When school was back in session and math class began with the new teacher, the class noticed that a weird symbol appeared on the chalk board. The symbol had lines inside of a circle. All the lines within the circle were the common math symbols = + x and division. If you outline certain parts of the symbol it looks as if a pacman shape has a line going through its mouth or maybe a head getting choked with a pen. The teacher asked who drew it but no one came forward. The teacher laughed it off and tried to erase it off the board but she couldn’t remove the mark.

She decided to live with it and ignored it for a month, but since maintenance couldn’t even remove the symbol she began to get annoyed. Eventually she got the whole chalkboard replaced. As the students arrived for their next math lesson they were shocked to find the new teacher dead laying in the exact same spot wear Harold died. The autopsy found the teacher had a pen shoved down her throat.

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

Down here in Jamestown there are a bunch of stories about the old Pine Haven school. One story I heard creeps me out and makes me glad I’m a girl. They say one day a geeky boy went into the boy’s bathroom alone. While he was washing his hands one of the school bullies walked in and decided to play a little game. He and his buds snuck up behind the boy and pushed him, hard, into the mirror.

They never planned on what would happened, but when the kid’s head bashed into the mirror, a piece of glass went into his neck. He turned to face the boys, grasping his bleeding neck and slowly slid the to the floor. The bullies watched in horror as the gurgling sound stopped and the boy died at their feet, his blood mixing with the running water.

They didn’t want to get caught, so they tore up the floorboards under the sink where the kid stood and stuffed his body in a hole and covered it up.

The school is abandoned now but you can still go tour it. If you go in the boy’s bathroom and stand at the sink and look at the mirror you’ll see the kid behind you. He’ll take his revenge and he’ll push you into the mirror and you’ll die. Then he’ll drag you with him down under the floorboards and you’ll never be seen again.

Tanisha from Jamestown, TN

Another Version

Heavy School Books

In my school there’s a legend about a girl who died in the girls bathroom.

Beth wasn’t popular and she didn’t have any friends. The populars would always bully her but she never told anyone about what they did or how they tortured her.

One day after school, she was fixing her hair in the girl’s bathroom mirror with her heavy, hardcover school books on the floor at her feet. One of the girls that bullied her walked in and without warning, picked up her books and hit Beth in the head with them. The blow cracked her skull and as she fell, she hit her head on the sink and died before her body hit the floor. The cowardly bully girl dropped the books and ran out of the bathroom and never told a soul about what happened.

When the night janitor found her body she became scared for her job and didn’t know what to do. She dragged Beth’s body through the halls and hid her in the basement. It’s supposed to be down there, somewhere, to this day.

If you’re daring, go into the girl’s bathroom and stand at the mirror with your school books on the floor. Look at your reflection and say “Beth I know who killed you”. I heard that she’ll appear and hit you with your school books.

No one I know will try it.

Paige Philipps from Bedford, Indiana

That woman roams around during foggy evenings, with her face covered by a surgical mask, which would not be especially unusual, as people with colds often wear masks for the sake of others in Japan. When she encounters someone, primarily children or college students, she will shyly ask, "Am I beautiful?" ("Watashi kirei?").

If the person answers yes, she will take off her mask and say, "Even like this?"

At this point, if the victim answers "No," she will slay them with a pair of huge scissors.

If the victim tells her she is pretty a second time, she follows the victim home and slays them in their own doorway. This is because  the word "kirei" , Japanese for ‘pretty,’ is a near homophone of "kire", the imperative form of "to cut".

If the victim answers "You’re average", they are saved.

Also, the answer "so-so," causes the Kuchisake-onna to think about what to do, and her victim can escape while she is in thought. One way to escape is to present the Kuchisake-onna with amber, hard candy. Another is to say "pomade" three times (in some versions, six times). This will make her either falter and turn or run away. If the victim has pomade, they can write with it behind her back to keep her from following. The reason is that this reminds her of either the dentist’s or (plastic) surgery smells, or that her boyfriend used it.

Kyla from Seattle, WA

The story I was told went like this:

In 1964, the owner’s two young children were reported missing. The kids had last been seen in the factory, and their nanny and father both confirmed that they had been brought in for a quick visit. The nanny left the children for a short break, and when she returned, they were gone. The factory was shut down to look for them, but no trace was found. After a week, police determined that foul play was likely.

Shortly thereafter, a warrant was issued for the arrest of their uncle. The man in question had been declared mentally unstable. Police reported finding human remains in the factory, namely the meat processing and cut rooms.
Two days after the warrant, a massive recall was issued from the plant. The official reason given was "meat contaminants, human in nature", and customers were strongly urged not to consume it.

Shortly after the recall, the children were declared officially dead and their father had committed suicide in the boiler room. The children’s bodies were never fully recovered.

Ten years later, the new owners called police to report trespassers, claiming they had seen children running around. Frantic employees later reported seeing a man throwing two children into the meat grinder, then vanishing. No trace was found of the reported action, but both employees gave separate, identical accounts.

In 1984, twenty years after the children vanished, the body of their uncle was found hanging from the exact spot their father had killed themselves in, with "I killed them" carved into his chest. It was also reported that the grave of the father was dug up, and that the carvings on the newest body were inflicted post-mortem.

It is said that during the month of October, the ghosts of the children can be seen running around, and on the anniversary of their disappearance, you can occasionally see a man dumping two small bodies into the meat grinder. On the 31st, in the boiler room, you can see the ghosts of the two men who hanged themselves.

The plant was officially closed in 2001, and later revitalized into a haunted house. I’m skeptical that these events actually happened, given that fact, but I can’t deny that the place has a creepy feeling to it, and there was a major meat recall in October of 1964. I have also seen the ghosts of the children, but this may be due in part to hearing this legend before visiting the site.

Perhaps these events did happen. Perhaps they are a ghost legend started by the haunted house company. Either way, it makes for a good, creepy Halloween tale.

April from Tucson, AZ

*photo credit: http://jsmexploration.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/farmer-johns-meat-packing-plant/

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

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8…

She turned over and got comfortable thinking that it was just Leah’s way of getting to sleep.
Rachel woke up a few hours later to more rustling. Facing away from her friend, she saw the lights were on and she turned over to see Leah’s decapitated head and a hooded figure pulling one hair out of her head at a time.

565, 566, 567, 568, 569, 570…

This happened on my street and I was invited to Rachel’s sleepover,
I just wasn’t her good friend so I didn’t go.

Emma from Stirlingshire

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.

"Love Rollercoaster" is a song by American funk/R&B band The Ohio Players, originally featured on their 1975 album Honey. The song was a hit upon its initial release, reaching the top of both the R&B and pop charts, and still sees wide airplay on classic funk and R&B stations. The song uses the roller coaster, a common theme park attraction, as a metaphor for the ups and downs of dating and romantic relationships.

While the song is known within the music community for its distinctive and influential sound, within the popular imagination it remains best identified with a persistent urban legend. During an instrumental portion of the song, a high-pitched scream is heard (between 2:32 and 2:36 on the single version); this was Billy Beck, but according to the most common legend, it was the voice of an individual being murdered live while the tape was rolling. The "victim’s" identity varies greatly depending on the version.

The supposed sources of the scream have included an individual who was killed at some prior time, her scream inexplicably recorded and looped into the track. Another version tells of a rabbit being killed outside the studio whose scream was accidentally picked up by the band’s recording equipment – highly implausible, since professional recording studios are soundproof. The most widespread version of the myth, however, tells that Ester Cordet, who appeared nude on the Honey album cover, had been badly burned by the super-heated honey used for the photo shoot, which occurred simultaneous with the recording session, and her agonized screams were inadvertently captured on tape. A further variation had Cordet suffering permanent disfigurement due to the burns; she interrupted the band’s recording session, threatening to sue, at which point the band’s manager stabbed her to death in the control room. Both of the latter two scenarios, however, are impossible as Ester Cordet is still alive.

Casey Kasem reported the urban myth of the woman being killed in the studio recording booth on his radio show, American Top 40, when the song was on the charts in 1976. Jimmy "Diamond" Williams explained that the scream was nothing eerie or disturbing:

"There is a part in the song where there’s a breakdown. It’s guitars and it’s right before the second verse and Billy Beck does one of those inhaling-type screeches like Minnie Riperton did to reach her high note or Mariah Carey does to go octaves above. The DJ made this crack and it swept the country. People were asking us, ‘Did you kill this girl in the studio?’ The band took a vow of silence because you sell more records that way."

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Rollercoaster

Jacob from Alamogordo NM

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