Haunted Maze – Short Story

Oct 31, 2025 | Blog, Short Stories

I am not big on horror stories or scary stories, however at the end of October every year, the kids I work with want to write spooky, Halloween stories. I give it a go, always with varying results. Given that today is Halloween, I thought I’d share one of my stories.

In 2020, I gave the participants the prompt to turn something normal into something scary, or something scary into something normal. This was my story:

The corridor was long and windy. It smelled musty as if no one had visited in a long time. Jamie thought it was the perfect corridor for a haunted maze.

Cobwebs hit Jamie’s face and she wiped them away.

‘Whoever designed this place really went all out,’ she thought as she went around another corner and spotted a skeleton further up the corridor. She shivered as a cool breeze blew down, telling Jamie she was nearing the end.

She pushed through some rubber streamers, her excitement at the thought of the scary rides that would greet her at the other end.

Instead of a gloomy room, her eyes were almost assaulted by bright lights. Instead of a ghost village, the haunted maze opened up onto a fairly normal looking fair ground.

‘This isn’t scary,’ said Jamie, disappointed. She always looked forward to the scary rides of the Halloween carnival. She vaguely recalled hearing something about changes to the carnival, but she hadn’t expected this. It was way too normal.

She turned around to go back into the haunted maze.

I hope you enjoyed the story. If you want to get creative, give this prompt a try, turn something normal into something scary, or something scary into something normal.

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