911 Scary Story

Nationality: USA
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/15/21
Primary Language: English

Main Piece

JJ was on a trip with some friends his senior year of high school, and they stayed in a cabin in the woods in Maine. He says this is a true story:

“It was from one of my friend’s friends who lives in Boston. This is why she says she’s never gonna live alone again.

She was living alone and she heard her front door open in the middle of the night. She goes to check it out, the doors are shut and she thinks she must be imagining things. She goes back to her room and hears noises coming from her living room area. She thinks ‘there has to be someone in my apartment.’

She’s freaked out and goes into the living room and nobody’s there. She calls 911 and they answer and she tells them `somebody broke into my apartment. I’m scared and I think there’s someone in here, I’m gonna hide in my laundry room.’

They ask where the phones in her house are. She has a phone in kitchen, dining room, and laundry room. They tell her they’re gonna send people on their way, but ‘whatever you do, don’t go into your laundry room.’

The police arrive, scan the apartment. She’s been in her room. They go into the laundry room. They find a man hiding behind the laundry room door with a knife.

She’s ecstatic. ‘How did you know there was somebody in the laundry room?’

When she called 911, they heard somebody breathing on the line, not her. The man had picked up the phone in laundry room to listen, and they figured it out.”

Informant background

JJ is a student at the University of Southern California. He is from Newburyport, MA.

Performance context

This story was told during a folklore collection event that I set up with a diversity of members from the USC men’s Ultimate Frisbee team. We were in a classic folklore collection setting: sharing drinks around a campfire, in a free flowing conversation.

Analysis

JJ’s story, along with every scary story I collected for this project, professes to be a “true story.” While the plausibility of this is in question, the effect of even the plausibility of this story having happened causes an extra layer of fear and fascination for the story—especially since the story is almost always told while the listeners are actually at the site.

The Beagle of Lake Mooselookmeguntic

Nationality: USA
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/15/21
Primary Language: English

Main Piece

JJ often visits Lake Mooselookmeguntic, Maine with his friends. One of his friends has a house on the lake. He tells us about an infamous beagle that would bother the beachgoers at the lake:

“We had 2 neighbors on either side. Not too close by, about 200 feet. One neighbor had a tiny little old-ass beagle covered in cancerous warts. It seemed like it was on its way out every year. Every year they’d give it the excuse it was dying. It would act like it. It would come over to you on the beach and piss over everything. Steal shit and trample all over your stuff. Every year we’d go up and say ‘it’s gotta be dead by now.’

If someone is trolling you, you call it a ‘Beagle Troll.’ He was the king of troll. If you had a bottle or a solo cup he would literally pee in it. He was the menace of the beach. He would be loose and enter your house, he would piss on your stuff and shit on the floor. You couldn’t get mad at him because he was covered in cancer warts and old AF. It wasn’t just us – this happened to everyone on the beach and everyone knew the Beagle.”

Informant background

JJ is a student at the University of Southern California. He is from Newburyport, MA.

Performance context

This story was told during a folklore collection event that I set up with a diversity of members from the USC men’s Ultimate Frisbee team. We were in a classic folklore collection setting: sharing drinks around a campfire, in a free flowing conversation.

Analysis

The Beagle is an interesting example of a living person (or in this case, dog), whose legend has outgrown his probable literal achievements. In the case of the Beagle, it is implausible that the dog would go from beach group to beach group targeting their drinks to urinate into; likewise for him breaking into houses just to defecate on the floor. However, it surely makes a better story and has definitely put Lake Mooselookmeguntic on the map of my consciousness for the first time.

Little Green Door

Nationality: USA
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/15/21
Primary Language: English

Main Piece

DR learned this question-and-answer riddle game from camp. The participants repeatedly ask if arbitrary items can “pass through the Little Green Door” until the participants figure out the pattern of what can and cannot pass through.

Some selections from our rounds:

CT: “Can I pass through the Little Green Door?”

DR: “No.”

BM: “Can my beer pass through the Little Green Door?”

DR: “Yes.”

After about 20 rounds, the answer was deduced: anything with a double letter in it can pass through, anything else cannot.

Informant background

DR is a student at the University of Southern California. He is from Sudbury, MA.

Performance context

This story was told during a folklore collection event that I set up with a diversity of members from the USC men’s Ultimate Frisbee team. We were in a classic folklore collection setting: sharing drinks around a campfire, in a free flowing conversation.

Analysis

These interactive riddle games are often constructed so that the answer appears more complicated than it actually is. They often involve pointing out concrete objects, people, or places, so that the guesser’s attention is diverted to those specifics, while the real answer is something more abstract about the words used or delivery of the speaker. This paradigm shows up across almost all of the question-and-answer riddle games I have experienced.

Elephant Game

Nationality: USA
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/15/21
Primary Language: English

Main Piece

JD described a game called Elephant, where the person “in the know” running the game (the Teller) continues saying things following a hidden pattern until the pattern is found out by the guessers. JD learned this game from his friend PJ from Las Vegas, who “knows a bunch of these games.”

Some selections from our rounds:

JD: “There’s two elephants in the fire. There’s one elephant on Cy’s shoulder. How many elephants are there?”

               Answer: “There are 5 elephants.”

JD: “There’s 4 elephants in the big ol thing of IPA. There’s 2 elephants on that tree. How many elephants?”

               Answer: “There are 3 elephants.”

We went through about 10 rounds before we started to figure out the pattern.

The answer is that however many words are in the question asking how many elephants there are, is the number of elephants.

Informant background

JD is a student at the University of Southern California. He is from Las Vegas, NV.

Performance context

This story was told during a folklore collection event that I set up with a diversity of members from the USC men’s Ultimate Frisbee team. We were in a classic folklore collection setting: sharing drinks around a campfire, in a free flowing conversation.

Analysis

These interactive riddle games are often constructed so that the answer appears more complicated than it actually is. They often involve pointing out concrete objects, people, or places, so that the guesser’s attention is diverted to those specifics, while the real answer is something more abstract about the words used or delivery of the speaker. This paradigm shows up across almost all of the question-and-answer riddle games I have experienced.

Assassin Game

Nationality: USA
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/15/21
Primary Language: English

Main Piece

DR used to go to an academic summer camp in New England from 7th through 10th grade. Every year, they would play a game called “Assassin.” If you wanted to play, you would sign up with the person running it. They would give you a spoon and some ID number, as well as another player as a “target.” You can only tag your target when they’re not holding their spoon, which is “assassinating” them. After assassinating someone, you inherit their target, and the game continues until there is only one player remaining.

Informant background

DR is a student at the University of Southern California. He is from Sudbury, MA.

Performance context

This story was told during a folklore collection event that I set up with a diversity of members from the USC men’s Ultimate Frisbee team. We were in a classic folklore collection setting: sharing drinks around a campfire, in a free flowing conversation.

Analysis

There are some games (in fact, most games) which are entirely bounded in space and time to a certain restricted area – e.g., a basketball game on a basketball court; a game of chess to its board. However, games like Assassin are “always on” – in other words, a player must be ready at any time to play. This kind of game seems most common in schools and summer camps, where a large amount of children all live together. This is probably because children most enjoy the excitement of always being in the game, and also being in the same space for much or all of the day allows the element of persistence and vigilance to come into play.