Urban Myths Collection - Mihaela Bogdan (the little red hen ebook TXT) 📗

was a bold project which started with an investition of 100 million lei (446 million euros) from a German company.

 

 

The heads of the company thought that since it was a huge investment, the project should be surpevised by two engineers, instead of one to be sure that every cent will be well spended. Failure was not an option. The first engineer, also being the initiator of this project was a Romanian named Colțână and the second was German, named Iulius Berger.

Even if the two men did everything so that the construction of the tunnel would develop without any problems, some accidents did encounter. Some walls had collapsed and metan gases have been emitted during some digging which caused skin burns on the miners’ bodies.

Half way through the construction, the gallery collapsed unexpectedly. It was a big disaster. About 30 workers were caught under ground, but all were saved later on. Even if some of them were badly injured, they all survived. Thus the construction went on and by it’s finalisation no more accidents acured, being a huge relief for the two engineers whom had the fear that the project might bet intrerupted and closed. Fortunetely that didn’t happen.

But the real tragedy came on the inauguration day. The engineer Colțână climbed up the tunnel above its entrance, where a small improvised stage was placed so that the public can see better when the red ribbon would be cut. And Berger was at the bottom of the entrance with a bottle of champaigne in hands, waiting to throw it into the entrance’s arcade after the ribbon gets cut and anounce the name of the tunnel.

Everyone had gathered around near the tunnel and made silence so that the Romanian engineer could hold a short speech then clapped happily after he cut the red ribbon and Berger threw the bottle of champaigne but before he could shout the name of the tunnel, his co-worker droped dead a few centimeters behind him. Berger quickly went to check his pulse and realised that he was dead.

Shortly after this tragedy, the police made an investigation and discovered near the small stage above the tunnel two electrical wires, most likely the cause of the Romanian’s death. Some witnesses say that they saw the engineer putting together those two wires, his action suposely to symbolise the tunnel’s connection to the nearest electrical energy central but unfortunately they made a spark and thus he colapsed to the ground to everybody’s horror.

Therefore, the police closed the case as an ‚unhappy accident’ and everything went back to normal.

At the funeral, the engineer was burried into a tunnel shaped vault. But in 1963 his body was moved to a cemetery in Bucharest. The left behind marbeled tunnel shapped vault was the stolen piece by piece in just a few days. Since then the legend of the haunted tunnel from Teliu has been born.

Many people say that they saw the ghost of the deceased engineer walking around the tunnel, holding two wires in each of his hands at the hour when his death occured. His haunting lasted for seven decades and even today curious people visit the tunnel, especially in the day that Colțână did the terrible mistake which costed his life, hoping to get a shot of his ghost on their cameras and brag about it to their friends.

Some locals think that the tunnel is being haunted because Colțână is upset for the fact that his body was moved to Bucharest and the only way to cease the haunting is to take it back. This theory is based on some Christian funeral traditions, which specifically sais that you aren’t allowed to move a dead body into another cemetery because that will upset the spirits from the land of the dead.

You may ask yourselves, if this theory is true then why was the body moved in the first place?

Nobody knows the answer to this question, therefore Colțână’s spirit will be around that tunnel untill his body is returned to its rightfull place.

And when that is going to happen?!

Another question without an answer.

 

XI. The ghostly trolley-bus

 

  We all have heard many stories about haunted houses, caves, cemeteries and other places; but, how many stories about haunted vehicles have you heard?!

  Personally, I never came upon a horror story or myth about any kind of vehicles, although I saw a tricycle in a movie moving by itself, until one autumn night when I was searching the Internet for new myths from my country to share with everybody on bookrix. And to my luck, I found quite a few, some were a little bit childish or too lame for my taste, but one caught my attention because of its mystery.

 

  The trolley-bus isn’t as popular in Romania as it was a long time ago, still there are many of this type of public transportation in a couple of cities, including the capital Bucharest. Speaking of it, the story that I’m about to tell takes place in a neighborhood from Bucharest that has trolley-buses as the only public transportation available. For what reason, I don’t know.

  All I know from the sources is that it happened on an autumn night, close to Halloween:

 

  The dark grey sky was announcing that a rain was about to begin and the cold wind wasn’t making things better for a young woman whom was running to the trolley station to get to work on time. As her heeled boots were making loud noises on the concrete road she was cursing herself for letting her umbrella at home. Luckily, her red coat had a hoodie to protect her head from the cold weather.

  She prayed that she could make to the station on time, otherwise the trolley was going to leave without her and the next one would arrive after 30 minutes.

  “Why aren’t there more public transportations active in this neighborhood?! Oh yeah, because few people are at work this late and most of them travel with their own cars. If only I had more money, I could do the same.” The young woman was thinking about ways to save money so that she could buy her own car when she spotted a trolley parked in front of the station.

  Thinking it was her ride, she climbed inside of it without looking at the number displayed on the bottom left corner of the windshield to make sure that this one was taking her to the correct destination.

  As soon as she was inside the trolley, the doors close immediately and the vehicle left the station with such a great speed the young woman almost collapsed to the floor. She managed to avoid such accident by grabbing the nearest metal pool and after recovering her balance, she glanced angrily towards the driver’s cabin.

  Normally, every trolley, bus and tram has a driver’s cabin made out of metal and a glass window so that the passengers don’t disturb the driver or interfere when moving; yet this one had a cabin entirely covered by wooden planks.

  Surprised, the woman blinked a couple of times not believing this. After a couple of seconds, she then moved her gaze around the vehicle’s interior and was disgusted by what she saw. The entire place was rusty and dirty, the chairs had their cushion seats stained and ripped and on the floor were all sorts of bugs crawling around the place.

  To her relief, the woman saw her destination through the cracked windows and she was very happy that her unpleasant ride was coming to an end.

  But the trolley didn’t stop, on the contrary, as if sensing the woman’s feelings; the driver began picking up the speed.

  Now the woman was angry and she began shouting towards the barricaded cabin hoping that the driver would stop:

  “Hey ‘genius’! Don’t you know you have to stop at every station on your route? HEY! I know you are in there, just stop this piece of trash trolley right now.”

  It didn’t matter how much the woman was shouting, nobody answered from the cabin and the trolley was continuing its journey undisturbed.

  Losing her last drop of patience, the woman began hitting the cabin with her left boot, hoping to get the driver’s attention this time. After a few tries, one of the planks snapped and the woman was now able to see inside the cabin.

  To her surprise, it was empty. The sight of the steering wheel and the gear stick moving by themselves send a cold shiver down her spine.

  “WHAT?! For God’s sake, someone please tell me this is a joke!”

  Suddenly the trolley stopped near a cemetery and when the doors open once again, the woman jumped out and ran away as fast as her feet could to the nearest police station to report this sick joke.

  After repeating the event for the second time to a police officer, he asked her if she saw the vehicles front number or the plate with the registration code.

  The woman responded sadly, that she was too busy trying to figure what was going on that she ignored any other detail.

  In the end, the police officer released her and began searching for the vehicle with the description he had so far.

  Days have past after the incident and the young woman took some time off from her work. She was having nightmares about that damned trolley, barely ate anything, but she never told anyone about it until the police will find that trolley which caused her such trauma. She even considered talking to a therapist at some point.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when her cell phone began to ring. Hesitating, the woman picked up and when she saw the police emergency number on the screen, her confidence returned and she answered, curious to find out the answer.

 

“-Good day miss, I call to announce that my colleagues and I have found the trolley you described a couple of days ago.

  -Oh, thank God. You have no idea what a nightmare my life has been after that event. I had trouble sleeping every night and I became so paranoid I even considered visiting a therapist.

  -Maybe you should after what I’m about to tell you: the trolley is out of use since 20 years ago.

  -What?! Are you serious? I must admit that it was in a horrible condition but it was still working, I swear.

  -Miss, let me send you some pictures so you can confirm if the trolley is the same as the one from that night.

 

 

 

  -Yes, this is it. But I swear that it was moving.

  -Miss, if you insist with this affirmation, I will personally send you to a therapist or arrest you for wasting our time. Have a good day.”

  With that being said, the police officer ended the call, leaving the woman shocked about the information she received. It just didn’t make any sense how something can move when it was already thrown away. She was inside and felt it with her own hands and feet.

  “Maybe I SHOULD go find a good therapist, at least so I can forget about that damned pile of rusty crap and continue with my