intro

As a kid, everyone has sat around the campfire on a dark, windless night. The fire slowly dying down, the thick smell of smoke on your clothes, and the faces of other kids around the campfire deeply shadowed and distorted by the fire's lighting.

Then, of course, there's always that one older kid, the one who everyone both respects and hates at the same time. He's always sitting around the campfire too, and he's usually the one that starts to tell the stories.
Oh, these aren't just normal, everyday stories about what happened earlier in the day or what prank was pulled at school last week. No, these are the stories that leave you laying awake in your camper long after the last fire has been put out, thinking about the horrific thing that was just conveyed to you. After all, it happened right across the lake. It could happen to you for all you know. And that's what really gets to you.

I have experienced this scene many times in my childhood. My family and I used to go camping with a group called the "Rainy Day Campers" for over five years when I was younger. While the grown-ups sat around their fires at night to talk about politics and other boring topics, we had other plans. After we grew tired of spying on the other campers down the road, "The Slab People", as we called them, and after our game of hide-and-seek in the dark came to an end, the fire was our final destination.

Certain stories that I heard around the campfire still linger with me today--stories about a babysitter being called by a madman who ended up being right upstairs or the couple who were terrorized on Lover's Lane by a killer with a hook. Although I now know that most of these are mere urban legends and did not really take place across the lake, I can still remember the thrilling, yet terrifying feeling that would fill my gut while listening to these tales.

This storybook contains four of these particular tales, or "urban legends," from my childhood. I have chosen each of these specific urban legends because I can clearly remember them from when I once sat around a campfire as a kid.

Urban legends are a type of modern day folktale that often exploit common fears or paranoias that most people have felt at one time or another. With this intent in mind, it makes sense as to why so many of these stories contain such frightening events, such as stalking, break-ins, and even murder. Furthermore, most urban legends are said to have happened to a friend or a friend of a friend or even across the lake if you will...

This storybook centers upon a frametale based on my campfire experiences as a young girl. Although some of the names have been changed, several of the characters are based upon real life people who I once knew.

The urban legends retold around this particular campfire are:

The Highway Stalker: A woman being chased down a highway gets more than she bargained for.

The Hook: Two teenager lovers have a close call with an escaped murderer.

Check the Children: A young babysitter receives disturbing phone calls.

Humans Can Lick Too: A horrifying tale of an old woman and her loving companion.

If you don't scare too easily, you should sit back, relax (but not too much) and take another look at these ghastly campfire tales that kept you awake so many of those dark, windless nights.

Image Info:
"Haunted Forrest"
GettyImages
(search: "Dark Forrest")

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