If you haven’t heard already, Halloween is almost upon us, so the ghost-type stories are out in droves on Reddit. These are not lighthearted stories from haunted house employees who enjoy scaring the bejesus out of their willing clientele. Nope, this new thread is so dark and terrifying that I nearly printed it out and stuck it in the freezer just like Joey Tribbiani from Friends would do.
The usual tales of sleep paralysis run throughout the thread, as do tales of museum employees who say lights flash on and off without warning. Those accounts feel almost generic compared to what comes in this compilation of outstanding freaky stories. Let’s get down to it, shall we?
Nerdgirl2 keeps it simple and chilling with this tale of sleep madness:
“I dreamt I was being choked and woke up to find my own hands around my throat.”
Nexas spent a family vacation in a cottage that was full of mannequins, and this terrible thing happened. Department stores displays will never be the same again:
“Near midnightish I heard one of the stairs squeak a few times. After not hearing any noise for a few minutes I looked out from under the covers and saw three of the mannequins moving around in the kitchen. Like their body parts weren’t moving but they were sliding around the kitchen. I swore I was dreaming but was so terribly frightened I hid back under the covers with a small yelp and then heard the dragging on the floor coming closer and peaked out seeing one of them just a few feet from the couch. I hid back under the covers and shut my eyes tight hoping it would go away. The next morning I got up and tried not to think about it, really really hoping it was just a bad dream but when we went back up to the attic to put the beach stuff back the mannequins were in different spots and weren’t covered in cob webs any more….. Don’t believe me if you don’t want to but it happened and I’ve been scared sh*tless of mannequins ever since.”
GutenMorgenBaltimore‘s experience wasn’t so bad because her lost pet came back to sleep with her. Then she woke up the next day:
“One night, Buster didn’t come back in the house. My parents were being a bit hush-hush about Buster’s disappearance, but I didn’t get the hint. That night, when I was drifting off to sleep, Buster jumped onto my bed. He lay down by my head and let me pet him until I fell asleep. Honestly, I was shocked because he had never done this before. The next morning, I triumphantly walked downstairs and related to my parents that Buster now loved me because he slept in my bed during the night. My parents looked at me inquisitively and sat me down at the breakfast table to let me know that while they were outside the night before, they had found Buster’s body in the alley behind our house. He was dead, so he couldn’t have slept in my bed that night.”
Have you ever had that spine-tingling feeling someone or something is watching you? Well, MrFuxIt knows your pain:
“Hunter/mountaineer here. I hiked in, pre-dawn, taking about an hour and a half to go 3 miles off the beaten trails. Got to my “nest” about half an hour before sunrise and started to settle in. The wind kicked up and a fog rolled in that was thicker than milk. Within a few minutes, my visibility was 5′. I’m sitting tight, huddled up against the freezing wind when I start to hear twigs snapping close to me. For no apparent reason, what is normally a rapturous sound indicative of an imminently successful hunt, sent a frosty chill down my spine. I chambered a round in my lever action 30-30 as quietly as I could, and lay flat on my back tucked against a fallen tree. The rustling was moving closer through the fog, but I couldn’t see anything … [Later] I was about 100 feet away from my truck, when I rounded the last corner and saw, hanging at eye level from a tree by a noose, a stuffed bear in a blaze orange jacket. I’m a giant, broad shouldered outdoorsman, but that one shook me something fierce.”
FoieyMcfoie tells the eerie story of a jumping philosopher statue:
“I woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare. My nightmare was that I had looked out the window from my bed and seen somebody falling past. It seemed to real that I got up and looked down at the parking lot, but didn’t see anything. I laid back in bed, laying on my side, turned towards my open closet. I have a Plato statue that I was keeping at the top of my closet on a shelf. A friend had given it to me because it creeped her out. It kind of creeped me out too, hence it was in the closest. For no clear reason the statue tipped over and fell onto my concrete floor, smashing into pieces. Honestly I left it there for days, just not touching it.”
Vivian_Lake felt that special foreboding that told her to go home, and she made the right move:
“At about 2 in the morning I decided I was hungry but didn’t really have anything easy to cook so I decided to walk down to the 7 eleven and grab a pie or something. However as soon as I opened my door I was overcome by a suffocating feeling of fear, my heart started pounding, I started shaking, the works. Telling myself that this was ridiculous I walked out to the street with the intent to still go but that was as far as I got. I was terrified for no reason that I could understand, but no less intensely despite that. I ran back inside and ate dry cereal. Later the next day I heard about a group of drunk guys that were causing havoc down near the intersection at the 7 eleven, they’d beaten up someone from my uni. Even though I can’t explain it, I’m convinced something bad would have happened to me that night if I had ignored that feeling and gone anyway.”
NoCatsOnMelmac tells the most unsettling tale of the bunch. Really, this one is worth freaking out while reading:
“There was a small door that led to attic space in my bedroom (11 yrs old to 13) and it became habit that I would shut the door as I walked into my bedroom a couple times a week. I didn’t think anything of it, just assumed my mom didn’t close it all the way when she left it.
“After a while I made the mistake of joking with her when she made a comment about me not picking up after myself, I said something like ‘every night I have to close the attic door behind you, how about you shut it all the way when you’re done?’ She then informed me that she hasn’t been in the attic in months. Asked my brother… nope. Asked my father… nope. So then I started to pay really close attention to it. Making sure it was closed in the morning, checking it after school, checking blaster dinner. Then head up to bed and… open.
“After a couple months of wondering, studying, experimenting, I thought I’d see what happens if I just don’t shut it. Opened the door before school and checked it after school, still open. Checked it after dinner, still open. Before bed, still open. Now I’m laying in bed, mind going crazy with the open door across the room. Decide to check it out so I roll over and focus on the black space into the attic… to see a face staring back at me. Bolt downstairs, wake parents, get ridiculed by brother, switch bedrooms w brother, move into new house about 6 months later (due to expanding household).”
That’s not the entire tale. Believe it or not, it gets even more legendary after the house is sold, and another family takes up roost.
Then the wife leads us upstairs to show us the sewing room. I ask (jokingly), ‘Notice anything strange in this room?’ and her face goes blank. On camera, she asks what I mean and I try to shrug it off but end up saying something about the attic door. She confirmed that every time she comes up to sew, the attic door is open. She then tells us that the second day of being in the house, their dog (German Shepherd) had gone into the room but would not go back downstairs. He started barking and could not be consoled, and then jumped through the window, landing on the tin roof over the porch and then running off. The dog did not come back until the next day and has not stepped foot into the hallway that leads upstairs since.
For even more tales that were made for pants-sh*tting madness, head over to the full thread to lose your mind. (Via Reddit)
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