While poking around the dark recesses of the internet for other versions of The Ghostly Bus Driver, I stumbled on this appearance by Kojak star, Telly Savalas, on an Australian show about the unexplained.

In it, Telly recounts a mysterious encounter with a helpful motorist late one night when he had run out of gas. I won’t say anything more, since that would steal Telly’s thunder.

Reader Devin P sent in the following email:

I apologize in advance for the vague details; couldn’t find them. Here goes. Supposedly transit riders of (area unknown) have reported that after having missed a late night bus, a friendly little old man in an "old fashioned bus in need of repairs" has suddenly arrived to take them where they are going. The old man is reported to make warm, friendly conversation, as he takes the rider to their stop. Later it is inevitably discovered that such a driver and bus are not running any route on (line unknown). This seems to be an inversion of the "Ghostly Hitchhiker" legend, with the "spirit" offering a ride to the living.

No need to apologise, Devin! I very much like this re-imagining of a classic scare-lore tale, and like you I believe it has grown out of a version of “The Ghostly Hitchhiker” [1].

Having said that, I can’t remember coming across a version like this in any of my source books, and Google doesn’t return a match when you search for terms like “ghost bus driver”.

Can I ask roughly where and when you heard this story, if you remember?

And to any others who drop by; have any of you heard a similar tale involving a helpful, ghostly bus driver?

Footnotes:

1.	Sometimes also known as “The Vanishing Hitchhiker”.
	Return

I’ve just finished watching the rather spooky movie, Shutter Island, an atmospheric thriller set on a remote island off the coast of Massachusetts.

Aside from making me very thankful that I have never had to spend a night on an island like Shutter Island, the movie got me thinking about why islands feature heavily in scary stories.

What is it about islands that makes scaring the pants off people such an easy task?

Okay, another book to go onto my ever-increasing reading list.

Greg over at Book Obsessions writes:

Devil’s Footsteps by E.E. Richardson offers up a dark and entertaining tale reminiscent of Stephen King’s It, the Candyman movies and of course the Bloody Mary urban legend. Speaking of the latter…After reading this book, I felt compelled to do some research on the Bloody Mary legend. The version of the legend that I have always heard requires the person who is summoning Bloody Mary to say her name 13 times while holding a candle in front of a mirror in a dark room. After the 13th utterance of the name, Bloody Mary will appear in the mirror and basically stare you down. However, I learned through my research that other variations of the legend include Bloody Mary scratching off the face of the person who summoned her, driving the person mad, or even dragging the person through the mirror to live with Mary for all eternity…Yikes!

If you’re a fan of the Bloody Mary tale, then Devil’s Footsteps sounds very much like a fun, scary read!

If you have already read it and you’d like to let us know whether you enjoyed it or not, please share your comments below.

I’ve just discovered a charming version of the Bloody Mary story over on the American Folklore web site.

In this rendition, Bloody Mary is a witch who lives in a forest and who lures children from a nearby village to use them in black magic that will give her back her youth.

Predictably, things don’t go well at all for the wicked witch once the villagers discover that she has been lying, and she is burned alive for murdering their children.

Before she dies, however, Bloody Mary curses the village, and to this very day anyone who chants her name three times in front of a darkened mirror will summon her vengeful spirit from the grave.

You can read the tale in full over at: Bloody Mary: A Scary Urban Legend from Pennsylvania Folklore