fiction

Horror fiction that delivers on its promise to scare, startle, frighten and unsettle. These stories are fake, but the shivers down your spine won't be.

The House That Hummed at Night
When Adeel signed the rental contract for the old house at the edge of town, he thought he had struck gold. The rent was half of what other landlords demanded, the neighborhood was quiet, and the landlord seemed eager to hand him the keys.
By Muhammad Kaleemullahabout a year ago in Horror
Dawn break
Prologue – The Hunting (Revised) Before the sky turned black—before the Arc stitched iron across the heavens and made night a permanent habit—there were hunters. They were not born in barracks or cloisters. They rose from barns, orchards, gullies, and granaries: farmers who kept ledgers by day and carried ash-marked blades by night. The fields were a cover for something older. Beneath root cellars and seed bins lay vaults of oilskin maps, caches of stakes, ampoules of powdered sun-ash, and journals bound in hide that smelled faintly of smoke. People called them placid; the earth called them prepared. The Last Line did not advertise. They left no banners, only a symbol a child could draw—an imperfect sun smeared in ash on brow and blade. In taverns they were masons, midwives, millers. In ditches and crypts they were the first hands to reach for iron when red eyes woke. One of them was a man who called himself a farmer because the lie kept men and monsters comfortable. He had been born into the work the way others are born into a harbor: with tides that knew his name. Folks around the valley called him the Guardian even before the title calcified. He lived with his sister Elara, whose laugh could cut a room open, and his wife Sera, an apothecary who kept her hair in a soldier’s knot and her medicines in perfect rows. In their home too were the boy’s parents: his mother, Mira—Sera’s younger sister, all soft voice and steady hands—and his father, Joran, a craftsman with calloused palms who swung a hammer by day and carried an ash-etched axe by night. Together, under one roof, they tended wheat in daylight and hunted shadows in darkness. The boy grew in the middle of this constellation of family. He learned silence from his uncle, kindness from his mother, stubbornness from his father, and the taste of herbs from his aunt. “You are the Last,” the Guardian would remind him, not because he was the only child, but because every hunter must fight as though there will never be another after them. On the night that history would later call the Hunting, the wheat lay flat as if listening. Lamps burned low, shielded with blue glass. The Guardian felt pressure above the valley—the Arc’s breath changing, like a choir finding the same note. Joran’s hammer was already in his grip, Mira clutching the boy tight even as she fastened the ash pouch to his chest. “Don’t take it off,” she whispered, “even to wash.” Sera packed vials and poultices, her movements brisk, efficient. Elara returned like bad weather, coat torn, mouth blood-bright. “Lines coming from the north too,” she said. “We’ll drown if we don’t pull them long.” The first warning was the cattle going silent. The second was the wind forgetting itself. The third was a lantern on the eastern road that floated crimson and steady. Thralls marched beneath it. Behind them came a shape pale as bone—the Regent himself. The Guardian snapped open the cellar door. “Down!” Mira clutched the boy tighter. Joran kissed his son’s forehead once, hard, and shoved him into Mira’s arms. “Keep your knife sharp, sapling,” he said, pressing his axe into the boy’s hands. “If I fall, remember me in steel.” He and Mira stayed behind the Guardian and Elara, weapons raised. The battle crashed down. Elara’s rifle split the night. Joran swung his axe with the weight of three men. Mira fought with a knife that seemed an extension of her hand. But the Regent’s shadow stilled everything, and one by one, the house’s defenders fell. Elara rushed the pale figure and was ended with a gesture so small it was almost polite. Joran’s axe struck true but bounced like wood on stone, and the Regent broke him with equal calm. Mira slashed a thrall’s throat but was dragged screaming into the dark alongside Sera. When it was over, the Guardian alone remained, bleeding and burning through bodies until he could fight no more. The porch was a ribcage. The yard a grave. He pried open the cellar and lifted the boy out. The child had not cried—his palms dented from clenching. “You will not fight,” the Guardian said, grief carving his face into iron. “Not until it is your time. You are the Last.” They burned the house at dawn-that-never-was. There were no neighbors to see the smoke. The Guardian buried Elara and Joran in the south orchard where wind could speak to them. Mira and Sera were gone, carried into the Regent’s night. The Guardian took Sera’s locket from her workbench—a brass oval with a pressed fern inside—and strung it beside the boy’s ash pouch. East they walked, strangers in one town, nobodies in the next. Everywhere, the Guardian taught the boy lessons: how to count patrols by the way stray dogs barked, how to hear metal in a road, how to draw a sun with ash in a cramped hand. Years later, the boy would finger the locket and the pouch and feel two weights: dust and fern. And when Kade someday saw the locket and murmured, “Apothecary’s,” the boy would know his family was more than rumor. By then, the Guardian would be legend. But on this night, he was only an uncle with a boy and a road, carrying grief like a torch. The Last Line did not end in a field. It became a seam running under the world, waiting for the stitch that would pull everything tight—or rip it open for good.
By K-jayabout a year ago in Horror
I Stopped Watching a Horror Movie for the First Time in Years
I recently started watching this 80s horror slasher that caught my attention. ICED is a pretty original and kind of cool name for a horror flick, and damn, I actually stopped watching the film about 25 to 30 minutes in.
By Emy Quinnabout a year ago in Horror
Season 4: Whispers of the Forgotten: A Descent into Eldoria Manor
Chapter 1 The grinding outside grew louder, a deep, earth-shaking rumble that vibrated through the cabin's very foundations. The windows began to rattle in their frames, and dust rained down from the ceiling. Alistair, his heart pounding in his chest, looked at the silent music box in his hands, then at his terrified companions.
By Tales That Breathe at Nightabout a year ago in Horror
The Mystery Man Who Landed in Japan With a Passport From Nowhere
In the summer heat of 1959, Tokyo’s busy Haneda Airport became the stage for one of the strangest encounters in modern travel history. A well-dressed man, confident and fluent in several languages, stepped off a plane from Hong Kong and approached immigration like any other traveler. At first, nothing seemed unusual—another businessman or globe-trotter passing through one of Asia’s busiest air gateways. But when he handed over his passport, the story took a turn that continues to unsettle researchers and storytellers alike.
By Life Hopesabout a year ago in Horror
Drakula halála ("Dracula's Death")
The following is an attempt to reconstruct with prose the plot of a lost film, based on a description of the film from Wikipedia, an online source. It may work as a short piece of fiction, but whether it does or not, the temptation to do so was much too great to resist. You could almost put it down to a spell cast by Dracula (in Hungarian, rendered Drakula), by all things Dracul, upon the author. Let us begin. Based on a novelization I have recently discovered, I plan to adapt this in yet another version as soon as time permits. This is my first attempt.
By Tom Bakerabout a year ago in Horror
Letters I Sent to My Lover Across Dimensions
The first letter vanished the moment I slipped it under the old oak door. One heartbeat it was there, trembling in my fingers; the next it was gone — swallowed by the shimmer of a universe I couldn’t see but could always feel. Every night since, I’ve written to you from this side of reality, hoping one day you’ll answer from yours. Tonight, the air smells of rain and static, and my hands shake as I write the words I swore I’d never send: I found a way back to you.
By Alexander Mindabout a year ago in Horror
The Tunnel (Part 4 of 4)
The bodies were littered all over the facility in pieces. Some were deflated like balloons, I believe Paul's tongue like vine had slurped up every drop of their blood like a straw. I was waiting for death, expecting to get ripped apart, like the man I assumed I had smoked my last cigarette with.
By Emy Quinnabout a year ago in Horror
A Delicious Proposition. Content Warning.
There was a time when Cora loved her husband, David, or at least she thought she did. Like a twisted kind of Stockholm syndrome, she had convinced herself that her captor wanted nothing but the best for her. For years, she yielded to his commands. Suffered his verbal degradation. Eventually his words evolved into violent physical abuse.
By Stephanie Wrightabout a year ago in Horror
The Lost Couple of the Chihuahua Desert: A Mystery That Refuses to Die
The Chihuahua Desert, one of the largest deserts in North America, stretches across northern Mexico and parts of the southwestern United States. With its blazing sun, endless stretches of sand, and towering cacti, it is both breathtaking and unforgiving. For centuries, this landscape has hidden stories of survival, loss, and mystery. But few are as unsettling as the disappearance of Ethan Morrison and Alice Peterson in March 1994 a case that still raises questions more than three decades later
By Izhar Ullahabout a year ago in Horror
Here Comes a Candle
"Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper—to chop off your head!" English jump rope song. The candle guttered low on the table next to the bed. Curling tendrils of poison seeped from its dripping, wax cylinder. The tip was a lighted eye dancing in the darkness, winking open and closed, coyly. Death was playing its game.
By Tom Bakerabout a year ago in Horror
The House at Raven’s Hollow
M Mehran No one in our town went near the house at Raven’s Hollow after sunset. They said it was cursed, that shadows moved inside its walls even on the brightest days. I had always laughed at such tales—until the night I dared to enter. --- The Dare It began as a dare. My friends, eager to prove their bravery, challenged me to spend an hour inside the abandoned house. I shrugged, pretending I wasn’t nervous. “It’s just an old house,” I said. But as I stood in front of the rusted gates, something in the air felt wrong. The wind whispered through the trees, carrying a faint, almost human sigh. I swallowed hard, convincing myself it was just the breeze. --- First Steps The front door groaned as I pushed it open, the sound echoing like a scream down the empty hallway. Dust hung in the air, thick as fog. Broken furniture lay scattered, and cobwebs draped the corners like ghostly curtains. I flicked on my flashlight, its beam trembling in my hands. Every creak of the floorboards made me jump. I told myself I’d stay only an hour—but as soon as I stepped further in, a strange chill ran down my spine. --- The Shadows It started subtly. I saw a shadow move at the edge of my vision, though I was alone—or so I thought. Each time I turned, nothing was there. But the sense of being watched grew stronger. I reached the living room, where an old portrait hung crooked on the wall. The eyes seemed to follow me, their painted gaze unnervingly alive. Then, in the corner, I thought I saw someone—or something—sitting in the shadows. My heart pounded, but I convinced myself it was imagination. --- Whispers in the Dark As I climbed the staircase, whispers began. Faint, almost inaudible, but unmistakable. “Leave… now… leave…” They came from the walls, the floors, everywhere at once. I froze, gripping the railing. My flashlight flickered, and in that brief darkness, I could feel breath against my neck. I spun around, but no one was there. My pulse thundered in my ears, drowning out the whispers, yet they persisted. --- The Room at the End I remembered the last dare: to enter the room at the end of the hall. The door was partially open, its hinges squealing in protest as I pushed it further. Inside, the air was colder. My breath turned to mist. The room was empty—except for a mirror, framed in blackened oak. I stepped closer, and my reflection stared back. At first, it was normal. Then, slowly, it smiled. A smile I hadn’t given it. I stumbled back, tripping over the carpet. The reflection moved, independent of me, its grin widening, eyes gleaming with malice. I tried to look away, but the mirror seemed to pull me in, whispering promises of darkness I could not resist. --- The Escape I ran. Down the stairs, through the living room, past the portrait whose eyes now seemed furious. The whispers became screams, echoing from every corner. The shadows stretched, reaching for me with cold, skeletal hands. The front door was in sight, but it slammed shut before I could touch it. Panic surged. I slammed my shoulder against it, once, twice, three times. Finally, it gave way. I burst into the night, gasping for air. The wind had stopped. The house stood silent, still as if nothing had happened. --- The Mark I told my friends what I saw. They laughed, but I could see the doubt in their eyes. That night, I realized that some stories are not made up. Some houses remember the people who enter. Some mirrors remember faces—and hunger for more. The worst part came the next morning. On my arm, I found a small, dark mark shaped like a claw. I didn’t remember being scratched, but the pain was sharp, real. And when I looked in the mirror, my reflection was slightly… different. Smiling back at me. --- The Lesson I never returned to Raven’s Hollow. I avoid daredevils, abandoned places, and mirrors at night. But the memory follows me. Every time I see a shadow flicker, every time a whisper brushes my ear, I wonder if the house is still calling me. Some nights, I wake to find the mark glowing faintly, reminding me that the boundary between us and the darkness is thinner than I ever imagined. Raven’s Hollow is waiting. And it remembers.
By Muhammad Mehranabout a year ago in Horror