By Joseph Walter
I was moved by the Holy Spirit recently to start donating clothing and toys, and with that mission objective, I also started to clean and go through my dense archives. I've found all kinds of projects, papers and books from my grade school days, most of which are hilarious/terrifying. In short: I wrote and made some really weird stuff back in the day. Yes, even more than now.
I thought it would be in the best interested of everyone on the planet if I shared some of these truly bizarre stand-outs from days gone by. The first of these is one of the very first, multi-page short stories I ever wrote.
In sixth grade's English class, taught by the inimitable Betty Bowes, we were assigned a task to use vocab words in a short story. On October 17, 2002, I chose to up the ante. Being that we were in the Witching Season, I opted to craft a distressing, horror-themed tale featuring a fascinating figure of my nightmares at the time.
I'll transcribe the story here (grammar/spelling errors included and, most importantly, vocab words underlined.) and then get into a little bit of lore in regards to what exactly was going through my head.
Keep in mind I went to Catholic school, and the content of this story was not only edgy, but actively pushed the envelope for what I thought would be considered "acceptable" content. Frankly, I thought I was going to get in trouble for it. But we'll let you judge for yourself. I even got to read it out loud!
Prepare yourself for the bone-chilling "Terror on Lockwood Drive."
"Saric, look. Someone is following us."
Saric looked and said "I don't see anyone."
The next night, I was playing video games when I looked out the window and saw something unusual - the same man that was following me. He had a shirt on that said "Flan Asylum." He had a white mask on. He had something in his hand… it looked like a knife! He was looking straight at me. I shuddered when I saw him.
That night I slept with my paintball gun*, and just to be safe, I invited Juste Belmont over. After all, he was a professional vampire killer.
*= I didn't have a paintball gun, but everyone else seemed to. in an effort to sound cooler than I already was, I added this detail. NO ONE HAD TO KNOW OTHERWISE.
Juste was saying, "Curse you, vampire! Curse you!"
I thought to myself, "That's no vampire. That guy looks just like Michael Meyers. That guy IS Michael Meyers!*
*= Yes, it's spelled wrong twice and in every instance onward.
"This guy's obnoxious!" I screamed.
I jumped out the window and tried to hold Michael Meyers off with my paintball gun, but he was too much for me. Luckily, Saric came to the rescue. He brought two other friends with him, Daniel and Joey.
"This guy is terrorizing me! Can you help me stop him?" I asked.
Daniel said "I can get him.
He took out his sword* (*= Because everyone apparently carries swords on them at all times) and went in for the kill.
It was a dreadful sight. Michael Meyers stabbed Daniel straight through the heart. Joey and I looked at each other, screamed and started running away from the appalling sight. Saric was right behind.
I said, "Kaitlin's house is up the street. Let's call the police and tell them to meet us there."
Joey pulled out his cell phone and called the police. We told them to meet us at 17 Lockwood Drive. We jumped through Kaitlin's door. Kaitlin and her family weren't too happy to see us break through their door until we told them a serial murderer was after us. We told them to board up every door and window in the house.
The police finally did come, through the roof, since every entrance was boarded up. One of the cops' name was Jimmy. He said he was going to wait in Kaitlin's house in case Michael Meyers broke through. While Kaitlin went to get some tea for everyone, Joey, Saric and I went into the den and were talking about how we could combat Michael Meyers. Kaitlin came to the rocker where Jimmy was sitting to give him his tea.
"Are you afraid, Jimmy?" Kaitlin asked.
All Jimmy was doing was rocking in the chair. She couldn't see his face.
"You don't have to answer," she said. "We're all scared."
She went to put tea on the coffee table when she saw a grotesque sight. It was Jimmy on the floor with a hole in his head. She gasped when she noticed that the person in the rocker stood up. He turned around. It was Michael Meyers! She screamed and we ran in to see what was wrong. As we came into the room, Michael Meyers shot Kaitlin in the leg so she couldn't get away.
Joey took out his sword and started to fight the ponderous fiend. Saric and I took Kaitlin and broke through the boarded up window. We ran by the police line outside the house and sat on the ground near the police cars. We heard Joey scream, and saw him fly through the wall towards us. He was a bit bloodied up, but still able to protect us.
The police started shooting, but nothing seemed to stop Michael. We started running because we didn't want to get killed. We hoped the police could protect Kaitlin. Before we could get too far, Mike threw his knife and hit me in the side. That was all Saric could take. He unsheathed his sword and ran towards Mike, trying to protect us. Mike punched Saric and knocked him out. I pulled the knife out of my side and threw it at Mike. It hit him in the face, and his mask fell off. Underneath the mask was a hideous face of all burns and scars. He started waling toward us and grinning in a strange sort of way.
As Michael Meyers was walking, one of the surviving police officers fired a special secret bazooka straight at him. The next thing I saw was a flash of light. I woke up in the hospital. My friends were there, too. The nurse told us that Michael Meyers had been completely destroyed. The only thing left was his mask, and the mask was being burned in the incinerator at that very minute.
That was the end of things. Or was it?
What'd you think? Did it chill you to the core? Was it worthy of that coveted A and the potential controversy?
Upon reading this for the first time since probably 2003, I was more than amused that in this fictional version of my hometown, apparently it's quite casual be armed with a sword at all times. I also loved the fact that the paintball phase was in full swing.
The most terrifying moment, to me, was the Michael Myers walking towards us while "grinning in a strange sort of way." I can't figure out what I was thinking and why I'd describe it like that. Such an odd choice.
During when this was written, I had just seen Halloween 4, the first of the series I'd ever seen completely. Needless to say, it scared the hell out of me (the song, mostly, and the concept of Michael just appearing and staring) and I ended up lifting the most prominent scare from the film for this short story. Bonus points if you know what it is.
I also made bizarre references to an obscure-but-awesome Mac OS free-ware game, hyper-linked in the sentence about the "town of Flan" and "Saric." And that music tho.
Also, when Daniel gets stabbed, that was the most controversial moment in my mind, as he was an active student and in the class. It went over okay, as he went down a hero.
Also, I had a major crush on Kaitlyn (misspelled as "Kaitlin" the entire story) at the time. Whatever.