1.
Head hunter
A family of four – two young children and their parents – were traveling on
the road to [….] when their car broke down. The parents went out to look for
help and left the radio on for the kids in case they got bored. By nightfall,
the parents still hadn’t returned. Sat in the darkness, the children continued
to listen to the radio and grew alarmed when they heard that a dangerous
killer was on the loose, having escaped from a prison nearby. The
newsreader warned listeners to take extreme care when going about their
business. Time passed and the children waited. The silence outside the car
was absolute until, suddenly, they heard knocking on the car roof above
them. “Clank, clank, clank.” The knocks grew louder and faster. “Douff,
douff, douff.” Unable to bear it any longer, the children opened the car
doors and fled in terror. Only the eldest dared to turn to see the source of
their fear. On top of the car was a large man, who was bouncing two objects
on the top of the vehicle: the heads of the children’s parents.
2. The madman under the bed
This is the story of a young girl from [….], called Sara. As a child, Sara was
afraid of the dark and got a dog to keep her company. Subsequently, she slept
peacefully knowing the dog was under her bed; if she was afraid, she only had
to reach out her hand, and her dog would start licking it until she fell asleep.
Years went by like this and Sara grew up and the dog became old. One night,
on the radio, she heard that a dangerous murderer was thought to be in the
vicinity of [….]. With her dog at her side, Sara was not afraid: she got into bed,
stretched out her hand and the dog, as was its wont, began to lick her. She
slept soundly and, when she woke up, she was surprised that the dog was still
licking. Looking under the bed, she screamed. The dog lay dead and the tongue
that was so tirelessly licking her belonged to a man.
3. The graveyard challenge
Several teenage girls went for a sleepover at a friend’s house, taking
advantage of the fact that the parents were away. When they turned out the
lights, they started talking about an old man who had just been buried in a
nearby cemetery. It was said that he had been buried alive and could be heard
scratching at the coffin, trying to get out. One of the girls scoffed at the idea,
so the others dared her to go visit the grave right there and then. As proof that
she had actually gone, she was to drive a wooden stake into the earth of the
grave. The girl left and her friends lay waiting for her to return. But the hours
went by and their friend failed to materialize. They lay awake, increasingly
terrified. Morning came and the girl still had not appeared. So, when the
parents came back, they all went down to the cemetery. There they found the
girl lying on the grave. Dead. When she had bent down to drive the stake into
the ground, she had caught the hem of her skirt. Struggling to get up, she
thought the buried man had grabbed her. It was concluded that she died of
fright.
4. “Have you been up to check the kids?”
A teenage girl was asked to babysit for a family that lived in a huge, luxurious
house. It was her first evening on the job and, after she put the children to bed
upstairs, she sat down in front of the TV. But no sooner had she settled there
than the phone rang. The caller was a man. Gasping and laughing menacingly,
he asked, “Have been up to check the children?”
The babysitter hung up, convinced that her friends were playing a joke on her,
but the man called again, and again he asked, “Have you been up to check the
children?” Again, she hung up, now frightened, but the man called a third time.
This time, he said, “I’ve taken care of the kids, now I’m coming for you!” By
now, the babysitter was truly terrified. She called the police and reported the
calls. The police told her to try to distract the man the next time he phoned to
give them time to trace the call. As expected, the man called back. The
babysitter begged him to leave her alone, thus keeping him on the line for
longer. Eventually he hung up. Immediately, the phone rang again. This time, it
was the police: “Leave the house fast! The calls are coming from upstairs!”
