Dark Tales from the Tarot

A series of flash fiction horrors, every other month, guided by the fateful hands of the tarot.

How it works: We shuffle a standard Rider-Waite tarot deck, cut it, and draw a single card off the top. The prompt for the month is then based on the given card’s symbolic meaning. Naturally, since this is a horror writing prompt, we gravitate toward darker interpretations of the tarot.

Our use of the tarot is not meant to be understood as a divination practice, but rather as a means of incorporating symbolism and random chance into the act of horror fiction inspiration and writing.

Winning stories (one per submission window) will be published below. Interested in submitting? Read our submission guidelines.

#NoFilter
Benjamin Vandersluis Benjamin Vandersluis

#NoFilter

Author: Ria Hill
Card: Two of Wands

On my second day at Weatherford Prep, Kara Bailey pulled me into the girl’s bathroom. 

“You look basic as hell,” she said. “Why be drab when you could be sparkling?” 

I’d seen the way Kara and her friends looked, and it wasn’t a bit like sparkling.

Read More
The Fall
Benjamin Vandersluis Benjamin Vandersluis

The Fall

Author: Demi-Louise Blackburn
Card: The World

“Don’t ever go looking at your reflection,” Nana Eddie once said, pointing at the stagnant garden pond. “Won’t do you any good. Some things we aren’t meant to know about ourselves.”

Read More
Sangre del Diablo
Benjamin Vandersluis Benjamin Vandersluis

Sangre del Diablo

Author: Rae Patterson
Card: Nine of Cups

Jacob swam down under the overhanging deck of the tipped-over ship, looking for a way in. He still had at least half an hour’s worth of air before he had to go back up to the boat owned by the guide he had hired, plenty of time to take a quick look around. Others had tried to find the wreck, others who believed the rumors that the legendary ruby, the Sangre del Diablo, had been on the Doncella when it went down so many years ago, but no one had ever come back with anything, not even information.

Read More
No Matter
Benjamin Vandersluis Benjamin Vandersluis

No Matter

Author: C.J. Subko
Card: Ace of Wands

Follow your instincts. Follow your gut. That’s what the motivational speaker had told me, the lady in the television who speaks only to me.

Passion. Intuition. Force.

Read More
Better Alone Together
Benjamin Vandersluis Benjamin Vandersluis

Better Alone Together

Author: K. A. Roy
Card: The Hermit

There were five instances where my companion came screaming out of me in all her glory. Red and luminous, pulsing with hunger, and so, so angry.

Read More