horror
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The Hendersons found the house on Maple Street through a foreclosure listing, priced so low that Sarah joked they’d probably discover bodies in the basement. The ranch-style home from 1952 had been empty for three years, its previous owners having died in a car accident, leaving no heirs. Perfect for a young family trying to…
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The manila folder contained seven pages of rules, each one more unsettling than the last. Ash read them again, his hands trembling slightly as he sat in the sterile break room of the Meridian Research Facility. Rule 1: Never look directly into the hole for more than three seconds at a time. Rule 2: If…
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The fluorescent lights hummed their electric lullaby as Marcus wheeled the medication cart down the corridor of Eternal Rest Hospice. Three weeks into his new job, and he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was fundamentally wrong with this place. The patients lingered too long, their suffering stretched like taffy pulled beyond its breaking…
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Maya discovered Sunflower Gardens in the discount bin at GameStop, wedged between old sports titles nobody wanted. The cover art looked hand-drawn—a girl with crayon-yellow pigtails watering cartoon flowers. At twelve, Maya was tired of her brother’s shooters and battle royales. This looked perfect. The game exceeded her expectations. Maya guided her character through meadows…
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The first time Sarah walked in her sleep, I thought it was stress. She’d been working late shifts at the hospital, coming home exhausted, her scrubs still smelling of antiseptic and something else I couldn’t place. That night, I woke to find her standing at the foot of our bed, perfectly still, her eyes open…
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The Blackwood Apartments stood like a monolith against the gray October sky, its brick facade weathered by decades of rain and neglect. When I first saw the listing—a spacious one-bedroom for half the market rate—I should have known something was wrong. But desperation has a way of blinding you to red flags, and after three…
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The key felt heavier than it should have as I turned it in the lock of 47 Maple Street. The brass was tarnished, worn smooth by decades of use, and it scraped against the mechanism with a sound like fingernails on metal. The door swung open with a prolonged creak that seemed to echo through…
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The scratching started on our third night in the house. Just subtle at first—the kind of sound you’d attribute to settling pipes or skittering mice. Sarah said I was being paranoid when I mentioned it over breakfast, but I saw how her eyes darted to the walls when she thought I wasn’t looking. We’d gotten…
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The sun was setting faster than Emma had anticipated. What had started as a simple shortcut through Miller’s Woods was quickly becoming a nightmare as shadows stretched like grasping fingers across the forest floor. She’d grown up hearing her grandmother’s warnings about these woods, but at seventeen, she’d dismissed them as stories meant to frighten…
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It started with Mrs. Henderson describing the hallway. “The walls are this terrible shade of green,” she said, wringing her hands in her lap. “Like old copper, or maybe pond scum. And no matter how far I walk, it never ends. Just door after door after door, all of them locked except for the last…