#horror

Halle and I had only been living in Brunswick, Georgia for a few months. We moved here from Tallahassee over the summer and honestly, we missed home. But hey, the area had grown on us. We liked the beaches and the culture. But one place we hadn’t checked out yet was Jekyll Island. Jekyll had a mystique to it to say the least. It had history given that it once served as a vacation destination for many of America’s wealthy elites during The Gilded Age. The opportunity to visit said island arose…

In December of 2015, Marceline Nightingale was declared missing. The lack of evidence, like many other older cases in this town, entices me. Maybe if this one could be solved so could the other ones.

My name is Emily Stark. That name used to sound soft, elegant—almost sacred. It was spoken on red carpets, in interviews, on magazine covers, in credits after films, in signature lines beneath paintings, in animated series I helped create, and in songs people claimed saved their lives. I was adored. I was famous. I was “gifted.” I could smile in a way that made people forget how to breathe, and sing in a way that made silence feel holy. I was an actress, model, writer, philanthropist, painter,…

The widow, Laura, walked into the garden. Cracked Stone walls surrounded her, their green vines slithering toward bushes plump with blood-red berries. At the center of the garden stood a rectangular stone basin shaped like an angel. It knelt before the pool as if to deliver water from its mouth. Yet what flowed was bleak black water, filled with sticks and the smal bodies of dying insects. When she was younger, she remembered tossing coins and watching them sink into the water's darkness.…

There is nothing beyond our simple lives. This is what I'm told by mama and papa but I don't agree with them- they don't know this but I've already learned about the "Great Big Ones". Who are the Great Big Ones you might ask? well they call themselves "Humans" whatever that means... but to us they are akin to gods. Our lives revolve around them as much as it does food or water because they provide many things: shelter, food, water, and even protection against other bugs but with that comes a…

Plot: It is the year 1929. Stanley Fontaine, an American writer of mystical horror novels, is forced to leave his city after losing his inspiration. After many years, he decides to travel to Louisiana on the Eastern Express, where the staff is of the highest calibre and nothing seems to foreshadow any misfortune. Yet soon he begins to realise that what we see is not always reality, and that most people have grown accustomed to living in sweet flattery. This very carriage conceals a multitude of…

I’m a trucker. Been one for almost twenty years. I’ve seen a lot of strange things on the road—but nothing like this. It happened during my early years, when I still ran long international routes. The kind that cut through nowhere, threading across mountains and ghost towns. I was somewhere in northern Spain, driving through the Babia y Luna Natural Park, heading toward Portugal.

The first warning sign came about eighteen months in. I remember it precisely because I had been sweating my ass off—hunched over a server tower in the equipment room, staring at temperature readouts that were climbing way too fast. The fan wall was choking itself to death on all the dust bunnies that accumulated on its intake. I couldn’t afford to take a server offline, since it communicated with all the others. Which meant I was doing it live—on my hands and knees, myself.

The howls of aberrant mutants filled the night sky, low and ominous. Their disgusting skittering could be heard all around me. Inhuman forms swam in the dark, never allowing my eyes to pin down their true shapes. At once, I saw a dog, a feline, a bird, and a man. Dread filled my bowels as I watched from my perch. I checked my weapon again; the magazine was still empty. I sighed and checked my sidearm: one full-charge magazine, not nearly enough. That left my blade, a sixteen-inch, heat-sheathed…

I've always wanted to be a writer. I've always so desperately tried, to then always fail. I've written stories about dragons, stories about strange civilizations, and yet it seems to be that all my hard work has been for naught. I grasp to every chance to write something, be it a competition or just for others. And I always end up getting hurt, again and again and again and again and again. Perhaps they've been right all along, I just don't have any talent.

Most kids enjoy Christmas the most. Not me. Maybe it’s because my family is poor, and we can’t afford good presents for each other. My favorite holiday is Halloween. Not only can I dress up as my favorite scary movie character, but I get free candy out of it. It’s a double win.

I stand in a dark room. It is very large and I can barely see the black outlines of the walls. Around me are golden cages which hang from the ceiling by long chains. Peering into them, I see the most peculiar objects; much like the strange ornate cages, gold glints through many of the bars. There are crowns, golden bars, sceptres with emeralds and other gems embedded in their hilts, golden necklaces and lockets amongst other things. One has bronze weighing scales. Other cages have bones in…

The first time I heard it, I thought it was the wind. A low, mournful hum threading through the gaps in the old farmhouse windows. My wife, Sarah, was already asleep, her breathing a soft, steady rhythm beside me. We’d moved in a week ago, seeking silence from the city. The house was a steal, a crumbling Victorian relic with good bones and a bad reputation that we’d laughed off.

"Flabbergasted. F - L - A - B - B - E - R - G -A - S - T - E - D. Flabbergasted." Sweat rolled down Natalie's forehead as she watched the three judges chatter amongst themselves. Her heart was beating so vibrantly, she felt like wheezing. Each aching moment was like a nail being gradually driven between her fingernails. After what felt like an eternity of suspended animation, the female judge tilted her glasses on the bridge of her nose and nodded. "Good job, Ms. Flowers."

Growing up, my family was like a bunch of nomads. We never settled in one place for long. Anytime my father’s job called for it, we would uproot our lives and head on to the next big thing. This meant ending friendships and enrolling in school time after time. It was frustrating having to repeatedly sever my ties with the friends I made, and the little nest I crafted for myself. But as a ten-year-old kid, who was I to complain?

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Anthony Salaria, and this is my story. I used to think the world was a big place. Now I know better. The world is only as big as the distance between you and whatever is trying to kill you.

I was driving home from work late one night, tired and ready to let my head slam down onto my soft pillow. It had been a very long day. Sales were slow, and I had just finished a meeting with my employees to figure out how we could improve them. I'm the owner of a Tech Start-up. We design customized automated machinery for various construction and Manufacturing industries.

It's dark. An oppressive silence prevails. Only to those who live close to the ground, a loud rhythmic noise can be heard. This is of course exclusive for those like mice and creatures much smaller. Creatures with a good sense of hearing. To a cat or a dog it might still be audible, though they would probably only hear a soft tapping. Something tapping across the floor at an almost unearthly speed. Driven by something unknown to any breathing kind.

Never look beneath the deadfall. I don’t actually think Edgar needed this to be explained. But then, maybe it wasn’t really for him. Maybe it was for me. I like explaining it. It’s like a dark, dirty secret that every kid in our school knows.

I lost my wife a few years ago. Most people hear that and picture someone older–fifties or sixties. I’m twenty-one. Rose and I were born in Insurrection County, West Virginia. Rose was a southern belle, even though she always said that West Virginia wasn’t the real South. Rose’s hair was strawberry blonde, and she had deep green eyes and freckles that would pop when her face was sunburnt.