Around the Campfire

[purpleravenhawk]

Telling ghost stories is a great Halloween tradition. Everyone gets to contribute to the story, making it a twisted, crazy tale! I'll start.

*sits close to the campfire so that the firelight makes shadows on her face and speaks in a spoooky voice*

One dark Halloween night, the trees started to change shape. Terry knew this because she was watching them through her bedroom window. She was wearing her pirate costume, ready to go trick-or-treating. But she wasn't sure she wanted to go out tonight while the trees were twisting into grotesque shapes. One of them looked like a witch, and one of them looked like a ghost. And the tree in her front yard looked like a hangman. One spindly hand reached for her window, and...  

[Moonracer]

Her mother called out, "Terry your friends are here!" Terry turned away to call back, "Okay mom I'm coming!" When Terry looks back the spindly hand that was reaching for her window was gone. She hesitated a moment longer but brushed it off as her imagination and rushed down to greet her friends. Soon her Elizabeth and Ryan were heading down the street to hit the first house on their planned route of treats gathering. As they walked along the sidewalk near the road that is like walking through a tunnel of trees.....  

[xX Catgirl - Pierce Xx]

they noticed that all the insects had fallen silent creating a void where no noise could be heard. Suddenly they could hear a wolf howling in the distance, despite there being no history of wolves in the area. "Elizabeth: WHAT'S THAT?" They all froze where they were and listened intently, in case it happened again.  

[purpleravenhawk]

There was no sound of anything on the dark street. Terry shivered as she looked up into the tree branches and saw shapes like hands, hooks, and other things. Where was the moon? It seemed to have disappeared. "Let's go," Ryan said impatiently. But as soon as he took a step, the wolf howled again.  

[Moonracer]

Their heads snapped in the direction they heard the wolf howling in and the shadows shift and morphed into foreign shapes yet none of them could say it wasn't real because they didn't believe it themselves. The three decided to make a break for it and took off down the street at a dead run the lamps of the first house could just been seen when Elizabeth gave a cry the two friend stop to look back at their friend.  

[purpleravenhawk]

The poor girl's shoelace had caught on something. It was too dark to see what, but they could all feel a presence closing in behind them. "Help me!" Elizabeth screamed, tugging at her shoe. Frozen with terror, although they didn't know why, the others listened to the sound of their own breathing and heard something else. Something was panting heavily, and it was getting closer. Elizabeth screamed wordlessly.  

[xX Catgirl - Pierce Xx]

Suddenly Elizabeth was pulled into the shadows as the others heard a blood-curdling scream. Then a monster came forth and removed it's head as a second shadowy figure started to walk forward from the shadows.  

[purpleravenhawk]

The second creature reached for the kids with multiple arms and magically stopped their hearts, as their dying screams faded away into the night.

Then they all woke up and realized they had experienced a horrifying but harmless, shared, collectivist nightmare of bizarrely realistic proportions, and they spent the next 20 years in therapy trying to deal with it. THE END