20+ Short Scary Halloween Stories to Haunt Your Night

Trick or treat! Happy Halloween! October is creeping closer, and you’re about to embark on a spine-tingling journey through the eerie tales that will send shivers down your spine. To help you celebrate this occasion perfectly, we have collected 20+ short scary Halloween stories that will haunt your night. 

Each story brings you to a different situation featuring its own creepy atmosphere to keep you unable to imagine and scared. Additionally, when you dip into this spooky world, you will find many interesting stories that make you and your loved ones have a hard-to-sleep night. Now, let’s explore our chilling tales and grab a story to inspire your beloved on that day. 

20+ Short Scary Halloween Stories to Thrilling to The End

Scary-thrilling Short Stories

Scary-thrilling stories are always an indispensable part of every Halloween season. And our chosen tales aren’t just your run-of-the-mill spooky stories; they’re carefully crafted to keep you on the edge of your seat. Thus, if you want to have an intimate day with your loving party or host a scary party with friends, these stories are ideal for heating up that day’s ambiance. 

1. The Accident

It was one a.m., and Guy Halverson sat in his dark living room. He hadn’t moved for over an hour. The accident earlier that evening kept playing over and over in his mind. The light turned red, but he was in a hurry and accelerated. An orange blur came from his right, and in a split second there was a violent jolt, then the bicyclist rolled across his hood and fell out of sight on the pavement. 

Horns blared angrily, and he panicked, stepping on the gas and screeching away from the chaos into the darkness, shaken and keeping an eye on his rearview mirror until he got home.

Why did you run, you idiot? He’d never committed a crime before this and punished himself by imagining years in jail, his career gone, his family gone, his future gone. Why not just go to the police right now? You can afford a lawyer. Then someone tapped on the front door and his world suddenly crumbled away beneath him. They found me. 

There was nothing he could do but answer it. Running would only make matters worse. His body trembling, he got up, went to the door, and opened it. A police officer stood under the porch light.” Mr. Halverson?” asked the grim officer. He let out a defeated sigh. “Yes. Let me —” I am terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I have some bad news. Your son’s bike was struck by a hit-and-run driver this evening. He died at the scene. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

2. Cow’s Head

Oksana lived in a small house on the edge of town with her father, her stepmother, and her stepsister. Oksana’s stepmother disliked Oksana, favoring her true daughter, Olena.

Soon after her father’s remarriage, Oksana found that all the housework fell to her while Olena idled her days away. Oksana’s father was a timid man, and could not bring himself to defy his wife. So Oksana wore Olena’s cast-off clothes, and her hands grew red and chapped from scrubbing in the cold, while Olena attended parties, growing lazy and spoiled.

One year, when the winter snows were particularly fierce, Oksana’s family ran out of money. Oksana’s stepmother began nagging her father to send Oksana away because they could not afford to keep two girls. Reluctantly, Oksana’s father agreed. He took Oksana to a cottage deep in the woods and left her there.

3. Timekeeper

He had been given the watch on his tenth birthday. It was an ordinary grey plastic wristwatch in every respect except for the fact that it was counting down. “That is all of the time you have left in the world, son. Use it wisely.” And indeed he did. As the watch ticked away, the boy, now a man, lived life to the fullest. He climbed mountains and swam oceans. He talked and laughed and lived and loved. 

The man was never afraid, for he knew exactly how much time he had left. Eventually, the watch began its final countdown. The old man stood looking over everything he had done, everything he had built. He shook hands with his old business partner, the man who had long been his friend and confidant.  His dog came and licked his hand, earning a pat on the head for its companionship.  He hugged his son, knowing that he had been a good father. He kissed his wife on the forehead one last time. The old man smiled and closed his eyes.

Then, nothing happened. The watch beeped once and turned off. The man stood standing there, very much alive. You would think that at that moment he would have been overjoyed. Instead, for the first time in his life, the man was scared.

4. He Stood Against My Window

I don’t know why I looked up, but when I did I saw him there. He stood against my window. His forehead rested against the glass, and his eyes were still and light and he smiled a lipstick-red, cartoonish grin. And he just stood there in the window.

My wife was upstairs sleeping, my son was in his crib, and I couldn’t move I froze and watched him looking past me through the glass. Oh, please no. His smile never moved, but he put a hand up and slid it down the glass, watching me. With matted hair and yellow skin and face through the window. I couldn’t do anything. I just stayed there, frozen, feet still in the bushes I was pruning, looking into my home. He stood against my window.

5. Selfies

In one of the last pictures, I am running. I am running down the street, and it is dark; the street lamps are dim, and the light oozes down sickly and yellow. I can feel my heart almost bursting in my chest, the taste of something sour and unpleasant in my mouth. I’m running as fast as I can. I have to get away.

The moon is a sickle moon. Its cheek is pockmarked with acne scars. It looks down on me; it hangs overhead like a malformed knife. They’re running behind me, and they’re gaining. They’re not even running hard. They spread out around me; they match their pace to mine, easily, without effort. They whisper my name: Ellie, Ellie. Just ahead is the rusty iron gate to the old playground.”

6. Return of the Messiah

In the year 2026, the Messiah came back down to Earth. She performed miracles and cured the sick. There was no doubt as to her authenticity. She appeared to all nations at once. All believed. All worshipped her.

Sometime later, after this period of our history known as the Age of Peace, She dropped a bombshell on us. She warned us that Heaven was almost full. Nobody had gone to Hell during this Age. There were a fixed amount of spots left. Paradise would be closed to all who died after the Gates closed.

That is when the Mass Suicides began. Taking your own life, She had told us, was not a sin if you died a pious man. The race was on!

She looked on and was pleased. She returned to her home, to her throne of fire and flames, and greeted all with a nod of her wicked horns.

7. Seeing Red (The First Day of School)

Everyone loves the first day of school, right? New year, new classes, new friends. It’s a day full of potential and hope before all the dreary depressions of reality show up to ruin all the fun. I like the first day of school for a different reason, though. You see, I have a sort of power. When I look at people, I can…sense a sort of aura around them. A colored outline is based on how long that person has to live. 

Most everyone I meet around my age is surrounded by a solid green hue, which means they have plenty of time left. A fair amount of them have a yellow-orangish tinge to their auras, which tends to mean a car crash or some other tragedy. 

Anything that takes people “before their time” as they say. The real fun is when the auras venture into the red end of the spectrum, though. Every now and again I’ll see someone who’s basically a walking stoplight. Those are the ones who get murdered or kill themselves. 

It’s such a rush to see them and know their time is numbered. With that in mind, I always get to class very early so I can scout out my classmates’ fates. The first kid who walked in was basically radiating red. I chuckled to myself. Too damn bad, bro. But as people kept walking in, they all had the same intense glow. I finally caught a glimpse of my rose-tinted reflection in the window, but I was too stunned to move. Our professor stepped in and locked the door, his aura a sickening shade of green.

8. This New Old House

We bought an old house, my boyfriend and I. He’s in charge of the “new” construction – converting the kitchen into the master bedroom for instance, while I’m on wallpaper removal duty. The previous owner papered EVERY wall and CEILING! Removing it is brutal, but oddly satisfying. 

The best feeling is getting a long peel, similar to your skin when you’re peeling from a sunburn. I don’t know about you, but I kinda make a game of peeling, on the hunt for the longest piece before it rips. Under a corner section of paper in every room is a person’s name and a date.

Curiosity got the best of me one night when I Googled one of the names and discovered the person was actually a missing person, the missing date matching the date under the wallpaper! The next day, I made a list of all the names and dates. Sure enough, each name was for a missing person with dates to match. 

We notified the police who naturally sent out the crime scene team. I overhead one tech say “Yup, it’s human.” Human? What’s human? “Ma’am, where is the material you removed from the walls already? This isn’t wallpaper you were removing.”

9. The Perfect Plan

On Monday, I came up with the perfect plan. No one even knew we were friends. On Tuesday, he stole the gun from his dad. On Wednesday, we decided to make our move during the following day’s pep rally. On Thursday, while the entire school was in the gym, we waited just outside the doors. 

I was to use the gun on whoever walked out first. Then, he would take the gun and go into the gym blasting. I walked up to Mr. Quinn the guidance counselor and shot him in the face three times. He fell back into the gym, dead. The shots were deafening. We heard screams in the auditorium. 

No one could see us yet. I handed him the gun and whispered, “Your turn.” He ran into the gym and started firing. I followed a moment after. He hadn’t hit anyone yet. Kids were scrambling and hiding. It was mayhem. I ran up behind him and tackled him. We struggled. I wrenched the gun out of his hands, turned it on him, and killed him. I closed his mouth forever. On Friday, I have anointed a hero. It was indeed the perfect plan.

10. Hell

There was no pearly gate. The only reason I knew I was in a cave was because I had just passed the entrance. The rock wall rose behind me with no ceiling in sight. I knew this was it, this was what religion talked about, what man feared. I had just entered the gate to hell. I felt the presence of the cave as if it were a living, breathing creature.

The stench of rotten flesh overwhelmed me. Then there was the voice, it came from inside and all around.

”Welcome.”” Who are you?”, I asked, trying to keep my composure.” You know”, the thing answered. I did know.” You are the devil”, I stuttered, quickly losing my composure. “Why me? I’ve lived as good as I could”.The silence took over the space as my words died out. It seemed like an hour went by before the response came.“What did you expect?” 

The voice was penetrating but patient. “I don’t know .. I never believed any of this”, I uttered “Is that why I am here?” Silence. I continued: “They say the greatest trick you ever pulled was convincing the world you don’t exist.” “No, the greatest trick I ever pulled was convincing the world that there is an alternative.” “There is no God?” I shivered. The cave trembled with the words: “I am God.”

Scary Stories for Children

Time is valuable, so you should appreciate it and create memories with your loved ones, especially your kids, as much as possible. Halloween is also a special occasion for you and your children to come together, share spooky stories, and make lasting memories. With our engaging world of short scary stories for children below, you’ll find tales that ignite their imaginations. These stories will leave kids’ minds about a dramatic Halloween celebration!

1. The Candy Man

Daniel, a poor man, worked at a local candy factory. He was also a talented artist. The factory owner hired him to paint his daughter Rose’s portrait. But Daniel and Rose fell in love, which angered Rose’s father and the town dwellers. They all tortured Daniel and beat him to death. It is believed that Daniel’s tortured soul is still lingering in this world. Legend says that if you call “Candyman” five times, Daniel’s ghost will come to haunt you.

2. Hide and Seek

This scary story is about two brothers. They were playing hide and seek while their parents were away. As the older brother was counting, the younger one was scampering around, looking for a place to hide. The older brother searched everywhere and even called out to him, but he couldn’t find his brother. 

He heard a scraping sound from the cupboard. He opened the cupboard, and there was nothing inside but eerie silence. Just when he bent down for a closer view, he felt an icy cold hand pull him inside. Just then, his brother called out to him from behind and tried to break his brother free from the grip of the icy cold hand. Both the brothers ran out of the house screaming.

3. Who is in the Bedroom?

Susan returned home late one night. She went to her bedroom, which she shared with her sister, and without switching on the lights, she asked her sister whether she was awake. Her sister replied, “ Stop the noise and go to bed.” 

Susan wanted to freshen up, so she waited outside the bathroom, which was occupied. Susan assumed that it was her father inside, but her mom said that her father was asleep. Just then, her sister walked out of the bathroom. Shocked, Susan switched on the room lights and found her sister’s bed empty. Who had answered to her then?

4. Daddy’s Home

A man and his young teenage son lived together in a small house on the outskirts of town. The lot their house sat on was large and overgrown with tall hedges blocking the house from the street.

One day, the man left on an overnight business trip but took his son’s phone charger by mistake. As a result, neither the boy nor his father could charge their phones. Both phones were fully charged at first, but the man was delayed on his way home, and by midnight on the second day, both phones were dead.

It was just after this that the boy heard a knock on the front door. He was a sensible boy and knew not to open the door to strangers. Instead, he looked out of his bedroom window, onto the drive to see who was there.

The boy saw his father’s car in the drive, but he could not see the front door from his room. He went downstairs and looked through the peephole in the door to see who was there. He could see his father on the other side of the door, looking back at him, and the boy reached up to open the door.

But something stopped him.

“Dad?” the boy called out. “Why are you knocking on the door? Did you forget your keys?”

The boy waited, but there was no reply — just another knock on the door.

5. The Cursed Doll

A young girl had a huge collection of dolls. She went to a toy store to buy a doll to add to her collection. She found the most beautiful doll and was keen to take her home. However, the shop owner told her that the doll was cursed and that she should buy another doll. But the girl insisted, and the shop owner reluctantly sold it to her. When the girl entered an elevator to go home, the doors closed behind her, but the lift didn’t move. Suddenly, the doll turned her deep, black eyes toward the girl and said, “Push the floor button, you silly girl.”

6. Cameras Don’t Lie

A teenage girl had been babysitting for the same family for a few years. The children were generally well-behaved, and she enjoyed looking after them. One day, the family called the babysitter with a special request.

“My sister and her husband died in an accident, and we have taken in their daughter,” the father said. “She is very quiet after what happened to her parents, but she is no trouble. Would you mind looking after her as well as the other children this Saturday?” The babysitter said she didn’t mind at all, and on Saturday evening, she went to the family’s house.

The children settled down in bed, and they all quickly fell asleep, except the niece. The little girl came back downstairs and asked if she could sit with the babysitter because the monster that killed her parents wouldn’t let her go to sleep.

Every now and then the little girl would run back to the babysitter, crying, and asking her to chase away the monster. To make the little girl feel better, the babysitter would pretend to chase it away.

After a while, the little girl could stay awake no longer and fell asleep on the sofa. The babysitter carried her up to bed, tucked her in, and went back downstairs.

She picked up her phone with the intention of deleting the photos the little girl had taken. But when she began to look at them, she let out a scream. In each of the selfies the little girl had taken, behind her, there was a pair of red eyes staring out of a monster’s face.

7. The Thirteenth Floor

The first hotel to have more than thirteen floors had a huge Halloween party to celebrate its opening. There were lots of people dressed up as ghosts and ghouls to frighten the partygoers. 

Jack and Sophia were two of the partygoers. When they got to the twelfth floor, Jack and Sophia heard a blood-curdling scream. As they made their way through the maze, they heard more screams and cries for help. Finally, in the lobby by the elevators, they saw blood dripping from the ceiling.

The elevator dinged, and the doors slowly opened, which was strange because every other time they used the elevator, the doors had been quick and smooth. The light in the elevator was flickering as they stepped in and, as the doors began to close, the lights went out completely.

But when people tried to use the elevator, it never came. The bell would ding, but the doors wouldn’t open, and they were all forced to use the stairs. Down in the lobby, the building owners explained they had not played the sounds of the screams. And, as they did a check of everyone who had come back, they realized Jack and Sophia had not returned.

Just then, the doors to the elevator opened. It was empty except for Jack’s watch, one of Sophia’s shoes, and a pool of blood. Jack and Sophia were never seen again, and the building owners took away the button for the thirteenth floor, so nobody would disappear there again.

8. The Monkey

Two young brothers Peter and Dennis find a clapping monkey toy in the basement of their great uncle’s home.

In the past, their father, Hal, had originally found the monkey in his father’s cupboard when he was a child. Hal’s father disappears under strange circumstances, and a weird connection between the monkey and the missing father is established. It is revealed that the monkey is cursed and whenever it claps, someone from Hal’s family dies.

As a child, Hal saw his relatives dying one after the other whenever the monkey clapped. Oppressed by the monkey’s devilish enchantment, Hal threw the clapping monkey into a deep well, which now resurfaces with his children.

When Peter and Dennis find the monkey again, Hal shoves it deep down inside a lake. He hopes the problem is solved forever. A couple of days later, a news headline mentions the mysterious death of all the fish in the lake.

9. The Landlady

A young man Billy Weaver is traveling on a cold winter night and seeks a place to stay. After searching a lot, he comes across a boarding house. He rings the bell and an old lady welcomes him inside.

He signs the guest book and gives all the required details. While filling up the guest book, he reads the names and details of other guests who previously stayed there and finds their names quite familiar.

The old lady offers some food and drinks to Billy, but he refuses as he is tired and wants to go to bed. However, they have a conversation over some tea. Billy notices some peculiar things about the living room. The parrot is sitting quietly in the cage, and a dog is lying near the fireplace.

While talking, Billy asks about the other guests and the lady starts saying strange things. She says that one of her guests, Mr. Mulholland, had nice, soft skin.

The situation gets ominous. Billy asks if the parrot is alive. The lady says neither the parrot nor the dog is alive. He panics and wants to get out immediately. He realizes that the names that appeared familiar were the names given in the newspaper about people who mysteriously disappeared. Finally, Billy asks if there have been any other guests in the last three years at the boarding house. The lady says none but him.

10. The Sleepover

One evening during a sleepover, my friends and I took turns trying to scare each other with ghost stories. It was approaching midnight and, unable to scare each other, we thought it would be fun to go to the haunted house in the dark.

We walked through the gate together and up to what remained of the door, still set in its stone doorframe. Shapes began to form in the clouds of ash and gray hands reached out from the shapes. As we turned to run, screams rose up out of the ashes. “Help us, we’re burning!” they cried.

We started to run, thinking that as soon as we were clear of the house, we would be safe. But the ash shapes and screams followed us. We piled through my front door, slamming it behind us, and ran up the stairs to my room, slamming that door tight, too. 

I opened my front door, and my mouth dropped in a silent scream. There, on the door, were two large round scorches high on the door, like someone had pounded on it with burning hands. Lower down, there were two smaller sets of handprints, as if children with burning hands had pushed against it.

Finally, near the bottom of the door was a tiny set of burnt handprints, as if the youngest little boy had tried in vain to push open the door and get help for his family.

11. The Hitchhiker

A man moved to a small town and slowly got to know a few of his new neighbors. One day, the man went to visit a friend in another town. He was enjoying his visit so much that he ended up staying later than he had planned. By the time he left for home, it was way past midnight.

It began raining, and the rain made it even more difficult to see. As a result, it was almost too late to brake when the man saw the woman on the road.

He decided to offer the woman a ride. She got into his car, took off her wet hoodie, and held her hands up to the vents to capture the warmth. When they reached town, the woman directed him to her home, thanked him for the ride, and went inside. When the man got home, he discovered she had left her hoodie in his car. He thought about driving back to her house and returning the hoodie the next day.

The next morning, he drove back to the house where he had dropped her off, walked to the door, and rang the bell. An older woman answered the door, and he handed her the hoodie. “I gave your daughter a ride home last night, and she left this in my car,” he said.

The woman began to cry. “My daughter was killed by a hit-and-run driver many years ago,” she said. “It happened on the road into town, and she was wearing a hoodie just like this one.”

12. Fear of Dead

On a dark night, a young woman was walking home from work. She had to cross a cemetery on her way. As she was nearing the cemetery, she began to tremble with fear. When she saw a man walking ahead of her, she felt relieved. She walked fast to catch up with him and asked him to walk her home. While walking, she told the man that she was terrified of dead people. The man turned to look at her and asked,” Why are you afraid of us?”

Wrapping up,

You’ve journeyed through haunted houses and braved the unknown with these 20+ short, best Halloween stories. Remember that the haunting may be over as you tuck yourself into bed, but the thrill lingers. With the memory of these tales fresh in your mind, you’ll find yourself looking over your shoulder in the darkness. 

On the other hand, those seeking horror-inspired stories for a child may be intrigued by our captivating tales, right? Halloween night may end, but the stories’ echoes will linger, so ready to haunt your dreams whenever you close your eyes right now!