Haunted Tale # 4 Johnny's Jump

This week in Myth's Legends & Tales, we head out on a spooky adventure to find motorcycle related haunted tales.  We'll share one story a day until Halloween  and if you feel the urge or have a story that needs to be heard please send us a tale and we will feature your haunting experience in Myths, Legends & Tales.

Today's story is about a boy and his loving mother.  A tradgedy which no parent should have to endure and the ghostly outcome.  Enjoy, today's scary tale:

For years young Johnny would take his bike out to the Tar Pits near Waco, Texas.  He leaped over the pits while his family, fans and friends looked on with wonder.  He enjoyed nothing more than his weekend trips to the pits and every weekend his mother would grudgingly ask him to stay home this weekend.  He never did stay home and his mother always followed to pray he would make the terrifying and dangerous leap over the black tar that eternally bubbled up from the earth.  

No matter how many times Johnny's Mother watched him leap over the pits and land impressively along the far edge, she could never be comforted in the danger he put himself in.  

It was to be his 100th jump over the pits and hundreds of people came to watch Johnny attempt the only jump which he had yet to try.  The longest gap over the tar, the Black Leap.  One other rider was known to have tried that jump and when he landed the bike broke away beneath him.  Leaving him broken and hobbled for his efforts.  Johnny's mother knew this and spent the morning of Johnny's jump begging him not to try.  She begged, pleaded and prayed that he would not go to the pits that day.  Her prayers went unanswered, he pleas unbidden and her begging ineffective.  

Johnny lined up to make his jump and raced down a short hill to a small ledge which would give him the air he needed to land.  His bike roared beneath him and the ground fell away exactly as planned.  It was flawless and everyone cheered, clapped and whistled.  Johnny had done the impossible.  He brought his bike around the pits and lined up to make the jump again.  He wouldn't have anyone chalking this up to luck.  He sped away down the hill and up onto the ledge, when the dirt gave way, and instead of raising into the air he fell into the pits.  He was forty feet from any solid ground and his impact with the tar broke his legs.  He screamed as his horrified fans looked on.  

No one knew what to do to help him and he quickly sank below the tar never to be recovered. His mother, could not bring herself to watch him that fateful day and she cried night after night for losing him.  She would walk from her home to the pits every night as the sun set to pray from him and cry.  She had never missed anything so dearly as her only son.  Her heart was stricken with a pain that no being should endure and she quickly grew unhealthy and faded from the world herself. 

Though she passed on, she never stopped visiting the pits to cry for her lost son.  Even today people claim to have seen her wondering around the edges of the pits, with flowers in her arms waiting for Johnny to come home.  Her cries can be heard all along the road to the pits by those who care to listen for them.  She can be seen just at sunset and shortly after on her knees, tears dripping into the grave of her boy.  

Read other tales and the inspiration for this story HERE!