Harrowing Tales Horror Stories

Harrowing Tales

Original horror fiction, told in the first person. Each week, Harrowing Tales brings you new scary stories about night shifts that go wrong, lonely roads after dark, strange encounters, and things that were never explained. This is quiet horror. It’s slow-burn, atmospheric, and unsettling, with no gore, no jump scares, and no screaming. Every story is original, written for Harrowing Tales. They’re creepy stories for late nights and long drives, and quiet enough to fall asleep to, if you can. All stories are original fiction. New episodes every week. Read the Harrowing Tales books on Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Harrowing-Tales/author/B0HP24FFR4

  1. 1h ago

    Mischief Night: A Halloween Eve Horror Story

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Every year, the week after Halloween, the local paper ran the same little item: on Mischief Night, someone had soaped a single word onto a single front window, and nobody saw who did it. The paper called it a prank. Her neighbor, who had lived on Fulton Street for fifty years, said none of them were ever random. In this original horror story, a single mother looks back on her first fall in a narrow 1911 house she could barely afford. The radiators knocked all night, the fuse box blew whenever the dryer and the space heater ran together, and she worked nights on a hospital ward while her twelve-year-old son Petey left notes on the kitchen table (“Ate the meatloaf. All of it.”). Then, the Saturday before Halloween, she comes home to a single curved stroke of white soap on her front window, at about the height of her face. So on Mischief Night she turns off every light, pulls her chair up to the glass with a thermos and a flashlight, and waits to catch them. A slow-burn, unsettling tale of Mischief Night, an old house, and a message she read the wrong way. No gore, no jump scares, just quiet dread that stays with you. 🎧 If this one got under your skin, follow Harrowing Tales for new scary stories every week, and leave a rating to help other listeners find the show. 📺 Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: Harrowing Tales All Harrowing Tales stories are original works of fiction.

    Mischief Night: A Halloween Eve Horror Story
  2. 1d ago

    Flag Fourteen: A Corn Maze Horror Story

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The night corn maze had one rule, painted on a board at the gate: if you get lost, raise your flag and stay put, and a guide will come to you. In October 1994, a father and his eight-year-old daughter went in with flag number fourteen. In this original horror story, a man looks back on the brave night he planned for his daughter Cass, a girl as afraid of the dark as other kids are of dogs. For her eighth birthday, she chose six acres of field corn after dark, with a flashlight, an orange flag on a pole, and a farmer’s joke about the old roped-off well out at the north end. Cass named the walls of corn (the tall ones were Big Steve), held onto his belt loop, and kept her flashlight pointed at her sneakers so nothing could jump into the light. About an hour in, they’re properly lost, so they do what the sign says. They raise the flag, and a voice in the corn calls their number. A slow-burn, unsettling tale of a night corn maze, a father and daughter, and a rule that’s supposed to keep you safe. No gore, no jump scares, just quiet dread that stays with you. 🎧 If this one got under your skin, follow Harrowing Tales for new scary stories every week, and leave a rating to help other listeners find the show. 📺 Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: Harrowing Tales All Harrowing Tales stories are original works of fiction.

    Flag Fourteen: A Corn Maze Horror Story
  3. 2d ago

    The Popcorn Ball: A Halloween Candy Horror Story

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! For forty-one Halloweens, the retired mailman across the street gave out the most famous popcorn balls on Wheeler Avenue. In 1997, from his hospital bed, he asked his neighbor for one last favor: hand out his treats, and save the single popcorn ball left on his counter for the boy in the fireman suit. In this original horror story, a single mother looks back on the Halloween she sat on Mr. Eberly’s front step in his place. He was the man who had shoveled her walk and fixed her furnace with a coat hanger the winter her husband left, and who taught her daughter Maddie to whistle with two fingers. Every other day she let herself in with the key under the ceramic frog to water his forty pots of African violets, from underneath, the way his index card said. His voice on the phone was weak and thick, as if he were talking through a dish towel, but his instructions were clear: the popcorn ball was only for the boy in the fireman suit, and only if he asked for it by name. A slow-burn, unsettling tale of Halloween night, a kind old neighbor, and a promise kept exactly as asked. No gore, no jump scares, just quiet dread that stays with you. 🎧 If this one got under your skin, follow Harrowing Tales for new scary stories every week, and leave a rating to help other listeners find the show. 📺 Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: Harrowing Tales All Harrowing Tales stories are original works of fiction.

    The Popcorn Ball: A Halloween Candy Horror Story
  4. 3d ago

    John Doe: A Haunted House Attraction Horror Story

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! In 2003, she took a job playing a corpse in a small-town haunted house: lying under a sheet on a gurney in a room called the Morgue, Fridays and Saturdays, six to one. The girl who had the job before her lasted one weekend, then quit without picking up her last paycheck. In this original horror story, a woman looks back on the October she was nineteen, taking two buses to community college and saving every dollar for a used green Civic. The haunted house was built inside an old feed warehouse. Her coworkers were Augie, who sang an entire French Revolution musical in order from the Meat Locker next door, and John Doe, a four-hundred-dollar prop corpse on the gurney eighteen inches from hers. The rules were simple: corpses keep their eyes closed, nobody touches anybody, and if you need help, you say “red.” Then, after the last group one Saturday night, a single set of footsteps comes into the Morgue and stops at the foot of her gurney. A slow-burn, unsettling tale of a Halloween haunted attraction, the rules that keep you still, and what was lying eighteen inches away. No gore, no jump scares, just quiet dread that stays with you. 🎧 If this one got under your skin, follow Harrowing Tales for new scary stories every week, and leave a rating to help other listeners find the show. 📺 Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: Harrowing Tales All Harrowing Tales stories are original works of fiction.

    John Doe: A Haunted House Attraction Horror Story
  5. 4d ago

    Bring Whoever: A Halloween Party Horror Story

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! He invited twenty-two people to his first-ever Halloween party. Twenty-three are in the shared photo album, and the twenty-third doesn’t show his face in any of the forty pictures he’s in. In this original horror story, a man looks back on the party he threw in his new house, a three-bedroom ranch forty minutes past where anyone he knew lived. The invitation said “costumes mandatory, bring whoever,” with a little ghost after it, and he meant it. His oldest friend Cal came dressed as a lumberjack, which is what he always wore anyway, carrying a slow cooker of chili like a baby, and as always he was the designated driver. Then there was the guy in the full rubber horse head, who took everyone’s coats, drank through a straw in the nostril, and snapped perfect photos all night with other people’s phones. Nobody knew who brought him. It made for a better party that way. A slow-burn, unsettling tale of a Halloween party, a guest no one could place, and a friend who should have stayed the night. No gore, no jump scares, just quiet dread that stays with you. 🎧 If this one got under your skin, follow Harrowing Tales for new scary stories every week, and leave a rating to help other listeners find the show. 📺 Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: Harrowing Tales All Harrowing Tales stories are original works of fiction.

    Bring Whoever: A Halloween Party Horror Story
  6. 5d ago

    The Night Drop: A Halloween Costume Shop Horror Story

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Her mother ran the costume rental shop for thirty-one years, and three different Novembers she burned a costume in a trash can out back without ever saying why. In 1987, the shop became hers. In this original horror story, a woman looks back on her first Halloween season running her late mother’s costume shop alone, keeping her mother’s rules: every costume tagged and pressed, a crease down each sleeve, due back November second. October pays for the whole year, and her best friend Roz, who could turn a pharmacist into a werewolf in four minutes and never returned a thing she borrowed, does faces for a dollar in the chair by the window. The morning after her first Halloween alone, two costumes she’d never seen are waiting in the night-drop bin, a fox and a scarecrow, pressed and tagged in her own handwriting. She hangs them on the rack, glad to have the last of her mother’s work. A slow-burn, unsettling tale of a small-town costume shop, a mother’s unexplained habit, and what comes back through the slot after Halloween. No gore, no jump scares, just quiet dread that stays with you. 🎧 If this one got under your skin, follow Harrowing Tales for new scary stories every week, and leave a rating to help other listeners find the show. 📺 Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: Harrowing Tales All Harrowing Tales stories are original works of fiction.

    The Night Drop: A Halloween Costume Shop Horror Story
  7. 5d ago

    On Maple: A Halloween Night Horror Story

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! It’s Halloween night, and his eleven-year-old son is out trick-or-treating with friends for the first time. The boy’s only rule: Dad can track him on the location app and text all he wants, but he can never, ever call. In this original horror story, a newly divorced father keeps the deal while he’s home with his six-year-old daughter Junie, who is dressed as a raccoon who went to medical school, and Gus, a nine-year-old beagle who spends every Halloween hiding in the bathtub from the doorbell. Theo texts like a ransom note, in all caps, three words at most, calling him “bruh.” This is also the first year Theo gets a say in where he spends Thanksgiving. So when the app puts his dot in the half-built subdivision behind the middle school and the texts say he’s on Maple with everyone, Dad believes the texts. Then the questions start: is Mom coming tonight, is Junie still up, is the back door open. A slow-burn, unsettling tale of Halloween night, a father trying to do everything right, and a phone that keeps texting back. No gore, no jump scares, just quiet dread that stays with you. 🎧 If this one got under your skin, follow Harrowing Tales for new scary stories every week, and leave a rating to help other listeners find the show. 📺 Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: Harrowing Tales All Harrowing Tales stories are original works of fiction.

    On Maple: A Halloween Night Horror Story
  8. Oct 18

    Phone in the Box: A Digital Detox Cabin Horror Story

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! For her birthday, her best friend booked her a weekend alone in a cabin with no cell signal, and bet her eleven hundred dollars she couldn't last forty-eight hours without her phone. The phone went into a clear plastic lockbox with a timer on the lid. She could see the screen, but she couldn't touch it. In this original horror story, a woman who has spent eleven years writing social media posts for a cartoon carrot on the side of grocery trucks finally goes offline, at a one-room cabin up eight miles of dirt road, with her late father's truck and his cassette of loon calls still in the deck. She hikes the ridge, eats Sunday's snacks on Friday, and invents a roommate named Doug who lives in the loft and pays rent in pretzels. It's the quietest she has been in years. Then, on Saturday afternoon, the phone in the box lights up with a notification she can read through the plastic but can't open. A slow-burn, unsettling tale of a digital detox, a phone you can see but can't touch, and how far "off the grid" really goes. No gore, no jump scares, just quiet dread that stays with you. 🎧 If this one got under your skin, follow Harrowing Tales for new scary stories every week, and leave a rating to help other listeners find the show. 📺 Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: Harrowing Tales All Harrowing Tales stories are original works of fiction.

    Phone in the Box: A Digital Detox Cabin Horror Story

About

Original horror fiction, told in the first person. Each week, Harrowing Tales brings you new scary stories about night shifts that go wrong, lonely roads after dark, strange encounters, and things that were never explained. This is quiet horror. It’s slow-burn, atmospheric, and unsettling, with no gore, no jump scares, and no screaming. Every story is original, written for Harrowing Tales. They’re creepy stories for late nights and long drives, and quiet enough to fall asleep to, if you can. All stories are original fiction. New episodes every week. Read the Harrowing Tales books on Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Harrowing-Tales/author/B0HP24FFR4