The Jack-O-Lantern

The Jack-O-Lantern
Horror < 100 Words

I carved a pumpkin a few weeks before Halloween. Sitting on a pile of newspapers, I sculpted a face of banal evil.

Something strange happened over the next fortnight. Each time I passed the jack-o-lantern on my stoop, its features seemed to change. The eyes were closer, the nose longer, the smile more wry than I remembered.

On Halloween night, I was stricken with a horrible recognition at the face on my stoop.

I ran inside to the bathroom, and vomited in the sink.

Looking up into the mirror, my gaze was returned by the grinning rictus of a jack-o-lantern.

Recycling Day

Recycling Day
Horror < 100 Words

Early Monday morning, I collected all the empty wine bottles littering the living area of my small studio apartment into two plastic grocery sacks.

My plan was to sneak them out to the recycling chute in the fourth floor landing area down the hall from my door. It’s nobody else’s business how I choose to survive my lonely weekends.

Opening the chute, I looked inside and saw a man, horribly contorted to fit inside the tight passage. Unwashed and wearing rags, he glared up at me with yellow eyes.

I turned and walked back to my apartment, bags in hand.

The Rest Stop

The Rest Stop
Horror < 100 Words

I pulled over to the curb and rubbed my tired eyes, regretting the long night-time drive still ahead. Startled, I heard a tapping on the passenger side window. Two children, nearly identical ten-year olds, stood watching me through the glass. 

“Could you help us?” said one.

“We won’t hurt you,” promised the other.

They smiled sweetly in unison, revealing row upon row of tiny pointed teeth. Suddenly scared, I threw the car into drive and took off down the deserted street.

Looking back over my shoulder, I was terrified to see that the sidewalk was empty.

My Big (Toe) Problem

My Big (Toe) Problem
Horror < 100 Words

My foot was bothering me all day. Working as a waitress in a greasy diner, I limped and stumbled between tables until my shift was over, feeling as if my toe had been severely stubbed.

I barely made enough in tips to survive, so I was afraid that something might actually be broken. After returning home, I pulled off the sneaker and sock from my right foot.

The nail on the big toe was deeply purple. Barely touching it, the nail slid completely off in my hand.

Underneath, the flesh was an infected bed of tiny, translucent spiders.

Bottom of the Stairs

Bottom of the Stairs
Horror < 100 Words

No sooner than our parents had driven away, my older brother began his torment. He grabbed the doll I was holding and ran to the basement door. Opening it, he tossed the doll inside.

I lunged past my twelve-year-old bully and saw the doll lying on the lowest step of the basement stairs. My brother snapped the door closed behind me, sliding the small bolt into place.

I turned and slapped my hands against the door, crying out, “Let me back in!”

I sensed movement in the dark below, and looked down. 

A pale white hand reached for my doll.

My Creepy Sister

My Creepy Sister
Horror < 100 Words

My older sister confided in me about the terror-stricken nights that plagued her childhood. Starting in elementary school and continuing all through adolescence, she was unable to sleep with our bedroom light off. After going to bed, a shadowy form would coalesce in a dark corner of the room we shared. As she twisted awake in her sheets, she felt a growing malicious presence. 

Something standing at the end of her bed, watching, always watching her, while I slept.

Now home from college break, she says, “It’s still here, in the dark.”

“At the end of your bed.”

The Red Nose

The Red Nose
Horror < 100 Words

I was startled awake by the sound of insistent tapping on the windowpane.

It was my first night alone in the new house in the country, a dramatic move from the big city I had called home for the past many years.

Moving silently to the window, I noticed the branches of the old oak tree just outside the frame. Although not yet winter, the leaves were gone and the spindly tips were scratching the glass.

A flash of white greasepaint below in the yard caught my eye.

The clown leered up at my window and honked his red nose.

October is Flash Horror Fiction Month!

Celebrate FLASHTOBER! with short original horror fiction, each one-hundred words or less. Posted throughout the month, these (unlucky) thirteen bite-sized Halloween treats will be dispensed to frighten and disturb our short attention spans.

Upcoming Table of Contents:
1. Stella
2. The Red Nose
3. The Unusual Diagnosis
4. Easter Break
5. My Creepy Sister
6. The Heat Wave
7. Bottom of the Stairs
8. My Big (Toe) Problem
9. The Headlights
10. Strange Signals
11. The Rest Stop
12. Recycling Day
13. Jack-O-Lantern

Sasquatch in Six Words

Six Word Micro-Fictions

Proving yet again that I’m years behind all the happening internet memes (this one purportedly based on a Hemingway creation), I submit this STORY IN SIX WORDS.

Bigfoot kissed me on the mouth.

BONUS EDITION: A Southern Gothic version of the same story.

I laid with the skunk ape.

Two-Sentence Terrors | The Freezer

The Freezer

Climbing down the narrow stairs in my grandmother’s fruit cellar, I noticed the lid of the freezer was ajar.

Pausing on the next-to-the-last step, I felt the grip of a cold hand on my ankle.