Many children have imaginary friends when they are young, but some children have a very scary imagination. This is a collection of true stories about children with pals who may or may not be a figment of their creative minds.

Jenny

When I was 4 years old, my mom and I moved into a large colonial house that was built in the late 1800s. My mom always had a weird feeling about the house. There was a little bricked off section in the basement and we never knew why it was there.

My mother told me that soon after we moved into the house, I suddenly had an imaginary friend. One day, out of the blue, I told her that I had been playing with a little girl named Jenny. She thought that it was just a phase and didn’t pay much attention to it. I told her that Jenny wanted me to let the cat go down into the basement so that she could play with it. My mother allowed me to let the cat go down there. It never came back. That creeped her out.

Then, a few days later, I told her Jenny wanted me to go down into the basement to play with her. My mother refused and told me to go upstairs to bed. I did and when I woke up the next morning, I had deep scratches on my back and legs.

My mom decided to research the history the house. She found an old picture of the house and the family who used to live there. She showed me the picture and asked if I recognized any of them. There were 7 little girls in the picture and, without hesitation, I pointed to one of them. The names of all the family members were written on the back. The girl I had pointed to was named Jenny.

My mother got scared, because during her research, she had discovered that the girl named Jenny had gone down into the basement one day and was never seen again. The family never found her and they moved shortly after that.

After I identified the girl in the picture, it was all way too much for my mom to handle. We moved out of the house and found somewhere else to live. When I turned 18, my told me all about what had happened in that house. It still scares me when I think about it.

Don’t Tell Anyone My Name

My niece had an imaginary friend, but she said she wasn’t allowed to tell anyone his name. She said he told her everyone would get scared if they knew it. We kept asking her, but she would never tell anyone the name. Then one day, her mom and I were in the hallway and my niece didn’t realize it. She was talking to her imaginary friend and called him by his name. To this day, whenever I think about it, I am still creeped out. The imaginary friend’s name was Lucifer.

Funny Faces

I was staying in my aunt’s house when I saw my 4-year old cousin, April, sitting on the stairs. She was making funny faces. I asked her what she was doing and she said, “I’m copying the lady with the braid.” There was no one else there, so I asked, “Where is the lady, April?” She pointed up at a beam running parallel to the stairwell. “And what is the lady doing?” I asked. “Making funny faces,” April replied. I was about to go upstairs when April said something that stopped me in my tracks. “Her braid is around her neck.” I asked her wat she meant. April pointed up and said, “The lady is hanging by her braid. She’s making funny faces at me.” Then April started making a face. Her eyes were wide and bugged out, her mouth hung open and her tongue stuck out. I realized it was the face of someone who was strangling to death.

Matt

When I was growing up, there was a girl in my neighborhood who very weird. All of the other kids were freaked out by her. One day, she told all of the kids that, in the forest behind her house, there were “dead, bloody people”. When they heard this, all of the kids freaked out and told their parents. Their fathers had to go out and search the forest, just in case. All they found was candy wrappers and empty beer bottles. After that, all of the kids in the neighborhood refused to go near her, including me.

A few years later, my parents divorced. On the day the moving came to take my mom’s things out of the house, the girl came out of nowhere and told me that “Matt” didn’t like that my parents were getting a divorce. I had no idea who “Matt” was.

Even though I stopped being friends with her, my dad was still friends with her parents. My dad told me that “Matt” was her imaginary friend. Her parents had told him all about the problems they were having. “Matt” was often too physical. They claimed that Matt could control the lights and could even make the power go out. They said “Matt” also knocked on doors at night. If he was ignored, the banging on the doors would start.

A few years later, my dad decided that he would invite the girl and her parents over to our house. I was begging my dad not to do this, but he said it would be nice to catch up with them. When they came over that night, my dad told me to entertain the girl. I brought her up to my bedroom and she seemed to be acting normal. She even told me how nice my room was. However, I was still creeped out by her.

She just sat down in the middle of the floor while I tried to put a movie on the DVD player. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, in the most deadpan voice, she said, “Matt’s here.”

At that exact moment, the lights began to flicker on and off. I got so scared, I ran out of my room, crying in fear. Her parents came running up the stairs, dragged their daughter out of my room and took her home. For weeks afterwards, I refused to sleep in my bedroom.

I haven’t heard much from that family ever since then. I heard that Matt still controlled the lights but I don’t know if he is still around. To this day, whenever the lights begin flickering or a bulb blows, it still freaks me out.

The Dead Boy

My boyfriend is a homicide detective and a couple of years ago, he was investigating the murder of a little boy. They still hadn’t found the body. The mother of the little boy broke down and admitted she had killed him and hid his body under their old trailer. When the police went out to search the trailer, they found there was a new family living in it. The family said their son had an imaginary friend who lived under the trailer and would come up to see him. The cops found the body of the dead boy just under his room.

Kelly

When my daughter was three, she had an imaginary friend named Kelly who lived in her closet. She said Kelly played with her and sat in a little rocking chair while she slept. Two years later, we were watching a horror movie and my daughter said, “That looks like Kelly.” “Kelly who?” I asked. “You know, Kelly,” she replied, “The dead girl that lived in my closet.”

The Little Girl in the Lake

When I was a kid, we often went camping on Lake Dering in New Hampshire. One day, when I was 6 years old, I fell off of the dock and plunged into the water. I couldn’t swim. While I was underwater, I distinctly remember seeing a little girl down there who told me to look up towards the sun and just keep kicking and I’d be fine. I swam to the surface just in time for my grandfather to grab me and pull me back on the dock. I found out later that a little girl had drowned in that lake near that very same spot.

Serena

I asked my niece to draw her imaginary friend, “Serena”. She’s 4 years old and when she sleeps over, she and Serena play in the living room. She says Serena likes my house. I shudder to imagine what would happen if she didn’t…

Jessica

When I was just a baby, my older sister Julia had an imaginary friend named Jessica. She said when Jessica got mad, her eyes turned green and her voice grew deeper. She was Julia’s friend for a long time, but then things started to get a little weird. After a while, my parents began to believe that our house was haunted.

One night, my mom was putting me to bed and I began to cry and point at the corner. My mom tried to comfort me, but I kept crying and pointing at the same corner. All of a sudden, my sister walked into the room, pointed at the corner and yelled, “Jessica! Stop it!” I immediately stopped crying and Julia said, “Sometimes Jessica likes to put on scary masks and scare people”. My mom was a little freaked out and said, “Tell Jessica that if she cant play nice, she can’t play here at all.

Eventually, my sister Julia outgrew her imaginary friend and stopped mentioning her. A few years later, my little sister Abbey began to talk. She told my mom she had a friend that no one else could see. She said her imaginary friend’s eyes turned green when she was upset. My mother asked her what her imaginary friend’s name was and she replied, “Jessica…”

Scotty

Back when I was in elementary school, my best friend’s name was Ryan. We were around 6 or 7. One day, there was a new kid in our class. His name was Andrew and he had just moved in from out of state. He was socially awkward and used to sit alone, just talking quietly to himself. The strange thing was, he always appeared to be enraged during these conversations with himself.

Ryan and I decided to befriend him and he invited us over to his house for a sleepover. The whole day went by without incident and it was all good fun. Andrew seemed different at home. he was more relaxed, more comfortable, more normal. That night, we went to sleep in his bedroom which was in the basement. I remember lying there on the floor. My buddy Ryan was asleep near me and Andrew was across the room on a couch. It was dark and I could only see his outline.

All of a sudden, Andrew started making some eerie high-pitched noises. It sounded like a steaming tea kettle. Then he stood up, still letting out that high-pitched screeching noise and I saw him walking towards me. I kicked Ryan to wake him up and both of us were freaking out. Andrew kept walking until he was standing over us. Then, he just kneeled down and slowly let the screech die out. Ryan and I looked at each other, unsure about what to do. Suddenly, Andrew grabbed our arms and started squeezing like he was trying to crush them. In a disturbing low voice, he growled, “Scotty wants you both to leave!”

I ripped my arm out of his grasp and so did Ryan. Andrew got up again and just stood there staring at us, letting out a high-pitched evil laugh. We both got up and I suggested going to Andrews mom’s room to wake her up. Before we took a step, Andrew just started screaming at the top of his lungs. His mom came sprinting down the stairs and turned all of the lights on.

We saw that Andrew had scratches up and down his arms and his face looked deathly pale. His mom laid him on the ground and held him down. She was trying to speak over his screams and she was saying things like, “Andy! Andy! It’s OK! Scotty isn’t real, Andy!” She turned to us and told us to go upstairs and put our coats on. She was going to take us home.

For a couple of weeks after that, we didn’t talk to Andrew at school. Eventually, we asked him about it and he said, “It’s OK now. You won’t see Scotty anymore. No one will…”

Needless to say, that was the end of that and we never talked to him again. He ended up getting removed from my school because he attacked a kid with a tree branch at recess.

George

We were watching a scary movie when my nephew looked up and said, “What’s George doing on TV?”. I asked him what he meant and he said “That boy on TV looks like George”. I asked him who George was and he replied “He lives above my bed every night when the lights are off and talks to me but I can’t hear him”. I asked him to draw me a picture. He drew a small boy with black holes for eyes and no teeth who was bleeding from his neck. “That’s George!” he said.

Tuna

My little brother had an imaginary friend named Tuna. He said she was the size of a thimble. When he stopped mentioning her, we asked him what had hapened to her. He said he ate her.

The Evil

My daughter had some imaginary friends for a couple years named Dodo, Ghana & The Evil. They just sort of appeared out of nowhere when she was almost 3 years old. It started with Dodo and Ghana, then a few months later she came up to me with a creepy, expressionless face, told me, “The Evil is coming over today” and just walked away. It turned out that The Evil was actually a nice imaginary friend… She just had an unfortunate name.