I’ve come to love holiday writing contests. This is my entry to Susanna Leonard Hill’s wonderful Halloweensie writing contest.
The rules require you to write a Halloween story with kid appeal with a max of 100 words–including some variation of the words treat, slither, and scare.
Children of the Bog
(100 words)
Halloween night,
adults of Reaper’s Bog
beseech their children
to stay close for trick-or-treating.
For every Hallows-Eve, a lone child
is swallowed up by the bog,
and the terrifying creatures within.
Do they slither, scamper, or snatch?
Growl, grimace, or gnaw?
No child’s ever returned to tell.
Betsy Braveheart isn’t scared.
Stuffing her princess costume
behind a tree, she pulls a slingshot
from her pocket,
creeps to swamp’s edge…
and waits.
At dawn, only her costume’s recovered.
She’s joined the bog children.
Sadly…
Betsy’s scribbled note,
roughly jammed into a gnarled tree’s hole,
goes unnoticed.
“They were human once too!”
