Terrifying Tales Short Story Contest

Teen Winner

Creator name: Jadelyn H.

Story Title: Closer
The clinic smells like antiseptic, sharp and prickly. The smooth white walls blend perfectly with the doctor’s pristine coat. The wife squeezes her husband’s hand nervously, the other hand gently playing with her wedding ring.
The doctor smiles at the couple. Her teeth match the unblemished qualities of the room.
This is going so fast.
Too fast?
Twisting the delicate band around her finger, her brain fluttered with anxiety.
The clipboard balanced precariously on her lap.
The print, small and uniform, clustered in thick rows.
The pen in her fingers, ready to sign.
The husband and the wife looked over the document. It seemed to be standard medical legalese. In fact, it was less intimidating than the paperwork the husband received for LASIK surgery a few years back (weakened immune system! Permanent loss of vision! Potential risk of psychological harm!). Relax. The wife thought, glancing over at the husband, absently lost in his own thoughts. This is a good thing. We’re going to be so much happier later. The advertisement had promised a more powerful mental connection, shared consciousness, a purer, higher form of love.
Together.
The couple joined hands and allowed the doctor to escort them into the next room.
It’s going to be perfect.
The cold prick of a needle slid into their arms.
And searing pain erupted through their bodies.
The wife tried to scream, before the darkness of a sedative enveloped them.

***
The moment they woke up, they knew something was wrong.
Remaining embers of pain crackled through their flesh. Distorted limbs. Breathing heavily.
They tried to get up, to run, but they couldn’t move. Only twitch their strange, melded appendages.
Twitch. Twitch. Twitch.
They noticed there was the sound of only one person breathing, instead of two.
They had no idea how long they lay there, helpless in a room of inky darkness, until they heard the whispers from the shadows, behind their head.
Another failed experiment.
Goosebumps erupted down their ragged skin.
We can’t keep making the same mistakes.
This whole idea was a mistak-
Their heartbeat was too slow. Or was it too fast?
Vertigo, stomach roiling with nausea.
This wasn’t supposed to-
The weight of the wedding ring is still pressing down on a disjointed finger.
I see it in my sleep I see it.
Everything feels swollen. Like it might burst any second.
People inside people. People joined to people.
Deformed. Disfigured. Conjoined.
Useless. Useless. Useless.
There isn’t any-
Why won’-
Metallic tang of blood, sour in their throat.
It’s a pity, really.
Shivering, even though it’s not cold.
Twitch. Twitch. Twitch.
We’re running out of time.
A sour smelling bag closed over them, like water over a drowning person.

***
Hard impact with the ground.
They’d felt moved and jiggled about, but time had dragged by so monotonously it had become a feverish haze.
Where are we?
The rough edges of a jagged floor poked their misshapen sides. Air fragrant with the scent of the recently deceased.
Feebly, a bruised-purple hand reaches upward, fingernails snagging on the putrid burlap, until they feel something give away.
They tumbled out, then took in their surroundings.
A building, a morgue if you will, slumped under the weight of things terrible yet forgotten.
Piled all around them were similar bags, pungent with medical experiments gone wrong.
Get out of here.
Please, get me us out of here.
The monstrous form of the husband and wife stumbled outside into the moonlight, the shadow behind them morbid and broken: limbs in the wrong places, bending at unnatural angles. The two had melded in such a distorted way, a tangled patchwork of skin, hair, bones, and teeth.
The creature that had once been the husband and wife twisted the wedding ring, watching the moonlight catch the diamond's faces.
All we wanted was to be closer.

Teen Honorable Mention

Creator name: Mariela H.

Story Title: 11:59
My pills are missing. I riffle through the bathroom cabinets and sweep all the papers off my desk looking for a glimpse of the familiar orange plastic bottle. Nothing. I must have misplaced them. There’s no other explanation since I live alone, ever since I moved out of my childhood home to the outskirts of the city. I decide to skip taking them this morning. I’ll take them tonight once I find the missing bottle. I stop looking. Somehow, I pull myself together and out the front door.
Another day at the office. It passes in a blur. By the time I get home, I’m too tired to bother looking for my pills. I peel off my dress and fall into bed. Sleep comes quickly.
I wake disoriented. It’s the middle of the night. The clock on my nightstand flashes red through the darkness filling my bedroom. It’s 11:29. A strange coldness creeps across my skin. Something feels wrong. I lay still for several moments, staring up at the shadowy vault of the ceiling. Then, slowly, I turn my head. The curtains to my bedroom window are open, and faint light from the street outside slants into the room. I can see the sky, starless and heavy with clouds, and snatches of glistening pavement through the windowpane. Suddenly, I start. My skin is alive, crawling with something colder than dread. A dark silhouette is standing in the street outside my window. A man, illuminated in the dim glow of streetlamps. His figure is strangely shapeless and blurred, turning him into a faceless shadow.
My heartbeat becomes audible, pulsing in my throat as a slight movement passes over the dark figure. As if feeling my gaze, his head turns towards my window. The pale glow of a near by streetlamp falls across his face, and I see his eyes. Only, they aren’t eyes. Empty white pits fill the sockets where his eyes should be, shining in the faint light. I open my mouth, but no sound passes my lips. He stares, seeing but unseeing, at the front of my house. I suddenly can’t move. I’m paralyzed, frozen in bed. A prisoner to my own fear as I wait for the shadowy silhouette to move closer. But it doesn’t. He stand deathly still on the street outside, staring, staring…. And I continue to lay, paralyzed, waiting, each tick of the clock painfully slow. Until, after what seems like forever, times blurs, darkens, around me and although I never see him move, the man is suddenly gone.
I’m almost too disturbed to go to work the next morning, but somehow I make it through the day. I still can’t find my pills, but I make myself a warm cup of tea before bed to calm my nerves. This time, before climbing into bed, I make sure to tightly close the curtains over the window.
I startle awake to grainy darkness. The red lights on my bedside clock blink 11:39. A cold pit of dread opens in my stomach, and I know even before I look. The curtains are open. There, silhouetted outside, is the dark figure of man standing on the street—standing slightly closer than before. I try to sit up, to move, but once again, my fear has woven its paralyzing net around my limbs. Outside, the man moves. His shadow shifts as, once again, he begins to turn towards my window. I catch a glimpse of his chilling eyes, pale and blank as a corpse’s. Then I see a flash of white. The moon must have slipped out from behind its shroud of clouds, and its light catches on his teeth, lighting up the curve of his grin. I struggle to breath. Horror strangles the breath in my chest, suffocating me.
Suddenly, the street outside brightens. A car curves into view, and as if passes, the shadowy figure of the man seems to vanish into the glow of its headlights, erased by the light instead of becoming clearly illuminated. I gasp for breath as the rumble of the car’s engine fades into the night.
When I glance in the mirror in the morning, my eyes are dark and puffy. I haven’t dared to close them for even a second since the night before, and even in the pale gray light of day, I can’t shake the lingering fear that paralyzed me in my bed for hours after the man vanished. My phone shakes in my hand as I call my mom. She picks up on the second ring. “Molly?”
“Mom.” Before I’m even aware that I’m speaking, words are spilling out of me. My voice is strangely hoarse, and I whisper as I tell her.
When I finish, there’s a pause on the other end before she speaks. “Have you been taking your medications?” I don’t respond, and she keeps talking, her voice tinny, reminding me that this isn’t the first time this sort of thing happened. Reminding me that I have a past of imagining things. Of sleepwalking. “You have a history of this, Molly. You have to remember to keep taking your medicine. Okay?”
Perhaps she’s right. Perhaps it’s all in my imagination. I spend the rest of the morning on my hands and knees peering under furniture and digging through drawers, searching for my pills. But the familiar little orange bottle is gone.
I spend the rest of the day setting up a security camera, mounted on the side of the house so it faces out into the street. The knowledge that it’s there is strangely comforting, and as night falls, I’m able to move without being chased by the lingering fear following in my footsteps. I double check that the camera’s on and close the curtains before bed.
Sleep comes dark and slow, pulling me under like the currents of a black river. I surface abruptly to shadows and a faint glow of light from the window. The clock flashes 11:49. The curtains are open, swaying in an invisible breeze that doesn’t seem to reach me where I lay in bed. The man is standing outside, deathly still. He’s even closer than before. Just outside my window. His empty white eyes glow in dim light of the streetlamps, staring through the dark glass of my window. My head swims and, after what could be mere minutes or hours, I sink back under.
I’m also too exhausted to get out of bed the next morning. But I drag myself out into the sunlit street to check the camera. Despite myself, curiosity gnaws at my insides as I run through the grainy footage. I see the dark street, lit up by the occasional passing car. Nothing else. I fast forward, and suddenly, there’s a flash of movement on the tape. A pale figure emerges from the darkness at the edges of the frame. My blood freezes. It’s me. Slack-faced and wrapped in my nightclothes, I move towards the camera as if in a dream, expression blank and eyes unseeing. Sleep-walking. I shuffle forward, as if drawn by an invisible string, closer and closer, until I’m standing directly in front of the camera. My pale face fills the screen, and then, I reach up and there’s a soft click close by. The screen goes dark as I shut of the camera. My blood is ice in my veins as I slowly look down at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen where a timestamp flashes in tiny red numbers. 11:48. I shut my eyes and tell myself to breath, but my chest is closing off. I turn off the camera at 11:48, which means that afterwards I turned around, went back inside, lay down in bed, and woke up with out any recollection of it to see the man standing outside.
I’m shaking. I can’t breath evenly as I pace through the house, picking up my phone, then putting it down, then picking it up again. My fingers hover over the screen, but I don’t call. Instead, I wander aimlessly through the rooms, restless, muttering. When I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I recoil. The wild-eyed, deathly pale creature staring back at me looks barely human. I swear to myself that I will not go to bed. I will not sleep.
But as night begins to fall and the windows darken, I start to feel a strange sluggishness creeping into my body, into my mind. I try to fight it, but the darker it grows outside, the more tired I become. I can hardly keep my eyes open. In a daze, I drift from room to room. I know that tonight, when I fall asleep, it will be 11:59 when I wake up. The clock by my bedside will be flashing red, counting the seconds down to midnight. And so, as I grow more and more tired, I continue to sit here, waiting, waiting…

Teen Honorable Mention

Creator name: Harper C.

Story Title: No Escake
I blinked, waking up to the warm autumn light that came through the window as the curtain blew aside. I rolled over to face my partner. “Morning.”
They sat up groggily. “Morning.”
“What do you feel like today?”
“He/him is fine. Hey, did you steal the blanket?”
“I was cold.”
“Well, it’s fall, of course it’s cold.”
“Oh, hey, speaking of which, I saw this new movie trailer…”
As we talked, I woke up more and started looking out the windows. Autumn really was pretty. The leaves were so bright and fiery, not to mention crunchy. I stomped on piles of them on the way to the bakery where I got breakfast.
“Hello, what would you like?”
“Could I have a chocolate croissant, please? For here.”
“A batch just came out of the oven. You’ll have to wait a couple minutes.”
“That’s fine.”
As I waited, I scrolled through TikTok. A lot of it was that “cake or fake” trend that’s been going around lately. I usually avoided those videos. I didn’t like the idea that any physical object could actually be a hyperrealistic cake, and you wouldn’t know until you grabbed it or tried to wear it or wipe your butt with it. (Yes, there was toilet paper cake.)
It wasn’t like I was uncomfortable with ambiguity or liminal states. I lived with a gender-fluid partner who I checked in with every morning to see what pronouns they were using. I smiled a little bit to myself, thinking the gender binary had nothing on the “cake or not-cake” binary.
I watched another couple of videos, but then put the phone down with a shudder after watching a human hand holding a knife be cut in half. Apparently, these cake imposters had been showing up all over the place, outside of memes. Freaky.
“The croissants are ready.”
“Thanks.” I took a bite out of the croissant and almost spat it out. You know when you drink a glass of water, but it turns out it’s soda? I didn’t dislike cake; it was just disorienting to bite into frosting when I was fully expecting a croissant. “Wh-why is this… cake?” I sputtered.
“What? Huh… must’ve been a mix up. Sorry, sir, I’ll get an actual croissant.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
The rest of the day was normal, at least in terms of cake. I was still suspicious from the bakery incident. Did someone secretly slip a cake in with the croissants? Then a worse thought occurred to me. Did they slip multiple cakes in?
I wasn’t scared of cake, but the thought of cakes being disguised as other food was off-putting. I mean, what if someone was allergic?
It was probably some kind of YouTube prank. Still, I went to a Starbucks for coffee the next day. All normal. Everything was fine.
The next day, I went back to the neighborhood bakery.
When I went to grab my plate off the counter, something about it felt wrong. I frowned.
Then the plate fell apart in my hands. I stared at the floor. The plate was cake. The PLATE.
And as I stepped backwards, my leg knocked into a chair. The chair squished into cake.
The server offered a refund, but I stumbled out of the bakery, saying no thanks. I walked out and leaned against the building. Then I hurried home.
I sat at the table with my head in my hands.
Was I on drugs? Was I losing my mind?
I mean, how could there be a chair made of cake?
OK. I was going back to the bakery. This was dumb. I was being dumb. I was going back to the bakery right now to PROVE that I was wrong.
Yes.
I walked confidently down the sidewalk, stepping on some disappointingly non-crunchy leaves. I walked into the bakery.
See? There was no cake chair on the floor. I’d been paranoid.
“Hello, sir, what would you like?”
I opened my mouth to respond when I realized something was wrong. The person at the counter was talking to me… but her mouth hadn’t moved… and…
An identical woman stepped out of another room. I staggered, trying to catch myself on the glass. But my hands sank right through the glass.
Cake.
I staggered backwards and ran out the door. As I flung it open, I watched its fondant hinges tear away as it fell and crumbled on the ground. The leaves. My foot sank into a pile of leaves, and I realized the reason for the absence of crunch.
It was because they weren’t leaves. They were cake.
They always had been.
I sprinted back to my apartment. My partner turned and saw the look on my face. “Hey- whoa, dude, what’s wrong?”
“The cakes-” I blurted. “The cakes, they’re all so realistic, literally anything could be cake-”
I couldn’t find the words, so I just hugged them. They hugged me back, obviously confused, not having a clue what I was talking about, but it was still comforting.
Then I felt the frosting on my fingers.
I stepped backwards and screamed as my partner crumbled into cake. My next step sank into the soft floor. Cake. I looked around frantically. Cake. Cake.
As my foot sank into the floor, I knew I didn’t have much time. I lunged for the cutlery drawer, but the handle ripped off, taking crumbs with it. Looked around. There. On the table. A fork. I grabbed it.
My fingers squeezed the soft fondant. The fork was useless. The cake was up to my knees now, and I was sinking faster and faster.
I clawed frantically at my own arm. I had to know.
No pain. No blood.
Just frosting.
Then.
Cake.
I screamed as my consciousness faded. Far above me, the ceiling started to collapse. I saw everything fall and crumble into delicious slices because it was cake, it was all cake.
I was gone. I was cake.
Everything was cake.

Teen Honorable Mention

Creator name: Hailey A.

Story Title: Document 666

The following document is document 666. This is the only remains from the 1867 Newborn Asylum fire. The journal entries were all written by Dr. Arthur Smith about the last patient he encountered. The contents are disturbing and macabre. We take no responsibility for any disturbing events you may learn about.

November 10, 1866

Today a new patient has been transferred into my care. She is 26 years of age, and has been living at the institution for the past fifteen years. She has not been exposed to the outside world at all since then. My job is to rehabilitate her so she can function and be reintroduced to the world. I have not met her yet, nor have I witnessed her breakdown. No one will tell me what's wrong with her. I have just been told to see for myself. I believe they are trying to not scare me off. She has been through many doctors before. I must go now, to be introduced to my patient.

November 11, 1866

The scene I witnessed last night was truly horrific. I have not seen a patient in such a way before. The way she was being kept was horrifying. She was restrained in almost every way possible. She had a straight jacket on, securing her arms across her body. There were tight leather straps keeping her in her chair. They were digging into her skin on her wrists, ankles and waist, causing bruising. Around her mouth was a dirty old cloth acting as a gag. She was incredibly dirty, and her hair was patchy.

“Am I able to talk to the patient?” I asked the officers in the room.

“I wouldn’t recommend it, Docter,” They replied.

“Well that's not very nice. Maybe I want to talk to him,” I could have sworn I heard in my head. She couldn’t have said it though, she still had her gag on.

I slowly approached her, keeping my hands where she could see them. As I walked up, she was eyeing me, analyzing what I was doing. She was like a wild animal, watching every move carefully. I was right in front of her, and slowly went to take her gag off. She flinched away, but let me take it off.

“Hello there. I am Dr. Smith. I will be taking care of you,” I told her. “What's your name?”

“Luella,” She replied. It was the same voice I heard in my head.

“Nice to meet you Luella. What did you do to need all of these restraints?” I asked. My plan was to establish a good relationship with her from the start. Humanize her.

“I didn’t do a damn thing I wasn’t supposed to. It's not my fault that I can hear things in my head. I just want the voices to die. I just want to die” She was already very defensive. Clearly she had had these interactions before.

“I believe you. Death is not the answer though,” I told her.

I am writing this from my office now, and looking into her case. She has been suffering from hearing voices for a long time, but only recently has it caused her to get violent with herself and others.

There seems to be a negative effect on all of the other patients since Luella arrived. They have complained of hearing a female voice in their heads. Even the patients we have made significant progress with are struggling. I have written down a conversation one of my colleagues had with a patient.

“Good morning. How are we doing today?” The doctor asked.

“The voices. Make them stop,” The patient moaned from the corner of her room.

“What voices are you talking about?” The doctor pushed.

“Her voice! She keeps talking to me. Telling me to do things. Get her out of my head!” The patient then proceeded to start clawing at her face, drawing blood. There were scabs on her face, suggesting she was doing this earlier. She was then restrained. We had similar reactions from multiple other patients.

December 11, 1866

It has been one month that I have been working with Luella, and things have been getting stranger by the day. I hear her. Always. She is in my head. I don’t know how it is possible. I feel her prying at my thoughts, trying to get in.

“Leave me to die,” she says. “Let me be free.”

I can hear her in my head.

“How are you feeling today Luella?” I pushed. She wasn’t talking.

“Let me go. I need to be free!”

Her calls in my head are getting louder. “Let me out!” She screams. “Free me! Let me die! I’m done!” My head hurts when she screams in it. It feels like it is splitting open.

December 20, 1866

The safety procedures in this institution are failing. I don’t know how, but they are. We have had multiple casualties in the past couple days from patients. The patient casualties occurred when transferring some of the more sane patients to a group appointment. There was only one doctor with them, and he was incredibly tired. He was finishing a night shift, and this was his last job of the night.

The hall they were walking down was seven floors up and had a single window at the end. This is one of the only windows in the institution that can be opened, because no patient enters this hallway unsupervised. One way or another, the window was left open. The patients jumped out, leaving the doctor in shock. The doctor’s mind was destroyed. He couldn’t put together a coherent sentence. We had to commit him to a cell here, poor guy.

December 27, 1866

I had the strangest dream last night, involving Luella. I was in the asylum, tied up in her chair. She had put all of the inhuman restraints on me instead. She was just standing there, looking me dead in the eyes. All I could see was her blood shot eyes. She stayed there for a while, and then turned around quite quickly and left.

I didn’t see where she went. A horrible stench was in the air though. I couldn’t quite place it till she walked in, carrying the fuel for a gas lamp. I gaped at her, unable to do anything to stop her. She looked at me, smiling, and left. The smell of smoke quickly filled the room, and the flames rushed in.

That was when I jolted awake. I could feel her in my mind. “Will you let me die now?” I can feel myself slowly losing my mind.

January 5, 1867

Luella is scaring me. I just want everything to be fixed. I need to fix everything.

“Do you blame me for the deaths of the other people here?” She asked. “I can see it in your eyes. I can hear it in your brain. People are dying, and you don’t know how to fix it. You need to understand, you can’t fix anything. I am in control now.”

I blacked out and woke up in my office, covered in my own vomit.

January 5, 1867

Hello. I was only biding my time. Waiting. Hoping. Thinking. This place is a torture chamber. It needs to be gone. There was plenty of warning. I told him this would happen. He saw what I would do. This was his fault.

As to the other patients that died, they were necessary casualties; they are happier now anyway. I’m sure the fate of falling out of a window is better than burning alive. What do I know though? Unfortunately I have never tried either. Yet.

I got out. This is what happens when you trust a crazy person. We find ways to make things worse. He is now in my chair. In my straight jacket. In my gag. Sitting in a pile of my hair. With gas lamp fuel all over the room.

Don’t ask me how I got out. It does not matter. I will be dead soon anyway. The fire is spreading, and everyone will be free from this torture. I told him to let me die. I am sick of the torture of the voices. He didn’t listen, so I fixed it. His mind is so fragile. I could have broken it long ago. Instead, he gets to suffer. He gets to feel the pain of his own death, along with the deaths of everyone else here.

I see you. You are reading this right now. All that is left is a file, as the only evidence towards this fire. You seem nice. Your mind is so weak. I can see it. You are wondering how I did it. Doesn’t matter. Don’t ask questions. I will make you crazy. I will break your mind, if I have to.

 

Adult Winner

Creator name: Marita Mežroze

Story Title: Neuropathy
I left my hand in the other room.
That happens sometimes - it just slides off the bone.
I found my hand in the bed, strangled in a clot of covers. Fingers entombed in linen. I tried to reattach it, but once the digits became loose I had to leave them for another day. Wrap them in cellophane, tuck them into tupperware, and slot them into the fridge beside the leftovers.
The Doctor called it Multiple Sclerosis. My immune system was chewing holes in my brain. The rorschach of an MRI revealed seven lesions: spaces where the myelin sheath peeled away from the nerve. This waxy covering sent signals to my body. Told my hand to grasp the coffee. Promoted my eye to see past my nose. Reminded my leg to complete the stride.
I reattached the hand for my appointment. It might be backwards. I could flex the thumb but the pinky was gone. I had a vague recollection of leaving it next to the cheese.
“A classic case of peripheral neuropathy,” The Doctor explained, ogling the chilled hand. When he squeezed, my netted neurons signaled the smell of forest and the taste of cranberry, but I didn’t get that wiggly finger feeling deep in my brain. That section of glial cells expired last month. “I see this all the time. The right side of your body. It’s just not connected the way it used to be.”
I dropped my eye in the sink.
It landed with a wet thump and rolled down the disposal. My fingers traced the gaping hole of my eye socket. If I dug around in there I could feel all six extraocular muscles. It was incredible, really, that the eye slipped from my orbital bone without leaving any residue. Just a delicate, spongy spot. Baby-new.
“You still have the other eye,” The Doctor assured me giddily. “Many people lead full lives with a single eye.” Would I need glasses? “Of course not. You cannot correct vision when the eye is simply gone. Glasses won’t adhere the retina to the optic nerve.”
If I tilted my head down, it just oozed out, so I kept the eye in the refrigerator and mashed it into the socket when I was bored. Then it became misshapen, collecting lint. I placed it back amongst the cold cuts.
I left my leg in the bathtub.
As I rose from the water, steadying my pruned body with my one good hand, and fixing my gaze with my one good eye, the leg slipped from my hip. It was actually quite buoyant. I hobbled to the sink, balancing on a slippery limb as I whacked myself with the towel. The right side of my body sloughed away.
I hopped to the kitchen and forced the appendage into the crisper. It’s still there, amongst the carrots, potatoes, and celery. The makings of a decent soup. I prepared a single-armed sandwich to accompany this entree. Clumsily cut the camembert and peeled the prosciutto from its packet.
“You just need more exercise,” The Doctor explained. “Multiple Sclerosis can improve with simple movement.” But what kind of movement? Should I have dragged my fetid corpse from the bed to the couch? If I failed my arm would my neurons knit anew? Would blinking this eye seed a new one in the socket?
My mouth fell into my soup.
I realize this is difficult to envision, but it was really only the right side of my mouth. I lifted a spoon to my lips and the metal dug into flesh - the space where my mouth used to be. Lips bobbed in my minestrone.
“People talk too much anyway.” This was The Doctor’s wisdom. “Just use a straw.”
The left side of my mouth could mumble your name. The lips could twitch into a disturbing smile. They could drool and sputter as I forced liquids into my remaining extremities.
There were fifteen lesions then. Glowing orbs blinding my brain. Chewing through the gray and white matter. Swallowing my cerebellum. Masticating my occipital lobe. Finally picking through my parietal lobe.
And that’s when my brain flopped onto my book.
I was reading something now I can’t
remember
I reached for a vanished
memory
a first kiss a childhood
dog
a favorite teacher
a date
of birth but I could not find the
words
the letters fuzzed into an inky phrase blurring sentences seep between my fingers
and I
could not
turn
the page

Adult Honorable Mention

Creator name: Detti Bea

Story Title: Silk
My life changed less than 24 hours ago. I accept it.
Yesterday, I was biking home to dinner along the greenbelt between me and my bestie’s house. Fall had arrived, and I was enjoying the cool mist that saturated the air as I flew down the trail. I was at full speed when I hit the giant web straight on; it wrapped around my head like a net. I convulsed as I felt the threads as they touched my cheeks, my nose, my lashes, and the tops of my ears. Instinctively, I closed my eyes, screamed, and stopped pedaling. I let the bike go, realizing too late that the sudden stop would probably land me face down on the trail.
Maybe if I had fallen, it’d all be different now. But I’d kept my balance, and I hadn’t fallen. So, even though there was still a spider web covering my entire head from shoulder to shoulder, I inhaled in relief, and that’s when it happened. Some of the spider silk strands had loosed and in an instant they were in my mouth, slithering down my throat. I’d opened my eyes wide then, coughing, moving my tongue, then using my fingers, trying to budge them. Anything to get the silk out. But they clung to my throat, anchored and resolute in claiming me, their new frontier. In the end the choice was never breathe again or swallow the awful things and my body, ignoring my terror, saved me by devouring the clingy strands.
Everything does whatever it takes to survive.
That next breath of air was the most precious moment of my life. After that, I spent the next few minutes trying to cough the awful things back up while running my fingers over my face and through my hair, removing the rest of the web. Then I got back on my bike and sped home.
As I walked through the door, the smell of mom’s lasagna surrounded me like a hug. My Mom and little brother, Joey, were already sitting, plates full. Joey had the first bite on his fork, ready to enter his mouth, a tomatoey piece dripping with melted cheese, and suddenly I felt,
..
Nauseous??
That’s silly, I remember thinking. That’s also the first time I remember hearing the tapping.
Then Mom told me to go wash my hands. When I returned, there was a large square of lasagna with a small salad filling my plate. I grabbed my fork, used it to section off a bite-sized piece, and had it on my fork when I hesitated.
Again, I felt a revulsion at the thought of eating it.
“I made your favorite tonight, so there’s extra for you,” my mom said as she stuffed a large leaf into her mouth.
When I was quiet, she looked over at me. I couldn’t move the fork any closer to my mouth; if I did, I knew I would hurl across the dinner table. The tapping became louder, more insistent.
“I’m sorry Mom, I think I might be getting sick,” I whispered because the nausea was overwhelming.
Mom immediately put her hand on my forehead as I put the fork down. “It doesn’t feel like you have a fever.” Mom said, then she squinted as she continued, “Did you and Harriett fight?”
Harriett is my bestie, and yes we fight, and yes, my mom knows this affects me deeply.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joey placing a heaping blob of cheesy lasagna in his mouth. His lips were glossy with the oil as he chewed. I felt everything that I had eaten that day move up to the back of my throat, demanding to be let out. I knew I couldn’t speak, so I merely nodded in agreement to Mom’s question about a fight, did my best to look distraught about Harriett, and ran up to my room to lie down.
The ceiling swam above me, so I closed my eyes.
I’m not sure how much time passed until from somewhere in my room I heard the tapping again, first faint, then becoming louder. Was it under my bed? I crawled onto the floor to have a look. Nothing but black, the tapping now above my head. I looked up, saw the night sky with stars, and instantly stood. The floor bounced beneath me and I flexed my legs to balance. Something moved to my right. Then there was that tapping noise again. I walk-bounced towards some fluttering sound, listening as it became more urgent.
I continued on, sighting a large lump forming in the distance. The fluttering was a buzzing now. Where did I know that sound from? It was familiar, yet the pitch wasn’t right. As I got closer, a multifaceted eye and an antenna rose out from the lumpish shape and suddenly I realized the ‘lump’ was a giant trapped fly! And instead of being terrified like a normal person who suddenly comes upon a fly that was a third their size, my stomach growled. I was hungry.
For. This. Fly.
Then I felt a breeze of something going past me fast and a voice screeching at me, “Give me back my silk!” I screamed and then I was back in my room, sitting upright in my bed, the night filling my window.
I flipped on the light and sat there, whispering to myself, “It was just a dream, not real.” It was a long time until morning.
When I heard my mom go downstairs, I changed clothes and went downstairs for breakfast.
My mom looked over as she cooked, “Feeling any better?”
I lied and said I felt fine, then spent the next ten minutes pushing scrambled eggs on my plate to make them look partially eaten. Then, I told mom I was going over to Harriett’s.
Outside, I could not help but smile at the clear autumn day. The coolness felt fantastic. Fall is my favorite time of year and today was a new day.
Everything was going to be fine.
I walked around my mother’s fading vegetable garden when I spied a bee on one of the path stones. The poor thing was lethargic from the cold, but I knew that the day’s eventual warmth would give it its pep back. Still, its frail movements, its weak fluttering, mesmerized me. It begged to be touched.
And then, I swear to you, the next thing I knew the bee was in my mouth, my front teeth biting the stinger and snapping it off, my thumb and index fingernails grabbing the tiny barb and flicking it into the garden.
I was almost back at the house when I realized what I’d done. I closed my eyes, my hands to my mouth in horror, and then I heard the tapping again. Somehow, I could now understand now what the tapping meant. ‘It’ was impatient and ‘it’ was hungry.
It was only then I could admit that something had happened to me yesterday. Desperately, I thought maybe it was some weird reaction to a spider bite, and I ran upstairs to the bathroom examining myself, but could find no mark.
What else was there to do? I went back outside and got on my bike. Slowly, I pedaled back to where I’d encountered the web the night before. The entire way, I heard the tapping. Once I was there, I looked up in the trees for any sort of remade web, but saw nothing.
“It ends here,” I said to myself. “I’ll give the silk back and it’ll be over.”
I placed my fingers down my throat and, bringing the image of digesting bees and spider silk in my stomach to mind, I forced myself to throw up. At first there was just some saliva and choking, but after a moment the bee came up, warm now but never to fly again. After another minute, the silk pieces came up as well. By this time, I was on my hands and knees, gasping.
As I recovered, I heard a rustling, looked, and saw movement from underneath a bright crimson leaf. A medium gray spider, absolutely ordinary in description, was inching towards the silk remnants. It took each one into its mandibles and, like a long soup noodle, it slowly sucked the pieces into its mouth.
Next, it went to the bee. It touched it with its mandibles for a moment, grabbed and tucked it under one leg, then turned, scuttling back towards the scarlet leaf. Right before it disappeared beneath the leaf, it turned its head and looked back at me.
In my mind, I heard tapping, like an irritated teacher trying to get the class’s attention, then I distinctly heard, “Tomorrow, at least two bees. Or else. I have children on the way.” Its statement punctuated with harsh tapping.
And in that moment, I realized there would be no escape. The silk and its owner had trapped me as well as any insect.

Adult Honorable Mention

Creator name: Kendra Leon

Story Title: What Did Mariana Do?
Every night, without fail, Mariana's parents slept as the Faceless Man roamed the house.
Mariana would wake up to read "3:47 AM" glaring at her from the blue clock on her nightstand, a faded sticker of her favorite cartoon character just barely hanging on. No reason, no warning. She would enter a deep sleep and something cold crept up her spine and sparked something painful behind her eyes, demanding her to wake up. She would get up despite the protest of her limbs pleading with her to go back to bed, and the Faceless Man would come into existence in the periphery of her vision, something in the corner of her eye that creeped closer to Mariana, only to disappear once she turned to look at him.
Then came the touches.
A graze on her shoulder. A nail dragging down her cheek. Bruising fingers around her ankle, threatening to pull her to the ground and her screams would build up in her throat only to choke her there
Every morning, Mariana would tell her parents what had happened, what she saw and how she felt so alone. Their responses would change from "Not now, Mari," to "It was just a bad dream," to "You weren't listening when I said not to watch scary stuff before bed, were you?"
Then, without fail, they would pick up Lito. Sweet, helpless, perfect stupid baby Lito, who would cry and scream and would always be doted on by everyone. Mariana screamed and cried when the Faceless Man hurt her, but no one picked her up. No one told her "Pobrecita, mi bebé. ¿Qué pasó?" anymore. Now it was "Pobrecito, Lito, ¿Qué hizo mariana ahora?"
What did Mariana do? Why did it always have to be her?
One night, at 3:48 AM, the Faceless Man croaked, "You tried to tell."
Mariana had gone into Lito's room, his nightlight barely illuminating the brightly colored room with its fresh paint and new toys, a crib lovingly picked out while he was still in their mom's tummy. He was sweet when he was sleeping, when he was quiet. As Mariana stood by the nursery, she reached down and gently slid her index finger into Lito's loose and tiny fingers, smiling as he held onto it like he knew she was there, and she felt a little warmth flow through her.
A feeling that was quickly replaced by cold and spiky dread shooting down her spine and plating her toes to the ground, and she could feel him.
She turned but didn't see the Faceless Man in her periphery. She turned her head as far as she could and saw him stand in plain view, incomprehensible in the way that no matter how hard she tried, Mariana could not find a nose, a mouth, eyes, anything. She thought she saw a man's body, but she couldn't be sure how tall her was, only that he made her feel like she was shrinking. She looked into the nothingness the shadows offered, which only twisted as her imagination tried to make up for what she could not understand. An eye was a whirlpool, a mouth a cavern. He was see the dark step into the basement, the shadowy parts of the water, something that wasn't a someone.
Mariana shook. "I tried-"
"You told." His voice was distorted.
"I didn't-"
"You did." He glided closer. She didn't see his feet touch the ground as they blended into the darkness. "It's not nice to share secrets that aren't yours."
Mariana drew her hand out of Lito's fist, hearing him snuffle but not paying attention to it. "You- Me- You hurt-"
"Come with me."
"N-No-"
The Faceless Man lifted his hand towards her ribs.
Mariana started sobbing, futilely hoping her parents would hear. Please, she thought, I'll be good. I promise please just come!
"You can't stay here." The Faceless Man's ghostly fingers curled before he pulled his fist back, tugging her forward on an invisible leash even as it felt like her feet were ruthlessly uprooted from the ground before they were shoved back onto the floor to be nailed down. "Who else will I have if you don't come with me?"
Mariana tried to tug herself away but she could not move without his permission.
"But, but," he said twice, cutting off Mariana's sob with a sharp tone. "I'll let you stay if you give me that."
His elongated finger pointed to something behind Mariana's left shoulder. She stood still, afraid that it was a trick so she would look away hoping to see something to save her only to-
Lito whined.
Mariana turned her head over her left shoulder and realized two things at once. Lito in his crib, threatening to fuss and fight his way out of the blanket Abuela lovingly gifted him, and how the Faceless Man was pointing right at him.
Mariana glanced at the Faceless Man, who lowered his first and the leash released, nearly sending Mariana toppling to the ground. She glanced at the door around him, thinking maybe she could get to her parents in time-
-for what? She managed to get to their room once, but the Faceless Man dragged her out as she screamed herself hoarse. Her parents only asked her how she got past their bedroom door lock.
But maybe...?
Turning back to the Faceless Man, Mariana saw that he remained where he was, but a vibration thrummed around him.
At first, she thought the vibration around him was him worried that she would try to run, but something in her spine slithered into her arms and legs, locking them in place as if to say, Wait. He wants you to run.
He gave her a choice, but were those the only ones?
What did Mariana do?
She picked up the baby.

Adult Honorable Mention

Creator name: Elizabeth Cheney

Story Title: One Flew Into the Cuckoo’s Nest
The alert came early in the morning, a ping from my phone that made me roll over in bed after a sleepless night. Someone had spotted the red-breasted sapsucker in the local state park. The user who had posted about it grinned out from his profile picture, bright yellow binocular straps around his neck.
My heart jumped and I sat up quickly. I’d been driving myself crazy trying to get a glimpse of this bird for ages. I dragged myself up and out the door as quickly as possible.
Several hours later, I groaned and readjusted my binoculars for the hundredth time. Climbing the switchbacks, I’d heard the sapsucker’s distinctive call - a rusty clack-clack like a door’s hinge - several times. But I couldn’t get a visual.
Sighing, I resumed trudging up the rocky hill. The park service had posted signs about this area being closed for logging shortly, so this might be my last chance to see the bird for a while.
That call came again, blaring like an alarm. It was closer this time, through the dense bushes off the trail. There was no one around to see me, so I pushed through the greenery and spotted the bird immediately.
It was perching on a low branch and looking straight at me, just a couple yards away. I jumped and steadied myself. What was it doing? The sapsucker was notoriously shy, but this one was looking at me curiously. Stepping closer, I could see my reflection in its midnight-dark eyes, admire its vivid red head and its spindly, clawed feet.
Suddenly the bird launched itself into the air and sped deeper into the forest. Was the poor thing sick? I could confidently say I’d seen it, but now I was curious. So I followed it through the ferns blanketing the forest floor.
Where it had been bright on the trail, it was dim and almost chilled here. The bird landed on the ground a few hundred feet away, dragging a wing behind it as if wounded. Was it trying to fool a predator?
I pulled out my phone and looked up the sapsucker. According to the birding app, the species was often seen in flocks and avoided humans. It had a distinct warning call to let other sapsuckers know about predators - the infernal clacking sound - and sometimes they would imitate other birds or even man-made sounds. Nothing to explain what I was seeing, though.
Tucking my phone away, I looked up to see the bird flying down the hill. I started jogging after it, binoculars banging into my chest. If it could fly, it wasn’t seriously wounded, but what was it doing?
After a few hundred yards, I paused and leaned against a lopsided trunk. I’d lost sight of the bird, but if I waited, it might show itself again. Glancing back, I realized the trail had already disappeared in the maze of towering trees and gnarled plants behind me. My breathing was loud, the only real sound aside from the whistling breeze.
A harsh buzz emerged from down the hill, and I whipped around to see where it came from. It was the exact sound the app made when it had found a match for a bird call. “Hello?” I called, both hoping and fearing that someone would call back. No response.
If someone were prowling out there, I didn’t want to stay put. Veering off to the right, I tried to make as little noise as possible while heading away from the buzzing sound. I vaguely remembered that the trailhead map warned of a steep ravine somewhere around here. But if I was careful, I should be fine.
Looking up, I was surprised to see how low the sun had sunk. To my right, a row of razor-sharp peaks led up to the summit. I didn’t remember seeing anything like that on the map. Standing in a clearing, I tried to reason out how to navigate my way back to the trail.
Something whooshed past my head, very close. Another sapsucker, this one browner than the first, landed on a bush and watched me intently. After a moment it flapped up onto my shoulder. I jerked back as it hopped closer to my head, stuck between awe and confusion. “Are you okay?” I asked, feeling ridiculous. This was too strange - first the one crazy sapsucker, and now this one, with no fear of me?
The sapsucker peeped softly. I was starting to relax when it suddenly pecked at my ear, then at my hair, giving a few strands a brutal jerk before flying off. I shouted in surprise and clutched my head. The wingbeats retreated into the forest gloom and I laughed shakily. It must be defending its nest, that’s all.
“You’re fine - you’re fine. You saw what you came to see.” Wheezing a bit, I pulled out my phone with sweaty hands, trying to distract myself. Opening the birding app, I added my own sighting of the sapsucker. Hopefully the signal was strong enough to connect out here. The app would give off a satisfying ping when my sighting was live, and I smiled to think about other bird-watchers geeking out when they saw the alert.
Walking back the way I’d come, something crunched underfoot. I jumped back and found a desiccated skeleton the size of a child’s fist under my boot. Miniscule feathers were stuck to the wing bones. Shuddering, I frantically shook my boot until the thing fell off.
Peering around, I saw remnants of other birds - hatchlings - scattered across the ground. What had happened here? Some plants across from me had been trampled recently, the salal branches hanging like broken limbs. Had another hiker ventured off-trail, maybe spooking mature birds who abandoned their babies?
I felt a stab of guilt, but I wasn’t hurting anyone. If anything, I would be helping the birds if I reported…whatever this was.
That chestnut color flashed again like a beacon in a green sea. Pushing my hair back, I whipped up the binoculars to focus on the bird. It was standing on a treetop in a weak beam of light, every detail clear: the white mottling on its back, the reddish splash on its chest like a spreading pool of blood.
I knew I should stop gawking and make my way back, but which direction? If I followed the setting sun, that would be a start. I took one last look at the bird before turning to the west, and to my surprise the bird followed me through the lengthening shadows.
The faint sounds of rushing water told me I was nearing the ravine. When something to my left caught my eye, I halted and the bird disappeared into the murkiness ahead of me.
Something was swinging from a branch - bright yellow, vivid even in the failing light, and weighed down by a heavy object. Stepping closer, I froze. It was a pair of binoculars hanging from a colorful neck strap. I looked madly around, but the woods were empty. How did it get here?
Darker stains marred the strap. Leaning closer, a sickening coppery smell flooded my nose. “What the fuck?!” I backed away and collided with a boulder. My hands slipped on the slick moss coating its surface and I slid to the ground.
Clack-clack-clack. That sound again, right behind me. I drew a ragged breath and craned my neck at the branches overhead. Not just a few sapsuckers this time, but an entire flock - dozens - waiting for me with glinting eyes. One cocked its head and opened its beak, releasing that terrible electronic buzzing sound. As if on cue, the birds descended on me.
I screamed and shielded my face while bolting, ignoring the nettles tearing at my legs and arms. The susurration of wings and shrill cries kept pace with me as I tore through the woods. My lungs were bursting when, with a whoosh, the birds wheeled to the left and left me.
I waited until their wingbeats faded in the distance, then I looked around and saw that the ravine was just ahead. Staggering to the edge, I looked down to the river about fifty feet below. I was considering following it downstream when I spotted something down there.
An indistinct lump lay on the riverbed. Squinting, I made out two pale legs sticking away from a body curled protectively into itself. I reared back, my throat closing up and my mind reeling.
The rush of wings, a puff of displaced air against my cheek. I instinctively threw out an arm to shield myself. Another bird flew past, just a shade darker than the surrounding night, and another, and I stumbled back into open air.
I landed with a solid crunch. There was a shockwave of pain and then numbness. Around me, hundreds of birds landed and fluffed their feathers, cooing happily. As my breathing slowed and my vision darkened, my phone gave off a satisfied ping.

Teen Notable Mention

Creator name: Teens from the White Center Teen Program (Abraham, Adelina, Aiden, Alexander, Allan, Annabelle, Ashley, Autumn, Bella, Bill, Brandon, Charmanie, Dylan, Ethan, Jaden, John, Jose, Kevin, Kyle, Lizy, Manny, Maylyn, Michael, Michelle, Omi, Ridwan, Ryan, Saul, Sylvester, TJ, Trey, Valerie, Vana, Vincent B & Vincent H.)

Story Title: The Story of Spooky Town Volume II: How to Catch a Dragon

‘Twas the night before Halloween and all through the park, Spooky and her crew were busy decorating the Log Cabin.

As Spooky was hanging pictures in the windows of the gym, she thought she felt a looming presence behind her. Carefully, oh so carefully she pushed her mighty lantern forward into the dark . . . only to discover the shadow of a ginormous beast! Yup. For reals. Spooky checked twice to confirm that the mighty shadow was indeed . . . dragon shaped.

Spooky sprinted into action to warn her friends about what she had seen. She was running so fast that she very nearly ran right past T-Rat, the informed. Stopping briefly to catch her breath, she quickly panted out, “D R A G O ... “

“I’m gonna stop you right there, Spooky,” T-Rat said. “I’m pretty sure you’re about to say dragon, and everyone knows that dragons AREN’T REAL.”

Doggedly refusing to accept defeat (and determined to save her friends) Spooky sprinted onward through the park to spread the word.
Almost immediately she came upon Steve and Steve, the neighborhood wolverines. The pair were busy stringing up lights. In a small but steady voice Spooky panted, “Not trying to alarm you, but have you by chance seen a dragon?” Steve and Steve chuckled a bit, then shook their heads in unison and returned to their decorating.

Curious if a higher viewpoint might be helpful, Spooky sought out her friend the gentle giraffe. “Hey Jonathan, any chance you can see a dragon from way up there?” After having repeated her question of the day yet again, the only reply she received was a simple, “No.”

Ever determined to find someone that believed her, Spooky followed the spirited sounds of her friends Astro the wolf pup and Mel the raccoon. They were also supposed to be decorating, but (as always) they were busy playing a game of tag. “Sorry, Spooky . . . we haven’t seen anything.”

Racing onward past the playground Spooky soon discovered Charmanie, the coolest of the cool cats, popping and locking on a dance break in the picnic shelter. “Don’t be afraid,” Spooky whispered, “but I think I’m being followed by a dragon.” Charmanie squeaked once and covered her eyes. And then before Spooky could continue, Charmanie had disappeared.

As Spooky poked around to see if she could find her gentle friend . . . Snyder & Boland, the helpful resident crows, flew in from the basketball court.

“No sign of a dragon, Spooky!” they cawed.

Spooky was quickly running out of ideas, but she decided to take a hike out to the garden to check with Jo Jo and SB along with Mr. Wojciech, the red fox. The trio were busy carving pumpkins for the big day. “I’m pretty sure we have a dragon in the park, and I think it might be chasing me,” Spooky explained.

“No such thing,” they answered as they continued carving their pumpkins.

Feeling dejected, Spooky marched forward to her last hope . . . the Log Cabin acorn team of Na, the most agreeable and hardworking chipmunk you could hope to meet and Rasheed, by far the cleverest of all the White Center squirrels.

“Have you guys seen a dragon?” she muttered.

“Hahahahaha. A dragon. Good one, Spooky. Oh. You’re serious. Nope, sorry.”

Spooky was officially out of ideas. She needed a minute to catch her breath, wash her face, and ask herself if she might be seeing things. On the verge of giving up, she noticed Peanutt crying in the corner, alone.

“Hey, Peanutt . . . can I help with anything?”

Between sniffles Peanutt explained that she was pretty scared because she saw the shadow of a DRAGON.

“OHMYGOSH, me TOO!” Spooky exclaimed. “I saw the same thing! You know, we should totally trap that dragon!”

“ But how?” Peanutt questioned.

“ Don’t worry about anything,” Spooky replied confidently, “I have a plan.”

SPOOKY’s PLAN TO CATCH THE DRAGON:
Step 1. Spooky uses candy to lure the dragon back into the gym, where…
Step 2. Peanutt is ready to trap it with a net.

They quickly put the plan into action and when Spooky could feel the creature gaining on her, she reached the door and screamed, “Do it Now!”

Peanutt pulled the rope attached to the trap that caught the dragon. It totally worked.

“We caught it!” they exclaimed.

Everyone in the park rushed to see what all the commotion was about, and with a look of confusion they came to realize . . . it was Lil Sunny P, Spooky’ s very best friend and the baby bearded dragon that lives at the Log Cabin. Sunny was the one behind the shadow all along!

“Sunny, why were you chasing us?”

Sunny’s eyes grew large, “I wasn’t chasing you. I just wanted to ask if you two wanted to wear matching costumes for Halloween.”
“Why didn’t you just say so?” Peanutt asked.

And with a sideways smile, Sunny P explained “I tried. And tried. Turns out, I’m not as fast as you. I followed you all around the park before I caught up with you in the gym.”

In that moment Spooky realized that just as she’d been struggling to be heard all day, that little Sunny P had been going through the exact same thing.
“Gosh Sunny, I should have stopped to listen to what you were saying. Moving forward, I’m gonna do a better job supporting my friends and working on not jumping to conclusions. I can’t guarantee I’ll always get it right, but I absolutely promise to try.” And she did.