Split Rock Road
This tale was told by a twenty-year-old Caucasian male from Boonton, New Jersey, who was very excited to share his paranormal experiences. According to the narrator, Split Rock Road runs through a nice residential neighborhood. However, at one point the pavement stops and turns to gravel. At this point, there are no lights on the road, which is surrounded by woods. As you continue down the road, you come to a bridge on top of a dam and an abandoned guard tower. Legend has it that if you turn off your headlights and stop the car while on the bridge, everyone in the car dies. The narrator attempted this once with his friends late at night. He managed to turn off the headlights and stop the car, but all of his friends started screaming and begging him to go back, so he left very quickly. He said that it was one of the scariest experiences of his life. Additionally, there is rumored to be a ghost that wanders on Split Rock Road, a young girl in a white sundress. However, the narrator had never personally seen this ghost.
Split Rock Road is a notoriously creepy place in New Jersey, with references on both the “Weird New Jersey” website and the “Lost Destinations” website. While neither site directly states that if you turn off your headlights and stop the car that you will die, the “Lost Destinations” site mentions the urban legend that if you try to drive across the bridge at night, gangs will block the exits on either side and trap you in. Additionally, while there is no specific mention of a girl in a white sundress, there are rumors that the bridge is haunted by drowning victims, mostly teenagers who get sucked into the underwater drain and smash into the concrete “waterfall” on the other side. Both sites also mention practices of the occult allegedly performed on Split Rock Road; the “Lost Destinations” site describes piles of bones and structures shaped like furnaces that are supposedly haunted by ghosts late at night. Similar furnaces can be found on Clinton road, another creepy spot in New Jersey.
The primary scary feature of the story is the concept that doing something as innocent as stopping a car can cause death. Death is something that most people fear, or wish not to encounter until they feel that they have lived their lives to the fullest.
Another ghostly story of the town is one that dates back quite a while. There is a road in Canton known as the Magic Bus Road (actually named Sunflower RD) where many peculiar things have happened. Apparently there used to be a school bus on the right side of the gravel road before a bridge. On this road, many people have seen strange figures, bizarre lights, and even a phantom gate. Laurie Ericson, a long-time resident and college freshman at Culver, said, "It used to be a real party spot.
The first close-to-death experience the narrator and his posse have involves a case of mistaken identity. The group wrongly identifies a lone car as that belonging to a mutual friend and flash their headlights in a
In April I sat down with a friend at my house and asked about any urban legends or ghost stories he had encountered. After a couple legends he had seen in movies, he mentioned a haunted bridge about ten minutes away from downtown. He is a twenty-one year-old White male; his father owns an appliance store and his mother helps out with the books. He first heard this story in the ninth grade from a couple of friends. Supposedly, they had heard from kids who had actually been to the bridge and heard strange things at night. The bridge is located off of Uniontown road, between a couple old farms. He has not encountered the bridge first hand but still remembers the story surrounding it:
The Jericho Covered Bridge in Kingsville, Maryland was built in 1865 and restored in 1982. The bridge is 100 feet long and cased in cedar planks and timber beams. Legend has it that after the Civil War many lynchings occurred on the bridge. Passersby were supposedly captured on the bridge and hung from the upper rafters. The bridge is very close to my house and I have driven over it several times. The storyteller, age 19, also lives a couple minutes away from the bridge. He has lived in Kingsville, Maryland his entire life. He recalled a dramatic story he had heard from his older brother involving the haunted bridge.
Overall, Stephen King is trying to make a point that death is acceptable and that people should not fear it as much as they do. Death should be treated as a part of life. This story goes from self-doubt and hesitation to the acceptance of the
Due to King’s strange and frightening style of writing, the reader is left on the edge since they don't know what to expect when reading the literature of this unusual character. For example, in the text of, “Strawberry Spring”, the story begins in a normal and mellow tone until suddenly a fog hits. The next day the newspapers were drowned with the news that a woman, “had been murdered by her boyfriend”(King, “Strawberry Spring” 2). Accordingly, these actions are very frightening not only because they were unsuspected, but because they were performed by one lover to another. Also, the result of this horrifying incident is what we all dread, and that is death. As a result, this traumatising incident is “daring our nightmares”(King, “Why We Crave Horror, 1). Moreover, this story by King abides by his claim that we all view horror as a way to face our fears, and to show that we are not
For each of us, death is a subject that not only fascinates, but creates fear in our hearts as well. Death is something we avoid in our minds with the hope that it will not touch us. As a society we all fear death; especially in violent cases, which occur naturally and arise through the unusual forces in our society. When such an event takes place we want revenge. In Dead Man Walking, the parents of the murdered girl are left with so much anger that they verbally attack Sister Helen Prejean, when they find out she is still on Matthew Poncelet’s side.
The sparsely populated towns and countryside of the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey have often been the ideal setting of various ghost stories, including the infamous tale of the Jersey Devil, that are told in the more heavily populated Northern New Jersey and Philadelphia metropolitan regions. One of those “Piney” towns is home to a lesser-known, but equally interesting, tale of a street that is haunted by the ghost of a young boy. The story is set in the town of Atco, within Waterford Township, and is located approximately half-way between Philadelphia and Atlantic City, right in the heart of the Wharton State Forest section of the Pine Barrens National Reserve.
very dark and ominous feel to this story, which mainly revolves around death. The story
A 19-year old female from Harford County, Maryland, narrated the story of Black Aggie, the urban legend of an overnight stay in a cemetery. She grew up Christian, and still lives in one of the more rural areas of Maryland with her younger sister and parents, who own and work at an electrical contracting business. Accustomed to hearing many ghost stories and urban legends, she first heard the story of Black Aggie during a middle school slumber party. Late one Saturday night over pizza in our Hagerstown dorm, she was more than willing to share her favorite urban legend with me.
"An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge." Classic Reader. 2009. BlackDog Media, Web. 2 Dec 2009. .
The Nelly Butler hauntings is referred to as the first recorded ghost story in American history (LiBrizzi 5), and possibly the most exciting hauntings to date as there are still many unsolved mysteries. The apparition appeared on more than 30 separate occasions to over 100 witnesses in Sullivan, Maine, just over fifteen years after the American Revolution (5-6). Although the Nelly Butler apparition is one of the most convincing ghosts of all time, it was subject to suspicions of fraud. These claims turn out to be groundless as the evidence reveals the ghost to be genuine.
In society, any accidents are perceived as negative outcomes illustrate a terrible ending that has taken place but in reality it can be perceived as something positive in the long run. By obstructing the 2005 Camaro and the three teens, it occurred that no one was injured and everything was calm. Accident by Dave Egger represents how a bad decision becomes a point of conflict and symbolism within the theme of the story.
b. Thesis Statement: Stephen King uses many different elements in order to scare his readers. The elements include supernatural elements, real life scenarios, and fear of the unknown.
I had driven home this way a thousand times before, but today would be different. The misty rain made the road slick as I steered the car through the slow, wide curve. It may have been the setting sun in my eyes, but it was probably a combination of the loud song on the radio and the slight yawn that escaped from my mouth. Regardless, a momentary distraction was all it took as the tires hit the damp gravel. The wet rubber and slick stones triggered the car to slide off the road to the right. In a panic, I jerked the wheel to the left, over-correcting the slide. Swerving across oncoming traffic, my car jumped over the drainage ditch and smashed down into a neighbor’s front yard. Continuing its dangerous journey, the car destroyed a lamp