"What's The Creepiest Thing You've Ever Witnessed?" (20 Stories)

Now that October’s coming to a close, we are now preparing for Halloween. It’s that time of the year again when children and children-at-heart head to the streets, knock on people’s doors, and ask for candy. For some, Halloween is more enjoyable with horror stories. So for today’s Halloween season, we’re going to have some horror stories. In this Reddit thread, 20 people stepped in to retell the scariest experiences that they wouldn’t want to live again. So prepare yourself to celebrate Halloween early with these disturbing, goosebumps-inducing, and upsetting horror stories! For more creepy stories, click here! Oh, wait, what was that? It’s still September? More info: Reddit

#1

Image source: p1nktarantula, Yanal Tayyem A few years ago I was woken up by someone lightly poking me in the forehead at 5am. I woke up thinking it was my roommate, but when my eyes started to adapt to the darkness I saw a 2 meters man standing next to my bed. He immediately threw himself to the floor and covered his face. I didn’t know what to do, and I couldn’t even scream as I was completely shocked. While I was thinking of what to use as a weapon he got up and starting running out of the apartment, and for some reason I jumped out right behind him (don’t know why I did tbh) and only then I started screaming for help. He eventually made it out of the apartment and started going down the stairs, I gained some sense and realised I probably shouldn’t be following this huge, tall, unknown man and ran back to my apartment. One of my roommates was ready to go follow him, bat in hand and all but we decided it’d be better to just call the police. We never found out who he was or why he was there, and nothing was stolen or taken. Took me a long time to make it through the night calmly again and even more to feel comfortable at that apartment, specially by myself.

#2

Back when I was in 6th grade, suddenly woke up in the middle of the night and saw an old lady outside our roon looking directly at me. She does a "shh" gesture on me and proceeded to knock several times on my uncle and aunt's bedroom beside our room. After several knocks, my uncle opens the door who seems confused and looks into our room to see me lying in bed and staring wide eyed at him. After a minute of staring at each other. He goes back into his room. It was all so vivid even to this day, I'm not even sure if it was sleep paralysis or something else. Edit: Replying to your comments gives me goosebumps whenever I try to remember that "incident." Source: vartai

#3

Around 6am, sun not quite up yet, when I'm awoken by the sounds of blood curdling screaming. The most horrifying sound I have ever heard and I will never forget it. Turns out a woman was being murdered in the parking lot right by my apartment. The police showed up almost immediately but it was too late for her. She was trying to break up with her abusive boyfriend and he put a hit out on her. The hired guy stabbed her as she was getting in her car to go to work. (Ex) boyfriend put on a show for the police, crying and everything. Horrible. Source: Brittaya

#4

Image source: MoonLitCrystal, Farzad Sedaghat This is only creepy in hindsight. My (now ex) husband and I were living in a building with 9 efficiency apartments. We were the middle apartment on the 3rd floor. One day the neighbor that lived directly underneath us knocked on our door. He came in and started apologizing for being short with us several days before. (Honestly he had no need to apologize; he was not rude or anything. We got home at the same time he did and he politely told us he didn't have time to talk.) We told him it was fine and then chatted for a few more minutes. He told us how we were really nice neighbors, and we joked about the time our cat got out and wandered into his apartment, probably thinking it was our apartment. Before he left he said, "Hey listen, I'm going to be working on a project so if you hear banging and loud noises, don't get alarmed. When I'm finished with that I'm going on vacation, so you won't see me for a while." We told him that was fine and didn't think much of it. About a week later he was found dead in his apartment. The "project" he was working on was a scaffold to hang himself. Before he hung himself he paid his rent in advance, left his door unlocked, and turned his heat up to 90 degrees. He had an ex wife that he was feuding with, so we think that he wanted her to be the only one who would come looking for him and find him as a disgusting, decomposed mess. Unfortunately he didn't account for the smell. We started smelling something putrid early one morning, so I called the rental office and had them investigate. (I told them it was probably a sewer leak.) The poor maintenance man walked in on the mess. So basically the dude came up to say goodbye to us and to make sure we weren't on bad terms with him before he died. I wish we would have seen a warning sign or something so that maybe we could have gotten him some help, but we weren't close with him and there was really no way for us to have known.

#5

Image source: LthePerry02, Neil Rosenstech This actually happened last night. Me and my friend were walking home from a party, and we passed a generally abandoned campground. We heard a dog barking, which was unusual since it was one in the morning. The bark sounded weird though. It kept persisting, until we both realized what it actually was. It was a guy imitating a dog’s bark. We heard insanely aggressive crunches coming from the woods, so we booked it back to my friends house. Maybe not the creepiest thing ever, but it really freaked us out.

#6

Image source: manlikerealities, Reneé Thompson Couple of years ago I had a dream I was in an elevator, and could only press 'up'. One woman and one man were in the back of the elevator. As we ascended, the elevator began shuddering and rattling. It paused, then I heard something snap. Then it was just the sensation of falling, falling, falling. The next day, I was in a dilapidated multistory parking lot in an unknown part of town. I think my boyfriend and I were going to see a play and it was the only parking lot with empty spots left. We got into an old, rusted elevator to go down. One woman and one man were already there. As we descended, the tiny elevator shuddered and then slowly stopped and started several times. We were all looking at each other, uncertain. I couldn't take it anymore, I pressed the button for the next floor. I made my boyfriend take the stairs for the next five floors. He was furious. Didn't see the woman and man again that night.

#7

Worked in wound care. Lady came in with severe decubitus from neglect in a nursing home. Both her legs were rotted on both sides from lack of blood flow from not being turned. Put her in the whirlpool and over the next 20 minutes her legs disintegrate. All the rotted flesh comes off in chunks. When we pull her out, she basically has two skeleton legs with meat hanging off them... and maggots. The bastards opened the window in her room to deal with the smell of her rotting flesh... in August. Instead of rotating her like they should have. Source: RoninRobot

#8

Image source: MatticusPrime127 This happened a few months ago. I was driving down my street coming home after a night out, as soon as I approached my house I noticed a guy in a suit just standing across the street in the field looking at my house. I didn't want to pull into my house at that point so I just drove around my neighborhood. 10 minutes or so go by and I drive by again, he's still there and he hasn't moved. At that point I just drove around again, 5 more minutes and he's still just standing there, staring at my house. At that point I just pulled into my driveway to see what he does.... Absolutely nothing. He didn't even flinch, couple hours later he vanished. No idea who TF he was but it still creeps me out.

#9

Image source: Webfunkk, Alex Chernenko When I was barely 19 I got a second job as a bartender in a dive bar. Everyone including my boss knew I was underage but I was still encouraged to drink. One night, being too young and drunk to know better, I accepted a ride home from a coworker. I was giving him directions to my house, turn left here, straight at the light, etc. but he started ignoring me and turning right when I said left, then left when I said go straight, and I got SCARED. Luckily I carried a knife with me at the time. He insisted that he was taking me somewhere nice. I pulled out my knife and held it to his throat until he stopped the car. I got out and RAN home. Quit that place right after. Edit: yeah, I’m a girl, but this could have happened to anyone. In hindsight dude was creepy way before then, but I was super oblivious/naiive and drunk on top of it all. Years later when Tarantino’s Death Proof came out and Kurt Russell’s character turns left instead of right, it brought it all back. I don’t carry anything anymore but I definitely hold my keys in my fist if I ever feel in danger, just in case.

#10

I once escorted a church group, ages young kids through adults, on a weekend overnight outing to a camp in the Poconos. The camp was set at the confluence of two streams and was somewhat rugged. The group had lots to do - a climbing wall, boating, hiking, sports, all kinds of stuff, including a nature center and little museum. The nature center had interactive displays, fish tanks, small animals, etc, and a "touch table" - a large wooden table with sides, on which was scattered all sorts of artifacts the guests could pick up and handle. These items included deer antlers, bones, turtle shells, feathers, arrowheads and pottery, rocks, seeds and nuts, tanned hides, etc. Little kids especially loved it. All of the items were found by guests or staff while out in the camp, and returned to the nature center. I handled the items also, and I noticed one bone had a really odd shape. I am an environmental scientist by profession, and an outdoorsman and naturalist for fun, and can generally recognize what bones came from what parts of what animals. This bone was a HUMAN MANDIBLE - the lower jawbone of a person. It was severely worn smooth and had no teeth, but easily recognizable as such. It had been there for years, handled by thousands of people, and no one noticed or at least reported it. Source: psilome

#11

Image source: RS1100lb Out delivering shopping on Halloween, in Edinburgh, UK. Heard eery, loud, piercing screams come from the other end of the dark street I was on. Two little girls exactly alike, dressed as ghouls wearing makeup, came sprinting out of the darkness straight to me, both screaming. They immediately grabbed my jacket and stared up at me shouting something about a woman trying to take them away. Then from behind them out of the dark a bedraggled woman came hobbling along, pale, topless, with extremely saggy breasts and sores all over her arms, and tried to pull the two girls away from me stating they were her daughters. I asked the kids where they stayed once I'd gathered my senses and took them home, and phoned the police on this woman, who was covered in sores. She tried to take another child off somebody else so I grabbed her, and as my hand wrapped around her arm, my fingers slipped into one of her large open sores. Luckily somebody nearby let me use their sink to wash my hands. Still had to complete my shift, which was the second most annoying part of this story!

#12

Working at a supermarket when I was a teenager. Late at night not many people in the store, minimal staff. I was stacking a shelf. The cleaner had just turned up to start his shift (he started when the store closed). I watched him walk past the dairy section then saw 3 cartons of milk from different spots all fall from the shelf and spill on the floor. These were the plastic type that only really broke 50% of the time when dropped and they all broke. I said "Great start to the night mate" He replied "can't get any worse" As he bent down to pick up the first carton he clutched his chest and had a heart attack. He died that night. Source: ego2k

#13

Image source: OwnTypeOfFunny, Harrison Haines I don't find it that creepy but my friend at the time had a melt down over it. It was halloween night, I was in 4th grade I think, there was a cat that came up to me in the neighborhood we always trick or treated in. I have a huge soft spot for cats, so I pet it for a minute or two then continue on my way. The cat starts following me. Then more cats start appearing and following me. This heard of cats followed us for multiple blocks, standing a few feet back, making no noise. They don't stop following me so my friend started freaking out, called me a witch on the verge of tears, then made me call my mom to pick us up. The cats left when my mom drove up.

#14

Image source: anon, Isaac Quesada I'm a paramedic and had just put a car accident victim in a body bag with a decapitation from driving under a trucks rear trailer. Coroner gave us the Ok to load him up. He was wearing a heavy jacket and sweater so we just stuck him in the bag and began to load him. After we got underway to the morgue, I heard a noise and the guy was thrashing around in the body bad violently :O I was out of my mind. This guy had 90% of his head missing!! We pulled over and my partner who didn't see it, goes back and opens the bag while I was about to p**s myself. All of a sudden a very small chihuahua jumped out and ran up to my partner. He must have been in the guys jacket pocket or?? and been knocked out or just quiet until we got underway. Took me the rest of the shift to relax after that. 32 years in EMS and I've never had anything like that happen to me.

#15

I drove home from a night out with friends. The streets were empty, which was perfectly normal as it was past midnight in a quiet town. Turned a corner close to my house and saw an older women standing there, looking directly at me. Bit weird, but ok. Came home, got ready for bed, went to close the blinds in my bedroom and that very woman from earlier was standing there, about 6 feet from my window, starring directly at me. Spooked me a little bit. Edit: For those who call that story fake. Is it so hard to believe that a woman spotted my car from earlier, saw the lights in the house, and decided to look inside my window from the sidewalk which was about 6 feet from my window? Nosy people in a quiet town, that’s it. Source: uhmsay

#16

Image source: LittleTitLover, SHVETS production I work as a dog walker. We had a client who was an extremely rich & well known coin collector that lived alone with his dog & had a bit of an alcohol problem. Really nice guy just smelled like booze and was very disheveled every morning when we’d pick his dog up to walk her. One Monday morning I walk into his huge house and it looks like he’s asleep on the couch as he normally is, so I called his name to wake him up. I realized he’s half on his couch and in a really weird position. He wasn’t waking up so eventually I walk over to him and his eyes are wide open blood coming out of his nose and mouth and his hands are turning black and blue. Threw up on his patio and called 911. They said he’d been dead since Friday, he lived there alone and didn’t have friends or family nearby so I was the one that found him. Really really sad as he was very nice and not very old. But yeah still have nightmares of that wide open mouth and eyes with blood covering his face

#17

Ex cop from NSW Australia here. Shift started at 7am. Instantly a double beeper (Urgent job) about someone being hit by a train. Got there and the station master told me that he was about a hundred meters down the track. I said “any chance of resus?” He looked at me like I was an idiot and replied, “he has no head.” I walked up the track and saw this young kid (he was 17) with no head. I looked up further and saw his head on the side of the track. There was little blood. His neck was pretty much seared from when he laid his neck across the track to end his life. When they came to take his body they put his head in between his legs. I’ll never forget that image of this person with their head facing forward in between their legs. Looked like a cheaply made horror movie. Definitely the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen and probably contributed to me not doing that job any more. Source: NESJunkie22

#18

Image source: anon, Elina Fairytale My wife and I saw a guy jump off of a parking garage. We didn't know he was up there until he hit the ground about 30 feet in front of us. It was horrible.

#19

Went out trick-or-treating as a preteen with a few friends. We were walking down a road toward the next house when a pickup truck pulls up to us and this massive guy leans out the window and tells us he has candy for us, if we just walk up to his truck and get it. One of my friends started to do it, and we grabbed her and told her no. The guy took off as soon as he saw we weren't getting any closer. Source: CircusMasterKlaus

#20

I have an old Google Voice phone number that was only used for an apartment intercom system years ago and has never gotten anything but robo-calls since. One day I got a voicemail from an LA phone number that had nothing but a faint high-pitched voice asking “Hi. Um, do you know, where is the body?” Source: saraannb