One morning, she took ill and was presumed dead. Her family held a funeral and buried her. That night, grave robbers dug up her body and tried to get the ring off of her finger. The ring was very tight on her old and swollen knuckles so they had trouble removing it from her hand. They tried to saw of her finger and after ther first pull on the saw, just as it scraped her bone, the woman screamed.

The robbers were so surprised they ran off in fear. She management to walk back into town and it turned out the women was unconcious when she was presumed dead.
A few years later she finally did pass away and it was in engraved on her tombstone: “LIVED ONCE, BURIED TWICE.

Emmet Mccann from Lurgan

As soon as Johnny mentioned Celia’s name, I knew he had it bad for her. To hear him talk, Celia was the most amazing woman who had ever graced God’s green earth. She was the sister-in-law of the captain, and all the young men on the base were infatuated with her. Celia was the prettiest of the eligible ladies that graced Fort Union society. She liked the spice of adventure to be found so near the wilds.

Johnny alternated between elation when Celia talked with him and despair when she flirted with another man. I watched their courtship from afar and was troubled. There was something about Celia that I didn’t like. I never mentioned it to Johnny, but I thought she was too much of a flirt. I wished Johnny had fallen for a nicer woman.

About a month after I arrived at Fort Union, a birthday dance was given for one of the officers. To Johnny’s elation, Celia agreed to be his partner at the dance. Johnny was dancing on cloud nine all night, until a messenger came gasping into the room to report an Apache raid. With a small scream of terror, Celia clung shamelessly to Johnny and begged him not to go even though he was the lieutenant put in charge of the mission. Well sir, Johnny proposed to her right then and there and Celia accepted. Furthermore, Celia told Johnny that she would wait for him, and that if he didn’t come back she would never marry. I doubted Celia’s sincerity, but Johnny just ate it up.

I was assigned to Johnny’s troop, so I had to leave too. We started out the next morning, and had a rough week tracking down and fighting the Apaches. Johnny split up the troop; taking command of the first group and giving me command of the second. My men reached the rendezvous point with no casualties, but only half of the other group arrived, and Johnny was not among them. They’d been ambushed by the Apaches. I had to take command of the troop. We searched for survivors, but never found Johnny’s body. As soon as I could, I ordered the men to turn for home.

Celia made a terrible, heart-rending scene when she found out Johnny was missing. She flung herself into my arms when I gave her the news and sobbed becomingly. The display turned my stomach, it was so obviously insincere. I excused myself hastily and left her to the ministrations of the other soldiers. From that time on, I was careful to stay away from Celia, who mourned less than a week for my friend before resuming her flirtatious ways.

About a month later, a rich handsome lieutenant arrived at Fort Union. He was from the East, and Celia took a real shine to him. Johnny was completely forgotten and so was her promise to him. It wasn’t long before Celia and the lieutenant were engaged and started planning a big wedding. Nothing but the very best would suit Celia, and her bridegroom had the money to indulge her.

Everyone in Fort Union was invited to the ceremony, and the weather was perfect on the day of the wedding. Everyone turned out in their best clothes and the wedding was a social success. After the ceremony, all the guests were invited to a celebratory ball.

We were waltzing around the ballroom when the door flew open with a loud bang. A gust of cold air blew in, dimming the candles. A heart-wrenching wail echoed through the room. The music stopped abruptly and everyone turned to look at the door. Standing there was the swollen, dead body of a soldier. It was dressed in an officer’s uniform. The eyes were burning with a terrible fire. The temple had a huge gash from a hatchet-blow. There was no scalp. It was Johnny.

The whole crowd stood silent, as if in a trance. No one moved, no one murmured. I wanted to cry out when I recognized Johnny, but I was struck dumb like the rest of the wedding guests.

Johnny walked across the room and took Celia out of her bridegroom’s arms. She was frozen in horror and could not resist. Johnny looked at the musicians. Still in a trance, they began to play a horrible, demonic sounding waltz. Johnny and Celia began to dance. They swept around and around the room, doing an intricate waltz. Johnny held the white-clad bride tight against his dead body while a deathly pallor crept over her face. Her steps slowed but still Johnny held her tight and moved them around in a grisly parody of a waltz. Celia’s eyes bulged. She turned as white as her gown and her mouth sagged open. She gave one small gasp, and died in his arms.

Johnny dropped Celia’s body on the floor and stood over her, wringing his blood-stained hands. He threw back his head and gave another unearthly wail that echoed around the room. Then he vanished through the door.

Released from the trance, the crowd gasped and exclaimed. The bridegroom ran to Celia and knelt beside her, wringing his hands in the same manner as Johnny. His cries were all too human.

Unable to bear the sight of the stricken bridegroom, I took my captain aside and asked permission to take a small detail back to the place where our troop had been attacked by the Apaches to search once more for my dead friend. He sent a dozen men with me. We combed the area, and finally found Johnny’s body hidden in a crevice. It looked exactly the same as it had appeared on the night of Celia’s wedding.

We brought Johnny back to the fort with us and the captain buried him beside Celia. Celia’s bridegroom went back East shortly after we buried Johnny, and I resigned my commission a few days later and went home, never wanting to see that cursed place again.

I heard later that Celia’s ghost was often seen at dusk, weeping over Johnny’s grave, but I never went back to Fort Union to see it for myself.

Alexa Suick from Duluth Minnesota

Lost in time, this story is told, about a woman, dark and bold.
She walks the streets on a foggy night, with a hood on her head to hide from sight.

Her story starts one summer’s eve, beside the lake an evil deed.
A thief stole her daughter’s life, and filled her soul with pain and strife.

On a moonlit night along the shore, two young lovers walked and more.
In each other’s arms that night, they talked of love and held on tight.

In the morning they were found, their hands and feet with rope were bound.
Eyes wide open a vacant stare, their souls are gone and no ones there.

The police did search for the one, an evil deed to be undone.
In vain, they search to no avail, their efforts weak, lost, and pale.

A mother’s heart broken and splayed, a debt to justice went unpaid.
She walked the streets at night alone, to make the sinners pay and atone.

She searched the shores by day and night, a vain attempt to make things right.
And then one early morning dawn, she was found her spirit gone.

On foggy night’s times untold, she walks the streets dark and bold.
She only walks the streets at night, within the fog to hide her flight.

All clad in black she walks alone, an evil soul she’ll make atone.
She walks among the star-less night, sometimes seen beneath the bright streetlight.

All children know to be aware, least they see her standing there.
They hurry home at the approach of night, sure that they would die at her sight.

So in the night if you should see, a woman in black, listen to me.
Look not at her face I say, or with your soul you shall pay.

As a child I grew up in a small town called Lakeview we lived across the road from A. E. Crookes Park on Lake Ontario. There was a creek that went through the park filled with fish where we would go fishing and catch tadpoles in the spring and summer. All summer long small children played in the swimming pool watched over by Life Guards as older kids swam in the lake, young lovers could be seen walking along the sandy beach in the summer sun. In the fall we played in the leaves and chased the fat rabbits that were stealing from our gardens all summer. In the winter we played in the snow and skated on the Ice rink erected every year by the township. Life was idyllic as we watched the sun rise over the lake and a myriad of water foul swam in the water.

Early one summer morning; the park was cordoned off by police, the police were tight lipped about what happened and rumours began to run like wild fire; someone died in the park. It was several days before the public was allowed back in the park and every thing returned to normal except for one lone woman dressed all in black with a veil over her face.

That summer she is seen every day in the park spending her days walking along the shore or sitting on a bench looking out over the great expanse of Lake Ontario. Each night she could be seen walking down the street as she went past the park, now closed after sundown. I could see her in the mist off the lake as I watch her from my bedroom window, silently passing in the glow of the streetlights. And then one night she did not appear beneath the lights passing the dark.

It’s the first day of fall and she is found sitting on a bench over looking the lake, still, cold, and pale. The police came and the park closed for several days as the police investigated her death. Some say she died of a broken heart others say she was taken by the ones that took her daughter, no one knows for sure.

Each morning the sun came up, the birds sang, and soon every thing returned to normal, as the park opened and the children played as time passed by the lake. That winter a big storm with waves as tall as a house washed all the sand from the beach leaving only stones and pebbles on the shore. The township brought environmentalists in to investigate the incident, they said it was caused the storm and the construction of the hydro generating plant changing the water currents along the shore. No one believed them for a minute, without proof we had no other choice but to accept our sandy beach is gone and will never return.

Every spring we went to the creek in the park with our nets to catch Smelt and White Suckers, enough to fill the freezer with fish to eat for the year. This spring the fish never came and when the township asked the Environmentalists, “Why?” Again they said it was caused by the construction of the hydro generating plant changing the water currents along the shore.

That the summer the township delivered over a hundred picnic tables and set them up for a festival in the park. The following morning when the festival organizers arrived to complete setting up for the festival they found the picnic tables stacked over a hundred feet tall. Local newspapers took pictures as a crane was used to take the tables down. People started to say the park was cursed and one of the onlookers called out, “I suppose the construction of the hydro generating plant changing the water currents along the shore caused this!”

The police blamed the incident on a local gang of teenagers playing a prank and after a time, things seemed to return to normal. Fewer people played in the park now and when people walked there they said they could feel something ominous in the park.

It’s the first day of fall and the night is cold, a fog rolled in off the lake and a lone dark figure could be seen walking the streets in the grey mists all dressed in black. I awoke to a cold chill down my spine and it felt as if every hair on my body stood on end as I looked out my bedroom window. There standing beneath the streetlight in the mist I could see her, she turned towards me as if to look at me. In the dim light it was as if she had no face behind the veil, I quickly returned to bed and hid. I couldn’t sleep and tossed beneath the covers until the morning, every time I closed my eyes all I could see is her dark figure in the mist.

In the morning I told my mother what I saw, she looked at me with a smile as if I was being silly and told me not to worry I was having a bad dream. No matter how hard I tried to convince her what I saw was real she kept telling me I was dreaming and I should forget about it. Then we heard the sirens and again the police cordoned off the park two young men were found dead in the park.

All the neighbours gathered outside to see what was happening. Tom Larock, one of our neighbours found them as he was walking his dog, they looked horrible he said as he described the two men. “They were white as the driven snow frozen in place with their eyes wide open and a look of horror on their faces as if the gates of hell opened and they looked inside.”

Tom saw many terrible things in the war, so for him to say it was a horrible sight frightened everyone as they listened to him tell of the two young men. Then my mother told the neighbours about what I saw the night before out my bedroom window and the legend of the curse of the faceless woman was born.

It’s been forty years since that day and no one walks the streets on a foggy night except a lone dark figure dressed all in black seen only in the mist beneath the streetlights.

Josehf Lloyd Murchison

Photo credit: viona-art.com

The two were friends, regardless of their differences, and while Mary got ready for the party, she tried to get Jane to go. Jane insisted on studying and Mary set out for the party. Jane agreed to leave the door unlocked, so that Mary wouldn’t have to bring her keys.

While Mary was at the party, she met up with another group of friends and they convinced Mary to stay at their place for the night. Mary agreed but had to stop back at her room to get her keys. It was about 2 a.m. when Mary got back. She snuck in and grabbed her keys, leaving the lights off, not wanting to wake her roommate.

The next morning Mary walked home, intent to ask Jane for some study help. When she reached her room and opened the door she saw Jane murdered at her desk! Written on the wall in Jane’s blood was "Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?"

Another Version:

She commandeered the room in the basement of her dorm as soon as she realized she would have to pull an all-nighter in order to prepare for tomorrow’s final exam. Her roommate, Jenna, liked to get to bed early, so she packed up everything she thought she would need and went downstairs to study . . . and study . . . and study some more. It was two o’clock, when she realized that she’d left one of the textbooks upstairs on her bed. With a dramatic sigh, she rose, and climbed the stairs slowly to her third-floor dorm room.The lights were dim in the long hallway, and the old boards creaked under her weary tread. She reached her room and turned the handle as softly as she could, pushing the door open just enough to slip inside, so that the hall lights wouldn’t wake her roommate.

The room was filled with a strange, metallic smell. She frowned a bit, her arms breaking out into chills. There was a strange feeling of malice in the room, as if a malevolent gaze were fixed upon her. It was a mind trick; the all-nighter was catching up with her.

She could hear Jenna breathing on the far side of the room—a heavy sound, almost as if she had been running. Jenna must have picked up a cold during the last tense week before finals.

She crept along the wall until she reached her bed, groping among the covers for the stray history textbook. In the silence, she could hear a steady drip-drip-drip sound. She sighed silently. Facilities would have to come to fix the sink in the bathroom…again.

Her fingers closed on the textbook. She picked it up softly and withdrew from the room as silently as she could.

Relieved to be out of the room, she hurried back downstairs, collapsed into an overstuffed chair and studied until six o’clock. She finally decided that enough was enough. If she slipped upstairs now, she could get a couple hours’ sleep before her nine o’clock exam.

The first of the sun’s rays were beaming through the windows as she slowly slid the door open, hoping not to awaken Jenna. Her nose was met by an earthy, metallic smell a second before her eyes registered the scene in her dorm room. Jenna was spread-eagled on top of her bed against the far wall, her throat cut from ear to ear and her nightdress stained with blood. Two drops of blood fell from the saturated blanket with a drip-drip noise that sounded like a leaky faucet.

Scream after scream poured from her mouth, but she couldn’t stop herself any more than she could cease wringing her hands. All along the hallway, doors slammed and footsteps came running down the passage.

Within moments other students had gathered in her doorway, and one of her friends gripped her arm with a shaking hand and pointed a trembling finger toward the wall. Her eyes widened in shock at what she saw. Then she fainted into her friend’s arms.

On the wall above her bed, written in her roommate’s blood, were the words: "Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?"

Variations:

• This story has also been set at a summer camp where the two girls were bunk mates and one went back to get her purse.
• Sometimes the police are already at the dorm room when the surviving roommate returns and they reluctantly let her in to see the message on the wall.

Jessica Phillips from Spartanburg, SC
Bailey Seattle WA
Stephanie Mcdougall from Brisbane
Jason Qualls from Elkhart, Indiana
Michelle from York, PA

A man and woman went to Las Vegas for their honeymoon, and checked into a suite at a hotel. When they got to their room they both detected a bad odor. The husband called down to the front desk and asked to speak to the manager. He explained that the room smelled very bad and they would like another suite. The manager apologized and told the man that they were all booked because of a convention. He offered to send them to a restaurant of their choice for lunch compliments of the hotel and said he was going to send a maid up to their room to clean and to try and get rid of the odor.

After a nice lunch the couple went back to their room. When they walked in they could both still smell the same odor. Again the husband called the front desk and told the manager that the room still smelled really bad. The manager told the man that they would try and find a suite at another hotel. He called every hotel on the strip, but every hotel was sold out because of the convention. The manager told the couple that they couldn’t find them a room anywhere, but they would try and clean the room again. The couple wanted to see the sights and do a little gambling anyway, so they said they would give them two hours to clean and then they would be back.

When the couple had left, the manager and all of housekeeping went to the room to try and find what was making the room smell so bad. They searched the entire room and found nothing, so the maids changed the sheets, changed the towels, took down the curtains and put new ones up, cleaned the carpet and cleaned the suite again using the strongest cleaning products they had. The couple came back two hours later to find the room still had a bad odor. The husband was so angry at this point he decided to find whatever this smell was himself, so he started tearing the entire suite apart.

As he pulled the top mattress off the box spring he found a dead body of a woman.

Nick D from Graham
Alyssa G from Philly, PA

There was a riot in the 1950′s during a Mercritis outbreak that swept the southern states and was covered up by the government and the medical community. Growing up in the south, people were always saying “Oh yeah, it’s true, my cousin’s friend had it…etc., etc., etc."

Gordy Daniels from Oklahoma City, OK

Our research online produced no actual medical references to this condition, but did produce rumor, speculation, and self promotion. Here is an account we found describing the “condition”.

Mercritis Condition (MC) typically leads its victim down a road of trouble, into a life of alienation, interspersed with moments of great violence. Mercritis effects less than 1/10,000,000 of the general population. It strikes males of any age and is only contracted, as far as we know, from the oral consumption of mass amounts of certain types of paint. One of the reasons Mercritis is rare is that paint consumption leads to massive organ failure and many who may have a grim chance of developing the rare disease die before MC manifests.

The prevailing theory holds that the victim’s skin, fed by secretions resident in the liver and kidneys, releases a mild odor that has an effect on women. Haruki Ryu, formerly of the Yokohama Crier and the only author of a book on the subject (loosely translated) "Mercritis, I run", 1968, Shyu Nai Press, Limited) said in a phone interview, "the scent seems to effect all women on a hormonal level that appears to alter them emotionally. Irritability and hostility tend to inhabit the milder range of reactivity. That pretty women are so hyper-activated by victims of MC has brought us to speculate on a possible relationship between hormonal activity and beauty. Hyper-activated reactions are called MAR (Mercritis Activated Rage) episodes. Why a woman with no history or pattern of violence would react so strongly to a man with MC has not been adequately studied. In a way, we’re all guessing, but in defense of my book, I operate from an educated guess.

In the morgue, during the autopsy, the medical examiner recognized the dress from another body that had been brought in weeks before. He had embalmed that body while she was wearing the dress. Later, he removed the dress from the body and sold it to a man he knew who owned a consignment shop.

The medical examiner realized that the embalming fluid had soaked into the dress. When the woman bought the dress and wore it to the party, she exposed herself to the embalming fluid which then absorbed into her and had been the cause of her death.

Kasper from Fremont OH

Once there was a beautiful young girl who lived in a small town just south of Farmersburg. Her parents had to go to town for a while, so they left their daughter home alone, but protected by her dog, which was a very large collie. The parents told the girl to lock all the windows and doors after they had left and she obeyed her parent’s wishes, but there was one window in the basement that would not close completely.

She tried as best as she could and she finally got the window shut, but it would not lock. She went back upstairs, but just to make sure that no one could get in, she put the dead-bolt lock on the basement door.

She had some dinner, watched a show on TV and decided to go to sleep for the night at about 12:00am. She crawled into her bed, snuggled up with the dog and fell asleep.

At one point, she suddenly woke up and when she turned to look at the clock it was 2:30am. She listened for a moment and when she didn’t hear anything, she snuggled down again wondering what had woken her. Just as she was about to fall back to sleep, she heard a noise. It was a dripping sound. She thought that maybe she hadn’t closed the faucet tight enough after she brushed her teeth, and now it was dripping into the drain of her sink. She decided to ignore the sound and to go back to sleep.

She didn’t know why, but she felt uneasy and a little nervous. She reached her hand over the edge of her bed, and let the dog lick her hand to feel safe knowing he would protect her. Again at about 3:45am she woke up hearing dripping. She was annoyed, but still felt sleepy and lazy and she went back to sleep anyway. Again she reached down and let the dog lick her hand. Then she fell back to sleep.

At 6:52am the girl decided that she had had enough…she got up just as her parents were pulling up to the house. "Good," she thought. "Now somebody can fix the sink…’cause I know I didn’t leave it running." She walked to the bathroom and there was the collie dog, skinned and hung up on the curtain rod. The noise she heard was its blood dripping into a puddle on the floor. The girl screamed and ran to her bedroom to get a weapon, in case someone was still in the house…..and there on the floor, next to her bed she saw a small note, written in blood, saying: HUMANS CAN LICK TOO MY BEAUTIFUL.

Kayla Hixson from Knoxville, TN
Christopher Rangel from San Jose, CA

Photo credit: http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/members/a_brewley.html

Posted via email from Urban Legends Online

A boy and his sister had to stay home alone one night. Their parents were out at a fancy party for their father’s job and they warned the children not to open the door for anyone under any circumstances.

The kids were distracted by TV and weren’t paying attention to their parent’s warning. A couple of hours after the parents left, the children were both in bed asleep when they were woken up by a knock at the door.

The knock came again and they began to think it must be an emergency so the sister went to answer the door.

Her brother lay awake on his bed, listening for her to come back to her room – but he didn’t hear her return. He got nervous and decided to leave and wait for his parents to get home at the neighbor’s house. He got out of bed and headed out the back door, down the side of the house and across his neighbor’s lawn.

They told him they were glad to see him because they had just heard on the news that there was an escaped murderer on the loose and he was last seen just a few blocks away.

When his parent’s came home much later that night, they found his sister’s body dead by the front door and a discarded knife on the brother’s bed.

Kyleigh from Ontario Canada

Posted via email from Urban Legends Online

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/73583794@N00/2650357938

There are two girls; Sandra who is totally fearless and Marie who gets frightened when you tap her on the shoulder.

Though they are very different, they are good friends and Marie has agreed to spend the night at the Sandra’s house for one full weekend. Though Sandra loves to watch horror movies, Marie is too scared to watch them with her so they decide to tell each other ghost stories. Sandra is the expert on any type of frightening story and she really wants to scare Marie. She tells her stories of babysitters hacked to death, children eaten alive and all sorts of terrible happenings.

After some time, many stories and lots of drinks and snacks, Sandra has to pee and excuses herself to the bathroom. Minutes pass and all Marie could think of are all the stories she had just heard. She feels like Sandra has been taking a long time in the bathroom and when she listens and doesn’t here running water she begins to worry.

Suddenly she realizes that Sandra must be playing a joke on her so Marie decides to wait her out. While she waits, the phone rings and she jumps. She realizes that she’s been holding her breath and her hands are closed into tight fists. She tries to shake herself to calm down, telling herself that everything is fine. Why is she letting Sandra to freak her out like this? The phone continues to ring and since she thinks that Sandra doesn’t want to spoil her joke by answering the phone, Marie reaches to pick up the receiver. "Hello?" she says nervously. All she can hear is breathing on the other end of the line and then a “click”.

Marie can feel herself beginning to panic. She climbs into Sandra’s bed and pulls the covers over her head. Finally she hears scuffling of feet and she thinks they are Sandra’s but the sound passes by the door and does not pause. Marie is too frightened to call out Sandra’s name and eventually she hears the feet again but this time they seem very far away. Suddenly a scream rips through the house.

The whole house is dark except for Sandra’s room but Marie is so shaken that she decides she’s got to go find her friend. She leaves the bedroom and begins to inch down the hallway, still praying that this was some giant hoax and Sandra would jump out and tickle her and they would laugh and it would all be over. Finally she turned a corner and saw Sandra sitting at the end of the hall, leaning against the wall. Marie sighed. The fear was gone. She knew it was just Sandra messing with her head.

She found a light switch and flicked it on. To her horror the light revealed Sandra, covered in blood, her eyes were gouged out, and her stomach ripped open. Marie let out a terrified scream as she read the words painted in Sandra’s own blood over her mutilated corpse. "She became her own Urban Legend".

Unknown from NJ

Posted via email from Urban Legends Online

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