5 Scary Urban Legends of Coupling Gone Wrong

Stories to thrill and chill you into staying single

We love getting chilled and thrilled on Halloween — after all, who doesn’t love cuddling up with a significant other while watching a scary movie? But these urban legends may make you think twice about coupling — or at least coupling around October 31.

Unfortunately, the hotel is booked and they’re stuck there — at least for the night.

Haunting Honeymoon

This story, as many urban legends do, begins with a couple in a car driving along a dark stretch of road at night. They pass by a woman on the side of the road wearing a flowing white dress and decide to turn around to give her a ride — even though the newly-married couple is late getting their honeymoon started. When the woman gets into the car, the couple asks her where she’s trying to go and starts heading in the direction of her address. As they try to make further conversation with the hitchhiker, they are met with silence that causes the wife to turn around and discover the woman is gone. Confused by what’s happened, they keep going to the address the hitchhiker gave them, where they learn that she passed away some time ago — and has been spending her afterlife trying to catch a ride home ever since.

What Smells in Vegas

A couple heads to Las Vegas for a vacation to take advantage of all the debauchery Sin City has to offer. When they check into their room, they find that the smell in there is horrible and immediately try to change rooms. Unfortunately, the hotel is booked and they’re stuck there — at least for the night. By morning, the smell has gotten progressively worse and they once again complain to management. Still wanting to enjoy the city, the couple spends the day out and about and by the time they return, their luggage has been moved to a new room and the police are standing guard at the smelly one. Why? Because as the maid was doing her routine cleaning of the room, she found a dead body hidden in the bed’s box spring.

The boyfriend wants to have a makeout session, crazy killer be damned.

Hovers Lane

A college couple on a date park at a lovers’ lane and do what comes naturally for the evening. When it’s time to go home, the car won’t start, so the boyfriend heads to the main road to get some help. He tells his girlfriend to lock the door and wait for him. As the night drags on, the woman becomes more and more frightened — and it only gets worse when she begins to see shadows around her accompanied by scratching noises on the roof of the car. She waits all night long until a police officer comes and she discovers the source of the scary shadows and sounds — her boyfriend was hanging upside down from a tree above the car and the scratching she heard was from his fingernails dragging along the roof.

In a Hook of Time

Another couple in a car has a scare when they’re on a date and hear on the radio that a murderous psychopath is on the loose — freshly escaped from a mental hospital — who the community can easily identify because he has a hook for a hand. Although the girlfriend wants to go home, the boyfriend wants to have a makeout session, crazy killer be damned. But when the woman hears weird scratching noises on the car, she insists that they leave immediately. And it’s a good thing she did because when they arrive at her house, they find a bloody hook hanging on the car’s door handle.

Catch Her If You Can

After her wedding, a bride and her guests decide to play some party games. In order to allow the children to participate, they choose hide-and-seek. The bride wants to top off her fairy tale wedding by winning the game, so she runs up to the attic of the farmhouse where the wedding was held. Some time goes by and no one can find her. She remains missing for years until the bride’s mother dies, and her father heads up to the attic to go through her belongings. It turns out the bride is still hiding after all those years — in an old chest with a rusty lock that made it impossible for her to reopen.

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Sources:

Brunvand, J. (2002). Encyclopedia of Urban Legends*. W. W. Norton & Company.

Brunvand, J. (2003). The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings. W. W. Norton & Company.

Craughwell, T. (2005). Urban Legends: 666 Absolutely True Stories That Happened to a Friend…of a Friend? Black Dog & Leventhal.

Emery, D. (2019, February 1). Bride-and-Seek (The Missing Bride). LiveAbout. https://www.liveabout.com/bride-and-seek-the-missing-bride-3299076

Emery, D. (2019, April 22). The Vanishing Hitchhiker. LiveAbout. https://www.liveabout.com/the-vanishing-hitchhiker-3299345

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