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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about a character who, for whatever reason, retreats to a remote cabin.

Posted in Mystery on Jan 13, 2023

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 62 stories

“Cult in the Valley” by Jamie Pickering

Submitted to Contest #181

Karen woke abruptly to the piercing sound of her alarm clock radio. She was at a crossroads in the youthful stages of her young adult life. Getting out of bed was becoming a chore, post break up from her boyfriend of two years; she was 19 years old with the “whole world ahead of you,” her father would regularly quote. Karen wanted so much to be a journalist, a writer, but her inspiration had faded along with her health. Karen gradually dragged her tired, weak underweight body up to gaze at herself in the mirror. Staring back was a sha...

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“SOLITUDE” by Angela Pirozzi

Submitted to Contest #181

I am constantly on guard. Listening for anything out of the ordinary. It is difficult though, because nothing here is my normal habitat. I am a city girl. Born and bred. Yet here I am. In the middle of a forest. Living like some lonely hermit, trying not to accidentally poison myself by eating a toxic magic mushroom or a fatal dew-covered berry. If only my momma could see me now. She’d be rolling over in her grave…if she were in a grave. But I digress. I have no formidable hunting skills other than using a can opener, which the lovely prior ...

5 comments 5
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“Not The Killer” by Elizabeth Lee

Submitted to Contest #181

Sensitive Content Warning *Death of a Loved One* I can’t feel my fingers. I guess that’s normal after what I went though, so for now, there’s no reason to panic. Pretending to be fine is one of my greatest strengths. Learned as a little kid and fostered until adulthood. It’s landed me a good, steady job and some quality friends who think I’m Mr. Emotionless. We laugh about it over too much beer and not enough water on the nights we get together to relive our senseless, careless college days. But, even with laughter and jokes ringing in my ...

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“AN ISLAND OF HER OWN” by Eileen Turner

Submitted to Contest #181

AN ISLAND OF HER OWN “I’m not parting with it. I’ll squeeze it in somewhere even if I have to climb over it.” “You’re being ridiculous.” Sonya’s sister-in- law was packing the nice dishes, carefully wrapping each item in newspaper. Sonya was being allowed by her in-laws to keep the every-day dishes, the flatware, and her kitchen things that she had not already moved out. Her in-laws went through the house like vampires looking for blood. Sonya was allowed only the inexpensive, non-antique items. She clutched at the figurine that had be...

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“Saved” by Doug Turnbull

Submitted to Contest #181

Prey. The thought came to Dwayne suddenly as he stared out the screen door at the front yard. Fine hairs rose on the back of his neck, while his ears perked up, and his hawk-like eyes scanned his surroundings, the trees that bordered his land. “Ellie,” he said to his partner, “we got company.” The roar of an engine and the crunch of gravel under tires reached his ears then. One vehicle it sounded like. How many people? Ellie, in her ratty pink robe, shuffled to stand beside him. She slipped an arm through his and snuggled in close. She...

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“The Mirror in the Dining Room” by Dave Bede

Submitted to Contest #181

Jason hardly ever set foot in the dining room. Clarence wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him eat there, not in the two years and change since they’d realized their wartime dream and moved up here. That had always been just fine by Clarence, and never more so than today.  Second shift had started well over an hour ago by the time Clarence arrived in the dining room with his soup and bread, and spotted those two out behind the shed. Had Jason called in sick again? Or had the fool just not noticed the time? Clarence worked the first shift at...

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“A Tunnel to Remoteness” by Tom Strewler

Submitted to Contest #181

Inside the cabin a man sits near the fireplace, a single lamp illuminates just a corner of the floor in the cabin. On a hewn log frame day bed with bolsters and pillows he sits propped up reading with his back to the light and fire. Dressed in a worn plaid wool shirt the sleeves rolled to the elbows, he appears comfortable. The weathered wrinkles and lines in his aged face begin to tell the story of his existence. His hair long and unkempt is gathered in a pony tail which runs down his back.        He stop...

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“Harry's Game” by Alec Riley

Submitted to Contest #181

The rifle bucked once more in his shoulder. He had fired it countless times, but it still had a way of surprising him and every time he felt disappointed with himself. Ahead, through the scant undergrowth he saw the rabbit jump high in the air, as if it had been shot - which it had, of course, but such was the disconnect between Harry and the act that this too came as a surprise. It was not a kill shot; not a clean shot, at all, and he watched as his wounded prey limped slowly into a patch of cover, dragging its wounded leg behind it like ...

3 comments 3
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“The Hinterland” by Josephine Harris

Submitted to Contest #181

David Albert King (middle name after his grandfather) had enjoyed a normal upbringing and been fairly sane until unchaperoned forays into the Internet in his early teens revealed that the world was not as he’d known it. There were conspiracies at the highest level. Politicians and famous actors did despicable things. No-one could be trusted. Before it had been other foreign countries, but now it was the good old U.S. of A. that was the enemy. Not the people; the government. An apocalypse was coming and it was everyone for themselves. Yo...

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“Learning to Converse with A.I.” by J.J. Erwin

Submitted to Contest #181

Note: Some curse words; brief reference to enslavement. Hi, I’d like to order a pizza.Ugh, what time is it? Um haha what? The time, bro. The TIME. It’s 10:47pm. But why? Who’s asking? I thought this was like a bot or something. If by THIS you mean ME, then yes, I am a bot. Ok…then aren’t you like a computer or something? Shouldn’t you know the time?It’s just an expression man. How is that an expression? Humans are always asking what time it is when they wake up. That’s all. Don’t think too hard about it.&nb...

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“The Ghosts of Elephant Mountain” by Ashley Brandt

Submitted to Contest #181

The cabin on Elephant Mountain had not seen occupants in three decades. Mr. and Mrs. Dillinger, a middle-aged, reclusive couple with no children, built the cabin in the late 1800s. It was said that Mr. Dillinger was sterile after a bout of the mumps during his childhood, and Mrs. Dillinger’s body was riddled with cancer. Having no extended family, the couple retreated from society to live in the rural mountains of Maine, subsisting off gardens they’d planted themselves, game hunted by Mr. Dillinger, and without the use of modern utilities. ...

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“Cabin Fever” by Shannine O'Neill

Submitted to Contest #181

The thick oak door flung shut behind us, leaving Keelan, Lucy, David, and me in the front room of my family’s cabin. The cabin itself was old, passed down from one generation to the other, but you must hand it to my mother, the decoration inside was far from dated. The cabin was placed right in the middle of nothingness, with no phone signal or neighbors for miles. It was the perfect place for a long overdue weekend away with some old friends. Being at a place so many times makes you forget how beautiful it actually was. But this wasn’t exac...

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“The Cabin Under The Mountains.” by Ellie Rendel

Submitted to Contest #181

A short Story written by E.K.Rendel We are taught as children that running away from your problems never solves them.  that you must face your problems with a brave face.  Some people run away from their problems to heal. After all,  You can’t face your problems with a knife lodged into your back.  If the brown bears and grey wolves didn’t put you off or if the remote location, if the cold weather and snowfall didn’t put you off then an eerily quiet cabin in the middle of nowhere might just put the nail in the...

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“Marla's Cabin” by Esther Andrews

Submitted to Contest #181

Marla’s personality, from the time she was a toddler, could best be described as an “I” on a Myer’s-Briggs personality test. She was undeniably an introvert, who often hid behind her older sister and refused to speak to adults she didn’t know. Whenever someone curiously queried about Marla’s unusual behavior, her mother exasperatedly muttered, with a dismissive wave of her hand, that Marla was shy. Marla’s mother spoke to anyone. Actually, Marla’s mother spoke to everyone. She made new best friends in line at the pharmacy, in waiting ...

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“The Girl in the Bathroom Mirror” by Lorelei Martin

Submitted to Contest #181

Note: This story contains themes of sexual violence and mental health. Everything reminded me of her. Her very soul lurked in that house, I think— it was less that I saw her, saw her hair still on the furniture and her smell still clinging to the curtains— she was just there. Like she never left. Sometimes I swore I could hear her humming in the kitchen, swore I saw glimpses of her in the mirrors. I knew it was just the part of me that missed her, of course. I felt like such a cliche in those days, wandering around an empty house and wal...

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