Read an Excerpt
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Chapter One
Something Was Wrong
One morning John Sullivan found himself walking along a street downtown. He could not explain what he was doing there, or how he got there, or where he hadbeen earlier. He didn't even know what time it was.
He saw a woman walking toward him and stopped her. "I'm afraid I forgot my watch," he said, and smiled. "Can you tell me the time?" When she saw him, shescreamed and ran.
Then John Sullivan noticed that other people were afraid of him. When they saw him coming, they flattened themselves against a building, or ran across the street tostay out of his way.
"There must be something wrong with me," John Sullivan thought. "I'd better go home."
He hailed a taxi, but the driver took one look at him and sped away.
John Sullivan did not understand what was going on, and it scared him. "Maybe somebody at home can come and get me," he thought. He found a telephone andcalled his wife, but a voice he did not recognize answered.
"Is Mrs. Sullivan there?" he asked.
"No, she is at a funeral," the voice said. "Mr. Sullivan was killed yesterday in an accident downtown."
More Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark
Chapter One
Something Was Wrong
One morning John Sullivan found himself walking along a street downtown. He could not explain what he was doing there, or how he got there, or where he hadbeen earlier. He didn't even know what time it was.
He saw a woman walking toward him and stopped her. "I'm afraid I forgot my watch," he said, andsmiled. "Can you tell me the time?" When she saw him, shescreamed and ran.
Then John Sullivan noticed that other people were afraid of him. When they saw him coming, they flattened themselves against a building, or ran across the street to stay out of his way.
"There must be something wrong with me," John Sullivan thought. "I'd better go home."
He hailed a taxi, but the driver took one look at him and sped away.
John Sullivan did not understand what was going on, and it scared him. "Maybe somebody at home can come and get me," he thought. He found a telephone andcalled his wife, but a voice he did not recognize answered.
"Is Mrs. Sullivan there?" he asked.
"No, she is at a funeral," the voice said. "Mr. Sullivan was killed yesterday in an accident downtown."
Scary Stories 3
Chapter One
Boo Men
The girl was late getting home for supper. So she took a shortcut through the cemetery. But, oh, it made her nervous. When she saw another girl ahead of her, she hurried to catch up.
"Do you mind if I walk with you?" she asked. "Walking through the cemetery at night scares me."
"I know what you mean," the other girl said. "I used to feel that way myself when I was alive."
There are all sorts of things that scare us.
The dead scare us, for one day we will be dead like they are.
The dark scares us, for we don't know what is waiting in the dark. At night the sound of leaves rustling, or branches groaning, or someone whispering, makes usuneasy. So do footsteps coming closer. So do strange figures we think we see in the shadows — a human maybe, or a big animal, or some horrible thing we can barely make out.
People call these creatures we think we see "boo men." We imagine them, they say. But now and then a boo man turns out to be real.
Queer happenings scare us, too. We hear of a boy or a girl who was raised by an animal, a human being like us who yelps and howls and runs on all fours. Thethought of it makes our flesh crawl. We hear of insects that make their nests in a person's body or of a nightmare that comes true, and we shudder. If such things really do happen, then they could happen to us.
It is from such fears that scary stories grow. This is the third book of such stories I have collected. I learned some of them from people I met. I found others, tales that had been written down, in folklore archives and in libraries. As we always do with tales we learn, I have told them in my own way.
Some stories in this book have been told only in recent times. But others have been part of our folklore for as long as we know. As one person told another, the details may have changed. But the story itself has not, for what once frightened people still frightens them.
I thought at first that one of the stories I found was a modem story. It is the one I call "The Bus Stop." I then discovered that a similar story had been told two thousand years earlier in ancient Rome. But the young woman involved was named Philinnion, not Joanna, as she is in our story.
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