Preeeeeach. You can always tell. Oh DID he confess to the murder in front of a stranger and the girl’s close relative? Cool. Totally plausible.

My vote for the best story of all time would be Venka by Benthic Born from 2016 (one of the winners that year, but I’ll link to the comments version, which is a little longer and has a few extra details).

Yeah the thrift store story is not real. It’s a moderately well written short story but...not real. I wish people would stop treating this as a fiction submission contest, I only want that real shit!

Um, excuse me, our Lord and Savior rescued her from a demonic ouija cult.  Show some respect!

The thrift store one was written straight out of 1980's Halloween episode of Growing Pains.  I would’ve eaten that shit up as a child.

Seriously. That and that humblebrag ass thrift store one. Jesus. “So the fry cook and I saunter over to the 1950's garage and the gentleman confesses to the murder. Quite an odd morning I suppose, but what a great haul!”

I’m surprised the Franny one was picked. It’s so obviously fake.

The one where the men were living in the wall still gets me. She kept finding her house covered in dust and couldn’t figure out why, mail was disappearing etc.. Turned out they were just hanging out behind her dresser (I think?) watching. 

I think one of my all time faves was a comment that never made it to the lists. It was about the Jinn that was spotted through binoculars by soldiers that seemed walked in place.

I vote for the “fixer upper” story where the couple explores an abandoned house with creepy dolls and a pit in the middle of the floor and the one about Cassandra and her partner going to the dog park island in the middle of the night and sensing creepy things wanted to harm them.

By acclaim, Sorcia McNasty’s story about the haunted truck would go in there, and I’m still going to stand by my contention that the freakiest story I ever read on here was IndianaJoan’s story “911 Calling.”

I’d already read all but one of these, but the choices were definitely better than last year IMO. The thrift store one I struggle to believe, but the others were really believable. There were a few scarier stories in the comments. I think I’ve read almost every single one, hah.

I’m not sure what it says about me that I’m almost relieved that crawlspace guy wasn’t some kind of supernatural/paranormal thing? (Especially with the cops able to follow up on the whole deal?) Creepy AF, and terrifying for Stugglingsuzy, though, I get. Yeeesh.

The scariest thing about the ouija board story is that a Chick Tract gained enough sentience to write it!

I loved the one from Boulder. Part of the reason is because, since it was an email submission, it was my first time reading it (and props to all of the other ones - I obsessively read them when they called for stories). I also grew up in Denver in the 70s and 80s, and Boulder always creeped me the fuck out for some…

Does anyone want to start building a canon of the all-time greats we’ve had on here, over the years?

I feel like the crawling civil war ghost would go on there for me, from this year. Just a deeply upsetting mental image.

So, I immediately went to my mom’s recommended psychic (I know) and told him everything. He very calmly said, “Well, I think it’s safe to say, it likes you. And hates Ally.” He then told me that if I didn’t want it to bother me, all I needed to do was audibly and clearly tell it exactly what I expected it to do.…

Um... “Toe head” brings a very different (and much more hilarious) picture than does a “towhead.” Likewise “heard animal” and “herd animal.”

“The Hand” is my favourite this year, I think. The thought of just a floating hand is creepier to me than any beastie in a horror movie for some reason. The crawlspace one is also fucked. It reminds me of one maybe last year or the year before where a girl’s neighbour was watching her through a little cave they’d made…

Just a friendly PSA: Civil War battlefields are all haunted. Visit at your own risk!