9 Urban Legends That Scared The Sh*t Out Of You As A Kid

The clown statue

A teenage girl had been hired to babysit for a family in a neighboring town. The family was wealthy and the house was large. She was to look after two young children whilst their parents went out to celebrate their anniversary. Before the parents left they gave the girl their mobile number in case of any emergencies. They also advised that she should keep the children out of their collection room, which they said was filled with various statues of importance to them.

The parents left and the babysitter proceeded to give the children their supper. After letting them watch some cartoons she took them upstairs and put them to bed.

She settled into the living room and began flicking through channels. After about half an hour she heard giggling coming from down the hall. Rolling her eyes she went to find the source of the noise, as she expected she found the children out of bed, playing. To her dismay they were playing in the collection room, which to her surprise was filled with statues of clowns. Like most people, she enjoyed the circus but this room was unnerving even for the biggest circus lover.

Asking the children why they had gotten out of bed she scanned the room and shivered. The children laughed and pointed to a life sized clown sitting in a rocking chair. Her skin prickled. Walking over to the children she ushered them out of the room. As she walked, she felt as though the eyes of the clown were following her. Walking down the corridor she told the children that they are not supposed to be in that room. “We were playing with the clown, he’s funny” they replied. She put them to bed and returned downstairs.

She decided that it was best to inform the parents that the children had been playing in the collection room, just in case they had moved or broken something. She called the parents and told them that she had found the children playing with the life sized clown in the collection room. The voice on the other side of the line lowered, “What life sized clown? we don’t have one”. Confused she walked to the room and looked around the door, sure enough there was the clown watching the room from it’s chair.

“There is definitely a life sized clown sitting in the rocking chair” she replied. The mother’s voice sounded panicked “Get the children and go to the neighbor’s house NOW, we’re calling the police and will meet you there”.

Immediately running upstairs she got the children and ran to the neighbour’s house. A few minutes later a police car arrived and the policemen ran inside the family’s house. Watching from the garden, she saw the police marching a clown down the path in handcuffs.

When the parents returned they were told that a crazed prisoner had escaped jail a few days before with the intention of adding to his list of victims. They had found a large kitchen knife in his clothes.

Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the lights?

Two girls that went to the same college were matched together as roommates. Kate was a socialite who loved to go out to parties and loved guys even more, Jen was a shying wallflower who kept to her studies and had a small group of friends.

The two got along most of the time but they didn’t see eye to eye when it came to visitors staying over in their room. That night, there was a dorm party on the floor above that they had been invited to. Jen had quickly made her excuses to not go whilst Kate, never one to miss out on a good party, had been planning her outfit since they’d been invited.

After the last classes of the day, both girls were in the room. Kate had music playing as she was getting ready for the party and Jen was in her books, studying. A rapid knock on the door alerted them both, almost as soon as the knocking had stopped the door burst open and a group of girls fell in the room laughing. Kate’s friends had come round to get ready as a group.

Rolling her eyes, Jen picked up her books and declared that she was retreating to the library to continue her studies. Jen sat herself in her favorite comfy chair in the library and began reading her books. Students came and went throughout the night and when she finally closed her books it was close to 2am. Shocked that the time had passed so quickly, she gathered her things and began walking back to her room.

As she approached her room door she could hear people inside, sighing, she opened the door and left the light off. She’d gotten an eyeful on plenty of occasions when she’d interrupted Kate and her ‘date’ getting amorous in bed. “Nice to know you enjoyed yourself” Jen said. The motions stopped briefly and then carried on again, annoyed that her room mate was ignoring her she changed into her pajamas and climbed into bed. With the noises carrying on she turned on her MP3 player and turned the volume up loud. Quickly, she fell asleep.

The next morning she woke to find her MP3 player tangled on her pillow. Picking it up to unravel it, she turned over to scold Kate for her amorous actions the night before. As she turned over she dropped her music player and screamed. Kate was lying in a pool of blood with her sheets over the floor. On the wall, written in blood were the words “Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the lights?”

The furry gown

During summer break, two best friends: Jenny and Laura decided to have a girl’s night in. Jenny’s parents were on holiday for a week so they had their sleepover at her house. During the night they watched DVD’s, put on face masks and had a good time.

At about 11:00pm Jenny decided that they should tell some scary stories to put them in the mood for a horror film. Although Laura wasn’t a massive fan of all things scary, she was having a nice evening so she joined in regardless. After telling a few ghost stories they flicked through the channels on the TV to see if there were any horror films playing. They scanned through the many channels pausing briefly to see what was on each. On the news channel there was a report on an escaped inmate from the criminally insane prison in the next county.

“That’s fitting for tonight isn’t it?” joked Jenny, “Maybe we should grab some bats and go lock all the doors”.

“Haha Jenny” Laura replied, warily “We should probably do that actually, best to be safe”.

“Ok, you do upstairs and I’ll do down here. We’ll meet in my room and get our pajamas on” Jenny laughed.

So the girls went round the house locking all the doors and making sure the house was secure. Laura arrived at the bedroom first. Finding her overnight bag, she changed into her night clothes.

After about 10 minutes she began to wonder where Jenny was. Walking over to the door she listened out for Jenny locking doors. What she heard when she got there made her heart stop. A dragging sound was coming down the hallway, muffled cries following. Running over to the wardrobe she climbed in and watched through the crack in the door. Seeing a shadow in the doorway, she held her breath, her heart almost beating out of her chest.

The bedroom door burst open and a very healthy looking Jenny jumped into the room laughing. Falling out of the wardrobe with fright, Laura gave Jenny her most annoyed look and threw a book a her. “Thanks for that” she said, “I’ve just aged 20 years”.

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist” laughed Jenny. Throwing the book back playfully, she changed into her pajamas and took her dressing gown out of the wardrobe. “Do you like it?” Jenny asked, “My parents bought me it as a way of saying ‘sorry we’re going on holiday without you'”.

The dressing gown was floor length and was covered in luscious black fur.

“It’s not real fur, is it?” Laura questioned.

“Noo, we’re not that rich” Jenny joked, wrapping the furry gown around herself.

“So what shall we do..” Laura was cut off mid sentence by a muffled bang downstairs. Looking straight towards Jenny she asked, “What have you set up now?”.

Looking puzzled Jenny replied, “Nothing, I’m not stupid enough to try to scare you twice in one night”. Creeping over to the door together, they listened for another sound. Certain that Jenny was just pulling another prank, Laura pulled open the door and shouted “Oooh, so scary”.

The silence was broken with another bang. Suddenly the house was in darkness. Pulling Laura back into the bedroom Jenny whimpered. “I promise that it isn’t me, I’m right here, how could I be doing this?”.

Grabbing her phone for light, Laura illuminated the room. Seeing the look on Jenny’s face made her instantly scared. A scuffling noise pierced the silence. Panicking, Laura instantly dialed the police number on her phone. As the phone began to ring, it made a beeping noise and died.

“Great” she whispered, “What are we going to do?”.

“My phone is downstairs, I’ll creep down and get it” Jenny replied, pulling on her shoes.

“WHAT? No way! What if someone’s down there?” Laura cried.

“It’s my house, I know every creaky stair and floorboard, I’ll be back in a minute” Jenny didn’t wait for Laura’s response and she crept out the door.

Heart pounding in her chest, Laura looked out the window to see if she could jump out. ‘Nope, way too high’ she thought. Before she could return to the bed, a loud noise startled her. Almost in tears, she had no idea what to do. Hearing heavy footsteps downstairs, she hoped that it was Jenny.

After about 10 minutes, Jenny hadn’t returned, so Laura decided to go look for her. Creeping out the room, she tried to make as little noise as possible. She’d been to Jenny’s house hundreds of times before, so she knew which stairs creaked and which didn’t. When she reached the ground floor she heard a shuffling noise. Getting to her hands and knees, she began crawling along the corridor, making sure not to make any noise.

She reached the living room, where Jenny had last had her phone. Crawling along to the sofas she put her hand out to feel for Jenny. “Jenny, are you in here?” she whispered. Making her way to the armchair she stopped. She could feel a presence in the room. Reaching out she felt the welcome texture of the furry dressing gown. “Thank god Jenny”. Standing up she groaned “So this was all a trick. Nice. Well you scared me, again”.

When she didn’t receive an answer, she pushed Jenny playfully. Again no answer. Suddenly the electricity flashed back on and the sight that met Laura was horrific. Screaming at the top of her lungs, she was staring straight at Jenny. Jenny was still wearing her new fluffy gown, but all that was visible of her body was the bloody stump of her neck. Her head was nowhere to be found.

The police found that Jenny had not in fact locked all the doors downstairs. She had been playing along, not really believing that her house was at risk. The back door was wide open and a bloodstained, blunt axe was left on the kitchen counter.

highbeams

A woman is driving home from a late meeting at work. Turning up the radio when a song comes on that she likes, she is carefree and starts to sing along.

It starts to rain heavily and she sighs, putting on her wipers. After about 10 minutes a car appears behind her and she thinks nothing more of it. Suddenly the car following her flashes its lights and drives up close behind her car. Opening her window, she waves her hand assuming they want to pass. Instead of passing, the car falls back.

A little confused, the woman rolls her eyes and continues on her way. A few minutes later the car flashes it’s lights again and comes right up to her bumper, almost crashing into her car. “JACKASS” she shouts, speeding up a little to get away from them.

Getting annoyed now, she isn’t surprised when the car comes right back up behind her flashing their lights and beeping this time. The car gets very close and the woman starts to get worried. She pulls over to see if they pass and instead of doing this, they pull up behind her. Panicking, she drives off fast with the hope of losing them. Only 5 minutes from home, she sighs relieved that they’ve left her alone.

All of a sudden the car screeches up behind her and speeds next to her, she looks into the car and the man is signaling her to pull over. Thankfully, she gets to her house just in time and without taking her stuff, she exits the car and runs inside, locking the door and immediately calls the police to tell them someone has followed her home.

After hanging up she peers out the window and sees the man getting out of his car. He starts to approach her car slowly holding what she thought looked like a golf club. Puzzled, she goes to her front door and as she opens it, she saw the man dragging a figure out of the back seat of her car. At this moment the police arrive and handcuff the intruder, taking an axe from the back of her car.

It turns out that the car behind her had seen the man raising the axe to kill her and they were trying to warn her about this. Every time they flashed their lights, the figure lowered back into the seats.

There are other various takes on this tale, these include:
The woman sees that she needs petrol and pulls into a petrol station. The attendant sees the man in the back of her car and tells her that there is a problem with her card and that she needs to go inside. The woman is scared of the attendant because (in the majority of the stories that feature this attendant) he looks weird and rough. However, he saves her life.

Sometimes it is told as the woman driving away from the petrol station, scared of the attendant. She meets an untimely end in this version, with the murderer in the back seat killing her.

The babysitter

A teenage girl looking for some extra cash, decides to take a babysitting job from the next town over. The parents are attending a friend’s party and leave their 2 young children with the teenager.

The girl plays with the children, gives them their supper and then puts them to bed. Pleased to get such well mannered children she returns downstairs and settles down to watch a film for the night. About an hour into her film a shrill ring pierces the silence. Aware that the children are sleeping she answers the phone quickly in order to not wake them. She assumes that it’s the parents calling to check on their children, however, instead of the voice she is expecting she is met with heavy breathing. Assuming that it’s the wrong number, she hangs up. As she begins to walk away the phone rings again.

“What?” she asks, irritated. “I’m close” a hoarse voice whispered to her. Puzzled, she demands to know who it is but the caller hangs up.

She returns to her film in the next room, trying to forget the weird call. About 15 minutes later, the phone rings again. The teenager would rather not answer it again, but she really didn’t want the children to wake, so she answered it again.

“I’m closer, and I’m about to get you”, the voice laughed. Getting scared, the teenager hangs up and immediately calls the police.

The police are unsympathetic and tell her it’s probably a prank but they will monitor the line if it will ease her mind. Instead of going back to her film, she stays by the phone, waiting for another call. She doesn’t have to wait for long and sure enough, it’s the mystery caller again. This time he laughs hysterically and tells her it won’t be long. She throws the phone back into the receiver and her heart pounds.

Almost immediately the phone rings again and she is met with the voice of a panicked man “The calls are coming from inside the house, GET OUT NOW”. “I’ll get the children and go” she says, panicking. “NO, GET OUT OF THE HOUSE NOW!” he demands.

Without hanging up, she runs to the front garden and is met with 2 police cars, the police men run straight into the house and upstairs. They return empty handed and with a sickly look on their faces. “The children are dead, no sign of the killer” they state, solemnly. Another officer exits the house with an evidence bag, which contains a bloody knife.

Blue baby blue

Poor Baby Blue never had a chance. Born into the world by a psychotic mother, he was destined to be a child of legend. Nobody knows his real name, only that his mother killed him with a piece of shattered mirror.

The ritual of Baby Blue, not unlike Bloody Mary, is set in the confines of a bathroom and you’ll need a mirror to try it (if you dare).

I suggest you take a friend if your heart is set on trying this out but make sure they know what they’re in for.

Enter the bathroom and fog up the mirror (breathe on it, turn on the hot water – however you like), once this is complete you should write the words “Baby Blue” on the mirror.

Step two is turning off the light (be brave, you have a friend with you!) and waiting for a few moments. Once you’ve waited for about a minute you should hold out your arms, just like you were carrying a baby in them.

You should then feel the weight of a baby on your arms, don’t freak out – keep him held safe and after a while you should pass him to your friend. Mind not to drop him, he doesn’t take kindly to this and will give you a little scratch. If you pick him up and drop him a few more times (who would be so clumsy?), the last thing you’ll ever see is the mirror shattering in front of you (your friend might want to run at this point, you’re a lost cause).

A second version of this legend has a slightly different ritual:

Enter the bathroom with the lights already turned off. Stand in front of the mirror and say the words “Blue Baby” thirteen times, over and over again. Whilst reciting these words you should rock your arms back and forth as if you were holding a baby.

Once you’ve finished the thirteenth chant, a baby will appear in your arms and give you a little scratch. At this point, I suggest you drop the baby and run because not long behind him is his aforementioned psychotic mother. She will scream at you from the mirror “GIVE ME BACK BY BABY” and attempt to have you meet the same fate as her little treasure.

Humans can lick too

A 13 year old girl was left home alone one night when her parents went out for a meal with friends. The parents thought that she was too old for a babysitter so they decided she could stay home alone as long as she locked all the windows and doors as soon as they left. Usually she would have objected to being left alone, however her parents had bought her a beautiful German Shepherd dog just weeks before. The reason for such a gift was because the girl had been suffering from nightmares for years, having the dog sleeping in her bedroom helped her feel at ease.

When her parents left, she went around the house making sure that all of the windows and doors were locked, as per her orders. She found that the basement window would not lock, so she locked the door leading into the house instead and thought nothing more about it.

The time was 8pm and she was to go to bed at 10pm, this was enough time to watch a film so she put on one of her favorites and settled down to watch it. The dog came and lay by her feet for the length of the film.

Feeling happy that she’d coped well with being alone at night, she decided she better head up to bed. Turning off all of the the lights on her way upstairs she saw nothing unusual in her home. Once upstairs she brushed her teeth and changed into her nightwear. She snuggled under her duvet and dropped her hand to the floor to feel for her dog. Sure enough he assured her of his presence with a loving lick, she smiled and drifted to sleep.

In the midst of the night she was woken by a dripping sound, rolling her eyes she assumed she hadn’t turned the tap off properly in the bathroom. Trying to ignore it, she felt for the dog and received the lick that she was used to receiving and fell back to sleep. Only about half an hour later she woke again to the dripping and annoyed that it kept waking her she slumped to the bathroom to turn the tap off properly. Leaving the light off in order to not blind her eyes that were still half asleep, she tightened the tap and returned to her room. Feeling for her dog, she was greeted by the usual lick.

Tremendously tired, she fell back to sleep and didn’t wake until her parents returned home. The lights from the car shone through her bedroom window and she was pleased that they were home. One thing shocked her though, the dripping sound was still relentlessly going. Worried that perhaps the tap had broken, she walked to the bathroom to investigate fully. She turned on the light and her scream pierced the silence.

Her parents ran up the stairs to investigate her troubled scream and they just stood staring into the bathroom. There was their beautiful dog, skinned and hanging in the shower. It’s blood dripping to the floor. On the mirror was the words “Humans can lick too, my dear”…

Tap tap tap

Katie and Joe had treated themselves to a lavish dinner for their 1st anniversary. They had been friends since childhood and always found ways to keep themselves amused despite knowing each other for so long. Knowing that traffic was extremely likely on the normal route home, Joe decided to take the deserted long way home, through a dense forested area.

After about half an hour the car slowed to a stop. Looking over at Joe, Katie knew he was being mischievous and gave him a stern look. “Come on Joe, I want to go home, don’t you start” she scolded.

“Aww, come on! There’s nobody around” he grinned.

He leant in for a kiss but Katie pushed him away, “I don’t think so, this may be our anniversary but I’m not about to get it on in your car” she laughed.

“Oh fine, but you owe me” he huffed, jokingly.

Turning the ignition to awaken the car once more, Joe looked puzzled when nothing happened. He turned it again but still, nothing. Rollin her eyes Katie said “Come on, this has been done to death. Get on with it”.

“Seriously, it won’t start” Joe replied, demonstrating again that the car wasn’t responding.

They were stranded in the middle of a wood with nowhere to go. Both checked their phones, Joe’s was dead and Katie had no signal.

After what seemed like an age, Joe declared that he was going to find the nearest petrol station or public phone. Getting her coat ready to go with him, Katie nodded. “No, you stay here and keep warm in the car” he said.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“I’ll be fine, I’m pretty sure there’s a station about 30 minutes walk away” he reassured her.

Agreeing to stay with the car, Katie lightly kissed her boyfriend on the lips and settled into the back seat of the car. Slightly tired, Katie decided to have a nap whilst Joe was gone.

Tap, tap, tap. The distinct sound of tapping woke Katie up from her ‘nap’. Looking at her watch, she discovered she had been sleeping for 3 hours. Puzzled that it had been so long without Joe returning, she peered out the window. It was night time and the density of the trees made it hard to see anything.

Worried she climbed into the front seat and tried the ignition one more time, a fruitless attempt she knew but she wanted to at least try. She played a game on her phone for a little while having forgotten about how she had been woken.

About 10 minutes after she began playing, the tapping noise had returned. Tap, tap, tap it went. Not knowing what could be making the noise puzzled her. Shining her phone out of the window, she saw that they were not parked underneath a tree despite the area they were in.

The tapping noise came and went every few minutes. Getting quite worried, she locked the doors and stopped using her phone. 20 minutes passed before any noise returned, this time however, it was a scraping noise that she heard. This freaked her out, lying down in the seat as low as she could, she closed her eyes and prayed for the noise to cease.

Knowing that something was wrong with Joe didn’t help to ease her anxiety, if he had made it to a station he would have returned by now.

It had been at least 5 hours since Joe had left and about 2 of enduring the strange noises around the car. She was trying to think of anything just to take her mind off the situation. The noise started up again but was interrupted with flashing lights.

The light filled the car and Katie sighed in relief, Joe must have gotten help.

“This is the police, stay right where you are” a loud voice sounded through the air.

Puzzled, Katie wondered what on earth was going on. Unlocking her door she was greeted by a police officer looking pale. She looked around at the other officers and was immediately confused. They were all pointing guns right at her. “There must be some mistake, I’ve not done anything” she explained.

“Just come with me, you’re not in any trouble” the officer replied gently. Walking towards the cars with him he added “We’re going to get you out of here but whatever you do, don’t look back towards the car”.

Annoyed that he had said this, she looked like any normal person would. What she was greeted with made her throw up instantly on the muddy road.

Right there on top of her boyfriend’s car was a dirty man holding a bloody axe in one hand and her boyfriends severed head in the other. The noise through the night was him tapping on the roof with his axe.

Thump thump drag

One Saturday night, a 16 year old named Mary was babysitting 2 children as a means of earning a bit of extra cash. The parents had gone out for a meal and said they wouldn’t be back until late so the girl put the two children to bed and then settled herself in the lounge downstairs.

She turned on the TV and began to flip through the channels. A sitcom that she’d seen hundreds of times was on one channel, sighing, she flipped the channel again to a news story. The newsreader was issuing a warning about an escaped patient from a nearby mental facility, flipping the channel again she found a film that she’d wanted to see and so she settled to watch it. The film finished and having fallen asleep, she’d forgotten all about the news report from before…

A little while later one of the children jolted awake. He craned to listen to what had woken him. A noise, coming from the hall possibly. Quieting his breathing he strained to make sense of the noise. Thump, thump, draaaag… Not sure what to make of the sound he thought it could be the TV downstairs. He settled down and tried to fall back asleep. Before he could, he heard the noise again. Thump, thump, draaag…

Startled, he leapt across the room and woke up his brother to get him to listen for the sound. Sure enough they both heard it again, thump, thump, drag… Thump, thump, drag.

They crept to their door to listen out for it again but the sound had stopped. Scared now, they both ran to their beds and hid under their duvets until their parents returned home.

The parents returned to the house and were shocked at the sight that greeted them through their front door. There was blood all over the walls and on the stairs was Mary, dead. Her arms had been cut off at the elbows and the rest of her body was so badly injured that she’d had to drag herself along the floor. She’d been trying to get up the stairs to protect the children from the murderer. She died from blood loss.

To this day Mary’s attacker has not been found.

This article originally appeared on Urban Legends and Horror.