Read the spine-tingling winning horror stories from our annual Tales of the Dead short story contest.
We invited writers of all ages to write original horror stories with a “Moonlit Masquerade” theme in our Tales of the Dead Short Horror Story Contest. Six winners were chosen, and for the first time ever, one of the winners isn’t local! The winner of the Over 21 category, Carrie Donovan, lives in Germany. Follow the links below to read their spine-tingling tales.
Over 21 Winner:
- Carrie Donovan of Gelsenkirchen, Germany, took first place for “Walpurgisnacht,” a story of discovery about an amnesiac woman on Walpurgis Night.
- Second place went to Catonsville resident Mike Miller for “The Falling Moon,” about a farmer’s descent into madness.
- Gary R. Beard of Timonium took third place for “Nowhere to Hide,” about a man looking for love but instead faced with his worst fear.
Under 21 Winners:
- Ivy McKnight, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Cockeysville Middle School, won first place for “Dead Space,” a sci-fi horror story set on the space station on the moon.
- Second place went to Baltimore resident Sophia Kantsevoy, a 14-year-old at The Bryn Mawr School, who told the story of a house flip gone wrong in “Lunatine Lane.”
- Lucy Bray of Baltimore, an eighth-grader at Dumbarton Middle School, took third place for “House of the Impathegens,” about an alien invasion on Halloween night.