My friends and I have told scary campfire stories every Halloween weekend for ten years. This is the year a stranger walked out of the dark, sat down in the fifth chair, and told one about us. We’ve heard a lot of terrifying campfire stories at that fire ring, and this is the one none of us tell anymore.
There are four of us. Me, Danny Okafor, Ruthie Kessler, and Marcus Lyle. We met working summers at a canoe rental on the Buffalo River in Arkansas. When we all got real jobs, we made a rule. Every year, the weekend before Halloween, we camp at the same site in the Ozark National Forest, and every one of us has to bring a story. You can make it up. You can steal it. But you have to tell it like it’s real.
The site is a walk-in spot off a forest road near the Richland Creek area. No hookups, no neighbors, a fire ring made of creek rocks. You park at a gravel pull-off and carry everything in about a quarter mile.
In 2024 we got there on a Friday afternoon. Warm for October. Leaves just turning. Ruthie had a new tent she wanted to show off. Marcus brought a cooler of venison chili his dad made.
When we carried the last load in, the cooler lid was open.
Not knocked over. Open, with the lid laid back neatly on its hinges. The chili was fine. The ice was fine. Marcus said a raccoon. Danny said raccoons don’t put lids back like that. We all laughed and Ruthie latched it with a bungee cord, and nobody thought about it again until later.
The Fifth Chair
We always bring a spare chair. It’s a joke. The first year, Marcus forgot his and had to sit on a log, so now somebody always brings an extra. We set it up across the fire, facing the dark, and we call it the Guest Chair.
By ten, we’d eaten, had a few beers, and gone through three stories. Danny did one about a hitchhiker. Ruthie did one about a babysitter that she swore happened to her cousin. I did a bad one about a lake.
It was Marcus’s turn. He was clearing his throat to start when somebody said, from the dark behind the Guest Chair, “Mind if I sit?”
All four of us jumped. Ruthie spilled her beer on her boots.
A man stepped into the firelight. Fifties, maybe. Gray beard, clean. A brown canvas coat, the kind with a corduroy collar. No pack. No headlamp. He’d walked up a dark trail without a light.
He was smiling. Not in a weird way. In a regular, sorry-to-bother-you way.
“Saw your fire from the road,” he said. “I’m camped up the creek a ways.”
That’s the thing about camping. People do that. You share a fire. It would have felt rude to say no, so Danny said, “Sure, man. Pull up,” and the man sat down in the Guest Chair.
Marcus said we were telling stories, and the guy could have a beer if he wanted one. He said no thank you. He said he’d love to hear a story.
Marcus told his. It was about a gas station. It was fine. The man listened like it was the best thing he’d ever heard. When it was over, he clapped twice, softly.
Then he said, “Can I tell one?”
Scary Campfire Stories About Four Friends
He told us about four friends who met on a river.
He said they worked at a place that rented canoes. He said there were two boys and a girl and another boy who joined later. He said they made a promise to camp together every year, in the same place, until one of them couldn’t.
At first I thought it was a coincidence. Those are pretty normal details. Then he said the girl always brought a new tent and never knew how to put it up.
Ruthie stopped smiling.
He said one of the boys always forgot something. The first year it was a chair. He said that’s why they always set up an extra one.
Nobody was talking now. I could hear the creek, and the fire, and that was all. No crickets. It was too late in the year for crickets, I told myself.
He said the boy who forgot the chair brought his father’s chili every year, and that one year the chili was very good. He said it in a warm way. Like he’d had some.
Marcus looked at the cooler. The bungee cord was still on it.
The man kept going. His voice was calm and slow, and he looked at each of us while he talked. He said the friends had a rule that every story had to be told like it was real. He said that was a good rule. He said that most people never think about what happens when one of the stories is.
Then he stopped.
Danny said, “That’s it? How does it end?”
The man stood up. He brushed off his coat.
“You can keep the ending,” he said. “I’ll hear it next year.”
He walked back out of the firelight the way he came. No flashlight. We heard his boots on the trail for a few steps, and then we didn’t.
It was 10:48 p.m. Ruthie checked her phone because she wanted to know how long he’d been with us. Thirty-one minutes.
Same Time Next Year
We didn’t sleep. We sat by the fire with every light we had turned on, and around five, when it started getting gray, we packed up and carried everything out.
On the way out, Marcus walked up the creek trail a little ways to look for the man’s camp. He went maybe half a mile. There was no camp. No fire ring, no tent pad, no trash. Just leaves.
When we got to the pull-off, there was only our two cars. If the man had seen our fire from the road, he’d have had to park there too.
Danny called the ranger district that Monday. He asked if anyone else had a permit for that area that weekend. The woman said no, it was quiet. Then she said something that Danny repeated to us that night in a group call, because he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
She said the walk-in site was reserved under his name. Party of five.
Danny made the reservation. He typed four. He sent us the screenshot.
It says four.
We argued all year about whether to go back. Ruthie said no. Marcus said we’d let some creep scare us out of a ten-year tradition. In the end we went, all four of us, this past October. We brought bear spray and Danny’s brother-in-law’s handgun and a big lantern.
When we walked in from the pull-off with our first load, the fire ring was already cleared out. Fresh kindling stacked by the rocks.
And there was a chair set up across the fire, facing the dark. Not one of ours. An old brown canvas camp chair.
We turned around and walked back to the cars without putting anything down.
We haven’t talked about next year.
But Ruthie told me last week that she’s been writing an ending. Just in case.
For more campfire stories for adults, read the creepy geocaching story about a logbook in one handwriting, our scary bigfoot stories post about a knock in the Cascades, or a haunted house story about a disconnected phone that rang on Halloween.
What are the scary campfire stories you still tell?
Every group of friends has a story they tell around the fire. Share the scary campfire stories your crew passes down, or any Halloween campfire stories that ended with someone you didn’t invite, in the comments below.
How scary was it?
More Scary Camping Stories
Every Morning There Was a New Roasting Stick Carved With One of Our Initials
Someone Marked My Trail With Orange Ribbons While I Walked It
An Empty Tent Moved Closer to My Ranger Cabin Every Night
My Trail Cam Caught a Man Wearing My Dad’s Jacket
The Geocache Log Was Signed in One Handwriting
Something Was Watching Our Campsite All Night