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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#221: Ghostly

With Halloween fast approaching, I find myself thinking about the different kinds of spooky stories we like to tell each other. Year after year, there’s one particular topic I gravitate towards when in search of a thrill: ghosts. Whether they’re friendly or vengeful, these haunting spectors represent more than just our fears and anxieties around our own mortality. They’re also symbols of the collision between the past and present, and the ways what has been can tangibly affect what will be. It’s no wonder, with the universality of these themes, that ghosts feature in folklore from all around the world. 


This week, as the veil between worlds continues to thin, let’s dive into that liminal space between life and death, and see what it has to offer us. 


This week's prompts

Write a story from a ghost’s point of view.

Halloween – 134 stories

Write a story about someone who is haunted. Whether by a ghost or something else is up to you.

Halloween – 138 stories

Write a story about someone trying to raise the dead.

Halloween – 49 stories

Write a story where ghosts and the living coexist.

Halloween – 69 stories

Set your story in a world where contacting the dead is as easy as making a phone call.

Halloween – 35 stories

Stories

“VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED” by Charles Corkery

Submitted to Contest #221

VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED For a few brief minutes, Hannah was able to look back on the emerald green vista of her homeland and breathe the cool, clean Irish air before she was herded below to her quarters in the hold of the John Knox, the ship that was to carry her and three hundred more of her country folk to the promised land of British North America.Like most, she had slaved to raise the two pounds needed for her fare so that she could join her mother, brother and sister who had gone before her, six months earlier. They had promised to write a...

3 comments 3
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“Life in Death” by Rudy Greene

Submitted to Contest #221

Son, I read your letters every day. Keep them coming. I know there are skeptics out there that don’t believe that we are in contact with the living but trust me, we are. I am always with you and follow you in your daily life. I can see dangers before you do and can travel far and wide. It’s actually freeing to be extracorporeal. The sky’s the limit takes on new meaning when you’re dead. I watched the fires devastate your beautiful town and take away your family. I’m sure you felt my tears and sorrow. Dad and I wanted so much to hug and comfo...

15 comments 15
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“Still” by Eddie McKenzie

Submitted to Contest #221

She couldn't recognise the house. Not anymore. The subtle flower wallpaper she had been so terribly fond of had been torn so carelessly away only to be replaced with some ghastly geometric eye-strain of colours and irrational patterns. The furniture, both those she had found herself or those given to her from her family had been hauled off to some auction or another or donated to wherever it was that people who wanted to act like they were doing good donated things. In their place stood mockeries of what had been there before, cheap and perp...

3 comments 3
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“A Long Day’s Work” by H.R. Bennett

Submitted to Contest #221

A Long Day’s WorkTrigger Warning: Violence, Gore, Loss, DeathWe thought we were ready.We thought we had seen it all.We thought we could handle anything that could be thrown at us.To be fair, up until that point, that was true. Armond and I had survived so much together on our little adventures, that we no longer thought of ourselves as mortal in the traditional sense. What was the threat of the average, mundane weapon when our training could simply knock it away? What was the threat of magic when we had magic of our own? What was the threat ...

0 comments 0
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“Haunted” by Mira Hikari

Submitted to Contest #221

I look through the glass that separates us. I see her crawling, her arm stretched forward, calling for my help. Drowning under black shadows. Huge and small. Floating above her and lurking in shadows and corners far away. Black smokey figures, some resemble wings, others resemble fangs, or tails. Some in the shape of people or devils.  "Please, I need your help," she wails. "Don't worry, I'm here for you," I raise my arm and channel my power to my palms. A shimmering ball of light erupts from my hand. I aim forward, at the scariest and ...

2 comments 2
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“The Hanged Prince” by Robert Satterfield

Submitted to Contest #221

Once, and never again, Death did not come. Everywhere was blackness. Faces blotted through the shadows like inky letters bleeding from one page to another, staining layers of the King’s miasmic manifesto who sat upon his throne surrounded by the darkness as if afloat a pond reflecting stars betwixt a forest shrouded in night, entranced with fear by the hellish play twinkling in the sky above that plagued his sleepless mind with paranoia. Every rasping breath bulged his milk-glass eyes wide in terror of what lies beyond the veil of light. He ...

4 comments 4
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“Noises in the Dark” by Greg Gillis

Submitted to Contest #221

           It was early October when the Thompson family first arrived in Gooseberry, a quaint old town that was centuries old.            James Thompson, his wife, Mary, and their son, Jacob, moved into a nineteenth century Queen Anne Style home at the edge of town. It had been abandoned over a decade ago, so James was able to buy it up at a price that was well below market value.         ...

4 comments 4
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“Historic House for Sale, Complimentary Ghost” by Kat Z

Submitted to Contest #221

“It’s a bit of a fixer-upper but it has potential to be a great home.” Eliza entered through the front door with yet another possible owner. This was the worst time for humans to be wandering around my land. I had just aired out the last four unwanted guests.  “If I were you I would put in my offer now. The two couples I showed the house to are scrambling to gather their offer as we speak.”  The guest walked past Eliza, silently exploring the kitchen. He paused and wrinkled his nose at my kitchen. I must say that the design of ...

4 comments 4
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“We Need to Haunt” by Cecilia Englishby

Submitted to Contest #221

“Good evening and welcome to The Late Hour! It is 10PM and a Friday night, and you all know what that means!” The audience cheered loudly. “Settle in and grab your popcorn folks. I am your host, Daniel Taylor - but please call me DT - and we are Live!”The presenter, DT was nothing Lacey hadn’t seen a thousand times before; slick black hair framing a tanned face with a five-o-clock shadow, silvering temples and an immaculately tailored outfit made of finest materials.So flashy! Lacey didn’t like flash, but she needed him. He was popular, infl...

13 comments 13
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“The Giant that Rose Again” by Jonathan Page

Submitted to Contest #221

Failure haunts me like a generational curse. And it seems that every time I glimpse a retirement from the traveling show, my fortunes go up in flames. Every time I imagine putting away my soap box and signing over my many promotions and wonders into capable hands, the world forces me back into servitude.In the days of my first traveling menagerie, my giants were all phonies, but my little people were legitimate. By the time I returned from Europe to present General Tom Thumb at the American Museum on Broadway and Ann Street, more than ten ye...

4 comments 4
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“A Medium Roast Haunting” by Penny Gautreaux

Submitted to Contest #221

Being a ghost wasn’t as bad as you might think. But when I first started it was definitely a learning curve. The trouble I ran into is there wasn’t really anyone to show me the ropes. There are lots of dead people of course, more of them than there are living people actually. The thing is though most of them don’t stick around. When someone dies, usually there is someone there to collect them. Sometimes it's a family member or an ancestor. Other times it is some messenger like an angel or a Valkyrie. They get up out of their bodies and poof ...

3 comments 3
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“Guests” by Audrey Knox

Submitted to Contest #221

I am woken up from a deep sleep by the sound of the front door downstairs unlocking and creaking open. Unfamiliar sounds waft into my home. I am groggier than I ever have been. “It’s huge!” I hear a woman’s voice say. I beam with pride. Her companion coughs. “And so dusty. And full of cobwebs. We’ll have to get the cleaning crew in here first thing.” I frown. I have always been proud of my family’s home, and to hear someone disparage it like this makes me defensive. “Well, that’s what happens when you let a place go to ruin for this...

11 comments 11
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“The Veil” by Tima Renee

Submitted to Contest #221

The Veil By Tima Renee            We were all in a state of unrest. It felt like an hour that we would normally be nestled under our cozy blankets dreaming childish dreams. Instead, we were awake and sitting in the center of our dark bedroom. A tall pale candle burned in the window casting the shadows of our little bodies across the walls. We sat quietly together with the dark buried in the four corners of the room. “Laurel, stop crying!” Quail demanded. “You’re such a baby Laurel,” Te...

2 comments 2
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“Feast” by Carol Stone

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #221

Feast It’s 2 a.m. Cassie’s mournful dirge drifts up from the pantry. I lie in bed staring at the moonlight through the open window, exhausted from the absence of sleep, pondering whether tonight is the night I start to set boundaries, feign ignorance to my daughter’s call for attention or go downstairs to take care of her needs as I have done every night since she died.     The illuminated hands of the clock read 2.30 a.m. by the time she falls silent. For a moment hope offers me its hand. Has the torment finally ended?...

5 comments 5
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“Shop Some More” by Michelle Ko

Submitted to Contest #221

Shop Some More A poetic short ghost story by Michelle Ko Inspired by The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe It was a dreary night, and worries filled my head. There was a sense of doom inside me. I could not rest in bed, so I took my tablet off my nightstand and used its light as I walked through the darkness to my living room.  I felt such a sense of lonely gloom as I sat on a recliner armchair. It was only after I turned on my tablet, the ceiling awash with its eerie light, that I felt better. A thrill ran through my veins, as I found my f...

4 comments 4
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$250

Prize money

425

Contest entries

148

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Oct 27, 2023 EST

Won by Bay Colt 🏆

Title: Clearance Aisle Libations

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

Prompts | Big Blue Hand | 2024-11

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