It’s spooky season. Here are some scary stories from around the world you probably haven’t heard

Some are well-worn warnings as familiar as the changing of seasons. Others are slow burns that end with a bang. Still others are just plain eerie.

Stories of spiritual entities, paranormal activity and creepy cryptids are passed through generations the world over, becoming local legends that only sometimes reach across borders and cultures.

So if the sordid tales you grew up with no longer make you shiver, it’s time to reanimate your roster with global tales of ghosts, hauntings, and petrifying processions.

With Halloween nigh, and the season in many parts of the world ripe for campfires and spooky stories, people gravitate toward fear even in a complex and sometimes scary world. Here are some favorites — lore and fiction, with maybe some truth sprinkled throughout — that The Associated Press gathered from its journalists around the planet:

China: The corpse walkers

If you were out on the road in China in the old days — if you believe the stories, that is — you might have encountered a strange procession.

First, a man carrying a white paper lantern and scattering fake paper money ahead of them, chanting, “Yo ho, yo ho.” Then, a towering, hooded black figure wearing a ghastly mask and marching in an awkward, wooden gait. Bringing up the rear, another man guiding the giant by touch, perhaps with a black cat.

They were corpse walkers — and the giant was the corpse.

Bad things happen when someone gets buried far from home: Without descendants to feed their spirit and keep their grave clean, they’ll have a hard time settling in. They could even come back as a hungry ghost. So when a traveler died, the family would hire people who knew the strange art of walking a stiff body home.

When interviewer Liao Yiwu asked about memories