The creatures that lurk just outside your dorm.

The peak, climax if you will, of this the spookiest of seasons is nigh. As such, you might be on the hunt for something bone chilling, something that will make your skin crawl, that unknown and ever elusive bump in the night. If this rings true, I have good news for you, you need not look any further than Columbia campus for all of the creepiest creatures a college student could imagine. Below constitutes a comprehensive catalogue of all of the creepy critters I have encountered in my brief yet fright-filled time on campus. 

1. One time on my walk to campus I encountered a decapitated bird head. This I correctly took to be a bad omen as later that day I was given a week’s notice for my psych midterm and the two papers that went with it. 
2. I know Riverside park is not technically a campus, but the other night I encountered five hungry raccoons there so I think that I will include it. Let me tell you, these bad boys had for sure developed a taste for human flesh. My friend who does Jiu Jitsu even threw some shit at them and it seemed that only made them stronger. 
3. Are you ever sitting on the Low steps and see something small dart out of the corner of your eye? Yeah, me too. Those are bugs. Crawly, centipede-like bugs that live in the little holes between the steps. I am very sorry, I feel like I might be ruining lives by writing this one. 
4. One time my roommate told me she was walking down Broadway and kicked something warm. She looked down and it was a rat. This story haunts me. 
5. At 2 am, maybe after partaking in some very legal substances, the scary jack-o-lantern man cackling at you when you walk out of Morton Williams is enough to make you pee your pants, hypothetically. 

somehow not scary racoon via Wikimedia Commons