Horror Stories of 1,000 Words or Less
For the month of October 2026, these are the stories that entertain us most.
* Blacklung's Curse by Gabriella Giambanco
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* The Untamed Pigment by James Garry
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​* The Hollow Inside Me by Milanka Sulejic
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* The Gorge by Tuấn Nghiêm
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* The Mirror by Nina Wilder
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* There's Something Wrong with My Cat by Jackson Strauss
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* Woven by Brittany Kapsalis
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* Daddio by Koren Cowgill
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* Fridays at 13:49 by Yvonne Aore
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* Stitches by Phineas Knowles
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* Under the Shadow of the Moon by Peter Waddell
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Blacklung's Curse by Gabriella Giambanco
Blacklung Larry was dead. His arms stretched past the doorway, his mouth agape. Salt crusted his beard. His swollen tongue pressed blue against his teeth. Water kept leaking from him, darkening the dirt beneath his boots.
The villagers circled the body without touching it. Old Tomas, who had lost three fingers when Blacklung’s men tore through the village that morning, stood at the front of the crowd with his ruined hand cradled against his chest. A woman near the back of the crowd covered her child’s eyes. No one had to ask whose doorway he had died in front of. No one had to say what sins had finally caught up to him.
No one knew what she truly was. They called her the sea witch. Some say she was born during a storm that swallowed three fishing boats. Others say the sea had claimed her long ago and returned something else. The oldest villagers remembered her as she was now: unchanged.
The sea witch stepped from the doorway, her bare feet sinking into the sand. One by one, the villagers left the pirate to the flies.
Blacklung Larry had spent half his life chasing smoke.
He prized Havana cigars above gold, silk, or silver. Merchant captains hid tobacco before their coin. Sailors claimed they could smell Blacklung’s ship before they saw it.
He smoked during battle.
He smoked while villages burned.
He smoked while men begged for mercy.
Years later, the cough began.
At first, it was little more than a rasp that rattled his chest after long nights at sea. They joked the captain would someday cough up his lungs. Blacklung laughed louder than any of them.
The raid began as any other pillage would. Cannons splintered fishing boats in the harbor. Palm-thatched roofs caught fire as pirates flooded the ash-streaked streets with pistols and cutlasses.
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Blacklung ignored the silver until someone found the tobacco warehouse. The crates were stacked floor to ceiling. His crew whooped, split them open, and stuffed fragrant leaves into sacks as smoke drifted from Blacklung's cigar. By dusk, the pirates owned the village. They lugged their loot back to the ship. That was when a woman appeared.
She stood alone in the road leading to the harbor. Her skin was pale and waterlogged. Long, black hair clung to her neck and shoulders. Water trickled at the hem of her dress, though the road was dry. She seemed impossibly clean amid the smoke and blood.
One pirate grinned. "Captain," he said, "looks like we've found the prettiest treasure."
The others whistled.
"Blood for blood," she said, "breath for breath."
Blacklung removed the cigar from his mouth.
"You'll have to speak clearer than that."
Her eyes appeared between the thin curtain of her hair, two pale orbs staring back at him.
Blacklung almost recoiled.
“You took what was loved,” she said. “The sea will take what you need.”
The crew stiffened. Blacklung Larry barked a laugh.
"I've crossed every sea in the Caribbean, girl. Water and I are old friends."
"On land or sea," she replied, "drowning feels the same."
He shoved her aside hard enough to knock her into the dirt. The pirates guffawed.
Aboard the ship, their laughter rang, rum flowed, fiddles played.
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Blacklung sat atop a stolen chest, a cigar glowing between his fingers while crates of tobacco lined the deck around him like trophies. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. One of the men coughed. No one noticed. Another cough followed. Then another. The fiddler lowered his bow.
A pirate lurched forward, clutching his throat. White crystals gathered at the corners of his mouth before spilling across his beard. He gagged violently.
Seaweed slipped between his teeth.
The man vomited black seawater onto the deck. He collapsed before anyone reached him.
Then another sailor began choking.
And another.
The ship rang with desperate gasps. Men clawed at their throats. Salt poured from their mouths. Dark seawater flooded the planks, carrying sand and broken shells across the deck. Seaweed spilled from blue lips in dripping strands while pirates stumbled blindly, suffocating beneath an ocean no one else could see.
Blacklung watched his crew drown beneath an open sky.
The cigar slipped from his fingers. He fled before the last body stopped twitching. The village still smoldered when he returned. Doors hung broken from their hinges. Livestock wandered the streets. Survivors scattered at the sight of the pirate captain. Blacklung tore through houses in a frantic search.
He found her exactly where she had been all along. The cottage smelled of herbs and salt. Bundles of drying plants hung from the ceiling beside bowls of black sand and shells. A pot simmered over the fire. A knife lay on the table with initials carved into the handle. The woman stirred it without looking up.
He seized her arm. "What have you done?"
"What was taken," she said, "has been returned."
She regarded him calmly, raising the knife to his throat.
Blacklung’s eyes widened; he knew that knife. The sailor. The young man he’d killed for choosing love over piracy. He opened his mouth. Salt burst across his tongue, seizing his chest. A cough bent him double as seawater flooded his throat, gagging, tasting blood beneath the brine.
The sea witch watched.
Blacklung staggered backward into the night, clawing at his neck. Water spilled from his mouth with every desperate breath. Thin strands of seaweed caught between his teeth before sliding free.
He fell to his knees, fingers digging into the sand as he dragged himself away from the cottage, searching for air that no longer existed.
Blacklung Larry drowned on dry land. The villagers found him where he had fallen, one hand stretched toward the witch's doorway. She crossed over his corpse and walked toward the shore. Morning light spread across the currents. Her lips touched the cold handle of the sailor’s knife as she lowered it into the ripples lapping against the shore.
“It is finished.”
The waves claimed the knife.
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A physician and writer based in Houston, TX, Gabriella Giambanco writes nonfiction essays and opinion pieces that have appeared in Bustle, BUST Magazine, Clash Magazine, Outlook Springs, Thought Catalog, Hobart, and The Tunnels. Her short fiction has been published in Macabre Magazine.
The Untamed Pigment by James Garry
In the weaving township above Uig, Donald was known for colour. The women brought him wool dyed with heather, lichen, bog-myrtle, and crottle. Russets, yellows, and deep peat-browns sat stacked upon his benches. Blue from distant indigo merchants was costly, but Donald could coax it into brilliance.
Green was different.
Old Mòrag, her hands permanently stained brown from bark and lichen, caught him staring at a tub of dull, olive-tinged wash. She shook her head.
“Green isn’t ours to make,” she warned.
Donald laughed, tossing a handful of dried nettles into the vat. “Grass is green. Bracken is green. The hills themselves are green.”
Mòrag met his eyes, her voice low and dry as winter leaves. “Aye. And who told you the hills were ours?”
Donald paid her no mind. A gentleman from Portree had offered a month’s wage for a coat in a vivid green—the shade of spring fern after rain. Donald had a craftsman’s pride; he refused to believe nature held a secret a dyer could not master.
Yet every attempt yielded the same failure: muddy khakis, sickly yellows, or ditch-water browns. The desired hue mocked him from outside his cottage window, unnaturally vivid across the slopes, but it refused to settle into wool.
Then he recalled a fragment of a story his grandmother used to whisper over the peat fire: The brightest green grows where the dead and the daoine sìth share the earth.
Donald did not believe in the Fair Folk. To him, folklore was merely unrefined chemistry. If the soil of the old places held a reagent that could fix the hue, he would harvest it.
At dusk, Donald set out toward the local sìthean—a grassy mound beside an abandoned burial ground swallowed by turf. As he crossed the boundary, Mòrag called out from her doorway.
“Take nothing from the hill, Donald.”
“I’m only taking water,” he called back, holding up his glass flask.
“The hill won’t know the difference.”
Donald climbed higher. The evening was dead quiet, yet as he approached the mound, the grass bent low. Beneath his boots, he felt a subterranean pulse. Scraping Verdigris from an old copper buckle, he scooped soil from a grave and filled his flask from a dark pool in the mound’s hollow.
Back in his workshop, Donald ground the rust and grave-dirt to a fine black powder. But when he poured in the water from the sìthean, the mixture erupted.
A green bloomed through the sludge so fierce it made his eyes ache. It was fern after rain, bottle-glass held against the sun. It shivered in the vessel, shifting when he looked away. His hound whined at the threshold and fled.
Donald lifted a badger-hair brush and painted the slurry across his finest woven coat.
The wool drank it greedily. It vanished into the fibres until the coat glowed in the dim room.
Triumphant, Donald hung the garment by the hearth to dry.
He awoke near midnight, freezing.
A heavy weight rested upon his chest. His coat was draped over him, though he had left it downstairs. He reached to throw it off, but his fingers caught on the cuff. A single thread of emerald wool was hooked into his flesh.
He pulled. A sharp agony shot up his forearm.
The thread was coming from beneath his skin.
Green thread rooted directly into his flesh, creeping up his wrists and blooming across his chest in tight, dark veins. Donald tore at his shirt as his skin transmuted into cool, damp moss. Where his fingernails ripped the flesh, no red blood spilled. Tiny, vibrant clover sprouted from the wounds.
From deep within his ears, a monotonous, thrumming music arose—like feet dancing through solid earth.
Donald burst through his door into the night air. He tried to run toward the sea, but the green fibres embedded in his legs tightened like bowstrings, forcing his feet around toward the sìthean. With every stride toward the mound, the agony lessened.
At the foot of the sìthean, a seam appeared in the turf, opening smoothly like cloth. Warm, golden light spilled from the dark interior, rich with turned earth and wild honey. Shadowy figures waited within. One turned—a woman wearing a coat identical to his own.
Donald looked down. His fingers had fused into soft carpets of moss, laced with glowing green wool. Behind him, a trail of clover marked his bleeding steps.
The colour was hungry, and it was taking him home beneath the hill.
By morning, the seam in the turf was closed. On the hill’s western slope grew a patch of clover so unnaturally lush that no sheep in Skye would touch it.
The Hollow Inside Me by Milanka Sulejic
The first time my reflection blinked, I was seven.
I told my mother.
She slapped me.
Not hard.
Just enough to teach me that some things should never be repeated.
“Mirrors don't blink,” she said.
So, I stopped talking about it.
Years passed.
Then, on my thirty-third birthday, my reflection disappeared.
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror at 3:33 a.m., looking at the room behind me.
The sink.
The towel.
The open door.
Everything except me.
Then my reflection slowly leaned into view.
It was smiling.
I wasn't.
She raised one finger to her lips.
Behind me, something whispered my name.
I turned.
Nothing.
When I looked back, my reflection had written something on the mirror in the fog.
YOU LEFT ME THERE.
I didn't remember leaving anyone anywhere.
But the memory came anyway.
A marketplace.
My mother's hand.
A crack in a stone wall.
A door.
I had been seven.
I remembered stepping through.
I remembered the smell first—wet flowers and something sweet that had gone rotten.
Then the boy.
He was barefoot.
His mouth was full of tiny white teeth.
“You're late,” he said.
I laughed because I thought he was playing. “What are you?”
He smiled. “Forgotten.”
Then he asked for my name.
I gave it to him.
Not Milanka.
My real name.
The one beneath the one my mother gave me.
I had forgotten that part.
But he hadn't.
That night, on my thirty-third birthday, the bathroom door opened by itself.
The boy stood on the other side.
He looked exactly as he had when I was seven.
Except now his mouth was full of teeth.
Too many.
“You promised you'd come back.”
“I was a child.”
“You were never just a child.”
He held out his hand.
Something small and pale rested in his palm.
A tooth.
My tooth.
I touched my tongue to my teeth.
There was a gap.
I hadn't noticed it before.
The boy smiled wider. “You're already coming apart.”
I ran.
The hallway stretched.
The walls breathed.
Every mirror in the house filled with reflections of me at different ages.
Seven.
Twelve.
Seventeen.
Thirty-three.
Each one was screaming.
None made a sound.
Then I saw the little girl.
She stood at the end of the hallway.
Barefoot.
Holding my mother's hand.
I knew immediately what was wrong.
My mother wasn't looking at her.
She was looking at me.
Her face was terrified.
“Don't let her in,” she whispered.
The little girl turned.
She had my face.
But her eyes were black.
“You left me,” she said.
The boy appeared behind her. “She isn't yours anymore.”
I backed away. “What does that mean?”
He pointed at the mirror.
My reflection was no longer there.
The little girl was.
She pressed her palms against the glass.
And began to climb through.
First her fingers.
Then her hands.
Her arms.
Her face.
The glass stretched around her like skin.
I screamed.
She smiled.
And whispered my real name.
I knew then what the Hollow did.
It didn't kill you.
It didn't haunt you.
It remembered you.
It kept the pieces you abandoned.
Every fear.
Every secret.
Every version of yourself you buried.
And eventually—
it put them back together.
The girl crawled completely through the mirror.
She stood inches from me.
She smelled like wet flowers.
“Your turn,” she whispered.
Behind her, the boy opened the door to the Hollow.
I ran toward the front door.
But my mother was standing there.
Older now.
Much older.
She looked at me with tears in her eyes. “I told you never to answer.”
“I didn't.”
She shook her head. “No.”
She looked behind me. “You answered when you were seven.”
Something cold touched the back of my neck.
A child's hand.
Then another.
Then another.
Dozens of tiny fingers curled around my shoulders.
The little girl whispered into my ear, “now you can stay with me.”
The lights went out.
In the darkness, I heard my mother scream.
Then I heard myself scream.
Then I heard nothing.
This morning, my mother found me standing in front of the bathroom mirror.
She says I haven't moved since midnight.
She says I've been smiling.
She says I've been whispering to someone.
She says I keep asking her the same question.
She won't tell me what I asked.
She only says she doesn't recognize my voice anymore.
But I know.
Because the reflection is smiling at me.
And this time—
I'm the one trapped behind the glass.
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**Milanka Sulejic** is a Serbian-American writer, author, and storyteller based in Wisconsin. Her work explores memory, family, migration, cultural identity, folklore, relationships, and the strange places where the ordinary and the uncanny meet. Her writing has appeared in literary and cultural publications in the United States, Serbia, and Canada. She is the author of *The Ghost Girl Who Never Fully Left* and a regular columnist for Anglozine. She also works as a historical storyteller and tour guide, with a particular interest in the stories hidden within people, places, and the past. Anglozine: https://anglozine.com/ Medium: https://medium.com/@milanka.sulejic
The Gorge by Tuấn Nghiêm
Every evening at eight o'clock, the LED ring lights flared, and the lenses began recording the extraction.
She sat before the glass, her jaw unhinged in a permanent, hollow grin, forcing another three pounds of braised pork belly down her esophagus. The live interface with five million subscribers allowed no hesitation; on screen, the comment section surged like a digital waterfall, fingers jabbing upward for more speed. They didn’t see the tight pressure behind her eyes or her liver swelling day by day. Her reality was a massive intake of fat and grease crammed systematically into a biological system that had long forgotten the meaning of hunger. The market demanded consumption, and to protect her metrics, she had turned her own body into an industrial rendering vat.
At midnight, when the cameras clicked off, the inversion began.
She crawled out the back door of the studio apartment, her boots sliding across the wet clay of the riverbank. Before her, the river stretched into the dark, a silent expanse half-drowned in a slow, gray mist smelling of rotting timber and ancient silt. Kneeling at the edge of the reeds, she shoved her fingers straight down her throat. The expulsion was violent—a thick, chemical sludge of half-digested mass and acidic bile tearing through her vocal cords, vomiting directly into the sluggish current to dissolve into the vapor.
From the quiet depths of the riverbed, the predator waited.
It was a monstrosity—a massive, bloated catfish that had grown blind and deformed in the deep pools below the industrial sector. For two years, the fish lived solely on her vomited waste. Its gray scales had crusted into a thick, jagged armor of hardened fat; its jaw had widened, morphing its skeletal structure to fit the exact dimensions of her nightly expulsions. It needed no natural prey. Its very flesh was built from her stomach lining, its blood running on the discarded salinity of her career. It was a parasitic engine waiting at the edge of the mud.
In November, the clinic delivered the final data file. The diagnostic screens logged terminal cellular mutation—an aggressive carcinoma gnawing away forty percent of her gastric wall. The doctors gave her three months, maximum.
That night, she didn't turn on the ring lights. She walked down to the river behind the concrete fence, her canvas bag holding only a phone and a single can of black coffee. Sitting flat on the greasy mud at the water's edge, her throat raw, she stared into the unmoving gray fog blanketing the horizon.
The water broke with a heavy, wet surge. The giant catfish rose through the mist, its massive, fat-rimmed jaws baring rows of blunt, grinding teeth that reeked of her own internal rot. There was no hesitation. She simply leaned forward, letting her body execute a hard slide down the slick clay straight into the open, pulsing dark of the throat. The jaws snapped shut with a wet, crushing sound, the thick skin expanding as the monster swallowed the physical shell whole before sinking back into the depths. The river remained flat, gray, and completely empty.
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Tuấn Nghiêm is a speculative fiction writer from Vietnam whose fiction previously appeared in Space and Time (Issue 154).
The Mirror by Nina Wilder
It was a stupid mistake. You know those moments? Just a split second of idiocy - and suddenly you’re filled with regret, like someone poured concrete into your guts. You try to race through a yellow light, you stop paying attention while cutting the carrots, or you tell your ex you miss them. Or in my case, I stepped into the mirror.
I thought I was in for an exciting Narnia-type adventure. Except my wardrobe was an old wooden-framed mirror. I found it in the attic of the old woman’s house. The whole town thought she was a witch for how odd she was. She had passed away without any next of kin, so Mel’s Moving Service crew was hired to empty the place before the state took it. So, there I was, just doing my job when I found this thing. It was as big as a closet door. Its frame looked like the branches of a gnarled tree, intertwining around itself, around the glass. It reminded me of the old woman’s knobby fingers. But the weird part? I didn’t see my reflection. Or rather, I saw a faint ghost of it. Like the kind you’d see looking through a window. Something was behind the glass. A hallway?
I reached out. The surface felt like water. It was cold. It rippled but not like water ripples. It was more like the glass - or whatever it was - was moving away from my hand. Like it was making space, inviting me in. I looked at the pale apparition of my reflection. I stared at the 35-year-old woman, in her black work polo, her hair a mess. This plain-faced person, no jewellery, no tattoo, no visible signs anywhere of an exciting life. I thought this could be my chance for something. An adventure. I didn’t think anything past that before I stepped inside. And then…
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was like I was standing in space. I thought I had gone blind for a moment, except when I turned around - there was the rectangular doorway back into the attic. My feet were on something solid, but I couldn’t see anything. Just black.
“Hello?” I said into the darkness.
No response. Not even an echo. A dread filled me. Maybe this was a bad idea. I turned around to step back through the mirror. But when I lifted my foot to step over the edge - it hit glass. I reached out my hand - glass. No fucking way. I pounded my fist against it. The surface stayed solid - not even a crack. I kicked it. I threw my entire weight against it. I merely bounced off, back into the darkness. What the actual fuck? Panic rose in my chest. Stay calm. I found a way in; there’s gotta be a way out.
I looked into the darkness. Maybe I have to go further in? The thought terrified me. We think only children fear the dark, but we are all scared; adults just don’t admit it. Darkness is one of the two ultimate terrors of life - darkness and uncertainty. People think death is the scariest thing, but if you think about it - death is really just both darkness and uncertainty added together. Right now, death seemed less terrifying than walking into whatever abyss surrounded me.
What if it just kept going? What if I got lost? Worse - what if somehow, I didn’t die and I’d be in here forever? My head was swimming.
Feebly, I put my hand on the glass, hoping it changed its mind. It didn’t. But then - luck! My boss Mel entered the attic.
“MEL!” I screamed, pounding the glass. “MEL, MEL, MEL!”
She walked slowly towards the mirror - towards me. I waved my hands frantically; I’m trapped in the mirror! Oh my god. Please - please help me. She looked curious but said nothing. Then she leaned in towards the mirror. Mel? She brought a hand up to her face and wiped away a smudge of mascara near her eye.
“That’s better,” she said.
Holy mother fuck. She can’t see me. I pounded the glass, but it was like no sound went through. Mel merely stood there, now assessing her outfit. She re-tucked her polo into her skin-tight khakis. She was always one to fuss about her looks.
Panic surged through me. I slid to the floor. The ground. Whatever fucking hell I was standing on. My chest heaved. Between each painful breath, I wept, choking on my tears. Idiot. Idiot, IDIOT! I wanted an adventure. Instead, I stepped into a prison. No, a coffin.
Mel sat down on one of the boxes I packed and started scrolling on her phone. Jesus Christ.
Images of my life started flashing in front of me, like a slideshow, a new page with every blink. Me finishing high school, full of ambition. Applying to TV writing programs, imagining my future house with my dogs and perfect partner. Getting rejected. Then, I’ll just “take a break for a while”. Me sitting on my stupid couch, scrolling my stupid phone. Over and over and over. Swiping eight years away. Oh, the irony. I wasted my life staring at a rectangle. Now I get to die inside one.
I watched Mel scroll for what felt like hours. For her, it was probably more like seconds.
I wanted it to be over. I skipped nearly a decade of my life; why not skip the last of it? I looked into the void. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. I stood up. I straightened my shirt for whatever reason. I started to walk slowly into the darkness. Five steps. Ten. Twenty. I turned around one more time. The rectangle was smaller, far away, but I could tell Mel had left. I turned back around. It was weird to see absolutely nothing. I took a breath. Here I come, Narnia.
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There's Something Wrong with My Cat by Jackson Strauss
Phil arrived at his mother's massive, castle-like country home and was looking forward to a peaceful time housesitting. After waving goodbye to his mom, he got himself settled in, happily reuniting with the family's black lab, Bruce, and their tuxedo cat, Bandit. During a walk around the property with Bruce, Phil caught a glimpse of something in the distance.
"Hey!" A shout followed.
Phil jumped. "Who's there?" he said, startled.
"It's me, Joe," an older man with white hair in a blue denim shirt standing across the fence line claimed. It was their neighbor who had lived there long before Phil and his family moved in.
“Oh, it’s you, Joe, how have you been?” Phil replied.
"I've been doing alright," Joe said, his expression turned serious. "But something strange has been happening around here lately.”
Phil frowned, stepping a bit closer. "What do you mean?”
"My herd of cattle's been acting strange," Joe explained, "They're dead-panicked at night, pacing the fence line like they're being hunted. I haven't seen anything yet, but whatever it is, it's got them all terrified. I've started sleeping with my rifle next to my bed.”
Phil felt a brief chill but quickly brushed it off, assuming it was just coyotes or wild hogs. "Well, I am just watching the house while my mom is out of town. I'll make sure to keep an eye on everything.”
"You do that, Phil," Joe said grimly. “If I were you, I would keep your doors locked as well.”
After having the conversation with Joe, Phil continued walking with Bruce. While heading back to the house, Phil wondered what he had seen past the property line: a person, an animal, or maybe he was just overtired and had imagined it. But a dark and lingering unease stood for the remainder of the night.
The next morning, Phil discovered something bizarre and unsettling outside. A set of human footprints that preceded a set of cat pawprints. "That's strange," Phil said, confused. Maybe these were from last night, or maybe these prints are just old and haven't been washed away by the rain, he thought. After pondering for a second, Phil brushed it off. While taking Bruce for another walk, he noticed a group of five strange-looking individuals hidden in the woods behind the property line. The distant, shadowy figures wore sylvan clothing and antlered bone masks. They stood in a circle, chanting an eerie, indistinguishable mantra. When Phil began to walk away, crack! He stepped on a branch. The masked gathering heard this, locked eyes with him, and began moving towards the young man and his dog.
Panicking, Phil sprinted back to the house, dragging Bruce inside, as he locked the doors. Glancing through the glass panel, he saw Bandit sitting on the porch. Oh God, she's outside! How did this happen? Phil’s mind raced wildly. Without hesitation, he darted out and grabbed the cat. As he dialed 911, describing the trespassers to the operator, the disguised invaders reached the house, and their bodies began to contort violently. Their bones cracked as they transformed into animals. Phil flinched for a second, and they vanished. By the time a police officer arrived, there was no trace of them.
After the officer left, Phil realized something was deeply wrong with his cat. He picked her up; she felt uncharacteristically heavy, more like bricks wrapped in fur. She let out a deep rasping screech. Desperate for answers on what could be wrong with the cat, Phil opened his computer and stumbled upon a search about ancient Druids. He soon realized he was faced with an ancient order of pagans. They were known to transform into animals, and to his horror, these cultists practiced human sacrifice.
Suddenly, a terrified set of meows echoed throughout the house. Phil realized the sound was coming from the attic. There he found Bandit hiding behind a box. Sheer terror came over him as he realized the truth: the creature he brought inside wasn’t his cat, but a shapeshifting imposter.
Suddenly, a heavy thud sounded behind him. The imposter stood in the doorway, its body grotesquely swelling as human arms sprouted from its sides. Its jaw unhinged to reveal jagged teeth before slamming the attic door shut, locking the young man and the cat inside. Driven by a surge of furious adrenaline, Phil secured Bandit. He smashed the glass of an antique gun case. He grabbed his grandfather's double-barreled shotgun and kicked the door open. Downstairs, the imposter began to morph into a massive, pitch-black wolf with glowing pale eyes. The beast started charging up the stairs with a shuddering growl. Boom! Phil fired the gun, sending the creature crashing down.
The creature’s body began to crush, shrink, and implode until it disappeared, as if it faded into oblivion. Outside, the sound of bones cracking signaled the arrival of the other grotesque, sinister druids. Phil bolted to the patio and opened fire once again, taking down two of the half-transformed beasts. The surviving creature began to flee.
Another sudden gunshot came out of nowhere. Joe had hit a fleeing beast. "I heard the desperate uproar, but it looks like you handled yourself," he said.
Shocked and somewhat despondent, Phil thanked his neighbor. After he somewhat regained his composure, Phil brought Bandit and Bruce to his mother's bedroom. He clicked the locks shut and sealed himself inside with his heart still frantically beating.
When his mother returned the next morning, completely oblivious to the night of terror, Phil simply told her he had to take care of a few trespassing “varmints” while she was gone. He decided to stay for the rest of the summer, as something in him remained unsettled. There was a foreboding unrest that something was still lurking in the woods…
​
Jackson Strauss is a graduate student in psychology, a second-degree black belt in taekwondo, and an aspiring educator and writer. He lives on a family ranch in eastern Dallas, Texas, with his two rescue pets.
Woven by Brittany Kapsalis
I crossed by mistake. A velvet blanket of silver moonlight illuminated my path, the cool moss dampened my bare feet, and the dark forest beckoned me with a crooked finger. I walked until I saw it. The spiderweb from my dreams. Iridescent, adorned in a smattering of dew drops, and much too big. Each delicate thread was like the rung of a ladder, growing more viscous as I climbed. I reached the center, laid my body across its sticky surface, and waited.
I heard it before I saw it. A chilling composition of soft, quick clicks.
I tried to turn my head to see it but couldn’t break the hold of the silken strands that gripped me. My breath quickened, I changed my mind, I needed to get down. But it was too late.
One hairy, skeletal leg reached over me. I let out a scream so guttural, so primal, that I was sure it would be heard back in the village—faintly on the wind, perhaps, and no one would pay it any mind. Two more legs, black as night and sharp as spears. Then its hideous face. Eight glossy eyes peered into my two for a moment, and I saw my horrified reflection staring back at me in them.
The creature wasted no time as I trembled uncontrollably, every muscle in my body contracting involuntarily with the need to get away. It unsheathed its enormous fangs and plunged them into me, stealing what little breath I had left in my lungs, my scream caught tight in my throat. One fang was in my stomach, the other was lodged between my ribs, cracking them like twigs to dig in deeper. Why did I come here?
​
I felt each drop of burning venom it injected into my bloodstream. My body felt like it was set on fire from the inside, and then… nothing. Numbed, almost to the point of insentience, it withdrew its fangs and began wrapping me in its silk. It moved with impossible, grotesque speed and within seconds, I was entombed in utter darkness… and liquefied.
I don’t know how long I existed in that state, but eventually my gelatinous remnants began to pulse and flow, growing into something new. I writhed there in the silence of my woven sarcophagus, until I grew too large for it. My limbs were stiff and jagged; the walls strained against me. An overwhelming pressure pushed in on me from every side, and I feared that I would implode from it. But then I heard the crack, and a waterfall of light came pouring in, washing me of my fear and pain and confusion. I stretched one leg out to feel its warmth, followed by another, and another. Eight in total, black as night and sharp as spears.
I crawled out onto my web and spotted a girl on the ground. Marta. She stood, soaking wet and shaking, next to a crumpled exoskeleton. She looked up at me once before she took off running. Back to our village, I suppose, but I can’t imagine she was welcomed back warmly. She still donned her eight glossy eyes.
It was my turn to call the dreamers. Their turn to cross.
​
Brittany is an author with a lifelong love of writing, reading, and any creative endeavor that she can get her hands on. In the world of literature, she has an affinity for the absurd, macabre, spooky, and profane. As a child, her taste in books differed from her peers—including the works of Ray Bradbury and Emily Bronte, but still leaving room for the entirety of The Spiderwick Chronicles series (many times over). These influences can be seen in her work, where world-building is critical, and fantastical beings are mandatory.​​
Daddio by Koren Cowgill
Randy yanks the remote from Suki’s hand and The Blob flashes off. “How about we just lean back. This movie sucks.” He places his arm around her.
Suki cringes.
“Relax,” Randy says, and squeezes her knee. His hand moves up her thigh.
She scoots away. “Look. I’m not ready.”
“Alright, alright.” He stands. “But you’re a tease. I’m leaving.” Randy slams the door behind him.
“Good fucking riddance,” Suki mutters, and returns to The Blob.
*****
You move closer to Suki, fold your arms, and rest your head on them. The Blob devours everything in its way, and you watch, riveted. You imagine becoming the red ooze, one with the monster. But in your case, you’d only devour evildoers, predators, ne’re-do-wells—you fantasize your retribution until Suki switches off the light, and you return to your post.
*****
“Stop calling me that. I’m not a daddy-long-legs, I’m a cellar spider. And I’m a female.”
“Well, I can’t call you Daddi-a. You have a task, Daddio. Patrolling the shower. Your days are numbered. And no more watching those old films over her shoulder in the TV room,” God says.
“Okay okay okay. What about—if I offer you something can I stay around longer—like a sacrifice?”
God chortles. “You’re fortunate you haven’t been washed down the drain. You’ve had a good three-year run. Where will you come up with a sacrifice at this point in time? You can’t kill her.”
If spiders could sigh, you would. “I’m not thinking of that. I love her. That’s why I keep the mosquitos at bay so she can shower in peace—it’s that guy.
“What guy?”
“That wanker-wuffle, Randy, she invites to her couch. He hates old movies—even made fun of Easy Rider. And The Blob, too, you know, that horror flick from 1958. He shut it off just when it was getting really good.”
“Now Daddio—”
You roll your eight eyes then stomp your eight feet. “Alright. Listen. He, he—sexually harassed her.”
God pauses. “Ooh, that is bad. If I grant you this end-of-life wish, you have to punish him.”
“Deal.”
*****
Suki answers the door.
Randy steps over the threshold and hands her a bouquet of red roses.
She sniffs them and attempts a smile.
“Hey, babe.” He pulls her to him and kisses her, light on the mouth.
She accepts the kiss.
He bows formally, takes her hand and leads her to the couch.
This time she lets him drape his arm around her.
“Thanks for the roses,” Suki says.
“Least I could do.” Randy edges his body closer to hers, and she leans into him.
*****
You hang from a corner in the TV room, waiting to transform if necessary.
*****
“Let’s watch a movie,” Suki says.
“If you want. But no old stuff,” he spits, then softens his voice. “How’s about something exciting?” He takes the remote and scans the channels, settling on women’s cage fighting. “Hey, what’s up with your TV?”
“I don’t get this channel,” Suki murmurs.
Randy scoffs. “That’s okay. We’ll just amuse ourselves.” He tugs at her blouse.
She pulls away.
*****
Like some spiders do, you send warnings to predators, or prey. From where you hang in the corner, you release strands of silken web. The threads glide over to Randy.
*****
Randy flaps at the air, brushing the fragments of web away. “What’s up? I brought you roses,” he says, raising his voice.
“Please leave.”
“Oh, no. Not leaving this time. What the—? There’s this crap landing on me.” Randy grabs Suki’s arm.
“No,” she says, tries to stand, but Randy forces her down under him.
*****
You gather yourself, and with the last of your strength, you transform. A small, squishy plump of red at first, you let yourself drop from the ceiling, from your final strand of web.
The redness of your new form expands as you descend—red gloppy blob. If you could smile, you would, but you must save Suki.
Suki squirms under Randy, her sweet face twisted with anguish.
Randy unzips his pants and undoes his belt. His inadequate member flops out of his undies. Only when he exerts force does his flaccid doink make any impression.
“Please, stop,” Suki says.
“I earned this, bitch.”
*****
You close in, so close, you smell Randy’s hot, rancid breath. At first you probe his still-shoed foot, then you let the red of your blobbiness creep up his leg.
Randy tries to brush you off, but his hand gets stuck in the thick of you.
With only one of Randy’s hands free, Suki breaks from his grasp, and backs away.
“Hel—help,” he croaks.
Suki rushes to him, despite his predicament, and in spite of his predatory nastiness, and tries to stop you from consuming his body.
But she’s too late.
He screams his agony while you expand and subsume his now-limp form into yours.
*****
“She’ll be fine. Because she won’t remember a thing,” God says.
“How so?” you ask, your belly full, your appetite for vengeance satiated.
“For Suki, it was all a bad dream, but now she’ll remember to say NO means NO from the git-go.”
God’s image appears.
You shudder and bask in Their brightness. When you recover from Their glare you ask, “Um, what now?”
“I’m hiring you. The blob-form suits your temperament, and your compassion for humanity. You’re free to spend eternity on the watch from your spider-perch in showers, and transform to your beloved, gloppy blobbiness when they, the humans, need you.”
“So—”
“Yes. Your three years of spiderhood are technically up, but now, you’ll enjoy immortality as one of the helpers, the ones who transform and care for souls in need.”
“But. You can’t still call me Daddio.”
“True. Well. How about—Sylva?”
“What?”
“Your name. The Goddess Shapeshifter, Sylva.”
You consider. “My very own goddess name?”
“Sure.”
“Done.” Six of your eight arms stretch out to seal the deal.
God smiles.
​
Koren Cowgill received her undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Music Composition from the Eastman School of Music and her Master of Music from Yale. As a writer, Koren completed her first novel, The Final Months of Hoo-hah, in 2019. Her high fantasy novel, Teurith of Loring, is available on Amazon in eBook and paperback formats. In the fall of 2024, her short story, The Shuffler, was published in Hedge Apple Magazine’s Labyrinth issue. Koren lives in Cape May County with her husband, Richard, and their dogs, Saffron and Talea.
Fridays at 13:49 by Yvonne Aore
Arin stood in front of her living room window. For the past month, she’d noticed a strange phenomenon. Every Friday afternoon, at exactly 13:49, the sky darkened as if a heavy blanket had been thrown over it. Angry clouds gathered, swollen with rain. Lightning and thunder tore through the grey sky, illuminating the universe for brief, violent seconds.
Then came the downpour. Fierce, relentless, howling. For one hour the world drowned. But at exactly 14:49, the storm cleared as if the blanket had been lifted. The ground lay scarred and muddy, but the skies turned blue again, the sun gentle and warm.
This Friday was no different. Like clockwork, the clouds rolled in. The thunder cracked. Then, a soft ping from her laptop.
An email.
Arin had recently registered on a dating app called SoulSync, one that promised,“connections beyond time.” The slogan intrigued her. Apparently, the app could match you with your soulmate. Even if they were dead.
Weird, she thought, but interesting.
The email was what she’d been waiting for: “A match has been found!”
His profile appeared. Miko Adan, 28. Six foot two. Square jaw. Deep, kind eyes.
“Charming,” Arin murmured aloud.
Then she noticed the rest.
DOB: 13/06/1997
DOD: 13/06/2025
​
Her stomach knotted. Dead on arrival? Surely this was a prank. At the bottom of the profile blinked a comforting message:
You can cancel your subscription at any time.
Her cursor hovered over the green Accept button. She hesitated. Is this guy really dead or is this just some twisted game? The reviews had sounded so reassuring:
“Thanks to SoulSync, I finally met my partner. We’ve been inseparable since.”
“My lonely nights are no longer cold.”
“I thought I’d lost him forever. But now I can see and talk to him again.”
The app even offered video calls. Arin hesitated for a moment longer, then sighed. “What could it hurt?” She clicked Accept.
Welcome! Confetti exploded across her screen.
Then a message:
“Hey Arin… this is Miko. I’ve been wanting to meet you.”
She smiled despite herself and typed back. Outside, the rain slowed, sunlight slipping through her curtains. Unnoticed. They talked for hours, laughing, teasing, sharing stories. She asked the obvious question.
Is it true you’re dead?
Yes.
How?
Car crash. On my way to my birthday party. Friday the 13th. Head-on collision.
Where?
Highway 13. It was raining. Couldn’t see a thing.
Are you joking?
No. I’d never lie to my soulmate.
“Video call?”
Sure.
His face appeared. Alive, warm, smiling exactly like his photo. She was instantly drawn in. His laugh felt familiar, his voice soft and low. Two hours passed before he said quietly, “you love horror movies and anime, right?”
“How did you know that?” Arin asked.
“I know everything about you,” Miko replied. “How could I not? You’re my soulmate.”
Something in the way he said soulmate sent a chill down her spine, but she brushed it off. Later that night, curiosity got the better of her. She googled Miko Adan, Highway 13 accident, June 13th.
Dozens of posts. News reports. Photos. It was him. Miko had died instantly in a head-on collision during a heavy storm. The same day, the same hour the strange weather had started. His memorial had been held at Holy Family Basilica. He was buried at Lee Cemetery. Just a few meters from her house.
Born on Friday the 13th. Died on Friday the 13th. A chill crawled through her. The wind outside knocked over a flower pot on her window sill, making her jump. She hurried to shut the windows, muttering, “Get a grip, Arin.”
When she sat back down, her laptop chimed, “baby, you not asleep yet? You look sexy in that baggy T-shirt.”
She gasped and looked down. She was wearing a baggy nightshirt. Her webcam light was off. Or was it? Panic surged. She slammed the laptop shut, locking her doors and windows. Her phone buzzed:
“Did I spook you? I’m sorry. Thought we said we’d be open with each other. – Miko.”
Her heart hammered. She hadn’t linked her phone number to the app. She opened the laptop again, desperate to unsubscribe.
“Baby, are you ignoring me? You’re hurting my feelings.”
She found the button and clicked.
We’re sorry to see you go. Feel free to subscribe again. SoulSync – connections that transcend space, time, and even death.
“Not in a million years,” Arin muttered.
​
A week passed. The next Friday, she arrived home before the storm. A bouquet sat on her kitchen counter. Forget-me-nots. Her favorite. She froze. No one else knew that. A note fluttered to the floor:
“I know you like forget-me-nots, so I picked these for you. With love – Miko.”
Her blood ran cold. Outside, thunder cracked. The wind screamed. She glanced at the clock. 13:49.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway.
Slow. Dragging. Heavy.
Then a knock.
Heart pounding, Arin crept to the door and twisted the knob. It opened an inch. Miko stood there. Still in his funeral suit. Mud crusted along the hem. Twigs tangled in his hair. One side of his skull caved in, jaw hanging loose.
In a voice soft as rain, almost tender, he said, “hey honey… I’m home.”
Arin’s scream split the storm.
​
Yvonne Aore is a Kenyan writer of speculative fiction whose work draws on gothic horror, mythology, folklore, and African cosmologies. Her stories explore memory, inheritance, power, grief, and transformation, often through uncanny and fantastical lenses. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sui Generis, Macabre Magazine, Way Downstream, Numen of Story, and other publications. She is currently completing her debut speculative novel, Rahu's Curse.
Stitches by Phineas Knowles
Molly’s hands stank of menthol and camphor. She closed the cap on the arthritis cream tube and put it on the end table. With hands on her knees, she leaned forward and rose from the couch, draped in an hourglass quilt. It was one of many patchwork patterns adorning her cabin. Napkins, curtains, pillowcases, she stitched them all herself.
She ambled to an oak table near the kitchen and sat. The wood creaked under a cushion with triangle patches. A partial autumn quilt lay on the table. She pulled it towards herself and selected a needle from a tomato pincushion. She set to work, adding a red-leafed square while singing to herself.
“The weaver’s wife sits at the fire
And works the spinning wheel
She likes to hear her own good man
Drive on the shuttle well.”
Molly cut and tied off the end, reached for her red thread, but the spool was gone. Nowhere on the table. She stuck her needle in the pincushion and leaned over to look on the wooden floor. It wasn’t there either.
Something small smacked her head and bounced onto the floor. Her red spool rolled a few feet before stopping. Molly sat up and looked around.
“Hello?”
A soft childish laugh echoed in the room.
Molly knew some history of the woods surrounding her cabin. There used to be a pioneer settlement nearby that farmed the land. She wondered if the laugh was from one of those children who died from the Spanish flu. Or maybe it was a Native American child who’d been caught up in a struggle with the pioneers.
Molly picked up her spool. “Now who could’ve dropped this?”
Another laugh. Molly smiled. She always liked children, but not enough to have her own. That was too much work. Luckily, this ghost didn’t need any feeding at all.
She continued sewing while the invisible specter made more mischief: tossing quilt squares off the table, tangling loose threads, disappearing a spool or two. All quite harmless. She kept singing while enjoying the young company:
“The shuttle runs, the shuttle runs
The shuttle runs with speed
Oh sweetly may the shuttle run
That wins the children’s bread.”
It took many days to finish the quilt, mostly due to her sore joints. The ghost wasn’t too distracting. Sometimes Molly woke to find her tomato pincushion on her nightstand with extra needles pierced into it. She didn’t remember having so many out. The child must’ve found them in her extensive supply.
The day she finished the quilt, she tried to spread it on her bed with her stiff hands.
“Care to help me with this?” she asked the empty air.
A moment later, a quilt corner tugged lightly. It didn’t take long before the quilt was smoothed out with the edges dangling below the mattress.
“Thank you.” Molly went to the couch and sat with a sigh.
A thimble tapped on the oak table.
“That’s it, the quilt’s done. I’ll think of a new project tomorrow.”
The tapping persisted.
“I said tomorrow.” She took the arthritis cream from the end table and squeezed some on her hands. The coolness soothed her joints. That evening, she snuggled in bed between the sheets with immense satisfaction.
Molly woke in the middle of the night, sweating. The quilt covered her head, trapping in hot air and a lingering camphor smell. She tried removing the fabric from her face, but it was stuck at the headboard. Pulling the sides didn’t work either. She didn’t remember tucking the edges under the mattress, but she must’ve done so.
She rolled over and pushed her hand over the edge. Her fingers stopped halfway down. The quilt and mattress were pinched together with stitches.
Something pricked her side. Molly tried sitting up, but the quilt kept her down. She flinched at another needle-sharp prick. Then another. They came through the quilt and into her skin. A small voice sang nearby:
“Thread after thread makes up the cloth
Until the wage he wins
And every weaver makes the more
The more his shuttle runs.”
Pokes became hard jabs. Molly writhed and kicked. Sheets tangled around her, but the quilt remained firmly in place. She screamed and pleaded. The needle kept piercing her again and again. After a long while, Molly’s voice gave out. Later, she stopped moving.
Morning sun filtered through patchwork curtains into the quiet cabin. The new autumn quilt bulged over a still form on the bed. Blood obscured the red-leafed pattern. Several needles glinted, stuck in the quilt as if it were a pincushion.
Near the kitchen, an empty spool rolled off the oak table.
​
Phineas Knowles obtained his MA in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Winchester. He's a Moth StorySLAM winner and editor with Zig Zag Lit Mag. His short stories and poetry have been published internationally and he's been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Phineas enjoys reading, cycling, hiking, playing harp, and meeting anyone’s pet.
Under the Shadow of the Moon by Peter Waddell
Innocently walking down the street he was suddenly aware of some scratching sounds. Looking around, he saw the grasses were moving strangely. There was no wind. The prickly-sweat started running down his back. Looking up he saw the full moon. Vaguely remembered all the warnings; Foul creatures come out in the shadow of the moon. Beware of the bright full moon. The scratching got louder. He walked faster, but before the end of the road was in sight, he saw them, scurrying up the trees, and in the grass. Scraping a foot on the ground, they stopped and all heads swivelled towards him. He froze, unable to move. Slowly at first, they made their way towards him. Aphids, bugs, crickets, and some butterflies, that didn’t look so kind under the light of the moon. He screamed and ran down the road. Almost at safety when he turned into a field of some strange looking plants. Oh my, beautiful maneaters.
In the small town, nothing moved but the eyes peering through the cracks of the wind-worn shutters. Closed tight against the terrors of the night. No sound was made; no movement was seen. The lights were doused so as to not attract attention. The innocuous sleepy town was anything but sleepy.
The watchers stayed silent, waiting for the dawn. Nobody dared move about after dark. In the morning, all the occupants of the town would get together and survey the damage and start once again to sow new crops. Although with the midnight caller, the damage may be less.
The once thriving farm town was in the throes of fear. Fear born from the nuclear waste that signalled the end of the world as we knew it. Ninety-nine percent of the world population gone in the blast. That fateful day when the superpowers went to war and unleashed hell. Only the surrounding mountains creating an almost-safe haven for those living in its embrace. But then even those that were not indoors at the time, turned to dust. It was nearly two weeks before those, who were safely ensconced within the walls of their dwellings, were able to venture out into the scorched barren outdoors. The blistering heat still too much to stay out for long. The few remaining occupants getting together and planning survival. Planting new crops, scavenging houses of friends and family, now gone. Sharing meagre supplies, reliant on one another. New bonds were formed; feuds were forgotten as everyone now had a common enemy.
In the weeks and months to come they worked together for necessity, planted crops and survived. Only later the new threat came into being. As the radiation took hold of the earth so it did on the plants and insects. The aphids and ants grew larger, the butterflies enormous. Now the danger took on a new form. In the beginning the plants mutated and moved. Initially it was a finger or a hand, then we learned to fear. Working during the day we planted. More crops than the entire village needed, much more than the few survivors needed. At night we hid. The heat in the day proving to be too much for the gigantic bugs, they stayed in the caves. Sometimes you could feel the scratchings, the scratchings as they waited, for the moon. In the cool of night they roamed, ate plants, people and animals at will. Our livestock had to be in the barns at night, lest we lose them to the bugs. The ever-hungry bugs.
We had to spray our crops daily for the infestation of bugs, driving them to the maneaters. That was our salvation, or so we thought. Our crops grew and ingested all the spray, we got sick. We had to live on the few indoor plants that survived, planting out every day, hoping to sate the hungry bugs.
Unable to eat or harvest any crop before the blast, they mutated and turned on each other in a bid for survival. As each plant ate those around and grew stronger, they could catch the unwary, person or bug alike. The butterflies were the first to go, drawn in by the new sweet smell of strange brightly coloured flowers. At first trapped by feet alone, then only wings remained. Colourful wings blowing gently in the breeze. Aphids and ants scurrying towards the movement, until too late they realize the plants are hungry.
The scratchings at night grew louder, seemingly nearer. Our ears deceive us, or so we thought. But at night we still sought the safety of our homes. The coolness of the night filtering through the cracks. The sound of hard carapaces scraping on walls, over the roof. Unable to get in, yet.
We wait in fear, and hide, listening to the scratchings. Praying wide eyed, sleepless until exhaustion overtakes. Not hearing the scratching louder this time, under the floor. Our slight snoring guiding them. Sometimes the floor gives way all at once, where in the confusion they pounce. Other times they roam the house looking for food. When the screaming has stilled, they return to the underground burrows, safe from the heat of the morrow.
One by one we go, the last giving up the planting and sowing, the bugs getting bolder as hunger catches them. Even then, they are trapped by the now-hungry plants. Plants that have adapted and have tendrils that shoot out, grabbing the unsuspecting nearer, to be dissolved in sweet-smelling acidic juices of the flower.
To start with, the soft rumblings went unnoticed. Then the plants slowly turned the flowers towards the sound. The aphids and ants grew silent in the burrows. The oppressive heat moving the shadows. The first Hum-vees came into view. The town was silent. The wind was still. Soldiers climbed out and in formation they explored the empty town. They shivered in the heat and decided not to stay. They proceeded to move on over the mountains, into desolation. The windswept plains opening before them.
​
Peter is a South African currently living in China.