This year’s Flagpole Halloween Scary Story Contest was better than ever; so many good stories (32 in all) made it very difficult for our editors to pick the winners. There were a whole bunch of stories that just as easily could have been in the top three, including those by Dominic Bielli, age 13; Genevieve Bielli, age 8-and-a-half; and Kaley Robins, age 10. You can read all the stories below, and you’ll see what we mean about the quality as well as the quantity. We had just one requirement: that the stories be about Athens. You can see here how well most of them meet that criterion. This is truly a batch of Athens stories. Some of our excellent annual contributors got bumped this year, in spite of their obvious skill at crafting a scary story, but thanks to them and thanks to everybody who participated. Enjoy their efforts.

First Place

Print Is Dead
By Adam Rainville

“Hey, Pete. You wanted to see me?”

“Yeah. Come in.”

As Katie took a seat, she glanced at a paper on her editor’s desk and read the partially obscured words “ANTHROPO BIBLIO.” She assumed it was an article about the university’s Anthropology Department.

Pete was a machine. Editing and publishing a weekly magazine, dealing with business responsibilities and contributing articles. No wonder he carried luggage under his eyes. He’d probably been working all night.

“What did you want to talk about?”

Pete laced his fingers. “I have to let you go.”

“What? Why?”

“Business. You’re a good writer. Little flowery, but good. Unfortunately, I’ve had to make sacrifices, and it just hasn’t been enough. We’ve sold space until there’s more ads than stories. Gone to 100 percent recycled materials to save on newsprint. Cut hours to save on labor. Flagpole’s too important, and I’ll be damned if it sinks. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep it afloat, as long as I’m pulling air.”

“Give me one more chance. A friend over at UGA PD gave me a tip, and I’m not going to let the Banner-Herald beat us to it.”

“Whatcha got?”

“Someone’s digging up graves at Jackson Street Cemetery.”

Pete rubbed his chin. “I don’t know.”

“Think about it. We’ll time the story to the Halloween edition. It could be a big draw for advertisers.”

“All right. I don’t think you’ll find anything interesting, but it’s worth a shot. And none of that hoity-toity Lovecraft prose you love so much. Real reporting. Got me?”

“Gotcha, Chief.”

“Mister Rowe, may I have a word?”

The groundskeeper turned from a roughly opened grave to the young woman. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk about the grave thief.”

Dexter Rowe wiped sweat from his brow. “Dang it. How’d you find out?”

“I was just wondering if you’d answer some questions.”

“I’m not talking to anyone ‘bout anything. You know what’d happen if parents found out there’s some lunatic messing with dead bodies? We’re talking serious enrollment problems come next semester.”

Katie thought of “The Hound,” a Lovecraft story about grave robbing.

“I’m not trying to damage the University’s reputation. I just want answers. Like, what do you mean by ‘messing with dead bodies?’”

The man sighed. “‘Tween you and me, whoever’s doing this isn’t just a little off; he’s downright sick. See, he’s not just stealing cadavers like old Igor. He’s taken the skin right off and left everything else. Most bodies are mummified; nothing more than skin and bones. Guess the perv wasn’t interested in the bones.”

“Any idea why he’d want the skin?”

The groundskeeper shrugged. “Ever see that movie Silence of the Lambs? ’It puts the lotion on the skin…’”

“‘…or it gets the hose again.’ Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

“You promise not to print anything about this, and I’ll tell you something interesting.”

“All right, shoot.”

“This isn’t the only one. There’s dug graves all over Athens. Every cemetery’s been hit. This is just the latest.”

“Because it’s nearest the perpetrator?”

“Because he’s run out of bodies. We groundskeepers keep in touch. Guys at other cemeteries say most of their graves are empty. I think some of ‘em might’ve even helped out.”

“Would you say hundreds of bodies?”

“Try tens of thousands. If the guy is making skin suits, he’s making an army of them.”

Katie was supposed to be cleaning out her desk but couldn’t find the motivation. The Halloween edition of the Flagpole lay unopened, her article nowhere to be found. She’d promised to keep Rowe’s information off-record. She’d interviewed groundskeepers at other cemeteries, but, of course, none would comment. With no hard evidence, there was no story.

She put her head down and closed her eyes. She’d never be a famous writer, not even after death, like her idol, Lovecraft. She thought of her favorite story, “The Hound.” She’d researched and written an essay on it back in college. It was the first appearance of Lovecraft’s greatest invention, The Necronomicon. The Book of the Dead. Entirely bound in…

He’d probably been working all night.

“I’ve had to make sacrifices…”

“…whatever it takes…as long as I’m pulling air.”

ANTHROPO BIBLIO. Not ANTHROPOLOGY BIBLIOLOGY, but ANTHROPODERMIC BIBLIOPEGY. The practice of binding books in skin.

Katie opened her eyes. There, on the Flagpole’s cover, was a symbol and the words, “Now made from 100 percent recycled materials.”

Suddenly, Katie found the motivation to pack up her desk.

As quickly as possible.

---

Second Place

Damned Yard
By Erin Lovett

It was around supper when Peter saw his neighbor Ollie being led from his carport in handcuffs. A gentle giant of Santa Clausian proportions, the man was a local relic, cherished. Quirky, sure, but not the type you’d expect to see getting put into the back seat of a cop car.

“I can’t do it!” Ollie was bellowing out. “You don’t understand!”

“What’s this all about?” Peter asked the officer as he ducked Ollie’s head into the car.

“Probation violation,” the officer grunted. “Been givin’ him warnings for a year now to clean up this dump.”

Behind them, towers of cardboard boxes leaned against each other’s weight like drunks, swollen and warped with moisture. The yard itself was caked with old papers and records, half-buried and bookended by two junked cars, all rust and kudzu; beyond that, a crooked shed so dilapidated it was hard to tell its original purpose.

“Ollie, don’t worry,” Peter called after him. “I’ll clean this up.”

The officer was suddenly knocked backwards as Ollie lunged out of the backseat at Peter.

“No!” He choked. “You don’t understand! Don’t you touch anything!”

Before Peter could respond the officer shoved Ollie back in his seat and slammed the door behind him. He was still yelling, his eyes panicked.

“I’ll get this cleaned up, Officer,” Peter said. “I’ll fix this mess.”

It was dark when Peter finally got started, but a bare bulb in Ollie’s carport gave enough light to work by.  

“Why didn’t you just clean your damn yard, Ollie?” Peter grumbled as he pulled out a soggy ream of newspapers and shoved it into a trash bag.

Grrrrrmmmmm…

Peter froze as a low growl came from the backyard.

“I-is someone there?” he called. The light wasn’t bright enough that he could see beyond the carport. The backyard was just a dark void, a pitch black minefield of debris… and that shed.

No one answered, and Peter tried to shift his focus back to cleaning, turning to another box, this one full of legal pads, each filled to the margins with indecipherable scribbling.

GRRRRRRRRMMMMMM…

It came louder now. Peter dropped his trash bag and fell backwards, knocking over a box of cassettes that clattered loudly over the cement.  

“Who’s there?” he whispered, peering into the dark.

From somewhere in the blackness came the slow creaking sound of a wooden door swinging open and shut.

“Who’s there?” he cried again. He fumbled around for a weapon and found only a dusty old record, which he held in both hands like a shield.  

A tower of boxes somewhere toppled over, shattering glass and old 45s.

The last thing Peter saw was an old tabby cat cleaning her paw at the edge of the carport. She blinked, bored, as he was dragged screaming into the dark.

“Will you just clean up this mess?” The officer sighed as he dropped Ollie off the next morning.

“Yes sir,” Ollie said. “It’s just like Joan Jett used to say when…”

“Just clean it up, Ollie.”

The officer hopped back in his car and sped off.

Ollie rubbed his wrists and looked around, choosing a box from the carport and carrying it into the backyard.

“Sorry, Peter,” he whispered, setting the box by the shed. As if in response, a breeze lifted a few sheets of yellowed paper from the rest. Ollie watched them dance for a moment, and just as suddenly, die.

---

Third Place

Fight Night in Georgia
By DJ Thomason

When Raymond Kensington awoke, he was lying on a concrete floor inside a jail. He stood up, rubbing his aching back and throbbing head. The jail was a cubicle made of iron bars, with another cubicle connected to his. Both cages—each about 15-feet-by-15-feet—were sitting in the middle of an empty warehouse.

A man stood inside the other cage watching him.

“Where in the hell are we?” Raymond asked.

The man shrugged. “No idea. I was at a bar in Gainesville late last night and woke up here. I think they drugged me.”

“I was in a bar in Athens,” Raymond said. “Same story.”

He checked his pockets and found nothing. Wallet, cellphone and keys were all gone. He placed his face between the bars and screamed, “HELP!”

A man in a suit appeared from the shadows and calmly approached the two cages.

“Scream if you want,” he said. “We’re in the country. No one for miles.”

“Is this some kind of jail? Who are you?”

The man bowed slightly. “Just call me Ares.”

“What am I here for, Ares?”

The man smiled. “Fight Night.”

Raymond glanced at the other prisoner, but the guy never commented. “What are you talking about?” Raymond demanded.

“Have you ever heard stories about people paying winos and homeless people to fight? They’d find a group of homeless people and pay 20 or 30 bucks to the winner, and they’d video the fight and post it on YouTube. Pretty cruel, huh?”

Raymond shook the bars. “This is illegal. You’re going to jail for kidnapping.”

“I know rich people with similar tastes,” Ares said. “And I facilitate their desires. I kidnap people and set up fights, and my acquaintances all bet on them. I’m the house, of course, and take a cut of everything. It’s very lucrative.”

Raymond screamed, “HELP!”

Ares grinned. “Save your energy. Because at midnight tonight, the partition in the middle of the cages will be raised, and you and your friend in the other cage will be expected to fight each other.”

“That’s preposterous,” Raymond said. “I’m not fighting a total stranger.”

“If you win, you go free. If you lose, you die. That’s your incentive.”

“You’re crazy.”

Ares smiled. “Probably.”

“You don’t know what tonight is or you’d let me go.”

“What is tonight?” Ares asked in his cultured voice.

“Full moon.”

“And?”

Raymond licked his lips. “I’m a werebulldog.”

Ares laughed out loud and clapped his hands. “A werebulldog? Who’s the crazy one now?”

“It’s true. I was supposed to be at home tonight. My wife chains me up.”

“And pray-tell, Mr. Kensington, what happened to you? Were you bitten by another werebulldog? Was it someone famous? Herschel Walker? Vince Dooley?” Ares threw his head back and howled with laughter.

“It’s not funny. I went to the University of Georgia. I was in a fraternity. And I was such a jackass of a pledge that they came up with a hazing session just for me. They brought in a professor with an old book of spells and incantations, and he lit candles and killed a freaking goat. And they pretended to turn me into a werewolf.”

Ares cocked his head. “So what happened?”

“My buddy Sam’s bulldog interrupted the ceremony and got his hair in the goat’s blood. But the ritual actually worked, and now, every full moon, I turn into a giant bulldog.”

“How much did you drink last night?” Ares asked.

“It’s not funny! I’m telling the truth. You should let me go NOW. Please!”

“I have $1.7 million already wagered for tonight’s fight, Mr. Kensington. And you’re the main event.”

“You’re crazy,” Raymond whispered.

“It’s 8 p.m.,” Ares said. “Four hours until you fight. I’d get some rest.”

Raymond growled, “Screw you.”

Ares raised an arm and snapped his fingers. Brilliant floodlights flickered on, illuminating the area, revealing several movie cameras on tripods covering the cage from every angle. Ares walked off, exiting the warehouse through a distant door.

Raymond swallowed hard. 8 p.m. already? He’d been unconscious most of the day.

The moon would be out in minutes.

A loud grunt startled Raymond. He glanced at the cell beside him. The man was on all fours, groaning. His jaw was distended, and dark-olive scales lined his face.

“I’m sorry,” the man gasped in a garbled, inhuman voice. “I’m a weregator.”

“Oh… shit,” Raymond said.

---

Honorable Mention

The Curse of the Pagan Babies
By Jennifer Patrick

“Save the Pagan Babies is dead.” Frog tipped the contents of his flask into his pint of Tropicalia IPA and glared across Prince Avenue at Flagpole Magazine’s offices. “I’m going over there.”

“It was just an opinion,” Latex said. “It doesn’t mean everyone will hate it.” The entire band was here, Frog, Jimmy, Marquis. They’d met up at Hendershot’s, already drunk, Latex clutching a copy of Flagpole’s latest edition.  They’d agreed not to read the review of their first album until they were all together. Eagerly, Latex had leafed through the pages and found the article, and his heart had sunk as he read the title out loud. “Save the Pagan Babies. We do NOT Approve.” The review was even worse.

Now, Latex searched the faces of his bandmates. Their expressions ranged from miserable to furious. “Maybe we could move to Austin?”  

Frog sprang to his feet, swaying like a pine in a gale. “I don’t want to live in Austin,” he wheezed. “Flagpole screwed us. They used a freaking thesaurus to come up with 19 different words to say we sucked. I counted them.  Nineteen.”  He yanked Latex’s copy of the magazine from the counter and hurled it to the floor. “I’m going over there right now and thesaurus their asses.” An instant later, he was out the door.

The Alabama game had just ended, and the streets were teaming with drunken frat boys and college girls teetering on four-inch heels.

“We’d better catch him,” Jimmy breathed as they stumbled behind Frog. “He’ll break a hand punching that writer’s face, and we’ll lose our guitarist.”

Latex picked up his pace. Angry growls followed them as they elbowed through the crowd. They caught Frog on the curb in front of The Grit, a foot poised to step into the crosswalk. “Hey.” Marquis gripped Frog’s arm. “Don’t go over there. Somebody’ll get hurt. We’ll do a curse, instead.  My Great Grandma used to curse people all the time.”

Frog’s right eyebrow lifted, and a reptilian smile twisted his mouth. “A curse?  Riiight.” He plunged into the crosswalk.  

“Wait!”  Latex yelled as the others sprang after him.  

A honk, a screech, a sickening, fleshy thud. Beside Latex, a woman screamed.

Now the crosswalk had flashing lights and orange flags that pedestrians waved like signs of surrender as they ventured into the street, eyeing the approaching cars fearfully. As he stood on the curb in front of The Grit, he thought of that night a year ago when Save the Pagan Babies died, because Marquis, Frog and Jimmy had died, hit first by an SUV driven by a drunken UGA football fan, and then by a food truck. There had been community protests, heated commission meetings, Federation of Neighborhoods and Bike Athens petition drives. There had been trials and sentences. But Latex didn’t care about any of that.  

He stood now, rolling the sole of his foot along this curved lip of the sidewalk, grasping the vial in his left pocket, and glaring at Flagpole Magazine’s office across Prince Avenue.  Marquis’ great-grandmother had spent only 10 minutes whispering the curse over a pile of sand. When she’d finished, the sand had glowed algae green as she’d poured it into the glass vial. When he took it from her, it was so cold his fingers stung. “It goes on their computer keyboards,” she’d hissed. “So long as their fingertips touch it, the curse will take hold.” And as he’d walked home, clutching the vial, he’d felt the three shadows trailing behind him, sensed them in the black, prickling silence.   

Latex refused to grab an orange flag and wave it. He didn’t want to be seen. Instead, he waited for traffic to clear, then crept across Prince Avenue. The shadows were cold voids drifting in his wake.

The next morning, the Flagpole staff set their Jittery Joe’s travel mugs on their desks, turned on their computers, sat, and poised their fingers over their keyboards. Then they began to type. Instead of their work, they saw the Online Athens Banner-Herald discussion forum, brimming with its usual diatribes. A moderator button flashed on each screen, Approve forum post? “Since when do we moderate these comments?” Someone laughed. But when they tried to exit the page, to turn away from their screens, they were paralyzed, and a malignant force flicked their gazes across the text, forcing them to read line after line.  Then their fingers, of their own accord, clicked the moderator button. Approve, Approve, Approve.

---

Honorable Mention

Zombie Shakespeare at Globe Athens
By Mark Bromberg

Carefully avoiding the monster trucks at the corner of Clayton and Lumpkin, zombie Shakespeare staggered into The Globe after the Bam.

"BRAINS!" he demanded.

"Beer yes, brains no," said Derek. "How about a Guinness?"

"The very thing," zombie Shakespeare replied.

"Can I see ID?" Derek asked.

"Zounds, publican, don't you know who I am?" zombie Shakespeare exclaimed, and staggered back out, headed to the New Madrid show at the Georgia Theatre.

After the Tennessee game, zombie Shakespeare returned.

"BRAINS," he mumbled to Christian behind the bar.

"Sorry, not tonight," Christian replied. "There might be some hiding out at the library avoiding the game, though. Beer? Got ID?"  

"Thou two-headed dog! DOES NO ONE KNOW ME IN THIS TOWN?" zombie Shakespeare shouted, and left to see if they required identification at the 40 Watt for Athens Intensified.

That Sunday afternoon, zombie Shakespeare came back to The Globe and heard Irish music as he stumbled in. Again he went to the bar, where Garrett was pouring a fine half-and-half, and asked for brains.

"Over there." Garrett pointed to the table where a group of regulars sat. Professors and their friends were carrying on, drinking and talking ecology, religion and politics.

"True scholars," zombie Shakespeare exclaimed, and staggered over.

"My god, it's zombie Shakespeare. Pull up a chair," one of the regulars said.

"Ah, the perfect thing," zombie Shakespeare said, and ate the brains of each one of them with glee. When he came to the last, he said, "Art thou the poet bee, or not to be, poet? Today, I think the latter," and ate the UGA professor's head right down to the shoulders.

And thus refreshed, zombie Shakespeare joined in clapping a rousing chorus of "The Wild Rover" before he stumbled out of The Globe to wreak more havoc at Ted's Most Best.

---

Honorable Mention

The Walk Home
By Lucy Ralston

The walk home always felt longer in the rain. Matthew was thinking seriously about opening up a midnight umbrella store in downtown for nights like these. He was fairly sure he’d turn a profit on people walking home on rainy nights. Even if he was the only one out on the sidewalks at that precise moment, he was sure this must happen to people in town fairly often.

“Should’a known better,” Matthew kicked at a wet clump of dingy red leaves on the sidewalk. The motion made him lurch to one side, and he huffed his annoyance.

At least there were no cars to consider on Prince, and if he was a mugger he’d be waiting for a dry night to work in. Not that he had anything worth stealing. He considered adding “Don’t mug me, I’m a townie!” shirts to his hypothetical umbrella store.

The light situation on Prince was bad enough on clear nights. In the rain, he tried to keep his eyes averted from the few passing headlights there were. He grimaced when the only other pedestrian on the street—carrying, he noted with envy, a giant umbrella—pressed the crossing signal and ruined what night vision he’d had.

“There aren’t even any cars,” he muttered. He didn’t say it loud enough to be heard. He was in no shape to pick fights. But when he got closer to the crosswalk, he at least figured out why they’d wanted to cross. Something was making weird, metal, grinding noises. Not a car crash, he thought, but maybe a stalled-out car or a drunk who couldn’t get his truck in gear.

He paused across from Hendershot’s. Something in that sound was really setting him on edge. It was definitely getting louder as he walked. He scowled as a drop of rain snaked down his back. What was he getting all freaked out for? So far as he knew, most folks didn’t get jumped by weird noises.

His heart was pounding anyhow. He glanced around, looking for the noise’s source. He held still just long enough for the grinding to turn into a sudden scream of metal on metal. Something enormous burst out of the vet clinic’s lawn and across the empty street in an almost animal streak.

He stared, even as that screaming metal was joined by a human voice, and the shape with the umbrella staggered. The great shape in the road was backlit by the streetlamp behind it, but he saw when a great maw opened and descended on the guy across the street.

Matthew froze. The rain pounded down, but not hard enough to mask the wet, grinding noises. He recognized the shape abruptly as it sat down. The dog sculpture. That weird, rusted yard-art in the front of the vet’s office that he’d walked by for years, side-eyeing uncomfortably. But this wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be…

Abruptly, he remembered that the statue had never been alone. Just in time for the second, smaller sculpture to step with a whining sound of rusted metal onto the sidewalk before him.

Matthew didn’t wait to understand. He turned and fled, and heard a rusty bark as the sculpture behind him gave chase. He sprinted towards Pulaski and took a hard left, sprinting down the dark street, hoping to find a dark hiding place.

He sprinted hard, tumbling once, scraping his arms and legs and hands open on the pavement. He kicked at the metal dog, and managed to unbalance the thing for long enough for him to keep running.

Finally, almost to the BBQ joint, he vaulted a gate running into the dark yard. He heard water running, and wiped rain out of his eyes, looking for a hiding place. He ducked into the giant barn, panting hard.

Unfortunately, he had never been to Stan Mullins’ art studio before. If he had been, he’d have known to watch out for the grabbing hands of statues in the night.

The old mill ate the screams of metal and man alike.

The next morning, Maggie looked down at her new Flagpole and frowned at the state of Prince Avenue. Two disappearances in one night. She snorted even as she shook her head. She’d love to see the city try to fix that with flags.

She averted her eyes as she passed the weird metal yard-art dogs and the chewed up lawn of the vet’s office. She couldn’t help but think that the rust on those things was uncomfortably red that morning.

---

Honorable Mention

Comment Section of The Damned
By Matt Blanks

Lightning flashed across a stormy, ink-black sky, as I stumbled through the dark and malevolent forest. The rain fell so thick and hot I could almost swear it was blood. My eyes were nearly swollen shut from the constant strain of wiping them free of that accursed, never-ending rain. My feet ached. My back felt broken. Blood seeped slowly into my eyes from an unnoticed wound on my forehead. And all the while, clenched in my fist, the blood-smeared axe glistened more and more as the rain washed away the crimson gore to reveal its shimmering, flawless edge.

I knew someone was behind me. My only hope was to get far enough ahead and circle back, trouncing them with my mighty death axe, and breaking free of their never-ending, murderous pursuit. As I crept ahead silently, I no longer heard the footsteps behind me, and knowing that I wouldn't have a better chance than this, I made my move.

Doubling back, I crashed through the sodden branches of a fallen tree and lunged out into a clearing, little knowing that, instead of my would-be assailant, I would come face to face with the most horrific, the most grotesque sight any human being has ever encountered, and to this day it still fills my heart with terror:

A launch party for an Urban Outfitters made entirely out of aborted fetus tissue purchased from Planned Parenthood with music by Donald Trump covering R.E.M. songs, synergized by Slingshot, featuring meat-filled appetizers provided by Daily Co-Op, who stopped serving gay people (claiming religious freedom), with additional catering provided by the grocery store that's gonna be on Prince Avenue, which is now an eight-lane highway, with the Keystone pipeline running down the middle of it that was constructed by illegal, in-town chickens that buy craft beer directly from breweries, and is surrounded by empty high-rise student condos and abandoned, illegal food trucks, as a 2-year-old with a legal, concealed bazooka shoots at abusive, racist police officers while watching Hugh Acheson shop exclusively online, while the Pope makes out with Kim Davis as he watches a video of Jody Hice and Paul Broun taking turns kicking a baby (that turned out to be the love child of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton) as angry drunk ladies take poops on bar patios and pervy dudes screw with toilets, so they can watch ladies pee, all the while being catalogued by anonymous, satirical instagram accounts. Ages 25 and up.

I barely escaped with my life.

Sometimes, at night, I can still hear the nonstop Facebook fights.

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