You told yourself that after the sleepless nights  from your last encounter with urban legends,  

you would be sure to steer clear of any more scary  stories. Everything is going according to plan,  

you've been roasting marshmallows and eating  s'mores all night long without a scary story  

in sight. Then suddenly the person next to  you does the unthinkable. “Let's tell some  

more urban legends!” they exclaim. You try  to interject, but another friend breaks in,  

“And let's make them even scarier  than last time! I'll start.”

“Last time we talked about Bloody Mary,” says your  friend. “But have you all heard of the Candyman?”  

The Candyman legend goes back all the way to  the 1800's. A black man was haneously killed for  

impregnating his white lover. Years later a group  of kids was playing around an abandoned building.  

It was run down, with graffiti all over the walls,  and decaying garbage in the hallways. The kids  

made their way into one of the apartments; all  the windows had been covered with newspaper so  

it was almost completely dark. The kids went  into the bathroom and looked at the mirror.

“Bet you won't say his name five times,”  says one of the children. “Don't do it,”  

says another. But the third child looks  directly into the mirror and says,  

“Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman,  Candyman…” On the fifth saying of the name,  

the undead corpse of the black man who was  murdered in the 1800's comes crashing out  

of the mirror. He has a hook for a hand and  bees swarming around him. The kids all run,  

but the one who said his name is snatched  by the hook and murdered by the Candyman.

Oh man, you think. Now I won't be able to look  into a mirror for a while. “That was pretty good,”  

one of your friends says. “But listen  to how terrifying this urban legend is.”

This is the legend of the Bunny Man. His name  might sound cute at first, but the legend is  

anything but. There once was an escaped mental  patient who roamed the woods. He broke out of  

an asylum, but was never caught by the police. All  the authorities could turn up were the corpses of  

brutally murdered bunny rabbits. They knew it must  be the escaped patient, but he kept eluding them.  

He was given the name “Bunny Man” for his affinity  for killing the furry creatures in terrible ways.

Eventually the Bunny Man started  getting even more gruesome. People  

would walk through the forest on nature  hikes and come across an old bridge.  

Hanging from the bridge were the mutilated  bodies of bunnies. A group of kids was curious,  

and wanted to see the bunnies that  were strung up under the bridge;  

so late one night they snuck out into the woods.  They came across the bridge, and sure enough,  

there were bunnies hanging under it. However,  when they looked on top of the bridge they saw  

a man in a white suit, wearing bunny ears on top  of his head. The children shrieked in terror.

The next night a search party was sent  out to try and locate the children who  

had never returned home. The party came to the  bridge where the bunnies were normally hanging,  

except this time it wasn't just rabbits…

“That's awful!” you cry. “We're in the woods,  and we definitely crossed under some bridges to  

get here.” Your friends laugh because they  think you're joking, but you're not. “I've  

got a good one!” declares another member of  your group. “This one's called The Beijing  

Ghost Bus. After you hear it, you probably won't  want to ride public transportation for a while.”

It is late one dark and stormy night.  A bus driver is making his rounds.  

Around midnight the bus driver spots three men  flagging him down. He is hesitant to pick them  

up because they are not at a bus stop, but he  figures that since the weather is so terrible,  

he'll give them a break. The three men enter the  bus without a word and head to the back. The bus  

driver notices they are dressed in clothing  that looks like it's from a hundred years ago.  

The men are very pale, but the bus driver just  assumes the men are actors from some show.

The other passengers on the bus slowly  disembark at the next few stops until  

only a handful of people remain. The three oddly  dressed men are standing in the back of the bus.  

Someone pulls the cord to signal they  will be getting off at the next station.  

The driver pulls up, and the bus hisses to  a stop. The man who pulled the cord hurries  

off the bus. Once on the sidewalk he turns  around with a frightened look on his face.  

“Those men in the back of the bus are  floating above the floor,” he says.

The bus driver gives him an odd look and  closes the door in the crazy man's face.  

The bus drives off with only the driver  and three floating passengers in it.  

That was the last time anyone ever  saw the bus or the bus driver.

“Ghosts on a bus!” you shout. What will  they think of next, serpents on a jet?  

Everyone laughs and you shake your  head. “I think that's enough scary  

stories for tonight,” you say. But one of  your friends stands up. “Wait! I am about  

to tell you the most eerie urban legend of  all… and it involves a vintage video game.”

Back in the 80's people would flock to arcades  to get their fill of coin operated video games.  

One game in particular was addictive, but had  an ominous side to it. The game was called  

Polybius. Whenever someone would drop a coin  into the game, and begin playing, they would  

feel disoriented. But this feeling eventually  passed, and the person would continue on.

They would become addicted; always thinking about  Polybius, always wanting to go another round on  

the video game. Sometimes men in all black suits  would come in and open up the Polybius cabinet,  

as if they were extracting some kind of  information from it. Then they would close  

the cabinet up and let the line of eager  players back at the game. Then something  

even more strange began to happen. The people  who played the game started to get amnesia.  

They couldn't remember who they were, or where  they were from, only that they wanted to play  

Polybius. This odd behavior would culminate  in the unexplained death of the player.

When this happened the Polybius video  game would disappear, but only for a time.  

Eventually the all black cabinet  would reappear in another arcade,  

somewhere far away where the legend of the  Polybius video game had not yet been heard.

“Well thanks a lot, now I'm afraid  to play my own video games,”  

you say as the fire flickers and cast shadows  onto the forest trees around you. One of your  

friends rubs his hands together. “You've all  heard of the genie in the magic lamp right?  

But do you know the urban legend of the jinn,  which is what the genie is based off of?” You look  

at your friend. “You're not going to ruin Aladdin  for me are you?” you ask. Your friend just smiles.

Deep in the Arabian desert a man has lost his way.  He runs out of water, and is severely dehydrated.  

The man collapses from exhaustion and falls  face first into the sand. He manages to pick  

his head up to look around. In front of him stands  a beautiful woman. She holds a jug full of water.  

The man scrambles to his feet and takes the water  from her. He drinks until he almost throws up.

“How can I ever repay you?” asks the man. The  woman removes her face covering to reveal a mouth  

full of serrated teeth. She contorts her body, and  changes from a beautiful woman into a terrifying  

monster, with horns coming out of its head and  smoke filling the space around it. The man screams  

and pleads for mercy. The jinn opens its gaping  maw and consumes the man whole. Then it transforms  

back into the beautiful woman, and waits for  the next unsuspecting victim to cross its path.

You shudder at the thought of the friendly genie  from the Disney films being a man eating monster.  

“Don't be such a scaredy cat,' one of your other  

friends says. “Besides if you think that  was bad, wait until you hear this one.”

Everyone has nightmares about something under  the bed. But The Body Under the Bed legend is  

said to be true. It goes like this. One night  a couple is on vacation. They are having the  

time of their life and fall asleep after a  long day of fun activities. In the middle  

of the night they are awoken by a horrible  smell. It reeks as if something, or someone,  

has died in the room. They try to sleep  through it, but can't get past the smell.

The couple calls down to the lobby  and informs the concierge of the odor.  

The hotel staff come up to the room and  check everywhere for the source of the smell,  

but they can't find it. The hotel is  completely booked, so they do a quick  

cleaning of the room and spray air freshener.  The smell seems to have subsided for now.

The next day the hotel crew takes apart the  room looking for the source of the smell.  

They clean under the bed and all around  the hotel room. The smell still lingers.  

The hotel crew takes the mattress off of  the bed and unzips the mattress cover.  

They slide the cover off to unveil a  dead body within the mattress cover.  

The couple had been sleeping on top  of the dead body the entire night.

“That's gross,” says everyone around  the campfire. “Oh I'm not done yet,  

says the storyteller. Things are  about to get so much grosser.”

This one is called The Licked Hand. One  night a young girl awakens to the sound  

of dripping water. It is the first time her  parents have left her all alone at night,  

while they enjoy a weekend away. However,  the girl has her faithful dog to protect her.

The night is cloudy. The wind howls. From the  bathroom down the hall the little girl hears  

a dripping noise. It sounds like the sink hasn't  been turned off all the way. She cautiously gets  

out of bed and makes her way to the bathroom  with the dog by her side. She enters and is  

startled by something moving. She slams her  hand against the light switch on the wall,  

and when the light comes on, she laughs at  herself. It was only her reflection in the mirror.

The girl checks the faucet, but it's not dripping.  She shrugs, turns off the light, and heads back to  

her room. The girl climbs into bed and tries  to fall back asleep, but the dripping sound  

continues. She curls up under the covers and  slowly drifts off. The girl is awakened later  

that night by a nightmare. She reaches down to pet  her faithful dog who licks her hand reassuringly.  

The dripping sound seems to have gotten louder.  The girl squeezes her eyes shut and wills the sun  

to rise. Eventually, due to the intermittent licks  of her trustworthy dog, she falls back asleep.

In the morning the girl wakes up and decides  to do a more thorough sweep of the house.  

She steps out of bed and notices her dog  isn't there anymore. She calls for him,  

but the dog doesn't come. The girl walks down  the hall to the bathroom. The door is shut.  

She turns the handle and slowly opens it. When  she turns on the light she screeches in horror.  

In the bathtub lies the remains of her mutilated  dog. It has been slaughtered during the night.  

On the bathroom wall, written in blood,  are the words: “humans can lick hands too.”

“What is wrong with you people?” you shout.  “I'm never going to be able to sleep again.”  

Everyone laughs and reassures you that  they are just urban legends, and none of  

it is real. But you can't help but feel that  all urban legends originated from somewhere.  

You know that behind every  legend, there is a hint of truth.

Now check out “Scary Urban Legends That  Will Keep You Up At Night.” Or watch  

“Terrifying Urban Legends  That Turned Out To Be Real.”