecoming king, noticed the blood first then looked down at the float and rope until he saw the body of his queen. His scream started first until he involuntarily let out all of the delicious steak dinner and too much beer they consumed at the local Sandcastle steak house for the homecoming dinner.
That was the story my grandmother wrote to me. Mom found the letter and burnt it in the fireplace. She told me I was never to speak to my grandmother again. I admit, it was a really insane story for a person to send to their granddaughter, but she said it was for my own good to know the dangers of the town if I ever cared to visit. What I didn’t get is why my grandmother made it so explicit and gory. Until now.
I got the call at 3 in the morning. The local police had called me and said my parents were in a terrible accident and someone would come to my house and bring me to my grandparents’ house in Sandcastle if I had nowhere else to go. I found that odd the police station would send someone, but I really had no choice as a minor. I was only 13 at the time and couldn’t stay by myself by choice. It was either that or go spend some time in a foster home in San Jose which I wasn’t about to do.
My grandfather had prepared a bedroom for me. He was still in shock at the loss of his wife and was very sullen. He just showed me to my room without a word and then went straight to bed. The house seemed as old as the town. It bordered the forest and a small river. I didn’t like that my new bedroom window faced the woods as it was dark and sometimes I swear there were noises and I felt like there were many eyes upon me as I slept. Sometimes, late in the night, a dim light would cast a glow in the trees. I had no idea what the glow was and decided to explore in the daylight.
Sporting a pair of ripped jeans and tennis shoes, I figured it was perfect for the trek out to wherever the light had started glowing in the trees. As I walked deeper into the forest, I could hear the old redwood trees calling to me. These large trunks were old with centuries of stories to tell and I would be willing to listen if they could just speak in my language. I imagined they could and actually heard them whispering. “Come this way,” they seemed to beckon.
I finally arrived at a lake and the voices of the trees stopped. This must be where they wanted me to travel. There, right in front of me, was an old bloodstained tree stump. A chill ran up my spine as I heard laughter rustle through the leaves of the redwoods.
“Go away! Go home.” A woman’s voice spoke from the lake. I walked closer to the shore where I could see the water faintly glowing below.
“She will kill you or find someone who will. Maybe even me,” the voice continued, closer.
I whipped around to find a young woman with long red hair standing before me. She was naked except for the stains of blood draining down from the deep cut on her neck. Tears were running down her cheeks as she covered her breasts and hips with her arms.
“Are you ok?” I asked.
“Leave this place, or you will die. Don’t let my father find you.”
“Who are you?” I managed. My throat felt like it was closing up.
A curdled screamed came from her gaping mouth as her head fell off her body. Blood spurted high in the air from the veins on her neck–some of it landing on my arms and face. I forced my eyes shut and then wiped my cheek with my fingertips finding fresh crimson blood around my mouth and lips.
When I opened my eyes, I saw the blood all over my hands and body then her head lying there before me. LEAVE! It screamed and I ran all the way home to my grandfather’s house until I reached the bathroom and when I looked in the mirror, there was no blood anywhere. Not a single drop, but I know what I saw and my grandfather confirmed it with his words.
“Stay out of those cursed woods,” he grunted as he brought me a glass of ice water. “It will do you no good to go there.”
That was 30 years ago and I have never been back to the woods. The town of Sandcastle, the place where I live, is haunted. I’ve been warned by many forces that I can never leave or I will just be replaced by someone else. My parents left me a lot of money. I bought an AM radio station KSND we call “The Sound of the Sea” where I’m the night DJ so I can look over the woods and make sure nothing is out to get me. Sometimes it glows, and sometimes it screams.
Good morning my lovelies. This is a story that I wrote in 2016. Unfortunately, I no longer have the text to the full story. Who doesn’t love scary stories about Christmas morning?
Upon waking one Christmas morning, a mother is excited to go downstairs and find out why her family has started cooking Christmas breakfast without her only to find her worst, deepest fears. Everything has changed and she must figure out the truth of what happened that dark Christmas morning.
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