Chereads / myths and legends / Chapter 36 - La Mala Hora

Chapter 36 - La Mala Hora

If you're traveling alone in country crossroads after dark, avoid this demon, which appears as a woman. She drives people insane, and if you see her, either you or someone you love will die.

You thought I was going to write something about Roswell, didn't you? While I find the lore surrounding aliens in New Mexico absolutely fascinating, I've never personally found it creepy. I approach the subject, instead, with a sense of wonder and possibility. Instead, let's turn our attention to a dark spirit known locally as La Mala Hora.

Literally translated, La Mala Hora means "the bad hour," and references when this particular spirit might be seen.

It is said in New Mexico if you are traveling late at night, you might find yourself face to face with La Mala Hora, a dark spirit shaped like a woman dressed all in black. She may appear anywhere, but drivers are warned that if they see her at a crossroads or a fork in the road, someone they know–possibly themselves–will soon die.

Of course, everyone knows someone who has seen the spirit, but there is one tale that is repeated throughout the state so much so that it has become the "standardized tale." In the story, a woman named Isabella receives a call from her best friend saying that she is getting a divorce and is not doing well. Isabella, of course, wants to comfort her friend so she calls her husband who is away on business to inform him that she's driving to Santa Fe for a couple of days to make sure her friend is okay.

As she makes the long drive, the moon rises and upon reaching a fork in the road, she takes the left only to find a woman dressed in all black standing in the road. Isabella slams on her brakes only to discover the woman has disappeared. Terrified and trying to catch her breath, she looks to her left to find the woman now staring in the driver's side window with glowing red eyes and cracked skin.

Isabella floors the gas pedal and does not stop driving until she reaches her friend's home. She runs inside and her friend does her best to comfort her, but tells her that what she saw was a terrible omen.

The following day, they decide to drive back to Isabella's home but upon arriving, they find police cars in the driveway. It seems that her husband had been mugged on his business trip and had been found dead in the very moment that La Mala Hora had appeared to Isabella on the road.

Creepy right?