Our lovely hosts Denise and
Yolanda who work very hard hosting this bi-monthly challenge
This month is themed for
Halloween. This is not my genre and I struggle
to do anything horror wise so my offering is rather tame compared to other
entries.
Here are the guidelines:
FLASH
FICTION – POETRY -- NON-FICTION – ARTWORK -- PHOTOS
OPEN TO ALL
For this challenge, share a childhood fright that
might or did turn into an adult fear, real or imagined.
To start the fun you can:
1. share a favourite
frightening tale, movie, novel, photograph or painting that will leave us
quaking in our boots
2. in a short
paragraph describe how it scared you, and why it did and or still does today
3. then you can:
a. submit your own scary piece, 1000
words or less, in any format or
b. share
a photograph or painting that captures the horror you've felt.
Open
to all genres - Fiction works can be - Adult, YA, MG. All entries maximum 1,000
words.
1.
Sharing something that happened in my
middle teens (15/16 years old). I lived
in a small village in the South East of England.
OUIJA
I
had two best friends and we spent time in each other’s houses, girly stuff,
chatting about boys, playing records (yes it was that far back that they were
on vinyl) or listening to pirate radio stations when we could pick them up on
the transistor radios. It was all very
innocent and naive compared to the teenagers of today.
Patsy
and I lived in council houses, I was at one end of a long winding avenue and
she was at the other end, down the hill and nearly out to the main road. Mary lived in a house in the churchyard. Her parents were quite bohemian for village
tastes and they weren't born and bred villagers. It was a huge house and the front door led on
to the path up to the church. The living
room window faced out on to the graveyard.
Situated on a hill the house was divided over three or four floors. The kitchen was in the basement, a large cold
room with a walk-in pantry and a huge wooden table set in the middle of the
flagstone floor.
Mary
had a lot of freedom, Patsy and I thought, being allowed to invite friends over
and go out and about all the time. One evening
we had been talking about spirits and ghosts and had seen something about an Ouija
board. We decided to try it. Mary obtained an Ouija board, I think she
found it in her parent’s book shelves and we decided on a night to try it out.
During
this time there had been some scandal in the village (my memory of the actual
events is rather hazy all these years later) concerning rumours about a certain
chap in the village.
We
prepared the table, candles, an upturned glass in the middle ready to use. We placed our fingers on the glass and in the
semi-dark room started asking questions.
‘Is anybody there?’ The glass
moved to the square marked ‘yes.’
We
shivered in anticipation. After several
more questions, spelling out answers that were true we asked the burning
question. ‘Did he do it?’ The glass
moved to ‘yes.’
We
were all cold by this time and broke the circle.
We accused each other of moving the glass,
all vehemently denying doing any such thing.
I know I didn't sleep very well that night and we never mentioned that evening to each other again.
The white house you can see
beside the church was divided in two and Mary lived on the side by the church,
you entered through the lynch gate up the path and then turned in to her front
door.
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Here is my 1,000 word entry
DO
YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?
Sean opened
the back door and called out as he entered the house.
‘Hellooo.’
‘Hello
darling,’ his grandmother replied.
His Nan was
always pleased to see him, no matter when he dropped round. He came round several times a week after
school but could only stay for half an hour or so. Now he was living with his dad and his dad’s new
family and not his mum it was quite strange but his Nan never held it against
him.
Sean took
off his school blazer, hung it on the hook with his back sack, kicked his shoes
off and sat on the kitchen stool watching his Nan prepare her evening
meal.
‘I'm going
to do trick and treating on Saturday,’ he said swallowing a mouthful of crisps.
‘Don’t knock
on my door then ‘cos I won’t be opening it on Saturday.’
‘Don’t you
believe in Halloween, Nan, with witches and ghosts and zombies and all that
stuff?’ Sean finished his drink as his
Nan poured herself a cup of tea.
‘No my
dear. It is so commercialised and scary.’
Sean
laughed. His Nan was scared of all sorts
of things, especially spiders and scary films.
She was a bit of a wimp really.
They moved
in to the living room so that Nan could sit down and drink her tea. Sean continued asking questions, whether she
believed in ghosts, had she seen one ever, ‘cos she was quite old now.
After
pretend swatting him with a cushion, Nan looked at him and said, ‘I could tell
you a few things but they are nothing like you see on the telly.’
‘Have you
seen a real-live ghost then?’
Nan said,
‘it can’t be a ghost if it was real and alive now could it?’
They both
laughed.
‘A few years
ago we were staying in a holiday home out in the countryside and I had this
feeling that somebody was watching me.
All around were just fields and greenery, a few hills in the distance,
there was a ruined church down a country lane which we were going to visit.
Ghosts are not always seen, Sean, sometimes you just feel them or even hear
them.’
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Photo credit: sallys-scribbles.blogspot.co.uk
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Sean looked
in amazement at his Nan; she was being really weird now. She went on to explain.
‘You can get
a ‘feel’ for spirit, some people have seen images, shadows, wisps of something,
sometimes people can hear a voice in their head and sometimes they just get a
picture of something in their mind.’
Sean said,
‘I don't understand what you are saying, Nan.’
Nan carried on. ‘OK let me think how to say it. This cottage was attached to the grounds of a
big manor house which the estate let it out to holiday makers and tourists. As soon as I walked in the door I felt the
air change. I was breathing cold air,
very cold air as if you’d just turned on the air conditioning in the car, that
sort of coldness. It was a late summer’s
day; I just thought it was cooler inside because of the thicker brick
walls. It was only in one place in the
living room if I moved elsewhere the air seemed normal.
Then as I
looked out of the window I caught a glimpse of something across the field, a
shadowy figure flitting across the stubble.
Now this was in the daytime so it was quite unusual.’
‘Did you see
a ghost then? I thought they only came
out at night.’ Sean was quite astounded
at what his grandmother was saying.
‘Ah now that
is the myth surrounding the other world.’ Nan sat and thought for a bit and
then looked at Sean. ‘Would you like a
piece of cake?’
A slice of
Victoria sponge each, in between mouthfuls Sean asked about the ruined church.
‘Oh yes, the
ruined church,’ Nan swallowed her last mouthful of cake and finished her cup of
tea.
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http://sallys-scribbles.blogspot.co.uk
‘If you go
there in the day time you can have a look around, careful not to step on the
tombstones. If you go there during at night, especially if the moon shines down
through the clouds as they flit across pushed by a gentle breeze, if you stand
still and listen you can hear an owl hooting, a fox baying and a whisper among
the trees that ripples along the lake beside the grounds of the church.’
Sean’s eyes became
rounder; he sat forward in the chair hanging on his grandmother’s every word.
‘Not much
remains of the church but the rumour is that Richard Plantagenet
was the illegitimate son
of Richard III, he lived at Eastwell Manor and a memorial or tombstone is
possibly in the grounds of the church. Perhaps
that is who I saw that day.’
‘Did you
really, Nan?’ Sean isn't quite sure whether to believe his grandmother or
not. ‘So are there zombies then? If there are ghosts there must be zombies.’
His Nan
laughs. ‘I don’t think so. They are just
stories and horror films.’
‘But what if
they were real and came out on Halloween, what would we do then?’
‘Lock your
doors and don’t go out at night.’ His Nan winked at him. Sean really didn't know what to believe.
‘How do you
know if you've seen a ghost? Do witches
exist?’
So many
questions unanswered.
‘People used
to think that witches were evil crones, casting spells on people they didn't like,
turning people in to frogs and toads and mice and rats.’
‘Nan!’
‘In the
olden days that is what people believed whereas maybe they were just people who
knew the old folklore and what to pick in the woods to make medicines. Don’t forget, Sean, they didn’t have Google
back in those days to find out things.’
‘Nan, you
are so silly sometimes.’
Sean jumped
across to the sofa and gave his grandmother a great big squeeze.
Now it was
time for him to get ready to go home.
If you want to know more here are two links:
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