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Scary stories are everywhere in our culture, but sometimes they’re actually true – and all the more disturbing because of it. These redditors shared their terrifying tales and now I can’t go to bed… so thanks reddit!!
13. Banging on the windows
My house sits farther back in the lot than most other houses. It is a strange lay out as well, the sidewalk runs the length of the living room and ends at the front porch, which lets into the living room. Large windows that do not open allow great light to get into the living room, but at the cost of no privacy. The rest of my family was on vacation, and having the house to myself, I decided I would get smashed. Well, I pass out on the couch in the living room at about nine, when I realized I was too scared to walk back to my room. The couch is right underneath these big windows.
I woke up suddenly, not knowing why. I had a severe case of the chills, and I could not figure out why. Then the banging started.
It came from right above me. I did not move, but I opened my eyes and looked up at the window. Someone was standing there, pounding on the glass. Without moving, I looked at the cable box. It was around three in the morning. The banging continues. Then it stopped suddenly, but I still did not move. Suddenly it commences again, coming from two different directions now.
Someone is banging on the window, and another person is banging on the front door.
They kept doing it, would not go away. Finally after about forty minutes they quit. It was the most terrifying event I can recall at the moment. It made me a nervous wreck after that.
I called a friend the next day to see if he would come over and stay for the rest of the week, and his response was “What the fuck for? So that we can both be murdered in our sleep?” Thanks a lot, asshole.
12. DO NOT sleep on a deserted road. Ever.
About two years ago, I was driving home from a family reunion pretty late at night, and the drive was about two hours. I didn’t stay the night because I had to be back for work the following day. Most of the drive was on roads with dense bushes and trees on either side – the real creepy ones you see a lot in movies. Anyway, I had been driving about 45 minutes, and I was starting to get really tired. You know how sometimes you just suddenly become really tired, out of nowhere? Well yeah, that happened to me. I knew I wasn’t going to last, but I didn’t come across any place that I felt I could park and safely sleep.
Anyway, after it became clear to me that I wasn’t going to find a place to pull up, and my tiredness wasn’t going away, I did something very questionable. I pulled over to the side of the road onto the grass, behind some bushes, to try and hide my car from anybody else who was going to come past (the roads weren’t empty, I came across another car every few minutes or so). I made a mental note that the time was 11:22, and then fell asleep.
Some time later I was awoken by a scratching sound. I looked at the clock – 11:50. The sound stopped after a few seconds, and because I was still extremely tired, I didn’t bother looking around and simply went back to sleep. I was later awoken by the same sound, and it was now 12:40. This time it really freaked me out because the sound didn’t stop. The thought ran across my mind that it was just an animal inspecting the car, but why would it return almost an hour after it had left the previous time? I looked in my rear view mirror and just managed to catch a glimpse of something running away into the forest.
Now, at the time, I thought it was the damn hook killer, you know the one that scratched that couple’s car and then slaughtered the guy when he got out to investigate? Fuck that, I thought to myself, so I got the hell out of there. There was a bend no more than a hundred yards up the road, and as I came around it, there was a fucking car, parked off to the side of the road with the driver side door opened. I slowed down just to look to see if anyone was in there (there wasn’t). Then I looked in my rear view mirror. I didn’t see anything, and all of a sudden, this guy comes sprinting around the corner. He starts screaming at me, shouting stuff like “Hey! Hey you! Get the fuck out of your car! Now!”
I noped the fuck out of there and sped off. I never saw the guy again.
11. The man in the green knitted jumper
When I was about 10/11 I was ill and did not go to school one day, my parents both worked and couldn’t get the day off so told me just to stay in the house and don’t answer the door to anyone, and the usual stranger talks etc.
I was sitting watching tv in the front room that has a big bay window that looks out onto the street, which is a main road with a row of shops across the road. I felt awkward with all the people walking past so decided to shut the curtains slightly and for some reason as I did I noticed this man in his late 40s/ early 50s with a beard and glasses wearing a green knitted jumper (he looked like your stereotype child abductor). Something about him walking past just seemed strange, but not enough to play on my mind until he walked past again 10 mins later in the same direction, as if he had just looped round the block.
10 minutes later he appeared again and stopped at the edge of the driveway for about 30 seconds looking at the window, he then proceeded to the door looking in the window as he walked by, it was an old victorian sandstone house with big storm doors on the front that you needed a key to open, so he couldn’t get in. He knocked the door a few times but something just told me not to answer, he then came to the window banging it and saying something but I couldnt make it out,
I then noticed the realisation in his face that there was a back door, my parents never locked the back door so the dog could come in and out as he pleased, I ran through to the kitchen and within seconds of turning the key and locking it the handle started turning and he started banging the door I just curled up in a ball on the floor in fear, he started trying to open windows and eventually left about 30 mins later.
I dread to think what could have happened if I had not remembered the back door was unlocked.
10. Don’t. Come. In.
I was in high school, doing homework at the dining room table.
From there, I could see the front door. Our front door at the time had a 2’x5′-ish pane of glass in it, with a lace “curtain” over it. I remember hearing a noise, like somebody was on the porch. It was probably 9pm or so, it was very dark outside and the porchlight wasn’t on.
As I’m watching the front door, I can SEE the screen door opening. It stands open for a minute or so, and there’s nobody there – or they were dressed all in black. I’m frozen, waiting to see what happens next. The screen door just slowly closes.
If someone was there, they didn’t just let it go, someone was closing it carefully so that it wouldn’t make noise. After that, I don’t remember if I heard footsteps… maybe they saw me watching them and decided to quietly get out of there.
9. “…he wanted me to kill myself.”
A few years ago I was walking through the woods off the beaten track a bit and I smelt this really overpowering sweet smell. Being nosey I pulled back the undergrowth to have a look and found a dead body.
The guy had clearly been there a while and wasnt looking great, all swollen and green and black with various runny bits. The local wildlife had also been dining well for a few days.
I called the police who told me to wait with the body until they arrived. Being in the middle of no-where it took a while for them to arrive and it got dark and I was just sat there in the dark with him for a long time.
It turned out he had committed suicide. For a long time afterwards I had dreams about him and he would talk to me and not nice things. Mainly about how he was angry I had disturbed his resting place and he wanted me to kill myself. Probably just my imagination but all pretty disturbing at the time. He still turns up in my dreams from time to time and no doubt will be tonight after typing this.
8. He knew I lived there.
A few summers ago I went for a bike ride around midnight with a friend. We went our separate ways at the end of the evening and I had about two blocks to ride back by myself.
Because of construction I had to ride on the sidewalk but the streets were dead but it wasn’t a problem until right where I was about to turn left onto my street. There was this man walking by himself, maybe 40s, a little scruffy but not homeless.
The side walk was narrow and I didn’t want to freak him out so when I got about six feet behind him I said “hey behind you!” And he turned around and gave me this super angry look.
I turned down me street and he started to follow me, literally screaming about how I was a fucking cunt and he was going to kill me and all that. I live right off the corner and I didn’t want him to figure that out so I decided to do another loop around the block. That’s not the scary part.
The scary part is that when I looped back around and looked down the street I saw him standing on my fucking front stoop staring out at the street like the motherfucker KNEW I lived there. He saw me ride by again but he didn’t say anything.
I ended up going back to the friends, but my bike got stolen from the alleyway by the house two days later.
7. “It was staring straight down at us.”
I used to live in China back before I moved to the U.S. I was 12 when this happened.
My friend used to live in those apartments that look like high-rise but are a little bit smaller. Anyways, in order for us to go to his apartment, we had to either take the stairs and walk up 10 stories or take the elevator. One day, I had a sleep over at his place and we went to get the new Pokemon movie (the one with latias and latios) at like 6 in the evening. The store was like 2 blocks away. He always talked about how creepy the apartments he lived at are because very few people lived there. I swear, I’ve only seen like 3 other people in those apartments and I was there all the time.
Anyways, on the way back, it started to rain pretty heavily. We ran to his apartment and took the elevator. The elevator creaked and moaned on the way up and suddenly stopped. The lights in the elevator went out and it was pitch black and silent. Only thing we could hear was the muffled sound of rain and thunder. We being kids, started to panic, scream and cry. We were there for about 2 minutes when we heard a loud thud on top the elevator. Then we heard light footsteps walking above the elevator.
We got quiet and looked up at the vent facing upwards in the elevator. The vent had holes in it so you could see out of the top of the elevator towards the long tunnel up the building. Our eyes had gotten used to the dark so we could make out a few objects. The footsteps stopped and it was dead quiet again. My friend nudged me and pointed up towards the vent. What I saw was probably the scariest thing i’ve ever seen and I am 20. I have never been this scared in my life.
I looked up and could make out a face looking down through the vents. It looked like an ape. Like a really human like ape with human facial features if that makes sense. It was staring straight down at us. I don’t know if it was our imagination distorting a face of a monkey or an actual demon looking thing but it literally made me freeze in fear.
But anyways, we started screaming. I will admit. I pissed myself. It still gives me chills thinking about it. It started banging on the elevator roof. It didn’t scream or anything, just made noises by banging the roof. It then took off and we could hear the footsteps running to the side of the elevator roof. Then the power came back on and the elevator started moving again. We never took that elevator ever again. It seriously traumatized us.
Here’s a picture of what I saw. http://imgur.com/uLWA3k3
6. Dog toys
When my sisters and I were little, my dad bought us a puppy. Well, this puppy was a bit of a spur-of-the-moment kind of purchase, so we had to swing by Walmart to get a leash, puppy chow, and some chew toys. Our dad had us wait in front of the Walmart on a bench with the puppy while he went in to get the supplies.
This nice skinny tall man with a red beard walked by, saw us, and sat next to us on the bench. He was paying lots of attention to my oldest sister, who would have been around 7 or 8 at the time. He started talking to us. Asked us if the puppy was for sale (he wasn’t).
Started asking us how old we were. Kind of started out innocent.
Then he turned to my oldest sister and said, “Hey, I have some extra dog toys out in my car if you want some!” He was trying really hard to get my sister to go with him to his car to get these dog toys. She stammered, “Our dad told us to wait here for him.” He kept insisting, and we were getting kind of nervous.
Our dad walked out of the Walmart doors and gave this man the ultimate evil eye. The man fled, and when our dad got to us, he started berating us for talking to a stranger.
5. “A fucking machete.”
My grandfather’s company (does timber, mining) was setting up an office in a relatively remote part of a 3rd world county and found a house that was dirt cheap, even for 3rd world country standards. Obviously, there was a catch. The villagers in that area told him not to purchase it since the house was haunted and everyone who had ever lived there died violently. He decided it was just some superstitious bs and got it anyway.
So the guy setting up the office will live on the top floor of the house with this family and the lower floor’s for the office. He moved in with his wife and 3 kids.
Anyway, my grandfather suddenly got no news from him for the longest time. Since this was in a remote part of a 3rd world country, he wasn’t too worried since he just assumed they lost power or something. He finally contacted the local police to go check on the guy since he was completely unreachable.
They found everyone dead. Apparently the guy killed his wife, kids and then himself with a machete. Yes, not a gun. A fucking machete. He actually hacked himself to death. It wasn’t one of those cuts on the wrists to let everyone slowly bleed to death. Everyone was hacked down, including the guy himself.
The description of the scene had to be an exaggeration since I’m assuming the sight of 5 decapitated bodies, including 3 kids, were scary enough to make people see things, so I won’t bother putting it here since I’m not sure what’s true and there were details that people could not have witnessed. Let’s just say I stopped paying attention after I heard the phrase “magic machete”.
I was told entire room was covered in blood, including the ceiling. Some people were saying the blood on the ceiling had to have gotten there because the spirits “threw the bodies around”, I had to explain about blood pressure and got tons of weird looks.
Now, the weird part, if this isn’t weird enough, was that he managed to barricade the door with the bed, with his wife and kids on it. And it’s one of those gigantic old beds that’s extremely hard to move. The locals say this is evidence he was possessed by spirits. I say moving to the middle of nowhere in some 3rd world country drove the guy nuts and crazy people can do all sorts of crazy shit and even perform crazy feats of strength.
Anyway, my grandfather had to paid a few bribes to make sure nothing gets to the press (not hard, middle of nowhere) about the entire thing and get the police to classify the deaths as “natural” (no idea how they’ll explain that, 3rd world countries are awesome). All employees in the know had to sign an NDA too.
He then tried getting other volunteers to set up the office. Even if they haven’t heard all the gory details because of my grandfather’s gag order, everyone knew the previous guy died. No one volunteered. He “promoted” one guy, gave him a fancy title and told him he’s in charge of setting up that office. The guy quit.
4. Footprints everywhere
When I was about 13 or 14 I lived on a farm in NC. This wasn’t a regular farm that you would expect with fields full of beans and shit, it was actually a pine tree harvestry. Pine needles are a big landscaping commodity and so we lived basically in the woods and would bail the pinestraw every year. Whatever, the point is that my house was in the middle of 550 acres of perfectly lined longleaf pines.
My living room had a huge picture window. I won’t go into the architecture of the house, but it was a weird custom job built by some dentist in the 30’s. The window in the living room stretched nearly the entire length of the room, maybe 50 feet. The house was built on a subtle hill, so the living room itself sat 5 or 6 feet off the ground, so you had something of an angle to look out at a solid mile of pine trees. During the winter it was unsettling because you’d get just a bit of snow, enough to reflect moonlight so that you could see the dogs running around at night. I’ll be honest, i hated that room and that window.
So now to the relevant part. I had a cousin over for the weekend and we were doing what kids do in the country: throwing stuff in the fireplace to see what happens. It is getting late and the fire is dying down, so we build the big kingdom of couch cushions and blankets in the living room and get ready for bed. Nothing out of the ordinary until we hear the dogs barking. They were really far away. The property stretches for nearly a mile, so I just assumed they were chasing off whatever animal felt like shitting in my yard.
So my cousin is staring out the window and not saying anything, which prompts the standard “what’s up?” He just kind of keeps staring and says he feels like he’s seeing things. Naturally I get all anxious and start staring out the window as well. Nothing happens for a few minutes and he gets more and more annoyed with me because i’m asking what he saw, he keeps shushing me so that he can focus. And then we both see it. A shadow of a person moves from one tree to the next. not a run, not a leap, just a brisk walk from one tree to another. This is probably 100 yards out from the house. We can’t actually tell if the person is coming closer or not because we’re dealing with moonlight reflecting off of snow/slush/ice.
I guess the crazy part is that we didn’t so much freak out…because at this point there is still that chance that we didn’t see what we saw, you know? So we just kept staring. We should have gone to wake up my dad, but he’s an idiot and the kind of guy to walk out on the patio and holler into the woods with his rifle. We were just scared enough to agree that we don’t want to taunt whatever is happening.
So about 3 minutes later, it happens again, but a good 50 feet from where we first saw it. Another person, another tree, a few strides and they were gone. This happened every few minutes for the next half hour, and we just stared.
At this point I should mention that I didn’t really have neighbors. The land surrounding our farm was Federal Paper (i don’t know who owns it now) so it was miles and miles of uncultivated trees. You don’t see people around the farm unless they intend to be there.
So we keep watching as these two figures intermittently appear and vanish until finally we see one appear but not disappear. Instead we focus in on it and see that it is now running forward. We lose our shit and go wake my dad. By the time we get into the room with my half-awake father, there is no one to be seen. We sprint around locking doors and windows. Keep in mind that we’re out in the country with no one around… it rarely occurs to lock doors. Every door was worse than the last because you just know that as soon as you reach the door, someone is going to be trying to open it, although that never happened.
We locked everything up, walked around the house at least 50 times making sure no one got in without us knowing, and then convinced my dad to fall asleep in the living room with us while we stared out the window. I never understood why my dad wouldn’t call the police. He always had this ‘we take care of our own’ mentality and it simply wasn’t an option to call 911.
The next day we went out to look and, absolutely, there were footprints everywhere in the snow. We saw them between trees and then we finally saw where someone had been standing right in front of the window… but as I said, I wouldn’t have seen them because while i’m 7 feet up in the living room, they would have been right beneath me.
3. Shhhhhhhhhhhh
I had awesome parents who let me sleep in the living room on weekend nights when I was very young because my sister was a light sleeper and I could stay up until dawn. But of course I always end up sleeping on the couch because Nick At Nite made me tried.
So, one night I wake up to the prickly feeling. Like an instinct. Just bolted into a sitting position and stared out the front window. We lived in rural Georgia, so you can imagine the magnitude of trees. In perfect light cast from the moon, I see a silhouette of someone in this fucking tree. The family dog dashes to the window and is snarling into the glass.
Terrified, I run into my parents room and try to explain to my parents that there is a strange person outside. Dad grabs something defensive and darts outside with the dogs to beat the wax off the hot head. I tremble in Mama’s arms until Dad comes home and says he saw no one and to go to bed.
I decide to sleep in my regular bedroom. I fill in my sister in as to what happened. Dad is making regular rounds in the house with a cup of coffee. We’re all still and I finally think “I can sleep.”
Nope. I notice the man outside my window. From what I can see in the moonlight, he gives me a shush signal and runs away. Just turns around to run a straight line away.
I swear I couldn’t stop crying for what felt like hours.
2. My sister’s room.
Ok so this happened to me last summer when I was back at my parent’s house during the holidays. It was around 3am and i was in my room on my computer when I got a call from my sister.
Now that was already a little bit weird since my sister’s room is just down the hallway from mine and she could have just came in my room. I went to pick up and the call ended as soon as I reached the phone.
I figured that she wanted to speak with me so I got up and went to her room. As soon as I reached her door, she started screaming that someone was in the room with her so I busted in and of course nobody was here.
After she stopped crying she told me that she woke up and saw a dark shadow just centimetres from her face and that’s when she screamed.
So I told her that she called me, she tell me that her phone is not in her room and that she was sleeping. Sure enough her phone is actually dowstairs in her purse. The weird part is that I have the log of her call on my phone but she doesn’t. Never managed to explain this one.
1. The banana peel.
One early morning a few short years ago, I am walking to my bus stop and eating a banana. It is dark, misty, (around 5am) and I am internally debating something trivial, like if I want my daily Starbucks before or after the commute.
As I approach the dimly lit corner on my street, a tall man in a black mask steps out of the dark alleyway to my left. Sleepy and disoriented, I barely acknowledge him. When he shouts “put down your fucking purse” and points his gun to my head, things start to click.
The man says “put down your bags,” and I tell him, “okay, okay, I’m putting them down over here.” He orders me to walk over to him (toward the alley) and “get down on the fucking ground” and I agree “I’m coming, okay, okay.” My heart is beating a million miles a minute and my hands still smell sticky with banana. I know I need to get away.
I don’t know why, but my mouth won’t stop working: “Look, see, I’m on the ground. My stuff is over there. Please just take my stuff” But he doesn’t like it. “SHUT THE FUCK UP, OKAY?!” He gets on top of me and puts the gun to my head.
At this point, I should mention the fact that I’m on my way to coach a high school practice and I’m dressed like a dude. Huge baggy pants, hat, jacket… If not for my tell-tale voice, I’d look like a prepubescent 90’s rap star. Anyway, as the guy gets on top of me, gun to my head, he looks at me and pauses. I can’t tell you why I know this, but I swear that at this moment, it clicks for him that I’m a woman. He gets off of me, stands up, and points to the dark alley. “Come with me.”
My stomach hurts. I remember that there have been a recent rash of sexual assaults in my neighborhood (during the day time no less). When the man points down that dirty alleyway, my internal voice speaks the fuck up. Says voice #1: “There was no way in HELL you are going to go down there without a fight.” “But he has a gun, you dipshit” replies voice #2. “FUCKING FOLLOW ME!” the real voice, his voice, hollers.
So I do what I do best: I talk. “I’m coming, I’m following you!” I call. And the man makes a crucial mistake — he believes me. I take one, two tiny steps backwards, toward the sidewalk. And he turns his body — and his gun — toward the alley. This is my moment! I take a deep breath, tuck my head down in case he starts shooting, and start SPRINTING away. I hear a voice screaming in a high pitch wail before I realize that it’s mine. After running 6 or 7 blocks, I head back to my apartment, hoping he’s not there to see where I lived.
The police check out the alleyway an hour later, but the potential-attacker is long gone. The only evidence of the encounter is my banana peel browning in the alleyway and the adrenaline rush that I couldn’t shake for days. I would be lying if I said that if that experience doesn’t bother me still… but I’m so fortunate to mainly be haunted by the “what-ifs” and not the “what-dids”.
