Hello ghouls of !writecel and anyone else interested in participating. With Homoween officially upon us, it is time for SpOoOkY stories
The prompt is as follows:
Your protagonist is cursed and must pass the curse along if they want their soul to see peace in this realm or the next. 
Genre and minimum word count are your choice, maximum of 1.8k words. Deadline is the 31st of October
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!bookworms !writecel Don't make me the winner by default.
The Pibbling
Cookie is a sweet 3-year-old red-nose girl looking for her furever home. She's a real couch potato who wants to cuddle all day. She LOVES treats! 🥰
Cookie moved with a certain gravity. Her jowls jiggled slightly when she walked. Her coat was white and wiry, broken by patches of rusty brown and a muzzle the color of raw meat. She strained at the purple threadbare leash, eager to meet a prospective family. The kennel tech beamed.
“She's a little big, isn't she?” Sarah said. “Are you sure that's the one you want?”
“Hi doggy!” Kenzie said, running up to the 80 pound XL Bully. Cookie gingerly sniffed the little blonde girl's face with a low snuffling sound.
Sarah cautiously ran a hand over the dog's blocky head. The tech, a petite Navajo woman, did not let go of the leash. “Looks like you're getting on well,” she said. “Should I grab the paperwork?”
“Has she lived with kids before?” Sarah said.
“Oh, she's great with just about everybody! They were originally bred as nanny dogs, you know.”
Sarah scratched behind the dog's ear. “This'll be a lot to handle… I mean, our last pet was a Pomeranian.”
“No, please Mommy, we have to get her! She's so pretty!”
Sarah frowned. She hoped Kenzie didn't need glasses. “Well, I guess it's for the best. I did want something a little bigger…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Something that can defend itself.” She still remembered Gizmo's mangled corpse after the coyote attack.
“Oh, trust me,” the tech said. “She can't be killed.”
When they arrived home, Cookie didn't charge around the house. She walked slowly, with purpose, like a guard making her rounds. Her long, overgrown claws made a distinctive tick-tick-tick on the hardwood floor. Kenzie wouldn't leave the dog alone, following her everywhere, petting her head to tail. Cookie tolerated the affection, but kept moving.
“Kenzie, maybe she needs a little space,” Sarah said.
Kenzie ignored her. She poked the dog's muzzle. “Boop!” Cookie let out the ghost of a growl.
“NO!” Sarah snapped. “Kenzie, go watch Bluey.” She handed Kenzie her iPad and shooed her from the room. “As for you,” she said to the dog. “Growl at my daughter again and I'll sell you to a Chinese restaurant. I don't care how sad she was about Gizmo, I don't care how hard she begged for a new dog. I am in charge here. Don't make me regret this.”
Cookie tilted her head in the canine affectation of listening. Sarah wasn't convinced. “They said you're crate trained,” she said. “And this shit wasn't cheap. Let's find out.” She led the dog by her collar to the cage that mayo dog owners have somehow convinced themselves isn't cruelty because “uh it's like a den bro, trust me bro.”
Cookie got inside the crate and laid down. Her eyes remained wide, piercing. “Just cool off for a bit,” Sarah said. “I'll let you out after dinner.”
Sarah went to chop some vegetables. Kenzie tapped happily away at her iPad over in her bedroom, lost in another world. Sarah would have to talk to her about how to treat the dog. Gizmo had let her treat him like a toy, but most dogs would not. Sarah put the matter out of her mind and looked down at the carrots. She diced them against the scraped-up cutting board. Thunk, thunk, thunk.
Something brushed against Sarah's leg.
“Kenzie, stay out of the—”
Cookie growled. Sarah jumped. The beast came up to her waist. “Jesus,” she breathed. “Kenzie, did you let the dog out?”
“No, Mommy,” came the call from the other room.
Sarah sighed. “Fricking garbage,” she muttered. She walked over to the living room, preparing for the worst.
The crate was shut, locked, pristine and undamaged.
She turned slowly to the dog, heart racing. Cookie's tail wagged slightly, but her face remained still and serious.
Sarah weighed the odds of supernatural malfeasance against Kenzie lying to her. She considered taking the iPad away, but that would be a punishment for her more than Kenzie.
On some nights the big, empty bed was comforting—room to stretch, roll, dissolve. Tonight it was lonely. Sarah drifted in and out of consciousness. The red digital display said 3:12. She turned it around. Seeing the time just made things worse.
A flicker of movement in the corner of her eye. A lithe canine shape padding across the dark hallway. Slender, quiet, long snout—
Coyote?
“No,” Sarah gasped. She raced down the hall, took a left through the door, and—
Nothing. Not even Cookie. Just the empty study, moonlight shining down on her cluttered desk.
She rubbed her eyes, then went to check on Kenzie. The girl slept peacefully, wrapped up in her Elsa blanket. On the rug beside the bed slept Cookie. Sarah gulped. The dog was sturdy, muscular—nothing like the shape from the hallway. She considered waking it—her—but she couldn't step closer. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.
She never did get back to sleep.
[cont'd]
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Sarah took more melatonin every night. She didn't try the crate again—perhaps afraid to test it.
Cookie stuck to Kenzie like glue. Sometimes, when Sarah got too close to her daughter, the dog would give her a peculiar side-eye, curl her lip, growl… Sarah rebuked the dog and made an appointment with a trainer.
Then there were the scratches on Kenzie's arms and legs. Not too deep—white and thin—but Sarah never saw the dog put her paws up.
Cookie wouldn't let Sarah file her nails. She growled.
On the fourth day, Sarah stepped out back to water the zinnias. Dew glistened on the rich green grass. And there was a hole—dirt scattered about the yard—and there was the mangled, decaying corpse of a Pomeranian dog, white bone beneath blackened fur, flies and maggots feasting. Sarah let out a shriek. Hot vomit filled her mouth.
Cookie stared at her, mouth covered in dried blood. Panting.
“Oh God!” Sarah ran inside, hyperventilating. “Kenzie! Kenzie!”
The girl stumbled out of her room, crying. Her arms were covered in long scratches, red, deep, sharp. This time bleeding.
“Where did you get those scratches! Did you tease the dog? What did you do?!”
“It was the coyote, Mom! The coyote in my room!”
Sarah lay in bed, quaking, hugging herself. Her trembling hand clutched her cell phone. She dialed the shelter. It rang and rang. She hung up. Tried again. Three more times. Finally there was an answer and Sarah lurched into a scattered rant, too fast to comprehend, words tumbling and falling over one another until she choked out “I-just-don't-think-she's-working-out. Can I return her Monday?”
“No.”
“No!?”
“We don't have any space right now. We have a lot of people who try to return their new pets at the first sign of some little quirk. Just check the contract. If there's no room at the shelter, you have to foster her until a suitable home is found.”
“But… I think she might be… something bad.”
“There are no bad dogs. Only bad owners.” The voice paused. “You invited her. You signed the contract. She has to feed.”
The shelter hung up.
Sarah Googled “demon pit bull coyote skinwalker contract law.”
The results were AI-written SEO slop.
Sarah Googled “demon pit bull coyote skinwalker contract law Reddit.”
Apparently, many people were having the same problem.
“Kenzie? Come to me, baby.”
“What is it Mom?” The girl's arms and legs were a tapestry of bandages.
“Cookie is a bad dog, okay? We need to find her a new home.”
“But I love her!”
“Just stay close to me. Right here on the couch. Don't get up. Whatever you hear, don't get up. Close your eyes.”
“But why?”
“It's like a game.”
“But why?”
“Do it or I'll take the iPad away.”
Kenzie curled up next to her mother on the worn-out leather sofa, and shut her eyes. Sarah got out her laptop and began to type. Next to her rested a rusty shovel.
This is Cookie, my bully mix. I am unable to take care of her any longer. She needs an experienced owner with a deep knowledge of Navajo Coyoteway customs, and no small children.
Cookie padded into the room. She showed her teeth—long, too long for any dog. Sarah clutched Kenzie close to her, pressed the girl's face against her shoulder. Darkness swirled at the edges of Sarah's vision. She nearly blacked out but wrenched her eyes away. Erased. Began to type.
This is my Cookie. She's a sweet 3-year-old red-nose girl looking for a new home. She's a real couch potato who wants to cuddle all day. She LOVES treats! She can be a little reactive, but with a bit of training she will be a wonderful family pet.
Cookie padded along the ceiling. Tick, tick, tick. Her posture was low. Stalking. Gravity affected only the tips of her cropped ears, which hung straight down. Tick, tick.
This is Cookie, my gorgeous lab mix. She's a trained service dog who just LOVES kids! You can even use her as a nanny to take care of the little ones. I wish I could keep her forever, but my racist Trump-supporting landlord said he'd put me and by 6-year-old biracial daughter out on the street unless we got rid of her. Please, will you help us?
Sarah hit Send.
Cookie dropped down from the ceiling, snapping and snarling. She lunged for Kenzie's neck. For an instant Sarah saw her true face, something older, more primal than dog or coyote. But Sarah's hands moved on their own. With titanic force she smashed the shovel into Cookie's head. The writhing shape let out a shriek. Black gooey blood sprayed from the creature. “Leave my daughter alone!” Sarah wailed. She brought down the shovel again and again. Sharp evil teeth went flying from the monster's skull.
The vicious shape flinched away, now wary. Pacing. Shadows gathered around the beast. It was growing stronger.
In Sarah's lap, Kenzie began to cry.
Again the beast attacked, again she drove it back. Again. Again! But now Sarah was bleeding too, deep oozing wounds along her arms.
Then a notification. Veronica Caldwell from Willow Street, who had two young children.
Such a beautiful baby! Can we set up a time to meet her?
“See?” Sarah said, turning the computer. “See!? I got what you want! Okay? I got what you want! Just wait a little longer!”
And slowly, impossibly, Cookie folded herself into the form of a dog. She lay down, curled up. Content.
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Amazing
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Good job bobby, here's a star
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HpLovecrafts Pibble
would 
be named YtBoi. 
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It's called life, maaan.
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Oh yeah !writecel I frickin failed at this, cocktober ended up being busy and I worked on projects that mattered more to me
And im sorry
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Cursed baby shoes. Put them on
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I've got your curse right here
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Here is my pitch:
greedyAmbitious landlord gets in possession of a lucrative estate, and it turns out that anyone who owns said property gets cursed by a ghost of a squatter that died there long ago.Our landlord has three months before the curse kills him and traps his soul in the house. Because of the curse he cannot relinquish ownership, but he still can grant it to someone else. Unwilling to give it away for free (because of his pride as a successful Landlord), he attempts to sell this obviously cursed property.
To stop his machinations the ghostly squatter employs living squatters that the landlord evicted, and some schizophrenic homeless people, so they can thwart landlord's plans of selling the property, or subverting the curse.
That's more like a short story, but the idea just popped into my head and I decided to poop it out. My writing in Polish is mediocre to bad, my English writing is just bad (passive voice, wtf is that?), so I wasn't going to write it anyway.
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Write it in Polish and I will read fr fr
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With my skill and work ethic I doubt it will be good or done on time.
But I'll consider it. Maybe I find some will and inspiration.
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