Last fall, I entered Tales to Terrify’s Halloween Micro Flash Contest with a 238-word piece called From the Dark Woods. It placed as first runner-up, and the podcast version aired October 31, 2025 — you can listen to it here.

I’m posting the text version below for the readers who’ve asked, and for anyone who finds their way to it later. The story sits in the same emotional territory as my collection Before the Hunger: Blood, Salt, Dust  – confession, ritual, the things small towns and small groups do to themselves on the wrong night of the year.

Read it slowly. In the dark. Feel the wind. Don’t look away.

From the Dark Woods

“Father, I need you to listen. Not pray. Not bless. Just listen.

It comes from the dark, dark woods. My sister told me it only stirs around Halloween, when the veil is thin and the woods remember what they’re owed.

So I brought them. Molly, Cade, Lex.
We wore the masks.
Lit the candles.
Said its name three times, just like the story said to do.

It was supposed to be a joke. A dare. But something answered.

We heard it under the bridge.
Scraping. Breathing.
It had horns, Father. Long, curved, wet with something indescribable.
Its shoulders cracked when it moved.
Its claws dragged something heavy through the leaves.

Molly ran first. The scream didn’t sound like hers.

Cade said it was a trick. Then he wasn’t speaking anymore.

Lex tried to pray. But it hates prayers. 

It wants our silence. Our guilt. Our secrets. 

I hid. Not well. Just enough to watch it drag their bodies into the creek. One by one. Beneath the bridge like offerings until they were gone and it was silent once more.

It didn’t speak, didn’t turn to look at me. But I know it saw me.

And I know what it’s waiting for.

You should tell someone. Burn the bridge. Salt the ground. Make the masks mean something again.

Because next year? Next year it won’t let me go.”

“It will come for you, child,” he answered. “It always does.”

“From the Dark Woods” was first runner-up in Tales to Terrify’s 2025 Halloween Micro Flash Contest and aired October 31, 2025. The audio version is available on the Tales to Terrify podcast (episode 718).

If this story landed for you, my first collection, Before the Hunger: Blood, Salt, Dust, is available in print from Lulu — five longer pieces in the same vein. A second collection is in progress.

Jared Ray Conger writes horror fiction and longform place-based nonfiction from Salt Lake City. More work at jaredrayconger.com.