With Halloween just around the corner, it's time to delve into the dark, the eerie, and the unsettling. What better time to celebrate the scariest holiday of the year other than 12 am on a chilly night?
Below are a handful of unsettling stories, some true, some fabricated. If you haven't been scared yet, it's time to get rolling. Grab a blanket and a hot drink and dive into these deliciously spooky stories, and hope a monster doesn't grab your feet!
1. Two sentence horror story
This brief gem comes from Reddit user AtomFarmer:
I finally found my wife the kidney she needed
It took forever to track down everyone she’d donated organs to after the crash.
2. Mom averts danger
Forget monsters, people are terrifying. This camping story from Reddit user Morenapkinspls will solidify that:
I've posted this on my other account. Copying and pasting it here.
The scariest thing i've had happen while camping.
So I live in eastern Oregon, and my mom lives in western Oregon. I went to visit her for the summer and she's very outdoorsy so we decided to take the 1 hour drive from her city to the coast. We end up at this free camp site at the top of this hill (huge foot hills of the coastal mountains, about a 25 minute drive from the top where the campsite is to the bottom where the main road was) and we were the only campers there.
We relaxed for the rest of the day, made food, etc. A truck full of men drive up the hill and talk with my mom (idk what about, wasn't suspicious at the time) and they leave us.
Fast forward to the middle of the night. I wake up to my mom sitting straight up in the tent. I wake easily so i heard her gasp and it woke me. As soon as she saw i was awake she put her hand over my mouth because I was starting to ask her what's wrong. It was dead silent and all of a sudden you hear footsteps RIGHT beside the tent. The little flap that covers the zipper was even moving.
Thankfully my mom has quick wits and said very loudly, "Kenny grab the gun"
Kenny is my dad, although that doesn't matter, and mind you he was not there, just us girls like i previously said.
They left. No harm was done. Thank the lord for my momma.
TL;DR: Two girls at a campsite alone, people outside tent in the middle of the night & my mom pulled some badassery.
3. Ouija board knocks back
Reddit user ExcrementCranium wrote:
In high school my friends and I were messing around with a Ouija board one night. We had done it before and nothing remarkable had ever happened. We usually did it to try and scare each other or are girlfriends. We all thought it was a joke. That night there was no one else home except the 7 of us and we were all together around the board. One of the girls there wanted to try it. She had never done it before.
This time was different. The board misspelled some of the words the same way every time. It gave answers that seemed really historically accurate for our town (things we neither knew or cared about). Long story short, the “spirit” claimed it was a 10 year old boy who had died on the property in the 1800s and was buried there too in an unmarked grave (my friends house was on a farm in the edge of town). We were all a little freaked out because the board had never been so detailed and consistent. However, we were still skeptical and we were all assuming one of us was trying to scare the rest.
Finally, my friend asked if the spirit could do something to prove he was there with us. It went to Yes and then spelled out k-n-o-c-k. Then the planchette stopped moving. We just all stared at it silently and then there was a rap-rap-rap on the window right next to us. The lights were on outside and there was absolutely no one out there.
We never touched that f-ing board again.
4. Forgotten memory
Redditor Call_Me_Egg shared this horrific tale:
Growing up, my bedroom was the only one that faced the front of the house/street. When I was about 8 or 9, I woke up to my dad calmly but firmly telling me to get up, go in the bathroom, and shut the door. I was annoyed because I was half asleep, but I listened. Apparently I was more tired than I realized, because I feel asleep on the bathroom floor. The next morning I asked my mom what happened. She seemed oblivious and confused. I looked at my dad like she was crazy, and I asked him why he had woken me up. He denied doing it. I was becoming frustrated to the point of tears, but I ultimately let it go.
Fast forward to college. I was home one break, and I decided to ask again. I had thought of that night off and on for years, and it still bothered me. This time, my dad goes, "Ha! I was wondering if you even remembered that." Turns out that a lot of houses on our block were being vandalized and robbed all those years ago. Someone had broken into the garage and was inside the house. My room was partially over the garage. My dad heard it happen and quietly got me to safety. Police were called, the guy ran. He was never caught, however, and my parents didn't want a terrified kid on their hands, so for years they pretended like nothing had ever happened. It wasn't supernatural, but it was unsettling for sure.
5. A Clockwork Orange-style break in
This story comes from Reddit user Joshsecond:
Not to me, but to my sister.
Her husband and her had just had their first child a few months prior. My brother in law was working the graveyard shift at his job as my sister stayed home taking care of my nephew. Around 2am, she heard loud knocking on her back door. She went to go check it out and saw a lady banging on the door asking for my sister to let her in. The lady told my sister that her husband had just beat her down the street and was looking for her. My sister was hesitant to let her in since she had a newborn in the house and didn't want to interfere. She told the lady that the best she could do was call the police for her. The lady told my sister to not call the police and to let her in. This is where my sister got suspicious. She went to get her phone and called 911. When she went back to the door, the lady was gone. The police arrived a few minutes later and they told my sister that the same situation happened a few streets down. Apparently the couple would do this act to get into peoples homes.
I'm sure this is very common but having it almost happen to my sister and my nephew just creeps me out. Some real Clockwork Orange shit.
6. Phantom alarms
Reddit user 666_numberofthebeast shared this story about strange occurrences in their dad's home:
When I was in high school, I had a lot of these experiences.
At the house my dad lived in at the time (it was really old, built in the early 1800s) there were plenty of times I'd be sitting in the living room and DISTINCTLY hear the cabinets opening and closing in the kitchen. It was just me and my dad that lived in the house, and you could clearly see when his bedroom door was shut and he was asleep, but still hear it.
Normally my dad worked 7-3 but occasionally worked a pm or overnight shift. One night he was working until 11, I was 17 at the time. Around 8 or so, I'm sitting in my room playing Borderlands, and think I hear footsteps coming from the living room (which was adjacent to my bedroom) and assume my dads home early. Go back to playing Borderlands.
I keep hearing the steps so I pause the game and listen, and the footsteps are just slowly pacing back and forth between the living room and the kitchen, in a steady rhythm. I laid in bed scared shitless, and actually counted the steps. Every time it took 15 paces to the living room, 15 back to the kitchen.
Needless to say I did not fucking sleep that night.
Had another situation at my mom's house, about 2 years prior to this, out of nowhere my alarm clock would go off at midnight every night. I assumed it was busted and got rid of it.
Fast forward 2 years, my mom gets another, brand new alarm clock for my room (also when I was 17). Suddenly, alarm goes off at midnight. I thought nothing of it, turned it off. Happened again the next night, and then my sister Pointed out the old one I had that did it. So I checked and made SURE no alarms were set, double checked at 11:56.
Sure enough, 4 minutes later my alarm goes off. Freaked out I threw it out. That next night was my dad's night to have me, I had a buddy of mine over and my dad was working that night.
He left for work around 2am, and my friend had brought over an iPod dock to listen to music on. Didn't have the clock set or anything, my friend knew nothing of the last couple nights so I knew he wasn't just fucking with me. So about 2 minutes after my dad leaves, we hear an alarm clock coming from my room...I went in, and you know how if you just plug in a clock without setting it, the numbers just blink on and off? Well it was doing that, as soon as I picked it up, the clock set itself to 12:00 and then just turned off by itself.
So...yeah, fuck paranormal shit. I'm not religious at all but I am 100% convinced that it happens.
7. Mom's scary boyfriend
Reddit user aett noticed that their mom's boyfriend was pretty weird, but one cold night they had an especially bad feeling:
About five years ago, my mom started dating a guy she met on a dating site. That part is fine - I had recently started dating the woman who would later become my wife and we had met online (I'll just refer to her as my wife for this story). Anyway, my wife and I never really liked this guy. We didn't think he was mean or anything like that, just a little creepy - he was quiet, he kept his eyes closed a lot, and occasionally said odd things like offering my wife a chocolate and then popping one in his mouth, closing his eyes, and moaning as he let it melt in his mouth. One time my wife and I were visiting my mom but she got called into work, so we waited at her house. Her boyfriend was over but he spent the entire several hours just hanging out in her bedroom with the door closed.
Just before Christmas, my mom and this guy started having some difficulties. My wife and I were visiting her for the holidays and she dropped all of her problems on us and we listened carefully and told her our opinions and suggested that she would be better off without him. She already had her mind made up, though, and decided to break up with him... on Christmas Eve.
We spent the night at my mom's and got up early on Christmas morning to visit my dad at his house. We didn't plan to spend the night at my dad's, but we got snowed in, which was actually a nice Christmas surprise.
The next day we left as soon as we could get through the snow and my wife suggested that we stop by my mom's house on the way so that we could see if she was okay. My wife just had a really bad feeling about my mom's now-ex-boyfriend.
My mom's car was in the driveway, but that doesn't mean much because she lives close enough to work that she often walks and it hadn't snowed in her town. She also never locks her door, which drives me crazy, so we let ourselves in. That's when we see blood OOZING out of the refrigerator's water dispenser. It had filled up the spill container and was leaking onto the floor and had made a puddle. My wife screamed and I freaked out. I fully expected to see my mom's head in the freezer.
I nervously opened the freezer to find... a bag of frozen cherries that had been opened, crammed into the freezer so that it fell onto the ice dispenser, and melted.
tl;dr Thought my mom was decapitated by her creepy ex-boyfriend.
8. She heard it through the wall
This haunted story comes from Reddit user GoatbustersBM:
Four years ago , I lived in a very large farm house , that was converted into two apartments. The house was known as the ''old boys home''. It was used to house boys with behavioral issues but was closed due to allegations of molestation. Anyway , I was living with my boyfriend and three year old daughter at the time. My bedroom had a large fireplace that had been boarded up and painted over. I decided to push my bed up against it one day while I was rearranging things , It was like a headboard. That night , around 1 am I had heard a small voice saying 'mom , mom , mommy'. I had sat up in bed but didn't see anything so I reached over my boyfriend trying to grab down to grab my daughter and put her in our bed. I kept feeling around and I was still hearing the voice but I couldn't feel her. My boyfriend woke up and turned the bedside lamp on asking me '' What the hell are you doing ''. I explained that Amelia was trying to get in our bed and I was reaching for her. There was nobody there. My daughter was sound asleep in her room. Then the next night came. Around 1 am again my dog had started to wimper at out door so my boyfriend got up to take him outside. You know that feeling in a bed when someone lies down next to you? Where the bed pushes in and there is a warmth in your back? I felt that , So I assumed my boyfriend had come back to bed. I rolled over , my boyfriend wasn't in the bed and I felt the fucking bed release pressure , whatever was laying next to me has gotten up in that second. I moved my bed the next day to the other side of the room and I never had another incident in the two years I remained in that house.
9. "You're lucky I'm scared, too"
Reddit user Megaman1410 shared this story about a letter from a burglar who visited their home:
TL;DR: Some random thief was in my house, who I spoke to, who left me a weird message.
Was sitting in my room at like 11:30 pm, heard lots of shit downstairs, assumed it was my mum. Heard her walk up the stairs to my room, stop, I called out to her, she didn't say anything and walked downstairs. I went down about a half hour later to find a piece of paper with the words "You're lucky I'm scared too" on it, and a whole bunch of shit was missing. Called mum, she still hadn't arrived home from a dinner she was at with her friends. I called the cops and locked myself in the bathroom, but I think they left when they realised I was still home, probably the most scared I've ever been when I was hiding in the bathroom.
10. A ghost testing the waters
Redditor mrtenor talks about their first night after moving into a haunted house:
I currently live in a haunted house. I've heard voices, footsteps, lights have been turned on/off, one of the ghosts has a thing for silverware (I hear it clattering in the drawer all the time, and sometimes a knife or two will end up in the wrong slot in the drawer).
But the strangest/scariest experience I had was the first night I spent in the house. I wasn't finished moving in, there were boxes everywhere, I didn't even have my mattress up there yet. I was bedding on an old futon mattress, watching a video on my phone, when a get the pins & needles feeling of my feet falling sleep. Except it wasn't on my feet, it was on the top of my head in the shape of a hand. I said, "Good night", turned off my light and tried to sleep. When I woke up my closet door was ajar, but other than that everything was otherwise untouched.
I guess whoever my unseen roommate is, just wanted to check out who I was on my first night.
11. A reminder from the past
Redditor WybieLovat shared this story to warn people about their childhood toys:
When I was around 16 my rapidly growing family finally moved from the house I had spent my entire life in. As you would expect, we spent a lot of time fondly remembering things we used to do in the house as we were packing everything up. At some point I decided to go into the downstairs closet with a flashlight and read, something I used to do when I was younger to get some peace and quiet.
Now, this is one of those deep closets that goes under the stairs; it went back around 8 feet and then had a left turn into a very low maybe 3 foot high space. This space was largely occupied by a mountain of old blankets and stuffed animals. Of course, this is the most fluffy spot to sit and read.
About an hour in I shift a little to get comfortable and I hear a low, slow, warped, hoarse voice say "you always make me happy". I flipped my shit, hit my head on the low ceiling, and practically broke the door down getting out. After hyperventilating and explaining to my family why there was no color left on my face I went back to see what it was. It was my stuffed Little Bear from when I was 3 or 4 years old that I happened to lean on juuuuust right to press his belly. When I pressed his stomach again though, nothing. This poor bear I hadn't played with since I was a toddler used the last of it's power, used it's dying breath to tell me I made it happy.
You make me happy too little bear.
When you're not making me piss myself.
12. A warning
This story comes from Reddit user MynamesnotChase:
I saw a dead solders ghost in my barracks room before I deployed. It was the guys room who died on my company's last deployment and I was the first to be issued it. He told me to be safe. He had half a head. I'm agnostic but that makes me question it.
I've had two other experiences that I'm not quite convinced about, but my great grandma used to visit me in my dreams after she died. For like 15 years.
13. The plane ride that never ends
Reddit user Worchester_St shared this story about losing track of time on a continental flight:
I’ve Been Flying for almost Thirty Hours and The Flight Attendants Won’t Stop Crying
Thirty hours ago I hopped on a late-night flight from New York heading to Los Angeles. After boarding I saw that I had an entire row to myself. Take off passed without incident, and soon I was stretched out for a nap across the row.
I slept for a few hours, I don’t know how long, but I woke up to some severe turbulence. It’s possible that the lights in the cabin went out for a moment, but I was so disoriented that it’s hard to say.
I checked my phone to see that it was 4:03 AM, which I figured gave me about an hour until we landed. When I looked out my window, I was shocked to see nothing but wide open ocean. My jaw dropped; there’s obviously no ocean between New York and Los Angeles.
I hit the button to call the flight attendant and spent the next few minutes wracking my brain for a lake that could’ve been possibly been big enough to explain what I was seeing. I jumped when the attendant flipped off the light. She was grinning from ear to ear, and tears were pouring down her cheeks.
“How can I help you sir?” she asked.
“I froze for a moment at her reaction before deciding to just ask my question. “Where are we? Why does it look like we’re flying over an ocean?”
She wiped her cheeks to clear the tears, still grinning wildly. “Sir, we’ll be landing in about an hour.”
“I, uh, OK, thank you,” I said.
After she left I checked the clock on my phone again. 4:03 AM blinked back at me.
It hadn’t changed.
I had to have been waiting with my call light on for at least five minutes. How was it possible that it hadn’t changed at all?
I opened up my laptop and saw it too displayed 4:03 AM. I pulled out my phone, started a stopwatch in the app, and spent the next two hours looking back and forth between the clocks, waiting for them to change.
They never did.
I tapped the shoulder of an older woman sitting in the row ahead of me. She looked back, an annoyed expression across her face. “Yes?” she asked.
“Do you know how long until we land?” I asked.
She narrowed her eyes. “That flight attendant said it would be about another hour.”
I shook my head in confusion. “That flight attendant? We talked almost two hours ago! We should’ve landed already.”
She stared at me as if I was crazy. I was going to continue trying to convince her, but I felt a hand on my shoulder. I spun to see a male flight attendant grinning down at me, tears pinging off his cheeks onto my shoulder.
“Sir, I’m going to ask you to calm down, or I’ll be calling the Captain.”
I told him that wouldn’t be necessary and sat back. He removed his hand and stepped away.
The flight attendants continued to stop by every few hours offering meals. My stopwatch continued to tick up and is now telling me that I’ve been on this plane for more than thirty hours.
I’ve explored all of coach and tried talking to some of the other passengers, but they’ve all told me that they’re expecting to land in an hour or so.
Around three hours ago I tried getting into first class. I made it past the curtain but was escorted back by two grinning flight attendants. Their grip on my arms were like iron.
“Sir, the seatbelt sign is on,” one said. “Please remain in your seat with your buckle fastened. We’ll be landing in about an hour.”
I’d just about given up hope when a woman came down the aisle dressed in a business suit. She didn’t look at me or slow down, but she dropped a piece of paper onto my tray as she made her way to the bathrooms at the back of the plane.
I shot a look around before unrolling it.
It said, “Are you stuck too?”
I pulled out a pen and wrote “Yes. It’s been thirty hours.”
I folded the scrap of paper up and set it on the tray closest to the aisle. She left the bathroom and picked it up as she passed.
It’s been twenty minutes since then. I don’t know why, but I don’t think the flight attendants would like it if they knew we were talking. It doesn’t matter. I have to do something. I’ll update you all with whatever happens next.
14. A home invader tries every house in the cul-de-sac
This terrifying story comes from Reddit user Suitology:
Told this story of my parents old house when I was living with them before college.
I live in a small culdesac in the middle of no where. The next nearest neighborhood is over 4 miles away. One night a few years ago we got over a foot and a half of snow overnight. So far from main roads and on the weekend I knew our roads will be remain unplowed for quite some time. I went to my out back deck door to look at the snow Draped trees and the still heavily falling flurries and take some pictures when I noticed foot prints leading to my door then turning around and leaving.
I looked and saw that they came from my neighbor's side and thought that one of their more delinquent kids played a joke as my sledding tube on the railing was popped. I decided I'd wait till later as it was early to call their parents. I went on facebook and after scrolling for a bit I noticed one of my neighbors closer to the entrance posted "did someone knock for me or something at my back door?"
I immediately called her, talked, and told her I have an idea. I called the first house on the entrance and told him what was going on. He went and checked and sure enough, they were there too. Everyone started calling everyone else. I called the family at the far end and they told me there was none there. Then I got a call from my next door neighbor. She called the women that lives next to the end house. She said that there were footprints that led to her door. But none led away.
We already called the police by this point but now we called them back and said that it's an emergency now. They told us the roads are still all unplowed and they can't send a plow truck to clear the way as they are a privately owned company. The woman was losing it so one of the husbands (huge bear of a man) across the road from her texted her to say he was coming over to "invite her over". He came and she left. We put up one guy's live feed motion recording hunting cameras facing all exits. Nothing came out. Around 7 pm a plow truck came as well as 3 cop cars. The couple she was staying with and her went to her house and stood in the doorway as the police searched. They found nothing. She begged them to keep looking so they did.
Two of the cops went into the basement again. This time only one came up. He took her to the side room and we could hear hysterical crying (by now we are all out there). Me and a few of the other guys started towards the door when several police confronted us. They told us they found someone hiding under a cover opening in the stairwell that she didn't even know existed. A few minutes later a scruffy man screaming and kicking came out in cuffs and was led away.
In his little camp out they found blankets she just cleaned and put away. In the room next to hers... She stayed in other people's houses for a long time before going back. Even then she wouldn't stay alone. She sold the house the next summer.
He turned out to be a thrill-seeking junkie who was on probation for assault against a family member. The cops told us that they feel like he didn't want to stay at his apartment after a fight with his roommate and drove off in his roommate's car from the county over and got stuck in our unplowed roads.
And that is why you always make sure you locked your doors.
15. "I see everything!"
I don't think I would have made it if I grew up in Reddit user _Panda_Panda_'s house.
I was with my little brother home alone when we suddenly heard a creepy voice from the other room saying "Panda_Panda come here. I want to talk to you." We didn't know who or what it was and immediately ran upstairs. While we were running to our room, we heard someone nearby say "Do you boys think you can run from me? I see everything!" At this point we were terrified, locking the door to our room, grabbing our mini baseball bats and crying. We were certain we were going to be killed or eaten by some monster. Then, it happened, a loud bang came from the closet and the monster sprang out. We both screamed, my brother fell, and I threw the bat at... my dad wearing an IT clown mask and laughing hysterically. Turns out he was behind the whole thing. First, he had put all the cordless phones in the house on speaker and said he was leaving to run some errands. Then, he proceeded sneak back into the house, hide in our closet, and scare us.
