Last month, all Kanawha County Public Libraries held a Scary Story Contest for teens. Teens were given the option of writing a story or poem, which they then submitted to their local library where it was judged by a group of librarians. The categories judged were Scared Stiff!, Reflecting on the Season, Goosebumps on my Funny Bone and Overall Best Entry. Winners received a bag of goodies.
Below is one of the winning entries.
For more information on teen programs at area libraries, visit kanawha.lib.wv.us or stop by your local branch.
As I stepped onto the overgrown lawn of our new dilapidated house, I had a flood of emotions, mostly bad. We had just driven more than three hours from Virginia into West Virginia. We had left our friends and family behind once again because mom had broken up with yet another one of her boyfriends. We had once again lowered our living standards.
My kid brother, Sam, stepped out of the car and went bounding up the front steps of the house. At least he was excited. Mom stopped beside me to admire the house. Brushing a flyaway hair from her face, she let out a sigh of disappointment. "I know this isn't the best place to live, but at least it has a lake behind it where we can go swimming," she said. I looked at her with one of my "I'm so sick of moving because of you" looks and walked toward the house.
As I stepped into the worn-down looking two-story house, I could hear Sam romping around on the second floor. I checked out the kitchen first. The cabinet doors were open, revealing empty shelves of dust. I let out a sigh of disgust and went to look at my new bedroom. As I sauntered down the long hallway and opened the door to my bedroom, the door creaked with strain. I walked across the barren room to the closet. As I reached for the door handle, a sudden chill came over me. I opened the door slowly, half-expecting a goblin or ghost to jump out at me, but there were only a few rusted metal hangers.
I began to close the closet door when I heard my mother scream. I took off, tearing through the house. I could hear her cries for help, but I couldn't find her. I finally realized she was outside, and I sprinted out the paint-chipped back door to find her. She was in the lake, fully dressed, frantically searching the water beneath her. She was screaming at the lake, "Sam, Sam, where are you?!"
I ran down into the water and used the freestyle technique my swim coach had taught me to reach my mother's side. She looked at me frantically and screamed, "Your brother is under the water! Go under and look for him!" I dove under the water, the muck particles stinging my eyes. I searched frantically until I couldn't bear to hold my breath any longer, and I surfaced. My mother was now under the water looking for Sam also, and I dove back down to look again. After 30 minutes of stinging eyes and frantic searching, I finally found him.
He was lifeless.
I grabbed his limp body and kicked to the surface with all of the strength I had. I frantically pulled him to land and began CPR. Mom ran to call the paramedics, but by the time they got there, it was too late. They couldn't bring him back.
He was gone.
A week after the funeral, I began to notice all of the sounds within and around the house. I could hear the dripping showerhead in the bathroom, the washer downstairs, and the rain gushing through the gutters. The sound of my mother filling up a pitcher with water to make Kool-Aid drove me crazy. I hoped for winter to come to freeze the horrible lake, so that I wouldn't have to hear its ripples when passing boats caused wakes.
On Saturday morning, I needed to run some errands, so I went into the bathroom for a quick shower. As I stepped into the green tiled shower, the warm water welcomed my body. Grabbing the shampoo bottle, I squeezed some watermelon scented hair care into my scalp and began scrubbing. All of a sudden, the water started to feel warmer. I clutched the handles trying to turn the cold water up, but the temperature kept rising. The liquid began to feel like molten lava, and my skin started to feel as if it would melt off and float down the drain. I screamed in agony and jumped out of the shower, shampoo still in my hair. Snatching my towel, I quickly wiped the scorching water off my body.
After my skin had cooled off for a while, I realized my hair was still a soapy sphere of shampoo. Sticking my head under the bathroom faucet, I attempted to wash the shampoo out of my hair. I was almost done when the water went cascading down my still-heat scorched face, into my mouth, and down my throat, stopping all air supply. I took my head out of the sink and tried to cough the water out of the pocket in my throat. Finally, the water budged, and I gasped for air. The rest of the soap in my hair was just going to have to stay there for the day.
When I got back from doing my errands, Mom was standing in the kitchen making dinner. She was getting ready to make tomato soup, Sam's favorite. I grabbed the tomato soup can, poured its contents into the cooking pan, and went to the sink to get water to add to the soup. I filled the can to its brim and went to pour the water into the pan. As the water began to flow out of the can, my hand slipped on its smooth surface, slicing my fingers. Blood started to pour out of the three fingers I had cut. Running to the paper towel dispenser, I snatched a handful and wrapped them around my fingers.
Later that night, I rewrapped my fingers and headed off to the bathroom to get ready for bed. Looking in the mirror, I noticed the burnt skin from the shower that morning. I looked like a lobster.
The next morning followed the same routine. Scorching hot water greeted me in the shower, and later, when brushing me teeth, the toothpaste went running down my throat choking me.
Monday was now my designed day to go to a therapist. Mom thought it would help me get better since my little brother had died. But she and I both knew that nothing a therapist said could bring him back. I was angry at her for making me share my feelings with a stranger, but since we had already spent $150 for this guy, I decided to go.
As I walked into the pristine office, I felt uneasy of being there. There was a couple sitting against the far wall and after we exchanged glances, I sat down in the seat closest to the door. "Misty Harrison," the receptionist finally called. I stood up and walked towards the therapist's room. I sat down on his ugly green couch and anxiously waited for him to join me. When he stepped into the room, he was exactly what I imagined him to look like. He was sporting a black suit with what I assumed he thought was a tie that would make him appear friendlier. His hair was neatly styled and he wore a smile on his face. "Hello Misty. I am very glad you could join me today," he said. At least he was happy. I gave him a half-hearted smile as he sat down and then waited for him to initiate the conversation.
"So, how have you been since your brother passed?" Just hearing him so that made me cringe at the realization that my brother was gone. I gave him a cold stare and asked, "How do you think it made me feel? Do you think I was happy?"
He let out a sigh and changed tactics. "So what do you think of your new house?" Immediately I thought of the scalding water and other weird coincidences that surrounded the house. Should I tell him or not? I decided I might as well since I was here wasting my time. I told him the weird events and as I was describing my experiences, his facial expression changed to that of deep thought.
When I finished, he looked at me for a while and then walked over to his bookcase filled with worn-down looking books. He pulled out a small book with worn edges and a torn cover. As he walked toward me, he began talking about the book that he wanted me to read over the week. "This book is about losing a loved one to drowning," he said to me. "I know this will be hard for you, but I want you to read this because I think it will help you cope with your loss." I hesitantly took the book from him and left his office to go home.
When I got home, I slowly walked down the hall and into my room. Shutting the door, I walked over and sat on my bed. I pulled the book out of my bad and began reading. It was the typical "Losing a loved one is hard but you are not alone" junk, but I kept reading. I had only gotten to the tenth page when my fingers started to feel wet. I looked at where my hands were resting on the book. The pages were drenched in water, and at first I thought my hands were sweating.
I placed the book on my night table, and it began to gush water. The book was like a broken faucet that spews water everywhere. I panicked. How could a book leak water? I reached over to the book, and the water began to come out even faster. Water was all over my night table and spilling onto the floor. I sat back on my bed, my eyes locked on the book. What just happened? There was no way I was going to finish that book. There was no way I would even open that thing again.
A week later, I was sitting across from my therapist again. "So how was the book?"
I knew that question was coming, but I still wasn't prepared for what I had to tell him. "Well I didn't read it," I started. I could see the disappointment in his eyes but I continued. "The book started leaking. It was gushing water! I didn't know what to do, but I knew I wasn't going to open it up again." The words were flying out of my mouth before I could think about what I was saying. "My house is evil. The water around my house is evil. It killed my brother, and now it's trying to kill me!"
The therapist looked at me like I had two heads. He asked me to step out of the room for a minute so that he could make a call. I slowly stood up and walked out of the room, knowing he thought I had lost my mind.
As I went out of the office, I shut his door and then immediately placed my ear against it. I could hear him on the phone. He was talking about me to somebody, probably my mother. I could hear him say that I was suffering from paranoia and that I had developed a phobia of water ever since Sam had died.
The next thing I heard him say sent chills down my spine. He wanted me to get in the lake behind our house. He believed it would get me over my paranoia and fix my fear of water. I wasn't going to stick around for him to tell me his plan. I took off running, tears streaking down my face. I didn't want to go back into that horrible lake.
When I finally reached the house, my mother was waiting for me at the front door. "Honey, I think your therapist is right. I think you need to get back in that water." I looked at her with disbelief and then walked past her and headed to my room. I locked the door. I was suddenly overcome with sleep. I walked over to the bed I had spent so many sleepless nights in and let the delirium of sleep take over me. I was dreaming instantly, standing in the horrible lake. My brother was beside me, holding my hand, guiding me farther into the lake. My brother was beside me; I saw him sinking to the bottom of the lake, a frightened expression on his face. I screamed and instantly woke up.
Something was wrong.
I was standing in the lake and had no idea how I got there. Suddenly, something grabbed my leg, pulling me under. I screamed, but the sound could not be heard. My mouth filled with water, and I began choking. I tried to kick myself to the surface, but something was still holding my leg. I bent down to detangle whatever was wrapped around my leg, but I stopped when I saw what was dragging me to the bottom. My brother, with the expression he had when I pulled his limp body out of the lake, was now drowning me. He was taking me to meet his horrible fate.
I knew that I wouldn't make it out of that horrible lake alive. I knew that when my mother had to pull the only child she had left out of the lake, she would never be the same. I knew that my therapist would tell her that I had become too paranoid to live a normal life and that I had drowned myself in a frenzy. I also knew they were wrong.
As my brother's ghost dragged me to the bottom of the lake, I began to see all of the bodies -- the bodies of boys and girls, men and women that the lake had already consumed. As I let out my last remaining ounce of oxygen and sucked in the horrible muck, I became one more soul lost to the dark, evil lake.