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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#272: Fright Night

Don’t forget to use the hashtag #ReedsyFright to share your stories (and potentially be featured on our social accounts)!

Spooky season has arrived, and what better way to embrace this time of year than by diving into some spine-chilling writing? I’m constantly amazed by the variety of enthralling narratives we come across in this contest — from subtle, eerie stories with sinister undertones to tales that are outright macabre.

So, as one of the year's most popular holidays approaches, let’s get into the Halloween spirit and conjure up some creepy tales. Grab your coziest sweater and favorite hot drink, and let’s get writing!

This week's prompts

Write a story with the aim of scaring your reader.

Short Story – 112 stories

Start or end your story with someone running away from something, literally or metaphorically.

Dramatic – 85 stories

Write a story from the point of view of a ghost, vampire, or werewolf.

Short Story – 144 stories

Center your story around someone trying to resist their darker impulses — and they’ll either succeed or fail.

Angst – 63 stories

Write a story in which the narrator or a character says "Did you hear that?"

Short Story – 84 stories

Stories

“Sam, the Medium” by Nero Katu

Submitted to Contest #272

Amira set the last of my remaining clothes into a cardboard box. The only belongings of mine that did not burn in the fire were my blue velvet cardigan, my floral headband, and an old Archie comic that I let Amira borrow ages ago. She’d been paranoid for the last month. I always knew Amira to be superstitious, but I never thought she’d be scared of me. Every night, she scanned her bedroom and she’d even started sleeping with a nightlight. And when her mom asked her why she was so skittish, Amira said “it's as if Leila were following me ...

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“Life Sucks” by Jed Cope

Submitted to Contest #272

The bookends to Winter are drab and dismal. The branding of Spring lifted it to a position of renewal and positivity. The poster boys, lambs disco dancing in green and pleasant fields. But that is the end of Spring with the promising warmth of Summer already on the horizon and underwriting the proceedings. Equally, the vast majority of autumn is miserable, grey and wet. Seldom are there crisp mornings decorated with banks of artfully crafted leaves of every hue of brown barring the awful beiges sported by geography teachers. Nor the alarming...

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“Swan Song” by Jerry W.

Submitted to Contest #272

I do not awaken so much as arrive abruptly in an awake state. It is as though I drifted off mid sentence and my eyes open again a moment later. I discern only the deepest black. I am in a dark roomâ€”the attic? I know I’m at homeâ€”it smells like home. But why I slept up here. . . Cobwebs cover my arms and I shudder as earwigs slither beneath me. My neck aches and I wince, loath to touch it. My arms are stiff and I each breath feels like it is drawn through cotton. Caldwell and I must have had a fight, although I cannot remember the sp...

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“A Dead Heart Still Aches” by Rae Brocato

Submitted to Contest #272

I turn the corner, missing my reflection in the glass of the retail store but still staring, as if I can convince my pale skin to paint a shadow in the window; but even my reflection fears the person I’ve morphed into. Yet, I yearn to see a familiar face, even if it’s just my own. I’m not sure how the lines on my skin have set in, I don’t know if my new hair colour matches my lifeless complexion, I don’t know if my lips hold their pigmentation as they did when I was a teen; my identity has gotten lost in translation. I have not made eye-con...

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“An Evening by the Fire” by Marie Fielding

Submitted to Contest #272

Hey! Here I am again! Look at me! I am gracefully and noiselessly sliding down the creaky wooden stairs - two flights - but none of the steps creak under me. I smoothly cross the room - no-one notices; noisy bunch doesn't seem to have their wits about them - and I make my way straight to the chair in the corner by the fire, the big leather comfy one where I can get all the heat. Because Lord do I need some heat. 'Hey, it's cold in here! Anyone left a window open?' Someone shouts annoyingly and gets up to go and check the windows and doo...

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“The Zombie's Ghost” by S.M. Sykes

Submitted to Contest #272

My name was Allen, I was a high-powered New York lawyer. I wore $5,000 Armani suits and drove a high-end Lexus sedan during the week and a Range Rover on the weekends. I had three houses—two in New York and one in Santa Monica and I was good-looking too. Not to be arrogant, I took pride in my looks. I spent almost as much time in the gym as in the courtroom. My body was a temple. I never let anything with preservatives or sugar enter it. I had a date every weekend. Models, actresses and even a few princesses. I would...

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“The genesis of a demon.” by Charles Dean

Submitted to Contest #272

-You must consume, my child. There is no other choice. –Sieglinde stared at her bloody hands as they trembled. She battled against herself and she could feel it. She wished to eat and she knew it. The stench of fresh blood flooded the poorly lit room and her mouth watered as the only coherent thought running through her head was to eat. As a famished mongrel, she turned around and saw the body of her father lying dead behind a broken table.She stood up sauntering towards the corpse, and even though she tried her best to resist the urge and b...

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“A Ghost in Time's Shadow” by Noga Kohavi

Submitted to Contest #272

(The story contains themes of death, loss, and grief:) Color. Vision. Overwhelming. I stared into a blue abyss, unblinking. I… I didn’t need to blink. My eyes didn’t water, they just stayed exactly the same, as I continued staring forward. I turned my neck and looked around, still seeing everyone crowded around me. They were all screaming and crying, and a couple were on the phone. “What’s going on?” I said, touching my neck, and realizing that I was no longer choking, gasping for air. “I’m all good now, why is everyone still so freaked...

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“Vampire Business” by Mithradites Ra

Submitted to Contest #272

CHAPTER 1 “How many stakes does it take to kill a vampire?” “I don’t know, how many?” “Just the one, as long as it has enough garlic seasoning” It was a terrible joke for many reasons, not even including the fact that most vampires had long ago become impervious to garlic. A wooden stake made from certain trees was still the sure fire way to go about it but even sunlight was now mostly just bright and gruelling on the senses (an effect that could be assuaded with a Blessed Object, a magical item or one of those cutting-edg...

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“The Awakening” by Moa Holmertz

Submitted to Contest #272

I woke up. The first thing I felt was the cold, but I didn’t feel cold. The cold intensified as I pressed my hands against the cold pale walls around me, only to realize that I was confined into a small space. Carefully I felt my way around with both hands and feet just to figure out where I was, while also trying to remember how I got here in the first place. However, I realized that I didn’t remember much at all. The only thing I managed to grasp were small fragments of memories. Veiny dry hands eagerly caressing my body. White pills again...

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“Sunny's Revenge” by Fenris Fyre

Submitted to Contest #272

I can’t believe it. The girl can see me. Or at least I think that she can see me. She keeps smiling and nodding in my direction. How can she see me? Sunny thought to herself as she watched the young lady in the booth in front of her. She was staring at what looked like a portable computer she had on the table. Sunny could do nothing but stare at her. She looked exactly like her sister. Could she be Blanche’s granddaughter? The thought made her smile. She is about the right age. Sunny thought, watching her ev...

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“The Blood” by Steve Bourne

Submitted to Contest #272

It started with my parents. Doesn’t it always? Or, more precisely with my father. If he’d been irascible and bad tempered before, he was positively cantankerous and violent after he came back from Trafalgar, sporting a crutch, a missing a foot and a naval pension which he strictly didn’t need. Mother was unable to conceive after she had me and Father took this as a personal affront, further darkening his already pitch-black moods. Consequently, he largely ignored Mother and treated me with contempt as if it was my fault I wasn’t a son,...

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“Lady Cavendish” by Rebecca Dickson

Submitted to Contest #272

Lady Cavendish Every corridor is so cold and none of these doors can take me where I want to go. I float down the corridor, I breathe on the cold of the mirror, ‘ahhhhhh’ like this and watch my breath as fog on the glass. Sometimes I write your initials in it, sometimes, a heart shape, but sometimes I am so angry that I rub my fingers through it harshly, when I do this, sometimes I can make it squeak very quietly, and it is, for a moment, as though I am still here. It is always night here and it is always a full moon, I am so familiar with t...

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“The Crossing” by Ben Heard

Submitted to Contest #272

Every year as the leaves begin to fall and the earth starts to settle down for the quiet seasons the border between worlds grows thin. It’s never very thick in the first place. The corporeal world and the land of spirits, ghosts, and all things supernatural have a way of bleeding into one another. Even when the metaphysical ‘dam’ is at its tightest, so to speak, things have a habit of slipping through. But as harvest ends and winter begins the flood gates open. The spirits of nature and of the departed can cross over and walk amongst those t...

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“Different Spirits” by Ian Crombie

Submitted to Contest #272

A sound rouses me. A mix of laughter and voices in jovial conversation. The screech of a heavy door sliding across stone and the echo of footsteps on concrete. People have entered. Young people by the sounds of their voices, both boys and girls. I’m not surprised. They often come here seeking a thrill, a scare, a place to be out of the watchful eye of overbearing adults. This is a common occurrence, especially around this time of year. It’s October and Halloween draws close and instead of going to a normal haunted house, teens flock to...

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$250

Prize money

488

Contest entries

175

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Oct 18, 2024 EST

Won by Mortimer Ridgewood 🏆

Title: Drone

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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