Spooky Flash Fiction Contest Finalists!

Happy Halloween, Secret Lifers! We've been getting in the creepy holiday mood ourselves by reading through some of your awesome entries for our Spooky Flash Fiction Contest. Thanks so much to everyone who submitted a story! It was incredibly difficult to pick just three to showcase on the blog, but we finally did, and they're listed below!

So, fabulous readers, if you would be so kind, show some love and support to these writers who have shared their work with us. Read through the entries, and then be sure to VOTE on your favorite in the fancy little poll thing at the bottom of this post. Votes will be accepted through the weekend, and the winner will be announced on Monday!

Entry #1

A MAN SCORNED

“I never meant to hurt you. Please, believe me.” Joe ignored Marcy’s pleading. “I’m sorry. It was only the one time. No more secrets, I swear. And it will never happen again.”

Joe looked through her.

“Joe, I’m sorry. Please, say something.” Marcy stepped forward, her hands moving toward his shoulders. But when he still didn’t respond, she stopped just shy of contact, her arms falling back to her sides. “I love you,” she whispered, “so much.”

Then, he stepped right through her. Confused, she turned to see him kneel beside her body and start to clean up the blood.

Entry #2

UNEARTHED

Being the new guy in school always sucked at first, especially when everyone asked where you'd transferred from and why. From Pick-A-City, USA. Mom's always wanted to live here. I'd mastered the art of lying—psychiatric wards were like prisons: highly educational. No more hallucinations, Dr. Fields/Mercer/Kravock. Well, practice makes perfect, and after years of study I'd graduated with a clean bill of mental health. Now the only thing locked away was my file, and the secrets it contained.

Nightmares I hoped stayed buried this time.

Eight months in Savannah and things looked good. Normal. Like tonight's kick-ass party at the abandoned Bouchard Mansion. Booze flowed, music raged, and Stacey's hand slid to the bulge in my jeans and squeezed. I groaned against her neck.

“Let me tell Mac we're leaving,” I said.

“Okay, but hurry.”

I took the stairs two at a time, hoping they wouldn't collapse. Fucking things were dry rotted. I passed Jake and Alissa in the hall.

“Where's Mac?”

Jake pointed to the room at the end. I opened the door and froze, icy shards of terror pricking my skin. Mac's body lay face down in a sea of blood. Oh, God, please, not again.

My murdered sister sat at a small table decorated with plastic tea cups. “Anna did it,” she said, pointing to the doll sitting next to her.

Anna fixed her glassy black eyes on my face.

You left us behind and now look what happened.

Entry #3

BODY AND SOUL

It wasn’t hard to imagine their eyes following her.

They weren’t, of course, that would be ridiculous. The shrunken stoat frozen and crouched on its tree stump, the fox with its dried black mouth stretched over fake yellow teeth, the hare with its glassy eyes and stiff brittle whiskers. They stared at her from inside their display cases, and that was just the smear of children’s fingerprints on the glass, not the fog of angry, living breath.

It was just the hospital next door that gave her the creeps. She hated it, its sour-faced NHS nurses and cold, impatient doctors. Her mum had died in that hospital, alone and shrivelled with cancer. The nurse’s voice on the other end of the phone had been dry and empty. She’s dead, it had said. Your mother. And we need the bed. 

A siren wailed in the distance. The stoat gazed at her, the dull museum lights making white starpoints in its dead empty eyes.

The siren screamed, getting closer and closer. Louder. Louder. The sound of it made her feel sick, her heart choking inside her chest. Then in at the gates next door, its scream so loud and intimate she could feel it shaking inside her bones. The museum lights flickered, and the spark in the stoat’s eyes danced and blinked. Its tail twitched.

She stared blindly out the window at the paramedics rushing the body inside the doors, and the stoat glared at her, showing its tiny yellow teeth.