67 True scary stories to tell in the dark

18.Scratching

"We had quite a large house, shaped like an L. But the L was cut into a hill, so the _ of the L had a downstairs, which was almost underground. It had windows facing out but alot was either in the hill, or under another floor.

I had the room on the bottom part of the L from 13 onwards. My room had two doors, one that opened out to a kind of rumpus room, and one to an ensuite. It was always creepy as fuck, but being a skeptic, I dared anything there to do something to me. Grew up fine, but I could never sleep unless both doors were shut. When my parents went away, I'd break the rules and bring my dog in to sleep on the bed. I woke a few times late to see her alert and staring at the door to the rumpus room. Occasionally id hear a clawing at the screen on the window, but we had dogs, cats, horses and the local bush turkeys, foxes, etc. I figured if something was there that shouldnt have been my dogs would've gone ballistic.

Fast forward 5 years bring a new girlfriend to my home to meet my parents. Slept in my old room – she woke up screaming between 12am-3am twice out of the three nights we stayed there. Have been with her 5 years since and it's only happened in that room. She won't sleep in the house anymore.

My parents let my younger sister move into the room about 4 years ago. She asked me recently if i ever heard scratching on the window late at night. Both of the dogs we had, plus the cat and the horses are all dead, it being roughly 10 years later so the scratching is likely independent of the pets, unless the local animals are fucking with us. She also said she cant sleep unless both doors are shut and she'll often put doorstops under both doors so she hears if either door opens.

She googled some stuff and decided to sage the room and said she's had hectic nightmares since and woke up screaming late at night a few times. For reference, she was about 14 when the night terrors happened with my gf so we never told her. As i said, im a skeptic but it's still pretty creepy." — Torrossaur