The 2021 Scary Story Contest was hosted by the Coquitlam and Port Moody public libraries.
15 – 18 age category winner
Second place: "Ijiraq"
Cole Castonguay, 16, Coquitlam
It was Niki’s first journey without her parents. The arctic night felt colder without them. Aimless thoughts swirled as she willed herself to sleep.
The fading scent of woodsmoke brought her back to her father’s bedtime tales. He would regale her with stories of shapeshifting creatures who couldn’t hide their red eyes, or Mahaha, creatures who tickled their victims to death. They morphed together in her weary mind.
As she drifted in and out of consciousness, she heard a distant sound. Her ears perked up, tuning out her cousin Uki’s snoring. It was like bone on ice. The frozen walls suddenly felt fragile.
Uki snored on, oblivious to any danger.
Niki unwrapped the bulky caribou fur blanket and ran her hands across the icy floor. She felt bone and grasped the blade’s handle, cold and steady against her frantic heartbeat. Her moccasins dragged across the floor, as if they too feared what lay outside. She lit a lantern and crouched down onto all fours. She hesitated. Maybe the noise would leave, like a bad dream.
“No,” Niki murmured to herself. She was a hunter now. Her fantasies would not consume her. She took a shuddering breath before crawling out of the igloo. The sound stopped. Her heart stopped. She stood deathly silent as she peered into the darkness, plumes of warm breath spiraling into the night. Her trembling hand raised the lantern.
Its golden glow illuminated jagged claw marks struck into the stony ice.
The scraping resumed, further this time. She peered into the inky gloom and glimpsed a towering shaggy outline in the fog. Her gaze was met by the beady red eyes of a polar bear. She stood rigid as she watched the hulking beast turn back, its great white coat fading into the night. The silence was beyond disquieting. Snow gathered over her boots as she stood, tense and waiting.
Finally, she mustered the courage to investigate. Only its claw marks gouged into the ice remained. Why would the bear tear into the ground? Was it trying to draw attention?
Her eyes traced its trail as the paw prints warped, toes turning into themselves. On the edge of the lantern’s flickering pond of light, the tracks cut back towards the igloo. Something sinister was at work. There was an uncanny connection between it all. Something both alien and strangely familiar.
It had been stalking her.
As she spun back towards the igloo, the colour drained from her face. A muted shuffle of footsteps emanated from the igloo’s direction. They were growing louder.
Why hadn’t she just let that loathsome scraping fade into the night, forgotten by dawn?
Her numbed fingers grasped for her thin knife in desperation. The broad shape strode into view.
It was Uki, bundled in his caribou coat.
She emptied her lungs in a ragged gasp of relief. Niki leapt into his arms.
When she saw his crimson eyes, it was already too late.
