Welcome to our 50 Word of Horror in 2024 Contest. We know you long for the creepy vibes and chilling thrills of Halloween all year round. The monsters may go back in the closet after October 31st, but that doesn’t satisfy your horror cravings. To truly feed that hunger for terror deep in your bones, we need spine-tingling tales crafted with word economy that overflow with dread. We want stories that quicken pulses, widen eyes, and unleash screams with only half a hundred words. So sharpen your literary knives and craft the most shocking short short to submit by March 5th, 2024. We dare you to compress epic horror into an itsy package of 50 words or less that completes yet utterly terrifies. If you scare our judges out of their wits, you may just win a promotional package to die for.
The rules:
- It must be a horror story
- It must be 50 words or less
- It must be a complete story
- Entries must be submitted by March 5th, 2024
- Enter as many stories as you like!
- Post your story in the comments below
- Entries must be submitted in the comments below
- Scariest Story Wins
The prizes:
- The top scream selected by our judges wins a promotional package
- Includes website features, email blasts, and social media posts
- Your story will be featured on our site and in our March issue
We want to send bone-rattling shivers down spines with deliciously dark tales. Our past contests have unearthed terrified gems of ultra-short horror, and we long to discover more. Will your story be the next to horrify? Put on your creator of creepiness hat and craft a complete 50-word horror story overflowing with dread. It must terrify, yet leave readers longing for more goosebumps. Enter multiple times to up your chances of striking fear into our judge’s hearts. What disturbing tales does your imagination hide? Now is the time to unleash them. Polish your most shocking short short and leave your scary submissions in the comments below, if you dare! We eagerly await the twisted stories your mind births when constrained to just 50 words. Don’t hold back your horror – let it breathe life in less space than a tweet. Our hungry judges are ready to select which tiny tale will win the prize. Make us shudder! Enter as many times as you like!
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As dusk fell, Katherine pulled over to the side of the road, her car seemingly breaking down. Checking under the hood by the dim light, she suddenly stared into pale green eyes in the shadows beneath the chassis, smiling hungrily back at her.
Jenny smiled as she drifted to sleep, blissfully unaware of the long spindly shadow detaching from the corner and creeping towards her bed. She didn’t hear the faint skittering of numerous skeletal limbs emerging from the darkness as eight red eyes focused unblinkingly upon her helpless form nestled cozily under the blankets.
It was just after midnight, when I heard my five years old daughter screaming, The terror of fright was in my child’s voice, her eyes stared wide as the tears fell without stopping.
“Mommy ;she said it’s look at me ! ”
Pointing her finger ,but my eyes sees nothing.
In the dark, eerie woods, shadows whispered evil. Sarah, alone and lost, felt a chilly breath around her neck. Hidden eyes watched as branches snapped into halves. A distant horrific melody played. Frozen, she realized the truth: the forest itself was hungry for her fear and the night aided it.
A gloomy night. Cursed spirits everywhere. Eyeing me down through my each step. Their eyes with intent to kill. I walk through with goosebumps. Not positive if I’m going to make it out alive. I’m inside my car. Best believe I’m going to drive far. Soon my back door opens.
Gloomy night. Cursed spirits everywhere. Eyeing me down through my each step. Their eyes with intent to kill. I walk through with goosebumps. Not positive if I’m going to make it out alive. I’m inside my car. Best believe I’m going to drive far. Soon my back door opens.
On a stormy rainy night Jennette heard a sound. Not of someone crying but rather howling And it was right outside the bedroom window. Grabbing his raincoat and shotgun. He stepped outside the front door . And it grab a hold of him and ate up alive.
I lay there in the cold and colorless night. I never wanted this. The physical manifestation of my love for him lay beside me, writhing on the ground. I can’t move, but my heart continues to beat. I stare at it, hoping to reverse what he did to me.
‘’Clare‘’
‘’Clare wake up’’
‘’What is it’’?
‘’I can’t find the kids’
‘’They must be upstairs or playing in the backyard’’
‘’No I have checked everywhere’’
‘’Oh my god Stuart’’
‘’What happened’’?
‘’Just don’t move and look back’’.
‘’Why’’?
‘’They are holding the same axe we used on them’’
Tom scampered into the principal’s office. He found and picked up his phone from the principles desk. A voicemail. He lifted his phone to his ear.
The principles voice boomed from the phone.
“Schools and phones don’t mix. Here’s why.”
Both the phone and Tom clattered to the floor.
Eireen is standing on my porch. Older than ever. Grizzley skin. We were lovers. She invited herself in a hurry to talk yesterday. She said she would bring her daughter. There was no girl. Just a new shade in the hallway mirror, I noticed. She was eager to leave again.
“Alex! You need to get out of here!” I yelled. She turned around. She had a knife in her chest. “Don’t let them hurt you the way they hurt me,” she said smiling. She fell backwards off the balcony. I woke up. It was all a dream.
Every day other day in the town of Stellville, Two people go missing.. Then the very next day, bloody bones appear at the edge of the woods.. Is it a coincidence? Of course it is! Says the human eating monster that lives in the woods.
Hilarious!
Why do zombies eat the brains of humans? I said, I mean wouldn’t they just digest the brains!?
But there was no reply.. because my dear dear friend was being turned into a zombie while I spoke.
Grandmother dies. Mother says: Better late than never. Don’t open the kitchen window.
That night Mother sleeps in Grandmother’s bed. Daughter sleeps in the kitchen as usual.
When dead limbs skitter in the outer dark, Daughter wakes. She opens the window, climbs through, and stumbles—glancing backward every minute—away.
My dog, Shuck, suddenly stopped dead in the forest darkness. The amber eyes and bared white teeth of a feral pack formed a barrier to our walk home.
“Heel Shuck,” my hoarse voice whispered.
Shuck looked from the pack to me, then howled, salivating, and joined them circling me.
“There are babies and then there are babies,” smiled my midwife, grimly, gently washing my newborn in the sink, “But each one is a mirror of its mother’s virtue – or otherwise.”
“So what have you been up to?” she asked, putting the damp, squealing green octopod to my nipple.
The Courtesans face contorted under the sheer veil, undulating like ripples on a pond, now disturbed.
“What else have you desired?”, she cooed, caressing his thigh with wet fingers that slithered, searching for ribcage, spine, then collar.
“Did you enjoy your beverage? Why do you think you’re here?”
I was awoken by scratching sounds. I peeled open my eyes, heavy with sleep. Slowly looking up, I was afraid of what I might see. A creature hung above me. The eyes were too wide, and it’s mouth hung open in a demented grin. And then, it fell onto me.
Awakened by another nightmare, she reached for the comfort of her husband while she still could.
Cold. A deep, hard cold.
Her eyes flew open. No—the doctor said six months…
He smiled stiffly, mouth cracking open Joker-style, revealing skin too dead to bleed and his newly-pointed teeth.
“Breakfast in bed?”
Winners of this contest will be included in our next issue. The issue will be published the first week of April We loved so so many of these, outstanding writing. More than our top 3 might appear in the issue. .
Congratulations to:
Winners
1. Eric Jack Sanger’s story about the dog Shuck
2. JONATHAN CLAYTON’s story about the dead grandmother
3. Nikki Hess’s breakfast in bed story:
Awesome! Thank you, Richard—I’m honored! Congrats to all the winners.
Transcribing the novel, my fingers ran along the stitches and paper like the skin of a corpse.
Endlessly typing, the inky letters fading.
I must continue typing,
So I cut through my wrists, dripping it on the typebars.
The keyboard and letters now sticky and crimson, the novel never completed.