Spooky Story Contest Winners

Thank you to all the participants in the Cole Camp Spooky Story Contest! Read the winning entries below or come on out to the Cole Camp branch on October 18th at 6pm to listen to them be read aloud by the authors.

In the Pines by Anders Cooper (Ages 12-18 Category)

The hunter sat in his lounge chair and turned the tv channel on. The TV buzzed to life, its screen humming. He flipped through channels before he stopped on the news channel.

“Fourteen hikers missing in-…” the anchor said.

The hunter could tell behind his professional facade he was horrified at the script. The hunter was used to news like this, ever since the first hiker went missing a month ago, more and more have gone missing. He personally thought it was a bear or a pack of wolves. That being said, he heard rumors about a serial killer or some sort of cult, but he didn’t believe them. He knew what animals could do. The channel then brought him back from his own mind.

“Today’s weather will be partly cloudy with a chance of snow later in the evening.” The hunter turned the TV off, and he got up with a groan.

“Perfect day for some hunting,” he said getting up.

He walked from his living room to his bedroom, lifting the gun off its stand, opening the wooden drawer under to stand, grabbing some bullets, and dropping them into his pocket. He walked out of the bedroom through the living room and into his kitchen, his boots clicking on the tile floor. He put the kettle to boil, he looked out of the window into the forest; it seemed off today. Something was off. His stomach began to turn, even though he’s been in these woods for decades upon decades. He felt like he was in the den of a beast. The kettle screeched, making him jump! He grabbed his chest, his heart beating fast. He chuckled, he was just putting himself on edge for no reason. He grabs the kettle, pouring it into his coffee mug. He stirred his mug before taking a sip. He felt the warm coffee flow through his body into his stomach. It made his stomach feel nice and warm compared to the cold outside. He grabbed the rifle as he walked to his mudroom. Putting on and his jacket old hat on before he leaves, the cold wind instantly stung his face.

“It may have been the end of November, but the winter is coming in strong this year,” he said to himself. He walked to his shed, pulling the tarp off his ATV. He got onto his ATV and turned the key; it stumbled and stopped. He groaned and turned the key again. The ATV roared to life.

“Atta girl,“ he said.

He put it into drive, holding the handle bars and taking off. The ATV cut through the brush and the frost. He drove through the forest until he arrived at his destination. He turned the ATV off and slid off. His feet hit the ground, frost bitten leaves crunching under his feet, a sound he loved. He then began his walk to a nice little opening he loved to hunt at. As he walked, he noticed the forest around him was quiet, nothing dared to move, let alone speak, like the forest itself was holding his breath. He was on edge; he knew what this meant, a large predator was around. He gripped his rifle ready to fire if he needed to. He kept on walking, getting closer and closer to his spot. He kept looking around, as he felt like he was being watched. He knew what that meant- he saw something and his consciousness was letting him know.

When he made it to his spot he felt safe, he chuckled about being on edge, but it’s always better to be rather than the possible consequences. He sat down in the snow and held his rifle ready. He watched the woods around him barely moving, waiting for something. After a few hours it was almost dark and he heard something… something approaching fast from the front of him. He held his rifle, taking aim, when out of the dark, thick brush came a wolf. His eye focused on the wolf, he held his breath, and counted.

One, the wolf’s paw hit the ground. Two, he took aim. Three, he breathed out.

The bullet flew, hitting the wolf’s heart and dropping it instantly. The shot echoed through the woods. He got up from his spot and walked to the wolf, finding it strange that it was all alone with no pack. He got closer, noticing blood, and he knew something was off as he shot the wolf in its heart, there shouldn’t be this much blood. As he stood over the wolf, he saw strange claw marks on it, none like he’s ever seen, they were too small for a bear but too big for a lion or other wolves. He then heard a twig snap in the distance, unease creeped into him. He was being watched, no, he was being hunted! He looked at the wolf before he got up and  ran towards the atv, hearing twigs and branches break behind him. He ran as fast as he could. He started to feel snow start to fall, cussing to himself. He made it to his ATV,  jumped on, trying to start it again. It groaned. He tried it, again and again. Whatever was stalking him was getting closer and closer. The ATV still groaned at his attempt to start it, but he tried it again.

“Come on, girl,” he pleaded.

The ATV roared to life. He put his foot on the pedal taking off. Knowing he had to get away, knowing he needed to get home. He was interrupted when before he knew it he was broadsided by something huge. He was flung from his ATV and hit his head against the ground. Through blurred vision, he reached for his gun, loading one more bullet, one more chance.

From the ATV’s broken lights, he could see a huge form walking towards him, its white eyes looking deep into his. He shouldered his gun, his finger pulling the trigger.

The Adventure by August Poppen (Ages 5-11 Category)

Once upon a time, there lived two boys named Tyler and August. They lived in the forest but it was hard to survive because there were wolves and alligators.  But they ended up finding a girl named Grace. She is nice though, so she joins the team and she had another friend that wanted to join.

But do you want to hear what Grace’s favorite things are? Well then, she loves dogs and princesses. But she does NOT like farts.

But, OH NO! … because one of them DIED!!!!! I do not know if you know – but it was Grace’s friend (that died). She was bit by a wolf. August and Tyler shot the wolf after that happened. Grace is OK!

The Old Hawthorne Place by Jeff Lutjen (Ages 18+ Category)

I am sharing a story that I think that at the very least most will find interesting and hopefully some will find it fascinating. The story has been related to me by established local historians and will be presented to you as a transcript of our meeting. I have edited it lightly for clarity, and changed the names and locations obviously since the setting and people are all local, many still with us. – Greg Burel, Boonslick Regional Library.

The Hawthorne Homestead

Elias and Clara Thorne

Greg: So just speaking naturally, you don’t have to rush or anything. So whenever you’re ready to start.
Elias: Well, the stories that I know about are damn close, not too far from where I live.
Down by the old Pacific Church. Make a right past the church on the gravel and go east on that gravel road. It comes up to a hill there.  And then you can make a right, go across Seers Creek. Okay, yeah, keep going straight east, there’s a lane that turns in there.  And there’s an old house back there.
Greg:  That’s going to be the Thompsons, that’s…
Elias: The same road.
Elias: Well, when I was a kid, a school teacher lived there. No, I don’t know too much about her. But after that, she left, moved.
Clara: I don’t know where she went.  There were others.
Elias: Hawthorne, Sami, and all that.  But that’s an old house, was built in, I don’t know if it was there during the Civil War.  The Hawthorne family lived in there, and there was a girl, a cousin, who came to stay with them.  For some reason, one night, she didn’t go to church. She stayed home.  The rest of the family went to church that night. They weren’t gone long, and the girl heard a knocking at the door.  I think there’s a back entrance there. And the bedrooms were upstairs. And she thought, well, they must have come back over here.  So she heard the knocking more. It got louder. And then she saw this figure walking right through the door…
And she was horrified, I guess. It headed toward the staircase. And supposedly, it was like the ghost of a Civil War soldier.
Greg: A soldier, wow. Could she see a uniform or details?
Elias: Yeah, something like that.
Greg: Oh wow, that’s terrifying.
Elias: Then it came up the steps. The story I was told is that it came up the steps, and she just froze. When it got to the top, it looked at her and then turned. It went through the door to the bedroom down the hall. She ran out of the house screaming, only in her pajamas. The Hawthorne family came home, and they couldn’t believe she was outside. She was white as a ghost, terrified. She would not go back into that house. They took her back home the next morning.
Greg: So this was the Hawthorne family, and the girl was just a friend or something?
Clara: She was a cousin?
Clara: Okay, so she… was a friend in school.
Greg: Okay, all right, but she was a different family. I think I know where you’re talking about.
Elias: And some other people lived there.
Elias: They said they’d seen a ghostly figure walking through the peach and apple orchards okay, at night.  Yeah, I don’t know if it was a Hawthorne or someone else, but they saw this apparition walking through the orchards. Oh yeah, they said there was a woman murdered there too.
Clara: Wow, years ago. They think it was her ghost or…
Elias: And also, something else weird happened…
Elias: A man told me this, he said it happened several times. They lived upstairs. And they’d come downstairs in the morning and all the furniture would be rearranged.
Greg: Oh my.
Elias: They said they never heard a thing, and some of that furniture was really heavy. Cabinets…
Greg: Oh yeah, full of dishes or something.
Elias: The cabinets would be moved to one side of the room…
Clara: And the other furniture would be moved.
Greg: Sounds like something from a horror movie.
Clara: I think it happened more than once. Wow, and that’s the same house.
Elias: The same house.
Elias: I’d heard one time, but not from him.
Clara: Still sometimes the furniture would be moved around.
Elias: Yeah.
Clara: I don’t know if I could live there.
Elias: But more than one person in the Hawthorne family saw something happen.
Elias: The Hawthorne house. Everyone in that family…
Clara: So scared.
Elias: Off the charts.
Clara: And that’s the same house you’re talking about. I think they live on some cursed ground.
Elias: Bad stuff there.
Clara: You know, I wouldn’t feel safe in the orchards.
Greg: It seems like the location is more important sometimes than the story itself, like something’s going on at the location.
Elias: That house…