2023 Scary Story Contest Winners

October 25, 2023 - Thank you to everyone who entered our 2023 Scary Story Contest! We had so much fun reading the 100+ submissions, and even lost sleep over how scary some of them were. Congratulations to our winners -Catherine Maiolino, Katherine Liu, and Jay Van Camp! If you were unable to hear them being read at our Saturday Spooktacular on October 21, you can read them here! 

The Werewolf by Catherine Maiolino

Chapter 1: My Walk

CRASH! BOOM!! It was raining cats and dogs outside. I don’t know why but the rain helps me with my poetry. (I hope to grow up to write poetry.) 

“Lillian, will you please get the mail?” asked my mom. I usually love getting the mail, but not when the weather is like this. 

“Mom, it’s raining!” I yelled. 

“I know – but the wind knocked the mail box door open and now our mail is wet,” Mom said. One thing I do not like about getting the mail is that you have to pass a grave yard. Not just any grave yard, a haunted one. And I’m the only one who knows…

“But Mom, it’s midnight plus it’s a full moon!” I screeched.

“Oh, Lily, you read too many ghost stories, there’s no such thing as ghosts or goblins.” Mom said. 

“Oh, fine,” I said. While getting my shoes I mumbled, “Why does Mom have to send me to get the mail?”

 As I walked out the door I remembered one book not about ghosts or goblins but a werewolf. The thought of a werewolf put a big lump in my throat. I felt like turning back, but I know Mom would be mad so I kept walking. “I’m going to be fine,” I told myself, but as I walked on it did not seem to help. Finally, I saw it. A grave stone. I felt like I could scream, but I didn’t. Then I saw a whole path of grave stones.

“I hope I make it,” I said in a small voice, as I walked through the yard.

Chapter 2: The Boy

 As I was just beginning to feel brave I heard a rustle. I was about to scream, but before I could a boy jumped out. He looked about my age. He had brown eyes, brown hair, and was wearing a brown hairy coat and pants. When he saw me he came up and asked, “are you lost?”. 

“No, I’m just getting the mail.” 

“The mail, huh? Well, I know a shortcut, follow me,” he whispered, as if he thought we were being watched.

“So where do you live?” the boy asked me. 

“Nothing you need to know,” I told him. He raised his eyebrows at me, and as if like magic I told him where I lived. Something was wrong with this boy and I was going to find out.

 Chapter 3: The Werewolf

When we finally stopped walking I asked, “where are we?”

“We are at the tree,” he said.

“What? I thought we were taking a short cut!” I exclaimed. But he was gone. And in the blink of an eye I was tied up. He was grinning and said something so alarming…he said he was a werewolf, and when he was done he scratched me, hard. and then stabbed me in the heart. I could not breath. “Good bye world”, were my last words before I shut my eyes. I was not alive anymore. One new grave was added to the field. Mine. 

Moonflower by Katherine Liu

The girl’s body was numb as she made her way through the dark streets, moving with stealth, though the shadows hid her well.

Tonight was Halloween. The darkest night in town. Her heartached at the thought of her mother back home, dying away.

Every year, on Halloween, the spirit of someone in the town was taken. They withered away, as if some unseen force were sucking away their life.

The townspeople took this for granted, but the girl knew that she had to cure her mother.

Her fingers brushed across the paper in her pocket, the words embedded in her mind.

Moonflower, cure to all ills.

Her last hope.

She rounded the last bend, and stopped in front of her destination.

A tall house loomed in front of her, casting a menacing shadow. The three stories of this building were like a tall cake, ready to topple. Here and there, the infrastructure was strengthened with boards, which gave the place a sad, abandoned look.

The three witches that lived here were sisters who brewed potions, and had cures for every ailment. They charged high prices for their concoctions.

A large crow flew up from its perch at the top of the lopsided chimney, cawing ominously.

Shivering, the girl held her shawl closer to her thin frame.

The front door was wide open, but there was no light coming from the inside of the house.

Cautiously, she stepped inside, pressing herself against the wall.

Her feet led her swiftly through the house. It had been just a few weeks since she had come here for a toothache remedy; an errand for a wealthy neighbor.

The girl crossed a short doorstep, into the kitchen.

A large cauldron stood in the middle of the room on a small stone desk. Several bushels of dried herbs hung over the pot. Hundreds of jars lined the oak shelves.

Her hands traced the shelves, not stopping until she found the small jar, closed with a cork. Exactly where she had seen it before. The Moonflower was so rare that there were only several silvery petals in the container.

Her hand hovered over the jar. This medicine was far too expensive for her to afford. Without this, her mother would die.

Footsteps came from a nearby room. The witches were coming.

Frightened, she snatched the bottle from the shelf and ran, boards creaking under her feet.

“HA!”

A bony hand grabbed the scruff of the girl’s shirt, pulling her back. Her blood ran cold.

Behind her, there stood the three witches, their wrinkled faces contorted with evil laughter.

The jar fell from the girl’s hand and shattered on the stone floor.

“You thought that you could steal from us?” cackled one sister. “Foolish girl. We are the ones who take the spirits of the townspeople. We use them for our potions. Tonight, we will have the souls of both you and your mother!”

The girl’s screams were swallowed by the night.

The Ex-Patient by Jay Van Camp

The dark gray sky added to the lonely atmosphere in the cemetery, and I felt like I was in an old noir detective film. Being a surgeon, the bodies below the ground didn’t frighten me. Death was a part of life, after all. Besides, it was my yearly visit to an old patient’s grave; I brought them flowers every time. It was not as if they could smell them, but the gesture felt respectful. It felt like closure.

While scanning at the names on the headstones, something caught my attention. It was a name I had never expected to be here. While I was alive, at least. It was my own, proximal to my ex-patient’s. My eyes widened at the hole that had been dug in front of it. The stone clearly stated tomorrow’s date. Before I could react, a rotted hand erupted from beneath the dirt, so desecrated it looked like there had been no care into embalming it. A distant clock struck midnight.

Soon the hand was joined by an arm, a head, a body. It was Bartrand Brandy, my ex-patient, standing up and lumbering towards me. The only reason I knew was because of the medial fracture in his skull from the surgery. I couldn’t even flinch as he pushed me backwards into the hole. As my body hit the dirt, he laughed. It was not a natural laugh, but the sound of mulch being expelled from a long dead mouth.

The first target was the upper part of the transverse plane of the body. I inhaled my last breath and felt the oxygen fill my lungs, flowing into the bronchiole then the pulmonary veins that led to the heart. Bartrand had picked up a shovel and had begun to bury me. From my training, I recognized that no longer would oxygen travel superior from my lungs to my brain through carotid and cerebral arteries.

It was a funny feeling, knowing exactly what would come. The next step was cerebral hypoxia, the name for a lack of oxygen to the brain. As I felt my body begin to fade, I wished that I had been able to save Bartrand all those years ago.

Stacy Yakouba, Library Associate