Halloween // The campfire story.

There’s something simple and powerful about a simple campfire story. When is the last time you told one? The last time you sat around the warmth of a gentle blaze and recounted some tall tale to spook and scare your friends? It’s something that doesn’t happen often, but when it does, if the conditions are right, it’s magic. It’s one of those things you can’t force, you can’t just gather friends on any old night and tell them something scary. It has to happen organically. The fire is made for some other purpose, either for warmth, roasting, or socializing. The stories are only a byproduct of the flame.

Did you make your own stories for the fire? Spend nights spinning a yarn for the sole purpose of telling it by firelight? Or did you tell true stories that happened to you? Perhaps the most fun, did you recount urban legends that have been passed down for decades? Maybe you told stories about a hook-handed psycho who just escaped the local prison. Maybe it was about the ghastly hitchhiker who vanished into thin air as soon as she arrived at her destination?

What story stood out to you most of all? Something that you were afraid could happen to you? Or something so bizarre that it could only happen in fiction? Let’s light a fire here on this subreddit: tell me your memories of campfire stories.