Silent killer

By Peter Bray

High School Division Honorable Mention

The door was locked. I couldn’t get out. Not, of course, that I had any intention to. A second check to ensure the integrity of the car door’s lock proved comforting; anything that could match the vehicle’s speed and still manage the strength necessary to open a door would already have succumbed to the Black.

The Black. Only the latest disease to strike the global populace, but by far the most effective. Originally titled the “Silent Killer,” scientific observation suggested the “Loud, Painful and Rather Messy Killer” to be a somewhat more appropriate nickname. At present, the disease carries a 100 percent mortality rate.

At present.

My vehicle was moving at adequate pace, but not quickly enough to distract me from the unpleasant sight outside the windows. The corpses of those infected by the Black littered the sides of the road, with the occasional survivor preying on the possessions of the recently deceased. I briefly rolled down my window, overcome by the perverse curiosity that surrounds death. Immediately, I found myself overcome by the horrific scent. The mind and flesh rot with the Black. The mind more tragic, the flesh more pungent.

I closed my window.

I mentioned survivors: a few, those lucky, damnable few carried a particular gene. Only a scientist would be familiar with the exact name, and most scientists are dead by now, so, here we are. The point remains. The gene had been isolated by a particular scientist, and synthesized into a cure before his disappearance.

Abandonment is perhaps the more appropriate term.

I had been driving for an hour now. The outskirts of the city were approaching, though the sky was still black with smog. The road was empty, save for : something.

I slammed on the brakes, cursing. Seems a survivor was in the market for a new car. At present, he was approaching my vehicle at a surprisingly quick pace, given his decrepit appearance. Mad, that much was immediately apparent, both in the “angry” and “psychotic” senses. Dressed in rags and babbling incoherently, his intention seemed to be to somehow acquire my vehicle. The fellow was clearly in shock; perhaps I could negotiate with him, calm him down.

I slammed my foot on the gas pedal. An unpleasant thump, and he was just another victim of the Black. A ramble band of other ragged survivors was gathering around the corpse. Unworthy of being saved, I assured myself.

The synthesized cure was, to the best of my knowledge at the time, the only one available. No wonder that the creator fled, anyone with any sense would want to monopolize it as quickly as possible. There was no place for ethical qualms in a time of crisis, with more money, more of the cure could be produced.

Of course.

I had been driving for a few minutes more, passing the outskirts of the city and entering an open field, darkening with the approach of twilight. A glance in my rear-view mirror revealed an unpleasant sight. A horde of the unwashed, survivors, or at least those who had not been fully consumed by the Black. Their faces burned with the bestiality only a crisis brings about, their humanity burned away by circumstance. Monstrous creatures, human only in name, armed with the trappings of a horde. Nothing of immediate concern, my vehicle was in working condition.

A painful lurch and billowing smoke from the engine block provided an unfortunate counterpart to my observation. I was never one for ironic humor. A scowling glance at my mirror showed the horde approaching. Hardly ideal, but no cause for concern. Still, I glanced at my backseat to ensure the cure was still there. A curt nod accompanied my attempts to restart the ignition. I had no intention of being stopped in my transport of humanity’s lifeblood. The car disagreed, obstinately refusing to furnish my escape.

That horde was getting rather close. Perhaps : yes. A good time to depart. Grasping the vials containing the cure, I lunged out the car’s window. Upon landing, my hands felt oddly empty. Several glass vials were broken on the ground, and the pained moans of the horde continued.

I closed my eyes, my vision becoming black.

Unfortunate.

– Peter Bray, 15, is a sophomore at Free State High School.

Boom, boom boom

By Mackinzie Urish

Elementary Division Honorable Mention

The door was locked, and I couldn’t get out. All of the sudden I heard footsteps coming up behind me – BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. I turned around, and a hideous monster grabbed me by the neck and lifted my feet off the ground. I yelled for my brother, and the monster told me that he had already taken care of my brother. At that moment I knew that my brother was gone. I started to cry. The monster said, “Oh don’t worry, you’ll be with your brother very soon!” I knew what he was talking about. So I struggled to get out of his firm grip.

When I finally got out of the monster’s grip, I ran toward the door. Remembering it was locked, I stopped in front of the door. Just as I had wanted him to, the monster ran right into the door with a loud THUD. I jumped over the monster’s body, which was laying on the floor, and ran out the door. When I came to a stop I heard those ginormous feet coming after me again: BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there, scared to death.

The monster picked me off the ground again, only this time he picked me up by the feet. Dangling upside down in front of his face, I could smell his breath. It was warm and stinky. It smelled of mold and my dad’s pasts. All the sudden I heard small footsteps. It was my brother, or was it a baby monster? The monster must have heard those footsteps, too, because he turned around, and standing there with the knife was my brother. My brother David I knew was no match for the monster. I was right; the monster grabbed his leg. He was also lifted off his feet. I was thrilled to see my brother, but the monster wasn’t. In one big chomp he had eaten David. The monster looked at me, and I looked at him. He had blood dripping from his mouth. Trying to hold the tears back from my eyes, I said, “How could you, he was my brother!” Hoping that what I had just said had softened him up, I tried to get away again. The monster grip tightened on my foot. I could feel his dagger nails digging into my skin. I wanted to scream bloody murder, but instead I just waited. Finally, one of the neighbor kids came in and was holding the book that had brought this hideous monster to life. He said, “Does this belong to you?” I said, “Yes, hurry give it to me!” I think I might have hurt his feelings, because he ran away crying. I opened the book to the spell that I said to bring him to life, but instead of reading it the right way, I said it backward. I started to yell the spell backward: “Live him let and life to creature this bring!” When I finally fell to the ground, the monster was gone, and David was standing in a puddle of slime, coughing his guts out.

When we got home, we showered and put on our pajamas. After that we put the book into the fire and watched it burn. When it was completely gone, I took the ashes to the garbage can outside the house and threw it away! When my mom and dad got home, they asked us how our night was. We decided it would be best if we only told them that it was interesting. I fell asleep that night and had a few weird dreams about what had happened that night. After that I never saw the monster again.

– Mackinzie Urish, 10, is a fifth-grader at Langston Hughes School.

My room

By Lauren Ramsey

Junior High Division Honorable Mention

The door was locked. I couldn’t get out. The realization made another cold wave rip through me. My panting breaths were hanging in the chilly air, another signal for it to find me. My eyes were met with only a dark abyss, not even a trace of the morning sun I craved for.

Something shifted behind me. As I whipped around, my eyes searched frantically for the source, to no avail. More rapidly my panting grew. Again I tried the knob on the hall door, again accomplishing nothing. I was panicking by now, my body quivering and trying desperately to become a part of the wall.

My darting eyes revealed nothing. Now I could only hear the sound of my own laborious breathing and rapid heartbeat, but nothing else. Becoming slightly braver than before, I slowly peeled my tense body away from the wall. Maybe it had been my paranoia? It had surely happened before; but never this bad, nor in the middle of the night. Taking one shuddering, calming breath, I clenched my eyes shut and tried the doorknob again.

It turned. A heavy sigh of relief spread through my body. Now I could run into my room, cocoon in my blankets, and forget this incident ever happened. I just hoped that I hadn’t woken my big brother up; it would be a real nightmare if he found out that I had been in his room when he was asleep.

Something suddenly closed around my throat, cutting off my airways. All the panic from before flooded into me once again. Whoever was pinning my struggling body against the door wasn’t letting up. Little by little, my body drained from the lack of oxygen. Just before I blacked out, a voice quietly snarled into my ear, “I told you to stay out of my room.”

And then I closed my eyes.

– Lani Ramsey, 14, is a ninth-grader at De Soto High School.