Two-sentence horror stories

I lost my father when I was really young. I wish he’d stop trying to find me.

I always liked talking to my loved ones at night, especially those that’ve passed.
But I’m starting to wish they’d stop answering.

My grandmother used to sleep upstairs when I was younger before she died.
I hope she goes back to sleep soon.
- Alex H.


A pained shriek tore through the air, but it was much closer than the others had been.
I knew I was next. - Rui


“Why is it so dark in here?”
she asked as the blindfold tightened around her face.


A girl reached down the garbage disposal to find a lost spoon.
Giggling, her brother flipped the switch under the sink.


Uncle Bill gave us a new tire for our swingset.
He wouldn’t tell us why he took it off his car.
-Anne


Walking down the dim hotel hallways always gave me a sinister feeling. The feeling of something evil watching you. Except, it wasn’t just a feeling when a dark slim creature is standing in the flickering lights at the end of the hallway. - Jen<3


As I’m walking home I grow uneasy.
My paranoia was a little too late. - Luna

I was young when I met a tall pale woman with black hair and eyes that seemed to stare down my soul. There isn’t a day that I wish to see those eyes. -SomeWriter


She was always so beautiful.
Too bad I have to stay outside her window while she sleeps.- Marie

Playing with my dog after a long day at school was the best feeling ever. As my dog went to go fetch the ball I started hearing scratching and whining coming from the closet door. - Allie J.

It is pitch black. I can't even see my hand in front of my face. But then I see it. His glowing green eyes lunging towards me. My feet, like cement, won’t budge. - Meg


The feeling crept down my spine, and it felt like my entire body was shrouded in ice and darkness. It was coming, and this was the end of the line for me. -Mallory

A warm night feeling the wind blow on your neck, wrapping around your head, feeling the presence of the unknown. In the dark looking back not knowing what there could be but still feeling the sense you’re being stalked - Angel B.


He took her hand,
Not wanting the night to end
I wonder if he thought the same
When she sliced him from within.

Rose charged through the door
Hurrying to avoid the horde
She closed the door every so slightly
So smooth that it squeaked when closed so tightly
She flinched and froze
Waiting for a noise
When all that surrounded her were arms much like coils.
-Ace

Two graveyard workers heard a knocking coming from one of the graves.“Shouldn’t we let him out?” asked the young man. The old man just pointed to the date buried which read 1984 and kept walking.
-Tristan P.

As I stood there, I felt a sharp prick in my skin. Suddenly everything went dark and my head started to spin as I fell to the ground.
-Hannah


I went into my daughter’s room to wake her up. I looked up and saw him - her “imaginary” friend.
-Oliver

She chose a card and turned it over. It said, “Beware of your friends as well as your enemies.” - Star

“Aren’t the brightly colored frogs pretty? Go on, you can touch them!”- Laura S.

I was taking a detour down an alley. I felt warm, rancid breath go down my neck. -Fairuza

They say that curiosity killed the Kat,
but they never disclosed where they hid the body.

As his family gradually got smaller and smaller,
Jace noticed that his meals were becoming more succulent by the dish.
-Ethan

"I feel the cold wind and hear moving wheels while I try to open my eyes, but only see darkness in the night sky. I realize I'm chained up to a cage that’s being pulled into the unknown."

-Lesly M.

The ghosts

By Star Friend

Sara walked in to see Tom serving noodles, bologna sandwiches and fruit to Hailey and Kyle, who were seated in front of the television. Tom avoided eye contact with Sara as he made his way back into the kitchen, where he began dishing out a bowl of the venison stew he had prepared for himself in the crockpot the day before. Sara didn’t care much for venison.

It was the end of the grading period at Tom’s school. Tom was always insufferable at the end of a grading period, when half of the teachers were inevitably running behind, despite thinly veiled reminders issued daily during afternoon intercom announcements about report cards.

 “How was your day?” Tom asked as he sat at the table and began eating the stew.

“Boring,” Sara said, carving off a slice of the dairy-free carrot cake she had prepared over the weekend with tofu cream cheese icing. It wasn’t as good as real cream cheese, but Hailey was allergic to dairy products, so Sara had improvised. Sara thought it would be a neat experiment to see how many days she could go without eating a hot meal.

 “Mr. Preineke is getting remarried,” Tom said.

“Wow,” said Sara. “That was fast.”

Their neighbor, Mrs. Preineke, had died a year earlier.

“He must be one of those men who needs a woman to validate his existence,” Tom said.

“Not like you?” Sara asked.

“No,” Tom said, dropping his spoon into the bowl with a resounding clink. He got up and carried his dishes to the counter.

In the other room, Hailey and Kyle were fighting over what to watch next on TV. Tonight was a bath night. Sara hated bath nights, but because it was the end of the grading period, and because she had an energy reserve stored up from sitting in meetings all day, not really paying attention to much of what was said, she planned to execute the procedure alone, allowing Tom some much-needed down time.

Kyle was first. Sara filled the tub with water and helped him out of his clothing. “Wait,” Kyle exclaimed before sitting down in the water. “I need my Scooby Doo towel.”

“What?” Sara asked.

“My Scooby Doo towel. I won it at school. When you put it in water it turns into a towel.”

“Where is it?” Sara asked.

“In my backpack,” he said.

“Tom,” Sara yelled down the stairs. “Tom, can you look in Kyle’s backpack for a Scooby Doo towel? … Tom!”

Moments later, she heard footsteps climbing the stairs.

“Yes, dear?”

“Can you go downstairs and look in the front pocket of Kyle’s backpack for the Scooby Doo towel, please?”

“As you wish,” Tom said, turning and descending the stairs.

Moments later, he reappeared with the towel, which Sara unwrapped for Kyle to immerse in the water.

Once Hailey was in the tub, Sara closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall as Hailey prattled on, talking to her ponies and water toys.

“As you wish,” Tom had said. It was a line from “The Princess Bride.”

Sara remembered the night they had watched the movie together on A&E. It was when they were coworkers, before they had really started dating. A bunch of people from the office had gone out together after work and somehow Tom and Sara ended up alone at his apartment watching reruns.

The day after they had watched the movie, Sara was late to a staff meeting. She sat down beside Tom, who was wearing suspenders. He had discreetly reached over and pulled a piece of lint from her black pants, throwing it on the floor.

“Mommy,” Hailey said, “come here. I need to tell you a secret.”

Sara leaned over and Hailey screamed in her ear before bursting into laughter.

She must have learned that from Kyle. It was far too obnoxious for a preschooler to come up with on her own.

Sara thought about “The Princess Bride” and Tom in suspenders pulling lint from her pants. She was still in love with that Tom. It was a bit like being in love with a ghost. But, she thought, as she wiped what she hoped was dirt from a bathroom stool, it was probably better to be in love with a ghost than not to be in love at all.

Sara herself was something of a ghost. Everything she did – what she wore, what she wrote, even what she ate – had more to do with circumstances than her own preferences. Her favorite foods were pizza and cake. More specifically, Sara liked pizza with REAL cheese, not the rubbery vegan cheese she used on the pizzas she made at home for Kyle and Hailey because of Hailey’s allergy.

Wasn’t pizza everyone’s favorite food? It must be, Sara thought, because it was served at every single social gathering for kids. It was too bad that when Hailey ate it, her skin broke out in itchy patches, prompting people to ask Sara what was wrong.

As for cake, Sara alternated between making her own dairy-free cakes and cupcakes and letting Hailey indulge in the colorful confections shared by her classmates and peers on a regular basis. She did not want Hailey to be THAT KID – the one other parents were afraid to invite to parties because of her allergies.

Sara had invited all of Hailey’s classmates and their parents to stop by their house while trick-or-treating on Halloween night for cider punch and dairy-free cake. Filled with empty-nesters eager to hand out candy to cute kids, Sara and Tom’s neighborhood was great for trick-or-treating.

Sara had not considered the long-term ramifications when she planned her wedding on the holiday ten years earlier. When she met Tom, they were both aspiring writers particularly fond of ghost stories. Sara’s favorite was “Wuthering Heights.” The idea that an obsessive love could endure beyond death, that anything could endure, was, Sara thought, the ultimate romance.

They were married in a candlelight ceremony at a little old Presbyterian Church on Sleepy Hollow Road. Sara’s bridesmaids were thrilled that they got to wear black gowns which could be used again for any formal occasion. The entire wedding party had red roses.

At their reception in town at the Hamilton Hotel, bare branches decorated with twinkling lights stood in crystal vases filled with rocks. The wedding cake was red velvet with chocolate ganache.

On their tenth anniversary, Sara made a dairy-free red velvet cake with chocolate icing. On top, she placed two smiling wax ghost figurines purchased from the Dollar Store. The cake was a hit with everyone who visited them on Halloween night, including Mr. Preineke and his fiancée Helen.

She seemed like a nice lady, Sara thought. Helen and Mr. Preineke had met while working together for the EPA. Her husband had died of a heart attack three years ago.

Mr. and Mrs. Preineke had been married for 40 years. Sara wondered how long Mr. Preineke had loved Mrs. Preineke, how long he had loved her ghost, and whether or not he still did.  

The Old Dragon

looks back

once he used to

be a young one

The old dragon

looks back

sees that it's a long way

that he has come

The old dragon

looks back

and his eyes

tears they start to shed

The old dragon

looks back

so many of his friends

they are now dead

The old dragon

once so powerful

now begs for mercy

The old dragon is

now weak as he can be

The old dragon

cannot vision the future

so he just repeats the past

The old dragon

his youth has faded from him

and he has aged

so very fast

used to be

a fire breathing dragon

but that was a long time

ago

now it just

isn't so!

- Jayden Baker

Dirt

Lights burned

Why do we use that word, burn?

I guess we’ll see.

The engine sputtered to life

Then, six hours later, and many miles later,

It died.

He stepped out

Onto the gravel he had 

So missed.

It was dark, probably

That didn’t matter right now

Because

All he could see was the burning lights in front of him

Do you know how much he had missed this place?

He had once been on a date, he thought

Upon which he spoke only of this place

She was displeased but

It didn’t matter he

Didn’t even

Remember who she was

He stumbled up the driveway

Practically

Drooling

At the thought of reentering his home his

Place his

House

And what a lovely life he had

Had here

He and his siblings

(how many? He couldn’t say.)

Would play and run and fight amongst 

The halls

He and his siblings were special

They had had a special life and childhood for a reason

One day, they sprung forth from their mother’s forehead

Sans père

Via, he assumed, immaculate conception

He, in a stupor, wrenched open the door of the house

And was met with

Paradise

In the yard, exactly four hundred

Seconds after he had turned some age

He had eaten a rabbit alive

He had once spent hours on a lovely card

For his mother’s birthday

She was bedridden, still 

Sore from their emergence

He scrambled on all fours

Up the main staircase 

His favorite food

His siblings' favorite food was

Applesauce he thought

Every inch of the walls

Were covered with extravagant 

Taxidermied animals mounted

On carefully carved plates

Carved to fit into each other like

Puzzle pieces

He had once spent three hours in

The shower struggling

To wash the coagulated

Blood out of his hair

He found himself in his mother’s bedroom

Where

He had once found himself

Once he had sat watching 

The fire

In the fireplace blaze for

So long

Once he had stepped on a 

Cat

Until it came

Apart

He was in the bedroom of

Some man who had lived

Here 

He had once microwaved

(or did microwaves exist yet?)

A human ear he had 

Found while on one

Of his

Hourly walks

He was in the kitchen where

The oven was open and the microwave

(so they did!)

Was open

He crashed through

The house

And found firewood

Stacked in every room

He crashed through 

The house

And found rat poison

Stashed in every room

The house was too warm

For it being winter

He thought

He had once 

Buried someone

In the basement 

Which was easy because

The cellar (what’s the difference?)

Floor was 

Entirely 

dirt.

- John Scully

Vampire Poem

 The vampire flies in the night

Looking for something to bite

Hungry, tired, wings flapping

Until it hears something yapping

Swoops down, looking for blood

And landing with a big thud

He saw a human at the corner

The look in his eyes should have warned her

She tried to back away, to no avail

He swept over, and she let out a wail

His fangs bared, long and sharp as a nail

Out steps a man covered head to toe in chain mail

The woman strikes him down in less than a second

Not wanting to die, to her he beckons

The vampire looked at her

The smile on her face grew

She looked at him and said,

"I'm one of you."

- A collaborative poem by 

Hudson Fox, Nicholas Machado, and Pierce Buchmoyer