fiction
Horror fiction that delivers on its promise to scare, startle, frighten and unsettle. These stories are fake, but the shivers down your spine won't be.
Misssing, not missed
“The police don't fucking believe me!” “What did you tell them?” “What do you think? I told them what I saw.” Pub owner, Jimmy, scratched his unshaven jowls. The sound of scraping calloused fingers against a three-day growth was better than the sight of the fat chin wobble. His customer cringed.
By Colin Devonshire5 years ago in Horror
Editorial: Fear versus Horror
I am about to split a hair, making a distinction between emotional states that most people overlook. Fear and horror are not the same emotions. Fear is the visceral reaction to a physical threat, the fight or flight reaction to actual danger. Horror is something else, the reaction to an assault on the soul, not the body. Horror does not require an existential threat or even physical danger. In modern media they are portrayed as the same and I think that is done to the detriment of real art. So-called “horror movies” have little in the way of real horror because the producers of these films confuse fear and revulsion with horror. Movies that rely on violence and grotesquery to get an emotional reaction from the audience should rightfully be called “scary movies”, not Horror. To clarify the distinction between these two emotional states and the situations in a story or movie that evoke them, I offer you the following scenario:
By Samuel Wright5 years ago in Horror
Hidden
Hidden “Here is the key to the house.” The elderly man holds up a single key on a small, silver ring. The lines at the corners of his mouth shift like molded clay as he speaks, “And the keys to the shop. There is one for the back door, which you can use to enter the shop through the house, and one for the outer front door.” He hands over the ring with the single key and then a similar ring containing two keys. “Now, you will oversee the shop from opening until close, Monday through Fridays. Shop opens at 8:00 am and closes at 5:00 pm. Remember that. Feel free to take a break when needed. I'm not going to hound you on your time as long as the shop is well looked after.”
By Amandalynn Lamar5 years ago in Horror
The Doll
The Doll It was dark. So very dark. Too dark to see, and the silence. Oh, that terrible silence, nothing to hear. Nothing at all. There we lay, piled on top of each other, in what I could only assume was a box. The others, nothing but broken plastic and torn cloth bodies, peeling paint and matted hair. Clearly nothing special about them. No, I could see how someone could just toss them away, but me? How could they just leave me out here in this box, with these broken, useless toys? Hadn't they known there was something special about me? Something to hold on to? Something important! No. I'd been left behind too, like the others. I can't say how long we sat in that box. Days, weeks, months? It felt like an eternity, and I know all about eternities. An eternity of dark silence. That was, until the day I was found.
By Amandalynn Lamar5 years ago in Horror
Catalepsy
New to the world of employment; John Linwood, not only a rookie but a young man with barely 21 years old, found himself reading the jobs advertised in the newspaper. A highly paid job with very few responsibilities was among his preferences; Rest in Peace Crematory didn't sound bad. They were requesting an operator for the crematory chamber. The lad didn't gave it a second thought; he was 6'3 tall and had a broad body, deep green eyes and tons of dark curly hair, with a hooked nose and traces of curly beard coming out of his jaw that made him look older and threatening. John called to ask for the job in the newspaper but nobody answered his call, instead he heard this message in the voicemail.
By Blaire Kovach5 years ago in Horror
Kari Thomas
Kari Thomas was happy with the land that she had just purchased. She bought it off an older couple. They had the land for the past 50 years. She had purchased 500 acres in the heart of the USA. The couple had maintained 5 acres for their house and buildings and had another 493 sectioned of to used as farmland. Kari had found it odd that the couple had told her to stay away from a building in the middle of the land. It was an old run-down two-story house. They told her that every night a faint glow would come from one of the upper windows as if there was a candle in the windowsill. Kari thought that it was strange for them to leave the property. She was just going just destroy the building so that she could use the land. She had plans and she wasn’t going to let no ghost story stop her from fulfilling them.
By Logan Schwanke5 years ago in Horror
The Song That Kills
“I never considered myself a believer in another dimension,” says Catherine James, a fifty-year-old Connecticut woman, as she stares out her window. “But, after this and all that’s happened, I have no reason not to. There’s just no other explanation.” Catherine James is the aunt of Theo Wood, who went missing six years ago, vanishing into thin air. Six years later, and the day still seems vivid to her.
By Jennifer Childers5 years ago in Horror
