Creepy Letters

My mom and I were just talking on the phone and somehow we got onto the topic of creepy, anonymous letters.

Well, I guess I was the one who remembered first that once my uncle received an anonymous letter (this was pre-internet days) that contained the lyrics to "Harbor Lights." No return address or anything.

I saw the harbor lights
They only told me we were parting
The same old harbor lights that once brought you to me
I watched the harbor lights
How could I help if tears were starting
Goodbye to tender nights beside the silv'ry sea

I long to hold you near and kiss you just once more
But I was on the ship and you were on the shore
Now I know lonely nights
For all the while my heart is whisp'ring
Some other harbor lights will steal your love from me

It's kind of a goofy, corny thing to receive and I suppose it's more sad than endearing or creepy/scary.

He grilled all his friends and coworkers and nobody would own up to sending it.

He was happily married and getting up in years when that arrived (sixties I'm guessing) so I'm thinking it was an old girlfriend or wannabe girlfriend too shy to say the words and knowing it was all too late and feeling the need to make this gesture somehow.

My mom got a creepier one. She too was up in years when she received a greeting card that was one of the "sexy/funny" ones.

I couldn't remember what this said but she apparently remembered every word since she told me tonight it said "Wear this outfit when you go out."

I told her tonight that it scared the hell out of me hearing that line now, because that totally sounds like a serial killer or rapist.

But she said when she had me scrutinize this card at the time I insisted it was from her friend Arlene. I'm very good usually at telling gender by handwriting (about 98 or 99% accurate) and I used to be able to recognize the handwriting of everyone she communicated with, so my instincts were probably correct.

Because the line after that said "Remembering the 40s" which implied it was someone her age or close in years, which would have made for a very old rapist or serial killer.

Anyway, neither of these anecdotes are really something that would be easy to make interesting as fiction, but I thought that is a good idea around which to base a collection of short fiction.

I mean write a series of short stories in which each story revolves around the idea of an anonymous and unexplained communication (letter, email, whatever) that arrives out of the epistolary blue and the repercussions of such weird communication.