Ten Scary Stories to Keep You Awake at Night
Scary stories are great, whether they’re real or not. We’ve compiled ten of the scariest stories we could find on Reddit and have them here for your viewing pleasure! So sit back, relax and be prepared to be spooked!
1] What the hell is behind that door?
Just a few months ago, while I was still in school, I rented an old house with two of my friends. I lived in the basement and they each had a room upstairs. Several strange things happened to me while I was living in that basement.
The first was that I had just gotten a dog and he was about 4 months old at the time. Now and then, right when I turned the tv off to go to sleep, my dog would start whining and growling at one corner of my room. He would usually not get on my bed because he wasn’t allowed, but during these times, he would jump on my bed and get as close to me as he could, all without his eyes ever leaving that corner. This happened about 5 times over the course of 4 months.
Then, toward the end of the school year, when I was about to move out, the scariest thing that has ever happened to me in my life occurred. Under our stairs was a little door that led to a small space that had a dirt floor. There was also a really weird, old wooden piece of what looks like a map nailed to the inside of the door, so it’s a pretty spooky place. Up until the day before this incident, we had kept a small chair in front of this door that I laid my coats and things on, but we had some friends over the night before, so we brought that chair upstairs. It was dark (probably 8pm) and I had just been upstairs in the kitchen. I had just gotten off the stairs and was about to open the door to my room, when the door to the little closet under the stairs opened so slowly and with THE loudest creak I’ve ever heard in my life.
I stood rooted to the spot, frozen in fear, staring at the closet, waiting for whatever was about to come out of it. I literally stood there for about 5 minutes, absolutely terrified. Eventually, I opened the door to my room and locked it as fast as I could. I wasn’t sure either of my roommates were home, so I called my female roommate and she was there. I spent the rest of that night upstairs with her, still too scared to go back downstairs. I should mention that I’m a 21-year-old man who does not scare easily.
Now I know many of you will probably say it was the wind or the fact that I had just come down the stairs or something just as my roommates did, but I’ve had those things happen to me before and been kind of creeped out, but this was different. The second I heard that closet open, and looked over to see it opening so slowly, I felt this sheer terror. It honestly felt like there was someone or something else in the room with me that wanted me to see that door open.
My mom just recently told me the story of her friend’s creepy dad. One night when she was younger she stayed over at this friend’s house. Friend’s creepy dad offered them “fresh venison” for dinner. Mom had never had venison, but of course ate it as not to be rude. Friend later tells mom that her dad is not a hunter. Years later we learned that creepy dad had murdered and cannibalized several women over the course of his life. Mom is pretty sure she ate human meat..
My therapist thinks that I should take time to sort out some events in my life that are unbelievable, unbelievable to her. I stopped seeing her three weeks ago it just was not working out. I am hoping that therapy by talking to people, who will actually believe me, might help me out.
I was a medical doctor up until a few months ago. An old med school friend of mine called me and invited me to come up to his home for a dinner party. Well since I had not seen him in a few years I decided that I would indeed take him up on his offer. He lived just an hour away from me; I got to thinking about how we all drift apart even if we only live a little bit away.
Well after I slipped on an evening gown, and my husband got into his tux we headed up. We were looking forward to this, sometime away just to reminisce about our life at college. All the pranks and all the fun we had. We hit the interstate and after about 45 minutes of driving we hit the off ramp and prepared for the last trek of our journey.
When we arrived at his home we found that his maid was waiting for us. She told us that he would be arriving late as there was an emergency at the hospital where he worked. She brought us into his den and brought in some hor d’oeuvres.
We sat there waiting for about 40 minutes eating some bacon wrapped little sausages. Finally we decided that we would surprise him at his work. His maid offered up some protest stating that he should be home very soon, but my husband and I would not be dissuaded.
We headed out and got into the car to meet him at the hospital. My husband grabbed a few of the hor d’oeuvres to take with him. It took about 30 minutes to arrive at his hospital, and to our dismay no one there could tell us where he was. The nurses said he had not even come into work for a couple of days. This perplexed us greatly, why had the maid told us otherwise. So we decided that we would head back to his place and if we could find nothing we would notify the authorities. I wish we had notified them first.
Upon our return we found the lights were on but the front door was open. Well against better judgment we walked in and proceeded to looking around for our friend. We searched upstairs and worked our way down stairs. We found nothing, no sign of the maid or our friend. So we stared at the door to the basement and figured that they had to be down there.
My husband assured me by pointing out he was a massive prankster in med school, and this was just another one of his pranks. I however was not so sure of that, something about this just felt wrong. With my husband leading the way we descended into the basement.
There was nothing really wrong about the basement at first; we saw old boxes of our friend’s belongings. There was a door leading to the wine cellar which when we looked inside offered no clue to our friends whereabouts. Then there was the door that led to the back of the basement. My husband and I took a deep breath and prepared for our friend to jump out when we opened it.
We were not prepared to find what we found. There spiked to the wall were the bodies of both the maid and our friend. They had been skinned except for their heads. Their tongues had been cut out and nailed to their foreheads. From the smell they had been there for at least a day. This made no sense since we had just spoken to the maid about an hour ago.
Scrawled in blood was the message I hope you enjoyed your food for the evening. He gave an arm and a leg to provide. My husband and I ran outside as fast as we could and phoned the authorities. However when they went down into the basement, they found no bodies or message in blood.
So that is my story nosleepers, since that day I have been unable to work, sleep, or eat. My marriage has fallen apart and I keep seeing a strange car sitting outside.
4] This is why I don’t like mirrors
For two years my mum had a recurring nightmare in which the mirror at the end of the room, facing my parent’s bed, would turn transparent and there would be a man standing behind it.
When redecorating, they removed the mirror from the wall, to find a hole behind it, with a small empty room, leading to nowhere.
5] You’re gonna flood the place
I had to take care of my mentally handicapped cousin a few years back. She could get around well enough, but due to severe arthritis in her knees and ankles, she had to be watched, helped into the bath, shit like that. I would go into her room in the morning, help her to her walker so she could piss, and make her breakfast.
One morning I heard the water running in the bathroom when I went to check in on her. I had to pass her room on the way to the bathroom. When I did, I saw that she was in her rocking chair in the corner, her blanket over her head, and she was rocking back and forth.
“Don’t leave the water on, you’re going to flood the place.” I went into the bathroom to shut the faucet off, and my cousin was there, washing her face.
I immediately ran back to the room, but it was just her blanket crumbled up in the rocking chair. My cousin wanted to know why I undid her bed. I didn’t stay too long after that.
6] I found a homemade snuff film
Please, please believe me.
My Dad was an odd man, quiet , reclusive and with a weird sense of humour. But it was a safe strangeness, a slight eccentricity that I assumed all aging fathers had.The strangest thing about him was the fact that his left hand only had a thumb, a forefinger and a little finger. He never explained what happened, and the one time I was to ask – when I was nearing 16 – he very calmly stared at me and told me to never ask again. It was the type of calm that chills you, the type of calm that’s only formed through utter, utter rage. I’d asked my Mum about it and she’d always quietly replied “Ask your father.”. Apart from that he was relatively normal.
My Dad used to stay up late, watching old VHS’ in the attic whilst we (my mother and I) went about our business downstairs, me playing on the computer and her cooking, or whatever she got up to. The room at the top of the House, essentially a converted attic was his domain. My Dad didn’t ask much, but that room was his and only his. My and my Mum were never, ever allowed in. I took it for granted at the time, assumed everyone had their ‘me’ place, and for the most part brushed it off. I was never allowed into the top room – I assumed when I was younger it was because it was his secret lair, though as I grew older I thought he could be watching porn.
The truth is far more sinister.
My Dad never left the house except for working whilst I was at school, he didn’t seem to have many friends and so I never had a chance to see what he was really hiding. I tried once to look for Christmas presents, and once more when I was older… for porn. Both times the door was locked, firmly and the thought of my Dad finding me looking made me terrified. His temper flared rarely, and nastily.
After bunking off school after lunch to finish a project at the fine age of 19 to finally conquer the room, driven by a desire for independence and to satisfy my endless curiousity. I got in today. My Dad was at work, and judging by the half finished bottle of whiskey sitting on the stairs, he’d been drinking. He forgot to lock the door, which was a rarity. The past times I’d tried the door was double locked, but I assumed that in the rush my Dad had simply forgotten to lock it- assuming I’d be out all day. On opening I was assuming something dark and dangerous would appear, I’d see a dead body – or something hiedous, but instead all there was was a box of old VHS a faded armchair, and an old, large TV.
I instantly leapt to the videos, knowing I didn’t have much time and that my Dad would be furious if he was to find me looking through them. I found a large amount of old movies, old taped TV shows – I was about to give up – until I found a tape simply labelled, in childish, scrawled hand ‘PACT’. The reason I noticed it was that it was clean, the white case it was in was dog-eared, but clean. All the other videos were dusty but in pristine condition, and this film hidden at the bottom seemed to have been watched over and over.
Taking a deep breath, and listening to hear if the door unlocked I slipped it into the TV.
This is where it gets weird.
The film starts with a shot of four men naked, holding hands. They all wore masks – a clown, a monkey, a wolf and an owl. They chanted slowly and firmly some sort of latin chant, as the tempo and volume grew the film slowly faded in to a shot of a large, empty warehouse.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of snuff films, but essentially they’re real films of people being murdered, raped and god knows what else. The film would cut between the clown, wolf and monkey carrying out depraved acts whilst the clown filmed. The film was a mishmash, a collection of shorts that were at turns vile, sadistic and above-all inhuman. They began with a woman tied up, gagged and covered in a cold sweat being held down whilst the monkey would slowly run a razor blade up and down her skin. Lacerating her with thin red lines whilst the others masturbated, and the clown filmed. The shot was haunting, her face flashed between pure terror and pain, as the heavy breathing of the four filled the spaces between her screams. They slit her throat and immediately the film cut to a slow, lingering shot of the monkey sneaking into a hotel room with two children in a bed – and filmed him pissing on the carpet whilst they slept for about two minutes. The film would continue like this for a while, a horribly disturbing film of a rape – sometimes of women, once of a young child – and then cut to a surreal, but sexual shot. A young man, tied to a chair and weeping, with nails slowly being hammered into every appendage in his body – would be followed by a long shot of the Wolf, still with his mask on but dressed in a suit, offering children sweets until he was chased off by angry mothers. Scarring, violent outbursts followed by segments that made me deeply uncomfortable, something about the lingering camera, with heavy breathing as these men I’d just seen rape and kill doing the most bizarre things made me shudder.
These clips were always, always with the deep, heavy breathing in the background. It wasn’t a pant that you get when you’re out of breath, it was the type of deep breath that only comes from a truely primal sense of arousal.
Of course, you would ask, why would I watch it. At first I assumed that this was simply a movie. I loved horror, a good horror film late at night made something come alive in me. I assumed it could be a surreal horror movie, released early 90s that was banned or something, but a google search returned nothing for ‘PACT’. it must be a real snuff film. I felt sick, and almost dry heaved but I was determined to finish it. If I’d been locked out my whole childhood I needed to know what this film was, and why it consumed my Dad. As any good son was, I hoped he had no part in it.
A thought flashed into my mind, this film must contain my Dad losing his fingers. Clown, Monkey, Owl and Wolf must have taken them from him. A few of the torture scenes included mutilation, and I was sure I would find a clip of my father being tortured – and it would all be fine. He wouldn’t be the monster I was building in my head.
I kept watching.
The clips became shorter and shorter. It was building to a grotesque climax, the rape scenes almost stopped and the film was now focused entirely on murder, the three main characters laughing and whooping as young woman would plead before dying. I won’t go too into detail about the film, I don’t think I could legally, and more the safety of you. No human should ever have to witness something so raw, disgusting and primal. They were celebrating the darkest side of human nature.
The film ended with a long shot of of a young woman, dressed as a nurse, being repeatedly kicked by the three culprits. It started slowly, a steady thud, thud, thud of kicks before escalating into a full on beating.
I turned the sound down.
They kept going after she stopped moving, naked except for Doc Martins when they all looked to Clown. I heard, faintly, the zip of the cameraman’s flies coming down – and as I reached to turn the television off, sick of the depravity whether fiction or not, the camera panned to the mirror. The hand holding the camera had a thumb, a forefinger and a little finger. Nothing else.
I almost screamed in pure terror, but the sound of the lock turning downstairs made me jump. I turned off the TV, and took out the VHS, slotting it back into it’s box, shoving it back where it came from and dashing out the room. Quietly, with my heart racing I nipped into my room just as my Dad started coming up the stairs with a thud, thud, thud. My head was spinning, my mouth was dry and I was almost wretching – my whole body covered in a cold sweat. I casually passed him on the stairs to the kitchen, my whole body screaming at me to run – but I was still in a state of disbelief. It could all be a horror movie, and this could be some bizarre coincidence. In my head I made all manner of excuses for him, he had to be innocent.
I knew he wasn’t.
“I’ll be in my room if you need me. Remember to knock.” He said.
Fuck. I forgot to rewind the tape. I’d forgotten that VHS’ need rewinding otherwise they started from where you watched them.
He hasn’t mentioned it yet, but he quietly mumbled something about “looking for his old camera”.
Let me start by saying this is 100% a true story…
I just graduated college and got a full time job in a pretty rural town. I work in an office that’s out on a golf course and very close to a decent sized pond (pretty much a small lake). One day I decided to stay at work rather late due to a high volume of unfinished tasks. When I finally left the office it was about 11pm. Now I normally park right at the office but this particular day we had a meeting with 2 of our managers form out of state. So in order to leave space for them to park, at lunch I moved my car over to the golf course parking alongside the pond. As I was walking to my car to head home, I remember recalling how unbelievably dark out it was. Probably because there were no street lights nearby and, like I said, it was a rural area basically in the middle of the woods. So as I get closer to my car, I started to hear a noise in the distance. I literally started to laugh to myself thinking like “stop being a wuss man.” which was a legitimate thought seeing as how the area I was in has a VERY low crime right and is known for being a pretty ritzy area. Having grown up in a pretty big city I thought I was being irrational. As I got closer to my car I heard a girl crying. Sounded like she was maybe 8-12 years old? I started to walk a little faster, as my curiosity was intensifying with every timid step I took. definitely already a little creeped out, the next thing that happened literally almost stopped my pulse… my car turned on…. once the interior light turned on I saw the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life: the noise was coming from a full grown man. He slowly turned to me and made eye contact with me. It was as if his look literally froze me to the ground I was standing on. He had two cuts on his forehead and was pouring blood from his mouth. I turned around and sprinted full speed back towards the office. Upon entrance to my office you need to disable the alarm, but of course I just ran in and locked the door, hoping the alarm would trigger the cops as fast possible. After only about 2 minutes a cop came to the office, I told him everything. He quickly called two other cops and told me to get in his car. We drove the golf course and saw my car with it’s lights on, still in the same place where I first saw it.
But no one was inside… I frantically kept telling the cops “I Swear to God he was JUST here,” hoping they wouldn’t think I was nuts. They believed me when they saw my window shattered and blood on the inside. They called in some detectives and gave me a ride home telling me they’d be on the case and hopefully have answers by tomorrow. the next day they promised theyd have answers by the end of the week. By the end of the week they promised by the end of next week. You can guess the rest…. It’s been about 2 months and they have no answers.
I am too afraid to ever stay late at work again. When I tell this story to anyone they listen out of politeness, but I know they think I’m freakin nuts…
8] Pet Cat
A few months ago my parents and I moved to a new neighborhood. The place was quite nice and the people were very friendly. But there was an old lady who lived next to us that startled me everytime. There were rumours that she was completely crazy. Everytime I walked by her house I would see her sitting on her bench in front of her house muttering to herself and stroking something on her lap. At first I thought it was a cat but when I took a closer look there was nothing there. I thought maybe she had lost a pet cat or dog once that had died and in her distorted mind she thinks it’s still alive. One particular night, I was sleeping when I felt something hairy touching my arm. I got so scared I jumped up and saw a small shadow running away and out of my room. I thought it was some stray cat that had wandered in the house, but then I realised it’s shadow seemed to be rolling across not running. Just then I saw the old lady standing outside the window looking directly at me. I got so scared that I hid under my blankets. The next day I was walking to school and as I passed the old lady’s house I happened to hear her say: “why did you run into the neighbor’s house last night? Look how frightened you made that boy feel!” This made me feel uneasy. At school, my friend told me a story about the old lady that still haunts me to this day. He said years ago, the old lady was married and that she and her husband lived in that same house. The old lady got so angry when she found out her husband was cheating on her that she hacked his head off with an axe. When the police arrived, they saw her sitting on the bench, holding his head on her lap and stroking it gently.
I was sitting in my room, after getting out of work, on the second floor. Little bro is downstairs watching TV, the dog is in the hallway outside my door sleeping.
All of a sudden dog starts making all kinds of racket, jumping round, barking, clacking nails, howling. I go to get up to see what’s up and I hear “Aw that’s a good girl” in a male voice. It didn’t sound like little bro so I go “Oh you’re home early!” thinking it is my dad’s friend/our roomie as I open the door.
Soon as I’m out there there is no one at all but the dog wagging her tail staring at the empty end of the hallway. Little bro comes upstairs to yell at me for getting his dog riled up, said he heard the same voice thinking it was me or our roommate.
We did a once over of the house with my butterfly knife and his BB gun and there was NOBODY. Still gives me the spooks to this day.
My ex-wife had several weird experiences. I’ll just relate this one. I’m at work one day when she calls me out of the blue (we were still married at the time). She usually did not call me during the day because she worked the night shift. She tells me to call my friend Danny and make sure he and his family are okay. When I ask why, she tells me that she had a dream but can’t remember it, but that I should call Danny and make sure he’s okay.
So I call Danny and check in with him. I tell him about my wife’s dream. He’s mildly amused but tells me that he and his family are fine and to thank my wife for her concern. I call her back and let her know all is well. She’s very dubious when she hears the news.
I found out later that within half an hour of my phone call to Danny, he got another call from his uncle in Florida to tell him that Danny’s son had hanged himself.
Pleasant dreams, everyone!
