Well, 'I opened the old book. Faces stared out. Their screams filled my head.' It's short but very effective in creating a creepy image of a haunted book with faces that seem to have a life of their own and are able to project their screams into your mind.
The unexpectedness. For example, a character thinking they're alone then suddenly a face at the window. It gives a shock.
One of the scariest is 'My reflection smiled at me, but I wasn't.' It's terrifying because our reflection is supposed to be an exact copy of us. When it does something on its own, like smiling when we're not, it completely defies our understanding of how things should be. It makes us question our own reality and what might be lurking in the mirror.
I was in the forest. A strange howl echoed. When I turned, a pair of glowing eyes stared at me.
A well - known prison scary story involves a prisoner who was wrongly accused and hanged. His ghost is said to haunt the prison yard where he was executed. Guards and inmates alike have reported seeing a figure in the shape of a man swinging from an invisible noose.
There was a neighbor who always wore a long black coat. He would walk around the neighborhood at midnight. One time, a neighbor's dog barked at him and then suddenly died. People started to believe that the man in the black coat was cursed or something even scarier.
I was home alone. When I looked in the mirror, there was someone else's face staring back at me.
I opened the attic door. A figure in white rushed towards me. I slammed the door shut, heart pounding.
One scary story is about the Battle of Stalingrad. The city became a hellish landscape. Soldiers fought in the rubble, and civilians were trapped. There was a constant fear of being shot, bombed, or starving. It was a battle of attrition where the survival rate was extremely low, and the cold added to the horror, freezing the bodies of the fallen.
The unknown is often the scariest element. In many of the stories, there are things that lurk in the shadows, like the unseen creature chasing the girl in the woods. We don't know exactly what it is, and that uncertainty creates fear.
The story of the Bloody Mary is quite terrifying. If you go into a dark bathroom, say her name three times while looking into the mirror, she's supposed to appear. Her face is all pale and covered in blood, and she has a menacing look in her eyes. It gives me chills just thinking about it.