2016-2017 Spooky Stories & Poems

Junior Editor: Gracie Gilchriest
Oct 31, 2016
3 min read

First Place:

Jayden Behling, Freshman

Spooky Tale

The wind attempted to blow me back, failing to prevent me from proceeding towards the peculiar house, and further away from my car and empty gas tank. My gut went ballistic at the sight of the streamers of caution tape fluttering violently in this gust of wind, but my mind had made itself up in the hypnotic fog. I was going inside for one reason: the woman.

I had seen her in the window. Her pale face was accomplished by ringlets of auburn hair and eyes of ice blue, just like the great aunt I had seen in photos of my mother’s Family. I would've thought it was her if she had not been dead for 20 years. This this woman had a silk, cream colored, then night gown slung over her frail frame. And inviting grin had crept across her face towards me through the window, beckoning me inside to her ancient home. I could not refuse due to her uncanny resemblance to Aunt Claire.

I ring the dirt covered doorbell and waited like a betting man weights on others to fold. Just as I was about to give up and turn around, the wooden, splintered door creaked open, causing my gut too tense as if the noise had crapped down my spine, as if signaling me to hold my still-alive self back, but I had nowhere else to go on this foggy night and I had to find out who that woman was and why she looked so much like my deceased relative. How strange it was to get lost on a foggy moonlit night just to happen upon an old house and a strange quest like this. With a deep breath, I pushed the door the rest of the way and crossed the threshold from reality to something I was not prepared to understand.

Like a phantom, I drifted through the dusty cobweb covered two-story structure. Moonlight flooded in from the halfway curtain covered windows of glass, which were coded in perfectly shaped cracks. My reflection stared at me in disapproval as I ascended up the flight of stairs. “Thud, thud, thud…”

My heart felt as though it would pop out of my trembling body and scurry out of this house, cursing my curiosity and weak will. I found myself a link the, dark hallway where I could see nothing but a faint sliver of moonlight, which held its hand out to beckon to me from behind a partly open door. I accepted it's call and hesitantly went towards it.

Another lengthy creek and I entered tiny chilly room, illuminated only by the pale white of that moon, escaping from the tiny window to my right. Glancing around, searching for who knows what, my eyes grabbed hold of a chestnut wooden stool on its side. Something in the back of my mind told me to right it from its fallen state, so I did rather quickly. I could feel that I was where I was meant to be. Anticipation stole my breath, forcing me to remember to breathe. Bringing my eyes back up, I realized there was a feminine shadow ceasing the glow of the dancing moon beams beside me.

I flipped around quickly, and what I saw froze every inch of my body. The woman was there alright. If I did not know any better, I would say she was my aunt Claire, but she had been dead for so long. This woman swayed back-and-forth swiftly. Her glacial eyes stared right through me as her pale skin, skin that was raw and irritated from where her lovely rope necklace that into the flash, hanging her from the beams of ceiling. As I stared, mouth agape I heard it, I heard her without those lips ever moving from their grin.

“Now I won't be alone.”

Second Place:

Elianna Auer, Freshman