Welcome to our 2018 $500 Halloween Writing Prompt Contest. We decided to try something different this year. We are asking for writing prompts from YOU. In this case we are asking for writing prompts that will produce scary stories. You can see examples of these types of writing prompts over at our Top 10 Horrifying Horror Prompts. These prompts, the page was so popular, we wanted to write more than one, but we decided to get your help. We are going to use all or some of these for a new list of horrifying horror prompts.
The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners of this contest will the first 3 on our new list. We will give you credit for the prompt and a link to your page. The first place winner will walk away from this contest with $500. We want your horrifying halloween writing prompts!
Here are the rules of contest:
- You have to write a scary horror prompt (or it must inspire other writer to write a scary story)
- You have to write your prompt in the comments section
- You have to do this by October 28, 2018.
- Winner of the contest will be announced on Halloween Night
- Prompt must be original and not published anywhere else on the web
Write your scariest horror story prompt and put it in the comments below. Here is what you will win:
- Winner gets $500
- Winner and other best prompts will be published on our Terrifying writing prompts page
- You will get credit for your prompt on our site
- You will get a link to your site from our page
- You will get to inspire others to write terrifying stories
The prompts can be scary, we want them to make us feel fear, but in the end the prompt just has to make us and others produce something a horrifying story. So leave your Halloween Horror Prompts below!
- Science Fiction Quiz #1 - May 21, 2025
- Awakening All Five Senses: How to Write Descriptions That Come Alive - May 15, 2025
- Comment Contest: Win Promotion for Your Writing! - May 14, 2025
You knew something was wrong with you since the day you and your friends came back hiking from the haunted forest. Terrible things happened there. But, in the end, it all got over and all of you returned home safe and sound. But it was not to be. Several of your friends ended up missing and was found brutally murdered days later. But for you, things were more complicated. You have been hearing strange noises inside your head and was having frequent blackouts. You would wake up somewhere entirely different not knowing how you got there, covered in blood. Even when you were all alone, you always felt that someone else was with you. Suddenly, everything went blank and when you gained back your sense, you were holding a knife and your hands were covered with blood. Before you, withering with pain, lay one of your friends who went to the forest with you, whose throat had been cut open. All around you, there was nothing but blood.
She thought it could never happen but it happened. She denied it, said it was impossible, turned her back, shut her eyes, closed her mind but there it still was. It had waited for her in her dreams, her worst nightmares, saying “My time will come”. Be careful, frail human: you are never the arbiter of what is possible or not possible, of what can happen in this universe, where you are smaller than a virus and far less dangerous!
Having fun with this one already!
America’s power grid has been destroyed and the only light comes from phones and tablets.What happens when the final light goes out?
“A Stranger Among Us”: What if the person you were closest to–spouse, lover, parent, best friend, old army buddy–wasn’t who you thought? We want jump scares, monstrous transformations, parasitic diseases, lunacy of all the creepy or violent kinds, or just a growing feeling that something is not quite right. Whatever your revelation, it should turn the world of your story upside down in horrible, frightening ways.
Your most trusted friend betrayed you in the worse possible way. You believe in an eye for an eye. Seeking revenge, you are waiting to ambush your friend. Write about: what your friend did to you, where you are hiding, what are you going to do, and then tell us what happens next, how your friend turns the table on you?
You go to the kitchen in the middle of the night, one week after you had it refurbished. You find a bloodied woman cooking. A man sitting at the table with a knife and fork in hand waiting on his dinner. You scream and they vanish only to reappear next to the fridge. There is a mound of dirt on the floor next to a cupboard where the workmen did a bit of digging. You clean it up but it reappears. The workmen refuse to return.
You’ve had a beautiful dream. Now you want it to come to pass. You get your box that should fulfill your dreams. But when you open it instead of the usual black beads you find talking snakes who want their own wishes fulfilled. And you have to make it so.
Late one evening you meet a baby in a basket at the side of the road far from the street light. You think it was abandoned so you take it home. Feed and bathed it and put it to bed. The baby does not cry but smiles. At the stroke of twelve midnight it cries. When you go to see what’s wrong it says, ‘Take me back where you found me.’
When I woke without my eyes I screamed, but when I woke without my…
“Darkness within”
Her laugh annoys me, I reajust myself in my seat hoping I don’t lose it, but she wont pipe down. I pick up my phone to make my calls in hopes this will drown out her squeals. She’s a transfer and this office is to small, I won’t be able to control myself much longer. “Hello, whats wrong?” the concerned voice on the other line says in a panic. I take a breath, but its too late, a loud crash comes from above me as her screams fade. he room is louder now with screams and chilly breeze. I stood up from my cubical; my phone still in my hand to see her gone and a warmth seeps through me. I smile as I watch the chaos breaking out before my eyes. Then frown, I forgot we were 13 stories high, I sit slowly and spoke into the receiver, “Never mind” I blinked taking in the scene; My sisters voice was full of fright “What did you do?” I hung up. Slowly I walked to edge of the huge window from where the glass once rested, and held on as the wind blew threw my hair there she was in a pool of red… its quiet now!
You are so excited about that new apartment you got with the price cut by half that you grab it before the landlord has a change of heart. You move in before the day is over. In the middle of the night all the household appliances switch on. You turn them off only for them to come right back on. Unable to tolerate the noise you decide to leave. The doors won’t open and neither the windows. The lights won’t come on. Thankfully there’s light from the streets. Then there’s a power cut. You say aloud, “What the hell am I to do now?”
You hear an answer “Let’s play hide and seek.”
The Vacation
You are on your first trip to Europe. Mid-morning on your second day you find yourself sitting at a small street-side cafe, relaxing and drinking coffee. On a whim you pull out your camera and start flipping through pictures. Street scenes, statues, beautiful garden parks, Gothic churches; all flash by as you toggle through. You pause on a particular cobbled street… something itching at your subconscious. Then you see it, and with an icy chill you backtrack through the pictures. Still not believing, you move forward slowly through them again.
In each picture the same man stands in the background! Over and over again. Same man, same clothes, same posture. The man is too out of focus to see much detail. But there’s no doubt, in each instance, he is looking directly at you.
I’m really enjoying these. If you are enjoying the contest, please sign up with our newsletter, we only send about 1 per month https://www.everywritersresource.com/newsletter/
You’re sitting in the kitchen with your mother, talking to her about whether or not you should quit your job. Then you see her frightened, pale face in the window behind her. “Please,” she whimpers, “you’re in danger. Let me in.”
Your mother – the one in the kitchen – turns and looks at you, blanched.
“What’s going on?” she whispers. “Don’t let that thing in.”
The Skeleton in my closet decided to come out and play…
In that moment, you decide, that is the last time ever he does that ….
You awaken to the sound of a sharp whimper. Alone in bed you sit up, reach for your phone, but it’s no longer beside you on the nightstand. You call out to your dog, but the darkness only offers silence. Your curtains leap off the walls, snow billowing in on the freezing breeze. Your throat tenses from the cold. The light switch is only a few steps from the bed, but your body refuses to move.
Someone could be in the room with you this very moment. Waiting. Watching.
Will you make the first move?
Madness
What is real? The house… the house is playing with me.
There are things in the woodwork that spin. Stairs that go up, but lead down. Doors in the walls like holes, with nonsense eyes and hidden grins.
I am darkness drowned; made a gibbering fool.
And no way out.
sorry bout that… this was meant to go in the 50 word short story section…. To many good competitions going on. It’s Madness!
Town by town, city by city, countries by countries, planets by planets, everything shuts down. Not just the electricity or water, but everything. Slowly the light of the Sun gets dimmer and dimmer. The water sources slowly drain. Animals are dying, crops are dying. Everything is running out, and bit by bit, people run out. Until there’s no one left. Welcome to year 3000.
When you wake up, you are alone, in a dark, bare room that you’ve never been before. You struggle to sit up, but you feel hazy, like you’ve been under sedation at the dentist. You lie down again, hoping to move when you feel better, but then you feel a slight popping sensation on your abdomen. You lift your top, only to find a neat incision, with a couple of pulled stitches. But you haven’t had surgery or have you?
It’s the night before Halloween and you sit in your bed and stare at the full moon. The scene is chillingly perfect as the moon is rarely so white and full. When you were a child you believed in Santa Claus and hardly dared watch such a moon on Christmas Eve, sure that Santa and his sled would be flying towards your town. You would close the curtains and snuggle quickly under the quilt. Now adult, it’s almost Halloween and you stare out, bemused at the crooked blackness of the branches on the apple tree, the garage rooftop shining from the fluorescence of the moon, then look back at the sky. It would be too perfect if a witch’s silhouette flashed across the moon so you gaze, fascinated. Suddenly you freeze and your smile disappears– that’s not what you see crossing the moon…
After years of enjoying the festive fall beverage, you accidentally learn the truth about pumpkin spice. Suddenly, the missing-person posters around town make a lot more sense.
Death, Shadow of
The noon sun radiates from the dead center of my head, shatters bone and matter, makes it impossible – to open my eyes, to walk without lurching. I prise them eyelids open; put a hand to head, it goes right through as eyes see; there’s no shadow.
You wake up as usual, throw your legs over the side of the bed, and sit up. You lower your feet onto the cold floor of your bedroom and slowly drag yourself out of bed. You walk over and fumble for the switch on the wall, finally making contact in your early-morning daze. You flip the switch…but nothing happens. Power’s out. You stumble back to your nightstand to grab your phone for light. You press the button, but the screen remains dark. Dead. You look out the window, expecting to see the lights of the city coming alive. Instead, you see darkness and rubble.
There’s always been a hole in your bathroom floor. It’s small, tucked away, under the cabinet your sink is mounted in, but your son is terrified of it. As a single dad, you have a lot to worry about, so you nail a small chunk of plywood down over it and reassure him that the monsters can’t get him now. Of course, neither of you can be reassured when a hole suddenly develops in the wall over the sink.
It grows bigger.
She dug into the plastic pumpkin for a piece of leftover Halloween candy. Then her fingers closed around something decidedly less sweet…
ENTRY for HORROR PROMPT CONTEST
The face looked different without the eyes.
The bones looked different without the skin.
The mouth looked different without the screams.
And (antagonist’s name here) liked the difference.
This year, all the Halloween pumpkins remained green. Did a disease prevent them from turning orange – or something much more sinister?
A single father joins the hottest dating site around and almost immediately gets asked out by a beautiful woman. They go on the date and have an amazing time. On the way out of the restaurant, he starts to sweat and feel very sick. She offers to drive him home.
He wakes, not knowing where he is, tied down to a mattress on the floor in a small room that smells like gasoline. He hears various voices out in the hallway. A man says, “He’ll be perfect for the ceremony but we still need the child.” A woman replies, “I’ll get him but I don’t know how to alert the team that we’re ready.”
The door to his small room opens a sliver and he sees a child staring back at him. He passes out.
It’s been a week and a day. Something is terribly wrong. No matter how hard I scrub, what soap I use, how hot the water, it lingers. The reek of it is nearly audible. It’s an olfactory version of the beat of Poe’s tell-tale heart. It’s my punishment. I can’t get the smell of it from under my fingernails.
The protagonist purchases an old photo album from an estate sale because they felt it would provide some much needed inspiration for their writing. Little did they know that the photos would take on a life of their own.
A chill dragged her from sleep, the room was cold, ice cold, suddenly alert she knew.
The specters of the night come up from the grave to see out new adventures. They want to scare and protect the world they feel is theirs, the cemetery. The dead will rise as such and on Halloween, the cemetery will come alive with fury.
Doing ancestry research. You notice that every third generation has a member that died on March 3 of 33 years old. After doing more research and digging you come across a diary. You come to learn it happens to the youngest child. You realize your in the third generation and you are the youngest. March 3 is 3 months 3 weeks 3 days away. What does the diary tell you? What do you do? Can you stop it? What caused it?
Everyone knows Lucifer will grant favors in exchange for your soul. What if he asked a favor of you and what is the cost if you agree?
You wake up to a silent world. No hums or rustles of birds or squirrels. No cricket chirps. All the sounds you hear are – off somehow. They sound random, mechanical. You swallow and taste something bitter and metallic in your own throat. Your tongue, lips, and throat ae shrinking, solidifying. You try to speak but the only sound that comes out is a rusty “chirrup!” You look up as the shadow of a giant shoe approaches . . .
You’ve had the nightmare for as long as you can remember, but you can never recall it. One morning you wake up screaming and are immediately relieved to realize you are safe and sound in your own bedroom. But no, something is off. Your body is sore. The closet door is flung open and clothes are strewn all over the floor. Your bed is askew. As you get up to examine it you can see something written on the wall behind the headboard. You push the heavy bed away from the wall to reveal words, written in blood.
“IT’S NOT A DREAM! YOU NEED TO REMEMBER THIS TIME”
We grew up in a rowhouse, first floor rear, so we had the yard and access to the cellar. As soon as we moved in, my sister and I noticed the One in Green and the One in Purple; they’d lurk anywhere, and it was unpleasant to bump into them and start to shiver. We started dreaming about 1879 and the three children living there, Tom, Mary, and Maud, cared for with hate by Uncle William and Aunt Edith. Once, my sister dreamed she lifted a blue blanket on a chair, and Maud was lying there dead. In our dreams the backyard looked different in its foliage. There was a stable and no garage; there was a well next to the porch. Once we screwed up courage and went to Daddy. We told him about our sequential dreams. We expected him to say, “Foolishness!” Instead, he gave us paper and crayons, put each of us in a different room, and said, “Let’s all draw what we’ve been dreaming and seeing.” (“We?”) Then we compared pictures. His artwork was more accurate than ours. We stared silently at one another. Daddy pleaded, “Don’t tell Mama!” and we never did. But decades later, Mama told us what she had been seeing and dreaming. She knew, and had kept quiet all along!
You go to your house that you grew up in and find it’s abandoned. You decide to check it out. Your old bedroom was on the 2nd floor so you go upstairs. Unfortunately, you see a huge hole in the hallway above the stairs, and as you are about to head back down, someone or something pushes you……
You awake in a land where turkeys eat people and Thanksgiving Day is but 24 hours away. Oh, and the
breadcrumbs from your cupboard are missing.
You live in a small town where you escaped to get away from the haunting feeling of never being good enough for your nagging boyfriend. But what happens when all of the people in town swear they’ve seen you before and the local church mural depicts your face – on the head of a monster. Is it a doppelganger? A cruel prank? Or are you truly unaware of what you really are? And why do you keep seeing two faces in the mirror at your abandoned cliff house?
Your estranged Grandmother summons you to her deathbed so she can deliver a message – “Beware the pieces or you will be damned.”
Dunkirk Isle is a small parcel of land in the middle of a deceptively serene lake. It has always inspired fear in the local villagers. While harmless most of the year – All Hallowed Eve brings it to eerie life. What evil secrets are buried there?
Web of Masks-A horror writer starts out seeking to create a buzz about her work by wearing outragous Halloween masks in ads promoting her work. Little by little she begins to be overcome by the personalitys contained inside of the deadly, cursed masks.
Who will win this holiday? The writer or the objects she never meant to give life to?
I live in a rustic cottage surrounded by thick woods. The dense copse overgrew an cemetery. Though nary a soul dwells within miles of this isolated tract of dense forest, some not so grateful dead spirits appear. These hauntings tend to be most frequent from dawn to dusk every All Hallows’ Eve. A morbid blood soaked legacy reputedly sunk deep among dense old gnarled trees. No sunshine can pierce thru the tightly interlaced twisted trunks and limbs. Thus, an optimal breeding ground to house dead souls. Though skeptical about haunting spectres in general, and ghosts in particular inhabit this eerie, forlorn, and gloomy unpeopled whirled wide webbed wasteland in particular, I became a quick convert concerning paranormal activity.
Nope, no spoiler alert will spill how dark shadows (phantasmagorical transparent ghouls, goblins and golems) flit to fro, hither and yon at the edge of night. Yes, you guessed correctly, sans crusty, creepy and crawly sprites erupt with deafening roar and blinding light, particularly within the twenty four time span encompassing Halloween. Not even the bravest mortals venture into these parts (on that fateful day and/or night, which would be indistinguishable) as a skeleton crew of cackling, screaming, and wailing half crazed flesh eating, maniacal mummies, zombies proliferate neither a nanosecond before, nor after October thirty first. All of a sudden, the deathly quiet comes “alive with dead souls,” intent on scaring the bejesus amongst the most fearless mortal! Hence, this ole curmudgeon doth dare even the most, cuz even the most damning daring, and daunting, will definitely get spooked! Don’t say this bewitched warlock didn’t tell ya so!
Write a story that begins with: ‘Her senses were heightened as never before when the darkness engulfed her.’
She is hearing scratches at my bathroom door whenever she uses the bathroom at her home, but she lives alone. She cracks the door while she is sitting, and the sound stops. This only happens when she goes to the
bathroom at home and closes her door. While she showers she hears that sound.
Across from my apartment, my new neighbors open their front door wide as soon as it gets dark. They sat at their glass door and watches everyone return home from work. I went across the hall and hollered in the apartment to tell them the door is open, and every time someone is immediately behind the door. They shut it hard. As soon as I went into my apartment they open the door back up. I noticed my other neighbors hadn’t been coming home. Their private parking spots weren’t being used. And the original lady that moved in, had not been seen for weeks. A young man with dark features occupies her apartment.
Women in the town start getting sick and some of them die. They figure out they are being poisoned but by whom? Everyone knows everyone else in this small southern town. The women have a bond in Kindville. They host teas for one another when they marry, sit with one another when they are sick, hide in dark shrubs for hours waiting to snap a pic when one of their husband’s is suspected of cheating, and plan parties for every season and reason they can think of. So who would be poisoning them? They discuss the shock in detail daily with their favorite hairdresser, Sadie. She always gives the best neck massages when she washes hair and is the town expert for an updo for special occasions. Sadie agrees that it is impossible to imagine who would be attacking them so viciously and forms an online page to allow people to express their emotions, share ideas, and warn one another of suspicious people they notice. Sadie writes in her journal, “Karma is tough now isn’t it? I vowed I would never forget what I heard them say in 9th grade when they didn’t know I was in the bathroom stall. This is what you get, friends, for saying Gavin didn’t like me because I was too chubby.” She then signed in to post a special discount on hair color at the salon and reminded them of the Halloween party at the country club and that she could create a masterpiece out of their hair for the contest. She wrote one more line in her blog and grinned, “Revenge is sweet. If only they knew my color is truly the trick not the treat.”
I had a rough night last night. I slept it off. I woke the next day to still see darkness. It is 11 o’clock am. I get dress and go outside to see what seem to be a black cloud hovering towards the earth. A black mist showers from it and it smells of death.
You and your friend are on vacation in New Orleans on Halloween night. The French Quarter is like a mini-Mardi Gras. You drink a few too many Hurricanes and dare each other to take a cemetery tour of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 where the supposed crypt of the notorious Voodoo Priestess Marie Laveau resides…
Every week you and three other people buy a dozen lottery tickets. You have agreed to split any winnings four ways, but so far you’ve not had much luck. You take turns buying the tickets, and this week it is your turn. The sales clerk offers you a new kind of ticket, a “Devil’s Bargain.” It’s a guaranteed winner for $1,000,000, but there will be a price to pay to be specified when you collect the prize. Are you interested?
That smell again. Just like rotten fish. Always in the middle of the night. Shuffling footsteps. Yes, and heavy breathing. No more cowering under the duvet! My heart racing, I flicked on my bedside lamp…
It was suposed to be a nice day, no chance of rain, no clouds, no nothing. Just a nice, normal day. It should have been, but then the strangest thing happened. I was passing by a magic stand that had been set up for the Halloween horror festival, and a woman started shouting about the monsters that hide in the storm. I probably should have paid more attention because now I’m pissing my pants in fear as I watch the pitch black clouds appear over the city. As day turns to night in their shadow, and the city is filled with screams.
The office had fallen dark. The outside world crouched pitch black behind the windows, and everything smelled grey. There was nothing surrounding the building for miles, just fields. Ishanti gathered her supplies and emptied the last waste basket. The night bus was long gone, but Roshan would come on his bike to pick her. She just needed to lock up and get out.
The cubicles shuddered with a noise, and Ishanti flinched. A copying machine glowed in the distance like a buoy under deep water. Light darted across its glass and washed through the room as a green wave. Ozone built up in the air, and Ishanti held her breath as she walked closer.
The photocopier hummed back to its starting position. It scanned again and threw a second page on top of the first. Another scan, and it peeled a face from the gloom.
You’re driving home from a wild party with only the loud stereo keeping your eyelids open, as a shadow-like hound races into the street in front of you. You swerve, but it’s too late. There’s a heavy thump, and you stop for a second to catch your breath. Carrying a shaky guilt, you keep driving despite the cold sweat that drips from your forehead. A low growling comes from under you. The radio turns to static. The wheels begin to shake…
The old prison block had been abandoned for thirty-five years. Tala’s flashlight danced over concrete and old graffiti.
It had only been a few months since the discovery of the door, and only weeks since the blossoming underground had been made public. There was no way the vast network of basements and sublevels under the prison was man-made, nor was there physical space to house it. None of this was supposed to be here, and yet it was.
Tala heard voices in the distance and pressed herself against a molded wall. She wasn’t the only fortune seeker who had come to explore this place. Ten people went below, and only eight came back up: and of these eight, only seven remained the same.
You know that I know where you live. I hear your tears in my mind.
Will you join me, small soul? We will ooze through the soil and rise up in front of those who would jeer at us. Bring fear to those other poor souls with their bags and their sweets.
Trick or treat indeed!
I have a trick for you, my sweetie. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
November 1st I’m sitting in an interrogation room of the local police station, still in my slinky witch’s costume. Blood crusted over my face and lap. On Halloween night, Jacqueline Macey of Port County had been murdered. I helped carry her from the end of the hill while my shock is still intact. My eyes are stuck to the corner of the wall. She was a sweet lady… Just 27 years old and worked at the supermarket I’ve spent the last few years at. I don’t know why it happened to her, being someone so vibrant and lovely. She had a head on her shoulders and worked hard. Right alongside a doting fiancé and about to move to California. I’m telling you, I don’t know enough about her to be in this position. I was just along for the ride, the party… I left the group to my own devices, flirted a little, drank a little. It was in the forest. Rumors always fly around the store though… if you want to interrogate anybody… Mickey Saints is your guy. We always teased he and Jacky for being so “chummy”, but her fiancé never took it well. It got pretty intense sometimes. Mickey… he’s a strange guy. In contrast to Jacky, he’s pretty elusive around anyone else. I try to avoid him. I’m not sure if he was at the party or not, but he showed up to work like nothing was wrong. There’s something dark about him, if you ask me, and I think Jacqueline Macey was the type to think she can humor it. But I wouldn’t take my word for it wholly. I’m not an accomplice, I’m just a co-worker.
You wake up in a cold sweat with an excruciating headache having no idea where you are. It is pitch black and you can’t see a thing. You start shivering. Part from the rising panic you feel coming up from your bowels and also because you realize that you’ve been stripped to you underwear. It smells like a sewer. You remember being at a party, talking to someone in the hallway of your friend’s house. when you passed out. And then woke up here in the dark, in the cold, with the smell. You try to sit up and you can’t. Not because your head hurts so bad, but because you are super-glued to some kind of table. You hear a humming sound, like a hive of bees coming towards you. At first you think you’re in a dream or you are just high and hallucinating because someone slipped something in your drink. But as the sound comes closure you realize that this is real. Then, as the lump in your throat starts to build up to a blood curdling scream, a flood light is turned on, blinding you more than the darkness while the humming sound increases to a deafening pitch.
Once housing notorious thieves, rapists, and killers, the prison is now a museum. But, did everyone leave when this penal institution closed its doors decades earlier? Strange, fresh markings and sounds with no apparent cause say otherwise.
I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what was wrong, but something about being in his house made my throat feel tight. Even sitting alone in the front room made me feel uneasy. The room was dark due to the shades being pulled during mid-day, suffocating the warm sunlight as soon as it touched the house’s facade. The furniture around me was stuffy and old and there was a strange, stale smell hanging in the air. I wanted to bolt back outside but my wounded foot was throbbing painfully. I was about to quickly walk to the door anyway when he reappeared, now holding an ice pack. His eyes were fixed on me, noticing my tension.
The night is dark, on an island unknown to the world four American teens are stranded on the barren and desolate shoar. When they awake they see a dozen large masked figures with unhuman bodies walk past them out from the ocean and walk into the forest, one turns to one of the teens and utters something in an inhuman dialect and continues walking, what will the stranded do to be rescued?
A group of wolves is slowly walking towards you and behind you, there are two killer clowns with a chainsaw dripping in blood. What do you do, run, stand still paralyzed in fear, scream for your life?
It was a dark and foggy night when a little girl was walking home from her friend’s house. She dropped something so she bends down to pick it up and she looks up when all of a sudden…
It’s dark outside and you have to run to the store. Something grabs your leg and pulls you down. You see what’s under the car and you scream. What’s under the car and what happens next?
A group of friends get stranded in the middle of the ocean with limited supplies. There are no other passing boats. What will the friends do when they run out of the food, water, and the other supplies?
An expedition team of five explorers set out to explore an underground cavern. The team approaches a steep drop and prepares to rappel down the rock face. As the last member of the team is on their way down, the rope is suddenly cut loose leaving the team stranded in a cavern with whatever malevolent being trapped them inside. How many of them will make it out and how will the others perish?
Your phone goes off in the middle of the night. You reach over and turn over your phone and you have a text is from a dead relative. The text reads “HELP ME NOW!” What will you do?
A group of wolves is slowly walking towards you and behind you, there are two killer clowns with a chainsaw dripping in blood. What do you do, run, stand still paralyzed in fear, scream for your life?
I tried to make out the shape of the dark figure at the end of the hall. It seemed to be morphing continuously. It seemed to be enlarging. It was getting closer. I saw the whites of its eyes and I immediately screamed. I ran the other way but was stopped in my tracks…
After a long night all you want to do is take a nice, hot shower, since your twelve hour long shift seemed never ending. You walk into your bathroom after grabbing your towel and phone. You set your stuff down, and pull back the shower curtain to reveal a masked man…
Earth has too much radiation from a nuclear war and all of mankind on Earth is dead. You and 10 other people are stuck in a space station and you only have enough oxygen for 2 months. Knowing you are all mankind has left, what do you do?
The dark shadows surrounded me the deeper I went into the black abyss. I clutched my rosary tightly to my chest hoping it would bring me a bit of light in a time of such hopelessness. I had to find her; I had to find my mother. And that meant hunting down the hooded figure that took her. As I walked ahead, I felt and heard snapping under my feet. The air turned to a crippling chill as faint whispers invaded my ears. A tight grip on my arm forced me to turn around only to see a horrifying beast towering over me…
You wake up in the dark not knowing where you are. Only a cold, melancholy silence fills the void and then death turns away and drifts back into the shadows…
You awaken in the blighted building, part of your nose missing and the skin from your left thigh bone exposed to the night air — as are your other injuries — but still mostly hidden from view.
Good…that’s, that’s good. And you fix your torn lips into something akin to a smile because this time you know without a doubt you’ve gotten away.
Until you hear feet shuffling through the dirt behind you and several frantic hands grasp at your bloody, matted hair and dig through your tattered shirt to tightly grip what’s left of your mangled right shoulder…
I’m going mad. I’m losing my mind. I’ve lost my mind already. Sitting at my therapist’s office I’m rocking back and forth, waiting for her to tell me I’m seeing things, it’s the drugs, something that can be explained and fixed. I know he was dead. I saw the body, the eyes, the blood. I checked his pulse for Christ’s sake! He was dead! I cannot explain much about the days since I was there, standing over him, waiting for the world to stop. He was dead. Yet I see him everywhere. I’ve gone mad.
Prompt One
Giant spaceships appear everywhere. Alien soldiers drop out of the sky and start shooting every human they encounter. The Major cities of the world are soon nuclear bomb craters. The internet and TV are shut off. There is no power. You look out the window and see the soldiers marching towards your house. There is a knock on the door.
prompt Two
the aliens took over the earth in a night of violence and terror. You are glued to your TV set. A giant spider walks onto the CNN set shoots the announcer and says
“People of earth. I am commander Zero and we have taken over your planet”.
Prompt Three
One Sunday morning at 9 am the animals of the world all woke up and became aware and full of hate towards human beings and began attacking all humans they encountered. It started with dogs and cats but spread to farm animals, wild animals, birds everything animal on the planet attacked humans. Your,, Doberman Jonny turns on you and snarls and attacks
In a surprise announcement, President Trump has signed an Executive Order changing the upcoming United States’ Election Day from November 6, 2018, a Tuesday, to October 31, 2018, a Wednesday.
“Well,” declared Trump in front of a cheering crowd of supporters at a rally in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, “I figured because it was Halloween, those voters who planned to turn out during these huge mid-term elections would remember to vote when they put on their costumes.”
Trump went on to further mandate the wearing of costumes during voting to, as he said, “Provide entertainment for our excellent poll workers, who will be bored with the low turnout.”
Trump did, however, by Executive Order, outlaw face paint and wigs, particularly for those who might be “attempting to mimic my hairstyle, because no one would look like Trump on their driver’s license or whatever ID they might have been able to get.”
Some reporters have written that they heard the President say, into a microphone no one turned off, that “the (expletive deleted) Democrats will come out in their war paint anyway even though that would be breaking the law.”
“Of course,” he said, in that event someone could not vote, ”there is always 2020 when everyone will be voting for me.”
A red fire engine skid to a stop at 1891 Oak. The corner house was in flames. A neighbor stood outside in rollers and fuzzy slippers. “No one lives there. Don’t risk your lives going in.Just put out the darn fire before it spreads to my house.” she spat. “But, I swear I saw the silhouette of a girl in the upstairs window!” The man from across the street panicked, rushing over, “Please! What if she dies?” The firefighters looked at each other questionably. Up in the top window, a girl stood emotionless, hair blowing in the wind.
can you leave more than one? I don’t want to be disqualified.
He’s just a little boy. What does he know? He’s only six. Scared of the dark like the classic child. He’s been watching too many horror movies. He wears glasses, too. He’s probably just seeing things. He comes to your room every night, calmly explaining his fears and emotionlessly describing the monstrosities that creep from his closet, the crooked voices that cackle in his ear, and the ghastly ghouls that haunt his hamper. Usually, you only laugh and tell him to go back to bed. But, something is different about tonight. You see his lips quiver and a tear struggling to stay within his eyelid. This time, you let him climb into bed with you because you know he’s been traumatized. An abused autistic child. Why on earth did you accept the responsibility to take custody of him? It’s only been two weeks, but it’s felt like forever. Because you’re soft. As he slips under the covers, he closes his eyes, but his face doesn’t change. You can’t help but stare as you try to imagine his horrible past. He needs love. He needs care. He’s imagining too much. As you attempt to go to sleep, you hear a rapping at your closet.
The first thing you notice is the squeezing. Your whole body is one giant, pulsing, aching mess. As you pry your eyes open, you try to guess where you are. It’s pitch black, but the cold cement floor and the smell of rotting mice tip you off to your whereabouts. “OK, how did I end up here?” There is no reply, of course, but hearing your voice assures you that you’re probably still alive. You try to stand, but your right leg ignores you. It’s flopped on its side, seemingly disconnected from the rest of your body. You’re not going anywhere anytime soon.
The storm is heavy and we can no longer see the road ahead. Our umbrellas are folding in under the weight of the rainfall. Alex suggests that we shelter in any of the houses lined up the road. We both decide to go into the next bungalow. When we knock, an old lady opens the door and ushers us in. She apologizes about the rain and offers us tea. Her eyes have green background that glitters in the dim lighting.
‘My name is Alice,’ she tells us. Her voice is crisp like new currency notes. When the storm does not let up, she asks us to stay the night.
“The house has many rooms. My children never really visit,’ she says.
She shows us to a room situated at the end of the living room. The bed is soft and we doze off in no time. Alex stirs first in the morning and shakes me awake. We dress up and go out to thank the old lady but she is not there. A mustiness we hadn’t noticed the night before fills the house. We go out through the main door and realize that the house is surrounded by overgrown lawns.
‘Hey! hey! What did you go in there for?” a man asks advancing towards us.
‘A woman, Alice, gave us shelter here last night,” Alex explains.
The man’s eyes widen in horror. He staggers backwards as if afraid that our bodies may touch his.
‘Alice died ten years ago. She hovers around here only during a storm.”
Lester had always felt the comforting presence of his mother’s spirit whenever he had returned to the family home. There had been something inherently reassuring about knowing there was always that safe place waiting for him when he finished an overseas contract. This one had been longer than usual—a full two years—so he had agreed to rent the house out while he was gone. He had half seriously thought his mother’s ghost might enjoy the company in his absence.
Now, standing in the front room once more, he could sense no trace of his mother’s familiar warmth. On the contrary, the room was chilled, and he had the overwhelming sense of darkness pressing in from all sides, just outside his peripheral vision. It had never occurred to Lester that the renters might have brought something with them.
It is the fourth night in a row and the rain has yet to let up. My garden’s soil is burdened with all the excess moisture. My ring is gone. I just realized it now. I’m completely consumed by my missing ring. The ring was a family, heirloom, you see? Oh, it must be somewhere! Where did I put my ring? I grab my raincoat and put on my galoshes and head outside in the pouring rain. I glanced at the clock—midnight. I know I am being ridiculous, but I simply must get my ring back. I grab my shovel from the shed. Ten paces, that’s right! Exactly ten paces. I begin walking past my garden and into the open field right past my house. Ten paces. Yes, I begin laughing maniacally as I begin to relax. I know where my ring is! At exactly ten paces, I begin digging into the saturated earth. The heaviness of the flooded soil makes the task twice as difficult, but not impossible. Yes, we are just about there. “Well, there you are!” delighted in finally finding my ring. I grab the skeletal finger with the ring attached and pry the precious bauble from the long dead corpse’s rigid boned finger. I place the ring on my own finger and heave a long sigh of relief. I drop the shovel and leave the gaping hole on the ground. “Tomorrow is another day,” I think aloud. I will clean up then. I am just happy to have found my ring. I walk away and head back towards my home. I clean up and fix myself a nice cup of tea. The lightning and thunder commence as I hear a loud banging sound by the kitchen door. I head over the to door and as I open it the skeletal arm grabs me as I hear a piercing howl, “Givvvvvveeeee meeeeee bbaaaccckkkkk mmmmmyyyyyy rrrrriiiiinnnnnng!”
You wake up in the middle of the night not being able to breathe. A gloved hand is over your nose and mouth and something sharp is pressed up against your throat. You feel paralyzed. Unable to move. Then you hear your 5 year old son cry from the next room. ” Mommy!” “Help!” Your stomach tightens and your heart races. You go to move and the blade on throat presses harder.
Miss Davidson
I didn’t want to go trick-or-treating. Years before it was the norm; me, Mom and my brother would hit every house that we could, especially Miss Davidson’s because she always stocked the good stuff. But two days ago we all buried Miss Davidson after the accident, nobody talks about it. So Mom and Jamie went out for treats, I stayed home in the dark hoping no one would come yelling “Trick or Treat!”
I sat on the couch with my iPad ready to watch Netflix movies when the doorbell rang. I ignored it in a frustrated sigh.
“Ding-dong!”
“Geez!”
I should’a posted the “No candy this year” sign Mom told me to place on the porch.
After the third annoying ring, I rushed to the door and yanked it open ready to tell the greedy person off, I mean didn’t they understand that a house with no lights on – on Halloween night meant “no candy?” I thought that was universally understood.
But as then as the door opened in front of me, I lost my breath at the sight of my lone visitor. She wore a dress that was unmistakably trademark for her. Her gray hair was up in a bun and she softly smiled as she reached to touch my shoulder.
“Hello Kelsey, aren’t you coming over for candy this year?” Miss Davidson asked.
Late October is a good time of year for a story. It is the time when this world and the other are so close their fingertips touch – though why ghosts and spirits should pay any attention to dates is a mystery. Dates are human things. Clocks, watches, calendars and appointment books, all kept to fool ourselves into thinking that time matters. The dead have no such illusions. The dead have all the time in the world.
Even so, the story I am about to tell begins on Halloween. Autumn and winter were both in the air, waltzing around each other like shy dance partners.
As usual, the Kea sisters had gotten treats ready, bowls filled with M & M’s, Milky-Ways, Butterfingers and glittering silver Kisses. Once, long ago, their grandmothers had baked cookies for the children and served them with steaming mugs of hot chocolate, but now children are warned against home-made goodies which might conceal razor blades or deadly drugs, even in the smallest towns.
Not that many children were brave enough to claim the sweets the sisters purchased. Only pluckiest kids would venture near their door, even in summer, even in daylight, let alone on Halloween.
Maybe it was because white Star of Bethlehem flowers, those harbingers of spring, always bloomed in their yard on Christmas, when everyone else was digging out paths through the snow. Maybe it was because their yard was home to butterflies, so colorful and varied they must surely have come all the way from South America.
The Kea sister were known to have unnatural talents and their house was reputed to be haunted. It was a weathered gingerbread, that stood at the edge of town, right before the road turned to dirt and disappeared into the forest. The sisters had been born in the house. Their roots stretched back longer and deeper than the enormous oak that shaded the blue slate shingled roof.
Many years before the sisters had told fortunes at the school fair. But after Faith Kea had told Marjorie Luring that her daughter, Joy, would die in childbirth, and Hope Kea had told Jennifer Booth that her husband would run off with a younger woman, they were never asked back. People want happy futures, handsome endings, and riches, not death and desertion.
That year, after Joy died and Mr. Booth disappeared with young Keri Keating, the sisters were shunned.
Now when they went into town, store owners locked their doors and pulled their shutters down tight. Proprietors turned off their lights and clerks hid beneath counters till the Kea sisters had passed.
Luckily, the sisters had a prodigious garden, a willing milk cow, twelve happy chickens and a goat that practically bled cheese. Other things more difficult to grow or bake, like coffee, chocolate and the strong black tea that Hope favored, appeared mysteriously on their doorstep right when needed. The sisters might be shunned publically, but privately, individually, almost every villager had come to them for council or treatments at least once.
It was said that Faith could drain the fever out of a child with just a touch of her hand. And it was well known that she could sew up wounds much more neatly than old Dr. Quiver, whose sutures looked like crazy quilt seams. Hope grew herbs that relieved heartache, ulcers, arthritis and all number of ailments of body and soul. And Clarity had cures for lovelorn, foolish girls that nobody in polite society would mentioned.
Still, despite their helpfulness, few children were bold or reckless enough climb their doorstep on Halloween. Thought the sisters traveled all the way to the next town to buy chocolates and hard suckers as if they thought the house would be flooded with children.
The night grew dark. The moon rose full, making the fall-red leaves the old Oak glisten as if touched by frost. There was a sharp rap on the door. Hope a rushed to open it, cradling a bowl of candy in one arm. The wind pushed at the door trying to keep it from opening. No one was on the porch.
“It must just have been a branch, “said Hope. As she turned away, the wind reversed direction, yanking the door wide. Small whirlwinds of leaves danced up the steps, spinning madly around a wicker basket swaying on the doorstep.
Clarity strode to the basket and reached in.
“It’s a baby,” Clarity said.
It’s dusk on what had been a delightful crisp sunny fall day and your heading to your friend’s new house for the first time after work for a Halloween party. You live in a heavily populated area but as soon as you turn onto the road your friend lives on you see the road is isolated with no homes or anything around. A strange fog soon enshrouds your car and the road. Headlights appear in the fog from the other direction and as the vehicle passes you it slows and quickly turns around. The vehicle zooms right up behind you. You see on your GPS it’s still eight more miles to your friend’s house as the vehicle behind you taps your bumper….
In a future of only men, there is one rule for the genetic engineers in charge of producing newborns: never cross two X-chromosomes. One man does just that with his own genes, creating the first female in generations. He hides his daughter/lover and impresses on her the importance of NEVER leaving their home or showing herself at the window. But one day, she leaves the house and enters a dangerous, apocalyptic world.
You wake up from a nightmare in a cold sweat, and look out the window to a quiet, snowy morning. After taking a second to breath and take in the calm, you get up and get ready for the day. When you open the front door, you see bloody footprints in the snow leading to your doorway. You realize your nightmare wasn’t just a dream after all.
You noticed him smiling at you in the grocery store, holding eye contact for a little too long. Had you met this man with the scar on his face before? Was he simply a friendly stranger hoping to make a connection? You shrugged it off, but then you noticed him smiling at you in the park and again at your favorite coffee shop. At first you thought it was just a coincidence, but then one night, you glanced outside and there he was. Staring and smiling. Who was this man with the scar and what did he want?
Mama couldn’t afford to be careless this time. She needed to move them, and quickly. She had found the ultimate setting. There were small cabins scattered throughout the property, most hidden by tall pines. A building alongside of the creek was perfect for meetings and meals. But it was the abandoned infirmary, complete with an operating amphitheater, which convinced her. It was a pity that Monkey and Pug wouldn’t be joining them, for they had begun to show signs of maturing, and Mama couldn’t have that. Besides, she was certain that there would be some who had been left behind here, and Mama could give them life.
Yes, it was perfect. She’d move them here today.
After all the guest and family have bid you their deepest sympathy and the last one has left the house, you kiss your father on the cheek and tell him, he’s going to be okay. A tear falls from his eye; he gives an effortless smile with a hollow stare at the empty house. This is the first night in 65 years; he will sleep alone without his only love, Nelly. You say good night as you head upstairs for the night. You grew up in this old county home, and your bedroom looks like it did when you went away to college. Before crawling into bed with your red plaid pajamas on, you pull a rolled up newspaper from the waste bin next to the closet to catch up on the local town you’d hated growing up in. Headlines read: “Tiffany Barber, found strangled and bludgeon to death, Tuesday evening. This is the third killing of this kind, and police need your help.” You put down the paper, turn off the lights and close your eyes. You wake, to a loud creek on the last stair outside your door. You stay cuddled under the covers with your back to the door. You wait to see if you imagined the noise or were dreaming. You left your door opened in case your father needed you during the night. “Daddy…, you Okay? You need anything?” You yell. There was silence, so you close your eyes and try to sleep, snuggling further under the down comforter. Another creek, this time, it’s the wooden floors in your room. You quickly roll over…Cold frail fingers grip your throat…”Daddy, stop, no…”
PLEASE ADVISE IF YOU CAN ENTER MORE THAN ONE. THANK YOU.
Carl was surprised to run into Marla at Starbucks. The last time he’d seen her was at her funeral.
You grew up in this house, the chintz curtains, and shelves crowded with knick-knacks and memorabilia are indelibly etched in your mind. You know every square inch of this house like you know your own face. And yet, there is something out of place and you just can’t seem to put your finger on what it is. And then you spot it, staring with that awful perky grin, is the Elf on a Shelf that terrified you as a child. The same one you tore to shreds when you were 9 and buried in the school yard. And there it sits. Staring.
A collector is sold a vampire bat as an exotic pet by a poacher. He’s assured it’s a “good long-term investment.”