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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

You go to visit your neighbor. When you ring the doorbell, a stranger appears and tells you that your neighbor has been dead for ten years.

Posted in Thriller and Suspense on May 8, 2021

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✍️ 49 stories

“Katie” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #13

I rang the doorbell to Katie’s house and a woman in a blue dress opened the door. You can always tell whether grown-ups are parents. Parents look friendly and comfortable but also a little bit ragged around the edges. This woman was not like that. Everything about her was neat and tidy, with sharp creases in her clothes and smoothed angles on her body. She glanced left and right before looking down. “Oh, hello!” She made her voice go up a little bit at the end and when she smiled I could count her teeth. “Can Katie come out and play, please?...

11 comments 11
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“Friends After Death” by Ian Gonzales

Submitted to Contest #13

Standing at his kitchen counter, Mike ran through the checklist one last time. It was important that he got things right. A single mistake could ruin everything. His eyes scanned the contents of the cooler lying open in front of him. Chips and bean dip. Check. Pigs-in-a-blanket and hot wings. Check. Those stupid carrot and celery sticks his wife always insisted on sending with him. Check. Beer. Check. He gazed lovingly at the frosty cold bottles of dark glass. Then he spun around, opened the fridge and pulled out another six pack. Double che...

2 comments 2
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“Ally Was Expecting Me” by Sam Lauren

Submitted to Contest #13

On Halloween night I crossed the street to Ally's house at exactly 5 pm. It was tradition. This year, like a dozen before it, we would pass out candy to trick or treaters and wish we could be them. Even the moms that hovered at the end of Ally's driveway made us jealous. We were stuck in that limbo between child and parent, having a blast but nearly ready to move on.I knocked on her door even though I didn't have to. Ally was expecting me to beg for candy, and I was expecting her to shower me in a fistful of it. It was a lame joke that would...

1 comment 1
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“One time thing” by Ophelia S

Submitted to Contest #13

Dead, he said. His words carried the usual weight of someone who is not used to death, someone who maybe fears an unsettling reaction from the receptor of those grim news he had to deliver; after all, the only thing scarier than the absence of emotions is their very display. I wanted to laugh, really, tell him to not be so frail and hesitant, it is nothing but pathetic. Yes, Lucas has been dead for years now! Shout it! Proclaim it! Do not be faltering, looking at me as if I was the poor man who got the news too late. Of course I knew he was ...

5 comments 5
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“A spoonful of sugar” by Hailie Durante

Submitted to Contest #13

The smell of pumpkin spice and cinnamon brought me from my hole of a room as the sound of "Monster Mash" emitted from my mother's old radio. My mother was a lonely woman, divorced from my father when I was eleven years old. Now, I was sixteen and dragged into the horrid activity of decorating she had done for every holiday, every year for the past five years. Decorating was the only vice she had. "Oh, Mia!" My mother exclaimed, garish red lips spread into a grin. Her hands were covered with orange goop, encasing her fingers like a lurid c...

5 comments 5
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“Home for the Holiday” by Melanie S.

Submitted to Contest #13

I was sixteen when I first realized the aching in my heart that I had for him. He was an enigma to me, a mysterious figure. I was never able to get him alone until that one night - the rest was history. It had been three months since I had last been home; he was all I could think about. Memories of him kept me awake at night, kept me daydreaming during classes. In the bars, I watched my friends slink their way up to men, their eyes glimmering - but I could not bear to even look at another man. It was him - and only him - on my mind.  ...

0 comments 0
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“Behind the Pine Door” by Deborah Mercer

Submitted to Contest #13

BEHIND THE PINE DOORI’d always liked Virginia – Ginny, as she preferred to be called. We weren’t the sort of neighbours who were constantly in and out of each others’ houses. We needed our own space and respected each others’ privacy. But she was a comfortable and considerate neighbour, and I liked to think she thought the same about me. I knew she thought my garden was messy, and I wasn’t too keen on her excess of decking, but it never turned into an issue. At Christmas she had a beautifully decorated real tree and ...

3 comments 3
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“Where Mr. Joe-Bob?!” by Deanna West

Submitted to Contest #13

Every year, especially around the holidays Mr. Joe-Bob has his home decorated Soo nicely according to whatever holiday it was at that particular time. Him and his wife, Mrs. Sally Mae have been married for nearly 40years. They met when they were middle school as the best of friends. Their relationship didn't become serious until college. They ended up getting married after their 1st years of college... Only 18 and 19 years old young in love, yet ambition for the life they wanted to share together. They worked as creative writers for the youn...

1 comment 1
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“A TRAIL OF LIES” by Gokul Nair

Submitted to Contest #13

"Impossible.""Ma'am, I swear I am telling the truth.""Do you expect me to believe that Miss Emerald- a lady who I met many days ago -has been dead for ten years?"I glared at the man standing in the doorway. "Let me in. Now."He blocked me. "Not until you tell me who you are."I dropped the bag I had been carrying, ruffled through my jeans pockets, and brought out my driver's license. "Here."He was a lanky young man, and he wore glasses. He scratched his rust coloured untidy hair, and peered at my license. I studied him as he came up closer. Th...

1 comment 1
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“Parlor Games” by Melinda Care

Submitted to Contest #13

Virginia knocked hard on the door. “I’m coming!” she could hear old Mrs. Wambly scrambling to get to the door. Suddenly the door opened and her neighbor stuck her head out. “Hey neighbor, what can I do for you?”, she asked in a pleasant voice. Virginia noticed the tired eyes, but the gentle smile as Mrs. Wambly tried her best to be neighborly. “Just wanted to borrow a cup of sugar. I forgot it at the market, you know me, always running! I can’t keep up with myself anymore. Halloween is tomorrow night so the kids are begging for homemade...

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“Ghosted by the Neighbor” by Christy Kelly

Submitted to Contest #13

I recently moved into a new neighborhood. Kind of one of those idyllic southern places with manicured lawns, Spanish moss hanging from ancient oak trees lining the streets...you know the type of place. The type of place most people only dream of living. And I got the opportunity through a lot of work, and some loss, to call it home. Anyway, I moved into this gorgeous old plantation style home on about a half an acre of land -basically a life size doll house- with a few of those moss covered trees in the yard. The neighborhood is small and t...

0 comments 0
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“When Our Neighbour Dorothy Comes to Visit” by Georgina S

Submitted to Contest #13

I have known Dorothy since the day I was born. Actually I have known her since the day she came to visit my mother and I in hospital after I was born. She has been a stallwart, a constant that is always next door. She was never the type of neighbour that would come over to borrow a cup of sugar. She was the type of neighbour that if she had too many daisies growing in her backyard, she would put them into a plastic bag and hang the bag on a metal hook made from an old coat hanger, over the old wooden fence. You couldn’t see anything if you t...

0 comments 0
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“It's Been a Long Time” by Pam Thomason

Submitted to Contest #13

Where does the time go? It had been a while since I had knocked on the big wooden door with the bronze knocker. I guess like everyone else, I just got busy. I have had Mrs. Clark and her contagious smile on my mind. Her perfectly manicured lawn and the huge rectangular pool with all of the laughter coming from her side of the fence has been silenced for some time When I think about it I should have noticed sooner the overgrowth and the rust beginning to develop on the gate.I have lived here since I was a child. My memories of this place...

2 comments 2
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“Brittany” by Sarah Harris

Submitted to Contest #13

I closed the front door behind me, shutting out the winter chill. I hurried to the bathroom, opened the glass door to the shower, turned the water on, and stepped in fully dressed. The water soaked into my clothes, and I finally stripped down. Still undecided as to whether I was going to wash said clothes or burn them, I picked up a bar of lavender-scented soap. The water turned a pretty, sudsy pink as I scrubbed at my hands. I watched the bloody run-off circle the drain. As the water cleared, so did my thoughts. I came down from the ad...

1 comment 1
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“First Steps” by Barbara Eustace

Submitted to Contest #13

Today is the day. Today is the day when I’m finally going to do it. Today is the day I go visit my best friend. After so many years of having her visit me.It all began ten years ago. Sarah and I had been walking home from a club, we’d been celebrating her eighteenth birthday. We were walking home in the wee small hours when no self-respecting girl should be out. But we were together, so it would be fine. Right?Wrong.We weren’t sensible, we felt the invincibility of youth. We didn’t keep to the main roa...

0 comments 0
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