The 2021 Scary Story contest was hosted by the Coquitlam Public Library and Port Moody Public Library.
Second place, 11- 14 category winner
Julie Heisel, 14, Port Moody
It came at night.
Emerging out of the darkness of her closet, it stood in front of the little girl’s bed. It was six feet tall, had six arms, and six clawed fingers on each of its hands. It was black like the shadows that leered from her walls. It seemed to have no face, yet its head would always split into a grin, showing off an uncanny number of stained teeth.
It cared for the girl in all the twisted ways a loathsome abomination such as itself could muster. It tied moth-eaten ribbons in her hair and patted her head with its serrated hand. Whenever the girl panicked, which was always, it would attempt to comfort her by humming off-key lullabies that made her think of abandoned churches.
Every time the monster came out of the closet, the girl would try to scream and run. But somehow at night her voice wouldn’t work, and her door was always locked shut (even though it didn’t have a lock).
The Thing, as the girl had come to call it, slowly came to notice the girl’s horror at its presence. It began bringing the girl animal bones (hopefully they were animal bones) as gifts. Whenever she hurriedly pushed them away in shock, it would huddle its many appendages into a corner and whimper like a broken violin.
After many nights, when the girl’s fear and horror didn’t subside, the Thing became angry.
It would poke at her with its clawed hands. It would scratch at her arms until they bled. It would bend her fingers backwards until they nearly snapped off. On nights when the Thing was particularly anguished, it shrieked in her face. The noise was piercing like the cry of a grieving crow.
The Thing never disappeared, no matter how many times the girl cried and prayed that it would. Its behavior got even worse, and every night she feared she would never see dawn.
“There’s nothing there,” said her parents. “All children see monsters, and none of them are real”.
Evidence of the girl’s suffering always vanished at daybreak, so her parents found her grotesque tales of the night disquieting. They brought her to therapy.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” the therapist told her. “All children see monsters, and none of them are real.”
All children see monsters, but this one left the girl cold and lifeless on her bedroom floor.
