2025 Scary Story Contest Winners

Thank you to everyone who entered our 2025 Scary Story Contest! We had so much fun reading all your submissions - we even lost sleep over how scary some of the stories were. Congratulations to our winners: Logan Milardo, Reily Cox, and Sadie Haggblom! If you were unable to hear their stories being read at our Haunted Happenings on October 25, you can read them here!

Hunger by Logan Milardo

Justin woke up from a cold blooded nightmare, drenched in sweat. 

His heart was slamming into his chest, with a feeling of isolation in his pitch-black bedroom. 

When his fright settled, he perceived a key flaw. His bedroom was off, there was a distorted, floating mattress in the gaping corner of the room. His wallpaper was a different color. "This, this doesn't feel right" He thought with confusion. Getting out of bed, he took a step. The creaking floor felt like his feet were walking in acid.

Opening his door, he was horror struck seeing the paint was shredded apart. 

It opened to a mysterious, abandoned playground. Full of rust swings, cobwebs, the sky was like old, tearing wallpaper, and smelled of mold. 

He walked out under the cold black sky onto the creepy playground. He swore he heard something in the distance... following the sound he noticed a dark figure. He couldn't understand what it was, but its presence felt eerie and HUNGRY: He gave t he silhouette a blank, uneasy stare as it called to him.

"JUUST-e-E-E-E-E-E-"

Disturbingly speaking his name, its static-filed voice began to buffer. Its mouth unnaturally stretched out, its deformed eyes struck straight into his soul. The horrendous background inverted color. A spider-like arm came out, aggressively impaling Justin out his existence. 

Waking up drenched in sweat inside his dark bedroom again, he felt real and free, relieved that he's no longer in a nightmare. Getting out of bed and opening the door. Where is my hallway? Instead, peering into his old house's kitchen. 

Something is definitely wrong. 

The cabinets were malformed and curved like an abstract painting, the air felt like breathing into a wet cloth. 

Behind the dining table, he sees the eerily perplexing picture of his mother, who died 4 years ago. She turned her head, looking too crooked and oversized, moving abnormally.

Justin ignored the flaws, he was too happy he saw his mom again, he ran to her, and tearfully hugged her. "What's wrong, sweetie?" Mom asked. Justin responded sadly, "Had a nightmare," He realized, mom's voice sounded like a different person. 

Justin moved away and told her. "Y-y-you aren't real!" The emotion left her face. 

YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO KNOW.

Justin tried slowly walking away, but was stopped by an unknown force. Mom's face transfigured into a gruesome, awful creature, with hundreds of monstrous teeth, blood dripping from its mouth like syrup. 

It was tearing everything out of existence like a simulation. Betraying Justin. It pushed him inside the black. His escape from the dream-corrupted void left him comatose.

Waking up, drenched in sweat, he wasn't in a misshapen bedroom. Instead, a pitch-black maze terrorized him. Standing with an awful pain in his chest, like something's eating his insides, he scurried around the maze trying to find an exit. 

He stopped, hearing faint screaming, his curiosity intrigued him. Following the noise, he found a sign, composed of blood.

I HEAR SCREAMING OF MANY CHILDREN

The sign scared him, but the noise attracted him to come closer. It felt like someone or something was following him. Going closer and closer, what he found shocked him. There was a family. He ran up to them as fast as he could, trying to tell them about the horrifying situation, something sealed his voice from making noise. Leaving the family confused, so they didn't listen and left him. Even though he was harmed and betrayed, he still didn't give up the pursuit of escape. He thought, "Wait, if this is a dream, then I can just control it!" But it heard him! Justin tried to fly, but everything disappeared. 

YOU DON'T HAVE CONTROL.

The figure finally revealed. 

The terrifying and horrific entity absolutely struck Justin's soul, making his heart bash into his chest had blood-lusted eyes, a huge, sinister grin, and murderous arms reaching out for him. 

I AM CLOSER-R-R-R-R

The voice buffered and viciously ripped off Justin's arms, then fading into the background, leaving Justin isolated. Traumatized from what he had seen, Justin was horrified. The static ended. That same faint screaming reemerged, calling his name. "What? Who are you?" Justin asked the voices.

It responded, which he couldn't comprehend. 

WAKE UP...

The voices kept repeating, until it fractured everything, including Justin. Like they were sacrificing him. Justin's throbbing pain was worsening, he blacked out. 

Opening his eyes, he didn't feel pain, he didn't see anything distorted or inexplicable, he felt REAL. 

However, it was dark outside, he didn't know when it was. On the wall,  note that said, "RIP JUSTIN, 1992-2001, has been dead for Eight Days!"

Puzzled, but frightened him. Looking left, he sees the figure, in his room.

----

We wakes up, drenched in sweat. 

THE END 

Redrover, Redrover by Reily Cox

A girl was home alone one night, while her parents were on a date. She was eating dinner, when she got a text message. 'Redrover, Redrover, I am in your country.' She was a little creeped out, so she blocked the number, and deleted it. 

Again two minutes later, she got another text message. 'Redrover, Redrover, I'm in your state.' She got very scared, so she tried to call her parents, but it didn't work. Another two minutes later, she got another text message. 'Redrover, Redrover, I'm in your city.' She ran up to her room, and hid under her bed. 

Then ten minutes later she got another text message. 'Redrover Redrover, I'm on your street.' Another two minutes later, she got another text message. 'Redrover, Redrover, I'm outside your house.'

Suddenly, she got another text message, 'Redrover, Redrover, I'm inside your house.' She didn't hear anybody come in so she just thought people were spamming her. Another text message: 'Redrover, Redrover, I'm in your room.' 

Nobody ever saw her again, after that she will always be known as the disappearing girl.

Vines by Sadie Haggblom

The girl, don in pitch black, was told never to go into the garden. She was told bad things happened there, very bad things indeed. People disappeared, their bodies black and blue, shrunken and withered.

But she didn't listen.

She thought the garden was beautiful, the flora magical, the ponds and streams lovely. She was wrong. The garden was a hideous place, with poisonous plants and venomous animals that roamed. 

The girl snuck into the garden at noon, when she was supposed to have luncheon. Her maids and family would search for her, but she didn't plan on coming back.

With each step, the garden was delighted. It would have a luncheon too. The fronds and leaves and ferns shuddered with bliss, the vines and ivy stretched out their hands, reaching, extending, crawling to the girl.

The garden knew she would never see her family again, she would never sleep with her cats again, she would never have another sip of tea again.

As it was coming.

The girl was oblivious to this. She didn't see the creeping vines. She didn't see stretching ivy. She didn't see, didn't hear, didn't know the garden was ready to consume. 

A murderous vine slithered closer and closer, but the girl didn't know. The vine unfurled its leafy fingers, sharp barbs on the ends, but still the girl didn't know. The vine reached toward her, toward her leather boot, and still, the girl. Didn't. Know. 

The vine struck, the poison-filled barbs sinking in through the boot, through the skin, into her veins and muscle and bone. The poison swept through the girl's veins, her very blood, to her her brain before she had the chance to scream.

She couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't save herself. She couldn't do anything to escape her fate, as the garden had claimed her. 

Her hands scraped the ground, leaving deep, bloody gashes in the dirt. Her head lay face-first, everything maimed to unrecognizable heights. One eye tumbled out of her socket, the red liquid seeping in to the soil, food for the plants and a lucky animal.

The vine dragged her by the foot in a murky pond, still tinted red by the last victim. She was pulled into its depths, and the breath she still had was gone. 

The garden had claimed another victim.

She wouldn't be the last.