Synopsis:
Donald becomes the owner of a houseboat and travels down the river with his nephews. But the river is haunted by a sea serpent.

Comments:
In the end, the terrible sea serpent turns out to be an artificial one developed by a mad scientist who is presented in a very scary way. The mentally disturbed scientist captures Donald: I like to scare people, he cackles ominously. Eerie...
Barks made other stories with menacing sea serpents or crazy scientists; FC0318 No Such Varmint and FC0275 Ancient Persia are examples.

Synopsis:
Donald turns to pyromania after receiving a bump to his head. Soon fires are blazing all over Duckburg but is Donald the culprit?

Comments:
Donald is the hero of all children, but in this story their patience is really put to the test, because Donald becomes a reckless pyromaniac - a hard pill to swallow. Although it turns out that Donald is not guilty of any crimes, the story can undoubtedly frighten children.

Synopsis:
Scrooge's treasure is in peril at the old family castle in Scotland. He takes Donald and the nephews along only to discover that the castle may be haunted...

Comments:
The villainous caretaker of Scrooge's ancestral home repeatedly manages to scare the living daylights out of the 5 ducks during their stay. He even fakes his own death very convincingly.
Astonishingly, Barks managed to press more than 70 death related references (graveyard, ancestors, ghosts) into this scary story!

Synopsis:
Donald is plagued by nightmares. His doctor recommends he takes up some crocheting to steady his nerves. Then Daisy comes for a visit...

Comments:
Donald is unable to sleep without having severe nightmares where he is chased by several ferocious animals. Many children know about this kind of nightmares - they have them also.
But the main plot is about Donald's frightening mental state, a psychological and scary subject that is not likely to be understood by children.

Synopsis:
An old zombie confuses Donald with Scrooge as he delivers a curse from his witch doctor. Donald and the nephews travel to Africa to get free of the curse.

Comments:
The overall theme with an undead being travelling the streets of Duckburg constitutes a perfect scare for small children, who naturally tend to consider Duckburg a safe home base for the ducks. And despite the fact that Bombie the Zombie is conceived as a harmless old man, he is - literally - out of this world.
It is interesting to learn that Barks originally went for an even eerier look on Bombie; he simply drew him with bulging, blank eyeballs rendering his whole personage more scary, but the editor insisted that Bombie should have pupils and half-closed eyelids in order to make him less eerie.

Synopsis:
Gyro invents an imagining machine by which one can travel wherever he wants using only force of thought. Donald and the nephews pop up to Jupiter, where everything is much larger than on Earth!

Comments:
The entire story takes place in another dimension, where everything seems scary simply because it is so big. At one point the nephews are scared silly by oversized chicken pox germs.

Synopsis:
Magica uses the forces of nature to open Scrooge's Money Bin where the lucky dime is stored...

Comments:
Some of the most scary characters in the comic books are witches, and Barks included a few through time. Just think of the broom-riding witch in DD26 Trick or Treat or the Christmas tree-hating hag in FC0203 The Golden Christmas Tree!
Barks even invented a recurring witch for his character gallery - Magica de Spell. She is Scrooge's worst adversary and she frequently uses a great variety of eerie powers; changing herself into other characters may be considered one of the most frightening to children...

Synopsis:
Worthless railroad shares are now going through the roof but Scrooge hid his near a spooky hotel in a ghost town...

Comments:
The ducks set up their base in the old hotel that has been closed for many years. Soon they discover that the building is haunted by elusive and thieving beings as well as eerie ghosts that follow the panicking ducks around.

Synopsis:
Scrooge has problems with his farm in Australia where the sheep seem to vanish into thin air. A wild girl raised by kangaroos seems to be involved...

Comments:
In a few stories Barks included single panels where the reader would get a good scare by being confronted with wild animals so menacing that they may even ruin a good night's sleep! In this story one of the nephews is totally unprepared for the frightening sight of a wild dog suddenly emerging from behind a hill.
But Barks also mastered the more solemn - and thus perhaps more psychologically scary - approach, where things were not always what they appeared to be; in WDCS141 'The Think Boxes' a seemingly nice man turns out to be a disguised, bloodthirsty wolf!

Synopsis:
Scrooge hid all his money in an eerie old castle, but has now forgotten where he put it. But the Beagle Boys know!

Comments:
Not only does some of the action take place in a sinister castle filled with scary objects and events, but, after a blow to his head, Scrooge also wanders aimlessly about tormented by the firm belief that he has died and is now a ghost.

HDL17 Be Leery of Lake Eerie

Synopsis:
Lake Eerie is so polluted that only a few mutated fishes can survive. Furthermore, a giant dragon creature, spontaneously formed by chemical fusion, is swimming round eating garbage. It is to no avail to try and shoot the dragon because it just feeds on the bullets! In the end a heavy rainfall fills the lake with so much fresh water that the dragon slowly fades away.