Quick, creative and all sorts of creepy...
It may be a challenge to spook somebody in only two sentences, but these high schoolers proved it can be done.
The shortest horror story ever is a two-sentence story written and published in 1948 by Fredric Brown: "The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door."
Berkeley Center for the Arts creative writing teacher Jennifer Moorhead recently got her students into the Halloween spirit by challenging them to come up with their own two-sentence horror story – and they delivered.
Check out what some of Moorhead's students came up with below.
The night of my tenth birthday, I wished that every day could be my birthday with cake, candles, and a whole party. A week later, I can’t fit in my clothes anymore, the parties are now boring, and I am the oldest one in the fifth grade.
I’ve always loved the scaly coldness of my pet snake, Wilburt. However, I never imagined his acidic insides would burn my skin this bad.
I give my cat a kiss goodbye. When the door shuts, the cat grins, the corners of its mouth touching its eyes.
On the first day, the mirror showed a girl in her youth with angelic lashes brimming imagination and a halo lining her brow. On the following day, wrinkles wore in her brain, and fast went the Life Train as she realized she wasn’t who she used to be.
My little brother used to hide under my bed to try to scare me. I had never actually been scared until my brother walked in and asked who was under the bed.
Be careful what you wish for. I used to wish I had someone to always talk to and now the voices won’t stop, even when I’m alone.
My dad said to always lock the doors at night so nothing could get inside. What we didn’t know was that it was already inside and waiting, so we couldn’t get out.
At 11:29 p.m., I was relieved when the shadow that had been watching me since 10:30 suddenly vanished without a trace. But my heart sank when the nurses informed my family that my grandmother had passed at 11:30.
Attempting to find my missing crew members, I said, “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” to the beeping Life Monitor, the device capable of detecting all life aboard our five astronaut mission. I changed my mind when the Life Monitor declared six life forms were aboard our spaceship.
“Looks like the short circuit didn’t affect the launch,” cheers the captain as the vessel that contains us plummets from the icy slopes down into the depths of the Alaskan sea. Then, the whirring of the engine stops, the lights cut off, and we just sink… farther and farther.
Following the directions of the Florida officials, I wrote the names and dates of our birthdays on our bodies in permanent marker. Hugging my baby daughter close to my chest, I peer through the cracks of the boarded window to see the tall, spiral gray clouds funnel down from the dark sky.
“Come, little toy, join the circus of freaks,” he reassuringly told me that he would keep me safe. Then I found myself hanging by threads, a puppet he created for his fun.
“Keep rolling those eyes at me and they’ll get stuck like that,” my mom warned. I won’t have to hear that anymore now that I’ve been staring at the ceiling for hours.
After I introduced my daughter to my favorite movie franchise, she was convinced that she was a witch. I regretfully played along with her antics until I saw her jumping off the roof with a broom.
When my toy on the floor was untaken, I was relieved to find that there was no monster under my bed after all. When I reached down to retrieve my toy, I suddenly found myself taken.
I got annoyed when my dad dragged me out of bed on the weekend to clean out the traps in the crawl space, but my annoyance turned to confusion when I noticed all the traps were empty. I only realized what the traps were for when my dad latched the door behind me.
The mother looked under the bed to prove to her superstitious child there were no monsters. It’s crazy how people never notice what is right above them.
“We’ve had a bug infestation lately,” my mother said while I was mindlessly scrolling on my phone. Always tuning her out, I stuffed a chip into my mouth only to realize the “chip” was now squirming around my teeth.
I blushingly smiled as my boyfriend woke me with a hug and a kiss on my cheek. When I answered the phone, my smile died as I was informed my boyfriend was in a fatal car wreck.
“Thank God, I survived,” I think after crawling out of my wrecked car. “Oh, no,” I say as I see myself still in the driver’s seat.
News about the Roach Killer spread that the menace likes to dump hundreds of live roaches on his victims before he strikes. Flipping on the kitchen light, the boy was disheartened to see hundreds of roaches scatter.
I excitedly ran to hide in my treasure chest after my mom said we were going to play “Hide and Seek.” After a while I realized it wasn’t a game.