Congratulations to this year’s winners of the Parnassus Halloween story writing contest.

The Revengeful Haunted House

by Austin Wright

One Lonely night four kids were walking on the sidewalk during Halloween night. Street lights were on, houses were dark, and costumes were looking scary and cool. 

Jack frightened then said,

  “I don’t like the ambience of the environment.” 

“Oh quit being such a baby Jack!” Sam said in a serious tone.

“Huh? What’s this about Jack being a baby?” Martha said looking up from her phone.

“Wait. Where’s Jason?” Jack asked, looking for Jason. Suspense music started from a neighbor’s house, Jack’s heartbeat started getting faster, at this point it was scarier than what it was before, Then a mysterious person appeared in front of them. Then said,

“Boo!”

Everyone screamed out in terror and fear. Then they started to run but hadn’t gotten far.

“Chill out guys, it’s just me.” Jason said, lifting up his hockey mask with a plastic machete. 

“Oh My God Jason! You scared the crap out of us!” Sam said looking at Jason with an angered expression.

“So. You guys want to go to a haunted house?” Jason asked.

“Heck yeah!” 3 of the kids shouted out loud.

“Well, have fun with that,” Jack said to them. Then he left.

“Well. You lost a good chance, man.” Martha said with a text message.

Jack shouted from a distance of 10 feet away,

“You can’t just say that to me without a phone?” Then he was gone.

After the little Jack incident the 3 kids paid 5 dollars each for admission into the haunted house.

“I’m pretty excited for this haunted house. Are you?” Jason asked in an excited tone.

“Eh. I guess.” Sam said in a bored tone. Less than a second later a bridge broke with Sam still on it!

“No! Don’t let this be the end! No!” Sam said in a scared voice falling in an acid pool. Splash! Goes the acid puddle. All that’s left is Sam’s skull and bones.

“What just happened?” Martha said, looking up from her phone again.

Jason yells to Martha, “Pay! The Frick! Attention!”

“Geez. Calm down. This was your idea.” Martha says in a calm voice to Jason.

“I’ll call up Jack.” Martha adds to her sentence.

“Ah. Please be Okay friends. Just be Okay,” Jack says in his bed trying to sleep.

Bzzzt. Bzzzt The phone starts ringing underneath Jack’s pillow.

“Ah! Who’s calling!” Jack screams out loud.

“H-Hello?” Jack answers the phone, frightened.

“Jack! Come Quickly! Please! It’s Urgent! You need to come! Sam fell into an acid pool and he’s dead!” Jason yells on the phone with a face cam on.

“Okay. Okay. I’ll. Wait what! Sam’s dead!” Jack says running down to the haunted house bravely. “Here! Take My Freaking money man, I need admission!” Jack yells at the admission guy. “Ok. Fine! There you go. Don’t yell at me next time. Or maybe. You’ll never be able to yell at me ever again.” The Admission guy says to Jack. Then Jack pulled out his switchblade and cut the Admission guy’s face! “Ow! You little piece of! You piece of.” Then he gets cut off as he goes unconscious. As Jack runs down the stairs that were placed down a couple of minutes ago he falls down in agony and drops his phone down a deep endless hole.

Jack then yells “Ah you got to be kidding me!” Then he started to run to Jason and Martha. In the distance you see Martha get stabbed in the chest then dies.

Apocalypse Z

by Austin Sowders

It’s the end of the world. It seems the only life on earth is zombies with a chance of a rare earthworm. I am the last person alive in all of New York City. I find a trailer with blood smeared on the side. 

I load my shotgun, open the door, and back up. There’s no zombies in the trailer. I was relieved. I really didn’t want to deal with zombies, as today I slashed my leg on some rubble. This whole apocalypse thing had all started in 2020. Yeah, that dreaded year. 

Back during the cold war the government made a parasite to combat the Russians. It had been stored in a bunker in California. Unfortunately it survived until COVID-19 and broke free infecting a government official. The government covered it up and it ended up infecting the entire world. 

The only reason the parasite destroyed the world was because everyone was hunkered down in their homes. It then became a breeding ground for parasites. The parasite is very small and the only way to kill it is the mysterious Chemical X. No one really knows if it really exists, 

though it’s said to be in a lab somewhere in New York. 

I walk in the door of the trailer and find some dried peaches. The only way to get food in this world is fruits and vegetables. All of the animals, even bugs have gotten infected by the parasite. I quickly grab it and see a dead body laying on the ground, mouth open as if he were screaming when he died. I felt bad for the poor soul, but I knew if I didn’t find that chemical fast, I would end up like him. 

Suddenly, the dead corpse leaps at me. I knew it was a stalker zombie. These zombies are more intelligent than normal zombies. They don’t just attack you, they stalk you. Then, when you’re off guard they leap on you. I aimed my shotgun, fired, and it collapsed on the ground. I saw a map hanging from the zombies pocket.

I grabbed it and looked at it. It was a map of Arsith Labs where the supposed Chemical X was located. It was exhilarating to think that I could really save the world! I left the trailer in a hurry. I traveled through the abandoned highway, shot some zombies, and made camp for the night. I woke up, and headed out. 

It was going to be a big day. I walked for hours on end. It was boring until I saw Arsith Labs. I rushed inside, and opened every door. I was walking in a room when I saw a zombie tearing flesh out of a dead body. It turned slowly, and then leapt at me. I shot it multiple times with my shotgun. My adrenaline was pumping. My face was sweaty. 

I walked up the next flight of stairs. At the top were three runner zombies. Runners are faster versions of zombies. They ran at me, and I shot them all. One got back up and kept running. It was about to bite my arm, when I knocked it to the ground. I grabbed my revolver and shot it twice. It laid on the stairs, dead. 

I walked it into the room that said laboratory. That’s when I saw it. There, labeled on a vat of blue liquid was Chemical X. My heart was pounding, suddenly a zombie jumped on me. It pinned me to the ground and bit down hard on my neck. My eyes went heavy. I could hear the sound of my flesh being torn from my bones. My ears were ringing, I felt as if I had failed the world. I could only hope somebody else was out there and could finish what I had started. Suddenly everything went black.

Halloween Story

by Yosbel Remon de la Rosa

When you were a kid, did your parents tell you scary stories? Maybe some type of folklore from other states or countries? I know my parents did. Not that I have ever believed them. Though I have a strange feeling that if I did listen what happened would have never been a real problem. It was a strange night even for halloween. The sky seemed darker than usual and the Halloween spirit was not very strong. Not that I would have cared either way. I walked with my group of friends Andrew and Steven until something strange caught my attention. There was always a trail that led to the forest but we never paid any attention to it. Even if I didn’t care for that forest nor did I ever care to look into it, even I could notice the smell of rotten meat coming from another trail we never knew was there. Curiosity got the best of us and we started walking into the forest. I swore the farther we walked the trees became more withered. I found this strange because our small town had a corporation to protect and take care of trees. I did not let that bother me though.

My friends were getting more annoyed, this is because we were carrying groceries to our houses and it was quite the heavy load for one person to carry. I agreed to go back drop things off then come back to check things out but as soon as we turned around, the trail we thought we walked was gone. Instead of the trees being slightly withered the trees were all black and rotten . I looked down at the ground and stared at a dead bird that appeared behind us. It was almost like it was staring at me back. It seemed like we were out of luck but my friend Andrew came prepared. Leading back to the trail he placed pieces of white cotton incase we got lost leading back to the trail. While making ourselves back little by little we noticed something strange. The cotton had turned black. Out of nowhere we heard a voice resembling my father. I freaked out as his voice kept getting more and more distorted.

“Come here Koda”

I started running out of nowhere. My friends with me except for Andrew are still looking at the black cotton in disbelief. Hearing my fathers voice was scary enough but it freaked me out even more because my father had gone missing 3 years ago. Then we came to a stop waiting for Andrew to catch up then I noticed something.A hut made out of resources from the forest. Though it seemed like they were man made. Then again I heard a voice call out my name but this time it was my friend Andrew but this voice I knew it was him. Andrew was always next to me the whole time only separating when he checked out the cotton while I ran away frantically. I slowly turned to the thing next to me that was pretending to be andrew. It started back looking at me with a deformed smile reaching ear to ear then I noticed his eyes were blacked out. He smelled like rotten meat. I bolted into the forest and grabbed Andrew and Steven. I was not taking any chances I bolted into the forest I ran and ran until I made it out of the forest and into the town again I noticed that the cops were surrounding the forest and my mother came to hug me before looking over at the forest and whispering in my ear “Why are you carrying two bags of meat?”

I looked over at my hands slowly. Neither of my friends were there. Just two severed hands.