For the last five years, when Halloween approaches, we’ve asked you to try and scare us.

A few of your nightmare-inducing stories truly made us lose sleep, while some of them made us laugh and others made us think. Now we’d like to ask you to do it again.

Once again, we’re asking you to choose from the accompanying three images of weird stuff — a skeletal hand rising from a grave during a full moon, an antique mirror covered in cobwebs, a very un-huggable stuffed toy bear — and then let your imaginations soar. From all submitted stories, our guest judge will select the three that scare or amuse or entertain them the most, and they will appear in our annual Halloween edition on October 28. All submissions must be submitted by 5 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 17.

Stories must be 500 words or less. Email your fictional creation to Community Editor David Templeton at david.templeton@arguscourier.com. Please mention the photo that inspires you, just in case we can’t figure it out.

We’re looking forward to being frightened by you.

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