Menu

More apps built by Reedsy

Assemble a team of professionals

The writing app for authors

Writing courses, events and memberships

Get your book reviewed

Weekly writing prompts and contests

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Weekly Contest
Monthly Contest
Reedsy Literary Prize
Magazine
FAQ

← All contests

#378 A Fright to Remember

In the lead-up to the scariest time of the year, what do you like to do? Are the pumpkins carved yet? Are the bags of candy ready for any trick-or-treaters? Is your costume complete, or — if you’re staying home like me — have you already decided on which scary film to watch in the darkness of your living room?

This week, let’s lean into all things spooky with these horror-centered prompts. Give us creepy characters, sinister plot twists, sounds from an unknown source… anything that’ll make us want to leave the lights on before bed!

🥇 Winner

The Psychopomp

Winner of Weekly Contest #378 🏆

CW: Hospice and discussions of hospice care and murder/euthanization If you’ve worked with the dying for a long time, you learn that there’s a certain smell to it. Perhaps people would expect me to instinctively know the smell of death, but no. It was something I had to learn. Once I learned, I could pick up the subtle curls of the scent wafting off the skin hours before anyone else. Except, perhaps, for animals. They say cats will curl up with nursing home residents who are the next to die. I wonder if they’re acting out of an effort to c...

64 likes 34 comments 34
Read story

⭐️ Shortlisted

Sit, Stay

Shortlisted for Weekly Contest #378 ⭐️

The best part about being a werewolf is actually the chocolate. Not superhuman strength, not the ability to see in the dark, not even using the post-wolf fatigue to get out of plans you agreed to two weeks ago. No, it’s the expensive, top-of-the-line, poison infused delicacy that you receive in bulk Every. Single. Full. Moon. No one ever tells you that you receive an abundance of chocolate once you turn into a werewolf. My theory is that scientists assume once people find out about this factoid, the masses might intentionally try to get them...

17 likes 13 comments 13
Read story

Vigil

Shortlisted for Weekly Contest #378 ⭐️

CW: Death, illness The candlelight is restless tonight. On the wall, above the oil lamps, shadows dance over the icons’ faces. The Saints frown, severe and judgmental. Another candle melts slowly in its saucer on the nightstand. Grandma turns in her sleep. I took the night watch, lying in a bed across from her, while Mom and Grandpa rest in the other rooms. The air smells like smoke, medicine, and incense. My aunt will come tomorrow. My cousin, after she takes her last exam at the Uni. Three of Grandma’s sisters will be here with their fami...

15 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

This week's prompts

Write a story with the aim of scaring your reader.

– 59 stories

Set your story at an event (a party, séance, funeral, etc.) where something goes wrong.

– 43 stories

Write a story from the POV of a vampire, werewolf, doppelgänger, or shapeshifter.

– 36 stories

Include the line “I thought you were dead” or “We buried you” in your story.

– 41 stories

Write a story that takes place between midnight and dawn.

– 55 stories

Stories

The Psychopomp

Winner of Weekly Contest #378 🏆

CW: Hospice and discussions of hospice care and murder/euthanization If you’ve worked with the dying for a long time, you learn that there’s a certain smell to it. Perhaps people would expect me to instinctively know the smell of death, but no. It was something I had to learn. Once I learned, I could pick up the subtle curls of the scent wafting off the skin hours before anyone else. Except, perhaps, for animals. They say cats will curl up with nursing home residents who are the next to die. I wonder if they’re acting out of an effort to c...

64 likes 34 comments 34
Read story

A New Normal

Weekly Contest #378

CW: Themes of and/or references to gun violence, sexual assault, and abortion A New Normal They giggle and touch up their makeup in the smudged mirror of the crowded restroom. Too young for their low-cut shirts and glossy red lipstick, but old enough that their parents trust them to attend the concert unchaperoned. The girls have attended all four of the pop star's previous performances in their small town. By now, it's practically a tradition. They emerge from the restroom holding hands and make their way through hordes of screaming fans...

60 likes 50 comments 50
Read story

The Right Answer

Weekly Contest #378

‘No,’ said Eva. ‘I want to get out.’ ‘That’s fine,’ said the woman across from her. ‘But then you have to say it out loud.’ ‘I am, aren’t I?’ ‘To him, Eva. Not to me.’ Eva looked at the man standing by the door. He had his hands in his pockets and was studying a fire extinguisher as though he were considering buying one. ‘I’d like to go outside,’ she said. He didn’t respond. ‘Perhaps a little clearer,’ the woman suggested. Eva cleared her throat. ‘I would like you to open the door.’ The man looked up. ‘Why?’ ‘Because I want to leave.’ ‘Why?’...

50 likes 72 comments 72
Read story

No Questions Asked

Weekly Contest #378

Nick knew something was wrong as soon as his phone rang and he saw Danny’s name on the screen. Not because it was after midnight. There had been a time when that would have been considered early for both of them. Even now, Danny occasionally forgot that Nick had become the kind of guy who went to bed on purpose. It was the fact that he called at all. Most of their communication these days came in the form of text messages. Memes. Links to songs neither of them had heard since they were kids. Nick looked at the phone vibrating on the arm of ...

33 likes 18 comments 18
Read story

The Way Back

Weekly Contest #378

Tina reached across my lap and turned off the headlights. “You can’t see anything with those on.” “I can see you.” “Don’t be bad, Bill.” She kissed me anyway. We were parked beside a cornfield outside Hutchinson, Kansas, on a farm that charged people twelve dollars to get lost in a maze. During the day there were hayrides and pumpkins and a woman selling cider from a trailer. Now the trailer was padlocked, and the only light came from the dashboard of my Tacoma. That and the moon. It hung, full and pregnant. Clouds passing over it, casting s...

25 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

The Last Visit

Weekly Contest #378

It’s the nights that are the worst. Nothing is the same in the dark. The coat rack is a man holding an axe. The pile of clothes beside the bed is concealing an army of snakes. The old pillows stuffed under the bed is a zombie waiting… waiting… waiting… You sit up, your heart is in your throat. It was just a dream. It was just a dream. It was just a dream. You force yourself out from under the sheets, to get a drink. You know if you stayed huddled under the duvet your thoughts would spiral out of your grasp and you would lie without moving u...

25 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

The Fugue

Weekly Contest #378

Evan kisses me with his hand still on the television remote. I take it away and put it on the table, which seems to help. His fingers settle against my cheek. I have spent three months arranging this and now that it is happening, I am afraid to move. His mouth is warmer than I expected. There is a small, unpleasant feeling in my stomach, like the drop before an elevator catches. Then he draws back and I follow him. “You okay?” “Why wouldn’t I be?” “I don’t know. You got quiet.” “Well, I’m a little busy.” He smiles. I kiss him again before he...

21 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

The Mycelium

Weekly Contest #378

I followed Valdomir through camp. Darkly clothed, hooded gypsies encircled each fire. Wordless, they held up their hands to leaping flames that snapped raggedly in the wind. These wordless folk weren’t burning wood, peat, or coal. No, this was crackling flesh, sizzling animal fat. Soot poured from each fire pot to form a low-lying pall of eye-stinging fog. Valdomir loomed just ahead in the night, shifting about in unnatural jerks and flickers of movement. I guided on fleeting glints in the folds of his oiled cape. Now and then, he turned h...

19 likes 22 comments 22
Read story

The Last Dance

Weekly Contest #378

You never think you’re going to run into your dead ex at the neighborhood bar, but that’s where Thad was, and he was wearing the clothes we’d chosen for him. I flashed back to when his sister, Lucille, called me up to ask if I’d do her a favor. We’d always gotten on well together. She was the one family member of his who’d stayed in contact with me after he'd traded me in for the neighborhood pump. Sorry. That’s not nice. Slut. The town slut. Or maybe Sandy wasn’t a slut at all. Maybe she was just a redhead in a sundress who didn’t butt he...

18 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

Don’t Bring Him Back

Weekly Contest #378

Erol called while I was putting batteries in the dead. The little speaker fit beneath my cuff. With my hands resting on a table, I could make a widower hear his wife calling from the hallway. Most people supplied the words themselves. I gave them something to listen to. “Tomorrow,” I said. “You said tomorrow yesterday.” “Then we’re in agreement.” He let that sit. Through my windshield, beyond the wrought-iron gates, Katherine Kovalenko’s house glowed against the wooded slope. The property overlooked the reservoir, though at that hour you cou...

17 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

The Throughput Efficiency Metrics

Weekly Contest #378

Monday morning did not begin with a death. It began with a measurement. Thomas placed a steel ruler against his silk necktie to check if the clip sat exactly 4.2 centimeters above his third button. A millimeter of error meant a loss of routine. Routine was the only thing stopping the basement from crawling up the stairs. On his desk lay the weekly quota from Head Office. The stamp at the top read: Project F15-D5. “Fifteen funerals a day?” Simon asked. He was the assistant. His voice was currently breaking between two different octaves. “No,”...

17 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

West of Wendover

Weekly Contest #378

She was somewhere west of Wendover when she decided to go back for him. Wendover, the only population center on a lonesome stretch of Interstate 80, was in fact two towns in one. West Wendover, Nevada and Wendover, Utah spilled into one another across the state line, but their separate identities only mattered to the few thousand people who lived there. When visitors from the Salt Lake Valley said, “let’s go to Wendover for the weekend,” they did not mean Wendover, Utah. They were drawn to the power of the border, the nexus of a state that ...

17 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

Sit, Stay

Shortlisted for Weekly Contest #378 ⭐️

The best part about being a werewolf is actually the chocolate. Not superhuman strength, not the ability to see in the dark, not even using the post-wolf fatigue to get out of plans you agreed to two weeks ago. No, it’s the expensive, top-of-the-line, poison infused delicacy that you receive in bulk Every. Single. Full. Moon. No one ever tells you that you receive an abundance of chocolate once you turn into a werewolf. My theory is that scientists assume once people find out about this factoid, the masses might intentionally try to get them...

17 likes 13 comments 13
Read story

Lupine

Weekly Contest #378

When the sun goes down, darkness closes around the village with familiar dread. At nightfall, every door is latched shut, curtains are drawn, children tucked tightly in their beds. The darkness keeps hands clasped, axes by the door, and knives tucked under pillows. It huddles livestock too close together in their pens. Dogs sniff the air, hair standing on end, baring teeth and snarling at a shadow at the edge of the forest. Just before midnight, the woman lays her daughter in the crib. The baby is swaddled in white linen, and her soft cheek...

16 likes 13 comments 13
Read story

She Who Conqueres True Love

Weekly Contest #378

Blood covered my pale skin. Standing in the light of the silver moon, I let the blood slide over my naked form. I was changed. I was new. I quaked in my skin as the change overcame me. Keres, the word on the lips of the elders as they chanted my name. A spring of new beginnings, a cave of unfathomable ends. And blood. I licked my lips, gratitude filling my heart even as I departed. The elders stared back, sagging skin clothed in blood and age, their faces a mold of pain and pleasure. Then there were my birth kin. Most had left the nest, but ...

16 likes 5 comments 5
Read story

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months. Learn more →

How to Write a Novel