Welcome to our 2019 $500 Halloween Horror 50 Word Story Contest. Yes, that’s right. It’s already here. Every year we run our contests, and those of you who have been frequent readers, this is what you’ve been waiting for.
First we will be doing a print issue! We will be doing 2 print issues, and we will pick entries from this contest to be in our issue. If you had a 50 word story designated to be in our print issue, from a past contest, please contact us.
Second, we will be giving out a $500 reward for the best 50 word horror story. This is not easy for us. Every Writer is not doing as well as it did in the past, but we want your stories. I believe writers should get paid for their work. I wish we could pay all of our writers, but it’s just impossible. So $500 for 50 words, I think is a unique and valuable statement to our readers. Ten dollars a word is what all writers really deserve.
So here are the rules:
• Story must be scary
• Story must be 50 words
• Story must be original and your own
• Story may not be published elsewhere
• Story must have a title (does NOT count in word count)
• Deadline is October 25, 2019
• Enter as many times as you want
• Story must be written in the comments below!
• Be nice or be disqualified
I love these stories. This is one of favorite traditions of Every Writer. I look forward to this every year, and this year I have extended the time we are going to spend with the contest.
The winners will:
• Be announced on October 31, 2019
• Will get $500
• Will be published in our digital and print issue.
• Will get an author page on our site
There is no entry fee for this contest. It would help us out greatly if you would donate 1$ or more, if you can, to help out the site. We would really appreciate it. A donation will not be considered in the deciding this contest.
If you want to keep up with me on Twitter, please follow me at @everywriter, I follow back all writers.
Good luck, and let the writing begin.
HERE IS THE WINNER
I have picked 4 stories. They all have times and days on them. If the winner does not respond by Friday 11/22/19 the money will go to the next story on the list. Here are the top 4 stories in order. ONLY OUR 1st PLACE WINNER gets the $500. Also, so this insanity never happens again, the winner will be invited back next year to be one of the judges.
WINNER 1st Place:
Kit Steward 10/13/19 5:20 pm
THE MIDNIGHT INCUBATOR
She heard mushy sounds for days and suffered from unbearable itchiness.
A doctor’s visit revealed earwig pupae nesting in her ear canal, it was flushed out.
Later, weary from stress, she crawled into bed.
That night while she slept, the creature returned.
And finding the eggs missing, it laid more.
2nd Place:
Elizabeth Lee 09/24/19 4:36 pm
Secondhand Doll
She didn’t want a secondhand doll so she flung it across the room. Porcelain cracked against the wall. Her mom made her glue the pieces back together. A thin shard sliced her hand, baptizing the doll in her hateful blood. The secondhand doll decided she didn’t want an ungrateful child.
3rd Place:
Alexander Daley Escobedo 10/25/19 3:38pm
Heirloom
We Buried my brother today. Suicide. He thought something evil was haunting him. He’d been medicated, institutionalized, shocked and secluded. He found his own way out. I wish I could tell him I’m sorry. Or had listened more closely. Because, when I got home, it was on my couch. Laughing.
4th place:
JB 10/25/19 8:12pm
TITLE: RESEVOIR
We should have known something was wrong when we first tasted the water. It was a little brown, but no more than usual in this apartment complex.
We kept drinking it until it turned black.
When they opened the water tank, they found the bloated, rotting corpse of my neighbor.
We usually always contact the winners first, but after all the trouble, we are opening up the process. I am again, very sorry for how late this is. I did not expect 4000 stories. Next year I will be ready.
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Intercepted Signal
The speaker fuzzes . The same spot where I always lose service. I track the distance to the next car’s bumper. Gridlock, in LA, a constant. Eyes off the road, I reach to switch to radio when my connection crackles. A voice. Someone else’s, infiltrating. “You think he’s dead?”
The Walkers
Out here there aren’t birds or bats.
Just wind
And Walkers.
She’s heard the stories.
Loved ones, turned at night.
Empty beds.
If only mere romantic trysts.
“Get some sleep.”
Caresses her skin.
She dreams of skies.
Winds.
Wakes with a gasp.
Yells his name.
Feeling nothing but cold sheets.
His Perfect Wife
My hands and legs were shackled to the surgical bed in a sterile white room with lifeless bodies around me.
“You have a perfect facial structure, but your eyes are a terrible color. I hate brown. How do you feel about blue? Green?”
“Please let me go.”
“Blue it is.”
Soulless
I don’t know what happened. Maybe it was all the loss. Something inside me broke. I was driving. I saw her, but didn’t slow down. When the car hit her, she bounced off with a loud thump. I drove home. When I looked in the mirror, I looked the same.
Trapped
I was flying, until, I got stuck against an invisible but sticky wall. The wall began to shake. I looked around to see who else got stuck. When I looked up, I saw it. A large eight legged hairy creature. Its fangs wrapped around my body and pierced through me
Amanda the parselmouth
One day, Jane was found dead. I saw her go to Amanda’s house, who had a pet snake. I told the police Amanda killed Jane. Now, Amanda was in my room. Her eyes turned red and she said to her snake “kill her”. The snake killed me, just like Jane.
Notes
One day, Katelyn found five notes. On one note, she wrote who bullied her. The next day, her teacher said the bully was dead. Six years later, her mom had adopted a child. Katelyn still had four notes left. The child wrote Katelyn’s name on one note and said, “Finally…”
Birth
The first day it was just a reddened bump, right above my kneecap. The second day it was a tiny thread, gossamer fine. With my tweezers I pulled, then pulled some more, but stopped when a tiny, gray hand popped free and started to claw its way up my thigh.
MINISTRY
Hopelessly lost in the woods, Seth slept under a tree.
He was awakened near midnight by a sermon. People in old-timey clothes encircled him.
The preacher eyed Seth. “Son, are you ready to be reborn?” Seth noticed two beast-like children on leashes, salivating. The preacher grinned as he unleashed them.
The Monster’s Diet
“Mommy, there’s a monster in my room.”
“Go to Bed!”
In the room to the monster. “She won’t believe me.”
“She will.” He purrs softly.
“Why are you here?”
“To feed”
“On me? Will it hurt?”
“No. You won’t feel a thing. But I’ll feed on her guilt for years.”
“Dimenticato”
BAM.
My right fist strikes the clear wall again. My left hand is streaked in blood and feels like the tiny bones inside are moving around freely. I can’t scream anymore because I fear I’ll damage my ears.
Why can’t they hear me?
Why can’t they see me?
The Politician
He had to admit, as he looked in the mirror, that he had the whole package. His hair was perfect. His smile won over men and women alike. He had a gift for making people crave more of him. And that, he determined, they would certainly get.
INTRUDER
Alone at home.
Shadows of night surround the glowing sanctuary.
From inside, I hear dog toys squeaking.
The dogs are outside.
Heart racing, I go to bring them in.
I’m standing in darkness, calling the dogs.
I look to the lighted kitchen window.
A hunched figure stares back at me.
Back to Say Goodnight
I say goodnight to my wife.
The picture frame thuds as it’s returned to the nightstand.
A tear rolls onto my pillow and my consciousness becomes hazy, drifting into another night of uneasy sleep.
I feel her chilling hand clasp my shoulder and hear breathing.
She died a week ago.
My Devoted Husband
The loss was unbearable. I never knew it was possible to miss someone that much. In the end, his body was ravaged, but he was always concerned about me. I screamed for him to please come back. My cell rang. I recognized his voice immediately. “OK,” he said, “I’m coming.”
The Dead Body
I felt an itch somewhere between my toes and my heel. I reached down to scratch. Feeling nothing there, the itch got worse. My nails tore through the soft skin to reveal tiny beetles and maggots sliding between my bones and devouring my tissues. I lay there until I perished.
NIGHTMARE GONE WRONG
It was only a dream. It had felt so real. She lay back in bed as she felt sweat dripping down her face.
It was a little too quiet.
Her eyes widened as she realized the nightmare wasn’t over. Whatever that was, it had followed her out of her dream.
You Want Scary?
It’s 2019. Trump’s our President, the Amazon’s burning, and the coastlines are disappearing into the sea.
Investigations, impeachment, threats of civil war. The bus is running on its rims.
Suddenly, it happens. “Fine, I’m leaving!”
The madness is over. Pence is President.
Red robes for every woman, handmaids all.
Bwuahahahah!
Mother’s Grave
You only visit the cemetery once.
Staring down at the boring, rectangular grave marker you chose, your fingers go numb.
“It’s not even a headstone,” you think. “Someone could walk right over her.”
Her disapproval beyond death is all yours.
Pumping your fists to regain feeling, still no sensation returns.
GRAVEYARD KEEPER
«Who are you?»
«Jurnalists.»
«Go away. I didn’t sleep all night.»
«Yes, it will certainly be difficult to do your job. Supervise a cemetery.»
«Try it yourself to sleep with a guy who screams all night “Let me out, let me out”»
LEGACY
Dad has come home. Again. With the same sack.
He makes his way into the kitchen, and drops the sack on the table.
He notices me in the doorway.
“Come over son, it’s time you learned”
From where I stand, I see a bloody hand peeking out from the sack.
TRAPPED
It rained heavily outside. The phone rang.
She picked up. “Hello”
“Babe, it’s me. My car got stuck in a ditch. I’ll be home as soon as possible”
She froze, if that was her husband, then who was home with her.
She turned around,there he stood, behind her, smiling.
I’LL TAKE TWO
Zeke’s shepherd was on the porch gnawing a bone when police arrived.
“We heard some Don Juan salesman’s been wrinkling sheets, see anything?”
“Nope, nuthin’,” the farmer replied.
The squad car drove off.
“Gotta test those steak knives again,” Zeke thought, heading towards the basement, “Wife might have buyers remorse.”
A Kind Reminder from Your Local Police Department
Halloween is the holiday for the funny goblins,
but it’s also the celebration of the true monsters: the violators dressed up as Zeke Midas Wolf.
Halloween is for the kids,
but it’s also the celebration of the obsessed: those planning to set your house on fire to hail Satan’s children.
THE BLACK BEAST OF BRAMBLEBUSH LANE
Two silver plates stared from the shadows.
Cindy froze.
Slowly, dark curtains revealed fanged intent.
Primordial fear swelled inside her; a relief valve opened, fluid warmth thawed still feet.
Legs sprung to action.
Suddenly, a shadowy bulk halted progress.
A child’s worst fears were confirmed, one gulp at a time.
A CHANGE OF PRIORITIES
He popped a Valium.
After seventy-two hours of hack-n-slash, he needed some rest.
He’d barely drifted when outside groans roused him awake.
“I’m too damn tired, you zombie pricks…”
Grabbing the 12-gauge he nestled it under his chin.
Click.
No shells.
“Screw this bullshit!”
He guzzled the whole pill bottle.
DOUBLE OVERTIME
She was last out of the office that night.
In the isolated parking lot she found her car’s tires slashed.
Somber whistles echoed, making her flee toward the building’s safety.
Inside, silence.
She crept past cubicles.
Papers rustled and the whistling continued.
A prayer for mercy.
Her bills were overdue.
The trees where blowing and up the road it was pitch black. Leaves were forming a circle around Cindy. “How did I get here? W-where am I?” Cindy turned to looked behind her. “AHHHHH!!!” She takes off running. Frightened by what she just saw. It was her deer friend who looks as if they had fallen off the cliff. She takes off through the woods. Hearing her steps on the wet leaves. She keeps looking back and in front of her when she finally runs into a tree. Bang! She falls to the ground. “Ow, my head!” It takes her a moment but Cindy looks over her right shoulder to see a house. “I can stay there tonight and in the morning I’ll figure this out.” She walks towards the cabin.and opens the door. It’s empty. Cindy scopes out the place to make sure it’s safe. No one else seemed to be there. She lays down against the wall and falls asleep.
The Skeptic
“What are you doing?!” Kyle quickly threw his arm up to block Adam from stepping on a crack.
“It’s Friday the 13th, you can’t step on that crack!”
“Whatever, that’s superstitious bull,” Adam says as he pushes through and steps on the crack.
Cell phone rings.
“Mom’s in the hospital!”
GRISLY CRIMES MYSTIFY CITY LAW ENFORCEMENT,
SUSPECT STILL AT LARGE
He denied everything. Like always. The three premature burials. The dismemberment. The neighbor stuffed head first up the chimney.
“Oh Eddie,” his mother cried.
He held an empty bird cage.
“I can’t find my pet anywhere.”
“NEVERMORE!”
It was there. Behind the closet door.
Perched on the mailman’s decapitated head.
Nicely done. I am horrified yet have a smile on my face
12:55. Emi and Scarlett were lost in the Forest of Secrets. Legend says that after dawn, humans would come out witches were tortured by them! Soon, the sun was out! Kids playing, hunters hunting! The witches shrieked in terror as a dark shadow was coming nearer. Some think they died, some think they’re still hiding.
DIG
Richard couldn’t dig fast enough. Putrid bodies flumped around him. He screamed to drunken colleagues who answered with flung dirt. He couldn’t move his legs. He swung his shovel, hacked flesh. Bodies piled neck-high now, the last with buboes the size of cobblestones which burst, suffocating him with thick pus.
The Clown
One gloomy night, where the moon was shining bright.
Two boys walking in the woods alone. Hearing the leaves crunching, every step.
Suddenly another footstep coming closer and closer to them
AHHHHHHH! A clown almost stabbing in the back.
They ran as fast as they could.
Suddenly…
CHANGING
After I grew a third arm, extruding painfully from my hip, it got worse. Next, what I think was to be a foot popped from my knee cap. This made it impossible to walk. I lay helpless in bed while something round pushed and stretched the skin around my waistline.
12:55. Emi and Scarlett were lost in the Forest of Secrets. Legend says that after dawn, humans would come out witches were tortured by them! Soon, the sun was out! Kids playing, hunters hunting! The witches shrieked in terror as a dark shadow was coming nearer. Some think they died, some think they’re still hiding.
LESSONS
To eat a body takes practice. And where to start? This is why I signed up for lessons with Professor Endall. Finally, to learn from a master!
The Professor, smelly and quivering, stood up. He spoke slow and soft from a mouth leaky with sores. “We shall start with ourselves.”
BODY STACK
Stacking dead bodies is the hardest job I’ve had. It’s not that they’re too heavy – I trained for this and can lift all but the most obese myself. But it’s the strategy. If the record for the tallest stack is 19, how to best it? One body at a time.
Forest of Secrets
12:55. Emi and Scarlett were lost in the Forest of Secrets. Legend says that after dawn, humans would come out witches were tortured by them! Soon, the sun was out! Kids playing, hunters hunting! The witches shrieked in terror as a dark shadow was coming nearer. Some think they died, some think they’re still hiding.
“Protection”
He jumped into the fray – teeth bared. His jaws clamped shut, tight on a jugular vein.
Blood spurted all over his muzzle. It was warm and sticky. He swings his head back and forth unil he feels a snap. His jaw goes slack. He walks away. The intuder is dead.
-AS
“Pain”
The moon shone brightly in the cold night sky. Sirens drowned out the cries of pain coming from a small forest. Bones broke and fused themselves into different patterns. Shearing pain flooding every body part. The wolf transformation is complete. One last cry and the new wolf is off running.
-AS
It was a dark and stormy night with thunders rumbling. As I snuck in to the living room there was a rumbling noise that broke the silence. I went under the couch and saw a crinkled hand trying to grab me. It broke the window and…
Blood handwriting
I finished the scary book . When I looked around I saw a blood handwriting and a blood hand. I went outside and saw blood everywhere. Then! Help!!! Then i saw blood coming out of the bathroom. I froze and heard footsteps coming out of the bathroom. Then! Help!!!
Stairs
Walking down the stairs,
Unwelcoming feelings,
Are you watching me?
Maybe that’s why I’m gone,
I fell through the stairs,
It doesn’t make sense.
There’s something under there…
The mist grasped me. It was pushing and pulling and scratching and hitting.Then
they suddenly took me somewhere. A house. Dark and broken. A house I only saw
in my nightmare. “Hi David” A voice said. A man. A armed man. he got his
knife and…..
THE TIME CAPSULE
When Jackson opened the time capsule, his mind couldn’t register what he was seeing. He saw it. He recognized it. His brain just couldn’t acknowledge it. Later on, he would reflect upon that moment, and think about how surprised he was at the moisture still present in the body part.
The Ride
Greatful for the ride, but weary of the silence, the hitchhiker spoke. “Nobody picks me up at night when it’s raining. I mean, what if i was a serial killer?” “Never crossed my mind.” replied the driver. “The odds of two serial killers meeting like this are very, very low.”
What a fun twist!
Brilliant. Cringeworthy
AFTER THEY’D CUT HER
When they stopped and pushed her out of the car, she’d smelled green, night, and wet moss. In the house they lifted her down some stairs, tied her to a chair, removed the blindfold. In the non-light she saw hundreds of dark eyes and heard the scratching of small feet.
Ooh, this one is so visceral. Those scratching feet are so creepy.
Very eerie. I like it!
Yikes! Yes, wow… brilliant title, and “the scratching of small feet” is so freakin’ creepy.
Ouch. It sounds like things will only get worse….
THE NIGHT WHEN THE PACKAGE CAME…
One Halloween night… “DING DONG!” I saw a package and picked it up. I decided to open it later, and left the house for the festival. When I came back home, mom was dead on the floor holding a creepy doll. Whenever the doorbell rings, now I never answer…
on Halloween night a boy named Ben was relaxing in the house when a package
appeared. Next morning when Ben was getting ready to go to school. When he was downstairs
HIS MOTHER WAS KILLED! he saw box & he never ever went to that thing.
THE LENGENDS OF PENNYFRIES
Every 100 years a clown Pennyfries. Comes to eat kids and turn them into clowns and one kid named Jimmy. Lost his paper ninja star and he saw it but .Pennyfries had the paper star then Jimmy talked to Pennyfries he asked if he wanted popcorn he ate Jimmy…
One night a boy named Leo was playing with his new doll .the doll had red eyes and shiny brown hair with a fancy suite. Then night of Halloween came..Leo wanted to do creepy things like putting candles around his doll , Leo suddenly fainted and was never seen again.
The Howl
One dark night Jessie and Jason went to the gloomy woods. Suddenly,they heard a “Grrrr”. Then they ran but,they got lost.Then they tried every way. Suddly Jason tapped Jessie. She screamed “ahhhh!”
Then Jason said, “It’s okay.”
“It’s me!”
Suddenly they heard a howl.
The Boathouse
The snow creaked under their boots, in the silence. A raw winter day.
“Why are we here Randy?”
” Look, the old boathouse. Remember the good times?”
The lock broken, dark and dank inside. He kissed her neck. She shuddered.
Randy replaced the old lock. Sara never did see daylight again.
THE WILSON COUNTY FAIR
Scotty rode the haunted house once again.
Inside, his cart suddenly stopped. While waiting in the darkness, Scotty heard something breathing. Then felt something sit beside him.
Outside, Dad waited. Mom studied the mural on the outside wall. The terrified boy in the mural looked like Scotty.
Scotty never returned.
The Contest
The Editor cackled gleefully. What an imaginative bunch they’d been this year with their oh so scary stories. He carefully compiled his list of names and addresses, packed his bag of tricks. The winner he would save ‘til last. How he would relish making their creepy little fantasies come true!
The Monster in the Woods
I heard a rustling thorugh the dark woods, but I wasn’t moving. I was the only one here, right? Was there someone with me? But, who could it be? I kept walking through the woods…”What’s that noise?”
I found a note…began to read it suddenly something grabbed me……
AHHHHHH!
Haunted Librarian
Old wrinkled boney hands librarian, pencil through hair bun, scratchy voice like fingernails on chalkboard. Recommends, headless horseman, dark laughing lurking figures. Smells like dusty death wormed over
She has no soul, no substance. You can see right through her
Would you ask her for help? ‘I would’t’ “Quiet Please”
Lifetime Mate
The wandering black wolf hunts for his lifetime mate. He finds her shivering and abandoned in a cave. He senses her fear, hesitation, and apprehension.
Something is clearly wrong. She quickly backed away from him, slipped, and fell backward into an abyss. Was she that afraid of his six-inch fangs?
The Knock
The knock startled me into spilling my chips. I wiped my hands on my pants. I walked to the door and almost turned the knob before I remembered to look out the peephole. I barely saw his yellow eyes before the door was flying open, knocking me to the ground.
A Visitor
The wind violently shook the leaves outside. I walked over to my window. The cold air blew in faster than it had just moments before. I had to push hard before it would close. I sighed, looking up, and saw a man behind me, raising a knife. He smiled.
Voilà
A new spa promises to help me stop biting my fingernails.
She applies a patented formula, wraps a towel over my hands.
“Burns a little,” I say.
“It’s fine.”
After fifteen minutes, she lifts the towel. My hands have been incinerated to the wrists.
“Voilà,” she says.
I pass out.
Hanging Around
The missing little boy’s parents had begun to lose hope that they would ever find their son who was abducted from his bedroom. After coming home from another futile search party, they found the boy with his neck slit, a smile on his face, hanging from their front door.
Dream
I remember clearly how the boy jumped from the high raised building in front of my eyes. It’s been more than 2 hours since I saw this dream.
Thought I could divert my mind, when my sister returned in the afternoon, until she informed, someone from the same building died today.
Corridors of Horror
Cloaked costumed characters and maniacal masked monsters fearsomely follow
your every strobe-lit move in each haunted house room
as morbid music monotonously pounds on the parlor piano
clattering skeletons dreadfully dangle from spider cobwebbed ceilings
creepy crawly creatures startlingly scuttle through crumbling wall cracks.
AT THE WINDOW
When I was little, I would not look at the window at night. I would lie turned to the wall knowing the man in the black suit was standing there, his black sunglasses on. Staring. Just standing there looking straight in even though our apartment was on the third floor!
Nature’s Nightmare
Scarecrow screams are hollowly heard through meandering cornfield mazes. Hair-raisingly howling winds whippingly whirl about the whispering will-o’-the-wisp woodlands. Headless horsemen ride the horrifying hillsides with frightening fury. Coyote canyons cry with predatory peril of ravenous rage. Owls ominously hoot in towering treetops of twilight terror.
Figment Fantasies
Spectral silhouettes foggily float like shrouded shadows
supernaturally sprinkling an apparitional afterglow
through the mystical miasma of macabre mystery
giving spine-tingling shivers and eerily enchanting you with campfire story chills.
Perilous Prowlers
WHOOO knows what latently lurks in prowling black cat alleys and rat squeaking sewers or surreptitiously slinks along sinister streets and raven cawing crossroads but you better be banshee bulwarked, warlock wary, and doppelganger guarded for obscurely ominous occurrences that go bizarrely bump in the netherworld ‘s night.
My Wife
I return home from the funeral completely drained. I immediately hop into bed and try to get some rest. My wife climbs in next to me, hugs me from behind and whispers comforting words into my ear. Just as I’m starting to relax, I remember.. it was my wife’s funeral.
A BEAUTIFUL BAD GIRL
She seduced him and tied his hands up and legs romantically then she removed his clothes and suddenly bit his balls,she was eating his balls while my friend was alive she ate all two balls my friend cried very much because pains but no one helped him and lastly died.
Coven’s Curse
Conjured up cursed coven spirits creepily cackle in creaking crypts
ready to rattlingly roam and grimly greet you on the R.I.P. Reaper’s grounds with captivatingly concocted magical cauldron charms, toil in trouble bubbling hocus pocus potions, and bewitchingly brewing superstitious spells on All Hallows’ Eve.
YOU CAN RUN
Alarms blared.
Zombies? No. Something much worse.
Sam quickly inventoried his Apocalypse Kit.
Darkness and the aroma of apple pie suddenly filled the bunker.
Sam trembled. “Grandma?”
“I hope you saved room for dessert.”
Sam reached into his kit.
He pressed the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
A Busy Week
Monday’s child is in the ground
Tuesday’s child will not be found
Wednesday’s child will never grow
Thursday’s child was way too slow
Friday’s child will do my bidding
Saturday’s child worked hard to stay living
Sundays child I’ve yet to find
There’s one or two I have in mind
The Knife
Fern stared at the knife. She noticed how worn the handle was. It had been her mother’s, and her grandmother’s. Her eyes dipped to the blade, which stopped where her shirt began; it pressed in. She couldn’t feel it, and she couldn’t remember who had put it there. Sleep came.
hey thats me!
Beyond all recognition
I finally leave my room for more water, after writing for seven hours.
Blood tracking on the floor, all the way to the kitchen.
Leading to an unfamiliar dead body.
Exactly what I’ve been writing about.
I hope this doesn’t follow what I wrote next.
It does and I’m fubar.
I’d like to thank the academy…
The special effects artist was known as the best in the business.
Famous for bloodied eyeballs and severed hands, torn off limbs and glistening entrails.
His full body zombie skins were award winning.
At home he performed his acceptance speech, dutifully thanking the eyeless, faceless, limbless audience in the basement.
.
Give Me Your Heart
I said it was hers. Why does she always have to be so literal? I didn’t expect her to go for the knife. She did expect me to run. Of course she’d set a trap. I can’t see her from where I’m tied up, but I can hear the sharpening.
Lovers
“Do you love me?”
“I do,” Lilth replied. “More than everything.”
“Would you bleed for me?”
“I would,” Lilth says quickly, “I have.”
Her wrists bleed, and her white gown stains red.
“Then forgo reality and come with me.”
Lilth nods and places her hand through the wall.
Back to Sleep
Thomas woke from his dream, hyperventilating.
“What’s wrong,” she asks.
“I had dreamt you’d died.”
“Well, that’s just silly,” she giggled, placing her cold hand on his chest and shoving him back into the plush bed.
Her dead hands creeped up his chest, and she began to shove them down his throat.
Renown
Chris had always desired to be part of something important, monumental even.
“I want to be remembered,” he would say to his family.
As he cut apart the body, he was excited and truly happy.
“I’m finally important. I’m finally memorable.”
Thus, Chris made history with one hundred different pieces.
Scraping
This thing keeps slipping down my throat, scraping against my heart with fingernails sharp as ill-intentioned knives. I scream, I smash myself, I cut to cease its control, but, ultimately, I can’t picture my life any other way. It wants me so much it’s flattering.
Home
Emelia just wanted to be held, so she wandered the woods to meet a lover.
One leaned against a tree, ugly and isolated, and it opened its chest cavity wide. She climbed inside. Warm and confined, she didn’t mind the sharp edges of bone. She had found her home.
Inevitable Horror
I’m lounging on my heavenly cloud
grooving to Luther Vandross and Elvis singing back-up for Janis Joplin
eating chocolate-covered Oreos,
writing sonnets and sailing paper airplanes,
chillin with loving family and pets,
when the omnipotent one comes to me and says,
“Time to return to Earth.”
“The hell you say?”
THE ASHEN FOLK
A lanky shadow writhed down the window.
Janice screamed.
It looked humanoid.
She locked herself in the bedroom crying, desperately trying to call someone, anyone.
The phone was dead.
The house remained still for hours.
Her eyes closed for barely an instant.
Darkness moved.
A faceless, sooty, thing skittered closer.
A Halloween Wish
Crease, fold, pull.
The finished origami boat landed with the others. Cranes carried wishes, but the man could not create a wing with such material. He needed to finish before midnight. He needed a wish. The man pealed a new square of skin from the corpse.
Crease, fold, pull. Again.
THE FAIRY WRATH
They lashed him to the tree like a bunch of Maypole dancers.
The crowd stopped, encircled him and hurled damning taunts.
He was bound firm, golden cords dug tightly.
He spat curses.
The group parted as the leader approached with the prisoner’s salvation in hand.
THWOK
The ax cleft deep.
WIND SHEAR
He could remember only bits and pieces.
The police grilled the witness for hours.
“I turned,” the mechanic, grew quiet, eyes straining distant.
“And saw Chuck finishing preflight checks; the propeller kicked off and he just stood there.”
“The wing turned into him and…Oh, God!” sobbing.
“It flew off…cockpit; empty.”
A QUARTER YARD PENALTY
Brad took a stick and tried to scrape the goo out from his sneaker treads.
It stunk, and he couldn’t track it on mom’s carpet.
He’d returned from playing afternoon football with the boy next door.
He didn’t win the game, but stomped all over his opponent just the same.
PAST DUE
Finals Week; Shondra crashed hard.
She awoke alone, locked in the library.
While creeping through the musty aisles, several books jumped out at her.
She screamed, retreating.
Books cascaded, barring escape; finally, a whole shelf collapsed.
When her body was found, it was crammed tightly inside the Book Return bin.
HER WORDS FELL ON DEATH EARS
The Corn Maze was bustling, cars filled the farmer’s field.
An old Romanian woman exited irate; demanding a refund.
Arguments ensued; she screeched curses at the owner and stormed away.
People entered, yet no one left.
His search for answers ended abruptly when he was bludgeoned by bloodthirsty cornstalks.
CALL OF THE DARK TWIGLING
She slipped on the bathroom floor; laying knocked out in a bloody pool.
Then it came.
Between the air duct vanes, it slid; thin, stick-like, silent.
Pallid, spindly limbs fanned out from crooked ligatures.
It crawled, ever closer.
And while black beady eyes hovered above, a flicking tongue probed.
THE WELCOME WAGON
Deep in the woods two teens cautiously approached the dingy trailer to investigate it.
“You think “Crazy Crawford’s” alive?” Gene whispered.
“No one’s seen him in ages,” Morris replied.
They tapped on the door.
Silence.
Weeks later, two young corpses were discovered laying under a skeleton’s bony embrace.
FOODIES
After last call, the couple left.
“That’s new,” Jeff remarked, spying a back alley eatery.
“Looks quaint,” said Phillip, tugging his bear along.
The décor was shabby shriek.
Quickly the door locked behind them.
A ghastly dinner party was already in progress.
And the unfortunate pair, the chef’s “late-night special.”
THE NEARSIGHTED WIZARD
Marek stomped the frog and placed its dead eye on a stick.
“The all-seeing staff of Dragbone the Wicked,” he giggled.
“That’s cruel,” cried Sandy.
“Whatever.”
Later that night, Marek had terrible dreams.
In the morning the boy was gone, only a branch remained, a blue eyeball on its tip.
Ingrown
This pain is unbearable. I must do something.
The doctor says it is just ingrown into my toe, but it tells me something different. When I am alone, I always hear “Kill, Kill, Kill” almost like a drum to the beat of the throbbing pain.
“Kill who?” I ask.
Read the Fine Print
“Come on Lana, are you really going to order off the back of that magazine?”
“It says it’s the fountain of youth in a cream!”
“You are so gullible, sometimes.”
Two days later.
Lana applies the cream and ages 30 years.
Fine print: cream absorbs youth and returns to sender
Father-Thing
Father-Thing’s smile isn’t like Father’s.
Its eyes are deep and dark. They watch her when she thinks too long.
Perhaps it has always been there.
It licks its lips.
Father-thing says mother is sleeping.
Isabel doesn’t believe him.
Maybe if she waits longer, It will be Father again.
Father-Thing smiles.
The Gravedigger
His shovel thrust into the dirt, dropping damp earth atop a casket.
Again and again he repeated the process he knew so well.
He stopped to light a smoke.
The hole yawned open below him.
Sucking him into the abyss he had just covered.
Dirt consuming body.
Sweet Treats
Miriam plucked another bulbous candy out of her bag.
She smacked her lips.
One more for tonight.
This time, when she slid her hand back in, red eyes peered at her from deep within.
In a moment, her arm was devoured like a delicious sweet treat.
DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER
By reading this disclaimer you will become the latest victim of a terrible viral curse. At the conclusion of seven days you will suffer the most contrived of gruesomely protracted deaths, death of medieval extravagance. This condition applies only if you read this disclaimer all the way to THE END.
THE FINE PRINT
As winner of this contest, and author of the scariest fifty words in the history of horror, you will be condemned to live out your own twisted story repeatedly and in perpetuity. Every heart-pounding moment, each innovative cruelty will be yours to endure forever. We warned you to be nice!
Amount Due Immediately
His heart sank when he saw the seal on the notice. He knew they were after him, but he didn’t expect this. CP504. Knowing he didn’t have what was needed by the required date, he cried. His future was bleak. What was he going to do when he lost everything?