11yr-old Guest Blogger & the Scary Story WINNERS!

I'm Katelynn Larsen, yeah Sheri's daughter. I'm an almost 12 year old dancer/soccer player. I helped my mother come up with the scary story contest, and I had a blast reading your entries. There was so many good ones. I'm here to award the winners today. But first, let's go over the PRIZES, again.

• a SIGNED copy of WE HEAR THE DEAD by author Dianne Salerni
• a 'PIMP MY SCENE' critique by Stephen M. Giles, author of THE ADVENTURES (and further...
• SWAG from New York Times Bestselling Author Kiersten White, author of Paranormalcy
• FIRST FIVE PAGE critique by Terry Lynn Johnson, author of DOGSLED DREAMS
• FIRST CHAPTER critique by Susan Kaye Quinn, author of LIFE, LIBERTY, and PURSUIT
• a QUERY critique by the author of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, Beth Revis
• a FIRST FIVE PAGE critique by Helen Ellis, author of THE TURNING: What Curiosity Kills

The winners get to choose, first come first serve. Okay, so here are the winners!!

Grand Prize winner: Lenny Lee
2nd place: Mary Jo Campbell
3rd place: Nicole Zoltack
4th through 7th (in random order): T.Romel Blossom, Pat Tillett, Candace Ganger, PK Hrezo

Make sure you email Writers' Ally with your prize choice ASAP!!

I want to congratulate Lenny for participating and getting first place. Each entry was anonymous to me. I didn't know wrote which story until after I'd chosen the winners. I was surprised when my mom said an 11 year old wrote it. My mom has talk about you before, Lenny, but I was surprised. The first thing that popped up in my head was wow this kid has some skills.

Here's Lenny's winning entry in it's entirety:

Sheri laughed, rolled her big, brown eyes and said, “I’ll do it. I’ll sleep in the death bed!”

     She had just volunteered to spend the night at the old Huddlesworth mansion on the hill at the end of Oak Street and sleep in the bed where Elenora Huddlesworth and many of her family had died.

     Her friends laughed as they continued to enjoy happy hour at the local pub.

     Lenny said, “Yeah, sure. You’ll be running for your life before you even close your eyes.”

     Everyone laughed.

     It was said the mansion was haunted by generations of Huddlesworth ghosts. Recently, it was reported that Elenora, the last of the clan to die, had been seen standing in the moonlit window of her bedroom.  Rumor had it that anyone outside the family daring to sleep in the bed in the master suite would disappear or be changed forever.

     Sheri boasted she wasn’t afraid of anything.  She was a writer of paranormal fiction and through research decided haunted houses were nothing more than tall tales.  She was certain nothing would happen.

     At eleven o’clock on Halloween eve, Sheri stood in front of the old mansion. She secured her backpack, slipped through an opening in the rusty iron gates, turned on her flashlight and carefully walked along the crumbled walkway that led to front door. She fumbled with the key which she had obtained from her friend who was the town librarian and, as such, was keeper of the key to the mansion and other long abandoned homes.

     The door creaked open slowly.  Instantly, her nose was filled with a musty, stale odor. She shuddered and felt a momentary twinge of uneasiness. She scoffed at her reaction, turned, closed and locked the door.  She flashed the light around the room, eventually locating the stairway that led to the bedrooms.

     Sheri climbed the creaking stairs carefully, holding on to the railing with one hand and brushing away the cobwebs and scurrying spiders with the flashlight. Once at the top, she easily found the master bedroom and went in.

    She pulled a blanket from her backpack and spread it over the old, musty mattress.  She was wearing sweats and tennis shoes and planned to sleep in them.  She took the battery operated lantern from her pack, turned it on and put it on the dusty table next to the bed.  She climbed into the bed and stretched out on the blanket.
  
     Thinking about her next book,  Sheri drifted off. She was jolted back to reality when something icy grabbed her hand. She pulled her hand away, jumped up and looked around the room.  Nothing!  Her hand was cold and she shook it to get the circulation back.   She was sure it was her imagination, laughed and stretched out on the bed again.

     As she began to fall asleep, she heard footsteps coming towards the head of the bed.  She froze!  Her big, brown eyes widened and darted around the room, but she didn’t see anything.  Suddenly, loud breathing and a rush of hot breath filled her ear.  The smell of decay filled the room.

     Sheri was terrified!  She gathered her senses, sat up and started to jump out of the bed.  A pair of ice cold hands grasped her and threw her down.  The ghostly entity jumped on her and, instantly, she knew it was trying to take over her body.

     Sheri fought for her life!  She grabbed the invisible arms and tried to push them away. She screamed, cursed and used every ounce of her strength to push the invader out.  She and the entity fought for control of her body until she was exhausted and felt she couldn’t fight any more.  Suddenly, the assault stopped. Her body lay limp and worn out on the bed.  She fell into a deep, undisturbed sleep until morning.

     Within one month, Sheri wrote a best seller called Body X-change.  She stopped hanging out with her friends and became somewhat of a recluse. She frequented strange haunts and had weird, new acquaintances.

     Just before her first big book signing, Sheri stood in front of the mirror and smiled.  She thought, my big, green eyes always were my best feature.

WAY to Go, Lenny!! 

2nd and 3rd place will be posted next week. Thanks to all you entered!! It was great fun!


And please take a peek over on Oasis for YA, today. The ladies announced a DRIVE & Giveaway for the month of November!! You can click on the badge above!!