urban legend
Urban legends have captivated us from ancient eras to the modern day; a deep dive into scary lore and 'could be true' tales about Bigfoot, Slender Man, the Suicide Forest and beyond.
Her Warm Winter
PART 1 It was a cold winter’s day; the frost was sharp and had left many of the woodland creatures frozen by its bite. In the desolate woods, she sat alone on a bench. How she liked it. Her name was Blanche, French, after her birthplace. Skin a pale and creamy porcelain dream. Ghost like, as if it had not seen a day of sun since her birth sixteen winters ago. She shuddered, the chill flowing through her veins. Lips as smooth as velvet, petals of a red rose. Her hair was a dark fog, the eerie feather of a raven, thick and ever growing. She wore a scarf, the colour of blood, which gently trickled down her body, suffocating her tender neck. Crunched up in her left hand was a photo of a woman. She was said to be the fairest of them all; the epitome of perfection, a being to admire. Her aura of aesthetic beauty was what gave her most contentment in life.
Brooke FarronPublished 6 years ago in HorrorCars That Kill
Cars That Curse and Kill The film Maximum Overdrive (1986), released in some long-forgotten year and directed by none other than horror bestseller Stephen King, starred Emilio Estevez in an ignominiously bad B-movie that postulated sinister, living vehicles taking over the world.
The Slenderman Cometh
Whoever—whatever—Slenderman is, whether he is a demon from hell, a mass delusion, or something summoned up from the collective ID, given a real startling life by young people sitting at their keyboards—I have seen him before. In dreams. I KNOW.
Beg and More
Once upon a time (and this is a story that took place, once upon a time, at Halloween time, in ancient Ireland), there were two brothers. One, Peter Beg, was a good, fun-loving, kind-hearted, and decent fellow. He was always the life of the party, the apple of his mother's eye, a joy to be around; careless, footloose, and fancy-free. And, well, all of this despite the fact that he was born with a horrid hump on his back.
The Maniac in Back!
This is something Debra told me happened to her back in the 80s. True story, man, and the woman it happened to never forgot it. It was, as they say, a real "close shave."
The Girl with the B52 Hairdo
Madge was forever spraying her hair, ogling herself in front of that old, cracked dresser mirror. She liked that song, oh what was it? The Ronettes! Yes, "Be My Baby." The song they later used in that movie Mean Streets. That was maybe '62 or '63, I guess. Well, you know what became of Phil Spector. But, anyway.
Vampires in America
What is your favorite movie about Vampires? I was a '70s baby, so depending on your age, your answer may differ from my generation. Perhaps, like me, you're old enough to remember the release of 1979's Love at first bite with George Hamilton, or Jim Carrey in Once Bitten from 1985. Lauren Hutton acted as the leading blood-sucking seductress, and he was still a newbie actor. I have yet to see Bela Lugosi in the famous Nosferatu from the 1920's, I have to confess because it feels like a sin. But Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder in Dracula (above pic from 1992) is the ultimate in fantasy Vampire movies. Long before that movie was made, I had read the book written by Bram Stoker, and had loved it! For some, the first movie about these nocturnal creatures who crave the life force of blood to retain their supernatural powers and forever ceases the aging process, can't get better than the 'Twilight' Sagas. I watched the movies AFTER I read the books. I had started to write my own Vampire novella in 2005, so not only did I want to see how the author stood in comparison, but also just because I refuse to go along with trends. So, it was pretty embarrassing when I wound up in the theater, slinking down in my seat amongst screaming tweens for 'New Moon', the second movie of the Twilight saga!
Lady SundayPublished 6 years ago in HorrorLittle Bowser
Ohmigod! You just have to hear all about the strange dream I had last night! No, really, it was so gross. I was driving through this place that looked like a desert; but, it wasn't really a desert; it looked like some housing addition that was set up out on the edge of a desert land. Or maybe some place in Nevada. Ground was all hardscrabble and rock; the roads were torn up with potholes pretty bad.
Baked!
Okay, this really happened. Happened long ago. Maybe 45 years, maybe 50. Who knows. I don't know, but I'll tell you the story.
The Ones That Got Away!
I've written about "urban legends"--those apocryphal little horror stories told around offices and break rooms, and now shared as "creepy pasta" on the wild, terror-filled domains of the Internet--for many, many years, publishing one book, Scary Urban Legends (Schiffer, 2010), as well as an unpublished sequel Scary Horror Legends, that I have, nonetheless, cannibalized, off and on, whenever the occasion arises. I'm pretty much enamored with the genre--the weird, dislocating, timeless anonymity, the "everyman" nature of the undeveloped narrative protagonists; the way it exposes the hideous truth lurking just below the surface of bourgeois, suburban American society. Each legend has about it a sense of BEWARE: THIS could happen to ME, YOU, ANYONE OF US. Each nightmare vignette reminds me of what Stephen King once wrote about a short story being like, "A kiss from a lover in the dark."
Quinceañera
Part 1 The bustle and fluster that occurs around the quinceañera (kínseh - ani - éra) is a tradition that dates back to the Aztecs from around 500 B.C. Boys were psyched up for warrior-hood, and girls were prepared for marriage. Prior to this turning point, a girl would have been taught to cook and weave, and she would have been talked to about childbearing. After the arrival of the Europeans and with the mingling of cultures, girls came to be seen as the carriers of heirs, the ambassadors of feudal clans, the hope of familial extensions… and for some, it may have been decided that they might best represent their parentage by consigning themselves to nunneries.
Legendary Lives
Vampires, werewolves, and time travelers—the stuff of horror movies, comic books, and bad television pilots, typically for shows that last about ten episodes before finding their way to the mass grave of cancellation, never to be resurrected. Such beings exist only in the childish fantasies of writers and artists, dreamers and gamer-geeks who refuse to grow up—or grow old. Right?