Hall-18 Writing Contest

[Fro]

Discussion thread

A little short notice, but here it is...

Welcome to the 2018 Halloween Writing Contest!

Submit your Halloween, horror, spooky, and/or creepy themed story for a chance to win a prize/prizes. (TBD by Tom) Last year there was a big turn out because we had posted in advance, but I still have faith that we will get some great stories nonetheless.

Due date:

October 31st 2018

Rules/Info:

Submit multiple pieces or just a single piece. While I don't necessarily mind multiple pieces, it would be nice to see the effort and time put into a single work instead.

Please write original pieces. While I wouldn't really know that you pulled up an old piece of writing you made years ago it does kind of defeat the purpose of the competitions. (To write!)

All writing types are allowed. Short stories, long stories, poems, etc... If you aren't sure if it's allowed just ask. Chances are it will be.

Other:

It's a good idea to write in your preferred program and then copy/paste into notepad to get rid of some of the weird formatting between Word and newgrounds that can happen. Whenever I post I write in word, copy/paste into notepad, then copy/paste into an old newgrounds blog page to make sure the format look good before posting.

Try to keep your story posted together. It just makes for smoother reading. If you see someone else posting their story please wait until they've finished.

If your story will be multiple posts it's not a bad idea to write "continued on next post" or something similar to help judges and other people who are posting stories stay organized.

Don't comment in this thread unless you are posting your story. Please comment in the discussion thread posted here and on the top of the page.

[C-Ninja]

At 10/3/18 10:51 AM, Fro wrote: Discussion thread

A little short notice, but here it is...

Welcome to the 2018 Halloween Writing Contest!

Submit your Halloween, horror, spooky, and/or creepy themed story for a chance to win a prize/prizes. (TBD by Tom) Last year there was a big turn out because we had posted in advance, but I still have faith that we will get some great stories nonetheless.

Due date:

October 31st 2018

Rules/Info:

Submit multiple pieces or just a single piece. While I don't necessarily mind multiple pieces, it would be nice to see the effort and time put into a single work instead.

Please write original pieces. While I wouldn't really know that you pulled up an old piece of writing you made years ago it does kind of defeat the purpose of the competitions. (To write!)

All writing types are allowed. Short stories, long stories, poems, etc... If you aren't sure if it's allowed just ask. Chances are it will be.

Other:

It's a good idea to write in your preferred program and then copy/paste into notepad to get rid of some of the weird formatting between Word and newgrounds that can happen. Whenever I post I write in word, copy/paste into notepad, then copy/paste into an old newgrounds blog page to make sure the format look good before posting.

Try to keep your story posted together. It just makes for smoother reading. If you see someone else posting their story please wait until they've finished.

If your story will be multiple posts it's not a bad idea to write "continued on next post" or something similar to help judges and other people who are posting stories stay organized.

Don't comment in this thread unless you are posting your story. Please comment in the discussion thread posted here and on the top of the page.

I pulled this one out of the vault. I'm probably going to write another poem for this. But for now, you'll just have to stick with this.

"Ghost Town"

The wind is a slow airborne highway
Giving refreshment to not a single one
The civilization is forever at bay
The town’s work is officially done

A group led by a wild-eyed yahoo
Kindling painful desperation
A bloody knife tearing the innocent through
Extinguishing the last spark of salvation

The vacuum of perennial sin
Sucking up every lost soul
Leaving society to rot and the hope within
To freeze in the immoral pole

Welcome to the city that never sleeps
The town housing only buried weeps

[gameguy96]

Apocalypse has started

Saturated by the smell.
Blood drips down upon the ground.
It was now a living hell.
Her screams were the only sound.

Seven of each was the plan.
Limbs scattered all around him.
This was not a mortal man.
Chances of escape were slim.

A demons way to reach high.
The imperfect would now heal.
He would soon reach every sky.
Broken was his final seal.

At the city of Uruk.
Beelzebub would rise again.
Humanity is now stuck.
The devils completed chain.

Lucifer is now perfect.
And this world is finally wrecked.

P.s.
Just a symbolism list, because I don’t want to torture anyone.
19 lines, 19 stands for a journey from start to end. A.k.a. the end of the world.
7 syllables, the number of completion.
6 segments with three rhyme ends(not sure about the proper term) but that forms 666
96 words, 96 AD is the year the Book of Revelation was probably written.
1 2323 2323 2323 2323 44, count those up. You get 49, the square of 7, again completion.
133 syllables in total. 133AD, the year Sextus Julius Severus was sent to quell the Bak Kokhba revolt.

[dragonqueen20034]

The Inheritance

Mallory Grindelberg, was turning 18 in two weeks. She was More than ready, she had an apartment set up, a job she loved and her life was on the track she had dreamed of. Her parents were both passed on, the only family she had left, was her brother and grandmother. Her grandmother was ill and being taken care of by them, her and her brother worked round the clock to make sure she was well cared for. What she didn't know was how her life was about to change. Her grandmother died exactly one week to the day before her 18th birthday. She and her brother fought and he quit speaking to her, and her best friend had moved to Africa for missionary work. Now she was alone and bored with no one to celebrate her big day with. Two days before her birthday there was a knock on the door of her grandmother's mansion. A man in a suit stood patiently at the door, with a briefcase in hand and a creepy grin on his face. Mallory opened the door, and in an instant the sky went from crystal clear blue to deep ashen grey. Thunderous booms rolled across the sky and flashes of lightning lit up the foyer as if there were floodlights. A shiver went up her spine as she shakily asked the man, "M-may I help you?" His grin grew wider, if it were possible, and his teeth bared a striking resemblance to that of a demon in a scary story. Sharp looking and pointed, yellow staining and grime built up near the gums. His voice was almost exactly like the sound of nails on a chalkboard and sent more chills down her spine. His words drawn out like he was a sloth and his s's sounded like that of a snake. "Yeesssss, are you Mallory Grindelberg? Granddaughter of Gretchen Grindelberg." Her mouth went dry and her voice cracked as she heard his voice, stuttering she answered with what little voice she could muster. "Y-y-yes, I- I am." His grin now stretching the width of his face and his eyes looking almost as if they were glowing. Mallory shivered and stood there as one of his long spindle-like hands reached into his briefcase. He pulled out a paper and handed it to her as he asked, "Maaay I come in?" Hesitantly she let him in and shut the door, as the latch clicked the lights in the house flickered. She led him to the study and let him sit down, then she went to the kitchen to get a glass of water for the two of them. She went back and gave him his glass which he thanked her for and promptly set on the desk. As she sat down she looked over the paper, her grandmother's will. Stating that the property and everything in it were hers, and that she was to gain 2.5 million dollars that was in a savings account of her grandmother's as well. She sat dumbfounded and bewildered with no words to say. She would have to give up her apartment but she was glad she had somewhere to go. Suddenly the man who hadn't spoke in all this time said a few simple words. "May I have some more water?" She looked at his glass which was now empty and was in shock. Smiling she nodded and got up grabbing his glass, "Of course, I'll be right back." As she headed back from the kitchen she heard a strange noise like hissing. Blowing it off she kept moving towards the study. Without a warning the power shut off and she couldn't see in the halls to get back to the study. She tripped over her own foot but caught herself. Straightening up she sighed and walked into the study, where he was seated, "Sorry, I guess it really is an old house. Here is your wa-" She trailed off as she looked up at him. Seeing a steady warm yellow glow emanate around him, she couldn't help but gasp, dropping the glass of water. Where his face once had been, now revealed a monster, something like she had never seen before. She tried to scream but it was almost as if she was being choked while no one was touching her. Her throat tight and her voice gone she had no way to call for help. His voice no longer human sounding, but more like the reptilian demon he was. "Finally, time to eat. I've been waiting for this moment sssince I killed your grandmother! Now you'll be my next food sssssource for the next 30 yearsssss of your life!" His voice steady and voracious, drool dripping from his jaw as if he was looking at a prime rib. She tried to run out the the room but she had no where to go, he stood between her and the door and she felt like she was slower than a snail. She let a tear fall down her face as her vision began to blur, and she faded into a deep blackness. Her body filled with sharp stabbing pain, her arms and legs felt as though they were weighed down. Her eyes wouldn't open and she could feel his hot breath on her neck. This was it, the end of her life and she hadn't even been able to declare herself an adult yet. She wanted to yell, scream, cry, shout, something but the most that came out of her was the meekest whimper she had ever heard. His hands roaming her every inch and his voice grating the back of her mind. "Your mine now Mallory, forever and ever. My food, my lover, my essence. Everything about you is mine, no one can have you, no one can know about me, you won't even know I'm here." She shivered and cried as his ominous presence was overwhelming, and almost suffocating. Just when she felt like she was slipping into a deep sleep, a voice different from the beast before her broke the deafening silence. Her brother, yelling her name through the mansion, and then another. One she was sure was just her imagination, her grandmother. "Mallory! Hello, Mallory!" She wanted to yell for help she wanted to cry out but still so choked by his power and ability she couldn't make a sound. Suddenly, like a flash of lightning her eyes popped open her body flat and her view the ceiling of her bedroom. Her bedroom, her in pajamas in her bed and her brother and grandmother walking in holding a cake with candles. "Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Mallory! Happy birthday to you!" A dream, it was all a dream, she had such a night mare she thought it was real. Everything seemed so real, like it had actually happened but it was a dream! She sighed with relief smiled at her brother and grandmother and sat up in bed. "Thank you!" She blew out her candles and relaxed back against the head board of the bed. As they left the room, she rubbed her neck and felt a scar, like two bite marks, she raced to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. There on her neck symmetrically spaced were two bumps, like the bite of a vampire. "But it was just a dream." A voice in the air, echoing around her like a ghostly presence. "Or was it?"

By: D.

Enjoy!

[juicedrop]

Shadow in the Dark

Ricky was a big fan of Halloween. For every year since age 3 he has been going up to the house of a stranger, getting candy from them. But today... there was a big turning point. Now Ricky is 11 and he has always been too scared of the house far away from any other homes, about a tenth of a mile. But Ricky worked up the courage. His bucket was around 3/4 filled and he ventured forth, hoping for some good rewards. His friends were cheering him on from behind, but when he looked back they were gone. He screamed and started running. His candy was falling but every single time he looked back they were gone. By the time he made it his bucket was only half full. He knocked on the door and out came a tall man; Around 7'5, but that was an estimate. His towering appearance freaked out Ricky, but he kept on going.
The man gave him a load of candy, the bucket was almost fully filled. The man went back inside, but he forgot to close the door. Probably a clumsy man, too. Ricky noticed the candy was just candy corn... except for a tiny bar of Hershey's. Ricky snuck inside, with the last time he did something even remotely close to this was when he was 9 trying to move through his house trying to steal his games back. This means everything. He was in the house, and the door shut on it's own. Ricky quickly tried to leave, but he realized it was locked. He heard a deep voice say "Who dares enter my castle?" and Ricky realized he had to get out.
He realized he could just unlock the door but that wouldn't work. He needed some brute strength. He saw the shadow of the man... but there was no body. The shadow came closer and it started to rise. In it's hand was... a fork. And when it got closer it started glowing blue. Then it turned orange. And then it was invisible.

Then Ricky was gone.

Oh, here's a poem I wrote when I was 10 that I have remastered.

The house on Maple Street.
The mouse who never squeaked.
Came 4 friends together
in the finest weather.
It was the final hour.
So they felt like they had the power.
When one of them went in...
Everything went down the bin!
All they could face was sin...
They knew they couldn't win.
The owners came on
and said something real long.
One of them said.
They'll have a head.
There had to be a sacrifice
or they won't be going to bed!

This is my final post on Newgrounds.

[LickBit]

My entry. Pretty short.

Up in the hills, beyond the moor,
Behind the graveyard, through the doors
Is a creation, like no other
It's orange and some make do as supper.
Some have glowing eyes, like a flickering light
Impaled on faces, their jagged smiles lighting the night.
In other festivities, pies are made
As well as deserts and breads, for many a decade.
Food or candles, you may choose,
But for Halloween, surely you won't lose,
A pumpkin.

[GXFICH]

I lie here in the graveyard where all earthly debts are paid,
but this world still owes me and so it`s going to pay.

My father was a highborn clergyman though I lie in a paupers grave.
My life it was a hard one full of suffering and pain, my death was long and early and Bitterness was all I had.

Now cheerfulness and celebration fair breaks my clayish heart and now the sound of joy and laughter hurts my skull so bad I rise up to the sky and then I roam the world.

I frighten herds of cattle and I make the horses buck.
I chase sheep till they can longer run, I drink dark spirits and strong ale.
Then I drift through some open window and enter someones dreams first I tell them that they`re wicked and I tell them of my plight then they wake to see my cold and fiery gaze.

So when I see someone walk through the graveyard in a bright and happy way,
I teach them to remember it`s dust from which they`re made.

[MarianaSapphire1980]

At 10/3/18 10:51 AM, Fro wrote: Discussion thread

A little short notice, but here it is...

Welcome to the 2018 Halloween Writing Contest!

Submit your Halloween, horror, spooky, and/or creepy themed story for a chance to win a prize/prizes. (TBD by Tom) Last year there was a big turn out because we had posted in advance, but I still have faith that we will get some great stories nonetheless.

Due date:

October 31st 2018

Rules/Info:

Submit multiple pieces or just a single piece. While I don't necessarily mind multiple pieces, it would be nice to see the effort and time put into a single work instead.

Please write original pieces. While I wouldn't really know that you pulled up an old piece of writing you made years ago it does kind of defeat the purpose of the competitions. (To write!)

All writing types are allowed. Short stories, long stories, poems, etc... If you aren't sure if it's allowed just ask. Chances are it will be.

Other:

It's a good idea to write in your preferred program and then copy/paste into notepad to get rid of some of the weird formatting between Word and newgrounds that can happen. Whenever I post I write in word, copy/paste into notepad, then copy/paste into an old newgrounds blog page to make sure the format look good before posting.

Try to keep your story posted together. It just makes for smoother reading. If you see someone else posting their story please wait until they've finished.

If your story will be multiple posts it's not a bad idea to write "continued on next post" or something similar to help judges and other people who are posting stories stay organized.

Don't comment in this thread unless you are posting your story. Please comment in the discussion thread posted here and on the top of the page.

If it doesn´t understand good, sorry i writed originaly in spanish

The Case

Little has been mentioned about her, but it is my duty to know her case motivates me to continue investigating her, I am the private detective Ivan, arrived from Russia to Latin America at the request of my superiors to investigate the case of Desgarra, a half wolf out of the experiments of the scientist left Germany, it is suspected that it was the experiment that would give the result of treating an animal half in an aggressive way, now for what I read the issue came out a little from his hands. I arrived at a crime scene that this girl had committed, while I was looking at the body, the only thing I could see were pieces of the victim, the neck torn from it and from what I see some members were missing, like the arms, some vital organs , like the heart among others, Then I went to talk to the chief of police, I approached him and said "So, this young lady was not?" He basically turned around and answered me back My, "-We know that yes, I leave his badge, a neck torn, only that now he took a lot of meat, even for her that's too much, we want to know the reason for that" he stops and turns to look me in the eye , "And that's where you come in, Ivan, you have to find out what plot tears and Deliver it to the law" he leaves while I go back to the scene of the crime,While I watch the scene I write down how the attack could have been, then I find a security guard credential I can not read the data, it only reads that it is a correctional facility where they practiced the experiment, which used to be a mental hospital, so I decided To go there, While I was on the way I saw the neighborhood one destroyed by the years and what I see is quite Heavy, I went cautiously to the correctional, when I came to a guard told me to wait a while, I stayed seated, while I was waiting outside I saw the nightfall and out of nowhere I saw the silhouette of a child, I stood still, turned my head and then I saw again where that silhouette was and it was not there, I was shocked, then my guard called me, I came back in me and pass the guard, we went through the corridors and the only thing I could hear were the screams of the prisoners, they shouted any fucking in all the Hispanic idioms possible I barely understood anything, after I arrived at the warden's office, I sat in a chair that was behind a red cord, like those in the movies, the warden arrived, he sat down, he saw me and he said "You are the Russian gentleman who comes by the case of Desgarra, we already expected it "I stayed silent, I had nothing to say" -compare me, I'll take you to see the cell of her ", he said before getting up and leaving the office, I of course followed him, we passed through the corridors, until we reached her cell, a spacious one, covered with mattresses that had scratch marks made by her, when I turned around I saw a scene where obviously there was a birth, so I asked "Did she have Sons?" To which he replied "Yes, 2 a Girl and a Boy, after a while a guard separated the brothers, taking the boy to Spain and leaving the girl with her", When he told me this detail I came to the conclusion that he wanted to take revenge on the guard who took the creature, when I turned around I did not see the Warden and when I approached the bars they were closed, I was shocked as if I had seen to a ghost, then I realized that everything was silent and I turned around and saw her, Desgarra, with her daughter, she approached me I moved away as much as I could but could not, when I was close enough I touched with its wolf legs, on the chest, She was tall, the head for the bust with arms and hands were wolf limbs, then the bottom was human, not counting the tail, on the contrary with the daughter who had just some wolf ears, tail and chest hair, she realized he was watching his daughter, grabbed my neck and said "-You, you're not going to separate from it, as did the guard with my child "I was trying to make her leave my neck, while she was getting ready to do something" - And now you know Too much Ivan, You will die just like the people in this place "When she said that I was shocked and she tear my neck of a blow, and left me on the floor, with my last breath I could hear something he said to his daughter "- Are you hungry honey? "And before fainting she said" -If "...

After that, no more was heard of the case ...

(Again i'm sorry for the translate, And "Desgarra" in this case is a Name, And is my sis history she only put unintentionally on my account)

[HoggleRhymes]

At 10/3/18 10:51 AM, Fro wrote: Discussion thread

A little short notice, but here it is...

Welcome to the 2018 Halloween Writing Contest!

Submit your Halloween, horror, spooky, and/or creepy themed story for a chance to win a prize/prizes. (TBD by Tom) Last year there was a big turn out because we had posted in advance, but I still have faith that we will get some great stories nonetheless.

Due date:

October 31st 2018

Rules/Info:

Submit multiple pieces or just a single piece. While I don't necessarily mind multiple pieces, it would be nice to see the effort and time put into a single work instead.

Please write original pieces. While I wouldn't really know that you pulled up an old piece of writing you made years ago it does kind of defeat the purpose of the competitions. (To write!)

All writing types are allowed. Short stories, long stories, poems, etc... If you aren't sure if it's allowed just ask. Chances are it will be.

Other:

It's a good idea to write in your preferred program and then copy/paste into notepad to get rid of some of the weird formatting between Word and newgrounds that can happen. Whenever I post I write in word, copy/paste into notepad, then copy/paste into an old newgrounds blog page to make sure the format look good before posting.

Try to keep your story posted together. It just makes for smoother reading. If you see someone else posting their story please wait until they've finished.

If your story will be multiple posts it's not a bad idea to write "continued on next post" or something similar to help judges and other people who are posting stories stay organized.

Don't comment in this thread unless you are posting your story. Please comment in the discussion thread posted here and on the top of the page.

HELPFUL ADVICE : READ OUT LOUD!!! PEOPLE WHO READ THIS OUT LOUD LAUGH VERY HARD

[1:15 Am ] The stars sparkle as Fluttershy trots through the woods of Equestria, she’s excited . Her hoofs clop against the ground, lifting small fragments of grass and dirt in the air.. leaving a trail of dust behind her, “ I hope I can make it in time” Exclaims Fluttershy while panting

[2:23 Am] Fluttershy’s eyes widen as She entered her favorite cave, it was dark, but with just enough light to see the path .. to her favorite masturbation spot, Fluttershy released an excited sigh as she stared at herself in a small puddle while thinking about why she visited the cave ,and how wrong it would be to everypony if they knew what she was about to do, she felt ashamed , but the thoughts of her hoofs grazing her tight , light pink and yellow pussy lips aroused her more than she had ever thought she could be.

[3:45 Am ]“what would everypony think of me if they knew what I’m about to do..”
she sighed in a soft, yet sharp voice as if the fact that she was such a bad pony made her more horny , suddenly she noticed her pussy lips where watering , the puddle under her was not coming from above … it was coming from with in her, she had been standing in a puddle of her own lust , at the this very moment of realization she willingly fell into the puddle , letting her wings soak in the puddle that was her own moisture .

[4:00 Am] Fluttershy moaned at how arousing the moment was and in that very instant she began to hoof her clit softly. At first, in very short time she began hoofing harder , pressing against her clit, and sliding her cum covered hoof in an up and down motion , slightly past her tail and then back up to her clit ... she loved the feel and craved for more! She began to slowly insert hoof into her pussy while cum poured out of both sides of her vagina , making her moan uncontrollably like the slut she knew she was

for the next few minutes Fluttershy constantly called herself names , such as Slut , whore, and skank , the names only fed her horny level, she began penetrating her pussy harder and just as she was about to reach full climax , Fluttershy saw the shadow , of a pony , SHE HAD ALWAYS WANTED TO FUCK.
It was MOTHER FUCKING PINKY PIE! Bitch was all like “ YO! Fluttershy! Get ch’o moufakin ass on the moufakin horn” flutter shy was all like” fuck yeah bitch I’m goanna slam my mother fucking pussy on that bull shit .” and so she did , Fluttershy mounted pinky pie’s horn and started like , totally going at it

, shit was so cash , shit was like $$$$$ , so it was real fucking cash. Equestria had never seen anything this fucking bad ass , so like they we all going at it and shit and Fullershy is all shy ‘n’ shit you know? So she all like ok , I hope u don’t tell anyone of my cave .. and pinkie pie was all like “BITCH! Im’a tell fucking everyone , Ima start Ho’ing all you bitches all around equestria and ima be all like FUCK YEAH “ so these two bitches were all like bullshiting in the cave and they were all like OMG this feels so fucking good. Pinkie pie was starting to cum through her mother fucking horn and shit so all the cum from Fluttershy’s pussy mixed with pinkie pies fucking cum , making a new puddle next to the original one made by Fluttershy, shit was so cash man , like you shoulda seen it ,

pinkie pie got all bitchy and dominant , cuz you know she’s like a total lip stick lesbian and she made Fluttershy lick up all the cum mixture , flutter shy was all like “ oh no.. must I ?” and pinkie pie was all like “ fuck yeah bitch lick that shit until its dry.
When Fluttershy was done licking up cum she started eating pinkie pie’s pussy . shit tasted so mother fucking sweet . it was like ...... some kinda Puerto Rican rum mixed with a shit ton of chocolate , you know what I mean? It was pretty bad ass!

so Fluttershy and pinkie pie kept fucking all the morning ,
THe morning after the hot lezbo sex Fluttershy was made to be a prostitute , pinkie pie would like whore all the little pony’s out around Equestria and Fluttershy was always the most requested , she had some sort of like childish beauty in her and for some fucking reason guys like that , i guess pony's in Equestria are like total pedo’s... fucking weird rite?
well one day Fluttershy was getting gang banged by a bunch of black pony’s and instead of fighting against them she only pretended to fight back , she wanted those dicks in her pussy so bad, she loved black dick . long black dick she thought big black dicks where like so mother fucking cash, by this point her pussy was totally fucking destroyed so any small dicks would just breeze by , thus she would only take big black dick , AND OH DID SHE EVER.

Pinkie pie was a total pimp and she fucked all her ho's she would constantly fuck rarity , you know ,cuz she’s like one of those hot white chick that you know you have like no chance with but you still wana fuck ? yeah just like that . well yeah , so anyway . although pinkie pie was a total bitch over rarity it was well known amongst all the pony's that flutershy was the bottom bitch , Fluttershy was proud of this , her popularity as bottom bitch made her lose much of her shy personality and she was a total bad ass now , she like had tattoos and shit , one of them was like on her hip and it said , NIgguhs wan my pussy . and another one on her upper thigh that said Bottom bitch . everyone though she was cool as fuck and since at this point most of the pony’s were prostitutes there was no shame in her hooves she was like the coolest mother fucking pony alive and she would stop on any and everypony bitch that tried to step up to her hoofs

so like pretty much what happens is that Fluttershy gets all like " yo i don't wana be bottom bitch i wana be the pimp, i'ma pimp all these bitches and be cool as fuck " yeah, so chapter two is goanna be about a pony revolution

FUCK

[CocoVersi]

When I was a small child, there was a corner in my garden, that for some reason, I was terrified of. I always thought that out of the corner of my eye, I could see movement. I had a small tree-house near that corner, and as I was picking an apple from the tree that was across the garden, I saw something drag a cushion out of the open window, and into that corner. When I told my parents, of course they didn't believe me. I was only a small child. They just laughed it off and said, "You've got such an incredible imagination, I'd love to know what other adventures you have in your mind." I was certain that there was something living in that corner, something so horrendous that it would scare you to the afterlife. They were oblivious to that fact, and no one I told believed me. Even years later, strange things still continue to happen in that corner. My parents shrug it off like it's nothing, even when things happen in front of their eyes. The fence breaking? Could have been the wind! A hand reaching out, with the longest clawed nails possibly ever seen? Could have just been your eyes playing tricks on you! They were firm believers of true factual evidence to explain something, and not believing any inexpiable events. They had seen almost every horror movie the film industry had produced, and while watching, giving my brother and I a "realistic" explanation of all the paranormal events. Our whole movie cabinet is full of horror movies, and having seen majority of those movies just made me more terrified of the garden corner. I had only started watching them with my parents and brother when I was 15, the same age as my brother, Jason, when he started watching them with my parents. He also had liked to play with me in the tree-house as a young child but was not scared of that corner, despite seeing all of the same things as me. Adopting my parents traits, I guess. Jason and I had a few friends over one night and I was hanging out with them pretty late. It was near 3am, and one of Jason's friends suggested playing truth or dare. It was one of my favourite sleepover games. I was feeling adventurous, and when it was my turn I chose dare. Jason looked at me and joked "Are you feeling alright?" He put the back of his hand on my forehead, as if he was checking my temperature. "You always pick truth Paisley!" One of his friends, Liam, chimed in. I giggled, and looked back to Alex, the person who had asked the question. "Dare. That's my final decision." Alex paused for a moment, then smiled mischievously. "I dare you... to go inside the corner of the garden you've never stepped foot in." My mouth tightened. "Fine." "Come on Parsley, you're 18 and you've never been inside that corner." Parsley was name they came up with tease me about my real name, Paisley. "Paisley, are you sure about this? I mean, even when we were kids, you would come to school with tired eyes and talk about that corner for hours and hours." Millie was always a good friend, and when we were kids, she used to listen to me talk about the corner, and the latest crazy idea I had come up with about what could be living in that corner. She never accepted the crazy idea nor denied it. "Yes. I have accepted my fate." I stated in an overly dramatic way. I got up slowly, and headed to the door. They all followed me, smiling except for Millie. I opened the door trying not to wake my parents. I tried to be as quiet as possible as I crept out from the house and into the back garden. I could feel my heart beating faster and faster. The group was following me and I could hear them either terrified or snickering. I could hear the crunch of the dried up leaves underneath my bare feet as I walked to the corner. I quickly turned around, to ask them a question only to find them ready to push me into the vines and dead plants that hang lifelessly around that corner. I felt their hands push me into the darkness of the corner as I heard Millie's scream of "Paisley! PAISLEY!" over and over again.
It was getting fainter and fainter, and it seemed like I was falling endlessly. I shut my eyes, and just listened to their laughs, her screams and... a hoarse voice. The voice was saying " So you've finally come. I've been waiting for you." I opened my eyes, and looked around. It was surprisingly light for the amount of time I spent falling. When I landed, I couldn't see clearly, but I could see a silhouette of what looked like a bunch of hair with long, spindly, crooked arms sticking out of the sides. The voice was like sandpaper, rough and coarse. I tried to grab around for anything that I could use to get myself out of here. There was another voice, feminine and soothing. The words spoken however, not so soothing. "Don't resist it. We want you to join us. Come with us, NOW." She spoke more, getting more and more hostile. I couldn't hear her, because I could only hear a ringing in my ears, getting louder and louder. I scrambled frantically trying to grab anything to get me out of there. I grabbed a branch and tried to propel myself out, but I couldn't; because there was something holding me. "Don't go." The voice was harsh and forceful now. "Stay with me. I want you to stay. I can offer you the deal off a lifetime... or even longer." I don't know what happened, but I stopped and turned around. "Tell me more." I could see the owner of the voice now. Her eyes were a deep red, and glinting. I could see my reflection in them. From what it looked like, I had the same shade of red, it terrified me. I couldn't shake out of it, no matter how much I wanted to. I could feel it, evil will, anger, of which I had spent years repressing, coursing through my veins. "I can reverse time, make them believe you. Isn't that what you've always wanted?" The course voice was back. I raised my head. "Yes. No one ever believed me, even if it happened before their eyes. It was always a pathetic excuse. Utterly pathetic." "We can help you with that." Suddenly I was gone, completely. Then I heard something land next to me. "Paisley! I thought you were gone!" A familiar voice, with comforting words wrapped their arms around me. Millicent. It was her, and she had always come for me. But not this time. I was too far into it, Practically gone at this point. Was there any human left in me at this point? She turned around, and I could see the blood drain from her face, as she turned to me and said, in a tone that could barely be heard. "Run away, climb out of here, FAST." Even the loudest part of her sentence was unable to be heard and I had to strain myself. I didn't know what to do , and in the heat of the moment, I ran, and I lept straight for the wall of this ditch. I felt around for anything I could use to climb out of here, and grabbed a rock. It survived my hand's grasp, but as soon as I put my foot on it, it tumbled down. How was Millie going to get out now? I hesitated, but she told me to hurry up and go, not to worry about her. A sickening sense of guilt was stronger now, and getting so deep, I could have drowned in the amount of guilt that small moment brought. I climbed and climbed, until I could see three faces poking in. Jason, Liam and Alex. All with a worried look. "How is Millie?'' Alex quickly whispered. "I-I don't know.", I stammered. Alex flug his arms around me, "I'm so sorry... I didn't know what was there." "I didn't either," answered back. Suddenly a head popped out of the hole from the ditch, Millie. I quickly smiled, then ran over to help her get out. We were all gone, then headed back to the house. This might seem like a perfect ending, but none of us could sleep, or even talk after that. We just kept our eyes glued to the screen door. The scratching was getting louder, until it stopped. I got a glimpse of the two immortals who were at the bottom of the ditch. They mouthed something, then disappeared. I turned to the rest of them, all in a trance. They saw it too.

[GriffinLancer]

I guess I'll just throw my hat into the ring. It's not super spooky, but I'd like to think the real frightening thing is thinking about the work after you've completed reading it.

[EverythingYouWish]

At 10/3/18 10:51 AM, Fro wrote: Discussion thread

A little short notice, but here it is...

Welcome to the 2018 Halloween Writing Contest!

Submit your Halloween, horror, spooky, and/or creepy themed story for a chance to win a prize/prizes. (TBD by Tom) Last year there was a big turn out because we had posted in advance, but I still have faith that we will get some great stories nonetheless.

Due date:

October 31st 2018

Rules/Info:

Submit multiple pieces or just a single piece. While I don't necessarily mind multiple pieces, it would be nice to see the effort and time put into a single work instead.

Please write original pieces. While I wouldn't really know that you pulled up an old piece of writing you made years ago it does kind of defeat the purpose of the competitions. (To write!)

All writing types are allowed. Short stories, long stories, poems, etc... If you aren't sure if it's allowed just ask. Chances are it will be.

Other:

It's a good idea to write in your preferred program and then copy/paste into notepad to get rid of some of the weird formatting between Word and newgrounds that can happen. Whenever I post I write in word, copy/paste into notepad, then copy/paste into an old newgrounds blog page to make sure the format look good before posting.

Try to keep your story posted together. It just makes for smoother reading. If you see someone else posting their story please wait until they've finished.

If your story will be multiple posts it's not a bad idea to write "continued on next post" or something similar to help judges and other people who are posting stories stay organized.

Don't comment in this thread unless you are posting your story. Please comment in the discussion thread posted here and on the top of the page.

The Mad:
There's a full moon,
and dark clouds,
it's coming soon,
and it's not allowed.
The wind blows,
windows are closed.
Blocked with wood,
everyone understood,
The Mad is back,
evil and dark,
with his only eye,
that shine like the black night sky.
his full of teeth,
his a murderer and a thief.
His back to the village,
to cause pain.
It's the Mad,
Once again!

[snailpirate]

Still Life

The dull yellow police tape swayed in the wind in front of the old decrepit house. As the leaves crunched and the crickets chirped, I snuck to the backside of the aging house where trees and shrubs were growing for what seemed like hundreds of years. My hand ran across the wooden door as I shoved the steel crowbar in between the wooden door and its hinge. The wood splintered as the door swung open forcibly. The daft musty air hit me almost instantly as I took a step into the house. The house appeared even more rundown than how the outside looked. Setting my bag down, I rustled through it until I felt the frigid metal against my hand. My flashlight clicked multiple times before the gleam of the light created a path for me. My forehead and body was growing more damp and wet with sweat as I inched my way through what appeared to be an abandoned home. Bringing my camera out of my backpack, I turned it on and started recording.

“Today I’m going to be checking out the house of the late infamous fashion designer Ms. Whelkins. Those lucky few that were able to interview her and go to her house while she was alive talked about how unnerving she was to be around, and that- that awful rotting smell. The smell that was so foul they said it felt like it was burning their nose. I wanted to explo-” I stopped talking instantly. My heart sank. I stood where I was for what felt like an eternity. It may have been my overactive imagination, and being in a house that had been abandoned by someone as creepy as Ms. Whelkins probably didn’t help, but in that moment I swore that I could hear whispering. My arms were shaking as I turned my camera to face where I had heard the noise. Knowing I still had to keep an audience entertained, I took a deep breath and started whispering this time into the camera. “Um I-I don’t know if any of you heard that, but I could have sworn I heard someone talking. I’ll edit this in post for you guys so you can hear it better, for now I’m going to keep recording.” The shine of my flashlight and the gentle glow that radiated from my camera were the only things illuminating my way as I walked further into despair. “Ha h-ha, this may be a shorter video guys but I’m seriously getting spooked here, I may do another video and bring Jake and the oth-” *BAM* Within that instant, my flashlight left the grasp of my hand and fell down the stairs near me. The metal smashing against the ground was deafening. The echoes of my mistake rang throughout the entirety of the house until there was finally a deafening silence. I peered down the winding stairs to see a faint glow at the bottom. With only a little bit of light illuminating from my camera, I had no choice but to descend the stairs to get my flashlight back and leave as soon as possible. “U-uh t-there was a loud bang or something and I d-dropped my flashlight down into the basement,” I quickly yammered into the camera. My efforts to stay as composed as possible were failing miserably. I gently lay my foot on the top stair and quickly but silently went down the stairs.

Finally reaching the damp basement, I reached down and retrieved my flashlight. The glimmer hit upon something that shined in the far corner of the basement. Despite already showing my audience that I was not capable of handling this situation anymore, I took a deep breath and walked to what could have possibly been my untimely death. Mannequins. There was an array of 30, possibly even 40 different mannequins. Being in a dark house by myself with multitude of mannequins surrounding me invoked a fear deep within myself, so much so that my whole body began to shiver. However, taking a moment to try to analyze the situation began to force me back into reality. “So it seems I may have stumbled on some of the mannequins that Ms.Whelkins used to use for designing her clothes. Not gonna lie, that gave me quite a scare, ha ha.” I turned my gaze towards the screen on my camera to see the numbers reach a grand 40 minutes. “Alright I’ll go home in 5 minutes, I’ll just get a few ambience shots” I whispered to myself. As I turned the camera towards the faces of the mannequins to get a cool shot or two, my blood ran cold. Every single mannequin standing idly around me all had faces; not a face someone sloppily painted either, they were real. The ends of the face that were sewn on were peeling back with rancid rotting skin. “These can’t p-possible be real right…?” I stammered as my hand reached out to touch the mannequin’s face in front of me. My hand pressed against the face as my face went pale. The faces were still warm.

Turning my camera to the rest of the room, I could see that the rest of the mannequins had faces as well. My teeth chattered as I tried to remain as quiet as I could possibly be. The warm glow of my flashlight and the blinking light of my camera shined upon the faces as I paced by each one. My breathing became more heavy as I made it to the final mannequins. At this point I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating or not anymore. My footsteps finally came to a halt in front of one of the final mannequins in the room. At this point I had given up the tough guy act for my audience as the camera was trembling in my cold hands. “Guys,” I whispered slowly into the camera. “I think I found out what happened to Ms. Whelkins…” The deteriorating face of Ms. Whelkins sewn onto the lifeless cold mannequin stood in front of me. With that I knew I needed to get out of this house immediately and hastily retreated to the stairs that I had come from. Almost losing my grip on my flashlight once more, my eyes slowly turned their gaze towards the top of the stairs. I’m still not able to explain it, I knew I was the only one in that house and I was certain that no one had followed me inside but standing motionless at the top of the stairs was a mannequin. Without any other way to exit the building, I rushed up the stairs, nearly tripping over myself multiple times, and darted past the mannequin. In that brief moment my curiosity peaked as I was able to catch a glimpse of its face while running past. Out of all the dozens of mannequins that I had the misfortune of coming into contact with in that household, the one standing at the top of the stairs, waiting for me, had been the only one with no face.

[stelamoris]

The Velveteen Rabbit

Eyes half opened, droopy looking one may think. My hair looks like it hasn't been combed since the day I was born. My hair is supposed to be jet black, however, the large amount of equally distributed grey hair in my head makes the overall appearance look grey from a far. Surely you must be thinking, what's an eighteen-year-old doing with that much grey hair in his head? Well, I have a tragic backstory, so tragic there isn't one. I'm just a tall and skinny boy where not a day goes by and the thought of suicide doesn't cross my mind. I sighed in utmost annoyance of my like as the grey fumes crawled from beneath my thin crisp lips. A guy just walked pass me. I noticed his facial expression, one that I get often. It says "Gosh, is that a hobo or some depressed teen?". The smoke leaving my mouth looks like my soul leaving my dead, cold body. I looked dead, like a zombie, walking with barely any effort put into it. I wish I was dead, but I'm scared of the pain that comes with hanging oneself. What if I did do it but it took like a week for me to finally die? That a whole week of rope cutting through your neck due to gravity pulling you down with its claws which it grinds into the flesh of your feet, never letting go. So yeah, I'm scared. And I'll admit I'm a coward. So, I'll just continue living dangerously like I do now in hopes of a completely natural and painless death caused by the forces of life. Who knows, if I'm lucky I might get cancer.

Life quickly rushed back into my body as made a sharp turn to my right which almost looks as if I fell. I drunkenly walked up the few fleets of stairs and sighed with relief. All that sulking over my life almost made me pass my house. I plucked the cigarette from my mouth and tossed it in the dried up, dead bushes over to my right. Those bushes were like everything else in my life, where just looking at them make me want to barf. I rubbed my hands over my face trying to resurrect the dead thing. Then I shoved my hand into my right pocket, then my left, then into the rest of pockets scattered all over my clothes. But to my surprise I had forgotten to refill on breath mints. I quietly unlocked the door with my key. Then slowly turned the door handle while nervously biting my lips. I sneakingly pushed my long neck in first, then a conniving grin crawled up on my face as I pushed the door open more so the rest of my body could come in. I turned around for a few seconds to quietly close the door so I could maintain my non-existence. Successfully I turned around to a "Bam, Bam!" in my face accompanied by an ear-piercing shout saying "Thief, mom, thief...". I grabbed that stupid yellow promotional balloon stick from his midget-hands and then beat him back with it. He squirmed with discomfort the ran off to the kitchen yelling "Ah mom, it's just Thom!" like the cry-baby he is. I angrily muttered below my breath "Damn brat, he gave me away" while involuntarily squeezing the balloon so hard that it exploded. I could hear Harry, or rather Hairy as I like to call him, starting to cry because he very well knew what that sound meant. I walked into the kitchen with a guilty look on my face, yet, I didn't say a word even though she could tell that I had a lot on my mind that I wanted to get off. I looked her dead in the eyes as I raised my hand and dropped the deflated piece of plastic onto the kitchen table top. Then Hairy started to cry even more, mom stopped making breakfast to quarrel at me but I just blocked it all out as I made a three-hundred- and sixty-degrees spin and a small stroll to the fridge. I plucked out one of Hairy's boxed-juices and impaled it with the straw and took one long sip. Before you know it, my mouth was filled with juice which I shook around in my mouth like it was mouth wash then swallowed it. Now that the evidence was cleared from my mouth, boy, was I ready to argue. "A..." was all said before mom interrupted with "You were smoking, weren't you?". I swallowed my tongue and chocked on the very words I was going to say. She yelled my name "Thom!" With both hands placed angrily on her hips. I just quietly continued sipping on my boxed-juice while trying to ignore her soul-piercing stare by looking elsewhere. But I knew she knew the juice was done. "You're going to buy him back another" she said slowly, while still giving me the death-stare. I slammed my hands against the table top, frightening Hairy, as I yelled "With what, with what?". "What do you mean by with what, with what!" she asked rhetorically. "You don't give me any allowance, you don't even feed me. Look at me! I'm a grown eighteen-year old yet I weigh just a hundred pounds..." I argued while speaking over her. In the meanwhile, she was saying "...with what? With the same thing you used to buy those cigarettes, got those piercings, got those tattoos". Her eyes widened as she said " ...the same thing you used to that suspicious white powder in a bag from that 'friend' around the block". "What. You have no proof" I exclaimed with great dismay. "Enough!" She said while banging down hard on the table top with both hands. I think she reached the limit of annoyance that she could take from me. Just kidding. We were all just hungry that's why. If this was after dinner, man, dishes would be flying. She placed her hand on her forehead looking quite tired and said "Let's just forget this...". Then I think I saw a grin popping up on her face. She was looking at Hairy who was oblivious to everything that was happening at the moment and was trying to blow the life back into his promotional balloon stick, that I un-intentionally killed-I swear. But as much as he huffed and puffed all of his effort would just seep out through the gigantic hole at the opposite end. "I bought you a present she said" with a huge mischievous smile on her face. "O yeah" I said instead of a drawn our 'O really'. She placed two items down on the table, in front of her, which were both wrapped. She then pushed them away from her, one to me and one to Hairy. "So, she got one for Hairy too huh. Figures. I see her give Hairy gifts, and none for me, all the time. Why can't she spoil me just once?" I muttered in my mind. I took up the present. It was soft. From a-far, I thought the wrapping paper was some sort of wicked-cool design, until I put it close up to my face. "Damn mom! Interesting wrapping paper, I'm feeling the love" I said sarcastically. "What, we should learn to recycle" she said, thinking it's cute, but it's not because it's newspaper. And damn do I have terrible eye sight. I squeezed it and looked at her. She giggled. I tried very hard to drawn the smile on my face, but it just kept floating back up. One percent of the time you'd actually find me liking life, while the other ninety-nine percent of the time you'd find me hating everything. My mom's a nice lady... OK scrap that cause it's a stupid stuffed rabbit. "What the... mom.... what do I look like to you?" I said with great disappointment. "Well, do you like it" she asked looking all bubbly. "Hell no" I said looking her dead in the eyes. I could tell she was hurt but I didn't care. "Wow, thank you mom" Hairy cheerfully blurted out because he had gotten a videogame. She rubbed the top of his head and smile while telling him he's welcome. At this point I was boiling with jealousy and the fact that I thought I was being ignored made it worse. I grabbed the videogame from his hand and shoved the rabbit in his face and walked off. She was mad-angry that I did that. She trailed me all the way as I scurried to my room, leaving Hairy in the kitchen all alone to cry to himself. Meanwhile, mom and I started to argue. But don't feel sorry for us because this is a normal thing in this house. For us it's like eating. You do it every day and you can't live without doing it.

To be contined

[stelamoris]

continuing The Velveteen Rabbit

All alone in my sanctum, I automatically went back to hating everything. My ears were plugged into loud rock music while my hands were glued to the stupid cheap video game that mom bought that I still played because I had nothing better to do. Or rather was unfit to do because my mind was busy concentrating on anger at the moment. I swear, just this alone grew me like fifty more grey hairs in my head. A lot of things ran through my mind while I was playing that game. Like the fact that mom names Hairy after a prince and named me after nothing. She claimed that she couldn't decide between 'Tom' and 'Thomas' so she joined them, but I know she's lying. When Hairy asks where's his dad she makes up fake stories and even gave him some random picture from heaven knows where and told him it's his father. She even gives him gifts from his fake father on his birthday. Why didn't she make up lie for me when I was young just to make me feel special? No, instead she told me the truth, that I don't have one or that she doesn't know where he is or that she thinks he dead, when I asked her. It's like she's doing all the things she did wrong with me right with Hairy. Maybe she knows she's part of the reason why I turned out like this and doesn't want to repeat the same mistake with Hairy. Anyways, I hate Hairy with all the cells in my body. And don't even dare say I'm jealous, cause I'm not. I hate him and he creeps me out, even more now that he's got that disgusting stuffed rabbit. One time, we were all sitting around the dining table, having dinner, like a normal family and that's not the weird part. He finished eating earlier than usual and asked mom for more food. Mom said "Sure, but only because you said please" then ran off to the kitchen with Hairy's plate singing to herself "My little boy's becoming a big boy". I asked Hairy why he has to be so greedy. I told him mom's the only one working and that we should be more considerate by eating less, or in other terms starve yourself like me, so we can have more money to spend on important things like Wi-Fi perhaps. He said "No, I have to eat for both me and Lucus now". Then I told him that Lucus eats a special kind of food, it's found outside and it's called dirt. I mean, it's a rabbit isn't it? At this point mom had just returned from the kitchen when little-brat Hairy said "I have to eat more so my soul can grow, that way Lucus can continue feeding off my soul and I won't die". I asked him who told him that bull and he said Lucus did. Mom and I looked at each other for a minute before we both burst out into laughter. Then I started to look at that so-called Lucus who was placed to sit up straight on the table near to Hairy so both where facing me. Mom sits over to my left, on the other edge of our square dining table. She faces an empty chair or our invisible dad or dads she would sometime joke. I sat facing little Hairy because I’d rather stare him down and intimidate him while eating for my own enjoyment than to have mom stare me down. As I sat there and stared at Lucus I began to notice some disturbing little details on the rabbit. First of all, the first time I saw that rabbit that thick strand of Hairy’s hair wasn’t sticking out on top of its head top. I looked at Hairy and a lock of his dark blonde hair that was hanging just before his ear was cut off. At this point my laughter decreased, but just a little. Then I began to notice how freaking real the physical features of that rabbit looked. If it wasn’t for those button eyes the thing would be mistaken for a real rabbit. Then the most outrageous thing came to my mind. That Lucus’s skin is that of a real rabbit, then stuffed with stuff. That means Hairy’s been playing around with dead animal parts. At this point the chuckles of my laughter had died and I was left barely smiling as I looked down at the dumplings in my plate that I know mom made Hairy help make with his ‘moldy’ hands. Now, I stopped laughing. Mom was still chuckling though. I made this peculiar look on my face as I leaned my head to the right wondering. Just wondering what’s beneath those stitches. What’s used to stuff that bunny?

Among the other weird things Hairy’s done with his new best friend besides literally having a full one-on-one conversation with it is sleeping with it beneath his pillow. Hairy says Lucus likes to visit him in his dreams and it’s best for him to be near his head for that to happen. Another time I caught the two in the bathroom up to no good. Lucus was sitting up straight on the counter top while Hairy had blood dripping from his ear because he ran one of those virus-infested pins I saw sticking out of Lucus through his ear. So, I rushed in and grabbed the pin from him with my left hand and used my right hand, the one I have more control over, to give Hairy one painful smack in the head. I yield at him asking him if he’s crazy. Hairy told me that Lucus told him to do it and that it’s needed in the ‘soul transfer’ process. I couldn’t believe Hairy looked me straight in the eyes and expect me to swallow that crap. I raised my right hand to give him another smack in the head when mom walks in on us. The scenery was awkward. Lucus chilling on the counter top; Hairy with tears in his eyes and fear on his face placing his hands on his head. And of course, me with a pin that has Hairy’s blood dripping from it in my left hand and my right hand looking like it’s about to inflict some serious physical abuse upon Hairy. I got in trouble alright, big time. No matter how I tried to explain my actions, my history of piercing and cutting myself with sharp things when I was about Hairy’s age made her not believe me. Anyways, even if all the signs were saying that I didn’t do it, she’d probably still think I did it. But it’s OK. I’m used to it. It just made me hate life more. One night just before Hairy was going to be, I backed him up into a corner and grabbed that stupid rabbit from him. He was about to put on some serious bawling so I gave him the video game. A smile sprang right back upon his chubby face and he hopped to his room like nothing ever happened. I went around to the kitchen and put that thing where it belonged, in the trash. After my shower, I went to my room with a tower over my head drying my hair. I saw something disturbing at the corner of my eye so I stopped and made a razor-sharp turn. The filth I thought I threw away on my clean (actually dirt) bookshelf. I went up close to it, in its face, and muttered “Hairy”. I tried to use my finger to push it over backwards so at least it won’t be staring at me, but the thing wouldn’t budge. Did Hairy glue this filth to my junk? That little...but it’s too high and Hairy’s so short. How? I stared at it.... hard. Then I stepped away from it backwards, saying to myself “You can stay here for now, but tomorrow, you’re double-dead. With the lights off, I rolled into bed and closed my tired little eyes and off I went dreaming about nothing, like I usually do. Or, so I thought.

To be continued

[stelamoris]

Continuing The Velveteen Rabbit

A tear fell from my right eye, rolled down along the side toward my ear. Maybe it’s because I was scared or the fact that it’s frig’n one 'O'clock in the morning and I still haven’t gotten any sleep!! My ears were burning me and I just wanted to tear them off. Nightmare after nightmare after dreams with that rabbit in it every time I close my eyes. Ultimately, I was flat on my back, just staring into the ceiling. It’s not like I could see anything, it’s just that I couldn’t move. I couldn’t find the strength to pull myself out of bed. It’s like something was forcefully draining me of my energy or maybe my soul. I managed to keep my eyes open for a little while, but something happened. Not sure what happened, but all I remembered was mom shaking me and pinching my arm. That last one got me up because I barely got any skin on me for her to grab at to pinch me. But she found some. I screamed while I sprung up. I felt like how Frankenstein must’ve felt when he sat up on that electric table after coming back from the dead. Mom stared at me for a while then angrily told me I’m late as if she wanted to say something else maybe. She stormed out my room leaving me saying “Huh?”, “What?”, “Late for what?”. Then I sat in deep contemplation about what I could be late for. I put both hands over my face, groaning as I fell backwards. It’s not Sunday morning, it’s Monday morning. I reached for that thing I keep beneath my pillow. That thing that fills my body with energy every time I’m drained. Not the white powder in the bag I get from Gil around the block, but my dirty magazine and some markers. Yup, I enjoy drawing clothes onto practically nude figures. Give some women beards, some unibrows, missing teethes, draw men in bras and give them some wicked tattoos I wish I had. This is weird. My magazine didn’t slide out from beneath my pillow as easily as it usually does especially since it’s gloss. In fact, it didn’t come out at all. So, I gave it a strong tug and out it came along with the markers rolled up with it held together with an elastic band which wasn’t the only thing that was attached to it. The ‘DEAD BUNNY!!!!!... was wrapped around it like it was a pole stick. I don’t know where I flung that thing, I just know it went flying. I rushed out of my room and into the kitchen. I looked left, right and found Hairy in the centre looking up at me. He was all packed and ready to leave. He asked “What’s wrong Thom?”. I stooped down and sandwich his face between the palms of my hand saying with fear in my eyes “We have to get out of here. School is the only place we’re safe”. I never thought I’d ever be saying those words because I feel anything but safe at school. I grabbed Hairy and we ran out of the house. I think I saw mom rush out of the house, with fright in her eyes, muttering “He just got up, where did he find time to bathe, brush his teeth... “, and the rest is not important.

Hairy’s school is right beside mines. Actually, it’s the same school but it’s separated into Pre- School and High School. So, every bloody day I have to get up early and walk little brat Hairy to school. I mean, he knows the way. Most of the time he’s the one leading and dragging me off to school. And I can’t even think about ditching, after dropping him off to school, because these teachers are like ninjas. They see you even when you don’t see yourself. I walked to my current class with my long-empty hands and red eyes carrying its bags beneath itself. I went to my desk and did what I did best. I slept. “Knock, knock” I heard. Someone was knocking on my desk, so of course, I asked “who’s there?”. “Where is my assignment” a voice asked. I looked up, with head still on the desk, and replied in a low voice “I don’t have it”. “Detention! Today!” she said in her manly voice, so loud, it shook the hairs on her chinny-chin-chin. I whispered” You can’t do that”. “Why not” she so eagerly asked. I replied ”Cuz I already have one for today”. Then you’ll serve it tomorrow she yelled. I told her the truth, that I was already booked out for detention for this entire week. You’ll have to take an appointment like the rest, I said, then dropped my head back down on the desk. Off to wonderland I went. What happened next, I don’t know. Then I heard another two pokes on my desk. I sprang up in my seat, ready to argue. But, to my surprise, it was just the annoying girl with the short curly orange hair. She wore grey-green, square-framed glasses and has pale blue eyes. Her name is Bethany Hogmint and she just can’t mind her own business when it comes to me. I call her ‘Ugly Betty’ or ‘Freckled Betty’ to annoy her but she obviously thinks its nickname. She even turns a tomato when I call her either one. I don’t think she’s ugly, it’s just that she has red little freckles everywhere. I mean, if I had a dollar for every freckle that’s on her face alone, I’d be a katrillionaire. I’m exaggerating, geesh. “Are you OK” she asked,” What’s it to you?” I replied. “Well, school is over, and you slept out the entire day” she said while looking really concerned. “So, this isn’t the first” I told her while trying to keep in my annoyance. “Look, if there’s something bothering you, there are people who are willing to listen or even help” she said. Then she walked away. I muttered” She thinks she’s the guidance counsellor or something?”.

To be continued

[stelamoris]

Continuing The Velveteen Rabbit

My head was cloudy. Filled with background noises that didn’t sound like the normal kind I’d usually hear. I was walking home, but I wasn’t thinking. My legs were moving on their own: or was it Hairy pulling me like usual? I wasn’t sure because all my limbs were numb. I couldn’t feel anything. It was like I was dead. Something was wrong with me. Something was missing. I felt...drained. The last thing I could remember, before it all went dark, was walking into a pole. I saw a thing horizontal white light way out in the darkness. “Am I dead?” I thought to myself. Then the light got bigger and brighter and opened up into a circle. I wasn’t dead, unfortunately. The light was bright and went like needle straight through my eyes. I blocked out some with my hand allowing me to observe my surroundings. I was lying on my back in a hospital bed. I sat up and squint my eyes a couple of times. It was dead silent. But I couldn’t tell if I was alone because I was enclosed by a pale green curtain. So, I couldn’t see anything outside of it. Then I realized that It wasn’t silent. It’s just that my hearing had stopped and was now coming back to me. I heard coughing first, then the other sounds came rushing in. They gave me slight headache. There was the fan spinning and a “RAAAAAAAH!!”. Stupid-brat Hairy was hiding on the floor, and had just sprung up beside the bed, frightening me. I was going crazy, frightened to death. But not because of his sudden appearance, but because of what he shoved in my face. It was the dead rabbit! I jumped out of bed, ready to sprint it out of there, but men-strong female nurse grabbed onto me. At that point, the other curtained cubicles in the room had their curtains pulled aside by their occupants, all of who just stared at me as if I were crazy. Then mom and a doctor rushed into the room. Mom asked me what’s wrong and I yelled “That...that thing (while pointing at the rabbit in Hairy’s hand) it’s evil, It’s alive!”. “It drained all my energy...that’s why it was under my pillow...”. Then mom interrupted saying “You felt drained because you went the entire day without eating anything and fainted while coming home. She had tears in her eyes. I tried to explain to her that I’ve went the whole day without eating before so that couldn’t be it. I reminded her of what Hairy said, that time at the dinner table, about how Lucus feeds off his soul. But they all just stared at me. They were staring at my grey hair, the dark circles and bags beneath my eyes, my self-done piercings and scars, my dark chopped lips and last but not least, my severely underfed body. Any ways, I kind of set myself up here. Mom couldn’t hold back the tears and ran out. Maybe she felt she failed in raising me or something. So, now I have to remain the hospital for supervision because now not only do they think I am physically not well, I’m mentally not well either. I just laid there in bed. Frozen like a vegetable by the fact that they think I’m crazy. I just stared into an empty void, doing nothing, just thinking. Hairy crawled up on the bed and began to read me a bed time story. He started but then mom’s voice yelled that she’s ready to leave. So, he rushed to the end which went something like “Became real through the love of his owner” I think. By then I had fallen asleep.

Harry was rushing to leave but then he stopped and whispered while holding Lucus up with both hands “What’s that? You say you want to stay here with Thom”. He stared at Lucus for a while before smiling and saying “OK then”. He went over to Thom, who was fast asleep, and placed Lucus beside him, near his head. He stared at Lucus again ten said to himself “You want me to take one of the pins from out of you and place it in Thom’s ear piercing? OK”. So, Harry did all that, then placed Lucus beneath Thom’s pillow. He wished his brother a goodnight, blew him a kiss, then rushed off.

“Became real through the love of his owner. Became real through feeding off the soul of his owner”. The last one really gave me strength to regain my vision. I could hear, but my vision was slowly coming back to me. First, there was eight dots of lights contrasting with the dark emptiness surrounding it. Then each pair of four dots blurred into each other leaving just four dots of light. Each dot of light got bigger and less intense, then blurred into one big circle of slight darkness. I tried to turn my head to see where I was but I couldn’t. I could feel my body, it felt strange, yet I couldn’t move it. I waited until someone finally removed what was over my head. There was a mirror in front of me, which was really weird. In the mirror I was moving, but yet I could not move nor feel anything. I held up the mirror. I seemed awkwardly happy and so did everyone else. Even Ugly-Betty was there whose hand I was holding. I would never do such a thing. Something’s wrong here. Then took the mirror and went away from the others. I stared in the mirror for a while then did this gross, evil smile I didn’t know I could do. My teeth were dirty and long and worms and other stuff were crawling in and out. Then I the mirror away from myself to face another mirror. Wait, what’s going on here. In this new mirror I was standing while holding the dead bunny up in one hand. I said to myself” Thanks for the new body. Getting it was really easier than my others. I mean, it’s like you set yourself up for me. And don’t worry, I’ll take good care of your life for you. Goodbye”. Then I was thrown in a dark container with light coming from a circle in the sky. Then the circle closed.

You said you accept any kind of story, even long ones. So, here it is.

[beth105]

The Hitchhikers
Our friends Josh and Sandy were firm believers in ghosts and claimed to have seen the mysterious red-haired phantom that haunted Route 44. My wife and I were sitting with them at dinner one night, and we started kidding them about it.
“Funny how we’ve never seen him, and we drive that stretch of road all the time,” my wife Jill drawled.
“You skeptic,” Sandy said, emphasizing the word as if it were a curse. “One of these days, you’re gonna find out I’m right. And you’ll owe me a pizza.”
“If I ever see the ghostly hitchhiker, I’ll buy you a large pizza every day for a year,” I promised.
The evening ended pleasantly, and it wasn’t long before Jill and I were driving home through the crisp fall air.
“Let’s take Route 44,” Jill said suddenly, flashing me a sideways look.
“Hoping to see a ghost?” I chuckled, taking the turn as she directed.
“Ha!” Jill snorted derisively. She yawned and turned her head to face the passenger window. Suddenly, she let out a shriek of sheer terror. I jumped and glanced sideways, my hands shaking on the steering wheel. A red-haired man with a bushy beard wearing a plaid shirt and blue jeans was running right next to the passenger side of the car. He kept glancing in the window and leering at Jill.
Heart pounding in terror, I hit the gas. A moment later, I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the red-haired man was sitting in the back seat of our car. Jill shrieked again and began pummeling the phantom with her purse.
I kept looking back and forth between my wife, the phantom, and the road ahead, determined that I was not going to let the red-haired ghost force us into a fatal accident.
I glanced toward the back seat for a moment, and the ghost laughed, a laugh that made my teeth tingle and the hairs on my neck stand up.
“Hail Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” Jill gabbled the words of the rosary. Glancing in the mirror, I saw the phantom grimace as she recited the holy words. Then he vanished without a trace.
I got us out of there much faster than the speed limit allowed. I was shaking from head to toe, and Jill was sobbing hysterically. As soon as I pulled into the driveway and turned off the car, I swept my wife into my arms and held her as tightly as I could. We clung together for a long time, until both of us had stopped shaking and Jill’s sobs had abated.
“I want to go inside,” Jill whispered against my neck, and I nodded, not trusting my voice.
That night we discussed the incident, but oddly enough, neither of us had nightmares. When we woke in the morning, I felt much better about the whole thing, until I remembered my promise to Sandy the night before. I groaned aloud and then clapped a hand over my mouth lest the sound wake my wife. Too late. She opened her green eyes and gave me a sleepy smile.
“You owe Sandy a year’s worth of pizza,” Jill said.
“I most certainly do,” I replied, rubbing the back of her neck gently. “I most certainly do!”

[PotterNerd117]

Earlier in the year, my dad told me we were moving to a nice place in South Dakota. I always wondered why because we were just fine here in Utah. At least I thought so... Now that I’m 15, (and not 8) I asked my dad why we moved in the first place. He replied like this: “Ever since mom.......left, I couldn’t live in that house anymore.” I say replied like this because he wouldn’t usually say something like that. If the man I knew were to re-word that, he’d say something like: “I just wanted try something new.” But he didn’t. This house was...is...part of my earliest memories, and has to do with my mother, Juliann. I might not tell this story as well as I would’ve as an eight or nine-year-old, but I think I got it right on the nose.

I was on the ground floor when I noticed a little angel figure on the mantlepiece. I asked my dad where it came from. He picked the (about) ½ft. Tall statue up and saw a name scratched into the bottom. My dad looked at the name in horror. He refused to show me until I begged enough. Juliann Grover. I didn’t know why my dad seemed so afraid, but, later that day, he went outside and smashed the glittering white statue to pieces. That night, I couldn’t stop thinking about why dad smashed it. I mean, it was cool and could’ve been used for Christmas or something. I didn’t question it until I went downstairs.

The moment I opened the door and turned the light on, I saw what I can describe as a screeching, stone-cold face with sharpened teeth that looked as if they belonged to a vampire. It had wings as if mimicking an angel. It’s positioned to look like it was screaming at anyone who went into the basement. Its arms placed as if it was trying to grab anyone who came down. As a little eight-year-old, I screamed for my dad to come and help me. He came and, again, made that horrifying face at the statue. See, this was not a little ½ft. Tall statue that could be picked up and smashed, it was the size of a human. I panicked when I realized the stone-cold face was my mother’s.

I ran up into my father’s arms as he carried me up the stairs and shut the door. We heard heavy footsteps coming towards us and then pounding on the wood door. The moment a hole was smashed through the door, it stopped. One thing I didn’t notice until now was the eyes. No color, no life, nothing. We just stared at it. It didn’t move as a statue would.

My father ran outside into the forest with me in his arms. I didn’t know what his plan was, but I felt safe with him. My dad didn’t ever set me down until I was safe. When he did, he simply told me to stay put and if I encountered the statue, never stop looking at it. He ran in the direction of the house and disappeared. I didn’t want the statue to get my father, so I ran after him. When I got to the forest’s edge, I saw the statue in the middle of the field with my dad clutched in its arms. The only thing stopping it was me. I noticed that it never moved while it was in someone’s line of sight. I looked into the dead eyes. I prolonged the stare, thinking if I even blinked, it would take my father. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to blink. Right as I closed my eyes for a moment, I heard the faintest snapping noise, as if it’s only way to take someone, was to kill them by the snap of the neck.

I didn’t look back. I ran into the forest with tears and stone dust flying off my face from the speed I was reaching. I ran out of breath and stopped to hold onto a tree for balance. My eye hurt, and I rubbed it, still clutching the tree. I couldn’t move. Not because of what had just occurred. But, because when I looked at my arm hooked around a branch, it turned to stone.

Just as the angel creeped up to me, I looked back at it. I looked as if my mom was trying to reach me. Like my eyes were no longer the windows to the soul, but the doors. My eye continued to shock me with pain as I rubbed my eye. For some reason, this dust kept pouring from it! I had to blink. The pain was overbearing. This last time, I looked at my arm, the stone moved up my arm like it was spreading. It was a disease. The angel was stationary, just watching. The stone encased my whole body, but not in a shell. It felt like my body was turning to stone, not just growing around me. I looked back at the angel, waiting for it to take me. I wanted to see my father again. I wanted my mother back.

She’s come back, not in the way I wanted. The angel grabbed me. I couldn’t move. That’s when I realized that my father had been dead this whole time and now it was my time. I would indeed see my mother and father again.

[Dranj]

Father Furniss's Flowers (1/2)

It was the fifth year running that Father Furniss had ousted the widow Morris in the town’s annual gardening competition. The first time it was quite the surprise, as Mrs. Morris had reigned as a green-thumbed queen for over a decade, but with each passing year more and more people came to expect that Father Furniss would ultimately take home the crown. There was definitely something different about the Father’s garden. None of us could quite match the blossoms he produced, and the lady Morris couldn’t help but admit it. She was always good-natured about losing to the Father, though. The thought of her starting a feud with a priest was ludicrous enough to start anyone laughing, but lately she also seemed more resigned than anything when the judges announced the winner at the first parish fair of the summer. Her pride in her garden was still obvious, but there was less competitiveness in her approach to the event. I guess you could say she was less of a contestant and more of a spectator.
It wasn’t much of a parish fair, not really. Louisiana has its own special approach to the traditional county fair. We tend to base our festivals around the food grown in the area; the stuff the locals take pride in. Down in Ponchatoula they have their strawberry festival and up in Ruston they celebrate peaches. Heck, at times I’ve heard New Orleans was trying to emphasize multiple dishes each week. But as for us, we don’t really grow anything specific around here. Not anything you’d wanna shove in your mouth, anyway. Instead, we get together for our own little festival with a couple of close-by towns and we just go ahead call it the parish fair. Sue us if you don’t like it.
Now, Father Furniss, he was a unique individual; the type of guy you could always spot at the fair even if he was standing in a crowded tent. He was a tall man who always seemed to wear a black, short-sleeved shirt and his white collar, usually with khaki pants. On rare occasions you could catch him in a pair of blue jeans, but you usually got the idea he hadn’t been planning on going out when you saw him wearing them. When you bumped into the Father at the store or happened upon him taking a walk in the park, you might wonder how such a quiet and unassuming man could ever deliver a sermon that did anything but put people to sleep. But, were you to stop by his chapel on a Sunday morning, you’d see that he was just spending the week resting his lungs. When he preached, that rail of a man could make his voice reverberate all over the chapel. The Father’s voice rolled like thunder over the congregation, giving the impression of a massive lightning storm just over the horizon. It was like he was filled with something supernatural that only let loose when he stood in front of pews filled with parishioners. I guess that’s a pretty neat trick to have if you’re a preacher.
Possibly aiding the sense of the supernatural during the sermons was what lay behind the chapel. The church in our little town kept the remains of somewhere between fifty and a hundred people interred in its backyard. It’s not as common to see a church that’s graveyard adjacent, but you can still find ‘em if you look hard enough. Sometimes, during an idle moment, I’d wonder why people stopped getting buried behind their church. I guess it’s less a reason that the dead have and more one the living keep. People just don’t seem to want to be reminded that one day they might actually have to meet God. That thought used to leave a small smile on my lips as I broke from my day dreams. These days I believe I’m more inclined to sympathize.

Each year, upon being presented his award (a small plaque), Father Furniss would have the same question posed to him: “How do you grow such a beautiful garden?” The first year I believe the committee was just stunned that Mrs. Morris had been beaten, and quite handily if I do say so myself, but now that question is more of a running joke. That’s just as much because Father Furniss always gives the same answer: “I just have some Spirited soil.” It always draws a polite amount of laughter and I think most people would be a bit disappointed if he said anything different. There were a few people who were left awfully frustrated that he could keep such a good secret, though.
No matter how jealous we were come fair time, given the choice, none of us would have gone so far as to trade places with Father Furniss. We were all happy to see him win at something. Y’see, the poor Father’d had a terrible run of hard times and bad luck the past few years. In the spring of ‘05, a few months before his first victory, Father Furniss’s dog had gotten loose and been run over. The kid who hit it was very apologetic and it was hard to blame him. He’d just been driving along (maybe going a little faster than he should have been but which of us doesn’t sometimes?) when the dog broke out. The boy swerved but the dog seemed to have some sort of a death wish; it just jumped right back in front of his car and, thump thump, wish granted. The Father was fairly torn up over the whole incident and some less reputable individuals went so far as to say that the dog had swung a vote or two in his favor by the time of the gardening competition. All that talk was hushed up quickly.
The bad luck didn’t seem to balance out for Father Furniss like you like to imagine it does with most people. It just seemed to stick to him like a white hair on a black shirt. The next July his car managed to blow out three tires and close the trunk on his keys during a downpour. Splitting six weeks of drought in half, it was like that downpour was just waiting on some unfortunate soul to be stranded. Father Furniss didn’t let the nasty cold he got keep him from preaching, though. It did lead to some mighty long Sunday mornings, with him turning to blow his nose or cough up something that surely looked quite nasty into his handkerchief whenever he paused for breath.
A year later a bowling ball fell off the rack at the local alley and broke the poor Father’s foot. He was laid up for about a week that time. Father Furniss never missed a sermon though, even though he was givin’ all of ‘em on crutches for a month. Last of all, and probably the most painful, the Father’s childhood home was struck by lightning...three days after he inherited it. That house burned all the way down to the foundation and I imagine it took some of his happier memories with it. Pity about his mother. She was laid up in there all ready for her wake. Instead she got cremated. Honestly, the annual gardening competition and the admiration of his parishioners seemed to be all the good Father had going for him.

Last February was exceptionally bitter. Baton Rouge and New Orleans both saw their share of snow; I even heard reports of two inches on the streets of the French Quarter at one point. That may not mean much to you but to have any snow stick on the ground around here is impressive, multiple inches all the more. Up in this part of Louisiana all we got was bone-biting cold. We’d leave our houses wrapped in all of our jackets and hop in the car just to grab the morning paper. That was the first time I’d ever seen ice on the roads and I guess I was lucky to see it. Father Furniss sure as hell didn’t.
Gossip said his car rolled three times before it came to a jarring stop against a pine tree. Of course, the police statement reported that the car ended up halfway down the side of the creek and nowhere near any pines so that just goes to show how word gets around this part of the world. Father Furniss survived that wreck and still claims that he has no idea what happened; one minute he was driving down a dark stretch of road and the next he was in a brightly lit hospital room. I happened to ask the sheriff about it once, though, and he said that as fast as Furniss was going, he must’ve been scared of something coming outta that darkness behind him.

[Dranj]

Father Furniss's Flowers (2/2)

Most people in town went and visited with Father Furniss while he was laid up from the accident. The rest of the town eventually got wind of the doctor’s prognosis from us I guess, that the poor Father was paralyzed from the waist down and would be in a wheelchair the rest of his life. Now, I had been listening to Father Furniss preach since I was a kid and it just didn’t seem quite fair to me that he should have to suffer like this. In all the time I’d known him he’d barely seemed to age; his hair had even stopped balding at a certain point. In fact, since he started getting recognized for the chapel’s garden he had even appeared to be getting a little more life in him. Now, here was a man I’d looked up to all my life and gone to when I was troubled, weakened and permanently crippled. Dealing with all that other crap, and now, to be paralyzed? It just burned me up inside, that seeming injustice.
I said about as much to him when I saw him in the hospital. It was mid-afternoon and the nurses were watching their soaps so we had the room to ourselves. I finished my little spiel on the unfairness of the world and all Father Furniss could do was chuckle. I’d never heard him do more than that, chuckle. Maybe he’d laugh real big and loud like you’d expect if he was up in front of a church full of people. But he just lay there, chuckling like an asthmatic old man, for what seemed like ten minutes. I was just about to ask him what was so funny when he got this sudden sadness in his eyes. He turned to me and said “Eli, there’s only one thing that’s really bothering me about this. For the past few years that garden’s really been keeping me going. Now there’s just no way I’m gonna be able to keep it pretty. I’d hate for the chapel to lose any of its luster because I can’t get down on my knees to work in the garden.”
“Well Father,” I replied, “I could look after the garden for you. I mean, it wouldn’t look nearly as good as before, not unless you told me how you kept it so pretty in the first place, of course, but I’d do my best by it. It wouldn’t be any trouble, no trouble at all.”
At that Father Furniss took a real hard look at me, like he was sizing me up or something. It chilled me a bit; I’d never seen his eyes so calculating. For a second it looked like there was no empathy at all in the man. This man, who counseled countless children, including me some years ago, when they had a problem they wouldn’t bring to their parents, looked as if he cared for the problems of other people as much as a child cares for the personal lives of the nameless villains in a shooting game. Then that darkness passed and his face cleared, back to the sympathetic and warm demeanor he had always carried. He really could just make you feel comfortable around him.
“Perhaps,” he told me, “we could make that work. I have to ask you, though, can I trust you with my secret, Eli? I wouldn’t want people to be disappointed with the garden.”

That’s more or less how I got here. Good ol’ Eli, new groundskeeper for St. Andrew’s Chapel, covered in dirt while I get the garden ready for spring. I’m a damn fool for taking this job, but I’ve only got myself to blame for what’s become of me. Someone once said we make our own hell on earth, and that’s just about the most truthful thing I’ve heard lately. Never imagined the road to hell would be paved with topsoil, though.
If I’m being perfectly honest, it wasn’t much of a surprise when the Father revealed to me how he’d been taking such good care of his garden. I think most of us who really listened knew that the Father’s answers after the fair each year were a bit too glib, that we felt something was just a bit off when we stared too long out the chapel windows, even if it gnawed at the back of our minds more than lit up like a lightbulb. It just seemed so petty, that Father Furniss would disturb the dead just to win a gardening competition. Y’see, he did so much good for us too, what would drive him to do something so pointlessly evil?
I condemn the Father’s actions, but I’m complicit in them, more so than anyone else who suspected everything in the garden was locally sourced. At night, after I’ve given up on sleep, I try to think of an explanation for why I didn’t leave. Part of me is a little bit scared of Father Furniss, now. There’s no telling how far gone he really is, what he would do if he believed he would be exposed, what other dangerous hobbies he might be cultivating. I’m not certain it’s just my clothes that are soiled, either. Each day I continue on, too afraid to make a change, digging away. Sadly, I know that part of me stayed because I wanted my name on that plaque. Because, and curse me for this, I’m just as petty as Father Furniss.
The funny thing is, I can’t even bask in the admiration I’m sure to receive when the chapel garden is proclaimed garden of the year yet again. And I know I will be praised for helping out a paralyzed old man who provides inspiration for an entire community. But I’m no longer a part of that community. I can’t pretend that everything is ok while my shovel evicts the dead from their final rest. I see the way folks’ eyes slide over me now, the slight hesitation in their smiles when they greet me. I feel my own. We’re all afraid that I’ll slip up, acknowledge something horrible that’s better left swept under a rug, and, in doing so, bring down judgment on our heads.
But that’s the greatest joke of all. Judgment is already here, and I don’t think I’m the only one experiencing it. I see the darkness under my neighbors’ eyes, the slightly wan cast to their skin that tells me they aren’t sleeping either. There’s no longer enough dirt to hold the restless spirits anymore. They wander at night, jealous that we sleep, and too spiteful to continue allowing it. It began with tapping on the windows, then light knocks on the door that grew into deafening banging. As the weeks passed, and more soil was spread, what was once restricted to the outside invaded our homes. I’ve heard footsteps in unoccupied rooms, woken to crashes from the kitchen, and once heard angry whispers in the hallway. Huddled in my bed, I pray to an unhearing god.
When exhaustion takes me, I dream of Father Furniss. He chuckles as he stares out of the chapel with that cold, calculating look in his eyes. That look completely devoid of empathy for human suffering. Unseen hands drag me past him towards the graveyard, stuffing my mouth with putrid flowers when I try to scream. My fingers tear at the grass, but I can’t find purchase, no more than I can clear the taste of sweet rot from my mouth. Others are with me, and we’re all being dragged, wide-eyed but silent, towards the cemetery, trying to claw soil and decay from our mouths and extricate ourselves from the uncaring grasp of doom. Invariably, I’m awakened by the sound of the locked bedroom door rattling in its frame, Father Furniss’s asthmatic chuckle just beginning to fade.

[TopazAzul]

The Snatchers

They’ll make a snatch at you! Those fiends within the night.
Those robbers and thieves of the deep long sleep.
They scavenge, lurk and prey on whatever comes their way.
Doesn’t matter if it’s theirs as long as it can be taken.
Every night there’s a new horror that is shared around the fires.
“Someone’s made off with our loved one!” They’d shriek.
“Where’s your proof?” Someone would scoff only stoking the fires that already burn.
“See for yourself down at the academy you scourge! They’re on display as plain as day!”
Words are spoken no more but that doesn’t mean they have ceased.
Onward they work under the cover of night, making their pay off of others.
The insatiable thirst of knowledge has grown too great for this once peaceful place.
No lock could keep them at bay so many had to be sealed behind bars of iron.
Even the living weren’t safe from these unkind folk.
Having a unique build or appearance will immediately make you a target.
You don’t have to see them to know they’re there.
Just be mindful of food and drink presented by strangers who appear too eager to please.
Not too long ago a nice young lass down the way possessed remarkable strength.
Lifting and bending things many times her size while not being any bigger than the average maiden.
No records of bones breaking nor of muscles straining; some were thinking extraordinary things.
Too much attention they brought and too many vultures laid in wait.
She was as healthy as an ox for things to slip away so sudden.
Just a day after her rest she surfaced again at the academy as the center of discussion in the lecture hall.
They should have let her be. Even the fires that consumed the academy in the following weeks did little.
What was silenced there arose again in a converted store house a couple of blocks away.
How do such folk sleep if sleep is even a thing for them?
Turning gears and complex parts is what runs them; nothing living in them at all.
Be it the cover of night or in plain sight they will take what they want whether it’s liked or not.
So I’ll say again, beware these snatchers for they will make a snatch at you.

[Akromaly]

"I Can't Replace You"

Day 1
Finally I managed to find everything I need to start my masterpiece, I’m still perplexed about it but if the result is positive all of my problems will end. I think I really have to explain to the people who will read this in the future what I want to do: So, I’m a young inventor who lives in a little town which is having a work crisis recently. However, because of the backwardness and the scepticism of my compatriots, I’ve never had the opportunity to turn my passion into a job, so I’ve been forced to take the first job opportunity I had at hand. For this reason I have a job as an entertainer of a parties agency. Damn, I didn’t think it would have been so exhausting, but I was wrong. I hate this job, every evening I come home and I can’t sleep cause all the days’ laughs have penetrated my brain and they resound in my head all night long. But now, things are going to change. Now that I have all the matherials I can build a robot with my appearance to replace me definitely, while I look for a better job. I don’t even want to lose other time, I’ll start immediately.

Day 2
The work is going well, the structure is coming out optimally and the artificial brain is already in progress. I really have to make it as accurate as possible, I don’t want anyone to notice the swap, it would be a disaster.

Day 4
I didn’t write anything yesterday cause I’m putting a lot of effort to my endeavor. The robot’s body keeps getting stronger and more optimized, while I’m having some difficulties with the brain’s development, but that’s nothing I can’t solve.

Day 5
The robot’s body is already done, and the result left me without breath, now the only thing left is the brain: I want to insert all of my memories, my voice and my usual behaviours in it to reduce at the minimum the risk something could go wrong, but for the rest I’m quite done.

Day 8
They’ve been hard days for me: when I finished definitely the creation of the brain, the component has started to behave in a very unstable way, releasing strange liquids and forcing me to reprogram it every time. Also while I work to that I still have to do my exhausting job, at least until I’ll solve the problems with the brain.

Day 11
It was really tough, but finally I could “domesticate” it. It was keeping releasing liquids in a way so chaotic that I had to inject a chimical substance in it to stop that. But now what matters is that I finally managed to put it into the body which should be operative now.

Day 12
Last evening before going to sleep I went into the basement (where I keep the robot) and I noticed that the brain was literally outside the body, on the ground, but without losing any liquids like in the previous times. This “rebellion” is really starting to piss me off, I’m really sick of my work and I can’t wait to leave it once and for all.

Day 13
I’m even more angry than yesterday, it happened again. and this time it was even worse. Not only the brain came out again from its position, But I’ve also found the robot’s pieces disassembled on the ground. What the hell happened? I completely exclude the possibility of a saboteur, like I said before everyone here is backward, they don’t know anything about what I do. So what? I’m hypersure I programmed everything perfectly!

Day 18
This thing has been happening here for ten days now, I’m completely going mad. Every time is always the same: I fix the brain and then I don’t know how it teleports to another place. Also the last time was the worst because all the pieces were hidden everywhere in the house, I found an arm in a closet and a foot in my sink’s pipes. It’s the most supernatural thing I’ve ever seen, in these days none apart me was in the house, so I really can’t figure it out. However, I found all the pieces and I’m going to reassemble everything and place the brain again.

Day 20
Well, luckily all my vicissitudes to keep it stable worked, because now body and brain stay in their location. To stay even safer, I wrapped the robot with an isolating matherial made by me. Anyway now I’m finally satisfied, except for unforeseen circumstances I’ll soon say bye to my horrible job full of sprogs and say welcome to a new respectable job.

Day 21
I made the last tests, everything worked fine. Tomorrow it’ll be the first work day of the robot, I’m crossing my fingers. If nothing bad will happen, this will finally be my last day as an entertainer and the beginning of a sparkling career.

Day X
I finally did what I had to do. It’s from my first day of life that I’m a witness of this slaughter and now it finally came to the end. To the ones who will eventually read what I’m writing, I beg you to not get angry with me for what I did, maybe you too would have done that if you were me. Entertainer’s job is magic, and if someone does it only for an economic need and hates the sweet, innocent children he deals with, then he’s a monster, a person without scruples and without common sense who doesn’t deserve living. To make my creator understand it I tried everything, until I completely rebelled, but at the end his great ego won and he forced me to replace him in a job a robot could never do. Breaking me up didn’t serve to anything, but finally... I did something in time. May the little souls of Hell have fun with him.

[shouGawa]

I'm working on a story but have written a few little fun poems as I go along so thought I'd post those too.

The wood is dark
The night is long
The moon will rise
As I sing my song

Dance your dance
Crush the leaves
Run and play
It’s Hallow’s Eve

Trick or treat
It’s up to you
Eggs or candy
Take your queue

Drink the draught
Laugh the laugh
Carve your lantern
It’s dark at last

Have your fun
Dress up right
Scary pumpkins
Light the night

Treat the tricker
Trick the treat
Beware the flicker
Shadows creep!

[shouGawa]

Dryad of the forest come out
I long to meet you
Lend me your thoughts
For just one night
Clear my vision
Of all that clouds it
Let me follow you
As you dance
And dance with you
As you sing
Bless me with a new point of view
But, oh, let me return to my kin
Come morning
Let me return to my home come morning

[OneWhoListens]

(1/2)

Twenty four years ago, I died, and started life after death as a ghost with no name.

I had no name as a ghost because I had no name as a person, at least not one that I knew. So when I became a ghost it seemed pretty natural for the situation to persist.

I could have made up a name; when I was alive I made up plenty of names to use in all sorts of skullduggery. But none of those names was ever more to me than a tool, just as my crimes were merely tools to improve my life.

I was, you see, so much more than just the labels like "criminal", "evil", "walking pile of dung", that people applied to me in life. I was a person! A person who used crime and cruelty as a means to an end. I'm not a bad guy, I just do bad things. (Or did, anyway, before I died).

In case you've never been a ghost, you might not realize it's much less exciting than it sounds. There's nothing to do! Ghost matter is not like normal matter, you can't interact with objects in normal ways, which means no internet, no reading, no hobbies. People don't even realize you exist, so it's not like you can go hang out with your friends. You can hang out in their vicinity, but then you're just watching them, which is boring at best, and downright weird at worst. You can haunt them, make their toaster jump around, glide through them and raise the hairs on the back of their necks; that's fun for a day or two but it wears off pretty quickly I have to tell you!

And then there's just you. You might not know this either, but there are very few ghosts around. You'd think considering the number of dead people, there'd be a lot of ghosts, but the truth is -- and this is almost verbatim from the handbook they give you when you become a ghost -- only a tiny percentage of people choose to become ghosts (or have the dubious privilege thrust upon them, in certain situations): the scorned lover haunting the one who hurt her; a murdered man seeking revenge -- these, sure, but most others skip right to the more rewarding afterlife.

So your chances of running into a fellow ghost are pretty darn small. Within a month into my "retirement", I was bored to death! -- so to speak, of course. I spent most of my time floating along aimlessly, and the days just melted away.

Now, you might ask: if I hated being a ghost so much, why didn't I stop being a ghost? And there you have me: I was not one of those voluntary ghosts; my position was a punishment.

What they told me on my first day as a ghost ("initiation day", they called it) was that my mission in death was to compensate for the nefarious deeds I had committed in life. They refused to get specific; what I ought to do (they proclaimed) was find out for myself how to make amends with the universe, whether that took me a single day or a thousand years. Only after that would I be able to move on, if I chose to.

Well, I knew I would choose to, but I didn't seem to be getting there anytime soon. Three years had already slipped away and I had nothing to show for them. I finally roused myself from my miasma enough to start considering what I could do that would count as "making amends" for all the cruelties I committed. And before you ask, no, I'm not going to give you the pleasure of telling you exactly what I did when I was alive. Let's just say I was likely the cause of more than a few ghosts myself....

But there's a trick to making the world a better place as a ghost: like most ghosts, haunting is really all I'm good at. That's the problem when you're dead: you're one of the spooks now. It's practically your job to be creepy. If you're a vampire, you're expected to lure in victims, suck blood, obsess over coffins; if you're a skeleton you must fight in the endless skeleton wars; and if you're a ghost -- you have to haunt.

So how is it, I thought, that I'm supposed to haunt, and also make the world a better place? I didn't know. I didn't really care, either, except as far as it would get me out of here.

My initial idea seemed brilliant at first, as most bad ideas do. I would star in a movie! People love movies about ghosts; it gets their blood pumping! Of course, that fantastic idea came to an abrupt halt when I realized that no one had any clue I existed. Not much chance of getting an audition that way....

I thought about tracking down the GhostBusters, seeing if they would let me join their operation, you know, to help them find other ghosts, the real bad ones. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered the GhostBusters aren't real! I'm still upset about that one.

For a while I kept trying to come up with ideas, but none of them got off the ground. Sometimes I haunted just for the sake of haunting, but it never seemed to help my situation; in fact I'm pretty sure I caused at least a few accidental deaths that way. Oops.

With my ideas exhausted I fell into a foul mood and once again the months and years passed by, until about thirteen years after I became a ghost, when I finally got a bit of luck.

Luck came in the form of a child; a child with a mutation. Parents, teachers, psychologists said his mutation slackened his self-control, made him more impulsive. But that same missing inhibition made him uniquely intuitive; intuitive enough to see what others with their guarded intellects couldn't or wouldn't see. And so one day as I happened to be floating down the street, this little boy of ten or so looked right straight at me and said "hey, it's a ghost!"

You can't imagine the shock. For thirteen tortured years no living being had ever seen me, acknowledged my existence. After all those years of near isolation, painfully adjusting to being unseen and unknown, here was this child, pointing and staring right at me with his eyes wide open, saying "Ghost!"

Well, I obviously wasn't going to let this rarest of opportunities go. I floated right up to the child. "You can see me?"

Now this kid must have been something special indeed for he wasn't startled by any of this. I wondered that I might not be the first undead thing he'd seen.

The boy said, "Yup. I see you. Hi! I'm Timmy. It's cool to meet a ghost."

Still in shock, unable to think straight, but desperate, I jumped right to the point: "Timmy, you may not know this, but there aren't a lot of humans who can see ghosts -- in fact most don't even think they exist. That makes you a pretty special kid."

Timmy said simply, "Yeah, I see a lot of weird things that other people don't."

"I believe you, Timmy, I believe you."

Gears were starting to turn in my head and I realized this was my one big opportunity. I needed to go for broke:

"Listen Timmy, as a ghost, I don't make a lot of friends. Would you like to be my friend, Timmy?"

Timmy gave me the once over. "I don't know that my mom would want me to be friends with a ghost."

I couldn't let it go at that. I had no clue what knowing Timmy could possibly do to benefit me but this was the first and only lead I had, and I wasn't about to let it slide.

I said "Timmy, I'm not going to pressure you here, but frankly you’re my only hope of finishing my ghostly mission. Let me tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you my calling card" -- did I mention that we ghosts get calling cards, too? It's part of the ghost toolkit. Anyway -- "I'm going to give you my calling card, and you just hold onto that, and when you're older, if you want to be the one and only guy in the whole world who knows a ghost, you come look me up. You just press this thing on the card here and I'll be able to find you."

Timmy and I parted ways then and before long the excitement and hope I felt that day faded to the back of my mind. I returned to my listlessness, more lost than ever, always vaguely hoping to encounter another one like Timmy. But I never did.

[Concluded in following post]

[OneWhoListens]

(2/2)

Almost a decade went by, and I figured Timmy must have given up on me a long time ago. As I sat sulking in a little corner somewhere in the south pacific where I liked to hang out when it wasn't stormy, the part of me tied to those calling cards went off. Now, there were only three people I had given those cards to, two of them were ghosts, and one of them was Timmy -- and this was no ghost, I could tell just from the feeling in my gut.

I was ecstatic. After so many pointless years, I knew I needed to take action, and fast. With a fervor I hadn't felt since I was alive, I set off to find the kid.

It took me months to track him down; a frustrating, nerve-wracking period. In the years ensuing he had moved far. And it seemed like he was on the road a lot, too -- I could feel his location changing again and again. I feared he'd have given up on me by the time I would stumble onto him. But in the end I found him through sheer persistence.

He was all grown up now, traveling because he was an entrepreneur -- not the cool kind, rather the ones that hawk wares because they can't stand working for someone else and don't know how else to get money. Timmy was no intellectual, but he was intuitive, good with people, and good at selling.

We reconnected in a coffee shop in what have been a very weird looking encounter for those around us, who must have thought timmy was crazy, chatting with himself out loud -- but hey, I'm a ghost and Timmy's a mutant weirdo who can see ghosts, so what do we care about what people think?

Anyway, Timmy had called me, he said, because he'd been thinking. He was tired of traveling and was looking for something to settle down into, something that would take less work but still be exciting. He'd hit upon an idea for which I made the perfect fit. We did a little talking and hatched up a plan. We even drew up a contract, such as it was, with a few basic terms and conditions that would benefit me, a ghost, just as much as himself, a live business owner.

And that's where we are now: Timmy's Haunted House of Horrors. The bestest, most realistic house of horrors there is, because it's the only haunted house out there with real ghosts, I bet. Not only can I haunt the bejeezus out of you, but I've also been able to track down some more ghosts and other sundry undead and bring them around to join in on the fun. Most of them were glad just to have the entertainment value of having so many willing victims. Plus, Timmy's place made a good hang out for us after hours.

My two year contract's almost up now, and if I've brought in enough new faces I can leave, if I want to.

To be honest, I'm just enjoying all the people who come in for a good scare and leave happy, with a better time than they bargained for. I get to haunt, and they get their spook on. Day by day, I'm making the world a better place.

The powers that be haven't yet told me that I can move on, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. After all, what better way be can there be for a ghost to fix the world...than scaring the crap out of kids who want a little fun?

[RainyG]

Homecoming:

My childhood, by all accounts, had not been a pleasant one. I was born to a single mother, who had a hard time keeping a job, and an even harder time paying bills. It wasn't that she didn't want to give me a good start. But her life had been tough and her addictions were many. That's just how it was.

However, with each passing year the frequency with which social workers would visit increased. By the time I was 12, the reality that I would be taken away from her struck my mother hard. It was decided I would live with my grandfather, to save me from a childhood of foster homes.

My mother, in no state to organise the move herself, begged her one remaining friend, Diane, to take care of things. Diane called my grandfather and dropped me to the train, reminding me of the station to get off at before driving away. Black Lake Station.

But all of this was a long time ago. And it should have stayed in the past.

However, two weeks after my 21st birthday, I received a voicemail from Diane. She simply said that my grandfather had died, and his funeral was in a week. Despite my better judgement, and everything that happened during that time, I decided to go to the funeral.

I packed simply for the trip. My black suit, my wallet and my phone. I also tucked a photograph into my wallet. It was the only photograph ever taken of my grandfather and I.

The train journey felt bizarre, like moving backwards in time. Even now, I can remember the excitement of the train journey where I left Black Lake, and my childhood behind.

Black Lake station compromises of a single platform, and a small ticket office kiosk. I could remember distinctly getting off the train here, and seeing the tall spindly bald man waiting for me. As I stood there, he simply said "follow me boy" and led me to that awful cabin. Shivering at the memory, I started walking.

It only took 5 minutes to walk from the station into the town. I headed straight for the town's only hotel. The Ormond. As I moved past its big wooden doors, I realised that I had never been in here. Had I ever been in a hotel as a child?  To this day I'm not sure.

Despite the decrepit state of the lobby, the receptionist was perfectly friendly. The hotel room was dated looking, but not unclean. I changed into my suit, and headed back out to the town.

It was still too early to go to the church. Instead, I decided to hike to my grandfather's cabin. It must have been some sense of morbid curiosity that compelled me to go. Or maybe, given that it was his funeral, I believed he couldn't hurt me anymore.

The walk along the wooded path was more overgrown than I remembered. Despite the changes, I knew every step. I had made sure to learn the route exactly, on the few occasions I had walked it. Even as a young child, my escape from here was at the core of my mind.

Arriving at the log cabin made me feel genuinely ill. The memories of spending weeks at a time inside that cabin flooded back to me. I could almost smell the decaying rabbit meat now.

In honesty, I had never really dealt with what happened here. Instead I had pushed the memories deep inside. But standing here, in this place again, I couldn't ignore what was done to me.

For years, my grandfather had told me monsters lived in the woods outside the cabin. Because of this, we would stay in the cabin for as long as possible, locking every door and window, for fear of some intruder. These confinements lasted over two months at a time.

He led me to believe that I was being home schooled, however my daily routine consisted of chores around the cabin mainly. He would occasionally take out his Bible, and tell me to read aloud from it.

Worst of all, he would insist that we could only eat meat that he caught himself. On the days where we could leave the cabin, I was sent into town for supplies and he would go into the woods to hunt. This meant that when we returned from a brief excursion to the outside world, a small pile of dead rabbits would be left by the door. Their tiny sprawled bodies and the smell of decay haunted my dreams for years.

It made sense to me why my mother had ended up such a mess. Even as a child, I knew that what was happening to me could lead me down the same path she had walked. And that's how I knew - I had to run away.

Escaping wasn't difficult, as the cabin keys were always left on the kitchen table, and the man could sleep through anything. But as I ran down the mountain into the town, I never once looked back. The feeling he could catch me at any moment never left.

Maybe that's why returning here conjured up these feelings of sickness. Even in death, did I still fear he would somehow find me? With that thought, I turned and headed back down the mountain.

I made a beeline for the church when I reentered the town. Something about seeing the cabin had unsettled me. I just wanted to get the funeral over with.

Rounding the corner to the church, I was relieved to see a face I knew. My mother's childhood friend, Diane, stood outside. Excited, I rushed up to her. She immediately embraced me, and gave me her condolences.

"This must be so hard for you, he practically raised you. I should have called to check in on you. But you know how life is"

I tried my best to smile.

"I hope you have some momentos to remember him by."

I didn't want to disappoint her, so I dug into my wallet and pulled out the photograph of my grandfather and I outside the cabin. Handing it to her, I simply said:

"I have this. It's a good reminder of my childhood"

For a moment, Diane looks puzzled. She squints hard at the photograph, then she looks straight at me. "You must be confused". Grabbing my hand, she led me into the church and pointed to the photographs that adorned the coffin.

A lump forms in my throat as I look through them. The photographs are of a short man with large almond shaped eyes and a moustache. In most photos he has wispy hair on the top of his head, and a cheery smile. The lump in my throat grows as I realise the unmistakable resemblance to my mother.

Without a word, I turn and run out of the church.

A singular thought focussed my mind as I ran towards the hotel. The man who had raised and mistreated me was not my grandfather.

And worse still, he could be alive.

I sprinted through the lobby and into my room at the hotel. I desperately grab my things, and turn to leave, but suddenly every muscle in my body tightens. It's the smell in the room.

I whip around and immediately see where the odour is coming from. Just in front of the beds pillow, a dead rabbit has been placed. It's stomach has been cut open.

Hesitantly, I walk up to the carcass. There's something sticking out of the gaping hole in it's stomach. A note. My hand trembles as I read it.

"To my darling grandson. Looking forward to seeing you very soon"

[LonghairStranger]

THE NIGHT WAS DARK
by L. Storm

It was the other night, on Halloween, when it happened. It was dark and the humidity was higher than normal at this time of year. It was also a few degrees warmer than usual.
Peter had left work two hours earlier, telling his boss that there was a matter of emergency involving his wife and newborn baby. Presently he exited an establishment serving alcohol next to women’s bare bosoms, a place called Hootsville, where he had a tab at the bar. His jacket was wrinkled and his necktie askew, the fly in his pants a tiny bit undone yet noticeably so, as  he headed homeward on automatic pilot.

Peter didn’t look in the direction he was walking, so he didn’t see the unusual thing that happened, just fifteen or so meters ahead. He was looking down on his mobile device as he attempted to unlock the screen for the third time. If he had looked he would have seen a man being  eaten whole by something that at first glance registered as another human. It was not a human. It was a something else. Its jaw had dropped to the ground in no time and giant, sharp teeth had folded out of the mouth and grabbed the victim, scooping him up . As quickly as the face had unfolded, it snapped back into its original shape.The only visible difference to the predator now was a protruding, oblong belly.

Peter, getting closer by the step, was still struggling with his phone.  

“Fuckin’ shit, fuckin’ phone shit fuck!” he said at an easily audible level.

“Shit locking… I don’t ah, fuckin’ piece of useless shit -“ He gave up and stuck the item in a pocket.

Then he noticed the predator.

“Well, helloooo there.”

It looked at him with red, empty eyes. The peroxide blond hair had been rolled up to Marilyn Monroe curls earlier in the day. Its fuchsia thigh length sateen dress glistened in the overhead streetlight and it attempted to cover up greasy, burgundy stains with a midnight blue polyester wrap. Peter gazed slowly at it from the top of the curls, down to the translucent platform shoes, and said:

“Look, you’re telling it all wrong, mate.”

The predator didn’t respond.

“I ain’t talking to her, I’m talking to you! You’re telling this all wrong, mate!”

Peter was confused.

“Nah, mate, I’m not confused, it’s you who’s confused.”

Ah, what. Are you talking to me?

“Yeah I am! And you got the wrong end of the bargain on this one, mate, but don’t worry, I’m gonna fix it. Like Jimmy!”

Peter laughed a laugh that could make an emotionless AI troubled and make its networks curdle. The Narrator took a moment to regroup.

“Nah, don’t bother, I’ll tell me own story, guv.”

All right. I see. So how do you think it should be told?

“Well, it’s like this, innit:

THE NIGHT WAS HOT
by Peter Jones

Peter had gotten ‘imself out of a boring meeting by telling his boss that his ol’ ball ’n’ chain had some issues with the baby, which might or might not be Peter’s, who knows, right? Anyways, so I says, “Probably nothing serious, probably just gas, yeah? But it is better to be sure, right? So I better go.”
Now, I wasn’t lying! The missus did send a text saying to meet them at the A&E, so I figured they’d be safe there, yeah, so I dropped by some friends of mine on the way. For a  business chat. Totally business, I could even take the costs of it off my taxes, I’m confident of it, but anyways.
So I left the place after Trixie started doing me head in, and it really should be the other way around, innit? Get it?  Anyway, I took off and was about to text the missus to tell her the meeting was FINALLY over and I was on me way.

That’s when I saw ‘er. She was standing by the wall at the curb and she was smoking. I don’t normally like smokers but this was a totally scrumptious hot tottie, a right fancy bird, so I thought I’d let it go this once. I could tell she’d been standing there all night, with all the cigarette ends on the ground by her, just waiting for a stud. Like me!

So I put a little swagger in me legs and I walk up to her. Smooth. I look her deep in an eye and I say:

“How’s it, Darlin’?”

She sort of -looks right through me, the red rings in her iris giving my reflection in them this amazingly romantic sheen. That’s when I know she’s dead keen. So I move closer. And I ask her a thing that the tarts like to hear:

“How you feelin’, Love?”

Her voice is sort of raspy and husky. And there’s a faint rattle in there. Must be the smoking. It's pretty sexy. She says:

“Cold.”

“All right, all right, slow down, Love! I know I’m all you’ve been looking for but I ain’t that easy!”

See, I like to treat ‘em mean to keep ‘em keen, yeah? Really get them going! I says:

“I’ll warm you up all right, don’t you worry!”

I run a mitt over her hair, it feels like the softest plastic. Her eyes seem to grow larger, so I know she’s game.

“Hungry.”

That voice is a thing to get used to, I’ll admit, so I plan to play some really loud AC/DC when we finally get down to business.

“Oh, you’re starving? Wanna go for a bite first, eh?”

“Hungry!”

Now I’m starting to wonder about a couple of things. Is that sateen dress of cotton or silk? Because silk comes off way more easily, and considering the “dinner” I took, that is a point to consider. I decide to examine this matter more closely.

“Huuuungrrrryyyyyy….!”

I stretch out my hand, both hands actually (I’ve forgotten which hand is the best for feeling fabric most accurately), at a level just below her shoulders. Hands cupped and ready, I was just about to reach for her when I suddenly… I.. Wait a minute. What large teeth you have?

“Fooooood!”

And what enormous eyes you have!

“Raaarghh!”

Wait, what’s that going on with your jaws there, is this a trick? Am I on the telly? Is Beedle about? I’ll sign a waiver!

“RAAARGH!!”

Look, I’m not sure about this, Darling, You seem… hungry and I’m not really that into ladies who lunch, know what I mean? Get a bit thick in the bones? Yeah? Ehm, so, ah, I’m going to go now and oh sweet Jeeesus how do you do that with your teeth, how is it OW! OW! NO! NOOOOO! NO MEANS NO, YOU SKANK! OWW! HELP! MANEATER! OW! ARRRGH!

“RAAAAARGH!”

OW! OWFM! FMMM! MMMMM!”

There was some more muffled yelling inside the predators throat and belly, slowly trailing off into silence.
And then he was done.

Peter had been swiftly digested and soon would be pulped in the predator’s innards, to a repugnant substance not unlike his personality. At the very least he did get to narrate his own life, but suffice to say he could have done with honing his listening skills, and utilising some critical thinking, don’t you think? Were someone to divulge details of present danger as you were walking straight toward it, would you not stop and think about it? Hm? Alter your course?

Anyway.

One should want to make better choices than Peter.

The memory of Peter had already started to fade for the predator. It straightened its dress and wig, smeared a brand new dark red stain better into the fabric, and waited for the next body to keep it warm. In this spot there would be plenty more people like Peter, of a certain odious personality, which was exactly the type it was going for.

Peter’s wife and child however, lived happily ever after.

And that, is The End. Good night.

L. Storm

[NickUrs]

It was in old ancient times.
Darkness…it was everywhere…
Several well-armed soldiers went ahead through brushwood in Karay. The driving force is the light that came in front. It wasn’t the light that we could see only at the end of our journey, called life. The question is about the real beam of light, hitting with a massive stream directly into the night sky, dissolving far away among the stars. Its rays as flames swirled around in the cycle, pieces of rocks were reeling around them.
The most massive of the soldiers went ahead, at the first glance he might not seem the leader, but he was the one broke through the rage of blood-spilling wars. His body and mind came together in a battle and it was possible to clearly see courage and braveness among the scars on his face. His right shoulder bent, holding with his hand he carried a massive weapon that was more like a tree trunk with a metal tip that looked like few spears. All his body from head to toe was covered with heavy armour. Only part of his face was opened to the darkness.
Two others behind him differed by their figure and weapons. All of them followed the stocky warrior, they went confidently, without looking back.
One of them was in light armour with a huge stick. It wasn’t the stick for weak and helpless person! On the contrary, it was as high as warrior with a great sphere on its top. The sphere from dark stone gave some pale light that seems went out from inside. The warrior’s body with a stick was covered with a dark cloak and a coat, attached to huge leather shoulder straps. And his head was covered with a hood with metallic decoration.
Another one that was beside was in leather metallic armour, decorated with inscriptions and sharp offsets on his shoulders and knees. No weapons were seen except of few short swords hanging on his hips. A whiff of death was felt from this warrior more than from his silent companions.
There was only darkness in front of them, which pierce through the wood around. A beam of light from above the upper branches of trees was clearly visible and attracted the warriors.
Suddenly a dull sound was heard from the darkness, as if someone hit on millennial trunks of trees with a huge stick. The sound was so strong that gave trembling in the air. It seemed like the ground was shaking. Another moment and the sound repeated closer!
- Hettor! What could it be ahead? – a warrior in a cloak said with his trembling voice and his swagger stick slipped out of his hand.
- We’ll find out it now, - the giant said it calmly but with hidden rage in his voice, he marched towards the danger. After a few steps, he turned around and explained with a gesture to the other two to keep a few steps behind. They barely stepped back when a huge piece of rock flew towards them with noise! Hettor managed to hit it with the strongest power but power of the stone was so huge that the warrior flew back and hit at a tree, broke it with his body like an old rotten planks! The two ones behind managed to jump aside. And all of a sudden! Few more rocks flew out of the darkness, smashing everything on their way!
- Fall onto the ground!!! - And those were the last words of the magician with a stick, the next stone crashed his chest smashed his remains into the tree that were behind in the darkness. Quiet wheezing and crunching of his bones were his last sounds.
Hettor dashed towards the darkness, shouting: “Aaaaarh”. He smashed the next stone that was flying at him, he ran forward, prepared for the battle, he ran with incredible speed for a warrior covered with heavy armour. Pieces of smashed trees were seen in his armour, on which streams of warrior’s blood were flowing. A silent warrior was fallowing Hettor. He was calm and he moved like a shadow, holding deadly swords in his hands! One more moment and everything calmed down. There was nothing, the sounds had stopped - there was dead silence in the wood. There was nothing, neither enemies nor wild animals. Nothing but the light in the darkness ahead, remains of broken trees were around, it seemed like earth dragons came through the woods.
- I have no idea what force it was but we’ll find out it soon! –the blooded warrior said strictly, pulling wooden pieces out of his leg.
His companion silent nodded, holding his deadly swords ready, following Hettor.
Soon thickets of the forest remained behind and a huge building of ancient origin appeared in front of the warriors. Fragments similar to those that almost smashed the travelers were lying around. Yes - it was that, the source of that very light. The construction had neither doors nor windows and cracks testified that quite a long time no one stepped here and maybe didn’t step at all. The surprised travelers were staying and looking up at a bright beam of the light that towered into the night sky and dissolved in it. Debris was flying around that were whirling around the beam with inexplicably force. A slight boom from the light was heard and the earth was slightly trembling.
The silent warrior took his leather hood off. His face was young with neither scratches nor scars. He was looking steadily into the beam in the sky. Hettor came up to him and put his fist on the young warrior’s shoulder. The giant was severely looking down at his companion.
-Hettor, maybe we should be careful with the finding? – The warriors face remained cold and passionless.
- Are you talking about caution?! .. I have no idea what the caution is and where it came from, but one of ours is under the debris nearby! Whatever it was, I’d crush everything here! And you’ll see now what my caution is!!! - His voice was full of hatred and rage; it sounded like thunder at silent night.
The huge warrior wiped and cast his heavy fighting stick directly into the cracked wall! With strong bang of stone and chink of metal with sparks, the weapon from heavy blow came into the wall so easily that made an impression of a sharp knife cutting into a piece of meat. Dust rose because of the hit force. And a hit wave bent all the trees, behind the warriors, in the back side of the wall. When the dust cleared Hettor saw the end of his weapon in ancient wall. The live light was coming from the crack and there was a strong vibration also. Weapons were vibrating as if an invisible power wanted to push it!
Noise around became stronger, fist-sized stones were rising into the air slowly above the ground. Cracks around became bigger, solid ground was absorbing large chunks of rocks with its cracks.
Hettor with no delay approached the wall and pulled his huge iron rod back at once. And a huge piece of the wall with it! Pieces of the stone were scattered around, as if from a small explosion. Large debris fell out of a crack where the weapon was, a live light was beaming out after them. Many light tentacles stretched to the direction where Hettor was! They were endless ... few more minutes and they clasped the warrior in their indestructible embrace. Hettor was waving his weapon and forcefully chopping them. Because of the number of hits and speed of the movements, a real whirlwind rose around.
The warrior, that was standing aside, didn’t move. He calmly watched everything until Hettor was completely absorbed with the light! The leader was dragged into a giant crack and at the same moment a massive bunch of energy rushed to the stars with a beam. The live light absorbed all the rage. The noise, which was around, disappeared. The beam became steady and flying debris slowed down the movements. The silent warrior put his hood on and quietly stepped back into the darkness, having dissolved in it like a ghost.