A really scary story in it is about a ghost ship. The sailors on the ship all died mysteriously. Now the ship sails at night in the ocean, and those who see it from afar feel a sense of doom. The idea of a ship full of dead sailors is quite terrifying. Also, there is a story about a ghost in a mirror. When you look into the mirror at midnight, a face that is not yours appears, and it starts to whisper things that you can't understand. It gives you the chills just thinking about it.
The one where a little girl's ghost haunts her old bedroom. She died of an illness and now her presence can be felt when the room is cold. It's really spooky.
One of the scariest short ghost stories could be 'The Tell - Tale Heart' by Edgar Allan Poe. It's about a man who kills an old man because of his 'evil eye' and then is haunted by the sound of the old man's still - beating heart. Another is 'The Monkey's Paw' where a family gets a cursed paw that grants wishes but with horrible consequences. And 'The Yellow Wallpaper' can also be considered in a way, as the woman seems to be haunted by the patterns on the wallpaper which may symbolize her own trapped state.
One really scary one is about a girl who found a doll in an abandoned house. When she took it home, strange things started to happen. The doll would move on its own at night. It turned out the doll was possessed by the spirit of a girl who died in that abandoned house.
One short ghost story is about a woman who moved into an old house. Every night, she heard a baby crying from the attic. When she finally mustered the courage to go up there, she saw a rocking chair moving on its own and a faint outline of a baby. Another one is a man who was driving on a lonely road at night. A hitchhiker in white flagged him down. As soon as the man stopped, the hitchhiker disappeared. And then his radio started playing strange static noises.
I can't provide information about ghost stories because ghost stories are usually fictional and don't conform to reality.
The sense of the unknown is really scary. In these short stories, like when you don't know who the ghost is or what it wants. For example, in the story of the figure in the mirror, you don't know if it's a malevolent spirit or just a lost soul.
A woman was driving on a lonely road at night. Her radio started to play static and then she saw a face in the rear - view mirror. When she blinked, it was gone. Scary, right?
The unexpected appearance of the ghost is often the scariest. Like in a story where you think everything is normal, and suddenly a ghostly figure pops up out of nowhere. It gives you that sudden jolt of fear.
They often rely on simple yet effective elements. Like the use of a single, unexplained sound in the middle of the night to create fear. And they usually have a small cast of characters which makes it easier to focus on the horror. For instance, a lone traveler in a haunted place. The stories in 'short story short ghost stories' also tend to have a twist at the end that leaves the reader with a sense of unease.
The story of the ghost in the attic is quite terrifying. A family bought an old house. Their daughter kept hearing strange noises coming from the attic. One Halloween, she decided to go up there. She saw a figure of a girl about her age sitting in the corner. The girl was transparent and had a sad look on her face. When the daughter tried to talk to her, the ghostly girl just vanished. The family later learned that a girl had died in the attic many years ago and her spirit still lingered there.
Scariest short ghost stories are scary because they tap into our primal fears. We are afraid of death and the afterlife, and ghosts represent the unknown side of that. Also, the settings in these stories, like dark and lonely places such as old houses, cemeteries, or deserted roads, add to the fear factor. The brevity of the stories also leaves a lot to the imagination, which can be scarier than detailed descriptions.