#horror

“Creeeee….KLUNK”, the door of the old pickup groaned in protest as I swung it closed. The truck was far past its expiration date, having rolled off a Ford line in 1962. And now that we were coming up to the new century, it stuck out even more as a relic, just like its owner. “Go’on, git the feed outta the back” my Pa ordered, stepping down from the vehicle. A tall man at 6’3”, he was of slight build, his blue overalls hanging somewhat loosely around his frame. His skin resembled the pair of…

In the heart of the city stands an abandoned bakery. It is a high, sprawling complex of brick and granite, and its great smokestack still stands watch over the loading bays where fleets of gleaming trucks once began their journeys to supermarkets across New England.

I have been imprisoned here in this hell hole for the last four years. Fucking TDCJ psych ward. This is where they send the real fucked up prisoners. I’m in for murder, but I managed to make the courts believe I was completely insane. I thought I’d get to go to some hospital. I figured I could handle a lifetime of dealing with the crazies, then having to fight everyday to protect myself and my man-hood.

“You’re gonna give me a hundred dollars to sit inside this cardboard box for two minutes?” I asked, feeling the booze slosh around my brain. “It’s that simple,” the street performer said with a cocksure grin. “You last two minutes inside the box, you get a hundred dollars.” “What if I don’t make it two minutes?” “You don’t get a hundred dollars.” “What’s inside the box?” The street performer opened the top of the large refrigerator box and, true to his word, it was empty.

I actually liked Albany. Sure, the town was far from Georgia’s finest. Far from having any recognizable achievements other than rampant poverty and an exaggerated crime rate. But hey, it beat Bainbridge. At least, there was shit to do here, you know. And Alicia and I were never bored.

The 4th Annual Harrison Boulevard Food Truck Festival was in high gear. Food, fun, and, and families were the main course at the town’s celebration. Three blocks of culinary delights included everything from BBQ, vegetarian, and desserts. Small bites and some candy carts splattered in between. The event is a tourism hotspot and a welcome boom to the town’s economy. The day was a scorching 98 degrees outside but people still came salivating to the event. Some locals grumbled about increased…

I’ll start this off by letting all of you know, I’m not a good person. Neither are the people I work for. We should all be in prison or even worse. This isn’t a life I found myself in; this was the life I sought out. And a part of me knows we deserve everything that's come for us. Growing up, my mom and I lived in a shithole apartment on the south side. Everyone called it the Pits.

One day, my mommy and daddy decided to buy a new house so we could move out of our apartment. Mommy had just given birth to my baby sister, Anna. She was nine months old, and I was five. My name is Leon.

Don’t go in there! It’s all a trap." ​Josh was a 25-year-old hotel receptionist in Black Stone, a town in northern Pennsylvania. He had started the job shortly after graduating from university in Michigan. He was a quiet, down-to-earth kind of guy who always tried to find a rational explanation for everything. But that night, something happened at the hotel that put his sense of reality to the ultimate test.

My dad Don may as well have been dead this past year. Hell, you could make the argument he may as well have been dead for nearly the past fifty… ever since his brother Tommy passed away from cancer in 1973.

This is another I posted on /r/nosleep several years ago. I wanted to write something in the style of the horror anthologies I enjoyed as a kid in the '90s, such as Ask the Bones, The Scary Story Reader, or the classic Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. ----

Liber Kiffmet — An Occult Dream Of Sorts Gone Bad With Dope & Weed © Andre Michael Pietroschek (if you must, pronounce Pee-tro-shack), all rights reserved Disclaimer: No warranties! This story idea is fictitious, not real, and was inspired by some episodes of the Frozen Frights podcast. Meanwhile, me going nostalgia-lane on the young adult memories is part of this story's surrealism.

I have 847 hours of field recording across three years of this work. I can tell you the exact timestamp — 2:14:37 AM — when a door opened by itself in a farmhouse outside Carbondale. Baseline decibel reading before it moved, the spike, the return to baseline in 0.4 seconds. Filed, labeled, cross-referenced with humidity readings and structural reports. Probable explanation still listed as HVAC pressure differential, confirm with building superintendent. The superintendent retired in 2019.

Lucas Thorne gulped as he turned the corner and saw the rotting corpse of a house that sat at the edge of town. The house seemed twisted as its warped wooden frame sagged under its weight. Grime smeared the windows, reflecting only the fading light of dusk. As his eyes darted around, he confirmed one thing: he was alone. He reconsidered his choice to volunteer for the cleanup.

My name is Victor. I am a resident of a quiet village near which there was a forest, there were many stories and myths about it.

I don’t know how I wound up here in this place. I think it began when I was in Oklahoma travelling across the country in my van. I can’t be really sure though anymore.

A cold snowflake greets the warm skin of my face, melting immediately. I ignore the sensation and look forward instead, just like the rest of my group. “Holy shit! The legends did have some truth in them!” Jess yells over the howling wind. David shakes his head: “I’ve been telling you this a thousand times! This is the whole reason for this expedition.” He can’t contain his excitement. I look at the snow-covered ruins.

It's Christmas eve and I'm still working late, typing away at my computer. You shouldn't pity me, I chose to do so. I didn't really have any other plans and the extra pay seemed a lot better than sitting at a crowded dinner table with people I barely know. For a moment I stop and look out the window. Why does it have to be snowing now of all years? Now I kinda regret not staying home... I pull my attention back to my computer and continue my work.

I never thought much about puppets. They were relics of another time, something my grandparents might have found amusing before the age of screens. I'd seen them in dusty attics and antique shops, their faces painted in stiff, eternal grins. They were lifeless, inert things that didn't deserve a second thought. But that was before it came to town.

I feel the cold object in the palm of my hand as it's being handed to me. A key. I've saved up enough for my own place and feel a sense of joy as the small object almost freezes my hand. However the temperature of it changes quickly as the warmth in my hand turns the object lukewarm. The old man before me, still seems a little on edge. "You remember what I've told you before right? You can still give back the key if you don't want this place."