
Our second annual Nightmare Fuel: Scary Story Contest entries did not disappoint in 2024! Writers in Grades 6-12 were challenged to craft their best scary stories in 2,000 words or less and send them in for judging by three librarians who love a thrill. Thank you to everyone who submitted their work to the contest. All of the stories were inventive, unique, and truly spine-chilling!
Please enjoy reading the two winning stories below!
Winners:
"Dolled Up" by Zoe R. (14 years old)
"A Country of Eternal Light" by Regulus C. (16 years old)
"Dolled Up" by Zoe R.
The house on the end of the street is haunted. Do you believe me? No?
Let me tell you the story, then, child. If you don’t believe me yet, just wait.
On Halloween night many years ago, three highschoolers, Lina Morray, Hanna Jackson, and Keira Lancaster, walked to the house at the end of the street.
There was no cell phone reception on that corner. Everyone just assumed it was out of range of the other wifi. The girls knew that once they were in the house, they’d have no way to contact the outside. They didn’t care, though. It seemed harmless—a daring, yet still safe, way to have a little fun on the scariest night of the year.
They avoided the small trick-or-treaters and beelined for the house at the end of the street with its pointed black roof and its bloodred door.
“Guys, is this safe?” Hanna’s blue eyes were full of skepticism.
“Stop being a baby.” Lina rolled her eyes and tossed her long, shiny black hair over her shoulder. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Honestly,” Keira agreed. “It’s only a house. And it’s Halloween. You’re just scared.”
“Fine!” Hanna relented. She jokingly said, “If we die, I get to say I told you so.”
Keira cracked a smile. “Deal.”
Now they were at the end of the street, standing in front of the house. As they took it in, they all felt shivers go down their spines. Afraid of being called chicken, none of them admitted it aloud.
“Well? Let’s go,” Lina said, but her voice lacked the same bravado it had before.
Hanna looked around worriedly. “Are you sure—”
“Yes, I’m sure, Hanna! Stop being so weird about it! Ugh!”
“Okay, guys,” Keira said. “Let’s just go in, look around, and be done with it.”
“Okay,” Hanna relented, her voice small.
The girls made their way up the winding path.
Then they were at the door. Lina glanced back at Kiera and Hanna for a second, hoping they’d tell her to stop, and then pushed the handle down and swung the door open.
It was obvious that the door had remained closed for a long time. The creak it made as it swung open sounded like a scream and made Hanna jump.
“Why does it have to sound like that?” she whined, covering her ears.
“Because it’s abandoned, stupid,” Lina said, forging further inside.
Keira followed, looking back at Hanna, who came in a second later.
Lina was exploring the front room, which was covered in dust and cobwebs. The walls were pale yellow and the floors a light brown wood, but the room still somehow felt dark and small. Maybe it had to do with the trinkets covering every surface, or the fact that all the furniture was stained dark cherry.
Hanna remained in the middle of the room, hesitant. Lina had no such qualms. She picked up everything she saw. Keira didn’t touch things, but she inspected the interesting items. Lina flipped over an ornate wooden hourglass and set it back down. As soon as she took her hand off of it, a high-pitched, sickeningly sweet voice reverberated around the room: “Your time starts now.”
The front door slammed itself shut. All sources of light seemed to leave the room. Hanna screamed and Lina dropped the teacup she was holding, which shattered all over the floor.
The voice returned. “You made a mistake coming here. Find me, and you might walk free.”
Keira’s voice was shaky as she asked, “Which of you is doing that? Stop it!”
“It’s not me!” Lina said. “Hanna?”
“You think I would do this?” Hanna was speaking much faster than usual. “You dragged us into this place!”
“Well, you shouldn’t have followed us in here, then!” Lina exclaimed, her voice growing steadily higher.
“What do you mean?” Hanna cried. “You forced me to follow you!”
“Whoa! Guys! Calm down!” Keira couldn’t see, but she tried her best to get in between Lina and Hanna. “It’s no one’s fault. I’m sure this is just someone trying to scare us.”
“Well, it’s working!” Hanna said. “I want to leave. Where’s the door?”
“You were right by it when it closed,” Keira said. “Can you try and feel around for it?”
“I don’t want to reach out into the dark,” Hanna whispered.
Lina sighed. “You are so annoying. Say something so I can find you.”
“Uh, something.”
Lina somehow sounded like she was rolling her eyes. “Say more than just that, Hanna.”
“Something, something, something—” Hanna cut off with a scream.
Lina shrieked too. “What did I just touch?”
“What just touched me?” Hanna cried at almost the same time.
“You touched each other,” Keira said.
“No, we didn’t!” Hanna exclaimed. “It was smooth and it felt like fingers but it touched my face and it was cold!”
“I touched porcelain! I know I did!” Lina said. “It was like Hanna described!”
Keira reached out in front of her. She inched forward bit by bit until she felt hair—but it was too smooth to be actual hair. It was like the plastic fibers that doll’s hairs are made of. She pulled on it slightly, and Lina screamed. “Something’s pulling my hair!”
Keira dropped her fistful of Lina’s hair. “It was me. I found you.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Lina said. “Now, let’s find the door.”
“Wait,” Keira interrupted. “Your hair. It feels weird.”
Lina reached around and ran her fingers through her hair. “It feels normal.”
“It’s—I don’t know. It felt fake when I pulled it.”
“Fake?”
“Yeah. Like synthetic, or something.”
Hanna broke into the conversation. “Can we please focus on getting out of here?” she begged.
“I was trying, and then Keira told me I had fake hair!”
“I did not!” Keira argued.
“Stop it!” Hanna yelled.
Lina and Keira were shocked into silence.
“Sorry,” Hanna said. “I just really hate it when I have to watch people fight.”
“No, it’s fine,” Keira said.
Just then, the voice returned. “Your time is halfway up.”
All three girls screamed.
“There was that voice again,” Keira said. “It wasn’t one of us. I know it wasn’t.”
Now, they didn’t know it yet, but I will tell you. The process had already started. It could not be undone. ‘What process,’ you ask? Keep listening, child. Keep listening.
Lina stubbornly refused to show any fear. “What did it say the first time? ‘Find me’? That’s some first-rate horror crap right there. Should we try and find it?”
“No!” Hanna cried immediately. “Like you just said: first-rate horror!”
“I said it was crap,” Lina corrected. “Maybe someone set this up and if we just find the thing, they’ll let us out.”
Keira interjected again: “Do you remember any doors leading out of this room?”
“Yeah,” Hanna said. “There was one on the side, and one straight ahead.”
“Okay. Grab my shirt,” Keira said. “We’re gonna find that door.”
She felt two hands take hold of her shirt, and she held her hands in front of her face as she began to inch forward. Eventually, her hands came upon a wooden door. She found the handle and turned it, pushing the door open. Weak light spilled into the room, illuminating all three girls’ pale faces. They were shiny with what looked like sweat. Keira turned, but Hanna didn’t let go of her shirt.
“Sorry,” Hanna said. “Let me just—”
She pulled so hard on Keira’s shirt that she almost fell over. “Hanna!”
“Sorry, sorry! My hand’s cramped, I think,” Hanna said apologetically.
“It’s fine,” Keira sighed.
After a couple more seconds, Hanna yanked her hand free of Keira’s shirt. Keira looked down. “Hanna! You ripped my shirt!”
“I—what?”
“Look!” Keira gestured at the now-ripped hem of her shirt.
“My hand is really cramped, I’m sorry!” Hanna exclaimed. “I don’t know how I managed to do that!”
Lina looked into the next room and pointed. “Guys, shut up and look at this!”
Keira and Hanna turned, and as soon as they did, they saw exactly what Lina meant. The room was fully covered in dolls. Every surface, every inch of floor along the wall—porcelain dolls. But the weirdest part was that they all had human proportions, and they were human-sized.
“I’ve never seen a doll that looks this realistic before,” Lina said. She reached out to touch one of them, and the sweet voice came back. It sounded more human this time, less metallic and mechanical.
“Don’t touch, my dear.” Lina jumped. “You don’t want to go around touching things that don’t belong to you, do you?”
“Who are you?” Lina said. “What sound system do you have in this house? Do you own this place?”
She didn’t expect anyone to respond, but the voice returned. “Yes, my dear, I own this house. The previous owner met an unfortunate end, and she left it all for me.”
“Why? What are we supposed to be doing?”
“Find me,” the voice said again.
“Where?”
There was no response to that.
“Oh-kay,” Lina said. “That’s weird.”
“Why would you talk to it?” Hanna asked.
Lina rolled her eyes. “It’s just some little kid trying to be scary. Grow up.” She turned around, her eyes flitting across the dolls in the room. They were all in various poses. Most of them either looked confused or terrified. Some of them had grabbed their hair or wrists and were looking at them as if they weren’t their own.
Keira suddenly started walking towards one of the dolls. It looked like, if it were human, it would have been a few years younger than the three girls. It had platinum blond hair in a bob, bright green eyes, and was holding her face, looking like she hadn’t know it was there until she touched it. It was weird, but she looked almost familiar.
Hanna gasped from behind Keira. “Is that Jenny?”
Keira’s eyes widened. Hanna was right. This doll was an exact replica of their friend Jenny. She moved to a boarding school a few years ago, after she went missing for a week and two days. Her parents said she didn’t want to live around here anymore. No one even saw her after she came back.
Keira turned to Hanna, but she fell. Her right leg hadn’t cooperated. Her knee felt locked. She put out her hands to soften her fall, but her left fist didn’t unclench. She landed hard on her knuckles.
“Ow!” she cried out, before realizing that nothing hurt.
Shouldn’t it feel like her knuckle was about to bruise?
She looked at her hand, and to her horror, the only thing there was a dark crack, spanning across all of her knuckles. It looked like the type of crack that would appear in—
Do you understand the process now, child?
“Porcelain,” she said aloud.
“What?” Hanna asked.
“Wha duh yuh mean?” Lina said, then frowned. “I think mah jaw is cramped.”
“No,” Keira said. “We—we need to get out of here.” She couldn’t take her eyes off her hand. In the dim light, she couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like her fingers were slowly connecting to each other, becoming webbed all the way up.
Hanna ran her fingers through her hair—a nervous habit. She startled when it felt slick. She looked, and it was definitely synthetic. She tried to remove her fingers from her hair, but they seemed stuck. They all tried to move, to scream, but they couldn’t.
Lina, the last one looking up, saw as a woman—no, a doll—enter the room. She had white porcelain skin, long black hair, black holes for eyes, and a gruesomely pleasant smile that bared every tooth in her mouth.
The last thing Lina ever saw were my eyes as their inkiness swirled and expanded to cover her entire vision, completing the process. They’re all mine now; they joined my collection. And you, child, are next.
"A Country of Eternal Light" by Regulus C.
Sal knew what had to be done.
Of course, he didn’t want to. If there was another way, he would have taken it by now. He had tried everything, from the membranes of eggshells to snakeskin, but none of it worked. He couldn’t risk more damage to his materials. Sal knew what had to be done.
He felt the urge to give up, to run back home and pretend he never read that stupid book. Or taken that stupid anatomy class. But he couldn't have gone this far for nothing. He was on the brink of a breakthrough, a miracle. He couldn’t lose his nerve. Sal knew what had to be done.
His sister told him he was the smartest person she knew. His friends told him he was a genius. His middle school science teacher told him he’d be famous one day.
His mom told him she’d give anything to bring his sister back.
So would Sal.
Sal knew what had to be done.
After the funeral, Sal’s buddy had joked that Sal could get into any college he wanted if he wrote about his sister.
Imagine the essay he could write if he pulled this off.
Sal knew what had to be done.
It had taken weeks to get everything together. The first thing he did after he found out was set up electricity to the shed in the woods. Any other sixteen year old kid buying a generator and a defibrillator would raise questions, but being the town genius had its advantages. The cashier had asked him about it, but once Sal started rambling nonsense about electric cell activity and laws of physics, she quickly lost interest.
Then the stealing. Of course, he was scared that the news of someone taking from the morgue would get around. So, he only took a little at a time. A clavicle here, a brachialis there. Then he’d stuff the empty space with cotton and stitch it up, and it looked like new. It’s just like being an organ donor, really, he told himself. Just giving something up that they aren’t even using. To save a life.
The worst part was digging her up. Sal did that the night of the funeral.
He hated the way her face looked, how her skin was ice cold.
How the embalming fluid wept from her forehead as he retrieved the brain.
But all that was behind him, and now he had everything. All of it, in one place, ready for him to make history. Ready for him to be just like the book, but better. A teenage Victor Frankenstein. Except one thing.
Sal knew what had to be done.
He walked through the woods, slowly and silently. He was used to manically sprinting back home, realizing his parents would be waking up for work soon, but tonight, he was in no rush. It was only two in the morning.
They would both be fast asleep, not suspecting a thing. Frankly, he wanted the trip to take as long as possible. He even took a break to vomit just before he reached his backyard.
He slipped in through the back door, sweating despite the cold. Every creak in the floor made bile rise in his throat. He turned the scalpel in his hand slowly as he pushed open the door to his parent’s room.
His mom told him she’d give anything to bring his sister back. And she had exactly what he needed.
The one thing you can’t take from a body without anyone noticing.
The skin.
With clammy, shaking hands, he held the scalpel to her wrist.
Sal knew what had to be done.
Thanks for reading! Look out for next year's Nightmare Fuel!

About the Author
Kristen is a Youth Services Librarian and has been working at EPL since 2013. She is a wannabe gardener who loves movies, the night sky, and avoiding the claws of her cat. Her reading interests tend toward short stories, as well as novels that are a blend of eerie, insightful, and magical.