Elevator Stories

Scary elevator stories and horror tales that take place in lifts. Read these creepy short stories and next time, you’ll be taking the stairs.

The Elevator

The Elevator is a scary short story about a young boy who has a morbid fear of the elevator in his apartment building. It is based on a horror tale by William Sleator.

Room For One More

Room For One More is a short scary story about a woman who is frightened when she runs into a weird man who drives a hearse. It is based on a supposedly true ghost story from Ireland called “Lord Dufferin’s Ghost Story” or “A Ghostly Warning”. A version of this story appeared in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

The Residential Elevator

The Residential Elevator is a short scary story about a boy who has an overpowering fear of the elevator in his apartment building.

The 4th Floor

The 4th Floor is a true scary story about a young man who has a chilling experience when he takes an elevator in an old building and it stops on the wrong floor.

The Wristbands

The Wristbands is a creepy ghost story from Korea about a doctor who has a close encounter with a ghost while working the night shift at a hospital.

The Man in the Elevator

The Man in the Elevator is a scary urban legend from Korea about a girl who comes home late at night. It is also known as “The Elevator Murder”.

Elevator Buttons

The Elevator Buttons is a scary story about three kids who get trapped in a lift that seems to have a mind of its own.

The Giant Spider

The Giant Spider is a supposedly true scary story about two mysterious deaths in an elevator. This tale was reported as a real incident in a Turkish newspaper and it appeared in a book about the unexplained, but there is no way to tell how true it really is. The events supposedly happened in 1990 in a part of Russia that is now in the Ukraine.

The Glass Elevator

The Glass Elevator is a gruesome urban legend about an observation tower called the Space Needle in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It is said to be haunted by the ghost of a workman who died there in a horrific accident many years ago.

Capitol Medical Center

This urban legend comes from the Philippines. They say that at the Capitol Medical Center in Quezon City, nobody uses a certain elevator. According to a doctor there, one of the orderlies fell to their death in that elevator shaft. The orderly was talking to someone and didn’t notice there was no elevator cabin when they stepped inside. They fell to their death and ever since then, the elevator is believed to be haunted.

A man and his daughter were visiting the Medical Center. They took the elevator and were supposed to get off at the second floor, but the elevator didn’t stop. It took them all the way to the basement. A man wearing slacks and a long-sleeved shirt got off at the basement and they followed him, thinking there was another way.

The man turned left and so did they, but they were shocked to discover that there was no corridor, just a wall. The man had vanished into thin air. Frightened, they ran back to the elevator, but the doors were closed. The man and his daughter had to bang on the elevator doors in almost complete darkness before they finally opened. A nurse later told them that the basement used to be a morgue.

Insular Life Building

The Insular Life Building in Makati City, The Philippines is believed to be haunted. They say the ghost is the daughter of one of the previous owners and she has been seen on the 8th floor.

There was a man who worked on the 9th floor of the building. One night, he was working late hours and it was around 3 AM when he finally left his office. He took the elevator down, but it stopped at the 7th floor. As the doors opened, the face of a young woman peered around the corner. “Going up?” she asked. “No, going down,” the man responded. The young woman smiled and said, “Thank you.” The doors closed and as the elevator began to descend, the man wondered why the woman was still in the building at such a late hour. When he got to the lobby, he walked over to the security guard and asked, “Who is that woman on the 7th floor and why is she working so late?” The security guard, looked at the man and said, “There are no offices on the 7th floor. The entire floor is vacant. You must have seen the ghost.” The man’s jaw dropped. “The ghost?” he asked. “Yes,” the security guard replied, “She was the daughter of the building’s previous owner. She committed suicide a long time ago by jumping from the 12th floor. It’s a sad, sad story. When she hit the 7th floor, she was decapitated… which is why you only see her head when she peers into the elevator…”

I had a creepy experience at the Insular Life Building 3 years ago. I arrived there just before noon for my first day of training. It’s a good thing my boyfriend was with me, because he also worked in the building. We got into the elevator together and I pressed the button for the 4th floor. The doors closed and the elevator started going up. It passed the 4th floor and went all the way up to the 8th floor. When the doors opened, it was pitch black outside. The while floor was in complete darkness. I got really nervous and was close to tears, but my boyfriend told me to close my eyes and stay calm. We kept trying to close the door and go back down. We were pressing all the buttons, but the elevator wouldn’t move. The doors would close halfway, but then they would jerk open again, over and over. It was very creepy. Eventually, we managed to get the elevator to work and made it back down to the 4th floor. During the training, I was talking to one of my teammates and she told me she had experienced the exact same thing. Her third eye was open, which means she had the ability to see ghosts. She said that when the elevator got stuck on the 8th floor, she saw a headless woman with her arms outstretched in front of her. The doors wouldn’t close because the woman’s arms were obstructing them…

I heard a creepy story in the previous company I worked for. This didn’t happen to me, but to one of my colleagues. The company was in a 7-story building on Bumatay Street, Mandaluyong City. One night, it so happened that the last person left in the building, besides the security guard on duty, was a young female accountant. As usual, when she wa finished work, she called the security guard so he could come up to her floor and accompany her down in the elevator to the lobby, just to make sure she was OK. This time, when they were going down, everything was normal until the elevator suddenly came to a stop on the 3rd floor. The doors opened and the floor was in complete darkness. The elevator stayed there for a long time and as they stared into the blackness, the accountant and the security guard started getting nervous. It was as if someone was pressing the elevator buttons and preventing the doors from closing. After what seemed like an eternity, the security guard suddenly said, “Alright, come with us.” As soon as he said that, the doors closed and the elevator began to descend. Neither of them said a word until the elevator finally reached the ground floor and they quickly got out. Then, the doors immediately cosed and the elevator went back up again to the 3rd floor…