怖い話

Scary stories from around the internet translated into English.

[okaruto]

Slight delay

Sorry for the delay in posting. My laptop’s keyboard broke, so my husband and I are currently sharing a keyboard... Which means I’m not getting a lot done. I have a few stories translated that I need to proofread and quite a few others that I have queued to translate once I get a replacement. 

[okaruto]

Hiatus

Good morning everybody who is still out there!

I am tentatively going to end my hiatus in the next few weeks. Life decided to take a huge dump on me towards the end of last year, and I needed a lot of time to deal with the resulting depression, anxiety, and lack of motivation. Sorry for the lack of updates--I didn’t want to make any promises before I was ready to come back.

I lost many of my source links when I switched to a new computer, but I’m hoping that I can find some decent stories to translate soon-ish. I might not be posting as regularly as I originally was (3x/week), but we’ll see how it goes once I get off my ass and start working on this blog again. 

I’ll keep this short because it’s still way too early to think. Thanks to anybody who is still around! 

[okaruto]

I'm not dead

Just very, very busy with work. Apparently working in certain customer service industries in the summer means that you don't have any free time. Once I figure out how to fix this situation and/or work calms down I will be posting regularly again. I'm really sorry about leaving everyone hanging :(

[okaruto]

Lost and found

In the area I live, it's pretty common for little children or the elderly to wander off and get lost. When that happens, the city hall will blast an announcement.

"A ## year old man has been missing since earlier today. He was wearing..." 

And when the person is found, another announcement will be made.

"The man who was missing earlier is now safe."

Every winter you can expect to hear these announcements several times. Even this morning there was a notification that a 67 year old man wearing black clothes went missing. It's cold out, but I guess he just wanted to go for a walk.

Later in the day, the follow up announcement was made.

"The man who was missing earlier has been found."

-

Solution:

The difference is in the announcements when people are discovered. The first person was found and is now safe, but the second person was found. It's likely that he froze to death.

[okaruto]

Shsh...

I was a fifth grader in elementary school. I was a brat, and my best friend Kiyoshi was no better. We were always getting into trouble for the pranks we set up.

One day in the middle of summer, Kiyoshi got ripped a new one after he pissed his parents off too much. He suggested that we run away together. I was hungry for an adventure, and this was just too much for me to pass up.

We both packed our book bags as full as we could get them with juice, snacks, and manga—all of the things a young boy thought he'd need—and after we each had dinner at our homes, we met at the nearby park. It must have been about 8:00 pm. But we were just kids.

“What do we do now?”

We discussed our options, of which there weren't many. We eventually decided on a small hut in the middle of a nearby field. We lived in back country Nagano, and the moment you left our little village you would be surrounded by fields of rice and other plants. The fields were spattered with farming equipment, hay bales, and little huts to store various things. There was a particularly dilapidated looking hut that seemed to not get much attention, and we picked that as our base.

We looked around inside to see what treasures there may have been. A manual tractor (?) and a pile of hay that looked to be a good substitute for a bed were the only things of note. We turned on our battery powered lantern and enjoyed our snacks and juice while exchanging manga. We felt like we had finally tasted freedom.

How long was it? I can't be sure, but at some point we heard something strange outside. Kiyoshi and I jumped and hurried to turn off the lantern. Was it one of our parents coming to find us or maybe the owner of the hut? We burrowed deeper into the pile of hay and breathed shallowly to avoid being heard.

“Shshsh... Shshsh...”

It was an odd sound, similar to something being dragged over gravel.

“Shshsh... Shshsh...”

Whatever it was was circling around the hut.

“...What is it?” I whispered as softly as possible.

“...Should I go check it out?” Kiyoshi asked, somewhat less scared than me. He slowly got up and crept closer to the window. I peaked out of my hiding spot only to see Kiyoshi jump backwards—an old woman was outside in the field.

The woman's back was bent, and she was so thin that she looked like her bones only supported the skin hanging off of them. Her white hair was very long and very messy.

“What... what the heck?!” Kiyoshi asked me in a tiny voice, but I didn't know anymore than he did.

The woman was dragging a bag that seemed to be made of linen or hemp. It was tied shut with a long rope, and that was what the woman gripped onto as she pulled it along. That must have been the sound we heard.

“Crap... You think she's the mountain witch?” We were shaking and slowly pulled away from the window. I was just ready to sit back down in the pile of hay when Kiyoshi knocked over a hoe or a spade. The sound echoed through the hut louder than I could have imagined. I jumped up to look out the window, and the old woman was running towards the woman at a speed faster than I could run. I pulled Kiyoshi down, and we burrowed into the hay.

BANG!

The door slammed open just as we covered ourselves up. I covered my mouth with my hand to hold back the scream building up in my throat.

“Whoooo the heeellllll... is innnnn heeeeeere?” The woman's voice was gravelly and hoarse. Her eyes seemed to glow as she looked around the room. “I aiiiiin't gonnnnna doooo nothin' to yuhhhhh so come ooooout...”

I could just barely see her through the grass I was hiding in, and my eyes focused on the bag she had with her. It was moving as if something was alive inside. I stared at it hard when suddenly something jumped out.

I somehow managed to avoid screaming, but I doubted what I saw—a hand.

“Down!” The woman kicked the bag when she saw the hand and then picked it up and threw it back into its prison. I think Kiyoshi and I both thought we were going to die right then and there.

“Maaaaaaybe here...” She took a large pitchfork and slowly made her way over to us. Before we even had a chance to get out, she began stabbing at our hiding spot.

Kiyoshi and I were in tears at this point as we tried to dodge the onslaught her attacks. If the pile of hay hadn't been as large as it was, both of us would have died I'm sure. We just continued moving further and further back towards the wall as the mound began to come apart with each stab. We were desperately hoping that the pitchfork couldn't reach us that far back.

I still don't know how long we hid in that pile of hay.

“Hmph... Maybe it was nothin'...” We heard the pitchfork land on the floor as she tossed it aside. The sound of her footsteps echoed loudly as she went over to her bag and again started dragging it behind her.

“Shsh... Shsh...” It got softer and softer as she walked farther away.

Even after the hut remained completely silent for quite some time, Kiyoshi and I didn't move a muscle.

“She's gone... Right?” Kiyoshi whispered.

“I think so...”

But neither of us wanted to leave our haven. We stayed huddled up, unsure of what to do next.

I suddenly felt a breeze coming through the wall that I was leaning against.

That must be why it didn't get hard to breathe, I thought to myself. There was a hole about 5 cm across right behind us. I put my face closer to the hole to see outside.

“You look good enough to eat, boy!” the woman's voice came in through the hole followed by her bony hand. She grabbed hold of my face and began to pull.

I let out a scream as I realized that the weird smell coming from her skin was that of blood and then passed out in fear.

When I came to, I was at the fire station. Kiyoshi had also passed out, and at some point our parents had contacted the authorities to help find us. Some fire fighters had found us in the shed. Our parents were pissed, but we were so happy to be safe that we cried.

We told our parents what had happened, but they insisted it was just a dream. I know it wasn't, though.

The mark from where the woman's fingers touched me are still on my face. 

[okaruto]

Sorry for the lack of updates. Things are hectic at work, and with staring at a computer screen for 6+ hours a day, my eyes have been bothering me too much to spend much time online at home. I'll have some things put into the queue by the end of tomorrow (Sunday).

[okaruto]

Three wishes

Note: This sounds vaguely familiar, and I'm not sure if I originally heard it in English or Japanese. Sorry if this is a translation of a translation.

- - -

There once was a very wise, young man. A boy heard of this man and spoke to him one day.

“Hey, is it true that you can make a deal with a demon and get three wishes?” the boy asked.

“That's what I've heard,” the young man nodded.

“Well if you talked to a demon, what would your three wishes be?” The boy was both curious and scared of what a demon would do for someone.

“Hm. I suppose my first wish would be for my second and third wishes to be granted while I was still healthy.”

“Oh. That's a good idea!” the boy smiled. “What would your second wish be?”

“I would want my last wish to be granted when I was still young,” the man said without hesitation.

“Huh?” the boy was confused why you would use two wishes on nothing more but conditionals. “Well then what would your last wish be?”

“That's a good question...” The man sighed. “I don't know. I can't say I've thought that far ahead.”

Suddenly a horrible voice unlike anything the child had heard before echoed from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. “Hurry the fuck up and make your last wish already! How many hundreds of years of my waiting on you is it going to take?!”

[okaruto]

No contact

TW: Check tags

---

I can't get a hold of my girlfriend. No matter how many times I try calling her, she won't pick up. I went to check on her at work a few times, but she's never there. Her front door is always locked, and nobody answers. 

Every day it's the same thing; call her phone, check her work place, go by her house. Nothing changes. It's like she's vanished. 

I think tomorrow I'm going to break down her door to check things out. Maybe I'll find some hints as to what's going on...

* * *

Solution:

Why would he need to break down her door if he was her boyfriend? It's more likely that the guy is a stalker and has been repeating the same things (calling her, bothering her at work, bothering her at home) for quite some time and she's ignoring him.

[okaruto]

Pervert

TW: Check tags.

- - -

I was riding the train home from work when I noticed a girl nearby being bothered by some guy. My instincts were telling me to jump up and go after him, but I held back in case I was wrong.

“If he's harassing you, shake your head,” I sent a text to her. I stared at her intently. She noticed her phone buzzing, read the message, and immediately started to shake her head.

“Hey, this guy's a pervert!” I screamed, grabbing his hand away from the girl. Everyone in the car looked at us, and a few people got up to help me keep hold of him until we got to the next stop.

The police and train workers asked lots of questions, but that was about it. The girl thanked me in a quite formal manner before walking home.

I'm feeling pretty good today, so I'll take the long way home again.

* * *

Solution:

How did the narrator know the girl's phone number? By the way he talks about her, he doesn't know her personally, and thanking him formally seems to back that up. Also, why did he mean by saying he was going to take the long way home again? Is he following her?

[okaruto]

Two experiments

A certain university conducted two experiments.

The first experiment was to show that when a person is strictly forbidden from doing something, their interest in doing that action increases dramatically.

A man was led into a room that had a button with a small sign reading “DO NOT PUSH.” The man resisted temptation for several hours before finally giving in and pushing the button.

Another experiment was focusing on twin sisters to show that twins are synchronized and share the same sensations, even when in separate rooms.

One of the girls received an electric shock. Despite being separated, the other girl reported pain on the same body part her sister had been shocked at. The experiment was a huge success.

“Was the man in the first experiment also a twin?” a student asked the professor who supervised the experiments.

The professor hadn't thought to ask, but he searched through the man's profile to check. He was surprised to find that the man in fact did have a twin brother—the national defense minister.

* * *

Solution:

The first man had been tempted to push a button and finally caved in. If twins really are synchronized, what button did the defense minister push?

[okaruto]

Older sister

Trigger warning: No exact hints as it will give away the answer.

- - -

I believe in the paranormal.

When I was a little girl, I used to talk to an older girl I called sister. We used to wear the same dirty clothes, and we lived together.

But one day, I just couldn't see her anymore.

My mom and dad won the lottery. We had been really poor, and I was told that I just made up my sister because I didn't have any other friends.

I'm happy now. But the lottery money is running out.

* * *

Solution:

The first thing that I thought of was that the parents killed the older sister and cashed in on insurance. The problem is that if you're poor, you're probably not going to be able to pay into an insurance policy that's worth much, if anything. That makes this theory not very viable.

The real answer is that the parents sold the older daughter for a large amount of money, and that's what they've been living on. Maybe they plan on selling the younger sister once they run out of money?

[okaruto]

Corpse

I was watching the news when suddenly my friend's house came on the screen. I sat up straight, waiting to hear what had happened. Apparently a girl's body had been found in one of the walls.

I immediately called my friend to see what was going on, but he had moved a while ago and wasn't living there anymore.

“Yea, well, anyway... I guess they found a body in the wall of your old place,” I explained.

“What?” he sounded scared. “No way!”

“The new owner was remodeling when he found it.”

“Shit... That's scary...” Judging by his voice, my friend was taking it pretty seriously.

“Isn't it? I mean, who the fuck kills somebody and then buries the body in their wall?” How many times had I been to his house? I was freaking myself out thinking about it.

“I feel bad for the girl, but I never noticed anything while I lived there...”

“Yea, I guess you're right,” I admitted, never having heard anything strange from him.

“That's the scary thing,” he said in a far off voice. “I have chills just thinking about it...”

I had to agree. Thinking of the possibility of there being a body hidden in my house set me on edge. It's like a physical blow, in a way. I bet this will stick with my friend for a while...

* * *

Solution:

His friend says “I feel bad for the girl” without being told that it was a girl who was killed. He is probably the killer.  

[okaruto]

Sorry for the current delay! I had an interview last week that quickly turned into a job offer, and I was busy getting stuff I needed to start working today. I'm hoping I'll get something up tonight or tomorrow night.

[okaruto]

Photograph

My little brother told me about this a while ago.

There's a place called the revolving restaurant on a road near the ocean in our home prefecture. Five or six years ago, a girl was murdered and her body was dumped there. It's a pretty well known story.

Anyway, right after it happened my brother and his friends rode their motorcycles out there to check the scene out. The parking lot is on the top edge of a hill, and the girl died at the bottom of that hill. Flowers had been placed around the area where her body was found to commemorate her death.

My brother and his friends decided they wanted to take a picture in front of the flowers. They all stood in a line, and right before they took the picture my brother picked up one of the bouquets. He stood right in the center of his group of friends, grasping the flowers in both of his hands.

They all thought that it would just be a normal picture, but when they got it developed something strange appeared: fog.

“It's just fog,” I said, rolling my eyes as my brother told me the story. “Shouldn't you be happy that's all that was there?”

“It isn't just that it's fog!” he insisted. “There's black smoke coming from our chests, rising up and covering us. You can't see any of our faces in the picture.”

I really want to see that picture. I guess they still have the negatives, too, but they're going to have them burned to be safe.

[okaruto]

Star

A star came down from the sky to speak with a young girl.

“I'll grant you a single wish—anything you want, and I'll make it come true.”

The girl was crying.

“Please, get rid of my family! I don't care how, just make them go away!”

The next day, the girl woke up and everything was just how it always was. Her mother, father, and brother were perfectly fine.

The girl began to worry.

That night the star returned to the girl.

“Is everything as you hoped?”

“I take back my wish,” the girl said.

“Oh, but I can't. Once a wish is granted, I can't do anything about it,” the star replied.

The girl began to cry.

* * *

Solution:

The family the girl was living with was not her biological family.  

[okaruto]

Detailed explanation

Note: That last one was scheduled to post the 5th, but something happened and it got stuck in my queue :-/ Sorry. I've been super busy with job stuff, people visiting, and some other unexpected stuff so I haven't been able to check on things as much as I'd like. I'm still trying to keep this updated every 3 days on average, but I apologize if I fall behind again.

- - -

I won't give exact places, so bear with me. This happened in A-prefecture near a famous haunted place, I-tunnel. It was high school, and me and four other dumb guys got together late one night. You've heard this all before, I'm sure. We pissed around and then decided to go to the tunnel, knowing it was supposed to be haunted. We hopped on our scooters and spent an hour driving there.

It was 2 am by the time we arrived. I was fine til we got to the little mountain road that went to the tunnel, but when we pulled up in front of it I almost passed out. It even seemed like the ones who were doing relatively okay stepped back a little, lol.

Well, as I said earlier, we were dumb. We agreed to go through with it and go into the tunnel. Usually Inoue would lead the way, but he trailed behind, obviously pretty fucking scared.

“Whatcha scared of, Inoue?” I taunted, glad to find somebody who was more nervous than me.

“I ain't scared!” he insisted, but he was pale and stared at his feet as he walked. The rest of us thought it was funny and all at once dashed ahead. Of course I thought he'd be following us, but I didn't hear any footsteps. The tunnel was so dark you couldn't see ten centimeters in front of your face, but we kept going further.

“Shit, let's get out of here!” somebody screamed, and I felt them run past me in the opposite direction. Everyone followed, and right before I got outside I heard somebody else.

“Shit! Ow, ow ow ow!” I saw his figure balled up on the ground as he cried out. It was Kimura. I didn't know what happened, but he was wailing as he held his right arm tightly.

“Hey, what's wrong?” I asked, but he just kept crying.

“Hurry and drag him out!” Inoue screamed desperately, standing at the entrance of the tunnel.

Three of us gathered around him to try and get him up, but he wasn't moving. He should have only weighed about 60 kilos, but the three of us couldn't get him to budge no matter how hard we tried. He continued screaming the entire time, which just made it all the more disturbing.

We all knew something wasn't right, and some of us started to panic.

“Ahahahahaahah!” Suddenly his screams became an eerie laughter, as if he had gone crazy. His eyes were rolling back into his head and his expression warped.

That's when he suddenly became much lighter. The three of us gripped onto him and dragged him out as quickly as we could. He continued laughing, and Inoue stepped towards us.

“Snap out of it!” he yelled and slapped him across the face.

“Huh? What the hell are you doing? Where am I?” he said, suddenly coming out of whatever trance he was in.

Nobody was in the mood to joke about it, so we explained it just how it happened.

“Well now that you mention it, my face and arm hurt.” He rolled up his right sleeve, and there was what looked like a slender bony hand on his arm.

“Let's get the fuck outta here,” somebody said, and we sped down the mountain as quickly as our scooters would let us.

Kimura was second in line going down, and Inoue was behind him. The road was perfectly smooth, but somehow Kimura managed to fall over. Me, Inoue, and the other guy behind me managed to brake fast enough not to make the situation even worse, but Kimura was covered in blood. We were beginning to feel desperate, but we managed to make it to the main road without anymore problems.

We went straight to the emergency clinic to check on Kimura's injuries and the hand-thing, and Inoue suggested that we should go to a temple to get cleansed. It was still only 4 am though, so we decided to sit in a 24 hour family restaurant while we waited for morning. That's when Inoue started talking.

“Didn't you guys see that old lady standing in the tunnel? It was so dark you'd think you were blind, but I could see her clear as day. I was scared. No way was I goin' anywhere near that thing. When you guys took off further into the tunnel, she followed you. When you turned around to come back, she grabbed onto Kimura and tried draggin' him back. Then she just disappears, and he starts laughin' like a maniac. When he fell off his scooter, it looked like his back wheel was pushed out from under him. He didn't collapse!”

We didn't have much to say while we waited for news on our friend. We learned that his scrapes and bruises weren't any danger to him, and the five of us went to the temple together.

It's been a while since all of this happened, and luckily I'm doing alright.  

[okaruto]

Dolls

This is an old story, but I hope you don't mind. I must have been in elementary school. I think it was sometime in August, right around when summer vacation was ending.

My hometown is near the ocean and there is an embankment that runs along the coast. My friends and I used to play near a smaller hill near the embankment. Because summer vacation was ending and we knew we wouldn't have much time to do so once classes started, we brought our skateboards to our spot one day.

I got really thirsty after a while and walked over to a nearby vending machine to buy some juice. My friends continued skateboarding near the embankment, but I could still see them from where I was. As I was walking back, I noticed something odd.

“Somebody's missing...” I ran back the rest of the way, and alerted everyone else. “Yasu's not here anymore!”

Everyone looked around to make sure, and sure enough he was gone.

“But he was just here,” somebody said, confused. Nobody had any idea where he had gone.

At the time, the water was at high tide and the wind was blowing strongly which made the waves choppy. If he fell into the water, he'd be in serious trouble. Scared that he might be hurt, we all began searching for him in earnest.

At the bottom of the hills stood grass and weeds that, in some places, was taller than we were. We did our best to work our way through the plants, calling out to Yasu as we moved. I started to fear for the worst when one of my friends screamed out.

“I FOUND HIM!!!” Kei strained his voice so the rest of us could hear.

I ran over to where the voice came from as quickly as I could. Yasu was lying on the ground, Kei was crouched beside him. Yasu's face was extremely pale and he was curled into a ball, clutching onto his left ankle. His face was drenched with sweat, and his was mumbling gibberish. Something was not right. Luckily, some of us rode to the spot on our bicycles, and we were able to balance Yasu on one as we made our way to a hospital. From there we called his parents.

Yasu was diagnosed with a complex fracture. While that isn't strange in itself, the crack went vertically up the bone. After his parents arrived, they thanked us profusely. We left shortly thereafter.

The Sunday after classes started, my friends (excluding Yasu) and I all returned to the spot where we found him in the grass. We were looking for something, but we weren't sure what it was. But why had Yasu collapsed right there? How did he break his bone like that? We felt almost like detectives as we slowly worked our way through the grass.

We looked around for a while without finding a single clue. My friends slowly started to grow tired of searching and began skateboarding nearby. I stayed behind a little longer, but I also began to give up hope. That's when I finally noticed something out of the ordinary—a patch of land near where Yasu had fallen. Unlike its surroundings, this one spot didn't have anything growing from it. I slowly made my way closer and found what appeared to be a mountain of black, as if something had been burnt there. Something that smelled like charred rubber wafted through the air.

I got even closer and saw something that made my hair stand on end: Dolls. The mountain was made up of dolls. They looked like Kyoto dolls with their almond-shaped eyes and small lips. But they were scorched. There had to have been 50—no, more than that. My eyes stopped on a single doll that had fallen onto the ground surrounding the mound. To my horror, its left ankle was burnt so badly that its foot fell off.

I was so scared of what I saw that I didn't even tell my friends about it. I just told them that I really wanted to get home and convinced them to leave.

When I got home, I tried telling my parents about the dolls. At first they obviously didn't believe me. They smiled and nodded, humoring me in that patronizing way parents do. But as soon as the word 'doll' came out of my mouth, their expressions turned grave before they finally told me something that I wasn't expecting to hear.

A long time ago, my hometown was covered in water. It was part of the ocean. The land was reclaimed and then built upon, but in the process several people died. In order to honor those that died, a doll was offered at a shrine. This happened every single time somebody died. However, nobody visited the shrine anymore. It was in a state of decay. However, the shrine was located right near where my friends and I would skateboard.

I don't know who burned the dolls. I've tried asking Yasu if anything happened when he was there, but he always clams up and refuses to speak about it. It's been a long time since all of this happened, but I still hate dolls. Just seeing one is enough to give me flashbacks.