**Hi all, I’m a Professor of Mythical Literature at an English university. A few years back, I “inherited” (long story) a project by the name of Collected Modern Anecdotes of Unexplained Phenomena. My predecessor preferred to call it his Tales For Dark Hours. The project is as it sounds—it’s my responsibility to scour the country collecting accounts of weird happenings, performing interviews, and rooting out corroborating evidence where possible. A student of mine recommended sharing some of my findings on this subreddit, and I agreed it was an excellent idea. Hopefully what you read here won’t chill you beyond reason, and maybe one or two of you have your own story worth adding to the collection…
This first account was told to me by a nineteen-year-old lad, but occurred when the boy was fifteen. His story is as follows:**
Something happened to me at school that I’ll never fully recover from, neither physically nor mentally. Few people believe me, but I swear everything I’m about to tell you is true. It was a summer day, right towards the end of term. We were gearing up to take our GCSEs and then, in just over a month, my whole year would graduate from school.
The classes had given over to revision periods for the exams, but it meant that there wasn’t much to do—no one was revising seven whole hours a day. The feeling was festive among the students, lots of mucking about, horseplay, that sort of thing. Everyone felt like they could send school to hell; we were growing up and leaving.
The day was hot and my best mate Anders suggested we bunk off the final revision period: physics. I’d always got full marks, the exam would be a piece of piss for me, so of course I said yes. But we had to stay on school grounds because Anders lived in a village outside of town, and his mum would arrive to pick him up in an hour.
So at the start of last period we hid in a caretaker’s closet, giggling to ourselves until the corridors had cleared out, then crept back, tiptoeing down the halls in an exaggerated way for each other’s amusement. It all began really when we snuck past the sports hall and realised no one was using it.
‘Hey, there’s some cool stuff in the sports storage cupboard, like frisbees and shit they never get out. Let’s see what we can muck about with,’ suggested Anders. ‘It’s our last chance to use the forbidden toys.’
I was up for it. We sprinted through to the back of the hall and opened the storage room. It was packed with goodies. I pulled a couple of orange cones off a shelf and we wore them as hats.
‘No way, space hoppers!’ said Anders, pulling out a couple of brightly-coloured examples from the rear of the room. ‘Why the fuck do they have space hoppers?’
While he was yanking the hoppers out, I grabbed a hacky sack from a plastic bin full of them and threw it in his direction. Within minutes we were bouncing around the sports hall on space hoppers, loaded up on hacky sacks, firing them all over at each other. After that we pulled some ropes down and tried to whip each other with them, then we got all the basketballs and had a go at scoring as many baskets in as we could in the hall’s net, rapid-fire. Finally, we got the hula hoops out and held a competition to see who could roll them the furthest.
Eventually I glanced at the wall clock. ‘Shit me, it’s like five minutes ’til end of class.’ We looked around at the absolute devastation we’d made everywhere and panicked. Grabbing a handful of whatever we could we ran into the storage closet to put it back.
That’s when we heard it.
Nuk-nuknuk-Nuk-nuk
A knocking in that old familiar rhythm of shave-and-a-haircut. Neither of us could tell where the sound had come from. Anders stopped flat and dropped what he was carrying. ‘What the hell. You know the old myth, right?’ I’d vaguely heard of the legend of our home town, but not really. I never paid attention to those things. Anders explained: ‘sometimes, someone will hear a knocking in the rhythm of shave-and-a-haircut, and they can’t find where it’s coming from. The one thing you must never do is reply by knocking out the ending—two-bits. You’re damned if you do.’
‘Why? What happens?’
‘I do know the answer. Most people think that two bits is American and means two quarters, but it’s older than that. What it really means—‘
‘What on earth is going on here!?’
Mr Turton, the Head of Design Technology, had appeared in the doorway with a furious frown. We turned sheepishly to face him. ‘Right, you’re staying back to clean all this up and then some. Disappointing, boys.’
Anders put his hand halfway up. ‘Erm, sir, my mum picks me up. I can’t stay behind or I won’t get home.’
Mr Turton coughed. ‘Right. Well. You can go today, but you’ve got detention tomorrow.’ He jabbed his finger in my direction. ‘You’ve got more work to do, it seems.’
’Thanks sir.’ Anders shot me an apologetic look then sidled out of the storage room to freedom.
The teacher went on. ‘Not just putting everything back. We’ve been meaning to get these ropes wound up nicely and stored on the hooks in the gym. You can do that too before you leave.’ Mr Turton demonstrated how he wanted the ropes coiled. Then he left me to it.
I heard the school slowly drain of life as I listlessly walked back and forth, collecting up hacky sacks and hula hoops. Soon the building was dead silent. I was just bending down to pick up a basketball in the far corner of the hall when I heard it again.
Nuk-nuknuk-Nuk-nuk
‘Hello?’ I called through the echoey space. Then, when there was no reply: ‘Piss off Anders if that’s you.’
‘You’re not funny,’ I added under my breath. I walked back to the storage room, a basketball under each arm and kicking three others along. Back in the cupboard it sounded once more.
Nuk-nuknuk-Nuk-nuk
At this point I really started to grow disturbed. I quickly wound up the ropes (definitely not as good as Turton wanted). They were super heavy ropes, made by sailors in the nineteenth century by the looks of them. The sort of thing my great grandma might have heaved herself up during her P.E. days.
Due to the weight I could only manage two at a time on my shoulder. I was meant to haul them over to the gym, which was situated a way down the corridor. Not wanting to stick around, I set off in that direction. In the hallway I heard the knocks yet again. They echoed around and I couldn’t find any point of origin.
Nuk-nuknuk-Nuk-nuk
I hurried into the gym and hung the ropes on the hooks. I just wanted to get out of here now. I power-walked back into the corridor.
Nuk-nuknuk-Nuk-nuk
Damn it! I couldn’t hear where it came from, and maybe I was inventing things, but I thought perhaps the noise came out of the Design Tech lab just across from the gym. I pushed the door open and stalked in.
‘Hello?’
NUK-NUKNUK-NUK-NUK!
The raps came super loud and more violent this time. Adrenalin kicked in. I crossed over from being scared to feeling angry. This must be Anders pranking me. He’d planned the whole thing. Got me in the sports hall alone. Told me about the stupid myth. Abandoned me to clean up. Ran around hiding and knocking out shave-and-a-haircut all over. Furious, I slammed my fist down twice against the nearest workbench.
PUM-PUM!
‘Two-bits! How’d you like that?’
The door to the supply cupboard creaked open, and for a millisecond I thought it was all over, that Anders was about to jump out shouting, ‘gotcha!’
What actually came out sent my head spinning.
It was a man. This man was alopecia bald—nothing on his head, no facial hair, no eyebrows. For no apparent reason his entire face, head and neck were grease-painted cobalt blue. His features were gaunt and elongated, and likewise his limbs seemed slightly longer than was right. He wore a white onesie with red stripes spiralling round it. He wheeled a trolley in front of him. There was a basin set in this trolley and multiple hairdressing items fitted into special slots about it. Behind him he dragged a barber’s chair. He grinned at me and his teeth were dark brown like teak.
‘Good day. They call me The Barber and I’ll be your barber for the day. Just one moment.’ He set about positioning his items in the space by the whiteboard. When he swung the barber’s chair round it looked like it had been fused with an electric chair—that is, modified with a bunch of metal bands and leather straps used to hold a person down.
I bolted to the door. But as much as I rattled, it wouldn’t open. The Barber ignored my struggles and whistled as he set up shop. When he was ready he said, ‘if you’d like to take a seat?’
‘You can fuck off,’ I told him honestly.
He cocked his head. Tutted. ‘A game of catch first, is it?’
He came at me like a dancing clown with his crooked arms out. I dodged and weaved but was no match for him. He chuckled in my face. Within seconds he had me pinned between his bony arms. ‘That’s right, hug it out,’ he said, and laughed. His breath smelt like Old Spice. As his grotesque face beamed over me I saw his teeth, in fact, were made of wood.
He dragged me over and forced me into his chair. Metal bands came down around my ankles, wrists and neck, Then the leather straps bound all those places in between.
‘Wriggle if you like now!’ he said, punctuating with a cackle. He pulled a bottle of Old Spice out of a compartment in the trolley. Then he drank from it like it was a hip flask. And that was that mystery solved.
‘One second.’ He bounded back into the supply closet and returned a moment later wheeling an ornate brass mirror, pulling it to a stop in front of me. Its surface was mottled, dirty and distorted. ‘Now,’ he declared, with his hands on his hips. ‘A shave and a haircut.’
‘I’m alright thanks.’
‘You soon will be, fella-me-lad.’
The bizarre man pulled out a shaving brush and a metal soap dish. He wet the brush in his basin, then began to run the brush in rapid circular motions over the dish creating a lather. Faster and faster he went, and the bubbling concoction frothed and foamed higher. The amount of foam became absurd—the whole thing felt like it was getting out of control. The Barber looked to be having a whale of a time, and on he went. Foam flopped onto the floor as it rose up into a tower.
Then abruptly he stopped. I couldn’t see his face for the sheer mountain of foam he held in his palm. His head peek-a-booed round the side. ‘Ready?’
‘Leave me alone!’
Again he ignored me. Instead he slapped my face around gaily with the shaving brush. It felt like a sloppy fish. When he was done I saw in the mirror that I now had a giant Santa beard of foam. The Barber got a cutthroat razor out of a drawer in the trolley. He unfolded it slowly and with glee. ‘I recommend you hold still for this,’ he said.
He raised the razor high above his head. I thought I was dead at this point and I think I wet myself. The Barber brought his blade down in a wild, violent arc… and somehow it scraped my face in a perfect close shave. Every slash was the same—from behind it must have certainly looked like he was mutilating my head, swinging down viciously from random angles with the cutthroat razor—but somehow the stroke each time brushed precisely along my cheek, chin or neck, leaving me the smoothest I’d been since puberty hit.
Soon he was done. He admired his work for a second, then retrieved a pail of water from the cupboard under his basin and sploshed its entire contents into my face, washing away the last remaining bits of foam. I sputtered, coughing water out.
While the whole ordeal was bizarre and humiliating, I started to wonder if this was all: if I’d get away simply with a decent shave and a haircut. After all, that’s what he’d offered. But then the voice of Anders repeated in my head—the one thing you must never do is reply by knocking out the ending—two-bits. You’re damned if you do.
‘Good, good,’ said The Barber, setting the razor—still open—carefully beside the basin. ‘Now the hair.’ He whipped out a pair of scissors and a comb and marched around me.
His scissors came in like lightning, snips as fast as a machine gun—ti-ti-ti-ti-ti! Then he’d stop and observe around my head as though he were a snooker player and my hair was the table. And suddenly ti-ti-ti-ti-ti! again. It shit me up every time.
‘All finished!’ he declared at last. He placed his scissors to one side and set about slapping me rudely with a soft brush to remove the hair. From what I could tell in the twisted mirror, I had a very good haircut.
‘That’s it?’ I asked, hopeful.
’That’s it.’ He paused for a beat. ‘That’ll be two bits, please.’
I got a sinking feeling. Anders had left before explaining this part to me, but I knew it couldn’t be good. ’Two bits? How much is that? I’ve got like 58p left over from lunch I think.’
He halted and looked at me with that cocked-head look of his. ‘Two bits. You can choose which bits.’ He put down the brush and reached out once more for the razor behind him.
We were silent for a moment. I tried to stop from passing out.
‘You know what I mean now, youngster. You get to choose. Just two whole bits. What’ll it be? Could include an ear or a nose, a finger, a lip or an eyelid. Even your little winkie. Take your pick.’
‘Get away from me. I want to go home.’
He raised a bored eyebrow. ‘If you don’t choose, I will. I’m partial to a tongue myself. Yes, think I could add one to the collection.’ He leant in towards me.
‘Okay, okay! My pinkies.’ They were the bits of myself I could think of under such pressure that, once removed, would leave me the least mutilated.
‘Pinky fingers or pinky toes?’ he asked. In only the most perverse and grim meaning of these words, I’m glad he did. I had thought of fingers, but toes seemed better.
‘Toes! Pinky toes!’ I cried.
‘Very good.’ He grinned and lowered himself slow like he was miming going down in an elevator. He took off my school shoes, and then the socks came off.
I felt the bite of the blade entering at the base of my toe and it reminded of a knife cutting into an apple. No speed-cutting for him this time. Searing pain fired up through my foot, and continued right through my leg. I sensed hot blood welling swiftly out of me and heard it spattering onto the floor. The pain persisted, kept rising in intensity. I only knew he had done with one foot when he started on the other. By this time I had fallen into a stupor of agony, I hardly knew what was going on. I sweated heavy, caught my sorry, ashen face in the mirror. I skirted unconsciousness as the blood loss grew greater, flowing out the ends of both feet.
Then I felt him unstrap me and I slipped to the ground. I passed out in a puddle of my own blood. When I next woke up I was in hospital.
They never found the man who did this to me.
**When I was done interviewing the teen, he took off his shoes to show me the missing toes. You could tell the amputations had been very clean, precise. All of the toe, and only the toe, had been taken in each case. I think he had been wise in his choice, as you can still walk and pretty much do most things normally without the little toe.
He had also managed to get hold of two crime-scene photos, which simply showed a great smear of blood and hair in a classroom. No other evidence was recovered that might point to the identity of The Barber; no DNA, nothing. I interviewed people around the town and listened to other rumours of this legend, but it was all hearsay, lacking details that could be corroborated. My work done, I filed the case in my Collected Anecdotes of Unexplained Phenomena, or more precisely, my Tales For Dark Hours.**