22 Scary Stories You Shouldn’t Read If You Have A Weak Stomach

My friend used to sleep with his window open. One day he woke up to a man staring at him from the window.

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These scary stories from Ask Reddit will keep you up all night.

1. I was at my uncle’s house in some countryside with my sister and we were playing hide and seek. My uncle went out to buy some food for us. I was hiding downstairs in this weird closet/attic thing I found. I heard a little banging noise and got a little spooked. I then chalked it up to a little rat or something and continued to hide. I then heard a snore and a groan. I immediately got out and ran to my sister. We both sat at the door together, crying, until my uncle got home. My uncle just laughed it off and we were relieved.

A decade later, an old man’s dead body was found when my uncle tried to sell the house. It was revealed he was squatting there for almost a decade and he had written in a notebook how he was going to kill my uncle and keep the home for himself, and I think that would’ve happened if he didn’t die.

2. I lived in this townhouse and one day we woke up to letters carved into the hall closet door. I got blamed for it (being the only kid who could reach) and thought there was a ghost for the longest time.

3. My friend got into a bad car accident and hit his face on the windshield.

He then started filming and noticed that literally half of his face could be peeled off. It was a very clean cut, just half of the skin hanging there. It wasn’t separated though and he got a lot of stitches and recovered completely.

During traumatic situations you often don’t feel any pain.

4. I lived next door to Ward Weaver in Oregon City during the time he killed two teen girls. During the time these girls went missing, I began to notice a smell of something rotten.

Important note, right up the road from us is a chicken processing plant. I was well aware what rotting chicken smells like… this wasn’t chicken.

Naturally with everything occurring and them not having found the girls, I called the cops and reported the smell. They told me it was the plant down the road and hung up.

2 weeks later, Ward Weaver is arrested and they find a concrete slab. Underneath that slab are two oil drum barrels.

The girls were inside. The smell I experienced was rotting human flesh. I will never forget that smell.

5. Friend of mine had recurring vivid hauntings growing up. He would often get the feeling of a cold clawed hand grabbing his legs while sleeping. Wake up from a nightmare with scratches over his body. See a well dressed lady wondering around his house. He moved around a lot growing up, and after each move he would have a few months of relief before the lady returned and the hauntings continued. He left for college and the hauntings stopped. Fast forward a few years and he went to visit his sister in a totally different part of the country. As he stepped foot in the house, he instantly felt a cold come over him. He froze. Looked at his sister and asked, “She’s here, isn’t she?” Sister nodded. She said her daughters had been experiencing the same things he had when he was younger.

6. I was heading home from my mom’s and was at a light next to a gas station when the person next to me told me there was something wrong with my tire. I pulled into the gas station and when I saw the person follow me in, I felt something off, so I didn’t get out. Instead I called my mom on my cellphone and when the guy pulled next to me, I gave him a thumbs up through the windshield. I then drove back to my mom’s (which I had just left and was only a few minutes away). I get there, get out, we look at my tires and they are just fine.

7. We had snow unexpectedly a week ago. Went to bed like usual with my husbands alarm set a few minutes early so he could account for ice. Woke up and noticed shoe prints on our deck, facing the sounding door to our bedroom. We’re currently remodeling so there’s no curtain or anything there. Apparently, someone just watched us sleep for a bit. The slider and French doors on the same deck were both unlocked, but we have 2 dogs (that didn’t even bark) so I’m not sure if they just didn’t try to get in or didn’t have the guts to do it.

We now have camera all around our house and curtains on order.

8. I knew a guy who was an archaeologist who worked with Native American sites. One year there was a lot of rain and after a mudslide, one of the other people working with him was driving along and saw a skull lying in the middle of the road. Apparently the rain washed out an old burial ground, and since grave-digging is illegal (even if the “grave” isn’t really buried anymore) they just had to bury the remains somewhere nearby. They consulted with the tribes whose ancestors had lived in that area, but none of them knew of any burial ground nearby (not surprising, since it was probably from hundreds or thousands of years ago), so they just kind of had to guess.

9. When I was about 3 or 4, my parents were building a big house and the lead contractor was always extra friendly to me. My parents were always a little bit… hands-off so I somehow ended up alone with the lead contractor in a half-finished house. I vaguely remember him and honestly don’t know how long I was alone with him. My family always refused to say.

Long story short, my mom caught him right as he was loading me into his truck and snatched me up while screaming at him, all while he’s insisting he “just wanted to buy your daughter candy at the store!”

They never reported him. I still can’t understand why.

10. My friend used to sleep with his window open. One day he woke up to a man staring at him from the window. He quickly ran away once he realized he had woken up. Never slept with the window open again.

11. When my cousin was a teenager (maybe 18 or 19) she and her friends went out to party a lot. In my country you can legally start drinking at 16/18, so most teenagers start going to clubs at 16. Back then, hitch hiking was still pretty common and most teenagers did it to get home or to the city, since only very few had cars of their own.

So my cousin and her friend want to go home after a night out and get picked up by a middle aged guy. He’s nice enough and they make small talk while they drive. Suddenly, he takes a turn onto a remote road leading into the woods. He locks the car from the inside and his friendly facade falls, instead he’s suddenly tense, quiet and determined.

My cousin’s friend started crying quietly, but my cousin stays calm and starts talking to the man. She tells him about her family, her mom and dad, her brother and sister and asks if he also has a family. When he tells her that he has a wife and two children, she asks for their names and how old they are, which school they go to, what their hobbies are, all while he drives them deeper into the woods.

It must’ve triggered something, because after talking with him for a couple of minutes, he stops he car and breaks down. He starts crying and tells them that things aren’t going well at home, that his marriage is pretty bad and he fears he’ll lose his kids. My cousin comforts him during his break down and lets him spill his heart out. Eventually, he starts the car again, turns around and drives them home, saying he’s sorry.

They get out once they reach the street my cousin lived on and when he drives off, my cousin sees him put a knife on the passenger seat that he had kept hidden next to him. They never hitchhiked again.

12. My neighbor had a guy run up on their porch breathing hard at around 11:00 at night. He was saying let me use your phone over and over. We live out in the middle of nowhere and he wasn’t in a car. Kinda creepy.

13. When I was twelve, my family and I went to Sam’s Club. Being a little asshole, I decided that I didn’t want to walk with my family, so I wandered around looking at clothes and books.

An employee kept watching me. Like staring really bad. I figured he thought I was going to steal, so I smiled at him so he knew I wasn’t Bad™. He smiled back. He kept checking me out though, and asked me how old I was. We talked about my favorite books and video games. I remember being uncomfortable but couldn’t figure out why, because he was super nice to me.

I remember wondering if he was flirting with me, but reasoned that he couldn’t be, because I’m a boy. Really weird conclusion to come to, but I was twelve. I genuinely thought he was just interested in my favorite video games.

The conversation died down and I decided I needed to piss, so I went into the bathroom. Less than ten seconds later and the restroom door opens. The guy stands in front of my stall, even though there were empty ones. I recognized the guy’s shoes as the employee’s. I stand there for a couple minutes, done pissing, but really confused and kind of scared. I thought he followed me because he thought I was stealing.

Then the guy held a camera over the stall door and took a picture of me. Like real quick, one or two pictures of me just fucking standing there looking up at the camera. My dick wasn’t out or anything. Just me. In the bathroom. Someone else came in and he immediately went to the sink and started washing his hands like he’d just finished using the bathroom. Then he left.

It was really creepy. I didn’t tell my mom anything except that “the Sam’s Club guy thinks I’m stealing”. And she laughed. I realized waaaay later that he was a pedophile.

14. My neighbor had a stalker. The man would sit in the car and watch her, hide in bushes. It was awful for her. We called the cops on him several times.

15. When I was a child in New Hampshire I went exploring by myself and got lost in the woods. I was not worried about it in the least, and was just walking around. All of a sudden, I noticed someone standing about 25 feet away from me, and he was just standing perfectly still facing me. He was all bundled up in a bunch of shirts and jackets… one over the other over the other, and his face was completely hidden by what looked like dirty rags. He was wearing big flat lensed goggle. He just stood there staring at me. I stared back for a few seconds and then turned and ran. Maybe 30 minutes later I managed to find my way back to the edge of the lake, and was able to get back to where we were staying.

16. I’m a biologist that often has to do field work surveying unmaintained private properties in the middle of nowhere.

Long story short, we find a body face-up in a stream deep in a thickly wooded wetland. The body looked several months old, at least. No clothes, no tools, no shelter, nothing nearby to suggest who he is or how he got there. We couldn’t even tell race or gender from what we saw.

We call the police and they immediately tell us it’s probably the missing person who ditched his car nearby. They apparently searched for weeks with dogs, horses, and ATVs but didn’t find any sign of the guy. All they found was his family car loaded with cash and a handgun. They also tell us he seemed to be running from someone or something, real or imagined they weren’t sure. Apparently the man didn’t even close his car door – just ditched it at a rail crossing and took off running into the woods in a tremendous hurry.

I find his clothes about 30 yards up the stream bank from where the body was found. His pants were neatly folded and placed on top of his nice brown loafers, underpants and socks on top of those. He placed his glasses atop his socks, very orderly and in a nice pile. His shirt and undershirt were hanging from a tree branch right above those as if to dry.

I mean, the whole thing creeps me out even a year on. But what unsettles me is the fact that he ran from his family, drove several hours from his home, ditched his car, and fought a mile through briars and thick woods only to stop and carefully fold and hang his clothes before meeting his end.

I look him up every now and then and still can’t find any more info about what happened or why.

17. This happened about three years ago or so. I was sitting in the kitchen, and it was around 10pm or so. I heard a really loud “thump” in the basement.

I live alone with two dogs so any sound is somewhat frightening to me.

So, as I’m walking down the stairs to the, basement, I hear the thumping again, in an oddly rhythmic pattern. I creak open the door into the basement bedroom, and I see my dog is just ramming his head and body into the wall, over and over.

I cant explain to you how shockingly unnatural looking it was. It looked like… he was controlled or something. I called him over, and he stopped and came upstairs with me.

Three hours later, I hear the thumping again. I get out of bed again, However, when I went down to check it, it was my OTHER dog that was ramming his head into the wall.

It was like he was possessed. Scared the cheese out of me.

Since then, nothing like that has happened, but what an unexplainable event…

18. I worked with a girl who casually told the story of someone almost kidnapping her little sister.

One day she walked outside to tell her 6-year-old sister to come inside, and her sister was climbing into the open door of a car at the end of the driveway. My coworker screamed and the car drove off without the sister.

19. Happened not to long ago my dad has this habit that when comes home he likes to scare me by pulling my toes it’s annoying but whatever one night I was half asleep and I didn’t feel him open the door or come up the stairs but I still felt a hard yank and so I did my usual deja de joder and tell him to go to sleep but when I look up and see no one standing the I freak the fuck out open my door ask my bro if my dad is here and he tells me no he still hasn’t gotten home that’s one sleepless night I’ll definitely remember

20. I was playing World of Warcraft back in high school with my buddies brother, who was home alone on New Year’s (his parents were like 3 minutes away in a different neighborhood)

Anyways, he’s my buddies middle school brother, I think he was 13 or 14 at the time, and we are in a Voice Chat, just bullshitting away.

And then he mentioned seeing someone outside of his bedroom window in his yard, he was genuinely freaked out by whatever he saw, and me being like 16 or 17, just laughed at him for being paranoid.

Well, we continue playing, and all of sudden he’s like, “HOLY SHIT SOMEONES BREAKING INTO MY HOUSE,” and then I tell him to hide, so he takes “me” with him under his bed, and is telling me to call his mom and tell her.

Now, as his buddy, and his brothers buddy, I know they both have a dark fucked up sense of humor, and at first I was playing along, thinking he’s just trying to fuck with me, but when he told me to call his mom, it clicked with me that he’s probably not playing a joke on me, so I call her and urgently tell her what’s happening, and within minutes his mom’s entire New Years Eve party showed up at his house, ready to beat some ass, but all they found was a busted up front door and cops already on the road.

Apparently someone was breaking into houses on his street, and his was next, but the cops showed up and scared him off (probably) as he was busting down the front door.

I always felt like that moment changed how I listen to people, because you never know when that one moment isn’t a joke, I kinda take people a little more seriously now, like I remember starting to get scared with him as he was hiding, but still didn’t believe it was actually happening.

21. I was eleven and my brother was four. It was late at night and we were alone. My mother and step father were out, along with my little sister. Since we were not his children, we rarely got to go out with them.

I was watching t.v. and my brother had fallen asleep next to me on the couch. From the couch you could see a large window with sheer curtains. Outside of that window was a parking area. I realized there was a man at the window. He just stood there looking in. This was before cell phones, so I couldn’t call my mom. I tried calling my aunt, but she lived in another town and I think she thought I was imagining things. I tried calling the police and they said they’d send someone, but they didn’t seem to be taking me seriously either.

The man started to try to get the window open. I was paralyzed with fear. At some point I realized I was shaking and this snapped me out of my panic. I tried to shake my brother awake, telling him there was someone trying to break in, but he was so deeply asleep that I could not rouse him.

By this time I was near tears and shaking so badly. I couldn’t leave my brother there and the man was still trying to get in. As I’m trying to lift/drag him, I hear the front door coming open. It was my family returning!

It turns out that they had walked right by the man. He was leaning against a car. He greeted them and asked if they had a lighter for his cigarette. My mom later remarked on how friendly he seemed. I definitely feel like someone was watching out for me and my brother that day. Minutes later and the man would have likely been in the house.

22. My buddy’s sister hiked a section of the Appalachian trail by her self. When she got home she got 5 rolls of film developed. There were pictures of her sleeping on several of them. Thought Catalog Logo Mark


About the author

January Nelson

January Nelson

January Nelson is a writer, editor, and dreamer. She writes about astrology, games, love, relationships, and entertainment. January graduated with an English and Literature degree from Columbia University.