Honorable Mention, Fall 2022

Over the next 20 hours or so, we’ll publish the winner and three honorable mentions in the Fall 2022 Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award contest. The honorable mention pieces—of which Wesley Schaller’s chilling piece “That’s Never Happened Before” is one—are not ranked. They’re all equal, and all equally riveting. Wesley, by the way, also had an honorable mention piece—”What About You?”—in our Fall 2021 competition, making him one of only a handful of people who have made it into our top three—or occasionally, four—since we launched this contest in 2015. Click here to read Wes’s story . . . and keep checking back with us through the Day on Halloween for the other winning stories, including the fall contest’s top tale.

WINNER, SUMMER 2022
THE SCREW TURN FLASH FICTION COMPETITION

BY JOSEPH BATHANTI

Jimmy Vallone hunches in the last desk. He magic-markers 69 across his books. Never removes his sharkskin trench coat. Flunked so many times, he’s old enough to drive hot-wired cars to school. Bucked, nicotine teeth, one Kool after another, sideburns, a pimp’s apologetic mustache. A widow’s peak plows his pimply forehead. Skin-tight stove-pipes. Pointy, cleated shoes. The seething pathology of the misunderstood: Judas of the Gnostic Gospels, stench of alleys, Romilar, Ripple.

One day he snares me, his long filthy fingernails at my collar, flicks open his switchblade, bares his fangs, dips toward my windpipe. “Say you hate Jesus,” he whispers coquettishly, swears he’ll cut my throat.

Two months ago, in Chicago, Richard Speck killed those nurses. One hid, undetected, and listened to every bit of it—the one I can’t stop thinking about. At this very moment, possessed, unloved American prodigies like Jimmy muster from the slaughter at Con Thien, in southeast Asia. The number one song is “The Ballad of the Green Berets.”

“Say it, Motherfucker.” His blade stutters against my neck, his breath Tokay-sweet.

“I hate Jesus,” I say. [continue reading…]

HONORABLE MENTION, SUMMER 2022
THE SCREW TURN FLASH FICTION COMPETITION

BY JANICE EGRY

“Here, Mommy,” the child says. “The flowers are for you. I picked them.”

“Thank you,” I say and accept the bouquet. But I am not his mommy. I do not have a son. He is a cute little boy, but not mine.

I don’t know how I came to be here in this field of daisies. I look in all directions. There seems to be no end to the acres of blossoms dancing in the wind. How do I get out? I turn in all directions, searching. Just searching.

I remember walking down a dirt road. Where is it? Where is that road? I see no perimeter to this field nor any path through it. I recall dust rising up, disturbed by my hurrying feet, and the faint song of a solitary mockingbird slicing the hushed air. I remember that tears streamed down my cheeks, stinging chafed skin, and I picked up my pace to a trot. All of that comes back to me now.

In my hand, the blooms wilt on their sturdy stems. I wonder whether to keep them or toss them away. I turn in circles trying to decide where to go, which way might take me to that road.

The boy is gone! Where did he go? How could he have disappeared? His blue bib overalls would surely stand out in this expanse of bright white and yellow. He was taller than the meadow growth. I should be able to see him. But he did have a yellow shirt. That might blend in.

I seem to be the only moving creature in this place. No bees visit. No ants crawl beneath the thick flora. There are no trees here to provide respite or residence for birds. I do not understand, but I finally pick a direction and begin walking, letting the tired plants in my hand drop to the ground.

Funny. I have no sense of time. It must be the sameness of scenery along my way. Have I walked for hours? It seems so. Like treading through an expanse of butter and untinted oleo, a monotony of motion and color numbs my mind.

Oh, look! A sandy strip in the distance lined with mammoth shade trees. The road I’ve been searching for. Hooray! My feet burn, my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth, I cannot swallow, but I made it. Now will my memory return, and can I find my way home? [continue reading…]