Thank you to everyone that submitted a story for our TeenTober Scary Story Contest!
Will your story make it through? Winners will be announced the week of Halloween!
Here are the winners:
Andy B., 9th Grade
I have no memories of my uncle beyond three things. He was blind, he loved aviation, and he was always tapping on his desk. When I was younger, I assumed it was a nervous habit. I never thought it was necessary to ask why.
Years after his death, I've become a pilot in honor of him. Part of my training involves learning Morse code, a useful skill for verifying navigation aids. It's only now that I've begun to understand what my uncle really had been doing all those years.
He hadn’t been tapping nervous patterns.
He had been repeating the same words, over and over.
"DO NOT LET IT SEE ME."
Maryam T., 9th Grade
A true story…….. That’s what my great grandma told me at least. Most know the island Zanzibar in East Africa as a world class destination site. Renowned for its turquoise waters and its soft sandy beaches. But this paradise has a dark violent past. The land and the structures on Zanzibar were built off of dead bodies from war and slavery. This was my great grandma's home. She called it, “the island of jinns(ghosts)”. In my household, I was taught from the youngest age to always be indoors during sunset and sunrise. “That’s when the evil ones come to get you,” she used to tell me. She told me she lived with the jinn in her house. The island was littered with them because of all the bodies embedded in it. Jinn are not traditional ghosts, Jinn are souls who escape their bodies before they can be buried, they long for a host to possess. Some are kind, loving souls. But there were ones who were abused, ravaged souls who wanted revenge. Deprived of a long happy life, these jinns possess you so they can use your body and life to fulfill their own greedy desires.
Shirin(My great grandma),1953, on the island of ghosts…
“Oh, come on Shirin, you’re not scared, are you?” Rene teases.
“That beach is haunted and you know it. Should I remind you of the tales?” I exclaimed.
“There hasn’t been a jinn incident in a very long time. I promise we will leave before sunset.”
“Fine,” I loosened a breath. Rene made a high-pitched squeal of excitement.
“These are the days we will remember forever,” she assured me.
The day flew by quickly. We walked along the streets eating delicious mishkaki. Skewers with pieces of beef that melt in your mouth. We walked in shops filled with vibrant and flowy clothing. We went into markets with fresh coconuts and spices that stung my eyes. Finally, we made it to the beach.
“Sunset is in an hour; we should be quick,” I told Rene.
With a nod of her head, we walked along the beach chatting. The hot sand warming my toes. The ocean waves, a calming noise next to me.
“Excuse me?” a girl asks.
I turned around to see a child.
“Can you help me find my mommy? I can’t find her.”
There was something so strange about the little girl. I felt my skin prickle. Something was off.
“Rene we should go,” I said, my tone full of warning. The sun was dropping too fast for my liking. Rene opened her mouth, probably to guilt trip me into helping that poor girl, but I was faster. I pulled her arm, practically dragging her away from that strange girl.
“She needs help, I’m going to find her mother.” Then Rene turned on her heel and left. She was looking for a woman she didn’t even know. Fine. I stood right where she left me and waited. 2 minutes passed. 5 minutes passed. 10 minutes passed. My stomach filled with dread. Then a scream pierced my eardrums. I looked and saw Rene drowning in the ocean. My pulse quickened and I ran toward Rene with all my strength. Running on sand made my legs feel like lead, but I pushed. I ran into the waves, swimming toward her. I reached my arm out to…… she disappeared. My legs burned treading water as I turned toward the shore. Where did she go? Then two tiny arms wrapped around my neck. My air whooshed out of me. I couldn’t breathe. I scraped at my captor’s hands. I heard my name getting called. But the sound was so far away. Holes spotted my vision. I tried to scream for help, but no sound came out of my mouth. My limbs stopped flailing and I gave in. I was too tired. I was fully submerged underwater. And it was nice, peaceful, quiet……
A wave rolled on the shore barely missing my face; the moon looked like a big glowing orb in the sky. That was the first thing I saw when I woke up. Flashes of the beach, running for Rene, drowning, all came flooding back. I sat up. I vomited salt water out of my raw throat. My lungs felt like they had been incinerated. I gulped air down greedily. I couldn’t get enough. I could still feel the girl’s tiny hand on my throat.
“Breathe Shirin, breathe,” a breathless voice said next to me.
It was Rene. Or was it? I stood, my bones groaning in protest.
“Hey, hey, it’s me, you’re safe Shirin, they’re gone.” She stood warily and carefully wrapped her arms around me. I let her.
I collapsed into her, my legs giving out. Then a sob escaped me. I cried into her clothes as if a dam had broken inside me. She held me, crying as well.
“What happened?” Rene demanded. “I decided to go back to find you because sunset was near, but you weren’t there, that’s when I saved you in the water.”
“I heard you screaming and I went to go save you, but when I swam to grab you, you just vanished out of thin air, and when I turned around that little girl tried to drown me!” I tried to elaborate but instead, I vomited more salt water. For a moment we just stood there in silence. I hoped I would wake up from this nightmare. Then we started to walk back to our houses. “This is the worst day of my life,” I said.
“I did promise these were the days we would remember forever.” A disoriented voice said. Rene’s lips formed the words, but a different voice came out of her. That was the story I told the police when they came looking for her the next day. That was the last time I ever saw Rene again. She was right, I will remember that day forever.
Sebastian S., 10th Grade
Content Manipulation
A child sits in a weird but comforting way. Unfinished food and drink are scattered across the
floor and sofa. A television plays, the bright lights of infinite shows, ads, and movies for all
pleasures. And not one but two screens are on. The television, barely ten feet away, and a cell
phone that, over time, has become a part of the child’s hand. They reveal more free, and fast
paced almost instant content. The constant scrolling has begun to cause hearing loss. Content
fills the area. Chargers charging, media posting, eyes turning a deep red like a monster hungry
for blood. Fingers twitch like starved zombies. Ears ringing like a persistent doorbell. A calm
type of pain. A barrier forms between the child and the world; it stops eating, drinking, and even
blinking. The content seems to have gotten louder and faster. The content. Generated with
prompts from AI algorithms that care more about quantity than quality. Videos overlapping,
faces distorting, people, if you can call them that, are without a voice. They move like puppets.
The child begins to rot. Their hair follicles die. Their clothes and skin fade. Their eyesight is
distorted. They are the smell of flesh a thousand years old. The brain gets dumber and dumber. It
melts. Everything melts! The brain, the body, the face. Eyes in the nose, nose in the mouth, ears
in the neck. They are a sickening mess of human skin. It’s too late. The content has successfully
manipulated the child into nothing! No cure, no help, no saving.
Sona A., 9th Grade
The Portal
The last place anyone wants to be located on a Halloween night was a dark, dusty attic. But for Amelia, that is exactly what happened on a Halloween night.
The night had just started with costumes, candy, and laughter. Amelia took one last look in the mirror at her outfit. Smiling, she began to walk toward the door until her face fell when her mom directed her toward the stairs that led to the attic and said, "Amelia, could you please go find one of the big bins for the halloween candies?'' Her stomach dropped as she let out a huge sigh. Amelia grabbed a flashlight and began to climb up the stairs, eventually leading her face to face with an old, rusty, broken door. The door was covered with thousands of spiderwebs, scratches, and dents. Shadows danced ominously around the edges, casting strange shapes upon the door's wooden surface. The door even smelled like a nightmare. That set off a shiver down Amelia's spine.
As she opened the door, feeling cold and slimy to touch, the door creaked and groaned open, releasing a wave of cold, stale air. Dust danced in the beam of Amelia's flashlight as she walked inside. The attic looked like it had been tucked away under the ocean waves where there wasn't a single ray of sunlight. Layers of dust covered the attic ceiling. The attic was dead silent. Darkness filled in with cobwebs swaying in the breeze. Amelia's flashlight landed on the stack of boxes in the attic’s corner. Amelia stepped closer and heard a faint noise shriek out of the boxes. Something had moved. Amelia's heart pounded in her chest. Frozen, she stared when, out of nowhere, a bat darted across the room.
"Ahhh!" shrieked Amelia. Amelia was horrified by the scene. Her feet started to tremble faster than rainfall. Her teeth gritted with gushes of coldness. The bat was now following Amelia, and Amelia began sprinting toward the other end of the attic. Accidentally, Amelia bumped into a circular mirror as she was gasping for air. Amelia was startled and shocked. She stumbled back, with her eyes widening in disbelief.
The bat flew across the room again, this time bumping into the mirror. The mirror shattered into a million pieces, each fragment flying in the air in various directions. A bright, golden light that shone and glistened was revealed. The golden light started to swirl, making it look like a portal. The portal started to gain speed with its ominous energy, which was swirling like an invisible force that had started to drag Amelia closer and closer to the portal.
The portal was like a ravenous vacuum cleaner, demanding to take Amelia’s body as a whole. It felt like the room was a tornado with enormous waves of air gushing into Amelia's body, tearing into her skin, with continuous waves forcing themselves into her lungs. Desperate, she lunged and threw her weight onto a nearby wooden chair. Her knuckles turned white, fingers digging into the rough wood as the portal’s force violently yanked her lower body upward. Amelia started to breathe frantically, each breath tasting the suffocating, ancient dust, with her heart squeezed into her ribs, racing faster than lightning. Gripping tightly onto the dusty chair, Amelia squeezed her eyes shut as the numbness spread throughout her body. Amelia's feet were already submerged in the portal's freezing mouth, the pressure crushing her ankles. "Mom hel-'' but before she could finish her words, she was no longer in the attic.
Fifteen years later, the house stood empty, the neighborhood children whispering stories about the girl who had vanished into thin air on Halloween.
Susanna H., 9th Grade
Never Abandoned
A house stood at the end of a road that did not seem to welcome visitors. It was not merely abandoned, it felt as though it had been deliberately forgotten, erased from memory yet left behind as a warning. The trees surrounding it leaned inward, their branches intertwined like skeletal fingers clutching at the sky. Even the wind moved differently there, whispering through the broken shutters in a voice too deliberate to be natural. The air felt heavy, as if something unseen watched from every corner.
I had not intended to find it.
At first, it was just a wrong turn, a simple mistake on a dim unfamiliar road. My phone had lost signal, the map frozen mid route, leaving me with nothing but instinct and a growing sense of unease. The farther I drove, the quieter everything became, until even the world seemed to pull away from me.
When I saw the house, something settled over me, not fear exactly but a quiet pull, as if I had been expecting. The front door stood open, unmoving.
It creaked softly as I pushed it wider, the sound echoing through the hollow interior. The air inside was stale, carrying the faint scent of rot and something metallic. Dust covered every surface, yet the floor looked disturbed, as though something had moved there recently.
“Hello?” I called, though I expected no reply. The silence that followed felt too complete, like it was listening.
The walls were lined with photographs. A family appeared in them, a mother, a father, and a child. At first they seemed normal, even warm, but something was wrong.
In every image the child stared directly outward, not smiling, not blinking. With each picture the expression changed slightly, becoming more aware, more knowing.
A sound came from deeper inside, faint but steady, a dragging noise that felt deliberate.
I should have left, yet I moved forward. The hallway stretched too far, the walls narrowing, the ceiling lowering. The air turned cold, my breath visible.
The sound grew louder. At the end stood a closed door. I reached for it.
It was warm.
I froze, then slowly turned the handle. The room beyond was empty, holding only a chair and a photograph.
The same child appeared, but now a tall shadowed figure stood behind them. Its shape was unclear, yet undeniable.
Then I noticed the child was not looking outward.
They were looking at me.
A sharp clang echoed. I turned, but the hallway was gone, replaced by darkness that felt heavy.
The dragging sound returned, closer. I stepped back. The photograph had changed, the figure clearer, its head tilted.
The child was smiling.
A whisper filled the room.
“Stay.”
The voice was quiet but everywhere. The cold deepened. I felt something behind me.
I turned.
Nothing stood there, yet it felt wrong.
“Stay.”
The photograph fell, glass shattering. I looked down.
The chair was empty.
And in the image, standing still, was me.
The door slammed shut. Darkness pressed inward. The whisper rose into many voices.
I grabbed the handle. It would not move. The air grew heavier.
My reflection stared from the broken glass, but it moved wrong.
I stepped back, yet it stayed, its head tilting.
Then it smiled.
The whisper stopped.
Silence followed, complete and final.
In that silence, I understood.
The house had never been empty.
It had been waiting.
And now it no longer needed to.
Something shifted in the air, like a breath drawn slowly through unseen lungs. The walls seemed closer, the shadows deeper, as if the room itself was alive.
I tried to speak, but no sound came. My throat felt tight, as though the silence was pressing inside me.
The reflection in the glass did not look away. It watched me with that same unnatural calm, its smile stretching slightly wider.
I shook my head, stepping farther back, but the room did not feel any larger. Instead, it felt like I was being drawn inward, toward the chair, toward the image on the floor.
The whisper returned, softer now, almost gentle, curling through the air like a promise.
“Stay.”
My hands trembled as I reached for the door again, pulling harder, desperate now, but it would not open. The darkness beyond it seemed to push back, as if it were holding it shut.
I turned again, slowly, knowing what I would see before I looked.
The reflection was gone.
My breath caught, and for a moment I felt relief, a fragile hope that it had ended.
Then something moved behind me.
I did not turn right away. I could feel it there, close, closer than anything should be, its presence heavy and patient.
Slowly, I looked over my shoulder.
The room was empty.
But the chair was no longer empty.
Someone sat there.
Or something.
Its shape was wrong, shifting slightly, like it could not decide what it was meant to be.
And then it leaned forward.
I stumbled back, my heel striking the wall. There was nowhere left to go.
The whisper came one last time, clear and certain.
“Stay.”
The thing in the chair rose slowly, its movement careful, almost gentle.
It stepped toward me.
And in its face, I saw my own.
The world seemed to fold inward, the walls dissolving into darkness, the air vanishing from my lungs.
I tried to move, but I could not.
The last thing I felt was that smile, not seen but known, settling over everything.
And then there was nothing.
Nothing except the house, standing at the end of the road, waiting once again in silence, ready for whoever might find it next.
The door would open again someday, just enough to invite another step inside. The photographs would shift once more, changing quietly, patiently, recording each new face that lingered too long within those walls. And the whisper would always return, soft and certain, calling out the same single word again and again.
“Stay.”
It never truly lets go.