8 Terrifying Urban Legends That Will Keep You Up At Night

Are these stories made up, or did they REALLY happen? Either way, we’re betting you won’t forget these horrifying urban legends.

The Hitchhiker And The Driver

A driver was on the road on a dark, foggy night when he spotted a hitchhiker and let him in. The driver asked, “Where you heading?” The hitchhiker said, “To your grave, because I am a murderer!” and pulled back his sleeve to reveal that his hand was a hook. Then the driver pulled back his sleeve to reveal a hook and said, “I am a murderer too, and I only picked you up to murder you.” The hitchhiker and the driver kissed and got married.

The Naked Clown

A babysitter was putting a child to bed when she noticed a completely nude man in clown makeup sitting in the corner of the room, stroking his hairy stomach and laughing quietly. Thinking nothing of it, she went downstairs to watch TV. When the parents came home hours later, she complimented them on their naked clown man, and the dad said, “We don’t own a naked clown man.”

Charm Bracelet Of Satan

This old tale holds that if you realize you’re about to die, you can yell “Friendship! Friendship! Friendship!” and instead of dying and going to heaven, you become a charm, like a key or a shell, on the charm bracelet of Satan.

Poinsettia Loretta

Legend has it that if you don’t throw your holiday poinsettia plants away by January 12, Poinsettia Loretta will come to your home and eat them in front of you. You have to watch. Not watching is nonnegotiable.

Hickleman Frost

The story of Hickleman Frost has several iterations. In one version, he’s an organ donor angrily searching for his donated heart. In another, he’s a plumber who shows up at your house and plunges your guts out with his plunger of death. In the most popular version of the story, Hickleman Frost is a regular guy like you or me, just trying to keep his head down and get through the day.

Reflection Of The Unknown

The story goes that if you’ve had long hair for a good while and decide to get it cut short, it’ll be pretty weird when you look in the mirror for the first time—like, Whoa, who is that even?

The Bruce Greenwood

Yikes! This terrifying folk tale comes all the way from Denmark, where children are asked to say the following prayer each night to protect their parents from the malevolent clutches of the ravenous Bruce Greenwood, or “The Bruce,” who stalks the village streets by night: “Beware my dear mother, the Bruce is about/Beware my dear father, make not a shout/For the Bruce he haunts these streets by night/Feasting on parents till break of daylight.”

The #FF From Hell

They say that if you tweet “#FF @FollowMeToHell” during Follow Friday, you’ll get a horrifying surprise: 10,000 spambots named “Your Dad”—with your dad’s face as their avatar—will immediately follow you and flood your timeline with at-replies reading, “I will spank you for eternity, even when we are ghosts.”