Eric

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The Good Samaritan Mother was driving and felt a small stir while son sat fuming, an unwilling passenger. She pursed her lips and he shrugged his shoulders. They were both resolute and solid, like boulders. The weather was horrid, the rain unrelenting. A pop filled the air, and their car went careening. Mother stiffened even further and pumped the brake. Son widened his eyes, now completely awake. She steadied the car to the side of the road and looked at her son; her precious load. A bright yellow truck stood idling ahead. A man ran up to them and this is what he said: “Hello, ma'am, it looks like you've had a bit of trouble. If you would like, I could help you out, on the double. I only ask that you help me in return, see my truck won't start, and by the way, my name's Vern.” Mother was grateful in her time of need and she told her son to help the man in his deed. Son huffed as he exited and was drenched within minutes. The man spoke over the downpour, “Raining to bejesus, innit?” Son would not converse with the man changing their tire. He only handed and received tools miserably, having but one desire. Son saw the man mouth he was done so he rushed for the passenger door. He never said a word to the man, no thanks at all for the completed chore. Son opened his mouth to speak to his mother when the man got in the back seat. “Ma'am,” he said, “if you don't mind, there's a rest stop up ahead, and I'd like to eat.” “Not at all,” she replied, “thank you for your help.” She nudged her son hard, and he gave a small yelp. He knew what she wanted and refused to say a word. She glared and said, “My son thanks you too, but right now he is acting absurd.” “No problem, ma'am, I got kids too.” “I hope they aren't as nasty as my son, Drew.” “Mom, I want to go home, can we go now?” “Rude as he is,” said Vern, “he's got a point, I'd like some chow.” Mother started the car with a look of reproach at her son. He ignored her and stared out at the rain, he was done. The man in the back said, “You know, son, you might be kinder to your Mother.” Son sniffed without a reply, but on the inside, he thought, 'why bother.' “I say it because you never know when she'll be gone, and you'll be alone with your grief and your pain and so on. I know because tonight, you stopped near the wrong guy. You'll be running from me after she's dead, and then wonder why.” Mother and son just had time to share a look before the man came upon her neck with a hook. Son screamed for himself and his mother as she bled, and he struggled to open his door, his arms paralyzed with dread. The door opened wide and he made to run out, but the man hooked his jacket and pulled him about. Son ripped his jacket in two and fell out of the car. His head hit the ground and left a small scar. He ran for the woods and fell to his knees behind a great tree. For a second, he thought he could escape and be free. He looked around the tree and came face to face with the man. His last thought was 'why' before the swing and the thrust and the dripping began. The man dislodged his weapon of choice and turned to face you. “Strangers are not all like me, but if a good samaritan tried and true, comes your way: be wary because he may be more than what you see, the man who helps you, well, he might end up being me.”

A really nice story in my opinion, you felt the suspense and the mans quote towards the end;

Quote

“I say it because you never know when she'll be gone, and you'll be alone with your grief and your pain and so on. I know because tonight, you stopped near the wrong guy. You'll be running from me after she's dead, and then wonder why.”

That's the type of dark shit that I like, it's messed up, but it's stuff like that that keeps it shocking and refreshing. I personally wish that the son had not died at the end. I would have rather wanted that he got to run away, and that it stuck with him his entire life. Death is so definite, whilst cotinuation of a traumatizing event is when the real horror begins. The psycholoigcal effects that fuck with your head. But it's just personal preference, it's still a good story regardless. I liked the way you made everything rhyme but still made it scary. Nice job Eric, nice job!

~Creativity (8/10)
~Grammar (9/10)
~Scariness (9/10)
~Consistency (9/10)
~Presentation (8/10)

Herm

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The night was young, the snow was piling on and the air had a cold deep chill to it. The pine trees rustled in the light breeze as a large wolf-like creature clad in fur as dark as the darkest night stopped in front of a steep hill, a steep hill that lay in front of what looked like a large mansion. The wolf-like creature howled at the moon as it magically illuminated the terrain. Albert Brown closed his book and snapped to attention as a howling sound distantly rang through the library. Albert was a librarian and an employee at Hotel Drumpf, a hotel owned by none other than Conrad Drumpf. Albert was an older man with skin the color of copper, his dark hair curled around his ears leaving a bald spot on his head. "Damn, those howling wolves won't stop." Albert said to no one in particular as he put the book back on the shelve where it belonged. The Misanthropical Journey of the Void was one of Albert's favorite books, written by the infamous author Reginald B. Morton. Albert quickly forgot about the book, as he was suddenly interrupted by the sound of footsteps traveling towards him. "Who goes there?" Albert asked and turned around. He met with none other than Roadhouse Butterfox, the janitor. "I goes here." Roadhouse said with a sour look on his face, pale blue eyes, unwashed hair hanging down to his neck, a dirty beard and a mop at his side. As a librarian and an expert at proper vocabulary pronunciations, Roadhouse's bad choice of grammar had a tendency to annoy Albert. "What do you want, mister Butterfox?" Albert asked impatiently. "I'm busy." "I want to come here to have a clean, mister library." Roadhouse said as politely as he could manage. "Not now." Albert told the janitor and quickly chased him away with a look. As the footsteps disappeared, Albert breathed a sigh of relief. "Alone at last, alone with my books." The silence did not last long, as footsteps were heard once more and with a frustration that he barely managed to conceal, the librarian turned around. "Hey, I thought I told you not to-" Albert began, but he was cut off by an unfriendly presence who lunged at the librarian with the intent to kill. A terrible scream echoed throughout the many hallways and corridors of the library and in song, the wolf howled in response. ********** Conrad, clad in a morning gown, sat in his chair in the room he called his office and sipped on a bottle of crafty medicine, or bourbon as the locals called it. With a knock on the door, Conrad groggily turned towards the noise with a sigh. "What the hell is it? I'm busy!" His secretary, Samantha Mellows, entered the room. She was a short girl with blonde hair and blue eyes and wore a skirt even shorter, Conrad liked it that way. "I'm sorry to disturb you, sir." She apologized in a mellow voice. "But I'm afraid there's been an incident in the library." She continued. "Incident?" Conrad asked, confused. "What the hell did that stupid fuck do now!?" "He's dead, sir." "Dead?" Conrad rose from his seat with a worried look on his face. "Who the hell killed him?" "I'm not sure, sir." Samantha said., "The janitor found his body torn to shreds in the library." "Torn to shreds?" Conrad asked, legitimately uncomfortable. "I'm afraid so, sir." "You realize how bad this is for business!?" Conrad suddenly said out loud. "We can't have a killer running around killing people left and right, you and that dumb fucking janitor better do something to find this lunatic, preferably before someone of actual importance like me suffers the same fate!" With a nod, Samantha hurried off holding up her tiny skirt to get to the bottom of things. Conrad sank back in his chair and stared at his bottle of bourbon in disbelief. "What a fucking day." He sighed and downed the whole bottle in one gulp. ********** Samantha Mellows soon arrived at the stairway leading up to the library and found Roadhouse Butterfox inside, busy mopping the floor from blood stains. The janitor had covered Albert's body with a blanket. "I talked to Conrad." She spoke, her mellow voice danced like a song across the room. "What he say?" Roadhouse asked as he stopped mopping the floor. "He wants us to find Albert's murderer, said it was bad for business if someone else got killed." Roadhouse clutched his jaw and his mind began to race, trying to think up a strategy, "I have idea." Roadhouse suddenly said. "If we split up, better chance to find killer, yes?" "Well, I guess." Samantha agreed. "I go look this way." Roadhouse said as he pointed down the stairway. "You look for breadcrumbs in library." "You want me to be in here with a dead man?" She asked, nervously. "Alone?" "If it start to smell I leave bottle of Liqui-Zone." Roadhouse said and pointed at the bottle standing in the corner of the room. "Alright." She agreed. "That could come in handy actually." Roadhouse then clutched his mop vigilantly and rushed down the stairway, while Samantha remained in the library. She sighed and started to get to work, she found a strange book that had blood stains on it and decided to pick it up. "What's this?" She asked and opened the book and started to read from its pages. ********** "Another!" Malcolm Beverage yelled as he tried to get the bartender's attention. Malcolm had been staying at Hotel Drumpf for almost a week now and for every day he had come down to the lounge to quell his thirst. Malcolm was a middle-aged gentleman with short brown hair, a patchy beard and clad in a business suit stinking of cheap whiskey. "Another one coming up, sir." The bartender said as he filled up a glass with a green moldy juice and handed it to the business suit clad man. "Thank you, Alfred." Malcolm said as he clutched the glass and began to drink from the liquid. "You're welcome, sir." Alfred said with a smile, his stringy brown hair combed neatly to one side with big bug eyes sucking in all the oxygen. Once the liquid had escaped down his throat, Malcolm began to feel how the inside of his stomach started to mix with his bodily fluids. Then everything erupted in a state of effervescence and he burped raucously with satisfaction. "That was absolutely delicious." Malcolm told Alfred proudly. "I love this what you call it... Erotic Empire shit." "Toxic Vampire." "Yeah, something like that." He paused. "So Alfred, how about you hand over that recipe already?" "No." Alfred simply said. Another figure clad in a big black fur coat suddenly appeared from the other side of the lounge. He had a big bushy beard, thick eyebrows and long hair hanging down the back of his neck. The jukebox choked on its song nervously as the figure walked over to the bar, the stools and tables creaked in fear. Alfred and Malcolm both gulped nervously as the figure sat down next to them, his face shadowed. "Give me something to drink, bartender." The man's voice growled. "The strongest you've got." Alfred snapped back to attention. "A Toxic Vampire coming up." The man growled angrily as he snatched the drink from Alfred and looked at it for a few seconds with a hint of disgust before suddenly downing the whole thing. Everyone sat in silence and waited for the bearded figure to explode, but no. Instead the bearded figure let out a faint little burp and smiled greedily. "Another one, please." He growled. Alfred gave the bearded man a ridiculous smile as he prepared another Toxic Vampire. "Another one coming up, sir." Malcolm Beverage watched in awe as the figure clad in the black fur coat downed another Toxic Vampire with ease. Malcolm carefully finished what was left in the rest of his cup, rose from his chair and thanked Alfred for introducing him to that extraordinary drink before heading back to his room. He walked up the turning staircase that led to the upper floor, then he followed the corridor that led to his room. As he turned a corner, he stumbled into the janitor. "Oh, mister janitor." Malcolm said, quite startled. "You scared me." The janitor stood there with a mop in his hands, looking for something... or someone. "Why you walk this way?" Roadhouse asked quite intrusively, poking Malcolm with his mop. "Answer Roadhouse." "To my room." Malcolm said as he held up his key. Roadhouse gave the key a suspicious look and gave Malcolm another poke with his mop. "Man in business suit not fool Roadhouse." He said without pause. "Roadhouse not letting you out of sight." Malcolm gave Roadhouse a worried look until the janitor gave him a hard push with the mop, urging him onwards. "Well, on your way then. Roadhouse be busy." Malcolm hurried onwards and headed towards his room at the far end of the corridor, he briefly looked back to see if the janitor was still watching him. Thankfully, he wasn't there anymore. Malcolm reached his room and reached for his keys and stumbled inside, once he finally figured out the process of how to open the door that is. Malcolm threw himself down on the bed with a big smile on his face, he could sense the toxic beverage leaving his body as he began to sink into the comfortable mattress. He felt like he was a fish, finally home at sea. He allowed himself to sink deeper and deeper, until he was finally greeted by a stream of fish, dancing around his body. "Blub blub blub." They sang as they danced around his body. Malcolm couldn't understand a word they were saying, mostly because they were fish. He continued to sink deeper and deeper, this toxic shit Alfred gave him was really something. He suddenly felt a sharp pain down his leg and looked down, his face turned bleach white when he found a shark biting down hard. Malcolm tried to scream, but his voice got drowned in the vastness of the ocean. He tried to desperately get out of bed, but his body kept sinking and sinking. He kicked furiously with his right leg, but the shark refused to let go. He began to have trouble breathing, if only he could reach the surface. He clawed for the surface, desperately, bubbles fleeing from his mouth, like antelopes fleeing from a lion. Samantha closed the book, her face pale white. She looked at the cover with a sense of fear. The Misanthropical Journey of the Void? "What's up with this book?" She asked, her voice trembling with fear. "Did Albert write this?" She stared at the cover for a while longer before finally opening it once more. ********** "Let me gnaw on your flesh, sweet and tender meat." Samantha jumped at the voice and turned around, clutching the book tightly. Albert's corpse was standing in the library, staring at her with those dead eyes. Fortunately for Samantha, Albert's corpse had difficulties standing since his body had literally been torn to shreds, an arm fell off as the corpse was wobbling back and forth. The corpse took a hard fall and fell on its head. "Bite bite bite." The corpse complained, snapping its teeth at Samantha, who began to back away in complete and utter fear. "Let me taste you." Albert's corpse cursed as it began to drag itself across the floor, staining the floor with blood. "Leave me alone!" Samantha yelled out loud and ran away from the corpse's reach. She suddenly found something in the corner of the room, it was the bottle of Liqui-Zone. Samantha suddenly had an idea. She rushed towards the bottle and quickly uncorked the thing before finally splashing its liquid at Albert's corpse. The corpse cursed at her as the body fell to the floor in an instant, smoke protruding from its mangled remains. "Sorry Albert." Samantha said before she poured the whole bottle over it, turning what was left of the corpse into a bubbling smoking pile of something. The bubbles soon began to recede, but Samantha decided it was best to get out of there because of the smoke protruding from the liquid. As she turned around, she was met with a large wolf staring her down. The wolf growled at her. "Please, don't eat me." Samantha pleaded. "Move, girl." The wolf barked at her in a human tongue. "What?" Samantha had a confused look on her face. "Slayer Wolf." A demonic voice suddenly cursed. Samantha suddenly froze in fear and glanced behind her. Her eyes widen in fear as the floor had started to rise from its spot and formed a humanoid figure. The figure made up from floor tiles broke free from the floor with a crack and faced the wolf and the girl, its mouth and eye sockets completely empty. "So you finally found me." The figure cackled. "Well done." Samantha backed away into a corner, as far away from the monstrosity as she could get. She began to carefully take books from a bookshelf and place them on the floor in front of her, carefully building a wall. Slayer Wolf challenged the demon with a growl. "How many souls have you devoured so far? You seem to be able to move around rather effectively." "Not enough." The figure cursed. "If I can only take the lives of a few more souls, I'll finally be able to take on human form." The figure craned its head disturbingly towards Samantha's hiding place behind a large pile of books in the corner of the room. "You're up first, tasty legs." The figure said as it began to march towards Samantha. "If you think I'm just gonna stand by and watch you have your fun, you're gravely mistaken." The wolf said as it leapt over to the figure made from the floor and took a big bite out of it. "You fiend, that's not fair!" The figure cursed, but the wolf didn't listen as it continued to tear its body to shreds. "You're no fun, you annoying fur ball." The wolf took a big bite out of the figure's face and shattered it with its mighty teeth, the broken pieces landed on the floor with a clatter. It was over. Samantha peeked out from her hiding place as the wolf howled triumphantly, standing over the fallen floor tiles. The wolf eventually turned around towards Samantha and gave her a nod before darting back down the stairway. Samantha slowly crawled out from her hiding place, wondering what the hell had just happened. She took a look at the scene around her and once she realized she was still holding onto the strange book that creeped her out, she decided to throw it away. She hurled the thing across the library and watched it slide across the floor. She then decided it was in due time to walk down the stairway and leave this wretched place, perhaps even sign her resignation. "Hey, what happen here?" A voice suddenly interrupted. Samantha looked up from the pages of the book, her mind racing. She found the janitor, standing at the entrance, looking at the smoking crater in the middle of the room. "Conrad not be happy about this." He sighed. "It take long time to clean up:" Samantha closed the book and quickly put it back on the shelve. She had no idea what was going on with that book, but it almost felt like she had been reading a story with her in it, taking place right here and right now. She tried to put these troubling thoughts into the back of her mind, because thinking about it made her pee her pants in fear. "Did you figure something out?" Samantha eventually asked. "I find customer almost drowning in bed because drinking too much of Alfred's green liquid." Roadhouse said with a smile. "Roadhouse save man by poking him with mop." "Oh." Samantha said with her mellow voice. "That's good to hear." She paused. "You seen any wolves or floor tile monsters around?" Roadhouse looked at her for the longest time, tilting his head to the side in confusion. "You joke?" He asked. "Just checking." She finally said. "Roadhouse think Samantha need a break, maybe Albert's death be too much for her." "I can still help, Conrad wants us to find this killer." Roadhouse calmly walked over to Samantha and began to poke her with his mop. "Roadhouse think you take break." He demanded. "He take over. You help detox mister Beverage from hangover." "But." Samantha interjected, but Roadhouse kept pushing her out of the room with his mop. "Roadhouse insist." The janitor kept saying until Samantha finally sighed and did as she was told. The janitor walked back into the room and decided it was best to start cleaning up the mess Samantha had left behind and get back to work. "Time to have a clean." He said to himself. He suddenly heard a distant thud and walked over to see what it was, and found a book lying on the floor. He picked up the book and looked at the cover. "Misadventure… mishap…. mistake…" Roadhouse tried to read, but it was too hard. With a sigh, he placed the book back on the shelve it had fallen from. Roadhouse had never learned to read anyway. THE END

Hmm, I like it, but it's not the story I -personally- was looking for. The creativeness is there, and the ending begs many questions, as you used the open ending plot device, which is fine, as I very much like those. But I was looking for something that really was bone-chilling (similair to the images I had posted in the first post). Your story came across as dark fantasy, and don't get me wrong; it was amazing. But not the horror vibe I was personally looking for. This would have honestly fit better with the round 1 (Fantasy) or round 2 (mystery).

~Creativity (9/10)
~Grammar (9/10)
~Scariness (4/10)
~Consistency (9/10)
~Presentation (8/10)