Want to enjoy a little thrill with friends at a sleepover or during break time? In those moments, don’t you think short scary stories are just perfect? They’re not too long, easy to share, yet they send a chill down your spine.
These perfectly balanced spooky tales are sure to get everyone excited, even if elementary school kids just read them aloud to each other.
So here, we’ve gathered short scary stories that even elementary schoolers can enjoy.
Read them secretly under the covers at night, or tell them in front of everyone.
Get your heart racing as you think about your own way of telling them!
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Scary stories kids can enjoy! Short yet spine-chilling tales (1–10)
Fear of gaps! The gap womanNEW!
When you’re alone in your room—especially at night—have you ever heard sounds from the dark gaps around a door, or felt like something was watching you? At times like that, it might be the likes of the “gap woman,” “gap ghost,” or “gap sprite” observing you.
Thinking of it that way, yokai feel like beings that live in the corners of the human heart—our anxieties, fears, expectations, and so on.
And when you think of them like that, don’t they start to feel deeply human—and even a little lovable?
The boy who blames othersNEW!
The Boy of Blame is a yokai filled with lessons.
He gently guides those who keep blaming others and refuse to face their own flaws and mistakes, helping them turn inward, face themselves, and grow.
And by the time that person has grown, the boy is gone.
This yokai could be called the conscience within oneself, and perhaps a small bit of courage is what brings him to you.
I hope those who fear failure and can’t help but want to blame others will meet him.
My name is Chucky.NEW!
The doll Chucky from the 1988 horror film Child’s Play is a doll possessed by a serial killer who, after being gravely wounded, transfers his soul into a doll he finds in a toy store.
The tragedy begins when that doll is given as a present to an unsuspecting boy.
As more people grow up without knowing about Chucky, you might think it’s just a cute doll and buy it—only to find yourself dragged into a world of terror.
Be careful when you go to the toy store.
Smile RoomNEW!
A Smile Room is a room with a door that looks like a mouth that eats people.
The door is shaped like a mouth, and it supposedly digests anyone who goes inside.
Scary, right? It’s said that this yokai is drawn to a person’s negative aura, so if you’re feeling down or have lost confidence, you might get possessed by a Smile Room.
If you ever happen to find such an entrance tucked away in a corner of the city, run away as fast as you can.
The best thing to do is overcome your sadness.
The Terror of the Bridge WormNEW!
This yokai is a relatively new one created by Canadian artist Trevor Henderson, and it’s said to lurk beneath long highway bridges.
It’s true that the undersides of highway bridges feel sterile and eerie, as if something unsettling could be hiding there.
It has a long, white, caterpillar-like body, and it may attack people who get too close.
Yokai born from human imagination like this are fascinating in many ways, and they make you want to keep an eye out even when you’re driving on the highway.
Robert the Cursed DollNEW!
This Robert doll is said to have been the model for Chucky from Child’s Play, and it wears a sailor outfit.
It’s a type of doll that was treated like a human and came to be believed to possess a soul.
After it was given to a boy named Otto, it was said to make footsteps and cause various strange phenomena.
After Otto passed away, it was sold along with his house, and it is reportedly now on display in a museum.
If you have the chance, it might be fun to come face-to-face with the Robert doll.
Sand-throwing hag (overdoing it)NEW!
Sunakake-babaa is also known as a character in Shigeru Mizuki’s manga GeGeGe no Kitaro.
She is a yokai known in the Kinki region, and it’s said that her place of origin is Kawai Town in the western part of the Nara Basin.
She is characterized by throwing sand to blind people, but she doesn’t seem to be that malevolent a yokai.
Don’t yokai feel like products of human creativity—turning small natural phenomena into the doings of some “so-and-so” and making characters out of them? Thinking of them that way makes yokai feel endearing, doesn’t it?