We had so much fun reading all the entries in the 2024 Two-Sentence Scary Story Contest, and we’re excited to share them here for you to enjoy. Voting took place on Thursday evening, October 24, and the winners are Lucas H. in the teen category and Tyler G. in the adult category. Thank you to everyone who submitted a story—they’re all spooktacular!
High School Entries
Winner! My chest tightens painfully in a stronger fear than I’d ever felt before as my body prevents me from running, an unimaginably heavy weight pulling me down with each step. That is until I awake with a choked gasp as a knife is plunged into my chest.
-Lucas H.
I was walking home from a friend’s house and an old man followed me in a car, watching every move. He got me and I was raised by him and a scary lady who would bite my nails so I couldn’t scratch her eyes out, but I died.
-Aidan S.
Adult Entries
Winner! Morally, she really wanted them to stop killing people. But if that happened, what would they feed her?
-Tyler G.
He leaned forward in his chair, careful not to let any of the faces on his computer screen detect the small smirk on his face, and said to himself, “It’s like the Brady Bunch, except they’re all Jan—needy, clueless and unlovable. “Hey, Jim, uh, your mic is still on.”
-Jim A.
He joked “I know that you’re the descendant of the 17th and 18th century German executioners, but at least you haven’t made me sleep in the storage shed with the lawn mower, let alone chopped my head off!” That next Halloween night, she held up his severed head and said, “I waited as long as I could, but I’m sorry, it’s just in my blood.”
-Tom B.
She watched the moon rise casting ominous shadows in the graveyard. Suddenly, she was the shadow roaming the graveyard.
-Theresa B.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. But how many children does it take to feed that village?
-Ashley B.
Mommy, there is a monster under my bed, can you check for me?” My eyes widen, I have no children.
-Ashley B.
Lighting flashed and lights flickered, but Kacie and Logan hoped the power wouldn’t go out as they waited for the storm to pass when suddenly they heard a loud “KaBOOM” and they were surrounded by darkness. The blackout only lasted a few minutes, but when the lights came back on, all the clocks we stuck at midnight and the calendar said 1984… 40 years ago!
-Karen C.
The bright orange jack-o-lantern grinned with delight as it waited patiently in the dim moonlight for another trick or treat. It wasn’t long before Kacie and Logan ran up the steps to ring the doorbell, but quickly turned away when the pumpkin roared to life, ready to take a bite!
-Karen C.
Seemingly solitary, she sits stationary surrounded by silence in the shadows, slowly succumbing to sleep. Somewhere something serpentine slithers, scaley and sheened, swiftly slinking in to shroud with a slight squeeze…
-Laura C.
I saw caller ID, and, as the chill ran down my spine, I picked up the phone. On the other end, my mother said “Honey, we’re coming up to visit for the weekend.”
-Tyler G.
“Don’t fret, dearie, we kelpies don’t harm our own,” the water wraith crooned darkly as Isla’s hands began to lengthen and pale like her captor’s. Isla screamed as the sea monstress dove out the salt-rimmed porthole; her cold, skeletal hands gripped Isla tightly as they both plunged beneath the sea.
-Ashlee G.
“Curse you,Tabitha,” Cleo muttered as she searched the abandoned mansion hall for her cat; she paused as the odd wallpaper pattern of silhouetted figures caught her eye. She bent to examine a familiar-looking, feline shape and was pulled into the wall – joining Tabitha and the other figures forever.
-Ashlee G.
She wanted to run but was paralyzed with fear. It watched her with an unnerving smile, giggling softly, taking pleasure in the horror that was to come.
-Mandi H.
Mama said I’m her special boy because I can see the evil deep inside people. When I find one that has the darkness, I cut it out, for I am the scalpel of God.
-Mandi H.
As I walked through the nighttime woods toward the cabin everyone believed to be haunted I caught a glimpse of flickering lights behind a darkened window. When I arrived at the cabin I was relieved to see the lights were not ghosts but a jar of fireflies someone had left on the windowsill.
-Scott H.
I felt the rain splash against my forehead and the wet grass beneath my hands, which was strange as I had been dead for over three weeks. The intoxicating smell of something foreign yet delicious caused me to crack and twist my body up and shamble towards it while trying to groan out the word “grains”, or was it “brains”?
-Peter K.
As we sat near the campfire, it slowly emerged from the forest, with its glaring red eyes, its long sharp claws, and its stiff fur matching the hair on my arms standing straight up. When we got back from the camping trip, I thought I had evaded the vile creature until one day I opened my closet door and there it stood, a crooked smile on its face.
-Julie K.
I ran screaming through the front door, slamming it behind me. Then I saw it creep out from under the staircase, sharp teeth and foul breath.
-Cindy M.
As I finished my incantation, the rotten corpse pulled itself from the muck of the lagoon, from where it had been buried over a decade ago.
-Cindy M.
The mother makes it just in time to see the shadow pass over the screen of the baby monitor, the foreign white hand reaching for the whimpering child’s soft, downy head. She wants to scream, to run to the child, but finds she cannot move.
-Beth P.
I stood back and admired the box fort I had constructed in the basement of our new home when I was startled to hear someone scampering through it. That was odd because all my children were still upstairs.
-Marc R.
The small raspy voice came from the throat of the child’s plastic toy frog. However, the thing that crawled out of its mouth was impossibly big.
-Marc R.
New neighborhood, alone in our first house, and there are unwavering midnight knocks on the front door. I creep down, eyes adjusting as I peak through the sidelight, where an unfamiliar person, carrying a chest-high, seemingly empty suitcase, stares directly back at me.
-Barbie R.
My reflection in the mirror moved before I could… I pond on the glass, as he walks away.
-Josh S.
It gets closer every time that I blink. My eyes are so dry, as it watches them struggling to stay open.
-Josh S.
After holding her breath, she slowly exhaled, being careful not to make a noise. She listened closely to the sounds around her but heard nothing before she felt a cold damp hand slowly brush down her neck.
-Jessica W.
Mary set down her tea cup and saucer when she felt a cool change to the air, “I need to stoke the fire”, she murmured to herself. Standing up to grab the blow poke, she saw a rush of darkness advance out from the corner of her eye; turning in full, Mary faced an unexpected guest, Death.
-Constance W.
Don’t cross Sylvia they said, or in the middle of the night she’d wrap you up in pondweed, stuff your mouth full of mud & drop you into the pond: this tale kept running through my head as I hadn’t fulfilled a dare earlier that day with the neighbor kids. Upon waking the next morning, I was petrified to see a piece of duckweed slowly sliding down my bedroom window.
-Constance W.
With each mechanical-like step, my son’s neck creaked like dry timber, as he slowly made his way towards the whittling knife laying on my workbench. As the last scent of oil filled the air, the pale remaining burn barely illuminated his Cheshire-like grin, before I noticed that the severed strings dangling from his back meant that I was no longer the one in control.
-Brandon Z.
“You’re gonna need to use a lot more dirt than that honey, or else they’re easily gonna find her,” she said with a soft, playful schoolgirl like pout as she wrapped her arms around him in a warm, loving embrace from behind. Jeremy froze as her chin nestled into his shoulder, as he stared at the motionless, dead face of the owner of that voice below him lying in the hole he was burying her in, his loving wife he had just murdered an hour ago.
-Brandon Z.