The old roads have new ghosts. The familiar legends have learned to code.

From the unsettling mind of Damien Huxley comes Urban Legends and Other Strange Scares, a collection of ten short stories that peels back the placid surface of the modern world to reveal the timeless horrors lurking just beneath. Including urban legends, creepypastas, and folklore stories reimagined.

A cynical travel blogger discovers a roadside inn that resists the internet, where the five-star reviews are written by permanent "assets." A group of friends test a viral VR game that allows them to swap bodies, only to find that some things, once downloaded, can never be deleted. A grieving daughter inherits a disconnected rotary phone that receives calls from a crime scene thirty years in the past: her own childhood.

From the oppressive silence of a haunted forest to the terrifying intimacy of a cursed TikTok trend, each story explores the high price of curiosity, the weight of regret, and the chilling idea that the most dangerous monsters are the ones we invite inside.

These aren't just stories to be read; they are warnings to be heeded. Lock your doors, check the backseat, and whatever you do... don't answer the phone.

I Stayed at the Smiling Inn
A travel blogger finds a five-star inn where the staff will do anything to make you smile... permanently.

The Rearview
A guilt-ridden rideshare driver picks up a passenger on a stormy night, only to discover the fare is his own soul.

The Key
Four friends test a revolutionary VR game that lets them swap bodies, but the system has a user they don't know about.

The Inheritance of Silence
A woman restores her grandmother’s house and discovers an antique phone with a severed cord that rings every night with a call from her own forgotten past.

Whispers in the Pines
In a forest that feeds on regret, four friends learn that the only way to survive is to feel nothing at all.

The First Receipt
An architect receives a series of anonymous packages, each containing a single baby tooth that unlocks a terrifying, repressed memory.

Mirrorstitch
A lonely student tries a viral magic ritual to find her soulmate, but the connection she forges is with something else entirely.

The Passenger
After a police officer vanishes during a routine traffic stop, a young man realizes the ghost haunting his car isn't the victim—it's the killer.

Static
A grieving teen restores his grandfather's old shortwave radio, only to tune into a station that broadcasts chillingly accurate previews of the next day's tragedies.

The Patchwork Bride
A photographer hired for a small-town folk festival learns the "bride" is a patchwork doll who requires a new, unwilling groom every year.