Another Scary Story Contest!

So I have entered another scary story contest on one of the blogs which I frequent. I thought I would give you guys a chance to check it out. I'm not sure if it's good enough, I guess we will see. wish me luck!
Rules to contest:

This is a Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest. Your job is to come up with a creative and frightening story inspired by this photo (please submit your story via comment), while adhering to the following five rules:
Rule #1: It doesn't have to have anything to do with the actual real-life subject/explanation of the photo.

Rule #2: It has to involve a character nicknamed "Mr. Shifty." There is nothing significant behind the name "Mr. Shifty." I thought of it, it made me laugh, and I want to see how you turn something that makes me laugh into something foreboding.

Rule #3: Somewhere, your story must contain this phrase: volcanic ash cloud.

Rule #4: Your story must contain five sentences. No more. No less. However, there are no rules dictating the length of your sentences

Rule #5: Your story must be frightening, moody, mysterious, or otherwise scary in tone.

so here is my entry:

Little Billy Johnson had given the scary man the moniker “Mr. Shifty” due to his strange behavior around adults and his habit of joining in the juvenile games of the small children in our neighborhood when the parents weren’t around. The stories that roused our curiosity enough to break into his home that night, aged back to my parents’ generation and spoke of dark nights when Mr. Shifty would drag dead bodies across town from the graveyard on one side of town to his home at the top of the hill.

My heart still beats as rapid as it did that day when we found the tarp that contained the fragments of little Billy Johnson’s body, the putrid odor of which struck our nostrils like a volcanic ash cloud. I can recall the feeling of every ounce of courage being drained from our bodies when the door swung open to reveal Mr. Shifty standing there dragging a dead goat with a smile on his face as he exclaimed, “I see you came to play with us!” I alone escaped to tell the tale.

5 Sentence Story Contest

Okay so A few weeks ago I entered into a small contest on a blog that I frequent. It was a little writing contest that Jayson Boyett posts up once in a while. I will re-post the rules exactly as he did.

Rule #1: It doesn't have to have anything to do with the actual real-life subject/explanation of the photo.
Rule #2: It has to involve a character nicknamed "Hambone."
Rule #3: Why "Hambone"? Because it's a silly name, and I want to see how you turn a funny nickname into something scary.
Rule #4: Your story must contain five sentences. No more. No less.
Rule #5: Your story must be frightening, moody, mysterious, or otherwise scary in tone.

So anyway, I did it! One of my first times posting my writing in public so I was kind of proud of it! Lol Now, I didn’t win, BUT I did receive an honorable mention:

Most disgusting (possible) allusion to a Death Cab for Cutie song:
J Lopez, whose John Spellman decided to "repossess the heart" of his lover, Connie, via an apple-sized chest cavity he apparently created with his bare hands, just as Ben Gibbard might.

I thought I would share my story with you guys. Enjoy!
John loved his girlfriend Connie more than she could ever love him back and they both knew this was the reason that she had cheated on him.

As they slowly drove along the snow covered back road the night appeared darker than usual as the snow banks rose higher, swallowing their existence whole if only for that night; and John was counting on it. The unusually mild-mannered John looked at Connie in the pale moonlight that night with love so fierce that it immediately became an urge to repossess the heart that he had surrendered to her which he believed was hidden deep within her own heart and so he lunged at her, her scream muffled by the sound of the snowstorm.

In the morning all the police found was the pearl-colored four door vehicle covered in snow containing the dead body of Connie Young, girlfriend to John Spellman aka Hambone, the murderous lover of five separate women who had failed to love him to his desired standard. Within the apple sized cavity created by johns own hands was a note that read: My search for a woman that matches my love is far from over so please expect to find as many women as it takes – Hambone.

Laughed Until We Cried: Part 3

“Room 111 is two twin beds, who wants it?”
“We do” said Perla, and silvia as Mr. Griff read the room numbers off of the keys.
“Room 112 is a double twin bed, who wants it?”
“We do” said sara and janet.
“Room 113, one king size bed?” Apparently powder (who was my roommate for the trip) failed to hear when Mr. Griffin described the room as a single king size bed.
“We want it!” cried powder.
“What the hell is your problem,” I said, snatching the key out of his hand and handing it back to the teacher. “He said it was only one bed… for the two of us!
“Oh, my bad! Can we have another room?” Powder asked.
Much to our dismay, Mr. Griff just laughed and said, “Nope, you called it, you get it.”
We ended up having one bed for two nights for two guys. I told powder that he would be sleeping on the floor!

When we drove to the Shakespearian Festival I didn’t know hat to expect. At that point I thought I was all “hard core” so I didn’t read Shakespeare or anything for that matter. I knew I would be bored when I signed up for the trip but I didn’t imagine how fun a Shakespearian play could be with a bunch of fellow high school kids.

When we were about to enter into the stadium we encountered a gothic girl that had a bible on a leash and was dragging it like a dog. Ironically some of the kids cussed her out for dragging the holy book claiming that she was defending their holy peaceful belief system. I didn’t really believe in Christianity at the time so I knew the girl’s action was wrong, but I didn’t try to defend it either.

When we walked into the play I somehow got stuck in between the teachers and my peers. I ended up sitting right in between Mr. Griffin and Mrs. Bauhgn. When the lights went out, we began making barking noises (specifically a yell that sounded like, “Bhet!” This was a major war cry for our senior year) and yelling out “Gordy” which was a taunt towards a kid with who we had created great enmity, regardless of our former camaraderie.

People would tell us to be quiet but we continued to make these noises until our teachers told us that we would be castigated if we continued to ruin their evening. Being the creative kid that I am, I invented a little system to disguise our barks but continue to use them. It was a coughing spell with a “Bhet” in the middle (cough cough, bhet! cough cough). That would be something that we would continue to use in class when we got back home.

I remember actively attempting not to pay attention and the teachers verbally reprimanding me for doing so. As I watched the beginning of the play, I remember leaning backward in my seat a bit and closing my eyes for what I thought was a second. I woke up to the sound of hands clapping and people standing up. I had slept through the entire play. Lol

Laughed Until We Cried: Part 2

There we were in this interesting hippie town with no idea what to do. Our teachers had left us to run the streets by ourselves. In attempting to separate from the rest of the group I had violated an important high school commandment: Though shall not break up the herd! So of course after a while Sean and Alfredo decided that they wanted to rejoin the group and so we did. We ate at a little mom and pop grill off of one the main streets in town. The restaurant was completely empty until we arrived. We had two tables, one with me, my friends and a few extra’s and one with the square kids. I was high so I was super hungry and I remember ordering some huge burger and a coke. We were talking and as soon as I got my coke I accidentally dropped it. Luckily I didn’t get it on myself but it did in fact spill all over the table. When I told the waitress about the spill, she smiled and simply tossed me a towel. I remember thinking to myself, “how rude. I hope this place goes out of business.” This makes me wonder if the place has gone out of business in this recession. I hope so! Lol
After lunch Alfredo (gums), Sean (powder) and I began to explore the city. One of my observations of the town was that there weren’t many Hispanic folks in the town. In fact I seemed to be the lone ranger of Hispanic descent in the town. This was during my “everybody is a racist phase.” We walked around the town exploring, looking for girls and we found none. My thought was for us to return to the 4:20 parade and see if they ended their processions with some sort of rally. I figured that if we found them it meant free marijuana as I was running out quickly. We explored the entire city, or as much as we could cover by foot, looking for something to do with no avail. It was at this time that one of us mentioned that this town was “ass.” That day we re-named the town under the pseudonym that would grace the inner covers of all of our yearbooks when we signed our memories and valedictions: “Assland.”
Our rendezvous point was a park in central Ashland. We of course were the last ones to get there. Powder and I decided we were going to sit in the very front, the seat next to Mr. Griffin, which nobody wanted. The reason being that the back seats were considered the “cool seats,” not because Mr/ Griffin, or “stone-cold steve griffin” as he was nicknamed, hadn’t earned our respect. Mr. Griffin’s reputation preceded him, as stories about him permeated our school, which purported him to legendary status. Mr. Griffin was the teacher that was both easy going and intelligent. Had he owned a motorcycle and leather jacket he would have personified the stereotypical “cool teacher” role. Stories about him ranged from his adamant unbelief of time-travel to his explanation of the term “red-wings” to a seventh grade class, to the day he came to class with the same clothes he had worn the previous day due to an all night encounter with a lady friend. Mr. Griffin was easily the coolest teacher in school if not in the entire county.
We searched the town for “relax-inn,” our hotel paid for by the school itself. As a small school, our district didn’t have a lot of money. So when Mr Griffin was able to get our entire trip paid, we were not only surprised, but ecstatic to see how well the school would accommodate us. We explored the town for about an hour and a half searching for the “Vista Inn.” It was nowhere to be found. At first only Mr. Griff was searching for the place but as time went by we all started getting worried and annoyed and so we all entered the search. Every nice hotel we saw we would say, “Maybe that’s it.” We imagined fancy chandeliers, large indoor pools, a hot tub for us and the girls (don’t judge, we were just horny little teenage boys, lol). We kept driving up and down the same road and didn’t find a thing. Finally Mr. Griff made a turn toward a small strip of motels just off of the main road, we thought he was just going there to turn around but all of a sudden he exclaimed, “I think I found it.” Mr. griff brought us to the raunchiest, nastiest little run-down motel that you could ever imagine. We were all immediately struck with outrage and what did Mr. Griffin do? He smiled from ear to ear and simply laughed at our collective misfortune of staying at this little hell hole for the next couple of nights…

Laughed Until We Cried: Part 1

There’s a song called, “Laughed until we cried” by Jason Aldean. Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and started to think of that song. The first verse is talking about a senior trip that the guy took with his classmates years ago and how they laughed until they cried while they were on the trip. I love the song and I love the idea behind the song.
And so it took me back to April of 2000. I wasn’t supposed to attend the trip to Ashland Oregon’s famous Shakespearian festival because I didn’t like all of the kids that were going. Plus I didn’t want to spend my hard earned drug sales profits on a trip to Oregon of all places (I had not yet discovered the beauty that is Oregon). During that time I was a young, crazy lil gang member with baggies, bandanas, slicked back hair and a pocket full of weed. My friends that were there: Alfredo (gums), Janet, Sean (powder), and Sara. These were my in-school friends, a bunch of studious, funny well-behaved kids that were in no way involved in the gang-banging mess. They were the ones that convinced me to go even though I didn’t want to. There was also the rest of Mr. Griffins Honors English Class. My group of friends were the ones that actually had a sense of humor, the rest were all squares.
So there we were on what would promise to be the trip of all trips. On the trip there were the six of us, plus Perla, a girl I had a crush on at the time. Long story short about Perla, we were good friends when I was a shy guy. Junior year I started talking more, and apparently she didn’t like my outgoing personality so she stopped talking to me. Senior year she got a makeover, got rid of her huge bottle cap glasses, put on some make-up and did her hair. After that she looked really cute so of course she got my attention again, lol.
Mrs. Baughn was driving the 1980’s SUV and would stop every once in a while to take smoke brakes. I tirelessly tried to convince her that she should share her cigarettes with me even though she was the teacher and I was a student, a request which she repeatedly declined.
As soon as we arrived in Ashland we all split up. Sean, Alfredo and I went in the opposite direction of the rest of the groups in order to smoke a joint without getting caught. Sean, simply along for the ride, was as drug free as a white preppy kid in high school can be. As we finished off our joint, we walked down to what seemed to be a main street. Just as we hit the sidewalk, we see a large procession taking place. We had no idea what it was so we watched them all go by and as soon as we read the signs, we understood that the moment was serendipitous! The procession happened to be a “legalize marijuana” 4/20 day parade! We joined in the procession and borrowed a persons sign walking proudly while screaming, “Legalize it!”
As we approached one of the street corners, we continued with our chant only to encounter the rest of the group from our school! The teachers were annoyed at us but Sara and Janet were flabbergasted at the surprising sight of us guys marching in the 4/20 rally. They even took a picture of all of us marching in the rally. The scene was so hilarious that even the square kids from our class had to release a laugh. As I was writing this I realize that I have NO IDEA what happened to that picture. Man, I wish I had it. It would probably make me smile huge right now if I saw it; all of our faces with huge smiles and bloodshot eyes, without a care in mind in a world that was still young and crazy…