HOWL-EEN by wren forster (age 10)
The moon shines brightly above me, the moon spirit Luna is almost full.
When Luna is full, she can grant magic to people and animals. My ears prick up as I hear footsteps from around the bend. I have always been curious about humans, so I jump into a nearby bush. A group walks past, and I am about to hightail it out of there when the very last human catches my attention.
He is holding what looks to be a flame contained in a small black case. The boy smiles and laughs, he seems very interesting. I am curious. Tomorrow night, I will go to the fairy garden, so Luna can grant my wish!
On the night of the full moon, I run to the fairy garden. I howl up at the moon and Luna floats down, her white hair billowing around her face. She lands on the petal of a moon flower and says “Welcome my wolfling, what brings you to my garden?”
“I want to turn into a human.”
“Stand inside the fairy circle. I will give you some magic, but you have to return by midnight tomorrow or I will send my pets of the night to come get you. At the witching hour they will turn feral and destroy everything in their path.”
There is a flash of blinding white light. When I can see again, I am a human. Even though I am wearing a grey sweater and black pants, I feel like a naked mole rat without my fur.
When I get to the village, people are bustling around carrying interesting skins and decorating their dens. This must be for Halloween, a human celebration Grangran spoke about when I was a pup. As I turn around, a pile of unidentifiable stuff walks into me.
“Oops, sorry” says a boy's voice as everything falls.
I freeze for a moment. He is the boy from the forest.
I help him carry the stuff to his den, they turn out to be decorations. We set them up and when we are done, he pulls a black case from his pocket. When he touches it, it lights up. I gasp. It is the flame. Up close in the daylight, I can see it is not burning and there are no actual flames.
Noah decides I need a costume. We spend the rest of the day together looking for one, chatting and laughing. We decide on a witch costume as he is being a wizard. We then go trick-or-treating. We are having so much fun I don't even notice it's midnight until the town clock strikes twelve.
“I'm sorry, I have to go” I say to Noah. I drop my candy bag and start running. I trip because I am not used to my human legs. Noah is right behind me.
Just then giant white animals with crazy eyes and red drool emerge from the forest. “We are all in grave danger. We need magic to contain them.” I say.
“Do you have real magic?” asks Noah.
“Yes, I say with a gulp, but I will be different, and you won't be able to understand me.”
A roar from a giant white bear breaks up the moment. I put all my energy into transforming the magic from my body. With a flash of white light, I turn back into a wolf and a semi-transparent sphere expands to cover the creatures. They try to break it, but the sphere stays strong.
“Cool” Noah says quietly “but what now?!”
I nod my head in the direction of the sphere and then the forest. We start rolling the sphere into the forest. When we arrive at the fairy garden, Luna is waiting with her arms crossed.
“You are late” she snarls “you trapped my pets and showed a human my magic."
“I am sorry, great and powerful moon spirit. How can I fix this?”
“Kill the human.”
“What, no!”
“Then I will do it myself.”
Luna flies toward Noah chanting magic words. I jump up, bat her with my paw and land next to Noah. Her incomplete spell flies towards us. Noah pulls out his phone and the spell hits its screen before wrapping around both of us. A flash of white light pierces through the dark. When I can see again, there is another wolf standing next to me. Luna grimaces and floats back to the moon, pulling her monster ball along with her.
“Wow, that was intense!” growls Noah.
His phone lies broken on the ground. He goes over and touches it with his nose, it doesn't light up. I look at him and grin.
“Don’t worry, we have the whole forest to entertain us. Come on I'll show you!”
“Oowooooooooo!” we howl and run into the night.
The ghost rider by Roscoe grace (age 9)
It was a crisp Halloween afternoon me and my dad loaded the bikes and drove off to Cumberland. We left school right away, so we did not miss trick or treating. I had been asking my dad for weeks to see the old mines up in the mountains. He finally agreed, and I was excited.
We unloaded the bikes and started climbing. We got to the first bridge, and I saw this old man holding a pickaxe. His clothes were weathered, and his skin was grey. We came up to him and he spoke “where are you going to.” “We're going to the old mines way up at the top”, I said. The old man said “I tell you now do not go up there. Those old mines are cursed. I used to work up there and it was shut down the day the ghost rider came and haunted everyone. You can accept my warning or not...”
“OK sure thing old timer”, I laughed.
“Man what a joke.” Said Dad. “Ghost rider, what on earth?” We were halfway through the climb when fog started rolling in, the temperature dropped about 3 degrees. “It is getting a bit cold out maybe we should turn back.” said Dad.
“Are you kidding what could be more fun... Let's do this! Besides, we have gone too far to turn back. We have lots of time.” I said.
We started getting to the single track when I started feeling lonely even though I was right beside Dad. It was getting darker as the fog piled in. Dad asked if we could turn back again but I really wanted to make it to the top, so I insisted we keep going. I let my dad go in front of me.
A little way up the trail, the fog was getting so thick I couldn't see my Dad anymore. I finally started to hear a bike climbing up towards me. I realized the rider behind me was dad which was weird because I thought he was in front. He then rode past me, but almost seemed like I wasn't even there.
I tried to follow him up on the last stretch to the mine, but it was getting very dark and foggy. I could barely make out the mine entrance ahead but couldn't see my Dad. I dropped my bike to go look at the mine when I heard a big blow of wind whistling through the cave. I started getting scared and yelled for Dad.
He appeared seemingly out of nowhere and he had NO FACE.
Behind Dad, there was a glow. A shiver shot up my back when I thought of what it could be. “It cannot be. A ghost rider.” The wind whistled even louder. “Ghost rider... Ghost rider... Ghost rider!!” And then everything went black and silent. Everything seemed to stand still and a ghost rider whispered past dad towards me with the breeze.
It turned its face towards me. He made direct eye contact with me and whispered “let's ride.” He raised his hands and handlebars appeared in them out of nowhere. When he lifted his feet pedals fell under them. Suddenly a whole wispy ghost bike was formed under him.
We dropped in and spent down the mountain floating off massive drops and moving quickly through the misty Cumberland forest. The ghost rider streaked ahead at a blistering pace. At the
bottom, the fog started lifting it began getting late again. I turned around to see dad behind me, back to normal and looking stoked.
He said, “What a great ride buddy”, like nothing had ever happened, “you were riding like you were possessed!” I started wondering if it had all been a weird dream. When I got in the car and looked in the mirror, I realized the face looking back at me was... the ghost rider.
2347 Zombie Drive by Hugo McAdam (Age |)
On a crisp October morning, Simon stared out the window of his apartment. He watched leaves spiral down to the wet pavement below.
On his street was an old apartment building that had been boarded up and abandoned. The people that had owned it were very old and when they passed away, a developer bought it. It was covered in graffiti and the windows were smashed out. Simon had never gone close enough to look inside. Most of his friends thought it was haunted.
Halloween arrived and Simon’s plan was to trick or treat with his friend Derek. Their usual route was along Main Street but this year they had a different plan. They decided they would start at Simon’s apartment and go along his street until it turned into the neighbourhood with lots of big houses. This meant passing by the supposedly haunted empty apartment in the dark. They had to be home by 8:45, not a minute later.
Derek and Simon had their pillowcases ready. They pulled out their maps and decided to start on Derek’s street. The first house had a few pumpkins lining the path, and some ghost decorations hanging from the trees.
In front of them on the sidewalk was a man-hole drain. Suddenly, four bloody fingers appeared, and a moaning sound echoed from below. The manhole cover shifted and a second hand appeared. Someone was trying to climb out. The second hand had bloodied knuckles and missing fingernails. A raw, bald, and scabby head began to appear, and two silvery white eyes glared up at them. Simon knew this was no Halloween costume. “Zombie” he whispered to Derek. “This is for real, don’t run, or it will chase us.”
The zombie had yellow teeth, a three-inch scar on its cheek, and blood trickling down it’s face. It was climbing out of the manhole right in front of them. Its feet were bleeding and it had a missing toe. Derek turned to bolt but there was another zombie standing right behind them. The one behind Simon kept groaning and pointing at them. Simon looked at the zombie and then looked at Derek and he realized they looked exactly the same. We will blend in with them he thought to himself. “Stay calm” he whispered to Derek.
They didn’t know how fast the zombies could run, and they didn’t want to take any chances. Some of them started to point towards the abandoned apartment. Simon and Derek had no choice but to follow them inside. Their hearts were racing. There was broken glass in the corners and cobwebs everywhere. The entrance light continued to flicker. The zombies began to march upstairs. The boys followed, continuing to pretend to be real zombies themselves. Their lives depended on it.
Suddenly Simon noticed a rusty medal handle on the floor. It was a trap door! Simon opened the trap door and there was a long medal ladder down. All of the zombies had gone back down the stairs. Simon and Derek started climbing down the ladder. When they reached the bottom there was a long straight dark tunnel. Simon realized he still had his flashlight in his back pocket. He shined the light, and both of their hearts sank. The tunnel was littered with human bones. Run! They shouted at the same time.
When they reached the end of the tunnel there was another ladder. They climbed up and could see a halo of light surrounding the lid of the manhole. They pushed it open, climbed up and out and were back on the street. This was the same man hole the first zombie had climbed out of. Simon’s house was only two blocks away. They were safe.
Suddenly a huge zombie came charging at them from behind a tree. This was the biggest one they had ever seen. It groaned SIMON…..DERRREK. Both boys were horrified. They ran as fast as they could back to Simon’s house. They flung open the front door gasping for breath. Simon looked at Derek, then he looked at his watch. It was 8:45. All of a sudden, there was a loud pounding at their door. They scrambled to the window and all they could see were gruesome faces pushing and shoving to get inside. With all their courage they flung open the door ready to guard the house from the zombies. "Trick or Treat!" The group of children in their costumes yelled as they huddled around the open door. Derek and Simon exchanged a look of relief. It was a Halloween they’d never forget. But would anyone believe their story?
Eye of the Raven by Tina Bakker-Vallart (Age 14)
It was the first time he'd felt anything in hundreds of years. He'd forgotten emotion long ago. Initially, he'd been driven by rage, by a yearning for freedom, a craving for revenge. However, time had caught up, his wrath had faded, extinguished by the truth of his curse, the relentless toil of a servant's life. He'd once been Filipe de Leon, marquess of the notorious Spanish counties of Valencia and Granada, now there was left nothing but a broken shell of a man, cursed to assist the one he'd once looked upon with disdain and superiority.
Still, this had been different.
It had stirred a spark that might feed a great flame. An inferno. Hell itself.
It had awoken a monster that had long lay dormant.
Not hope, hunger. Hunger to be free once again, to spill every last drop of his master's blood onto the man's prized Persian sheepskin rug.
It had all started that morning, Filipe had been listening to his master, Enrique de Montoya, rant about the daily business and anecdotes of the royal palace in Toledo when one of the maids entered the office.
“Sir, there is a visitor who wishes for an audience,” she said with a courteous bow.
“Very well, you ought to bring him in then,”
She curtsied again and added, “Shall I fetch a tray of tea?”
“That would be lovely,” he answered. “Make sure to use the new porcelain set.”
“Yes, Sir.”
The first thing Filipe noticed when the guest entered accompanied by the maid who set the large tea tray unto his master’s mahogany desk before leaving was the enormous black cloak the stranger wore. Cloaks were never a good sign, who knew what weapons could be hidden under the thick dark material that seemed to wrap this strange man in eerie shadows? A large hood covering his face revealing nothing but thin pursed lips and skin so pale and sickly it resembled the colour of ashes turned cold.
His master's face twisted into a grimace, “El Cuervo”, The Raven. “To what honor do I owe this visit?” he asked gesturing towards the empty seat facing him.
The man sat and poured the hot tea into two cups steam billowing around them. He took a light sip of his tea with his pinky sticking out. Enrique trembled fearfully.
“Why so scared, after all, your closest servant” - he gestured towards Felipe with his cup of tea – “isn't much of more of a man than myself.”
“What do you want filthy viper?” snapped Enrique.
“Him,” he pointed his pinky towards Filipe once again.
“He is not up for bargain.”
“You ought to know that I tend to be very displeased when I am not given what I ask for.”
Summoning his last bit of courage Enrique retorted, “You will leave the second or I will have to force you out.”
The Raven leaned forward until his chapped lips rested centimeters away from Enrique’s ear, “It would be quite entertaining to see you try. I'll warn you once again; you don't want me as your enemy Montoya.”
He wrapped his long delicate fingers around Enrique’s throat and used his other hand to slowly remove his own hood. His face appeared somewhat youthful with his bright silver hair which shimmered like the moon on the obscure winter nights. Yet unlike Filipe who was fascinated at the sight, Enrique whimpered upon noticing the man's eyes. For he had none.
Empty hollow dark sockets.
Skin stretched tight over the sharp bones of his face where the eyebrows should have been.
Thin white scars running down his temples over the bridge of his nose and all around these empty holes.
No, not quite empty.
Obscured.
A shadowy mist swirling where the man's eyes should have been.
Darker than the ink bottle that had spilt over the mahogany desk.
Darker than the soul Filipe had lost so long ago.
Darker than a Ravens plumage.
Dark like the deepest pit of the abyss reigned by Beelzebub, the Demon himself.
“You don't want to be subject to my wrath Montoya. I expect your servant to come with me and if you refuse then I shall gouge your eyes out and feast upon them as the raven does to the corpses left in the conquistador’s wake,” he whispered as he let go of Enrique.
The Raven settled the weight of his gaze onto Filipe right as he got up to exit.
That was when the sensation had filled him.
The rage that he thought forgotten resurfaced deep within.
A small spring that might feed a boundless ocean.
“Ah… you feel it too” - his mouth broke into an ugly toothless grin – “Like calls to like, so the darkness calls to you as it calls to me. Forget this life, forget this idiotic man you serve. You believe yourself bound by a curse, the never-ending retribution for the evil you caused hundreds of years ago. The darkness rules all. Let it break this malediction. Embrace the wickedness that has rotten you to the core.
“What must I do? Filipe asked.
“What must be done,” he answered handing him a small blade with the words “Tomalo todo. No te aflijas. No dejes nada.” carved onto the hilt. Take all. Grieve not. Leave nothing.
Filipe took it sealing his fate. He brought the blade to his face and slowly pierced the corner of his tear duct. The tears he hadn't shed in decades came again, yet this time they ran red. He sunk the blade a bit deeper; relief flooding every inch of his body, his mind, his wretched soul, for he cherished the pain he felt in this moment because truthfully it was the last time he'd feel or cherish anything...
THE BLOODY BAT BY AMELIA PEEK (AGE 11)
Let me tell you what happened to the girl next door to me, so many years ago. I remember hearing the crash of a stone against her window and her blood-curdling scream. She had been saying that something was following her for weeks, but no one paid attention to her worries. They told her it was just a trick of the light.
She had been hearing rumors about a ghost that was haunting the town. She said that she saw a pale, wispy hand on poles and trees behind her when she was walking home from school. She was terrified and wouldn’t go anywhere without her baseball bat.
She went to the library every day to read a bunch of books on ghosts and ghouls. She studied their behaviour and how to get rid of them. One day, the librarian heard a shriek and ran to the table where the girl was sitting, but she was nowhere to be found. The librarian looked at the book that was on the table and found one of the girl’s fingers severed on the page. Next to it she read “to get rid of a spirit that is following you… (bloodstain) …and brick dust. Then sprinkle the… (bloodstain) …on your path.”
The next day, the librarian found her calling for help from a closet. When she was let out, she was clutching her baseball bat, blood dripping from her severed finger. She refused to tell anyone what happened.
One night, two weeks later, she was asleep. Her window crashed. She let out an ear-splitting shriek. Then she never made a sound again.
This baseball bat looks good in my hands, if you can ignore the blood stains.
DINING WITH THE DEVIL BY GABRIEL LACOURSE (AGE 16)
In a warm, bustling restaurant, at half-past midnight, a girl sat at a candlelit table for two. Below her dangling feet was a floor plated with gold, and several feet above her head sat miles upon miles of rock before even a chance at glimpsing the sky above. Rolling a silver fork between her bony fingers, she waited.
A moment passed, before a fellow flew into the seat across from the girl. He rode not on wings but two very swift feet, falling into his chair with a sharp exhale. A very dapper businessman he was, with hair slicked back like an oil spill and his eyes two chunks of bonfire charcoal set into a skull. He was a pale, slimy thing, veins gleaming blue and visible through a sheen of sweat. He was wreathed in a black suit. He wrung his hands together atop the table. They had been flayed bare of skin, and as he rubbed his thumbs together, the tendons and muscles wriggled and squirmed.
Glancing away from her meal and towards her partner, the child widened her gaze gleefully, an otherwise charming expression that was offset by the inhuman nature of her features; her eyes were more akin to a ram’s than that of a human child’s. The man pursed his lips and glanced away.
A minute passed this way, the two sitting in a quiet bubble, the only noise being their shared breaths - before the sharp grating of steel knife against dinner plate squealed through the air like a war-horn. The businessman’s hollow gaze shot towards the girl’s plate as her fork dragged a jagged line across the surface, before stopping to rest atop her bloodied steak.
When the fellow remained unspeaking, the girl squirmed in her seat, face twitching as she jabbed her fork into her dinner. Her grubby fist tightening around the utensil, she dragged the chunk of meat towards her face, popping it into her mouth with a smack. Rivulets of blood dribbled down her chin as she chewed with an open mouth, food spraying from between her lips. While the child bit into her supper, the man stared into his hands, unblinking.
“Hungry?” She eventually asked, her words a burst of clarity choked out between the wet bites of steak. She jerked her head towards her partner’s plate. Glancing down at her prompting, the man startled; although it had been empty before the girl spoke, now his dinner plate housed its own chunk of meat. Far bloodier than the child’s steak, a squelching organ was giving frantic little pumps through glistening carmine tubes, spraying a fine red mist across his plate.
A firm frown dug into his oozing face. “Is this mine?” He asked mildly.
The girl nodded, eyes gleaming. “Will you eat it?” Her words sped eager from her tongue as she held out a hand, her stubby fingers wrapped around the dirtied fork. “It is yours, after all. It’s only right.” The words spilled in a smug rush as she glanced towards the bloodied heart, before looking up and making eye contact with her dinner mate.
The man sighed. “Yes,” he agreed, and let the glistening yellows and browns that made up his naked hand rest atop the girl’s own palm. He ducked his head with a tired look and wrapped his fingers around the fork.
“You speak truth,” he murmured, lips quivering and voice tight. “It is only right.”
Hands trembling around his weapon, he took in a desperate, gasping breath, the air giving a thready wheeze in his chest. Then, he speared the heart through. Blood squirted into little pools from the violent motion. It ached. The man lifted the dripping, thumping, bloodied organ off the plate, and watched crimson drip down his fork with each spurting beat. He licked his lips.
“Will I regret this?” He asked, twirling the utensil.
“Yes,” his dinner partner agreed.
“Do I have a choice?” He wondered.
“No,” his dinner partner confirmed.
As the soft glow of their table cast a sallow sheen across his face, the businessman brought the fork to his mouth. The man pressed his heart to his lips and unhinged his jaw, fitting his own meaty flesh into the hollow maw with in one simple motion. He chewed slow, each motion wet, visceral. The girl kept watching, excitement a hollow gleam in her eyes as she watched him eat. Blood dribbled down his chin.
The sinner gave a pained moan and choked his food down, swallowing his own heart. His skin turned liquid, glittering, and the man collapsed into a dark slick of oil, spilling across the floor, running across the tiles and pooling below the girl’s feet.
She sighed. Then, finally: “Will someone clean that up?”
THE TRUTH ABOUT SHADOWS BY ROSE GIRARD (AGE 14)
I am not crazy.
I am not crazy.
I am not crazy.
…Right?
When I say I see shadow sneak and slide, hurt and take, scream and whisper, that just means I can see more than most. They say I’m crazy, that these midnight monsters don’t exist, but they are wrong.
Wrong, stupid, deluded.
Safe.
They are safe because they don’t see what I see. The truth. The shadows that smile and slide into my room at night are real. Much more real than what they say is real. Right?
No. They are real. They have to be. Because if they weren’t, then I would be crazy, and I am not crazy. I’ve tried telling people, tell them that dark creatures with sharps claws and red eyes come to me late at night and whisper in my ear.
What do these shadows tell you, they sometimes ask, amused.
Unsmiling, usually crying, I say that the shadows tell me all that they do. They tell me about their home, the screaming place in our minds. They tell me that death is so much sweeter than we think. They tell me that they like hurting people. Animals. Life. They tell me that the agony of others tastes like sugar. That you haven’t lived until you took somethings last breath. The ultimate high, they call it. They tell me every single way you can hurt something. One said bones were the most painful to break. Another said skin. Another said hearts.
They say I should give it a try, that hurting feels so good.
I said I think about hurting them.
They laugh.
And then they disappear.
But their voices don’t. No, their voices haunt me.
When I am with my parents, they tell me to hurt them.
When I am with my friends, they tell me to hurt them.
When I am alone, they tell me to hurt myself.
I tried to tell someone, anyone, beg them to help me, because the voices were everywhere. Claws sinking into my brain, my heart, my soul.
But they’ve stopped listening.
I am not crazy.
But soon, I will be. Which I also try to tell people.
Still, they never listen. Just roll their eyes and tell me to get myself together. They tell me again and again that I’m crazy, that I always have been. I’m not, I protest. I am not crazy.
I keep the voices to myself after that, because I’m definitely not crazy.
Until, one day, I hear the shadows screaming instead of whispering. They were excited about something, practically shaking with adrenaline.
Whatever it was, it was going to hurt, because what else makes them feel anything at all?
At this point, though, I just don’t care what they do. I sneak and steal bright pills from my parents, and that makes the voices fade a little. Still not at night, but whatever. I just shove I pillow on my face and tell myself again and again that shadows don’t have sharp words and teeth. I tell myself lies.
Late at night, they tell me that they are going to hurt a lot of people. They say one of these people is going to be me.
I say, good.
After all, if death and pain are as good as you say, why I am still living?
The voices, for once, fall silent. With happiness, sadness, or anger, I can’t tell. I don’t really care.
The next day, I wake to screams. And this time, I’m not the only one who can hear them.
I walk outside, and I see the sky raining blood.
I see my demons crawl from the earth to eat, tear, crunch, break.
I see red lightning flash and burn and break.
I sigh at all the people in the streets screaming to the sky for someone to help them. How sad.
Then I walk back inside, grab a knife from the kitchen, and stab myself in the heart. Blood drips from my chest as the voices laugh and dance and gorge and live. I smile, even as I fall, choking on my own salty blood. Huh. Turns out the demons were right. You haven’t lived until you took somethings last breath.
Because I was right. I was right.
I was never crazy.
I am not crazy.
Who’s crazy?
Not me, who knew everything was real all along.