Hosted by Jonathan Wojcik

   It's December 25 as I write this, and as far as I'm aware, there isn't anything important that falls on this mundane day, but we're only a week or so away from this year's crop of horror fiction, and I've already received nearly twice the volume of 2012's entries! As a special treat on this meaningless calendar date, enjoy these ten stories selected more or less at random for an early preview!

You still have until January 1st to send me your stories, though this time around, it might take me an additional week to sort them all out. I'll keep you posted on tumblr, and in the comments below!

PREDATORY FACE - By Anonymous - "You know these awkward moments when you just look at a scene and your brain suddenly starts conjuring the most hair-raising thing that could happen next?"

ROOM - By Bob Frank - "You awoke to find that your bedroom door was gone."

NOSEBLEED - By Johnny Vallone - "A dark red circle appeared on the page of the book John was reading. He shifted his gaze to it, surprised."

TO HAVE OR TO KEEP - By Evan Macneil - "They had never been successful in getting rid of the endlessly droning, growing beehives that clustered the branches overhead."

MEAT - By Charming Devil - "I never saw a body, only the face – a drooping, fatty, pale face, on the end of an impossibly long neck."

CPR TRAINING - By C. Lonnquist - " I watched my colleagues go before me, snapping their faces to the black plastic skulls, shoving the plastic bags into the holes where the brains should have been."

IT'S CURIOUS - By Chase Goebel - "It's curious. That's the worst part. It's curious and it gets bored."

Scrap of Paper Exuding Surprising Amounts of Negative Energy - By Ben Jeffrey - "Gaudy plastic flowers, tied to a lamp post. A roadside memorial for one driving too fast."

SANTA - By Alexis Feynman - "And then I saw the fingers."

CITY FOLK - By Kiara Maher - "When they came back, they were different."