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 Junior High Division runner-up:

When I went to room 101 for after-school detention, I didn’t recognize the teacher who was there waiting for me. His hair was white and looked as though it could be blown away. He was dressed casually and his clothes appeared to be several sizes too large. His body had a thin, skeletal look to it and was unusually pale. Over his face was a red handkerchief. I decided he must be a sub, as he did not in the least resemble Mr. Sarong, who was the teacher in this room.

I hovered at the door frame, unsure of what to do. I cleared my throat in an attempt to wake him. The attempt was futile. Of all the teachers to get an after-school detention with. I walked up to him.

“Sir? I’m Mary DeWalz. I’m here for my after-school detention.”

Still the man did not respond. I walked forward and touched his shoulder. It felt strangely cold but I was not patient enough to process that observation at the time. “Excuse me, I’m here for detention.” I repeated myself. The teacher slumbered on. I felt a pang of annoyance, it wasn’t like I didn’t have anything better to do right now.

I shook him roughly by the arm and cried out loudly, “Hey! Wake up!”

I gave a gasp of surprise. His head had rolled to the side, facing me, and the handkerchief had fallen away to reveal what it had concealed. The man’s face was lined with age, but his skin had a starved stretched look to it. His mouth was hanging open slightly and it was noticeable that several of his teeth were missing. But most observable were his eyes. They were a grey-blue and had an empty, sightless stare that only the dead could master.

Quickly I backed away from the corpse, and opened my mouth to scream, but was unable to. I had backed into someone, and my scream caught in my throat, my breath gone. I whipped around quickly.

The person was Ms. Vise, my English teacher. Relief flooded through me, although I was still too on edge to recognize it.

I gapped wordlessly at the slight, dark haired woman for a moment and then I was babbling. “Ms. Vise, there’s a dead guy!” I gestured at the body. “I came in for after- school detention, and I thought he was sleeping, but then I touched him, and he didn’t move, and he’s dead, and we have to find someone!” I stopped breathing heavily, staring wild-eyed at Ms. Vise, waiting for her response.

She seemed oddly calm, almost amused at my distress. She walked around me, over to the carcass. Though I had my back turned I could hear the tap of her heels plainly against the silence now that my incoherent prattle had ceased. I turned around; her back was to me so I couldn’t see her face. “Ms. Vise?” I breathed.

When she turned towards me I could see that her face was emotionless.

“I don’t think there will be any need to find help Miss DeWalz. No, I don’t think there is any need at all.” As she spoke there was a ghost of a smile on her face, as though she were enjoying a private joke.

“But Ms. Vise that man is dead!” I spoke, my voice quavering as I stated the obvious.

“Very good, Miss DeWalz. But can you identify this man who, as you so eloquently stated, is dead?” My teacher asked me as though it were a question in class.

“What does it matter?” I asked, my voice suspicious, an instinct I had not known to exist warning me that something was off.

“A great deal I believe.” She replied, that strange smile still in place.

“What do you mean?” I whispered, involuntarily taking a step back.

“Mr. Sarong’s life was taken from him by me.” The smile widened.

For a moment all I could do was stare at her in horror, but then I realized, “but that’s not Mr. Sarong. Mr. Sarong is young. That guy’s old.”

“Yes, Mr. Sarong is old, what a clever observation.” The smile became more prominent as she observed my confusion and near terror.

“But that’s not Mr. Sarong!” I almost shouted, desperation heavily toning my voice.

“Yes it is. You see Mr. Sarong has had his very life sucked out of him to fuel me. You see, I can’t live except on others’ lives.”

“I don’t understand.” Moreover I refused to accept it.

Ms. Vise sighed. “I am a Shadow Being. My kind needs the lives of others to live, without their lives we are nothing but a shadow. I felt the need to replenish my supply of life and Mr. Sarong was just across the hall. He was young and youthful, an obvious choice. I had just finished draining him of his life, when you chanced to walk in.

There was no time to dispose of the body. So I hid. You didn’t leave before you discovered the body though. You discovered too much.” She was appraising me, just as a snake appraises a mouse before swallowing it.

I gazed transfixed at her for a moment, then I turned and bolted towards the door. I didn’t see her disappear onto the floor as a shadow, but I did see her reappear in front of me, guarding the exit.

“I can’t let you leave now you know that.” She purred.

“I wouldn’t tell anyone, I promise!” I pleaded with her for my life.

“No, you won’t. The dead do not tell people things as a rule.” She no longer fought to hide her smile as she advanced towards me.

Then she lunged. The desks flew as she shoved me across the room.

Then I was pinned against the opposite wall, terrified and trembling.

“Time to say farewell to your world.” She spoke into my ear. Then she braced her hands against me.

Through the pain I could feel myself age. My youth was sucked out of me as she absorbed my life. As I progressed through the years I was crying, about all the things I would never do, all the people I would miss. And then all was black.

The next day a man driving a gray car would pull over to the side of the road on some random highway many miles away from my school. He would have caught a glimpse of something in the ravine at the side of the road. When the man approached the ravine he would see the body of a shriveled old woman. He would call the police and inform them of the corpse. No one would ever know the identity of the old woman.

She would just be a random victim, of a sinister secret none would ever live to tell.

– Candice Meiners is a freshman at West Junior High School.