“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”.