Coquitlam and Port Moody public libraries once again partnered with The Tri-City News to present the Scary Story Contest, which asked young people from 11 to 18 years of age to write a terrifying tale in time for Halloween.
Dozens responded and local librarians read all the entries, narrowing them down to shortlists of about half a dozen stories in each of the two age categories (11 to 14 and 15 to 18 years); the winners were chosen by a Tri-City News judge.
Here are the first-place stories:
A Picture of Elegance
TERAYA TETU, 17, COQUITLAM (15 TO 18 YEARS WINNER)
The first crack of thunder catches the guests off guard. Thick velvet curtains have been drawn against the violent storm. Glittering sconces line the walls. Live music cascades softly down the halls, originating from the ballroom, where a carefully instructed orchestra plays on a raised marble podium.
The lady of the house quietly excuses herself and makes her way upstairs. In the room next to her own, she finds her decrepit mother sitting in a rocking chair. She tries to start up a conversation, but her mother merely looks past her, muttering about some sort of apparition. With a sigh, she gets up to leave, but pauses briefly to remove the empty bottle of brandy from the bedside table.
While reluctant to return to the party, she is curious to know why the music has stopped. Surely her husband wouldn’t make his speech without her? Then again, she wouldn’t expect any less of him. A fiend, her mother had once called him. Exasperated, she pushes open the double doors, her polite smile already in place.
Her screams reverberate off the walls, filling the room with wails of anguish and terror. The guests are slumped in their chairs.
Dead. They’re all dead. And have been for quite some time.
Their skin is shriveled like an apple that’s rolled out of sight. Hollow sockets glare up at her, eyes long since reduced to nothing. Seized up hands hold silverware at disturbing angles.
Maggots crawl through forgotten meals. The music podium’s been abandoned. Spider webs cling to glasses and dust acts as a blanket, casting a thick, grimy film over every available surface.
The center piece, once a delicate white swan posed amongst a nest of intricate flowers, has transformed. Now harsh branches erupt out of the table and act as a perch for an imposing and startlingly black raven.
It looks so real she can’t help but lean towards it. It blinks ominously at her before taking flight. She turns to flee from the squawking, sharp beaked brute, but doesn’t make it far.
Adrenaline mixes with disbelief as she watches an old tapestry come to life. Mesmerized by the scene, she doesn’t notice the nearest farmer take a step towards her. The tip of his scythe materializes before her, followed by the rest of him, as he steps out of the tapestry.
She runs from the room and takes up refuge in a closet. Hands over her ears, she cries, trying to block out the calls of the raven. Sobs shake her frail, defenceless body. The sun won’t be up for hours. She’ll just have to wait it out.
• • • •
The storm’s cleared up by the following morning, and the police follow up on a disturbance call. An ancient grounds keeper greets them and points out the broken locks on the front door. They take note of the destruction and open a window to release a confused, white dove. They diligently search the house. In the hall closet, they find a body.
OTHER FINALISTS
“Night after night, month after month, I slept. I was visited by many, with their bulbous eyes and blank stares. Sometimes, fiends sat on the ground, waking me with their promises of tortures and despairs.”
• Second: Sleep Paralysis by Mary Cabaluna, 16, Coquitlam
“Maybe I am an apparition, a ghost, completely invisible. Maybe I am a very fast creature, running out of your sight just in time. Maybe I am the spider on the ceiling or the fiend lurking in those shadows around you.”
• Third: Playtime by Moay Sakata, 16, Port Coquitlam
• Honourable mention: Ineffable by Brenna Ritchie, 17, Coquitlam
Red Paint
KRISTIN LO, 14,
COQUITLAM (11 TO 14 YEARS WINNER)
A man traveled home down the empty street, the moon casting an eerie glow on his blazer. The lone streetlight flickered dimly against the thick fog as the man walked past, his shoes clicking loudly against the faded pavement.
Suddenly, the sound of something metal being dropped echoed through the street. The man tensed, listening. It was dead silent; even the rodents dared not breathe. The man’s gaze caught on a shadow, shifting by a tarnished brick wall.
He strained to make out an adolescent male; whose arm lurched violently, shadows clinging to his figure. He’s painting, the man noted, the slight gleam of the brick wall catching his attention. The boy abruptly stopped, and the man watched on disdainfully as the shadows retreated back with him; revealing words scrawled on the bleached brick in bright red paint.
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here”
The man’s scowl deepened when he noticed that a scythe adorned the boy’s midnight black hoodie, barely visible in the ominous moonlight. Wannabe delinquents, a voice in his head whispered. He deserves to be punished. Chills ran up his spine as the man realized uneasily that he had forgotten his medication that morning. Looking back up, the man noticed that the boy and his graffiti had disappeared. An apparition, the man told himself. Swallowing loudly, he continued to walk home, paranoia creeping into his veins.
As he approached his residence, he noticed the same shadowy figure vandalizing his house. Something inside the man snapped.
“Hey!” his voice boomed down the street. “You!”
The boy’s head shot up. He spun around and began fleeing, overturning his bucket. The man pursued, his teeth bared as he followed the delinquent into a gloomy alleyway.
The man gritted his teeth when he realized that it was a dead end, and that the boy was nowhere in sight. He turned back around; however, a dark figure blocked his exit. The delinquent approached the man, the streetlights behind him casting monstrous shadows against his figure.
“You fiend! I should call the police!” The man seethed in anger.
The boy simply grinned, his teeth gleaming from underneath his hood. Something about the smile unsettled the man.
“I need more paint,” the boy said.
“What?” the man sputtered.
The boy approached slowly, moving like a wraith in the night. “The last man fought too much,” he stated innocently. “He didn’t give me much paint.”
The man remained silent as a feeling of dread grew inside of him. He rubbed his eyes; but the boy remained. A gleam of metal shone from the boy’s hands, and the man searched desperately for an escape, panicking. He came up empty as the faint smell of iron reached his senses.
The man then noticed the splatters of red paint soaking the boy’s hoodie and face. The boy’s eyes were dull and emotionless under his hood, his grin resembling that of a ghoul. A knife was raised slowly, pointing towards the man.
“I need more paint.”
OTHER FINALISTS
“I didn’t want to turn around, but my curiosity insisted. I saw the silhouette of an apparition crouched on the staircase. I took out my iPhone and snapped a picture. What I saw next was an absolute horror.”
• Second: A Man’s Best Friend by Rachel Nguyen, 14, Coquitlam
“Working in the ER, you get a lot of weird stuff. Creepy stuff. Things you can’t explain. For example, we once had a kid who came in, crying with a stomachache. X-Rays told us there were teeth trying to grow in his stomach lining.”
• Third: Greg by Yuwen Zhang, 14, Coquitlam
