6 Halloween Stories to Haunt Your Dreams

As autumn’s chill settles in and the days grow shorter in favour of ominously dark evenings, we are often possessed with a demented desire to be terrified. Decaying leaves gnaw at our feet, mists hang in the canopies of naked, skeletal trees, and disturbing phenomena begin appearing everywhere as we imagine ghost stories come to life. It’s horrifying. It’s twisted. And it’s terribly alluring.

This year, revisit the classic Halloween scary stories that inspire autumn’s looming atmosphere of fright. Turn the lights out and let the spirits of the season guide you into the eerie arms of the dark.

They thought it would be fun to spend the night in the old abandoned house. They didn’t believe in ghosts anyway.

Suddenly the sun was shrouded by clouds and the temperature dropped 20 degrees. The birds stopped singing. The wind stood still. The only sound I could hear was my own shivering. I looked around realizing that I didn’t recognize anything. I was lost. A twig snapped behind me and I spun around only to see nobody there. Standing motionless and petrified, I saw a small breath of fog out of the corner of my eye and felt an icy breath on the back of my neck.

That’s when I saw it. An arm, just from the elbow down to the hands did a half circle on the ground and disappeared under the bed. I walked around to the other side, bent down, and lifted the bed sheets to discover that no one was there. At that instant, I froze, every hair standing on end, paralyzed with fear. As I turned to run, I felt the bony fingers wrap around my ankle.

I still haven’t seen a single soul. It’s been weeks. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Last time, it was a very bad thing. It’s getting dark. I should go to the basement and start locking up. None of the light switches are working. Where are my keys? Wait. What’s that sound? Somebody’s inside.

It slowly lifted its arm with a thumb pointing upward. I tried to focus on the road and pretend I didn’t see it. There was something horrible about its eyes. Were they glowing? Ten miles later, I was still terrified, so I pulled over at an old gas station to catch my breath and slow my heartbeat. I turned off the ignition just for a second and heard a low, deep, voice behind me say, “You never look them in the eyes.”

Then something grabbed me. My wrist was being pulled further down into the darkness. Underwater, the face was only centimetres away from mine. Screaming and writhing around, I tried to release myself from its grasp as I saw it open its mouth in a horrible grimace.