Horror Stories of 1,000 Words or Less
For the month of August, 2025, these are the stories that entertain us most.
* The Shack by Annaliese Crocker
* The Skull Ring by M.D. Smith
* For Whom the Bell Tolls by Sarah Das Gupta
* Hungry Eyes by Zachary Medlin
* Ingrown by Equinox Charette
* Covered in Flies by Justin Alcala
* Gnome by Ron Schroer
* We Always Walked This Way by Chris Fisher
The Shack by Annaliese Crocker
The priest was more ghoul than man, glowing like the moon in the gloom of the shack. Through a haze of incense, he sat with the poise of a God; muscled, bare-chested, and covered in white paint, and his eyes, rimmed in thick black, shone like obsidian mirrors. Symbols covered the walls and floor, but I wasn’t about to take my eyes off him to look.
“You have the £10,000?” He asked suddenly, in a strong Creole accent.
“Yes,” I croaked, slipping a backpack off my shoulder, unzipping it, and pulling out my life’s savings. His black eyes gleamed, and he nodded to the corner over my shoulder. The hairs lifted on the back of my neck, and I reluctantly turned to see a woman standing behind me. Her eyes were glistening white marbles, her jaw slack and wet with drool as she swayed and groaned softly. In one hand, she carried a sorry-looking chicken, and the other clawed out for the money.
“I’m curious, why do you want to go to hell?” I turned back to the priest, now leaning forward in the armchair. I didn’t like that he’d moved without my seeing, but worse, he was smiling.
“My daughter was killed in the crossfire of a shooting.” My voice broke, and I had to stop to clear my throat. “The police shot the man, Jacob White, dead--”
“And you want to go to hell to know he’s there, being punished for what he did.” The man finished, the horrible smile still stretching his face.
“I’ve been told you can get me there...and back.”
He was quiet for a moment, weaving his fingers together. “There is a chance you won’t get back. Is that a risk you’re willing to take?”
“It is.”
He pointed to the ground before him. “Then sit.”
I sat on the dirt floor as he waved a hand. A scatter of candles flamed, bringing the symbols covering the shack to life. The woman staggered over to the priest with a knife and the sorry-looking chicken.
I’d done my research and was expecting it, but squeezed my eyes closed as he made the sacrifice.
“Hold on to this.” The priest placed a crucifix in my hand. “If you lose it, you will not be able to return.”
Then he pressed a cup to my lips.
“Drink.”
The inside of the shack blurred, then tunnelled away. When I opened my eyes, I was somewhere else, still clutching the crucifix in my hand.
My heart pounded as I looked around a bitterly cold living room pulsing in blue light. The room was strewn with rubbish, the furniture old and stained, but amongst it all, there was no sign of Jacob White.
I jerked around at the sound of shouting. A door opened, and a woman in a dirty nightie stumbled into the room, rapidly followed by a man in pants and a vest. The man wasn’t normal, he had an unnaturally big mouth and his hands, balled into fists, were freakishly large. The woman was listless, pale, and thin. Wherever she went, he was there, screaming abuse in her unresponsive face.
Somehow, over the yelling, I heard a tiny noise coming from behind the couch. I moved, unnoticed, past the man and woman, to see what it was.
A little boy was hidden there, hugging his knees. He sensed me and looked up, his brown eyes bulging with fright. I looked over at the man and woman; she’d been rounded into a corner, his huge fists pressing into the wall on either side of her head as he ranted.
I crawled behind the couch to sit beside the little boy. I put my hand on his shoulder, it was so cold.
“What’s your name?” I whispered.
“Jacob,” he mouthed, then climbed into my lap.
I couldn’t breathe as everything collided; anger, grief, despair, but finally I felt something unexpected, the knot in my chest came undone. I wrapped my arms around him, like I used to hold my daughter, and wept, telling him everything was going to be okay.
“Where’s that ugly kid?” The man suddenly bellowed, and the boy’s grip on me tightened. Then I heard the man’s feet crunching rubbish on the floor as he moved in our direction, and I knew I didn’t have much time.
“I forgive you, Jacob,” I said, then pressed the crucifix into his tiny palm. He looked up at me, confused, but then I saw the bright light ignite in his eyes. Joy lifted the features of his face, and a moment later, he dissolved into pure white light.
The crucifix fell into my lap where the boy had been, but just as I was about to scoop it up, I was yanked out from behind the couch, the crucifix thrown amongst the debris of the living room floor.
The man held me aloft by my top.
“What have you done? He cannot leave!” His colossal mouth fired spittle in my face. His own was grotesque and red with rage. He was terrifying, straight out of hell, but he wasn’t my demon.
“Too late,” I said, and rammed my fingers in both his eyes. He dropped me instantly.
I wasted no time, flinging rubbish out of the way, searching everywhere for the crucifix. It didn’t take long for him to recover, glaring at me through bleeding eyes. He was about to lunge when I spotted the crucifix in an ashtray no more than three feet away. I rushed for it, as he grabbed hold of my arm, but somehow, I managed to yank free from his grip and snatched up the crucifix. I clasped it in both hands, shut my eyes, and prayed to God to get me the hell out of there!
My eyes flashed open, and I was back in the shack, the priest’s black eyes staring down at me.
“From one hell, back to another.” He smiled.
Annaliese Crocker (Plowright) is the author of Horror, Fantasy Romance and Young Adult novels. Annaliese was short-listed for the Hull Literary Short Story Award 2025 and is presently long-listed for the 'Victory' 50th Anniversary Short Story Competition. Annaliese is currently studying Creative Writing at Falmouth University, Cornwall. https://www.facebook.com/AnnaliesePlowright
The Skull Ring by M.D. Smith
The trail to Echo Peak had grown over with bramble and silence. Jarred Slake pushed through thorn and memory, sweat beading beneath his flannel shirt despite the autumn chill. The cave loomed ahead, hidden behind a curtain of ivy and black rock, like a mouth long closed, hungry to speak again.
Fifteen years ago, he’d killed his little brother, Levi.
The boy had followed him like a shadow—always chirping, always smiling, always clutching that damn silver ring on a chain around his neck. It was a rectangle of black onyx stone with a silver skull and crossbones centered. It had been their father’s who had told stories about it being a pirate’s ring at one time. His father was now dead, and Jarred wanted it.
It was an accident. A scuffle. A shove. Levi’s skull cracked on a jagged stone like a dropped melon. Jarred buried him in a small side tunnel off the main cavern, a crevice barely large enough for the boy’s broken body. The ring still hung from his neck, shining even in the dark.
And now, Jarred was back for the skull ring. He told himself it was for closure. A final possession. But really, it gnawed at him, night after night—that shimmer in the dark, those wide, dead eyes.
He entered the cave, flashlight in one hand, a fold-up shovel in the other. He had to push webs aside that had appeared over the years. He pulled a sticky mess out of his hair. The air was fetid, rank with mold and rot, and as he approached the side tunnel—so narrow he had to crouch—his light caught something strange.
A web. Thick. Dense. Wet.
Not just one—walls of them. Threaded from floor to ceiling. He heard a faint sound of movement just out of sight.
He crept forward, scraping stone, heart hammering. A cut on his hand now oozed blood. The grave was there, a slight rise of dirt. But the earth had moved—shifted. As though something had tunneled up… or out.
Then he saw the skeleton, curled and shattered, jaw locked in an eternal scream. The ring still dangled on its chain, half-buried in the dirt.
Jarred reached for it. The webs trembled. A sound like soft rain filled the tunnel.
Skittering. Thousands of tiny feet.
He turned the flashlight toward the ceiling—horror bloomed in his chest.
Spiders.
Dozens, then hundreds. Bulbous, shiny black bodies with red rings around each leg joint. They pulsed as they spilled from cracks, eyes like pinpricks of hate, fangs twitching. Their nest had been disturbed.
And Levi’s grave had fed them.
He scrambled, but the tunnel was too tight. The first spider bit into the soft flesh beneath his eye. Agony lit up his skull. He screamed, and another dropped into his shirt collar. Then another. They swarmed his back, his arms, his face, up his legs.
Jarred flailed, crushing many, but they kept coming—pouring from the walls, raining from above. They filled his mouth. They crawled inside his ears. Their venom burned like fire in his veins. His throat swelled, his eyes bulged, and his limbs convulsed uncontrollably.
The flashlight dropped and spun wildly, illuminating his twisted, spider-covered form in flashes—like a strobe at the gates of hell.
In his final breath, just before the blackness claimed him, he thought he saw Levi’s small skeleton, upright now, head tilted in silent laughter, the skull ring swaying gently from its chest.
Soon, the cave was silent again, except for the murmur of thousands of tiny teeth devouring every morsel.
Zack Medlin is a writer living in Fort Smith, Arkansas. His debut poetry collection, Beneath All Water, was selected as the winner of the Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize. His poems can be found in print and online in journals such as The Cincinnati Review, Colorado Review, The Boiler, and Tinderbox Poetry. He holds an MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, a PhD from the University of Utah, and is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith.
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Sarah Das Gupta
There was definitely something in the room. Ever since Dad had started knocking down the partition wall, Danny had felt a presence, sometimes in the dark corners, sometimes at the end of his bed. Whatever it was, he did not feel it was malicious or threatening. No, if anything, it seemed sad, lonely. Yes, that was the right word---lonely.
It must have been about midnight. There was an aura of yellow light at the end of his bed. It seemed to float above the bed, rather than rest on it. Danny pushed off the duvet. He crept over the carpet and reached for the light switch. Everything looked normal – his posters of the Manchester City football team did not seem surprised at being disturbed in the middle of the night. His guitar was safe in its canvas case, smothered with coloured stickers. His schoolbag hung behind the door. He switched off the light and lay back in bed. The aura had vanished, but Danny still felt a presence in the room.
About a week later, as Danny returned from school, he could hear a noise in the kitchen. Someone slammed the fridge door. Water was running in the sink. Odd, it was too early for Mum to have finished work, and Dad was on a late shift at the garage. Danny opened the door. The kitchen was empty. Only the dripping of the tap broke the silence. Again, Danny felt someone or something was in the house. He walked upstairs. A boy stood on the red-carpeted landing staring out of the window across the autumn fields. He looked thin and neglected, a ragged shirt hanging over dirty, knee-length breeches. As he turned to stare at Danny, his face was scarred, and the skin was discolored, a dull purple with red streaks. Before Danny could say anything, the boy had gone.
An hour or so later, Danny heard the front door and his mum’s voice from the kitchen. ‘Danny, are you upstairs? Come down here a minute.’ His mother was sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of chocolate cookies in front of her, looking puzzled.
‘Hi Mum! Just what I need, I’m starving.’ Danny scooped up a couple of cookies.
‘Steady on, you’ve already eaten half of them!’
Danny was about to protest his innocence when he remembered the fridge door and
the strange boy on the landing. ‘Sorry, Mum, the school lunch was horrible.’
###
Danny sat in Kingsett Library surrounded by books and newspapers. The library would close in half an hour, and he still hadn’t found the information he was looking for.
‘I wonder if this would be any use. It’s a copy of the ‘Kingsett Herald’ from 1901,’ the voice of the Librarian came from over his shoulder. ‘It looks about the right period.’
Disconsolately, he flipped through the yellowing pages, full of local ephemera: tennis tournaments, grainy photographs of smiling brides and grooms. Suddenly, a faded headline caught Danny’s eye- ‘Tragedy in Morgan’s Factory Blaze’. He read on excitedly: ‘It seems the fire began in the boiler room and spread rapidly to the main factory. Fortunately, it being lunch hour, most employees were outside the main premises. Tragically, two of the youngest workers, John Norris and Billy Glesson were finishing packaging. John escaped with minor injuries, but Billy sadly died of burns a week later in Bradford Infirmary. A funeral service will be held. . .’ The chimes of the town clock sounded like a knell echoing through the Library. Danny gathered up his notes and began to walk home through the November fog.
That evening, he asked his father if he had heard of a factory fire in Kingsett.‘Well, I ought to know about it. This house and the estate are built on the site of the gutted factory.’
Several times in the weeks before Christmas, Danny saw the boy, usually at the top of the stairs, staring forlornly over the fields. Some nights, the pale light appeared at the bottom of his bed, or a dark outline hovered in the corner near the window. Danny never felt threatened by ‘Billy’ as he now thought of the sad spirit. The scarred, purplish skin reminded Danny of that cruel death.
As he walked upstairs one Saturday, Danny wondered why ‘Billy’ looked out of the landing window. There were only the bare winter fields with a flock of gulls wheeling and sweeping over the ploughed land. In the far distance was the steeple of St Mary’s church above the
trees.
Ten minutes later, Danny was wandering round St Mary’s graveyard. He walked up to the far corner where the graves were neglected and overgrown. Pulling the dead grass and bracken aside, Danny started reading the names on the headstones. One plot looked particularly neglected. Danny leaned over and pulled up the long grass. ‘William Richard Glesson, Aged 15 years. Rest in Peace’. He hasn’t had much peace.
‘Hello there, do you have a family interest in these graves?’ Danny’s thoughts were disturbed by an elderly man whom he vaguely recognised as the vicar.
‘No, sir, I have discovered some information about Billy Glesson and his death in a local fire.’
‘Yes, a factory near here burnt down, I believe, very tragic. I’m afraid we don’t have the funds to look after individual graves.’
‘I was wondering if there would be any objection to my looking after Billy’s plot. He was the same age as me.’
The vicar looked surprised but pleased. ‘Of course, that would be wonderful.’
###
It was Christmas Eve. The first flakes of snow had begun to settle in the churchyard. Danny stood back to look at Billy’s grave. The headstone had been washed, and the grass trimmed. Danny had planted daffodil and tulip bulbs to flower in the Spring. He laid a bunch of Christmas roses on the tomb. Looking up, he saw a boy waving to him across the darkening fields.
Sarah Das Gupta is a writer from Cambridge who enjoys writing horror stories for magazines and anthologies including 'Tales from the Moonlit Path', 'Dark Horses', 'Black Sheep', ' The Wicked Shadow Press', 'Black Hare', among others. She has recently been nominated for Best of the Net' and 'A Dwarf Star'.
Hungry Eyes by Zachary Medlin
“Our movie is going to be the best,” Jason said as he hefted the shiny new VHS camcorder onto his shoulder. He looked through the viewfinder and zoomed in and out on the shiny metal brackets of Christopher’s braces. “I’m talking Spielberg-level awesome.”
“Careful with that.” Christopher turned away from the camera’s unblinking eye and futzed with the RCA cables running to a small television set. “My dad will kill me if we break it.” Christopher switched the TV on. A fuzzy glow emanated from the smoky glass as an image came into focus. Christopher was looking at himself, crouched in front of the television, still pointing the remote at the screen.
“Dude,” Jason flopped down from the top bunk of Christopher’s bunk bed, “I got an idea.” He set the camera on Christopher’s desk and aimed it at the television. The TV plunged deep inside itself as concentric squares filled the entire thirteen-inch screen.
“Cool, huh?” Jason waved a hand in front of the camera, and a centipede of hands crawled into infinity.
Christopher knelt in front of the TV; Jason joined him. They watched the rows of Christophers and Jasons on the screen drop like dominoes.
“This will look so frickin’ rad in our movie!” Jason reached forward and mimed flipping switches and turning dials. “Captain, I’m engaging the hyperdrive!” Jason threw himself back as his imaginary space fighter entered warp space, banging his head against the desk in the process. The bump jostled the camera, sending a ripple through the image. When the tremor rocked the centermost frame, Christopher turned and looked at Jason. The Christopher inside the screen. Every head turned in unison, sending a wave of glares crashing over him. The Christophers’ gaping eyes twinkled with malice. Eyes too black and deep. An inviting abyss. The edge you’re scared to approach because you’re not sure if you’ll be able to resist that deep, manic urge to throw yourself into the void. Jason’s Chuck Taylors kicked and skidded across the hardwood floor as his body fought itself over how best to put distance between Jason and the screen. The lone Christopher sitting next to him remained motionless, staring into the TV. Something inside fractured, leaving him gazing into an unblinking fractal of himself.
Then Christopher leaned closer to the screen, peering deeper into the cascade of Christophers.
The Christophers inside leaned toward the screen and seemed to push against the cathode-ray tube’s arched surface. Jason swore the convex glass was distending ever further, as if reaching for him. He fumbled for the TV remote, and his thumb finally found the power button. The image dropped away into the center of the screen, as if it was being sucked down into a black hole at the TV’s infinite core. It shrank into the distance until it appeared as nothing but a small circle of light twinkling deep within the glassy gray field. Then the light blinked out as a spiderweb of cracks shivered through the glass, as if some internal gravity pulled at the screen.
Christopher turned to Jason; his eyes were two vast voids filled with spiraling stars.
Fangs. Not stars, fangs, was Jason’s last thought as he was devoured by a tornado of glistening teeth and swallowed into the vacuum of the boy’s stare.
Christopher turned to the camcorder, stopped the recording, and ejected the tape. He affixed the long, white label to the edge of the cassette and neatly printed "JASON" in black Sharpie. He slid the VHS tape into its sleeve and placed it on the shelf, tucked safely away at the end of a row of old 8mm reels, Super 8 cartridges, and Betamax cassettes.
Zack Medlin is a writer living in Fort Smith, Arkansas. His debut poetry collection, Beneath All Water, was selected as the winner of the Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize. His poems can be found in print and online in journals such as The Cincinnati Review, Colorado Review, The Boiler, and Tinderbox Poetry. He holds an MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, a PhD from the University of Utah, and is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith.
Ingrown by Equinox Charette
I spend too much time in front of this fucking mirror. Day after day, week after week, this warped reflection of my face consumes me.
And don’t get the wrong idea, this isn’t a vanity thing. I don’t want to stand here for hours on end, picking and digging around with a pair of tweezers, flesh parting with a slow reluctance as I dig at the coarse stubble my razor never gets, hidden behind the overhanging protrusion of my heavy jaw. My face is pocked and scarred from past mirror-front skirmishes.
I couldn’t really tell you what compels me to attack myself like this. Some chemical in my brain screams and screams and screams when I’m unlucky enough to see beard hairs in my reflection, so I brutalize my face, trying to fix what I see in the mirror.
I can see the hair rolling back and forth under my skin as I use tweezers like scalpels to split layers of flesh. The fresh wound stings. Plasma or sebum mixes with the blood, thinning it and giving it a strange texture that’s somehow both waterier and oilier than it should be. A coppery stink clings to my fingertips, stained and dripping scarlet. My phone buzzes, but I ignore it. It’s always just spam these days.
With my left hand, I pinch the skin tight, trying to pin the hair in place. With my right, I wield my tweezers. The tips blunt from frequent use, so they don’t tear through as smoothly as I would’ve liked. I scrape and twist, quickly, sharply, and the skin separates. With a fresh gush of blood, the trapped hair finally surfaces.
Two and a half inches of dark, wiry hair protrude from the dripping wound, and I set aside the tweezers. I take a grim pleasure from doing this part with my bare hands.
I grip the hair tightly. My thumbnail digs into the edge of my index finger, hair trapped between. I pull, braced for the painful satisfaction. Once, twice, three times, my grip slips as blood wells. Frustrated, I grab the tweezers again, grip the hair between the tips, and pull. The hair comes, and comes, and comes, not tearing loose at the root. It unspools from between the layers of my flesh, like I was wrenching out some parasitic worm that had been coiled up inside my jaw. My stomach clenches and writhes as the sickly, cheesy stench of old pus pours from the wound, but I can’t stop, not until the disgusting thing is completely torn free and disposed of. I’ve dropped the tweezers as the hair keeps coming, grabbing and pulling hand after hand.
Worst of all, it’s covered in knots.
I’ve dealt with a lot of ingrown hairs over the years, on my face, on my legs, on my chest and arms, and I’d ripped and pulled and torn them out time after time, but I’d never found one with a knot in it. This one has a whole series of little knots that I can feel against the edges of the freshly torn hole in my face. It stretches and contracts as each knot passes through, some short, some long.
I keep pulling, more and more frantically, as the blood keeps flowing. I have several feet of this dark, knotted hair spooled in my sink, bright blood pouring over my hands, when I feel a stab of pain deep in my jaw as the root finally tears loose. The end of the hair slides free from my skin, and I collapse to my knees. Thank fuck I left the toilet open, because suddenly I’m vomiting, the acidic bile and fresh blood making noxious colors in the bowl. I heave and heave until my diaphragm cramps and there’s nothing left in my gut.
I press a fistful of toilet paper to my jaw to stop the bleeding and slump against the bathroom wall. What the fuck is happening?
It feels like there’s a pattern in the knots. Is it intentional, an encoded message buried in an ingrown hair in my jaw? What else could it be? How the fuck did it get there? What does it mean? Is it a warning? Why me?
As I panic, the blood clots, leaving the lower edge of my face crusted in stiff, dry scabs. I can’t get the toilet paper off without reopening the wound, so I leave it on and struggle to my feet, the acrid taste of the morning’s regurgitated breakfast clinging to my mouth. My phone buzzes again. The long, knotted hair lies in the sink, nearly four feet in length.
As I uncoil the disgusting thing, I can’t figure where it all fit. If I look up at the mirror, what will I see? Will my jaw be narrower, now that all of this hair has been ripped out? Would that make me feel better, more like myself? I can’t bring myself to look.
I stumble out of the bathroom and into the main room of my efficiency apartment. There’s a notebook on my desk, and I start transcribing the series of short and long knots as I run a finger along the hair. …. . .-.. .-.. --- .-.-.- , it starts. Why is there a Morse code message in my fucking jaw?
When I have the whole pattern written down, I look up a Morse code translator online and enter it. It takes a while as my hands keep shaking with anticipation and fear. Whatever this message is, wherever it’s from, I’m going to have answers in a minute. Is it a message from God? Something the government hid inside of me? Something I did to myself, like Arnold Schwarzenegger in that one ’80s movie?
The translator runs slowly, laboring against a poor Wifi connection to decipher the secret message hidden within my flesh. Finally, a message populates the output field:
“Hello. We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty…”
Equinox Charette (they/she) is a queer and trans author from Maine who dabbles in many genres but most enjoys writing science fiction and short horror. They received their MA in English from the University of Maine, and she is currently attends the Stonecoast MFA.
Covered in Flies by Justin Alcala
It’s coming for you, relentlessly pursuing. You did nothing to provoke it, but it won’t stop until it finds you. Wrong place, wrong time. You watched it rise that brisk autumn evening, tearing from the soil. Like some insidious newborn, you were the first person it saw, and now you’re its only prey.
It’s appalling; a skeleton wrapped in taught skin and sopping with putrid resin. Worn and receded fingertip flesh exposes its bone claws. Filth mats its long, wispy hair, and grave soil smears the rags it wears. Maggots wriggle from the gashes in its flesh, and winged insects buzz around the creature’s disjointed parts. Its broken jaw leaves a maw of crooked butter-colored teeth in a permanent growl as its sunken whitewashed eyes glare at you.
You retreated in terror when you saw it crawl from its shallow grave, outrunning the shambling horror. After the adrenaline wore off, and you stopped to catch your breath, you spotted it a great distance away, still lumbering in pursuit under the park lights. You sprinted your way to the roads, waving down cars in hopes of escape. But no one stops for strangers any longer. So, you jogged down the highway towards town. Whenever you looked over your shoulder, a silhouette of the creature shuffled beneath streetlamps.
You reached your neighborhood. You tried explaining it to a familiar face, taking their nightly walk, but they laughed off your story as a Halloween prank, putting on their headphones and trotting off. So you hurried into your house, checking outside your window as you called the police. The operator dismissed your claim and hung up as the ambling nightmare appeared at the end of your street. Its crooked arms rose in your direction as if it identified which house was yours.
You rushed up the stairs, fumbling with your phone as you dialed your neighbor. The neighbor didn’t pick up as glass shattered downstairs. You grabbed for the nearest improvised weapon, a heavy lamp you’d hoped could stop it. But as footsteps stomped up the stairs, your nerves wavered. You hurried to the window, flipping through the clasps as the locked door handle of your bedroom door turned back and forth. Boldly, you crawled through the windowsill as the seam of your bedroom door burst open, revealing a revolting hand that threaded through the hole. You didn’t linger, diving into the sugarbush below.
Pain wracked your ankles as you limped your way through the fall leaves. Your phone screen shattered and twitched off. You called for help, but the seasonal wind swallowed your yells. Hurrying down your street, you hobbled to the closest lit-up home. You banged on the door, eyes peeled back as the creature emerged from your home. You perceived sounds of movement inside, but it took an unreasonable time. The creature was now in the middle of the street, coming your way. You couldn’t risk it and retreated to the sidewalk, limping in the police station's direction.
Someone drove by, honking their horn. Salvation. Upon attempting to enter their vehicle, they moved away, laughing as they observed you and the creature. Everyone thought it was a prank. No one believed you. Determined to survive, you raced the creature in a limping contest to the police station. You grew exhausted, watching as any passersby in vehicles ignored your plight.
You made it to the station, bursting into the reception area, making your claims of being pursued by a creature. The administrator sighed as an officer came from the back to investigate the commotion. After calming you, they listened to your story. The officer looked outside the station’s window but claimed no one on the street matched your description. That’s when the torment in your ankles grew overwhelming. The administrator examined your legs in horror. He explained you needed to be taken to the hospital.
It all happened so fast from there. The ambulance arrived quicker than expected, and although you insisted the creature was real, they dismissed your story as a cruel Halloween trick. Paramedics brought you to the hospital, and after much poking and prodding, they put you into a bed, bracing your legs. The doctor explained that the traumatic event drew concern to your heart rate and blood pressure, which they’d need to observe. As you contemplated the last hour, you wondered if the night’s events might’ve been a ruse after all. But as you took your first calm breaths, gazing out your hospital room window, your heart dropped ten floors down.
The creature shambled in the parking lot, bumping into cars as it clumsily made its way to the hospital’s main entrance. You screamed for the nurses, who entered with a set of brawny, uniformed men who held you down. Your panicked breaths drowned you as you punched everyone away. You don’t know what they did to you, but your flailing arms grew heavy, and your body felt numb. Soon, you were in a daze.
You don’t know how much time passed before nurses left you alone, strapped down, in the room. The door remained open, and you heard the distant voices of staff discussing what to do with you. But soon their discussion became drowned out by something more disturbing. The friction of wet feet dragging on tiles caught your ear, followed by the buzzing of flies. A shadow grew in the hall, and although you knew what it was, whatever they’d done to you denied you the ability to react. It entered the room, maw agape, and talons reaching.
Why me? What did I do to deserve this? You asked as it trailed to your bed, bending down as if to kiss you on the forehead. A pain stabbed your forehead as the sound of an apple being bitten into filled your senses before they faded to black.
Justin Carlos Alcala (he/him) is an award-winning American novelist & short story writer. His works are most notable for their appearance in Publisher’s Weekly, the SLF Foundation Awards, and the University of British Columbia project archives. Justin is a folklore fanatic, history nerd, tabletop gamer, and time traveler. Alcala’s thirty plus short stories, novellas, and novels can be found in anthologies, magazines, journals, podcasts, and commercial publications. He currently resides with his dark queen, Mallory, their fey daughter, Lily, changeling son, Ronan, goblin-baby, Asher, and hounds of Ragnarök, Fenrir and Hilda in Bigfoot’s domain. Where his mind might be is anyone’s guess.
Gnome by Ron Schroer
“What did you just say?”
Schrader looked at me. “What?”
“Did you just say ‘Dick’?”
He looked surprised. “You heard that?”
“Hell yes, I heard it. You muttered it under your breath. Did I do something wrong?”
Now, a wry smile. “Not at all,” he said, leaning forward in his worn old armchair, the one with the cigarette burns. “You’re the first person, apart from me, who’s heard that voice.”
I frowned. There’s just you and me here, buddy. Schrader sipped his beer and said, “It’s not me. It’s him.”
He’d nodded towards the mantelpiece, a repurposed railway sleeper and platform for ephemera: artful driftwood, empty brass candle holders, charcoal gnome.
I drank some beer. I’d been here before, drinking with Schrader in his dusty old house, but I’d never noticed that before. A gnome: unpainted, dark, and unfriendly-looking.
“Where’d that come from?”
“It’s been around. I move it.”
“Is it some kind of toy?”
“Not really.”
I was pondering what to say next when I distinctly heard the murmured words: You fucking jerk.
I laughed—couldn’t help it. It wasn’t Schrader’s voice, or maybe it was, just a little, but it had come from the gnome, I was sure. I looked at Schrader. “How’d you do that? Ventriloquism? You’re good!”
“Nope. It’s all him.”
Suspicious, I stood and went over. Afternoon sunlight through dirty windows cast everything in a yellow-tooth pall. The gnome, though, was all shadows and an unfinished face. An ordinary garden gnome, yet not.
“What’s your secret?” I asked.
Kiss my ass.
“Jesus!”
“Wrong again,” said Schrader. “It’s my dad.”
I stared at Schrader, who returned a steady gaze of No Kidding. I looked back at the gnome. I could see it. Schrader’s dad had been misshapen, inwardly. A blight of a man. Had Schrader made this weird fetish as a way of recalling his awful father?
“Dad hated lots of things, but the one thing he hated most was garden gnomes. Every time he saw one, he’d swear at it and throw it against a wall. It all came from being short as a kid. His asshole friends teased him and called him Gnome. That’s what Mom said, anyway. But it was no excuse for how he treated us. I’m sure he took years off Mom’s life, just by making her so damn miserable. Before he went, he told me that he wanted to be buried next to her. So I had him cremated instead, and I shoved his ashes into that.”
I sat back down. “You inserted your dad into a gnome.”
“Yep. Then it started muttering at me whenever I got close. Thing was white when I bought it.”
“But … why keep him around? It’s all a bit Poe.”
“It’s sorta comforting, knowing that he’s the miserable one now. I like to listen to him.”
So we sat there, cradling our beers, craning our ears, in that sickly room with its soot-black imp. Quoth the Gnome:
Son of a whore!
We Always Walked This Way by Chris Fisher
It was one of those days where the heat hung in waves—rippling like water in the distance. The sun bore down on us, bright and harsh in the sky as we squinted against its rays. It was a useless effort.
I placed one foot in front of the other, balancing like a gymnast on the slick metal rail. I looked up to see my brother Josh, his arm flinging a rock down the center of the tracks. The rock skipped across the gravel, clattering to rest among the others. Unfocused, my feet slipped, and I landed straddling the rail.
“It’s hot,” Josh said as he turned to look at me. He wore his favorite band shirt, black, which made his sweat darker at the armpits. He pinched it between his pointer finger and thumb and pulled at it repeatedly, fanning air against his body.
We always walked this way, after discovering the train tracks a few years ago. A shortcut, shaving 10 minutes off our walk home.
We heard the train horn blare off in the distance. Josh and I both turned to look. I shielded my eyes as the train danced behind the heat-distorted air.
The horn blared again.
We’d only seen the train a handful of times. Each time, we stood back and pointed out our favorite pieces of graffiti as it whizzed by.
I hoped for the train that day—looking forward to the refreshing gust of air as it whizzed past.
Just ahead, a familiar sight caught my eye. Josh and I didn’t talk about it much, but we both agreed to leave the tracks before we passed it.
Off to the side, there was a wooden cross someone had hammered deep into the earth. The name had worn off long ago, and the plastic flowers had faded in the intense sun.
Leaving the tracks before crossing it felt…respectful.
I began to make my way down the embankment. Rocks tumbled and rolled as I disturbed their resting place and raced down the hill ahead of me.
The horn blared.
I looked back, expecting to see Josh following closely behind me. But he wasn’t there.
My eyes flicked around, half-sure I'd see him on his butt at the bottom of the embankment. Once he slipped and slammed to the ground in front of me, and I watched as he slid all the way down. We both laughed at this hysterically.
Instead, my eyes landed on him, still on the tracks. He was doubled over, his hands pulling at his leg.
The horn blared—closer. The sound vibrating against my body, tingling my skin.
I watched as Josh’s head turned in the direction of the train. He pulled even more frantically. What was Josh doing?
The train was getting closer but there was still time for him to get off the tracks.
“Rachael,” I heard him call out. I snapped my attention off the train and went back to Josh. His eyes were bulging with fear; his voice broke as he cried out my name.
A surge of panic rushed through me as I took off sprinting. The fear in Josh’s voice thrust me into action.
My feet tried to dig in as I scaled the embankment, but the rocks slipped out from under them. They sprayed out behind me, clattering like rain.
The horn blared, louder.
The sound rattled against my teeth.
I went to all fours. Chunks of grass ripped away as I pulled myself up. My feet drove me forward, closer to Josh.
“Hurry, Rachael…Hurry!” He howled over the roar of the train.
I could feel the powerful rumbling, the ground shaking lightly. Rocks broke loose and fell helplessly to the ground below as the train grew closer.
I reached out, grasping for the object in front of me. I took hold of it. A cold bit into my hand and froze the sweat on my palms. I squeezed the object tighter, hauling myself up the rest of the way, and let it go.
The hot sun stung against my now cold palm, and I brushed past the weather-beaten cross. I didn’t think twice at the time. I was only focused on helping my brother.
Sweat covered my face, and I wiped it clear. Josh stood at the center of the tracks. He was still struggling to free his leg.
But what was trapping him?
I tilted my head, my brain trying to comprehend what I was seeing. Josh’s foot wasn’t trapped; it wasn’t stuck between something; there was nothing visibly keeping him from moving. To anyone, it would have looked like Josh was standing in the middle of the train tracks pulling at his leg for seemingly no reason.
The train BLARED, but this time it was deafening. The engine roared, clicking and clacking as its wheels rode along the rails.
I reached down and grabbed hold of his leg. Cold gripped my wrist, and my fingers froze. A soft, crisp voice brushed past my ear. ‘Can’t leave’
Soft. Low. Unmistakably clear.
That’s when I saw it—like bruises burned into his skin. Long, finger-like marks wrapped around his ankle. Blood trickled into his sock from where something unseen dug itself in.
Josh’s hands pressed against me, purposefully. My feet left the ground before I understood. I flailed backwards—then hit the rocks.
When I looked up…Josh wasn’t struggling anymore. He wasn’t grasping at his leg to free it. His arms lowered. His face—calm.
And then he smiled.
His mouth didn’t open. But I still heard the scream—louder than the train’s horn and the roaring of the engine. It echoed in my head, ragged and raw. It took me a second to realize…it was mine.
Chris Fisher is an emerging horror writer working to find his place in the writing community. His story “We Always Walked This Way” marks his first publication. He is currently building his author platform and continuing to sharpen his craft in order to share the beautifully horrific imagination that fuels his work.