A true and amusing story

I was in college, and doing a show. There was a cast party happening at my friend David’s house (you all may remember him as a guest-blogger here). David lived with some of his frat buddies at a house in the woods. It was Party Central, as you can imagine. I was getting a ride to the party with my friends Mitchell and Steven – at this point, none of us had been to David’s house yet, and so – in the frenzy following the show, with basically the entire department wiping off their makeup, changing costumes, racing about, the post-show adrenaline, etc., not to mention the thrill of going to a PARTY – David gave us directions. Steven, Mitchell and I listened faithfully.

And then we set out into the woods.

This story has a bit of a Deliverance aspect to it, although the Deliverance was all in our minds.

Our college was surrounded by forest and turf farms. Dark winding country roads, random dark lakes, very easy to get lost. Which is what we promptly did. There are no street lamps, we were driving around through a wooded neighborhood, we were stopping the car to LISTEN to the wooded silence, hoping that we could hear the mayhem of the party and follow the audio clues … No luck.

Finally, we thought we knew where we were going – and Steven realized he needed to turn around. We all were itching with impatience to get to the party. We were in college. We were theatre geeks. You get the drift.

So Steven randomly pulled into a driveway to turn around.

And here is what ALL THREE OF US SAW:

A small white house, one-story. On the front of it hung an enormous thick black cross. And there was a sign on the front lawn, revealed in our headlights, that said: “SACRIFICIAL LAMB.”

Needless to say, we all freaked out. Pandemonium ensued.

“Holy shit, turn the car around…”
“Get the fuck out of here … ”
“Steven, back up, back up, Sacrifical Lamb, holy shit….”
“DRIVE, STEVEN, DRIVE!”

Steven frantically peeled out of the terrifying driveway and we tore off, badly shaken up. We talked amongst ourselves.

“Did we all just see that?”
“What WAS that??”

Finally, we find the party. Which is now barreling along at full throttle.

We come into the party and immediately regale everybody with the scary little white house, the big black cross, the terrifying sign of SACRIFICAL LAMB.

David came over. Confused. “What house? Where?”

We described where, feverishly.

He thought a bit, and then the light dawned. “Guys, a doctor lives in that house. He has an office in his house – and the sign said ARTIFICIAL LIMBS not SACRIFICAL LAMB, Jesus Christ!!”

We kept protesting: “But we all saw it! We did! We did!”

“And what about the black cross??”

The black cross turns out to be some kind of apparatus which goes up to his satellite dish on the top of a house, and it just LOOKED like a huge cross.

Mitchell, Steven and I felt like complete jackasses, and yet we also kept reassuring ourselves of our collective sanity. “I know I saw the words Sacrificial Lamb, didn’t you?” “I totally saw the words Sacrificial Lamb, totally…” “No doubt. No doubt.”

Nodding at each other as we stood by the keg, guzzling cups of beer.

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16 Responses to A true and amusing story

  1. peteb says:

    Heh heh.. I thought that story was going to veer off in another direction.. but then I did watch An American Werewolf in London a couple of nights ago.

  2. DeAnna says:

    OMG. I’m laughing here at work like a retard.
    AWESOME story!

  3. spd rdr says:

    Artificial lambs? Oh Dolly!

  4. Chrees says:

    Your story reminded me of the Cross Garden in Prattville, Alabama. Nothing like coming upon hundreds of crosses at night in the middle of nowhere to give you a religious experience…

  5. MJF says:

    Sheila..i had completely forgotten about that!! I’m calling my brother right now! I need more info on Ireland by the way…

  6. red says:

    mjf: hahaha! So ridiculous!

    I know – I have a ton of tales to tell, my friend, a ton of tales to tell.

  7. red says:

    Please give my best to Stee, Mjf – I miss that man!

  8. Dave J says:

    Ever since they started using the artifical sacrifical lambs’ limbs, it just hasn’t been the same any more. ;-)

  9. Linus says:

    But oh, if only the title of this post had been:

    Silence of the Artificial Limbs

  10. red says:

    Linus –

    Now that is a fucking creepy image, if I may so. ewwwww

  11. ricki says:

    you know, you could work up a whole horror movie based solely on that image…in my mind, the continuation would go a bit like this:

    Sheila and friends show up to party, tell story about “Sacrificial Lamb.”

    Party host explains, pooh-poohs their fears.

    Sheila and friends, all through party, keep coming up to each other and saying “I saw it, I KNOW I saw it.”

    Sheila and friends, driving home, decide to go and check again. By now, day has broken, they drive by and find that in fact, the party host was apparently right, it’s a doctor advertising artificial limbs (but that in itself is kind of creepy, or so I think).

    Sheila and friends turn it into a big joke “Remember that time when…”

    Some months later, a couple of the friends go out to try to find the place again at night, just for the hell of it, to see if they can creep themselves out again.

    They drive and drive, and drive some more. Finally, they find the right house, and pull in. They dare each other to leave the car and finally a couple people do.

    “See, that’s not a cross, that’s just a shadow” one person says. “And that sign clearly says….”

    and here, the camera pans onto the sign, which clearly says SACRIFICIAL LAMB (some blood dripping off the words would be a nice touch). Suddenly, from behind them, a crazed doctor appears.

    Sheila is sitting around her apartment, wondering why her friends aren’t back, when she gets a frantic, breaking-up-cell-phone call from one – she can’t quite hear everything, but it sure as hell sounded like someone said something about “limbs”

    The friends are never heard from again.

    But, oddly, they start showing up, bit by bit – as ARTIFICIAL LIMBS on different people. The people who didn’t go to check out the creep house slowly come to the realization that “Hey, that guy looks like he has Jack’s arm!” or “Aren’t those Rhonda’s legs? What are they doing on that woman?”

    okay, so I didn’t say it would be a GOOD horror movie.

  12. red says:

    ricki –

    Maybe I’m nuts, but I think that’s a bit feckin’ brilliant.

    “”Aren’t those Rhonda’s legs?”

    Oh, man, I needed a good laugh this morning. Thanks!!

  13. dad says:

    Dearest: this could have been the origin of an urban[suburban] legend. We should get Brendan to recreate his role as Legs Urbano, and give us a report on these strange events. love, dad

  14. wutzizname says:

    Incredible Story.

    Ricki, that IS an interesting plot for a film. I’d go see it. Whilst a bit drunk.

    This story is quite interesting. I’ll have to tell you all about the time I got shot at in the woods. Different time period, different age, similar premise. Party in the woods.

    Details soon. I’m a tad busy right now.

    -Wuuuut.

  15. David says:

    I’m laughing my freaking ass off (I hope the mad doctor doesn’t use it on someone else, although it is a nice ass, a bit hairy but nice).

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