I love all things creepy and I love being scared.
I can’t help it! It must be in my DNA!
And I really love listening to spooky stories when I’m out in the woods!
What’s your favorite creepy campfire story?
Let’s get spooky with some folks on AskReddit.
1. Missing fingers.
“There was a body of a fairly large person, once found in the woods. They were quickly killed, and there was nothing extremely off about the scene, except he had half of his pointer, ring, and pinky finger all missing from his left hand.
No one could find the missing fingers, and they never found any clues. A few weeks later, another body was found, another man who was a bit smaller than the previous guy. Same situation, quickly killed, and 3 fingers missing all from the left hand, and still no clues.
A few more weeks went by, and this time it was a woman who was found, smaller than the second guy found, same fingers missing from the same hand. This went on for a while, with the victims getting smaller and smaller, until it was kids bodies being found. One teenagers body though, only had the ring finger and pinky finger removed. The police found a fingerprint at this crime scene, and they found it matched the prints from a theft record from the previous victim.
The guy telling the story then told the kids that the killer was searching to replace his fingers, and so far, he had yet to see if the fingers of children their age would fit. He then took off his glove, showing he had a scarred pointer finger and was missing half his ring and pinky finger, and then lunged at the kids while screaming.
He later told the kids he lost the two in a work accident, and doctors were able to save his very mangled pointer finger. He told this story every year at camp.”
2. A funny one.
“There was a Brit who was driving through Ireland as the weather got progressively worse and day soon turned to night.
He suddenly realised that he was on the wrong road but there was nowhere to turn around – so he pressed on, barely able to see the road through the rain.
Without warning, his car just died. No battery, no engine. He assumed water must have shorted something and he’d best start walking.
He was soaking wet in a hundred yards but he continued walking.
An hour later, he heard a noise behind him and turned to see a car coming very slowly up the road behind him – its lights very dim.
As it reaches him he reaches out through the torrential rain and opens the back door and jumps in.
Shocked – He is the only person in the car. There is no-one driving and no other passengers. He freezes with fear as the car slowly continues up the road through the pouring rain.
Before long a village comes into view and the car creeps silently and slowly into the village. The Brit spies a pub so he jumps out and runs inside – not looking back!
Panting with horror – he orders a beer and sits down.
A minute later two soaking wet Irishmen come into the pub. The taller one points at the Brit and says “That’s him Paddy. That’s the bastard I saw jump out of the car we were pushing…””
3. The man in the corn.
“My family had one called ‘the man in the corn’, or ‘beans in the corn’.
There was once a hobo who was stealing ears of corn from a local man’s garden. Now food was hard to come by, and someone stealing that which you’re growing was especially frustrating. The man saw the hobo in the garden and fired a shotgun shot over the hobo’s head. The next day, the hobo was back there again stealing ears of corn.
The man decided he would teach the hobo a lesson so he poured all the lead shot out of his shotgun shells and filled them with small dry beans. The very next day the hobo was back in the cornfield again, and the man fired twice on the hobo, and the hobo screamed and ran down the corn rows fast pleading the whole way. The man watched for days, but the hobo was never seen again.
Some days later, the man still had ‘bean shells’ in his shotgun, so he aimed at a plank of wood standing over by his well. The plank ripped to pieces!
When the next planting seasons came, the farmer walked his corn field to its far corners, to cut corn husks and prepare to plow. Along the way, he found tiny bean plants coming up through the soil, one here, another there, all lining up to lead him to a big bunch of beans coming up along the edge of the field.When he went to exam the bunch of beans, he first saw shoes souls turned to one side, and then the outline of a body, sank in the mud and soil. He realized he had killed the hobo, and the random beans that had fallen out of his body had sprouted along the way. My Father had bought that particular farm during the war years, and he said for 20 years, random bean plants would show up in that field.
Any bean plant that showed up in our garden was given the chance to grown, and one year there was a bean planted that wrapped around a corn stalk; my Father did not harvest the corn ears on that plant.”
4. Folk tale.
“A story I always tell around a campfire that I think is quite spooky is the legend of el silbon (the whistling ghost) it’s a Venezuelan folk tale but I have a tradition of telling it.
Anyway the legend goes that on cold dark nights in remote places especially in south america a whistle can be heard coming down the road. At first it will seem loud like its right next to you but as time passes it begins to fade and get more and more quiet until its almost gone. The trick is as el silbons whistle gets louder he’s further away and when he’s right next to you the whistle is very faint and sounds like its far away.
Once el silbon is at your doorstep he will sit down and begin to count the skulls of his victims and you have to listen to him count every single skull or one of your family members will die soon after and become one of his skulls. El silbon is said to dress like a farmer with a large straw hat, torn clothes, ghostly aura and a pale dead face. Its not that scary but its interesting”
5. In the woods.
“A group of hikers were wandering through to woods looking for a place to stay at night when they came across a small cabin.
They all decide to stay the night inside, seeing as there was no one there. Inside, the cabin is decorated with paintings of what seemed to be members of the family that used to own the cabin.
The hikers spend the night looking at the paintings and making fun of how wonky they looked. In the morning, one wakes up to see the cabin full of morning light, and looks around.
The paintings are gone, in their place, windows.”
6. Spooky.
“Here’s a creepy story to tell around the fire.
A man and his wife traveled West in hopes of striking it rich with gold, or, at worst, finding a nice plot of land to settle down on and farm.
A few months into their journey they come across the spot. A beautiful plot of land to make their new home. Winter would be coming in a couple months, so they build a hasty shack and figure they’ll hunker down there for the winter, and build a more established house in a few months when the weather is more permitting. They don’t worry, as the area is teeming with wildlife for hunting and trapping, so they figure they’ll be set for food. A couple of months go by and the winter is bitter cold and unrelenting.
They’ve finished off the last of their food stash, and they haven’t seen so much as a squirrel in weeks. They’re both slowly starving and freezing to death as they huddle in their shack, day after day with no end in sight.
The man’s wife is delirious with hunger. Fearing that they will soon be dead, he decides to go for a hunt. He musters the energy to bundle up and heads out – determined to stay out as long as it takes to find them both some food.
A couple of days pass as the man takes shelter under impromptu stick shelters – keeping warm with a campfire in the night time and hunting in the day time. Nearly frozen to death, mercifully the man spots a beautifully plump rabbit several yards away. He takes aim with his musket and bang. It’s a perfect shot. With a newfound energy the man runs home, giddy to finally feast with his wife.
What he doesn’t know is that while he was gone, his wife had discovered some tasty flesh of her own. Literally. The hunger had driven her insane, causing her to believe that her now frost-bitten finger tips were lady-finger cookies. She started off with a few nibbles here and there, slowly pulling the flesh away from her bones.
After just a couple of hours both hands were nothing but bone. So she worked her way up her arms to the elbow. The feeling of something in her stomach just continued to drive her further, until she had chewed away at every last bit of skin she could reach – culminating in her chewing off her own lips.
The husband approached the shack with his (now frozen) kill when he got an uneasy feeling. Fearing the worst, he steps up to the door and slowly opens it, expecting to see his wife’s corpse shriveled on the floor. But instead what he finds is even worse. This zombie like creature with exposed teeth and bones writhing on the floor at the sight of him, chomping its jaws with an insatiable hunger.
At that point, one of the scouts screeched for the leader to stop (which I was extremely thankful for, as it was easily the most terrifying thing I had ever heard at the age of 7). The scout leader told it with real conviction too… honestly still gives me the creeps if I go camping and happen to think about it sitting around a fire 😅.”
7. Random guy.
“One year, a group of us went camping in Kearney, Ontario, where we always go camping. Whenever we go, we always form our tents in a big circle, with the fire pit in the middle of us. We’ve been drinking, smoking a few joints and a few of us were tripping balls on shrooms.
The first night we were there, this guy randomly walks into our circle, introduces himself (I can’t remember the name he gave), that he was in the military and decided to take some vacation to camp out a bit. He asked if he could join our fire, as it was getting late and he didn’t buy any firewood.
Being the friendly stoned people we are, we let him join our fire. He even pitched in some money for the firewood. The night went on and we all were having a good time.
One by one, our group started heading off to bed, me being either the 2nd or 3rd. I remember waking up to the sound of someone talking and the fire being started, it was 4 in the morning. I peeped out my tent and saw the random just sitting on a log by the fire, talking to himself.
Still tripping on shrooms, i thought to myself i am in no condition to deal with this and chalked it up to me just tripping out. I wake up the next day and everyone is still alive (thankfully) and the fire is smoldering.
We look to the next campsite, where the random was staying and it was spotless, no garbage, no tracks in the trail around the site, no nothing. We all started talking about him, just to be sure we all saw him.
Through talking, we managed to figure out that he must not have slept at all, the last 2 of our group passed out just after 330am. The first person got up just after 6am and noticed he was gone.
The rest of the camping trip went well and we all went home. Fast forward maybe 4-5 years, i flip on the news and there is a picture of someone i could swear i recognize. He was arrested for a bunch of crimes, including rape and murder. Guess who it was? It was the random guy who joined our fire, i don’t know why i remembered his face, but i guess it was just a weird situation where my brain right clicked and saved as a jpeg in my brain.
Now, i have no way of proving if it was the same guy. We didn’t take any pictures of the random, but the picture jump started my memory and made me instantly remember the weird random fire joiner. Either that, or they looked identical to the same person.
Either way, was creepy.”
8. A classic!
“A couple are driving through the woods and hear on the radio about the escaped mental patient, then the car runs out of petrol. Man decides to walk back to a garage they saw a few miles back, claims he won’t be long.
Few hours go by and he’s not back and the woman is getting sleepy. She keeps drifting off but is woken up by the rain dripping on the roof of the car and the branches scraping across it. Eventually it’s morning time and she’s woken up by the police, they ask her to get out of her car and walk towards their car but do not look back.
She gets out and starts walking towards their car and they keep reminding her to not look back. Eventually curiosity gets the better of her and she turns around. Boyfriend is hung by the legs off of a tree and beheaded. The dripping was his blood and the scratches of the branches was his fingers.”
9. The neighbor.
“One day my neighbor walked over into my backyard while I was in my garden. He looked disheveled and was wearing pajamas.
When I stood up I notice his eyes were sunken in and it looked as if he lost a lot of weight. I tried to crack a joke about how this would be a great day to go down to the beach if it were not for the weather being so cold. But the joke fell flat.
A week later I bumped into his wife at the post office. She was in line in front of me mailing about a dozen packages. I asked if her husband was feeling better because he looked a bit under the weather last week when he was in my backyard. She tells me I must have been mistaken. He past away over a month ago from cancer. The packages she was mailing were his action figure toy collection she sold online.
I was speechless. Was I crazy? Maybe I did misjudge the weekend I thought I saw him. Then I really thought hard. I did not remember him saying anything to me. I did remember telling him the joke and it falling flat. I assumed I wasn’t funny and that’s why he didn’t laugh. Or maybe he couldn’t because it may have been just his spirit.
When I returned home from the post office I immediately start telling my wife about our neighbor. Before I could get out he had past away from cancer she says “Oh yeah I saw you guys talking last weekend. And then I tell her about seeing his wife at the post office and being told about his passing. So we go to our security camera. And play back the video from the week before.
It’s clear in the video that I do stand up, it’s obvious I’m acknowledging the presence of someone and have a brief conversation. And then I go back to tending to my garden. But on the video the entire time I was the only person in my backyard.”
10. The golden arm.
“The golden arm.
A fellow is looking to be married to one of the rich merchant’s daughters to gain the the fortune that would come with her.
Fortunately the merchant had an unmarried daughter still so the fellow begins to court her. The first thing he noticed is that she had a solid gold right arm, she apparently lost it in a childhood accident and her father had a golden arm forged for her.
Seeing this as a sign of extreme wealth he continued with courting her, making her believe he truly loved her and not for her fathers money, in turn she fell deeply in love with him.
They get married and the fellow is given his riches along with part of the merchant business his now father in law owned, thus giving him more money.
However, he soon realized his wife was now of no real use, so he ignored her, gave her gifts and had dinner with her but the love he said he felt had disappeared. Angry and heartbroken the daughter accused him of marrying her for her money, in which he boldly states of course.
She was furious, screaming about going to tell her father what a scoundrel he truly was and their riches would be stripped away along with his job. This angered the fellow, after all he worked so hard to get to here, he wasn’t going to let her take it away. So he pushed her down the cellar stairs and let her snap her neck on the stone.
He plead heartbroken to the grief stricken father, losing his most favorite daughter, the fellow’s riches intact. The fellow and family hold a funeral for the daughter and weep and cry.
When it was but him and his dead wife he opened the casket and pulled out a saw, for she did not need her golden arm in the grave.
That night he slept with the arm under his pillow, not wanting even the servants to see it before he melts it down into bars. He slept soundly until a voice like the wind asks
“where’s my golden arm?”
Slow and far away the voice echoed through the sleeping house, so quite he thought it was just a draft. Until the voice came again, closer and louder this time, as it down the hall,
“where’s my golden arm?”
Sitting up the fellow looked around fearfully, too scared to do anything as he hears again much closer,
“where’s my golden arm?”
He felt a heat on his back and a movement from under his pillow, but he was too scared to look away from the door as he hears again, just outside the frame the wail of
“where’s my golden arm?”
It felt like hell fire on his back as he felt the hot metal of the hand on his back, seemly crawling on its own as he watches the door knob turn.
The maid found his body that morning, face frozen in horror and hair a bright white, hands still clutching the sheets around his body. But the strangest thing was that his dead wife’s golden arm was on his chest, hand wrapped tightly around his throat.”
Okay, now we want you to creep us out.
In the comments, tell us your scariest campfire story.
We can’t wait to see what you come up with!
