I Managed To Buy A Whole Heap Of Vintage Horror Paperbacks A Few Days Ago To Add To My Collection!

Link

It’s giving horror story dad joke edition

If you’re into the silly yet eerie strange rule trend on r/nosleep one of my favorites is this story about a cinema usher named Shaun who’s theater has some strange rules he needs to follow. I get why some people would find this repeated trope super annoying but I find some of these stories strangely riveting.

Here’s one of my favorite old creepypastas called Doors by aCJohnson

Walk-In Fridge

“Ow!”

Ken yanked his hand away from the sink as the water gushing out became scolding hot.

He dunked the burned hand into the Sani sink, which was kept mildly cold.

Ken typically used his bare hands to do the dishes. One of the dish gloves he’d brought in for all the preps and dishwashers to use had a tear in the pointer finger, and the other one just filled with water, even after duct-taping both tightly around his arm. He never figured out where the hole was.

Inspecting his hands, Ken noted the pink splashed all over the back of them, accompanied by a slight burning, almost-itching sensation. He stepped away from the sink, his worn, black sneakers dipping into little puddles on the floor.

His hand throbbed to the sound of his heartbeat. Why do they constantly shove me onto Dish? He thought, exhausted. It seemed like only people with sensitive skin were ever thrown on there.

The other usual dish, Alex, had eczema and kept this giant white bottle of special lotion in her locker.

Outside, a powerful, blistering wind shook up trees and whistled against the building. It was getting late, 10 pm, only an hour before closing.

BAM! BAM! BAM! The powerful knocks on one of the two back doors made Ken jump.

Heart still pounding, It made Ken feel silly when he remembered that Alex and another coworker had slipped outside to smoke on their vapes for a bit.

Trying not to slip on the wet ground, he pushed open the heavy door, which was completely locked from the outside.

Alex and Leyla slipped in, stripping off their heavy coats.

“You don’t have to knock so loudly, you know,” Ken told them as he returned to his spot in front of the sinks. “I’m right next to the door.”

“Leyla just has a lot of pent-up rage,” Alex explained, before hitting the vape and blowing the sweet fragrant smoke into the air. Both girls had to re-tie their hair back into ponytails and tuck them into their work caps.

“Someday, Richie’s gonna write you guys up for this,” Ken smirked. He didn’t get why so many of his coworkers just had to bring their vapes with them to a part-time job. They couldn’t last six hours without it? Why not have the decency to do it in the comfort of your home?

Leyla shrugged. “Richie doesn’t care as long as we do our jobs.”

“And have you been doing that?” Ken raised an eyebrow.

“Do your dishes,” Alex grinned.

“Um,” Ken stopped them from heading back out into the front. “Shouldn’t someone get to cleaning the walk-in?” The three of them turned to the giant, metal door, where the fridge sat.

It was at the very opposite end of the sink, sitting next to the second door leading directly outside. When the restaurant was extra quiet, usually late at night, you could hear the soft buzzing.

Leyla sighed. “Why can’t you do it?”

“It’s not my job,” Ken frowned.

“It’s not ours either,” Alex readjusted her cap, as she did often.

“The prep’s supposed to do it,” Leyla said. “But Dominique left early. So now you should be the one to do it.”

“He’s so messy,” Ken frowned. “He didn’t do a very good job cleaning his station.”

“But he gets his work done the fastest,” Leyla defended.

“Not super effectively,” Ken complained.

“Whatever,” Alex rolled her eyes. “His station looks fine.” Dominique was Alex and Leyla’s friend, as were a lot of people in this place. Friends who had convinced each other to work with them.

Richie’s voice cut into their conversation. The three of them could hear Richie from the front: “Alex! Leyla! Where are you?!”

The girls sighed, and Ken shook his head as he watched them exit out to the front.

He turned to the sinks and got back to work.

Richie was tonight’s shift lead. They were closer to Ken’s age than the high schoolers who snuck out to vape.

As Ken got through the last dirty plate, he froze to an unnerving sound: movement, inside the fridge.

His eyes shot in its direction. No more sound.

The sound had been faint, as if someone, or something, had bumped into something.

Waiting silently for anymore noise, Ken’s heart thrummed in his chest anxiously.

He considered checking inside, just to see, but he told himself to just focus on what he was being paid to do: clean.

Now all he could hear was the rhythm of running water. Outside, he heard the voices of his coworkers welcoming guests. They didn’t get very many customers at this time. He never understood how they could afford to stay open so late.

Once the commotion out front died down, Richie strolled in through the swinging doors. They scooped a foam cup from the racks of ingredients and brushed by Ken, situating themself into the manager's chair, a little black one right in front of the desk, complete with a computer, screens displaying the camera videos, and mini drawers stuffed with so much shit Ken doubted the scribbled-on labels were accurate anymore.

“Richie?” Ken asked.

Richie raised their eyes to Ken. “Mm?”

“Who's gonna clean the walk-in?”

Richie stretched an arm above their head. “Don’t worry about it, Ken. I’ll force one of the girls to do it before they leave.”

Ken nodded. He hated things being left unclean for too long. It was why he was one of the best dishes: he got through them fast just so he didn’t have to watch them sit around in their filth.

“I know. You mostly work with Omar, right? Everything done early and quickly, right? But on my shifts, we like to wait ‘till the end of the shifts. You get a bit dirty after doing it, huh?” Richie smiled. Ken was used to Omar’s shifts; tonight was his first time working with Richie since they became a shift lead.

“It’s an easy clean-up, especially with the aprons,” Ken protested.

Richie nodded. “You know this shift is mostly newbies. Dominique is fast but he’s still a tad careless.”

Ken nodded in agreement.

After a bit, Richie returned to the front. Ken was left with nothing to do. All the dishes were done. All the trash was taken out.

He swept the floor, though it had already been pretty neat from the previous few times he’d swept. Usually, those on dish waited until closing to finally sweep, and there'd always be a fun assortment of trash and fallen food bits scattered about the floor, along with puddles of water and some mysterious sludges.

Ken had to squeegee some of the water on his side of the room into the big drain underneath his station. If the building had been designed right, the drain would be slightly lower in elevation compared to the rest of the floor, but unfortunately, some doofus made it the same height, and a bunch of water collected behind it, cloudy and gray from whatever elements accumulated underneath the sink.

Then he heard it again. A bumping sound. This time louder than before. Were Ken’s ears playing tricks on him?

His heart thumping, he ignored it. After finishing the floor he decided to reorganize the condiments on the rack behind the prep station. Unfortunately much closer to the walk-in, but he preferred it over going out front to help clean and serve whatever random customer decided to grab a burger at 10:30 at night.

Ken tried not to think about the walk-in. He hadn’t felt so nervous about it since his first few days working here. He’d calmed down since, but working with a new crew under new conditions was spiking his anxieties again.

Finally, he pressed an ear against the metal door and listened hard. No sounds.

10:50 approached, and the crew up front was bringing back the last of the dishes, including items they were technically not supposed to be taking back until exactly 11. But most of the leads preferred to close as early as possible. No one wanted to go home thirty minutes before midnight. Even during the summer, when the high schoolers weren’t concerned about school.

Finally, Ken watched Richie tell Alex to clean up the walk-in, and for Leyla to clock out. Leyla ignored them and instead stayed to help Alex clean.

They were in there for maybe ten minutes or so. Ken thought he should help, but decided it wasn’t worth it and continued scrubbing his station. He always closed it well.

Finally, Ken watched Alex and Leyla lug out a ginormous black trash bag from the fridge.

“Fuck, this is heavy,” Leyla murmured.

Ken cringed when they nearly dropped it. Ken hated it when the bag hit the floor.

The girls disappeared out into the dark, windy night. The door shut behind them. They’d forgotten to jam a hat or trashcan onto it to keep it open.

Ken went up to the fridge and slipped inside.

He was impressed. The walk-in was spotless.

Nearly. He spotted a small, red smear on the floor just beside his feet.

Ken shook his head. How could they miss such an obvious spot?

As he crouched down to his knees to wipe it away, his eye caught something underneath the racks.

Bending low, he pulled it out and inspected it. And then yelled.

A human finger. Bits of red gore hung from the middle joint where it had been severed.

Heart beating faster, Ken couldn’t believe it.

He barged out of the fridge just as Alex and Leyla returned. Their clothes were splotched and stained from the cleaning job.

“Alex! Leyla!” Ken snapped. “Look at this!”

He held up the finger to them, letting them both take in the sight.

Ken huffed, “It’s paramount that you make sure to take out all of the trash!”

~~~

Other short stories by me:

Those Green Eyes

So Cute You Could Die

I’ve never been a fan of babies. Actually, that’s putting it lightly.

But there’s few social taboos as huge as telling a parent that their newborn is anything less than beautiful. And, well, I find it hard not to be brutally honest when all babies resemble potatoes to me.

So when my social butterfly coworker Geraldine returned from maternity leave and started showing everyone a picture of her baby, I made sure to steer clear. Still, each water cooler break, my fellow employees’ transfixed reactions to her kid grew more sickly-sweet.

“Oh my gosh, you must be so proud” gushed sales rep Fiora, gazing down at the polaroid. “She’s so cute you could die!”

“How absolutely friggin precious!” sang file clerk Donny, holding up the photo to his face. “She’s so cute it just kills me!”

“Okay, you’re making my ovaries ache” trilled receptionist Mona, looking over the snapshot. “She’s cuter than a heart attack!”

At the time, I rolled my eyes at each of these effervescent displays and turned my attention back to my work. People often speak in those sorts of ridiculous exaggerations, so I thought nothing of it. Imagine my utter shock when I heard the news the following day.

Fiora, Donny and Mona had all been found dead in the parking garage, having seemingly suffered heart attacks the previous night.

It was an absolutely insane coincidence. All of them had looked at that baby photo of Geraldine’s and all had died in the same way, on the same day. I could draw no other conclusion: the picture of baby Brooklyn was cursed.

Sitting at my desk, barely concentrating, my mind jumped from possibility to possibility. Could her baby itself be some eldritch demon, killing people to hide its identity? Or was it harvesting their life source through the photo, to sustain itself?

My curiosity was simply too great to resist. I decided to finally glimpse this fatal frame for myself.

“Sure, I’ll look at your baby, Geraldine” I agreed as she thrust the picture out to me, too. Tentatively, I glanced down to see…

…a perfectly normal baby girl, sleeping in a cot. I felt fine. Nothing to indicate being cursed at all.

“Congratulations, Geraldine,” I replied, relieved. “She seems like a great daughter.”

Hours later as I’m leaving the office, I still can’t help but feel silly for believing there was ever a curse.

Suddenly, midway through unlocking my car, I feel a sharp prick in the side of my neck. I spin around in enough time to see Geraldine pulling a syringe out of me. Her eyes are incensed, her teeth gritted in maternal rage.

“What the hell!” I cry out as heart attack-inducing toxins surge through my body. Geraldine merely wags her finger.

“That’s the last time one of you idiots mistakes my baby son for a girl!”

Here’s neat story by PriorityHuge7544 on reddit titled Promises Kept.

Here’s a really unique take on snuff films called I’m Never Shooting Another Snuff Film. Definitely darker than some of the other stuff you find on r/nosleep.

stood over a deepfryer and my head fell off. im screaming ah ah ah ah

Those Green Eyes

I’ve never thought about the possibility of a break-in before.

I mean, sure. I know it happens. Some of my friends had experienced it before, quite unfortunately.

It’s just not something you ever think could happen to you.

Plus, my house doesn’t stand out as anything special in our cookie cutter neighborhood. It’s not those incredibly wealthy neighborhoods hidden behind a gate, probably a goldmine of expensive valuables. But it’s also a really nice neighborhood with such a low crime rate.

So yeah, I didn’t consider a break-in as a possibility.

Until that one summer night, when I was twelve, and my brother was fourteen.

I had my friend, Craig, over for a sleepover. My brother and I stayed up late playing Roblox lying on our stomachs in front of the warm, living room fireplace. Craig had his ipad, I was using the family computer that we’d unplugged and moved onto the floor, and my brother was using his tiny laptop. Our parents were upstairs sleeping, leaving only us three awake.

After beating us at a few rounds of Survive the Tornado, my brother got up and stretched. “I’m taking a break.”

Before anyone could reply, a strange noise left us all frozen in complete silence.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Like a fingernail on a windowpane.

It had come from the window on the front door.

“What was that?” Craig hissed.

“Maybe it was nothing.” I tried to insist, but my voice quivered in fear.

Tap tap tap. This time, we all stared at each other, terror etched onto our faces. I kept my gaze locked on my older brother, whose jaw jutted out. He does this whenever he's deep in thought.

I considered running upstairs to grab our parents, but the stairs were right in front of the door. My heart pounded in my chest as if warning me to get out of there.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK! Following the noise was a cracked, flickering groan, undead-like in its intonation.

We didn’t hesitate. My brother scooped up the old family dog who’d been lying peacefully next to us in a deep sleep, and the three of us bolted away towards the closest bathroom.

The small place only had a toilet and a sink. My brother locked the door behind us and we all crouched in the crowded area.

We remained in total darkness and silence, except for our heavy breaths.

And then the dog growled. Low and deep from my brother’s arms.

“What’s wrong with her?” Craig hissed fearfully. He almost sounded like he was about to cry.

Tap tap tap. There it was again, on the tiny bathroom window, which regrettably had no blinds or curtains covering the pitch-black night.

The dog started barking. Scratchy, angry barks, not the playful kind she used to greet someone at the door.

And from the pitch blackness of the window, two bright green eyes stared down at us.

We all screamed. In our scramble, I don’t remember who locked the door, but we all rushed out at once, bounding straight through the darkened living room and up the stairs, until finally reaching our parents' room.

With the family dog still tight in his arms, my brother tried to explain that someone was stalking the house. One of our dads grabbed a baseball bat and flounced outside around the house, and the other comforted us in their room after calling the cops.

My dad found the gate leading to the backyard wide open. So was our garage, even though we’d never heard it open.

Some of the boxes we kept in storage inside of it were tipped over, but we couldn’t tell if anything had been stolen.

A gruff police officer talked to the dad who had stayed inside with us about the incident, taking down notes.

“Did you see what the perpetrator looked like?” He asked me.

I tried to respond, but I was too distracted by his familiarly shiny green eyes.

~~~

Based off of a short story I wrote when I was younger.

The Devil's Wheel

The Devil’s Wheel

“If you say yes,” said the Devil, “a single man, somewhere in the world, will be killed on the spot. But three million dollars is nothing to sneeze at, missus.”

“What’s the catch?” You squint at him suspiciously over the red-and-black striped carnival booth. You’re smarter than he thinks you are– a devil deal always has a catch, and you’re determined to catch him before he catches you. 

“Well, the catch is that you’ll know you did it. And I’ll know, too. And the big man upstairs’ll know, I ‘spose. But what’s the chariot of salvation without a little sin to grease the wheels? You can repent from your mansion balcony, looking out at your waterfront views, sipping a bellini in your eighties. But hey, it’s up to you– take my deal or leave it.”

The Devil lights a cigar without a match, taking an inhale, and blowing out a cloud of deep, sweet-smelling tobacco laced faintly with something that reminds you of rotten eggs. If he does have horns, they’re hidden under his lemon yellow carnival barker hat. He wears a clean pinstripe suit and a red bowtie. No cloven hooves, no big pointy fork, but you know he’s the Devil without having to be told. Though he did introduce himself.

He’s been perfectly polite. 

You know you need the money. He knows it too, or he wouldn’t have brought you here, to this strange dark room, whisking you away from your new house in the suburbs as fast as a wish. Now you’re in some sort of warehouse, where all the windows seem to be blacked out– or, maybe, they simply look out into pitch darkness, though it is the middle of the day. A single white spotlight shines down on the two of you. 

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” you say. “I bet the man is someone I know, right? My husband?”

“Could be,” the Devil says with a pointed grin. “That’s for the wheel to decide.”

He steps back and raises his black-gloved hand as the tarp flies off of the large veiled object behind him. The light of the carnival wheel nearly blinds you. Blinking lights line the sides. Jingling music blares over speakers you can’t see. The flickering sign above it reads:

THE DEVIL’S WHEEL

“Step right up and claim your fortune,” the Devil barks. “Spin the wheel and pay the price! Or leave now, and a man keeps his life.”

You examine the wheel. 

The gambling addict

The doting boyfriend

The escaped convict

The dog dad

The secretive sadist

“These are all the possible men I can kill?” You ask, thumbing the side of the wheel. It rolls smoothly in your hand. Then you quickly stop, realizing that this might constitute a spin under the Devil’s rules. He flashes a smile at you, watching you halt its motion. 

“Addicts, convicts, murderers– plenty of terrible options for you to land on, missus!”

“Serial wife murderer?”

“Now who would miss a fellow like that? I can guarantee that the whole world would be better off without him in it, and that’s a fact.”

The hard worker

The compulsive liar

The animal torturer

The widower

The desperate businessman

The failed musician

The beloved son

“My husband is on here too,” you say. 

“Your husband Dave, yes. The wheel has to be fair, otherwise there’s simply no stakes.”

“I know what’s gonna happen,” you say, crossing your arms. “This wheel is rigged. I’m gonna spin it around, and it’ll go through all the killers and stuff, and then it’s gonna land on my husband no matter what.”

“Why, I would never disgrace the wheel that way,” the Devil says, wounded. “I swear on my own mother’s grave– may she never escape it. In fact, take one free spin, just to test it out! This one’s on me, no death, no dollars.”

You cautiously reach up to the top of the wheel and feel its heaviness in your hand. The weight of hundreds of lives. But also, millions of dollars. You pull the wheel down and let it go.

Clackity-clackity-clackity-clackity

Round and round it goes. 

The college graduate

The hockey fan

The Eagle Scout

The cold older brother

The charming younger brother

The two-faced middle child

The perfectionist

The slob 

Your husband Dave

Clackity-clackity-clackity.

Finally, the wheel lands on a name. A title, really.

The photographer

“Hmm, tough, missus, but that’s the way of the wheel. But hey, look! Your husband is allllll the way over here,” he points with his cane to the very bottom of the wheel, all the way on the other side from where the arrow landed. “As you can see, it’s not rigged. The wheel truly is random.”

“So… there really isn’t another catch?” You ask. 

“Isn’t it enough for you to end a man’s life? You need a steeper price? If you’re really such a glutton for punishment, I’ll gladly re-negotiate the terms.”

“No, no… wait.” You examine the wheel, glancing between it and the Devil.

You really could use that three million dollars. Newly married, new house, you and your husband’s combined debt– those student loans really follow you around. He’s quite a bit older than you, and even he hasn’t paid them off yet, to the point where the whole time you were dating you watched him stress out about money. You had to have a small, budget wedding, and a small, budget honeymoon. Three million dollars could be big for the two of you. You could re-do your honeymoon and go somewhere nice, like Hawaii, instead of just taking two weeks in Atlantic City. You deserve it. 

Even so, do you really want to kill an innocent photographer? Or an innocent seasonal allergy sufferer? Or an innocent blogger? Just because you don’t know or love these people doesn’t mean that someone doesn’t. 

The cancer survivor

The bereaved

The applicant

Some of these were so vague. They could be anyone, honestly. Your neighbors, your father, your friends…

The newlywed

The ex-gifted kid

The uncle

The Badgers fan

“My husband is a Badgers fan,” you say.

“How lovely,” the Devil says. 

Then it hits you.

Of course.

The weightlifter.

The careful driver.

The manager.

The claustrophobe.

Your husband Dave lifts weights at the gym twice a month. You wouldn’t call him a pro, but he does it. He also drives like he’s got a bowl of hot soup in his lap all the time, because he’s afraid of being pulled over. He just got promoted to management at his company, and he takes the stairs to his seventh-story office because he hates how small and cramped the elevator is.

“I get your game,” you announce. “You thought you could get me, but I figured you out, jackass!” “Oh really? What is my game, pray tell?” The Devil responds, leaning against his cane.

“All these different titles– they’re all just different ways to describe the same guy. My husband isn’t one notch on the wheel, he’s every notch. No matter what I land on, Dave dies. I’m wise to your tricks!” 

The Devil cackles. 

“You’re a clever one, that’s for sure. I thought you’d never figure it out.”

“Thanks but no thanks, man,” you say with a triumphant smirk. “I’m no rube. No deal. Take me back home.”

“As you wish, missus,” the Devil says. He snaps his fingers, and you’re gone, back to your brand-new house with your new husband. “Don’t say I never tried to help anyone.”