halloween
Get into the Halloween spirit; all about trick or treating, spooky costumes, Halloween decorations and haunted houses for October 31st and all year round.
"The Night of the Hollow Moon"
The Night of the Hollow Moon Halloween was supposed to be a time of fun — a time for costumes, parties, and candy. But in the town of Ravenswood, Halloween carried a darker weight, a sinister history that most residents had long forgotten… or pretended to forget.
By Mir Ahmad Khanabout a year ago in Horror
"Echoes of Black Hollow"
Echoes of Black Hollow In November 2022, a team of documentary filmmakers set out to uncover the truth behind the eerie myths surrounding Black Hollow, an abandoned village deep in the heart of northern Maine. What was meant to be a straightforward investigation into local legends soon became an inexplicable mystery. The crew vanished without a trace, leaving behind only fragments of their footage, raising unsettling questions that still remain unanswered.
By Mir Ahmad Khanabout a year ago in Horror
The Devil Within Me
Heres the text to analyze: Note: this story was crafted for the Horror Story Prompt Challenge. Wishing you all the best Content warnings for graphic portrayals of mental illness that serve only to enhance the narrative. These portrayals do not represent the views of Vocal or the author and are purely fictional.
By Nikita Angelabout a year ago in Horror
Unlock the Shadows: What You Need to Know About Vocal’s Horror Story Prompt Challenge
For writers who have a taste for the macabre, the eerie, and the psychologically unsettling, opportunities to showcase their talent don’t often come knocking. But when they do, they arrive cloaked in mystery, dripping with suspense, and beckoning the brave to test the limits of their imagination.
By Nora Arianaabout a year ago in Horror
The Whispering Flame
P In a forgotten village at the edge of the Cholistan desert, where the wind spoke in ancient tongues and the dunes shifted like restless spirits, there lived a man named Haroon. He was a quiet schoolteacher, a man of reason, who believed in facts and rejected superstition. The villagers, however, spoke in hushed voices about an old well at the edge of the desert — a cursed place they said was sealed centuries ago to imprison a jinn.
By Real life 🧬 stories about a year ago in Horror
The Eater of Men
The Eater of Men: In His Eyes, You're Meat There are some people who walk into a room and make the air colder. Not because of who they are, but because of what they are. When Malcolm Grieve walked into the diner off Route 41, his smile was wide and pleasant—but his eyes didn’t see people. They weighed them. Counted the ribs. Measured the muscle. In his eyes, you weren’t a person. You were meat. The locals barely noticed him at first. He was polite, well-dressed, paid in cash, and tipped well. Stayed in a dusty motel three miles outside town, room 6, curtains always drawn. If you asked the girl at the front desk, she’d say he smelled faintly of metal and cloves, and that she never saw him eat breakfast. Never once. The first to vanish was Jody Whitley, a hitchhiker who played guitar outside the gas station. No one noticed for a day or two—Jody came and went. But then her case was found in the woods, snapped in half like a wishbone. Sheriff Lane filed a report. Nothing came of it. But there were others. A drifter with a limp, a traveling nurse, a teenager skipping town. Each gone like smoke. Each leaving behind little more than a stain in the silence. Malcolm visited the diner every Tuesday at 9:13 p.m. sharp. He always ordered pot roast, but barely touched it. Instead, he watched. He studied the waitress’s arms when she handed him his bill. He watched the way the cook moved, the way his shoulders flexed under the grease-stained shirt. His pupils would dilate—not with admiration, but with hunger. A hunger so old it seemed to hum beneath the floorboards. They didn’t know what he was. Not at first. But he was careful. Precise. And terribly clean. One night, a drunk named Tyler made the mistake of grabbing Malcolm by the coat, demanding a cigarette. Witnesses said Malcolm just stared at him for a moment—his smile didn’t move, but his eyes darkened, like a light had gone out inside him. Tyler was found two days later, or at least most of him was. His chest cavity had been opened like a cabinet, the ribs separated with surgical precision. No blood, though. None at all. Rumors began to circle. “The Devil in a tie,” someone called him. “The Butcher in Room 6.” But no one dared confront him. Fear settled over the town like smoke. Even the sheriff looked the other way. People locked their doors and kept their heads down. But some people don’t scare easy. Marla, the waitress, had a brother who’d disappeared. She remembered the way Malcolm had looked at him. The way he smiled as if savoring something he hadn’t eaten yet. She followed him one night. It was raining. Malcolm took the back road, the one that led toward the abandoned slaughterhouse. Marla kept her lights off and stayed two cars behind. When he parked, she waited ten minutes before stepping out. The slaughterhouse had been shut for years, but inside, it smelled like rust and old breath. She followed the light of his lantern through the corridor of hanging chains. Then she saw it. The table was stone. There were hooks, tools—ancient, stained things. Bones piled like firewood. And Malcolm stood over something writhing. He was humming. Something soft. Something not meant for ears. His coat was off. His hands worked quickly, folding skin away from muscle as though peeling fruit. The thing on the table cried once. Only once. Marla couldn’t scream. She couldn’t even breathe. But she snapped a photo. Flash—too bright. Too loud. Malcolm turned. His eyes met hers. And in that split second, she understood what it meant to be prey. She ran—slipped on wet concrete, lungs tearing with panic. She didn’t stop until she hit the road and screamed for help, waving the phone with the photo still glowing. The police came. Room 6 was empty. The slaughterhouse was burned to the foundation that same night, flames licking the sky like a warning. They never found Malcolm. But every year, on the same night, someone disappears. Always someone alone. Always someone strong. Some say they’ve seen him—at truck stops, in diners, walking the shoulder of some back road. He doesn’t age. He doesn’t change. He smiles with perfect teeth. And when you meet his gaze, you’ll feel it: the chill of being sized up. Because in his eyes, you're not a soul. You're supper.
By Top stories about a year ago in Horror
The Room That Watches
Rahim stood before the rusted gates of his grandfather’s ancestral mansion—its structure half-swallowed by creeping vines and a century’s worth of dust. The villagers had always spoken in hushed tones about this place. They warned of whispers in the night, shifting shadows, and the cursed room on the western wing. They called it The Room That Watched. When his grandfather died, Rahim inherited the mansion, along with one final warning in the will: “Do not enter the western corridor. Whatever you do, never open the last door. That room sees.” He laughed it off. Old men and their superstitions, he thought. By the third day of exploring the mansion, curiosity gnawed at him. That corridor, sealed with ancient locks and chains, felt like it breathed with anticipation. Dust covered every surface, yet the floor leading to that door was strangely clean—as though someone had walked it recently. Rahim found the keys in his grandfather’s study. That night, under the pale glow of a dying flashlight, he walked the forbidden corridor. The walls trembled faintly, like they were sighing. The final door was tall, wood rotting at the edges, with strange symbols scorched into it. He inserted the key, heart pounding, and turned it. Click. The door creaked open. The air inside was unnaturally cold. The room was empty—at first glance. A simple stone floor. No windows. But then he looked at the walls. They were covered—completely covered—with painted eyes. Hundreds of them. Some open wide. Some half-closed. Some crying black tears. They weren’t just painted. They felt alive. They followed him. Watched his every step. A shiver ran down his spine, but he forced himself to step inside. “Just paint,” he whispered. “Just old art.” He unrolled his sleeping bag in the center of the room. “I’ll prove there’s nothing here,” he said aloud, though his voice trembled. He lay down. Turned off the flashlight. Silence. Until… a creak. He sat up. The room had no doors except the one he entered. Yet, somewhere behind him, he heard soft breathing. Then a whisper. “Don’t look back…” He froze. The eyes on the wall began to change. Slowly. Subtly. They blinked. A few began to weep. The black tears moved, dripped, and dissolved into smoke upon hitting the floor. His chest tightened. From the corner of the room, something began to emerge. A shape. A shadow—taller than any man, thin and distorted like smoke and nightmare stitched together. No face. Just a hollow where eyes should’ve been. Rahim scrambled backward, heart racing. “What... what are you?” he gasped. The creature didn’t speak. But the room did. The eyes began to whisper. All of them, together, chanting in a soft, sickening chorus. “He opened the door... he opened the door... he looked inside…” The shadow extended a long, bony arm. Rahim screamed and bolted for the exit. The door… wouldn’t open. No matter how hard he pulled, the handle wouldn’t budge. He turned around, breath ragged. The room had changed. The floor now pulsed like living flesh. The eyes grew larger, some bleeding, some laughing—yes, laughing, their pupils twisting into tiny, grinning mouths. The shadow stepped closer. Rahim cried, begged, slammed the door with his fists. “Let me out! Please!” The eyes whispered again. “No one leaves. You saw too much. Now you must watch…” The last thing Rahim saw was the creature reaching into his chest—not tearing flesh, but pulling out light. Memory. Soul. The room went silent. --- The next morning, the door to the room stood wide open. A group of local workers entered the house, tasked with renovating the old mansion. One of them, curious, peeked into the western corridor. “I thought this was sealed?” he murmured, seeing the open door. He stepped inside, flashlight flickering. The walls stared back. Hundreds of eyes. And now—right in the center—was a freshly painted eye. It looked eerily like Rahim’s. The same color. The same fear. It blinked.
By Noman Afridiabout a year ago in Horror
The Last Light of Hollow Creek.
Clara shivered, clinching her fist over the steering wheel of her reliable Subaru. The trees around the tiny rural town of Hollow Creek were veiled in mist. Her headlights struggled to penetrate the mist, and her rough breathing rasped in her throat as she gazed down the road. Too long years had elapsed since she'd returned, but something within her was drawing her in. It was not any whistling young folks; it was a loose-fingered group of loose ends. It was her impression that there was loose business in the black town's past, and she felt it as a tug within.
By Pen to Publishabout a year ago in Horror
The Lantern Man
I. The Marsh of Black Hollow Black Hollow was not marked on any modern map. Tucked between dead woods and endless marshland, it was more myth than memory. The only people who still spoke of it were drunk old men at backwater bars and desperate thrill-seekers online. Karan was both. An urban explorer with a following of 200k subscribers, he specialized in "lost places": decaying hospitals, forgotten bunkers, cursed ghost towns. When he heard about the Marsh of Black Hollow and the legend of the Lantern Man—a headless ghost seen wandering the wetlands—he was immediately obsessed. Locals refused to go near it. They said on moonless nights, a lantern glowed across the swamp, swinging slowly, and if you saw it, it meant he’d already seen you. And once the Lantern Man saw you, you were never seen again. II. Karan’s Journey He arrived with two GoPros, a body cam, a lantern of his own, and a fully charged drone. His only companion was his reckless confidence. Black Hollow was quiet, too quiet. No insects, no birds. Just stagnant water and rotted trees like broken fingers reaching from the bog. “Perfect atmosphere,” Karan whispered to the camera. He ventured deeper, thick mist clinging to his clothes. Occasionally, he marked trees with red tape—his breadcrumb trail back. Two hours in, the drone lost signal. Three hours in, he stopped seeing his red tape. Four hours in, he heard it. A bell. No, not a bell… a faint metal clink, like chains… or a lantern’s handle swaying in the wind. Except there was no wind. III. The Lantern Appears At first, Karan thought it was a trick of the fog. But there it was: a distant orange glow, moving slowly between trees. He zoomed in with his camera. The light flickered with unnatural rhythm—like it pulsed, breathed. And beneath the glow was a figure… tall, cloaked in shadow, and clearly, horribly, missing a head. Karan’s breath caught in his throat. He crouched, filming as the ghostly figure paused near the old footbridge ahead. Then, the lantern turned toward him. The ghost couldn’t have eyes, but Karan felt its gaze like a nail in his chest. He ran. IV. The Church Beneath the Earth Karan stumbled blindly through the marsh, falling more than once, scraping his arms and tearing his gear. Eventually, he collapsed into a hidden hole—a sunken structure covered in moss. A church, buried halfway in the bog. Inside, ancient pews lay overturned. At the altar, a headless statue stood holding a rusted lantern. Behind it, words carved in blackened stone: “Do not steal what you cannot return.” The air inside grew thick, suffocating. Then, a scream. Not human. Not animal. But something. Karan turned just in time to see the ghost step through the wall—closer now, clearer. Its body was waterlogged, skin sloughing off like peeled paint. It lifted its lantern, and the light bloomed— —and showed the head in its hand. It wasn’t its own. It was fresh. Karan’s. V. The Legend of the Lantern Man Long ago, a preacher lived in Black Hollow. A gentle man who led a church on a hill. But the villagers turned on him when a child vanished, accusing him of witchcraft. They beheaded him in the marsh and threw his lantern into the bog. That night, the entire village sank. They say the preacher’s soul never left. He wanders still, lantern in hand, looking for a new head to replace the one taken from him. Each century, he must claim one. Just one. To keep the others buried. VI. Sunrise Finds Nothing The next morning, search teams followed GPS coordinates to the last known location. They found Karan’s tent. His camera. His drone. But no Karan. Just a lantern, burning bright at the edge of the marsh. And next to it… a headless statue, freshly carved in wood, standing on a new altar in the trees. One hand held a camera. The other? Held nothing at all.
By Tushar Bhattacharyaabout a year ago in Horror
Whispers in the Attic
When Daniel inherited his grandfather's old countryside house, he was more annoyed than grateful. The property, isolated on the edge of a forgotten village, was a creaking relic of the past. Still, he decided to visit for a weekend, thinking he might sell it after a few repairs.
By M Kamrul Islam about a year ago in Horror
