1. Holes

“Digging holes. Innocent enough during the day, probably planting a tree or something. Burying bodies at night.”

2. Playgrounds

“A kid playing on the swings at public parks.”

3. Windows

“At night I have a huge fear of looking out the window and seeing a face or someone out there staring back. I know chances are there’s no one there but I’m not risking it.”

4. Mirrors

“Looking at a mirror in the dark, being able to see your silhouette but not quite making out what your face looks like…”

5. Scurrying

“Anything that scurries.”

6. Children

“Over the holidays, my 6-year-old had a sleepover with her cousin. I stepped out of my room at 6:30AM to head to work and they were both standing in the hall, back-lit by a night light, in their nightgowns. My daughter was cradling a doll and her cousin was standing next to her with a toy pram. Still and silent. I nearly shit.”

7. Apartment Elevators

“The other night, I was waiting for the elevator in my building at like 3 in the morning.

Each floor has a door into the stairwell at either end, with glass windows that you can obviously see through.

I kept glancing at one door, thinking to myself, “Wouldn’t it be creepy if there was just a face staring at me through there?”

Look at the window, nothing. Look at the elevators. Look at the window, nothing. Look at the Elevators. look at the window, FACE IN THE WINDOW THE END IS NIGH. I am not ashamed to say I fell on my ass out of shock.

Was just a nice older gentleman. He thought it was hilarious.”

8. Malls

“My job right now is based on contracts – where they send me, I go. So, one night, I find myself working in this Victoria’s Secret overnight. Somewhere in the mall, there’s a toy or a candy display, one of those things that is bright and shiny and makes enticing music so children will spend money to play the game and get the prizes. This particular display plays an upbeat little tune, which is randomly accompanied by a little girl’s laughter. The prize thing is unattended – they don’t need anyone to turn it on or off, they just leave it on all night.

Around 2 or 3 AM, most of the work is done, the rest of the contractors I was watching have left, and I’ve locked up behind them. I’m now locked inside a Victoria’s Secret, in a dark mall, alone, for the next six hours. Echoing down the hall is that sort of empty, tinkling tune, and in the complete silence and near-darkness of an empty mall, that light, uplifting laughter is now hellishly diabolical.

It’s been a little over half a year, and I still want to go back to that mall, find that display, and smash it with a hammer. I can still hear that laughter.”

9. Mannequins

“One of my aunts is a hair dresser so she has a lot of mannequin head things that she practices different things on.

One day I walked into the dark backroom, unaware of these, only to be greeted by three decapitated heads on a shelf…”

10. Dog’s Barking

“When the dog suddenly wakes up and starts barking.

During the day, she’ll bark when the phone rings or at next door’s car pulling into their driveway.

When she starts barking at night, it can only mean that I am about to be hacked to death in my bed.”

11. Angelic Kids With Their Stuffed Animals

12. Phone Calls

“Nothing good has happened if you’re getting a call at 3am.”

13. Doorways

“Open doorways. In the middle of the day it’s just a path to another room. In the middle of the night, every time you open your eyes and stare at your open bedroom doorway, you pray to any and all gods that someone/something is not standing there.”

14. Basements

“My grandmothers basement terrified me. It was huge and sectioned off into multiple rooms. The first room as you came down the steps was finished and was where the sewing machine and bigger kids toys were and it wasn’t too bad or scary. Through the pocket door to the unfinished side was where it got scary. My cousins and I would run through the rooms, pulling the light chains as fast as we could to bring as much light as possible so basement demons wouldn’t get us. Going back out and turning the lights off was even worse.Even as I got older and started using the sewing room more, it still felt like quiet menace exuding from that pocket door.”

15. Beautiful Trees

“During the day, a forest is one of nature’s most pleasant environments. At night, it’s about as welcoming as the bottom of the ocean.”

16. Neighborhood Walks

“I am a insomniac, I like to go for night walks.

One time I was walking through the street and I saw someone in the window staring at me. He or she kept staring, following me with his or her eyes, I couldn’t quite see who it was because it was dark. At day, I returned to the street and I saw a sex doll in the window. Wow.”

17. Facebook

“Liking your crush’s pictures.”

18. Theme Parks

“A couple of months back I went to a theme park with my girlfriend. More specifically the Efteling (Netherlands) for those of you who know it. They have this lovely, a bit old-fashioned square with a carousel, playing typical carousel music you might know from playing Rollercoaster Tycoon. Harmless during the day. Later that day, I surprised my girlfriend with a dinner in one of the park’s restaurants. We were the last ones leaving the restaurant, and the park had closed in the meantime. The exit of the park is on the opposite side of the park, so we had to walk through a completely desolated theme park at night. Which is fairly creepy by itself, but here comes the fun part: we walk past the square with the carousel and the music is still playing. Nobody around, just us and the music in the background. And just as we walk past, the music stopped. Scene felt like it came straight out of a horror movie…”

19. Cats

“Oh, are you trying to get in to bed in the dark? Here, let me hide under your bed frame and reach out my little fluffy grabby claws from underneath to grab at your feet as you lift them off the floor.”

20. Curtains

“There was a time, back when I was about six years old, that I woke my parents up in the middle of the night by frantically screaming about a rather unlikely occurrence. My father, having heard the commotion, came groggily shambling into the room to investigate.

‘What is it, Max?’ he asked.

‘That!’ I cried, pointing at a collection of shadows near my bedroom window. ‘Make it stop!’

My father followed the path of my finger with his eyes. ‘There’s nothing there, Max.’

‘Yes, there is!’ I insisted. ‘It’s a giraffe, and it’s eating the curtains!’

At hearing this, my father seemed both amused and annoyed. His solution was to open and close the curtains a few times, thus disrupting the arrangement of folds that had fooled my mind into seeing a long-necked interloper. Unfortunately, in doing so, he unwittingly attracted the attention of a goblin (or something), which I could see floating just beyond the glass and staring in at me.

That time, my dad just told me to stop being scared of my reflection and go back to sleep.”

21. The Sea

“A stretch of blue as far as the eye can see. At night, an endless void, swallowing you whole.

Don’t fall in.”

22. Stairs

“The police searched my basement for a dead body a few years back. It was a town rumor that the previous owners buried a man down there. It is a dirt basement. So my basement is creepy.

The back steps are right next to it and the steps don’t have backs so you can see through them.

I always haul ass up those steps in fear someone will reach through and grab my ankles.”

23. Wal-Mart

“Going to Walmart at 3pm? Probably grabbing dinner or something the kids need for school.

Going to Walmart at 3am? Meth cooks.”

24. Wholesome Statues

“One of our neighbors has this angel statue that looks insanely creepy when you walk past it at night. This is doubled by the fact that we almost never see any activity coming from their house.”

25. Portraits

“During the day, oh, that’s a nice photograph/painting/sculpture! During the night it’s watching you, eyes following you across the room, silently judging you and planning your murder.”

26. The County Fair

“Fairgrounds after a county or state fair. I have worked at one before and after the lights on the rides and stands go out there are so many places to hide.”

27. Coat Racks

“I lay petrified in my bed one early morning as the man wearing a hat, engulfed in shadow stood feet away from my bed watching. Hours later the true horror revealed itself as sunlight crept in through my window.

My mom is a bad person for placing that coat rack in my bedroom as I slept.”

28. Deflating Helium Balloons

“A deflating helium balloon on a ribbon, floating five or six feet off the floor. By day, it’s the harmless remnant of a child’s birthday party drifting about the room, inviting you to play with it, an easy distraction for your kids and your cat. At night, you will be watching Saw IV in bed. You will think you heard a noise. You will convince yourself it was nothing. Your wife, however, freaked out by the evening’s entertainment and concerned that the source of the alleged noise may be your toddler who is newly prone to sleepwalking, will insist on getting up to investigate. When she opens the bedroom door in the dark, she will come face-to-face with the balloon, bobbing at head height unexpectedly across the dimly lit threshold. She will not feel like playing with the balloon. She will not ponder its simple beauty and the wonder it inspires. She will scream like she is being murdered and then try to murder you for laughing.”

29. Office Buildings

“I worked in a small building from the 70’s that was built in an area known to be part of a village to a Native American tribe. Anyone who works that building at night or alone has stories ranging from random tapping noises to seeing people who aren’t there. It’s a creepy building in it’s own right. Half of it is used for a preschool and during the day it’s filled with kid’s artwork, cute decorations, toys, etc.

At night when you’re walking back into that area it’s by far the scariest section of the building. There is a point where you can see through windows into both of the classrooms and the sickly yellow lights outside of the building cast into the rooms and dimly light them in this unearthly glow that makes your skin crawl.”

30. The Backyard

“My yard in Louisiana. Nothing scary during the day, but at night if I take the dog out to pee and shine my flashlight up our 1/4 mile driveway, I see eyes reflected back all along the length of it. Typically it’s just raccoons, but there are armadillos and foxes for sure, there’s a great horned owl that lives in a tree right above the carport and scared the shit out of me, and there could be wild hogs, alligators, snapping turtles, snakes, black bear, and possibly even a panther. There are no other houses in sight and no streetlights and I’m not originally from here. I’ve got a flashlight and laser on my pistol for when I take out the trash (half mile walk). It’s beautiful, but it takes some nerve to walk around at night.”