9 True Halloween Horror Stories | "The Costumes Were Fake… But the Blood Was Real" 😱 That Make Trick-or-Treat Night Feel Dangerous

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Horror Stories. I know many of you use these episodes to fall asleep, so before you drift off, I'd love it if you could leave a comment letting me know where you're listening from around the world. Also, don't forget to like and subscribe if you're enjoying the episodes.

Story 1

Halloween night in 2022 was supposed to be nothing more than another enjoyable evening in downtown Denver. At 31, I had reached the point where costume parties felt more like a responsibility than something exciting. But my roommate Jenna persuaded me to join her and our friend Ashley for a bar crawl. We spent that afternoon assembling And... I'll see you next time.

I dressed as a vampire with fake blood running down my chin. Jenna went as a zombie nurse, complete with theatrical wounds painted along her arms, while Ashley turned herself into a witch using an elaborate layer of green face paint that took nearly two hours to finish. The three of us had been close since college. Even though we now had ordinary careers, I worked in marketing. Jenna was an elementary school teacher, and Ashley managed a boutique downtown. We still found time to go out together.

That evening began like any typical Halloween celebration. Overpriced alcohol, awful music, and grown adults staggering around in polyester costumes. Our crawl carried us through five separate bars, each more crowded than the one before it. By midnight, we were worn out and ready to go home. We had wisely left our cars behind because we intended to order a rideshare. However, when we stumbled out of the last bar onto Lammers Street, the apps were showing minimum waits of 45 minutes. Ashley repeatedly refreshed hers while complaining that surge pricing had pushed the fare to three times its usual amount. Meanwhile, Jenna sat on the curb, carefully trying not to ruin her zombie makeup. That was when a man dressed as a firefighter walked up to us. His costume was one of those convincing ones made with genuinely heavy equipment, not some inexpensive party city outfit. He seemed approachable and friendly. Pointing toward a black SUV parked across the road, he explained that he was actually a rideshare driver and had been picking up fares throughout the night between attending parties. According to him, his app was malfunctioning, but if we needed transportation, he could drive us for cash at the regular price. Everything about him appeared authentic. He knew the precise base fare for a trip to our neighborhood, had one of those pine tree air fresheners dangling from his rear-view mirror, and even offered us water bottles from a cooler on the back seat. What ultimately convinced us was his professional manner. He entered our destination into the GPS on his phone and confirmed our names, even though we had not told him what they were. That struck me as strange for perhaps half a second, until Jenna laughed and supplied her name. The rest of us followed her example. He assisted Ashley into the front passenger seat because the enormous platform boots she was wearing made it difficult and dangerous for her to walk.

Jenna and I climbed into the back. The SUV's interior was immaculate, with leather upholstery and phone chargers tucked into every door pocket. It looked exactly like every other rideshare vehicle I had ever used. He even had a playlist of popular songs playing at a reasonable volume and asked whether we wanted him to switch the station.

As he drove, he casually talked about how hectic Halloween was for drivers. He mentioned specific downtown street closures that we had noticed earlier, and complained about intoxicated passengers who had made a mess inside his vehicle the weekend before. The bottles he gave us were unopened and clearly store-bought. There was nothing suspicious about them. I distinctly remember inspecting mine because my mother had drilled the dangers of trusting strangers into me since I was a child. Everything that followed survives in my mind only as disconnected pieces, like fragments of a dream that become harder to grasp the more desperately you pursue them.