DC SPOOKY STORIES
Chilling tales to tell around the non-functioning fireplace in your group house
Have you ever been to a house show where the bathroom was a little too close to the stage? And a bunch of punks hearing you shit feels like a specific local nightmare? Good. These are the stories for you.
(Thanks to my fellow editors who helped spitball ideas with some certified idiot-tested, 730dc-approved house show beers on my porch since we live in an 85° hellscape and all our children will die in the coming climate wars.)
Gather round…
Shush
The little library™ down the block has a book in it — about divorce, because every little library™ has a book about divorce — but this book is cursed. Everyone who reads it will get divorced, too, and will also be doomed to read water-stained Tom Clancy novels for all eternity.
No port in a storm
A man stays out late in a strange neighborhood and decides to take bikeshare home. He’s the only one on the road, but when he makes it to the dock near his house, he’s dockblocked. Every stall is full. So, he pedals to the dock a few blocks away — dockblocked again. He bikes on. Mile after mile, dock after dock full of red bikes shining in the moonlight. Some say he wanders the city still, hopelessly searching for an empty dock to rest at last. On some nights, if you listen closely, you can hear the plaintive sound of his bell…and that weird crunching noise that some of those bikes make when you shift gears (you know the one).
Sing
It’s high summer and the cicadas are singing. They sing outside your office, they sing you to sleep at night. Then suddenly, they never stop. The rising and falling is just rising now, somehow. It’s always the crescendo, an insect Shepard tone. They’re singing inside your head now, at fever pitch — it rings inside your skull. You pray for autumn. It never comes. White men have destroyed the Earth and now it’s summer forever.
One I imagine more as like, a short story written by a Soviet author
Ok fine, autumn comes, grey and cold, on little cat feet and all, but you were always a dog person. To feel some joy, you go down the street to the dog park. You don’t have a dog, but here you can perch on a park bench and watch them play. You do this every day. The dog owners become suspicious. Who is this lonely figure infiltrating the park to spy on their dogs? Why do you always bribe them with treats? They find it all suspicious. They find your hunt for joy suspicious. One day, they beat you to death.
This one is actually just a conspiracy theory
The Outrage is actually owned by savvy Republicans who want to feed a culture of whole foods hemp totebag white liberalism that loves cute tees more than it loves decking Nazis.
Eat the rich
Speaking of which, you know that thirsty-ass sign in the window of the show unit in the Shay? The one that’s like, PLEASE RENT HERE YOU SHOULD LIVE INSIDE ME? The Shay is actually an insatiable monster and every yuppie that moves in gets shredded limb from limb by the Shay’s giant quartz countertop teeth. Welcome to the real #resistance, Shay (she has arrived).
Lease on life
Just like….one of those new condos with giant windows where you can always see inside because rich people hate curtains (RICH PEOPLE HATE CURTAINS. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is a fact.). Anyway the people who live there just play video games all the time and they have one giant lamp from Restoration Hardware but it’s never on, they only ever use that sickly too-bright overhead, and it’s just super fucking depressing in a way that almost makes you feel better about paying $900/month for a room the size of a closet in a group house where you hate everyone because at least you can still feel something. Now that’s horrifying.
Colony collapse
You know the one, the small room in the Philips Collection with the walls covered in layer after layer of fine, smooth beeswax. The way it smells, the way you imagine it would feel to touch the walls, if you were allowed to. It’s so quiet there — it’s like the wax absorbs all sound. It feels like a sacred place, like a church, like a tomb. You know they only let you stand in there for a few moments at a time because your breath would warm the wax too much, cause it to soften, to melt. But it’s so soothing and fragrant, you wish they would let you stay. Just a moment more, you beg the guard. He reluctantly agrees. He closes the door.
You take a deep breath and it’s so warm, so sweet; you imagine the clover the bees feed on, imagine their geometric dancing. Imagine their tiny feet touching the surface of the wax, and put out your hand — just like a tiny bee, a tiny touch for you, too? Your hand sticks fast. You gasp. Then you panic, and your breathing gets heavy. It forms beads of condensation on the walls and they start to warp and drip. You can’t believe your eyes — you rub them and the wax is everywhere now. You turn to call to the guard and you stumble. Your shoulder sinks into the wall. It envelopes you — you struggle but your legs, now your hair gets caught, consumed. The wax absorbs all sound. The guard never hears you. So warm, so sweet, so quiet. Like a tomb.
Swiped
Someone on tinder wants to meet up in 🌩️Bethesda🌩️
