Unexplained Horrors: Creepy Stories To Keep You Up At Night
Some moments in life are too spooky to understand. From the invisible forces that go bump in the night to the dreams that foreshadow reality—these chilling stories give us a glimpse into ghostly encounters and haunting phenomena.
They are shivers down the spine on a warm, summer day—baffling terrors too vivid to forget.
1. Two-Faced
One day 16 years ago, when I worked at a gas station, I was watching a teenage couple get slushies at the back of the store. I was taken aback when the young man looked toward the till, because I noticed that he had a very severe facial deformity. But then, when I kept watching, I noticed something bizarre. When he looked to the girl, he looked perfectly normal in profile. Confused, I assumed I imagined it the first time.
Well, they eventually came to the front of the store. Then his face was distorted again, like a terrifying gargoyle. I kept looking at the girl to see if she could see what I was seeing but she didn’t seem to.
And every time he turned to her, his face was normal. Trust me—this was like a Halloween mask. It was not an expression anyone could possibly make.
It was SO DIFFERENT and terrible. Anyway. As he looked at me and finished paying, I felt like a massive black cloud of hate inside me, like an actual thing. It was like I had drunk a glass of liquid hate. Then they left.
I’ve never been able to explain it.
2. Second Chance
One night, I got a phone call from my next-door neighbor late in the evening, asking if I can help him move a mattress into one of his upstairs bedrooms. His mom is ill and has a big heavy sleep number bed.
I, of course, ran over to help, because they're great neighbors. I get over there and his friend, who is also a priest, was there to help.
I helped them figure out how to separate the mattress from the bed so we could fit it upstairs. We get it all moved up and back in place when my neighbor asks if I can help them move an armoire upstairs too. I think nothing of it and we pull it out of his travel trailer and start bringing it up the front stairs of his house. This is where I died.
The front stairs are 11 steps. I was on the lower end of the armoire about six steps up when my neighbor and his friend lose a handle on the armoire and it comes crashing down on me, and I fall backward towards the pavement. At that moment, I wake up in my dining room to my phone ringing and my wife asking me if I'm going to answer the phone. This is where it really gets freaky.
It's my neighbor asking me if I can help move a bed upstairs for his mom. I go over there and meet his priest friend again, as this is supposed to be the first time I met him. I say I can help with the bed, but I cannot help with the armoire.
My neighbor was like "How'd you know about the armoire?" I then proceeded to tell them about what had just happened.
I spent the next hour talking with the priest. He was blown away, and he had so many questions.
My neighbor didn't believe it until I described the upstairs bedroom in perfect detail down to the metal mattress frame on the floor and the intricate headboard leaning against the wall. I had never been upstairs in their house before.
The priest asked me what I saw after it happened. I told him I never actually passed, and that before it happened I woke up at my dining room table.
3. The Twilight Zone
In the 80s, my aunt had won $14 million in the lottery. With her winnings, she built her own house from scratch on this big plot of land. It's still there today, but owned and renovated by its new owners.
My uncle who bought her the ticket had unfortunately passed on in 2000 from an abrupt heart attack, so needless to say, she moved out of her dream home because it was too much for her to bear. It sat there empty for over a decade.
Before she sold it, my younger cousin, my older cousin, and I, as well as our dads, uncles, and a close family friend, went there to get family mementos and reminisce about the "good times."
From the beginning this was hard to do because, after years of abandonment, it had no lights or water and was overgrown on the inside.
At around 4 in the morning, we’d been hearing the weirdest noises ever, which I now think was just an old house deteriorating. I mean the house was huge and had a basement, and then another basement underneath it, and was built in the 80s.
We decided to go out back and decompress and say our goodbyes around a fire before going home.
So, there are four levels to the house, two above ground, and two below ground, and on every level, there was some way to get out of the house directly to the yard. We were all walking up these long creepy stairs from the bottom basement to the yard.
My older cousin's friend who came with us, B, had to go back down for something he left.
The stairs came out of a hill so it was such a long hike up, we were all like, "We just walked all the way up, we aren't going back down." About 10 minutes pass after coming out and we had the fire all set up and were sitting around it.
All the adults noticed B hadn't come back up. They joked, saying he got stuck or lost or something, but eventually the jokes weren't funny anymore.
My dad and uncle went down to look for him and came back up to say they couldn't find him at all.
My younger cousin and I started freaking because we were scared and young, like 14 or 15, and the other adults started tripping out and worrying because all the doors got locked before we left.
We all left by the sub-basement door, which was the only one left to lock. My dad and uncle went down again to check if all the doors were still locked, and they were.
We all decided to sit there, waiting for B to come out of this door that's about 10 yards away from us. All of a sudden, my older cousin gets a call from him. What he said was so disturbing, it’s impossible to forget. B told my cousin, "I don't know what to tell you, but I just woke up at my house, dude." B lived over 40 miles away at this time. My older cousin started uncontrollably sobbing.
My younger cousin's dad, Z, said, "Nope, it's time to go now," and starts to get up to throw water on the fire. Then, out of completely deafening silence, this sound that was unbearably loud just shook all of us.
It sounded like a giant generator getting shut off. Me, my younger cousin, my dad, and my older cousin immediately start screaming, "Did you guys hear that?"
What happened next still haunts me. My uncles were totally stuck like something out of a late-night episode of The Twilight Zone. One of them was in a position of getting up, but was just stuck where he was. The other was laughing at everybody, but wasn't anymore, he was just open-mouth crinkled-eyes smiling like he did while laughing.
My dad and older cousin started shaking them. My dad was freaking out and must've thought they died, because he just kept saying, "Please no, please don't do this!" My younger cousin and I were absolutely terrified, in every meaning of the word.
My dad and older cousin took us back up to the car and locked it, despite us crying our eyes out because we didn't want to be left alone, and then went back.
I don't know how much time passed but soon enough, lights came up from the hills and it was all of them walking toward us.
My dad decided my younger cousin was going to stay with us for the night, and my uncles just went home…without looking in our direction or saying anything to us.
We kept asking my dad and older cousin what exactly was even happening and what was going on.
My dad just kept saying, "For as long as we live, we will never talk to you guys or anyone about this night ever." He said those words four different times, during this long rant about not knowing what life was anymore.
My older cousin turned and looked us in the eyes and said, "There are some things you just want to accept as never being able to know the real answers to.” We rode home in silence.
My younger cousin and I talk about it at least once a month since it happened, but have never dared to talk to them about it—except for one time.
We tried to bring it up, but they all got extremely mad because we kept pressing about it and they wouldn't give answers.
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4. A Double-Edged Sword
My friend Ian and I had been on Cape Cod for three days, staying at my grandfather's beach house. We started drinking around 11 pm. By 1 am, we had chatted, smoked, listened to music, the usual.
We were feeling good, but not hammered, and decided to go outside for one last smoke before bed. On the way out, we spotted my Grandpa's collection of swords and knives on the wall of his garage.
Being buzzed, young, and stupid, we decided, "Let's have a sword fight." Smart right? We took a couple of swords off the wall and began dueling immediately. A little clanging and a few good laughs later, we found ourselves on the main road.
It was empty at this hour, just a streetlight and the two of us, "dueling" away.
This is where things got weird. After a few more minutes of silly swordplay, we found ourselves in an intense battle. Soon, the battle turned from friendly idiocy to something more intense. I have no idea what started it, but we were really having it out. I lunged, he lunged, things escalated, and it was quickly out of hand. Then, out of nowhere, I got the better of him.
I'm still not sure how it happened, but my final attack ended up being much more than I had bargained for. He went pale after my final thrust, and my hands shook as I released the sword, but it didn't hit the ground.
I never meant it; but my sword ran straight through his abdomen. I stood there in disbelief, wondering how this happened.
After what seemed like forever, with moaning and me in shock, I ran for help. I rushed into the house yelling. My grandfather came out of his room, and I told him to call 9-1-1. I then ran back to the street to stay with Ian until someone arrived.
Law enforcement showed up first, then an ambulance. After they saw what had happened, we were rushed to the hospital and taken into the ICU, where we were split up and I was forced to wait.
After a couple of strenuous hours, a doctor and a policeman entered the waiting room. I expected the worst...and I was right. Ian had passed on from massive internal bleeding, and hemorrhaging in his liver. I went outside for a smoke, still trying to comprehend what had happened. Midway through my smoke, a man approached me from behind, asking for light.
I nodded, took out my lighter, and faced the man. The man I faced wasn't who I expected. It was Ian. He looked at me, puzzled at my hesitation and shock. I lit his smoke, speechless, and immensely confused. "You alright dummy?" he said. I looked around, and we were back on the main street swords in hand. "Let's fight coward."
He swung his sword around in the air, then smacked me on the arm, jolting me back into reality. I took a drag of my smoke, picked up my sword, and parried his second swing.
I wasn't myself, and he knew it, so we went back to the house, watched TV, and passed out. I didn't tell him what I had seen until years later, and even then, he didn't believe me.
He still teases me about "murdering" my best bud, and calls me "the swordsman" whenever we drink together. And that's my glitch.
