Thank you to everyone who entered our Two-Sentence Horror Story Contest! We’re thrilled to announce the winners, who will receive gift cards to a bookstore of their choice, plus a horror book from the Friends of the Library Bookstore [1]! Your creepy contributions made it a spine-tingling experience, and we loved reading each one! It was so hard to pick just three winners, so we’re including  20 more of our favorites. Happy hauntings! 

 Top three winners

1. I've become good friends with the tree they hanged me from. It eats my bones and grows tall, looming over their houses, waiting for a good storm. —Breanna B.
    
2. The sun bled across the horizon, painting the sky with fire. By nightfall, the stars did not return. —Parisa Y.
    

3. I woke to cold, clammy fingers brushing my cheek. "I've got my eye on you," a voice said, "here, let me take it off." —Tim R.
    

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4. As I wandered deeper down the darkened path, I looked up to admire the soft yellow stars shimmering through the tree branches above. But they blinked back at me - hundreds of them - until I realized I wasn't alone, as if they’d been waiting for me to remember something I’d spent my whole life trying to forget. —Vincent P.
    
5. As my brother and I lay in the dark, a whisper cut through the silence: “Don’t touch me.” Neither of us had spoken, and to this day, we never talk about who—or what—did. —Brandon I.
    
6. I silently watch as your blood drips through my fingers. And one more squeeze is all it takes to end it all. —Alana M.
    
7. The gentle crashing of waves lulls me to sleep, until I jolt awake with panicked breaths. I don't live by the ocean, yet the salty water begins to engulf me.. —Ally S.
    
8. Home alone, I go to use the toilet. The seat is already warm. —Jacob M.
    
9. Zombie John Mellencamp wanders the streets.
   We are all chili dogs now. —Mat A-M.
    
10. My four year-old screamed, seeing the strange man outside her room. “Mommmmmmy! He got out again!” —Ilan L.
     
11. The night watchman took his hourly lap around the cemetery. That’s strange, he thought, I don’t remember there being an open grave last time. —Greg S.
     
12. Just as she was on the brink of a dream, she heard the unmistakable tiny clicks of a dozen plastic eyelids flipping open all around her childhood bedroom. While she held her breath, she heard the whisper of another set of small, delicate breaths...and then, the soft swish of little feet on her carpet. —Jose M.
     
13. A pale man in ragged clothes dwells in the cemetery. He lurks from the shadows of tombstones and mausoleums waiting for a corpse to be buried that he shall dig out from their graves so as to feast upon their flesh. —Ian B.
     
14. A cool breeze crawled under the cracked window, tickling Nora awake as she cozied up to her husband. Rolling into his still-warm blood, she sighed, “Not again.” —Sarah M.
     
15. I raked the ashes of the gilded box smooth before bed, certain the flames had consumed the curse at last, the trace of smoke still on my hands and the heat fading into the brick. By morning the hearth is cold, but two small handprints press through the soot, as though something inside has begun to find its way out. —John J.
     
16. “You have such a lovely smile.” “Don’t worry,” the thing wearing my face promised, “I’ll put it to good use.” —Benjamin U.
     
17. Uncanny, sunken figures shuffle across the forest before me like apes. They bellow when their vacuous eyes acquire me, and my mind departs as they spring and tumble backward into the obscurity of a reality to which I can never return. —Isaiah R.
     
18. I was jolted awake when my husband fell into bed like he has each night for the past nine years. My heart started to race when my brain reminded me he had been dead five months. —Lanson W.
     
19. I hurried to the church for answers, but only empty pews and scattered hymnals remained. From the darkened pulpit, a single voice whispered, "Too late." —Samantha D.
     
20. The old oak tree in the yard creaks my name when the wind blows. Tonight, it whispered, ‘I’m thirsty.’ —Katherine N.