What Are My Favourite Two-Sentence Horror Stories?

Written By D. T. Adams

Two-sentence horror stories are great! I thoroughly enjoy writing them and have self-published no fewer than 1,200 of them so far. There are six instalments in my Terror in Brief series, each one containing 200 two-sentence horror stories. Having written so many of them, I thought I’d put together a blog post in which I let you know what my favourites are. There are loads of candidates and deciding which ones to include hasn’t been easy. Ask me on multiple days and you’d probably get a different line-up on each day.

Top 20 Two-Sentence Horror Stories

Below you’ll find my 20 favourite two-sentence horror stories in no particular order. These are just a small selection of the many Terror in Brief stories I’ve written. I like all of them for various reasons. I couldn’t decide on an order for these 20, though I have come up with a list of my Top 5. Carry on reading to find out what these are.

Now For Number 5 …

Who's the Real Author? from Terror in Brief: Volume IV

‘Who’s the Real Author?’ from Terror in Brief: Volume IV

This one simply had to be somewhere in my Top 5! I’m a big fan of anything ‘meta’ and for me, this story ticks that box.

What inspired this story was ghostwriters, funnily enough. I saw some celebrity autobiography being promoted and wondered how much the famous person had actually written themselves. A lot of the time with this type of book, there’s a ghostwriter producing some, or even all, of the words.

At the time, I was working on Terror in Brief: Volume IV. Since I liked the idea of a ghostwriter, I decided to write a story about one for the newest Terror in Brief e-book. One thing I knew right away was that it wouldn’t involve an actual ghost; the writer would be human.

Usually, ghostwriters are paid and are happy to do the job. With this being horror, I had to flip that upside down. The ghostwriter in ‘Who’s the Real Author?’ isn’t getting paid and is most certainly not in a pleasant situation!

Before you say anything, this is a two-sentence horror story I wrote myself. I haven’t got a ghostwriter locked up somewhere, forcibly churning out stories; and no, there’s no spare room of mine with dangerous tools hanging up.

And anyway, I know from experience that kitchen utensils are much more effective at coercing people into doing things for you …. oops, delete that!

My Fourth Favourite Is …

Two Against One from Terror in Brief: Volume III

‘Two Against One’ from Terror in Brief: Volume III

I find that most of my two-sentence horror stories focus on one type of threat. ‘Two Against One’ is different from most others in that it brings together two different threats – a vampire and a zombie – and has them target the same victim, who is a little girl.

The inspiration for this story came about when I was looking through some stories I’d already written for Terror in Brief: Volume III. I realised that there weren’t any other stories that had multiple threats, so I decided to write one that ticked the unticked box.

Choosing the two threats to feature in the story was easy. I decided it would have to be two beings/characters that would attack their victim in a similar way. The vampire bites the neck and drinks blood, while the zombie bites skin pretty much anywhere else on the body and eats it.

Naturally, I made the victim a young girl to make the story even more shocking. There was no point in having a strong, burly, muscular man in his physical prime the target of the vampire and zombie. It had to be someone physically inferior, someone inexperienced in life and drenched in innocence.

In Third Place Is …

It's Always With Me from Terror in Brief

‘It’s Always With Me’ from Terror in Brief: Volume VI

What I really like about ‘It’s Always With Me’ is that it takes a common saying and twists it. Instead of the nameless main character simply being scared of anything and everything, they actually fear their own shadow because of what it’s done.

This brings up a lot of questions. What is the shadow physically capable of? What has it done? What has the main character been forced to witness?

Your shadow is always with you; this is reflected in the story’s title. Whoever the poor owner of this shadow is, they will be forced to watch it commit terrible acts for the rest of their life. There’s no escaping your shadow.

I was inspired to write this Terror in Brief: Volume VI story when I heard someone use the phrase ‘scared of their own shadow’. I knew then and there that I had to write a story about it. Like I do with lots of sayings and phrases, I interpreted ‘scared of their own shadow’ literally and developed the story from there.


Second Place Goes To …

A Taste of Love from Terror in Brief: Volume II

‘A Taste of Love’ from Terror in Brief: Volume II

This was my personal favourite for quite a while, but another two-sentence horror story recently pipped it to the post.

I’m really happy with ‘A Taste of Love’ for various reasons. First, it’s about as short as you can get at just six words long, with each word a monosyllable and a total of four unique words. What I also like is that the two sentences are almost identical, though the first one is completely innocent and the second one is horrific, to say the least!

If you’ve read my blog post on How to Write Two-Sentence Horror Stories, you’ll know that common sayings are one of my sources of inspiration for writing extremely short tales of terror.

When writing Terror in Brief: Volume II, I thought about all sorts of everyday phrases. As soon as I recalled ‘Boy meets girl …’, I knew there was a two-sentence horror story in there somewhere. Realising that ‘meets’ rhymes with ‘eats’, the story pretty much wrote itself!

And Now … My Favourite Two-Sentence Horror Story!

Suspicious Deliveries from Terror in Brief: Volume V

‘Suspicious Deliveries’ from Terror in Brief: Volume V

Just beating ‘A Taste of Love’ to the top spot is this rather grisly story from Terror in Brief: Volume V. The more I think about this story, the more I like it.

I’ve written quite a few tales involving abduction and people going missing. While writing the fifth Terror in Brief e-book, I decided there should be a story about abduction, but instead of the victim never returning, they should indeed return – in a horrific way, of course.

My first idea was for the victim, Gregory, to be dumped in his garden piece by piece. I wanted something simpler and more effective, so I thought of how people at home, i.e. Gregory’s family, would actually receive him. I soon realised that having the victim be returned by post would be a great ending to the story.

What I like about ‘Suspicious Deliveries’ is that the first sentence is already quite horrific, and yet the second one amplifies the horror to a much higher degree. Poor Gregory is in the hands of a psychopathic serial killer and doesn’t stand much of a chance of surviving.

While this is an awful situation in itself, what makes it worse is the second sentence: the killer chops up Gregory’s body and posts it to his family, so they get to see the result of his murderous action.

The next time you receive a mysterious package in the post, you might want to think twice about opening it …

Discover More Two-Sentence Horror Stories

You’ve now read 10 of my two-sentence horror stories. There are 1,180 others waiting for you! If you’ve enjoyed getting a taste of my incredibly short tales of terror, why not read some more? Download a Terror in Brief e-book (they can be read in any order) and see how much fear, dread, anticipation and disgust can be packed into two sentences. You’ll find the all-important links below.

Thanks for Reading

If you’ve enjoyed this blog post, read my Terror in Brief e-books and see which of the many two-sentence horror stories is your favourite. Check out my blog post How to Read Two-Sentence Horror Stories and find out how to read these incredibly short tales of terror more effectively. Before you cast your eyes elsewhere, I’ll leave you with this frightening and disturbing story ….

D. T. Adams
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