#urbanlegend

You know, I never thought I’d end up as a glorified janitor for a secret organization. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a firefighter or maybe an astronaut. Something cool. Something heroic. Instead, here I am, scrubbing ichor off walls and hauling mysterious black garbage bags to incinerators. But hey, life takes you places, right? And to all those comments asking, “How’d I got recruited by the Association?” … Well, buckle up. your prayers had been answered.

When I was a kid I used to play down by the creek that was behind my house. I'd throw rocks, play with plastic army men, make little houses out of mud and sticks having them sink into the creek. On a particular hot day in July when I was about nine I was sitting by the edge of the creek. I had my feet in the water trying to cool down as the day was unbearably humid. I had my eyes closed and didn't hear her walk up. "Hello" I heard an older voice say. I open my eyes and see a thin middle aged…

Paramedics are incredibly superstitious. It’s surprising how much people will argue with me about this simple fact. “Oh, definitely not. They’re too reasonable, too smart, too calm in a crisis to engage with something as irrational as superstitions.”

What are ghost stories, anyway?

It's funny how tales like this cling to you, worming their way into your mind, gnawing away, festering like a wound. They say truth is stranger than fiction, but sometimes the stories we pass down—the ones we whisper in shadowy corners or over drinks at seedy bars—are more chilling and grotesque than any proven fact. This is one of those tales. A fable, sure, but one that sits far too close to reality. Told by those who find comfort in the macabre, and believed by those who understand that the…

When Jade was only twelve-years-old, her father came home one afternoon with his arms and legs covered in claw marks. Jade felt confused and excited about his appearance. While she didn’t like seeing her dad hurt, she wondered if he finally bought her the cat or dog she wanted. He wasn’t good with animals and she figured it must have attacked him on the car ride home. To Jade’s dismay, he didn’t bear hug her or call her his “little troll,” a nickname he gave her for the vibrantly colored hair…

I like to drive past spooky places.

Every neighbourhood has a place children are warned never to cross. A tunnel, a fence, a creek, sometimes just a street or an abandoned house. A line drawn in fear, and if you dare step past it, something bad will take you. In my town, the forbidden zone was a decommissioned storm drain at the edge of town.

As a kid growing up in my neighborhood everyone knew about Farmer Fred’s, partly because it was an abandoned farm in the middle of the Pittsburgh suburbs, but largely due to the fact that it was haunted. A farm in my neighborhood was probably commonplace at the turn of the 19th century, but by the time I was a kid we were surrounded by strip malls, fast food restaurants and housing developments. That being said, there was and is still a good deal of green space, and at least one farm, albeit no…

This is a story of a boy I met when I was still young. His name was James Elkin, and he lived in the house two doors down from me. We weren’t friends, but I did greet him a few times when I saw him. He always looked small for a nine-year-old and had long, uneven hair.

Do you remember the games you played as a child? Running around outside, making up rules, inventing magic where there was none? Maybe not. Maybe that era was already gone by the time you grew up. But I’m sure a few of you—old farts like me—still remember. Those days were magic. We’d stay out past sunset, climbing trees, chasing each other barefoot through the grass, playing whatever game we could dream up on the spot. But there was one we always came back to.

It was a dark, foggy night, as it really should be whenever something eerie happens. I was walking from my dad’s house over to my mom’s. I’d had a fight with my dad about something, the topic of which I’ve since forgotten, and realized at 17 years old that I was old enough and capable enough to walk alone back to my mom’s house, instead of stewing in my room at dad’s. Besides, both of my sisters were asleep already, so I wasn’t worried about them not getting their homework done or needing help…