The Hook-Man

Have you ever heard the story of 'The Hook-Man'? Some say it's an urban legend that made it's first appearance in pop culture in 1960 in a Dear Abby column. The general story is about lovers parking on lover's lane and a radio announcement comes on about an escaped patient from a state asylum who has a hook in place of his right hand and is considered very dangerous. The girl gets spooked and wants to go home. The boy is frustrated and undaunted by the reports, but finally relents and drives her home in a huff. When he gets to her house to drop her off and goes to open her door, he finds a bloody hook hanging from the handle. Moral of the story...don't be naughty teenagers and go necking in a secluded area, lest you come face to face with the Hook-Man. Other versions have the boy getting out of the car to check things out and not returning, thereby prompting the girl to go looking for him where she discovers him hung over the car by a hook, sliced and bleeding. Does this story scare you?

Well it used to scare the dickens out of me. And it's no secret that I am easily spooked. I have a really over-active imagination, especially when it comes to scary things. But I can squarely lay all blame for that on my older brother of 6 years, for constantly seizing on that quality of mine as a child, and taking every opportunity he could find to scare the living daylights out of me. But it wasn't usually done in the physical, 'jump out of a closet' kind of way....although he did plenty of that too. But he rather preferred a psychological form of torment, telling me they were true stories, playing on my mind and unleashing all those hidden fears that lay inside a young girl. He'd spin terrifying tales of the Hook-Man, and other oddities like Cannibalistic Pygmy Indians. Once he even diligently made a tape recording of the Hook-Man's voice and put it on the window sill outside my bedroom, and cracked the window just a tad so I wouldn't notice. And while I was in my room alone...I began to hear the voice. When I became still to listen more closely, it was the 'Hook-Man' whispering that he was standing outside my window and had come to get me. At the same time, my brother was hiding out there in the bushes shaking the branches and clawing on the window screen with something that convincingly sounded like a HOOK to me. Needless to say, I ran screaming down the hall to my parents room, certain of my impending doom. In comes my brother, laughing in complete hysterics at his sinister accomplishment. I hate him!

And what's so bad is that my Mother in all of her un-infinite wisdom, would let my tormentor babysit me. So he had a captive audience for every demented story he could come up with. My dear older brother would cut off the electricity in the garage and bang on the windows outside, while we screamed in the dark. He would chase me around the house with his huge pet tarantula spider, threatening to put it on me as I ran and screamed at the top of my lungs. (To this day, I have arachnophobia.) Once he even boiled spaghetti noodles, peeled the skins off the grapes and made bowls of ketchup and put them all in boxes with holes for your hand. And he made my cousin and I stick our hands in there to feel what we were told was brains, eye of newt and blood! I guess it does seem a bit funny now in retrospect. But he is the reason my mind begins to imagine all sorts of scary things when I hear a noise outside my window. And why I have never really enjoyed the sensation of being scared. I'm curious if anyone else remembers any Urban Legends or tales of horror inflicted on them by their siblings. Below is a short video I found on the 'Hook-Man'....enjoy!

Urban Legend - The Hook