Over the course of Halloween, 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 American writer Demetrius Buckley’s “Heard Of A Power” is one—are not ranked. They’re all equal, and all equally riveting. Mr. Buckley is an incarcerated writer, and his unsettling magic realism story takes place within the walls of a prison. Click here to read “Heard Of A Power.” And, as we have now published all three honorable mentions, check back with us in a couple of hours for our announcement and publication of . . . . our fall contest’s top tale.
Over the course of Halloween, 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 English writer Iqbal Hussain’s “Look Not Backwards” is one—are not ranked. They’re all equal, and all equally riveting. This story is set in rural Pakistan, and deals with a particularly horrifying—and vengeful—folkloric entity. Click here to read “Look Not Backwards.” And keep checking back with us through the Day on Halloween for the remaining unpublished honorable mention piece—and our fall contest’s top tale.
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.
Volume II of our print anthology, “21st Century Ghost Stories,” has just been published. It contains all of our Summer 2018 to Summer 2021 winning and honorable mention stories from The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award contest and The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition—30 fine supernatural short stories in all!
