Scary Stories Complete Set

by Alvin Schwartz

  He walked over and he asked, “Are you DéFago?”

  The Indian didn’t answer.

  “Do you know anything about him?”

  No answer.

  He began to wonder if something was wrong, if the man needed help. But he couldn’t see his face.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  No answer.

  To get a look at him, he lifted the Indian’s hat. Then he screamed. There was nothing under the hat but a pile of ashes.

  The Dead Man’s Brains

  This scary story is a scary game that people play at Hallowe’en. But it can be played whenever the spirit moves you.

  The players sit in a circle in a darkened room and listen to a storyteller describe the rotting remains of a corpse. Each part is passed around for them to feel.

  In one version, a player is out if he or she screams or gasps with fright. In another version, everybody stays to the end, no matter how scared they get.

  Here is the story:

  Once in this town there lived a man named Brown. It was years ago, on this night, that he was murdered out of spite.

  We have here his remains.

  First, let’s feel his brains. (A wet, squishy tomato)

  Now here are his eyes, still frozen with surprise. (Two peeled grapes)

  This is his nose. (A chicken bone)

  Here is his ear. (A dried apricot)

  And here is his hand, rotting flesh and bone. (A cloth or rubber glove filled with mud or ice)

  But his hair still grows. (A handful of corn silk or wet fur or yarn)

  And his heart still beats, now and then. (A piece of raw liver)

  And his blood still flows. Dip your fingers in it. It’s nice and warm. (A bowl of catsup thinned with warm water)

  That’s all there is, except for these worms. They are the ones that ate the rest of him. (A handful of wet, cooked spaghetti noodles)

  “May I Carry Your Basket?”

  Sam Lewis spent the evening playing chess at his friend’s house. It was about midnight when they finished their game, and he started home. Outside it was icy cold and as quiet as the grave.

  As he came around a turn in the road, he was surprised to see a woman walking ahead of him. She was carrying a basket covered with a white cloth. When he caught up to her, he looked to see who it was. But she was so bundled up against the cold, it was hard to see her face.

  “Good evening,” Sam said. “What brings you out so late?”

  But she didn’t answer.

  Then he said, “May I carry your basket?”

  She handed it to him. From under the cloth, a small voice said, “That’s very nice of you,” and that was followed by wild laughter.

  Sam was so startled that he dropped the basket—and out rolled a woman’s head. He looked at the head, and he stared at the woman. “It’s her head!” he cried. And he started to run, and the woman and her head began to chase him.

  Soon the head caught up to him. It bounded into the air and sunk its teeth into his left leg. Sam screamed with pain and ran faster.

  But the woman and her head stayed right behind. Soon the head leaped into the air again and bit into his other leg. Then they were gone.

  Other Dangers

  Most of the scary stories in this book have been passed down over the years. But the ones in this chapter have been told only in recent times. They are stories that young people often tell about dangers we face in our lives today.

  The Hook

  Donald and Sarah went to the movies. Then they went for a ride in Donald’s car. They parked up on a hill at the edge of town. From there they could see the lights up and down the valley.

  Donald turned on the radio and found some music. But an announcer broke in with a news bulletin. A murderer had escaped from the state prison. He was armed with a knife and was headed south on foot. His left hand was missing. In its place, he wore a hook.

  “Let’s roll up the windows and lock the doors,” said Sarah.

  “That’s a good idea,” said Donald.

  “That prison isn’t too far away,” said Sarah. “Maybe we really should go home.”

  “But it’s only ten o’clock,” said Donald.

  “I don’t care what time it is,” she said. “I want to go home.”

  “Look, Sarah,” said Donald, “he’s not going to climb all the way up here. Why would he do that? Even if he did, all the doors are locked. How could he get in?”

  “Donald, he could take that hook and break through a window and open a door,” she said. “I’m scared. I want to go home.”

  Donald was annoyed. “Girls always are afraid of something,” he said.

  As he started the car, Sarah thought she heard someone, or something, scratching at her door.

  “Did you hear that?” she asked as they roared away. “It sounded like somebody was trying to get in.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Donald.

  Soon they got to her house.

  “Would you like to come in and have some cocoa?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, “I’ve got to go home.”

  He went around to the other side of the car to let her out. Hanging on the door handle was a hook.

  The White Satin Evening Gown

  A young man invited a young woman to a formal dance. But she was very poor, and she could not afford to buy the evening gown she needed for such an occasion.

  “Maybe you can rent a dress,” her mother said. So she went to a pawnshop not far from where she lived. There she found a white satin evening gown in her size. She looked lovely in it, and she was able to rent it for very little.

  When she arrived at the dance with her friend, she was so attractive, everyone wanted to meet her. She danced again and again and was having a wonderful time. But then she began to feel dizzy and faint, and she asked her friend to take her home. “I think I have danced too much,” she told him.

  When she got home, she lay down on her bed. The next morning her mother found that her daughter had died. The doctor did not understand what had caused her death. So he had the coroner perform an autopsy.

  The coroner found that she had been poisoned by embalming fluid. It had stopped her blood from flowing. There were traces of the fluid on her dress. He decided it had entered her skin when she perspired while she was dancing.

  The pawnbroker said he bought the dress from an undertaker’s helper. It had been used in a funeral for another young woman, and the helper had stolen it just before she was buried.

  High Beams

  The girl driving the old blue sedan was a senior at the high school. She lived on a farm about eight miles away and used the car to drive back and forth.

  She had driven into town that night to see a basketball game. Now she was on her way home. As she pulled away from the school, she noticed a red pick-up truck follow her out of the parking lot. A few minutes later the truck was still behind her.

  “I guess we’re going in the same direction,” she thought.

  She began to watch the truck in her mirror. When she changed her speed, the driver of the truck changed his speed. When she passed a car, so did he.

  Then he turned on his high beams, flooding her car with light. He left them on for almost a minute. “He probably wants to pass me,” she thought. But she was becoming uneasy.

  Usually she drove home over a back road. Not too many people went that way. But when she turned onto that road, so did the truck.

  “I’ve got to get away from him,” she thought, and she began to drive faster. Then he turned his high beams on again. After a minute, he turned them off. Then he turned them on again and off again.

  She drove even faster, but the truck driver stayed right behind her. Then he turned his high beams on again. Once more her car was ablaze with light. “What is he doing?” she wondered. “What does he want?” Then he turned them off again. But a minute later he had them on again, and he left them on.

  At last she pulled into her driveway, and
the truck pulled in right behind her. She jumped from the car and ran to the house. “Call the police!” she screamed at her father. Out in the driveway she could see the driver of the truck. He had a gun in his hand.

  When the police arrived, they started to arrest him, but he pointed to the girl’s car. “You don’t want me,” he said. “You want him.”

  Crouched behind the driver’s seat, there was a man with a knife.

  As the driver of the truck explained it, the man slipped into the girl’s car just before she left the school. He saw it happen, but there was no way he could stop it. He thought about getting the police, but he was afraid to leave her. So he followed her car.

  Each time the man in the back seat reached up to overpower her, the driver of the truck turned on his high beams. Then the man dropped down, afraid that someone might see him.

  The Babysitter

  It was nine o’clock in the evening. Everybody was sitting on the couch in front of the TV. There were Richard, Brian, Jenny, and Doreen, the babysitter.

  The telephone rang.

  “Maybe it’s your mother,” said Doreen. She picked up the phone. Before she could say a word, a man laughed hysterically and hung up.

  “Who was it?” asked Richard.

  “Some nut,” said Doreen. “What did I miss?”

  At nine-thirty the telephone rang again. Doreen answered it. It was the man who had called before. “I’ll be there soon,” he said, and he laughed and hung up.

  “Who was it?” the children asked.

  “Some crazy person,” she said.

  About ten o’clock the telephone rang again. Jenny got to it first.

  “Hello,” she said.

  It was the same man. “One more hour,” he said, and he laughed and hung up.

  “He said, ‘One more hour.’ What did he mean?” asked Jenny.

  “Don’t worry,” said Doreen. “It’s somebody fooling around.”

  “I’m scared,” said Jenny.

  About ten-thirty the telephone rang once more. When Doreen picked it up, the man said, “Pretty soon now,” and he laughed.

  “Why are you doing this?” Doreen screamed, and he hung up.

  “Was it that guy again?” asked Brian.

  “Yes,” said Doreen. “I’m going to call the operator and complain.”

  The operator told her to call back if it happened again, and she would try to trace the call.

  At eleven o’clock the telephone rang again. Doreen answered it. “Very soon now,” the man said, and he laughed and hung up.

  Doreen called the operator. Almost at once she called back. “That person is calling from a telephone upstairs,” she said. “You’d better leave. I’ll get the police.”

  Just then a door upstairs opened. A man they had never seen before started down the stairs toward them. As they ran from the house, he was smiling in a very strange way. A few minutes later, the police found him there and arrested him.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaah!”

  This chapter has the same title as the first chapter. But the stories in the first chapter are meant to scare you. The ones in this chapter are meant to make you laugh.

  The Viper

  A widow lived alone on the top floor of an apartment house. One morning her telephone rang.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “This is the viper,” a man said. “I’m coming up.”

  “Somebody is fooling around,” she thought, and hung up.

  A half hour later the telephone rang again. It was the same man.

  “It’s the viper,” he said. “I’ll be up soon.”

  The widow didn’t know what to think, but she was getting frightened.

  Once more the telephone rang. Again it was the viper.

  “I’m coming up now,” he said.

  She quickly called the police. They said they would be right over. When the doorbell rang, she sighed with relief. “They are here!” she thought.

  But when she opened the door, there stood a little old man with a bucket and a cloth. “I am the viper,” he said. “I vish to vash and vipe the vindows.”

  The Attic

  A man named Rupert lived with his dog in a house deep in the woods. Rupert was a hunter and a trapper. The dog was a big German shepherd named Sam. Rupert had raised Sam from a pup.

  Almost every morning Rupert went hunting, and Sam stayed behind and guarded the house. One morning, as Rupert was checking his traps, he got the feeling that something was wrong at home.

  He hurried back as fast as he could, but when he got there he found that Sam was missing. He searched the house and the woods nearby, but Sam was nowhere to be seen. He called and he called, but the dog did not answer. For days Rupert looked for Sam, but he could find no trace of him.

  Finally he gave up and went back to his work. But one morning he heard something moving in the attic. He picked up his gun. Then he thought, “I’d better be quiet about this.”

  So he took off his boots. And in his bare feet he began to climb the attic stairs. He slowly took one step—then another—then another, until at last he reached the attic door.

  He stood outside listening, but he didn’t hear a thing. Then he opened the door, and—

  “AAAAAAAAAAAH!”

  (At this point, the storyteller stops, as if he has finished. Then usually somebody will ask, “Why did Rupert scream?”

  The storyteller replies, “You’d scream too if you stepped on a nail in your bare feet.”)

  The Slithery-Dee

  The slithery-dee,

  He came out of the sea;

  He ate all the others,

  But he didn’t eat me.

  The slithery-dee,

  He came out of the sea;

  He ate all the others,

  But he didn’t eat—

  SL-U-R-P . . .

  Aaron Kelly’s Bones

  Aaron Kelly was dead. They bought him a coffin and had a funeral and buried him.

  But that night he got out of his coffin, and he came home. His family was sitting around the fire when he walked in.

  He sat down next to his widow, and he said, “What’s going on? You all act like somebody died. Who’s dead?”

  His widow said, “You are.”

  “I don’t feel dead,” he said. “I feel fine.”

  “You don’t look fine,” his widow said. “You look dead. You’d better get back to the grave where you belong.”

  “I’m not going back to the grave until I feel dead,” he said.

  Since Aaron wouldn’t go back, his widow couldn’t collect his life insurance. Without that, she couldn’t pay for the coffin. And the undertaker said he would take it back.

  Aaron didn’t care. He just sat by the fire rocking in a chair and warming his hands and feet. But his joints were dry and his back was stiff, and every time he moved, he creaked and cracked.

  One night the best fiddler in town came to court the widow. Since Aaron was dead, the fiddler wanted to marry her. The two of them sat on one side of the fire, and Aaron sat on the other side, creaking and cracking.

  “How long do we have to put up with this dead corpse?” the widow asked.

  “Something must be done,” the fiddler said.

  “This isn’t very jolly,” Aaron said. “Let’s dance!”

  The fiddler got out his fiddle and began to play. Aaron stretched himself, shook himself, got up, took a step or two, and began to dance.

  With his old bones rattling, and his yellow teeth snapping, and his bald head wagging, and his arms flip-flopping—around and around he went.

  With his long legs clicking, and his kneebones knocking, he skipped and pranced around the room. How that dead man danced! But pretty soon a bone worked loose and fell to the floor.

  “Look at that!” said the fiddler.

  “Play faster!” said the widow.

  The fiddler played faster.

  Crickety-crack, down and back, the dead man went hopping, and his dry bones kept dropping—this wa
y, that way, the pieces just kept popping.

  “Play, man! Play!” cried the widow.

  The fiddler fiddled, and dead Aaron danced. Then Aaron fell apart, collapsed into a pile of bones—all except his bald headbone that grinned at the fiddler, cracked its teeth—and kept dancing.

  “Look at that!” groaned the fiddler.

  “Play louder!” cried the widow.

  “Ho, ho!” said the headbone. “Ain’t we having fun!”

  The fiddler couldn’t stand it. “Widow,” he said. “I’m going home,” and he never came back.

  The family gathered up Aaron’s bones and put them back in the coffin. They mixed them up so he couldn’t fit them together. After that, Aaron stayed in his grave.

  But his widow never did get married again. Aaron had seen to that.

  Wait till Martin Comes

  An old man was out for a walk. When a storm came up, he looked for a place to take shelter. Soon he came to an old house. He ran up on the porch and knocked on the door, but nobody answered.

  By now rain was pouring down, thunder was booming, and lightning was flashing. So he tried the door. When he found it was unlocked, he went inside.

  Except for a pile of wooden boxes, the house was empty. He broke up some of the boxes and made a fire with them. Then he sat down in front of the fire and dried himself. It was so warm and cozy that he fell asleep.

  When he woke up a black cat was sitting near the fire. It stared at him for a while. Then it purred. “That’s a nice cat,” he thought, and he dozed off again.

  When he opened his eyes, there was a second cat in the room. But this one was as big as a wolf. It looked at him very closely, and it asked, “Shall we do it now?”