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.

Into the Old Barn
Its cold. I feel a damp pillow against my cheek. I can hear the wind outside as it crashes against my window. I’m fighting off this need to get up out my bed, although I know I can’t hold it any longer. I sit up in bed and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I focus on the doorway and although I have made my way from this bed to the doorway countless times in the light of day, I have to precisely plan my route at night.
By C. Clark5 years ago in Horror
Initiation
"Your number decides your fate," said Meredith, the leader of The Sisterhood. The six of us were positioned behind a long, banquet table covered with a jet-black, velvet tablecloth. In front of us were six plates, each with a thick slice of decadent chocolate cake nestled on top. Next to each plate was a tiny, numbered place card and above, a small scroll tied with ribbon. Meredith stood up. She was holding an opaque bowl in both her hands like an offering, as she walked over to us with a menacing grin. A group of silver handles stuck out from inside.
By Jamie Garcia5 years ago in Horror
The Stone Barn
The thick stone walls of the barnhad kept the summer’s heat at bay, cool air with the scent of musty straw washing over me as I forced the wooden door open. Wedging it in place with a fragment of broken tile, I stepped into the shadowy closeness of the old building. The structure felt almost watchful in its stillness, the only light coming from the open door and the skylights set high up in the walls, where dust particles spun and danced in the slanting sunlight.
By Traith5 years ago in Horror
The Last exit to Easton
"The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. And through that window, you could bear witness to a crime, bloodtrails of which can still be found in today's society" Terry Benedict, Captain of Philadelphia PD.
By Syed Arabi Khalique5 years ago in Horror
Moment Of Silence
What did you want for dinner? Brooke pondered a moment before signing a response. Chicken? Clark beamed, he hadn’t seen his granddaughter in almost fifteen months. Not since the funeral. He was afraid she’d have a hard time with signing, but then again she had always been sharp as a tack.
By LeAnne Withrow5 years ago in Horror
Ghost Lights
I grew up in a small town in the Midwest. Now when I say that it’s a small town, I mean other people from my state have never even heard of it. That being said, for such a small town it actually has a pretty dark history.
By Juan Martinez 5 years ago in Horror
The Pale Woman
Sam ducked, narrowly dodging a low hanging tree branch. She couldn’t look back, not if she wanted to escape whatever the hell that was that had just grabbed her boyfriend. They shouldn’t have stayed out so late, forcing them to cut through the woods trying to make her curfew. They were just walking and joking around, troy acting like he had disappeared and then jumping out from behind a tree to scare her. It was all just fun and games, until the pale woman dropped out from the last tree troy hid behind. She had been waiting up there, waiting on them to finally pass under her tree, to finally fall into her trap. she screamed just before leaping down, the scream piercing through the silence of the night as if it were a trumpet blowing directly into your ear. When her feet hit the ground, a series of sickening cracking sounds replaced the scream as she bent and twisted all the way to the ground. Frozen in fear, both Sam and Troy were trying to process what had just happened, when she started to put herself back together. Troy didn’t even have time to turn around and run before she reached up with a long and mangled hand and grabbed him by the top of his head. She let out a horrifying scream of excitement, then bent her knees and leapt back into the trees, taking Troy with her. Troy, finally breaking through his paralysis, began screaming in fear realizing what was happening. His screams, stopping suddenly and everything went back to complete silence. Then, something fell right in front of Sam. It was troy, his head and face twisted in horror and missing a part as if it had a bite taken out of it. His chest had been torn open as if he were having open heart surgery with a few ribs taken out. Skin and muscle removed from his left femur, leaving only the bone down to his knee then there wasn’t even any bone left. Her body, now on autopilot, picked a direction and took off running as fast as possible. She had no idea where the woman was, she was to scared to attempt to find her. She could feel her though, she knew wherever she was, she wasn’t far behind her. Finally, an old barn came into view in-between the trees up ahead. It was in an open field, at least a hundred yards from any tree line in any direction. Perfect! She could hide there, there was no way the woman could get close without her seeing her first at least. Maybe she could find some kind of weapon in there, a pitchfork or something to help keep the woman at bay. She had to try at least. With everything she had left, she headed towards the barn, fear slowly being pushed out by hope. She had just broken through the tree line when she heard the woman scream again. She stopped and turned to see the woman flying through the air, she had jumped to make a desperate attempt to catch desert. Luckily, she missed her target, crashing to the ground twenty feet to Sam’s left. Sam didn’t stick around to find out what happened after that, she turned and dashed to the barn. She didn’t even bother to slow down to open the doors, she just ran into them using them to stop her. She checked again to see where the woman was and saw her closing the distance between them quickly. Sam turned backed to the doors and pulled them open. She stepped through and turned to shut them, the woman less than thirty yards away. She pulled with all her body had left, closing the doors right as the woman reached them. She threw the locking mechanism through the handles. The woman screamed her displeasure and slammed against the doors for several minutes. Sam just stared, she was to tired from running and had no plan b for if the woman busted through the doors. The siege stopped suddenly, almost as if Sam had just snapped out of a dream. Sam looked around the barn, straining her eyes in the dark so she could see. There wasn’t really anything in there, some old hay and rotten boards mostly. Something moved past a hole in the wall to Sam’s left, or at least she thought something had. There still wasn’t any noise, maybe her mind was playing tricks on her. An old, tore apart tractor was over in the corner maybe whoever worked on it had left a screwdriver or something. A bump to her right sent Sam into a nervous frenzy, eyes darting around the area she thought she had heard it come from. A rat scurried out from behind a barrel. For the first time, Sam was thankful it was just a rat, sighing in relief at the sight of it. It made its way over to a dark corner in the back of the barn and was about to disappear out of her sight, when it lowered itself in alert and started hissing at the pitch-black corner it was just hurrying towards. A mangled hand came out of the darkness and slammed down on the hissing rat, turning hiss to cries of help, as the hand wrapped around it and brought it towards the darkness. There was a squishy crunch sound, then its back legs, butt, and tail came hurtling back out of the corner. Sam screamed as it bounced across the floor towards her. The woman’s face leaned out next, smiling evilly at Sam before disappearing back into the shadows. Sam, in tears now, sank to her knees. This was it, there was nothing she could do now. Even if she tried to make a break for the doors, the woman would be on top of her before she could even unlock them. She started praying, she wasn’t religious so she just prayed to whatever would listen. Still silence, Sam slowly looked around wondering where the woman went. Had she just left? After a few more minutes, she started to get hopeful, but this seemed to be what the woman was waiting on. Just as Sam was getting to her feet, the woman put her hand on Sam’s shoulder, swinging her around to face her. Sam’s face went pale, almost matching the woman’s almost transparent hue. The woman grinned, showing her sharp, tiny, blood-stained teeth. Sam closed her eyes, knowing this was where her story ended just like Troy’s. The woman started to open her mouth, when a bullet came ripping through her eye causing her to release Sam. Sam fell backwards, catching a piece of sheet metal with her side on the way down. She screamed in pain as blood came gushing out of her wound. She hit the ground and immediately pushed herself with her feet under the tractor. Another shot rang out, followed by another scream then a thud as the woman hit the ground. Angry, the woman screamed louder than any other time that night, stopping only when she seen Sam. She twisted over and pushed of a support beam close by, soaring across the floor in a final attempt to get Sam. As she closed in on the tractor, something knocked her straight down back into the floor. Then a big boot came down on the back of her head, crushing it completely and splattering Sam’s face with the inside mixture of brain, blood, and skull fragments. Someone reached under the tractor and pulled Sam out by her shirt. It was a man that was dressed like someone out of a bad spy movie. He looked Sam up and down, wondering what to do with her. Sam, thinking the man was there to save her, smiled a thank you to the man. The man smirked as if to say, “don’t mention it”, before reaching both hands up, one on her chin and one on the back of her neck and twisting sharply. Sam heard a loud snapping noise, and everything went black.
By Lee Garber5 years ago in Horror
The Mysterious Well
I reach up to take down the “for sale sign” the realtor had put up a few days prior. My family needed a fresh start from our old life in New York, so what better way to do that than to move halfway across the country? I needed a place where I could separate myself from the rest of the world, to recognize that separation and appreciate it. New York was getting too crowded for my taste, and I believed something new was meant for me and my family.
By Jordan Largey5 years ago in Horror
The Barn
It was going to be so easy. Buy the old farm on rt 33, fix it up, make it into a haunted attraction. The farm had been abandoned since the 1960s. That is when Will Greenwood killed his wife and her lover in their old barn. Dora and Will Greenwood had been married for ten years and had not been able to have any children. Their marriage went bad, Will started to beat the crap out of Dora. Joe and Sherry Jacobs lived 5 miles south of the Greenwoods. The Greenwoods were not violent but they did not have much love between them either. Their marriage had grown cold over the 12 years they were together. Joe had begun to look for love elsewhere as men often do when they don’t get any at home. Dora Greenwood worked at the dinner in town. Joe, who was a deputy sheriff, would often come there for lunch. Dora and Joe would chat when Dora had his table. As time went on, They would talk after Dora got off work. Then they would meet privately out of town. Joe and Dora went to great effort to keep their affair private. It was all well hidden until one of Will's work buddies found Dora’s car parked at the hotel in the next town over. He told Dora nothing about what he knew but he lured Joe to the Greenwoods farm. Will filed a complaint with the sheriff's department that someone was stealing chickens out of his barn. He asked if Joe would come out to talk to him about it. When Dora came home from her shift at the diner, Will was waiting for her with a shotgun. He forced her into the barn where poor Joe was already dead from a shotgun blast to the head. Will shot Dora and then hung himself from the loft in the barn. It was the great scandal of 1963 on the eastern shore of Maryland.
By Tammi D5 years ago in Horror
Penelope Fern
He had told Penelope that it would be fine. That the racket in the barn wasn’t anything, that’d he’d be home by ten at the latest. At the latest. Ben promised he’d be back so they could finish their anniversary celebration.
By Anna Strickland 5 years ago in Horror
Relationships Were Hard Enough Before The Zombie Apocalypse
When the watchtower bell rang, Tommy dropped the seedling he had been holding and gripped Lydia's arm. "Don't go, Mama." Lydia righted Tommy's seedling and finished planting her own. She swept her three-year-old into her arms and nuzzled his soft cheek.
By Deanna Cassidy5 years ago in Horror
Precious Cargo
An icy breeze blew through the flat desert landscape beneath a starless sky. I took another drag from my cigarette with a shaking hand and checked my watch for the fifth time in the last three minutes.
By Bradley Ramsey5 years ago in Horror