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.
A Closer Look at Joyce Carol Oates’ ‘Pumpkin Head’
A Woman Alone When I first read Joyce Carol Oates’ short story “Pumpkin Head,” I was so frightened that I didn’t want to be in my apartment alone afterward. Her stories have scared me before, but this experience was quite unsettling. As with most horror stories, the shock wore off with time, yet her characters continued to haunt me long after meeting them on the page. Perhaps it was her female protagonist — Hadley — whom I identified with so much that I could not forget her vulnerability as a woman living alone. As I sit here in my candle-lit apartment listening to the roll of distant thunder, I remember Oates’ story a decade later as we approach Halloween — the season of pumpkins and stories that make our skin crawl.
By Jennifer M. Ward3 years ago in Horror
Homecoming
I awoke in a cold sweat. The squeak of the brakes and releasing pressure of the hydraulics. Late at night, I was the passenger. The bus rolled off as I stepped up to the porch of my parents home. I haven't been back here since my sister disappeared. With a wavering breath I knocked on the door. A seconds passed and no one responded. I looked at the windows. Through the bars on one I saw a faint gray glow. the light overhead flickered and buzzed. With no other lights around I hurried for the spare key. the door gave way a foul odor came over me. It smelled as though someone had left a cremated steak out for weeks. I walked through every room. No one was to be inside. The places left unchecked were out back by the pool, and my sister's old room. Passing through the open patio door I was greeted with a grizzly sight. Two corpses charred to a crisp, and cold to the touch.
By Donte Deliano3 years ago in Horror
Timberline. Top Story - September 2022.
The silence is absolute, as if time never began here and never will. How can I describe it? As if a wall of glass has been placed by the great hand of a God in the midst of the forest, and no living thing may pass. The trees crowd against their limit, aching to reach into the barren land, and their longing embitters them. They grow twisted, their bark black and limbs contorted.
By Lauren Everdell3 years ago in Horror
