When I was in sixth grade, I set out to write a scary story for Halloween.
I just found it on my computer, and it is undeniably terrifying.
…I wrote it in Curlz MT size 16. There’s nothing scarier than that when you’re over the age of twelve.
The Cave
By Hayley, Age Eleven.
In 1970, a young girl named Cydney Nouvell went into a mysterious cave in the town of Glacier Falls, Nebraska. Cydney went in to explore. She never came out to tell what she had found.
Come 1980, one of Cydney’s old friends, Maria Slate, went into the cave to complete Cydney’s exploration. Cydney’s family waited anxiously to find out whether their beloved Cydney was still alive. They never found out. Maria also met Cydney’s mysterious fate. The cave had claimed another victim.
Ten years later in 1990, Cydney’s younger sister, Kate Nouvell, went in the cave to search for her sister, and for Maria Slate. The people of Glacier Falls never knew if those girls survived. Kate never left the cave to tell them.
Josselyn Peterson and Pamela Mancusi sat on the banks of Tears Creek in Glacier Falls, Nebraska. They were 12 years old, and had lived in Glacier Falls all their lives. They knew the stories of Cydney and Kate Nouvell and Maria Slate by heart. They had memorized part of Maria’s spooky obituary:
“I will find my best
friend if it’s the last
thing I do.”
It was.‘Yet Josselyn and Pamela weren’t afraid at all. Or maybe they were, I don’t know. They were not the sort of people who look like they would frighten easily. Josselyn was tall and willowy. She had long arms, legs, and fingers. She was a dancer, and always wore a long sleeved, v-neck, leotard, usually light turquoise or royal blue. On the occasion that her hair wasn’t in a bun, it was in a long, thick ringleted ponytail from being twisted so tightly all the time. On that day, Josselyn’s jeans had been rolled up so as not to get wet. Pamela’s hair was cut short, to the bottoms of her ears. She had silvery, owl-eyed glasses., with the right lens scratched from when she dropped them in the mall parking lot. She had bright black hair and soft blue eyes, as opposed to Josselyn’s elegant dark blonde hair and 20-20 glossy brown eyes. Pamela was very petite, and not quite slender. She did not have as pretty and fair a face as Josselyn, but she had lovely, long fingernails. Pamela’s mother was a manicurist, and her nails were always perfectly polished with horizontal rainbows. Josselyn, however, had the nasty habit of biting her nails. Pamela was an art student and her tee shirt and cut-off jeans were spattered with paint and clay, but she didn’t care. Pamela and Josselyn talked as the creek washed and bubbled gently over their feet. They ate their picnic lunch out of the natural wicker basket;, and complemented one another on their cuisine.
“Pamela, how come, when you make the sandwiches, we can stand to eat them, while mine are completely inedible?”
“Probably because I use mayonnaise. Why are your brownies thick and fudgy while mine are…”
“Like dirt? I don’t know.”
That kind of conversation was what was uttered that day as they ate chicken-and snow pea pitas, Sour Cream and Onion Ruffles potato chips, Josselyn’s fudge brownies, and Cherry Sprites. When they finished their picnic, they decided to take a hike and see where the creek led.
“If it goes for more then four states, I’m turning back,” Pamela told Josselyn, probably, with Pamela’s risk-taker personality, only half kidding.
Then, she looked up and saw why Josselyn wasn’t answering. Thunder clouds had taken over the once-blue sky. Lightning split the sky into dark pieces. Bone-chilling rain came down in sheets. In seconds, the girls were drenched. They started to run, and soon came to a short, stout cave.
“Shelter!” shouted Pamela, running toward it.
“Stop!” cried Josselyn, her eyes wide and her taupe skin white with fear, “It’s Cydney Nouvell’s cave!”
With that, she reached into her back pocket and took out three newspaper arcticles, quite damp. The oldest showed a smiling pigtailed girl, holding spelunking gear. The caption read
“The last sighting
of Cydney Nouvell”.The next, no quite so old, had a smudgy photograph of a determined and slightly frightened looking pudge of a young woman. The caption was the obituary message. Maria Slate. The newest, least crumpled, colored arcticle depicted a very frightened (and quite sick) business-like woman. Kate Nouvell. All the pictures were taken outside this very cave.
“SO?” asked Pamela, shivering. She was getting very annoyed.
“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you. You know what happened to the last three people who did!”
“That doesn’t scare me at all. Besides, we don’t even know what happened to them. For all we know, they went to OZ. At least it doesn’t rain there. I’m going in!” Pamela stepped boldly into the cave…. And was surrounded by pitch black. She heard laughing from deep inside the cave
“Oh Cydney!” said an echoey, hollow voice.
Pamela gave a blood-curdling scream that echoed and re-echoed inside the cave. Josselyn knew she would never forget the horror of that scream. She ran into the cave.
“PAMELA! PAMELA, CAN YOU HEAR ME?” Josselyn screamed, sure there would be no answer.
“I’m here, “ called Pamela, with an unnerving calm. Josselyn almost cried with relief.
“Where are you?” Josselyn questioned.
“In the back of the cave.” Pamela’s voice sounded different, Josselyn realized, hollower and raspier. She began to sprint, thinking that Pamela might be trapped or hurt, which would explain the voice change. But when she reached the end of the dark cave, she almost fainted at what she saw. Although the rest of the cave was as black as night, the finish was bathed in an eerie bright light. The cavern floor held a bottomless, glowing pool. But that was not the reason Josselyn felt queasy. In the pool were four girls. One, pigtailed and smiling. Of the other two, one was younger and frightened, the other, older and cross. The last girl made Josselyn nearly have a heart attack. That girl used to be Pamela. All four were glowing water ghosts, transparent and wet, with glowing eyes.
“Come in Josselyn,” said the former Pamela, as if in a trance, “Come play with us!” An unearthly, supernatural force pulled Josselyn towards the pool, towards her late friend. Josselyn turned and ran. All through the twisting tunnels of the cave, Pamela’s voice echoed, “Come play with us!”
But Josselyn didn’t turn back. If she surrendered to Pamela, Cydney, Maria, and Kate’s ghosts, she too would never leave the cave. She didn’t stop running until she was out of the cave, down the creek, and in her own house. Once she stopped, she broke down crying. Josselyn never told anyone where she’d been that day, nor what she’d seen. Pamela’s calling voice still haunts her, day and night, dawn to dusk Never go near that cave, or follow Tears Creek. Pamela will call to you, too. Stay far away. Far, far away. That is my advice to you, as the sole survivor of that cave.
By: Josselyn Peterson-Kokoloauski
Copyright 2034
The moral of the story is, keep writing, and you will improve. Also, stay away from caves.
And apparently I liked Sour Cream & Onion Chips when I was a pre-teen.
I suppose I’ve aged in more than just my writing skills.
I had a dream once that I did own a place like that and the name of it was ‘Just Brew It’, a play on “just screw it”. I can’t tell you why, but I think the name is genius and honestly think I might use it.