This is a story about real-world, human horror. Sorry it’s a bit long, but a lot happened, and it’s all true, sadly.

Did we ever find out why The Photo is scary?

In 1989 I bought a 1-bed top-floor apartment in a converted Victorian (19th century) house in south London, England.

• Your story must be true. ... .

Yeah, I noticed the same thing...The caliber of stories weren’t the same either. 

For me, nothing’ll top the story about the soldiers and the djinn!

Thanks, that was mine :). When I saw my story was one of the ones selected, I posted the link to this year’s Spooky Stories on my FB page and teased friends (many of whom hung out and did sleep overs at that house) to figure out which one was mine, because I didn’t share that experience with friends back then (I knew…

Yeah it was good for the really long stories. It was a little less ungainly than the normal super long page they do. Which is blasphemy but there’s always one exception

Don’t remember seeing the links to all of the older ones earlier but they’re missing a few of the earlier ones.

That is mine! Unfortunately Jezebel didn’t include the update. The incident happened just over a month ago. Since then, my daughter has repeatedly (and nonchalantly) said “mummy has a shadow on her back”. She’s not precise about verb tense so I think/hope it’s past tense.

The bobbing head outside the window was my personal favorite to read! So creepy I’ve thought of it a few times since.

Confused as well. I guess it’s scary if the photo was taken outside, like someone grabbed the phone, went out and took a pic, then returned it.

Yeah or his cousins just pranked him. 

I might have to give up my doctorate because I couldn’t tell what was going on with the photo or how it related to where he was sleeping in the house.  I’m relieved I’m not the only one confused.

Not to mention colleges didn’t admit women in the “early 1800s” in the US. There was no such thing. Oberlin started admitting women in the 1830s, and only a tiny number of private schools followed their example for decades. Vassar wasn’t even founded until the 1860s, and Wellesley, Smith, etc. didn’t come into…

This happened to me a couple times when I went to people’s houses for work (in the home medical equipment industry). It was usually a middle aged man who was very polite and happy to see me. But then he turned completely frightening if my staff forget to tell me something specific he requested and I showed up without…

Yeah, it was slim pickings for sure, more so than it has been in recent years. Thousands of stories used to be submitted. Thousands. We just scarcely cracked five hundred and some of those were comments on the actual stories themselves.

My favorite one was the one where the mom thought it was her two year old’s cold little body crawling all over her, only it wasn’t. Really did have Shirley Jackson vibes.

Since some of you may have missed the original post asking for submissions (they didn’t seem to advertise it as well this year), you can find the original post with ALL of the stories in the comments at: https://jezebel.com/scary-story-contest-submissions-2022-1849609558

I feel like RA or not, that is a delusional response to any real world problem.