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Hosted by Jonathan Wojcik
Welcome to year five! ...Or was it six? Is it confusing that we still consider this "2017's" story entries even though, as usual, we post them the first week of the new year? It's now officially been half a decade of this writing jam, enough time to have passed that I'm not even sure I hear "jam" used in that context anymore. Are the kids still saying "jam" that way?!
IMPORTANT STUFF:
 WINNING AUTHORS: If your name is here, you can e-mail me for a shirt of your choice from the store! If you know of any artwork I've made that you want on one of these shirts, let me know!
 Buddy System - By Austin Scheiner - LATE WINNER! You'll have to figure out yourself how the narrative of this executable file progresses; it's not too tricky! Gut Alley - By Nelke - Who, or what, keeps dumping a pile of entrails and bones on the same street, every week? This simple, grotesque mystery is only the first oddity in a narrative driven by rich characterization and scene setting that might hook you with or without its fantastical and ultimately very, very dark elements. Though your tastes are naturally going to vary, we personally agreed this was the single strongest entry of the year, and by one of last year's winners! Full Moon, or a Description of Fish I Have Seen - By Kite Line - the author of A Love Story returns three years later with a grand, haunting look into a distorted and watery world. She Died, But the Television Didn't. - By Sarah Cleary - Brendan is a multi-year winner at this point, but just keeps outdoing himself. This story, which lives up completely to its title, was one of our top favorite of all stories submitted in 2017, but other entries by Cleary were contenders as well, including FearCanal, Who Built the House?, Excerpts From A Book That Will Never Be Written 1, Hello, Alan., Taking Credit, and Float, or a Short Period Between Long Periods of Isolation Boar - By Toldentops - Connected to last year's already awesome, dreamlike Dear, Deer, I feel as if the two together form something unique and fascinating enough to earn one of this year's winning spots, and Boar comes with illustrations! Keetah Spacecat's entries - Keetah has entered every year with stories good enough I could have sworn one had already been finalist in the past, but I guess this is Keetah's first time as a top ten winner for the entries Your New Best Friend, A Series of Calls to the USDA Office, and the Tales from the Old Country series, which includes Hogwash, Father Frost, Fever Dream, Faeries, and The White Stag! Algorithms - By Ellen Spacelizards - Oh...so THAT'S where those are coming from. Drifter - By Pedantic Meatsack - Written as a transcript of a tape recording, Drifter chronicles the strange curse that befell a very small town as narrated by one of its victims. Millien's stories - Either of these two stories might have one all alone! On a Pale Horse features an effort to turn the tables on a specter of death itself and An event from a town in New South Wales follows an intrusion into an otherworldly landscape...each with a surprise twist! The Town - By doomydoomydoom - We previewed this one weeks ago, and while it was one of the first few stories sent in this year, it never stopped being a favorite. Dandelion Steph's entries - another author who's submitted every year now with a lot of solid entries gets a winning slot for the first time! Our favorite was Four Pink Fingers a classic fairy tale setup with a very different conclusion begging for a few sequels. Steph also submitted the shorter, humorously unsettling "And Then...!" as well as Best Big Sister Ever.SEMIFINALISTS: While we're not made out of shirts, semifinalists can pick out any color of Dr. Decay minifigure from the etsy store. Just e-mail me!
Making True Love - By Land of Obscure Potatoes - A beautiful little comic, lacking dialog but painting a vivid picture of its setting regardless. Ghoul-B-Gone - by Austin Brooks - This story lampshades itself early on as essentially expanded universe Ghostbusters fiction, but as someone who grew up with Ghostbusters, I enjoyed this story's over-the-top cartoon sensibilities and main character more than I've probably ever liked an actual Ghostbusters movie. It plays out like a series pilot, mostly a vehicle to establish a wacky cast of both living and dead heroes, and I hope that means there really might be more in store. Brooks also submitted Backroad, in which a young man introduces a girl to his unconventional family, and the gruesomely appetizing shorter story, Square Pizza! Episode 29 - By Gozuforce - A short and interesting entry, written in script format, wherein a small family has a bit of a problem. The author also submitted The snail's leaf, a very different take on the end of human domination over our planet, as well as the disturbing It has many arms! I Ruined Everything With the Push of a Button - By Samsinater - A temporal experiment goes only slightly awry, but it turns out that's as awry as it ever needs to go. CPU - By E. Lefebvre - Two students perfect the art of integrating computer technology with a human brain, and things only get worse (or better) from there. The Fursuiter - By Reggie - Ohhh noooo! The Smiling Thing - By Saga - An entry with a more classic Creepypasta or SCP feel, and perhaps one of my favorite new "monsters" submitted this year! All Souls - By Erika - Another long form and beautifully written tale of the supernatural...with guest appearances by a number of extinct organisms! The Wrong Bathroom - By Jacob Roberts - There's a lot that this story can obviously symbolize. Whatever it means to you, I think it went from mostly quirky and funny to ultimately sweet. Kira M's entries, including the entire Brothers in Rust series! Part I,
Part II,
Part III, and
Part IV together present the adventure of two brothers in a far-flung post-semi-apocalypse, a number of fantastic encounters and by far one of the most unlikely romances ever played so sincerely in these archives. Our very favorite story by Kira M, however, wound up being the mysterious and tragic An Apple A Day, and then there's Anthony Bourdain's Nightmare. A true tale of terror if there ever was one. The roses of life and the forest of song - By DiplodocusDinosaur - One of our previewed stories, a fascinating adventure with a truly bizarre, botanical antagonist. Bein' The Big One - By Nikko - Sagely advice on how to look after your littler siblings. Witness Extinction - By Luna Wolf - We still love this one's concept, and the same author submitted Icipher and
Drowned in Darkness, which honestly can't be described without ruining the best moments. The Wolf - By saint salt - The lengthy, emotional tale of a friendship between two college roomies, one of whom is gifted, or cursed, with almost omnipotent power. The same author also submitted He Shall Not Yet Know Osiris and The Space Between!
Deja Mort - By Cinis Kai - In the future, an incredible technology allows us to generate crystal-clear video from human brains...but what happens when we hook it up to somebody dead? The Plastic Roses - By Airborne Terror - Like I previously said about this story, it really captures a rarely discussed mood and atmosphere that, for me, often came when visiting elderly family or waiting at a doctor's office. The Red Marble - By Omny - One of our preview stories, I really feel this is one of the most heartrending ways for our world to "end," or at least change for the worse. Conner Burgess's Stories - Including the poem Two-String Tom and Two-Arm Tim, along with the three short stories Strange Autumn Town, Gathering of Dogs, and Electronics Run. Bestiary of the Vestibular Wood - By Charlotte Moore - A pixel-illustrated guide to the curious things lurking in a mysterious forest...RETURNING CHAMPIONS New stories, sequels and continuations by finalists from previous years! While a few authors outdid themselves enough to become finalists all over again, everyone here has also met or exceeded the level of quality you can expect from past winners. Nodens Management Systems Contractor Review Form - by Nausicaa Harris - Another author that's come back year after year with amazing talent, this one chronicles the weird and humorous goings-on of one small town's 24-hour convenience store. Nausicaa also submitted the poem Black Mother and the lyrical She-Stood-To-Greet-The-Dead-And-Thank-Them.
Anchorhands - By Miranda Johansson - This was my favorite of Johansson's 2017 entries, which really sucked me in and kept me glued to its every word! Miranda's other stories differ incredibly in subject matter and tone, including Visiting Anders, Showdown at Sweetheart Ridge and She Never Got Addicted! The Cold - By C. Lonnquist - A woman comes to in a blizzard, her car totaled, and she's not the only one...but it was no conventional accident. Every Saturday - by Hisham Hasan - any story in which an anthropomorphic moth shows up to brag about a superpower it calls Dolores is a keeper, for sure. Hisham also entered the dino-riffic Partial List, a dream entry entitled The Re-Imagining, the disturbing biotech Shopping Around, the wiki-style This Ciconiiformes-related article is a stub, the monster encounter of Oldhill Lake, the heart tugging Hemocyanin, the very short but very funny Endozoochory, and finally Nepenthes polypsyche, another in Hisham's noble effort to become the Peter Benchley of botany.
At the very last minute, Hisham also entered a new all-time favorite of mine, the Guide to Getting All the Creepers! Going Orange - By Claude Turner - another entry in Turner's fairy-ravaged future that began with Going Green and continued more recently with Going Blue. The Boxes: Checkmate and The Boxes: Stomach Bug - By Sam Miller - The Boxes continues its tradition of strange and varied stories with a sense of dark humor. Brian Shadensack's entries - another long time writer of some of our best stories submitted five extra short, extra peculiar and highly diverse entries this year, so take a few minutes to enjoy 130130, Age Doesn't Kill, Cars Do, Hangovers are the Worst, Right?, 8 Helpful Sunflower Tips, and Ice Cream Flavor Idea.
The Hoard - By Rahkshasarani - This was our clear favorite of this author's 2017 stories, and one of the best this year at communicating pure dread, though Rahkshasarani also entered Espiritu. Beasts of Chaos - By Joseph Hartman - This monster-hunting fantasy epic includes some of the most unforgettable descriptions of "beasts" I have quite possibly ever read. Bibliophobia - By Streicher Hennessy - Speaking of monster descriptions, that's basically the entire core of this entry, and it's loaded with imaginative creeps!Howloween Liquidators and The Weirdest Infomercial I've Ever Seen - By Thomas F. Johnson - The humor and horror you can squeeze from the weird world of local businesses runs pretty deep. The Grand Finale(?) To The Hooligans: Part I: Putrid Painting - By Jac R. B. (Jacobguy) - The Hooligans is a series loaded with zany monstrosities, which has now stretched across all five years of the cookoff and comes to a close (maybe) this year, beginning with this story. Navigational buttons have been provided, as this year's Hooligans are designed to be read in order! ALL STORIES:  130130 - By Brian Shadensack - (Short!) Age Doesn't Kill, Cars Do - By Brian Shadensack - "Listen all I want to do is have nightmares." "And Then...!" - By Dandelion Steph - "Kelly awoke to an uncomfortable weight on her ribs." ...And now, the weather! - By Enderlord99 - "(Short form!)" A Body Like Clay - By Regis Ethell - "A body like clay. Shapeless, malleable, a form that will warp itself to your whims." A Children's Guide to Eldritch Horror - By Fluffy The Doombringer - "This funny fellow is Rythnagaon, the eternal pupa!" A Creepypasta About Trying to Write a Creepypasta - By Gareth Barsby - "Fred stared at the computer screen, his eyes wide, sweat dripping down his skin." A long, boring drive - By Shiisiln - "Last year, I was driving to my parents house for Thanksgiving..." A Nature Lover's cabin - By Anonymous - "Interesting style, but...I'm not sure this is so much "nature lover" as it is, "obsessed hunter." A NOTE ABOUT DOPPELGANGERS - By Infernalthing - "Alright, I write down this note so I would not forget." A Pleasant Day in Todaysville. - By Aloin Dubois - (Dream Entry!) A Poem of Warning - By Fluffy The Doombringer - "There's a creature in the woods/That feasts on vitrious jelly/He'll pluck out your eyes/And stuff them into his belly." A Routine Procedure - By Hummingbird - "It was a routine procedure for an experienced OBGYN: a birth." A Series of Calls to the USDA Office - By Keetah Spacecat - "I ordered some antibiotics yesterday for my dairy cows, and I think somethin' might be wrong with this here batch." A Sore Throat, or The Unfortunate Circumstance of Reverberation in Desperation From a Cruel Summer - By Mars B. - "I was born screaming on the day the sun set the world on fire." A Succession of Masks - By Huw Saunders - "The sky is the colour of a bruise." Abused Child - By TheRedRage - "It begins the way it usually does." Advance Warning - By Dave Lerner - "The dumb sap had just stood there, letting the shooter kill people at random. He'd lived only through sheer luck. Sheer undeserved luck." Air - By Anonymous - "I took note of the two elongated appendages forming from the scabrous wounds encrusting certain parts of my body." Algorithms - By Ellen Spacelizards - "WAKE UP." Alien Radio (archived for human consumption) - By Anonymous Anomaly - "I'm Gangrene John--And I'm Lissy Corona--Welcoming you to your daily supplement of nutritious vocalized factoid information!" All Souls - By Erika - "Another thing vaguely resembling an inconceivably huge plunger drifted serenely high above in the sky like a blimp, a mass of miles-long tendrils swaying hypnotically behind it." An Apple A Day - By Kira M. - "Literally the only thing that we could do was to be suspicious of anyone buying a single apple." An event from a town in New South Wales - By Millien - "I realised that it was organic and alive. Like a tree given the monstrous power of motion. The owner of this abode." An Old Skinner - By Eldritchhat - "All my life I considered my skepticism the shining jewel of my existence." Anatidaephobia - By creepy pasťák - "I suffer from anatidaephobia." Anchorhands - By Miranda Johansson - "SEE ANCHORHANDS," the sign said. "GOD'S JOKE." The Angel of Self-Loathing - By E. Lefebvre - "The angel first came to Calvin a few months after his great-uncle's funeral." Angels - By nico - "By middle school, the novelty has worn off. Sasha sits alone in class, melding into the background hum of the angels he still sees." Anthony Bourdain's Nightmare - By Kira M. - "I can't stop to think, I have to keep running from them." Armoire De Tueur - By Anonymous - "As I sit, surrounded by my new "friends" for lack of a better term, I find myself reflecting on how bad things are for people with my kind of hobby."  Babysitter Bait - By Nick Noir - "They're total sweeties, this is gonna be a piece of cake." Backroad - By Austin Brooks - "I struggled into the passenger seat of Ivy's car with enough leftover chicken to feed a small army." The Bad Man - By Althaea Rose - "I am a very bad person." (EXTREME CONTENT WARNING: this is a horror story themed around child sexual abuse.) Beasts of Chaos - By Joseph Hartman - "Fuvinh was a toad the size of a house, that devoured men and laid skeletal eggs. " Beauty - By Regis Ethell - "(This is an epilogue to the story Music, Music.)" Bein' The Big One - By Nikko - "so ya gotta lil brother huh hoo boy hoo boy" Best Big Sister Ever - By Dandelion Steph - "Sick" was insufficient to describe what she felt, but the sensations did bring to mind an article she once read on a horrific tropical disease." Bestiary of the Vestibular Wood - By Charlotte Moore - "I don't quite remember how I got roped into this delivery job, but as long as I move quickly, I can probably get to Gnestor and out of there before anyone notices I'm not delivering these." Bibliophobia - By Streicher Hennessy - "You are waiting alone in the dentist office for your appointment and have been doing so a long time." Black Mother - By Nausicaa Harris - "You live and you die by the whim of the street/You're young and you're helpless; you've nothing to eat" Blink, Dammit! - By Tredlocity - "Blink." Blue Bloods - By Jacob Roberts - "Every year more of us were lifted into the sky in their metal ships." Boar - By Toldentops - "EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT" The Boxes: Checkmate - By Sam Miller - "I tap the shoulder of a figure standing next to me, but the shoulder feels strangely hard.." The Boxes: Stomach Bug - By Sam Miller - "The voice comes from my belly, speaking in a thick New York accent. I feel many spindly things move about inside of me, legs pushing at my skin and making it bulge." Brothers in Rust pt. 1 - By Kira M. - "It's said that he dragged one of the bizarre living metal trees back from the Dread Shores, with the tree struggling and fighting every inch of the way." Brothers in Rust pt. 2 - By Kira M. - "The thorny black glove made a clank as it landed on the stones, followed by an 'ouch'." Brothers in Rust pt. 3 - By Kira M. - "Nothing here fears humans. Humans fear everything here." Brothers in Rust pt. 4 - By Kira M. - "The little metal worm nodded and enthusiastically whirled her drill." Buddy System - By Austin Scheiner - LATE WINNER! You'll have to figure out yourself how the narrative of this executable file progresses; it's not too tricky!  Changeling - By Felix Kalavera - "The eyes as black as night. A face as pale and beautiful as a waning moon." Classroom and Abyss - By UnclePhobic - "The abyss appeared a week before the end of summer term." Claws - By Cassie Carryd - "I step inside and lock the front door, and the second door behind it." The Climb - By Sam Pinson - "Out in the middle of the field was someone in a dark blue robe, staring at the mountain next to his home." clues - By Anonymous - "LOST Black & white mutt, Answers to the name of Hailey, If found, God help you." Coffin Jockey - By Jac R. B. (Jacobguy) - "When you work at the city morgue, you tend to see some weird things." The Cold - By C. Lonnquist - "The driver’s side window smashed inward, flicking glass at Sue. Bill yelled in surprised and reached up, grasping something around his neck." The Conspiracy - By Justin Best - "It all started December 10 2028 with NASA started Hyperion the first manned mission to Mars." Convergence - By Thomas Wisdom - "We thought it was snow at first." Cooperation - By Jackson Gilbert - "He wore a mask- it looked like some kind of shiny rubber. The mask covered his face, and I could only see his eyes through it. They were big and wet, bright blue." CPU - By E. Lefebvre - "Don was an engineering major. Don had ideas. Don started talking about the power of the human brain as a processor, which you knew was true. And Don, poor Don, only understood things in terms of parts fitting together.." Curses B We - By Gareth Barsby - "'Hello, Curses B We, you won't find a worse curse."  December 24th 2017 - By Sadler Prine - "A loud series crunching and a disgusting squelching came from my chimney, and following it was an indescribable sickly stink." Deja Mort - By Cinis Kai - " The team did their best to remain objective, but it was difficult to shake the feeling that they were watching the lives of the deceased play out on each of the screens." Deeper, Darker - By Wendy Wilds - "I always liked scuba diving." Demiurge - By Zach Rebey - "Imagine God." Don't Tread on Me - By Jacob Roberts - "I'm the kind of guy who takes the path of least resistance." Don't you hate it when... - By Anonymous - "Don't you hate it when you walk into a room and then forget why you entered it in the first place?" Down There in the Dark - By kat blue - "The Jacksons lost both their children in a terrible incident, but it's hard to explain." Down Under - By Sam Miller - "A man dashes out in the outback, fence to his back." The Dreamlands: The Cats of Mangor - By TheRedRage - "There is a world inside the minds of men, a world where reality is an intruder and all dreams are true." The Dreamlands: The Labyrinth - By TheRedRage - "I shall tell the dreadful story of the labyrinth and the nightmarish thing that I found in there." Drifter - By PedanticMeatsack - "*A-side of cassette recovered from a heat damaged Panasonic RQ2102, labled 'Drifter'* Drowned in Darkness - By Luna Wolf - "My companions jumped every time sand slipped through cracks in the ceiling, thinking the structure was about to cave in on them."  Education - By Hugo A Gomez - "3 months before she disappeared and 12 years before I discovered what happened to her, my mother told me about the ruins that were supposed to be her first place of work as a teacher." Eight Steps to True Selflessness - By Starmaid_Storage - "1:When you reach the temple, you have not reached the temple." Electronics Run - By Conner Burgess - "A group of 3 men made their way along the sidewalk, as the road was not passable due to remaining cars, nearly in pristine condition despite the time that had passed." Endozoochory - By Hisham Hasan - "Tap-tap-tap "Yo! Hey, YO!" Episode 29 - By Gozuforce - "Can you...Can you help me ... Kill him?" Espiritu - By Rahkshasarani - "Travelers who passed through began calling it "the valley of ghouls" as the townsfolk sickened visibly." Every Saturday - By Hisham Hasan - "I am Mournmoth, the Tearjerker! Sadness is what make humans weak! Grief is your undoing! My ability Dolores sows the seeds of grief in your weak hearts! Drown in your sorrows!" Excerpts From A Book That Will Never Be Written 1 - By Sarah Cleary - "SECTION 26: CHAUNCEY TELLS FOSTER HIS RENDITION OF A WELL KNOWN FABLE"  FATAL ERROR - By Sheperd - "What he saw horrified him. His walls had become a stark blank white." FearCanal - By Sarah Cleary - "The recipients gathered as Nellis and her genderless one legged concubine set up the artificially organic table." Fix the Sink - By WriterJosh - "Phil was not handy." Float, or a Short Period Between Long Periods of Isolation - By Sarah Cleary - "You know, being alone on a flat, featureless plane isn't that bad. It's when I have company that it becomes unbearable." Four Pink Fingers - By Dandelion Steph - "Boxed in within the darkness of its talons, the princess could see only a sliver of sky." Fucking Traffic - By Jackson Gilbert - "Hey! Dipshit! You weren't supposed to go yet!" Full Moon, or a Description of Fish I Have Seen - By Kite Line - "You still love fish, right? Thing is, with all of the big changes recently, I’ve been seeing some real interesting new fish show up that I’ve never seen before.." The Fursuiter - By Reggie - "My flesh is crusted over with decaying foam and loose shreds of fur, my unblinking plastic eyes trace your every move, and trust me, you don't even want to know what's going on under my jeans."  Garnishes - By Peter Marchetti - "A pleasant collection of sounds, Sam thought: rain pattering softly against the roof, the low drone of the heat turning on, the crinkle of brown paper as he pulled his lunch from the bag." Gathering of Dogs - By Conner Burgess - "Days pass, and more dogs begin to gather and drink from the fountain. They, too, turn from the basin and take up their posts among the previous waves." The Ghostly Rose - By Gareth Barsby - "Everyone's heard the story before; there's a creepy abandoned mansion in the middle of the woods, surrounded by bare trees and complemented by a howling wind." Ghoul-B-Gone - By Austin Brooks - "Wendy sighed into the steering wheel as she pulled into the hotel parking lot." Ghouls - By James B. Davis - "I have been studying Ghouls for as long as I can remember." Going Orange - By Claude Turner - "As I stepped out of the car and waited for my companions to exit, I could not help but consider that the large, stately building in front of me looked very unlike any restaurant I had ever seen." (Some adult content) The Grove That Could Breathe - By Isabella W. - "Somewhere, up in Oregon, or perhaps New Jersey, lies a grove." Guide to Getting All the Creepers! - By Hisham Hasan - " Go to one of the two manholes near the construction site, and a Seweroxoltl might pop up. Let it swallow you, and make your way through its digestive system. At the colon, before you leave, go explore the dead end and you'll find KISSYFLUKE." Gut Alley - By Nelke - "You never wondered? I mean, someone dumps a load of guts down your street every week and you never wonder who the fuck is behind it?" Gwen - By Starii - "The girl seemed nice and her named was Gwen, she said she was going to the same party as me and seemed happy when I said the same thing, but then..." The Hagfish Song - By Bryan Urbanczyk - "Slithering from a rotting corpse/Sit back as nature takes its course" The Haunted Library - By Gareth Barsby - "Enter the haunted library, Though you may find it a mess/ All the books sit on the floor, All of them possessed"  Hangovers are the Worst, Right? - By Brian Shadensack - "You wake up, head full of fuzz." 8 Helpful Sunflower Tips - By Brian Shadensack - "Sunflowers live up to their names, plant them in an area that gets plenty of sun and water them weekly." He Shall Not Yet Know Osiris - By saint salt - "I walked out of the convenience store and into a warzone." Hello, Alan. - By Sarah Cleary - "From the ceiling, where it seemed to have integrated itself into the wall, the machine lowered its clunky body to eye level to face Tim. Its stretching revealed the wires and electronics beneath it's red exterior. "Have you figured out how to leave this room, Alan?" Hemocyanin - By Hisham Hasan - "I know what we did seems terrible, a crime against humanity." High - By Jackson Gilbert - "Andy hated himself." The Hoard - By Rahkshasarani - "Is there a way I can make you smell that smell, the stench that any relative of a hoarder knows by heart?" "The Hooligans: Putrid Painting" - By Jac R. B. (Jacobguy) - "I never liked going to my grandpa's Manor." The Hooligans: Hairjam - By Jac R. B. (JacobGuy) - "I'm running for my life as we speak." The Hooligans: OVERLOAD - By Jac R. B. (JacobGuy) - "QUERY: DO YOU REMEMBER?" The Hooligans: The Foul. - By Jac R. B. (JacobGuy) - "Augh!" I shout out in frustration, Lying on my bare mattress." The Hooligans: Blurry Stan - By Jac R. B. (JacobGuy) - "I never should've gone to that lake at night." The Hooligans: Shopkeep - By Jac R. B. (JacobGuy) - "I find myself walking along a gravel covered plain." The Hooligans: Porous Sea - By Jac R. B. (JacobGuy) - "I did not expect how this morning would turn out I must say." The Hooligans: Mechanical Hands - By Jac R. B. (JacobGuy) - "I often find myself worrying about running out of time." The Hooligans: MOTHER - By Jac R. B. (JacobGuy) - "I was only sitting in my living room when it happened." The Hooligans: BROTHER - By Jac R. B. (JacobGuy) - "My concentration Is broken by the sudden, new voice." The Hooligans: FATHER - By Jac R. B. (JacobGuy) - "I was Elated when I heard Seb and the gan make their way upstairs, but I felt so weak." The Hooligans: The One - By Jac R. B. (JacobGuy) - "They are like an indistinct, globular and gray mix of a man and a dolphin. sitting, seemingly impatiently at a table, staring me down." Howloween Liquidators - By Thomas F. Johnson - " So, a Halloween Store opened near my house today. In the middle of January." The Holder of the Pies - By Butts McGee - "The first thing you've got to do, you've got to find the shadiest chain pizza joint you can." Hot Ice Cream for Cold Days - By Thomas Wisdom - "When Maria looked at the snow outside her window, she could swear it was summer." Hunger: I - Apatizer - By Yellowmane - "I arrived at the crime scene at 9:48 PM, pulling up to the patter of the light rain hitting the windshield of my car." Hunger : II - Second Course - By Yellowmane - "I arrived at the morgue at about 12:05." Hunger : III - Main Course - By Yellowmane - "It was now 3:23 and I was too hungry to think straight without effort." The Hunter and The Creature - By Justin Best - "I saw an elk that had been killed but the strangest thing was I didn't kill it."  I AM AWAKE - By Kira M. - "The Plague Doctor tensed up immediately, and his hands trembled. The mere mention of this "Evaluation" terrified it." Ice Cream Flavor Idea - By Brian Shadensack - "Cookie Dough Ice cream with cookie dough chunks and a cookie dough swirl and a cookie dough container." I Did This All For You - By Angie Villanueva - "George had been up for hours sewing the fabric together." I Ruined Everything With the Push of a Button - By Samsinater - "It wasn't like being a ghost, where I could tap her on the shoulder, and she'd jump, then look wildly around, bewildered and confused. It was more like she was a clay puppet, or a simple robot just following a script." I'd rather be - By Byona - "I dreamt of a world of darkness, where I could thrive unseen, out of anyone's sight. In the cold, impenetrable -to any human being!- embrace of the abyss, deeper than anyone, deeper than anything. In complete and utter peace." I.T. Dept. Water Cooler Welcome Thread - By W - "MTurmynn: Greetings, everybody! I hope everyone had a great summer, and I hope you're all fired up for the coming fall ramp-up!" ICaughtKatherine - By Hannah - "Hey guys, it's me. I know it's unusual for me to post this late, but I think someone's outside my window right now." Icipher - By Luna Wolf - "It was about three weeks into the new school year when she joined our class." Imposter Syndrome - By Nora Shank - "It had been two hours since Sean Winters' heart had stopped beating, and he was starting to panic." In the Fading Light of Waking - By E. Lefebvre - "Lisa crouched tightly in the corner of her room and hugged her stuffed bear tightly." Incoming Transmission - By Mika Orange - ">Welcome to SimpleChat!>You have 1 new message(s) from [UNKNOWN]." It drips. - By Sinneli - "It drips." It has many arms - By Gozuforce - "I can't remember that at all, but I think I had already met the Branched One years ago." It lives in the Freezer - By Glitter - "In a Restaurant, There's Usually a Freezer." It's Dark - By Ozaenin - "I can't even see my fingers in front of my face. It is as though somehow I've managed to relocate to the bottom of a long abandoned mine in terms of sheer lack of light." Its Not A Zoo - By Jac R. B. (Jacobguy) - "In the dead of night in a sleepy town a black pyramid hovers, waiting." The Jackal - By Jackson Gilbert - "Its face was unmistakably human, even though it was stretched along the skull of a monster."  JERU - By C. M. Kosemen - "The vexing fact was that the three people seemingly had never known each other - let alone met for any sort of suicide pact - before that night." Job's Tale - By Voliol - "Job yawned." Just Imagine - By MisterJulius - (Short)  Kimber's Kandles - By The Bee Keeper - "I wanted a summer job, but not one that would suck the life out of me with terrible hours, horrible customers, or back breaking tasks."  Letters from the Last American Farmer - By cran - "Transcribed and submitted without comment, a series of poetic excerpts from the recovered belongings of an unidentified American civilian found dead and petrified in an abandoned trapping camp in rural West Virginia. " The Library Sitters: Some Just So Stories - By Cameron Thompson - "Clammin These Hams till All the Time Everytime Yay! " Lobisomem - By Drakka - "I am a monster, a horrible beast." Long Live the King - By Bryan Urbanczyk - "The legends you have heard, the demon king who has wrought destruction rather than salvation of his people, and has gestated the lies of evil and dampened the spark of hope, eliminating all chance of a rebellion." Look what I can do! - By Anonymous - "I was the first to see it, but Isabel was the first to touch it." Losing Time - By Samsinater - "She asked me teasingly when I got home, "Had to work late tonight, huh?" And I could only tell her the truth: No, I left work at the same time I always do." luger.gif - By Nausicaä Harris - "So there's this GIF that's been going around of a man holding a shaking gun that always seems to follow you around the room."  Making True Love - By Land of Obscure Potatoes - (COMIC!) The Mandela Effect is Real - By WriterJosh - "You've heard of the Mandela Effect, right? That's a term for when a large number of people remember something that didn't happen." Marrow Lake - By Gluttonous Bodak - "With a name like "Marrow Lake" as its official geographic label, you'd think the place would be a ghost-town (and quite unwelcome to life) even before the Abomination arrived." Mining Assumptions - By bc - "This is the story of why I threw away my favorite Disney movie and forbid it in my house even after my daughter was born." The Mirror is a Liar - By Dandelion Steph - "What is that? Alex thought." Music, Music - By Regis Ethell - "‘It's so peaceful this time of day, isn't it?' The yellowed, flickering lights loomed overhead, the bright, bright night sky glaring down at us." My Parents Didn't Let Me Talk To Great Uncle Ed No More - By Connor W. Drescher - "They lived behind tall fences, behind which were more fences, in mud huts. They went too and fro, tilling their fields with thin arms. Mostly, they ate fish, I think -raw, like the Japanese. But the fish weren't like any I'd seen."  Narrative of a young woman as dictated by a melting candle - By Del Scott - "My art is not my creation." Nepenthes polypsyche - By Hisham Hasan - "My name is Raymond, and I have a story to tell." Nighttime Visitor - By Boneless Skeleton - "I still hear it." No Longer Alone - By Nick - "I found myself in an area I haven't visited before in my life, and in the back of my mind, I know I don't belong here." No More Stalking for Me - By James B. Davis - "I'm what you could a stalker, I guess." Nocturnal - By Anonymous - "There are pros and cons for living in this particular part of the country." Nodens Management Systems Contractor Review Form - By Nausicaa Harris - "10/10/17 dave somehow replaces the air conditioning unit with a malevolent ai. she isnt good at trying to destroy humanity" North House - By Duncan Skjaret - "The bulk of this chair seemed to be formed of an enormous burled spruce stump which fanned out around the sitter, parts of it carved into a sort of abstract, flowing design." Not Your Time - By Anonymous - "I never really liked my cousin Nel."  Oldhill Lake - By Hisham Hasan - "And this pondweed didn't just lay there, inert and floating. He could see that it indeed moved, seethed and writhed like a mass of worms." On a Pale Horse - By Millien - "He swept through our villages, cutting us down as easy as a reaper cuts his harvest." One-Wing the Last - By O. - " I twisted a little more, and I saw why the clunking thing had stopped. It was stooped over, beholding a shiny thing in its grasp." OPINION - By Anonymous - "There are opinions crawling in my head." Oral Hygeine Is Critical - By Kiovenn - "I woke up one morning with an unusually ravenous feeling of hunger." The Orb - By Anonymous - "I was sitting on a recliner pulled over to one side of the room, bolt upright, my heart pounding and every muscle in my body tensed from anxiety."  Partial List - By Hisham Hasan - "This is by no means a complete list." The Pills - By Michael Fallon Alberson - "Hi, just wanted to tell you I'm back in the hospital." Pittsburgh - By Butts McGee - "Detective Laura Christine Merriweather slid a miniature bottle of store brand sports drink to the college kid across the table with one hand and set down a small digital voice recorder with the other." The Plastic Roses - By Airborne Terror - "Imagine, if you will, that you wake up from a vaguely dreadful dream, while waiting in the living room of a house." Please stop opining on mainstream media - By Anonymous - (Very short...but the twists and turns of this gripping narrative are not to be missed!) Prelude to a Journey - By Emergence - "Strand felt his flesh spasm and squirm. He looked down at his arm, and screamed as it began to erupt with wriggling tendrils." Private Myths - By Dave Lerner - "Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths." Process - By Hugo A Gomez - "How to make someone disappear in 6 simple steps" Proof - By Dave Lerner - "It says something about my circumstance that when I felt down I could afford to spend the entire day sitting at a cafe downtown, moodily drinking coffee." Punchline - By Yellowmane - "Waiter! Waiter! There's a fly in my soup!" The Puppetman - By Michael Fallon Alberson - "I'm afraid of the Puppetman." The Re-Imagining - By Hisham Hasan - "Now, normally I don't share my dreams, due to their highly mundane/nonsensical nature, and just being plain boring, but one of my dreams was so bizarre, that I felt I simply had to share it."  Reality - By Hurt Fan - (Another short, probably from the same visionary that brought us "stop opining!") Reasons I Hate My Roommate - By Ellen Spacelizards - "I found this list in an alleyway? In a tiny notebook." The Red Marble - By Omny - "The craft had appeared one midsummer morning, hovering quietly over the ocean." Revealation Day - By Thomas Steven Slater - "I am now now of Argicola's humans." The Rhyme of Old Mister Reek - By Johnny Carcosa - " Beware, beware, ye good little children." The roses of life and the forest of song - By DiplodocusDinosaur - "The woman with no name scrambled through the thick mass of hissing vines and brambles, coated in sharp thorns." Roswell, New Mexico, 1947 - By Dallas and Erin Drinnon - "As a kid, I was fascinated with anything to do with space."  Sam Sandwitch Lost Episode - By Justin Best - "So you ever hear of this show called Sam Sandwich" Sand - By Sang - "I kept scraping sand off my hand for over an hour. No blood, no skin, no less hand." Sewer Cows - By Reggie - "The cows came from Tillamook." Shepherd - By Miranda - " I spend most of the year staying out of trouble, avoiding connections with those who would notice something amiss, and once every six months, I feed the wolf." Shadow Dancing - By Dustin H - "I returned to my cabin, after a long unfortunately fruitless hunt." She Died, But the Television Didn't. - By Sarah Cleary - "Her corpse, or what you could call the scraps of her that remained by the end, would become 27's most consistent viewer." She Never Got Addicted - By Miranda Johansson - "She wonders what he would do with the money, if she gave it to him. Buy food or coffee? Put it in a savings account? Get high? She doesn't care. It doesn't matter." She-Stood-To-Greet-The-Dead-And-Thank-Them - By Nausicaa Harris - "This is one of the more recent additions to the lyric tradition of the !onek culture, dating back to the early 2200's (Gregorian)" Shopping Around - By Hisham Hasan - "Beautiful, isn't it? A very docile pet." Showdown at Sweetheart Ridge - By Miranda Johansson - "She had a sudden feeling there was someone at the fire with her, but when she looked up from her dissembled gun she was alone, but for the horse watching her with its mournful eyes." The Smiling Thing - By Saga - "This happened a while ago." The snail's leaf - By Gozuforce - "A long black snail crawled to me solemnly, bearing on its back the rolled leaf that contained the words I was most affraid to read." Sky Snow Sky - By Δ - "The date is November 5th, 2015, and I feel alone." Snuff - By The Bee Keeper - "She looked at me again with that puzzled expression. Rabbit? What's a rabbit? Did you get an exotic pet, without my permission. I'm having no more scaly things in this house, Nate!" The Space Between - By saint salt - "You don't need to dream to get to where you're going, but most travelers do." Splitting The Body - By Nick - "My friend has really been freaking me out lately." Square Pizza - By Austin Brooks - "Kevin was in trouble." Still - By Dustin Koski & Adam Koski - "I went for a walk on a familiar route for no better reason than I liked the modest scenery." Strange Autumn Town - By Conner Burgess - "Did it just get warmer all've the sudden?" The other, a few meters ahead, stopped for a moment." The strange case of Hamrey - By Daniel Wixom - "Hamrey was a small town, known only for it's clamming businesses until commercial operations buried it in their race of "progress"." Sweethearts - By Rahkshasarani - "The female Sweetheart had a notably potent aroma, one that was said to far outstrip even the other exotic flowers available at the time."  Taking Credit - By Sarah Cleary - "Are we almost there?" Christopher asked, it was getting dark." Tales from the Old Country: Faeries - By Keetah Spacecat - "There were the usual legends of course. The wendigos. Ghouls. Some of the more ethnic German folks whispered about the Krampus coming to steal the naughty children away. They were wrong of course, what lurked out there was older than stories itself." Tales from the Old Country: Father Frost - By Keetah Spacecat - "Out in the country, there is a cycle of respect and caution that must be observed in order to stay safe." Tales from the Old Country: Fever Dream - By Keetah Spacecat - "Being sick in the country is scary." Tales from the Old Country: Hogwash - By Keetah Spacecat - "This tale was told to me by my father so I could learn a lesson." Tales from the Old Country: The White Stag - By Keetah Spacecat - "The Old Country may be wild and vast, but there's a set of rules upon it that governs all that live and depend on it for survival." Tech Support - By Yellowmane - "Thank you for calling Eld Rich Computer Support! This is Kenneth speaking! How can I help you today?Ok, one moment ." Tenderfoot - By CinnamonRoach - "I sluggishly open my eyes, head pounding." This Ciconiiformes-related article is a stub - By Hisham Hasan - "Magnumbeak Adutant (Pseudoleptoptilos parasiticus), also known as Gloom Stork, Robber Stork, and Ceiling Stalker, is a large bird of the stork family Ciconiidae." This is a Happy Ending Story - By Canute Goodman - "It feels weirdly negatory to start off with a whole bunch of disclaimers, but I do want to state up front that I'm perfectly fine and I don't think any part of this was a very big deal." This Is My Dog - By Anonymous - "Suppose you are all alone on your bed in the middle of the night, in the dark, wide awake, and suddenly, something in your room starts moving." The Time Traveler's Wife - By Nymm Kirimoto - "I had her take the other route this time- reconfigured the GPS to go the scenic way and everything, so that we'd go by the coast instead of through downtown." Too Many Queens - By Beecreeper - "All of a sudden, Alice was falling. But it didn't feel like regular falling; it felt like she was falling upwards and downwards and backwards and sideways all at once." The Town - By doomydoomydoom - "And the astronaut at the kitchen table sobbed uncontrollably into his hands." The Traveler - By Fluffy The Doombringer - "The traveler jerked back to his own body and opened his eyes. His implant had automatically translated their language, but the effort required had made the device uncomfortably hot." The Trees - By Regis Ethell - (Short) The Trick or Treaters - By Mr_Stickman - "They always come on October 31st." TUMEN E. THE ELF! - By TUMEN E. - "YA HO YA HE, IT IS ME!" Tunes - By The Bee Keeper - "The end was an old cassette in an old player, in a rusty junk heap of a old bus." Two-String Tom and Two-Arm Tim - By Conner Burgess - "Two-String Tom and Two-Arm Tim were brothers, in this town/ They'd play their songs, outside the inn, For everyone around."  Ultra Ruin - By Wombat - (Pokemon Micropasta) Uneasy - By crossmirage - "I run right to the bathroom after breakfast. My stomach churns, loud and painful." Uprooting - By Fluffydeathbringer - "The scheme was simplicity itself, really."  Vermin - By Jackson Gilbert - "Johnny and the City Slickers were on the prowl." Visiting Anders - By Miranda Johansson - "He gets his nutrients in other ways now. The roots go deep, past the undercarriage and the asphalt." The Watchers - By Mr_Stickman - "It's almost neary impossible to remember life without the watchers."  War Across Time - By EbrithilBowser - "Yeah, at first it seemed like a good idea. Travel back in time to the Cretaceous, build colonies, seeing plants and animals again." Water Cooler Talk - By Dustin H - "I had just finished telling an anecdote to the guys at the water cooler." The Weirdest Infomercial I've Ever Seen - By Thomas F. Johnson - "IIIIIIIII'M FLATTENED, AND YOU CAN TOO!" We're Getting a Humidifier - By Del Scott - "My sister and I have been living together for six-odd years, and the last house we rented was a fascinating nest of renovation nightmares." What I asked - By Anonymous - "My tongue is so dry that my lips bleed when I lick them." What we fear. - By Tyron Stewart - "My eyes, my very two own eyes were forced to gaze upon its vast emptiness that sat before me." Where I'm Gonna Go - By Miranda - "If the sight of the thing from space, like the sticker in a book I had as a kid, doesn't give me any sense that the months in my garage strapping all those rockets onto my 2004 Volvo were worth it, then nothing's gonna." Where The Sidewalk Stops - By Shiisiln - "Ok, so there's this one sidewalk that I see every time I walk to school." Who Built the House? - By Sarah Cleary - "So that was God?" The woman who hadn't given her name asked." Why They Came Up From The Sea - By Jenne Kaivo - "I don't live by swimming water." Witness Extinction - By Luna Wolf - "Time travel was dangerous." The Wolf - By saint salt - "If it exists, I can create it, and if it doesn't, I probably can too." The Wrong Bathroom - By Jacob Roberts - "It's a mistake everyone has made at least once in their life." The Yara-ma-yha-who - By ZippyWharrgarbl - "When I was a kid, my family's house backed onto bush that was wild and tan, baked by the sun most months of the year to leech the wetness that came with the infrequent rains right out."  You Got the Jitters - By The Bee Keeper - "Iiiiiiii." Young Willy Dun - By Ian Thompson - "The city squatted in a languid haze, under a sullen sky." Your New Best Friend - By The Keetah Spacecat - (Image entry!) Yule! A Festive Tale of Bloodcurdling Christmas Terror - By Tim Albaugh - "NEIN, NEIN, NEIN! DU BIST UNGEZOGEN!" the creature chortled, tossing the shotgun aside. It began wrapping its long tongue around Vidar's head as he gasped and struggled in its grasp". ~Tru CreppyPasta Facts~ - By Anonymous - (Short Form Non-fiction) comments powered by Disqus |