50 Famous Horror Legends (Part 3)

Night Hag

She huddled in bed, remembering the bad horror movie she had watched earlier tonight.

The strange, burned killer with the knives for fingers would haunt her dreams, she was certain. He was horrible and comical at the same time. But he was really scary, and she knew she probably should have just skipped that particular flick. After all, the killer had haunted the dreams of the doomed young teenagers, and she, herself, often had disturbing dreams.

What was that?

She sat up in bed, clutching the bedclothes tightly to her chest. She could have sworn that she heard something…peculiar. Almost sounded like a moan. But surely that was just the wind, right?

Or my overactive imagination, she thought. She lay back, tried to relax again, to think happy thoughts, and get sleepy. But the moonlight and shadows swirled across the walls, creating terrible shapes and curling fingers and weird faces in her mind.

Oon, though, she felt her eyelids grow heavy, and the lonely rustle of the wind through the trees seemed like a gentle tune nature was using just to lull her to sleep. She yawned, her anxiety leaving her as she floated down to gentle slumber.

In her dream, she was speaking with her cousin.

There was only one problem:

“Aren’t you dead?”

The little man (who had a face that looked as if it were a sort of latex mask or movie makeup) said, “Sure. And you know what? I’ve got messages stacked up to here.”

He raised his arm above his head, mimicking a stack. Did he mean his answering machine? When she thought about it later, she thought he probably meant something else.

She gradually came awake, noting, with her sleeping brain, that the room suddenly seemed to have brightened with a weird blue light. She shivered in strange terror. She found she couldn’t move!

She was having trouble breathing, too. It felt like someone was sitting on her chest, suffocating her. She fought back against the invisible force, but she could barely even move the tips of her fingers.

She looked at the foot of her bed. A weird, dark form began to materialize, slowly, as she looked on in terror. Was this just a dream? She was certain she was wide awake.

The ghostly form was huge and black; it must have been as tall as the ceiling, and it had long, crooked, skeletal fingers that it waved in her face.

She couldn't move! She couldn't breathe! it felt as if there were a heavy weight sitting on her chest.

Before her suddenly was a crooked old crone, crawling up the edge of the bed, until it sat on her chest. The face was hideous. Later, she would say, "She...she looked like a bag lady like she was wearing everything in the world she owned on her back."

The hideous old crone with the crooked fingers seemed to slowly fold her hands around the girl's throat. She struggled beneath her. The girl could hear the weird, cackling sound of the old woman's voice, and could smell the evil funk of her rotting breath...

She couldn't breathe! She struggled! The crone was crushing her under her hideous form! But she seemed to be merely a phantom, a hallucination! How could she be so heavy?

The girl suddenly broke free from the suffocating spell, bolting upward in bed, screaming.

the ancient crone seemed to reel backward into the darkness, her feet not touching the floorboards.

***

She wasn't sleeping anymore.

Just like Nancy in that Elm Street movie, she was too scared to fall asleep.

So she drank coffee, and she took NoDoze, and she could feel herself, da b-day, grow more and more unhinged.

"Darling," her mother said to her one night over dinner, frown lines etched worriedly into her forehead, "You have got to try and get some sleep! You're going to make yourself sick, darlin'!"

"Mom," she protested weakly, "the nightmares..."

"They're just dreams, darlin'! They can't hurt you! Now, c'mon, I want you to finish your dinner, and I want you to go and get into your PJs, and I want you to get some sleep. Okay? Do it for your mother, huh?"

She snuggled up in her bed, exhausted, but sleep was the furthest thing from her mind. She felt cold all over, and the shadows on the wall cast by the moonlight seemed, all of a sudden, to be vast, weird fingers reaching up from blackness across the wall. She could hear Mom and Dad outside, in the hall, talking to each other (talking about her, she was sure) worriedly, and she could hear the TV in the bedroom. That all made her feel a little reassured. But, soon she knew, they would be in bed, with their door closed, and she would be cut off over here...alone.

Despite her fear, she could feel her eyelids growing heavy. She felt so drowsy, and it was stuffy in the house (Mom didn't like to use the air conditioning). She began to nod off and had strange, short, weird little dreams.

What was that? She thought she could hear something...moaning. Her eyes shot open...but she couldn't move her arms! Before her, the swirling darkness seemed to turn bloody and red, and out of the weird scarlet mist came...the crone.

She could hear the cackling, could see the hunched image of the old hag creep forward, her feet not touching the floor, her hair ragged strings, and her strange, warbling voice laughing mouthfuls of stink into the room. She felt herself gag, her eyes bulge, her heart hammering with fear and nausea in her chest.

Her lips began to quiver as she attempted to cry out. She couldn't make a peep though. The dark figure of the crone began to climb up from the foot of the bed, grabbing handfuls of the bedding, and pulling it back.

She was going to sit on her chest! She was going to crush her!

She suddenly felt her brain begin to crack. She shot up in bed, her mouth working into what seemed like a silent scream.

(It was almost as if she were outside herself looking at herself.)

But the scream had not been silent. It had been very loud. She could hear her parents suddenly aroused in fright, could hear her brother race up the stairs in a panic, could see the lights go on in the hall.

Her entire family came racing into the room, just in time to see her bolt upright in bed, scream in bloodcurdling fear and terror, and pass out.

The last thing she remembered was hearing her mother say something, "She's having another one of those nightmares."

***

Clarissa brought over the Ouija Board one night. She didn't like to fool around with such things, but under the circumstances, she felt she had little choice.

Clarissa's mother was deeply Catholic, and sometimes had "visions" in which the Blessed Virgin came to her and instructed her, showing her things she couldn't have otherwise known. Her mother had had just such a vision when a local college girl had been kidnaped. When the police finally found the body, the vision was, seemingly, proven to be accurate.

"You can't believe everything they say," Clarrisa instructed, sounding like an old pro.

"They like to lie and confabulate and mix truth with falsehood. And don't pretend this is a joke, because they like to play on that, too, and it angers them..."

"I, I know all of this Clarrisa. I've used it before. Not as much as you, perhaps..."

Clarissa looked a little stern.

"A bunch of girls sitting around giggling over the board at a slumber party is not the same thing as what we're about to do. Under the circumstances, though, I think you'll be okay."

And Clarissa spoke what sounded like a prayer over the board, and turned out the lights, lighting a candle as the girls sat, cross-legged on the floor. Clarissa put her skinny, pale hand on the planchette, and she did the same.

"Now, in the name of the Highest Spirit, is anyone with us?"

The planchette spelled out, "Yes."

"And may we ask who?"

The planchette spelled out, "Harsh."

"Is that your name?" asked Clarissa.

"No. But you have been awful harsh."

Clarissa looked a little embarrassed as this was spelled out, but she wrote it down anyway in a little notebook she had placed by her side.

"Can you tell us your name?"

It is spelled out: Z-E-M.

"Oh, you're familiar to me," said Clarissa. The temperature in the room seemed to have dropped by about ten degrees. She imagined she could feel icy fingers trailing across her back.

"Okay Zem, can you tell us who the spirit is that is tormenting my friend here?"

The planchette stopped dead as if it were nailed to the board.

Then:

"Yes."

They waited. Slowly, it began to spell out a complex tale.

***

This is the story the Ouija Board told.

Once, long ago, a wild woman lived at the edge of town, on the banks of the Yazoo river. She was a mad, cackling old crone, and everyone hated the sight of her. When she came into town for supplies, people were sure to step far out of her path when they saw her coming. Word was, was that she was a WITCH and that those that pestered or angered her would pay dearly.

What's more, legends grew up around the witch (who was also known by the nickname "the Hag"), legends having to do with the men that sometimes disappeared rafting on the Yazoo. A sensible person might put these disappearances down to death by misadventure, drowning...or the last act of men desperate enough to drop everything and leave their families, striking out to change their identity and start anew. But other folks spoke of foul play, witchcraft, and the dark specter of human sacrifice.

One river rat that was more curious than scared decided to take his raft up the Yazoo, to inspect the Hag's crumbling, ramshackle house.

As he got closer and closer to the bank of the river, he fancied he could hear screams and moans coming from the place. He pushed his way to the bank, waded in and up the side, and snuck over to the side of the house, peering in the window.

What he saw astonished him. There was the body of a man lying in the gloom, in a pool of blood on the floor. He fancied he could see a dim, hunched little shape moving around in the darkness. Suddenly--

"Hello there, stranger!"

A hideous old crone had her face pressed up against the window glass. She was truly a sight to behold and he felt his breath hitch in his lungs as he recoiled in fear Bounding back, he could hear the old witch cackle maniacally.

"Come inside! Come inside! Why you're just in time! Just in time...for dinner! Just in time, just in time!"

The man ran back to his boat, shoving off as quickly as he could, and finally taking his old pole and pushing the boat away from the shore, rowing with both hands in sheer panicked terror.

It was not long, however, before he worked up his courage again (perhaps over a shot of whiskey), and, fetching the Sherriff, returned to the spot with a posse of men. Unsurprisingly, they found the gloomy old ruin of a house deserted.

"Except for the cats!" he always told everyone later. "It was the strangest durned thing you ever saw!"

The men decided that they must go in and investigate. They pulled the rusted old door hinges open--scree! and went into the gloom.

Inside, all was dark and cold; although it was stifling outside, several of the men noted just how cold it seemed in there, all of a sudden.

"It was the darndest thing," one of the men noted later, while ensconced at a local saloon. "So cold! Just the durndest thing!"

The place smelled of animal droppings and old, filthy felines. The men could hear the cats meowing upstairs, and so they climbed the dusty, rickety, ancient staircase upward...finally, they realized the sound of the cats meowing and scurrying was coming from the attic. So they went up there.

And that was where the real horror lay. Or, more properly, it swung; for, suspended from the rafters, were the decaying bodies of the old hag's victims, hung by the neck. Around them, dozens of sleek, fat cats purred their rusty purrs.

"Well, I got to say, it wasn't hard to figure out what those cats had been eating, that's for sure!" said one of the men, while doffing a beer at his favorite watering hole.

The men found themselves sick with the prospect. The Sherriff, happening to glance out of the window, suddenly pointed and said, "Look!"

Below, running across the weed-choked yard, a small, hunched shape cackled her way into the woods. The men knew they must give pursuit, so they headed downstairs and out the door. (Clearing the dead bodies from the attic and trying to identify them would come later.)

They went into the woods after the old hag, but it was no time before they lost her. They then decided to make it back to town and get some dogs. In short order they had accomplished this, and found a few volunteers for the manhunt, to boot.

Carrying torches, they headed out into the woods, the dogs howling and barking and pulling their masters forward.

It was at dusk that they finally got the scent of the murderous old witch. They chased the howling hag deep, deep into the swamp, but the posse was too scared to follow very closely.

"Quicksand," said the leader of the group. "This swamp is lousy with quicksand. I reckon as she may never come out of there alive!"

Sure enough, the dogs chased her to the edge of a sinking quagmire but refused to go forward. The old hag had fallen into the murk with a splash, and as the shocked men ringed the edge of the swamp, they were horrified to watch the pathetic old woman sink deeper, deeper into the hideous quicksand, sucked downward to her doom.

No one was going to go forward, of course, in an attempt to save her. Nor was anyone even going to throw her a rope

"Save the taxpayers the cost of a trial," grumbled some men, one to another. Few could take their eyes off of the dark, sinister shape as it struggled to keep its head above the suffocating sand. Most figured it was justice, but, damn, it was still a horrifying way to go, and a horrifying thing to witness!

"Curses! Curses! I curse every one of you and your families! You will rue the day you left me to die! Curses, I say! I condemn you all to DEATH!"

All of the men heard that, but most tried to scoff at it. A few of the more superstitious ones sort of kicked around in the dirt looked worried and felt a sickening, sinking feeling.

It was not long afterward that the Old Hag's final words seemed to ring prophetic and true.

An epidemic of cholera soon broke out in town. It was horrible, the one hospital being filled to the point of overcrowding, as entire families were wiped out. People began to moan and curse their fate, and say, "It's the witch's curse, all right, come home to roost. It will finish us all!"

Although it did not do that, the cholera epidemic of that long ago year filled the graveyards of the little town and surrounding countryside, sending men, women, and children to an early death.

And many said this was because of the Old Hag's dying curse.

***

"But, why is she haunting me?" she wondered out loud, but the Ouija board just spat out some garbled nonsense. Clarrissa said, "Wow, that was some story, huh? Amazing! I've never had such a long, detailed story come out of using the board before."

But Clarissa's amazement didn't make her feel any better.

***

That night, she said her prayers, bent down over the nice, clean comforter...

"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord, my soul to keep..."

She hadn't said her prayers in such a manner since she was a little girl. Right now, though, she felt as scared as a little girl as she crawled beneath the cool comforter and reached over, snapping off the light.

She supposed she could fight to stay awake, could drink coffee, and turn the TV on like Nancy in the Elm Street movie; but, she had class tomorrow, and she needed sleep.

"Maybe she...it...won't come tonight," she said to herself. It was so dark in the room, with only the moonlight pouring in through the blinds. Then, all of a sudden...

"Meow! Meow! Scree!"

She looked up at the window. Perched outside, on the ledge, there seemed to be a stray cat! Or, at least, she saw a dark shape that sounded like a cat. She shuddered, suddenly remembering the man-eating felines in Ouija's weird tale. She turned over, screwed her eyes shut, and tried to block it out.

Soon, she was drifting into a pleasant slumber. she seemed to be floating over a grey. dreary landscape. Everything looked wet and grey. The earth looked like murky clay. In the distance, she could see the rocky spires of what seemed to be an ancient, craggy keep. Where was she? Was this the world of the dead?

She was roused from her sleep but what sounded like a cow mewling> She rolled over, opened her eyes, and a scream was stifled in her throat!

She was paralyzed with fear. At the foot of her bed, bathed in a weird glow, was the ghostly figure of an old crone, a hag. She looked filthy; her hair was long and stringy and white, and her clothing looked as if she was wearing a heap of rags. She came forward slowly, oh so slowly, and her long, weird, tree branch-like fingers were twisted into claws. Her nails were long and pointed, and she gave off a terrible stench, like a rotting swamp. Her voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, and it was a terrible moaning, like the moaning and wailing of those lost in Hell.

The old crone climbed into bed with her.

It began to climb upon her chest.

She could feel the breath freeze in her lungs. She was suffocating.

Wake up! Wake up! Oh, you must wake up now! she thought, madly.

But she was wide awake. The weird old crone continued to sit on her chest, and, it was with a feeling of mounting terror that she knew, now, that the Old Hag would haunt her until the day she died--part of the curse, perhaps. And she would never, ever sleep in peace again.

The Ugly Man

Lord Duff rolled about in bed, tossing and turning under the strange weight of his troubling, diabolical dreams.

His holiday in Ireland had not, so far, done a lot to soothe his nerves; as the Royal Ambassador to Japan, he had spent the last several months absorbing the strange ways of an alien culture. The stress of trying to adapt had made him nervous, and homesickness had plagued him. He grew increasingly lonely and bored, and his heart burned with a desire to walk amidst the foggy moors and rolling green dips and fields of his ancestral home.

Yet, the holiday had not enlivened him, but, regrettably, he seemed to sink further and further into a state of fear and uncertainty. Lady Duff, usually oblivious to his strange turns of mood, seemed oblivious to it all, but, as for himself, he could not help but feel there was some sort of black cloud floating over their lives. Damned though, if he could decipher what it was.

He bolted upright in bed, suddenly awake. A bright white flash of lightning was followed by a low, rumbling peal of thunder. He could hear the wind blow through the lonely branches outside, whistle and moan and howl through the eaves of the old, tottering estate. He heard the first few dismal patterns of rain and knew that a storm was going to be blowing up in a few short moments.

Lady Duff was still sound asleep, no doubt dreaming of afternoon teas and exclusive luncheons. For some reason he never could divine he crept out of bed, making his way across the room to the window overlooking the front yard.

It was lonely and desolate out there; the yard swept upward through a sparse stand of trees to the wrought-iron gates in front. These lead out onto a quiet country lane, which, eventually, joined the road into the village. The nearest neighbors were, most likely, a mile away.

Another flash of lightning blinded Lord Duff, momentarily, but, by its illumination, he managed to see a strange, hunched figure, scurrying below. He leaned closer to the window, wondering if it might be one of the servants, caught out in the rain, but no.

This was quite clearly a stranger, and one, ominously enough, that seemed to be wearing a dark cloak and hood. What’s more (and here Lord Duff confesses that he blinked several times and rubbed his eyes in disbelief) the weird little character was carrying a black casket-shaped box, one three times his size! Even stranger, the man seemed to be doing this with little in the way of effort, defying gravity with the heavy thing perched across his back. Perhaps it was tied there, thought Lord Duff.

Unthinkingly, and what he would admit later had been “against all better judgment,” Lord Duff quickly exited the guest bedroom, stole down the long hall, went s quickly as safety would allow down the staircase, and was out the front entrance and standing between the columns of the old porch in a matter of minutes.

The wind and rain blew his nightgown around him, as it was now a very strong gale. He could see the bizarre figure with the oblong box making for a stand of trees at the side of the house, and like a sleepwalker, he started forward after him.

Suddenly, coming back to a semblance of himself, Lord Duff stopped in his muddy tracks. He realized that approaching the man might be foolish. What if he were a dangerous lunatic?

Another lightning strike rents the sky, followed by another thunderous rumble. The little hooded man looked back at Lord Duff, seemingly having noticed him for the first time.

Perhaps it was a trick of the nerves, or the lightning and darkness playing against each other, but Lord Duff got a good look at the strange man’s face and was astounded by it.

He swears it was the ugliest face he had ever seen in his life. He gives few particulars but alludes to a long, wart-encrusted nose that might have done broomstick-rider proud, a low forehead, curling lips, and beady eyes. However, he also says that memory might be playing him false and that, upon consideration, the face was just bad in some way that hit you instantly, yet was hard to describe exactly why.

Lord Duff found himself frozen in fear, but the macabre little man just shuffled forward with his cumbersome burden, finally becoming lost in the stormy trees. Lord Duff stood there a moment before the increasingly heavy wind and rain forced him back inside.

He awoke the next day with the sniffles but was more concerned when, over breakfast, he said to his host, “I awoke last night sometime after twelve, saw your gardener or whoever carrying that tremendous…whatever it was upon his back. My, dreadful-looking fellow. I mean, I don’t mean to be rude, but he gave me quite a turn.”

Lord Duff absentmindedly buttered a scone, while his Irish host gave him the queerest look.

“Tell me,” he finally said, “can you give me a description of this man you claim you saw last night?”

Lord Duff put down his knife, seemed to consider for a moment, then finally said, “Yes, yes I think I can. Sinister-looking chap, he gave me the willies just looking at him. Well, let us see: he had the longest, strangest nose I believe I’ve ever seen. Why I could almost believe that it was glued onto his face as a sort of prop. Also, he had a tremendous hunchback, like Quasimodo, or at least seemed to. And tremendous, skinny frog-like legs. Oh, and the lips curled back grotesquely. But it was the eyes that were the most alarming! I mean, they seemed to be twin burning coals set deep in the face; the face, incidentally, was a ghastly, deathly pallor. I don’t think I shall ever forget those ghastly eyes, though. My, it makes me shudder even as I sit here now.”

His host eyed him with a growing look of apprehension, and seemed to struggle, momentarily, to find words to express what he wanted to say next. He hemmed and hawed for what seemed an eternity, before Lord Duff, unable to contain his sense of excitement any longer, blurted out, “For Heaven’s sake, man, just spit it out!”

His host suddenly leaned forward, put his pudgy hands on the table before him, and said, “Sir, I can assure you, I have no one in my employ that answers to such a description. Our gardener retired quite early, and we have no servants that would be out of doors at such an ungodly hour on such a dreadful night.

“No,” he continued, slowing a bit, “what I suspect you have seen is the Hooded One, a sort of family ghost. A kind of omen. He has not made an appearance in many, many years, but, every time he does, it does not bode well for us. Oh, I dread that he should make an appearance now when my wife’s health is so precarious, and her nerves so shaken!”

Lord Duff looked at him in disbelief, and then finally said, “An omen? Do you say I saw a ghost? My dear fellow, you’re having me on, perhaps?”

“No.”

“But surely--”

His host shook his head emphatically, and said, “No, sir! I am being as honest with you as I can be. Many years ago, my great grandfather, the first Earl took sick suddenly and was confined to his bed. It was there that the Hooded One made an appearance to him when he awoke, one stormy night. He protested to his nurse that the Grim Reaper himself had come to claim him. She dismissed it as the hallucinations of a seriously ill man. Needless to say, despite the finest care, he never recovered.

“His son, Lionel, was killed in a duel full ten years later. It transpired that his wife Elizabeth, at exactly the moment her wastrel husband was walking his ten paces with the pistol in his hand, had seen the dark, lonely figure of the Hooded One at the top of the stairs, staring down at her. Of course, a messenger soon reported news of her husband’s death.

“His small son would die of a mysterious fever the doctors could only describe as ‘military fever.’ Before the child succumbed, a servant girl was terrified out of her wits when, upon entering the nursery, she saw the Hooded One bending low over the cradle, his long, pointed fingers inches away from the poor baby’s body. Of course, as I already noted, the baby died.

“A niece was killed in a carriage accident; her brother saw the image of the Hooded One bending over his bed one night. He was terrified; he thought this portended his death, but it was his sister’s…all of this is recorded in the family Bible as is our custom, along with the various appearances of the Hooded One over the years. I don’t suppose you’d like to read it?”

Lord Duff shook his head. He then thought better of it, and stated, "Well, if you wouldn't mind..."

At that, his host wiped his mouth, rang the bell, and summoned his servant to go and fetch the antique Bible, In due time, Lord Duff found himself ensconced in the gloomy study, listening to the steady ticking of the clock as the wind howled outside.

It was a steadily creeping sense of unease he felt, as he looked over the passages scrawled into the loose pages of the moldering old volume (which, as he feared, was crumbling at his touch). It recounted such incidents as:

Wednesday, June 16th, 1609: Gordon my manservant wounded most grievously after falling from a horse. Wife beheld the Hooded One as she slept fitfully last night. Death waits upon the doorstep.

And:

Sept 20th -- Household turned upside down by the hooded ghost. The wife fears she will lose the baby. Two children were sick with cholera. Doom and despair haunt us, I fear...

Some entries had no exact dates, but, altogether, they proved an epic record of a household bedeviled by some black phantasm, who seemed to always be an omen of ill-tidings. Lord Duff shivered in his seat; outside, the wind picked up until it sounded like an extraordinary gale.

Why Lord Duff asked himself, would the specter appear to me, though?

He had no answer, but sighed heavily, turning a few more of the loose, crumbing pages, until he happened upon a drawing.

He looked down at the ancient sketch a family member had made of the Hooded One.

The face seemed all too familiar.

Lord Duff tried, as best he could, to forget the incident. In time, the weird encounter faded more and more from his mind, until, as busy as he was with the affairs of business and his and his wife's many travels, he soon forget all about his supernatural encounter.

It was in New York, later that year, that he and Lady Duff were just entering the lobby of one of the most lavish hotels in the city, when Lady Duff happened upon some old socialite friends of theirs, most especially a woman she had often taken tea with when she was in London.

"Oh, do stay down here and chat with Drusilla, darling. I'll just run up to our suite and freshen up a bit." Lord Duff bid his wife sit and take refreshments with her friends, and then headed for the lift.

He rounded a corner past the stairs and rang for the elevator, which was an ancient-looking steel cage.

He opened the door. The attendant looked up at him with a weird, snarling expression.

Lord Duff recoiled in shock.

The face looking up at him was one he had seen before.

The warty nose, the sloping forehead, the sickly complexion...and the snarling mouth. Of course, it was the very face of the Hooded One!

"Hello, sir! Going up?"

The man had a voice like a bullfrog, but Lord Duff barely heard him as he flew down the hall and back out to the desk. Lady Duff looked up at him from where she sat with her circle of acquaintances.

"Why what is it, dear? Whatever can be the matter?"

Lord Duff flew to the desk and spoke hurriedly with the clerk, who, in a kind of panic, went to retrieve the manager.

"Sir, who is that man operating the elevator? I must know! I must! How long has he worked here? What is his name?"

At a description of the elevator attendant, the manager looked more and more confused. He said, "Lord Duff, I can assure you that we don't have anyone answering to such an odd description employed here."

It was then that the relative silence of the hotel lobby was broken by shrill screams. The manager and Lord Duff suddenly looked at each other in astonishment, before both men raced toward the direction of the screams.

It was dreadful! The elevator cable had broken, plunging several passengers and the attendant down into the basement, killing them instantly!

"If I would have gotten on that elevator," whispered Lord Duff to himself, as he looked down the elevator shaft at the grisly scene below.

"The Hooded One," he said, over and over again, in awe and wonder, and then turning to his wife, said, "why, he, he saved my life!"

The Woman in White

She cut a lonesome figure on deserted Cline Avenue, her white dress blowing in the subtle wind as she walked, confused, up and down the street. What was she searching for?

Fred the Cabbie pulled his hack up to the curb, and asked, “Hey, hey lady! You need a lift?”

She looked as if she were staring right through him. Her eye was like vacant pits of black. Fred waited for a moment, leaning a little out the window. Then he made a disgusted sound, and slowly drove away. He had better things to do, he reflected, than wait around on some mental case to make her mind up.

The woman continued to walk the lonesome street. In the distance, the sun began to set behind a row of low buildings and storefronts, casting long streaks of shadow and soft, eerie light across the ground.

I don’t cast a shadow, she thought. Weren’t only vampires supposed to not cast shadows? Or did they just have no reflection in the polished glass? She couldn’t remember. At any rate, the feelings of grief, of loss, of searching for something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, drowned out all her other thoughts.

Searching, still searching…

Bob slowed down the car at the sight of the woman. He rubbed his eyes. He well-remembered the old urban legend about the “Woman in White.” he couldn’t imagine that that was what this was. Perhaps someone was just playing a prank.

Before he knew what he was doing, he had slowed down the car. The weird woman looked confused, undecided for a moment, before lunging forward from the curb and grasping the door handle. She glided her thin frame into the passenger seat. She stared straight ahead, saying nothing.

Boy, this chick is really weird, he thought to himself. He brought the car to a crawl, and leaned over a little, trying to keep his eyes on the road.

"Miss, miss...can I help you? Do you need me to take you to the hospital? Where is it you need to go?"

He didn't know it, but, behind her dead, vacant eyes, the woman was reliving, again and again, the traumatic day she lost her little ones.

She had been getting to work too late, and the boss was crawling up her backside to BE THERE ON TIME. So she was speeding, and the kids were in the backseat, playing with the traveling Monopoly game. They were both buckled in.

She sped up. Traffic was bad this time of day, but she had to get the kids to the sitter and get to the office. Oh, why did the damn traffic have to be so bad right now?

She was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she never saw the bus coming.

She was going too fast and ran a red light. Out in the middle of the intersection, she collided with a school bus. Her final images of life were of the gaping, shocked looks on the faces of her two children, frozen forever in the screaming white terror of impact.

She had worn her white dress that day. When they finally pulled her from the wreckage, it was no longer white.

She was killed instantly. Her children, miraculously, survived. Everyone else suffered minor injuries.

She finally said, "My...children. I'm looking for my children. There was an accident you see. They could be hurt or lost. They could need me. I've got to find them."

Bob suddenly realized the woman was mentally ill.

"Lady," he said, "I think you need a doctor. Here, let me take you to the hospital."

He stepped on the break. The strange woman was fumbling at the door. She jumped from the car.

"Hey, Miss!" he reached over to stop her, but she was already racing down the sidewalk. She bounded up the curb.

Then she just seemed to fade into the distance, blotted out by the shifting rays of the sun. Bob carefully wiped his eyes. Was he seeing things?

No. She had probably run into the back of one of the buildings. His eyes were playing tricks on him. He shrugged. What the hell, he thought. You just couldn't help everyone.

But the whole thing disturbed him. He couldn't get it out of his mind. It was only later that he learned the legend of the "Woman in White," that haunts Cline Ave. Was it possible he had had an encounter with someone dead? A true ghost, or whatever?

"Nah!" he said to himself.

(He regularly avoided Cline Avenue after that.)

The Blue Room

She thought herself to be the happiest woman in all of Paris.

To begin with, she was a young country girl from the Languedoc, away to the big city for the first time, to study at university, and she had managed, in such a short amount of time, to land the most eligible bachelor in town as her new husband. Oh, it was almost like a fairy tale ending!

Of course, there was also the fact that he was a young, successful doctor. Really, what more could a blushing young bride ask for? Her handsome, successful man lived in a great old house in the Rue De Anceuil and was privileged to doctor some of the wealthiest, most prestigious citizens in all of France.

“Of course,” she reflected herself, in a strange moment of doubt, “he is a bit peculiar. Eccentric. But, a faithful wife must learn to accept her husband as he is, despite his little peculiarities.”

She thought, however, that she might, gradually, begin to change him.

One of the oddest characteristics he possessed was his seeming obsession with the color of various rooms. He had had each room painted a different bright shade, and even had the windows tinted accordingly so that the sunlight streaming through might further illuminate the room with the desired coloring effect. Furthermore, her movements, as well as those of the few servants, were coordinated with these colors, based on the duties and activities they were expected to be engaged in during the day.

For instance, he told her:

“You must wait, when I am gone, in the Green Room. When you are ready for tea, you will take that in the White Room. Dinner will be served promptly upon my return, in the Yellow Room. Then, it will be time for us to express our undying love for one another; which will be in the Pink Room. After that, I should sit in the study, the Brown Room, for a few hours, catching up on my work. When I am ready to retire, we shall go into the Black Room to sleep. Do you understand?”

She was a little taken aback at the exactness of his specifications but agreed to all he proposed. He then ran his fingers through his strange short beard, and seemed to consider something carefully for a moment, before saying, “Oh, there is one more thing.”

“Yes,” she bent her head in curiosity.

He smiled.

“There is one room in the house, I call it the ‘Blue Room,’ where you must never go. Do you understand? Never. It is that door over there--”

And he pointed with one long finger to a door at the far end of the main hall.

“You are not, under any circumstances, EVER to go into that room. All of the servants have been similarly instructed. Never go into that room. The rest of the house is yours to explore, of course.”

She was most shocked at this, but nodded her head dutifully, and tried, as best she could, to forget all about the mysterious ‘Blue Room.’

Well, days passed into weeks and weeks into months. She established the routine her husband had laid out for her: rise, breakfast in the White Room, spend the day reading light romances in the Green Room, tea in the White Room, dinner in the Yellow Room, romance in the Pink Room, then sleep in the Black Room. One further addition to this was when she was informed that, were she or one of the servants ever in need of being punished, they would be sent, promptly, to the ‘Red Room.’

Which left her wondering: How exactly does he intend to go about punishing us?

The thought was not comforting, and she tried to brush it from her mind.

Each day she would pass the mysterious door to the Blue Room, and each day she would grow more and more curious about it, and why anyone was forbidden to ever enter it. Surely, she thought, he must want the servants to go in there every once in a while if only to tidy up.

She began to lose sleep over what might be hidden in there.

Was it treasure? A secret invention?

Or was it something else?

Curiosity began to torment her. “Curiosity killed the cat,” she reminded herself. Yet, she could not help it; the overwhelming desire to know just, exactly, what he was hiding in that forbidden room.

One night, as they prepared for bed, she noticed that he had, carelessly, left his keys on the bureau. He yawned loudly, and said, “Oh my dear, it has been such a long and tiring day! You’ll forgive me for retiring early! I feel as if I could sleep…like the dead.”

She smiled at him patiently, but, as he got up to undress, she suddenly scooped the keys into the folds of her gown. He turned back to her, smiled got into bed. She got in next to him.

Soon, she was snoring. She was sure he was fast asleep. She carefully got up from the bed, checked that she still had the ring of keys, and slipped out the door.

She looked up and down the hall, but the servants were all in their quarters, and the house was silent and dark. She grabbed a lamp from a table a the top of the stairs, and descended, her long shadow following her down, down…

She stepped into the main hall. It was so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop. She went down the hall, to the door of the forbidden room, and put her hand upon the cold little knob.

To her amazement, it swung slowly open!

It had been unlocked all along!

With her heart hammering, she stepped across the threshold, into the darkness. She turned up the lamp. A strange, unpleasant odor assaulted her nostril.

Her blood froze in her veins.

A scream died on her lips.

She clapped her hand to her mouth.

“A tea party? And why was I not invited?”

She laughed despite her fear and crept forward.

A table was before her. It was laden with a tray, crumpets, cake, little porcelain glasses…a whole tea service. A few ladies were seated around the table. They did not move.

As she got closer, she could see that some of them were in a state of advanced decay.

Others had been meticulously preserved: their rotting faces reconstructed with strips of silk and wax, their shriveled skulls adorned with old wigs; heavy makeup preserved some semblance of femininity, albeit in a garish, grotesque mockery of a womanly face.

Even more curious were the women still standing, propped up by some means she couldn’t identify. Two seemed to be arm in arm, dancing the waltz that only they could hear. Another was dressed as a servant, forever pouring a draught of wine from the dry neck of an old, cobwebbed bottle. Upon the table, copious droppings and wilted webs danced across the face of an ancient, petrified party cake. She felt sick and excited and trembling with terror all in the same stroke.

What was that? She fancied she could hear movement in the corner of the room. Her eyes, grown accustomed to the dimness, were now fixed upon the one chair that was seemingly covered by a protective sheet. There was another human form hidden behind there.

Were they all of the wax? No. Even she knew better than that. The smell in here was charnel; the odor was overpowering. This was an immense tomb, a permanent exhibit of the dead and decaying. A house of madness…

And her husband?

Two arms protruded from beneath the covered chair in the corner. She thought that she saw one of them move. Despite her overwhelming sense of fear and dread, she approached the chair with her gloved little hand held before her mouth, her trembling fingertips reaching out toward the edge of the old sheet. She knew to pull that sheet away was something she shouldn’t do; yet, she was incapable of stopping herself. She felt as if she were experiencing a macabre dream from which she could not awake.

She reached out, grasped the edge of the shroud between her fingers, pulled…

“Aha! I have caught you at last, my little butterfly!”

The pale, womanly hands fell away. They had been severed at the wrist. He had been holding them in his own hands, and dropped them now, jumping up from the chair. His eyes burned with malevolent savagery the likes of which she had never before seen, and his dark, painted blue beard seemed to lend his face a Satanic aspect she had never before noticed.

“You! Oh, Henri, how could you?”

He laughed maniacally.

“How could I? How could I, you ask? Why, you astound me with your ignorance, my dear! It’s quite simple. Why even a dullard like yourself should be able to figure it out? I’ve collected these wretches for my little menagerie. I’ve been quite clever about it all. Oh, don’t you agree? Of course, I always made sure to cover my tracks expertly. No one has ever suspected, and I’ve grown quite rich and used to getting my way!”

He approached her as she backed away, her hands held in horror to her mouth. His face was a hard, resolute mask of leering insanity, his eyes burned with a murderous passionate rage. She saw something silver glint in his right hand, while his left reached upward on the wall, groping for the electrical switch.

“And now, my dear, if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time to draw our little party to a close. Oh, don’t bother screaming; this room is soundproof, and no one would hear you anyway. And now, lights out!”

And with that darkness fell. And, soundproof or not, the screaming started just then, in earnest.

Addendum: Another Retelling of the Classic Legend of "Bluebeard."

Once upon a time, there lived a young French girl who feared she would never, in all of her life, find a husband.

For some reason, even though many considered her quite lovely, the young men of her village did not flock to her in droves as they did her sister. Instead, she was, more often than not, ignored.

So she waited and pined away for loneliness. Then, one dark cold day approaching winter, a strange man rode up to the gates of her family estate and asked to see her father. He was, perhaps, the strangest man the servants had ever seen, as he was ugly, and, to crown this, he possessed a long, pointed beard of deep, dark blue!

"I am here to see the Monsieur De B!" he stated emphatically, and the little maid winced just to look at him, but she turned on one foot and went down the hall to fetch the Master.

It was not many hours hence when the two young girls were called into their father's study, and their father, seated comfortably in his chair with his pipe, rose and announced the visitor to his two daughters. He then went on to inform them, much to their shock and amazement, that this man was an old friend and business associate of their father, and that this man had come seeking the hand of one of his daughters...in marriage!

At this both of the girls were aghast! Even though the man looked like he was exceedingly wealthy, neither of them could fancy becoming the wife of so hideous a specimen. What to do?

"Oh, you don't want me for a wife," said one. "I'm a vain, petty, and constant woman! Take my sister, instead; she's truly agreeable."

The other replied, "Oh, sister, you flatter me! Why I'm one of the most atrocious shrews who ever lived! Why I'd hound and henpeck any man I marry to an early grave! Don't believe anything my sister says about me, sir. It's her you want to marry, not I."

And both of them continued in that vein for several minutes, until the strange, blue-bearded man cried, "Enough! Listen to me: I'm going to throw a tremendous banquet for some friends of mine in a fortnight, and both of you must attend. Whoever decides to marry me can decide then and there, and I will announce it at the feast. However, one of you MUST choose, as your father owes it to me based on a very old favor I once performed for him. Now, I must bid you adieu!"

And, with a dramatic swish of his long black cloak, the strange man was gone.

Well, the sisters waited on pins and needles for the fateful day, all the time being groomed carefully by their father to be proper ladies. he went so far as to have special dresses made for them and spent lavishly on their accouterments for the party.

Then, the day of the grand feast was upon them, and the girls were taken by a special coach through the dark, ghastly forest and into the jagged peaks, until, finally, in a remote section of the country they had never before seen, they came upon what at first appeared to be the ruins of an old castle.

"Oh, it's not a ruin, though," said one of the sisters, "listen, and you can hear the sound of voices and music coming from within!"

Indeed, they knew they had finally reached the ancestral home of the man with the ugly blue beard. They disembarked from the coach and entered the gates, were greeted by a servant in livery, and ushered inside.

They were dazzled at what they saw: here, mistakably, was the sign of great wealth and station. Famous faces darted in and out from behind masks, costumed exquisitely for a masquerade ball. An enormous table was heaped with every sort of choice delicacy, and enough wine flowed to wet the valleys and deserts of the world.

A full orchestra entertained as costumed revelers danced to and fro across the glittering ballroom.

"Oh sister, look! Have you ever seen such a grand spectacle?"

The unpopular sister was quite obviously impressed. Finally, the blue-bearded "Master of Ceremonies" put in his appearance, wearing a mask that covered his eyes but left his blue beard swinging in the wind for all to see.

"Ah! How good of you to come!"

The sullen sister started to say, "I didn't think we had a choice in the matter," but decided to keep her mouth closed. (Which, on the whole, is oftentimes the best course of action for anyone.)

As the hour drew late, the blue-bearded man took them aside and asked them pointedly, "Well, have either of you come to a final decision as to which one of you will be my wife?"

Well, one sister looked at the other, and both of them hung their heads in shame. The man had been so generous and kind, and they both now felt obligated to him. Doubly so, because they knew their father wanted that at least one of them should be betrothed to the rich stranger.

The eldest sister looked the blue-bearded man over and, quite softly and truthfully answered, "Were it in my power to say yes, after all the kindnesses shown to us tonight, I would certainly do so. Alas! I find I simply cannot bring myself to be your wife."

At that, the blue-bearded man crossed his arms across his chest, looked disdainful of the honest sister, and then looked at the younger. He asked, "Well, do you feel the same way, or, shall you consent to be my wife?"

At this, the younger sister hung her head in sorrow, disheartened that she should be forced to marry a man so repulsive to her sensibilities. Finally, she peeped, in a tiny, tearful little voice, "Yes, m'lord, I shall be your wife."

At this, the blue-bearded man was overjoyed. He laughed maniacally, danced about the room, clapped his hands together, and kicked his legs up high, exclaiming, "I'm going to be married! I'm going to be married! Hurrah! Hurrah!Hooray! Soon comes my wedding day!"

Many months went into the preparation of the wedding, and no expense was spared by the very rich man. He was determined to make it an occasion that would be talked of for years and years to come.

In truth though, many of the local villagers began to grumble that this was not the first wedding the strange nobleman had thrown, and, where in the world had his other wives disappeared to? Certainly, as ugly as he was, they didn't all leave him for errant knights. but, these grumblings were soon quashed, and locals were just pleased to be invited to a free party, where rich, sumptuous food and good wine would flow.

After the wedding, the couple went on a lavish tour of Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna...all the capitals of Europe. As exotic and luxuriant as it was, however, the young wife always found herself melancholy and out-of-sorts; though, to her credit, she always tried to put on the best face for her increasingly exasperated husband.

Returning to the castle, the man took his wife aside one day and said, "Here are the keys to all the rooms of this castle. Use them whenever you like! I must go away for a little while. Now, inside each room, you'll find my vast, vast hoard of riches, spread out all over the floors and flowing out of every cupboard and closet, and shelf. I am a man rich beyond your wildest dreams! So, don't be so downcast all the time!"

He continued, "er, however, there is ONE room, down below the basement stairs, that you are NEVER to enter, under any circumstances. Do you understand? Never. if you disobey me in this, I shall know, and you will be out the door, and your father will hate you forever! Understand?"

And he grabbed her roughly and peered into her eyes with his burning, white-hot orbs. And she nodded meekly, saying, "Y-yes! I...understand."

He smiled an expression that did nothing to alter his unsavory appearance.

"Good," he said. "Now, I must be off. Remember, you may enter any room, except the one at the bottom of the cellar stairs. Never enter that room, for any reason. Now, my love, I must bid you adieu!'

And with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.

Well, day after day, the yon wife entertained what guests as she could convince to come calling. However, it all rather bored her, and her life fell into a dismal pattern of teas and mild parties and little visits from frumpy dames with more money than wit. The servants were a dull, quiet lot, and provided scant companionship.

Finally, one rainy day, the Devil himself must have crept inside of her, as she found herself wandering down the cellar stairs to the door hidden beneath; and, as she crept, she also found herself fidgeting with the key ring.

Should she open that door? How would he ever know? what could it hurt to take a little peek inside? She didn't know, but, her heart hammering in her chest, she finally found herself inserting the key in the lock, turning it, and hearing the faint, bone-rattling sound of the tumblers creaking and giving way. She rattled the little door knob in her quivering fingers, pushed open the creaking door, and, her candle held high over her head, entered into the stifling darkness.

What she saw there was, truly, hideous beyond description!

It was a mad, charnel house, a place belched up from the depths of Hell itself.

The bodies of the blue-bearded man's former wives were hanging from hooks on the wall. They looked as if they had been gutted, like animals, and hung up to dry. Their faces, frozen forever in the rictus of death, told the stories of their tragic, violent ends.

The floor was awash, in fact, with slick pools of blood. She stopped herself from screaming and alerting the servants, but, she did manage to drop the door key in the blood.

Bending over quickly, she snatched up the bloody key, and, going out of the room, closed the door behind her, her breath short with terror and shock.

Then, as if in a daze, she went to the basin in her room to wash the key.

She thought for a moment about what to do. just then, her sister came to the gates of the castle and was allowed entrance by the wicked servants.

She greeted her sister with a meek smile, before relating to her, in a torrent of tears, the terrible truth of what she had found.

"Oh, my dear," said her sister. "You must flee from this terrible place at once, and alert the authorities to what he has done!"

It was, however, too late. Just as the two women were about to quickly gather some possessions, the blue-bearded fiend came riding up on his quicksilver stallion, his long black cloak and pointed blue beard seemingly more terrible now than ever she beheld them before.

He surmised the scene and guessed, right away, what had occurred. As if to prove it to himself, he held out his long, bony hand and demanded, "Give me that key!"

he carefully examined it while the two women held their breath, terrified. His careful gaze scrutinized every inch of it. Finally, he noticed the stain of blood that wouldn't wash away.

"So," he began, his voice turning icy cold while his bloodshot eyes bulged and blazed with fury, "you have discovered my secret. Alas! Now I shall have to kill you both, and hang you beside the others in my special room!"

And with that, he turned to fetch his axe. While he dove into a nearby closet, though, the two women broke their spell of shock and ran, charging up the stairs to the tower, and slamming the door behind them.

Crying and gasping in fear, they then piled up chairs and dressers in front of the door, while the killer husband laughed as loudly as he could.

"I'll get you, I'll get you my pretties! You can't cower in there forever, after all. It's only a matter of time!"

And so both of the women went to the only window in the tiny room and began to cry for help. But the castle was so remote, and the surrounding forest so vast and empty, it seemed they would cry in vain!

Just then, though, as luck would have it, a troop of soldiers who were passing along the dark woodland road heard the pitiful screams for help and followed them to their source. They looked up at the woman hanging from the window and asked what was the matter.

"Quickly!," she cried, "you must come inside and rescue my sister and me! My husband is a maniac and is going to take our lives as he has done to women before!"

At this, the handsome young officer and his men went riding through the gates. Then, forcing their way inside, they pushed past the servants until they found the maniac, pacing at the bottom of the stairs, foaming at the mouth, his eyes blazing as he swung his axe at the shadows on the wall. He turned and looked at the invaders, and cried out.

The young officer struck him in the face, knocking his axe from his hand. This the young officer picked up himself, and, swinging it with all his might, cut the head from the blue-bearded fiend, sending it rolling across the stone floor. Blood splattered the walls in a gruesome fashion, but at last, the evil ogre was destroyed.

The men charged up the steps, freeing the women from the tower room.

The widowed sister rushed forward, threw her arms around the neck of the handsome young officer, and said, "Oh, my savior! How lucky we are that such a strong, handsome young officer and his men should have been riding by right as we needed them!"

And the young officer was so impressed by the beauty of the young girl that he proposed marriage to her then and there. And, this time, she assented happily.

The dead fiend, though, went down in legend, where, because of his awful appearance, he was forever after known as BLUEBEARD.

#horrorlegends