It's spooky season. Here are some scary stories from around the world you probably haven't heard

Some are well-worn warnings arsenic acquainted arsenic nan changing of seasons. Others are slow burns that extremity pinch a bang. Still others are conscionable plain eerie.

Stories of belief entities, paranormal activity and creepy cryptids are passed done generations nan world over, becoming section legends that only sometimes scope crossed borders and cultures.

So if nan sordid tales you grew up pinch nary longer make you shiver, it’s clip to reanimate your roster pinch world tales of ghosts, hauntings, and petrifying processions.

With Halloween nigh, and nan play successful galore parts of nan world ripe for campfires and spooky stories, group gravitate toward fearfulness moreover successful a analyzable and sometimes scary world. Here are immoderate favorites — lore and fiction, pinch possibly immoderate truth radiated passim — that The Associated Press gathered from its journalists astir nan planet:

If you were retired connected nan roadworthy successful China successful nan aged days — if you judge nan stories, that is — you mightiness person encountered a unusual procession.

First, a man carrying a achromatic insubstantial lantern and scattering clone insubstantial money up of them, chanting, “Yo ho, yo ho.” Then, a towering, hooded achromatic fig wearing a ghastly disguise and marching successful an awkward, woody gait. Bringing up nan rear, different man guiding nan elephantine by touch, possibly pinch a achromatic cat.

They were corpse walkers — and nan elephantine was nan corpse.

Bad things hap erstwhile personification gets buried acold from home: Without descendants to provender their tone and support their sedate clean, they’ll person a difficult clip settling in. They could moreover travel backmost arsenic a quiet ghost. So erstwhile a traveler died, nan family would prosecute group who knew nan unusual creation of stepping a stiff assemblage home.

When interviewer Liao Yiwu asked astir memories of corpse walkers successful nan 2000s, immoderate said they’d usage a achromatic feline to imbue nan assemblage pinch fixed energy to make it walk. Others said location was a 3rd man hiding nether nan cloak and giving nan corpse a piggyback ride.

People kept their distance, he wrote, but nan corpse walkers were ever invited astatine inns because they paid 3 times nan normal complaint and were said to bring bully luck.

— By David Cohen successful Bangkok

One of France’s oldest spooky legends is besides 1 of its astir gruesome, because it involves a stepping headless corpse.

Said to person been Paris’ first bishop, Denis — later St. Denis — went connected to lend his sanction to what is now nan bluish Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, celebrated for its magnificent basilica, its shot stadium and nan Olympic colony that housed athletes during the Paris Games.

The third-century Roman rulers of what was past Gaul were apparently little than thrilled that Denis and companions Rustique and Éleuthère were making converts. Even aft tossing them successful prison, Denis continued to observe Mass. In immoderate accounts, Denis suffered each mode of unspeakable tortures to make him renounce his religion — not conscionable run-of-the-mill flagellation, but besides mauling by famished chaotic beasts and being locked successful a scorching oven.

Eventually, nan 3 were sentenced to decease and beheaded.

Legend has it that Denis’ corpse, lifted by 2 angels, picked up his severed caput and walked from nan Mount of Martyrs — nan expected execution tract now called Montmartre — for astir 6 kilometers (nearly 4 miles) earlier collapsing successful nan colony of Catulliacum, now nan municipality of Saint-Denis.

In Montmartre today, Suzanne Buisson Square has a statue of St. Denis holding his head, which he is said to person washed successful nan waters of a fountain location earlier staggering distant pinch it.

— By John Leicester successful Paris

Slithering beneath nan immense dunes of nan Gobi Desert, fable has it, is nan monstrous Mongolian Death Worm. It kills prey by squirting lethal venom and tin moreover electrocute from a distance. So goes nan folklore that has since inspired depictions of deadly elephantine worms successful movies and fiction. In Mongolia, nan animal is known arsenic olgoi khorkhoi, which astir translates arsenic “intestine worm.”

The critter became known overseas aft American paleontologist and explorer Roy Chapman Andrews wrote astir it successful his 1926 book, “On nan Trail of Ancient Man: A Narrative of nan Field Work of nan Central Asiatic Expeditions.” During a gathering pinch nan Mongolian premier, Andrews was asked to seizure a specimen of nan elephantine worm.

“None of those coming ever had seen nan creature, but they each firmly believed successful its beingness and described it minutely,” he wrote. “It is shaped for illustration a sausage astir 2 feet long, has nary caput nor legs and is truthful venomous that simply to touch it intends instant death.”

Some judge nan lore began pinch a much communal animal — a snake called nan Tartar soil boa. Others, undeterred, judge nan elephantine worms exists. Subsequent expeditions person yet to output immoderate proof.

— By Emily Wang Fujiyama successful Beijing

It’s nan move of nan 19th century, and assemblage Rio de Janeiro is bustling. There are merchants, vendors, enslaved people, sailors — and a Portuguese immigrant, astir 20 years old, named Bárbara. Legend says she stabbed her sleeping hubby to tally disconnected pinch a lover, who past began exploiting her. Bárbara killed him, too, and was connected her own.

As nan communicative goes, she turned to activity activity wrong nan Teles Arch. The dank, acheronian transition led disconnected nan plaza wherever nan Portuguese emperor sat, and members of nan royal tribunal became religious clients of nan beautiful courtesan known arsenic Bárbara of nan Pleasures.

But property and illness caught up to her. One chronicler, Hermeto Lima, wrote successful 1921 of a spread successful Bárbara’s nose, her bulging eyes, scratched eyelids and skeletal hands.

To rejuvenate, Bárbara started washing pinch animal blood. When that failed, it’s said, she utilized humor from infants abandoned successful nan Wheel of nan Exposed — nan revolving compartment for foundlings extracurricular a Catholic institution. Between 1738 and 1848, 20,966 babies were near successful nan wheel, according to matter of an imperial ministry study provided by Esther Arantes, a retired professor successful nan infancy section of nan State University of Rio de Janeiro.

Arantes’ archival investigation yielded nary grounds of Bárbara, but Rio’s rumor mill claimed otherwise:

Whenever personification brought a babe to nan wheel, “the miserable woman, for illustration a toad, came retired from her hiding place, and ran to bargain nan child,” Lima wrote, adding Bárbara would make judge to drip its humor upon her leprous ulcers.

Bárbara disappeared, but her communicative lingers. Word is that she still prowls Teles Arch by night, surviving connected nan humor of babes.

— By David Biller successful Rio de Janeiro

In Nigeria, nan “Madam Koi Koi” shade communicative from was a nightmare for students successful boarding secondary schools.

The “madam” successful mobility often walked astir hostels pinch her reddish heels, particularly astatine night, nan sound of “koi koi” trailing down her. You situation not travel retired if anyone raised an siren that they heard nan sound. Sometimes horrified students ran retired and hostels were unopen until morning, aliases moreover for days.

The backstory? No 1 knows for sure, but 1 celebrated mentation was that she was fired arsenic a coach and died days later — vengeful, jobless and sad.

— By Dyepkazah Shibayan successful Abuja, Nigeria

A sobbing woman. Ghostly, dressed successful achromatic — or, sometimes, black. And a storied oak staircase pinch royal connections.

The spooky stories revolve astir a staircase that still stands astatine The Talbot Hotel successful Oundle — a United Kingdom marketplace municipality astir 85 miles (135 kilometers) northbound of London that’s been astir since nan 1500s.

Mary, Queen of Scots — rival to England’s Queen Elizabeth I — is said to person descended nan very aforesaid formation of steps connected nan measurement to her execution successful 1587. But astatine nan time, nan multilevel building was portion of adjacent Fotheringhay Castle, nan tract of Mary’s beheading.

Nearly 4 decades later, nan Talbot was rebuilt utilizing stones and different worldly salvaged from nan abandoned Fotheringhay — including nan castle’s storied staircase.

Guests and unit person reported seeing a ghostly female connected nan stairs, and immoderate person said they heard sobbing successful nan wee hours — each thought to beryllium nan doomed queen. The Associated Press has visited respective times and tin corroborate value java and cakes, but not nan beingness of ghosts.

— By Laurie Kellman successful London

The Bintaro train calamity of October 1987 is good known successful Indonesia. The head-on collision betwixt 2 commuter trains successful nan confederate area of Jakarta is considered 1 nan deadliest train accidents successful nan country's history.

The collision killed 139 passengers, giving emergence to galore mysterious stories astir nan railway.

In nan 37 years since nan crash, galore section residents and railway workers person reported seeing apparitions of group dressed successful old, bloodstained clothing, wandering adjacent nan tracks wherever nan calamity took place. As nan section municipality fable goes, these ghostly figures are believed to beryllium nan spirits of those who perished successful nan mishap and stay incapable to move connected to nan afterlife. Some group besides opportunity location was a fig wandering astir and looking for his assemblage parts.

In 2013, different train mishap happened astatine nan aforesaid track, only 200 meters (yards) from nan 1987 accident. The commuter train deed a petrol motortruck successful nan crossing gate, sidesplitting 7 people, including nan train engineer.

— By Edna Tarigan successful Jakarta, Indonesia

One of Japan’s astir celebrated kaidan, aliases shade stories, is named aft nan area successful Tokyo wherever nan tragic communicative takes place. Called Yotsuya Kaidan, it’s an unforgettable communicative of that archetypal powerless female whose only recourse for revenge against nan man who betrays her emotion is to go a ghost.

Oiwa, a beautiful female and woman of nan handsome but heartless samurai Iemon, is anemic aft giving commencement to their baby. Iemon is having an affair, and nan different woman, seeking to make judge Iemon dumps Oiwa, tricks her into taking poison, reasoning it’s medicine, truthful her look becomes disfigured.

Written successful nan 19th period and staged arsenic various Kabuki plays and made into dozens of movies, a peculiarly scary segment is that infinitesimal erstwhile Oiwa discovers her horrible transformation, a telling infinitesimal that speaks volumes astir quality vanity and frailty. When she combs her hairsbreadth earlier a mirror, it falls retired successful clumps. She sees her twisted, discolored look and cries out: “Is this my face? Is this my face?”

After Oiwa dies, she haunts Iemon, appearing everyplace — possibly simply his delusion. Lemon is yet driven to madness.

— By Yuri Kageyama successful Tokyo

In Kenya, a Maasai folktale astir an ogre who utilized to ambush villages for nutrient is told to children. It goes for illustration this:

The ogre lived heavy successful nan wood and would ambush neighboring villages to termination cattle — nan Maasai community’s awesome of wealthiness — contempt galore warriors keeping guard.

The ogre fell successful emotion pinch a beautiful Maasai female named Sanayian and he transformed into a Maasai warrior to triumph her heart. He past revealed his existent personality to Sanayian — who past told nan warriors. The warriors, utilizing Sanayian arsenic a bait, speared nan ogre while he was gathering pinch his love.

Even aft he transformed backmost into an ogre, he could not survive. He fell and died. His 5 fingers, it is said, formed nan 5 peaks that are nan present-day Ngong Hills, successful nan outskirts of nan capital, Nairobi, and a celebrated hiking destination.

— By Evelyne Musambi successful Nairobi, Kenya

Ask anyone successful Manila astir Balete Drive and galore will subordinate it pinch nan mysterious “white lady” who appears astatine night.

The street, named aft trees that utilized to statement its sidewalks successful suburban Quezon city, has been nan taxable of scary stories that person been told and retold since nan 1950s. There are claims that a beautiful female pinch agelong hairsbreadth dressed successful achromatic would sometimes abruptly look astatine nighttime — past conscionable vanish without a trace.

It is said that nan sightings were reported by taxi drivers moving connected late-night shifts. Some declare she would look asking for a thrust and past abruptly vanish from nan rider spot arsenic nan conveyance moves. Others opportunity her image would look astatine nan rearview reflector of drivers driving unsocial and vanish conscionable arsenic quickly.

“I haven’t seen her,” says 53-year-old Roberto Perez, who useful part-time adjacent Balete Drive, “but erstwhile I walk location betwixt midnight to astir 1:30, I get goosebumps, truthful I conscionable quickly move to different street."

The tale's origins are unknown. There are varying accounts why nan shade appears on Balete Drive, but nan astir communal communicative is that decades ago, a woman died owed to a car mishap on nan street. Horror movies successful nan Philippines person been produced based connected this municipality legend.

— By Celine Rosario successful Bangkok and Aaron Favila successful Manila, Philippines

Through nan branches of stately trees connected a leafy avenue successful Hungary’s capital, passersby tin spot an different fig keeping intense watch from above: nan statue of a female pinch a mournful look peering from a chromatic balcony.

The sculpture, known arsenic nan “marble bride,” is dissimilar immoderate of nan different frescoes connected surrounding buildings successful Budapest, and nan enigma of its beingness has produced legends going backmost astir a century.

In one, a young mates shared an flat successful nan building erstwhile nan hubby was called to conflict successful World War I. The woman waited patiently connected nan pavilion each time for his return, and erstwhile a missive arrived pinch news of his decease connected nan front, nan female died of a surgery heart.

But nan missive had been mistaken. When nan hubby returned location and recovered his woman had died, he had a sculpture carved successful her grant and placed wherever she had spent truthful galore days faithfully waiting.

Another fable says that nan hubby ne'er returned from nan warfare and, incapable to judge his death, nan female stayed waiting connected nan pavilion and yet turned to stone, and still waits coming for a reunion that will ne'er come.

— By Justin Spike successful Budapest, Hungary

Bangkok is location to 1 of Thailand's astir celebrated pieces of folklore: nan tragic emotion of Mae Nak, aliases nan Lady Nak of Phra Khanong.

The young and pregnant Nak was waiting for her husband, Mak, to travel backmost from warfare to their location connected nan banks of Phra Khanong canal. Nak and her babe died during childbirth, but Mak still came location to spot them waiting. With his unwavering love, Mak rejected warnings that Nak was a shade until he saw her stretching her limb from nan upper-floor structure to nan crushed to prime up a lime. He fled, and Nak started terrorizing nan municipality successful condolences and fury.

In 1 variety of nan story's ending, Nak was stopped either by a shaman who captured her successful a clay jar, aliases a powerful Buddhist monk who performed a rite to remainder her tone successful peace.

The communicative has been reinterpreted into dozens of movies, pinch nan critically acclaimed 1999 version becoming nan first Thai movie to gross complete 100 cardinal baht — astir $2.7 cardinal astatine nan time. The shrine dedicated to Nak astatine Wat Mahabut, nan temple wherever her assemblage is believed to beryllium buried, is celebrated for worshippers seeing their prayers astir emotion and children being answered.

— By Jintamas Saksornchai successful Bangkok