5 Psycho Neighbors Horror Stories Animated

i live in a place called dark hollow

about 20 minutes outside of pittsburgh

it's a really nice neighborhood

really leafy and green with some really

nice old houses

and i won't deny that i've been

immensely privileged to have grown up

there but at the same time there was a

huge downside to living there too

and that came in the form

of the ward family

the wards were an absolute nightmare to

live near to

and they made pretty much every other

family's lives unbearable at some point

for a variety of different reasons

individually they were bad enough

but collectively they were like a horror

movie level of nightmarish

like i wouldn't be surprised if there

was some budding horror filmmaker who

writes or directs the next hereditary

and it all comes out that it was

inspired by the wards

the patriarch of the family was named

winston or wynn for short but

being one of wynn's neighbors was

nothing short of a serious loss

now for reference

i had most of my encounters with wynn

when i was a teenager and being a girl

when always took a certain liking to me

that he just didn't show to other people

he was always sickeningly polite with me

the kind of polite that verged on

weirdly flirtatious

to other people it probably just seemed

like he was overly nice maybe a little

socially awkward

but being alone with wynn or in

situations where there weren't close

observers

that was a different situation entirely

there were a handful of occasions where

i caught wind looking at me in a way

that made my skin crawl

had a hunger in his eyes like

this beastly ravenous look like he

wanted to eat me alive

his eyes would glaze over and his lips

would curl up ever so slightly in this

horrifically perverted way that always

made me feel stupidly uncomfortable

there was one time when i bumped into

him in a convenience store near to

downtown pittsburgh

after he said hi and made a little small

talk he seemed to follow me around the

store for a little while

he acted all innocent

making out like he was just browsing

stuff in the aisles but

at some point he got way too close to me

i think i was just too nervous to

actually do anything about it i didn't

want to make a scene or cause any

unnecessary conflict

after all what would i tell people

mr ward stood near me in a store

anyways

when he was standing close to me i heard

him

sniffing the air

like taking these big inhalations of

breath through his nose almost like he

was trying to smell me

i couldn't walk away fast enough and in

the end i left the store without even

picking up what i went in there to buy

like i said he was overly nice to girls

and women but an absolute monster to any

boys or men who happened to catch him in

the wrong mood

he once ran out of the house with a

baseball bat when my big brother used

their driveway to turn around once

and the way he told it if he hadn't

driven away as fast as he could

mr ward probably would have done some

damage to his car

then there was his wife

maggie

maggie always wore way too much makeup i

mean so much it looked really jarring

and she plucked her eyebrows really

really thin

i'm pretty sure she was a good few years

younger than wynn but the way she made

herself up made it seem like she was 20

or 30 years older and was just trying to

look younger

maggie was famous for sitting out on

their porch and knitting which i think

contributed to the whole old person vibe

she gave off

only she didn't really ever seem to be

knitting anything

i remember walking our dog around the

neighborhood and getting a look at the

tangled mess of yarn she just seemed to

be poking needles into

it was like a lime green spider web just

a tangle of thread she stared at like

she was in some kind of trance

she also had this talent for turning

super happy sounding innocent nursery

rhymes

into the creepiest sounding things

singing them all slow and deliberate in

a sing-song voice that sounded like a

combination of a creaking door and nails

on a chalkboard

i remember one time when we got some of

their mail delivered to our house by

mistake and my mom made me go over to

drop it off

mrs ward was sitting on their porch

poking these dirty looking knitting

needles into a tangle of yarn and

singing

ring around the rosie a pocket full of

posies ashes ashes

we all fall down

she looked up to see me standing there

with the mail in my hand

she acted all scared which was nuts

because i think i was way more freaked

out to be over there

but she thanked me for bringing the mail

over anyway

yet before i turned the leave

she asked me if i knew what nursery

rhyme she was singing

i nodded

and she asked if i knew what the origins

were

i said no

and she went on to explain to me that

the song had its roots in some old

plague that had swept across england

i think she meant the black death but i

can't be certain

she said the ring around the rosy part

was a reference to a rash that was a

symptom of the disease

and a posey was a collection of herbs

that was carried to mass the scent of

rot that the dying people were said to

have given off

then she tells me that the all fall down

part was a reference to people dying

from the plague

i don't know how true any of that is but

jesus it freaked me out to have her tell

me that in her weird scratchy voice with

her face all painted up like some circus

clown

their younger son jacob ward was a total

freak

he was obsessed with native american

culture which i'm not saying is a bad

thing at all

but jacob was totally toxic about it it

was rare that he'd see that kid and he

didn't have his face painted or have

this grim homemade headdress on or

whatever he also liked to run around

with the bow and arrow that his parents

insisted was totally harmless and used

those cartoony sucker tip arrows

but there are a lot of people myself

included that swear that they'd seen him

using actual sharp tip arrows on a

handful of occasions

he'd aimed them at you

pulled the draw string back to the point

you'd actually run for cover but he

never seemed to fire any and you can

never catch him using them whenever

there were any grown-ups around they

actually got a social worker called over

at some point because a few people had

seen jacob walking around with dead

squirrels or pigeons

i'm not sure if he'd shoot them himself

with his bow and arrow or they were just

roadkill or something but it was

alarmingly enough to enough people that

they actually had a visit from someone

although whether or not that actually

came to anything i don't know

then finally

their older son was this kid named

johnny

johnny was the kind of kid that growled

at people in high school when they got

too close to him

and before he got expelled for fighting

did something seriously messed up

apparently he asked this girl to go out

on a date

some super pretty but super nerdy girl

who happened to be his lab partner

she says no and johnny doesn't take it

very well at all

he made things difficult for her during

chemistry by not talking or looking at

her and eventually she had to basically

beg the teacher to switch partners so

she could even get a passing grade

not long after she was driving back from

school in her seemingly empty car when

she looks in the rearview mirror to see

johnny just sitting in her back seat

grinning at her

he'd apparently broke it into her car

and hidden in the foot well in her back

seat under some blankets or something

or at least that's what we all figured

he'd done

she was so scared she crashed a car and

had to spend a week in the hospital

all johnny got was a visit from the cops

and a warning to stay away from her

and somehow it was all just blamed on

teenage high jinks

i think maybe because the girl's family

were too scared of the words to press

charges or whatever

i'm sure there's more to that story but

that's all i know of that

when the for sale sign finally showed up

from the ward's house i think dark

hollow was about ready to throw a big

party to celebrate them leaving

and after they did

they became something of an urban legend

basically a campfire tale that only a

handful of people really knew was

actually true and not something we made

up to scare people

like i still think it's a miracle that

there wasn't any bigger drama to happen

involving the wards something like a

murderer or whatever little jacob

shooting someone with an actual arrow

i know johnny basically almost killed

his lab partner in that car crash but

but somehow they never actually went

through was seriously hurting anyone

but who knows

maybe a couple more years and there

would have been a fatality

and who knows what they've been up to

wherever they move to maybe it's only a

matter of time

before they seriously

hurt someone

[Music]

before i moved across the country for

college i live with my mom in fresno

california

i love her and she always did her best

for me and my sister with what little

she had

but i think she'd be the first to admit

that we live in a terrible neighborhood

with little opportunity to improve our

situation

but i guess that's just how life is when

your teenage pregnancy with a father who

just disappeared in the thin air

but growing up i always thought my mom

was

kind of terrible

she rarely let us play outside

wouldn't ever let us go to the store on

our own

she acted like an all-around control

freak whose goal was to make our lives

as boring and uneventful as possible

later in life

we had a major heart to heart where she

leveled with me about why she was so

strict with us when we were growing up

after that

i understood why she was the way she was

the family next door were heavily

involved in meth and gang activity

but they weren't just partying and

dealing out of the family home

they were a group of seriously sadistic

psychopaths who did things to the local

community that could pretty fairly be

described as pure evil

they got raided by the cops in the end

but not before they done some pretty

irreparable damage to the neighborhood

and my mom opened up by telling me about

one particular incident that had been

the catalyst for her being so strict

with us

apparently they used a little

recruitment tactic on more than one

occasion

one that involved inviting a young girl

over to party before forcing her to

smoke meth

they'd keep her there for days

just feeding her meth and loaning her

out to partygoers

that's the least obscene way i can

phrase it but you get the idea

then they'd threaten to tell her parents

or tell the call of cops on her some

kind of blackmail method to keep them

coming back and bringing their friends

and siblings etc

from what i understand

it was kind of a vicious cycle of like

brainwashing girls which in turn

attracted more guys which then allowed

them to sell considerably more meth

since lewd activity was involved

my mom also said that more than once she

saw two guys carrying unconscious people

out to a car

throwing them in the back seat then

driving them away and then on a couple

of occasions she saw missing posters for

these people tacked up around the

neighborhood

i asked her why she didn't go to the

cops about the family and

she actually broke down crying

she said she was constantly terrified

and had multiple encounters with the

family members next door who told her

that if the cops ever showed up they'd

make sure that she suffered

she told me that they once warned her

that they were heavily armed had all

kinds of automatic weapons inside their

place

and that if the cops ever came they'd

rather all die in a shootout than be

taken alive

apparently they laughed about how they

had guns so powerful that they'd ripped

through the neighborhood and that our

family would probably die in the

crossfire or something

that was something that absolutely

terrified her

we were all she had in the world and she

wanted to protect us at all costs

so the idea of us losing our lives to

some horrific drug fueled shootout

it was unimaginable

my mom was a quarter mexican too and she

knew a few things about something called

santa muerte

a kind of pagan figure that some mexican

people worship is like a personification

of death

she said she could sometimes hear people

in the backyard of the meth house

invoking her name

possibly even making sacrifices since

she heard chickens squawking and goats

bleeding

and according to her

a lot of people who worshipped santa

muerte were connected with mexican

cartels

and were not to be messed with

she didn't want to take the chance

it took her years before she was able to

afford to move and

by that time i was a sophomore

but i can't even describe the relief i

felt when i heard she was moving away

from fresno with my little sister

for the first time in years i was

actually excited about going home to

visit

we were finally away from that psycho

family of meth addicted death worshipers

[Music]

for the longest time me and my family

live next door to these absolute insane

people that made our lives a complete

living hell for like an entire year

they were pretty well behaved for the

first few months after they moved in

but after a while they started

absolutely blasting music in the middle

of the night

i'm not just talking about that gentle

kind of bass thump that passively is

annoying

i'm talking the kind of loud where you

couldn't get a wink of sleep

the police had to be called out a few

times to get them to turn it down

and even then they confessed that they

couldn't really do anything other than

issue fines

got progressively worse though and it

turned out half the reason the music was

so loud was to mask the sounds of the

mom and dad having these legit

fistfights in the middle of the night

it wasn't even a case of it being a

one-sided domestic abuse either the dad

sometimes had worse black guys than the

mom

and scratches all down his face where

she'd obviously clawed him to death

they used to knock the seven shades out

of each other but we didn't think they

were too dangerous to anyone outside

their own family

once or twice my dad had gotten into

confrontations with them about the smell

coming from their backyard or the fact

that they used to blast music

the dad of this insane family had

threatened to kill my dad once or twice

but none of us thought that he would

actually go through it that and

thank god they didn't

then for some reason it went really

quiet over there for a few weeks

and it got to the point we thought that

it actually moved only they hadn't moved

at all

they were just keeping their heads down

because

they'd straight up killed

their own daughter

apparently she tried to run away from

home and ended up in a shelter somewhere

they tracked her down

dragged her into their car one night

taking her somewhere secluded and then

beat her

to death

i'm not sure they even meant to kill her

they just beat her up so bad that she

ended up dying not long after that

that's why they'd been so quiet

they didn't want to bring down any

attention on themselves when they were

dealing with disposing of her body

we had police basically camped out on

our street for like a week after they'd

been arrested

all kinds of forensic vans with people

in those full body white fabric suits

going in and out all hours of the day

they were obviously looking for traces

of the girl but

whether or not they found anything i'm

not really sure

i do know it was in the paper though and

like i said

i thank god the guy never did anything

to my dad

because he did actually go on to murder

someone his own daughter at that

[Music]

i feel like every neighborhood has a

family of absolute psychos

almost everyone i've spoken to about

this sort of thing seems to remember one

group of absolute wrongans be it from

their childhoods or from their current

lives

and if there's one thing i've learned

from their collective memories and

stories

it's that whenever there's a family like

that around

it's only a matter of time before

something comes to a head

or something finally boils over

and that's exactly what happened with

this insane family that lived in my

neighborhood when i was a kid

only the thing is most of the people

i've spoken to said the breaking point

came when some kind of family argument

or confrontation with neighbors spilled

out into the streets outside

police were called arrests were made

usually a for sale sign or two went up

in the aftermath

but i almost wish my story was that

simple

or ended that relatively amicably

because what happened in my case is

something that haunts me to this day

with possibilities and ramifications

that i find genuinely terrifying

i grew up in the 70s britain in a pretty

small town in a place called wiltshire

we were quite a small community everyone

knew everyone and consequently

everyone knew everyone's business too

there was this one boy called lewis and

he was the only child of the prestige

family a very peculiar family name if

ever there was one but that's not the

reason i'll never forget it

the prestige family were peculiar by

name and peculiar by nature too

but then peculiar seems like entirely

the wrong word to use

peculiar makes you think of something

quaint and adorably abnormal but

there was nothing adorable about the

prestige family

they were just weird

scarily weird too and

mean

i think one of the earliest memories of

lewis is during an assembly in primary

school

it's about 8 in the morning and all the

kids in school are sat in the main hall

and it's deathly quiet apart from our

head master making announcements and the

soft sobs of young lewis

he didn't stop crying for the whole of

the assembly and

it didn't just remain this quiet weeping

either

his tears built in pitch in intensity

until he was wailing so loud that a

teacher had to remove him altogether

i remember feeling really sorry for him

but as time went on it was just

something you sort of got used to

they were the weird family in town and

since they didn't get into any serious

confrontations outside of their own

family unit people just sort of let them

be

the next serious incident i remember was

years later in secondary school when the

schoolyard suddenly became abuzz with

people gossiping over something

people were crowding around the school

gates looking at something some of them

laughing some of them just gobbing at

the sight of a lad dressed entirely in a

school uniform except for one crucial

piece of it

his trousers

and it turned out to be lewis

from what i heard he had been basically

pushed out of the car by who we assumed

to be his dad and rumors went flying

around that lewis hadn't quite been

ready to leave the house

when his dad was ready to take him to

school that morning

instead of waiting for him to put his

school trousers on

lewis's dad had just dragged him to the

car and taken him to the school with no

pants on

basically to teach him a lesson to be

ready on time

i'm not entirely sure how true that

reasoning was but i do know that i

witnessed louis having to walk into

school in nothing but a school jumper

his shoes and his underwear with my own

eyes

i'm also not entirely sure how lewis was

still allowed to live with his evidently

abusive parents either

again

rumors went around that they'd had a

visit from social workers but

this i believe because for a while there

seemed to be little in the way of

serious incidents coming from the

prestige household

obviously the visit from child welfare

services has been enough to shake them

up into changing their ways or so it

seemed

now this all came to a head when i was

fifteen maybe just over a year before we

left secondary school and bid farewell

to compulsory education for good

one morning lewis turns up to school in

his own clothes a pair of pumps and a

colorful jumper

he gets pulled aside by a teacher who i

think at that point was well aware of

the situation at home

and lewis says something quietly to him

before the pair of them disappear into

the building which housed the main

office

the next thing i know is that apart from

the shoes he was wearing lewis has an

entirely new school uniform

new blazer new tie

new jumper

everything

and from that day on he seemed like

almost an entirely new person

he didn't get dropped off at school by

his parents anymore he seemed more

confident and open more talkative with

the other kids

he even started playing football with us

at lunch times

something he'd never done before we

actually got quite pally with him for a

while and on more than one occasion he

invited us back home with him to play

we politely declined of course thinking

of some made up excuse not to have to go

around the prestige house but still

things seem to be making a vast

improvement

emphasis unseemed though because after a

long bank holiday weekend

lewis failed to turn up to school at all

this didn't have anyone talking about it

too much kids were routinely off on the

odd one or two days with illness but

lewis went an entire week without

showing up for school and that really

did get us talking

i don't know if it was because i was so

young and naive or i just didn't connect

the dots but i didn't think that there

was any link between all the police

activity around our town and lewis not

being in school

one saturday afternoon my mom and dad

called me into the kitchen and asked me

if i'd been around to lewis's house at

all recently

i told them no but that i'd been invited

at one point and when i said that

my mom gave my dad this look that seemed

to be a weird mix of horror and relief

like i dodged a bullet or something

not long after that i got word through

some friends of mine that there had been

a brutal double murder in the town

that someone had been arrested for it

too

our little town barely had any crime at

all

i think the most serious thing to happen

for decades at that point was a car

theft committed by some out of towner

said the idea that there had been a

single murder let alone two

just set the town a light

and there was much speculation over who

the killer was and how the killings had

come about

looking back now

i can see why the adults might want to

shield us from the whole thing

it was only a few years later that i

actually realized why the police had

made such an effort to keep the identity

of the murderer a secret

it's like that when a murderer is under

the age of 18.

when they're a minor their identity is

kept secret for as long as is able

and that's only really possible with the

media because it didn't take long before

the residents of our town figured out

what had happened

and it was bound to trickle down to us

sooner or later

the reason lewis's parents didn't seem

to be around anymore the reason he was

so happy and confident and carefree

was because he

had killed them

he'd finally rid himself the people that

made his life

torture

i get that

but the fact that a kid killing their

own parents could make them so happy

that's something i've never been able to

truly understand

the horrible thing was looking back on

the events later in sort of piecing

together the puzzle

for example

the day he came to school in his own

clothes was probably the morning he'd

killed them

and since he gotten blood on his school

uniform he had to dispose of it all the

times he'd invited us back to his place

to watch tv or play football his parents

would have been dead in the upstairs

bedroom

assuming that's where he killed them

if we'd gone round

maybe we would have been able to smell

them

or see flies buzzing around the bedroom

door something

we were all just one little spur of the

moment yes from finding out

finding their bodies

maybe if that was the case

then lewis would have killed us

too

[Music]

this happened a few weeks ago i was

hanging out with my friend dustin and we

decided to go explore this creepy old

abandoned asylum

it was a huge building about three

stories high we walked past the railroad

we then continued to the old asylum

as we walked to it i looked up and my

heart dropped from the third story

window i could see someone looking down

at me and justin

i stopped and he asked me what was wrong

i told him to look up in that window on

the right

he looked up and saw it too we continued

to stare at it for about a few seconds

before whoever or whatever it was moved

out of sight

we then were deciding if we should still

go in

we settled it it was just some person

trying to buy drugs or something

drug deals and teens were always in

there sneaking we went past no

trespassing signs and explored the first

level of the building

there was a lot of broken glass and

graffiti everywhere

there was this one that said

i love it when they run

don't get me wrong that was kind of

creepy but obviously done as a joke so

we made it up to the second floor and

basically the same thing there except

for an old elevator shaft that was

cracked slightly open

dustin turned his flashlight on and put

it in the elevator we saw a whole lot of

electrical junk some dead birds and

animals

if that wasn't freaky enough

we also heard something walking above us

in the third story

my heart felt like it was about to

explode i had a bad feeling about this

and i told him we should leave

he said nah it'll be fine and he started

walking up to the third story

i didn't want to be left alone near the

spooky elevator so i'll follow behind

him

we had our phones out taking pictures of

all kinds of stuff on the previous

floors

as we walked up the stairs i swear we

were being followed and i told dustin to

hurry up

he went upstairs and i wasn't far behind

what i saw on the third floor of that

asylum will hunt me for the rest of my

life

there were pentagrams and animals all

over the place it smelled awful up there

there were some rooms in the back of the

corner

keep in mind this is the floor we saw

that thing looking down at us from

we heard what sounded like whispers

coming from the middle room we got our

phones out and started taking pictures

of it

after i got about two or three pics i

saw a figure step out of the room

my heart was beating so hard i swear it

had come through my chest

it was the same person that was looking

from the window me and dustin were

freaking out but we didn't dare move

about 10 seconds of staring and it

started sprinting at us screaming

i took off in a sprint down the stairs

almost dropping my phone

i ran and jumped out of the two-story

window and landed in some brush

i got up and ran some more before

crouching behind some old shed

then it hit me dustin was still in there

i hadn't even noticed him when i ran

down the stairs i texted him and asked

him where he was but didn't reply

i sat crouched behind that shed for

about three minutes before i saw justin

sprinting out of that house

i jumped from behind the shed and called

his name

he saw me and scream run he looked

behind him

then i looked behind him he was being

chased by two people

i took off down the road heading for the

railroad

dustin caught up with me and we didn't

stop until we made it to the tracks we

jumped in a ditch beside the railroad

and looked up to see the two people

standing at the door of the asylum

they were watching us but then turned

and walked back inside

we ran up to their local burger place

and sat down at a booth

out of breath we ordered some sprite and

fries while waiting for food i asked him

what happened after i ran

he said the guy chased him and he ran

down the stairs and saw me jump out of

the window and he ran to the elevator

where he found a small space behind some

boxes to hide behind

he said after he sat there for a bit

the guy came down the stairs with

another person

they were watching to see where we went

then his phone went off because i texted

him

he said they looked his direction and

saw him they didn't chase him down the

stairs not the door

and that's when i saw him when we ran we

didn't call the cops because we didn't

want to get in trouble for trespassing

i don't know those guys and i don't know

what they were doing in that building

but needless to say

i don't think me or dustin will ever go

back to