Christmas Song Scary Ghost Stories The Night I Tried Summoning Spirits With a Ouija Board and Why I Still Regret It

Christmas Horror: “The Shadow That Stayed After Goodbye” click to read the terrifying true Ouija board story of the spirit that followed me home.

The First Move

We sat at the dining table. The Christmas tree lights were on in the living room, blinking lazily. The music in the other room had changed to another song with bells and choirs. It should’ve felt comforting, but it didn’t. There was this…awkward silence sitting between us. We both put our fingertips on the candle lid, barely touching it. “Spirits,” Lena said, with this little nervous laugh, “is anyone here?”
Nothing happened. We sat there for maybe thirty seconds, and it was embarrassingly awkward. I was already half-ready to say “Okay, whatever, this is dumb,” when the planchette moved. It was small at first. A slow, dragging slide toward the edge. I honestly thought Lena was messing with me.
“Stop pushing it,” I said. “I’m not,” she said immediately. Of course that’s what someone who’s pushing it would say. I kind of laughed, but my stomach did this weird drop. “Fine,” she said. “Ask something only you know. Then you’ll see.” So I did. I asked it the name of my childhood dog. She didn’t know it, and I had never mentioned it around her. Ever. The planchette started moving again. Slower this time, like it was thinking.
B.

E.

N.

My throat went tight. My dog’s name was Benji. Everyone called him Ben. I looked at Lena, and her face was wrong. Serious, pale. She shook her head slowly. “That wasn’t me,” she said. This was the moment it stopped being a joke and started feeling like one of those real Ouija board experiences people post about and get called liars for.

The Spirit From the Fire

We kept going, even though we both knew we shouldn’t. Curiosity does that to you. It’s like a hook.
“Who are we talking to?” I asked. The planchette picked up speed.
D.
E.
A.
D.
I stared at the board, feeling stupid and terrified at the same time. “How did you die?” I asked.
F.
I.
R.
E.
It went on to spell the name of a nearby town. A real one. A few miles away. And that’s when it clicked.
Years before, there had been a house fire there. It had been a big story. A family trapped inside. I hadn’t thought about it in a long time, but I remembered the headlines, the pictures of the burned-out house.
“Are you from that fire?” I asked. The planchette slid straight to YES. The air in the room felt heavier, like something was pushing down on it. That quiet, creeping dread started building and building and building in my chest. Maybe my brain was filling in the blanks. Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe it was nothing. But it didn’t feel like nothing. And then the room got cold. I don’t mean “we imagined it” cold. I mean the actual temperature dropped. My arms broke out in goosebumps. I saw a faint cloud when Lena exhaled. She noticed it, too. We locked eyes. “Okay, I don’t like this,” she said. “Let’s say goodbye now.” Before we could move, the planchette jerked under our fingers and shot over to NO.
We both yanked our hands away. And the planchette kept moving.

The Name I Never Wanted to See

Our fingers weren’t even touching it anymore. The candle lid scraped across the cardboard on its own.
I have read way too many Ouija board horror stories. You start noticing patterns. The cold. The heaviness. The feeling of being watched. And the names. Especially one name. The planchette spelled:
Z.
O.
Z.
O.
Zozo.
The Zozo Ouija board demon. A name I’d seen in “terrifying true Ouija board stories,” in “ouija board stories that will give you chills,” and in those “Zozo ouija board demon” warning posts people argue about in the comments. I always figured it was internet myth. A copied-and-pasted creepypasta.
But now that name was on my stupid, hand-drawn cardboard, and I hadn’t even thought about it until that exact second.
Z.
O.
Z.
O.
Over and over, like it was taunting us. The Christmas lights flickered. The song in the other room glitched literally glitched. The same half-line repeated, stuttering like a scratched CD. The singer’s voice warped into something weird and broken. My heart started pounding so loud it made the room feel smaller. “I don’t like this,” Lena said, her voice shaking. “This is like one of those ouija board gone wrong things. Seriously, we need to stop.” “We’re saying goodbye,” I said, trying to sound in control and absolutely failing. We both reached toward the planchette. It slid away before we touched it.

“She’s Not Here Right Now”

The planchette moved back to NO again. Then spelled out:
S.
T.
A.
Y.
My whole body went cold. “Is this a joke?” Lena snapped suddenly, turning to me. “Are you doing this? Do you have magnets under the table or something? Tell me this is a joke.” She sounded angry, but it felt like panic wearing a thin mask. Then, mid-sentence, she just…stopped. Her head tilted to the side in this slow, unnatural way, like she was listening to something behind her. Her fingers twitched once. Her shoulders rolled back slightly, and she sat up straighter. And then she smiled. It wasn’t her smile. I know how that sounds, but it wasn’t. It was too wide, too slow, like a photo of a smile instead of a real one.
“Okay, no,” I said, laughing a little, even though I was shaking. “You’re creeping me out. Stop.” She blinked once. And when she spoke, her voice sounded off. Not fake-deep or anything, just…wrong. Flat and calm in a way that didn’t match what was happening. “You asked for something real,” she said.
The words hit me like a bucket of ice water. It sounded like someone using her vocal cords who didn’t quite know how to be human. “Lena,” I said. “Cut it out. Please.” She tilted her head the other way. It was a tiny movement, but it made my skin crawl. “She’s not here right now,” she said. “But I am.”
I felt everything in me lock up. Every “true possession story,” every warning about Ouija board possession, every “don’t invite anything in” line I’d ever read came crashing down on me all at once.
The planchette scraped across the board.
M.
I.
N.
E.

The Eyes

For a second, all I heard was the broken Christmas song still looping in the background, replaying the same fragment of lyrics over and over. It was the kind of sound that makes your brain feel like it’s being slowly sandpapered. “Look at me,” I said, my voice shaking. Her eyes snapped up and met mine, and that was almost worse than the voice. They were her eyes, but the way she looked at me felt…sharp. Focused. Too focused. Like something was behind them, testing out her face. I wanted to run out of the house, but I couldn’t leave her there like that. I did the only thing that popped into my terrified brain.
I slapped the planchette off the board. “Goodbye,” I shouted. “Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.”
The candle lid spun on the floor and skidded to a stop. The room seemed to exhale. The glitching music cut off for a second, then started playing normally again, like nothing had happened. The air warmed up just enough that I couldn’t see my breath anymore. The pressure in my chest loosened a bit. Lena blinked a few times. Her shoulders dropped. Then she sucked in this huge breath, like someone had just pulled her up from underwater. “What happened?” she asked quietly. “Why are you crying?” I hadn’t even noticed the tears.

Aftermath

We didn’t tell our families. How are you supposed to tell people, “Hey, I think I almost got my friend possessed by a Zozo Ouija board demon on Christmas Eve”? They’d blame the movies, or the internet, or say we worked ourselves up. Maybe we did. But that doesn’t explain everything. For weeks after, small things kept happening. Doors we were sure we’d closed were suddenly open a crack. The TV would turn on by itself in the middle of the night, flicker with static for a few seconds, then shut off again. Twice, in early January, I woke up to what sounded like a faint Christmas song playing downstairs. The same one from that night. But when I went to check, the stereo was off. The playlist wasn’t even loaded. We threw the cardboard Ouija board out the next morning. The candle lid too. We made dumb jokes while we did it, pretending it was no big deal. But every December, when I start digging through drawers for tape or scissors, I get this weird urge to check the junk drawer in the kitchen. There’s no logical reason, but some part of me half-expects to find that board folded up in there, waiting. So far, it hasn’t happened. So far.

Why I’ll Never Use a Ouija Board Again

People love asking for scary Ouija board stories, especially around the holidays. They want “ouija board stories that still haunt me,” “terrifying true Ouija board stories,” “ouija board stories that will give you chills.” They want to be scared, but in a safe way. This one doesn’t feel safe to tell. Call it fear, call it suggestion, call it two sleep-deprived girls freaking each other out. Believe whatever makes you feel better. But here’s what never leaves me: the way her voice sounded when she said, “She’s not here right now.” The way the room got so cold my breath showed in the air. The way the board spelled out details from an old house fire I hadn’t thought about in years. The way that name Zozo showed up without either of us guiding it. Those things stick. This is one of those ouija board stories that still haunt me, whether anyone else believes it or not. So if you’re thinking about making a board, or dragging one out at a party “just for fun,” or trying to get your own “true Ouija board story” to tell do whatever you want. People are going to ignore warnings anyway. But remember this: Some doors don’t shut all the way once you open them. And that’s exactly why I’ll never use a Ouija board again.