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Last edited Sat Apr 20, 2019, 02:22 AM - Edit history (1)
When I was very young, I saw a man in a bunny suit leaning on a blood splattered axe standing by the side of the road. His knees were all bloody, too. The face mask was partial because I could see the bottom half of his face. He had dark stubble.
I know it is a real memory because when I call up the image there are other little details present. I was looking out the window of the backseat of my Mom's old boat of a car. The perspective is low, perfectly suited to a 4 or 5 year old looking out the very bottom of the window. The image is framed by the divider between the front and back windows to my right and the bright silver strip of metal along the bottom of my window. I can see the knob for locking the back door, too, since that was also right about my eye level. The distance from the road to where he was standing is correct, also (noted years later, as an adult).
Some background: I was born in the same town as DH, and his parents lived there until they retired and moved about 10 years ago. My family moved from there to the other end of the county in 1979, when I was five.
Anyhoo, about 12-13 years ago, we were visiting DH's parents at their old house. On the way out of town we hit the red light at the major intersection with the highway. Of course. That intersection has always sucked.
As we were sitting there, I looked to the left at the town sign, a low brick wall with lettering and all the obligatory Lions Club and Kiwanis Club logos, and started laughing. I told DH, "Wanna hear something funny? I swear when I was a kid I saw a man in a bunny costume with an axe standing by that sign. Crazy, huh?"
He turned dead white. You hear people say that, but I had never seen it before. Literally all the color left his face, fast, and he turned white as a freaking ghost. And his eyes got huge and round. He said, "I saw him, too. My parents never believed me."
WTF?!?!
Up until that point, I had always just dismissed my Bunny sighting as a figment of my active childhood imagination. I mean, c'mon- it's really weird and unlikely. But we both had the exact same description, down to the stubble and bloody knees, and I realized how detailed my memory was. Needless to say, we were freaked the hell out.
So we get home and I start googling.
Come to find out, there is an urban legend in our area about the Bunny Man, partially based on a real guy wearing a bunny suit who yelled at people and threw a hatchet through the windshield of a parked couple in the early 70's. Over the years the story grew to encompass supposed murder sprees, Lorton escapees, and all sorts of bs (as urban legends tend to do).
As teenagers we had both heard tales of the Bunny Man Bridge, but that's it. The bridge was obviously just local ghost story bs, and none of the stories had anything to do with a dude wearing a bunny costume. I thought it was just a silly name made up by drunk teenagers, and never connected it with my childhood bunny sighting.
How decades of unrelated incidents and dark rumors grew into the Bunny Man Bridge legend is interesting:
https://research.fairfaxcounty.gov/local-history/bunnyman
The Verdict: We saw a random asshole in a costume playing around and trying to scare people. It must have been around Halloween. 
I can still see him and it was creepy as hell, especially for a little kid. DH and I were absolutely freaking out on that ride home, lol! It's also crazy we both saw him in '79 or '80, when we were both about 5 years old, and remember it so vividly.
You should save it for the fall and post it here for Halloween. Good story! 
