Last week, we were privileged to be part of the UEA FLY Festival (Festival of Literature for Young people). Ink Sweat and Tears supported the final event, a superbly enthusiastic POETRY SLAM (with thanks to Luke Wright, Molly Naylor, Tim Clare, Mark Gristo and MC Mixy for making it such an energetic and inspiring occasion and kudos to the kids from Pakefield, City Academy Norwich and City of Norwich School for taking up the challenge so well.) In addition, Kate co-judged the Short Story Competition with the brilliant Alexander Gordon Smith ( The Fury, the Furnace and Inventors series), a favourite festival author, who also wrote the story’s opening. It is featured below with the winning endings from the 11-14 age group to follow. Prepare to be intrigued.
*****
Who knew that something so simple as falling asleep on the bus could lead to something so horrific…
“Hello?” I shout, making my way down the coach. The seats are empty, except for the coats and bags strewn everywhere. It’s like every single person in my class has just vanished into thin air. The teacher too, although that’s not exactly a terrible loss. Sunlight streams through the filthy windows, making it hard to see anything outside. I could swear I was only asleep for a minute!
I walk to the open doors and squint into the shimmering heat. We’re supposed to be at the University of East Anglia, some festival or other where there are loads of authors. It doesn’t look much like a university out there, though. There are no people, for one, just a long, empty street lined with trees. The only living thing in sight is a rabbit, which eyes me suspiciously as I clamber out of the coach.
Where is everyone?
“Hello?” I say again, my voice trembling. My pounding heart is the loudest thing in the world. “Is anybody there?”
There’s a building straight ahead and the door stands open. I glance left and right at the deserted campus. Then, swallowing my growing terror, I walk inside…
*****
FIRST PLACE: JAKE BOUD (14) COLCHESTER ROYAL GRAMMAR SCHOOL
…The receptionist surveys me through wiry spectacles, eyes narrowed and looking incredibly suspicious.
“Yes?” Her voice is as hostile as her expression, ice-cold and disturbing.
“Well… Yes… Um…” I stutter, words tumbling out of my mouth. I notice that my throat suddenly feels dry as the Sahara. I stop speaking, and nervously peer up at her hawk-like face as she glares at me.
It’s not just the nasty looking receptionist which is foreboding about this strange place. The desk she sits behind is in ruins, legs poking out at awkward angles, with a thick layer of dust coating it and her computer, looking about fifty years old. The ceiling is covered by a network of spider webs, and there are huge menacing-looking cracks criss-crossing its surface.
The woman tilts her head slightly, as though figuring out what to do with me. From the way she’s looking at me, I guess she’s wondering whether I’d taste nice with sauce.
After what seems like a lifetime, her expression clears as she makes up her mind. I tense, anticipating the worst, but she leans back and jabs a long crooked finger at a door on my left. “Through there,” she says dismissively, and turns back to the rusting computer monitor.
I drag my eyes towards the door she had indicated, and immediately notice that it’s cleaner and better-kept than the rest of my surroundings. I tentatively start towards it.
I reach the door and try to peer through the darkened glass but I can see only blackness. I calm myself, nervously push open the door and step inside…
And am greeted by the face of the receptionist, glaring down at me behind those awful spectacles. I jump back in shock, a terrified yelp escaping from my mouth. I spin around, and where the door I had just come through was I see only a cracked, brownish wall.
Terrified, I turn back to the woman. She’s looking at me with a half-amused expression, and pointing to the door on the left again. It seems to be my only hope of escaping this awful place, so I sprint towards it, yank the door open…
And skid to a halt in front of the reception desk.
The receptionist is laughing. And as she laughs, the walls shift, melting and reforming around me as if they too are laughing at me. But as they morph, I notice a little square of light, a little window into the outside world, open up behind her.
Without a second thought, I charge for the light, knocking aside the startled, squawking receptionist and diving through the gap into the world.
Bright sunshine beats down into my eyes as I lie there and I gasp in the fresh air gratefully. And then a dark shape blocks out that wonderful sunlight, and I see my teacher looking down at me in amazement, my classmates gathered behind him and also staring at me in wonder. “Tom?” my teacher asks. “What are you doing down there?”
*****
SECOND PLACE: BETHANY GUNTHER (12) STAMFORD HIGH SCHOOL
…Clothes covered the floor. It was like stepping onto a multi-coloured rug of cotton, velvet and wool. Every piece of clothing I could ever imagine covered the floor; tops, skirts, trousers, jewellery, pants and socks. It was like someone had come and tipped a collection of filled wardrobes on the floor; literally. “Is anyone there?” I called out again nervously. Suddenly a large door creaked open to my right, I turned my head slowly towards it and gulped. Steadily I picked my way through the scattered clothes approaching the door. I quietly lifted up my arm to the door knob and pushed it open, revealing a winding staircase that disappeared into the roof of the building like shapes breathed onto a mirror melting away.
Walking up the sunless, darkened staircase I pondered with myself what had happened. Why had everyone on the bus disappeared? Why was there Clothes all over the floor and where was this staircase taking me? All of a sudden my legs felt heavy… Every step was getting harder and harder to put one foot in front of the other. Finally I reached the top but I couldn’t feel my legs, I looked down “What the hell?” I put my hand under my body, just to check I wasn’t seeing things. My legs had vanished! This day was getting weirder and weirder. The unnatural thing was that I could still walk. “That’s strange,” I thought to myself as I shuffled along the corridor, wondering how I could move. I reached out to open a door but found that I couldn’t feel or see my arm! “What’s happening to me?” I asked out loud. Cautiously, I opened the door peeping into the room before I went in: The coast was clear. As soon as I stepped into the dark room a vivid light lit up the room, almost blinding me. I blinked a few times and then my eyes adjusted to the light. On the wall in front of me were a million people screaming. They were on little TVs that covered the walls. “Help me!” One of them desperately shouted. “Let me out!” Another one called.
“I don’t know where I am…” sobbed a girl sounding hopeless. I went closer to the screen and recognised it as my Best friend Kaitlyn. “Kaitlyn? What happened?” I asked franticly
“Is anyone there?” She called out. She couldn’t hear me; none of them could. They were all screaming in unison now “LET ME OUT! HELP ME! I DON’T KNOW WHERE I AM!” I couldn’t take it anymore. The voices were getting inside my head, messing with my mind. I went to put my hand to my head but I couldn’t find it. I was disappearing from the outside in, rubbed out like pencil on paper…gone for good. All was left of me in the end was a pile of clothes on the floor and a girl screaming, trapped in a TV; forever.
*****
THIRD PLACE (WITH AN HONOURABLE MENTION FROM AGS FOR BEING THE GORIEST!): SARA HASAN (14) WYMONDHAM HIGH SCHOOL
The smell hit me first. The excruciating odour wafted into my nostrils deteriorating my senses for a brief moment. Once I had gained full awareness again I yet again experienced the worst stench I had ever come across in my life – like infant faeces and pungent like rotten food and a musty reek of blood.
I stepped into the room and felt its icy gesture as the air adjusted around me. Sprawled on the ground and surrounded by a pool of crimson, laid a heap of dead bodies. Quickly, I threw my hand over my mouth before I could let out a piercing scream. My heart beat vigorously crashing against my ribs as I edged slowly closer to the pile of corpses. The body right at the top looked particularly gruesome, with her neck at an odd angle and long slits had been cut from the tips of her mouth all the way up to her hair. Short frizzy back hair. I recognised it. As I peered closer into the face, I finally saw it. It was my best friend, Rachel! I rushed to her, shaking her vigorously seeing if she could possibly be alive but she remained still. I fell to the floor crying and screaming in panic, horror and confusion. Blood was staining my own fresh clothes, but I didn’t care at all. Rachel was showered in the warm blood she was bathing in now. My muscles turned to ice as I tried to put the pieces together but I can’t think of a reason why anyone would do this. The hole in her chest tore wider than ever before. Like lemon juice or salt was being poured into a fresh wound only time could heal.
BASH! Suddenly the door behind me smashed shut. I looked around terrified. It was my turn. I shuffled into the shadows making as little sound as I could, although I swear the whole world can hear my heart beat. The room is dark and bleak. Too bleak to see where I was crouching. Too bleak to understand what was happening but I could just about make out distorted silhouette of an abnormally large and well built man, carrying a sharp jagged knife. He paced around the bodies each step making a loud thud. My teeth clattered as my hands shake with fear, and I look around for a way out of this hell. Finally I notice a door on the opposite side of the room but first I’d have to get the man’s attention with something. I shuffle through my pockets for a small but heavy object to gain me some time to escape. Eventually I decide to yank off one of my badges from my school blazer. After taking several deep breaths and waiting for the perfect moment, I hurled my badge on the wall opposite the large wooden door. Everything happened very quickly then. The enormous man ran towards the sound and started striking thin air with his deadly blade whilst I leaped over the bodies and yanked the door open so hard, it could have come off its hinges. I ran. I had escaped! For now…