Scary Stories
Scary Stories

Scary Stories - Hide and Seek

August 22, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Hide-and-Seek and the Uninvited

The game of hide-and-seek appears in nearly every childhood, but the four stories collected in this episode share a disturbing pattern: when children play, something else plays too. A young girl in a dark dress is choked by a tall man behind a window. A doppelgänger stands motionless on a playground while the real person hides in a car. A voice calls from the darkness mimicking a friend who is safely inside eating a popsicle. A man in white appears and disappears from a closet door that only sometimes exists. Each story begins with the same innocent premise — kids trying not to be found — and ends with the same unsettling conclusion: they were not alone.

The Window and the Witness

The first account comes from a high school freshman whose neighborhood had a perpetually vacant house. The home had a reputation: owners came and went, none staying longer than six months. The only notable feature was the back garden, where the previous owner had buried all his dead pets — an informal animal graveyard. One afternoon, the narrator and two friends, Carol and Erin, decided to explore. A cable man had recently visited, leaving the gate open despite no one living there.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (02:29) **The Haunted House Next Door** - The narrator sets the scene: a perpetually vacant house rumored to be haunted, with a pet graveyard in the back garden.
  • 2 (05:09) **The Figure in the Window** - The friends realize the noise wasn't Erin, turn to the dark house, and see a young girl in old-fashioned clothes being choked by a tall, hateful man.
  • 3 (08:10) **The Doppelganger at the Playground** - A separate story begins: at age 17, the narrator and friends play hide-and-seek at a large outdoor wooden playground at night.
  • 4 (11:02) **The Peculiar Photographs** - After the playground incident, photos taken that night show a thick, unexplained haze outlining only the narrator's body.
  • 5 (11:32) **The Voice on the Texas Ranch** - A story from age 10: a group of friends plays hide-and-seek at night on a friend's ranch in the Texas Hill Country.
  • 6 (14:13) **The Impossible Location** - The group realizes Charlie hasn't been seen since the round started; they call out and hear a faint "I'm stuck" from even further down the hill.
  • 7 (15:37) **The Man in the Closet** - A story from age 5: the narrator moves into a new house and plays hide-and-seek with his younger brother, Raymond.

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Show Notes

Today we have a collection of 4 creepy tales about a kid's game I'm sure we all played, Hide and Seek



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