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• Story may not be published elsewhere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.
Worm
Her best friend sat in an armchair in front of her. Head lolling to the side, eyes open wide, no longer blue, more black. The wood under her feet creaked as she stepped closer, her heart numbed. She screeched when she saw a worm crawl out of her friend’s mouth.
THE COAL MAN
Mother was screaming.
The baby was missing.
“The Coal Man came,” Father explained, smiling. “Unemployed and starving, he wanders at night. When he hears a newborn crying, he takes the bag off his head and puts the infant inside. Only babies ever see his face. Right before he eats them.”
You seriously want to win don’t you?
Willing Victim
Footsteps carefully treading, unaware that the victim already knew of their presence. Shaking her head, she sat on her sofa, crossed her legs and waited. The masked man jumped from around the corner, knife shining. She smiled, puffing her chest to give access to her heart. “Come get me, baby.”
AROMATHERAPY FOR THE DYING
The nurse in black comes every night now.
She tucks me in tight so I can’t move.
With one hand she lights strange matches.
Passes the flames slowly under my nose.
This one smells like my first junior high school dance.
Sweet like old library books.
Bonfire smoke.
Blood.
Suffocation—
BLACK MAGIC FOR BEGINNERS
Walking backward over a grave does the trick.
So does counting to thirteen, thirteen times.
Or hanging a wreath of human hair over the hearth.
Simple spells really work.
Just ask my mother. She taught me how.
You can find her through the keyhole, trapped in the master bedroom mirror.
SPUYTEN DUYVIL, DECEMBER 1929 – MARCH 1930
For one winter, human bodies turned up, facedown and gray, nearly every day, out Spuyten Duyvil way.
The journalist Weegee was sent; he often vomited and took no photos. Several cops quit.
A tall woman was said to be hawking children’s teeth in the area.
Then it all just stopped.
THE PORCH LIGHT GAME
We were twelve and summer was long.
We’d tired of Ghost in the Graveyard, Doll Down a Well, and Don’t Scream.
So we invented the Porch Light Game. It’s easy to win:
Pick a house with the porch light on past midnight.
Knock. When someone answers, stick the knife in.
WHILE YOU SLEPT
All last night the brown recluse spider sat, full and fat, nearly popping with venom.
And there you lay, bare arms and naked legs splayed, just above the place where the spider waits.
Now near dawn, the spider chooses. Approaches. Crawls into your hair, exits behind your ear.
Tickles.
Bites.
INCISIONS, INCISIONS…
Med school proved a bore. Sheila just wanted to cut things.
Eyeing a guy inspired the urge to bite right through him, feeling the pop and resistance of each layer, until teeth met teeth somewhere red in the middle.
“Scalpel.”
“Scalpel.”
“Scalpel.”
Sigh.
Shame. What a surgeon she would’ve made.
Erika Vargas
“Shark Attack”
My heart was pounding out of my chest. All I could think about was Natalie and her safety. A rustle and swooshing sound came from behind me. I turned around slowly, before I could even scream the shark took off my head. Only question I had was, am I tasty?
CHARLIE SAYS
Charlie says there was something strange in his pumpkin when he cut it open Halloween Eve.
None of us believed him. Good old Charlie.
When he started behaving strangely in the first days of November, we chalked it up to drink.
Then something started cutting Charlie open from the inside.
UNEARTHED
Something was found near the base of the black mountain. That’s all they’ll say.
The dig site’s been abandoned ever since that day.
I’m no archaeologist, just obsessively curious….
My flashlight finds nothing; I camp.
By morning, I understand:
It’s not what’s in there—it’s what’s escaped into the air.
Alone in the Dark
He woke from a deep sleep into darkness. He moved his hand to turn on a light. Wall. He tried to sit up. Wall. On every side, walls of wood that refused to move. His pounding and screams couldn’t reach those mourning him, the six feet of earth silenced him.
SHE’S SO STRANGE
Dress pockets full of feathers and leaves and…
Barefoot, broken camera around her neck.
Circling the cemetery, gray faced and drained.
Asked around town, nobody knows her name.
Swear I saw her in the Samhain mirror last year…
Dress pockets full of feathers and leaves, bones and photos of me.
THE RITA SONG
“Rita’s in the icebox, eyes plucked out!”
Concerned, the good mother stands outside her daughter’s door, listening for more.
“Rita’s in the icebox, let me out!”
Hand on the doorknob now. Who’s Rita?
“Rita’s in the icebox, gout, gout, shout!”
Turning, opening—
“Rita’s in the bedroom—”
Rita’s in the bedroom.
THE SECRET
Her freshman year, Maria got jealous. All the other girls had secrets, and she had none.
So she resolved to have a secret of her own.
The drunk boy was easy to drown. But Maria worried she might tell. Then she’d have no secrets.
So she drowned a second secret.
THE GIFT
Papa bought Mama a saw. Then he went away.
Mama cried a lot. She sat rocking, sobbing, the saw in her lap.
Mama got mad at Molly.
Mama made me clean a red mess.
Mama made me dig a big hole.
Then Mama gave me her saw and went away.
DREAMS OF SANTA MUERTE
Sometimes, in that pocket of peace just before sleep, she comes to me.
A yellow death’s head hovers above my bed, her stained gray shroud streaming down the stairs, dripping red.
What she whispers I cannot repeat; I’ll only declare my love for her, and bow at her bloody feet.
A PREMONITION
Have you ever seen a terrified doctor?
It’s the scariest thing imaginable.
I mean, they’ve seen everything, right?
Well, once during a routine exam, my doctor suddenly gasped and shook, then whispered, “Murder!”
Hours later I was stabbed to death.
The worst part was that look on my doctor’s face.
And Then They Woke Up
There once was a place called San Balor,
Surrounded by the fields,
The only town around for miles,
And in which, no one could hear.
This secluded town of the deaf,
Though once peaceful and mild,
Felt the world shake around them
When horrible whispers were heard by a child.
FROM THE NOTEBOOKS OF VICTORIA LEIGH WATKINS-NASH, PARAPSYCHOLOGIST, MAY 13, 1985
Miriam Gish, 21 years, exams clean.
February 11 – April 29, persists with claim: February 9, while stepping out of phone booth at McNulty and Crescent, recognized woman walking toward her as her own self.
Received word yesterday evening that patient was struck and killed by auto at McNulty and Crescent.
CHRISTMAS NIGHT, 1953
Santa left a peacoat. I wore it to my aunt’s party.
When I went to the bathroom, a man was in there. He pulled out a knife, threatened to cut all the gold buttons off my new coat. Then he left.
No one at the party knew who he was.
Basement Doors
They say that there’s a creature
behind every basement door.
It lives in dusty corners
and drinks pus from open sores.
It creaks and crawls and scuttles
in the corner of your eye
looking for ways to grab you
and bring you down to die.
Creak …………Creak,
“EEEEK!”
GYPSY GIRL
There’s a gypsy girl playing a magic drum on the path to the village.
We stop to listen.
One leg shows from under her skirt: black hair, green bruises.
Later she leads little brother away by the hand.
Turns and calls me “Pig!”
Spits.
I can’t stop eating ever since.
I’M JUST GLAD I WASN’T PATIENT ZERO
I met her at this carnival. She wore a surgical mask.
Tempted by her muffled giggles, I followed her across a pineapple field.
She pointed to a culvert, started crawling inside.
I was horny and considering it—then she dropped the syringe.
The outbreak got me six days later anyway.
TRUE STORY
A baby ate a centipede.
His mother, baffled by the agonized cries, rushed him to the hospital.
An X-ray revealed the studded body; a hundred hooked legs glowed blue.
Doctors stood in silence, aghast.
The baby survived. The centipede was found a day later in a dirty diaper.
Still alive.
THE WORD AROUND TOWN
Did you hear? Ol’ Heck Milanovic disappeared.
Clara said she seen him vanish from the edge of the cornfield.
Now Clara says she gets strange visitors at night. Like little kids, eyes solid black.
‘Spect they’ll soon take her away, talkin’ that way.
But still, nobody’s seen ol’ Heck anywhere.
Home
I’m waiting for Mama to pick me up and take me home. I’ve been in my room all day. It’s cold in here; there is no chair or cushion, just concrete. They gave me a blanket. My mama will take me home. My mama will feed me.
“Shut up kid.”
ON RECOGNIZING THE STAGES OF DEMONIC POSSESSION
Whenever I close my eyes, there’s a grinning green eye in a sea of red.
It stares at me all night from inside my own head.
Whenever I scream, I choke—on long fingers, gray like smoke, reaching up from down my throat.
Manifestation, Infestation, Oppression—
Bless me.
I’m Possessed.
GRANDMA NEVER DIES
Grandma looked so unlike herself in her coffin, caked with ghoulish makeup, I screamed. Something jumped inside me and I screamed again. My father gasped. I looked out of her zombie eyes around the room of mourners. They all screamed. I turned and saw my young self in the coffin.
LETTER HOME
Dear Mother,
I know it’s been a long time and I’m sure you’ve been terribly worried about me.
But listen: I’m cured!
I’ve joined something called an Energy Cult.
They’ve taught me how to feed on others.
And now my illness is gone, and the cult is stronger than ever.
PREDATION
He was coming toward me as I stepped outside. I ran for my life. His thundering steps picked up speed behind me. I reached my car, got in and pressed the locks. His laughing eyes peered in the window. His hand, holding a bloody knife, easily opened the car door.
Candle
“Where are you, mom?”
“I’m here, son.”
The child turned, and saw his beautiful mother, standing there with a wax candle.
“I have your birthday present.” She beckoned him to their basement. “Come.”
The son eagerly followed her downstairs.
Then, the candle went out.
“Mom?”
“I’m here, son.”
He screamed.
SCARECROW
I could see, by the slight light of the sliver of silver moon, the pumpkin head of my scarecrow lying in scattered pieces in the cornfield clearing.
Now propped upon the wooden pole, behind the blowing tattered clothing, was something with wings and a barbed tail.
It had been sleeping.
THE MOST AFRAID I’VE EVER BEEN
My girl and I argued whilst hiking the Irish hills on holiday. She stormed off.
I walked on. Lost sense of time.
Then a silence more terrible than any pain set in.
For a moment I saw where all the world’s missing went.
And truly understood what awaits us all.
KILL ME, KILL ME, KILL ME (or: SO MUCH MORE THAN JUST A GOTH GIRL)
Up close, her eyes are dark as the low charcoal sky.
Legs crossed, she leans back, all in black, on the warped park bench.
Sips something steaming from a Bride of Frankenstein mug.
Licks her lips. I’m under her skin.
Suddenly the blade from her boot’s under mine.
It’s love.
MY FRIEND
A reporter too, he’d told me. Handsome, with disarming smiles.
We’re trying to get pictures of the newest murder victim.
The night he wasn’t looking I sneaked off to the crime lab to look around.
When I turned a body, my reporter was staring at me with eyes so dead.
WRAITH
Grandmother saw it again last Sunday evening in the field behind her house.
All she’d say is, “I don’t know. It’s gray. It’s there every Sunday.”
So I watch the field.
Sure enough, it appears: distant, vague and gray.
I approach.
It’s my doppelgänger, looking horribly afraid.
“Soon,” it says.
GLOOMY SUNDAY, PART II
Death decides for most of us, but I’ve decided to take the reins.
Gloomy Sunday comes, cold and wet, to carry me down its dark, ancient drain.
I’m falling forever faster now, a filthy moth made clean.
Leaving behind a torn black veil, dirty white feet, and flowers in between.
THE JUPITER TREE
Thomas climbed that old black tree.
Stood on a low branch laughing at us for being afraid.
Then he jumped down and started across the field.
But that tree reached out and took him.
We ran.
All the fathers searched and dug.
They found Thomas’s bones tangled in the roots.
THE NIGHTMARCHERS
Never whistle at night, they told me when I moved to Hawaii, or the Nightmarchers will come!
Don’t ever sleep with your head near a window, they said, or a demon will decapitate you!
And if you wear shoes into the house, the Devil follows!
I live in Pennsylvania now.
TRICK OR TREAT
No one knew when it happened. Not even where it all began. All they knew was that he came once a year, and brought with him his demons of the night.
He would come by each house, knock and wait. Trick or treat is always the last thing they hear.
WHERE I COME FROM
Where I come from, they say Satan dwells behind children’s eyes.
They say someday soon, we’ll all suddenly scream, suffocate, burn, writhe—
They swear we’re born to die.
Where I come from, they say you’ll levitate if you lie.
Ever seen an entire village in the sky? Nor have I.
A MID-NIGHT VISITOR
‘Twas late October, a black eve, and Mother was away.
Sister and me was only wee; lit a candle when we got scared at the wind.
Came a sharp rapping—
Mother!—
We ran to see—
Opened our home instead to a laughing hag, feet burned away, rope around her neck.
HAUNTED HOUSEGUESTS
My friend begged me not to go up there.
“There’s something in that attic,” he said.
He and his wife had stayed here once, years back.
Apparently something had come down the attic stairs, stood by the bed over his wife. Breathing.
Clearly they didn’t recognize me in the dark.
HE’S COMING
He comes with black drapes like an abyss devouring all aspirations. A wide smile reaching the edge of his face, taunting at innocence. With teeth tainted by fresh crimson blood like he just savored a bite of flesh. Before you know it, he’s already full from your skin and blood.
BEAUTIFUL LUCINDA
Delbert studied, admired, and worshipped spiders.
Eventually he discovered a new spider: The Beautiful Lucinda.
“She is unique,” Delbert told me, “but soon she will be extinct.”
One day Delbert called. He was happy—and dying.
Afterward, doctors said he’d turned himself into the perfect incubator.
The Beautiful Lucinda thrived.
HEXED
I don’t go home anymore.
I neither speak nor sleep.
My tongue swells little by little. Soon it will grow down my throat and I will choke.
I’m ruined—cursed—hexed.
There’s a red witch in my cellar, you see.
I don’t go home anymore, but she’s coming for me.
SHE WON’T STAY BURIED!
She was taken with such sudden violence, now she won’t stay buried.
She’s a recurring pile of bones in my back garden.
She drowns in mid-air above my bed; she’s always singing inside my head.
Heaven help me, I’m haunted! She thinks I killed her, and she won’t stay buried!
THE WITCHING HOUR
Something opens the bedroom door every night at 3:04, its long sharp shadow stretching across the floor.
It stays there later every night, malignant in the moonlight slanting from the single window.
It has three voices: a child chanting, an animal panting, and a clock chiming, “‘Tis the Witching Hour!”
I like this!
OCTOBER 24
It was the time of year of lone black candles in dark windows.
I walked the woods, despairing, steps shuffling dead leaves—when I saw her standing across the creek:
Towering, powerful. Crying black tears. Dead, wet and red.
I knew her at once:
It was what waits for me.
I WILL DARKEN YOUR DOOR
What did you feel when my windpipe snapped under your thumbs?
When my gaze went two different ways?
How did it feel to feel my full weight?
My curiosity burns, is boundless, but—relief soon enough.
I will have the answers to all my questions:
I will darken your door.
THE MADAM IN BLACK
“Say I’m gorgeous, or I’ll have your head,” the Madam in Black said.
“You’re gorgeous.”
“And say you love me, or I’ll steal your breath,” the Madam in Black said.
“I love you.”
“And when I’m gone, then you’ll be dead,” the Madam in Black said.
Then she was gone.
Six Step Plan.
Step one, kiss the kids and wife goodnight.
Step two, shut the windows tight.
Step three, sneak out and block the doors.
Step four, pour the gasoline, three cans or more.
Step five, strike a match then toss it.
Step six, insurance profit.
Suggested edit-
Step six, collect insurance.
The Siner
“stop Lying Our the devil will have your tongue” say’s Mom
“sure he will” I reply
I tell one more lie later that day
I sit at my desk as I scream Something is yanking out my tongue.
The devil has takin my tongue and chocked me with it. DEAD!
The Cursed One
She sits and her bones start to break from out of her skin the exsersim has began the blood is dripping all over the bible. know her blood is in gods hand. her spine twist and crackles she’s lookin at me she runs on her hands. CLAP, CLAP LIGHTS OUT.
The Twisted Bones
Never can walk
Limbs twisted backwards.
Eyes are as black as the devils I stare into souls.
Lonely I lurk the night.
Feeding on those who have done nothing wrong I tear the intestine from your body and I feast on your blood. I enjoy the taste of happiness. ENJOY!
MOM’S FAVORITE RECIPES: DEAD MAN SOUP
“That’s a nice one.”
“Yup. Fought hard.”
Roy poked at the whimpering man with a long, sharp stick.
“Tough skin.”
“Soup?”
“Just like mom used to make.”
Roy finished the job, dug out the heart and liver, and handed it to his brother.
“Aw, Roy. You’re too good to me.”
The House
She watched him walk down the basement stairs, the first step creaking.
“Steven, it’s time to leave.”
Quiet exhales.
“You can’t scare me, let’s go.”
She headed towards the stairs, turning when Steven yelled for her to hurry.
He was waiting, already outside.
Behind her, she heard the step creak.
“The Doll”
It was on my steps; An exact image of myself. It had to be a present right? Such a beautiful doll to pretty to be played with; But just enough to be displayed upon my dresser. The next day when I woke, I was peering through it’s eyes instead of my own.
NATATORIUM
Fragile and innocent, they lie unconscious on the damp cement… their feet shackled in metal. A magnetic sludge churns in the pool. I watch as it pulls them, feet first, by invisible force. Their heads submerge. I scream in unbridled torment… my endless echo drowning in the vacuity.
Neither Hot Nor Cold
We survive in the fringes of the world. Once, we ruled. Now, they hunt us.
I see one in my home, eating my porridge. She sees us and grins.
“This one,” she said, cocking her pistol, “Is just right.”
Papa bear, mama bear, and I scream.
Over the river
Same cloudy dawn, same dim woods, same dirt path.
But this was my first time seeing the beast.
I saw a cloak dyed scarlet with the blood of its prey. It spoke with an unnaturally white grin.
“You’re cute! Let’s play!”
I fled from her, tail between my legs.
The Big Bad Wolf’s pack was slaughtered, Red had carried out Her vengeance and Grandma’s soul could now rest in peace.
Alone
I awoke to nothing. No light. No sound. I called out
“Hello?”
There wasn’t even an echo.
I could not detect bindings, yet I could not move.
I couldn’t even remember how I had gotten here.
I had no memory of anything.
I was nothing, in nothing.
No escape.
Alone.
Nature’s Subtlety
Winter, woods
Silently, sheepishly, snow covers all
Child, the cold acts fatally
Quick, quiet, subtle as poison
Void, vacant, no soul in sight
Mother, searching, can not be found
Nature, calmly, embraces the child
Mother, never again to see her boy
Unbeknownst to her, her child’s fate
Death, claims another
MIDNIGHT DANCERS
At midnight come the dancers, descending from dark heavens, to waltz upon my grave. Heads spinning on their shoulders, they see all that I have done. Their skirts are made of faces, all those that I have wronged. Behind them plays the Grim Piper, the one whom I must pay.
TIMBER IS MURDER!
It never occurred to Chester that his tastefully appointed townhouse was littered with the dismembered corpses of trees. Not, that is, until the credenza blocked him from the hall and the coatrack barred the door. Toppled by the floorboards, set upon by chairs, he mused, “Why shouldn’t trees be zombies?”
Cute.
EYES, EARS, NOSE AND THROAT
Most professionals like to go for the fingers, toes, the major internal organs. But I’m a specialist, you see. All the real fun is above the shoulders. Sinuses! Eardrums! Eyeballs and windpipe! So exquisitely sensitive! Playgrounds ripe for invention! Now, open up and say, “AHHHHH!” This might hurt a bit.
KIA
(2006)
James is a contractor for the United States government.
Delivering mail on the base.
He turns on Courage street.
Something sprints from the wood line. A human with no skin.
“I’m Matthew Bruce, a soldier, I’m not dead” he screams and darts back to the woods.
James sits paralyzed.
THE METER’S EXPIRED
Fall approached the coast, tourist season was ebbing.
A man rested.
He was awash in white softness, enjoying much sought after tranquility.
The sound of waves crashing in the distance calmed his nerves.
His vacation ruined by occasional honks of gridlock, as the mangled pedestrian groaned from under blood-soaked treads.
Wax
Wax museum after hours. It was dark but Casper was never afraid. He decided at a young age he would never be afraid, that’s what got him the job. As he spun his chair to look behind him, the stiff wax figure of Edgar Alan Poe shivered in the shadows.
The Eve Of The Dead
Old man Alfric said he saw something in Dead Man’s Woods. Now Blair was searching. Checked her watch: 3:00 AM. Spotting a flicker ahead, she rounded the corner to find a decaying stag and an abandoned campfire, still burning. Pausing to warm herself, she didn’t see the stag rise.
End Of The West
Jebediah had never seen anything like the moon-colored mist that settled over the ranch. Like evaporated tears from long-forgotten deities. As he stared from his rusty bedroom window, the inky black figure of a headless gunslinger emerged silently from the mist, stepped onto his front porch and knocked six times.
Once Bitten
Piercing my warm flesh,
He revels in the reward of my richness.
Blood slowly rolling down my neck, I’m wrapped tightly in his dark cloak.
Screaming my cry, I don’t bother resisting.
Helpless, I’m growing weaker by the second.
I fall to the ground. Drained. Pale.
I find strength in my thirst. I’m ready. It’s my turn.
HUH!
When Sarah dreams of other men, she floats above the bed. Up to the ceiling! She denies it, of course, but she’s doing it right now. I open the window and bob her through it like a balloon. Imagine my surprise when she drops like a stone to the street.
MY SOUL TO TAKE
She knelt by her bedside
as she did every night
said the Lord’s prayer
In dusk’s dimming light
Somewhere in darkness
out of vision’s reach
came a piercing glimmer
A sparkle of cold steel teeth
Eyes wide, breath shallow, grip strong
She waited for the end
It wouldn’t take long
The Intruder
I start to think to myself is there a noise coming from my room I start to walk upstairs and get a text saying don’t come up here I continue then he starts to walk toward me and he texts me run then I turn around and there he is.
WHAT FEAR IS
Look at me. Fear is not pain, or a pounding heart, or a shot of adrenaline. Fear is not inside you. It comes from outside, bringing the certain knowledge that all that you are no longer belongs to you, but it. Want to know what fear is? Look at me.
Gone
You have to hide. You have to escape. Your ears perk up, a sound. His footsteps coming closer.
“Come out girlie.” he whispers in a singsong voice. You turn to run. But there he is.
“Found you.” He says with a grin.
You were fourteen, you’re never heard from again.
We should have know better
“Come on, my bag is already full. Let’s go back,” I tell my friend.
She doesn’t listen, knocks at the door and no answer.
We hear the clink of a chain-link fence and growling.
We’re both full-on running down the middle of the block from a dog closing on us.
HORROR IS NOT DARK
It is over-bright and grotesquely colored, full of neon obscenities that crowd your sanity and violate your mind, entering you as you fall, forever, down infinite fractal wells. It is the boiling and melting of your mind in the brilliance of madness! It is the eternally lighted terror of reality!
MONSTERS
There are no monsters living in the closet or under the bed. A creaking of the stairs is the house settling. It’s only trees scratching against the window as the storm rages outside.
No there are no monsters living under the bed, except the one that just ate my brother.
Bye Bye Baby
Sarah wasn’t a bad person. She went to church and paid her taxes. Her baby screamed and screamed. Sarah gently put her baby on the sidewalk and walked away. Her co-worker’s claws raked down her chest as she lay tied on the table. He growled; “Where is my baby Sarah?”.
CORNERED
As I walked briskly down the ominous hotel corridor, a chilling breeze caressed my exposed ankles. My heart sunk as I impatiently pressed the elevator button. I stepped into the dim steel chamber, and the dense doors sealed behind me. I sighed, relieved, until a dangerous breath stung my neck.
Burried Mistake
Burried my wife, took the wedding ring by cutting the finger.Running through a dark misty forests, don’t know from what. Wolf howling or hounds chasing.Saw a cottage, went in and saw a young frail women. She offered me a hot beverage.
I noticed about her cut finger. Asked her about what happened.She said because of
YOU!
Burried Mistake
Burried my wife, took the expensive wedding ring by cutting the finger.Running through the dark misty forests, don’t know from what. Wolf howling and half terror struck, saw a cottage, went in and saw a young frail women. She offered me a hot beverage. I noticed about her cut finger. Asked her about what happened.She said because of
YOU!!!
Pitter Patter
I wake to the sound of pitter pattering along the floor. My aunt’s old house has sat abandoned since her death three months ago. ‘Rats.’
Turning on the lamp shows the truth.
“Dear God, it’s the dolls!” I scream as they begin to crawl up the foot of my bed.
The Presentation
I struggle out of bed as I have an early presentation to the Board. I groggily step inside the bathroom and enter – – – The Boardroom. I turn, but the door’s disappeared.
“Are you out of your mind?!” shouts someone.
I rub my eyes hard, but they’re still there.
Sunday dinner,
The family gathered around the table, no one was the wiser of my absent husbands chair.
I watched intently as my uncle passed the tray of ribs to my sister, and hoped I did a good job cleaning out all the buckshot’s!
Sanguinary Sangria
Blackout curtains shielded the room from sunlight. Sprawled on vermilion silk sheets, languid and nude, a punctured man clutched the stem of a broken wineglass. Veronica hung inverted above him, her ivory legs coiling a velvet rope.
“You should have swiped left,” she said, his blood dripping from her fangs.
Christmas
I opened my eyes withering in pain, I couldn’t move or scream.
foggy eyed and groggy, but aware that I was suspended and lightly swinging; I noticed another woman hanging off a hook beside me … suddenly he swung me around gawking at me, licked his lips then smiled as he turned to reach for the hatchet he began to sing “t’is the season to be jolly”……
Illusions
“Girls!” Elise called from the bottom of the stairs, nails digging into the banister. “Hush! You know mommy has headaches!”
Why were they screaming?
She took the stairs 3 at a time and threw open their playroom door.
Bodies on the floor, the knife was just where she left it.
Who’s Missing
In a small town like Cliffburg, nobody ever goes missing, but Lisa.
“POOR LISA, she got lost and confused in this drugged world” said the investigator. A little more than a year later, the parents get a call from their daughter. Which confused them because they had killed her.
Heavy Heart
Too much. It was too much, mind spiraling faster than he could process. Quick breaths, burning eyes, every muscle tightening until they snapped. Was this a heart attack? Was this what it felt like to die? Hands shaking, he gripped at his shirt but his hand went straight through.
First Blood
“How much?” I asked, palms damp.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, just a few millimeters of blood,” the nurse smiled, closing in with her needle.
It was when the glimmer of fluid reflected through the syringe that she injected, my eyes instantly growing heavy.
The last I saw was her catlike smile.
INTRUDER
My heart is pounding as footsteps get closer. The door flies wide open. An ominous shadow floods the room. Furniture topples as he searches. Sudden light brings false hope as my hiding place is discovered. A squeal escapes right before the knife begins to pierce my body over and over.
Mind on Canvas, 2019
One last painting. A textured burst of color never seen before.
He positions the canvas at eye level, behind him.
He selects his brush, loads it with paint.
For an even coating without destroying the canvas, “hollow-point” works best.
Clenching the brush between his teeth, he makes his final stroke.
La Llorona
Down by the river in a gown of snowy white, weeps a lovely young woman visible through moons light. She cries for her children come night or day, the children she’s drowned in the bay. If she sees you alone, she may claim you as a child of her own.
HEIMLICH
He assumes the lady at the next table is choking on her food. He tries to clear her airway, but she seizes and screams as thick black fluid explodes from her mouth and nose. As he recoils, writhing, red tentacles burst from her face and wrap themselves around his throat.
Consumed
As I lay there in agony, the acrid stench of rotting human flesh filled my nose as it simmered over the fire. The sound of snapping bones and slurped bowels echoed within my ears. I wept, as maggoty meat parted my lips, while the creature whispered, “eat or be eaten.”
Mrs. Hide
I yelled and pleaded for mercy as she stripped the flesh from my bones, like peeling the skin from an apple. My vision began to blur, as the witch draped my bloody hide around herself, metamorphosing into my identical clone, walking off into the night as I lay there dying.
BUNGEE
Umph! There, a bit slippery, but that knot should hold. You know, they say the human intestine is twenty-five feet long. ‘Course, I’m not a college fellah like you. How far down you think it is to the river? Thirty feet? What ya reckon? Bounce or splash? Bon voyage, Einstein!
Brick by brick
Brick by brick Donny built his wall. No windows, no doors, nothing but wall. Tall enough from ladders, deep enough from tunnels and wide enough from boats. He steps back in awe, amazed in his work, only to realize, he’s on the wrong side.