胆小慎入－最惊悚的英文都市传说

An urban legend, urban myth, or urban tale is a form of modern folklore. It usually consists of fictional stories, often presented as true, with scary or bizarre elements, rooted in local popular culture. These legends can be used for entertainment purposes and they are spread by any media, including newspapers, e-mail and social media.

Usually urban legends start with “this is a true story that happened to a ‘friend of a friend’”, In this way, you feel that it is something that could have happened and could be true. And a lot of people do believe that these stories really happened. Urban legends are especially popular in the United States, in Japan and in some parts of Europe. Even in China, we have our own version of urban legends.

Even though a lot of people are skeptical about whether they truly happened or not, many others believe that they are true stories. So in today’s episode, I am going to share with you four of the most popular urban legends in the English-speaking world.

4.Killer in the backseat

One night a woman went out for drinks with her friends. She left the bar fairly late at night, got in her car and onto the deserted highway. After a few minutes, she noticed a car in her rear-view mirror, approaching at a pace just slightly quicker than hers. The car behind her flashed its lights and then pulled up dangerously close to her car and the lights flashed again.

She was getting nervous about the car behind, she was trying to speed up, yet through every stop light and turn, it followed her, until she arrived at her house. She figured her only hope was to run into the house and call the police. As she flew from the car, so did the driver of the car behind her — and he screamed, "Lock the door and call the police! Call 911!"

When the police arrived, the woman finally found out the horrible truth. The man in the car behind her had been trying to save her. As he pulled up behind her, he sawthe shadow of a man with a knife rising up from the back seat of her car to stab her, so he flashed his lights and tried to warn her!

The basic bottom line is the hidden fear. You feel safe locked in your car and the danger always lies outside. As long as you lock yourself in, you are safe from any threats. This flips this common conceptionon its head, seeing the victim locking themselves in with the danger.

3.The call is from inside the house!

A teenage girl is babysitting atnight. The children have been put to bed upstairs and the babysitter is downstairs, watching TV. The phone rings; a man tells her to check on the children. The teenager dismisses the call and goes back to watching TV. The stranger calls back several times. Eventually the girl becomes worried and calls the police, who tell her they will trace the next call. After he calls again, the police call back, telling her that the call is coming from insidethe house and tell her to get out now. She goes outside and the police meet her. They explain that the calls were coming from inside the house, and that the man was calling her after killing the children.

2.Bloody Mary  血腥玛丽

The legend has it that if youturn off the lights in your house, stand in front of the mirror in your bathroom (sometimes with a candle) and chant “bloody Mary” three times, a girl covered in blood will appear in the mirror. Based on different variations of the story, she will scream at you, scare you or even kill you.

A tale that makes the audience fear their ownreflection. In English people say “Curiosity kills the cat”. Yet there are still daring youngsters trying out the ritual. There is something inherentlyscary about the idea of something coming out of a mirror or television screen,like it is some parallel world, or perhaps a world that is the opposite toours, as used by such films as The Ring.

1.Slender Man  斯兰达人／瘦叔

Fictional          虚构的

Supernatural      超自然的

Creepypasta =Creepy + Copypasta 网络恐怖小段子

creepy是令人毛骨悚然、不寒而栗的意思,而pasta这个词是对粘贴（paste）的变形，最初是copypasta （即“复制粘贴”），指专门用来复制粘贴的神回复、小段子之类。

creepypasta是指网络上流传的一些类似都市传说的令人不安的故事。通常非常短小，仅仅是依靠部分场景或是几句对话，就能制造出带着寡淡黑色幽默气息的独特恐怖氛围

Creepypastas are horror-related legends or images thathave been copy-and-pasted around the Internet.These Internet entries are often brief, user-generated, paranormal stories intendedto scare readers. They include gruesome tales of murder, suicide, andotherworldly occurrences.

The Slender Man is a fictional supernatural character that originated as a creepypasta Internet meme in 2009.

The character originated in a 2009 Something Awful Photoshop competition.

 It is depicted as a thin, unnaturally tall man with a featureless head and face, wearing ablack suit. Stories of the Slender Man commonly feature him stalking, abductingor traumatizing people, particularly children.