Page 11 - 201210 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - October 2012

Top 10 Scary Halloween Stories # 8 - Burnt Church something of their children to bury, and Smith bed against the far wall, her throat cut from ear Continued From Page 10 wisely disappeared from town, his mission to ear and her nightdress stained with blood. Two drops of blood fell from the saturated against the works of Satan completed. The teacher’s burnt body was buried blanket with a drip-drip noise that sounded like “The games the children play back in the deep in the ground and covered with brick a leaky faucet. woods frighten me,” the pastor’s wife tomb. The children’s smaller bodies were Scream after scream poured from her confessed. “They chant in a strange language, interred beneath wooden crosses. Of all the mouth, but she couldn’t stop herself any more and they move in such a strange manner. student’s in the school that fall, only the pastor’s than she could cease wringing her hands. All Almost like a ritual dance.” small son survived. along the hallway, doors slammed and footsteps “Could it be something they are learning To this day, voices can be heard in the came running down the passage. at school?” asked the attorney’s wife. graveyard of at Burnt Church, chanting Within moments other students had “Surely not! Teacher is such a sweet, unintelligible words, as the school children and gathered in her doorway, and one of her friends sophisticated lady,” said the pastor’s wife. the teacher once chanted in the woods outside gripped her arm with a shaking hand and But they exchanged uneasy glances. town. Sometimes apparitions are seen, and dark pointed a trembling finger toward the wall. Her Smith, on the other hand, was sure. walkers who roam the graveyard at night. And eyes widened in shock at what she saw. Then “That teacher is turning the young’uns to the they say that a brick taken from the grave of the she fainted into her friend’s arms. Devil, that’s what she’s doing,” he proclaimed evil teacher can set fire to objects on which they On the wall above her bed, written in her up and down the streets of the town. are placed. roommate’s blood, were the words: “Aren’t you “Don’t be ridiculous,” the preacher told glad you didn’t turn on the light?” him when they passed in front of the mercantile. # 7 - Don't Turn on the “I ain’t ridiculous. You are blind,” # 6 - No Trespassing Smith told him. “That teacher ought to be Light burned at the stake, like they burned the witches A Texas Scary Story in Salem.” She commandeered the room in the basement of The pastor, pale with wrath, ordered her dorm as soon as she realized she would have Peggy and her boyfriend Tommy were driving Smith out of his sight. But the ne’er-do-well’s to pull an all-nighter in order to prepare for down a lonely stretch of highway at dusk when words rang in his mind and would not be pushed tomorrow’s final exam. Her roommate, Jenna, a thunderstorm came crashing down on them. away. And the children continued to behave liked to get to bed early, so she packed up Tommy slowed the car and they crept their way oddly. Almost like they were possessed. He everything she thought she would need and past a formidable abandoned house. Plastered would, the preacher decided reluctantly, have to went downstairs to study . . . and study . . . and all over the fences and trees were no trespassing look into it someday soon. study some more. signs. That day came sooner than he thought. It was two o’clock, when she realized A mile past the house, the car The very next Monday, his little boy came down that she’d left one of the textbooks upstairs on hydroplaned. Peggy screamed as the car slid off with a cold, and his mother kept him home from her bed. With a dramatic sigh, she rose, and the road, plunging down into a gully. The car school. When the pastor returned from his climbed the stairs slowly to her third-floor dorm slammed into a large boulder, throwing Peggy duties for a late lunch, his wife came running up room. violently into the door, before it came to a rest to him as soon as he entered the door. She was The lights were dim in the long hallway, under a pecan tree. Her head banged against the pale with fright. and the old boards creaked under her weary window, and a stabbing pain shot through her “I heard him chanting something over tread. She reached her room and turned the shoulder and arm. and over again in his bedroom,” she gasped. handle as softly as she could, pushing the door Tommy turned to her. “Are you all right? “So I crept to the door to listen. He was saying open just enough to slip inside, so that the hall You’re bleeding!” the Lord’s Prayer backwards!” lights wouldn’t wake her roommate. “Arm, shoulder. Feel bad,” Peggy The pastor gasped and clutched his The room was filled with a strange, managed to gasp. Bible to his chest, as goose bumps erupted over metallic smell. She frowned a bit, her arms Tommy glanced cautiously at her right his body. This was positively satanic. And breaking out into chills. There was a strange arm. “I think your arm is broken,” he said, and there was nowhere the boy could have learned feeling of malice in the room, as if a malevolent he tore a strip off his shirt and pressed it to the such a thing in this town, unless he learned gaze were fixed upon her. It was a mind trick; cut on her head. “I’m going to call for help,” it…at school. the all-nighter was catching up with her. he said when it became obvious that the At that moment, the attorney’s wife She could hear Jenna breathing on the bleeding was not going to stop right away. But came bursting in the door behind him. far side of the room—a heavy sound, almost as neither of them had their cell phones. “Quick pastor, quick,” she cried. “Smith if she had been running. Jenna must have picked “That house we just passed will have a is running through town with a torch, talking up a cold during the last tense week before phone I can use.” Tommy said. about burning down the school. The children finals. Peggy’s eyes popped wide open at this are still in class!” She crept along the wall until she statement. Despite her pain, she remembered The pastor raced out of the house with reached her bed, groping among the covers for the creepy abandoned house. “Stay here. A . . . the two woman at his heels. They and the other the stray history textbook. In the silence, she car . . . will come,” townsfolk who followed them were met by a could hear a steady drip-drip-drip sound. She “I can’t stay, Peggy,” Tommy said, “It huge cloud of smoke coming from the direction sighed silently. Facilities would have to come to could take hours for another car to come, and of the church, where the school children had fix the sink in the bathroom…again. you‘re losing too much blood.” He tore another their lessons. The building was already ablaze Her fingers closed on the textbook. She strip of his shirt and placed it gently on the cut as frantic parents beat at the flames with wet picked it up softly and withdrew from the room on her head. Then he went out and retrieved a sacks, or threw buckets of water from the pump as silently as she could. couple of blankets from the trunk to cover her into the inferno. Smith could be heard cackling Relieved to be out of the room, she with. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He raced unrepentantly from the far side of the building, hurried back downstairs, collapsed into an out into the storm, shutting the dented car door which was full of the screams of the trapped overstuffed chair and studied until six o’clock. behind him. students and their teacher. She finally decided that enough was enough. If The fire blazed with a supernatural kind she slipped upstairs now, she could get a couple (Continued on Page 12) of force, and the pastor thought he heard the hours’ sleep before her nine o’clock exam. sound of the Teacher laughing from within the The first of the sun’s rays were beaming The ‘X’ Zone Radio Show building when it became apparent that no one through the windows as she slowly slid the door with could be saved. open, hoping not to awaken Jenna. Her nose Rob McConnell The church burnt for several hours, and was met by an earthy, metallic smell a second Monday - Friday / 10 pm - 2 am Eastern when it was finally extinguished, there was before her eyes registered the scene in her dorm on The TalkStar Radio Network nothing left. Mourning parents tried to find room. Jenna was spread-eagled on top of her www.talkstarradio.com