I have been reading your fantastic website, and have managed to give myself a full-blown case of the creeps! It has also brought back some memories of my misspent youth, three of which I believe may be of interest to you.
The first is about something really creepy that happened about 20 years ago. There is a legend in our part of Maryland about Lottsford Vista Road, a country road between Bowie and Upper Marlboro. There are two legends on this road. The first is "the church of the upside-down crosses" which supposedly hosts devil-worship. The second is "Crybaby Bridge." Some of my friends and I decided to go check this out one summer night. We piled in the car and drove over there. It is off a highway, but quickly becomes a quiet, unlit, spooky road. You come to the church first. We all got out and looked around, but I wasn't impressed. The "upside down crosses" in the stained glass windows appeared to be inadvertent--they were just part of the leading holding the glass together. I was uncomfortable only because my dad was a cop and I didn't want to get in trouble for trespassing.
Then we got back in the car and headed up the road to Crybaby Bridge. The legend has it that a woman had a baby out of wedlock a long time ago and rather than face her family, she went out to the bridge in the dead of night and threw the baby off it into the creek below. Supposedly if you went there late at night and sat still, you could hear the baby cry.
We got to the bridge and killed the engine. We were joking around a little, goofing off, then finally somebody mentioned that we needed to be quiet if we wanted to hear it. So we all shut up and sat there for about 15 minutes. I remember thinking, "this is so lame." Then, all of a sudden, we all heard it, clear as day. There was no question that it was a baby crying, and it sounded like it was coming from under the bridge! I should mention that it wasn't possible that someone was playing a joke. We were all in the car, and two of my friends had checked all around when we first got there to see if anyone else was there. There are absolutely no houses or buildings of any kind anywhere around.
We were all freaked, and got out of there as fast as we could. I never went back.
–LH
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Our new book features many more tales of this and various other Crybaby Bridges around the country.
