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.
The Calling
“The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.” Jade stated. I watched her gaze sweep over our friends as we listened intently to her story. We all heard the cacophony of animal sounds: owls hooting, crickets chirping, frogs croaking, and the howling of wolves; this all coming from the forest surrounding our camping grounds.
By Alexa Leitkowski4 years ago in Horror
As Moths
The cabin in the woods has been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. As you approach, you hear a faint sound. Was it a sigh? Was it a satisfied hum? But where’s it coming from? Was it from you? Are you hearing things in your exhaustion? It’s said no one's lived here for over 50 years. You, tired from the hike, and having found nowhere else to rest, enter the cabin. You push open the door and assess. The place is small and only illuminated by the candle. There aren’t any light fixtures to be seen. Otherwise, it looks normal enough. A one room space with a small kitchen, a dusty and firm looking bed, a door that leads to a closet sized room, most likely a bathroom, a mounted shelf, and 2 end tables beside an inviting looking couch. You take a seat on the small sofa and fall asleep instantly. Suddenly you’re awake. Hours have passed. How many, you can’t be sure, but things feel different. You can feel there’s been a shift of some kind, though everything looks the same. What other shift could there have been other than the passage of time. Your body is still tired and your mind still foggy so why are you awake? You lie back and drift again when you feel eyes on you. You bolt upright and look around the small room. Did you just see a shadow scurry away? No, it must’ve been an illusion of the dancing candle light. Or your overly tired mind playing tricks on you. You take a breath and lie back again and then you feel something brush lightly against your leg. You instinctively reach your hand to the spot you felt the touch, thinking maybe it was a spider, or some other insect. Your hand comes back covered in something sticky and damp. You rub your thumb across your fingertips. The slick and viscous substance is warm. Did you squish something? You look closer at your hand. The substance is dark and far too plentiful to be from a bug. It smells metallic. Is this blood? Is it coming from you? You reach your other hand to the spot on your leg but it comes back clean. Holding your hands side by side, you see they’re both clean. ‘‘How? What’s going on? Am I losing it?’’ you think to yourself. You just need some rest. If you could just get a few hours of sleep, you can figure out how to get home. You need to get to sleep fast because every moment of daylight could be critical to getting you home. You close your eyes and start some 4-7-8 breathing. You feel your body relax as you envision leaves on tall tree branches against a bright blue sky, swaying to your breaths, as if you were the wind itself. That vision transforms into a picnic in a lush park with your favorite person. A wicker basket atop a red and white blanket, filled with all of your favorite snacks and drinks. You two lounging, laughing, chatting. The chatting, it’s growing louder. Would you call it chatting? It’s somewhere between chatting and chittering. An almost human sound, too quickly spoken to understand. The sound increases to a roar, surrounding you. It’s deafening. You’re awake suddenly but the sound is still there. Your heart rate accelerates. But then it’s gone. Everything is silent. Was the sound here or was it just the lingering strings of a vivid dream? You shake your head and shoulders loose, shake away those cobweb like memories. You walk over to the window where the candle sits and peek out. Maybe there’s an animal there causing a ruckus? This late, it's unlikely, but you check anyway. And as you thought, there’s no one there. Just you, the candle, the shadows, and the silence. You sit back on the couch and allow your body and mind to take comfort in the isolation. “If there’s no one around, there’s no danger” you tell yourself silently. Most of your mind accepts this, and agrees. But that small, primitive, animal part of you, the sensing part, the knowing part, gives a small protest. You feel a squeeze in your gut, an ever so slight tearing of your eyes. You swallow the feeling. That illogical child-brained feeling that says every pile of clothes on a chair in the dark is a boogie man waiting to devour you as soon as you let your guard down. You swallow it and lay your head against the plush pillows of the sofa. You close your eyes and try to sleep once again. You breathe, you envision, you count, but sleep doesn’t come. Why? What’s going on? You’ve never felt more exhausted in your life. You rack your brain for any sleep inducing tricks you may not have tried when all the shadows in the room pulse as one, and the sound of the crackling candle shakes you to your core. It’s then you realize it’s been absolutely silent. Pin drop silence since…since…since you woke up. Are you even awake? This unnatural silence in the middle of the woods…no rustling leaves…no crickets. You must still be dreaming. You have to be. That’s why you can’t fall back to sleep. You’re already asleep. Well…what do you do now?
By Pryia Blunt4 years ago in Horror
Dark Verses
The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Thomas did not intend to be here. No one intends to be in the woods in the dark of night, alone, bleeding from their forehead, he thought to himself. Yet here he was, thoughts muddled from the blow received to his head, shaking from the autumn chill, and leaning his weight on an old tree, transfixed by this unusually placed source of human light. There was a woman he could see through the window…and he felt certain he knew her.
By Katie Sullivan4 years ago in Horror
The Campfire Story
“The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.” The flashlight shone upwards under Mr. Henderson’s face as he said the words slowly, ominously, leaning into the drama of his story as the campfire crackled and snapped and sent wayward sparks upwards into the night air.
By Andrew Piazza4 years ago in Horror
The Cabin in the Woods
The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years but one night a candle burned in the window. Kowhai was standing at her door, frozen by the sound of the chaos behind her. The faint whisper of a scream snapped her eyes to the horizon, and she saw a light illuminating in the dark forest. As a child, she had heard the tale of the macabre truth of what had happened there years ago. The cabin was hidden well into the forest but the town surrounding it could see it clearly through the small trees. It sat frozen in time. Many tried to find the path to the cabin, but all just returned home hungry and cold from their travels.
By Judith Staltari4 years ago in Horror
When Morning Comes
The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. It was the night Jacob had decided to run away from home. The wind whipped through the trees, sending leaves and branches crashing against the rotten wood walls of the cabin. The closer he got to the door, the stronger the winds blew, almost pulling him away from that place.
By Rossie Cortes4 years ago in Horror
Darkness
The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The candle had been lit by a beautiful young woman after a long, hard-fought battle to reach it. She snuffs out her feeling of triumph because she knows there is still a long night ahead. She has taken this journey countless times before, each time learning a little more than the last, getting a little closer to the candle. She has managed to reach it and even light it, but it has always been extinguished. Each time, she prays this journey will be the last. The candle will be lit and will burn down completely before sunrise, freeing her from her curse.
By Sara Kessler4 years ago in Horror
Be Well
The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Strange. Iris had been hiking back to basecamp for over an hour and thought that when she found light it would be from her little sister angrily heating a pot of bland beans for dinner. They’d fight about how she couldn’t go off into the woods alone and end up side by side in their tent, telling secrets and giggling like they were children again. Anna would fall asleep first and wake up to find Iris gone again. And the cycle would repeat itself as it had for years.
By Hayley Frazier4 years ago in Horror
