《True scary stories of the Black Forest》


 The shadow

    The first story happened to my father, when he was still a little kid. As a small child, my dad suffered from nightmares a lot. He would wake up screaming and crying in a panic, so much so, that he would struggle to even realize that he was in the loving arms of his mother, desperately trying to comfort him. My grandmother tried to help best she could, but she was at the end of her rope very quickly. The doctor couldn''t provide any guidance either, and therapy wasn''t really a thing back then. And the rest of my dad''s family, all elderly women whom the war had made little sympathetic to the night terrors of a young boy, simply told him to man up and get over his fears, as they were not real anyways.


    The house my father grew up in wasn''t very spacious. He had three younger siblings, and his mom''s sister and the aunts all lived there, so every room had to be used. My dad used to have a small room, more like a closet, high up under the roof. But above that, there was still a little storage, where it was very dark. The place frightened him, and he hated going up there to fetch something for his aunts or his mom. That room often played a role in his nightmares. Especially the far corner, where the light never really got to, and shadows blacker than night reigned. To my dad, that space seemed to house monsters, and he dared not even look at it, when he had to step foot in that room. But at night, the place would haunt him. One re-occurring dream held him in that room, stuck in the middle, unable to move away or scream. And something in the darkest corner seemed to beckon for him to come closer. It wasn''t a voice to urge him, or a hand to reach for his feet, but still, he knew, the corner wanted him to come closer. And that knowledge without a source frightened him more than anything.


    My father''s family were all catholic, and faith in God and the devil were present every living moment, in prayers, rituals, crosses on the walls... My father feared that a demon wanted to take his little soul with it, and would pray every night to Jesus to relieve him from the nightmares. But it never worked.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    Then one night, something changed. My father cannot tell, what or how, but that night, when the nightmare held him in it''s clutches, the darkness spreading in the little room, and him frozen to the spot in fear, he made a choice. And in his dream, he took a step towards the shadow in the corner, that had called him just like each night before. He was frightened to no end, but took one more step, mustering all the courage a small child can have. He kept moving into the pitch black, until this was all he could see. All he could feel. Darkness. And some form of presence. Something was there. Before him. Around him. Whispering in silence. Reaching for him without substance. And though he could not scream, and with his heart beating up to his mouth, my father still opened it to speak to whatever being it was that haunted him for so long. And he asked a simple question:


    ''What do you want from me?''


    That morning, my father woke up, not from his own screaming, but because his mother called him down for breakfast. He still cannot say, what really happened that night, but the bad dreams disappeared. The hellish corner never showed up in his sleep again, and even when he had to go up into the storage, though it still wasn''t a pleasant place, the dark no longer seemed threatening. He even imagined, that the far end wasn''t as black as it had been before. My dad is still a very spiritual person, and sometimes he wonders, if perhaps there really was something in that dark corner that had called for him in his sleep. Maybe some wandering spirit, that simply needed to be acknowledged to move on.


    However, though being far from as cruel as his aunts were, who dismissed his worries, my father since then does believe that you should face your fears in order to conquer them, especially the ones you cannot rationalize.

 The bad curve

    This second story happened to my grandmother. She lives in a very small village, and this happened when my father was just a teenager, so everything was even more rural than it is today. A lot of farms and farmer''s kids, who would frolic around unsupervised. My grandmother worked shifts in a hospital, and would drive to work on a vespa. But her husband had a car, that he would let the youngsters of the village borrow for fun, as long as they didn''t damage it. People in the village were very trusting of each other back then. It was just some lower class model (btw, this was before seat belts were a thing). My father and his friends would borrow it to just drive around, or drive to the town just two miles away, that had at least a small cinema and an ice cream parlor, so they could hang out there. This was around the late 70s, my dad and his friends were only teens, too young to drive legally. But nobody cared. After all, the kids would help around the farms as soon as they were big enough, and driving a tractor isn''t that much different.


    One night, my grandmother had a nightmare. She dreamed that my father and his best friend had been drinking (again, nobody cared back then), and decided to hit the town for some fun. She watched them take the car, as the key always stuck. She saw my father''s friend take the wheel, with my dad as the passenger. They drove off. Towards the forest. Cuz, those two miles to the town went though a thick dark forest, and the roads were curvy as hell, because the village lay in the hills. A lot of drivers, and even more bikers, died in that forest, taking the curves too fast, skidding off the road into the curb, sometimes to be found days later, as the shrubbery covered them. My grandmother watched her son and his friend, taking the curves, laughing, fooling around. Then came the bad curve. The one that had the highest kill count. They flew off the street, and hit a tree. My dads friend lay slumped against the steering wheel. My father was on the forest floor, covered in glass and bleeding. His eyes stared open into the night. Dead.


    My grandmother woke up frightened. But as a good catholic women, she tried to tell herself, that it was just a bad dream. And besides, there were no festivities or holidays coming up any time soon, so why should the boys be drinking? And anyways, her son and his friends knew better. She went to work as usual that day, doing a night shift. Her husband, as nice as he was, didn''t care too much for supervising the kids. He left them to their own devices, as usual. So my dad went to hang out with his friends, as usual. And someone had brought some liquor that day, that they had nicked from their parent. As not that unusual... The boys drank, started fooling around, getting ideas of how to have a good time, and one of them suggested hitting the town. My father and his best friend went back to his home. But once there, my father felt too drunk to come. His friend however, wanted to go. So, he borrowed the car.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    What happened then in detail, is a mystery, as only my father''s friend was there to see it. But it seemed to have gone like this: He took the car, and drove out of the village, already swaying. He turned up the radio for some vibes. He took the curves as close as he could, because why not? You only live once. Then came the bad curve. He went of the road. He hit a tree. Lay slumped over the steering wheel. And shrubbery covered the car. But, he wasn''t dead. And it was just his luck that another farmer, coming from the town, saw the tail lights blinking in the bushes, and stopped to check it out. He saved the teens life.


    The news didn''t immediately hit the village. Everyone went about their business, and when my grandmother''s husband saw the car missing in the morning, he shrugged it off. It wasn''t until his wife came home and started panicking, that people even realized what had happened. My grandmother screamed at her husband, when he simply told her, the boys probably just took the car to drink something. Her yelling woke up my dad, who had a massive hangover, and despite is age still feared his mum would beat him for drinking. Instead, she clutched him to her chest, when she saw he was alright. She was still worried for his friend, until the news got round that he was in the hospital (not the one my grandma worked in), with a concussion and some cuts, but otherwise okay. However, once she told her story, a lot of folks were creeped out, and didn''t know what to think. Mass was pretty full that Sunday...


    Although a lot has happened since then, this story often gets retold in the village. The folks, though trusting each other, but worried for the kids, didn''t leave out the keys to their cars anymore (or perhaps because insurance didn''t want to pay, when they heard of it). The bad curve was closed off and a new, smoother route through the forest was built over the years. And whenever my grandmother had nightmares again (which was rare in itself), she would make sure to tell someone of it, if it involved people she knew. Nothing similar to this incident ever happened again, but it did leave a mark on my family and the village, concerning visions and dreams.

 Neighborhood watch

    The third story happened to me, when my family lived in the US. Being foreigners moving around a lot, not familiar with US custom, and with trouble learning the language, we didn''t mingle with our neighbors, and after a year, the neighborhood didn''t try to get in contact with us anymore either. We kept to ourselves, and so seemed everyone else. Until one day, a letter arrived.


    It was a warning. It went something like this: ''Be alert. A registered sex offender is moving into your community. Stay watchful.'' Nothing else. Not who send it, or why we got it, or what we were supposed to do with that information. All it did, was instill fear in us. The only house where somebody was moving, was right across the street form us. But unsure if this was the person the warning was referring to, my family didn''t know how to react. So my parents decided that we should just keep to ourselves like before.


    After all, this was the US. A prudish country, where kids sometimes got expelled from school for kissing a friend on the cheek. We had heard stories about people who had ended up on such lists, without ever having done anything evil. Like some teens caught making out, when one family was so strict that they''d already sue over something like that. And since the letter didn''t specify, what offense this was about, there was no telling if it was just some youngster who''d been caught in a bad situation, or some monster actively hunting down children to abduct them.


    However, I was very scared. The concept of abuse was still abstract to me, but it frightened me none the less. And a teenager was already an intimidating figure to me, so it didn''t matter if the letter was talking about the neighbor, or his sons. Because that was the thing, it wasn''t some lonely, creepy old man that moved into the house. It was a family. A mother, a father, and two teenage boys. And a lot more family would visit there often, like grandparents, or a young woman with a baby. I knew this, because my room was actually right opposite to their house, and my desk was placed under the window. I often wondered, who the evil person was supposed to be. All I ever observed were people, greeting what I assumed to be family members with a smile, and hugging them whenever they left. And the boys used to make music in the garage, one playing drums, the other guitar. The one drumming would practice more often, always repeating the same beats over and over. But I didn''t even find it annoying.


    Then one day, I was outside, walking my cat. When we had moved in, seeing how there was hardly any traffic but a lot of nature, we had granted our cats the freedom to go outside. Until our Main Coon mix came home with a limp, that turned out to be from a bullet wound. Our landlord assumed it was a neighbor''s kid known for shooting at squirrels. So we didn''t let our cats roam free anymore, but we would walk them around our big back yard, and sometimes around the house to the front yard too. On that day my cat had wanted to explore more of the front yard, so I walked him there. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    The neighbors were practicing their music in the garage again. It sounded nice, and so I stood there, facing that way to listen. In between, the music stopped. As it often did. I waited for them to continue. They did start up again, but stopped soon after, and I saw a white shape in one of the garage windows. I paid no attention, as I also had to look out for my cat to not tie his leash into a knot around a bush. The music continued, so I faced front to listen further. But then it stopped once more, and the white shape popped up again. And then I realized it was a face, looking at me. Then a hand was raised, and the person waved to me.


    I got scared. I didn''t wave back. I instead turned to my cat, and started pulling him towards me, talking to him, as if we had something important to do, that I nearly forgot about. Once I held him in my arms, I turned around and slowly walked back towards the back yard. I was breathing faster, and held my cat clutched to my chest, making him worried too. As soon as I got to the corner of my house, where the back yard began, I ran. I stormed up to our porch, closed it up, went inside the house through our back door, and locked that too. Then I sat down against the door, holding my cat and tried to calm down. I kept eyeing the windows, in case someone approached the backyard. I was so frightened.


    In my anxious mind, I was thinking that I had made a mistake, letting the neighbors see me alone like that. Staring over to them, as if I wanted to meet them. And feeling guilty, because a small part of me did. But what if one of the boys was the offender? What if he now took an interest in me? I was only 12 at the time, but often got mistaken for older, some adults even guessing up to 16. But I was still just a child. And I was home alone that day. I didn''t want them to know I was scared, as not to seem an easy target, which is why I only started running once I was out of sight. But I felt so stupid for even standing there and listening to the music in the first place. Which I then realized had started up again. So I could at last relax, but I still stayed with the cats in the kitchen and didn''t go to my room, because I didn''t want to be seen through the window.


    Later when my parents came home, I told them about the incident. My father actually laughed at it, saying I was being silly, and that I should have just walked over and said hello when they waved. I argued that I couldn''t have done that, because of the cat. He said I could have taken him with me, but I argued: ''And if things had turned ugly, then what? If I have to fight or run away, how will I protect my cat?'' That really was my line of thought, once I felt safe among my family again. I was pretty tall even at that age, and quiet strong for a girl. But not very confident. And I guess I needed to defend my reaction before myself too.


    Because part of me really would have liked to meet the people who made such nice music, and I could have used a friend, as I didn''t have any and got bullied in school. But instead I refrained from taking my time in the front yard, and never made it obvious I was listening to them practicing again. We never spoke to the family, and never found out anything else either. We moved away just two years afterwards. Now as I look back at it, I understand my childish reaction. But I also pity the family that was shunned by us and the neighborhood, without ever being able to tell their side.


    Moral of the story: Don''t send out warnings if you''re not gonna tell people exactly who and what they should be aware of, because all that does is spread fear and animosity!

 Home safe home

    This fourth story happened to my family, while I was close to graduating. My brother went to the same school I did, as he''s just a few years younger. My parents both worked steady jobs during that time, but always managed to pick us up after lessons. One day, my dad dropped my brother off at home early, as his last two lessons were cut due to lack of a substitute teacher. My dad only brought him up to the house, then drove off as he saw him enter with his key. About two hours later, my lessons were over, and my parents picked me up to go home.


    When we went inside, I wanted to get something from the living room, that faced the street. I was surprised to find my mother''s beauty case sitting on the floor, opened. I joked with my dad, that my brother might have been using it, and forgotten to put it away. Then we heard my mother scream. She had gone to change in my parents'' bedroom facing the back yard, and found there had been a break-in. The window was still open, closets been rummaged in, drawers pulled out. As soon as my mom realized what had happened, she yelled for my brother. The three of us were frightened, but relieved when my little bro came down the stairs, wondering what was going on. My dad asked him about the beauty case, if he had seen it coming home, or noticed anything unusual. But he had just gone up to his room as soon as he was home, to do his home work and listen to music.


    Such an invasion of privacy is scary I tell you. My parents called the police, and went outside to wait for them, and keep a look out. Both were smoking. I had not seen my parents smoke since I was in kindergarten, didn''t even know they kept cigarettes in the house. So them being this shaken really upset me further. My brother stayed in my company, as the uneasy feeling settled in, that he might have been alone with the burglars in our house. He was just 14 years old, and not very tall or built. At the time we also had five purely domestic house kitties. We worried about them venturing out through the window, as we didn''t find them all immediately. But luckily, none had.


    When the police arrived, they sadly did little to calm us down. The thieves had not stolen much, just two wristwatches my father kept by his bedside table, so the police concluded that they must have been disturbed, as none of the other rooms seemed touched. They told us of a gang that had been conducting break-ins around the city, who usually positioned some look-outs at the front of the house, after entering from the back. Which would be why the beauty case was in the living room. As soon as the thieves got in, one grabbed something that might hide valuables, and went to the front, scouting for people coming home. They must have seen my dad pull up to the drive way, and warned the others to run before my brother came in.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    It still scared us. What if the scout had stayed to see, that there was only a young boy coming home? Someone easily taken care off. Or what if some of the burglars were already upstairs, going through our rooms, unable to run before my brother came in. Would they have attacked him? Perhaps even killed him? The thought occupied and frightened my family, especially my mother. She even considered quitting her job to guard the house. So as soon as the police left, my father went to the hardware store to buy safety latches for the windows, to give us back a sense of security. He informed the landlord, who thankfully agreed to cover the expense.


    That night my brother even asked if he could sleep in my room, despite his age. We ended up having a sort of sleepover, reading comics, telling stories, listening to music half the night, until he fell asleep. I had even left my door open to invite the cats in, and two of them ended up sleeping between us (they were usually not allowed in my room because I had allergies, but one night didn''t hurt, if I changed the bedding after that). My parents gave us the option to stay home the next day, but we didn''t take it. We didn''t want our mom to quit her job or get trouble for staying away. But we didn''t want to be alone in the house either.


    The police never caught the robbers, despite the numerous break-ins. And even though I found a glove in the back yard the next day, and we reported it, the police didn''t even bother to come pick it up. They said we could bring it in, but it wouldn''t do much for the case. They also never dusted for prints. After this, me and my brother would spend our free hours to do homework in the school cafeteria, instead of going home by ourselves. This was in Belgium by the way. Not to say other police are way better, it was just the only encounter with them we ever had, and it was not reassuring of the protective service image then.

 Anyone at all

    This fifth story happened to a girl I went to therapy with. As you are not allowed to share personal information from such sessions, I cannot tell more about the people involved. But it was a sincere story, and the girl was in treatment against paranoia and anxiety. The reason she had ended up there was, that just some years prior, someone had been following her. Most of the time, she just had a bad feeling, as if she was being watched by unknown eyes. And for some time she thought that she must be crazy. But then, her friends started asking her about a man they sometimes noticed around her. Waiting in front of a building she was in, like restaurants, or the hairdresser. Following her to the subway. Always just out of reach, too far away to identify, and leaving once they started to observe him. She asked the police for help, but they said, as long as she doesn''t even know who it was, or what he looked like, there was nothing they could do.


    And then the hits came closer. Her trash being rummaged in. Mail getting stolen. Flowers disappearing from her balcony (it was only first story, but still...). Again, noone could observe who did it, or a pattern where or when the person could strike next. She was very frightened, and moved to a different apartment An affordable one room flat. At first she seemed to find some peace there. But then one day, something happened. She had come home late from university, hanging up her coat, dropping her backpack by the table, off to take a shower before bed. Relaxing. But when she came back into the room, she noticed something was off. The fear crept back into hear head. So she started to look around. Opened a cupboard. To find it empty. And she froze. Stood there for some minutes, internally screaming. That cupboard held some of her most private belongings. A box full of photographs, old diaries, scrapbooks from vacations with friends. All gone. She called the police. They couldn''t find a break in, asked if she was sure she had locked the door, if she was certain that the things were not just misplaced. She felt so helpless and afraid. She spend that night at her mother''s home.


    No two days later, friends helped her move her things to her boyfriend. He promised to protect her. Bought safety locks for the apartment, although it would cost him extra once they''d move out (drilling large holes into your apartment door to install custom locks isn''t exactly what landlords are fans of in my country), and even got safety bolts for the windows. He made sure to pick her up after studies, and go with her on her appointments. But he still couldn''t be there 24/7, both had side jobs to pay for their tuition. So her anxiety stuck with her, always making sure her home was safe, when she returned. Not taking off her shoes or jacket, walk into every room, open every closet, always keep the shower curtain drawn back, look under the bed, all the while holding her keys in her hand like claws. Always on edge.


    And one day, the final straw fell. She was home alone, sleeping in. Her boyfriend had closed the blinds so she wouldn''t be bothered by the sun. It was a warm day, so she woke up slowly and drowsy. Blinking at the blinds. At a shadow. A shape in front of the window. A pair of eyes, that stared at her. Her heart nearly stopped. She reached for her phone on the side table, and hid under the blanket, like a little child scared of monsters. Called up her boyfriend in a panic, repeating in a frantic whisper: ?He''s here! He''s here! He''s in front of the window, he''s looking at me! Please come quickly!¡° It was hard for her to speak, as her teeth were clapping on each other, while her whole body shook in terror. And all this time she was peeking out through a small hole left by the covers. Seeing those eyes staring at her, hardly blinking. Her boyfriend tried to calm her, tried to comfort her, got a co-worker to call the cops, so he wouldn''t have to hang up on her, and hurried to get home. She cried and prayed for the man to leave, terrified he might come in, perhaps smashing the window. And then she remembered he had apparently used a key on her apartment before. And that the doors were locked from outside by her boyfriend, but not bolted down.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    She was in such a panic that she couldn''t even speak sense anymore. So, when she wiped away some tears to peak again, only to find the man gone, she let out a high screech, startling her boyfriend. He asked her what happened, but she had jumped up, screaming, begging: ?No, no, please no!¡°, while running to the front door, thrusting herself against it, as if trying to hold back an invading army. She closed the bolts, whining, her eyes searching for clues of an intruder, while thinking how, if the man was inside, that she had just locked herself in with him. She picked up a chair in panic, starting to scout the home the way she would upon returning, opening every door or cupboard, even the hamper, and boxes only a child might fit in.


    When she was back in the bedroom, scanning under the bed, she heard her boyfriend yelling from the phone she dropped. She tried to explain her situation, when there was a loud knock on the door, and she screamed again in terror. Then another knock, louder, more aggressive. She was so frightened, she just wanted to run and hide. There was more knocking, and yelling, a loud angry man yelling, and she was so scared... But finally, she heard her boyfriend on the phone, and listened to what he was saying: ?Honey, it''s me! It''s me and the police, you need to let us in!¡° Still scared senseless, she asked: ?But how do I know it''s you?¡° He tried to assure her, and finally said: ?I''m at the window of the living room! Come look!¡° So she went back to the living room, and when she saw her boyfriend standing outside the window, she was finally able to calm down a little, and open the bolts from the door. Just to break down crying in his arms, when he came in, leading the way for the police.


    Her boyfriend tried to help her. Calm her down. Assure her she was safe. But she could never believe him again. It wasn''t his fault, but the whole situation led to them breaking up eventually. Her grades had already dropped, and she couldn''t continue her studies. She was sent to a mental hospital far away from her city, and that was when she was able to start feeling secure again. She had since moved to a different state, picked up a different occupation. Still had some old friends, but they only visited occasionally, and for the first one and a half years, whenever they''d visit her, she would only meet them in a public place, and take care to choose a complicated route home after. But the trauma never really left her, and so, when it was time for a treatment again, she had come to the same institute I was in. She shared her story with us, and it shook most of us to the core. Even the men in the group, rather strong looking fellas, agreed that a stalker would freak them out too, and were happy she didn''t suffer a worse fate.


    She cried some more, saying how she missed her personal things. The old pictures with her family, some originals that noone had a copy or negative of. But what stuck with her the most was this: They never found out, who the stalker was. The police found no lead, none of her friends or family had any guess, and she still can''t fathom, how or why anyone would choose her. Just an average girl, no celebrity, she wasn''t even popular back in school. But the police told them, that most cases were in fact of random people stalking someone they hardly knew. Like a neighbor, a colleague, a sales clerk at a local store... It could have been anyone, she concluded. Anyone at all.