The White Death

I am currently sitting in front of my computer, scared witless. Every moment could be my last. My friend is here with me and he is the sole reason why my life is in danger. It may not make sense at first, but let me explain.

It all started earlier today, when a friend of mine burst into my house and slammed the door behind him. His eyes were wide with fear and he stood there with his back against the door, breathing heavily. I asked him what had happened and he told me this story:

He had been living with his Aunt for the past year because his parents were in Mexico. They were doing mission work at a small hospital in Southern Mexico. The previous night, a bedraggled man had stumbled through the entrance of the hospital. He was screaming in Spanish and appeared to be out of his mind with terror.

They brought him over to a chair and let him sit down. As he caught his breath, he told his story in broken English. He claimed that his sister had been killed by something he referred to as “La Muerte Blanca”. He kept saying that it was coming for him next.

Confused, they asked him who or what a Muerte Blanca was. With a look of unfathomable fear on his face, he said that La Muerte Blanca was The White Death. She is the soul of a girl who died years ago. She died by her own hand, he said, alone and unloved. She hated life so much that she wanted to remove all traces of herself from the earth. So great was her desire to completely obliterate her memory, that she returned from the dead as a vengeful spirit, bent on killing all those who knew of her existence.

She is a girl, but not a girl, he said. She’s not dead, but not really alive. She has cold, black eyes that weep blood. She walks without ever actually seeming to move an inch. She stalks her victims like a wild animal, pursuing them across rivers and valleys, trailing them back to their homes. You are never really aware that she is following you, until you hear her telltale knock upon your door.

“She knocks once for you skin, which she’ll use to patch her own decaying flesh. Twice for your hair, which she’ll gnash between her teeth. Three times for your bones, which she’ll fashion into clubs. Four times for your heart, which she’ll tear out of your chest. Five times for your teeth, which she’ll polish and keep in a box. Six times for your eyes, which she’ll pluck out one by one. Seven times for your soul, which she’ll swallow whole.”

“No matter where you go, The White Death will track you down and you will hear her terrible knocking begin on the door. You can try to outrun her, but she’s faster than any mortal man. If you flee from your home while she’s knocking on your door, she will follow you wherever you go.”

The terrified man was certain that this thing had killed his sister. He had tried to tell the police, about The White Death but they would not listen, dismissing it as an old wives’ tale. Next, he had tried to tell his priest, but the priest immediately shut the door of the church in his face and turned him away. The priest had seen The White Death following him, he said, and did not want to get involved.

With his head in his hands, the frightened man said that The White Death follows you forever until you tell someone else about it. Then it strikes. It kills you and begins following the person you told.

After finishing his tale, the man stole a car from the mission hospital parking lot, and vanished into the night.

Apparently, my friend’s mother and father had immediately called his aunt and told her about the stange man they had encountered. They asked her if she had ever heard of the White Death. She said she had not and they proceeded to tell her the story that the man had told them.

The aunt got a phonecall later that night. It was the Mexican police. They told her that the parents had been found dead outside the hospital. They had been torn apart.

My friend’s aunt had immediately called him at school to break the bad news to him. As he cried, she told him she couldn’t understand what had happened. She recounted the whole story to him, telling him about the strange man who had turned up in the hospital just hours before his parents were found dead. She told him how the man had given his parents a weird and disturbing story about something called The White Death.

When he hung up the phone, he had struggled to come to terms with what had happened. It almost didn’t seem real to him. When he got home after school, he found the front door of his Aunt’s house standing open. Inside was a trail of blood, leading into the kitchen. There on the kitchen floor, he found his Aunt’s dead body. She had been torn limb from limb.

He ran out of the house and all the way across town, never looking back, until he reached my house. As he told me this story, I could hardly believe it. Within the space of a day, his mother, his father and his aunt had been murdered. It all seemed too far-fetched.

But before I could utter a word, my friend and I both recoiled in horror as we heard a knocking begin at my front door.

We’ve been staring at the door for an hour now, neither of us wanting to open it. The knocking is still going on, growing louder and louder. She never gives up. She never quits. La Muerte Blanca is unstoppable. I think she wants to scare us, my friend and I. I think she wants us to blame each other. And I do – I blame my friend. It’s all his fault. He should never have told about her.

As I sit here in my house, beside my friend, both of us listening to that hideous knocking growing ever louder, I wish a lot of things. I wish she had killed my friend before he reached my house. If he had never been able to tell me about her, I wouldn’t be in danger now. I’m sorry I ever met him.

And I’m sorry for you too. I’m sorry I made you read this story. I’m sorry I ever told you about the White Death. Because now that you know about her, she’ll be coming for you next.

the legend of La Llorona - the weeping woman

This is a story that the old ones have been telling to children for hundreds of years. It is a sad tale, but it lives strong in the memories of the people, and there are many who swear that it is true.

Long years ago in a humble little village there lived a fine looking girl named Maria Some say she was the most beautiful girl in the world! And because she was so beautiful, Maria thought she was better than everyone else.

As Maria grew older, her beauty increased And her pride in her beauty grew too When she was a young woman, she would not even look at the young men from her village. They weren't good enough for her! "When I marry," Maria would say, "I will marry the most handsome man in the world."




And then one day, into Maria's village rode a man who seemed to be just the one she had been talking about. He was a dashing young ranchero, the son of a wealthy rancher from the southern plains. He could ride like a Comanche! In fact, if he owned a horse, and it grew tame, he would give it away and go rope a wild horse from the plains. He thought it wasn't manly to ride a horse if it wasn't half wild.

He was handsome! And he could play the guitar and sing beautifully. Maria made up her mind-that was, the man for her! She knew just the tricks to win his attention.

If the ranchero spoke when they met on the pathway, she would turn her head away. When he came to her house in the evening to play his guitar and serenade her, she wouldn't even come to the window. She refused all his costly gifts. The young man fell for her tricks. "That haughty girl, Maria, Maria! " he said to himself. "I know I can win her heart. I swear I'll marry that girl."



And so everything turned out as Maria planned. Before long, she and the ranchero became engaged and soon they were married. At first, things were fine. They had two children and they seemed to be a happy family together. But after a few years, the ranchero went back to the wild life of the prairies. He would leave town and be gone for months at a time. And when he returned home, it was only to visit his children. He seemed to care nothing for the beautiful Maria. He even talked of setting Maria aside and marrying a woman of his own wealthy class.

As proud as Maria was, of course she became very angry with the ranchero. She also began to feel anger toward her children, because he paid attention to them, but just ignored her.

One evening, as Maria was strolling with her two children on the shady pathway near the river, the ranchero came by in a carriage. An elegant lady sat on the seat beside him. He stopped and spoke to his children, but he didn't even look at Maria. He whipped the horses on up the street.



When she saw that, a terrible rage filled Maria, and it all turned against her children. And although it is sad to tell, the story says that in her anger Maria seized her two children and threw them into the river! But as they disappeared down the stream, she realized what she had done! She ran down the bank of the river, reaching out her arms to them. But they were long gone.

Maria broke down into inconsolable grief, running down the streets screaming and wailing.

The beautiful La Llorona mourned them day and night. During this time, she would not eat and walked along the river in her white gown searching for her boys -- hoping they would come back to her. She cried endlessly as she roamed the riverbanks and her gown became soiled and torn. When she continued to refuse to eat, she grew thinner and appeared taller until she looked like a walking skeleton. Still a young woman, she finally died on the banks of the river.




The next morning, a traveler brought word to the villagers that a beautiful woman lay dead on the bank of the river. That is where they found Maria, and they laid her to rest where she had fallen.

Not long after her death, her restless spirit began to appear, walking the banks of the Santa Fe River when darkness fell. Villagers would often heard the sound of crying down by the river, Maria crying for her children.

Her weeping and wailing became a curse of the night and people began to be afraid to go out after dark. She was said to have been seen drifting between the trees along the shoreline or floating on the current with her long white gown spread out upon the waters.

On many a dark night people would see her walking along the riverbank and crying for her loss. And so, they no longer spoke of her as Maria, but rather, La Llorona, the weeping woman. Children are warned not to go out in the dark, for La Llorona might snatch them, throwing them to their deaths in the flowing waters.