🕸️ Short Horror Stories 🕸️

Room For One More

A man named Joseph Blackwell came to Washington on a business trip. He stayed at the large house some friends owned on the outskirts of the city. That night they had a pleasant evening chatting and reminiscing about the past. But when Blackwell went to bed, he began to toss and turn and was unable to sleep.

At one point during the night, he heard a car pull into the driveway. He went to the window to see who might be arriving at such a late hour. In the moonlight, he saw a black hearse full of people. The driver looked up at him. When Blackwell saw his strange face, he shuddered. The driver called to him, "There's room for one more." He then waited a minute or two before driving off.

In the morning, Blackwell told his friends what had happened. "You were dreaming," they said. "That must have been it," he replied, "but it didn't seem like a dream." After breakfast he left for town and spent the day in the offices of one of the new high-rise buildings in the city.

Late in the afternoon, he was ready to go back to the house and was waiting for the elevator to take him down to the ground floor . But when it stopped at his floor, it was very full. One of the people inside looked at him and said, "There's room for one more." It was the driver of the hearse. "No, thank you," Blackwell said. "I'll wait for the next one."

The doors closed and the elevator began to descend. Moments later, there was a terrible crash and shouts and screams could be heard. The elevator had collapsed. All the people inside were killed.

[From Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz].