Me it’s just because they don’t know any better, but now and then something slips out that is positively freaky, and it seems like just about everyone has heard a story about something they said, a friend said, or even their own kids have said that scared them witless. Over the last year, people have been sharing their most terrifying and disturbing experiences with kids and the awful things they say on Reddit. Here are some that are guaranteed to give you nightmares.
20The Snake Neck Man
“While changing my daughter in front of the open closet door, she kept looking around me and laughing. I asked her what was so funny. She said, ‘The man.’ To which I replied, ‘What man?’ She then pointed at the closet and said, ‘the man with the snake neck.’ I turn around and nothing was there. I’m afraid to look into the history of my house to see if anyone hung themselves in the closet.”
19The Baby Monster
“My 3-year-old daughter stood next to her newborn brother and looked at him for a while, then turned and looked at me and said, ‘Daddy it’s a monster…we should bury it.”
18Black Circle Control
“My 5-year-old son asked me last week, ‘What do you see through the black circles in my eyes when you’re controlling me when I’m at school?’”
17Getting the Baby Out
“My noticeably pregnant sister and I were having a conversation at the dining room table. My 4-year-old son was also present and asked my sister if there was a baby in her belly. She affirmed. He, completely straight faced, slid from his chair and headed for the kitchen saying, ‘We need to get it out. I’ll go get the knife.’ I don’t even know…”
16The Monster Behind You
“’Go back to sleep, there isn’t anything under your bed.’ ‘He’s behind you now.’ Still haven’t gotten over that one and shiver at the memory.”
15Eating Your Heart
“My daughter said to me that there is a woman who watches her watch movies in her room and sleeps on the ceiling above her bed when she sleeps. She also says it does not like me and wants to eat my heart. My kid watches Elmo and Dinosaur train. Where in the hell did she get this from?”
14Loving Daddy Too Much
“A friend of mine’s child told him, ‘Daddy, I love you so much that I want to cut your head off and carry it around so I can see your face whenever I want.’”
13Master Cthulhu
“My son was about 3-years-old and was putting up his stuffed animals into a bin. He would pick each one up, say its name, and then into the toy bin it went. He picked up his bear and said ‘Bear’, then put it away, to his dog and say ‘Puppy’, and put it away. Then he picked up the stuffed Cthulhu one of my friends gave him, looked squarely at it, and said ‘Master’, then put it into the bin and went onto the next one.”
12Sinus Deliciousness
“During my daughter’s sixth year, I had impacted sinuses. In one strenuous effort, a mass the size of a grape broke loose and hit the tissue with the sound straight out of a horror flick. I glanced at it to check for traces of brain matter and quickly refolded the tissue. My daughter asked if she could see it. I declined. She responded with, ‘I promise I won’t eat it.’ That is all.
11Great Grandma Viola
“My mom told me that when I was about four or five I would sit and talk to an imaginary friend. When she asked who I was talking to, I said it was Viola and she was teaching me how to draw. My mom flipped out because Viola was my great grandmother and she was an artist. She died nearly 20 years before I was born.”
10BOXED IN
“I passed out reading my 3-year-old niece a book at bedtime. Then, I woke up around 2:00 a.m. and sat up. It was dark and silent. There was a nightlight that gave my nieces face a Rembrandt lighting effect. She had her eyes wide open looking at me and whispered, ‘How did you get out of your box?’”
9THE MAN WITH THE KNIFE
“When my son was about four or five we were in the toilet before his bedtime and he was brushing his teeth, and he dropped his toothbrush and I picked it up for him, and when my eyes met him he just stared at me and said, ‘Dad, why does that man have a knife?’ and pointed behind me. Quickest 180 I’ve ever done.”
8DADDY’S NOT DEAD YET
“I’m minding my own business working in the garage and the door creaks open, and my 2-year-old son pops his head out and says, ‘Daddy, you dead yet?’ ‘No…?’ Then he squints and slowly closes the door. For some reason my wife thought it was hilarious.”
7SIGNS OF MURDER
“My friend’s kid was taught baby sign language and would do rough approximations of the actual sign. Once she was trying to tell a visiting friend of the family she wanted a bowl of cereal and made her sign for a bowl. The woman turned to see the toddler looking up at her from the high chair, slowly drawing a finger across her throat.”
6PLANNING AHEAD
“My son was watching my wife make him a sandwich really intently. He was around four or five. She asked what he was doing, to which he replied, ‘I’m watching you make a sandwich.’ Insert short pause here. ‘So I know how to do it when you die.’”
5KOWING THE REAL YOU
“My 5-year-old son sent me a birthday card he’d prepared at school. On the front he had drawn a picture of me walking in a meadow beneath a blazing sun, green grass, butterflies and a big smile. Underneath it said, ‘How you see yourself.’ Inside he’d drawn a picture of me in a jail cell, gripping the bars and crying, under this it said, ‘How you really are.’”
4DOESN’T PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS
“I was babysitting my nephew one night and he comes up to me while I’m watching TV and says, ‘He doesn’t play nice.’ I ask him who, and then he just points into the dark hallway. ‘Hey, how about we wait for your mom outside?’”
3NOT PEOPLE
“My son is three and we were walking downtown. When we walked by the Scientology building he pointed to the stairs leading to the second floor and said, ‘Let’s go up there daddy.’ I said, ‘Why? What’s up there?’ He just looks up at me and says, ‘Not people.’ I said, ‘What?’ And he just says, ‘Not people daddy.’ I just kept with him and can’t stop thinking about what he meant by that.”
2I’M NOT LOVIN’ IT
“My daughter, age two and a half: ‘I want to blow up McDonald’s.’ Me: ‘Geez baby, why?’ Her: ‘To watch the people run.”
1A TERRIFYING PREMONITION
“I remember when we were younger I was on the playground with my little brother and halfway through a game of tag he just sat down and started screaming and sobbing. Once my mom got him calmed down enough he told us that, ‘The bad men are coming and they’re going to hurt a lot of people!’ and started crying again. He hid in his room for the rest of the day under the bed and asked us to stay with him so they couldn’t get us, either. It was September 10, 2001.”