Halloween has Celtic and Catholic roots. It grew from religious rituals and European folk traditions steeped in superstition to a fun celebration of customes and candy. However, its ominous origin creates an opportunity for many to use their imaginations to carry on the superstitions through frightful stories and haunting gestures. Oct. 31 becomes a scary day. What is your most memorable scary story?
“There is a story about these little things called ‘gnomes’ who are supposed to take children into a dream land and not let them out of there. My brother has a friend who had a ‘gnome.’ She would play with it every day for a while and one time wanted me to come play with it too. She refused to go play with it the next day and the thing got really mad and red. It ran to the wall and disappeared. When she told me the story she was crying, so I believed her.” Marco Baez, freshman criminal justice
“I don’t have a scary story, but I saw a movie about lions when I was a kid and it terrified, so every time I saw lions on TV I was really scared. I also thought they were native to Florida and every night it got dark I thought lions were going to eat me.” Antonio Brown, freshman biology major
“When I was a kid and played around too much my mom would tell me that there were four monsters under the bed: one that ate your eyes, one that ate your stomach, one that ate your tongue and one that ate your head. Whenever I got in trouble, she would scare me with them. She kept it going until I got the courage to look under the bed to see that nothing lives there.” William Barney, senior legal studies
“My family was hanging out and drinking one Christmas night, I was there. I was about to get my tonsils out in a couple months and my grandfather said to my parents and me that we had to leave because Santa wanted to rip my tonsils out and it scarred me for life. I used to be scared of Santa Claus. Now it’s a family joke, but it scarred me for life.” Sandra Sharp, junior biology major
“The one about Chucky — that doll who murders people — is my favorite scary story because as a child I used to have a lot of dolls and I was afraid that at night they might come to life and kill people.” Thalia Sanchez, freshman criminal justice major
“My mom told me this Filipino folklore story about a Filipino vampire that would eat pregnant women’s babies from their stomachs. They would separate themselves and the only way to kill them was to pour salt on them. In addition, there were vampire babies of those vampires that would go into pregnant women’s stomachs and turn those babies into vampires.” Kim Urmaza, sophomore athletic training major
