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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story that includes the line “Better late than never.”

Posted in Short Story on Nov 1, 2024

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 41 stories

“(Not What I Was) Expecting” by Brynn Helena

Submitted to Contest #275

“You’re not the weed girl,” I said as I stood in the second-floor girls’ bathroom with my brows stitching together. It was my usual third period trip to the bathroom on a Thursday to pick up my weed, and instead of seeing Miranda, I was staring at what looked to be a senior with mascara running down her cheeks. I was a junior, so just from her face I couldn’t place her name. She was blonde and tall and looked like her perfume was called “Bubblegum Kiss” or something like that. I immediately wanted nothing to do with her, or her teary eyes, b...

41 comments 41
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“Bob Barker and the Price of Cookies” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #275

If Bob Barker was dead, he apparently was making the most of it.Bev checked the date on the magazine, guessing this bundle of BLTNs (?) had gathered dust on some post office loading dock until some chucklehead’d awoke from their civil service coma.November 2024. She angrily brushed the white hair from her eyes as the early November winds buffeted the mailbox bank, then located the mailing label that cheapened the high-tone, heavy matte cover. Bev’s old stylist had been a pretentious little B with a stack of thick, chic, hoity Town and C...

16 comments 16
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“The hunt” by Trudy Jas

Submitted to Contest #275

.I shiver as the cold wind and needle-like rain slide down the collar of my too thin coat. Here in the dusk are no cute plastic pumpkins, make-believe scarecrows, or fairy lights, no tiny warlocks, robots, or witches. Here the ghosts and monsters are real. Here people do not wander the streets looking for candy after dark, not even the powdery kind.I’m not hunting candy of any kind. I’m hunting my enemy. The one who has taken my family and is preying on me. The one who has no mercy, no heart, no soul. The one whose hot breath I have fel...

19 comments 19
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“Routine” by Kendall Defoe

Submitted to Contest #275

“Better late than never...” He was smiling. This was a joy that he could not explain. He woke extra early that morning, putting away a warm glass of lemon and mint water with the granola bar that he knew gave him an edge as he jogged on the paths nearby. Today was the start of what was going to be a very long week, so sidewalks and dirt trails would not be enough. He would have to use the track near the school. This meant leaving a little extra early to do at least four laps and then head home. A slow jog and a few indifferent traffic lights...

9 comments 9
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“A Box of Forgiveness” by Cindy Calder

Submitted to Contest #275

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” – Lewis B. Smedes Science leads us to the conclusion the capacity for forgiveness may also be a facet of our nature although we are often inclined to unforgiveness. Forgiveness and the lack thereof can each be a double-edged sword, both leaving deep scars. Herein lies a story of forgiveness, gifted when it was previously thought too late to attain – a double-edged sword melded into liquid amidst the hottest of fires. Forgiveness can be powerful enough to free one’...

7 comments 7
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“Better late than not at all ” by Megan Kullman

Submitted to Contest #275

It had been so long, so why did I care so much?            Four years ago the love of my life drove away and I didn’t think I would ever see him again. He left two years worth of memories, an engagement ring, and so many broken promises in his wake. And yet I never gave up hope. It didn’t matter how many breakup songs I listened to, how many sad letters I wrote but never sent, or how much I begged for the ache in my heart to end so I could let him go, Issac Kellan would always hold a pla...

10 comments 10
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“The Leaf Collector” by Keleigh Hadley

Submitted to Contest #275

Every autumn, my sister collects dead things. She says they're not really dead, just sleeping, but I know better. I've watched her gather fallen leaves in her little red wagon since I was five, treating each one like a wounded bird. Now I'm twelve, and she's fifteen, and nothing has changed except the size of her collection and how far we have to walk up these mountains to find the best ones. "Look at this one, D.J.," Sade whispers, holding up a maple leaf the color of Grandma's candied yams. "It's still warm from the sun." Her dark eyes s...

8 comments 8
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“Captivating Chaos” by Penelope Stansfield

Submitted to Contest #275

One careless afternoon, Sam had accidentally agreed to attend the ‘Captivating Chaos’ exhibition as suggested by his secretary, and now, despite himself, he was making his way to an unfamiliar part of the city. After leaving his apartment, he’d navigated the bustling city centre where the Saturday shoppers were now transmuting into evening drinkers, flooding the wine bars and bistros. The begrudging light of a grey November day had gone, and the heavy darkness of late autumn settled in the shadows and doorways, too thick for the city’s ...

4 comments 4
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“3 AM” by Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #275

3 am, the witching hour. The hour of death. The hour of evil. The hour of my nightmare. The hour of my visions. The hour that has haunted me for six years. Six years, that's how long I've been afraid of 3 am. Six years, that's how long I've been having nightmares. Six years, that's how long I've been having visions of murder. I lost part of me six years ago. I lost my memory of that time. I lost a family I don't remember having. Remembering that part of my life hurts. What hurts is not the family I don't remember but that I don't remember th...

1 comment 1
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“Happiness is.......” by Julie Grenness

Submitted to Contest #275

Jessie and Eloise were two young sisters. Their parents were always telling them to play nicely. But these two quite pretty little girls were mean and catty to each other. Jessie liked snatching toys from her three year old sister, Eloise. She thought they were better than hers. Eloise liked scribbling on Jessie's books, trying to wreck all the pretty pictures.It was a normal sort of morning, Jessie was poking her tongue at Eloise, who was crying again. Then Jessie made a really ugly face at Eloise, until she laughed. Eloise was used to Jess...

1 comment 1
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“Ferryman's Holiday” by Jay DeBurgh

Submitted to Contest #275

He is craving it again and wonders if the pesky dragon will visit to keep an eye on his ferry for the dead while he nips through the barrier House doorway to get one. “Ferryman, we are new arrivals and we have our gold coin.”A round blonde woman tugs at her top to try and cover up the hole in her stomach. “Put your coin in the sack and mind your step as you get on my boat to paradise. It takes me a while as I take two at a time. One year I had a whole battalion of roman soldiers who wanted to travel together. What a headache that was. But I ...

1 comment 1
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“Until We Meet Again” by Jeff Meade

Submitted to Contest #275

An eerie wind blew through the black police cruiser’s cracked windows, swirling wisps of Detective Jimmy Daleson’s Camel Straight out into the moonlight. The street lamp just down the road cast spooky shadows across the sidewalk, leaving plenty of dark spaces for the night’s denizens to slink into.  Halloween stakeouts always posed challenges for detectives, sleuthing for their mark amongst costumed revelers. “Halloween is busy tonight. Seems like the crowds are thicker than last year,” his partner Officer Dominguez remarked, eyeballing...

4 comments 4
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“Better Late Than Never” by Edward J. McCoul

Submitted to Contest #275

“Better Late Than Never” by Edward J. McCoul  The rain fell in sheets against the windows of The Last Cup, a forgotten café tucked down a side street in a nearly abandoned part of town. The few remaining shops nearby had faded signage, peeling paint, and an air of resigned abandonment, as if they’d accepted their eventual demise. But The Last Cup was different. No one had seen it open for a hundred years. Legend had it that The Last Cup was once the heartbeat of the neighborhood, buzzing with writers, artists, and travelers from all wal...

0 comments 0
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“The Lurking Shadows” by Martina Hoch

Submitted to Contest #275

There’s a peculiar sensation that creeps into your bones when you’re alone at night, the kind of chill that a flashlight’s beam struggles to stave off. I’d felt it many times walking through the woods behind my childhood home, the curved trail lined with gnarled trees and crumbling stones of an abandoned graveyard. Ever since my sister, Emily, vanished two years ago, those woods have become a prison of my memories—both tender and haunting.It was a stormy evening in late October when I decided to confront my demons. The eerie winds howled aro...

0 comments 0
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“Late” by S. Hjelmeset

Submitted to Contest #275

Estranged from my sister for fourteen years, I couldn't decline when she called for help to clear our childhood home. I said a date, and it was settled.Thus began the search for a moving company. They don't have that back home - everybody has a driver's license, and if they don't own a large car, they damn well know someone who does.I chose to spend my time with my dying father instead of getting my driver's license like every other eighteen-year-old did back then. After he died, I moved. Nobody needs a car in Oslo.I asked online for someone...

4 comments 4
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Contest #275

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Ended on 23:59 - Nov 08, 2024 EST

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Title: Just Another Dead Girl Underwater

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