The air on Halloween night in the Outback was thin, cool, and carried the scent of dry eucalyptus and dust. Eleven-year-old Clancy, a boy whose imagination was as wide as the plains around him, clutched his plastic pumpkin. He and his older cousin, Maya, were on their way to the annual Halloween party at the MacGregor farm, but they had to pass the old, abandoned stockyard—a place locals whispered was haunted by the best of the Australian ghost stories.
“Are you sure about this shortcut, Maya?” Clancy asked, his voice a nervous squeak. “Mum said not to go near the stockyard after dark.”
Maya, who was thirteen and much braver (or so she pretended), scoffed. “Oh, come on, Clancy. It’s just an old yard. Besides, it’s Halloween. Perfect night for a bit of a scare.”
They walked along a cracked dirt track, the moon a sliver of white above the dark, twisted gum trees. The silence was heavy, broken only by the crunch of their boots and the distant, mournful cry of a curlew.
They reached the stockyard’s old wooden fence. The timber was silver-grey with age, some posts leaning dangerously, like skeletal arms reaching out of the earth. The whole place felt heavy, silent—too silent.
“See?” Maya whispered, trying to sound confident. “Nothing here but a bunch of rotting wood.”
Just as she finished speaking, a sound drifted from the center of the yard: a slow, rhythmic clink… clink… clink… like metal on stone.
Clancy froze. His eyes were wide. “What was that?”
Maya’s bravado faltered. Her heart hammered against her ribs. “Probably… probably just the wind catching a gate,” she stammered, but she knew the air was still.
The clink stopped. A moment of absolute silence followed, then a deep, low groan that seemed to come from under the ground itself.
They held their breath, waiting.
Then, a faint, unnatural glow began to spread in the center of the stockyard, right where the old branding iron used to hang. It was a shimmering, milky-blue light, rising slowly, forming a vague, tall shape.
“The Australian ghost stories are real,” Clancy whimpered, pulling Maya’s sleeve. “They say a drover lost his prize bull here a hundred years ago, and his spirit is still searching for it, dragging his broken chain!”
The blue light solidified. It wasn’t a bull, and it wasn’t quite a man. It was tall and gaunt, shrouded in the blue-white light, and it was dragging something. The clink, clink, clink returned, closer now.
The ghostly figure began to glide toward them, its light illuminating a piece of rusty chain dragging across the dirt.
Maya sucked in a gasp. This was more than a spooky shadow; it felt cold, old, and full of sorrow. They turned to run, but just as they did, the ghostly blue shape let out a rattling, dry sound—a sound that was a little bit like a sigh and a lot like the word: “MOO!”
Clancy and Maya stopped dead.
The figure reached the fence and its blue glow fell upon the “chain.” It wasn’t a chain at all. It was a long, tangled piece of shiny tinsel. And the ghostly drover?
It was Mr. MacGregor, their neighbour, covered in an old, dusty white sheet, his face smeared with blue glow-in-the-dark paint, dragging a piece of tinsel attached to a small, forgotten metal cow bell.
He dropped the bell, gasping for air. “Happy Halloween! Did I get you two?”
Maya burst out laughing, a mix of relief and lingering terror. Clancy just stood there, his jaw hanging open.
“We thought you were the ghost of the lost drover!” Maya explained, wiping a tear.
Mr. MacGregor chuckled, his voice no longer a ghostly groan. “That’s right! Best of the local Australian ghost stories for you. I was just testing my scary stuff before the party.”
The three of them walked toward the MacGregor farm, where warm lights and the sounds of laughter now seemed much louder. Clancy still clutched his pumpkin, a little shaky, but his heart was full of a different kind of thrill. He hadn’t just heard a ghost story this Halloween; he had met a mischievous one, right in the heart of the dusty Australian night.
If you enjoyed Outback Nightmares: Australian Ghost Stories, we invite you to discover more magical tales in our Halloween Bedtime Stories Collection.
