25 Scariest Creepypastas Ever Written

Posted by , Updated on January 2, 2024

Creepypastas are like scary campfire stories but on the internet. They’re urban legends and stories people write about on forums like 4chan and Reddit solely to freak people out. The best creepypastas tend to blur the lines between fiction and non-fiction, and they frequently use video games and technology as a plot device. However, almost always, they have a creepy villain to scare you to death. Ready to be freaked out? Here are 25 Scariest Creepypastas Ever Written.

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25

The Keyhole

keyholeSource: https://creepypasta.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/the-keyhole/

In “The Keyhole,” a man checks into a hotel, and the lady behind the desk tells him not to disturb the door without a number on it. Curiosity takes over, however, and the man looks through the door’s keyhole. He sees a pale woman leaning against a wall. The man almost knocked on the door but didn’t. The next day, the man looked through the keyhole again but only saw red. When he told the lady behind the counter about it, she said a man murdered his wife in the room and now haunts it. These people were white all over, but their eyes were fully red.

24

Where Bad Kids Go

TV_highqualitySource: http://www.creepypasta.org/creepypasta/where-bad-kids-go

“Where Bad Kids Go,” tells the story of a photojournalist who lived in Lebanon as a boy and watched sinister thirty-minute long television kids shows. Each kid show had a moral at the end, and in the closing scene of each episode, the camera would zoom in on a closed door and screams would become more audible. A voice would say, “That’s where bad kids go.” When the man grew up, he decided to investigate the show and where the studio was located. When he found it, he entered a room with a microphone hanging from ceiling, and blood, feces, and bones were scattered all over the floor.

23

Sonic.exe

sonic.exeSource: http://www.creepypasta.co.uk/2013/07/sonicexe.html

Sonic.exe is about Tom, who receives a ROM file of the game Sonic the Hedgehog from his friend Kyle. Kyle warns him not use it. Tom, being a big fan of Sonic, uses the game anyway. Once playing, Tom suffers from supernatural delusions, witnessing horrific and gruesome scenes of Sonic murdering his friends with the phrase, “I AM GOD.” When Tom tries to get rid of the ROM, he hears a voice behind him. When he turns around to see where it comes from, he sees his Sonic plushie with bloodstains under his eyes.

22

Suicide Mouse

suicide mouseSource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Suicidemouse

Considered one of the first “lost episode” creepypastas, Suicide Mouse tells the story of an old, lost Disney video of Mickey Mouse walking down the street and how Leonard Maltin got his hands on an extended cut. The extended cut features gruesome and horrific footage of Mickey Mouse dying. At the end, the author tells no one to see it if they find it and to contact him instead. No one knows who the author is.

21

Doors

front doorSource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Doors

Told in the first person, “Doors” is a creepypasta about a child whose adopted family becomes attacked by a sinister looking man. He kills the father, the mother, and drags the adopted child’s sister out of the house before slamming the door. The adopted child sits at the door, looking down at its paws, wishing he could open doors.

20

Weeping Angel

weeping angelSource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Weeping_Angel

Inspired by a Dr. Who episode, “Weeping Angel” tells the story of a couple trying to purchase a house. After finally finding one they really love, they found angel statues in the garden and asked if they could be removed. Each time the husband looks out the window, the statues move, doing something else. Eventually, the statues attack the couple, but the couple is able to escape. Two years later, still traumatized by the attack, the couple is living with a friend when the angels kill them.

19

1999

bearSource: http://www.blumhouse.com/2015/12/17/your-worst-nightmares-are-waiting-in-mr-bears-cellar/

“1999” is an older creepypasta written in 2001. The menacing part about “1999” is the way it blends fiction from fact. In it, a boy named Elliot watches kids shows on Channel 21 in Calcedon, Ontario. At first, the shows are normal kids shows, but over time they turn dark. The darkest show was Mr. Bear Cellar, which had a man dressed up in a bear costume yelling and arguing with an eleven-year-old. Then, he addresses the camera and invites kids to come to the house. Elliot writes Mr. Bear, and he gets an invite. When he goes to the house, he is greeted by a police officer, instead. As he gets older, Elliot investigates who Mr. Bear was and only finds a horrific tape of the man burning children alive and finally burning the bear costume. Elliot gave up his investigation and ignores emails.

18

Psychosis

psychosisSource: http://www.creepypasta.com/psychosis/

“Psychosis” follows a man down a deranged and troubled rabbit hole. At first, he believes he’s in a small apartment and feels as if something is wrong but can’t explain what. As time goes on and the days pass, he becomes more and more paranoid of the people and technology around him. By the end, he’s a nervous wreck. Turns out, he’s been in a psychiatric hospital the whole time as a doctor comes in and tells him everything is okay.

17

Ronald McDonald House

ronald mcdonaldSource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Ronald_McDonald_House

This creepypasta may make you think twice before going to another McDonald’s again. It’s about a troubled foster kid who goes from house to house. He’s given a choice between military school and a place called the Ronald McDonald House. He chooses the latter. When he gets there, it’s like nothing he’s seen before, a haunted nightmare. He’s tortured by tons of people dressed as clowns. The next day, he finds a photo album of all the people he used to know, murdered. He escapes the horror house and ends up at a McDonald’s where he takes a laptop, sits down by a statue of Ronald McDonald and writes the story.

16

Smile Dog

mail iconSource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Smile_Dog

“Smile Dog” starts with a lady who claims she has a good scary story for a young writer to use. He goes to interview her and finds out about an email chain with an attachment “smile.dog” with the claim that viewing it will kill you unless you send it to someone else.

15

Squidward's Suicide

squidwards suicideSource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Squidward%27s_Suicide

“Squidward’s Suicide” is about an intern who worked at Nickelodeon Studios. While in the editing room, helping put together an episode of Spongebob Squarepants, they found disturbing footage of Squidward crying with realistic eyes. As they went frame for frame, they found real footage of children murdered with the shadow of the murderer taking their pictures.

14

NoEnd House

NoEnd HouseSource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/NoEnd_House

“NoEnd House” starts with David hearing about a contest at a haunted house. If you can make it through to the end of the house, they’ll pay you $500. But no one has ever made it to the end. Intrigued and wanting to prove people wrong, and that you can make it to the end, David accepts the challenge. The first few rooms aren’t scary at all, but room three is different. It’s pitch black. Things get worse and worse as he passes through each room until he reaches room seven which is seemingly outside. He figures he beat the contest, but he doesn’t care about the prize. He just wants to go home. Of course, he can’t make it home because he’s still in room seven. He gets to room nine and thinks he finally beat it when he gets the $500 prize, but when he goes home, etched on the home is a number 10.

13

Abandoned by Disney

Abandoned by DisneySource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Abandoned_by_Disney

About an abandoned theme park titled “Mowgli’s Palace” in South Carolina, this creepypasta almost feels like it really happened. After the theme park is shut down for no real reason, a man goes on an investigation to find it again and see what happened. He looks around the theme park that’s now covered in weeds and doesn’t find anything out of the ordinary except for the room, “Character Prep 1.” Inside, he finds a living Mickey Mouse costume that takes off his head to disgusting and horrifying results.

12

Annie96 is typing...

whatsappSource: http://storiesforyourscreen.com/annie96-is-typing/#2

“Annie96 is typing…” is a unique twist on creepypasta storytelling, using only texting bubbles as a way to present dialogue and tell the story. As you read through it, you feel as if you’re able to read their texts in real time. Annie is texting David when she sees someone outside that looks a lot like David. Eventually, this person breaks into her house, and Annie tries to escape. You won’t believe what Annie texts at the end.

11

Annora Petrova

Ice_SkatesSource: http://www.blumhouse.com/2016/01/28/before-you-google-yourself-read-the-horrific-tale-of-annora-petrova/

Annora Petrova is an accomplished figure skater who had an eye for competing in the Olympics. One day, she decides to Google herself and discovers there’s a Wikipedia page about her. On the page, it says she’ll win a competition the following day. She brushed it off, thinking it was an error. But the next day, she did win. Each time she checked the page, it said she’d win and she did. But before a championship, it didn’t say anything. So, hoping she could fix the competition, she tried to write that she would win. It didn’t work and instead wrote horrible things about her. Soon her entire life fell apart as it predicted her parents would die and they did. She tried to contact Wikipedia to have them take the page down, but they had no record of the page. As she continued to refresh the page to see what would happen, it read that she would die. The police found her dead body on the computer keyboard.

10

Robert the Doll

Robert_The_DollSource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Robert_the_Doll

“Robert the Doll” starts in the late 1800’s with the Ottos moving to a mansion in Key West. They hired a Haitian servant to take care of their son Robert. However, they fired her when they found her practicing black magic. Before she left, she gave Robert a doll, and he named the doll Robert as well. Robert the Doll started doing evil things, becoming more and more violent. Eventually, the Ottos locked Robert the Doll in the attic. That didn’t stop him, of course. As time went on, and more horrible things happened to the Otto family, Robert the Doll was put in the East Martello Museum in Key West, where he remains to this day.

9

The Russian Sleep Experiment

Russian Sleep ExperimentSource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Russian_Sleep_Experiment

During World War II, Russians did experiments on prisoners of war, including keeping five prisoners in a room and filling the room with a gas that kept them awake. The first five days went by fairly normal, but after that, horrible things began to happen. The prisoners complained more and suffered from paranoia and social isolation. They mumbled things into a microphone and asked to be freed. After fifteen days, however, they didn’t want to be free and when the Russians put fresh air back into the room, the prisoners begged for the gas to be turned back on. The prisoners began eating their own flesh and mutilating themselves. They all died, one by one.

8

The Rake

scary handSource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Rake

“The Rake” is about actual events taking place in 2003 involving a human-like creature terrorizing people in North America. Someone pieced together each account and found they were always identical to each other. In each case, the creature people call the Rake, visits people in their sleep, putting its hand at the edge of the bed. After the creature appears, people usually end up dead in one way or the other.

7

Slender Man

Slender ManSource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Slender_Man

Most people have heard of Slender Man, especially after the horrific attack involving two girls who lured their friend into the woods and stabbed her. The two girls claimed Slender Man told them to do it. The allure of Slender Man is tied up in his ancient and mysterious past, involving Egyptian, German, and Brazilian cultures, among others. He’s described as a tall, slender man, with tentacles, or long legs, and he wears a black suit. His main intentions are kidnapping children. Though he was made up on the website Something Awful, many people claim to have seen Slender Man.

6

BEN Drowned

i_think_i_found_ben_drowned_on_cleverbot_____by_zimlvr360-d7eblkySource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/BEN_Drowned

The creepypasta “BEN Drowned” is a well-known, incredibly popular story about a guy who received a Zelda: Majora’s Mask cartridge from an old man. He started a new file but characters referred to him as Ben. To fix this, he deleted the Ben-saved game, but then even more bizarre events happened. Videos posted of these events have been put on YouTube and the story continued through YouTube by various people claiming to know the original guy. Many catchphrases were made during these videos, including “You shouldn’t have done that…”

5

Anasi's Goatman Story

goat manSource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Anansi%27s_Goatman_Story

Based on Native American legends, this creepypasta began on 4chan and spread from there, becoming a popular story. It’s about a teenager visiting family in Alabama. While camping in the woods with his cousins, they see a goat man walking around talking in gibberish. Gradually, the goat man terrorizes the group, thrusting them into a state of paranoia.

4

Jeff the Killer

Jeff_the_killer_Meme_2Source: http://io9.gizmodo.com/who-is-jeff-the-killer-and-is-his-picture-haunted-by-1016241494

Jeff the Killer is one of the most horrifying internet creepypastas out there. Originating from a photoshopped picture of a bullied girl, it spawned into dozens of creepypasta stories about Jeff, a man whose face was burned off with acid that hides in your closet and tells you to go to sleep before killing you.

3

Penpal

postageSource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Footsteps#Footsteps

“Penpal” started on Reddit’s popular NoSleep sub, but eventually grew so big that the author Dathan Auerbach published a novel from it. It’s about a boy who sends a letter attached to a balloon in hopes of corresponding with whoever finds it. Despite many failed attempts, he finally gets what he wanted, and that’s not a good thing.

2

Candle Cove

staticSource: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Candle_Cove

Written in a forum format, “Candle Cove” is about a kids television show that people talk about on an internet forum. As they talk about it and remember it, their memories get darker and darker, involving horrible villains doing pretty disturbing things. At the end, when one of the characters asks their mom if they remembered them watching Candle Cove, their mom said they would tune the TV to static and watch dead air for thirty minutes.

1

Persuaded

zombiesSource: http://www.creepypasta.com/persuaded/

If you like zombie stories, this creepypasta is right up your alley. “Persuaded” is about a horrible chemical spill that turns anyone who touches it to a ravenous and violent animal. The main character tries to live an ordinary life, but the zombies keep spreading until they surround his apartment. He holes away, waiting for the zombies to eventually get him.



Photo: Featured image: Pexels.com (Public Domain), 25. Q Family via flickr. CC BY 2.0, 24. Aaron Escobar, TV highquality, CC BY 2.0, 23. DarkGamer2011 via flickr. CC BY 2.0, 22. Mariogamer322, High-definition screenshot of the 1931 “Suicidemouse.avi,” film., CC BY-SA 4.0, 21. Infrogmation of New Orleans, NMP 1780s House Interior Sala Front Door 2, CC BY-SA 3.0, 20. David Ohmer from Cincinnati, USA, Cincinnati – Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum – Weeping Angel statue, CC BY 2.0, 19. Pixabay.com (Public Domain), 18. amy elyse via flickr. CC BY 2.o , 17. Mike Mozart via flickr. CC BY 2.0 , 16. pixabay (public domain), 15. Carmen Dubelia, Squidward suicide, CC BY-SA 3.0, 14. Harald Hoyer from Schwerin, Germany, The Haunted House Das Geisterhaus (5360049608), CC BY-SA 2.0, 13. Der Robert via flickr. CC BY 2.0, 12. Microsiervos via flickr. CC BY 2.0, 11. Benson Kua from Toronto, Canada, Ice Skates (6625045137), CC BY-SA 2.0, 10. Cayobo from Key West, The Conch Republic, Robert The Doll (5999680656), CC BY 2.0, 9. Wikipedia Commons.com (Public Domain), 8. publicdomainpictures (public domain), 7. mdl70, Slendermdl70, CC BY-SA 2.0, 6. zimlvr360 via deviantartCC BY-SA 3.0, 5. MaxPixel (Public Domain), 4. 0 Noctis 0, Jeff the killer Meme 2, CC BY-SA 4.0, 3. Pixabay.com (Public Domain), 2. Justin March via flickr. CC BY 2.0, 1. Pixabay.com (Public Domain)