Whether you’re going out trick or treating or spooking friends at home, there’s nothing like a spot of storytelling on Halloween and we have prepared a selection of dark tales to make your hair stand on end.
Part of the fun is adapting the stories as you tell them to make them seem to have happened close to your own home – or the home of a member of your audience
1. Head hunter
A family of four – two young children and their parents – were traveling on the road to [....] when their car broke down. The parents went out to look for help and left the radio on for the kids in case they got bored. By nightfall, the parents still hadn’t returned. Sat in the darkness, the children continued to listen to the radio and grew alarmed when they heard that a dangerous killer was on the loose, having escaped from a prison nearby. The newsreader warned listeners to take extreme care when going about their business.
Time passed and the children waited. The silence outside the car was absolute until, suddenly, they heard knocking on the car roof above them. “Clank, clank, clank.” The knocks grew louder and faster. “Douff, douff, douff.” Unable to bear it any longer, the children opened the car doors and fled in terror.
Only the eldest dared to turn to see the source of their fear. On top of the car was a large man, who was bouncing two objects on the top of the vehicle: the heads of the children’s parents.
2. The madman under the bed
This is the story of a young girl from [....], called Sara. As a child, Sara was afraid of the dark and got a dog to keep her company. Subsequently, she slept peacefully knowing the dog was under her bed; if she was afraid, she only had to reach out her hand, and her dog would start licking it until she fell asleep.
Years went by like this and Sara grew up and the dog became old. One night, on the radio, she heard that a dangerous murderer was thought to be in the vicinity of [....]. With her dog at her side, Sara was not afraid: she got into bed, stretched out her hand and the dog, as was its wont, began to lick her.
She slept soundly and, when she woke up, she was surprised that the dog was still licking. Looking under the bed, she screamed. The dog lay dead and the tongue that was so tirelessly licking her belonged to a man.
3. The graveyard challenge
Several teenage girls went for a sleepover at a friend’s house, taking advantage of the fact that the parents were away. When they turned out the lights, they started talking about an old man who had just been buried in a nearby cemetery. It was said that he had been buried alive and could be heard scratching at the coffin, trying to get out.
One of the girls scoffed at the idea, so the others dared her to go visit the grave right there and then. As proof that she had actually gone, she was to drive a wooden stake into the earth of the grave. The girl left and her friends lay waiting for her to return.
But the hours went by and their friend failed to materialize. They lay awake, increasingly terrified. Morning came and the girl still had not appeared. So, when the parents came back, they all went down to the cemetery. There they found the girl lying on the grave. Dead. When she had bent down to drive the stake into the ground, she had caught the hem of her skirt. Struggling to get up, she thought the buried man had grabbed her. It was concluded that she died of fright.
4. “Have you been up to check the kids?”
A teenage girl was asked to babysit for a family that lived in a huge, luxurious house. It was her first evening on the job and, after she put the children to bed upstairs, she sat down in front of the TV. But no sooner had she settled there than the phone rang. The caller was a man. Gasping and laughing menacingly, he asked, “Have been up to check the children?”
The babysitter hung up, convinced that her friends were playing a joke on her, but the man called again, and again he asked, “Have you been up to check the children?” Again, she hung up, now frightened, but the man called a third time. This time, he said, “I’ve taken care of the kids, now I’m coming for you!”
By now, the babysitter was truly terrified. She called the police and reported the calls. The police told her to try to distract the man the next time he phoned to give them time to trace the call.
As expected, the man called back. The babysitter begged him to leave her alone, thus keeping him on the line for longer. Eventually he hung up. Immediately, the phone rang again. This time, it was the police: “Leave the house fast! The calls are coming from upstairs!”
