Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Horror.
Don't Drink the Merlot
My hands shook when the flame touched the wick. The candle lit, but it wasn’t good enough. I shouldn’t have shaken so much. I puffed the small fire out with an exacerbated breath, discarded the match and tried again. Light the match, light the wick, this time don’t shake so much. This time I let the candle ignite and the room filled with the aroma of cedar and rose petals. It should have calmed me. My stomach flipped three times instead. I lit the rest of the candles, one, two, three and pretended to bask in the ambient glow of the romantic candlelight. From the bookshelf, Sidero let out a low howl. Curled into a black pit of fur and fangs, she regarded me from her perch with judgmental yellow eyes.
By Claudia Neaves5 years ago in Horror
Unparalleled Universe: Part 1
Nick was conflicted by the desert. He felt it was dry, dusty, egregiously hot and far, far too empty. The blue domed void gave him a delicate sense of fear. As if the sky would swallow him up whole. Though simultaneously, the near quiet environment with the occasional gust of dust stirring wind gave him a sense peace. It allowed him to think clearly and thoroughly. As Nick sat in his dusty, primer black and slightly abused 1969 Dodge Charger, he sweated profusely. Nick could handle heat, but today was a hot one. He wondered if he should remove his leather cowboy hat, then decided an ice age was the only real solution. Might as well just take it like a man. He smirked at the thought, and took a healthy pull off from his bottle of beer, condensation ran down the brown glass, wetting his chin. Nick wiped at his face with the back of his bare arm. Letting out a deep breath, his nerves eased slightly.
By Alfred E. Pseudonym5 years ago in Horror
What's in a Name? (Part 1)
“Wow. That’s quite a house. Are you sure you want to live here, Lex?” Alex ignored Vanessa’s question and stepped out of the car to admire the historic manner she’d inherited. She had known about the house her grandfather owned but refused to live in. He’d been a feeble man in life and a place of this grandeur was not something he could maintain, though he had the money for it. Often, she had asked about the manner. His answers were ever vague or mumbled. This was her first time seeing it in person.
By J.C. Winter5 years ago in Horror
Black Widow
My love life is terrible. It seems everyone I meet these days is never interested. If we’re honest, I do not think I am a bad-looking girl, and I have a good head on my shoulders. I have a 9-5 job that pays my bills and a college degree, so what is so wrong with me? I have tried everything from dating apps to blind dates to even meeting random people in a bar. It just never seems to work out for me.
By Arianna Reyes5 years ago in Horror
The Old Wooden Bridge
Eleanor Evans was well known in town for her odd behavior, but she was known almost as well for the tall palomino horse she rode each day. Toby was beautiful cream-colored mount, with a thick mane and tail. His face always wore an expression of good-natured geniality, and the children in town fawned over him until their parents shooed them away from the woman. “Eerie Ellie” and Toby could be seen every day on the road to and from town. The two would start out in the high pastures, lit from behind by the bright morning light. They’d ride down the valley and join up with the main road, plodding along as the wagons rolled by, coating them in a fine layer of dust. Eventually they’d make it into town where Ellie would trade her goods for what she needed to get by; flour, cloth, cream. Ellie was something of a medicine woman. She’d gather and make her wares from the land around the cabin. Berries from along the roadside, mushrooms from deep in the forest. She had salves for burns, creams for rashes, and word was you could get other medicines with a darker purpose if you only had the coin. The townspeople were wary around her; they kept their distance, did their business with her when other means failed. Ellie and the folk mostly left each other alone, an unspoken agreement to live and let live. With the exception of the Burton Boys.
By Emily Gray5 years ago in Horror
Gut Instinct
It started with a feeling. Nothing of note. Barely anything at all. Just a tingle really. A twitch of the gut, here or there. A sensation of bubbling, the odd sizzle of acid, flickering out from the stomach. Lizzie had never had issues with her stomach before, if you could even call it that, despite her rampant mistreatment of her digestive system up until now. She would be lying in bed, or relaxing on the sofa, just watching television or reading a book, and would notice a little rumble or gurgle, as though she had gas, but nothing would pass. Her mother or father would notice at times, and joke that Lizzie needed to eat more, else her stomach might start to eat itself. This was a long running joke in their family, though it was one that Lizzie had never liked, given her past struggles with anorexia. As a child she would have terrible nightmares of a monster or an alien chewing its way through her insides, and when she first saw the iconic chest-burster scene from Alien, she didn’t sleep for weeks.
By Gwendolyn Pendraig5 years ago in Horror
The Crying Baby
I am a 21-year-old man, but I've had a lot of creepy instances happen to me in my life. Whenever I'm alone, I always seem to be scared of something, sometimes I can't sleep at night just because of one thing that happened to me when I was just a child. These stories might seem unbelievable to most people but everything I'm about to tell is true.
By Presley Pereira5 years ago in Horror
American Beauty & Other Suburban Horror Movies
Sam Mendes' Academy Award-winning film is an off-putting exploration of suburban life in America. The film opens with a rather morbid voiceover monologue from its main character, Lester Burnham, in which he talks about his death. The audience is then introduced to his dysfunctional family, which appears perfect from the outside.
By Svetlana Sterlin5 years ago in Horror
What We Do In The Basement
In 2019, a television show shot in mockumentary style followed the exploits of four vampires living on Staten Island. I am referring, of course, to Taika Waititi’s What We Do in the Shadows, a TV spinoff from Waititi’s 2014 film with the same title. I remember hearing about it, briefly. I thought it sounded like my kind of show, but then I forgot about it again until the middle of 2020 when I saw the show referenced in a video essay about vampires in movies and television.
By Michael Van Haney5 years ago in Horror
