Epping Forest

On the border of London and Essex in England, lies a very large and ancient woodland area known as Epping Forest. It is said to be approximately 2.4 hectare big, with the valley of two rivers; Lea and Riding surrounding the woods. It is a former royal forest and managed now by the City of London Corporation, with an area of 1.7 hectare being a site of social specific interest and also used for conservation purposes. From north to south the wooded area is roughly 19 kilometres (12 mile), but from east to west at its widest point it is never any wider than 4 kilometres (2.5).

Numerous different species of wildlife hav been spotted here over time. The Grass Snake, Foxes, Squirrels, Rabbits, Rats and Mice, Shrews, Mink, Deer, Otters, Bats, Hedgehos, a wide rang of Freshwater Fish, Swans and various other types of Birds are all but a few to have been seen living amongst the great woods. Rivers, bogs , ponds and lakes take up a lot of the area, with over 100 lakes and ponds said to be found withing the forest. It is in fact one of these ponds that holds a very sinister and deadly side to it, one that should not be messed with, nor taken lightly.

It all started some 300 years ago when a young couple got together and decided to meet up in secret by the pond which in modern day has become more commonly known as "The Killer/Suicide Pool. Their relationship was forbidden by many but they ignored the orders of those close to them. When they met up they could hear a noise coming from behind them, a noise that turns out to be the girl's father who had followed her all the way to see were his inclinations correct. When he confronted them both he got into a fit of blind rage, punching and throwing the boy to the ground and accidently doing the same to his daughter who was trying to stop him. The thing was though when he had done so, she cracks her head against a rock and was killed instantly. 

The father, realising what he had done, preceeded to pick up her body and dump it in the pond. The boy, groggy and petrified sat sobbing in sadness and fear while watching her father run away back through the forest. A few moments later he decided he couldn't live with what he just seen, nor could he a life without his true love, so he decided to walk into the remarkably deep pond and take his own life.

When he did so, the pond water started to turn really thick and black. The vegetation around the pool died and all the animals that within a short distance of the pool had mysteriously dropped dead, the banks of the river especially filled with carcasses. 

A number of people after that day had committed suicide also by walking into the water. People who were with those when they done this had insisted that none of them had ever shown any signs of wanting to kill themselves. They were all described as happy and full of life people, but then they got to the lake it was like they were in a trance and the pond was calling them. Nothing they could do or say was enough to stop them from walking into the pond that day. 

Perhaps the most tragic incident was of a young servant girl called Emma Morgan who killed herself and her baby in 1887, the pond would reject no one. It is said that the wind would go quiet and then the water would start to turn colour and bubble. 

In 1959 the Essex Countryside magazine had held a competition to find the exact location of the pond, as it wasn't accurately known. One writer claimed she knew where the suicide pool was but refused to share the location. She would claim that the 'dank, evil and malignant' pool was evil beyond measure. She also went on to describe it as having an 'atmosphere unpleasant beyond description' and with the sunshine unable to penetrate the surrounding trees.

With the location never found and with there being over 100 of these ponds in the forest, you better hope that the day you decide to go for your relaxing picnic, might not be your last......

Midnight Bus 375

It was a very wet and dreary night on the 14th of November 1995 in Beijing, China. An older gentleman approached the stop which was the last one on that bus route from the Yuan-ming-huan bus terminus. He sat in the freezing cold bench next to a much younger man and started to make some nice gentle conversation.

They both chatted away for a couple of minutes before the bus arrived and they boarded. A few miles up ahead the bus driver could make out hands waving in the distance. As he got closer h could see that it was three men trying to gain his attention. Two of them were holding up another man by his shoulders, he looked to be either injured or highly intoxicated.

The bus driver decided to stop as their plea for his attention got more and more frantic. The doors of the bus opened. Blinding fog from outside took over the bus as the three men boarded, one of them paying the incapacitated mans fare. They sat half way down the bus, the only other passengers being the older man and the younger one from the bus stop who were sat individually behind the three new passengers.

The older man started to look on edge. He began searching his pockets frantically before standing up and shouting at the younger passenger, claiming that he stole his wallet. They argued back and forth before the bus driver got fed up and ordered that both of them get out. He pulled over at the side of some lonely road and threw them both out.

When they were off the bus the older man was no longer in a state of anger, he was more in shock at what he just seen. He told the younger man that he made the wallet story up as a ruse to get them off the bus, claiming he had saved his life. The younger man looking confused was then told that the two stable passengers who boarded after them had no legs, they were bodies that just floated and that their eyes were all black with no sign of life inside.They proceeded to then walk abruptly to the nearest town to go to the police about this, but they were laughed out the door as quickly as they rushed in. 

The very next day the bus company put out a statement to the police saying that "Last night, the final bus for route 375 had vanished, along with the bus driver and the ticket lady". The police quickly chased down the pair of so called "mentally unstable" people they threw out of the station the night before and asked for every little detail they could remember from that night.

The following day the bus was found. It was plunged deep in water inside a water reservoir, roughly about 100 km away from its destination - Xiang-shan aka fragrant hills. Inside the bus there were three very badly decomposed corpses, but the mysteries didn't stop there.

Inside the petrol tank was filled with human blood, the bus didn't have enough fuel to make it this far, the bodies were like those decomposed from someone dead for a week and not 48 hours and also the security cameras showed no evidence of the bus ever crashing into the reservoir. The police couldn't understand what had happened here and the case was eventually labelled as unsolved and put away somewhere in the back of their records. 

That route was renamed and there was never a bus 375 in that part of Beijing again.