Spooky story contest! Win a cutie spookie buck!

[space crawfish]

Spoopy Spooky Story Contest!

Hey guys! Turn the Earth and Specter met up for the spooky season... and left a clutch of eggs behind. This gray buck is currently looking for a home!

For this contest, we are looking for a name and a spooky short story either about the buck or being told by him. The key here is short! Please no novellas! The naming theme for the clutch is, obviously, scary.

[b]Username:[/b]
[b]Kin name:[/b]
[b]Entry:[/b]

Elvy and I will be closing up the contest after three days (ending on let's say on Friday the 9th at 9pm EST) and will be doing the judging together! You can edit your post up until the end of the contest. Good luck everyone!  

[SilverLutz]

Username: SilverLutz
Kin name: Haunt the Night
Entry: It is said that the ghostkin comes on nights like tonight. There is no moonlight to chase away the shadows and a light fog rolls off of the summer-warmed swamp water touching the chilly fall air. There is no way to know when he'll appear, nor where, or if he'll actually appear at all. Yet you find yourself glancing over your shoulder as you settle down for the night. Surely that shadow was just a passing bird...

Just a foal's tale, you tell yourself as you tuck your nose against your legs for comfort, eyes heavy with sleep. There's no such thing as the ghostkin. He's a story to keep the young does and bucks from wandering into the swamps at night to protect them from real dangers. You tell yourself this over and over, a mantra to fall asleep to in hopes of chasing off bad dreams. It's not a comforting thought and keeps you awake long enough to feel a presence looming over you.

You're afraid to look, afraid to turn your head forward. It's just your imagination. It's not real. You twist and turn the words over and over in your head out of desperation. It's imagination. Just real. Your just it's-

Your head moves on its own accord, swinging forward and up sharply, just in time to see a grey figure descending upon you. There is no time to call out, no time to move.

Just a foal's tale.  

[Owlsomniac]

Username: Owlsomniac
Kin name: Night Crawls In
Entry:
"Their gaping maws open and close endlessly as they make their way through the world, through the dark; blind, their sockets naught but thin veils of watery flesh over pits of black."

"They say the nightcrawlers leave a wake of detritus in their path, the remains of their last meal, and all the meals before, piling up in an endless trail of decay. Bones left to rot, forgotten" his smile is like a graveyard, eyes veiled beneath his hair.

"When you listen closely enough in the night it is said that you may hear them moving in the dark, their hair-less, slimy, bodies gliding against the earth, and through it. Only the bravest of foals will dare press their ear to the damp leafmeal to hear them more closely but careful -- careful!"

They can hear you, too."  

[LOLLI qAq]

Username: LOLLI qAq
Kin name: Bone Thief
Entry:
The doe breathed gently, in-and-out, as she slept. Bone Thief smiled as he breathed in the scent of the dried grass and sweat coming off of her in waves. He couldn't wait for morning and the after-tryst meal that would come with it. It was only a pity his guest wouldn't be able to enjoy it.

She was going to taste lovely with some nasturtium leaves.  

[Aric Val]

Username: Aric Val
Kin name: It Follows
Entry:

"You open your eyes in the dead of night, you feel something watch you. There's nothing there.

Your heart beats faster and adrenaline kicks in for some strange reason, you can feel the chills.

You lift yourself up, and you run, run, run. Your limbs are screaming for rest and it's painful -- but you don't stop.

You can see it behind the trees, above the branches, the shadow at the edge of your vision, it sees you too.

Up a hill, inside a cave, through a grassy area -- you run.

But you realize you can run, but you can't hide.

Because, it follows."  

[Tiger_Kisa699]

Username:Tiger_kisa699
Kin name: Crawling in Bones
Entry:
Moonlit waters had met a male along her travels. They were hunkered down for the night as it slowly rained out side of the cave they were in. Moonlit did not like the rain and while Crawling loved it he was rather tired and had wanted to keep the female company.
"Want to hear a scary story?" he asked her with a smile as he grinned at the female.
Moonlit looked around and then out side and since it wasn't thundering she wasn't already scared, just not wanting to be wet and ruin her hair more. She looked at the male and nodded. "Sure that sounds good. I like learning things. A new story will be fun." she said as she settled down comfortably and gave him her attention as he started.
"One night, many years ago a young innocent Kin was leaving home to go travel the swamp. The little female was beautiful with long flowing hair that reached past her shoulders. She wandered the swamp and made many friends. One night while she was sleeping she woke in the dark to find that something was pulling at her hair. She rolled over and saw a giant cave worm eating her long precious hair! It had eatin' more then half of it, leaving the poor girl with a silly looking hair cut for months till it grew back! MUAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!" he said with a smile. He liked to make his spooky stories cheesy for the cute girls, but Moonlit seemed rather scared of it.
"Oh im never going to make friends with a caveworm!! Its going to leave me bald!" she said crying.  

[Blinded By My Silence]

Username: Blinded By Silence
Kin name: Bump in the Night (how the hell hasn't this been taken?)
Entry:

There is nothing more dangerous than the water at night. With no light to see by, who can tell exactly what is staring back at you from beneath that glassy surface. But it is not the terrible jaws of the 'diles that you should fear, no. It is her.

A doe whose pelt is thick with bloat and rot, she haunts the shore where she once perished, held beneath the blackness by someone she loved until that blackness filled her lungs and her heart. She is as empty as her eyes, black and soulless. She lures you in with her sad, sad song and pleas for help, but once you touch the water, well...

It will be you in need of saving.  

[MoonRazor]

Username: MoonRazor
Kin name: When the Sun Dies
Entry:
The living, like the day, belong to the sun. The dead and its terrors reside in the night, and the night is insatiable. Its greed spreads in shadows, seeping out of the ground like poison. It claims lost souls, innocent souls, in corners too dark to infiltrate with light. Like creeping tendrils, it comes, a soundless laugh. And life is no rival for the careless touch of death.

Before dusk, the skies burn. When the sun dies, the dead rise, never to sleep again.  

[Chrystali]

Username: Chrystali
Kin name: Shiverstep
Entry:
He remembered each child
each torn sack
each shattered egg
and he wondered why if none were meant to live
if they weren't meant to draw breath
why did they laugh and follow him still?  

[So Long Gay Bowser]

Username: Moonstone Dazzle
Kin name: Bloodclot
Entry:
"Nobody, nobody, come out and play!
I'm offering you a new name today!"

The first time the doe emerges, it is all fun and games. They pick her a name that the swamp would never give its children. She is a skilled hide and seeker, and never bores of their games. She is better than the other fillies of the tribe, and does not laugh at them for their awkward running or poor hunting. New Best Friend is just as great as the stories described.

"Nobody, nobody, come out and play!
I'm offering you a new name today!"

Again, the doe emerges from the swamp. Now it has been too many times to count, too many nights spent frolicking with the strange doe. The siblings struggle with names- the rules say you cannot name her for anyone you know. But they are so young, and they are not the motherfather- when they summon her from the waters, they bare no name for the stranger.

Call to me again when you have a name for me, a thousand voices whisper to them lovingly. She melts into the pool before them, as though she was never there.

"Nobody, nobody, come out and play!
I'm offering you a new name today!"

Fair Heart could not come with her today. They have grown older, grown stronger. Now he is a capable hunter, leading his tribe's forays into the swamp with grace and dignity. But she is still weak on her hooves, still frail. Where the other kimeti turn from her for her shame, the stranger in the water always welcomes her. She is so loving, so kind.

Truly, her brother won't mind if she borrows his name. Just for a day, to play with her friend. The doe smiles, more teeth than usual, when she is presented with her new name.

I like this one, the voices whisper. As they spend the night playing, she cannot help the strange chill which runs down her back.

"Nobody, nobody, come out and play!
I'm offering you a new name today!"

No many times she chants the rhyme and lets her blood into the water, the swamp doe does not come. She is distraught. Her brother is gone, vanished into thin air. He had been there, then simply... not.

She turns to head home, and that is when she sees it. It is not her brother, nor is it her friend. It is a rotting, skeletal beast, eyes still in its skull, with her brother's skin tied to it. His lips are pulled back into a lifeless grin, and beneath where his gaze might have been, those festering eyes stare back at her.

Why do you still call me nobody, friend? Did you not give me this name? The doe cannot speak. She cannot breathe from the smell of the rot, and it chokes at her throat. The swamp doe- Fair Heart, she gave the thing her brother's name- giggles, and bile rises in her throat.

Do not give her the name of anyone you know. That was the rule! She should have known!

When the tribe finds her, she is at the bottom of a ravine, neck broken. She should have known. She should have known. The tribe swears to this day they can hear a sickening laughter on the wind.

Little ones, little ones, come out and play,
the flesh eater needs a new host today.  

[Kinu]

Username: I K i n u I
Kin name: One Wrong Turn
Entry: One eyed his listeners, a pair of Acha twins who had taken a liking to his markings and struck up a conversation with him before asking for ghost stories. It was a perfectly chilly winter night, the kind he loved, and the firelight lent his expression a haunting air as he continued.

"Don't leave me here." The pale doe had wandered suddenly across the male Kimeti's path as he had been heading down the long lane of trees. Everything about her struck a protective chord in him, she needed him. A loud SNAP in the woods had the buck lifting his head in alarm, ears perked. Her own seemed to have grown larger, locked almost ominously upon him, as she pleaded in whispered tones. "Please, help me, he's coming.." Looking down at those hypnotic eyes what could he do? He couldn't leave her. She just seemed so.. helpless. "Come." He urged, turning and herding her as they started at a trot down the long corridor of trees.

A deep fear gripped his heart. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong, that something was off. The small doe kept pace as they went but that terrified look never left her face. Night was coming and the light was fading fast, the corridor seemed to lengthen and the trees appeared more twisted to his gaze than they had at a previous glance. Their shadows stretching out like claws across the hard packed earth, poised to snag a leg or bit of mane. SNAP! Another loud echo right behind them, their trot quickly becoming a full run as panic gripped him. Something was following. Coming for her or them both? The faster they went the more noise they heard. In the corner of his eye the buck could vaguely see a pale shape on the path behind them but it vanished when he turned his gaze to look upon it. A loud SNAP cracked on the path before them and the two halted, skidding to a stop, their faces a mask of confusion and terror. There was nothing there. What was making that noise? WHAT WAS IT? He felt the fringes of madness upon him. Pressing together, side-by-side but gazing in opposite directions, they turned helplessly this way and that trying to pinpoint the source. Another snap here, then another too far away for any single creature to physically bridge the distance in time, circling them. Snap, SNAP, SNAP!

WHA-CRACK! This last one nearly deafened him. The noise resounding all around and above them and then vanishing as if it never had been. Silence. The male exhaled slowly, afraid to hope it was over, and turned his head to check on the female. He felt his heart drop in his chest. Her head was turned completely around, staring at him, but at an unnatural angle to which he assumed her neck was most certainly broken. Her cheeks had sunk in and part of her jaw flashed visibly through the holes and missing chunks of flesh. Her beautiful mane was bald in lumps and matted where it remained, bits of her body seemed rotted and mangled, swollen with bloat, but the worst were her eyes. They were gone. Hollow. And yet the empty sockets sent a wild panic through him and he would have run were he not frozen to the spot. She was sobbing. Her mutilated body heaving. "It's too late. IT'S TOO LATE!" Her sorrow turned to rage and as she screamed, she vanished, leaving the male alone in the low dusk of evening."

The two Acha were transfixed by the tale and shivered in the night. Slowly they began to look about, rising alarm on their face. The three of them were on a path very like the one in the story. One smirked as he turned from the firelight and began to head off into the swamp. "Careful boys.. I hear she especially enjoys the full moon and tonight's moon could be no fuller if it tried. Safe travels." He chuckled darkly and slipped away into the darkness. As the two Acha huddled together they craned their necks out to peer off into the night at the spot where One had vanished. The large Kimtei, naturally going out of his way to frighten the sense out of them, found a dry branch and pressed a hoof upon it, the stick eliciting a most delicious SNAP.

He'd never seen two Acha run faster in all his life. Ah, perfection.  

[Jynk]

Username: Jynk
Kin name: The Night Calls Me
Entry:
Leaves crunch underfoot
Hard panting breaths in the dark
Killer closing in
Victim struggling
The night calls me
The deed is done
All that is left is blood  

[Jun D]

Username: Jun D
Kin name: Portent
Entry: "Oh!" his brows rose as your eyes fell expectantly upon him...then he smiled, "so you can finally see me."  

[SilverShieldwolf]

Username: SilverShieldwolf
Kin name: Bone Collector
Entry: 'He walked through the cold moonless nights, fog drifting around him as he went. The sounds of others filtered through the fog to his sensitive ears. If only they knew what he was about to do. Years of buried loves one were near and he needed some for his...gift. Digging up the bones while the night became quiet, the buck smiled. They were perfect. Gently placing the bones in the skull, so he could carry them back to his den.
"Now is the time." He set the bones along the path, almost like a family following each other. This would be so good...he could barely contain his laughter.'
Bone Collector looked at his audience and smiled inside. He moved back slowly as the words sank into their ears. "BAWWWWWWWWWWAHHHHHHHHHH" He screamed as he was hidden in the brush and stepped on a branch just right. He crawled out, with a leg dragging behind, though bone was sticking through, thanks to well placed mud. "Run...RUn. He is coming for you! Old bones are not what he wants now."