VISIT |
|---|
| WED: By Appointment |
| THU – FRI: 10am – 4pm |
| SAT: 10am – 4pm |
| SUN – TUE: Closed |
LOCATION
Georgia Writers Museum
109 S. Jefferson Ave.
Eatonton, GA 31024
SPONSORS & AFFILIATES
“The Haunted House”
8th Grade, 3rd Place
by Ava Shurling,
Putnam County Middle School
I watched in horror Addison pulled open the closet door revealing a gruesome scene. There in the fake haunted house sat a complete, rotting corpse. It looked like it hadn’t been touched in months, sitting straight as an arrow. Addison screamed and I stood frozen, the smell entering my nose and making my skin prickle. Addison started scrambling for her phone, and I could see the maggots’ in her forehead eating away at her thoughtless brains. I couldn’t bear it anymore, I grabbed Addison and started pulling her to the door.
Even though I could remember everything from those few minutes perfectly, I had no idea how to explain it to the police. I didn’t want to relive it, retell it, or think about it ever again. I looked to Addison for reassurance when the questioning began, but it seemed she was just as stunned as I was. My body felt hot and cold, and I could feel my pulse in my wrist. The image was so fresh, the smell still so pungent.
I sat listening to the cops before coughing out, “D…do you know who it was?”
“No, we know it’s a female about your age. That’s all the information so far.” The cop offered softly before hopping up to answer his radio.
I sat with Addison waiting for our parents to arrive at the scene of flashing lights and yellow police tape. I thought I knew who the girl was. She’d been in my grade my whole life. She’d gone missing around 2 months ago and hadn’t been found.
“How did you move? I couldn’t move. My mind felt like a million bouncy balls. Each one held a different question.” Addison choked.
“I don’t remember it. I only have the searing image.” I whispered.
Then I saw my parents’ car. I watched my parents jump out of the car in a rush to get to me.
“That girls’ parents will never do that again,” I sniffled. “They’ll never get to jump out of a car and run to their daughter.” My brain wondered more, thinking of all the things they’d never do with their daughter again. My mom came over to me, her face tear stained.
“Oh, honey are you okay?” She wept.
“I am fine mom, but I think I have something I need to tell the police.” I answered listlessly, staring at the house.
My mom helped me up and I went to the police. I told them I had recognized the girl, and I heard the gasps as they officially made the announcement as to who it was.
Then I heard the shot. I heard the tires squeal away, and the smell of burning rubber. A police officer laid on the ground, one bullet in his head. The metallic smell of blood filled the air. My parents grabbed me, and the next day we packed our things and moved. The killer still roams free. I wonder where they are now?
“The Betrayal in the Woods”
8th Grade, 2nd Place
by Vidhi Raiyani,
Putnam County Middle School
Owoooooooooooo, a wolf howled in the distance. I hear a deep growl right behind me. I gasp and turn slowly. I’m met with glowing yellow orbs, making my heart leap up to my throat and stunning me to silence. I’ve encountered a massive wolf.
I back up slowly and bump into a tree. The wolf is preparing to pounce on me but then I see a blur of black jump on the wolf and tackle it. The wolf ran away and the girl who just saved me said.
“Are you okay?” she asked me.
“Me? I’m the not the one who just tackled a wolf!” I exclaimed.
She chuckled and replied, “I’m also not the one glued to the tree.”
I look down and sure enough I’m glued to the tree. I slowly let go.
“Since you saved my life, I would like to repay you by helping you with something.” I announced.
“Well, if you insist… I need help gathering fire bird feathers. I need them for the special ceremony my people are holding and it’s tonight.” she concluded.
“Fire bird? “Am I in another world?!” I burst out.
“No, my people live alongside your people, but your population doesn’t know about us.” she confirmed.
“I would love to go with you, but I don’t follow strangers into the woods. What’s your name?” I asked
“Hazel, what’s yours?” she inquired
“Mary” I responded
I followed her to where she said she saw some fire birds. We looked around but only found two feathers and we needed to gather fifty feathers by sunset!
“I’m going to go look by that cave.” I volunteered
“WAIT! NO! Don’t go there!” Hazel shouted
I was taken aback by her sudden outburst
“Why? Is something wrong there?” I objected. In the back of my mind, I had a form of suspicion in my mind.
“No nothing’s wrong, but it might not be safe.” she hesitantly replied.
We went back to finding the feathers and a few hours later I was surprised when we came up with a lot of those bright red feathers.
“Are these enough feathers?” I asked
“Yeah” she replied but I could tell she wasn’t listening to me. Suddenly, she steered me towards the cave she told me to stay away from just a few hours ago.
“Why are we going there?” I asked
“Be quiet!” she whispered
A woman came into view and said, “Good timing Hazel, I see you’ve brought a sacrifice.”
“What?! I’m a sacrifice?? No way!!” I protested
“I’m sorry, but it’s the only way I can be a huntress and join them.” Hazel said apologetically
They tied me up to a tree and started to chant. I saw a huntress go out and accidently leave the entrance open. There was my escape! If only there was a distraction. Suddenly as if on cue a rock from the cave’s roof fell causing dust to blow everywhere. And by the time they got organized I was long gone.
“Dear Diary”
8th Grade, 1st Place
by Emily Viscarra,
Lake Oconee Academy (Greene County)
I don’t know why I was so drawn to this case. I worked as a detective in the cold case department and developed a fascination with the murder of a girl in our town. She was killed on Halloween in the 50s; the case remained unsolved. I found myself going through evidence, looking at everything left behind from the scene. Something caught my eye. A book. I decided to investigate. When I started to examine the worn-out pages, I realized it wasn’t a book. It was a diary. The diary of the girl who was killed. I couldn’t resist taking it home and reading more.
I opened the diary and decided to read one entry before I went to sleep, but it slowly turned into more. I was so invested in her life, I was reaching the end of it. I knew her death would be soon.
Dear Diary,
Maybe it’s just October. All of these creepy things keep happening to me. I can’t see my reflection in the mirror. I found a black cat hanging from a tree. Is this some prank? I don’t think I can take it!
This was never mentioned in the hundreds of pages in the file. Why wouldn’t they include these occurrences leading to her death? My excitement grew. I loved horror stories, and this one was true. Although I was eager to continue, I put it away.
After coming home from work, I wanted to read more. As I approached my lawn, I saw people circling the sycamore tree. When I came closer to investigate, I saw something dangling from a branch. A black cat. Dead. It was exactly what happened in the diary. I burst through my front door, and ran into my room. I threw my bag against the wall and approached the mirror. I stepped towards it, and I couldn’t see my reflection. I grabbed the diary, and started flipping through earlier entries. Everything that’s happened to this girl resembled my own life. Every event she wrote about, I’d experienced. It was like I knew her. It was like I was her.
I scattered newspapers all over the floor. I needed to know who this girl was. I searched until I found her name, Mary Callahan. Died October 31, 1956. My birthday. She was survived by her brother, Will Callahan. I knew him!
I was incredibly nervous approaching Will Callahan’s house. He was playing with a girl in the yard. I walked up to Will. His mouth dropped as tears formed in his eyes.
“It’s you isn’t it? I can sense it. My sister.” Will embraced me as his granddaughter approached. “T-t-this is my granddaughter, Mary. Named after you.” She smiled, but I just stared. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I’d been reading my diary from my past life. I was going to find who killed me. I had been born to solve my own murder.
“The Mysterious Killer”
7th Grade, 3rd Place
by Robert Brown,
Putnam County Middle School
It was a night like any other night for 11-year-old James Wallace, he had brushed his teeth, taken a bath, and put on his pajamas. He kissed his mother goodnight and went to sleep. He was suddenly awoken in the middle of the night by a creaking sound. He looked outside of his room and saw nothing but his door unlocked. He got up, locked the door, and went back to bed. He was awoken once again one hour later, this time by a faint scream. He looked in his parents’ room and saw that everything was normal. He then locked his own door out of paranoia. In the morning, he woke up to go to school and noticed on his door the words “come out James” were carved. He cracked his door slightly to see a cardboard box on a stool. He grabbed a baseball bat and opened the box, what he found petrified him, it was a human hand, presumably just amputated due to the fact it was bleeding. He screamed in horror and went to his parents’ room. He saw them asleep and tried waking them up, but they didn’t budge. He then noticed a knife laying on the floor, covered in blood. He wept with such anger and grief one might think he was in fact being killed, he was, at least on the inside. He left his home quickly and called 911, his call was transferred to a mysterious caller who only muttered the words “your next”. James was now going insane, he ran as fast as he could to his school, and told his teacher, his insanity and fear went to a higher level when she referred him to a mental hospital. He ran out of school and stole a golf cart owned by the school and started to drive to his Grandparents’ home. On the way, he spotted a hooded figure holding a sign that said, “James Thomas Wallace, 188 Melody Street, 2nd floor, first room on the left, exactly where James lived. He drove towards the hooded figure and hit him with the golf cart! He then realized it was only a dummy, and then down the street saw a house being burned, it was his Grandparents’ home. He drove as fast as he could to the home, but it had already burned to the ground after a few minutes, he then saw a hooded figure standing on the wreckage. He charged at the figure, but it was once again another dummy. Wallace pushed open the doors of police station and violently told the police his issue, and the officer told him once sentence “Finally, Jimmy, the man I’ve been looking for”.
“Stranger and Stranger”
7th Grade, 2nd Place
by Jolie Chamberlain,
Lake Oconee Academy (Greene County)
It was November first and Samantha was walking through the desolate sidewalks of her neighborhood. She never had any time alone, not since her dad left…the only thing her mother had left was her. But that day, Samantha got news her father was coming back to live with them–her mother and him would be starting fresh because they never officially divorced. Of course Samantha was excited, but it was all so sudden, and Samantha didn’t like to be surprised.
One of the first things Samantha learned when she moved into that house was that a serial killer lived and died there. He did all his work, his planning, his killing. But Samantha was never scared by that stuff; she was actually pretty intrigued by it. She wasn’t ever that invested in it though, not until her father started to act weird when he finally came home. “Dad! Dad!” Samantha screamed from the living room and her father entered through the front door. “Oh Dad! I missed you! When mother said you were coming home I was so thrilled.” He looked at her with a blank expression, like he had just seen a ghost. “Um, well, I will show you to your room now.” She sounded so happy, but her father definitely did not match her excitement.
Several days passed and her father started to act stranger and stranger. One time, he even threatened to kill her mother if she didn’t let him go out with his friends at night. Samantha was scared to even be around him, scared she was going to be killed. But her mother always said he was normal, that he gave her hugs on the way out to work, love you’s and thank you’s. Samantha never received any of that. By the fourth day he was home she was debating whether to run away, far away from this house. Her room didn’t give her the safe feeling it always did; it made her cold and distant from everyone else. Sometimes feeling distant felt good though.
It was November 8 and all was well. Her dad finally started to talk happily again, and her mother wasn’t constantly yelling at her for being disrespectful. But all of that was about to change.
Samantha heard thumping in the downstairs room. Interested, she walked down slowly in case anything bad was happening. The first thing she saw was a silhouette of her father smashing his fist into something…That “something” was her mother. He looked back and grabbed Samantha and slit her throat with a knife, leaving her dead on the floor. He stared at the two lifeless bodies on the ground. He cried. But then sadness slowly turned into laughter, and he sat there in hysterics. A couple of minutes passed and he slowly fell to the floor as a whoosh of cold air filled the room.
“Imaginary Fiends”
7th Grade, 1st Place
by Sydney Smith,
Clifton Ridge Middle School (Jones County)
Alex awoke that night with goose bumps crawling all over her arm. She leaned over to her bedside table and checked the time. It was 3:40 in the morning. Something had aroused her and woke her up. Something had touched her. Deciding that it must have been a moth, because she slept with her window open, she curled back up under her blanket, and tried to fall back asleep. It felt like minutes before she had to get up. She got dressed for school and headed down for breakfast. She saw Rowen, her little brother, talking to the wall. “What are you doing talking to the wall?” she asked. “I’m not talking to the wall, I’m talking to Aiden, my imaginary friend.” he replied. “Imaginary means fake, you know.” she said. Then she called to her mom and dad “Bye Mom, Bye Dad. I’m going to school!” she shouted. “Bye honey!” she heard her mom call. Her dad had probably went to work already. She slipped on her sandals, and walked out the door to school.
When Alex got home from school that day, she walked in to her room, expecting nothing to be wrong. She was just thinking about how much homework she had when she walked in and gasped. Her room had been destroyed. Pillows were torn, her clothes were in tatters, and her desk was a huge mess, but what caught her attention the most was the writing on the wall. In bright red paint, written on the wall were the words “I do exist.” She screamed. “What?” said Rowen, then he gasped, for he had saw her room in the mess it was. He seemed more shocked than she did. His face was chalky white and ashen. He seemed to know something she didn’t. “What did you do?!” she repeated, feeling more angry than she ever has. “This wasn’t me, Alex. This-This was Aiden.” he said. “Not your stupid imaginary friend again!” she replied. “He’s not imaginary! He-He doesn’t like you he told me. Look, if it makes you feel any better, I’ll sleep on the floor in your room tonight.” he said, still chalky. “Fine. But keep you ‘imaginary friend’ put of my room, okay?” “Alright. Now let’s get this cleaned up.” and they started to clean.
That night, Alex was really nervous. She didn’t know why. She hopped into bed, rather reluctantly, then started to nod off. She could hear Rowen’s snores. Later that night, she heard an earsplitting crash coming from her room. She woke up and saw her snow globe cracked and leaking on the floor. “Rowen, wake up!” she nudged Rowen awake. “What?” he said groggily. “Look!” she said pointing. They gasped. There was a shadow of a boy on the wall, yet there was no boy. The thing that caught her attention once more was the thing the boy was holding. A knife. There was one last scream until the boy set off for the other room. The parents.
“The Tragic Events on Halloween”
6th Grade, 3rd Place
by Kaitlyn Mamay, Gatewood (Putnam County)
It was finally Halloween night! Emma, Carl and Jessica were so excited about this day! This was the day they all have been looking forward to. This day was when the frightening stories were told and the terrifying things might happen. But Emma, Carl, and Jessica were not scared at all, at least for now. At school all the kids dressed up in their Halloween costumes. Emma, who was in tenth grade, decided to be a creepy doll. Carl, who was in eighth grade, was a zombie. Last, but not least, Jessica, who was in fifth grade was a witch.
The day started out good for Emma until third period when a horrifying black widow was on Emma’s leg. It was crawling up her leg. Thankfully, after a blood-curdling five minutes, the spider crawled off her leg. The teacher finally caught the spider in two cups and let it back outside. That was only one of the terrifying events. When they got home, they got everything ready for Halloween. They set out all the candy in a ginormous bowl. They also set out their costumes on their beds. During this time, their parents Mrs. Amy and Mr. Bob left for a Halloween party. The three kids were left home alone. They were ready to go trick-or-treating until it started raining. The kids were doing fine until they suddenly heard a door creak. They did not care about it at first. Then it started thundering really loud. Next, the light started flickering. The front door handle started rattling. The kids were scared, and decided to go into Emma’s bedroom and lock the door. They were all freaking out, and they decided to hide in Emma’s closet. They were hiding in there and everything was going well until somebody touched Jessica’s shoulder. She turned around and there was a creepy doll standing there. They all screamed to the top of their lungs, and sprinted as fast as they humanly could out of that closet and into the living room. When they ran into the living room, it was covered in fog, you could barely see anything two feet in front of you. It was that bad. After that the kids settled down a little. The door creaked open, their parents were home! The kids were breathing very heavily because of what just happened. The parents walked in and they asked if everything was ok? The kids replied and said they were fine, and the parents walked further into the house. They were doing fine until someone tapped both of their shoulders. The kids screamed and ran out of the house as quickly as they could. While they were running, they heard screams and then everything was silent. The kids knew what had happened. They were heartbroken! They knew they had to keep on running to the local police station for help. They ran like lightning into that police station. They told the front desk that something traumatic had happened and they needed help. They were sent to the police chief. The kids explained all that had happened to the police chief, Mr. Chad. The police chief then said, “Take me to your house.” The kids told Mr. Chad their address was 1920 Ghost Road. Mr. Chad drove them to that location to investigate. He searched everywhere in the house, but there was no sign of the parents or any blood. After an hour, he said there was nothing important going on, so he left the house. One thing the kids did not know was that the police chief was a ghost, and he helped the dolls in the mystery of the parents. After this traumatizing event, the kids got most things back to normal except for their parents. After this awful day, the kids never liked Halloween again.
“The Mouse Holes”
6th Grade, 2nd Place
by Jontevia Marshall,
Putnam County Middle School
I never really noticed the tiny doors carved into our manor walls. I just thought they were never fixed up before we moved. They always disgusted me. I hated the wretched things. Every night I would wake up to noises coming from them. I never get any time to sleep.
I’ve set up a trap. I want to know what’s going on in the walls of my house. I have put food out on the floor near every hole. If my suspicions are correct, it sounds like some kind of animal. I am scared, although I make myself believe that I am not.
I wait. I wait and wait and wait, until I finally hear the small scuttles and scratches coming from the wall. I slowly cover myself all the way up to my nose with my quilt. What comes out of the doors is definitely not what I was expecting.
Little creatures with strange bodies move swiftly in a zig-zag motion across my bedroom floor. The things are surprisingly loud despite their small size. I carefully move to the bottom of my bed to peek under and see what’s going on. The creatures weren’t eating like I thought they were.
The disgusting things stood in a circle, moving at the same pace in the same direction. I watched as something started to form in the space between them. I was just about to move locations when I fell from my bed. The scuttling stopped, and each of the creatures ran at me. I was expecting to be hurt, so I shut my eyes as tight as I could, but instead I heard a voice. No, multiple voices. They were all telling me to stand up, so I did. When I finally opened my eyes I saw humans, not the creatures I first saw. I was just about to say something when everything goes dark.
I wake up in what I think is a cave. I feel water dripping all over me. When I stand up, I’m soaking wet. I hear the same voices as before, but I can’t make out what they are saying. I see a big boulder covering my only chance at escape. There was no food, and nowhere to sleep comfortably. I suddenly hear footsteps. I try to hide but I am immediately found. “So, you wanted to spy?” one asks me. I say, “No! That’s-” I try to finish but I am cut off by their laughter. “As long as you’re down here, no one will remember you. You’re a stranger now. To everyone you once knew you’re a stranger.”
That was 4 years ago. I am still here waiting to be let go.