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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

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

Posted in Halloween on Oct 20, 2023

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 134 stories

“Vanishing Point” by Howard Halsall

Submitted to Contest #221

Time stopped for me one Saturday night a year ago, at eleven-thirty-five p.m. I’d no sense of danger as I meandered home in the dark and if there was an omen present in the stars, then I missed all the signs. That’s not surprising because I’m not superstitious and my attention was elsewhere as I approached the crossroads.Sylvie and I had argued earlier about my impromptu night out, and she’d sent endless messages to my phone expressing her annoyance. It was nothing to get upset about and I ought to have apologised rather than exchanged ...

27 comments 27
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“Shucked” by RJ Holmquist

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #221

Finally I was dead. This was the moment I had waited for my entire life. To be clear, I did nothing to hurry its arrival, nothing egregious anyway, despite the fact that my husk of clay wasn’t always what I’d call "amenable" to keeping itself alive. Nonetheless, I really did do my best as long as it was my duty. I fed it, exercised it, gave it multi-vitamins when I remembered and generally deferred from the things it craved that would clog its arteries, fog its brain and otherwise break down its fragile fickleness. But all along I knew time ...

33 comments 33
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“Over My Dead Body” by Jonathan Page

Submitted to Contest #221

I sit in the corner of the embalming room watching as the mustached man drains the blood from my corpse. The corpse lies on a metal table, covered in a white tarp. And there is a faint choker of purple bruising and checkered abrasions around my neck. The blood in the tubes is purple-colored, with streaks of black.My irises are cloudy white films, my pupils are fading black lifeless dots. As the mortician hooks me up to the embalming machine with its pump and wires, and the cold fluid enters the veins of my body, I feel nothing. I kind of shi...

20 comments 20
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“After the Fall” by Laurel Hanson

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #221

Smokey shapes hover over me in dark smudges I cannot erase. I try to push my way past the tangled grey, but icy claws grip my arms. The air, too hot, feels clotted. Between the pulsing shrieks that always accompany these dreams, an unfamiliar voice weaves its question over and over. “Remember?” I want to scream but fear locks my throat.When I open my eyes, it is to the green relief of my back garden and the woods beyond. I must have fallen asleep in my rocker on the porch. It’s bathed in afternoon sun, warm and soothing, which is why it’s my...

37 comments 37
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“Checkmate” by Khadija S. Mohammad

Submitted to Contest #221

Before I was as I am now, a 2D image pretending to be 3D, I was a half-finished shape, complete only in imagination. Before that, I was a single stroke of a brush, and before even that I was only an idea, full of potential. I was most beautiful as an idea, for the human mind is not bound in images. The chess-board in front of me seems to gloat, and for a moment I feel that its owner gloats as well, but a glance tells me he is the same lifeless figure that he has always been. No-one has ever told me how it worked, how I came to be chained to ...

27 comments 27
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“Almost Angels” by Karen Corr

Submitted to Contest #221

**Contains smidgeons of murder**"I dare you!"Meryl couldn't resist a dare. She never could.She opened the car door and ran out into the cemetery.It was a night in a million. Not fog, but low clouds hovered around the gravestones. So satisfyingly spooky.There were no stars, but the overcast sky above was bright with moonlight. Meryl could see her way just fine and hid behind a tall stone that read Margaret Lesko 1840 to 1913. A woman who died over a hundred years ago and her stone yet survived."Here I come," said Lucas.Meryl held her breath t...

16 comments 16
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“Tethered” by AnneMarie Miles

Submitted to Contest #221

Sometimes I like to stand outside and watch the wind. I try to remember what it felt like, rustling through the tiny hairs on my arm, filtering through my thick beard. They say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. I watch the six-foot branches of the redwood in our yard shake and shimmy and regret that I ever took such a powerful and beautiful force for granted. I’m not sure I will ever grow used to this numbness. Of course, time has no sense anymore, but this existence – if that’s a fair name for it – has felt like an eternity. It ...

28 comments 28
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“slug/salt” by Danielle Barr

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #221

Content warning: stillbirth, war She doesn’t know that I’m gone yet. I’ve never seen her before, not as anything but filmy shadows undulating behind creamy pink light, but I would know her anywhere. She’s beautiful; I knew she would be. I could hear it in her voice; the way it crackled with emotion as she sang the words of Taps to soothe the practice pains that washed over us both in surges, a dance we both moved to in time, just she and I, moving between worlds, moving toward each other in the ether. Moving toward one another, until we we...

10 comments 10
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“Abraham's Dream” by Steffen Lettau

Submitted to Contest #221

His house was so quiet. Strange, he thought. At this time, not long after the crack of dawn, his younger children would be running around and giving the attendants a heart attack as he would be swarmed by a couple assistants with messages of importance. There would be breakfast coming up from the kitchen and through his bedroom doors, provided that the children didn't accidentally knock it over again. Even his wife would join in the fray, yelling at the boys to knock off the horseplay while keeping an ear on the daily hustle.Today, though, t...

13 comments 13
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“Little Sister, Little Sister ” by Diamond Keener

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #221

TW: References to self harm/suicide and sexual assault. It turns out that hell is real. Its physical location is in Ohio, go figure. The calendar on the refrigerator is the only thing that reminds me of how long I’ve been here. I'm not in the future, I'm in the past. My mother, who is the same age that I was when I died, keeps forgetting to tear off the calendar pages on weekends. She is oblivious to the torture this causes me. It’s been September 9th for three days. She will remember soon, I keep telling myself that. I’ve been dea...

7 comments 7
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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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“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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“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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“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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Contest #221

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This week's theme: Ghostly

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Ended on 23:59 - Oct 27, 2023 EST

Won by Bay Colt 🏆

Title: Clearance Aisle Libations

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