Have you heard of Barbed Wire Barbie? She’s sort of an urban legend in my town. I’ve heard people in my neighborhood talk about her for a long while now.

It starts like most ghost stories; with a murder. The way I’ve always heard it, a young woman was found in an alley. She was stripped, bloody, bruised, and her entire body was wrapped in barbed wire. A brutal, horrific way to die.

She was never identified, so she was dubbed Barbed Wire Barbie, and the case went cold. The story might have ended there, except her body went missing from the morgue. And of course, this lead to people claiming they’d seen her lurking the streets at night. A real creepy tale. But I guess I never really believed it…

I’d been sitting out on the stoop, waiting for my mom to leave for her shift so I could smoke the cigarette I’d lifted from her purse.

“Dinner’s in the fridge, just heat it up. And don’t stay out here long, it’s getting dark,” she huffed on her way down the steps.

“I’m practically an adult, I can take care of myself,” I replied, rolling my eyes. She sighed and said goodbye, finally leaving me to enjoy my nicotine fix. I walked across the road and out of sight so none of our neighbors could rat on me.

I sat against a wall, savoring those first few inhales. The immediate relief I felt gave way to primal fear the instant something moved in my peripherals.

Something was coming toward me. It was crawling, dragging itself ever closer. I couldn’t bring myself to my feet, I sat in terrified anticipation as a silhouette entered the glow of a nearby streetlight.

She was naked, trails of dark blood seeped out of thousands of gangrenous wounds made by the barbed wire she was entangled in. The smile stretching across her face caused fresh lacerations as the wire dug into her lips.

I was so horrified by the sight of her that I hadn’t even noticed the van pulling up. A man got out and leered at me.

“She’s right here,” he called, and another man appeared from the other side.

“Hey, girl. You wanna take a ride with us?” he sneered as he got closer. I shook my head furiously.

“Ah, that’s too bad. ‘Cause… it looks like you’re all alone…”

“No… I’m-I’m not,” I whimpered. He turned his head side to side, mocking me.

“Huh! That’s funny, because I don’t see-“

He froze as she came into view.

The scream he uttered was cut short by the strand of barbed wire that reached forward and tightened around his neck. It tore his throat open wide as another wrapped itself around the other man’s eyes and mouth. I covered my ears to escape the sounds of tearing flesh, finally finding my feet.

I ran for home through a spreading puddle of red, glancing back just before Barbie dragged them into the shadows.