Halloween Ghost Story Contest -- 2000
Middle School Winners

Third Place

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Our third place winner in the Middle School category is Michael Palermo, who attends the Belmonte Middle School in Saugus.

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Halloween2K

by
Michael Palermo

"Hand me that face paint will you." It's Halloween night and Jimmy, Bobby, and Sammy are all getting their costumes on. Jimmy is dressing up as a space ranger, Bobby is trying to create Sammy into an alien, and Bobby himself turned into a robot.

All three boys finish just before seven o'clock and are ready to head out with their pillow cases in their hands.

They head out down the street.

The boys made a bet before they left on who gets the most candy.

They split up. Jimmy takes North St., Bobby takes East St., and Sammy takes West St.. They decide to meet up at Old Mrs. Gretchin's house.

At nine-thirty the three boys finally end up together at Old Mrs. Gretchin's house.

Sammy, a big time no good jerk says, "I dare both of you to sneak inside Gretchin's house. I have always been curious what it looks like inside. I will wait out here for you." He laughs hysterically but Bobby and Jimmy are not amused. "I will give you guys half of my candy each if you guys stay in there until midnight." Again Sammy laughs but this time very seriously.

Jimmy and Bobby do the only thing they can do, which is accept the dare from Sammy. They crept through the tall creaky gate, up the cracked cement walkway and up to a window. They silently peer up looking through a crack in the dark curtains.

Through the crack both boys could see something so horrendous, so terrifying, so menacing, so scary, they just started laughing. They were laughing so hard they almost fell to the ground.

What they saw through the crack in the curtain was a party. Yes, that's right Old Mrs. Gretchin was holding a Halloween party. There were clowns, vampires, witches, genies, and even some creepy aliens.

"Don't those two people in the alien suits look suspicious to you?" asked Jimmy.

"Yeah, the sort of do, don't they?" replied Bobby.

Studying those people closely, Jimmy is quite sure the tall and skinny one is a male and the short and stubby one is a female.

The so-called male looks at the old, dusty grandfather clock in the corner of the room. It reads quarter to ten.

"If we are planning on going in we may as well ring the door bell and try to get inside" explains Jimmy.

"All right."

The boys walk over to the big oak door and ring the bell twice. The door opens and a person wearing a fairy costume answers the door. "May I help you?" says the fairy in a very low and deep voice.

"Um, yes we would like to know if you have enough room for a space ranger and a robot?"

"Why yes, we have plenty of room for more."

The boys walk in and try to greet everyone but they would either grunt or turn their heads to them.

"This party is very friendly" says Jimmy sarcastically "I'm going to go get some punch. Want a cup?"

"Sure"

Jimmy walks over to the refreshment stand and pours two glasses of punch, he also grabs a few cookies too. When he was walking back he overheard a conversation between the aliens. "We leave tonight with or without him" one of the aliens tells the other.

"But we can't just leave him here miles away from home" says the other alien.

Jimmy glances over at the clock, it says eleven-thirty. "I wonder who there talking about" Jimmy says to himself. He finally reaches Bobby and tells him what he heard.

Bobby asked the same question to Jimmy, "Who were they talking about?"

"That's what I was thinking" replies Jimmy.

Bobby glanced again over to the grandfather clock. It says two minutes to twelve. "It is almost time to go."

Meanwhile, outside Sammy is waiting. "I never thought they would survive longer than two minutes" Sammy said to himself. "Man, it must be just about now that those crazed lunatics are going to come out" says Sammy with a little bit of panic in his voice.

Back inside Jimmy and Bobby are ready to leave when they see the aliens looking through the window as if to see something. Then Bobby sees something startling, he sees one of the aliens with a sort of grin or even a small smile.

The aliens found their way to a backdoor.

"Where are they going?" asked Jimmy.

"That's what I want to know" replied Bobby.

The boys follow the aliens but they can't get through the crowd, so instead they go out the front door hoping to catch where there going.

Then all of a sudden a blinding flash of light came from behind Mrs. Gretchin's house and could probably be seen for miles.

When the two boys regained their site, they saw something horrible. The two aliens they saw were real life aliens. Believe it or not, Sammy had been abducted by the aliens.

Bobby and Jimmy tried to save him but it was too late, Sammy was gone.

They heard an alien say "Welcome back Calvin, what did you find out?"

Sammy stupid as he is says "Um, nothing."

Back on Earth Jimmy and Bobby find Sammy's bag of candy on the ground by their feet. They pick it up and split it equally. "Guess we've won the bet!" says Jimmy and they both laugh very hard.

"Hey have you seen a space ship around here? I think I've missed it. It was my only way home" says a voice from behind the boys.

The boys in unison say "Is your name Calvin?" without looking at the person or thing behind them. "Why yes, that's my name. How did you know?"

Continue to the 2^nd place story

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