This category was previously titled "best short story". Nominees are listed below the winner(s) for each year.

Short Story:

  • 1987: "The Deep End" by Robert R. McCammon
    • "Friend's Best Man" by Jonathan Carroll
    • "This Old Man" by Charles L. Grant
    • "Day-Tay-Vao" by F. Paul Wilson
    • "Traps" by F. Paul Wilson
  • 1988: "Night They Missed the Horrow Show" by Joe R. Lansdale
    • "The Young Thing at the Top of the Stairs" by Ray Bradbury
    • "She's a Young Thing and Cannot Leave Her Mother" by Harlan Ellison
    • "The Music of the Dark time" by Chet Williamson
    • "Jack's Decline" by Lucius Shepard
    • "Nobody Lives There Now" by Carol Orlock
  • 1989: "Eat Me" by Robert R. McCammon
    • "A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned" by Edward Bryant
    • "Bodies and Heads" by Steve Rasnic Tem
    • "Each Night, Each Year" by Kathryn Ptacek
    • "'Yore Skin's Jes's Soft 'n Purdy' He Said" by Chet Williamson
  • 1990: "The Calling" by David B. Silva
    • "Back Windows" by Steve Rasnic Tem
    • "But You'll Never Follow Me" by Karl Edward Wagner
    • "From the Papers of Helmut Hecher" by Chet Williamson
    • "The Loneliest Number" by Edward Bryant
  • 1991: "Lady Madonna" by Nancy Holder
    • "The Ash of Memory, the Dust of Desire" by Poppy Z. Brite
    • "Love Doll: A Fable" by Joe R. Lansdale
    • "The Braille Encyclopaedia" by Grant Morrison
    • "Wolf Winter" by Maxine O'Callaghan
    • "Richard's Head" by Al Sarrantonio
  • 1992: "This Year's Class Picture" by Dan Simmons
    • "Farm Wife" by Nancy Kilpatrick
    • "Did They Get You to Trade?" by Karl Edward Wagner
    • "Come One, Come All" by Gahan Wilson
    • "Bright Lights, Big Zombie" by Douglas E. Winter
  • 1993: "I Hear the Mermaids Singing" by Nancy Holder
    • "Death Fiend Guerrillas" by William S. Burroughs
    • "Distances" by Sherman Alexie
    • "The Dog Park" by [[Dennis Etchison]
    • "Pain Grin" by Wayne Allen Sallee
  • 1994: "The Box" by Jack Ketchum (tie)
  • 1994: "Cafe Endless: Spring Rain" by Nancy Holder (tie)
    • "Mr. Torso" by Edward Lee
    • "Things of Which We Do Not Speak" by Lucy Taylor
  • 1995: "Chatting With Anubis" by Harlan Ellison
    • "Becky Lives" by Harry Crews
    • "The Bunglaow House" by Thomas Ligotti
    • "The Death of the Novel" by William Browning Spencer
  • 1996: "metalica" by P.D. Cacek
    • "The Slobbering Tounge That Ate the Frightfully Huge Woman" by Robert Devereaux
    • "The Secret Shih Tan" by Graham Masterson
    • "The House of Mourning" by Brian Stableford
    • "Plan 10 from Inner Space" by Karl Edward Wagner
  • 1997: "Rat Food" by Edo van Belkom & David Nickle
    • "I Am Infinite, I Contain Multitudes" by Douglas Clegg
    • "A Plague on Both Your Houses" by Scott Edelman
    • "Madame Babylon" by Brian Hodge

Short Fiction:
  • 1998: "The Dead Boy at Your Window" by Bruce Holland Rogers
    • "Blues-Born" by Tina L. Jens
    • "Autopsy Room Four" by Stephen King
    • "The Rug" by Edo van Belkom
  • 1999: "Aftershock'' by F. Paul Wilson
    • "The Grave" by P.D. Cacek
    • "The Entertainment" by Ramsey Campbell
    • "Halloween Street" by Steve Rasnic Tem
  • 2000: "Gone" by Jack Ketchum
    • "Dead Cat Bounce" by Gerard Daniel Houarner
    • "Fallen Angel" by Robert J. Sawyer
    • "Mexican Moon" by Karen E. Taylor
  • 2001: "Reconstructing Amy" by Tim Lebbon
    • "I Am Your Need" by Mort Castle
    • "The Haunt" by Jack Ketchum
    • "Whose Puppets, Best and Worst, Are We?" by David B. Silva
  • 2002: "The Misfit Child Grows Fat on Depair" by Tom Piccirilli
    • "Dissapearances" by Mort Castle
    • "The Green Man" by Christopher Fowler
    • "The Plague Species" by Charlee Jacob
    • "Details" by China Mieville

See also