Scary Stories For Teens

A collection of scary stories and poems for kids and young adults. If you like tales that will chill you to the bone, make your skin crawl, and spoil your appetite, Skeleton in the Closet and Other Scary Stories is the collection of horror stories for you. These 23 tales of terror are sure to thrill.

Most kids have enough to deal with between school, homework, extracurricular activities, and friends, but Molly Bigelow isn't your typical tween. By day, Molly attends MIST - the Metropolitan Institute of Science and Technology - but it's what she's learning outside of school that sets her apart from her classmates. Molly is a zombie hunter, just like her mother.

Micheline Helsing is a tetrachromat - a girl who sees the auras of the undead in a prismatic spectrum. As one of the last descendants of the Van Helsing lineage, she has trained since childhood to destroy monsters both corporeal and spiritual. The corporeal undead go down by the bullet, the spiritual undead by the lens. With an analog SLR camera as her best weapon, Micheline exorcises ghosts by capturing their spiritual energy on film.

Then you don't mind sitting by a vampire's tomb at midnight. Or being locked up with the mummies in a dark museum. Or you might like to join the mysterious boy who lurks in the shadows at Saint Michael's. Or the ghost who waits by the side of the road. Or maybe, when you are home alone, you'd like to listen to these spine-chilling tales...and try to believe they won't happen to you!

All Esma Siban wants this summer is to stay out of her stepmother's way. When her stepsister, Morgan, suggests a road trip to Oregon to visit a friend from high school, Esma jumps on the idea. A camping trip sounds like the perfect way to help Esma recover from breaking up with her boyfriend. But when Esma and Morgan encounter a stalker, Esma's fangs come out. The death of a Sasquatch hunter wasn't on their itinerary. A terrified Esma is unsure what to do next, so she texts her ex-boyfriend for help.

It’s the end of the world as she knows it! Thirteen-year-old Kelly Ferguson’s secret life as a monster-hunting babysitter is taking a beastly turn. Now she has to go on a rescue mission to Monster Island - where monster royalty is turning kids into hairy mutant monsters! To pull it off, she’ll have to face off against internet trolls, trash monsters, and her fear of screwing up - plus the biggest, baddest Boogey of all. With the fate of humanity on the line, can Kelly save the kids, the world, and her own social life before the big school dance?

Denise Farber has just moved back to New Orleans with her mom and stepdad. They left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and have finally returned, wagering the last of their family's money on fixing up an old, rundown house and converting it to a bed and breakfast. Nothing seems to work around the place, which doesn't seem too weird to Denise. The unexplained noises are a little more out of the ordinary, but again, nothing too unusual. But when floors collapse, deadly objects rain down, and she hears creepy voices, it's clear to Denise that something more sinister lurks hidden here.

On Marin’s island, sunrise doesn’t come every 24 hours - it comes every 28 years. Now the Sun is just a sliver of light on the horizon. The weather is turning cold and the shadows are growing long. Because sunset triggers the tide to roll out hundreds of miles, the islanders are frantically preparing to sail south, where they will wait out the long night. Marin and her twin brother, Kana, help their anxious parents ready the house for departure. Locks must be taken off doors. Furniture must be arranged. Tables must be set. The rituals are puzzling - bizarre, even.

Ian was the one who chased the majestic buck into the forest. (His motto: act first, think later.) Kendra didn't want to become separated from the other sixth graders, but she followed Ian anyway, despite what her analytical mind told her. PJ followed him too. Even though he was scared, he figured he might catch some amazing footage with his video camera. They all hoped to return to the hiking trail before anyone noticed they were gone. However, the mountain had other plans for them: dark, sinister plans that only nightmares are made of.

When the old woman died, she left her grandchild Nancy with the extraordinary gift of magic. Nancy can read people's minds, know their thoughts, and make them do what she wants. Will she use her gift for good, or satisfy her own selfish desire? Lois Duncan presents a paranormal rollercoaster ride with goose bumps at every turn.

Molly’s father grew up on the Mohawk Reserve of Akwesasne, where he learned the best scary stories. One of her favorites was the legend of Skeleton Man, a gruesome tale about a man with a deadly, insatiable hunger. But ever since her parents mysteriously vanished, those spooky tales have started to feel all too real. Things go from bad to worse for Molly when a stranger shows up one day and claims to be her great-uncle. A ghostly thin man she’s never seen before. But he couldn’t possibly be the same person from her father’s tale...could he?

It's been four months since Nicky Roth has seen his best friend and neighbor, Aaron Peterson. Aaron's father, a reclusive theme park designer, told the town that Aaron and his sister Mya are living with a relative far away, but Nicky can't seem to accept it. Plagued by terrifying nightmares of robotic mannequins, rotting theme parks, and a dark basement, Nicky teams up with his friends from school to find out what really happened to Aaron and Mya. Together, they start piecing together a picture more disturbing than they could have imagined.

When Stephen's dad says they're moving, Stephen knows it's pointless to argue. They're broke from paying Mom's hospital bills, and now the only option left is to live with Stephen's grandmother in Spencer, a backward small town that's like something out of The Twilight Zone. Population: 814.

When JJ Jacobson convinced his mom to accept a surprise invitation to an all-expenses-paid weekend getaway at the illustrious Barclay Hotel, he never imagined that he'd find himself in the midst of a murder mystery. He thought he was in for a run-of-the-mill weekend ghost hunting at the most haunted spot in town, but when he arrives at the Barclay Hotel and his mother is blamed for the hotel owner's death, he realizes his weekend is going to be anything but ordinary.

Just back from rehab, Casey regrets letting her friends Shana, Julie, and Aya talk her into coming to Survive the Night, an all-night, underground rave in a New York City subway tunnel. Surrounded by frightening drugs and menacing strangers, Casey doesn't think Survive the Night could get any worse...until she comes across Julie's mutilated body in a dank, black subway tunnel, red-eyed rats nibbling at her fingers. And by the time they get back to the party, everyone is gone.

Riley’s finding that the afterlife can be a lonely place when all you do is focus on work. So she goes to the place where dreams happen, hoping to find a way to contact her sister, Ever. She meets the director, who tells her about the two ways to send dreams. As a Dream Jumper, a person can jump into a dreamer’s dream, share a message, and participate. As a Dreamweaver, an entire dream can be created in a studio and sent to the dreamer.

Harper doesn’t trust her new home from the moment she steps inside, and the rumors are that the Raine family’s new house is haunted. Harper isn’t sure she believes those rumors, until her younger brother, Michael, starts acting strangely. The whole atmosphere gives Harper a sense of déjà vu, but she can’t remember why. She knows that the memories she’s blocking will help make sense of her brother’s behavior and the strange and threatening sensations she feels in this house, but will she be able to put the pieces together in time?

Diana and her little brother Georgie have been living in the woods behind the old Willis place, a decaying Victorian mansion, for what already seems like forever. They aren't allowed to leave the property or show themselves to anyone. But when a new caretaker comes to live there with his young daughter, Lissa, Diana is tempted to break the mysterious rules they live by and reveal herself so she can finally have a friend.

Zach, Poppy, and Alice have been friends forever. And for almost as long, they’ve been playing one continuous, ever-changing game of pirates and thieves, mermaids and warriors. Ruling over all is the Great Queen, a bone-china doll cursing those who displease her. But they are in middle school now. Zach’s father pushes him to give up make-believe, and Zach quits the game. Their friendship might be over, until Poppy declares she’s been having dreams about the Queen - and the ghost of a girl who will not rest until the bone-china doll is buried in her empty grave.

Marzana and her best friend are bored. Even though they live in a notorious city where normal rules do not apply, nothing interesting ever happens to them. Nothing, that is, until Marzana's parents are recruited to help solve an odd crime, and she realizes that this could be the excitement she's been waiting for. She assembles a group of kid detectives with special skills - including the ghost of a ship captain's daughter - and together, they explore hidden passageways, navigate architecture that changes overnight, and try to unravel the puzzle of who the kidnappers are.