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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

“Would You Rather? ” by Laura Lockridge

Submitted to Contest #272

In some ways, it feels like an eternity since I have turned. In other ways, it feels like only yesterday. Has it only been fifty-odd years since that eerie night around the campfire? I suppose I should start at the beginning. Maybe then you can begin to understand life from my point of view; the point of view of a young vampire. However, I wonder where to start: before I turned or after? I guess I begin with what I know. To know one is to understand the other, I suppose; my human existence compared to the vampire life. This begins the story ...

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“Recruitment” by Doug Cme

Submitted to Contest #272

My head is pounding. I wipe the sleep out of my eyes and see instantly that I am in the driver’s seat of my Subaru SUV. I look around and I have no idea where I am parked or how I got here. It appears I have parked in a dark old barn. Weird. While I live in a rural area, I don’t live on or near a farm with a barn. I get out and bend down to touch my toes and just stretch out in general. I am 6’4’ and athletic or reminiscent of athletic. At 50, one does experience some decline as well as acquire some aches and pains. W...

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“Shattered Reflections” by Kiyani M.

Submitted to Contest #272

As the sun dipped below the fog-laden hills, twilight enveloped the village. I stood beneath the skeletal branches of an ancient oak, my heart echoing a restless rhythm against the weight of the truth that awaited me. The villagers had branded me a monster, a creature of the night, and I could feel their venomous whispers piercing through the shadows. My name is Alaric, and I once called this place home. It began with a series of haunting deaths. First, the baker's daughter—a sweet girl who once laughed like chimes—then the schoolteacher, kn...

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“The Curse” by Michelle M

Submitted to Contest #272

Arianes flinched and a low growl tumbled around, deep in her chest. Glancing back quickly into the shadowy gloom, no single thing stood out. Yet the hackles on her neck goose-fleshed up. Panting, she feared the Mannia was tracking her. The only thing that mattered right now was finding a den-like. Somewhere she could hunker down in, waiting out the reset. An alarm whined in the distance. Rebold tapped furiously at his lightpad, sending out notices of werewolf sightings in District 197:36-2. He knew there ha...

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“The Comeback” by Brian Callaghan

Submitted to Contest #272

Thomas ‘Tommy T-Coke’ Cocoa watched as a pitch, better yet, ‘his’ pitch sailed straight down the meaty center of the plate. ‘Strike!’ The umpire cried out loudly behind him. T-Coke stepped out of the batter’s box and tried to regain his focus. There was an immediate encircling chorus of bitter boos and jeers from the crowd of forty-eight thousand New York baseball faithful and T-Coke bemoaned that this was not the reaction he had garnered only two years ago, maybe even one year ago. ‘Yes,’ he confirmed to himself mentally, ‘definitely ...

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“Janeen the Dream” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #272

1985Greenwich Village had become a food desert. Oh, sure, there was plenty of sustenance to be had IF you were a risk taker. A gambler. I wasn’t. You only get one strike in that league, and I was terrified every time I had an at-bat.I had gotten used to being alive. I liked it—no, I loved it—and it was light years better than the alternative. I know some know-nothings referred to us as the "living dead," but they had no idea what they were missing. So, with my back against the proverbial wall, I began to do some serious research.You can imag...

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“A Walk in the Hereafter” by Timothy Benson

Submitted to Contest #272

“A Walk in the Hereafter” It’s taking a lot longer than I thought it would. Of course, there’s no guidebook for dead people, at least as far as I know. After three months I’m still trying to get used to being dead. Even using that word is hard to adapt to. When death comes people usually use terms like “He passed away” or “She’s in a better place”. It makes them feel better but the person is still dead and words can’t change that. I guess it’s just a way that people try to adjust to the whole situation. And one of the biggest things I’m tryi...

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“My Christmas” by Josefine R. Dalsager

Submitted to Contest #272

It’s christmas eve, I’m sitting in my room, the time is almost midnight and i’m exhausted. What a night, what had happened, why was everybody acting so weird. It was supposed to be a quiet night with my mom, dad and older sister. She doesn’t live at home anymore, she is a lawyer and lives in the city. So I’m the only one who lives at home, despite the fact that i’m 22 years old, but I really don’t know what to study yet, and my parents say that they don’t mind me living at home, they love having me, they say.So I’m not in any hurry, I will s...

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“On Behalf of the Banished” by Matt Rahn

Submitted to Contest #272

To be one of the forbidden is no small thing. To be banished and forgotten for as long as time elapses. Being regarded as nothing more than a component of a greater whole – a semblance of something corporeal, yet not existing by on own accord. There is a tepid agreement between you and I, although you may not know it. &...

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“Remembering” by Ellen Talboom

Submitted to Contest #272

There it is, my home, where I grew up. I couldn't find my home. I was lost. I took a different turn. I kept walking and walking. Scary time. So happy now. Home. Look, there are the tall things I use to claw up with my brother and sister. And there is the flat tall thing we use to crawl under. So much fun. I am finally home. Just then, two fluffy things moved really fast from behind my home and ran right in front of me and clawed up one of the tall things. Hey, my brother and sister. Why didn't they see me? I am right here. They just move...

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“The Threshold” by Sharon Cabana

Submitted to Contest #272

TW: Car accident, death I want to tell myself that it isn’t real. The nausea grinding in my solar plexus? Just the byproduct of clinical anxiety. The constant headache? A result of chewing too much gum or an allergy to dust. I want to think that I am depressed, burnt out and exhausted. To think is to believe, my grandmother always warned me. I tell myself what I think is not real. I need to stop believing it. Why then, I wonder, hand in my pocket, inhaling the cold, am I here? Because, if I really didn’t believe it, I would be at home ...

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“Between life and Shadow” by Cel Brown

Submitted to Contest #272

Lorin has never really thought about his death, or what might come after. He’d enjoyed his life, born the only son of a Faerie doctor on earth he had been surrounded by magic from his first moments. It made life easier for him. While he never really had a control magic there was always just a faint trace there, just a golden cloud of magic that existed everywhere. Lorin knew that if he was kind to it, it might just help him in little ways. Cushioning his falls when he tripped, giving him a sparkling trail to follow whenever he got lost. It w...

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“This House of Silence” by Anne Athena Dura

Submitted to Contest #272

Inky black water haunted her dreams. The water running from the faucet had a thick, slimy texture and a dark, murky appearance, as if it had been tainted by something filthy and rotten. Black water oozed from the ceilings, seeping into the walls and forming a pool on the floors. The blackness that filled her dreams shimmered in the dim candlelight that illuminated the house. She had stopped lighting candles altogether. Even when she was still alive, she rarely did it, but now she had completely quit. Yet she lit them in her dreams. The sight...

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“CRUMBS” by Dalibor Tomasović

Submitted to Contest #272

I stared at the portrait of Dr. Guillotin for a long time, holding my own head in my hands, when I finally got access to a mobile phone and the internet in the twenty-first century, here in a building in New York, where I’ve lived for the past two decades. That satisfied half-smile and the ridiculous white wig under which, I’m sure, his greasy, sticky hair reeked, stays with me even now. However, I quickly learned, after searching online, that he didn’t actually invent the device that beheaded me back in 1793 in Paris. Innocent! Of course.Af...

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“You're Just My Blood Type” by Carina Caccia

Submitted to Contest #272

I only watch her because I care. There she is, a small dot moving across the screen. Another sip. Another toke. The room swells with smoke. Spirals. I magnify the pub she’s entered, check the photos. Street view. Who’s she with? And how is it that she got over me so quick? Proof. It’s proof that she never cared. Proof that I was right. Unless, of course, these men are a rebound. Bars, a refuge. Beer, a distraction. Surely, I meant more to her than that. Bitch.But God, the craving fucking hits and my gums throb, my canines ache. Small dot on ...

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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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