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.

Entomophobia
The squeamish tickling in my brain causes me to scratch my head many times a day. I play it off as if I am thinking inquisitively. No one has to know. I walk one way but my brain tells me to go a different way. I feel like a puppet on strings. The squirmish tickling in my head will be the death of me, I swear. I must warn others of the outbreak. The possibility of the squirmish tickling happening to others. I will tell them that the tickling is deceiving. It’s not harmless, I’ll say, it’s a sign of your brain rotting away. All sense of control in your brain will disappear. I will tell them I am looking for a cure. Doctor’s don’t know what they are doing, they can’t scratch this God-forsaken continuous itch inside my head. I wake up and I go straight to my bathroom. The tickling in my head pulsing out, looking like a protruding vein. I look away and use the toilet. I stand there and the tickling and itching continues, I can’t multitask. I walk out of my bathroom and refuse to look at my face. The sunlight beams through my windows. Damnit! I forgot they don’t appreciate the sunlight. The sunlight will make it worse. It can’t get worse. I close the windows and squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t risk my disease killing me sooner. The darkness is good. I stumble upon another mirror. The protruding lumps moving, circling my skull. I can’t. I take the sheets in my house and cover all the mirrors. The sight is ungodly. I call my landlord. “I am ill. I can’t work. Therefore, I can’t pay my rent.” He asked me what illness. I avoided the question. But then. But then I realized I had to warn him, too. I’m confident my disease is contagious. “I have bugs crawling in my head.” The line was silent. “Sir, this is serious. There could be bugs in your head.” The line is still silent. He responded. Get me your rent by the end of the month or you move out. He hung up. Oh no oh no oh no. He didn’t believe me. I don’t want him to get my disease. I also can’t go to work. I can’t go in the sun. I call my mother. “Mother, I am ill.” What’s wrong, Gerald. “I have bugs crawling in my head.” … “Mother, I have bugs crawling in my head.” Gerald, you don’t have bugs crawling in your head. “I do have bugs crawling in my head. It is a disease. I fell on the ground and hit my head on a spider’s nest last week. I have bugs crawling in my head.” Gerald, I have to go. Call you soon. Oh no oh no oh no. This could be an outbreak and no one believes me. I sit on my floor and hold my legs. I will die alone in my apartment, and the bugs will go onto another person. I decided to get some water. Maybe the water will flush the bugs out of my system. But wait. Wait, the bugs are in my head, not my stomach. And water will hydrate my system. I need to dry the bugs out. Yes. That is what I will do. Dry them out. Should I eat? No. Food will make them stronger. They can’t grow. I will just stay in my apartment. God, the itching is mad. I am the host of the parasitic bugs. They feed off my brain. I sit there. I sit there. I sit there. I sit there. I sit there. I sit there.
By Dora Ryan 5 years ago in Horror
The Theater
We stood outside the old, dark abandoned movie theater. The windows were dark too. We were there to see if there was anything worth painting at all. The windows were boarded up, but the theater was doing well enough, back in the old days it was. At least until the owners took out their entire theater chain.
By V-Ink Stories5 years ago in Horror
The Cabin on Devil's Lake
I stare out at the familiar grey water as our car moves along the dirt road. Every summer as a kid my family and I would drive up to stay at our cabin by Devil's Lake. It was always so pretty in the summer. But now, with November looming, it looked ugly. The leaves on the trees were gone, leaving nothing but pointy branches.
By Joe Mertens5 years ago in Horror
The Man Who Waited
Nellie knew her time was running out when she saw her dead husband's foggy silhouette standing in the corner of her bedroom. She certainly wasn't surprised, living to be 98 was not all it was cracked up to be, but she was comforted knowing that her soul mate was waiting for her. Nellie couldn't wait to see Ed again, to hold him, to chew him out for waiting to enter heaven until she was ready. He didn't have to wait, she knew she would have joined him eventually, but she was secretly glad he did.
By A. Vaughn5 years ago in Horror
Punishment
Punishment Joseph watched his grandfather’s clock hit 7:58. Exhausted after a long day of work on the farm, he wanted nothing more than to slip into a deep night’s sleep right there in his polyester chair. He stared at the dusty glass cover on the clock’s face, wondering how the inside of something sealed shut could get so dirty. The second hand had bent years ago for no good reason and now seemed to point to the moment right behind the time it really was. Joseph had hated this clock for years and tonight was no exception. He knew that in just a minute and a half, the internal mechanism of the grandfather clock would hit what sounded like a gong and the whole house would be filled with eight chimes, each worse than the last.
By Jason Hebblethwaite5 years ago in Horror
My Public
"Mr. Carlson, they want you on stage, sir." Roger Carlson looked up from his reflection in the mirror and turned to look at the young woman in his doorway.
By Joshua Campbell5 years ago in Horror
Apothecary
With a red hot furnace for a face, Lewis gulped the last of his beer. He never let them sit long enough to lose any bit of their chill. The Miller light was still plenty cold in his mouth and it reminded him of his parent’s basement growing up, memories he quickly pushed away. He had come to the bar at the request of mark reluctantly. They had grown apart even though they’d never admit it to each other. Mark had always relied on Lewis and he felt the weight of that responsibility tugging at him when Mark lost his job last year. He got him a job trimming trees and had warned him not to fuck this one up.
By Nicholas Woods5 years ago in Horror
Screaming
It’s been six days- six long and agonizing days and that horrible screaming has not stopped, slowed, or silenced. I have tried to ignore it, I have tried to move on with my life and move forward with the things I need to do, but it seems like the screaming just keeps going and going no matter the time of day- it is, for lack of a better word, unending.
By As The Raven Dreams5 years ago in Horror
Curtain Call: Part IV
Tssssssss... Sloan stared at the popcorn ceiling above her while listening to Emily whistling and frying bacon down the hall. The quilt pulled up and over her nose did little to cover the smell, and Sloan’s stomach was betraying her. She could not fall back asleep being this hungry, but getting up and eating would lead to questions to which she had no definitive answers.
By Marisa Ayers5 years ago in Horror
Eyes as Dark as Night
Meg came to, in the pitch black. She couldn't remember where she was. Then, feeling around, she felt the cold, damp concrete floor under her fingers. That was when she first realised that she was naked.
By Sam H Arnold5 years ago in Horror
Lost in the Woods
Camping was Amelia’s favorite thing to do. When she was young her parents would take her, her older sister and her younger brother out into the campsites and they would bond like she supposed all family members did. There was something tranquil about being surrounded by nature.
By Jean Bruce5 years ago in Horror
EMMA'S REVENGE
Emma had been waiting for this night for a long enough. She knew he would be bringing her to the cabin in the woods again. This would be the night she would get the revenge she wanted. Emma and Dakota meet in Kentucky 10 years ago. Both of them had just gotten out of college and getting started in life. Everyone thought they where a match made in heaven. And Dakota and Emma thought it was love at first sight. Emma was simply in love with the fact she was in love with Dakota. She was in the start of a new relationship and everything seemed exciting and new. Just looking at Dakota took her breath away. She knew she was destined to spend the rest of her life with him.
By Adriane Kirby5 years ago in Horror