I’m sure the big production companies are going to want to option this story. Although it’s a little off-season (I should have posted it back in October), It’s a masterpiece. It was written by MrHattyHat (me), Atticusser, and MtyThor while we were attending a meeting together. The idea is that one of us (me) started the story, then we passed it around to continue it. Each color change represents an author change. One thing to note: as we continued to pass the story around, it grew darker and darker in the room. We had to resort to using our cell phones for light so we could continue writing.
Enjoy.
All Hallow’s Eve: The Legend of Sleepy Hallow
An original short story by MrHattyhat, MtyThor and Atticusser
“What was that?”
Under normal circumstances, two teenage boys walking in such proximity to one another—in fact, in direct physical contact—would have been considered socially unacceptable in Sleepy Hallow. The Progressive Secularist mode of thought trending through the more metropolitan cities of the country had spread its viral strands in conspicuous ignorance of Sleepy Hallow—Smalltown, U.S.A, complete with its antiquated traditions of moral judgment and self-restraint.
But these were not normal circumstances.
Shivering from equal parts cold and fear, the boys advanced on their objective, neither one the least bit interested in completing it; neither one willing to be the first to volunteer his retreat. So, on they crept.
Jake, the younger of the two, turned to Caleb and said…
“Quit trying to hold my hand, you fairy!”
Caleb did not respond, nor did he make any effort to distance himself physically from Jake. Jake could complain all he wanted; Caleb wasn’t about to place himself any nearer to the darkness that filled the gaps between the trees on either side of Old Mill Road.
There was no moon tonight, which had seemed a good thing at first, since Caleb subscribed to a healthy belief in, and fear of, werewolves. No moon meant no lycanthropes, at least, but the orb-less sky now meant that the mill road through Hawkins’ Woods was unnaturally dark. It was quiet also…so quiet.
Jake hadn’t uttered another word, though the two boys were nearly embracing now. The woods seemed to grow taller around them with each step, and the mill road grew narrower. Soon the silhouette of the mill would appear before them, a great, decaying hulk of pure blackness against the star-speckled sky. Caleb watched for it desperately, unwittingly holding his breath.
The mill road took a gradual bend and Jake’s feet shuffled and came to a stop. His throat made a breathy whine…
“Eeaguheghheeeh!”
“Don’t do that!” squeaked Caleb.
“I didn’t.”
“Yes you did.”
“Did what?”
“You said, ‘Eeauheghhoooh!’”
“No I didn’t.”
Caleb was becoming frustrated. Enough so that he strongly contemplated discontinuing the fervent grip of Jake’s hand and shoulder that would have required a flushed and stuttering explanation to a belated third party. He couldn’t remember now why he had commenced the socially precarious strangle hold on Jake’s arm, but something inside him said that putting an abrupt end to it would be a bad idea.
“Eeauhgghheeeh!”
“I told you not to do that!”
“That was you.”
“Who?”
“You. Caleb.”
“It was?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m Jake, and there aren’t any other characters yet.”
“You’re Jake?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“Oh. I thought I was.”
“No. I checked. The alternating order of the paragraphs distinctly implies that I am Jake.”
“Hmm…I must have lost track.”
Jake’s words proved an omen of change, however, for in the quiet shadows before them, a third character stood. Watching. Listening. Existing. This was the character the two boys hoped with all hope did not, would not, appear.
The character spoke…
“Uh…do you want me to leave you two alone?”
Stepping from the woods, Frank Nathan Stein wore an expression of amused mock revulsion.
“Dude, you scared the life out of me!” Jake shouted, immediately regretting the volume as his voice echoed along Old Mill Road, certainly announcing their presence to every ghoul and goblin in Sleepy Hallow.
“You guys look really gay,” Frank offered, joining in step with the boys whose hearts were just starting to return to normal pace.
“Just wait,” Caleb retorted, “walk along this road for a few minutes with us and you’ll be sticking pretty close too, I guarantee!”
There was an awkward moment of shifting eyes and silence as the boys realized that their terror-induced affection, which they each had conveniently avoided acknowledging, had just been outed.
“What’s with that weird light?” Frank asked finally.
“Don’t know,” Caleb replied. “Must be the light from that big dude’s cell phone.”
“Yeah,” Jake agreed.
Another moment of strained silence and the boys stopped dead in their tracks.
“Big dude?!” They asked in perfect unison…
And then a cold voice broke the still night air. It was a deathly whisper, a chill hiss that came from neither ground nor sky, and it said, “Holy cow! New Mexico tied it up!”
The boys all screamed, falling to the ground.
“Eeeauheghheeeh!”
Then they died.
And so ended the lives of the boys: Frank N. Stein, Jake Ulah, and Caleb DeWild.
Though they died young, before their times, their passing proved to be the salvation of countless, nameless victims of horror tales of both film and print.
And thus it was.
Amen?
What the boys didn’t know—what they couldn’t know—was the true nature of those three mysterious figures who, at the end of their lives had manipulated them even as puppets on strings of ink, dancing on a paper stage. What even those three otherworldly beings could not know, moreover, was that one of them—one of that very three—was not what he appeared. One of them was not…human.But which one?
It was MrHattyHat, that’s who.
