Many of the young writers ( Year 7 & 8) who attended our Oh, Horror! masterclass on Friday contributed an excerpt from their brand new work, and we did a wee bit of editing (with a sharp axe) to bring you chills and thrills for Halloween.
Caitlin H
The moonlight glistened in the dark. Peter was having constant nightmares about a creature with extremely long, gooey arms that grabs him. He decided to go for a walk. As he was walking, he heard twigs snapping behind him and a voice
‘Peter...go back inside..’
Peter turned but saw nothing but the light from the street and the moon. He heard the voice again.
‘Peter.. I warned you.’
‘Who are you?! Why are you doing this to me?’ Peter yelled.
He felt the hot breath of someone on the back of his neck. Extended, brown, goey arms grabbed him. Peter screamed but nothing came out. Peter felt the moist, dense, gooeyness of the arm on his mouth.
The creature spat on his mouth, ‘Now you're going to pay.’
Azūra V
Deep in the woods where the sun never shines, lives a misunderstood creature named Dracula. He feeds off blood and has to drink half his body weight just to last a day.
The screams he has heard. The pain he has brought to hundreds and thousands of people all across the world. The blood and agonising pain he has brought. And he just drinks and eats and drinks. Over and over, every day. And he just stands there while they scream at the top of their lungs.
If he could help them he would. But he has no choice.
Bill J
Their long legs stick out in every direction, not like a spider but like a pom-pom ball. A hairy big and disgusting pom-pom ball with string-like legs but stiffer than a metal baton. The hair on the legs are like needles with gruesome mucus covering every single one. The skin feels like an alligator with a texture of the roughest sandpaper.
Alice S
I wake up drenched in sweat. It was just another nightmare. Even though the incident happened last year I still get reminded of her. I try to get back to sleep, but I can’t get her screams out of my head. I decide to go for a walk with my dog, but he refuses to go with me. I give up trying and go by myself.
Three minutes in, I start to feel uneasy. I trip over something and black out. I woke up in a whole different place. I’m in one of those horror houses in an amusement park. I walk around to take a look. I get into a mirror maze, and I walk around a bit until I see her… the axe still embedded in her skull and she’s crying, just like how she was in the incident.
My eyes widen and fill with tears as I fall to my knees. Blood coats the floor and walls.
Emma S
I'm sitting on the couch. My best friend Isabelle is sitting next to me. I hear a high pitched blood curdling scream.
“Did you hear that?” I ask.
“No, I didn't hear anything,'' Isabelle replies.
We go back to watching tv. Then we hear someone tapping on the window.
“I heard that,” Isabelle says.
I got off the couch, peeked through the curtain and saw a glimpse of a tall black figure. I screamed and shut the curtain. I look back at the couch to discover that Isabelle has gone. I walk out to the kitchen and see her standing there with a knife in her hand. She's shaking in fear as she reaches in to the drawer to pass me a knife.
“We might need these, ” she whispers holding back tears.
The doorbell rings. I slowly walk over holding my knife out. I look through the peephole and see the tall black figure standing there in a white hospital gown holding a long sharp knife dripping in blood.
Isabelle A
... a long skinny arm wraps around the doorway, gripping the wall with its razor sharp claws/ I see a glimpse of it’s pale white body. The lights flicker. I hear it breathing. I try to scream but nothing came out. "Tessa, Tessa wake up pleaseee."
Tessa's eyes start to open and just as they do I look up to see this creepy thing. It had lifeless bulging eyes, no nose and long razor sharp teeth. It's black claws were like knives. It was staring at me grinning from ear to ear. It was dead quiet. It started reaching out to me and then it struck, its mouth open wide.
Elan H
“You're fine you're fine” I tell myself but I'm not. There's no way I'm fine.
“Miss what happened” said a man who sat down next to me
“I don't know." I tried to sit up but my head was burning and my arm was seering with pain. I saw a gaping slash in my arm with two little marks about 4 centimetres apart. I started to feel dizzy and started twitching.
Then I heard ambulance sirens and the paramedics arrived. “Shes dead” they said as they held my arm but I couldn't feel them touching me.
Lukas started crying overwhelmed sobs and people were tearing up
“Guys I'm right here,” I said but it was like they couldn’t hear me. I waved my hands in front of Lukas’s face but he didn’t see me.
Hazel H
The young girl lays in her bed, her spine shivers as the cold breeze from her window surrounds her body.
Clip. Clonk.
The frightened girl awakens from her thoughts, directing all her attention to the unsettling sound speaking from the hallway.
Clip. Clonk.
The sound creeps up the corridor getting closer, closer and closer until the young girl hears two last footsteps directly outside her bedroom door. Her heart pounds. The door handle slowly turns. The voice in her head names unthinkable things before the door slowly creeps open.
Aisha S
My mind feels like a bowl of mashed potatoes. I see my body standing lifeless next to me. My skin is as white as a sheet and it looks like a vacuum has sucked all the emotion out of me.
There is a gloomy figure hiding in the shadows around me. The door slams open. I’m sucked away into oblivion, but my body stays glued to the rickety floorboards of my house.
Quinn S
Petrified, stomach churning, an entire crowd expecting too much, too much for me to handle. Watching, waiting, staring, expecting. Expecting too many things of me, expecting things I can’t provide. Despite my ghostly white complexion and knot-ridden stomach — still watching, waiting, expecting. All too much.
They are oblivious to the infinite expanse of thoughts streaming through my mind, too many at once. They don’t know.
Knowing is power. I should have power. I have nothing. I stare back, they blink. I watch, they glare. I have no power. I wish. I wish with all my might that the chemicals in my brain would take me anywhere else. Anywhere but here. But I don’t have to wish. The chemicals in my brain don’t have to do anything.
I remember now.
Hamish W
He had seen many unusual things. Always, before they happened, he had a sense of terror which he had just felt. Like a deer in the yellow grass of the meadow , he swung his head back and forth trying to find whatever creature was nearby. Then there was a growl from behind him and a slimy substance, clearish with a tint of yellow, dripping onto his shoulder. A rustling of fur. It was full moon.
Nova D
“Again detached. Scott, get yourself together!”
The boy paused, pinching his face.
“How could you manage to get into this AGAIN?”
The park was silent, empty and sorrowful… like home. While the kid’s brain was rattled, his steps did not lack balance.
“If anything could sum up tonight, it would be ‘yuck’.”
Remembering that smile. Super sharp… identical to a bent kitchen knife, it was. And that rumbling, heavy voice spiraling endlessly.
“ARE… YOU… ALRIGHT?”
“Don’t talk to me! At least that’s what I wanted to say… I can walk home by myself easily.” With that thought, Scott stopped in his tracks. “What is home?”
Penny S
I ran up stairs and saw the the ladder to the attic was down. I stood against the wall and heard footsteps, a swoosh, and then another set of footsteps.
“Nice axe”
I knew that voice. It was my brother Owen. What was he doing here?
I climbed up very slowly and very quietly. I got to the top and I saw Owen swing the axe smack straight into Hamish's head. He swung the axe back up. Swoosh. He whacked the head clean off.
Owen S
The creepy guy crawled in through window. At first I thought he was one of Tom’s mental health coaches but he looked and smelled much better than most of them. The first inkling I had that something was wrong was when pulled out an amazing axe which caught the sun, and oh it was amazing. I didn’t even mind when he drove the axe deep into my brother's back. I just wanted to hold the axe.
I ran over to my brother and wrenched the axe out. The feel of it, it, it was perfect in my hands, like it was made for me.
I noticed the creepy guy behind me was staring at me intently “Nice axe” I said, trying to compliment him.
I stand there contemplating my life choices that led up to this moment and put an axe through his skull. For good measure I cut across his neck, and then the worst moment of my life happens. For the first time I realise who the creepy guy is. He is my twin brother Hamish.
Tom A
As I walk into his bedroom, all I’m thinking of is death. I want this to happen but I also want it to be over. As I prepare my guillotine for the chopping session, I hear a noise. Maybe this was a bad idea. Quickly, I pull my victim out of his bed as he wakes up. He is the ultimate victim. Blonde and fragile. He starts screaming. Slowly and carefully I chop and bag his dead flesh, ready to place in his parents' room.
A shadow creeps up beside the window. I’m not afraid. I’m now an assassin. Not even the sight of the creepy clown that climbed in the window bothered me. Now was the time to use my axe. It only took 2 swings to the middle of the torso to dispose of him. I decided to put this clown's body in the parents' bed too.
I celebrate by swinging my axe around. Suddenly, I feel pain. Then I keel over. I have impaled myself with my own axe. My last thought is today’s total is about to become three. I lie on the ground, blood pouring out of my punctured torso, waiting for the bitter-sweet feeling of death.
Thanks to our tutors, Claire and Desna, and also to Waimakariri Libraries.
(c) Write On and the Young Writers