Sleepy Alice

It's Halloween night at two in the morning. My friend and I were walking along Lake Timit going through the small amount of candy we managed to get. Suddenly Andrew stops and looks at me with a wide grin, "Hey have you heard the story about Sleepy Alice? The spirit that haunts this lake."

I shake my head, "No I haven't. Is that some urban legend around town?" I look at him inwardly already getting goosebumps. I have never liked scary stories. People always just use them as a way to mess with me.

Nodding vigorously Andrew started walking again, "Oh yeah. My old man told me about it. He said it happened like fifty years ago. Apparently there was a girl named Alice who got into a car wreck and her car got shoved into this lake. She wasn't able to get out of it and she drowned. Well the guy who hit her was a college guy who supposedly hadn't slept for two days because of cramming for exams. He fell asleep at the wheel, hit Alice, and she drowned in the lake."

Nodding along I can feel all the hairs on my body standing up. As soon as Andrew had started telling me the story a child breeze had come from out of nowhere off the lake. "Alright, tragic enough so far. So what happened then?"

Andrew laughed at me, "So after that Miss Hatchett, her mother who had already been pretty unfriendly to everyone in town really lost it. She tried to have the guy arrested for something along the lines of driving while too tired. Well there was no law anywhere in the country at the time that had any law like that so of course it went nowhere. So instead she tried to sue him. Well when they went to court his family's doctor claimed that the guy had been diagnosed with insomnia so it really wasn't his fault for not sleeping."

I stopped for a moment rubbing my arms trying to warm up some, "So wait there really was no law against driving when you hadn't been sleeping at the time? Wow that's actually pretty crazy to think about. Alright so then what happened?" At this point while I was scared I was pretty invested in the story.

Shaking his head at my obvious attempt to try and hide that I was scared continued, "Well of course because of the insomnia diagnosis the case ended up being thrown out. So from there Miss Hatchett went to the state legislature and ended up getting to create what we now call Alice's Law. Basically if you get pulled over and it is obvious to the officer in question that you are far too tired to drive you could be arrested for a DUI."

I pause Andrew, "DUI? Like driving under the influence? I guess that makes sense. Being super tired does a lot of the same things to you as being drunk. I got to admit this is actually a pretty well put together urban legend. Go on."

Andrew laughed at me again, "Well of course it's well put together. It may be an urban legend but almost all of them have some truth to them. Anyways, Miss Hatchett had finally started to move on from her daughter's death after getting Alice's Law put in place. She even went and apologized to the guy who has killed Alice since she had made his life such a nightmare. But that's also when she found out that his family had paid off their doctor to lie about the insomnia. In reality he hadn't even been cramming for exams. He had been partying for two days straight and he had been on the way to another party when he hit Alice.

Well that was the last straw for Miss Hatchett. She came down here to the lake and supposedly she drowned herself so that her daughter could come back from the dead to punish the guy. When her daughter came back she was a spirit. But weirdly enough she was perpetually tired but could never sleep. Well supposedly the next time the guy came driving by here after not sleeping for a full day she appeared in his car. When she did she robbed him of his ability to sleep.

Do you know what happens when you don't sleep? After a couple of days it's not uncommon to start having visual and auditory hallucinations. After that it only gets worse. By a full week they say you'll die after having gone absolutely insane. Well on the fifth day of not sleeping the guy who had killed Alice just drove his car into the lake and he drowned. According to his mother he had left the house saying 'I need to help Alice go to sleep.'

You know those guard rails we had to pass coming here? Well those got put in after the fifth person drove their car into the lake. Each one saying 'I need to help Alice go to sleep.' before they left their houses and drove into the lake. According to the story, whenever Sleepy Alice claims another victim she is able to sleep for at least a little while. But eventually she wakes up and waits for the next person who hasn't been sleeping to drive by."

At this point I am thoroughly freaked out, "Well that's actually pretty terrifying. She just takes away your ability to sleep and that's it? You can't escape her after that?"

Andrew grins nodding, "That's right. According to my old man, to this day over one hundred deaths in this town have been attributed to Sleepy Alice. Now believe it or not there's actually a second part to this story. You notice how we haven't seen any homeless people on our walk? Despite the fact that lakes at night are a pretty popular spot for homeless people especially if there are benches or closed off bathrooms.

Well that's because if you're here at the lake late at night like it is now a young woman who is dripping wet will approach you. Her wet hair hangs over her face, mostly obscuring it except for one eye. When she approaches you she'll ask 'Could you please help me find somewhere to sleep?' After that if you lead her to a bench she'll go to sleep and you won't be able to for a full day afterwards. But if you don't help her then she'll steal your ability to sleep right then and there just like she does to the others. So if you're ever here late at night and a woman like that approaches you I would say you should probably help her."

At that moment the breeze that had been coming off the lake turned into a full gust. I braced myself against it and as it died down I looked up to see a young woman approaching us, "Could you please help me find somewhere to sleep?" She softly asked.

I hope you all enjoyed this story. If you did give it a like, subscribe, and feel free to leave a tip. Till next time.