Everyone who works in stores has retail horror stories about customers. Mine is about the Halloween pop-up where I worked overnight restock in 2023, and the motion-sensor props that kept going off after we locked the doors. I’ve heard a lot of scary night time stories from people who work closing shifts. This is mine. … Read more
This haunted house story is about a rotary phone that wasn’t connected to anything. It rang five times on our first Halloween in the house, and every time, the same old woman asked me the same question. I’d always rolled my eyes at scary Halloween ghost stories. Then I picked up the phone. My husband … Read more
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 … Read more
This scarecrow horror story happened on a county highway in northern Iowa on Halloween night, 2022. There was a scarecrow at every mile marker, and every one of them was facing the road. I’ve told this Halloween night story every October since, and I still can’t drive that road. I was driving home from my … Read more
Every small town Halloween story I ever heard as a kid was about our own town, and every one of them was about Walter Pell. In Halden, Vermont, every porch lights a jack-o’-lantern on October 31st so Walter can find his way home. My family was the only one that didn’t, and the town made … Read more
Most scary babysitter stories start with a phone call. Mine started with a seven-year-old in a dinosaur costume who came back from the sidewalk and asked me why the old man upstairs kept waving at her friends. Anyone who collects home alone scary stories knows the worst part is finding out you were never alone. … Read more
This stalker horror story started with the sweetest thing a stranger has ever done for me: the car ahead paid for my drive-thru coffee. Then the barista told me he’d been changing his gift to my exact order before I ever pulled up. For almost a month, somebody bought my coffee every single morning, and … Read more
This rideshare horror story comes down to one song and five pickup pins on a map. Every time he rode with me, the pin was a little closer to my house, and the last one was my front door. I retired from fixing school buses in 2024 after thirty-one years, and by the next spring … Read more
This lighthouse ghost story started with a cardboard box from an estate sale and a logbook that should have been in the National Archives. The keeper of Gannet Point was lost on Lake Superior in November 1923, but the entries in his handwriting went on for three more days. I volunteer two afternoons a week … Read more
This night shift hotel horror story starts with a wake-up call for a room nobody could be in. Room 214 was out of order and locked in the system, and every night at 3:10 a.m., something in that room still picked up the phone. I worked the night audit at a highway hotel for almost … Read more