October is the time for a good horror story, and they don’t get any scarier than what’s known as creepypasta. These are stories people write and post to the internet, and the scariest of them, usually with a claim of truth, get passed around until they become legendary. There’s Ted the Caver, laid out in a journal that just stops and leaves the reader to assume the worst; Stay in Bed, which the author does not; The Smiling Man, shown above; and more.
One thing they have in common is that the internet offers myriad ways to present a story to make it even creepier than simply printed words on a page. Some of the stories have been made into short films, movies, and novels. Urban Ghosts presents ten of the best, with short synopses and links -and a couple of videos. You might want to read these with the lights on. After checking the entire list out, I might not sleep at all.