Beware these creatures that go bump in the night
A few weeks ago, with Halloween quickly on the way, we lamented the dearth of Las Vegas-specific monsters.
You know, monsters like the Yeti, the chupacabra, the Jersey Devil or the other mythical creatures that haunt specific locales and whose stories are told around campfires and at sleepovers.
So, we asked readers to fill this gaping hole in our own popular culture. And fill it they did with scary creatures and mythical beings bizarre enough to catch Stephen King’s eye.
We present a few of the stories you’ve written to introduce your creepy creations. Enjoy.
ANGELICA
Some of the best hotels Las Vegas has ever seen are long gone. Longtime residents, and visitors, can recall their favorite casinos, restaurants and staff members.
I’ve lived here 30 years, and my favorite casino was the Silver Slipper. My favorite waitress, named Angelica, worked in the coffee shop at the “Slipper.”
Angelica was the nicest person you’d ever want to meet, always wearing a smile, never a frown. Work kept me away from the Slipper for a while, but I managed to work my way back for a visit after four to six months. I asked for Angelica, and the hostess looked at me curiously. The manager appeared and sat down in the booth. She had a perplexed look on her face.
The manager stated, “Angelica died 15 years ago.”
She also told me that Angelica must have liked me, as she has been “serving” her favorites long after she had left this world.
– Karena Uhl, 54, Las Vegas
GINO
There are many legends in the mob history of Sin City. Bugsy Siegel’s dream meant using the most effective people to get things done.
Gino’s 6-foot-5 dark pinstriped frame was always a precursor to swift violence aimed at card cheats and crooked dealers. The money must flow, and Gino added a river of blood to make it so. He plied his trade for over 30 years, for known syndicate bosses to their corporate counterparts. He was the ultimate enforcer, feared and respected by every level of Vegas crime and society. When he died, the town collectively gave a sigh of relief.
However, Gino, it seems, is a true professional and doesn’t know when to quit. He still appears to those deserving souls in dark parking lots and stairways. His well-dressed, bloodless white skin, empty eye sockets and hands clutching a bloody hammer or ice pick still gets the job done.
A side note: After one especially brutal night of mob retribution, a young lawyer was giving newly bailed-out Gino the giant a vicious tongue lashing. Gino let him finish his tirade, then leaned in and spoke these words to this future mayor: “Learn to get along in this town and start drinking gin.”
Seems Gino was a prophet, too.
– Ken Hampton, 57, Las Vegas
SAFFARIN
This lady of the night dwells at the SLS, formerly the Sahara. Saffarin has electric red hair and jade green neon eyes. Her purple satin gown clings to her sensuous breasts and firm thighs just like Marilyn Monroe’s did, leaving little doubt about undergarments. Her style says classic 1950s. Even her fingernails are long, purple and pointed.
She is strikingly beautiful sitting in a dark corner of her favorite bar. Her inviting smile causes a tourist or salesman to wonder what price he will have to pay for a night with her. Saffarin giggles when the enamored man suggests they go to his room for a nightcap. She seems to float down the corridors.
After they get “comfortable,” there is a surprise. Saffarin runs her fingers up his body to his throat. Her long nails sever his carotid artery. She giggles again as she feeds.
– Mavis Huntington, 58, Henderson
THE TAXI DRIVER
The taxi driver waits outside the casinos, looking for someone who is alone and drunk. He drives in an old-fashioned taxicab, but you cannot look in the inside because it’s all filled with smoke, and he never pulls down the windows. He never gets out of the taxicab, so you can’t really see him, but if you truly want to meet the taxi driver, go to any fun place in Las Vegas and, when night arrives, go look for him.
You will see the taxicab in the street. It will be dark and there will be no one but yourself, and when you get inside his car, he’ll lock the doors.
That’s when you’ll know that there is no going back. His face is going to turn to you and when his red eyes meet yours, he is going to tell you that he will drive you to hell.
– Ruben Serna, 16, Las Vegas
HOUSECRYPTKEEPER
She wasn’t a clean freak by nature; however, her boss drove her to be one at work.
She had a system to clean any mess in any room at the hotel and got the best reviews of all of the maids. Wine, chocolate, vomit on the carpet. Peanut butter, pancake syrup in the pillows. Lipstick, hair dye, toenails covering the shower. She’d seen and cleaned it all.
The hungry python the exotic dancer left behind from her performance in the penthouse suite for the bachelor party the night before caught her by surprise, though. The python squeezed her spirit out, but not far, for she remains trapped in the hotel today. She doesn’t clean anymore. Instead, she haunts those that make maids’ work misery. She can move guests’ valuables, tilt chairs, slam drawers and even wrap phone cords, shower curtains or bedsheets tight around guests’ throats so it looks like suicide.
Return business is down, but no one trashes a room twice at the Housecryptkeeper’s hotel.
Matthew Stuermer, 44, Las Vegas
baxter’s last act
My idea for the “Vegas Monster” I think really fits with the city.
The monster is a ghost of a not-so-well-known magician that went missing five years ago. His name was Baxter Raymond, but his stage name was “Baxter the Great.” Baxter is a white male who wears a black suit and cape onstage. His last act had him buried alive in a coffin, and he had to dig himself out. After he was buried he just disappeared from the box.
There had been reports of paranormal activity such as levitation at the place he performed at. Some people think he’s still alive and that this is all one big magic act.
What do you believe?
– Dane Yurchak, 16, Las Vegas
THE LAS VEGAS MONSTER
Everyone has heard of it at some point in their lives. The majority have even faced it without their knowledge.
This monster is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. This monster isn’t the one under your bed. That monster is your friend. This monster isn’t the one in your head, either. That’s the only monster you should be scared of.
This monster is the one that causes the monsters in your head to stir. But this monster is no threat once they leave — if they leave. This monster is the reason the monsters in your head never leave you alone. But, on the bright side, at least they keep you company.
This monster doesn’t have sharp teeth or long claws, and it doesn’t even contain any supernatural tendencies, but it’s still dangerous. The Las Vegas Monster is in everyone in this town, even ourselves.
– Jocelyn Carral, 14, Henderson
ELVY, DON’T BE CRUEL
An evil and mischievous goblin called “Elvy” is said to haunt Planet Hollywood’s famous V Theater. Elvy was once a struggling Elvis impersonator who sold his soul to the Devil for fortune and fame, but was tricked and destined to spend eternity as a grotesque little minion in the fiery dark side of the underworld.
If you dare, at 3 a.m., grab a guitar and head over to the V Theater. Spin around five times while crooning your favorite Elvis tune. You’ll hear an inhuman grumble and tiny Elvy appears onstage performing his patented Elvis dance, dressed in a raggedy white suit. Stare into his glowing red eyes and fuzzy half-human yellow face. Cringe at his one large pointy ear and praise Elvy. Show him the King isn’t dead. You’ll remain alive.
Anger Elvy and beware. He’ll hand you a signed Vegas postcard depicting your impending death.
Richard Malecki, 31, Las Vegas
THE VEGAS VAPOR
The Vegas Vapor. A new ghost has come to haunt Las Vegas.
He is a wisp of a person, fading in and out. He isn’t horrifying until you see the unnatural green eyes resting in his eye sockets, separated from the rest of his black and white appearance. When he was alive, he became rich from the many casinos scattered all over Las Vegas. His greedy life was ended when he died from poison in his beverage at one of his main casinos, his eyes permanently stained green from staring at his money. He now spends his afterlife searching for his murderer, anxious for revenge.
Beware of the Vegas Vapor!
– Megan Gleason, 14, Henderson
PINKY THE CLOWN
Pinky the Clown fits right in at Circus Circus. Dressed in a pink clown outfit, he saunters about, looking very much like an employee there.
But he is not an employee! He is a demented and deranged man whose sole purpose in life is to frighten children so much that they will be traumatized for life.
When parents aren’t looking, he approaches a child and begins his visual attack. He puts red contact lenses in his eyes that give him a demon look,. He inserts vampire teeth in his mouth. He squirts a ketchup packet in his mouth, letting it ooze out to look like blood.
Instead of leaving Circus Circus with joyful memories, children are leaving with coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, thanks to Pinky the Clown.
– Mike Malburg, 59, Las Vegas
THE LAST NIGHT
Barton walked in from the desert. Dust swirled, covering him.
Inside this dust bowl walked the 7-foot skeletal remains of a gunslinger. Black orbits shined where eyes once were. Gnarled bones flared to pointed appendages. Rotted, ragged teeth jutted out from the top of a yellowed skull. Blood-red stains marked Barton’s face. Between the broken rib cage, rats scurried to nest in his lower abdomen.
Bones creaked as Barton rigidly moved forward. The cowboy hat floated on his broken skull. He lost most of his head in a shootout back in 1890. As he drifted forward, night creatures scurried to get away. Barton’s sour, fetid smell emitted with each creaking step. The ghostly apparition appeared in wispy shadows of his former self. Distant echoed shots were heard as men in ancient cowboy gear shot it out.
The former cowboy disappeared into the red mist of death.
– Colleen Becker, 66, Henderson
THE BEAST OF BOX CAR BAY
In the dark, at the end of the dusty road leading to Box Car Bay on Lake Mead. Not the place to be at night, alone.
Had a terrific evening fishing with 80-plus stripers in the metal boat cooler. Cinching the last tie down, I heard a loud rustling and raspy growling emanating from the tamarisk bushes beside the jeep. Aimed my head lamp in that direction, thinking a coyote had scent of my catch.
The light beam revealed two wide-spread red eyes reflecting from a large black form. Too big for a coyote.
The head lamp went dead. In the darkness I grabbed four stripers out of the cooler and threw them in the direction of the growls. Snarling, crunching sounds ensued as I closed the jeep door, started the engine and headed up the dusty road.
Maybe a panther, I thought, driving 25 mph up the incline. Glanced in the mirror. Through the dust and glow of the trailer lights I could see the black form keeping pace with the jeep. Went faster, 35, 45. Still there! Around a curve and into a sandy trough in the road. Stalled out.
I could hear the beast shuffling and wheezing in the dust cloud surrounding us. It started shaking the entire trailer with boat and jeep. I heard a tremendous crash … all was still. It left, I thought. Started the jeep and floored it. The violent thrashing had loosened me from the sand pit.
Kept going up toward North Lake Shore Drive. Turning onto the road home, an armored truck, three park rangers, Humvee, and animal control went by me and turned unto Box Car Road. Raised questions in my mind.
Went through Sunrise Mountain Pass and to the safety of my driveway. Still shaking, I’d calm down by cleaning the fish. Walking to the rear of the boat, I saw the starboard corner had been ripped off by the thing and my cooler of fish was gone!
It left one striper stuck to the bottom of the boat. Filleted and ate it that night. Never stayed out there after dark again.
– James A. Cook, 66, Las Vegas
