High School Division winner Bethann Starkebaum, a junior at Santa Fe Trail High School in Carbondale.

We asked area students to concoct a Halloween story of 700 words or less that started with this spooky introduction: “When I went to Room 101 for after-school detention, I didn’t recognize the teacher who was there waiting for me …” We received nearly 200 entries from participants that were divided into three divisions: elementary, junior high and high school. Read more of the winning entries.

Here is the High School Division winner:

When I went to Room 101 for after-school detention, I didn’t recognize the teacher who was there waiting for me. Most likely because it wasn’t a teacher, it was my aunt, Lillian. She was crying and her 19-year-old son, Seth, was trying to calm her.

As soon as they saw me, relief showed on both of their faces. Aunt Lillian ran across the small room and grabbed me by the shoulders. She buried her face in my neck and hugged me.

Seth pulled her off me and more calmly stated the obvious: “We were worried about you.” My aunt nodded and added, “There has been a terrible accident.”

My heart sank and I suddenly didn’t feel well. Looking between them, I asked, “Well, what is it?” When neither of them replied and just looked at each other, I grew frustrated. “Somebody just freaking tell me already!” I screamed as tears started to sting my eyes.

Aunt Lillian cleared her throat, Seth murmured that my parents died in an electrical fire in our house. Dizzy, I stumbled backward into a desk and did my best to sit in it. I had been worried about this stupid detention all day and my parents were now dead? Why on Halloween of all days? These thoughts ran through my mind until I felt exhausted.

“No,” I said almost believing it. “Wait, you’re joking right?” I said, delusional. My aunt just looked at me, and two hours later we were sitting in the police station, drinking horrid coffee.

Something had changed in my aunt’s attitude when the policeman told her that my father’s will had put me in her care. When we finally got out of the police station, we made a 3 1/2-hour trip to their house in Virginia. All the way there she kept telling me that she was going to look after me.

Their house was an older Victorian house, and it was four times as big as our house in Nashville. It was the only house I’d seen for about 20 miles, and in this time of the year, it was beautiful. We went inside, and I fell asleep on the bed in the room that she told me was now mine.

It was nearly midnight and the place looked a bit eerie. The whole time I’d been here I hadn’t seen my uncle, Leeroy, or my cousins, Tim and Chris. I walked down the hall in my silky pajamas and stopped just outside my aunt’s room. I overheard her saying, “Ten more minutes my sweet, I promise. Then you can have her blood, just as you did with her parents and the others.”

My heart stopped and I realized I had to get out of there. I ran down the rest of the hall, which seemed to never end and desperately clawed at a door handle. I ran into the room and shut the door. Fumbling for the lock in the dark and finding it, I next searched for a light switch. Turning the light on, I noticed that I hadn’t remembered seeing this room before. I wish I hadn’t because in the middle of the room were three bodies hanging from the ceiling. They were covered in blood. Nausea swept over me and without thinking I let out a scream.

The door flew open and Seth stood there in the door jam. I couldn’t see his face, but when I did, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He took a step forward and I stumbled backward. His lips curved into a menacing grin when he saw my distress. His teeth were pointed but that wasn’t the reason that his face looked so terrible. His eyes were blood red and attracted my attention. I backed into one of the bodies and broke my stare. I frantically looked around the room for a way out. But that was my mistake, and that’s when he made his move. He swept my feet out from under me and I went down with him following. His daggered teeth drove towards my throat, and everything went black.

– Bethann Starkebaum is a junior at Santa Fe Trail High School in Carbondale.