As a child, I lived in the city of Leeds. One of the most well-known buildings in the Leeds area is Temple Newsam House. The house is a Tudor-Jacobean mansion located just on the outskirts of Leeds, set in 1500 acres of parkland. Currently the house is over five hundred years old and has seen plenty of tragic events. I was never exposed to any of the grim tales when I visited the place, but now that I am older, I know about all the ghosts rumoured to be lingering in the building. The tale I found the most tragic was the tale of Phoebe Gray.

In 1704 Britain's victory at the Battle of Blenheim was being celebrated. It was a hot and humid night, full of hog roasts, beer, bonfires and dancing to hearty tunes. With the beer being free for all, it was obvious that some people would end up consuming far too much. That was the case with a man named William Collinson. William was a servant who was known for being foul-mouthed and brutish with a terrible lack of hygiene. He had his eyes on one of the family's nursemaids: sixteen-year-old Phoebe Gray.

Phoebe Gray tended to the children of the family which resided in the house at the time. She had no interest in William at all. Little did she know that William knew her nightly routine. William knew that Phoebe took a hot drink to Nanny Backhouse in the nursery last thing every night, so he decided to lurk in the dark corridors hoping to steal a kiss from the nursemaid. By this point he was extremely drunk.

As Phoebe made her way from the kitchen through the dark passage she grew nervous; the flickering light emitted from her candle cast eerie shadows on the walls, causing Phoebe to jump every now and then. As she made her way down a long hallway, William pounced from the dark corner he had been hiding in. Terrified, Phoebe screamed and thrashed in a desperate attempt to escape the drunken man's firm hold. Nobody could hear the young nursemaid due to the midnight fireworks exploding over the house. William, in his drunken state, had forgotten his own strength. He felt Phoebe's body fall limp in his grasp, her screams dying down to silence. Without realising it, William had strangled her to death.

In a state of panic, William dragged Phoebe's body down the stairs all the way to the cellar. In the cellar there was an old well - the perfect place to hide a body. After dumping Phoebe's body in the well, William ran away.

Initially everyone assumed that Phoebe and William had eloped. This belief continued until Phoebe's body was discovered down in the cellar.  Two of the family servants went in search of William, finding him drunk in a nearby inn. He was found guilty of Phoebe's murder and was sentenced to death by hanging.

To this day it is still rumoured that if you visit the house today you will hear the muffled screams of Phoebe Gray on the backstairs and in the long passages. Some people have even reported hearing a sequence of bumps, almost as if someone's body was being dragged down the stairs...

Last edited by LadyCreepypasta on Sat Feb 27, 2016 4:54 am; edited 1 time in total

So a couple’s driving down a dirt road in the middle of the night. There are no stars to be seen, no moon, no light at all except the brights. It had been raining most of that day, and those dark clouds you’d expect to see still hung over the sky, blotting out any light. They were saying on the radio, that It just might rain again that night. The boyfriend leans back a little bit, saying, “y’know, I could do with some good rest,” and his dearest agrees, so they decide to find the nearest place to stop and turn in. It’s not ideal to drive in that kind of weather anyway.

They’re a few miles outside of Las Vegas, and they see this dinky little hotel. It’s not all that big, maybe two-hundred rooms at most. There’s a dim neon sign reading “vacancy,” so it seems as good a place as any. They park the car, get what little luggage they’d brought with them, and head inside. There’s this old guy, maybe seventy years and pushing it, sitting at the clerks desk. He’s almost startled by the couple walking in, but he politely invites them to take a seat. He immediately books them a room for discount, expressing his sympathy for late travelers. They pay for the room, and the old guy leads them up a lengthy flight of stairs to the place. It’s nice enough, especially considering how most cheap hotels are. It’s even got a mini-fridge.

So the couple unwinds a bit, bagging up some cloths to take to the laundry room downstairs, gathering the miscellaneous snacks that had been picked over during the drive, all those little odd jobs to ready up for the next day. Finally, they’re ready for bed. They climb in, get warm and cozy under the covers, and eventually pass out. But that wasn’t without a bit of struggle. The girlfriend was complaining about this bad smell earlier, but she couldn’t point out what it was. The boyfriend smelled it too, something quite rank. They chucked it up to the wet luggage from rainwater that had a tendency to leak through the trunk door.

The next morning they wake up, and that smell is as worse as ever. It seemed to just fill up the whole room, and was inescapable. The girlfriend goes downstairs and complains to the guy on shift. He admits it’s a little strange, and tells her he’ll look into it once they leave. The couple packs up, checks out, and drives off into the relentless overcast weather. The staff member, after a few minutes of dull paperwork, remembers the patron’s complaint. He shuffles up the stairs to the room, and opens the door to take a look. Unlike many patrons, these ones seemed to actually care about how they left the room. Perfect? No, but they did there best to tidy up before they left, even with their complaint. The kid doesn’t notice anything at first, everything looks to be just fine. He takes a few steps in, and starts doing a little investigation.

That’s when the smell hits him. It’s awful, and cloying in the small room. It’s worse than any rotten egg, moldy shower curtain, anything he’s ever had the displeasure of smelling. He runs down the the janitor’s office, and tells the janitor there’s a tricky case in the room upstairs. They both head back up there, completely puzzled about what’s causing the smell. The hotel manager gives them the OK to tear the place up, so they do just that. They look all the furniture over, open the windows, and start pulling back all the appliances. After confirming there was nothing wrong with the mini fridge, they decide to look at the bed. The janitor peels of the sheets, tosses them to the ground, and gets a bellhop to help him flip the mattress over.

Staring back at them, and crudely splayed out on the box-spring, is the corpse of a dead woman in a state of prolonged decomposition. Her hair is in a knotted mess, with most of her skin rotted away. Her eyes have long since sunk into the dark sockets of her head, and based on the looks of it, she herself had been mushed down into the box spring. The police show up, but there isn’t much they can do. The last patrons to use the room before the complaints were sent, paid with cash. They weren’t easily identifiable, and the desk worker on shift at the time later guessed that they had been wearing nondescript masks.

The thing is, that cases like these seem to crop up all the time, and in all kinds of different places. You’ve probably heard of it yourself. I guess it just makes you wonder though; The last hotel visit you took, laying in the bed, were you really alone?

--

I tried giving this a similar style to Jan Harold Brunvand, who does lots of great urban legend books. This story is classic in my area, so thought I'd try my hand at this. Best of luck to everyone else submitting!

I live in a small ranching community in Arizona. The area has a very bloody history including but not limited to blood rituals, blood sacrifices, countless murder, a few cases of mass slaughter, occasions of headless bodies being found followed by unrelated bodiless heads being found several weeks later, and recently catacombs were found full of skeletons and still decaying bodies. The legend I will be telling you about however is about a werewolf. If he really was a werewolf is up for debate. However, the man did live once, and the events that took place did happen.

I was first told this story when I was a little kid. My Aunt through marriage, is related to one of the men involved. Her something great grandfather. From what I can tell this story took place sometime around 1880 give or take a decade or two. Like I said before, the town I live in is small even now, so you can imagine how tiny it was back then. Well, several people in this small town had decided that this one man was a werewolf. Several of the men, including the sheriff at the time, got together and found the man instantly decapitating him. He body was buried in an unmarked grave in the local cemetery. His head was taken by a small group of the men, including my Aunt’s relative, and buried somewhere secret. They feared that if the head and the body were brought together the werewolf would be resurrected. To my knowledge that is the end of the story. For them at least.

The body of the werewolf is buried in a cemetery that is on top of a small hill. The hill is on the corner of an L shaped dirt road. There are a few houses scattered here and there but it is mostly open desert. The road leading west away from the cemetery has a small section that doesn’t feel right to most people. Several people have confirmed that most nights if they drive down the road they feel as if they are being watched by some canine type creature in the open area to the north of the dirt road. Several people can at time see a set of glowing yellow eyes in their mind when sensing they are being watched. There is nothing paranormal about the glow, just the sort of glowing that you see when moonlight reflects off the eyes of certain animals. Several people have also had the feeling that if they stop the car, get out, and close the door,and I must stress the fact that everyone who has told me this all specified closing the door, something very bad would happen. Normally when I talk to people about this I first ask if they get a strange feeling on that road and have them describe it to me if they do. Not everyone has had these experiences. For those who have, their stories and details are always the same. After they tell me their experiences I ask if they know about the story of the werewolf. It is rare for someone to say yes.

A few years back I was talking with a friend of mine who is, for lack of a better term, a medium. She can sense and see things most people can’t, and she tends to know things she shouldn’t. I was telling her about the story of the werewolf and when I mentioned his decapitation she interrupted and told me they made a mistake. They killed the wrong brother. I have told this story hundreds of times, but I had never mentioned to anyone that the decapitated man had a brother.

So.. When I asked my Grandmother about the Local Legends at where I live (due to her being wise) she told me this story, I had later did a bit more research on the legendary "Zombie Road"

"The city of St. Louis is unlike many other major American cities. It is a large sprawling region of suburbs and interconnected towns that make up the metropolitan city as a whole, making it an impossible place to live if you do not own an automobile. With the Mississippi River as the eastern border of St. Louis, the settlers who came here originally had nowhere to go but to the west a damned the city expanded in that direction." The website gave me imidetly. I was about to click out of it, but two years had caught my attention.

There was an old road way named Zombie Road, started to be called that in the early 1950s. It was only gravel and dirt, but was paved years after. The road was made in about 1860, but is still today impassable with any sort of car.

Let's go back some years, whenjoy slavery was being attacked at, and women's rights where being forced upon, 1868. A marble company with the name of Glencoe Marble was built to clear limestone deposits where is now Rockwoods Reservation. (This is why I did research, my grandmother do other said something utterly different.) As time passed, a narrow road began to be in use by trains and rail cars to take its needs and drop off its goods. But it soon fell in disuse, some had a memory of it, many others, not so much.

Many people would say how it was an unusual place, and even my grandmother had her suspension. Now, when I asked my good friend, the librarian, she didn't even answer me. She seemed afraid to bring up her visit. She had gone to St. Louis, and walked the path of "Zombie Road", at least her friend said that. The two women had just gone to go, but the unfortunate (giving aliases to them too, just to be safe for their behalf, and the asked me to.) Mary, had decided to take a walk, but that wrong turn left her to never even say the name "St.Louis" again.

Before I had left her be, I apologize for bringing it up, and had gone to the other librarian (her friend who went with her) and asked her.
First thing she said was, "Oh, dear.. Never bring that up in here." Before leading me to the hallway of the building, and explaining what had happened. "When Mary came back, she was as white as a sheet, and I will never forget that pained face."

Only Mary knows what she saw, but she doesn't wish to remember.

_____

I give a good luck to the others in this, you guys where way better than me, but I decided why not. So, here we go!?

I am a resident of southern California, I have lived here for the last sixteen years of my life and happily reside near Redondo Beach. Normally I don’t go too far out of my comfort zone drive wise in fear of being stranded somewhere absolutely terrible. For one reason or another I thought it was a fantastic idea to drop a classmate off up in Ventura County. He was going to be the staying the weekend with his parents up in Ojai and with him footing the gas bill I didn’t put up a fuss. Plus the guy had my back one too many fucked up drinking nights in a row, I thought it would be a good idea to have him out this once.

The drive wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. It was nearly a two hour trek from my place and on a Friday afternoon too. Shit that was a good drive for people out here in LA. We got up to his parents’ house, I had the luxury of enjoying a good ol’ home cooked dinner and boy was it good. Ever since I had moved out a couple years back to attend college I didn’t really have mom’s meals every night like I use to. We goofed around for a few hours after that, for whatever reason I decided it was a great idea to head home in the middle of the night. My friend offered me a place to stay but I guess I insisted on leaving. Honestly the extreme details of the interactions are lost on me.

It was about two A.M. as I was making my way through Ojai heading through Creek Road. Without my music playing I probably would have gone crazy from the silence. The road was rather vacant aside from me I only passed one car on my way down the road. Along the way my car’s ABS light turned on causing me some trouble. It sputtered and slowed me down to a point where I had to pull over alongside while I was on this bridge. I turned my car off and let it sit for a second while I rubbed my eyes.

While I sat for a moment I started to smell this nasty, roasted odor and heard banging on the back of my car. Irritated by it I turned back to look out the window and as soon as I did the noise stopped. I turned back around and within a few moments the banging returns. At this point I was getting a little irked so I turned on the car hoping it would spook the creature hitting the car. After it continued I stepped out of my vehicle and walked around to spook the culprit myself. To my surprise nothing was there, I even checked under the car. Nothing.

I got back in my car and turned on my headlights. When I did this nasty burnt fucker jumped at the windshield scaring the shit out of me. Its hollow sockets and gaping charred mouth widened and closed as its arms swung at my glass. Each thud began getting harder than the last until my frozen demeanor was broken by the sounds of cracking glass.

I stuck the car in drive and punched the gas. I panicked while skidding down the road burning the rubber on my tires. The creature started to slide until it fell under my car and I ran it over. Before I could slow myself down I barreled right into a tree. The last thing I remember that night was looking from my steering wheel to this dark pile of mush peeling itself from the floor and I swear I could hear crackling. It faced me with its thin bone-like blackened outer shell limping its way over. Then it all went black. If it weren’t for a late night worker passing down the same road I probably wouldn’t have been picked up and taken to the hospital.

That was definitely the last fucking time I went up to Ojai.

Did I post this in the right place!? I have no fucking clue.Sorry if this went somewhere wrong or annoyed someone.

 
                Here in Australia, Aboriginals have a folklore about the Australian creature known as the Bunyip. The Aboriginals passed this legend down to settlers here as a warning of what lurks, in the swamps, creeks, waterholes and river beds. The legend of the Bunyip was taken very seriously by the settlers, but the legend seem to grow in popularity around the time of 1932, when the great depression set in.
 
                The Settlers were warned not to go out to any lakes or creeks at night, as the creature who lived in those bodies of water would come out at night, to attack and eat any animal or human it found venturing around the area they called home. These creatures also were alleged to have a preference for women, as they were more vulnerable than the men.
 
                There is no finite description of this creature. Nobody can even agree on if it is a creature or a spirit. However some of the more common descriptions of a Bunyip as a large, gorilla type creature, but also being described as a half-human half-animal or spiritual creation. Some people have also described the Bunyip as a fish like creature, which would also make sense given its habitat. Some claim it to have scales, some claim it to have fur and some claim it to have horns and/or claws, and the colour and shape of the creature varies just as much from description to description.
 
                More common descriptions of the creatures say that they had shining, baleful eyes and bellowing voice, ranging from a medium to large creature, with bodies representing that of an alligator or emu and a horse like head. Some also state it is a lot bigger, about the size of a hippo and walks on its hind legs.
 
                Sightings of these creatures spread all across the states, the main ones being Victoria and Tasmania; Victoria being the closest to Tasmania, meaning most reports come from the south east of Australia. Being sighted mostly in bushy, swamp areas like billabongs, swamps and lagoons.
 
                There have been some reports of Bunyip attacks, these seem most prevalent in the Geelong area, at Lakes Modewarre and Barwon River, where one resident of Geelong, Victoria claimed his mother had been taken and killed by a Bunyip, and others claiming they were themselves attacked by one, including one Aboriginal resident with giant claw marks down his breast. There are also many more disappearances in those lakes which are unexplained.
 
                These bodies of water and sometime home to fossilized bones of several large birds and reptiles long extinct. Some bones from extinct animals shown to Aboriginal folk, are often mistaken for those of the Bunyip, meaning there could be a correlation between these two. Some people speculate on large creatures that lived a few thousand years ago, based on bones, “scientists” have put together some very large and powerful animals, the size of bulls or bigger with massive forearms and claws, that could of inspired the Bunyip legend.
 
                Legend or not, the story of the Bunyip will be discussed and speculated on for years to come, out in the bush over a campfire… hopefully not too close to a creek.