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IT’S STORY TIME!

Our Fall 2021 Contest

Now open for submissions: The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award.

Prizes: $1500 for the winner. $300 for each of two honorable mentions.

Plus, publication for all three, both online and in our print anthology, 21st Century Ghost Stories: Volume III.

Read our complete guidelines.

TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE

Winner—Summer 2021 Supernatural Fiction Award

“Bellechasse, my friend in Paris, is the only non-medical man I know who keeps a collection of human skulls—nearly a dozen—randomly displayed in the library of his grand apartment overlooking the Quai d’Orsay. One winter evening he poured me a brandy and explained why.”

Read it here.

ELEGUA

Honorable Mention—Summer 2021 Supernatural Fiction Award

“That’s when she started digging. At night, under a full moon, so I could see her out there, she would bury the corpses of cats and then dig them up a few weeks later, boiling what was left. The house would smell so bad she’d spend the whole day with the windows open cleaning with vinegar and lemon. I don’t know where she got the idea, but it wasn’t from me. I never asked for bones. She wrote messages on paper, whispering with her eyes closed. She got skinnier with every note she wrote. She’d pour oil over the paper and then sprinkle them with white powder and set the small bowls in neat rows in his closet.”

Read it here.

THE LODGER

Honorable Mention—Summer 2021 Supernatural Fiction Award

“Lara’s basement was a dank, unwelcoming place. The fireplace was plastered over, the window a thin rectangle that looked up through a grate. It had no furniture and little light, and Lara doubted that any person could improve it. But the lodger seemed unbothered. “Trust me,” he said, “I’ve seen much worse.”

“It was only then that Lara remembered to ask his name. “Since,” she said, suddenly shy, “you’ll be living here and everything.”

“‘Me? Oh, I’m the Devil.'”

Read it here.