The ghost of a woman severed at the waist by a train drags herself across the ground at terrifying speed. If she catches you, she cuts you in half to match her own form.
Teke-teke-teke-teke.
A small town in Hokkaido. On winter nights, after the last train has passed, people say you can hear a strange sound near the railroad crossing. Something dragging across the frozen ground. Dry. Rhythmic. Getting closer.
Do not turn around. Because if you do, you will see her—a woman with no lower body, pulling herself forward with both arms at impossible speed.
She is faster than you can run.
The most widely told origin places the story in Muroran, Hokkaido.
One winter day, a young girl fell near the railroad tracks on her way home from school. Some versions say she was fleeing bullies. Others say she simply slipped on the ice. Regardless of the cause, a train severed her body at the waist.
In the brutal cold of a Hokkaido winter, the freezing temperatures constricted her blood vessels, preventing immediate death. She survived—as half a person—crawling across the ground, calling for help. The sound her arms made against the frozen earth was "teke-teke-teke."
She died before help arrived. But her spirit, consumed by agony and rage, never left the tracks.
If Teke-Teke catches you, she will cut your body in half at the waist with a scythe—or with her bare hands. You will become what she is. And then, as a newly made Teke-Teke, you will begin hunting the next victim.
This element of replication is what elevates the legend beyond a simple ghost story. Teke-Teke is not merely a haunting. It is an infection. Each victim becomes a new predator, spreading the curse outward like a plague.
Some claim there is a chant that can ward her off if spoken three times. But the exact words change with every telling, which is hardly reassuring.
Teke-Teke shares deep roots with another Japanese urban legend: Kashima-san, also known as Kashima Reiko.
Kashima-san is also a legless female spirit. She appears in bathrooms or bedrooms at night and asks a single question: "Where are my legs?" Answer incorrectly, and she takes yours.
Folklorists recognize both as variations of the same archetype—the vengeful spirit of a woman whose body was violently divided. In Japanese horror tradition, bodily mutilation represents one of the most primal fears. Teke-Teke evolved this archetype by coupling it with a modern element: the railroad, a fixture of everyday Japanese life.
In 2009, two horror films—Teke Teke and Teke Teke 2—brought the legend to mainstream audiences. Starring actress Yuko Oshima, the films introduced an additional rule: anyone who hears the story of Teke-Teke will be hunted within three days.
This "curse of knowledge" motif, reminiscent of Sadako in The Ring, added a self-referential layer to the legend. By watching the movie, the audience itself becomes a potential target—at least in the logic of the story.
What makes Teke-Teke uniquely terrifying is how mundane its setting is.
Railroad crossings exist everywhere in Japan. The silence after the last train. The biting cold of a winter night. The long walk home. Teke-Teke does not lurk in a haunted mansion or a cursed forest. She waits in the most ordinary of places, at the most vulnerable of hours.
The next time you cross the tracks after dark, you might walk a little faster. Because somewhere behind you, there's a sound. Dry. Rhythmic. Getting closer.
Teke-teke-teke-teke.
