We came across a short horror stories subreddit on Reddit while searching for the strange and twisted, and we knew we had to share it with our readers. Continue reading if you’re looking forward to a night of insomnia.

Last Messages

-I love you mom
-I can hear footsteps on the stairs I think he’s outside my room
-I hear sirens but they’re far away
-I’m hiding in the closet I hope he didn’t hear me
-hang on I heard something downstairs
-the cops are already here looking for him, they’ll catch him
-Don’t worry mom, I’m SAFE, I love you.
-The cops said he’s some escaped serial killer and he’s been breaking into homes around the area
-Yes mom it’s on the news now. I’ll keep my doors locked.

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Messages are displayed in chronological order, with most recent at the top

My Family

I died eight years ago. It wasn’t particularly tragic. Or unusual. Just a car accident. I don’t blame the man who hit me. He was speeding because his wife was in labor, and there was black ice on the road. He lost control of the car and I lost my life.

Its not his fault. I know that. I’m not cruel. I am not vengeful. If anything, I’m the opposite.

You see, I don’t have any family left and I had lost my few friends around that time. When it was time for my funeral, the only people who came was my boss and the family who killed me. The wife held her newborn daughter close to her chest. I hated my boss, and the cemetery was awfully lonely, so I followed the family home.

Lily may as well have been my own flesh and blood. She was sweet, and bright, and oh so very small. She had trouble sleeping if someone wasn’t rocking her crib and her parents were so tired. After they put her to bed, it was easy for me to rock her crib for her. I didn’t get tired. I could help her.

As the years passed, Jack and Lori realized that they weren’t alone in the house. It didn’t take long from there to make a connection between my funeral and when I had shown up. And I’d never been malevolent, so they weren’t afraid or angry.

They started to burn candles on the anniversary of my death day. They left an empty chair for meals and holidays. I really felt like… A member of the family. Someone is trying to force the door.

Its Lori’s ex. He’s obsessive. He’s angry. He’s going to hurt the family. My family. The thing about ghosts is that the more offerings you get, the stronger you become. Id been enjoying candles, trinkets, and even the occasional food item for the past five years. I was strong from that.

I know Bill

“You okay, buddy?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure? You’re breathing heavy.”
“I’m okay.”
“Good. Relax. It’ll go quicker that way. To start, I just need some basic information.”
“Basic?”
“Simple things.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s start with an easy one. What’s your name?”
“Roy.”
“Roy what?”
“Fromeir.”
“Well, Mr. Fromeir, how old are you?”
“16.”
“Go to school?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Dunno. Just don’t.”
“Live alone?”
“No.”
“You live with your mother and your brother Bill, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”

“Good. Good. You’re doing fine. But now I need to ask some harder questions, okay? Can you handle that?”
“Yeah.”
“Good boy. Your brother Bill’s in some hot water, isn’t he? He’s been accused of something bad.”
“Accused?”
“He did something bad. To that little girl. Jennie Connor.”
“Oh.”
“To be frank, Mr. Fromier, I think you might know something about that. That’s why you’re here today. I think you have a story about Bill and that little girl.”
“I…”
“Don’t be shy.”
“I…”
“Relax. You aren’t in any trouble. Just answer me one question. Did you see Bill take Jennie into the woods?”
“I din’t see them.”
“Really?”
“I saw Jennie. Bill was home.”
“You say you saw Jennie go into the woods but Bill was at home?”
“Yeah.”
“Mr. Fromier, I find that a wee bit hard to believe. You know, we found Bill’s jacket in those woods. We found his jacket soaked in about a pint of blood. Jennie’s blood. We found her, too. Funny enough, she was just a few yards away. We took some pictures. Want to see?”
“Pictures?”
“Of the body. Want to see?”
“No.”
“No, I expect you don’t. They’re not pretty. But nevertheless, they beg the question, what was Jennie’s blood doing on Bill’s jacket? And why do a dozen witnesses claim to have seen them leave together from the football game?”
“Witnesses?”

“Mr. Fromier, I know you followed them from the field. We have it on CCTV. So I ask you again. Did you see Bill take Jennie into the woods?”
“I…”
“Did you?”
“I didn’t.”
“I think you’re lying.”
“Bill was home. We go together to football. Bill said take Jennie home.”
“You took Jennie?”
“It was cold. Bill said take Jennie and take my jacket. I said let’s go to the woods. Jennie said no. It made me mad. I pushed her. She hurt her head.”
“What?”
“I hid her in the woods. I was scared. I didn’t want trouble. She woke up. She was mad and screaming so I hit her. I hit her so she shut up.”
“And the jacket?”
“Jacket?”
“Bill’s jacket.”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
“Under my bed.”
“Christ, no, not under your bed.”
“…”
“Think! For once in your life, fucking think!”
“…”
“You hid it in the woods.”
“I hid it in the woods.”
“Yeah, don’t forget. It’s important.”
“Sorry.”
“When they ask for real, you have to remember. I’m sorry for yelling. I hate seeing you made a fool of is all.”
“I know, Bill.”

My house rules

Always take off your shoes when you come in, they don’t like dirt.
Always say hello.
When you enter the house, go straight to your room.
Lock your door.
If you leave your room, go straight to where you need to go. Do not stop walking.
Walk with your head up.
Never block your vision.
If you hear laughing, ignore it. It isn’t there.
If you turn on a light, do not turn it back off. They will take care of it.
Do not turn off the music, one guest, in particular, doesn’t like the quiet.
Do not look into the empty rooms.
When you get back to your room, lock the door again immediately.
Get your feet off of the floor as fast if possible.
If you hear someone calling your name, do not move.
If the sun is down, never look out of your bedroom window.
Don’t check the closets, under the bed or the showers, they like privacy.
At 3 am things will start to happen. Do not answer your door. You will hear tapping on your window, when you do close your eyes. Do not open your eyes.
Make sure you go to sleep by 3:12 am.
Don’t forget you live alone

The Blind Child

“Stabbing.”

Sylvia pointed a trembling finger at my brother Arthur. Her milky, unseeing eyes gleamed in his direction, and his wife, Agnes, trembled with indignation from across the table. My husband’s face colored as he dropped his fork and dragged our daughter back into her bedroom, scolding her as they went.

The rest of the night was awkward, and the pep in our conversation never recovered. Two weeks later, Agnes was stabbed to death in her office parking lot. An inebriated college student found her, almost vomited all over her, and called the cops. My brother swore that he bore no ill will against my daughter, but I could tell that he was lying.

One day, the middle-aged woman who taught my daughter how to read her braille called me. “Ma’am, I don’t know what’s going on but your daughter’s been whispering, ‘electrocution, electrocution,’ for the past half-hour and it’s starting to distract her from her lessons. Could you please talk to her?”

I did.

Sylvia, in her nine-year-old lack of understanding, told me it was “just a cool new word” she learned at school.The death of an electrician made headlines the following week. It was a freak accident involving tangled wires and a bucket of water. Sylvia’s teacher’s face was blurred for privacy, but her voice was as familiar as anything to me:

“He was…my partner…my soulmate.”

While my husband was working late, I called Sylvia into the living room. “Honey, is there anything Mommy should know?” She hesitated.

“Honey, you know you can talk to me.” She denied it once more, “I have no secrets from you, Mommy.”

My husband walked into the living room with his hair tousled and his eyes distant. Instead of rushing to hug her dad, Sylvia simply turned towards him. “Fire,” she said.

My heart stopped. Everytime Sylvia said something like that, it was the person’s partner who died, and of that reason too. A fire? Was Sylvia merely making predictions, or was she putting a curse on me for snooping in on her business? Why, this devil child—

I grew paranoid, checked the appliances and electronics constantly, and cleared the house of any fire hazards. That was my life over the next few days. All the while, I kept my eyes on Sylvia. Sylvia. I had grown almost hateful towards my own daughter.

My husband came home one night, wounded and blackened with soot, while I sat in the living room and Sylvia listened to the radio beside me. “What’s the matter?” I asked. He gulped. “One of my colleagues, her house…her house caught fire. She was trapped in, but I managed to escape.”

That turned the gears in my head. “What were you doing in her house?”The expression on my husband’s face was a sufficient admission of guilt. I opened my mouth to speak—no, to scream—but a smaller voice from beside me looked at me and whispered “Poisoning.” From user RVKony.

I don’t hate my sister

Because of all of the things I do to Renée, most people would say I hate my little sister. I’m here to set the record straight. I didn’t let Renée’s cat out the back door because I hate her. Muffins is fine. I’ve been feeding him behind the shed.

I don’t flush Renée’s medications before she takes them because I hate her. I was pretty panicked when I thought the toilet was going to clog, though. I didn’t erase her biology essay because I hate her. She got to see the cute librarian she’s crushing on, anyway.

I didn’t unplug her cell phone before she left the house because I hate her. I unplugged it so that mom and dad wouldn’t be able to call her.

I didn’t use the faulty outlet in the living room because I hate Renée. I really don’t hate my sister. The fire didn’t kill Renée. Because Renée didn’t have to go back for Muffins. Renée wasn’t sleeping due to her medicine. Renée was at the library, doing her report.

I didn’t let our mom and dad die because I hate my little sister. I did it so that she wouldn’t end up buried in the garden like me. From user: propheticdremstrash

I am a Good Liar

I am a good liar. I have been my whole life. I’m twelve years old. Or am I thirteen? Or eleven? I’m such a good liar that I could convincingly tell you anything. It was my father who first taught me how to lie. “Look them dead in the eyes, son. Don’t blink, or look to one side. Dead in the eyes. Speak calmly. Add in some details, ones that aren’t important. That makes things more believable.”

So every day I concoct a new adventure to tell my classmates, they lap it up. They believe I live in the big mansion, that I only wear tatty clothes because my parents don’t want me to be spoilt. They don’t know that I actually live in a caravan in the field behind it.

Last week I told them that my parents had taken me off to a ski resort for the weekend. “We met Prince William up there, he loves skiing. I was really bad at it, but Will, (he said I can call him that), said it didn’t matter, because he thought I was really funny. I must’ve fallen over right in front of him about 8 times! We’re going to be invited to dinner at Windsor Castle soon”.

I liked that story. It’s another thing my father taught me about lying, you can’t always paint yourself as the hero. Sometimes you have to be bad at things.

Today I’m telling an even better lie. “They opened the aquarium especially for me”, I say, breathing evenly, “my parents just knew that I’d always dreamed of swimming with sharks.” I look directly at them. “I don’t know if you’ve all seen, but they have those love little orange fish at the aquarium too, like Nemo! I’ve got a stuffed one from the gift shop, but I’ll get some real ones soon”.

It’s all in the details, the little inconsequential details. “Anyway, the shark swimming went a bit wrong. The shark tried to attack me, but I fought it off.” I shrug nonchalantly and bask in their awe. One girl asks if she can touch the red gash across my face.

It was my father who taught me how to lie. I have to be believable when I explain away the injuries he gives me, or he’ll kill me. I am a good liar, but a very bad boy. By user donotdisturbpls

My punishment was to keep what I stole

Each morning when I wake up, I open the chest where I keep my son. I stroke his small skull and murmur ‘Good Morning’ although I know he can no longer hear me.

I hope he doesn’t think I’ve abandoned him. I hope he knows I never will. When my son died of a fever, I refused to let him go. He was only a baby, and all that I had left. So I turned to the stories my own mother had told me, the rituals and legends I’d learned in childhood.

The rules of bringing someone back from the underworld seemed so easy. I scoffed at the stories of those who failed, sure that my willpower would be stronger than theirs. I forced my way through to the Fields of Night, and I found my son’s faint, pale soul. I guided it all the way back to his body, never looking back once.

When I saw my son open his eyes again and smile at me, I thought I had made the right choice. He laughed, he ran, he played just as he had before. I even believed I could pretend nothing had happened. Then a few days later, I saw the rot creeping up his skin. At that moment, I realized my mistake. I hadn’t restored my son to life. I had only brought his soul back to his corpse.

I tried to comfort him as his body swelled and decayed. He wailed day and night in fear as his flesh fell from his bones. Only when his throat rotted away did he stop screaming. I attempted to return to the underworld, to return my son’s soul, but the way would not open to me again. I cheated Death, and my punishment was to keep what I stole.

When his ligaments finally broke down, I gathered his bones and placed them in the antique chest I inherited from my mother. Only the best would do for my son.

Sometimes my son’s bones lie still inside the chest for hours, even days, and I dare to hope that his soul found its way back to where it belongs. But sooner or later, his bones always begin to rattle again, and I know he’s still alive.

Once, all I wanted was to have my son here with me. But now, I would give anything for him to die. From user: hakunomiya