5 Horrifying Urban Legends Updated for the Millennial Generation

Late one night a young man was driving to see his long-distance girlfriend. He hadn’t passed a small town or even a gas station for hours, and was growing very tired. Finally, he saw a sign for a 24-hour diner and decided to pull over.The only person in the restaurant was the cook, a large, shadowy figure with a deep scar along the right side of his face. The cook approached to take his order and the man asked for a cup of coffee and a bowl of chili. As the cook turned to head back into the kitchen, the man could make out the handle of a chef’s knife sticking out from the holster of his apron. It was specked in blood.When his order arrived, the man cautiously took a bite and immediately spit it out. He could tell that it was not made with grass-fed beef, so he left some cash on the table and quickly went out the door. He made a mental note to write a scathing review of the diner on Yelp, then got back on the highway to look for a Starbucks.

One stormy evening a young woman was home alone watching a movie when her cell phone rang. The call was from a blocked number. She ignored it and turned her phone to silent.A couple seconds later, her phone began to vibrate. The number was blocked again. But out of curiosity, she swiped her thumb to accept the call. Slowly, she put the phone to her ear, but there was no voice on the other end, just silence. She ended the call and threw her phone down, her hands trembling. She rushed to the front door and locked the deadbolt.As soon as she sat back down, her phone vibrated again. She grabbed her phone and yelled, “ Who is this?!” An automated message from Verizon informed her that her last monthly payment had been declined and that her service had been placed on a temporary hold. She screamed.

A young woman was driving by herself late at night when she noticed the driver behind her flashing his high beams. The light was distracting to her, but she kept driving. The driver continued to follow her, and each time she braked to slow down, he flashed his high beams again. Panicking, she drove faster toward home, but still the car followed her.Finally, she got to a stoplight and saw that the car had changed lanes to pull up beside her. She saw the other driver, a strange-looking man with a dark beard, roll down his window.“Your brake lights are out,” he yelled, and then drove off as the light turned green.The young woman slumped down over the steering wheel and broke into tears. It was a new car without a warranty and she was uninsured. This would cost a fortune to fix.

One Friday night a married couple was babysitting their friends’ baby. They had offered to do so because their friends could use a night out, and besides, it would be good practice for when they decided to have a child of their own.After putting the baby to sleep, the couple decided to watch some TV and have a glass of wine. But before long, they heard the baby crying softly. The young man went upstairs, gently rocked the baby back to sleep, and returned to the living room with his wife. “See?” he said, “No sweat.”A few minutes later, they heard the baby cry again, this time more loudly. The wife rushed upstairs and tried rocking the baby back to sleep, but he continued to cry. She changed his diaper and that seemed to do the trick, moments later, he was asleep again.The wife went downstairs to rejoin her husband, but as soon as she sat back down, the baby began to cry again, this time shrieking as though in pain. The couple ran upstairs. They could not see or find anything wrong with the baby, but he continued to cry hysterically. They rocked him, sang to him, stroked his back and tried everything they could to soothe him, but to no avail.Finally, that’s when it hit them: Sometimes babies cry all night for no reason at all. They screamed.

A man was driving to see an indie rock band one night when he came upon a young woman in a white dress on the side of the road with her thumb extended. She was very pretty, but looked as though she had not eaten or slept in days. He pulled over and asked if she wanted to come to the show with him. She slowly said yes, and climbed into the backseat. She did not say much, and he had a strange feeling about her.When they got to the show, the young woman drank way too much, shouted inappropriate things during the quiet songs, was belligerent toward the man’s friends, and got sick in his car on the ride back. It was truly a horrific night.