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.

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.

It definitely has felt a bit like Jezebel has, in many ways, been kinda half-assing this most sacred tradition this year... *sad trombone*

I’m confused by The Photo. It seems like he butt photographed the window? Am I missing something?

This is going to be an unpopular opinion, and I never thought I would say this, but the slideshow format actually works pretty well for the stories. I like to read on my phone, take a break after a couple, but when I return after some time my tab refreshes and I lose my spot. Then I have to scroll scroll scroll, and…

I’ve not wanted to be too hard on Jezebel since the big staff turnover, but, well, this assemblage of stories is markedly worse, in terms of selection, than any previous year. I think most years at least one story is going to be creepypasta, but not so overtly as the two (at least) I caught here! The story about the…

That scariest thing of all is the decision to make this sacred annual treat into a freakin’ slideshow.

My favourite was the college girl who was given a lift by the seemingly kind, but insistent, good looking driver (even though she had her bike with her). His sudden, shocking change of attitude and unknown motive were the spooky part. What was with that guy, and why did he seem to change his mind and drop her off…

What an odd statement. I would think an introspective addict would ask “why not me?” when someone they love dies of an overdose.

One time I wanted to read the spooky stories contest on a popular website but the editors chose to format it as a slide show for some reason and it was so scary I left.

Whew, I’m glad I got to the page before it was annoying re-arranged into a slideshow.

I don’t disagree, and could 100% do without people’s fiction 101 attempts. Could also do without the 10-paragraph setups of the topography of a house or apartment. “The first floor had three bedrooms, all accessed by a single hallway. The second bedroom was parallel with a set of 9 windows, all about 15 feet off the…

yes! I too miss the stories where something actually happened. The stories about the town creepers / home invasions / people living in the walls / watchers are noticeably absent this year and very much missed.

So... many people did not understand the assignment. Nor did they follow your (good!) rules. I have read every story on the Google doc and the amount of people with self-indulgent, rambling, long stories that amount to “I felt something” is ridiculous. Those aren’t SCARY stories! Also “this isn’t scary but...” then…

The Trench

This is terrifying.

OK, there is something about having a mundane object, like a shopping cart, popping up in a place that is not logical, a remote country road, that really is creepy as hell.

I’ve worked in one place that’s supposedly got multiple ghosts and I have a story about one of them. This place was a restored Carnegie library that’s probably the 3rd building at that address. Its foundation sits on top of the 2 previous buildings which date back to the 1860s, before the original street level was…