Hello and welcome to 31 Days of Terror Day 16.

I have three lovely spooky stories for you today and story number one comes from Tulamine.

I grew up on the coast of North Carolina in the 1970s. My world was sun, sand and surf.

When I was about nine years old I had a nightmare. I was on an old-fashioned sailing ship in a

bad storm. The ship was listing over so far the sails were dipping into the sea. Waves were crashing

over the deck and rain stung my face as I clung to a boom. I was terrified.

There didn't seem to be anyone else on the ship and then I saw something crawling along the deck

towards me. I could only see it when the lightning flashed and it kept getting nearer.

I was screaming for my mom and then I was just screaming. The dark mass hummed across the deck

closer and closer toward me. It had limbs that flopped out in front of it. It dragged itself

through the waves that crashed on the deck and should have swept it overboard.

The deck tilted at a sickening angle but the thing didn't slip. I could hear its limbs making a

wet thunk on the deck as it came closer to me. I couldn't let go of the boom where I would be

swept into the cold churning sea. I couldn't move. I couldn't get away from it. It was close enough

that I could see it at hands. In the next lightning flash it raised its head. A human head.

So pale it seemed bluish white, hairless and wrinkled as if it were a thousand years old.

It's lipless mouth open and howling. I could tell now that it was dragging a sack. Both its

clothes and the sack were black cloth and soaking wet. I couldn't tell what was in the sack

but it was large enough to contain a child and I was terrified. I knew that if he reached me I would

die. I woke up to my mom calling my name. I only had this dream once but it frightened me so much

that I could still recall it vividly. But this isn't just a story about a dream.

In 1988 I joined the US Navy and my first post was in Japan. I fell in love with Japan and the

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