In less than a week it will be Halloween! Kids and adults alike will be dressing-up to celebrate the last day of October and we couldn’t think of a more perfect way to get you into the scary mood that comes around this time of year than to share a few bone-chilling, nerve-racking, and hair-raising narratives. Below are a few short stories that we found that we thought you might enjoy!
Seeing Red
Everyone loves the first day of school, right? New year, new classes, new friends. It’s a day full of potential and hope. But I like the first day of school for a different reason.
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 based on how long that person has left 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 few 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. Every now and again I’ll see someone who is basically a walking stoplight. 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 on the first day so I can scout out my classmate’s fates. The first kid who walked in was basically radiating red. I chuckled to myself. But as people kept walking in, they all had the same intense, red 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.
The Talking Dead
I don’t want to sound mean, but the dead are pretty clueless. I’ve always seen them. When I was younger everyone thought I was just talking to imaginary friends. They just don’t understand.
See, ghosts don’t tend to realize they’re dead and they don’t look like they do in the movies; they look just like us. I’m pretty smart for a 13 year old, so I started noticing certain patterns to tell them apart from the living. They could be a bit distant from living people, or you’d see them try to talk to people who wouldn’t even notice them. Some of them could tell I was different, that I noticed them.
Like this guy I saw after school yesterday. I’m a big boy now, see. I don’t need my parents to pick me up, home is just a short walk away. He was standing away from the other parents, didn’t talk to them, just stared at me, that’s how I knew he was one of the ghosts. I went over, told him I knew what he was and asked how I could help him. I don’t remember much after that, I think because of what happened this morning. Downstairs, my parents were crying. I tried talking to them but they ignored me. They must have died last night somehow, sometimes the new ghosts won’t talk to me. Some police officers and reporters just arrived, they won’t talk to me either, just my parents. It’s weird, I’ve never seen so many ghosts together before.
Why won’t anyone talk to me?
Is It Just A Bad Dream?
A young boy is sleeping in his bed at night. He hears footsteps outside his door, and peeks out of his eyes to see what is happening. His door swings open quietly to reveal a stranger. The stranger walks into the room and writes something on the wall. He then hides in the child’s closet.
The child is scared beyond belief. He can’t read the writing on the wall and knows the man is in his closet. Like any child, he pretends that he slept through the whole thing. He lays still, thinking that it all might be a bad dream that he has not awoken from.
He opens his eyes. Everything appears normal. A few minutes pass, and his eyes are adjusting more and more to the darkness. He remembers the writing on the wall and tries to make out the words, but it’s a struggle. He gasps when he finally makes out the phrase,
“I know you’re awake.”
And just then, the closet door opens…