Congrats go to Wally Cwik, who took first place in our Jingle Hell contest on 15 December. Below is his winning story, The Christmas Tree

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Congrats go to Mike Penkas, who took second place in our Jingle Hell contest on 15 December. Below is his story, Midnight Cappuccino.

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We’re happy to present you with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners in this year’s Flash Fiction Contest held at World Horror.

The rules for the contest are simple - stories must be read in five minutes or less, and they must have a beginning, middle, and end. A panel of celebrity judges choose the winners. Read all three stories in the posts below.

A kid walks.� Late afternoon.� All alone, he walks along rail lines.� He’s walked for miles; for as long as he can remember the day, he’s walked it.� Trees push close to the tracks, one side; the other, a graveled drop-off leads to more trees.� Pine covers the hillside down to water, maybe a river, a lake, but something watery is off that side of the tracks and down there.� He can smell it, the water; mud, fish, mosquito eggs, that kind of smell rises from that side.� It’s summer afternoon, late summer, not hot, but warm.� Nice.� No place to go from here but home.� The smells, the feel of the gravel way underfoot, the scent of creosote bubbled from the ties, it smells, yes, like home.� Like near-home.

He walks easily, not thinking, not looking, then, a soft click, a sound that would be metallic if it weren’t smothered by leather and the softness of his foot, and he isn’t walking.� Now, he looks.� The boot, his ankle in it, is caught in a switch.� Jesus Christ.� Along some track, middle of nowhere, a guy’s walking along, alone, and the thing just closes, thump, like that.� It doesn’t hurt, it simply holds him.� Fact is, he couldn’t tell if it closed on him, or if he just stepped in it and got wedged there.� Doesn’t matter.� Point is, he cannot get out.

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ROADKILL ANGEL

By Mark Zirbel

He will arrive in your town one day.

You will notice him walking along the side of the road, holding a smashed animal carcass in his grimy hands. Perhaps it will be an opossum, the creature curled into a fetal position as though it tried to retreat to some place of comfort in the last horrible moments of its life. Or maybe a cat, a fluffy Maine Coon or a sleek Siamese, its eyes wide open and staring at the heavens, its rigor-mortis limbs pointing skyward.

Hopefully you will not give this man and his roadkill a second thought – just some dirty bum, a derelict, a drifter. Because if you should decide to stop and take a closer look, you are not going to like what you see.

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BLACK LAKE

by Nicole Castle

Travis has no car so we have to walk out to the lake.

“Damn, am I stupid,” I mutter to myself.

I kick at the dirt. There’s been no rain for months and the dust blows up into my face. Travis laughs, his real dumb ignorant laugh. “Shut up, shithead!” He doesn’t like that. “Travis, you know you ain’t getting’ none, right?”

“Come on. You know I don’t think that way ’bout you.”

I shoot him the eye. And I stop dead. “Is that what this is about, you asshole?”

“Naw, honest. I gotta show you somethin’. Somethin’ you ain’t never seen before.”
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By Edward A. Rodosek

Tara couldn’t understand the change that had come over Marcel. It had all started that day at the circus.

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By Vera Searles

One door in the old house couldn’t be opened. Addie Lemmon was determined to find out the secret of what lurked there . . .

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By Richard A. Becker

Waking up in a strange room was one thing. Waking up in a strange body was something else all together.

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By Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Every year at the World Horror Convention, Twilight Tales sponsors a flash fiction contest where entrants have ten minutes to read a story before judges and an audience. Here is one of the winners from San Francisco’s 2006 show.

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By N. Immanuel Velez

The best will do anything for a picture, Jared Ellis told himself. Armed with his trusty camera, he braved the deserted plantation grounds. Surely, the “No Trespassing” sign did not apply to him . . .

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