Top 10 Scariest Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Like many stories from “Stories to Tell in the Dark”, this one is based on an urban legend. As a babysitter kicks back to watch TV, the phone rings and a mysterious caller asks her if she’s checked on the children upstairs. She eventually calls the police, who trace the call and locate the caller . . . aaand tell her to get out of the house as fast as she can! We’ve all had that creepy feeling that we’re not alone, and “The Babysitter” is a classic tale that never fails to scare. The idea has been brought to life several times in films like “Black Christmas” and “When a Stranger Calls”.

No one likes being stared at. So imagine that everyone who saw you not only stared, but screamed and ran away! In the tale “Something Was Wrong”, a man wakes up in the street with no memory of how he got there. As the title suggests, it soon becomes apparent that something is, well, terribly wrong, because everyone who sees him screams and hightails it outta there. Confused and desperate, he calls his wife, but she can’t come to the phone . . . because she’s at his funeral. It’s the ambiguity of this one that gets to us. Is the man a zombie? A ghost? Something even stranger? We’re not sure we want to know.

We all try and do good deeds when we can, but this story might make you think twice. Walking along a dark road at night, a boy comes across an old woman carrying a basket. The boy offers to carry her basket, only to discover its terrifying contents: the old woman’s severed head! Naturally the boy turns and runs, with the ghastly figure hot in pursuit. Headless spectres are a regular sight in folklore, with the Headless Horseman from Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” being just one example. But at least that one is a ghost you usually see coming!

The best scary stories have some kind of moral, and the moral of this story is fairly simple: don’t get greedy! Oh, and don’t eat dead people . . . if you needed someone to tell you that. “Just Delicious” begins with a man bringing home a tasty cut of liver for his wife to cook. After gobbling it all up herself however, she creeps out to a nearby church and steals the liver of a woman laid out for her funeral. The husband eats it, but the dead woman’s ghost comes to demand her liver back! What’s worse, when the furious husband finds out what his wife has done, he decides that maybe any liver will do . . .

Another spooky tale that’s been told around many a campfire, this story concerns a woman driving along a deserted road at night. A truck pulls up close behind her, and begins flashing its high beams. Terrified, the woman speeds up in an attempt to escape her pursuer, only to have them stick to her like glue. She eventually makes it home and calls the police, only to learn the horrible truth: the driver of the truck spotted a knife-wielding maniac in her back seat, and flashed his high beams every time the killer moved to stab her!

Curiosity killed the cat! Aaand didn’t do any favours for the boy in this story either. Late one night, a boy and his friend encounter a skeletal entity with bright, sunken eyes. The two take off, but the boy can’t leave well enough alone, and goes back for a second look. He’s chased off again, and everything seems fine . . . until one year later he becomes sick, and takes on the appearance of the skeletal monster. This tale would be creepy enough even without the illustration, which really brings the erie entity to life.

This creepy tale has been terrorizing teens for ages. It stars a couple alone in a car on a late night date. Just as they start to get busy, a news broadcast comes on the radio with a frightening announcement: a notorious killer with a hook for a hand has escaped from a nearby prison. The girl convinces her boyfriend to take them home, and they speed off. All the while, he thinks she’s overreacting . . . until they pull up in her driveway and a notice a hook, dangling from the passenger door handle, freshly ripped from the arm of the escaped killer. Now that’s a close call.

One of the most memorable tales from the “Scary Stories” series, this story is as spooky as it is strange. When a boy finds a toe sticking up out of the ground in his garden, he pulls with all his might until it pops out . . . as you do. He takes it back to his mother and father, who cut it into pieces and have it for supper. All seems well when he goes to bed. But later that night, he hears something coming closer and closer to his bedroom, wailing over and over: “where’s my big toe?” Soon enough, as he cowers under the covers, it asks again . . . from right beside his bed. We weren’t planning on eating any toes before, and we sure won’t start now!

Acne is the bane of many an teen, but turns out, there could always be a worse reason to wake up with red spots. This icky tale finds a girl with a red bump on her face, which her mother suggests is a bug bite. However, the spot gets bigger and bigger, turning from a minor annoyance into a major problem. Eventually, the spot bursts open . . . disgorging a nest of baby spider that had been laid in the poor girl’s cheek. As if the mental image wasn’t bad enough, Alvin Schwartz’s illustration is pure, undiluted nightmare fuel.

Before we shine a light on our top pick, here are some extra scary honorable mentions:

“The Wendigo”

“The Dream”

“The Drum”

“Cold as Clay”

“Sam's New Pet”

Scarecrows are supposed to frighten away pests, but they sure as heck give us the chills too. The poster child of the entire “Scary Stories” series, the title character of this iconic story has been haunting our nightmares for years. Put together by two farmers, the scarecrow served as their literal punching bag when the two were in bad spirits . . . until it began to grunt. Freaked out, the farmers decide to get outta dodge, but one returns to retrieve his forgotten milking stools. This turns out to be a huge mistake, because Harold is waiting to deliver a bloody comeuppance. You reap what you sow, after all.