spooky scary short stories

One such story is 'The Haunted Mirror'. A girl bought an old mirror at a thrift store. Every night, she would see a faint figure in the mirror that seemed to be getting closer. One day, she noticed scratch marks on the mirror from the inside. Terrified, she threw the mirror out, but that night, she saw the figure standing at the foot of her bed.

One spooky short story is 'The Tell - Tale Heart' by Edgar Allan Poe. It's about a narrator who is driven mad by the old man's vulture - like eye and ends up murdering him. Another is 'The Monkey's Paw'. In this story, a family is granted three wishes by a mummified monkey's paw, but each wish comes with a horrible and unforeseen consequence. Then there's 'The Lottery' which has a very disturbing ending. It takes place in a small town where an annual lottery is held, but the winner of the lottery doesn't receive a pleasant prize at all.

Algernon Blackwood is an important author of spooky short stories. His works often deal with the supernatural and the occult. His story 'The Willows' is quite spooky. Saki (H. H. Munro) also wrote some spooky short stories. His stories usually have a touch of dark humor along with the spookiness. Bram Stoker, although famous for 'Dracula', also wrote some short and spooky works.

Sure. 'The Lottery' is a very spooky short story. In a seemingly ordinary village, there is an annual lottery. However, the 'prize' is not what one would expect. It turns out to be a human sacrifice. It's a chilling look at blind tradition. Also, 'The Masque of the Red Death' by Poe. It's set during a plague and features a prince who tries to escape death by locking himself and his courtiers in an abbey. But death, in the form of a mysterious figure, still finds them.

The atmosphere. They set a really creepy atmosphere right from the start. It makes you feel like you're in the middle of the horror they're describing.

One story could be about a scary clown that haunts an old, abandoned carnival on Halloween night. A group of kids dared to enter the carnival grounds, and they saw the clown's shadow lurking around the rusty Ferris wheel. Every time they turned a corner, they heard the jingle of his bells getting closer, until they finally ran out in sheer terror.

One scary sleepover story could be about a haunted doll. A group of friends at a sleepover found an old doll in the attic. During the night, they heard strange giggling coming from the doll. When they looked at it, its eyes seemed to follow them around the room. They were so scared that they locked the doll in a closet, but the giggling continued until morning.

One spooky story is about the old abandoned house on the hill. People say that at midnight, you can see a strange figure in the window. It's a woman in a white dress, and she seems to be looking for something. Some say she was a bride who died on her wedding day and is still searching for her lost groom.

There is a legend about a forest. If you enter it alone at night, a pair of glowing eyes will follow you. One man, who didn't believe in such things, walked into the forest one evening. He soon noticed the eyes. They were getting closer. He started to run, but the eyes kept up with him. When he finally reached the edge of the forest, he looked back and saw a large, shadowy wolf - like creature. It just stared at him and then disappeared into the darkness of the forest.

One characteristic is the ability to create suspense. Take 'The Pit and the Pendulum'. The narrator is in a terrifying situation, facing a swinging pendulum that is slowly descending to cut him in half. The story builds tension by making the reader wonder if he will escape. Another is the use of vivid and disturbing imagery. In 'The Call of Cthulhu', the descriptions of the monstrous Cthulhu and the cult that worships it are really spooky. Also, unexpected twists are important. In many horror short stories, just when you think you know what's going to happen, something completely different occurs.