And the winnner is...

We actually had very little trouble picking a clear winner in this year's Halloween Story Contest, but a lot of trouble getting around to writing up this announcement. For starters, we had a much larger than usual number of entries to contend with, and many of these entries were significant works of authorship—which is to say, long. Along with this, we felt the seriousness of the high stakes necessitated getting the entire Rampant Loon editorial staff together to watch the Vikings beat the Packers like baby seals read and discuss the entries before formulating any opinions, and by the time we'd reached some preliminary conclusions, the whole cross-geo nature of the operation was stacked solidly against us.

Which is to say, Henry had gotten tired of waiting for us to check in and had gone to sleep.

Today, however, we have completed the arduous task of reconciling, collimating, concatenating, calibrating, and conjugalizing our many various opinions, and we are now prepared to present our findings. Bruce will speak for the Rampant Loon staff.


Jamison Scott, "Halloween Newspaper Item."

Henry: So, was this imaginary comeuppance for all the over-the-top scary yards you’ve seen in your life? We’ve got a few people who go beyond typical decorating at times, but their yards are usually fun rather than truly frightening. The idea of dying in front of a bunch of people who think you’re acting because, well, that’s what you’ve always done in the past, makes for a nice little horror story all its own, though. Nice.

Bruce: This one was funny and clever and made us laugh. Unfortunately, you've committed one of the most horrible and yet unavoidable mistakes a writer can make, in that you've written a story that wasn't fantastic enough, as evidenced by this article in last week's L.A. Times:

Dead man slumped on balcony mistaken for Halloween decoration
A 75-year-old dead man sat decomposing on his Marina del Rey balcony for days because neighbors thought the body was part of a Halloween display and didn’t call police...

It always sucks when your fantastic, wiggy, crazy, really out-there story is trumped by reality, but I've been there, and there's nothing you can do about it. Sorry.


passinthrough, "Ghost Story"

Henry: Your stories are always a change of pace from everything else because what you write comes directly from your life. From the comments, I see that this is another true story, giving another glimpse into a world both familiar and unfamiliar to a guy like me. The story doesn’t have a sense of the “dramatic” but is surprisingly similar in tone and pace to most of the stories in true ghost story collections. Very nice!

Bruce: We agree with Henry's assessment. This isn't precisely a story—it's more like a sketch or a concept statement for a story—but in that, it's very much like the sort of true ghost story/folk tales our old friend, Michael Norman, collected for his books, Haunted Heartland, Haunted America, and so on. Nicely done.


Arisia, "S&M Vampire Girls"

Henry: Best Halloween story title ever! Good job turning the real horror of having a movie shoot in your house into a horror story featuring, we assume a real vampire acting as a vampire. It was well written and nicely paced, enjoyable even though I was positive Lynn was going to turn out to be a real vampire. Good stuff.

Bruce: Again, we found ourselves agreeing with Henry's judgment. Lynn's turning out to be a real vampire was telegraphed well in advance, and yet it remained a well-written and fun read right up to the last line. Of all the entries in this contest, this is the one that simply begs to be made into at least a treatment, if not a full script.


Letteren, "Specters of my Past and Future"

Henry: You’re only 17 and you write like this? I don’t even know you and I already hate you! That’s a compliment, by the way. You did an excellent job of building tension and allowing us to get inside your character’s head as he tried to make sense of what was happening to him. After a build up like that, I don’t know what kind of payoff could have met our expectations, so leaving situation unresolved may have been the best approach. That said, I feel somewhat let down because we didn’t get a payoff at the end. Still, a very good, very spooky story with lots of atmosphere.

Bruce: We're going to have to disagree with Henry. The story has gobs of claustrophobic atmosphere, but as a story, it goes nowhere and ends in the air. This is not to say we have a clue how it should end, but the inconclusive non-ending definitely was a letdown. One of us also objected to the narrative voice, protesting that it doesn't read like the voice of a teenager. The fact that this story was written by a 17-year-old completely undercuts that argument, but still...

Finally, I personally had some problem with the depiction of the mysterious stranger. The narrator is being haunted by the ghost of Humphrey Bogart? Interesting and strange, but I found it not the menacing in the least. Still, for a story written by high school student, this is fantastic stuff. Keep at it.


Topher, "Last Hallow's Eve"

Henry: Nice change of pace with the zombie plague, including swinging by the morgue to pick up brains-to-go for the family to eat for dinner. The protagonist didn’t seem to have much reaction to the plague, though. There were some brief mentions of horror—being consoled by the corpses of those you’re grieving for was quite a good idea—but all we had was the mention of it then moved on. I think you could have wrapped the whole story around the horror of having your dead loved ones, flesh rotting off their bones, trying to console you concerning their own deaths. In the end, it seems like you tried to put too much into the story so ended up skimping on the stuff that would have been truly horrific.

Bruce: The narrator's emotional distance from the story left us, pardon the expression, cold. It was decently funny and entertaining, in a blackly humorous way, but it seemed to us that you went for glib humor at the expense of emotional impact. The guy has just (unintentionally) killed off his entire family and all of his friends, for cripe's sake!

The idea behind this one is good and clever, but the execution is too deadpan. We think you'd benefit from having a look at the original Richard Matheson version of "I am Legend," in which the zombies retain their memories and the ability to speak; therefore, it's in the mail.


Miko, "All Hallow's Eve"

Henry: You wrote a lovely and haunting reminder that All Hallows Eve is just the beginning of the celebration. I particularly liked the reminder for All Souls Day, a day so many completely forget. You’ve given us a well written reminder of what Halloween truly represents.

Bruce: It's a nice story, but not at all scary. This one strikes us as the sort of meditation that might go well in a Christian market magazine, but then again, this opinion may only indicate our ignorance of the Christian market.


Thinker Van Chan, "Martuin's Fall"

Henry: Interesting approach. I was certainly curious what was going on. Having it turn out to be a highly imaginative kid in a haunted house took me by surprise and explained the randomness of the earlier encounters. Nicely done.

Bruce: This one lost us in the third paragraph. Dreamscape stories are very hard to pull off; once you've established the hallucinatory nature of the narrative, anything becomes possible, and therefore nothing is meaningful. It's foregone that the story is leading up to some variation on the hoary, "And then he woke up, and it was all a dream," ending, and it becomes very difficult to keep the reader along for the ride.

Still, a nice try, and we look forward to seeing more from you.


The Aardvark, "Life...Don't Talk to Me About Life"

Henry: You should have been here for the super-hero power challenge a few months back. This entry would have been a perfect fit. As it is, it does evoke a kind of horror as we try to imagine what it would be like to die over and over again, always doomed to remember all the pain and suffering up to the point of actual death. I suspect most of us would go crazy. Good stuff. Wish you'd enter more often!

Bruce: Ditto what Henry said, plus add that that is one great opening line. Still, in the end this is a backgrounder for a superhero, and not much of a scary Halloween story. Well-written, though. Again, we'll second the thought that you should enter more often.


Torainfor, "The Monsters and the Infected"

Henry: Another imaginative approach to horror, coming from the point of view of what I assume are dogs. I'm not at all clear as to what the "infection" that causes wild dogs to suddenly become tame and docile. Some of the terms used, particularly "flyer," aren't clear from the story. That's not bad, as it helps maintain the alienness of the culture, just something I thought I'd note. Very evocotive.

Bruce: Much as it pains us, we're going to have to disagree with Henry on this one. It's wonderfully written, as always, and as we've come to expect from you. But very early on it became obvious to us that this was yet another story in which the "monsters" were humans and the point-of-view characters were some other non-human creatures, and from then on it just became a matter of waiting and guessing until the true nature of Grey was revealed. (We were betting on squirrels, or perhaps cats. The "flyers" were a puzzling misdirection.) It's a well-paced and well-written story, but the basic concept has been used and reused many times before, and it left us thinking of Erin Hunter's Warriors series rather than about the story itself.

Here's a thought: since trying to keep the true nature of Grey and the others a surprise doesn't work, why not make it clear at the outset and see where that takes you?


Ben-El, "Eye of the Storm"

Henry: Good build up with William at first arrogant then slowly becoming more needy as the cold takes over his body. We don't get a feel for why this is happening nor what Lou gets out of it. I'm still not clear whether it's Lou or the crone who does this to him.

Bruce: Here's another one where we're going to have to disagree with the group's comments. We felt this one was really strong, in an Old World Grimm's fairy tales kind of way. It's not at all clear what's happening to William, but then it doesn't need to be, as long as the ending is suitably ghastly.

This one has its flaws; for one thing, we were unable to develop a strong sense of when the story takes place. If it's centuries ago, there are some jarring anachronisms. If it's contemporary, there are other things that should provoke a more modern reaction from William. But on the whole, we found this one to be a strong and compelling story, and we'd like to see you develop it further.

Henry (again): I see I didn't do a very good job conveying my opinion of Ben-El's story. I felt it was quite strong and considered it one of the finalists on my list. Just wanted to clarify.


Al, "Vidad's Brain," "Creel's Halloween," "Spore"

Henry: Vidad's Brain - Wacky fun. Frightening only in the oh-my-God-he's-eating-socks kind of way.

Creele's Halloween - Good build up to a truly frightening end. The unsympathetic main character may detract a bit.

Spore - Jack the Ripper crossed with Alien crossed with those old, Victorian monster stories. Nicely done.

Bruce: "Vidad's Brain" was an amusing little inside joke, but not much more. We'll have to disagree slightly with Henry on "Creele's Halloween:" this was the sort of rotten-s.o.b.-gets-his-unearthly-comeuppance ending that fueled years of E.C. comics, Twilight Zone episodes, and especially, Tales from The Crypt, and we enjoyed it a hell of a lot. "Spore" also had some interesting potential, although there were a few things that really bothered us about it. For one thing, Detective Guinness's accent was a baffling hodge-podge, and for another, you apparently have no idea how difficult it is for anyone without government or mob connections to get hold of a handgun in modern England. If you wanted to develop this one further, it would be worth your while to put some effort into learning the conventions of the police procedural and the peculiarities of the London policing system.

But with all that said, we feel the real problem here is that you tried to do too much, too fast. Either "Creele's Halloween" or "Spore" could be developed into a terrific story, and in time, both could, but concentrate on one first!


Vidad, "The Window" and "Tonsil"

Henry: The Window - Excellent four year-old point of view. Great atmosphere. Truly scary.

Tonsil - Glad my tonsils removed when I was four. Logical part of me says go to doctor, get tonsils x-rayed, teeth show up, get emergency tonsillectomy. But it was off-the-wall fun.

Bruce: "Tonsil" was great, icky, weird fun. We'll have to go along with most of the commenters; it seemed very reminiscent of a young Stephen King. Yeah, it's over the top and off the wall, but Gaaah!, it's nasty and good.

There's little we can add to all the other comments on "The Window." This one really, truly, creeped us out and gave us chills. It is a superb piece of writing, that sets up and delivers a punch to the gut with a remarkably economy. Therefore, by the powers invested in us by—well, us—we declare "The Window" to be the winner of this year's Friday Challenge Halloween Story Contest.

Assuming, of course, that Henry concurs. Henry? Over to you...

Henry: Thanks, Bruce. First, I concur wholeheartedly with the decision. "The Window" was just great. Vidad may not like horror, but he does a great job writing it!

I had a great time reading all the entries and hope some of you who rarely enter -- or have entered for the first time -- submit entries again soon!