scaries story real or fake gets 10 points!!?

Question

try to mak it realistic though and something that has happened to u or someone u know!

Answer 1

So, short little Hoopy Girl - imagine you are with your mom and dad and sister on a beautiful big ship, sailing from New York City in 1867. You are going first to New Orleans, and from there on to Houston to re-join members of your family that you haven't seen since the war began when you were very little, 6 years ago.

I am putting you into the place of a real girl, who climbed aboard the wooden side-wheel steamer on a Sunday afternoon in August. You are at Pier 2 on the Hudson River in New York city - it's a bright, sunny day, a little breezy, and this is a strange place for you. The wharf is crowded with men, horses and carts, delivering last-minute cargo and baggage to the ship or carting goods back and forth from other vessels and the warehouses on the shore. Crowds of people are gathered around the long narrow gangplank leading from the rough heavy timbers of the pier to the rocking ship. It is a monster - 250 feet long, rising more than the height of a 2-story house above the side of the pier. Black smoke curls from the funnel and the gigantic, 32-foot-diameter sidewheel before you seems like a water mill transplanted on this huge building floating on its side. People are going ahead of you up the gangplank, and it sways and bends with every footfall. Who wants to go up something so flimsy as that over the dirty water of the harbor, between the sides of the ship and pier?

But your parents hold your hand firmly and you close your eyes almost shut to make the scary climb onto this beast in whose belly you are supposed to stay for the next eight days. Your mom is busy calming your sister, and your dad looks back over his shoulder at you and winks - "Don't be scared, baby doll, people do this all the time and no one has any problems. " He tells you about the wonders you will soon see aboard ship.

You want him to shut up and quit lying and just let you be miserable.

You also wish he would stop calling you "Baby Doll," you are 13, for crying out loud, and a young lady - but parents just don't understand how embarrassing they are!

Aboard ship it is even more overwhelming. There are strange sounds and sights, the "walking beam engine" rises overhead like some twisted iron spider, rough-looking, dirty men seem to take over your family - the crew of the ship, briskly guiding you all to the main cabin on deck, warning you to watch your step, pulling a rope hastily aside before your mom trips over it, then a white wooden door pushes open that looks a toot opening in front of a huge deep dark mouth. You don't understand at this moment, but this is the place where you will sleep, sit and play cards and games with your family and hear other passengers tell stories, eat meals - and in a few days, tie yourself down to the side benches while the ship is thrown across furious cold seas in a hurricane.

None of that matters just now when you go aboard, and into the huge passenger and cargo ship. It's scary, noisy, and you are having trouble breathing. You're a "city girl," of course, you know about the awful stinks and smells of a crowded, busy place with horses and other animals in the streets, sewers that sometimes don't work, backyard privies (the "water closet" indoors is still very much a luxury of the rich), and the smokes and fumes of factories, mills, blacksmith shops, outdoor cooking pits and of course millions of people who rarely bathe once a month.

But on deck, the dense coal smoke drifts down and sometimes clouds everything when a breeze gusts just so. The entrance to the deck accomodtion is right by the smokestack. The ship itself stinks, a new kind of stink, one that nearly forces you to gag behind your hand once you step into the main deck cabin. People have vomited here, have done their "unmentionable" business here, there have been fires, old food went bad, and some kind of grease really went bad. The seamer is an old ship, launched in 1848, she has carried thousands of passengers in all manner of weather, been in the war just ended, her wooden planks have absorbed every possible kind of smell. Her gigantic pieces of iron mchinery use animal fat - "tallow," made from the carcasses of cows - for lubrication. "Tallow," you know perfectly well from helping mom make it in the kitchen since EVERYTHING can be used in a world where life is hard and nothing goes to waste, can stink, but if made properly never has a smell. You recognize that LOTS of tallow on this boat was not made well.

When you say so, choking still at the awful stink, mom smiles in sympathy, her hand keeping a lavender-scented lace napking near her nose. Dad, however, just says to wait, in a little while you won't even notice anything - and then he goes off to see some person named "Purser." Now, why would someone have a name like a purse? Certainly it isn't any of these big MEN around!

Dad, of course, was right. By the next day, it doesn't seem to smell any different than the city. Now the ship is out to sea, on the long, wide rolling swells of the Atlantic Ocean. One of the sailors tells you that New Jersey is "over there" - someplace beyond the grey edge of the ocean, off to your right (he said, "t 'the starbord, Missy"). All you see is ocean, in every direction. But some big white and grey birds fly over, screeching, diving on the trail of garbage scraps the ship's steward tossed off the back rail (when another sailor called it the "stern," you thought he meant the ship's captain was a mean man). The helpful sailor says that means land is not really very far away. He is not very helpful, though, if you can't see land, then it is, too, far away - and that is scary.

It's nice to get outside after being cooped up in the main "saloon" with the other passengers, or in the cramped "state-room" you and your sister share next to mom and dad's. Your tiny bedroom has bunkbeds with drawers built into the bottom of each bunk, where your hand baggage has been put away. There's not much to the little space - the door opens against the wall and then on the left are the beds. At the back of the stateroom is a familiar sight - the lavatory stand, with a big deep bowl and pitcher for washing, a very nice white soap-dish and a little cup for rinsing your mouth. Inside the doors on the lower half of the lavatory is the thunder-mug, with its lid. You and sissy will have to use it if you need to potty after bedtime, just like at home, but aboard ship there is also a wonderful inside privy, a real water closet with a china stool. There are two on each side of the main cabin, and after you do your business you wash with the cloth from the water basin and then pour the water into the china stool so it empties someplace. A spigot on the side of the water closet lets you refill the big pitcher, or "ewer," after you are finished so someone else will have a nice place when it is his or her turn.

When mom offered to explain how to use the water closet, you proudly told her you already knew how to use "the facilities" - but sort of eavesdropped when she explained procedures to sissy. Of course, sissy has to have help when she uses the "W.C." because the ewer is too heavy to lift.

For days, you and sissy and mom and dad get used to the gentle movement of the ship, the sight of the ocean all around, the constant "thump! thump!" of the big steam piston clunking up and down to move the "walking beam" that then turns the giant water wheels to drive the ship. (You look up at the huge iron "walking beam" and tell sissy, "It looks like a teeter-totter to me!")

From below come the noises, soon fading into the background, of men working the ship. The firemen shovel coal into the roaring boilers, the coal-heavers smash big pieces of black rock into bits and shovel it back toward the firemen, the deck crew opens and closes holes and windows for air and light - they call them "hatches" and "lights" - the cabin staff seems to always either be making meals of cleaning up after them.

The food is pretty good. The first few days there is lots of fruit and vegetables and salad. The man who brings food to the table, a "steward,' says to enjoy it now - by the end of the trip there won't be much fresh left. It's mid-summer, after all, and on this ship there are no ice boxes to chill the food supplies. Your favorite so far is the fresh bread, baked every morning - a smell you decide is very nice to wake up to.

One dinner there was steak, hot and aromatice and perhaps a little too red but you liked it anyhow. Dad gave you a big surpise at that dinner, when he lifted a little bottle from a wire stand on the table and poured it onto your meat. It looked a bit like gravy, and tasted pleasantly spicy. "They call it Lea and Perrins sauce," he said, reading the paper label. The bottle was a bit bigger than mom's perfume bottles, and it was capped with a cute glass ball and cork stopper. Dad said the steward told him all the ships put the sauce on the tables, because after long trips the meat got to tasting a bit "off," and the sauce helped hide it.

"I like it just fine with this good steak," you said back. "Well, then, Baby Doll, we will get some for the kitchen when we get home," declared Dad. "Steward tells me this New York fellow makes it right here in America, but says on the label it is a product of Great Britain. Guess the American must have a license for it." Dad often explains things that way - he doesn't make much sense but the best idea is just not question him or there will be a long speech about business and trade, something dad says is the "engine of the world." And that doesn't make sense, either.

It's already Wednesday and now the ocean voyage has changed from scary or a little interesting to just plain boring. You shake your head and let your hair blow back in the strong wind that blows over the ship from the left front side - the "port side," another sailor had said was the name to use aboard ship.

The waves got bigger and stronger a while ago, making both mom and sissy have upset stomachs. Dad put them in the same bunk and asked "steward" (does the man have a real NAME?) if he had anything for "sea sickness." The crewman shook his head with a smile and looked sympathetic. "Just dry land, sir," the steward answered, "in a few more days now." Dad nodded and thanked him, then went over to the smoking room with his pipe.

No sense thinking about a dinner days ago, there must be something to do on this boring old ship. On a wooden chair bolted to the deck beside the huge round paddlewheel cover, over there, a graybearded old man in scruffy seaman's clothing sat carving a bird from a piece of wood. You remembered him - he's a passenger, too, who tells good stores at night after dinner. He talks funny, though, back in his throat and like he can't move his mouth just right to say the lettters "w" and "r."

When he sits down on the plush side benches of the main saloon to tell after-dinner tales, he always pulls a little round glass out of his pocket. He gives the steward a coin to pour some kind fo drink into it before he starts his story. He told one of the other men passengers it is a "cordial glazz" (that funny way of talking!) made of "goot Cherman crystal." And then he showed the glass around the room - it had red wavy lines all around it except in one spot whee th tiny glass was carved with a picture of a castle. The name of the castle was there, too, cut into the space under the picture. That night his after-dinner story was about old kings and nobles and wars in the forest and the mountain where this castle used to be.

You hardly stroll over to look at his carving and say hello when the old fellow looks up with watery blue eyes at the ocean ahead of the ship. The wind is starting to get pretty strong, it makes the ropes on the mast hum and buzz. "Hello, liddle late-y," he says to you in his funny talk. "I t'ink maybe ve get inzide dis ship, ya? A bik shtorm, she is coming." A what? Big storm?

"Yes sir," you answer as he holds our his arm for you. "How do you know a storm is coming?"

He gestures with his hand holding both carving and a thick folding knife, back toward the bow of the ship and the splashing sea flying up from it. "Ya, you can zee it dere," he answers. "But alzo, I for many years a sailor haff been, crossing de oceans to effry-vere from Chermany." Oh! sudenly you understand - this old fellow is a German, he talks a little like other people you have met in the city from other places in Europe. You remember the schoolroom globe and picture the many little countries and small nations the teacher said are known in a group as "Germany."

The old German sailor hands you over to dad, who was on his way out to find you, anyhow. He was a nice old man. "Not back on deck, maybe," he says to dad, "we haffing a big blow here a while, ya?" The old man goes over to a big brass instrument nailed to the saloon wall and taps it. You know from an earlier explanation it is a "barometer" and that it helps read the weather, but otherwise the strange device is a total mystery. Dad turns his head to look at the old man when the ancient sailor mutters,"Fallin', ya, de merk-ooree iss fallin' too much."

Mom and sissy both get worse seasickness when the ship tosses and rolls even more in the worsening weather. The stewards try to serve dinner, but the ship's movement is too violent, the plates slide over the table and right beyond the rails on the tabletop. Everyone eats some cold bread with jam and butter, and those who can spoon some tapioca pudding straight out of the serving bowl.

"We are running into a gale," the captain, a solid man named Ernest Young, tells all the passengers. "Don't worry - our boat is a solid ship with strong engines, she has weathered many a worse storm before this. But I have told cook to only make some sandwiches and similar things until we get past the worst of this weather - I am sure you would all far rather have your meals inside your tummies instead of all over you!"

Little did you know that would be the last meal you had aboard the steam ship. Maybe you would have had more of the pudding or asked the cook for an extra sandwich.

By midnight the seas were terrible, the ship rose up, up, almost into the sky, and then just as quickly straight down the waves. Sometimes one or the other of the side wheels would lift clear of the sea, making a screaming noise while it spun, and the ship would lurch sharply to the side. Sometimes the waves seemed to change direction, slamming into the vessel from the side, rolling her heavily, sending everything and everyone flying across the rooms. A big stuffed chair in the main saloon ploughed into one of the men passengers, hurting his ribs and making a big cut on his head.

Dad, who helped the man with his injuries, saw you staring white-faced at the scene. He turned back to pressing his handkerchief against the man's bleeding head. "It's all right, Baby Doll, he isn't hurt bad. Head wounds always make a big mess. I saw worse in the war." As far as you can recall, this is the only time your dad ever said anything about his time as a soldier in the recent war.

Minutes later, both dad and the injured man rolled on their backs to the other side of the saloon when the ship crested and twisted atop what must have been the biggest wave ever to be in the ocean. They both laughed like boys about it. Dad gave the man his handkerchief and said keep it tight until the steward brought bandages, and then he and some other passengers started helping crewmen tie the furniture to the walls of the cabin.

All this time, you were kept safely in place on one of the upholstered side benches, inside a loop of the thick golden curtain cords. Dad had put you there as soon as things began to be too rough. Even when you bumped your head sometimes against the walls, the thick wall paper absorbed some of the bouncing, but you thought maybe you'd have a whalloping headache tomorrow and some bruises to show off to sissy. What a shame she was too sick in bed to have an adventure like this. But it was going on too long and getting much too scary - and you wished the game would stop now.

Crashing noises and shouting woke you up. Despite the storm and wildness, you had fallen asleep - and now it ws - what? Morning? Night? Only one sturdy lantern hung in a special frame from the ceiling cast any light, from a thick short candle inside. The light made crazy shadows, like monsters dancing on the walls, or evil ghosts. Your head hurt. Your arms were cramped and bruised from the ropes keeping you safe on the bench. You wanted to go potty very badly but did not dare move. What is all the noise? Where is dad?

"Daddy? Daddy?" Your shouts hadly seem to dent the immense roaring noise of wind and water, the screeching of the ship's machinery, the clattering and crashing of things inside the ship below. Looking around, you notice the saloon seems to be very empty - all the loose furniture is gone! Only the side benches built into the walls and one big table mounted to the ship's floor - oops, they said to call it the "deck" - are in the cavernous room.

A crewman appears from the back, dragging a huge couch piled with boxes of stuff. He is heaving and swearing at it - using language dad would certainly complain about or even fight the man about since it was right there in front of his daughter. Then the ship tosses again. The man goes tumbling, the couch oversets, the boxes crash heavily to the deck. One breaks - from it spills a giant pile of some kind of metal things that look like a machine's parts. Afer the ship heavily rolls back level, the man works back to his feet, and swearing ever more horribly, rights the couch and piles most of the boxes back on it. he again tugs and tears to drag it toward the main cabin door when two other crewmen come in to help.

You watch through the gloom as they open the door, standing in the spraying seawater and the screeching wind to muscle the overladen big old couch out onto the deck. "There," one of the men screams, "the railing is broken just up there, let's get this mess over the side before we drown!"

It is an odd courtesy that the men actually take the time to shut the door against the storm. The wind and seas hammer at it, making the flimsy paneling rattle and clatter in the doorframe. You are left alone again in the candle-splattered gllom thinking about what you just saw. The crew is throwing the ship's furnishings and cargo overboard. The ship must be in trouble.

Now you are very, very scared.

Worse feelings soon arrive with dad.

He's very dirty, hands and arms and face smeared with black streaks, a cut along his chin mostly crusted with blood and dirt but still dribbling a red trail down his neck. His hair is a wild tangle, and his eyes are barely visible in the deep dark sockets. His shirt is torn, the sleeves hastily rolled, one tail hanging outside his trousers. Looking at this frightening cartoon of dad, you notice without further thought that sometime during the night he took off his beautiful polished boots that came up so high on his calves, and instead now wears some rough workman's brogues.

The shoes open this frightening, other-worldly conversation between you and dad - he notices your gaze at his feet. "Oh, hello and good morning, Baby Doll," he says. Right now, that "Baby Doll" is not embarrassing, it's comforting.

"We have been trying to lighten ship all night long, the hull sprung a leak. We don't want the ship to labor so much. Looks like we have found ourselves a hurricane," dad continues. "I was taking some cartons of shoes and boots up to be thrown away and saw these here - just the right thing instead of my old boots, if we have to take ourselves a little swim."

Just like that your stomach is vanishing. In its place is a huge bottomless cold black pit. Hurricane! Leaking ship! Swim!

Abandon ship, here, in the wild open ocean, no land anywhere to be seen, in this great terrible storm and wild waves? Swim? Swim?

Dad sits down and puts his arms around you in a big hug. He just sits and holds you a while.

"We will be fine, Baby Doll, the ship is strong and proven. Her machinery has beaten storms before, she floats like a cork. Why, during the war I saw her take the worst Johnny Reb could give and shoot back worse. We'll be fine," dad murmurs into your hair.

He might have helped you just then, but of course next he has to go and ruin everything.

"Still, my little lady, we have to be prepared for the worst if it comes. Looks like you and I are the only ones in this family who can take care of things - your mother and sister are still in their cabin, just as sick as ever can be. Safest for them in there, for they can't be much hurt by all the mad gyrations of the ship. If you can, I want you to go and help them, make sure they know we are watching."

Dad stood up, untying the big cords that had been your lifeline during the long hours. He strung them straight across the saloon, one side to the othr and tested the knots to see how they held. He turned back to help you up and put your hands on the rope.

"You go to your cabin, and use this rope if it gets too rough crossing the saloon. Change into your best cotton shift and overdress - but do not put on any heavy woollens or extra petticoats. Change from your shoes into your best dance slippers, and wear some hose, but again only the best hose, not the woolen ones. Wool always holds too much water, don't you see?"

Again you drop into the cold clutch of despair. Dad is telling you how to dress, to be ready in case the ship goes down. You nod dumbly, hardly lisening to his last instructions.

"Then you go make sure your mother and sister do the same. I don't care how sick they are, make them do this, and then just all of you stay in your bunks until I or someone else comes for you. And one more thing, Baby Doll," dad catches you by the shoulder and looks you in the eyes. "Tell mom to tie up at least one eagle in her hem - we might just need that money very soon."

An eagle? A $10 gold piece? Why, that's a huge sum of money! What would mom have such money with her for? She have never had more than 50 cents around the house in all the time you have been growing up, and then usually in the small coins - mils, pennies, nickles and dimes. Once you saw her with a silver quarter, paying some handyman for two days' work. Dad just doesn't know what he's talking about! An eagle, indeed!

The distraction lasts long enough to get you into the cabin and started on the change of clothing. In between you use the chamber pot from the lavatory stand closet and jam the lid on tight. The act of replacing clothes the way dad instructed brings back the reality. The ship is sinking? The ship is going to sink? In the dark stateroom, all you can do suddenly is fall to your knees and cry. Is everyone going to die, alone here on this awful stormy ocean? Oh, mother, no, you can't! No, sissy, no - and oh, not dad! Then you think of yourself ....

Fortunately both mom and sis are much too sick, scared and miserable to notice how you look when you go to start them changing into clothing suitable for a sinking ship swim party. A sinking-ship-swim-party - the ideas now seems ridiculous and so silly, you can't stop laughing until mom shakes you, very hard.

"Don't! Don't" she rasps at you. "We need you now! Don't!"

She can't say it and you can't say it - the ship is sinking, we are all going to die. No, mom's manner says you will all fight for your lives and then die trying.

It is such a difficult job, with the ship corkscrewing on the storm-blown seas, in the tiny stateoom, getting sick mom and sissy out of their soiled clothing and into fresh. Of course, at least now the fresh clothes won't smell of the seasickness, for neither mom nor sissy can vomit any more. They have emptied themselves many hours before. You help them both get back into their bunks and throw their used clothing onto the floor, intending to sop up some of the mess there. Instead, the ship rolls and heaves and you throw up, too. Not much comes out - it has been quite a long time since you ate.

Back in your own cabin, as dad instructed, you remember his advice about the eagle. That can wait. Much good it would do, in any event - mom doesn't have that kind of money. Exhausted by the struggles and the terror, you fall asleep. Your last thought before sleeping is that if the ship sinks, then you won't know.

Loud silence brings you back to awareness. The storm is making even more noise than before, and the hammering of the waves is worse as well. From below now you hear a strange whoosing and crashing noise, almost as if a hundred thousand elves wearing hob-nailed boots were racing to and fro on the ship's planks. But somehow the noises are - different, yes, but also quieter. Then you know. The ship's engines have stopped. The steam machinery is not clattering and pounding, the side wheels are not turning. And the motion of the ship is the worst yet.

Is it time now, to die? To go under the waves and breathe the water?

Helpless before the terror you cry again, so overwhelmed you can barely draw a breath to fuel the next set of wracking sobs and tears.

Dad bursts into the cabin - stops at the sight of your horror and hopelessness. He stands leaning in, one hand on the doorknow, one of the doorframe, a big shadow outlined by darker shadows behind him. The air is heavy with moisture, hot, and so thick even if you could take a deep breath, you might not find a way to draw it in.

He drops to his knees beside your bunk, and scoops you into another long hug. "Don't be afraid, Baby Doll," he says, "Oh, Baby doll, don't cry, don't cry."

Instead of comforting you he infuriates you. Twisting out of his hug, you screech at him and hit him. "Why NOT cry, dad! Why NOT? We are all going to die on this rotten old ship! We are out in the middle of the ocean in a hurricane and the ship is sinking! We are all going to die and I - don't - want - to die!"

In a few minutes your rage burns out and you are back with your head against his shoulder, crying again. Dad strokes your hair and waits a while before he speaks.

"Listen, now, I will tell you how things are. The ship is in trouble, yes. The engine has quit and the engineers can't get it working again. They have never seen such a thing but they are trying very hard. Still we have a small steam pump down below, it is keeping the water leak under control."

You ask about the strange noises and if land is near, if the storm is going to continue or pass soon. Dad stops to tilt his head a moment and listen, then smiles.

"A hundred thousand elves in hob-nailed shoes, eh? That's quite a clever turn of phrase, my daughter. Yes, it somewhat might seem that way - but what you hear is the coal in the very bottom of the ship washing around on the water that leaked in. There are many tons of coal to slosh about."

Then he explains that the ship is not very far from the coast, the captain spotted one of the major lighthouses just the night before. He said there would be plenty of room on the lifeboats, if it became necessary to leave the ship and you would be ashore in just hours. He didn't say anything about how tiny lifeboats could be any safer in this hurricane than the big steam ship. And when he went to see mom and sissy in the cabin next door, you lay back, thinking. And knew if the ship sank, everyone would die.

Sleep again came to give you merciful escape from the horror of the struggling ship. You dreamt about the men, the crew and passengers, who made a chain of muscle and hands to pass the ships' furniture, cargo and equipment up from below in hope of saving the ship. Dad had teld you about that, earlier. You woke up, horrified and fighting, when you thought the ocean was clutching at you. It was Dad, instead, come to shake you awake.

He looked even more horrible than before. His face was sunken and lined, his cheeks hung loose along his jaw line, and his voice shook with exhaustion. "Baby Doll, get ready. The pump failed. The water is rising in the cargo hold. We are going to take to the lifeboats soon. The steward said there are jars for water, and some preserved fruit, in the kitchen. I am about to get mom and sissy up too, and all of you try to get provisions so that we'll have at least something to eat and drink in the boats."

So. The nightmare was real. You are going into the water after all. The ship is lost. Everyone will die.

Mom comes in, sees you lying still and stiff. She drags the bedclothes to slide you out and tumble to the floor. 'Stand up! Stand up! What gives you the right to quit now? We need you! Stand up!" Her last time, she yells the command, and somehow it makes you obey.

Shaky on your feet, getting through the saloon to the kitchen - of course, your mind corrects, the sailors call it the "galley" - is not easy. The ship is a crazy house, no one should be able to walk through it. You look around the tidy, compact space where those good meals had been prepared, where the excellent dishes had been put away. Even in this insane leaping, plunging, sliding, jolting, shuddering, rolling ship, the galley remained hardly disturbed. All the stores were securely latched inside closets made by men who understood ships and the sea. On the galley counter stood several large bottles filled with preserved fruits, held in place behind thin bands of wood. Various large jars and pitchers rattled ominiously inside a clear-fronted cabinet. Removing one would mean all the rest would be dashed to pieces.

Mom cured the problem of choosing. "If this ship sinks, who cares what gets broken?" she cried. She held a large satchel open betwen her hands, her feet planted wide and her gack against a wall of the galley. "All right, girls, get us some food and water!"

You and sissy broke quite a few bottles and jars just to find one with a top that you noisily splaced fresh water into. Mom made jokes about not needing the ocean to sink the ship as long as both of you were pouring water in the galley. You grabbed three bottles of fruit, a tinned ham, and a small loaf of bread and stuffed them into the satchel, too.

A crewman came up the little companionway - what all the passengers who didn't learn from the sailors called "the back stairs" - into the galley to get the satchel from mom. He said the supplies would be distributed among the boats.

Back through the saloon all of you progressed, mom muttering the whole way, "We surely had better not be out there for long." You thought she was wrong - there was enough in the satchel to keep the family going a good time, and besides, when the ship sank, everyone would die, anyhow. You forgot what the crewman who took the satchel said.

How anyone could know the time of day was just a miracle. The skies were completely dark, the storm was not getting any weaker, and the ship's movements finally made everyone sick. But dad came back to the cabins and said it was about four o'clock in the afternoon. He said to remember that, the time and the date, it is when the captain ordered everyone to abandon ship.

"The water is too high now, it's hopeless," he said. "We are going to luanch the boats. All you girls are to get into the first one."

You couldn't stop crying. You wanted to just go back to bed and not know anything more. You went with mom and sissy out onto the deck, tied by ropes to parts of the ship so the waves couldn't snatch anyone away for an earlier death. It looked a scene out of a watery hell.

The paddlewheel boxes had been torn apart and blown away. Just splintery chunks of the framing remained, flopping about in the flying foam. One piece tore loose and blew past you like a spear. Slapping noises drew your eye - at the bow of the ship, a sail shredded in the storm remained attached at the foot of the bowsprit, flipping up and down against the planking. Shockingly, the wheelhouse that stood atop the front of the main deck cabins was gone, too.

About 15 people clutched at the lifelines and slipped, sprawled, staggered into spaces sheltered from the storm and spray. One huddled behind the ventilator housing that fed fresh air to the engine room. He wrapped his arms about the squat, square wooden structure, while his feet seemed to fly in the howling gale.

Several crewmen and the captain had swung a lifeboat out on ropes suspended from a pair of large hooks (the "davits," you remembered) at the edge of the ship behind the motionless paddlewheels. The boat slewed back and forth madly in the air, crashing against the ship and sending pieces of railing off into the wind. Ropes attached to the front and rear of the boat were held by crewmen who pulled against the effect of the wind, trying to draw the little wooden teardrop against the side of the sip and hold it steady.

The captain turned and pointed at you and your mother and sister, waving at you to come, come, come quickly! Hand over hand the three of you passed along a lifeline tied beween the main cabin and the railing, you slipped and skidded across the deck, fighting the waves pouring across the ship. Getting close to the captain, you heard him cry, "We'll put you into the boat! Wait until we get someone on board first to help!"

You were astounded to see the captain wave at a man holding one of the ropes to the sterm of the life boat. It was dad. He looked at you, then leaned over, grabbed the side of the unsteady craft, and vaulted right into the boat with one giant leap. He went in headfirst and you watched, anxiously, wondering if he would get up.

Dad stood up in the boat and hauled at another line tied to the boat and a piece of the railing of the ship, forcing the boat closer to hold it more firmly in place. The captain called mom over and held on to her with one arm, and then called for sissy. She fell, but held on to the lifeline. Mom grabbed her feet, pulled sissy closer, then hauled her upright with one hand. Sissy held mom's hand, stepped toward the lifeboat, her other hand out waving toward dad. He caught her hand, fell onto the edge of the boat, and reached over with his other hand to grab sissy and lift her into the boat. It seemed to take an eternity.

Next it was your turn. All you could do was stare. If you missed a step at the wrong time, you would go sailing off the side of the ship into the waves. You might, anyhow, the way the water crashed across the deck, and everyone looked to be lost in a single mistaken moment. Mom looked at you and said, "Stop! Stop! You can't give up now! Come on!" Her words were almost shredded by the rushing storm winds.

You slipped under the taut lifeline and bent across it so that as you slid on your belly along the rope, you wouldn't fall. Mom clutched at your dress at the shoulder and pulled you down a lot closer, you felt the seam at the shoulder begin to tear. "All right, we'll hold you while you turn around and lean toward your father. He will help you into the boat!"

Leaning into the wind toward the boat seemed horrifying. How could anyone just throw themselves into space - it was suicide! You pressed back against the lifeline, not wanting to do this wild next action. Everyone was going to die, but you did not want to die now. As you held back, frozen in place, you felt someone reach around you from the back - it was the captain passing a rope about your waist, then typing it behind your back. His voice came with his warm breath against your ear, calling out above the storm. "Go now, young lady, we will make sure you are safe."

You let go of the lifeline behind your back, leaned into the wind, and pushed as hard as you can to get your hands onto the edge of the lifeboat. Dad grabbed you by the wrists, pulled and dragged you aboard. Your chest and tummy and legs scraped, you knew there were more bruises and scratches, and you only wanted to get out of the screeching storm. Dad helped you over the board benches stretching across the boat and pushed you by the shoulders to direct you under the rear board bench, next to sissy. She held on to you and both of you shivered in the water splashing and sloshing around your legs and bottoms, there atop the hard keel of the lifeboat.

What seemed forever ended when the last person came aboard. There were three other women and a baby beside you, sissy and mom aboard the lifeboat. Dad was joined by four crewmen, and several men passengers. You hardly knew what was happenening when dad stood in the middle of the boat, holding the steadying line, and waved at the captain and crewmen still on the steamship. The captain returned with a snappy, military-style salute and let go of the steadying line. The boat began dropping toward the ocean, lurching unsteadily by the front and back, and once the bow dropped too fast, almost spilling everyone out amid screams and shouts.

Sudeenly a huge wave swelled underneath the lifeboat, floating it alongside the ship. At once, the crewmen let go the lines from the davits and the little shell with 20 lonely, fightened, fearful souls was adrift on the open sea. All around, the hurricane tore at the world.

Answer 2

I was alone 8* years old watching hey arnold so something white fly right past me. I freaked out went to go to the phone.......It fell off by itself from the counter........I just ran all the way up to my dear grandpa's house!!!

Answer 3

scary stories is better seen than told....
checkout this link if you must know:
http://revver.com/video/6830/?__session_just_started__=1

Answer 4

one time i walked in on my grandparents having sex

Answer 5

well i once brought 13 guys home at once and gave all bj or hj and went with 5 and then got pregnet and dont know the dads name .....................................................lol just kiding