Story 1

The Ghost Trapped Inside the Doll

When I was a little girl my mom used to buy me a lot of dolls. I had lots of Barbies and baby dolls piled up in my room. Most of them I didn’t care about, but the really pretty ones I kept high up on a shelf where my little sister couldn’t reach them. All but one of these dolls were Barbie Dolls. They had pretty dresses and the gorgeous untouched hair. The other doll was just a simple Hawaiin doll you get at one of those gift shops when leaving the Islands. It was on the shelf because it was special to me and beautiful in its own way.

The summer before all of this happened we went to Hawaii to visit my grandmother. She lived there all of her life and although not actually Hawaiin, she refused to move to the mainland. She was terribly afraid of water and airplanes which kept her pretty much inside her beautiful home. She stayed home so much she developed agoraphobia. That means she was afraid to go places because she might panic plus, she couldn’t drive. Because of this she hired a woman and her daughter to help with the shopping and the chores.

The woman was really nice and always offered to bring us places to see the island because Grandmother couldn’t. When she did, her daughter would stay home and help my grandmother. At first, I thought this was just something normal but then Akela started getting really mean and not helping us at all especially after her mom brought me to the gift shop and bought me this little Hawaiin doll in a grass skirt. I would play with it every day except some days it was missing but always put back the way I had left it. I figured Akela was just playing with it when I wasn’t and I didn’t care. Then one day I realized one day that Akela was chanting something in Hawaiin that sounded kind of mean. She was sitting in the corner cross-legged with her eyes rolled back in her head and when I tapped her on the shoulder she wouldn’t move and kept on chanting.

Just then her mother stormed into the room and grabbed Akela by the arm and pulled her away. The girl dropped the doll and went limp in her mother’s arms. As the mother screamed, my grandmother called the police. About 20 minutes later the police arrived with the paramedics who said Akela was in some kind of a coma. They put her in the hospital and I never saw her again. Her mom was always apologetic about what happened until one day when she was cleaning my room and I heard her scream. I ran into the room and she was pointing at the Hawaiin doll and screaming Akela. That night she quit and didn’t come back.

About a week later we were leaving to go home when I started packing my things up. I hadn’t looked at my dolls all week because mom and I were visiting the sights around the island alone so I didn’t even notice but when I looked, all of my dolls but one were knocked over. The Hawaiin doll stood there looking over my dolls and I swear it was smiling at first. Their legs were chewed into pieces and their arms and heads were torn off. I started screaming for my mom and grandmother. They passed it off as probably just some island rat getting in through the open window but the door on the shelf was closed. Did the rat open the door and shut it again?

When we were on the plane there was a huge bit of commotion in the luggage area. and later we found out that some of the equipment had been chewed into. I couldn’t tell what they were talking about exactly, but they said it looked like mini human teeth had been biting into cables but the cables were too strong. They figured that maybe it was a baby rat because it only gnawed and fortunately didn’t cause any dangerous damage. I know it was her! She wanted to wreck the plane because she hates me so much.

On the way home, we stopped to get gas and I stuffed her in a garbage can at the gas station. She must have crawled out because the attendant came running after me and told me that my doll had fallen out of my pocket. I threw her away again and then noticed her in the back of the car when we got home. Then I stuffed her inside a plastic bin in my room and shoved it into the closet. Maybe the doll would die of suffocation or whatever. But no. Every single night for a month I heard scratching and laughing from inside my closet until I couldn’t take it any longer. I grabbed the dumb doll and flipped on the garbage disposal. It made some kind of scream as its black hair got caught in the blades and was sucked into the hole but somehow the disposal jammed. I pulled her out, her head half gone and then everything was normal. I was able to just toss her away until the garbage man came.

I think something escaped from the doll when the head was torn apart by the garbage disposal though. Now things are going missing around the house and at night my dolls all get knocked over. I’ve started to hear scratching noises from under my bed, too. I don’t know if I  can take this. What should I do?

Story 2

The Ghost in the Trees

We all laugh about the jokes online. One of my favorites used to be the joke about getting buried and turned into a tree and then someone says “that’s how you get a haunted forest.” I used to think that was really funny until I remember about when we moved into the woods in a cabin for the summer. My dad is a writer for a newspaper and the column he writes is pretty basic. His boss let him use the cabin for the whole summer so he could write a book while he did his daily column.

At first, it was a lot of fun. There is a stream that flows into a lake nearby. I was catching minnows and pollywogs while mom cooked and dad worked. Mom would come outside sometimes and sit with me, but most of the time she had to stay in the cabin due to her skin reaction to the sun. I don’t even remember what her disease was called, but the medication she took for it made her burn real easily. Because of this, most days I just sat outside on my own playing in the stream or under the trees.

The first two months were fun. Then, in August it started to get really hot with a lot of wind. There were lots of thunderstorms when the cold air would blow in. On those days it would hail and I’d have to stay inside then once the storm went away, I’d go right back out to play. This time, however, the wind was really weird. It seemed to call out my name as I listened. The sound would bounce from tree to tree sounding different each time it would hit the leaves. Then the whisper would linger in the wind. Sometimes the branches would blow so hard they would touch my shoulder or cheek and seem to beckon to me. “Come with us,” I would hear the breeze whisper.

I followed the sound until it stopped at a tree that was shorter than all of the others. On the tree someone carved in JOHN LUCERNE
born 1965 died 1975

Suddenly, I felt really sad for whoever John Lucerne was. He was only 10, about my age, when he died. I felt so bad that I began to weep. When I looked back at John’s tree, the wind was blowing to the east and pointing the branches to another tree. “Over there…” the wind seemed to whisper in the rustling leaves.

I looked for an inscription on this other tree but didn’t see anything at eye level. As the sky crackled above me with another thunderstorm coming in, I looked up.
CINDY LUCERNE
born 1963 died 1973

Again, only ten years old! The sorrow I suddenly felt for both was painful. I felt I could barely move my leg while dragging my feet to the next tree.
RONNIE LUCERNE
born 1960 died 1970

“No!” I cried out, feeling the pain each one felt. I could feel the hands of a large man upon my neck as I choked and choked. I heard the lightning crack again and then the unmistakable sound of a tree splintering down the middle. The tree thudded on the ground and sent leaves everywhere around me. I looked and it was John Lucerne’s tree. Soon, I was in kind of a trance while being not really asleep or awake. A man and woman were stuffing a boy, a dead boy, around my age into the ground then planting a tree over him. It was the same man who was choking the boy earlier.

“You killed him!” I screamed out and both looked over at me. Their faces became distorted like demons as they came closer. Sharp teeth hid behind thin lips and their eyes were as black as night. Those eyes have haunted me for decades now but the thing is, as the rain started to fall on my face I heard my mom and dad come out running. They were yelling for me. Dad scooped me up in his arms and away from the fallen tree.

“The trees. They’re graves,” I said, crying. Dad didn’t believe me. Mom didn’t see any of the markers I told her about.

The rest of the summer I stayed inside until the day before we were supposed to leave. My dad’s boss came out to pick up the key and pulled out the chainsaw to cut up the tree. He chuckled a little when I told him the story and said, “Those kids aren’t buried out in the trees, son. They found them right under this house before I bought it.”

That was the last time we ever stayed in the old cabin.

STORY 3

Witches Fingers

Every night in the Fall when I look outside I am reminded of the night the woman abducted me. I was very young and I don’t remember much, but I do remember how her fingers looked and that she was a witch–a dark witch. I know a bit about witches because I know she had claimed to be one so I studied up on it. There are all kinds of witches. There are ones who practice their craft through nature or even through God. This woman was not of either kind. She was a very dark personality.

I was about 6 when she took me. It was back in the 60s so I’m fairly old now. Well, what some of you consider old. I don’t feel old (yet!) Back then people were free but the trade-off was that a lot of kids would go missing and it was harder to find them. People weren’t as evil though. Now there is something about people that makes me wish for the 60s again. Even with the lack of technology I felt safer from people and those in power. It was good. And it wasn’t technology that found me, it was good, old fashioned police work!

My parents were camping out at a concert. They were hippies. Supposedly there were a lot of drugs, drinking, and other adult entertainment going on. I was too young for any of it. They left me in our family tent with a bunch of toys like blocks and stuffed animals. We didn’t have tablets or portable TVs to keep the kids entertained yet. I remember they zipped up the tent and went off. It got really quiet nearby. I could hear their concert off in the distance but nothing else. Even the frogs and crickets were quiet. It didn’t matter to me then, but I remember now. I don’t remember a lot of my childhood but this I do.

So I’m in there talking to my animals and pretending they’re talking back to me when my tent gets unzipped. Thinking it was either mom or dad, I dropped into my sleeping bag to pretend I’m asleep. The person picks me up and carries me off. Now, I’m still thinking that this is mom or dad carrying me, but the aroma of jasmine is all around. Then I’m put down on to something hard like a table and I hear humming and I don’t recognize any of the voices. I open my eyes and all I see is a bush with pretty white flowers all around. It was really pretty except for the parts where you could see through the leaves. The branches looked like bony old fingers.  Back then I didn’t know that dead people could take on a dark color like that but now I think back and they really did look like a dried up pile of dead fingers.

A woman with long black hair and a cloak sees me awake and comes over to my table. “Ah, our little sacrifice is awake. How sweet,” she laughed and fed me something really sweet. Whatever it was, it made me really tired but didn’t put me to sleep. Probably some kind of drug. I’m watching her through drugged vision when she holds up a knife and pierces her finger with it then makes some kind of weird chant. A group of other women in cloaks come over and begin chanting the same as they’re moving their hands up and down. Of course, I’m just a little kid and I’ve never seen a scary movie so I have no clue what is going on. Mom and Dad had some really weird friends at the time and I thought it was just them doing their thing.

While they’re dancing around they bring out a goat and brutally kill it in front of me. It was then I started crying. Instead of trying to comfort me, the first woman came over and laughed. She said something about her father appreciating the sacrifices tonight then held the knife over my stomach. By then I’m screaming and I can barely see around me the tears are so thick. The other women start crowding around in a circle all chanting with her but before she could bring the knife down on me someone, I think it was a cop, tackles her and sends her flying. The others ran away and I’m left there on the stone slab.

They brought me to the hospital while the cops looked for my parents who got into a lot of trouble just leaving me alone while they went off and got high on whatever. I was put with a foster family and the woman in the foster looked like the woman who wanted to kill me. She even sounded like her, but she never laid a hand on time. Outside my bedroom window were bushes of jasmine with bony finger branches curling around like they’d grab me. She died a few years later and I went to a new home.

Now, whenever I try to fall asleep I stare at the bony fingers outside my window and sometimes when the wind blows I can hear her calling my name.

STORY 4

Haunted Caves

When my brother and I were 16 and 9 years old we went camping. We went camping every year, but this year was lit. Normally it was my whole family together with mom, dad, and our two sisters but that year only dad took us as our sisters had some dance rehearsal. That was fine with me. I didn’t want them around anyway. Ever since they hit puberty everything to them was gross and disgusting. Plus, all they ever talked about were boys. It would be nice to get away from them for a few days.

Normally we took the RV but dad said since it was just us guys that we would be roughing it, eating off the land, fishing, and drinking spring water. He did take extra supplies in a cooler just in case. I remember the first night we went out to the lake and fished from the dock. I caught my first fish ever. I was so excited! We ate it that night, too along with some potatoes dad had brought. There wasn’t much else around except for grass and whatever flavor of probably poisonous mushrooms. I don’t know what dad was thinking, but at least he thought about plan B.

We told campfire stories by the fire and roasted s’mores. It was probably the best night of my life. No sisters. No mom nagging at me, although now I love her dearly for it. I’m 25 and I say she did a pretty good job keeping us in line and teaching us right from wrong unlike Dad who let us get away with everything. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Dad even let us drink a beer each. He was a great dad so don’t get all bent out of shape about it. When the fire started dying down and we were getting really tired is when we heard the noise. It sounded like a wolf howling but a lot creepier. There was a lot of rustling in the bushes and something was growling really low. We got really quiet and whatever it scurried away in the bushes. Dad brought out his shotgun from the car and we connected the tents together. Now that I think about it we did look like a bunch of wimps. It gets worse though.

As we were falling asleep in our large tent the wind picked up a lot. The weather guy said it wasn’t going to rain. Dad told us it should be clear all weekend and it wasn’t supposed to rain until next week. Of course, we live in Minnesota where it can rain at any time, anywhere whenever it feels like it and storms happen all of the time. The rain started coming down so hard the tent began to buckle on parts of the top then the first hailstone came barrelling through the top of the and landed inches away from my face. Dad said, “it’s time to go!”

We grabbed what we could and all got into the truck but it wouldn’t start. Swearing a bit more than normal, dad grabbed the sleeping bags and the duffle bag with the flashlights while stuffing some jerky and water into the bag and told us to grab whatever we could. We followed him to this dark little cave on the side of a hill. It wasn’t very deep but it was dry and out of the wind. Dad said he knew about it because he used to go fishing here as a kid but when I asked him why he had never taken us to the cave he ignored me, which was rare.

All of the wood was wet so we couldn’t start a fire. We rolled our sleeping bags out and got inside with our wet clothes. As we were laying there trying to sleep, we heard the same growling as before. It was deeper, closer now. As it seemed to circle around the cave Dad whispered, “Don’t move.”

We did as he said. A few minutes later the rain stopped and the clouds allowed the moon to cast some light into the cave and as it did, the shadow of a large wolf stood over us. It growled and sniffed the air while creeping toward our sleeping bags. Dad said to slowly pull the bags over our heads and keep our eyes shut. I could hear the creaking of its bones as it stepped closer, smelling around my bag. It started to paw my bag then claw at it with both paws. Tears were pouring down my cheeks. I don’t know if Dad could see what was going on because we were all hiding inside our own bags and I wondered why he didn’t shoot the darn thing and kill it. Right when it opened my bag I heard a screech louder than anything I had ever heard before. the wolf stopped and whimpered but had pulled down my sleeping bag enough for me to see a ghost of an old woman screaming at the wolf. She hovered toward the animal without leaving any trace on the ground. It cowered and ran. Then I noticed Dad. He had been out of his bag all along with his shotgun in hand ready to shoot the wolf.

“Dad, why didn’t you just kill the wolf?” I asked while rolling my bag up.

“I knew the spirit woman would come and scare it away. Had I shot it then she would have killed us instead.”

He never explained how he knew what would happen, but I remember a story our uncle told us once about a crazy woman in a cave who raised wolves. She would always protect people from her animals if the people were nice then one day she was challenged and killed by the leader of the pack. I always thought it was just a creepy story he made up but I guess I was wrong.

Story 5

My Friend’s Haunted Bedroom

One night I went over to a friend’s house to spend the night. In our group she would never invite us over, we would always have her stay over so I was tired of it. Really, I mean it was rude or at least I thought it was until I found out why. I didn’t invite her over the last time all of us got together and told her that if she wanted to come over anymore that she would have to have us over or explain why. That weekend she had just me over to her house.

At first it was fun. We watched movies and had popcorn. Her mom was really nice and let us stay up late. Then when we went to bed we shared a bunk bed. I asked her why she had a bunk bed and she replied because the bottom bunk, the one I was sleeping in, was for her sister. I had no idea she had a sister.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“She died,” she said then got really quiet.

I waited for her to say something for a few minutes and when she didn’t I just had to ask her, “So what happened?”

My friend shuffled in her blankets and then peered at me from the top bunk. She looked around the room for a moment and then started to cry as she spoke. “She wasn’t born right. She was always doing mean things to the cats and birds we had and was really cruel. She would always hurt me when we were younger. One night she crawled up into my bunk and tried to choke me but I kicked her off. She landed halfway on her bottom bunk when her neck snapped and she died.”

“She died right here in this bed?” My stomach started to ache.

“Yep. That’s why I never have anyone over because she’s still here.”

I laughed for a moment and, not believing in ghosts at the time, I told her she was nuts then rolled over and went to sleep. I thought the whole story was bull. Then, in the middle of the night after I got up to go to the bathroom, I sunk back into the bed and started to go back to sleep when I felt the blankets shift. Someone was crawling into my covers! I felt a body curl up next to me and then pressure on my neck. Thinking it was my friend playing a joke on me, or maybe rather hoping it was my friend, I whispered, “Denise?”

“What is it?” I heard her whisper from the top bunk.

I felt the pressure around my neck tighten as I started to jump out of the bottom bunk. I staggered into the bathroom and looked at my neck. There were marks on my neck like someone was trying to choke me. At first I thought it could have been my friend but there was no way because she was on the top bunk still when I felt it.

“I told you,” she covered her face in the blanket.

I called my mom and she immediately picked me up. I never went over to that house again.

Story 6

Ghosts in the Graveyard

When I was 6 years old my parents moved to an old town that was pretty small. There are two graveyards in this place. One was really old and they stopped burying people in the early 1820s. The other one is still active. We live next to the first one. The oldest grave marker in that cemetery has no birthdate, but the year is 1673. The name on it looks like Paul Bishop, but no one really knows. The story is that someone bought the land the graveyard is on and found it when trimming a bunch of brush. They tried to preserve what was left of the graves and made it a landmark but no one knows where any of the people went or who they were. All of the names on the headstones were destroyed somehow.

I could see this graveyard from my window and at night sometimes I just laid there waiting for something to happen. Usually, it was really quiet, but then one night the owls outside stopped hooting so I knew something was up. I got out of bed and watched closely to see two luminescent shapes of people talking to one another. It was a man and a woman. They were arguing over something. The clothes had no color, but I could tell she wore a dress and some kind of a bonnet and he was in pants and a shirt with a vest. It was hard to tell because of the way they were glowing.

The louder they got, the more they glowed until it was so bright outside it didn’t look like night time. Then she raised a hatchet and hit him right in the head with it. Right then, a bolt of lightning came down and cracked one of the headstones. I screamed, and when I did they both looked up at my window. With shaking hands I shut the curtains and threw myself on to the bed. I could hear something scratching at the window and see something faintly glowing. After that it happened every night until mom let me trade rooms with my brother. He never complained of seeing anything.

Story 7

Haunted Hospital Bed

When my grandmother was ready to pass away we brought her home from the hospital so she could be around family. Since we couldn’t afford a new bed for her, we bought this used hospital bed that we could raise the ends to make her comfortable. That was really important to the family. She lived for about another 2 months after we moved her home and it was really nice because it was then I got to know her better. Up until the moment she died she was always alert and telling us old stories–especially ghost stories! I loved her for that.

After she died, ee were still going through her things and hadn’t removed the bed yet. It was cleaned up and left in the room along with a lot of her stuff. Mom couldn’t part with most of it. Some of it went into boxes and placed in the closet, but the best memories were put on shelves and dressers until Mom could deal with everything a little better.

One night I was walking to the bathroom and I heard something fall in the room. When I looked, the pretty little ballerina perfume bottle Grandma loved so much shattered on the floor. I was devastated. It was her favorite. I cleaned it up and put it in a baggie. When I turned around, the hospital bed was in the upright position. Figuring I must have hit a lever, I put it back down in position and went back to bed.

A few days later the same thing happened, but this time when I looked at the bed I saw an apparition of an old woman who was not my grandmother. This woman was mean looking. She stared me down with an evil eye and hissed GET OUT and take that bloody angel with you! I ran as fast as I could to my mom’s room and, while crying, told her. Mom went in there to look and everything had been knocked off of the shelf. The bed was in the upright position and looked like someone had been in the covers.

The next day we sold the bed. Mom was so sad that all but one of Grandma’s favorite things were broken. At least the little angel she cherished didn’t fall and break.

Story 8

Ghost Cat

I know this is going to sound a little weird, but I think my cat haunts my house. I had a cat for 20 years. She was like my baby so you can imagine how devastated I was when she died. It’s really weird though. She died on the 6th of September and every year I start sneezing on that day. I also get phantom phone calls on that day as well.

She was a really good mouser and would bring gross things like mice, moles, squirrels, and other critters that she would catch and leave next to my bed. Every year on the 6th of September I find some critter next to my bed. At night I can hear purring, too.  Her little chuffs in my ear comfort me. I really do hope she never goes away.

**The stories on this specific page are not in the public domain nor are they in the creative commons. Please do not copy these stories by any means. Thank you.