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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

“Reggie's Story” by Andrea Corwin

Submitted to Contest #221

Reginald absolutely hated it when Marie walked through him. She scatters his ethereal outline when she decides to enter the room while he is standing in the doorway. Doesn’t she realize it actually discombobulates my aura? I think she takes great glee in it! “Dammit, Reggie, get out of my way!” Ghosts block my path all the time, she mumbles to herself. The crystal pendants on the chandelier begin shaking. “Reggie, stop it. I don’t want crystals falling and denting the table. STOP!” Reggie heeds her shouting...

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“Remorse of a Depraved Heart ” by Luca King Greek

Submitted to Contest #221

Six Months PriorAt the prayer group meeting in Unit 2, at the Maine State Prison, half a dozen inmates found temporary solace in communion, an oasis of humanity in a barren place. Among them was a relatively youthful man of a broken and yearning heart., barely twenty-five years old. He hung his head and prayed hard, harder than any man should, so hard that he sucked a singularity through a cleft in eternity, he stirred up the spirits of the dead, the other prisoners could feel it, and it drew a rush of energy into the recreation room.&n...

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“the Board and the Boy” by Jackson Donaldson

Submitted to Contest #221

Jason plopped down on the couch. He grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. He flicked through the channels and found Thursday night football. He grabbed his bowl of freshly-popped buttery popcorn, set down the remote and began tossing some popcorn into his mouth. "Jason!" His mom called. "Yeah?" Jason called back with a mouth full of popcorn. His mom walked into the room and looked at the TV, then at Jason. "Have you studied for the test tomorrow?" She said. "You mean on Friday?" Jason said back. "Yeah. That's tomorrow." Jason sat up. His ...

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“Hell House” by Ian Patterson

Submitted to Contest #221

TW: Child AbuseThis isn’t so much a story, as a real thing that happened to me. The more time that passes since though, it feels like fiction. I’ve never been the most honest story-teller either; I would embellish details shamelessly if it added to the drama. Couple that with a memory that’s half as good as it should be at my age, and I don’t always trust what I remember. So year after year I’d search the internet to see if I could find another version of the story out there, find someone else that had been to that abando...

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“The Dead Zone” by Josephine Harris

Submitted to Contest #221

Michael Horowitz prided himself on never paying for anything if he could get it for free, but this time got more than he bargained for.Michael stopped short at larceny, or so he thought, as he’d convinced himself that Internet pirating wasn’t theft. He loved to read, and justified downloading e-books from torrent sites on the basis that greedy publishers overpriced books; he wouldn’t know if the book was worth buying until he’d finished it; the publishers ripped off the authors anyway; and it wasn’t like stealing a physical book from a books...

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“The Lover's Remorse” by Shayna Keller

Submitted to Contest #221

I was high on the novelty of Autumn when I accepted a date with Cameron Holt. Next year, I'm wearing a clothespin to avoid the smell of cinnamon and pumpkin spice and blinders to avoid all the photogenic couples that I’m not a part of. Don't misunderstand me, I'm single the rest of the year, too. There's just something about FALL that contributed to my sense of isolation. Cameron Holt. He was handsome and charming. There I was in line at my favorite cafe, loneliness draped over me like a blanket. When he casually asked me out...

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“Poppy” by A.J. Howl

Submitted to Contest #221

Mrs. Hanbury paced along the hard oak floor. The sound of the ancient grandfather clock ticked away at her patience as she paced faster and faster. She would glance at the door every time she passed by, as if waiting for someone to come bursting through. In fact, she was expectant of it. It had been nearly two weeks since her husband, Mr. Hanbury, had come home. With every glance up at the door her heart leaped a little, as if her husband would come barging in at that exact moment. Oh, how that excited her nerves. To see her hus...

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“In the woods” by Lori Trainor

Submitted to Contest #221

In the woods North Preston is the largest black community in Nova Scotia by population and has the highest concentration of African Canadians in any community in Canada. The population was 3,223 in 2021. This is a decline from 2006 when Preston had a population of 3,536. North Preston also includes the beautiful Lake Echo in which a river flows through the community. Ashayo was a shy, quiet, yet happy little guy. His short 10 years of life on this earth were thought to be quite uneventful. The community in wh...

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“Crowfeather Manor” by Arjun Goel

Submitted to Contest #221

On an oppressively stormy night, the sort that would make even the bravest heart quiver, I wandered into the grand, eerily silent dining room of Crowfeather Manor. As I creaked open the window, a biting wind surged in, bearing with it not just the wet tang of rain but a hint of something rotten. From afar, a lone wolf's howl pierced the atmosphere, sending cold ripples through the air. I was hypnotized as a shadowy owl, made its descent onto a withered tree. I watched mesmerized, as its sheer, white wings flapped through the air. It s...

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“Power” by Lara Taylor

Submitted to Contest #221

TW: This story contains references to implied/past sexual violence. “You can do this. Don’t you trust me?” Her fierce hazel eyes bore into me, holding me where I stood. The answer stuck to my tongue, dishonesty feeling out of place even in my sleep-hindered state, so instead I asked a question of my own. “What makes you so sure?” The eyes twinkled in the half-light of the bathroom, and I might have even thought the face from which they were peering out was pretty; her hair a coppery blonde that reminded me of my mom...

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“The Ghost of Me” by Hannah Andrews

Submitted to Contest #221

She appears peripherally, in a shimmering blaze of brightness, like sun glinting off a mirror splice. I catch my breath and turn my head slowly towards her, anticipating her disappearance. She crisps into focus. I blink, and then again, slide my sunglasses down my nose, then back in place, positive the polarized lenses will render her but a glare. She remains. If she is real, am I the ghost? I pinch myself. Per usual, I feel nothing. My feet hold fast as if weighted, as if they are sandbags guarding against a flash flood. My mouth is...

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“A Sister's Secret” by Megan Skaggs

Submitted to Contest #221

The silence around the dining room table was nearly deafening. The occasional clink of silverware against ceramic plates provided the only relief from the constant ringing in Sasha's ears."So, I guess we're just not going to talk about it then?" She asked sheepishly, looking down at her hands in her lap. More silence. More clinking. Sasha worked up the nerve to glance around the table, and not one of them had even looked up from their dinner plate. She turned her eyes to the ceiling to keep the tears welling in her eyes from running down her...

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“A Ghost's Story” by Aaron Mooney

Submitted to Contest #221

It starts with the nightmare. Not every night, necessarily, but enough of them to burn an image into my mind’s eye. It climbs the stairs leading up to my room where I sleep, where I work and eke out my meager existence. I shouldn’t call it an It, really, when I know in my gut that it’s a He. He calls himself Stanley; that’s what I hear in my sleep, whispered in my ear where his breath touches me like wisps of smoke. Sometimes he does more tangible things than that. I hear Him walking up the stairs leading to my room; heavy bootsteps thuddin...

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“The Drop Dead Cafe” by Claire Louise Poole

Submitted to Contest #221

I gloved Jamie’s small hand in mine and squeezed it so tight, in those minutes before and after take-off, that his lips disappeared into a colourless thin line. The anti-anxiety tablets I’d popped out of their little foil caskets earlier had helped a bit to calm my nerves, but I couldn’t let go—not yet. ‘It’s ok mum. Nothing’s going to happen to us,’ Jamie whispered as he smiled up at me. His watery blue eyes were drenched in a love that I struggled to hold on to without the additional prickles of guilt that journeyed way beyond skin ...

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“The Ghost Adagio” by Mae Siu-Wai Stroshane

Submitted to Contest #221

In the basement of the Kenmore Conservatory of Music, the practice rooms are dark and gloomy, with radiators that clank like Marley's ghost and steam that clogs your lungs like molasses. Room 8 is the worst of all. The fluorescent lights flicker constantly, giving you a headache. But that's not the main reason no one wants to go in there. They say it's haunted. Year after year, some unfortunate students have to use that room when the rest are being used. They stumble out wild-eyed, barely able to talk. “It’s foggy and there’s a terrib...

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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!

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