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#329 The Graveyard Shift

People say everything gets quiet after dark — but we writers know better. When the rest of the world is asleep, that’s when our characters start whispering, pacing, and maybe even making some questionable life choices.

This week, tell us a story shaped by late-night hours. Whether it's a tale inspired by spooky season or a silly, sleep-deprived story meant to make us laugh, we want to see what happens when the lights go out. It’s the graveyard shift: time to clock in.

This week's prompts

Write a story about a character who is haunted by something or someone.

Halloween – 99 stories

Center your story around someone who yearns for something they lost, or never had.

Angst – 73 stories

Write a story from the point of view of a ghost, werewolf, vampire, or other supernatural creature.

Halloween – 82 stories

Make a character’s addiction or obsession an important element of your story.

Dramatic – 47 stories

Write a story that includes the phrase “It was a dark and stormy night,” “Skeletons in the closet,” or “Digging up the past.”

Dramatic – 58 stories

Stories

The Blackwood Incident

Submitted to Contest #329

It was a dark and stormy night, and Detective Marcus "Mac" Sullivan was beginning to suspect that whoever designed the Willowbrook Police Department's coffee machine had a personal vendetta against humanity. The bitter sludge emerging from the ancient beast tasted vaguely of motor oil.Thunder cracked overhead, rattling the windows of the small-town station. Mac glanced at the case files scattered across his desk—three bizarre deaths in as many days, all involving what witnesses described as "weird glowing stuff" and "sounds that weren't quit...

20 likes 2 comments 2
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The Girl who spoke through Grace

Submitted to Contest #329

Faith first heard the laughter through the bathroom door.She stood at the sink, gently pulling apart the twists she had set the night before. Her coils—lush, brown, tightly wound—sprang back with their usual defiance. They framed her face the way they always had: full, thick, a crown she still wasn’t sure she deserved.She met her own reflection and looked away.The giggles came again—high and bright, like bubbles rising from a creek. But this time, the sound doubled. Not one child laughing. Two.“Grace?” Faith called, stepping out of the bathr...

20 likes 11 comments 11
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One Shoe Curve

Submitted to Contest #329

Managing Sam’s mother and her unyielding expectations during our first year of marriage was a burden I hadn’t fully anticipated. For every family member’s birthday, every holiday, and every Sunday, Susan expected us to be at her house for dinner without fail. On holidays, she also assumed we would attend their church service. What should have been a warm family meal and meaningful church attendance turned into an uncomfortable obligation—a ritual meant to maintain appearances rather than strengthen family bonds. Conversation was minimal, the...

20 likes 3 comments 3
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Buried Things

Submitted to Contest #329

It could’ve just been the pipes creaking—the shop was an old building, after all. But no one really believed that. It was always in the small hours. The thudding heart. The taut chest. The breathlessness after waking from the same dream that had haunted Sylvana since visiting the cellar and finding the corpse: the feeling of being smothered, trapped in suffocating darkness. And yet it wasn’t the memory of Digweed’s body—discovered while searching for a missing Rhea—that held her. It was the unknown presence behind that cold, damp wall. Even...

20 likes 13 comments 13
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Asteroidal Dragoons

Submitted to Contest #329

The mavericks back at headquarters didn't realise that the drill-bit needed to be quantum. 'That's as far as it will go,' the Engineer hollers. 'More steam!' I say to him, shouting through the pneumatic messenger. My voice echoes through the brass piping of this behemoth we're operating. On the other end, I hear the Engineer harumph, then he loads more coal. I feel the change immediately, both my hands dug into the control panel, the heat coursing through them almost painful. Reminds me of summers on Neptune, once the Cyber-Queen's Dragoo...

19 likes 4 comments 4
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Biscuits for the Dead

Submitted to Contest #329

It was a dark and stormy night, the kind that made shadows flicker and cupboards groan. Bea was quite sure the power cut had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with her landlord forgetting to pay the bill again. Still, the wind howling around her block wasn’t helping her nerves. She sat at the kitchen table, clutching a mug of rapidly cooling tea, when she heard a sound. Not a moan. Not rattling chains. Just... someone clearing their throat politely. “Absolutely not,” she muttered. “I am not being haunted during a blackout....

19 likes 5 comments 5
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The Danish Circle

Submitted to Contest #329

The first time we played Danish after Sloop disappeared, Maggie O’Neill had a fever that nearly killed her. She put down a Queen and a seven and that meant it wasn’t going to be her night. I had a King and if I placed it upside down, I’d have taken a clean twenty dollar bill off Kate Ebbott. Something told me to wait, and Kate won the hand. Aisling sat out as she always did. Kate told Maggie to go home if she wasn’t feeling well, but at home, the police were outside Maggie’s home putting pieces together and she didn’t want to be there when t...

19 likes 11 comments 11
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Phantom touch

Submitted to Contest #329

She passed on the twentieth of November, 1816.‘Passed’ isn’t the correct term of course, because it soon became apparent to me that, while she had died (that much was painfully, excruciatingly clear) she had not left, not ‘passed’ anywhere.I had never bothered with such nonsense before, having more than enough to do in the one world we have all been fated to inhabit. My life is devoted to the pursuit of chemical philosophy, so I know there are more than enough questions to answer about the very things we can see, before we can turn our atten...

19 likes 8 comments 8
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Plastic, Cutlery, Freezers, and Flame: A Night of Support

Submitted to Contest #329

TW: Offensive language, and parody of support groups and addiction/trauma. BEEP—fabric softener.BEEP—deodorant.I smiled at the curly-haired mother of three, her kids clinging to her and the cart. “Did you find everything okay?”BEEP—dish soap.“Yes. Thank you,” she said, smile soft.I nodded once, ending my polite performance, and continued scanning.BEEP—diapers.BEEP—formula.BEEP—a doll… A twitch hit my eyelid. The small, plastic woman’s pink lips were stretched tight, like she was in pain. Her yellow dress like caution tape. And her eyes—those...

19 likes 19 comments 19
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My Grandma the Soul-Sucker

Submitted to Contest #329

Grandma was a demon. A fire-and-brimstone demon. And that soul-sucker waited until her dying breath to sign over her dirty work to me. I spread the picnic blanket out in front of the grave. ELIZABETH CAPRICORNOur arse-kicking angelDecember 7th, 1986 - October 1st, 2003 Someone in the street nearby shouted. The sound jumped the wall, and I nearly knocked over the glass vial delicately balanced in front of me. I snatched it upright - I was not getting blood on this blanket. Again. Not even this time - the last time. Now, when Grandma was alive...

18 likes 4 comments 4
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Cold Storage

Submitted to Contest #329

Cold Storage Trigger warning: This story contains themes of grief, trauma, and the death of a friend. Cold StorageI worked the graveyard shift at Della's Diner long enough to know when a night was going to get strange. The storm had already announced its intentions, rattling the windows while the salt shaker shivered its way across the table."Absolutely not," I muttered, pinning it with my hand."You know most people would call the manager if the silverware started migrating," Jess said behind me.I turned. She leaned against the pie fridge, t...

18 likes 4 comments 4
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Drink from the whole wine

Submitted to Contest #329

The goldfish wasn’t the only witness to the turn of events that evening, and even he hid out of sight on the edges of the bowl, like an illusionist playing with the optics of the glass globe. His was a fish eyed view of the large rotund figure collapsed in the traditional styled red leather armchair with its high back and unusually large wings. It was built to last, not like the quickly decaying body of the man. The chair’s wings appeared like dark silhouettes and would not have been out of place as large flapping ears on the head of an elep...

18 likes 16 comments 16
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The Days I Never Lived

Submitted to Contest #329

The sunlight on her skin smelled like crushed pears. That’s the last thing I can remember about the day I stopped being a man. And tonight, on the one night the dead are permitted to remember, they say the sun will return, just for me.I press my palm against the broken conservatory glass. The shards catch moonlight, fracturing it into pieces that look almost warm. Almost. Outside, the town of Brașov celebrates Halloween with American fervor they learned from television. Plastic jack-o’-lanterns glow in windows. Children dressed as monsters p...

17 likes 5 comments 5
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Pretty, Fit, Hypocrite

Submitted to Contest #329

TW: Eating Disorders, Eating Disorder Behaviours Kiera checked the lighting in her phone’s camera, adjusting her platinum blonde hair to make sure no unruly strands were sticking out. Satisfied with her soft makeup look, she reapplied her dusty pink lipstick, smacking her lips together and flashing a quick smile to make sure nothing was in her teeth. Her outfit for the video—a matching activewear crop top and leggings—had been carefully selected to flatter her figure.Everything was laid out on the kitchen counter in front of her, Pinterest-w...

17 likes 13 comments 13
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Willow Always Stayed

Submitted to Contest #329

The bright curtains were drawn back, engulfing the diner in a brusque pale December light. The waitresses moved swiftly, placing cups and plates between plastic carnations. Willow sat alone in the corner booth, her elbows on the grey window ledge, watching the Main Street wake up. An elderly couple passed, hand in hand, matching each other’s pace and steadying without thought. Willow’s curious gaze traced them, drawn to them by a flicker of familiarity. The overhanging bell of the door announced their entry a moment later and the couple sat ...

17 likes 9 comments 9
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