Creepy Rural Stories That Will Make You Want to Sleep With the Lights On

Living in the countryside sounds like a pretty good deal. You have a ton of acreage to wander on and you won’t be bothered by the sounds of the city day and night.

But aside from not being able to use a delivery app to order your favorite foods at all times of day, you might also experience terrors in rural areas that will scare the socks off of you.

Happening Just Under Our Noses

When I was young, my family lived in the woods up in Northern California. We were hippies, sort of, and at the time, there were no cell phones or Internet. We didn’t have a TV, cable, or electricity for that matter, so my friends and I would often just hang out in the woods, mostly unsupervised.

One of the kids in the group I hung out with was Dennis. He was a year older than me, and I had a crush on him. He was goofy, fun, and interesting. He was the one who taught me to ride a dirtbike, and we used to go around on his, exploring the paths in the surrounding area.

One day, we were riding around, and Dennis said he had to swing by his place to get something. I’d never been to his house, but my brother had, and he came back with stories about Dennis’ dad being really creepy.

He liked when Dennis brought his male friends over, but hated when girls came along. He’d give the boys all sorts of freedom, and that freaked my brother out. He didn’t go there again. But on that particular day, Dennis made me wait outside.

He said his dad, Ken, would be really angry if I came in.

At the time, they lived in a trailer in the middle of nowhere up a dirt road, with a tall wire fence surrounding it and a dog in the yard outside that barked at me nonstop.

Ken stood at the window and stared at me with an angry, pouty look on his face. It was weird as heck. After some time, Dennis eventually came back out, and we left. I tried talking to Dennis about his dad, but he shut me down and would not discuss it at all.

When I turned 12, we moved, and I lost touch with Dennis. Then, when I was 14 or 15, my mom sat my brother and me down, saying she had something to tell us. That’s when I learned the chilling truth.

She said that the kid we knew as Dennis was actually named Steven, and the man we thought was his father, Ken, had kidnapped him when he was only seven years old. He’d told Steven that his parents didn’t want him anymore and that he was forced to take care of him.

Steven believed it after a while because…what else could he do? He was only seven. Ken took advantage of Steven for SEVEN YEARS. I can’t even think about it; it makes me so angry that my friend lived with that monster.

When Dennis was about 14 or so, he was getting too old for Ken’s liking, so Ken went out and kidnapped another little boy. The kid’s name was Timmy White. Well, one night, Ken left Timmy with Steven as he had to work.

Steven wanted to spare Timmy from the terror he knew was coming, so he took Timmy and managed to hitchhike about 35 miles to the nearest Sheriff station in Ukiah. He walked Timmy in and then tried to leave, but an officer saw him, brought him in, and talked to him.

He said: “I know my first name is Steven.” Ken was later taken in by the authorities, and Steven was hailed as a hero for saving Timmy. Ken spent less time behind bars than he’d held Steven for because the prosecutor didn’t bring charges to spare Steven from having to testify about it.

That always ticked me off, but at least now, after wasting away in prison, he’s since passed. I still can’t get my head around the fact that these things happened in one family. None of us had a clue what was happening to Steven back when we all hung out.

Story credit: Reddit / GargleHemlock

A Blood-Curdling Scream

My little brother and I were tossing a baseball around near dusk at the bottom of our property, 30 wooded mountain acres WAY in the middle of nowhere.

It had gotten dark enough that we were just about to call it quits…

But then we heard the single most horrifying scream we’ve ever heard. It came from the trees, just beyond the edge of the clearing. Imagine a woman screaming in mortal agony, writhing in the most wretched torment imaginable.

Every tortured scream from horror movies, true detective movies; anything you’ve ever heard could not compare to this. Even now, decades removed from hearing it, the hair on my arms and neck stands up just thinking of it, and it’s made even worse by the realization of what it actually was.

It was a mountain lion. Full-grown female mountain lions scream loudly when they’re in heat, and it sounds like a human woman being torn to pieces by Lucifer himself. To hear that, as two kids alone in the dark in the middle of nowhere, was about as terrifying as it gets.

Story credit: Reddit / CaptainNemo42

Lock Up and Be Wary

A friend of mine lived in a semi-rural area growing up. One night, the local authorities knocked on her door and warned her that they were looking for a possibly violent fugitive. They told her they’d check her property and that she should lock up and be wary.

It wasn’t until some time later that she found out the full story. The fugitive had been caught mauling a horse in a local stable. In the ensuing panic, the horse’s leg was broken and the man got away. He was found two days later hiding in a stormwater drain.

Story credit: Reddit / bornwithatail

Controlled Burn

When I was a child, two of my friends and I decided to explore an abandoned house that was down the road from us.

It had the typical abandoned house look—there was paint peeling off with exposed wood in some spots, overgrown vines scaling its sides, broken windows, roof tiles missing here and there, etc.

Well, we walked inside and it matched the outside. The cupboards were broken, the walls were rotting, and floorboards throughout the space were splintered and cracked.

Other than the place being extremely empty, we didn’t really get any scary vibes from it. Nothing really stood out to us as “paranormal” as we’d expect. We left the house mildly disappointed…but the nightmare was actually beginning.

Then, as we were walking alongside one of the windows, this very well-dressed, well-groomed man, maybe in his 60s wearing a black dress coat, white shirt, and black tie came into view from inside the house.

We didn’t see him inside or hear him approaching, yet there he was, just staring at us blankly through the window. My friends and I booked it as fast as we could and rushed back home.

It was probably one of the property owners who just happened to be inside the house on the same day that we were there (there were a few rooms we didn’t go in), but man, that scared the heck out of us. 

A few years later, the local Fire Department burnt the place down in a controlled burn, so if it was paranormal… Welp, it’s gone now.

Story credit: Reddit / The_Wandering_West