Welcome to our $25 April 2024 Monthly 50 Word Horror Story Contest! We’re offering a spine-chilling $25 prize for the most terrifying tale. Craft a complete horror story in just 50 words and submit it in the comments below by midnight on April 30th, 2024. Enter as many times as you dare!
The rules:
- It must be a horror story
- It must be 50 words or less
- It must be a complete story
- Entries must be submitted by midnight on April 30th, 2024
- Enter as many stories as you like!
- Post your story in the comments below
- Scariest Story Wins
The prizes:
- $25 prize for the top scream selected by our judges
- Your story will be featured on our site and in our digital issue
- Money will be paid through paypal
We’re hungry for bone-rattling tales that send shivers down spines. Put on your creator of creepiness hat and unleash your most shocking 50-word story. Make us shudder with dread in less space than a tweet. Our judges are ready to reward the tiny tale that strikes the most fear into their hearts.
What disturbing stories does your imagination hide? Polish your most terrifying micro-tale and leave your scary submissions in the comments below. We eagerly await the twisted horrors your mind can birth when constrained to just 50 words. Don’t hold back – let your horror breathe life in this itsy space. Enter as many times as you like to up your chances of winning the prize. Make us scream with dread!
Leave your story below. Enter as many times as you wish!
Follow him on Twitter, and check out our Submissions page.
- 8 Authors Who Created Literary Masterpieces Keeping Their Day Jobs - March 31, 2025
- Plotter or Pantser? A Writer’s Personality Quiz - March 30, 2025
- 100 Must-Try Mystery Writing Prompts (Solve the Perfect Crime!) - March 22, 2025
She heard it again—scratching in the walls. Rats, she thought. Setting traps yielded nothing. The exterminator found no signs of infestation. Yet each night, the skittering sounds grew louder and closer. Paranoid, she tore open the drywall and screamed. Dozens of tiny, bloodshot eyes stared back from the darkness.
This one kinda gets me.
The old man died as he had lived – alone. No family came to claim him. I was tasked with cleaning out his decaying house. Amid the filth and rot, I found a locked room. Inside, a shrine of photographs, news clippings, toys… and the clothes of missing neighborhood children.
In the dark, she heard a creak. Footsteps, slow and heavy, approached her door. Heart pounding, she hid under the covers. The door swung open. Silence. Then, a voice, raspy and cold, whispered inches from her face: “I found you.” A scream caught in her throat as icy hands gripped her neck.
Laying between sleep and awake,just listening to the sounds around. As my eyes are opening and shutting. Just then a cold chill runs up my body so afraid . To even move so reciting the twenty third Psalm is what I do . The soucouyant Caribbean vampire has come in my room.
The zombies clawed at the door, their moans filling the air. She clutched her child close, praying they’d hold out until dawn. A crash – the barricade gave way. Hungry eyes locked onto fresh prey as rotting hands reached forward. Her last thought as teeth tore flesh: I’m sorry, baby.
Randy was dead. Alice had killed him. Had chopped open his head. Had buried him out back.
The thing, squirming and clawing from its grave while worms wiggled and beetles scuttled from its open head, couldn’t have been Randy. But it was Randy.
Alice climbed back in bed, and waited…
Lost in the dark forest, he was petrified. Looming trees, crackly leaves. His heart rate escalated; five silhouettes stood ahead. Their heads a gory mess, with shredded torsos. film glazed their bloodshot eyes, foam dripped from their teeth. Frozen in horror, something stirred behind him. Goodnight; his heart was penetrated.
“Five minutes to totality,” she heard his voice while he was tightly squeezing her small hand. Looking at the eclipse, she smiled from behind her huge dark glasses. Suddenly, she smelled a pungent scent. She quickly removed her glasses and looked down. Seeing his hand covered with fur, she screamed…
She awoke, paralyzed in the dark. A malevolent presence loomed over her. Its ice-cold fingers traced her face as it hummed an eerie lullaby. Reeking breath washed over her. It whispered, “You’re mine now.” She tried to scream but couldn’t. The creature laughed cruelly. Her eternal nightmare began.
He tightened the zip tie around her wrist. “What do you fear mosssssst?”
“Cats.”
“You must think I’m sssssstupid…”
He brought a leggy predator in from his garden. Placed it on her hair.
She never screamed—just whistled once, long and low.
Summoned, it came for him that night—ravenous, with fangs.
The chef was unable to restrain his tears as he was at long last bestowed with a coveted Michelin star for his esteemed restaurant. During his poignant acceptance speech, he graciously attributed success of his winning dish to his late wife. But little everyone knew; wife was in the dish.
We will post the winner by the 5th, please stay tuned, and look for a new contest very soon.