Whoever said that sequels have to suck?
The quality of the entries in our Flash Monster II contest was top shelf, making the judging process that much more grueling for yours truly and associate editor Mary Bond. But that means that we’re giving our readers some Grade-A monster-themed flash fiction.
Each entry you see here will be included in next year’s Prize Winners Anthology (if you haven’t scooped this year’s print anthology, for shame). And we’re hoping to publish a print chapbook of Flash Monster II within the next few weeks for those who like the feel of paper in their hands.
“We have such sights to show you.”
– The Editor
Flash Monster Winner
The Testimony of the Accused
by Colin Rowe
2nd Place
Come Home, Sweetheart
by Cassandra A. Clarke
3rd Place
Brother Stone
by Manuel Royal
Honorable Mentions:
4th – Beyond the Block
by Aeryn Rudel
5th – Decent People
by Shawn Campbell
6th – The Garbage Men
by MB Vigil
7th – Pilot Holes
by Colton Adrian
8th – Table
by Rhett Davis
9th – Bodies in the Snow
by Chris Milam
10th – A Hands-Off Approach
by Sherry Morris
Flash Monster II has met its end.
Results and Flash Monster mega-issue on Halloween.
“The monster was the best friend I ever had.”
– Boris Karloff
(Pictured: Not Boris Karloff)
Flash Fury blew the roof off this motha. We’ve never had such a strong turnout in submissions or such a difficult decision-making process with our final cuts. The good news is that we’ve now made it through a full year’s cycle of our quarterly contests! All prize winners and runners-up will be featured in our upcoming Prize Winners print anthology. So keep on eye on social media for further details.
We’re also excited to once again revisit our #FlashMonster theme for our next contest. The prize winners and runners-up will be featured in our Halloween issue dedicated to all things Flash Monster. The Top 10 finishers will also be included in a future print anthology for our second year of quarterly contests.
The theme of Flash Monster 2 is pretty self-explanatory. We want you to retreat to the lab and not come back out until you can unleash some of the most intriguing or vile abominations ever to hit the page. Gore is cool, but so is dramatic irony and unnerving ambiguity. Basically, though, the types of monsters you can explore are limited only by your sick, sick imagination.
Therefore, monsters can include halitosis-afflicted werewolves, salad shooter-fingered bridge trolls, radioactive orangutans, resurrected pharaohs with bad perms, acid-spitting hummingbirds, zombies that only crave vampire brains, Donald Trump, a pink mist that makes people eat their own lips, ghosts of winter solstices past, a pandemic proliferated by e-cigarette huffing hipsters, sinister bubbles, leeches that can read minds, hiccups that turns people inside-out, spatula-wielding aliens, or trees that hug back.
The top three entries will win cold, hard cash—and we’re even pumping up the 2nd place prize by $25 to make the payouts all symmetrical-like.
$200 for Flash Monster winner
$100 for runner-up
$50 for second runner-up
(We also give mad props to 4th-10th place, publishing them as
Honorable Mentions in our Flash Monster mega-issue and in a future print anthology!)
Follow these guidelines, and you could have some extra coin in your pocket, and some bragging rights as this year’s Flash Monster winner.
– All submissions must absolutely be under 1,000 words, and we tend to look more kindly on 750 or fewer because… SQUIRREL!
– All contest submissions will be read blind, so we won’t be playing favorites. Sorry, Mom.
– Please paste your submission into the corresponding field. Do not list your name anywhere in your submission or we’ll assume that you don’t know how to read.
– Costs $6 $9 to enter during the Procrastinators’ Special, because, you know, gotta fund the prize money somehow. (Sorry, no refunds.)
– We reserve the right to extend deadlines if necessary (and you can probably expect our several-day Procrastinator’s Special–with corresponding increase in submission fee so it’s still fair and all).
– Submissions must be previously unpublished work, and you will retain copyright (duh).
– No limit on how many entries you can submit, but you must submit them one at a time. Don’t just mash them all in there.
– Contest submissions accepted until roughly 11:59 PST on 10/15/15 10/19/15 for Procrastinators’ Special. Winners announced by October 30th and we’ll unleash the Flash Monster prize-winners mega-issue on Halloween.
– And, most importantly, this is a FLASH MONSTER contest, therefore you must include some sort of monster or monstrous element.
However, that monster can be in any form imaginable.
So that means you can go all…
or all…
or all…
or even all…
After reading your story, we don’t want to be able to sleep a wink.
The Molotov Cocktail 
