|
Hosted by Jonathan Wojcik
As I write this, we are over ten days past what was supposed to be our deadline, despite a smoother, faster new entry system coded by my wife. Our first delay came when I spent New Year's week mostly bedridden with fever. Later, while working on this very archive, my new computer suddenly refused to power on and had to be taken to a shop. Another night we would have worked on this posting even saw our internet go down with no known cause.
IMPORTANT STUFF:
 CONTEST WINNERS: If your name is here, e-mail me for a shirt of your choice from the store! If you know of any other art I've made that you want on a shirt, I can make it available!  All the King's Horses - By Nelke - (extremely graphic abuse) Every year, there's that one story that manages to be both emotionally powerful and intensely sickening. This story of an obsessed mother, an abused daughter and old fashioned necromancy is absolutely not for the faint of heart. Nelke also submitted the much shorter, lighter, but still dreadful tale Inner Plateau! The Game of Mush - By The Hungry Reader - for something lighter but still reasonably dreadful, you're bound to enjoy these detailed instructions for a bizarre, ambiguous "game" played by equally ambiguous entities, apparently right under our oblivious human noses. Cue Card - By Streicher Hennessy - night after night, the same poor sap is awoken by the mad cacophony of an inhuman musical performance... The Golden Ocean - By Nausicaa Harris - a city slicker from way up in Canada finds himself lost real deep in the American south. No, deeper than that. Deep! Apart from a fairly original concept, setting and creatures, the sheer quality of the prose here had me hanging on every word. The same author submitted several other, wildly various entries that all have their charms, but the very next one I'd recommend is definitely A Piece of My Mind. Same As It Ever Was and Dear Abley - By Stickydot - these two by the same author were basically tied, and both were chosen for their inventive sense of humor. The former contrasts that humor with a truly terrifying situation and uncertain level of reality, while the latter is a short, whimsical peek into another world...or just an unseen facet of our own. Sweet, Sweet Discount Candy is one more by this author! The Man in My Eye - By Dustin & Adam Koski - One of the stories we previewed last month, and still one of the most hair-raising of the year. The worst part? It's inspired by real but rare medical phenomena. The Trucker Diaries by Miranda Johansson - Joanne the trucker shares some of the strangest things she's seen and heard during her long, lonely drives in An Illness, Dollar Menu, Factory Town, Good Samaritan, Holy and Sewer Obamas. There's no right or wrong order to read them in, but they'll probably leave you wishing there were more. The Hooligans Series - by Jacobguy - a tour of weird, wacky and sometimes incredibly sinister creatures including Grimm Katt, Hungry Mike, The Neighbor, Pipewinder, Snitcher, Steve, Wither mime and an ultimate visit to Hooligan Land. Jacobguy submitted seven other stories you shouldn't skip either, especially not Just my Job or Maternity Ward! Safety Railing - By Maxwell j - the revelation of life's sheer senselessness is a classic source of horror, but this is one of my new favorite twists on the idea.SEMIFINALISTS: NOTE: minifigures were offered last year to all semifinalists, but are no longer available! If you're into that sort of thing, though, I can always mail you a small piece of original art! Concrete - By Luke G. Jones - another that gripped me with its vivid storytelling and inventive source of dread when one man's hobby of urban exploration takes a turn for the horridly abnormal. Soft Reset - By Ozeanin - all of this year's early preview stories were ultimately chosen amongst the potential victors, but I feel like this short, sweet dose of gaming horror is especially going places. The Boxes: Horse Hole - By Sam Miller - Sam also sent in The Boxes: Tooth Fairy as part of the ongoing Boxes universe, but h o r s e may be my all-time favorite of Miller's many ghastly, dreamlike monstrosities. Pediophobia - By J.D. Stroud - whether you love or hate stories about creepy, creepy dolls, you're bound to enjoy the unexpected direction this one takes by the end. See also Stroud's A Problem With Rats for a beautiful modern spin on a classic fairy tale! What Are You Eating - By Anonymous - another in the scary-funny category. Who or what are our characters? Why are they here? AND WHAT ARE YOU EATING?! Big Betty - By Gareth Barsby - this is one of those with damn near chilling implications beneath a light, even downright adorable surface. Car Enthusiast - By Anonymous - narrated from the mind of a real asshole, what we basically have here is Little Shop of Horrors meets Christine, but don't think the comparisons imply this isn't a unique and original submission. This why we Fart - By anonymous - maybe we're picking too many comedic or half-comedic entries as winners this year, but I couldn't resist the premise of this one. We could never know if this story were true, and it just might flood back to you the next time you're in a crowded elevator. Fry Cook, Emergency Response and
Bloody- By Thomas Wisdom -
Three great little horror-humor shorts, though Fry Cook is my favorite and one I already shared! Chang'e's Scream - By Jess Adams - computers as "monsters" are always a delight, but this is one of those stories where the "villain" is far from clear... Globster - By Ron MacGillivray - I guess our 2015 contest became the year of horror comedy. This is a short one, with a simple payoff, but it works so well on so many levels. Gashes in My Mind - By Sandra Lockhart - our narrator's is missing chunks of memory in a more literal way than usual - she could have sworn her dad had two arms back then, didn't he? Roommate - By Willow Carberry - Strange and relatable, with a payoff that's charming and light while still raising some eerie questions. Dreams of the Rotted Mind - By Neon Minerva - This is essentially just three of the author's actual dreams, but they're not only wildly entertaining, I love, love their framing device. Sal - By Jared Ludy - What do you do when your neighbor is a great guy...but you're the only one who seems to notice what he looks like? Selected Pages From the Rich and Human - By Zoe Keidong - surreal snippets of thought from a child living alone with two older brothers. Who or what are they really? What's truly going on here? Is this Earth? We won't really find out, but it's quite a ride. Tonight I Am Going to Look - By River Langham - Oh no. Oh no. OH! OH NO. Sinkhole - By Athena - there are shades of The Colour out of Space here, but frankly, the payoff gave me far more creeps.Red is my Color - By Peter Allan - a gorgeous, haunting comic with an Edward Gorey feel and an interpretable meaning, one of our most distinct and different entries! Letters Outside the City - By Sarah Cleary - a door to door salesman delivers quality product to the residents of a strange, unknown world...but just what is "TOP GADGET?" Cleary's other stories are also highly original, including the story of a huge organism falling from space, an abstract short that may be a creation story and our longest-titled entry ever, the last with one of the single most inventive narrative twists we've seen here. Merge - By H. Wormwood and T. Brewster - these two girls are really close. Really really really close. At least their families are supportive?RETURNING CHAMPIONS Many past winners have continued to submit some of the greatest entries every cookoff - it just wouldn't feel right to keep announcing the same winners over and over. For 2015's contest, we're experimentally introducing a new "returning champions" category. Is it cheap to exempt prior victors from the main winner's list, or is immortalizing them here its own honor, while giving new writers a chance to shine? Let me know your thoughts! Power - By C. Lonnquist - A father's obsession with what really took his daughter reveals an impossible secret behind ordinary technology. Lonnquist has entered some of the most intense and frightening stories we've ever received, and Power is no different. Sky Gardens - By Izzy Winchester - A short, humorously twisted piece from one of the first five winners of our very first cookoff! The Gelatin Courts - by Irene Vallone - a surreal amphibian odyssey inspired by some of last year's user-submitted nightmares is actually one of my very favorite entries this entire cookoff; Irene might have won for this one alone if she hadn't already been creaming the competition year after year. She's also given us the hilarious Keep Off the Lawn, the genuinely frightening Before the Experiment based on a jokey idea from this site's past, and Where's Old Jack, masterfully written like an authentic, traditional ghost story in the style of Tailypo or Me-tie-dough-ty-walker. Ms. Vallone has submitted many more top-tier stories this year, so give her name a search! The Carrier - By Rahkshasarani - pathogen horror by one of our steady and prolific writers, my favorite of the author's submissions this year by a long shot, but not their only one! See also K2, San Lorenzo, The Roommate, and Mesa Blanco. The Weird Hair - By Austin B. - An especially unpleasant taste of body horror with a little dash of humor, particularly the thing's description. Austin also submitted the amazing The Snow Never Melts that we previewed already, and Excerpt from the Journal of Bartholomew Scott, a beautiful little visual entry. Zombie Guide - By Brian Shadensack - An extensive list of increasingly grotesque infectious ghouls, how to identify them, and how to deal with them. Mimesis - By Thomas F. Johnson - This story of increasingly devious biological mimicry would have probably been one of our top ten winners this year if Thomas hadn't already claimed a prize. He also submitted The Creatures of the Woods and the particularly weird In the Triceratops Car The Wall of Concrete Beach - By Joseph Hartman - a strange little tale of a strange place in an unknown time, followed by The World of Concrete Beach and accompanied by two brief poems. Hartman also submitted the existential On Purpose and the darkly funny New Jamestown, which feels very much like a sister story to his Beelzebus from last year.
Tropicalories - By Hisham H. - this modern twist on a bizarre mythological ghoul is our favorite of Hisham's entries this year, but he's also submitted INSTRUCTIONS AND RULES, a direct sequel to last year's spectacular Rules and Instructions. His Gavage is also some of the most heinous body horror I've ever read, Garbage Glutton is a simple, sweet and very cool monster encounter, Noteworthy Nestor will be a very special read for New Zealanders and A Blurred Line is a grisly murder mystery with a challenging but insidiously inventive answer. These still aren't all of Hisham's entries this year, but we're getting too long winded! Don't miss any of them - he's probably in my top ten horror authors of all time, on or off the internet! Goo Girl and Gas Squad - By Huw Saunders - if you love monsters made of garbage, and who doesn't, these two continue from last year's winning Bag Man! Huw also submitted the brand new, five-part "zombie" (or are they?) saga, Anatomy of Terror The Life Cycle Trilogy - By Prophet Storm - a three-parter that begins with a discarded tire from the wreck of a truck. Prophet Storm also submitted the DEVSUP trilogy for fans of cosmic, existential and digital horror, as well as the three-part Otherkin, in which Japanese oni are just the first of many mythological beings to integrate with modern human society. The same author also submitted several stand-alone stories, including Return to Pandora (a sequel to one of last year's!) and more you'll find below. ALL STORIES:  %#$@$#% - By Jacobguy - "I'm trapped in a dark room. No doors, no windows or lights. All I can hear is the sobbing." 5 Stories - By Trash Face - "From the ceiling hung a shaggy fur of black moss or hair, curling slowly like the fingers on his hands, curling restlessly around the cigarette." 238 - By Acyde - "Patient 238 was extremely sympathetic and kind. It was impossible not to like them." Aberrant Behaviour - By Hisham H. - "The following is an excerpt available free of charge from the Journal of Herpetology" A Blurred Line - By Hisham H. - "Coroner says cause of death was primarily head injury, identified as steel bat" A Light in my Eye - By Eccentric Entomophile - (Poem) All the King's Horses - By Nelke - "I had filled the cranium with old newspapers, and given her a knit hat to make her appear whole." A Minor Obsession - By Michael Myburgh - "It’s really nothing major, sometimes there’s just something you find repulsive, something that disgusts you, something that DRIVES You out of your Fucking MIND!" Anatomy of Terror: Transcript for 05:14, 03/02/20██ - By Huw Saunders - "he jumps up, swinging around like he’s out of his cake, gets in my face. So I give him a push. Barely nothing, just a push, get him to get away from me." Anatomy of Terror: Dr. L████’s first narrative - By Huw Saunders - "The flesh was so weak his head could have fallen off under its own weight." Anatomy of Terror: Transcript for 01:22, 07/02/20██ - By Huw Saunders - "If there’s zombies, you really trust this government to deal with them?" Anatomy of Terror: Dr. L████’s second narrative - By Huw Saunders - "Two people died for nothing. Two more are in prison, because of the zombie panic we set off" Anatomy of Terror: Transcript for 14:46, 08/02/20██ - By Huw Saunders - "The panic’s the thing, people come to think ‘oh no, zombies’ and go crazy." The Ancient Library - By B.G. Bosworth - "I let out a small cry of alarm at the sobbing humanlike figure crouching away from me." An Elven History - By H. Whitehead - "It had taken Jake Carver twenty years to arrive at the conclusion that there was life elsewhere in the universe " A Piece of My Mind - By Nausicaa Harris - "I remember there being a no-pets clause in the contract, but they keep bringing in more and more animals – actually, I don’t even know if I can call them animals anymore" A Premature Burial - By Alex L - "Slowly, you extend your hand outward, hoping to feel around for a light, and to your surprise, you meet surprisingly soft resistance almost immediately." A Price for Progress - By Fluffy the Doombringer - "08:00 Subject complains of minor irritation around injection site" A Problem With Rats - By J.D. Stroud - "She ran and flung open the door to find him sobbing on the bed, holding his cheek where one of the little monsters had bitten him." A Short Review of a Nice Restaurant - By Fluffy the Doombringer - "Texturewise, the closest thing i can compare it to is veal, I guess." Architecture of Peril - By Irene Vallone - "I think this is something old. Older than Ghost Mother, or the River Man. Something so old we weren’t meant to know about it." A Simple Life - By Anonymous - "You try to sleep, although the dog's barks keep waking you up. You don't have a dog, you didn't for a long time." A Tiny Piano - By Keetah Spacecat - "I spent many hours as a small child, winding up the music box and pretending to play the piano on its tiny printed on keys." A Visit From Old Shrivel Sack - By Patrick - (poem)  The Baby Wars part 1 - By James B. Davis - "Thousands of Virgin Marys all across the country. Never touched, but blessed with children. Women from the ages of 13 to 100 were becoming pregnant. Each pregnancy only taking 3 months." Bamboo - By Anonymous - "They reach higher than most trees, those great stalks. They glow with a sick green in this pink haze, the sight of them filling me with a nauseous feeling." Big Betty - By Gareth Barsby - "They had teeth and I had teeth, but my teeth were used for digging into the ground. I wasn’t entirely like them." Bovine - By R.B. Walsh - "I never saw any UFO, let alone any cows floating in the air, but I suppose in retrospect I could have been sleeping." BURGRR YUM - By Hisham H. - "Item dispensed: Styrofoam clamshell that contains what appear to be pale worms writhing in a thick meat sauce with meatballs." Butterball - By James B. Davis - "You've just bought a massive Butterball Turkey for the family to eat." The Beast - By ProphetStorm - "The thing had chased him for years---an eternity, it seemed." Beauty in the Eye - By DNotA - "The forms were very simple, and very uniform: A perfect circle with tapered ribbons trailing after it." Before the Experiment - By Irene Vallone - "I remember the exact moment I came into existence, emerging into this sterile hulk I now inhabit, empty and confused" Benthicket - By Verruciformis - "I think everyone can agree that spiders are fucking creepy, except, of course, for this godforsaken patch of the sticks." Bloody - By Thomas Wisdom - "They can't enter a house without an invitation." The Blue Room - By Monkeysky - "The blue room is in an unmarked house in one of the major cities of the Czech Republic, and that's as specific as I'm going to get, as far as location goes. It's one of the top tourist destinations in the world for people with a lot of money and degenerated emotions, and has been for about thirty years." The Boxes: Horse Hole - By Sam Miller - "It has a torso, but it is so far away from me so as to be nigh unnoticeable. Its head, if it even has one, is completely hidden in the reaches of the sky. It bellows." The Boxes: Tooth Fairy - By Sam Miller - "The floor is a terrible tacky carpet. The ceiling is also a terrible tacky carpet. Similarly, the walls are terrible tacky carpet. All surfaces are covered with terrible tacky carpet." The Breakfast Horror - By Nausicaa Harris - "Any mold that could thrive on the biologically hostile surface of a toaster pastry would surely be a tenacious little creature; even the most cursory of studies might provide a clue as to the identity of the mold growing on the pastry." Burstday - By Prophet Storm - "For hundreds of years, we've been cloning men and women alike, but anything with two x chromosomes is born dead."  Cannibal Canto - By Aoakesme - (short poem!) Car Enthusiast - By Anonymous - "When I step on the gas, it soars. No "find the G-spot" or "let's talk about our feelings" bullshit. I like that." The Carrier - By Rahkshasarani - "How could I have anything to do with how it started? Blame the fishermen. They're the ones who brought the fish in." Carrots on the Brain - By Dandelion Steph - "A most unusual case, Mr. Casey." said the doctor. "Never before have I seen a carrot in the appendix." Chang'e's Scream - By Jess Adams - "We have colonies on Mars, space stations in orbit, even rumors of something with Ceres, but Luna stares down at us, blank and devoid of life." Comedian - By Nausicaa Harris - (short!) Concrete - By Luke G. Jones - "I saw the building just off the road near some tollbooths at Creek Turnpike. I started to ask the toll collector if she could see it too, but my mouth was too dry to say anything." Concrete Beach - By Joseph Hartman - (Short Poem) (Concrete Beach II) The Silence of Concrete Beach - By Joseph Hartman - "Oh, island of stone, / you stand alone, / Atop a sleeping sea." (Concrete Beach III) The Wall of Concrete Beach - By Joseph Hartman - "Across the street, a girl played with her friend. Her friend lacked bones, and flopped around like a ragdoll." (Concrete Beach IV) The World of Concrete Beach - By Joseph Hartman - "Once upon a time, there was only one Cat, and one Man. Then, Man saw something that scared it. So it went crazy. It cut itself into pieces, and put each piece into a box, and buried each box behind a wall." THE CONE - By HISHAM H. - "I can't see any floor or bottom. Maybe there isn't one. All I know that I am currently clinging to a cone of some sort." Contentment - By John Bell - "It looked sort of like one of those transparent frogs, minus the legs. A clear set of intestines, lungs, and a heart." Case File 0042 - By Prophet Storm - "Anyone who alters the Cube has one of two reactions." The Creatures of the Woods - By Thomas F. Johnson - "The sessile "womb" created is something akin to a tunicate by the simplest possible standards." Cue Card - By Streicher Hennessy - " What I first mistook to be a belt of squirming tendrils around the top of the thing started to resolve itself in the moonlight to be countless bodies and parts of bodies, all scrabbling among each other."  Deiceptor Transplantation and Artificial Deiceptor Implantation - By Monkeysky - "Adults should also have their celestial responsiveness checked with each visit to a physician or rabbi" Desert Nights - By Jacobguy - "It was a measly thing. An emaciated human like thing with the skull of a jackal." DEVSUP_CONSOLE - By Prophet Storm - "Delete human one," I whispered, and was greeted by a scream that was nothing short of hellish as the thing in front of me literally dissolved." DEVSUP_RESPAWN - By Prophet Storm - "I know I didn't get to the bit about the Konami Code last time. I promise I'll get to it this time." DEVSUP_PROTO - By Prophet Storm - "Its arms were gangly, its claws long and razor-sharp, and its whole body was speckled here and there with goatlike eyes." D.I.Y. - By The Album Atrium - "Every small victory over the stairs reminded him it was still his house, no matter what it looked like or how much it changed." Daymarish - By The Album Atrium - "The medicine Neist prescribed seemed to be about as cheap as the clinic he worked at. It came in little white bottles with what looked like small purple butterflies stamped on them. They read “Konamaral: Guaranteed to keep that pesky moth away!”" Dear Abley - By Stickydot - "The little girl who lives next door eats the dirt out of our potted plants, even when we bring them inside, she climbs through a window and just goes to town." Doughboy - By Irene Vallone - "Up ahead, the door to Doughboy?s was opening. Somebody who looked, in the darkness and distance, like Mr. Mangioni, walked out." Drainwords - By Rook Lankin - "we want words to appear so we reach down into the drain to fish for one" Dreams of the Rotted Mind - By Neon Minerva - "Far away, in a desolate, horrid, rotten land where almost nobody lives anymore, there lies a small man, rotting on the ground, even his mind starting to rot. Don't you wonder what his dreams are like?"  Eggs - By Ethan Edelen - "I picked the egg up, and, upon discovering it had no peculiarities, I turned it over." Ella - By Nelke - "How is your friend?" she asked. I did not know what she was talking about." Emergency Response - By Thomas Wisdom - "Yeah, there's some kind of animal in my apartment? I don't know, some kind of monkey or something?" Entanglement - By Ryusui - "The Department takes care of its own. The Department takes care of its own." I repeat the lie over and over in my head as I run amongst the mirrors." Excerpt from the Journal of Bartholomew Scott - By Austin Brooks - (image)  Fairy Tale - By Jesus Lizard - "The children shook as they passed the sleeping dead by, for though they were shaped as human beings they were not the bones of people." FEC Macabre - By Jon Strong - "Its another night working past closing at Bobcat Pizzeria, a local pizza arcade themed after a long defunct high school's mascot, Blackie" Fire Ants - By Peter Marchetti - "An international group of entomologists began to study the ants, and was quickly replaced by a group of biochemists, and then physicists, as the sheer impossibility of the ants' anatomy became clear." The Fish - By Roach - "I could tell my sister was there; I was looking right at her. But I couldn’t focus on her. Was she laughing?" Footprints - By Phosphenes - "Soon I emerged onto a place where the child's steps were joined by those of a toddler, one who had passed through long before even the child." Fridge Problems - By Charred Newt - "The fridge has been thumping for a handful of minutes now. The kitchen door does nothing to stop the noise." Frog Caught in my Throat - By James B. Davis - "It was at that moment when my stomach started to swell, my mouth stretched outward, and the pores on my legs began to widen." Fry Cook - By Thomas Wisdom - "So I'm at work, right, and this dude walks in- but something's just wrong, you know?"  Gabriels - By Irene Vallone - "The first Gabriel will die after being hit by a truck." The Game of Mush - By The Hungry Reader - "DO NOT consume non-players anywhere you may be observed by other non-players. (You may feel free to enjoy consumption in the company of other players. Sharing is caring!)" GARBAGE GLUTTON - By Hisham H. - "It looked like the slime, thinned and branched out, had spread tiny threads throughout the rubbish and was now pulling it all together." Gashes in My Mind - By Sandra Lockhart - "there he was, slapping nothing, with a big, black void where his other arm would be. And Mom had to be there too, right? She wouldn’t have missed that. But no, just black nothingness." Gas Squad - By Huw Saunders - "Its skin is torn away in huge burst patches, and then they see the true nature of the thing. Plastic water bottles embedded in heaving grey viscera, rhythmically filling and emptying themselves of dark fluids. Shreds of paper and plastic falling from its wounds like dandruff. " Gavage - By Hisham H. - "Every one of us is immobile. A fat bloated slug." The Gelatin Courts - By Irene Vallone - '"Roll, scroll, prance a horse, we always dance in the gelatin courts!"' Genesis - By Voodoo Vulture - "And the Lord said: Let there be light! And then the light was swallowed by the waters, leaving behind a great new darkness." Glass and Velvet - By Everbound Venvel - "The door, however, was no longer birch. A single slab of rough bone bearing countless nodules and thorny protrusions had replaced the wood." Globster - By Ron MacGillivray - "The thing was just sitting on the beach, resembling a pile of whale corpses grinded to a thick mush then left to bake in the sun for a few days." God Thinks I'm Bad - By James B. Davis - "He told me so." The Golden Ocean - By Nausicaa Harris - "It appeared to be a humanoid figure, standing a couple of yards away. It was vaguely feminine, about five and a half feet tall, and seemingly made of the same stuff as the corn. Its hair was the buttery near-white of corn silk, its limbs were thin and golden like dead corn stalks, and its garments seemed to be made of dried corn husks." Goo Girl - By Huw Saunders - "Bioconstruct!" squeaks a loudspeaker. "Stay where you are!" Green Mojave - By Irene Vallone - "I looked out the window and the biggest damn rattlesnake I’d ever seen was bumping its head on the door."  Helo Nice Man - By Hannah Cobb - "Every month or so he’ll find the kitchen like this, presumably from a bizarre episode of sleepwalking." Her - By Jacobguy - "Thorns began slowly cutting their way out of her skin." Hot Coffee - By LMTYL - "Every scene that Detective Bristol and Dr. Allen were called to, every new victim found perfect yet dead in the undisturbed scenes, added to the deep empty feeling that had been growing in Bristol’s stomach." The Hooligans: Grimm Katt - By Jac R.B. (JacobGuy) - "He looked like a tailless Micky mouse that had swapped heads with a cat that didn't have a nose or whiskers and a big old smile of straight teeth. Whatever I thought, it was cute and funny enough." The hooligans: hooligan land - By Jac R.B. (JacobGuy) - "I woke up somewhere that was not earth. I think to call it a planet at all would be wrong." The hooligans: hungry mike - By Jac R.B. (JacobGuy) - "The sky wasn't always dark. I remember when I was a little kid, the sun would shine in the sky like a burning hot penny." The hooligans: Neighbor - By Jac R.B. (JacobGuy) - "My neighbor has been seemingly sick lately." The hooligans: pipewinder - By Jac R.B. (JacobGuy) - '"I JUST SWAM IN AND BOY IS MY FACE TIRED."' The hooligans: snitcher - By Jac R.B. (JacobGuy) - "The window was open, and it sat there in the window seal. I could see its long thin arms keeping the window open as it crawled out, its black and white stripes and propeller illuminated by the moonlight." The hooligans: Steve - By Jac R.B. (JacobGuy) - "Without exaggerating I could say he was the size of the hulk. His hands big enough to wrap all the way around a person, and then some. Other than some strange slot on his forehead, nothing else was remarkable about him." The hooligans: wither mime - By Jac R.B. (JacobGuy) - "There was one mime who stood far off from everyone. It had its back to the crowd, so no one could see their face."  I Dreamt of the Rain - By Prophet Storm - "The few people I found were hardly people. The rain had done its duty by them, and now they belonged to it." Inner Plateau - By Nelke - "They came with the fog. Cecilia heard the sound of their steps every night, muffled as they came and went down the road." Informal Report - By Aoakesme - "The beasts look like a jaw-less snake that happens to be preposterously wide, or most individuals happened to be." In the Triceratops Car - By Thomas F. Johnson - "It was this state-fair lookin novelty thing, in the shape of a triceratops. It was green and faded by the sun, the fiberglass making up its bulk looking worn." INSTRUCTIONS AND RULES - By Hisham H. - "DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DROWN CARL AFTER MIDNIGHT." Internal - By Ron MacGillivray and Sadie Hunt - "it looked like the kid would find these dark hairs in his mouth every two minutes, and once spat out what resembled a small hairball" The Inner Kicking - By Dandelion Steph - "He could feel the flatness of his own chest, the breeziness of his own hair, but the rest, too—his wife's bosoms, felt as if his own, his wife's hair, felt as if his own. The sensation paralyzed him, made him pause—then he felt...something else." It's Me - By Jacobguy - "I thought you were supposed to be comfy when dead."  Just my Job - By Jacobguy - "I'm what they call a technomancer. Basically a mage of technology."  K2 - By Rahkshasarani - "The other two climbers, clearly seeing the blizzard continue unabated, attempted to catch Mendez, who was stripping off his clothes and exclaiming how good the sun felt on his skin." Keep Off the Lawn - By Irene Vallone - "The thing opened a single bulging eye with an audible wet noise. "Keep off the lawn," it said, with some invisible mouth." The Kinderflasche - By Aoakesme - "The people's village, on the surface, is not necessarily the prettiest place in the world: They live in dry lands, with limestone omnipresent in their landscape. They all seek metal, their one purpose ordered by the ancient machine they follow. Their metal is who they are, the Metallschmied." KREBS: A Comprehensive Guide - By Rachel - "So. You have discovered a KREB. KREBS are a natural part of life and should not be feared. Do not shout at KREB. Do not be loud. If KREB is there he has come for a reason."  The Land of Doors - By James B. Davis - "He awoke on the white carpet floor in a pool of blood. Whether it was his blood, or the blood of the Mask Man, he was unsure. " The Last Leviathan - By Irene Vallone - " A mountainous shape slogs upward and forward, like a giant striding up the continental shelf. The oil washes off its pallid-grey pockmarked surface, streaming through the holes in the flesh and the gaps between the bones, cascading down in black waterfalls as the thing rises into the air." Letters Outside the City - By Sarah Cleary - "I found out. I know what I am, what TOP GADGET is and yet I am left with even more questions. I now understand why you did not tell; yet, I now hate you even more." Lick Granuloma - By J. Towne - "I came to dread the licking. I could never predict when it would start" Life Cycle: Juvenile Stage - By Prophet Storm - "The driver was tired. So tired. But he couldn't get back in the car and rest his feet. His feet were stuck to the ground." Life Cycle: Adult Stage - By Prophet Storm - "I noticed that her hand had a veritable death grip on the pump--but it didn't seem to be pumping gas." Life Cycke: Infant Stage - By Prophet Storm - "The tire lay by the side of the road." Little Snot - By Austin Brooks - "His face was pale and his eyes were puffy, but he looked as remarkably pleased with himself as a diseased little imp could." Love for a Son - By Irene Vallone - "It felt like he was stroking the undersides of my eyeballs. The rest of his fingers were clamped onto my face, gripping my cheeks, their soft nail-less tips pressing into my cheekbones." Lure of Thunder - By Author Ultima - "Backing away slowly, they turned around without hesitation and started to run, but the wurm was quickly gaining on them."  The Man in My Eye - By Dustin & Adam Koski - "I’d gone two months of what had been the left side of my vision just not being there and was getting used to it. But slowly I became aware there was a small, faint white patch in otherwise pure blackness." The Mansion - By mememaedas - "I can't say that my experience was spooky or terrifying, it was gross and confusing really." Maternity Ward - By Jacobguy - "Frozen in shock, the giant yellow, maggot-like creature in my arms simply swayed from side to size before settling down" Merge - By H. Wormwood and T. Brewster - "You know how in primary school there's always those two girls who are completely joined-at-the-hip inseparable?" Mesa Blanco - By Rahkshasarani - "Visitors to the park that contains Mesa Blanco often stumble upon kachina dolls by the dozen, often embedded in clay deposits or seemingly growing out of the stone." Mimesis - By Thomas F. Johnson - "At first I'm all, big deal, I see, lots o plastic bags in this part o' town. Then it starts following me." MONSTERBATER - By Ben Aron - (NSFW) "I am Necrofucker," said the creature. "I will be your guide to the best porn in up to 46 different dimensions!" Morbid Curiosity - By Neon Minerva - "He nearly slipped on an eyeball, squishing it with his bare foot." Mr. Strole and his unbelievably shocking encounter with the being that will be known in this story as the Clung - By Sarah Cleary - "As he plodded down the faded crosswalk, he tried to remember if the divorce led to the clung or if the clung led to the div-" Mr. Click - By Naps - "he turned into three centipedes and scuttled away"  New Jamestown - By Joseph Hartman - "Turns out the afterlife isn't much different from life. It got to the point where I assumed that I had survived my brush with death, and had just been kidnapped and carted off to this psuedo-utopia." Nightcrawler - By Nick Noah - "It was a little closer now, but still I could make out no more details than before. The person still held their arms in the air in that weird manner, swaying gently." The Night of Core - By LAT - "After going through the regular 26.66 percent pitch and tempo increase, I felt that the track just wasn't unique enough for today's world. I repeated the process, increasing the pitch and tempo once again. Double nightcore has been done before, I say to myself. I repeat. Still not enough." Night Sky - By Michael Behnke - "Alan liked looking at the stars. It always helped him feel less alone." Noteworthy Nestor - By Hisham H. - "A plaintive, desperate shriek. A woman in pain, possibly with an injured jaw; it sounded like she had trouble saying the words." Not So Handy - By Sam Swigart - "The doctors told me to write a detailed account of what happened before the...incident."  Observations on a Foggy Night - By Nausicaa Harris - (images!) One of Those Screamer Videos - By Sue Donym - "I always thought that was the funny part. They don’t work on me anyway; I’ve seen dozens and they’ve become totally predictable." On Purpose - By Joseph Hartman - "I am crafting my masterpiece." Otherkin: Acceptance - By Prophet Storm - "Us regular, plain, red-blooded Americans are becoming the minority" Otherkin: Induction - By Prophet Storm - "Subject 12 is of an apparently humanoid race. It is apparently male, possessed of bright red skin, black, curled horns, colorless eyes, and a long, primate-like tail." Otherkin: Alternative Lifestyle - By Prophet Storm - "I straighten the charm paper on my neck. It's just a little Japanese charm to anyone else, but to the Oni, it's an important part of the courtship process."  Paula - By Emma G. - "Subject’s state of undeath does not seem to cause her any mental distress or anxiety, though she claims to possess no knowledge of how or why she exists" Pale Blue - By Athena - "I saw it first in my window. I know it must've had a shape, but to my eyes it was indescribable;" Pediophobia - By J.D. Stroud - "It started wrapping its raggedy, filthy ears around my legs" The Person, The Thing, and The Flat Place - By Sarah Cleary - "A person is in a flat place. They are holding the thing that is not a place. They are standing outside of the house place, looking at the sky place." Pets - By Tan Yi Tong - "I couldn't find Mama Bird today, but I heard her hooves clopping around in her silver kettle. I don't know where the rest of her is." Picasso - By Sam Miller - "They said it was some newly found painting by Picasso. That thing on it. Knobbly. So brightly neon-hued that it stabs the eyes just to look at it." Pipe Scum - By Jon Strong - "She said there was a gelatinous mass in some u-pipe or whatever, bright red. She said I shouldn't eat jello in the shower" Plagiarism - By Sue Donym - "let’s say, theoretically, there is a supercomputer with a human genome-generating algorithm hidden deep within the Earth’s crust" Power - By C. Lonnquist - '"You saw them, didn't you? Up there when Cassie died? They were watching, you know."' Pressure - By Ryan Oleynik - "There is something rebellious about a campfire in the backwoods darkness."  Red is my Color - By Peter Allan - (comic!) Repulsion - By Violet K. - "The levitation was, at least, fun for a little bit." Resource Guarding - By Jon Strong - "This is not a confession. Only people who did something wrong or bad confess." THE RE-SPOOPENNING - By AlabastarLucario_Son_Of_CTHULHU_GlobalWarmingIsALie - (The contents of this story are too horrifying to replicate here. You have been warned.) Return to Pandora - By ProphetStorm - '"Didn't you pay attention to the briefing, Charlie? These little green men are former US Astronauts, and they were equipped just like we are."' ROAD KILL - By SJ Nurse - "As we drove, more and more roadkill started to appear, first individually, then in groups, then in huge steaming swaths that filled the ditches and spilled onto the asphalt." Roommate - By Willow Carberry - "I could hear him moving around at night, banging around and clinking plates and glasses while I was trying to sleep." The Roommate - By Rahkshasarani - "Look, I'll just come right out and say it: none of us are really in the right. I mean, there were six of us in the same apartment. Most of us weren't even on the lease." The Rose Eater - By Tom - (poem!) Rusty Rooms and Clown Suits - By James B. Davis - " A bright and colorful clown suit hung on the wall."  Sacrifice - By anonymous - "-„She’s GONE, isn’t she?! ALL gone, and she left the door open! Ooooh, she left the door open, what a lucky day!" Safety Railing - By Maxwell j - "I diverged from the path of my bubble by about six inches in June of last year." Sal - By Jared Ludy - "There’s something very strange about my neighbor, Sal." Salt - By Eve Q - "The crew all said it was just seasickness. Told you to quit worrying over a little nausea, you’ll get used to it soon enough. You didn’t." Same As It Ever Was - By Stickydot - "My wife is five-foot-three, with black hair in a bob cut, and beautiful green eyes. What is sitting at the other side of the table, is a mop." San Lorenzo - By Rahkshasarani - "Adult and child alike would ingest hallucinogenic compounds on assigned nights. Sometimes residents would go missing and have to be rescued from death by dehydration in the desert." Selected Pages From the Rich and Human - By Zoe Keidong - "He screams at the mirror sometimes when I walk past his room, almost like how he screams at me. He apologizes right after to it, like he’s scared of what he did. Is that what narcissism is?" Set - By Jac R.B. (JacobGuy) - "The creature placed its slimy, webbed hands on the boy's arm, which he now noticed was visibly broken." Shadow Play - By Robbie Lyons - "Some smiled crazily, laughing without laughter. Others crouched and shook in the corners, huddled by the nightlights. The ones in front of the beer signs seemed to sway drunkenly and occasionally kicked at the skittering, quadrupedal shadows that swarmed over every inch of dirty beige carpet." Silent Hollow - By ProphetStorm - "The greengrocer is forgettable, and his way of joking slightly as he hands you your groceries fails to be eerie." Silhouettes of Monsters and Men - By anonymous - "I used to love the future. I still do, at least parts of it." Sinkhole - By Athena - "As long as I can remember there's been a sinkhole outside my house. It's gradually grown throughout the years, slowly taking over our entire yard." Sky Gardens - By Izzy Winchester - '"Gimme a quarter for the secret, and you'll get the balloon free. How's that sound?"' sleepless night - By gobtraz - "It was nothing newsworthy that those damn things would be violent, and it was nothing newsworthy that they would be put down like the dogs they were." Sleep Tight - By Sue Donym - "I hate to tell you this, but the breathing is real, it is not coming from you or your spouse or any other familiar housemate, and it is not coming from outside." Snowman - By ProphetStorm - "It was upward of ninety degrees out, and the snow was ankle-deep." The Snow Never Melts - By Austin Brooks - "The oldest tell legends of a far off world were the snow ebbs and flows and even vanishes altogether for a time, were light and dark shift in even cadence." Soft Reset - By Ozeanin - "I've been up all night trying to get this stupid Shiny." Something in my throat - By carpcave - "Is this something a human should cough up?" Soul - By AJTheMighty - "A slow grumbling sound filled the room, and in came an.....abomination." sp00py stories - By Caleb Nusbaum - (large image file!) Splatter Freak - By Gwendolynn Anathema MacGlower - 'The footsteps had stopped outside his door. The door creaked open when his father pushed it. "Get up, Cam," he said, "We're going for a walk."' The Staring Man - By Ron MacGillivray - "Eventually, an inkling of curiosity made her peek back through the window at the man. He was now leaning against a lamppost, a twisted smile on his face that didn't match his cold, unblinking eyes." Story of a Lifetime - By Aoakesme - "They told me I had to write the story of a life time, the story of centuries or of aeons. I tried my absolute best to find the story, I thought it had to be something real!" The Surgeon - By Infernalthing - "There are rumors of a mysterious entity known only as the Surgeon. Nobody was able to fully describe his appearance, but it's only known that he is tall and wears heavy coating. His face is never seen, most certainly being covered in wraps or something, and the eyes are maybe hidden under round goggles." Sweet, Sweet Discount Candy - By Stickydot - "I picked up a bag of what was supposed to be gummy bats, when I saw the bag start to quiver, almost as if it was cold, too. I held it close to my face to make sure nothing was wrong, only to make eye contact with a large, bright green rat."  Take a Handful - By Robbie Lyons - "A vampire wants to drink your blood, a werewolf wants to eat you. He wasnt yet old enough to be truly afraid of these things. The Candle Man...got you, just like that. He was just young enough to understand that perfectly." Teleporter in a Penguin - By James B. Davis - "I still can’t believe we did what we did, it was terrible. Just seeing that poor creature go through what it did." That's All She Wrote - By Kay - "I saw a hole in the crowd. It moved with the rest of the students but no one filled it." They Watch Us - By Sam Miller - "A gaunt shape. A big head. It clings to the walls above my bed, staring down at me with holes that go straight through its head, letting the meager light shine on through." This why we Fart - By anonymous - "So for a long time, I assumed that everyone could see it. From my perspective, the only reason we never talked about it was that there was some sort of unspoken rule." Those Words Like Wind - By Connor Drescher - "My name is Asana, once Katahina, Death-Priest of the Order of Sha’Kriss Ala" Tick Tock - By Zach Metz - "That sound is the most maddening in the world, I think." Tonight I Am Going to Look - By River Langham - "It is slithering up my door now, wrapping itself around my doorknob. My eyes have stopped spasming, and I will be able to open them in a moment." Transformations of a Curve - By Nausicaa Harris - "Math is fun during the day." Tupperware - By Zach Metz - "Out of the container had crawled a tiny thing formed, it seemed, out of raw rot, predominantly flesh but also vegetable matter, that was oozing its way to the edge of the counter." Tropicalories - By Hisham H. - "I could see that the wings were strangely, almost haphazardly jointed, asymmetrical even. It kept poking around in the thatch head down, like a mosquito seeking a vessel." Trucker Diaries: An Illness - By Miranda Johansson - "Chop your arm off, the guy said, and it'll grow back all lumpy and wrong." Trucker Diaries: Dollar Menu - By Miranda Johansson - "when you've got a deadline coming up and you're on the highway, it's in the middle of the night, you're starving - obviously you're gonna grab a burger." Trucker Diaries: Factory Town - By Miranda Johansson - "closer to the factory, there was this... thrumming. It wasn't even a noise, really." Trucker Diaries: Good Samaritan - By Miranda Johansson - "I'm out there, lighting a cigarette, when I hear these weird sounds. These weird moans, and a clicking noise, sounds kinda like someone dropping pebbles on the ground." Trucker Diaries: Holy - By Miranda Johansson - "I used to be a Christian, I guess. Presbyterian. I'm not, anymore." Trucker Diaries: Sewer Obamas - By Miranda Johansson - "It's why I'd much rather cross the street than have to walk right past a manhole." True Image - By Lokal - "He started cutting thin strips of flesh and dropping them in sink."  Under the Covers - By Rugnor - "I tried to return under the bed but then it was already late, it was staring at me with those weird, damp eyes they have, I was so scared I couldn't move." Unwanted Guests - By Violet - "He's always wanted to see what's inside but being just a kid, only in fifth grade, he's too scared."  We Are Armstrong - By Prophet Storm - "We are Armstrong! Armstrong is invincible!" The Weird Hair - By Austin B. - "I used to have something of a picking problem." What Are You Eating - By Anonymous - "I could swear I just heard you swallow something. Nevermind. Let's keep going." What's Her Face - By Duncan Skjaret - "The customer jerked the doll away from her, muttering in undisguised disgust." What the Forest Offered - By Rook Lankin - "It is now fifteen years since our children went away." Where's Old Jack - By Irene Vallone - "Old Jack was the old hunter’s only friend, and he was happy that way." Who They Are And Why We Ignore Them - By Sarah Cleary - "Soon, the fact that a giant eldritch alien died in the shape of a symbol for love seemed to become more important than the fact that a giant eldritch alien had crash-landed and died." Wild Card - By TheGunheart and Ryusui - "Of course a human had to have built this thing. No one else could have such an unironically awful sense of humor." Writ to be Read - By Nick Norden - "I galumphed down to the library a ways off from my home/and once there I scoured shelves for dusty sailor's tomes."  Yazul - By Joseph Bashaw - "Yazul noticed with slight disturbance that even though he was looking right at the servants, he never paid attention to their faces, and now that they left he wondered why he couldn't remember even a single face."  Zombie Guide - By Brian Shadensack - "Some information is scrambled for people or entities accessing this guide with Green Level or below clearance." Zzz Zzz Zzz - By James B. Davis - (microstory) comments powered by Disqus |