Not really Twi, but need feedback, for Uni...thnx

Ok, so we needed to use a story for english, here is mine, it had to include our selves, any other character names were up to us, let me know what you think....I have almost 4 chapters done, please let me know....I sure hope the characters work...

Prologue

On Sorry Night, just a few days before Christmas, you have to snuff the lamps, douse the flames in the fireplace, and spend the night in the cold and dark. If you don’t, the Stealers will get you.
They’re the monsters you can’t see, the ones that crave the heat and light. The ones that feed on your fear and then swallow you whole. I should know. When I was a child I saw it happen, and I’ve lived with that fear ever since.
That night Dani and I came in the back door just after sunset, chased by a cold December wind. Dad stood at the window with his back to us, clenching his mug and gazing out into the snowy night. I knew we were in trouble when I saw the whiskey bottle on the kitchen table.
“You remember to bring the cows in?”
Dad was a giant in thick boots and blue faded overalls. I shivered as he turned to face us. His eyes were empty and cold like the winter fields outside, and just as dead. He got like that when he drank. I think that after mum died, some part of him did too.
I saw the colour run right out of Dani’s face. “Oh, I – I for-got d-d-dad”. He smiled at me, but I knew he was afraid. It was my fault, I had begged for a piggyback ride before the sun went down, and before the chores were done. That was why he had forgotten to put the cows in the barn.
“You got straw for brains or something kid?”
“No, dad.”
“I think maybe you do. I think we best find a job a boy with straw for brains can actually do.”
Dad slammed his mug down so hard the whiskey splashed all over the table and the floor. He dragged Dani out of the door by his arm, grabbing a rope and torch off the hook outside as they headed for the cornfield. I followed running and slipping on the icy mud in the dark.
Dad strode up to the old scarecrow that loomed on its cross over the field, with one swift yank he had pulled it off its nails. Then proceeded to tear off the head and throw the body on the ground. Dad looked like some kind of evil fairy book monster, holding up the burlap head in his giant fists. He threw it at Dani’s feet.
“See there? Straw for brains, just like you. Now get up on that post, boy – you’re going to do yourself some scarecorwing.”
Dani’s breath came in sharp bursts of steam.
“But – but dad, there aint no corn. It’s the middle of winter.”
“No corn, no crows. So it’ll be an easy job then, wont it?”
Dad thrust Dani up against the post. Then he snatched one of my brother’s wrists and lashed it to the cross beam with the rope. Tears streaked down Dani’s face as dad tied him down to the other one.
I cried for my brother. Even though he was ten years old, four years older then me, he was still scared of the dark. He said he could feel monsters in the night, waiting in the shadows to come and get him. He called them the Stealers, evil things that come for children on the longest, darkest night of the year.
Dad turned on the torch and put it down beside the post.
“Dad please.” My brother’s voice was breaking and his body shaking, “not tonight, dad, any night, but tonight, I am begging you.”
“How long does he have to stay out here?” I asked.
Dad didn’t answer; instead he grabbed my hand and started walking toward the house. I looked over my shoulder at my brother. His coat had fallen open by his throat, and his cross he always wore gleamed in the torch light. I silently prayed for the lord to protect my older brother’s soul from the Stealers.
Dad sent me straight to bed, but I wouldn’t sleep, and after a while I snuck back into the kitchen. Dad had passed out, facedown at the table, the empty whiskey bottle turned on its side. I put my coat on over my nightie, pulled on my rain boots and ran to the corn field.
The torch cast a flickering circle of light at Dani’s feet. It reflected on his silver cross. I dashed up to him and threw my arms around his neck, my tears wetting his frozen skin. His teeth chattered behind his blue lips, and ice frosted on his eyelashes.
“It’s coming” He whispered.
“Don’t worry Dani, I’m here” I said, struggling to untie the knots around his wrists. But the rope was so tight, and my fingers were so numb.
“Can you see it? The shadow – moving! Coming for me!” He shuddered.
I looked around but all I could see was the light from the torch, the dark shape of the barn, the light from the house and endless fields of white snow. The wind moaned.
“ It is just me Dani, I will get you down” I pleaded with him, but he kept on screaming and breathing extremely heavy and rapidly, tears streaming down his face.
“GET IT AWAY!”
Suddenly the torch flared up, white hot, and the glass on the bulb shattered into a million tiny pieces. I cried out and moved before the glass could touch me, covering my face and head with my arms. A spark caught the headless scarecrow on the ground and it caught fire, crackling rapidly as it burned away.
Behind Dani a billowing pillar of smoke arose like a giant black snake, coiling around my brother on the cross.
God forgive me, I ran. I ran as fast as I could, the cold burning in my lungs, Dani’s screams burning in my ears. I didn’t save him. I didn’t bring him back.
This isn’t how the horror ended for us – this is how it began.
As I ran, the screaming suddenly stopped, replaced by something much worse. It was Dani’s voice, but different, lower, resonating across the field like a demon chant:


When dark creeps in and eats the light
Bury your fears on Sorry Night.
For in the winters blackest feelers
Comes the feasting of the Stealers.
No-one can see it, the life they stole
Your body is here, but not your soul.


Chapter one

“Stop it Tennille” Gerard barked from beneath his quilt. “Don’t read it anymore!”
Tennille Way shut the book.
Since mum had left them without so much as a goodbye kiss almost a year ago, taking only a packed duffle bag and old photo album, Tennille had been forced to assume a number of extra duties around the house. With school, friends, and a job to worry about, a large portion of those duties – laundry, vacuuming, and dishes – went undone for an extended period of time, until dad cracked the whip. Bedtime story duty however, was never overlooked. But she had quickly grown tired of the kiddie stories and had decided to introduce to Gerard to some juicier stuff, and to Tennille, juicy meant scary.
“You said you weren’t going to get scared”
The lump beside her shuddered.
“Did the Stealers really get Dani?” he whispered.
“Of course not, it is just a story, Gerard.”
“But tomorrow night is Sorry Night, Tennille.”
Tennille pulled the covers down to reveal a wide eyed eight year old boy with jet black hair clutching a stuffed koala.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to handle it.” She tried to stand up but he clutched at her arm, “Just go to sleep Gee.”
“Wait!” Gerard scrunched his skinny body against her, “please don’t leave.”
He reminded Tennille of a newborn in an Animal Planet documentary, burrowing into its mothers warmth. The two of them had been close, even with the seven year age gap, but things were different now. Now he had reached for her hand more often, leaned against her on the couch while watching TV, and wandered into her bedroom at night with nothing more to say then “Hi.” He wasn’t growing up: he was reverting to a small child all over again, his clinginess was suffocating her.
Gerard reached out a hand and traced his fingers across the books cracked, brown leather cover. It was an old journal Tennille had found in one of the shipping boxes she had unpacked at her part time job at the old used bookstore. The Stealers had been splayed across the first page in slanting, spider like handwriting, like a title page to a novel. Intrigued, she had slid it into her school bag. When she was done reading it she would put it back in with the next shipment, not harm done.
Tennille discovered the book contained bizarre, handwritten narratives of monsters called “The Stealers” that would take over other people’s bodies and minds when they were most frightened. But according to the author they could only do this on one night of the year, the winter solstice, Sorry Night. Tennille often wondered if this was the first draft of the novel, but her online search suggested that there was no book called The Stealers ever been published.
The journal was dense: shaky handwriting and rambling narratives made some sections painfully hard to read. Creepy sketches and symbols adorned its yellow pages at odd intervals, but Tennille could find no method to the author’s madness. Part ghost story, part cabbalistic research, and part frenzied ravings, the book both captivated and disturbed her.
“I don’t like being scared Tennille, I thought maybe – “
Tennille stroked her brother’s warm cheek and offered him a tired smile. “Then no more scary stories ok?”
Gerard nodded. In his cage across the room, Master Squeak, Gerard’s pet Guinea Pig, ran around and around in his plastic wheel.
“Why do you like being scared Tennille?” Gerard asked through a wide yawn.
“No more questions. If you are still awake when dad gets home we will both have something to be scared about” I laughed.
“Please, just answer this one?”
Tennille considered the question for a minute.
“Well I guess the short answer is its good practice.”
“Huh, practice for what? Gerard asked, wide eyed and a little scared.
“For when you’re really scared.”
“Being scared is practice for being scared?” Gerard asked, his eyes fluttering to a close. He was starting to drift off. “I don’t get it.”
“Think of it this way” Tennille said. “If you don’t learn how to be scared. You’ll never really learn how to be brave.” She swung her feet off the bed and Gerard grabbed her arm again.
“Stay till I fall asleep please. Don’t leave me alone.”
Tennille sighed and sat back on the bed.
Master Squeak finished his marathon wheel run and Gerard finally fell asleep. She kissed his forehead and whispered “your not alone Gerard, I am always here.”




More on next post....lol...

Chapter 2

Sometime during the night, four inches of fresh snow fell on the small town of Cutter’s Edge. Walking to school, Gerard couldn’t get enough of it – running through it, jumping in it, kicking at it. He pestered dad for rides out to the slopes to snowboard every weekend, and would keep it up until spring. Tennille and her best friend, Jacob Black , watched him race around like a puppy off a leash.
Jacob wore a long black bondage coat undone at the front, but that was the least of his eccentricities. His love of B-grade horror films, his encyclopaedic knowledge of serial killers, and his preoccupation with government conspiracies all pushed him past geeky and into the truly strange.
“Gerard” Tennille hollered, “You get soaked and you will be freezing all day in class!”
Jacob rolled his eyes.
“Could you possibly be a bigger bummer?”
Tennille frowned at her best friend.
“Oh, did I say that out loud?” Jacob summoned his best shockmeister impression; Tennille smacked him across the back of his head.
“Coming soon! The new novel from horror master Stephen King: Tennille! The bloodcurdling tale of a small town girl who wakes up one morning to discover…she has become her brother’s mother!”
A snowball splattered against Jacob’s head, sending his top hat flying across the grass.
“Bulls-eye! You’re dead, punk!” Gerard crowed, standing twenty feet away, moulding another snowball.
Jacob picked up his hat and dusted the snow off.
“Au contraire! You messed with my hat, so now you are dead!”
He handed his hat to Tennille and took off for Gerard, who had turned tail and ran. “Graceful” was never a word Tennille would use to describe jacob. His long legs always looked like they were trying to catch up with each other, and his arms did more flapping than pumping. Jacob’s brain was a finely tuned machine, and its only real issue was co-ordinating with its body. Still he had no trouble catching eight year old Gerard. He swept him up from the snow from behind and both tumbled to the ground, wrestling and laughing. Tennille came and stood over them.
“Don’t hurt him” She said.
“I wont” Jacob replied.
“I was actually talking to Gerard” Tennille laughed.
Gerard let loose with a flurry of kung-fu chops and lord of the rings style battle cries, and Jacob covered his head in mock fright.
“I give! I give!”
“Don’t mess with the best” Gerard hopped to his feet, triumphant at his win.
He ran toward the red bricked Primary School and joined the stream of kids pouring in like sheep. As Jacob got to his feet, Tennille brushed the snow off him and handed his top hat back. He put it on and the two of them headed across the street to Cutters High.
The quad was crammed with sleepy teenagers in their usual state of semi-android techno – consciousness, leaning on walls and squatting on stairs. They were isolated by headphones, entranced by mobile phones, tapping away on MSN on laptops and mutely communicating with each other with the smallest of nods and the occasional grunt. The four story stone relic of a school stood over the scene, looking rather intimidating. Tennille always expected to see Dracula peering down on them from the top most tower of the school, with a raven on his shoulder.
Tennille and Jacob were neither popular nor un-popular. They were part of the group that Jacob called the heynodders – those whose social standing meant that if they made random eye contact with someone in the hall, they would more then likely get a nod back, and maybe even a quick “Hey!” They both had a fair share of friends who they would hang with at lunch time and during classes – but exchanges were usually teenage business as usual: music, TV, movies and who bought what and news flashes about hook-ups and heart-breaks.
As Tennille and Jacob climbed the steps to head into the school, the Potter twins stepped from the crowed and blocked the doors. The two wore hooded jumpers under black field jackets, filthy jeans, steel – toed boots and football caps. They looked like thugs, with shaved heads and broad chests. James rarely spoke, Mitch never did, and neither seemed interested in anything other then destruction and abuse.
The Potter boys had been sent over from Boston to live with their mother after getting into some trouble with the law back home – both had to report to a probation officer once a month and weren’t suppose to be out after ten o clock – but no-body knew exactly what they had done. What they did know was since the twin’s arrival to Cutter High, four students cars had been broken into, P.E equipment stolen, and the Science lab’s collection of sheep hearts for biology had appeared in the canteen lunch tray.
The Potters aggression and size, while daunting to most of the student body and the staff was a gift from the Heavens for the Rugby coach, who immediately recruited them to play right and left tackle. This position seemed to give them permission to pick on anyone they wanted to, and so they did. Jacob was a favourite target, ever since he made a comment on how the twins were as a dumb as a vampire eating spaghetti bolognaise or a werewolf getting a sterling silver belly ring. Although they didn’t quite understand the offence in what Jacob said, they assumed it was an insult as other students seemed to find it offensive.
James grabbed the hat off Jacob's head, “you think this makes you look tough, Black? Huh? Like a gangster?”
Jacob just looked at the ground and shook his head.
“Taking someone’s hat, is that that it? Really? Well that’s real tough” Tennille glared at them and stepped forward. “You would think with such a fat head that you would have brains in there somewhere” the twins intimidated the hell out of her, but she would never let them know that.
James held the hat out for Tennille, and she went to grab it, but James snatched it back, removed his cap and forced it onto his bald head.
“How’s it look?” he asked, turning to his brother.
Mitch just stared down at Tennille.
“Yeah, a little small for my head” James said, pulling a pocket knife from his back pocket and flicked it open, he cut slits on both sides of the hat and put it back on his head.
“Perfect” he said as the first period bell rang out.
The quads sea of bodies flowed toward the schools entrance. James put the knife back into his pocket and turned with Mitch and headed into the school.
“Thanks for trying” Jacob said as he and Tennille shuffled off to class. “God I need to grow a pair.”
“They are just arseholes Jacob; don’t let them get you down.”
As they made there way through the crowds a voice rang out from behind them.
“JAMES!”
Tennille looked over her shoulder to see Taylor Lautner, a junior, as much renowned for his athletic prowess as his perfect eyes, teeth and dimples, making his way toward them with a confident strut and easy smile. Tall and lean, with short, spikey hair, he was the best fullback in Cutter High history, an upper-class god in a Rugby jersey.
“Hat!” he called down the corridor.
James started at him for a moment before the hat came sailing over the crowd. Taylor caught it with one hand and gave it back to Jacob, frowning at the cuts down the sides.
“Sorry about that man, I would kill them myself if they didn’t keep me so damn snug in the pocket.”
“Footy speak Tennille” Jacob said “A pocket it…”
Tennille punched Jacob in the arm. “I know what a pocket is dude.”
Taylor grinned at her.
Jacob looked at Tennille, who seemed to be under some sort of Taylor trance, staring at him with her mouth slightly open on an angle. He leaned toward her as he dug through his backpack.
“This is strictly business, so try not to drool” he whispered.
Like I would even have a chance with him…she thought. Taylor was an A-List guy, and he went out with A-List girls. It wasn’t that she thought of herself as some sort of cow or ugly freak, but she just wasn’t much of the normal type that those guys go for.
She worse corsets, fishnet stockings, various skirts, heelless boots, arm stockings and dark eye and lip make up. Tennille often considered her best feature to be her long black hair, the colour of the blackest night – but because she spent mornings getting Gerard ready she never really had time to do anything stylish to her hair, she usually just wore it out and hanging slightly over her face, sometimes it was pulled into pigtails. Jacob considered her entire look, just like his, to be ‘vampish’, which is a compliment coming from him, although she doubted it was Taylor's type.
Jacob had dug a manila folder from his bag. He glanced around as Taylor took out a fifty dollar bill and exchanged it for the folder.
“Hamlets Dilemma, good for a B Plus”
“Sweet dude, thanks.”
Jacob had started this business about two years ago, at first it had been tricky, finding the right voice and writing style to have it look like someone like Taylor could have written it, but now it was a breeze and he enjoyed doing it as an easy way for fast cash. Tennille considered it immoral, illegal and totally wrong, Jacob agreed, and says it is practice for the real world.
Jacob pocketed his fee and started to leave.
Taylor looked up, “hold on a sec, tell me what – “
“Oh sorry, three more deliveries, anymore questions ask my protégé” Jaocb said, winking at Tennille.
Jacob disappeared into the crowd, leaving the two of them standing together. As people passed by, it seemed as if every other student said “Hey Tay” or “Sup Lautner” Tennille wondered what it was like to have to say hello to that many people everyday.
Taylor studied Tennille for a moment before saying, “Tennille Way right?”
Tennille was stunned that he knew her name at all.
“Uh Huh, that’s me” She said, struggling to breath being in Taylor's presence alone.
" You’re in my roll call and math class right?" Taylor said, flashing his perfect simile at her, and winking with his left eye.
Tennille nodded, completely taken aback that his line of vision reached her in roll call and math to the back where she sat alone, Taylor was always at the front with a bunch of friends and hangers-on’s.
Taylor turned his attention back to the manila folder, a faint frown appearing on his face; it was strange as Tennille had never seen him without his trademark smile. Almost all the students had headed to class now and they were almost alone, it made Tennille a little braver.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
Taylor looked up.
“Sorry? Huh?” He said, looking still more confused.
This is ridiculous Tennille thought, she was not one of those girls that went all gaga when a cute guy talked to her.
“You look a little…I don’t know” Oh god he probably thought she was mentally challenged “You uh…Just look like something is wrong” she finished.
Taylor's crystal blue eyes studied her, he unwrapped a piece of gum and put it in his mouth and chewed nervously.
“It’s just that I have English right now, and I…”
“You didn’t read the play?” Tennille finished for him.
Taylor shrugged and smiled at her, but it was a different smile to the normal one he almost always had plastered on his face. It was wistful and a little crooked. Right then Tennille realised that she was witness to a historic event. Taylor Lautner was human. Imperfect. Uncertain, even. It was almost as if she was seeing an actor slip up in the big scene.
“Don’t get me wrong or anything; I am not some dumb jock. I can write the essay papers just fine. I started the play, dug the whole father is a ghost thing and then I got slammed.”
His closeness made Tennille’s pulse quicken. He smelled really good, like gummi-bears.
“Teachers love to pour it on before break, must be some code or something” Tennille said, slumping melodramatically under the weight of her satchel, her shoulder strap ripped and all her text books and binders spilled all over the ground.
“Damn it!” Her face reddened as she wished that she could crawl into her empty bag and hide there. And just when she had started talking like a sane and normal person as well.
She got onto the ground and started shoving everything back in her bag. Taylor bent down and helped, he picked up the journal before she had a chance to stop him.
“What is The Stealers?” he asked, curiosity spreading across his face.
“Oh it is just some monster story, written like a journal, I collect…” She was nerding out and couldn’t stop it “I uh, I am a horror fan, I collect stories and stuff like that. I know, I’m a total geek.”
Taylor helped Tennille to her feet, “Hello no, that is very cool. Very.” He handed the journal back to her.
“Cool, really?” She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Ok, you got me, you are a total geek” Taylor said laughing. “But then you can’t really be a geek, because they are never this cute” he said smiling.
He stopped abruptly as if he finally realised what he had said. Both Tennille and Taylor's cheek’s flushed red.
“So, um, Hamlet” Tennille said, wanting to change the topic.
“Right, yeah!” Taylor said nervously.
“In a nutshell, he knows that his uncle killed his father and waffle on and on about wether he should take revenge or not”
“So does he? Take revenge I mean?" Taylor asked.
“Yeah, but he is too late, he poison’s his uncle, but then…”
“He dies right?” Taylor interrupted.
“Everyone dies in Shakespeare” Tennille laughed.
“Sweet, thanks for the help babe” Taylor glanced around “Shit, late for class, got to go”
“Oh you’re welcome” Tennille stared up at him like a puppy dog.
Taylor walked away, but stopped and turned around. “I will save you a seat in math”
She nodded, not entirely believing what had happened.

Chapter 3



The wind, like a stranger trying to get in, rattled Tennille’s bedroom windows so they felt like they were going to break open. She lay on the top of her quilt reading an old Umbrella Academy comic. Jacob sat cross legged on the floor reading aloud from The Stealers.


They lurk in the cold and the dark.
Hungry and wicked, they wait for their chance to steal the
weak on Sorry Night.
Then the Stealers feast on a banquet of fear. Your fear.
They steal you soul but your body remains.
No-one knows the difference.


He looked up at Tennille “whoever wrote this journal was really insane.” Tennille looked down at him “yeah but you love that stuff.”
“Oh hell yeah” Jacob said “ever since you let me borrow it I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. So are we still going to give The Stealers a call tonight? Bloody – Mary style?”
“If you bought the supplies, sure” Tennille grinned. “We need to terrify ourselves, that is how they got to little Dani”
“So if I get stolen, will you come and save me?” Jaocb grinned.
“Not a chance in hell bubba” Tennille took a lighter from her pocket and lit the three black candles on her bed side table. She switched off the lamp, “You ready to face your fears?”
“God we are uber – geeks” Jacob laughed. Shadows cast in the flickering candlelight cavorted across the wall behind him. “First night of the holidays other kids party and get drunk, but not us, we –“
“What’s with the candles?”
Gerard was in the doorway, scratching at a button on his pyjamas. Tennille frowned at him.
“You are suppose to be sleeping”
“Not tired” Gerard said “So what are you guys doing anyway?” He looked around the room.
Tennille stood up and pointed to the doorway. “Go! Now!”
Beyond the window a gust of wind blew, rattling the window panes and glass. Gerard winced.
“The blizzard is keeping me awake; I should just stay in here”
“No way, go back to bed now” Tennille said
“But dad isn’t home tonight, so who cares?” Gerard said, a smirk across his face.
When dad said he was going to be gone on a business trip for the weekend, Tennille knew that it didn’t mean more freedom, but less. Most kids would see it as a chance to have a house party, but for Tennille all it meant was more time spent looking after her little brother, just another unpaid babysitting gig.
She stood up and loomed over to her brother “Go!”
Gerard hung his head.
“Fine then” he said, a hint of anger in his voice.
“Night Gerard” Jacob called as he left the room.
“Come on, I will tuck you into bed” Tennille said, heading out the door herself.
They headed down to his room; Gerard squealed when Tennille picked him up and chucked him on his bed. He wriggled under the covers.
“What are you and Jacob going to be doing tonight?" He asked.
“No of your business” she said, getting a little frustrated.
“But what if I have a nightmare” Gerard asked, urgency in his voice.
“Is this still about the Stealers Gerard, I have told you, they aren’t even real.”
“But tonight is Sorry Night” Gerard said.
Tennille sat down on his bed.
“Listen, if you get scared, you just need to close your eyes and think of something really good. A good memory, a favourite place or someone you love. You will be asleep before you know it – and it is a hundred percent nightmare proof” Tennille said, in a motherly voice.
“Okay” Gerard said.
Gerard lay back and pulled the covers up to his chin.
“Night Tennille”
“Goodnight Gerard”. Tennille kissed him on top of his head.
When Tennille walked back into her room it seemed a lot colder then before. Jacob looked ghoulish in the candlelight: His face seemed waxy and his eyes shallow. Tennille’s heart quickened when he pulled a jar from his backpack. A large dark shape crawled around inside of it.
“Is he ok?” Jacob asked.
“Gerard, yep, he is fine, just a little spooked by the story” she answered, still eyeing the jar in Jacob’s hand.
“I am too” he lifted up the jar as though toasting someone “you ready?”
“No, but this is the only night we can do it” Tennille closed her eyes, gritted her teeth and held out her hand “lets do it.” The jar lid scraped as Jacob unscrewed it.
Something prickly stepped onto her palm, it moved slowly at first, exploring, pointy legs skirting everywhere. Tennille shuddered.
“Open your eyes” said Jacob “face your fears babe.”
Tennille opened her eyes. The face of her fear was a wolf spider with a swollen body and long bristling legs. It was the size of her entire palm.
“Oh god” Tennille said. As though the spider knew she was scared it skittered up her arm in a matter of seconds.
“Time?” she demanded.
“Forty – Five seconds to go” Jacob said, glancing down at the watch on his arm “forty…”
Tennille clenched her eyes shut and she could feel the spider crawling up her arm, on her neck and into her hair. Now the crown of her head and then back down her back and arm and onto her forehead. Her stomach lurched and her skin crawled as though they were itching to get away from her body.
Its legs brushed past her brows and onto the tip of her nose. She wanted to squirm and scream but she felt constricted. All that came out was a weak rattle, like she was breathing too heavy.
“Five…four…three…two…one…Done!” shouted Jacob.
“Get it off, get it off!” Tennille shrieked, swiping the spider off of her nose. It landed on the rug and scrambled off into a corner before Jacob could reach down and grab it. Tennille jumped around the room, rubbing and scratching at her face, it still felt as though it was still on her.
“Great, now what am I going to do, that thing is loose in my room now” Tennille mumbled after she calmed down a little bit more.
“It will probably have spider babies in your underwear draw” Jacob said through a fit of giggles. “So are you a Stealer?”
“Don’t think so” Tennille said “But really, how would you know if I was a Stealer or not?” she laughed.
“This is true” Jacob said, he poked Tennille’s forehead “What did you do with my loser friend you bastard Stealer?” They both laughed.
“Still…hungry…must…eat…more…fear” Tennille grabbed Jacob’s arm and dragged him down the stairs to the back porch, their laughter drowning in the howling winds.


Squeak – Squeak – Squeak.
Master Squeak was running around in his metal wheel. Sometimes he would skitter around all night, making all sorts of little noises, but Gerard liked knowing that he had a friend in the room with him.
Especially tonight.
Outside the blizzard roared, gusts of wind and snow shaking the window panes like ghosts seeking escape from the cold. The house creaked beneath the walls.
Gerard pulled the covers up over his head. Why hadn’t he told Tennille to close his blinds? Think of something good. She told him to think of something good.
Gerard closed his eyes and tried to think of all the things he liked about winter: His snowboard, hot chocolate, Christmas presents and Tennille taking him sledding…
Tennille…why couldn’t he hear her through the vent between their bedrooms?
Another wail, louder this time, closer. Gerard poked his head out from the covers, his eyes darting across the room.
The blue glow of his penguin night light, usually so comforting, had the opposite effect tonight. Everything looked submerged, crystallised – even frozen. Even Kappy the Koala, his favourite stuffed animal seemed to have a sinister air about him. The bears deformed shadow, a long inhumane shape lunging across the floor, seemed to be cast by some other malevolent thing.
Gerard remembered the story of Dani: and how he was left alone on Sorry Night, terrified in the dark, with the glow of a single torch at his feet. The stealer had come to him like a moth to a flame.
The night light flickered.
When Dark creeps in and eats the night.
His breath came faster.
Any icy gale howled outside, and the walls creaked beside him. The night light flared suddenly and then with a loud buzzing and crack it went out. Winter night swallowed the room, Gerard shivered in the darkness.
He crawled out of bed and to the door.
“Tennille” he called.
He opened his door and crept along the hallway, feeling the walls on the way. Gerard hurried to Tennille’s door and pushed it open. The three black candles blazed in the corner, mere pinpricks of light in the empty room.
“Tennille? Jacob?” he called.
No one answered.
The window shutters banged and rattled, and a frigid draft put out the candles meagre light. He ran back to his own bedroom and threw himself onto his bed, burying himself in blankets, he was choking for breath.
Tennille – Jacob, they were gone.
Bury your fears on Sorry Night…
He wanted his mother, but she was gone too.
Think of something good, Tennille had said. Gerard squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember the day they had all went to the carnival. He thought of fairy floss dissolving on his tongue, of waving to his parents from the merry-go-round, of winning Kappy the Koala from the water-gun game, of his mother’s dark hair shining in the sunlight.
“Why did you leave us?” he whispered, tears swelling in his eyes, and slowly falling to the corner of his lips. “Come back mummy, please come back.”
Only the weeping winds answered his prayers, flooding him wit fear, chilling his thoughts, and coagulating into something black and dead – until something alive and hungry pulled him toward sleep.
The snow continued to swirl against the windows, but the mournful gusts came less frequently now. The storm was calming. The soft melodic carnival music playing in the distance…
For in the winter’s darkest feelers…
The doorknob turned, the bedroom door opened just enough to let in a slant of dull orange hall light, and a huge gust carried with it the smell of buttered popcorn, powdered sugar and cotton candy. Gerard pulled the covers tightly around him.
“Tennille?” he called.
There was no answer, all was still. Then a figure stood in the doorway. Her long dark curls, light blue eyes and gleaming eyes all seemed so real and wonderfully alive.
Comes the feasting of the Stealers…
“Mummy?”
Soundlessly she crossed the wooden floor and sat in her familiar spot on the end of Gerard’s bed. Her thin elegant arm reached for the night light on his corner table.
Gerard gazed at his mothers beautiful gaze in the lamplight. She was really here, he wiped clean his tear filled eyes and face.
“Mum, is it really you?’ Gerard asked.
“It is me sweet boy. You called to me and I have come” she smiled.
The voice was hers, the face was hers, the hair, the smile and the smell were all hers. It was her. Gerard grabbed his mother in a tight embrace and buried his face in her breasts. But the deeper he pressed into her, the more he shivered.
No one can see it, the life they stole…
“Your cold mummy” Gerard said, burying his face in her clothes trying to find the warmth of her body.
“I am sweetheart, very cold, but I will be warm again soon” she coiled her arms around Gerard’s body.
The bulb in the lamp faded again as a cold gust flew in. Frost spider-webbed across the window, jaggered ice cuts interlacing over blackness.
“Am I dreaming mum?” He asked, flailing in the cold winter night to try and find some warmth and love. “I don’t want to be dreaming, I am so scared.”
“I know, but I am here Gerard, and I will always be here” Her ivory skin rippled like water, and inky tendrils of cold black oozed from her nostrils and mouth, “Now, there is nothing to be afraid of”
Your body’s here, but not your soul…
Gerard closed his eyes and let the darkness in.


chapter 3 is long, so it is continued next page...

Tennille dragged the cover off the hot tub out the back as Jacob watched. A billowing cloud of steam came off the top of the water surface and swirled around them. The tubs water heater still worked, but the bubble jets failed a long time ago. It was one of the many things that Tennille’s dad hadn’t gotten around to fixing since their mother had left. In the darkness the water in the tub seemed black. The whole thing looked like a giant cauldron.
The snowstorm had mostly rolled over, but the cold air still remained sharp and dry: the hot tubs steam did nothing to lessen the chill. Overhead a starless sky closed in on the world.
“It’s freezing out here Jacob, are you sure you want to do this?”
“I’m not chickening out” He already felt ridiculous, wearing nothing but rubber thongs, Billabong board-shorts, and a thick bath robe of Tennille’s. Even though his shivering had little to do with the cold, he wasn’t going to back out now.
“Ok, you ready?”
Jacob nodded, he kicked off the thongs and shrugged off the robe, hoping that the night not only covered his newly toned body, but also his terrified, shaking body. If Tennille could let a huge spider crawl on her for one minute then he could stay under water for the same amount of time. He climbed into the rub feet first. Its bathwater temperature was much warmer then the air outside, but goosebumps crawled all over his skin anyway. The wet crept up his shorts and he hopped in. Tennille pulled out Jacob’s watch that was used to time her fear test earlier.
“You can do it” she said, holding the watch up “Ok, now, go”
Jacob took a long, deep breath and submerged under water.
As it surrounded him he could feel his heart pounding in his ears. The memory of his summer at Lake Bradshaw for his seventh birthday came flooding back. He had been wading in the shallow water, but slipped on an algae covered rock and ended up in the deeper water, as he splashed about trying to keep his head above water his foot got caught between two large rocks. Jacob remembered the feeling of the water filling his nostrils, mouth and ears, the feeling when you become light headed and passing out.
He opened his eyes and looked up. Where was Tennille? He couldn’t see her. The water was crushing him, seeping in through his ears, nostrils, mouth and eyes. His lungs burned and his body convulsed. The roar of submersion pounded in his head, he felt himself spinning. Soon he would involuntarily gasp for air, and find none. He knew this; he had felt this before on his seventh birthday. He knew there was no up, no down, only black water surrounding him. It felt deeper then the ocean and darker then a grave. It was stronger then him, it would come rushing in: it would flood his lungs, pressing him from the inside until he burst.
Panicked and helpless Jacob opened his mouth and a gush of water filled his mouth and throat. He gagged and convulsed in a desperate attempt to draw a breath. But already his body was drowning, bloating, and dying the horrific death that his mind had so readily prepared him for. His fear froze him and he sank to the bottom, paralysed.
Abruptly his body was pulled up and out of the water, he flailed and splashed, his eyes rolled back in his head, gasping for air, light headed and still suffocating.
“Jacob!!!”
Tennille had dragged him from the tub, and Jacob was on his knee’s vomiting a geyser of water and bile onto the floor near her feet.
“Breathe!!” Tennille screamed.
He coughed and spat, shaking in a foetal position on the floor, scared for his life. Tennille knelt down beside him and patted his back and rubbed her fingers through his long hair.
“Are you ok?” Tennille asked.
Jacob did not answer; he stood, and steadied himself, his body shaking violently with terror. Tennille wrapt the robe around him and led him back inside. She sat him down on a kitchen chair and hurried to turn on the lights in the dark kitchen, but they wouldn’t work, so she gave up and ran to the linen closet for a warm blanket, which she put around Jacob’s shivering body.
“The storm must have shot the electricity, now come on bub; tell me what happened out there?” Tennille asked, sitting on the chair opposite her best friend.
“I will live, but I am never going to be a deep-sea diver, no matter what they say on career day” He said.
Tennille dug a flashlight out of the kitchen draw while Jacob went to change into clean and dry clothes. When he came back his bag was slung over his shoulder and the colour had returned to his face.
“So, did I make it?” he asked.
Tennille avoided his eyes.
“That’s not really important now, is it Jake?”
“Come on Tennille, how long? Did I make the full minute? Fifty seconds?”
“Jacob I – “
“For crying out loud Tennille” Jacob grabbed the watch from her before she could stop him. He peered at the numbers on the display: 0:19 seconds.
“Nineteen seconds?” Jacob screamed “Well that is pathetic”
“At least you’re not a Stealer” Tennille said in an attempt to cheer him up.
“No! Just wuss-bag Jake”
“Jacob, it isn’t that big a deal, just a stupid game”
“I need to go”
Tennille didn’t want to make it worse for him, so she walked with him to the front door “call me tomorrow?”
“Sure thing babe” Jacob strode out of the front door, his head hanging low.
As soon as he was gone Tennille flicked on the torch and headed upstairs for bed. The hallway was much colder then downstairs, and as she passed Gerard’s room she felt a very cold draft beneath the door. Squeak – Squeak – Squeak went the guinea pig wheel inside. She opened the door and approached Gerard’s bed. He was sleeping peacefully.
“He has got to be freezing” Tennille grabbed a woollen blanket from the end of her brother’s bed and pulled it up and over him.
She shivered and looked around; it felt as though someone else was in the room. The torch illuminated little tor race cars on the dresser and the snowboard and football posters all over the walls. Kappy the Koala stared blankly from his perch on the toy box. On the nightstand sat a picture of the family at the Royal Easter Show the year before mum left. Tennille picked it up; it was one of the last photos taken of the four of them, now it was only her, Master Squeak and Gerard.
She put the picture back and flashed the light across the window. The glass was cracked.
“Everything is falling apart around here” she whispered.
Tennille glanced over at Gerard one more time before she headed to bed herself.


Ok so let me know, i got alot more to do, stupid english...lol...

omg!!!! that was sooooo good! but it freaked me the hell out! but sooooooooo good! you definately have to post more as you write it cause youre kinda killing me here!

btw wth is a jumper?! ive always wondered but ive never really asked.

That was really good! I loved it! The character's names made me rofl. XD. Do you think I could edit it?

A jumper is like a jacket, but without the buttons, sorta like a wollen or cotton long sleeve shirt, only thicker!!

And yeah, i will post more as i go, i have will do a couple of chapters tonight, so i will post them when i am done....Glad you liked it....

And LOL, the character names are there as a draft, because i have to have myself in there, and just did the first names that came to my head for the others....but yeah, you can edit if you want....it isnt due for another 6 weeks anyway, but this is our main assignment for english....so i wanted to get my draft started.....

I just posted the prolouge for my non-twilight fanfic too, but no one's read it yet, lol.

hahaha sweet. ive always wondered that.

yay! that for real was really good. i might sleep with my light on tonight though rofl. im soooo easily scared.

LiONLAMBxox wrote:hahaha sweet. ive always wondered that.

yay! that for real was really good. i might sleep with my light on tonight though rofl. im soooo easily scared.

LOL, me 2! That story was so scary! XD

I did a couple more chapters last night, i was up till 1am, but i want the draft done, so i have plenty of time to edit and print and have it bound at the bookstore before i hand it all in....

so here is a little more i did last night....

Chapter 4

The Way house was like many in Cutter’s Edge: An old Victorian, three stories high, with sharply pointed gables. Thick shutters fended off the pugnacious winds. The kitchen was it’s heart, the place where the family cold meet for more then two or three minutes at a time in the semi ordered chaos that was modern life.
But since the day mum had left with out a word, without even saying goodbye, it was the kitchen where her absence was most painfully felt.
Tennille set the plates in front of her father and an empty chair, then called, “Gerard! Come on!”
Thom Way stared at a construction blueprint in front of him, tapping his coffee mug with his long fingers. Tennille had always loved his fingers- strong and crooked from hammering a million nails into wood and drywall. While he was building there back deck when she was seven he’d taught her how to wield a hammer and saw.” You want something done, do it yourself!” he had said. That was his creed. Not that he felt that there was anything particularly noble about being self-sufficient. It just meant you’d have to deal with fewer people, which to his way of thinking was a good thing. The fact that over the years Thomas Way had moved from carpenter to contractor held more then a little irony. As he admitted himself, dad was “interpersonally challenged’
“Gerard, it is getting cold!”
Footsteps clunked down the stairs slowly- and the tumbled.
“Gerard” called dad, “you okay kid?”
“Yes” he answered.
Gerard walked in rubbing his elbow, “I just tripped” he said, “can someone please turn the heat on?” he asked, rubbing his hands together.
Tennille glanced up at her brother, he looked a little pasty, and he had dark circles under his eyes.
“Are you feeling alright?”
“Uh-Huh” Gerard answered, while staring at the yellow runny mess on his plate, he sat and mindlessly poked his fork at it.
“What is this stuff?”
“Eggs” Tennille answered, a little offended.
“Eggs…why are they all….wet?”
Tennille stared at him for a long second before “Well the other day you complained that they were to hard, so I- - “
“Well I didn’t mean to make them grosse” Gerard pushed his plate away, “I want cereal”
Gerard jumped up and bumped the table, splashing his fathers coffee all over the blueprint.
“Damn it!” He swiped at the blueprint with his hands while Tennille rushed over with some paper towels.
“You cursed. Mum says not to curse” Gerard said, looking ever so young and innocent.
Tennille stopped soaking up the coffee and looked at him. Gerard stared at the mess with no expression: There was not a hint of guilt or concern in his eyes.
“Your mother said a lot of things, Gerard” dad’s hands shook as he scoped up the papers “but she is long gone now”
His mobile phone rang. Her fathers large rough hands reached into his breast pocket for the found, pushing the talk button and holding the tiny, dainty device up to his ear.
“Way” he listened for a moment and then huffed. “I told the crew not to lay out the rebar until- shit –“
“Curse” Gerard mumbled
“Do not pull it up until I get there” He slammed the phone shut and stormed out of the kitchen.
Tennille sighed, “so much for the nice family breakfast”
“I didn’t mean to spill the coffee” Gerard said as he poured himself a heaping bowl of coco pops.
“It wasn’t the coffee” Tennille tried not to sound upset, but having no place to focus her anger made it very difficult. “Why did you have to bring up mum Gerard? You know how dad gets when you do”
“I know. Yeah. Im Sorry” he mumbled into his bowl.
Tennille stared at him- though the words sounded like a quasi-apology, his voice was harsh, remorseless. But he looked totally normal. She pushed away her plate of now cold eggs.
Gerard slid the sugar bowl over and plunged his spoon into it. He added a heaped spoon onto his pre-sugared cereal, then another and then another. Tennille looked at him, her eyebrows raised.
“Do you want some cereal with your sugar?” she asked
“I like it this way” Gerard answered, shovelling one more spoon of sugar into his bowl before beginning to eat his cereal.
“Since when?” Tennille asked
“Well, since now” he answered.
They sat there mutely, the only sound was that of Gerard’s chewing. His face was as white as the milk in the bowl. As he ate, he shivered. Tennille reached out and put her palm toward his forehead. It was like pressing against a window on a winters day. Gerard recoiled.
“GET OFF!” he yelled, jumping out of his seat and knocking the table again, sending cereal all over the room.
“You’re ice cold” Tennille said standing up “now stay there”
She walked out. Gerard put his own hand against his head, knitted his brow and the shrugged when Tennille came back in with a digital thermometer.
“Open up”
Gerard cringed away at that command.
“NO!”
“No? right, do you want me to shove this someplace else?” Tennille asked
Gerard mumbled incoherently under his breath before opening his mouth, Tennille popped the thermometer in and pushed his jaw closed.
“Now keep your mouth shut Gerard, it isn’t done until it beeps”
It took all of two seconds, Tennille took the thermometer out and eyes suspiciously.
“Minus one degree’s. Great it is broken- or your from another planet kid” Tennille said, tossing the ‘broken’ thermometer in the kitchen sink.
Gerard stood up and turned his back to her “yeah, whatever, im going upstairs okay” and he stalked off.


For Tennille the shower had always been her sanctuary. All her senses felt different here. The close shining walls surrounded her. The steam blurring everything beyond the tile and glass. The pounding water insulating her from all other sounds. And lately the sound barrier served a new purpose, it allowed her to give into her sadness and anger about her mother, where no-one would see or hear her.
Tennille stepped out of the shower and wiped the mirror above the sink clean and stared at herself, sweeping her hair up this way, and that, wondering when the curves in her body were going to turn into something noticeable to anyone but herself. Mum used to stand beside her at times like this and say- “Don’t worry, I didn’t have boobs until I was seventeen”.
At least she had the hair going for her, long, straight and black, just like her mothers. Every week Tennille would sit in front of the mirror, hair washed and gleaming wet, and mum would giver her a trim. Long after the scissors had been put away they would still be talking. Plenty of time was spent discussing skin creams, makeup and manicures, but these subjects always meandered into deeper conversations about the challenges of school and the complexity of friendship and love.
There was one conversation that Tennille couldn’t stop thinking about. They had had it six months before mum left.
Mum was sitting on the toilet lid, painting her toe-nails and Tennille had asked “Mum, do you believe in soul mates?”
Her mothers answer weighed heavily on her mind.
“Well Tennille, the thing is that there are billions of people in the world, and unless you get lucky and find your soul mate right away you are just going to have to keep looking for him, even if you have spent a long time with someone who you thought was your soul mate, but realised, much later wasn’t”.
These days Tennille wondered if her simple question was what made her mothers mind up to leave. Tennille didn’t know if she believed in soul mates or not, but if they were out there, she was praying that her mum NEVER found her’s.
Tennille put on her robe and pulled it snug around her: school was out for the holiday break, but she had to get ready for work.
As she headed back to her room she heard a voice coming from behind Gerard’s door, this was odd, Gerard never shut his bedroom door.
Tennille put her ear to the door. Gerard was talking to someone.
“Did that hurt?”
Tennille slowly turned the knob, opening the door a crack. Gerard was sitting on his bed with his back to her.
Gerard froze and slowly turned toward her, and Tennille caught her breath. In his hands was Kappy, his beloved Koala. Chunks of it’s fur had been torn out, leaving ragged bald spots. It looked like a torture victim.
“Gerard, what are you doing?”
Gerard smiled, a wicked smile, his eyes narrowed.
“Seeing what he looks like with no hair….you know….naked” he answered.
“But he’s your favourite” Tennille said, shock running right through her system.
“It dosent hurt you know” Gerard grabbed a chunk of Kappy’s fur and pulled it out. Tennille flinched.
“But, why would you---“
“Because it is mine” Gerard snickered.
Tennille cocked her head- there it was again, his voice. It was raspy and low, not the voice of an eight year old.
“Sure he’s yours” she said, sitting on the bed next to Gerard “But that doesn’t mean—“ she tried to feel his forehead again, but Gerard pushed her hand away.
“I feel fine”
Tennille nodded and took the mangled koala.
“You and mum won this together at the show, remember?”
“I remember”
“Is that why you want to take Kappy apart? Because he reminds you of mum?” Tennille pressed, hoping for some real answers.
“Why would that bother me?” Asked Gerard, “Mum is never coming back anyway”
Tennille was surprised by his frankness.
“Gerard, she is, mum is coming back- it is ok to be mad at her- I know I am. But she loves us- she loves you. She just needs time that’s all”.
“You keep telling yourself that” Gerard said, looking up at Tennille “but it is a lie”.
Tennille gasped at Gerard. It had been months since mum’s last email, even longer since her last phone call. Tennille and her father had not wanted to move on yet. Gerard on the other hand….
“Are you sure your feeling OK?” Tennille handed Kappy back to Gerard.
He nodded, though, despite his flannel pyjama’s, robe and slippers he was still shivering.
“I am late for work” Tennille said. “Mrs Valo will be here in a few minutes, once she gets out of church. But maybe I should call Troy and tell him that I cant make it…”
“Jeez Tennille! I’m fine!”
“OK, Ok. But today you need to stay warm and dry. I will leave a not for Mrs V to make you some soup. Now I know she can be a bit cranky sometimes, but she is the only babysitter we could---“
“I’m not a baby Tennille”
“I know, sometimes I feel like your older then I am” She kissed her brothers cheek, it was freezing cold.
“Close the door okay?
As she closed the door behind her Tennille heard Gerard start whispering to himself again.

Chapter 5

Small as it was, a person could live in Cutter’s Edge and find everything the needed there, especially if they liked to read. There was a well stocked library and four small bookstores, including Tennille’s favourite, Toxic Shock. Troy Carell had moved here three years ago to open it.
Toxic shock seemed to materialize as a safe haven for Tennille the year before her mum left, when things between her parents were strained at best and explosive at worst. Mum’s behaviour became increasingly strange and secretive; dad’s turned angry and suspicious. It came to an ugly head one night when dad confronted mum about the password lock on her laptop. Tennille couldn’t stomach it anymore and fled to the bookstore for shelter.
Among the dusty shelves she had spotted a well-thumbed copy of Bram Strokers Dracula and shelled out ten dollars for the book. Anything to keep her mind off the storm at home. The silver haired man behind the counter had looked fondly on her purchase before saying “Good choice, do you read much horror?”. Since then she has worked there Wednesdays and Thursdays after school for two hours, and Saturdays from ten until five.
The bookstore had once been a tavern, with a high pressed ceiling and a few apartments above. It’s jovial proprietor had been as famous for his wife running out on him as he had been for his whisky sours. Year’s after she had vanished, when an upstairs border had noticed some loose plaster in the bathroom and decided to fix it himself, he discovered that the notorious lady hadn’t run off anywhere. She had been wrapped neatly from ankles to wrists in duct tape, hung on a meat hook and bordered up behind a shower wall. Troy swore that sometimes, late at night he could hear her ghost groaning.
That bit of history fit Toxic Shock perfectly. Troy stocked a solid collection of classics and bestsellers, but Toxic Shock focused on all things gothic, gruesome, and grisly. There were tilting stacks of books everywhere, with not apparent order or clarification in the racks, though Troy always knew where everything was. The lights he installed in the tin ceiling threw grey light across the place, so even sunny days offered dim and private places to sit and read.
Troy was up on a footstool stacking books when Tennille entered. As always he worse a suite, which was funny because most days not a single person walked into the store. Troy made most of his sales through his web site. Tennille had never seen him without his pocket square, much less in a pair of jeans. His hair was silver and he wore large wire rimmed glasses that he sometimes blamed on his headaches.
“You’re late” He said, not turning around.
“And you’re old” she replied, stuffing her stuff behind the counter.
Troy grinned.
“You have now idea how old”. He was precise, yet not stuffy in this conversation. His accent defied classification, lilting on some words, throaty on others. Troy claimed to be from too many places to name- none of them interesting. He stepped down with his habitual grunt, grabbed his steel-tipped cane and limped toward her. Tennille wasn’t sure how he had gotten the injury; she assumed it was in a war because she knew he’d once been a soldier, but he never talked about it. He raised his cane and pointed at a half finished book display in a corner.
“That was supposed to be done yesterday. Finish it please”
“Yes sir, right away” “We want to be ready for the horde of last minute Christmas shoppers” Tennille said.
Troy lowered his glasses down his nose at her, which meant his patience was wearing thin. She got the message and went to work, conducting a book pyramid on a display table of Stephen Kings latest thriller, Troy settled into a leather, wingback chair.
“Pick your poison” he said. “Poe or Lovecraft?”
Tennille grinned at the start of their ritual.
“Mmmm…Lovecraft” she said
“Alright” Troy thought for a moment. “Dagon; last line. Go”
“Maybe we should play patty cake” said Tennille “how about a hard one”
“Lets hear it Miss Way” He said.
“Okay”, she said, closing her eyes “The slithering, scurrying rats, whose scampering will never let me sleep; the demon rats that race behind the padding in this room and beckon me down to greater horrors then I have ever known; the rats they can never hear, the demon in the walls” she opened her eyes. Troy was smiling.
“Almost perfect” he said “you left out a ‘the’ but we will give it to you”.
Tennille resumed stacking Stephen King novels.
“My turn” she said “Poe or Lovecraft?”
“Poe” said Troy
“Okay” she said “Masque of the Red Death. First line.”
“The red death had long devastated this country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was it’s avatar and it’s seal- the redness and horror of blood” he finished.
“Sounds good to me” said Tennille, fitting one more book in at an angle. The pile collapsed. “URGH! Typical of this stupid day”
“What’ the matter” Troy asked
“Gerard’s sick and being weird”
“Weird?”
“He pulled all the fur off of his favourite stuffed animal. He said he wanted to see what it looked like naked. Weird enough?”
“Does your dad know?”
“He wasn’t home”.
“You should tell him”.
“Why? He wont do anything, it works for him, he doesn’t notice anything either”.
Tennille sat on a stool opposite Troy.
“Your father loves you, Tennille” he said. “He’s learning to cope with a big change, give him a chance”.
“And I know how to cope? I just started my HSC year! AND I’ve got a mothering gig to boot!”
“Unforseen challenges. You do the best you can. Gerard will be OK”
“Gerard doesn’t have his mum anymore”.
“No, but he has you” Troy replied, a smile on his face.
Tennille smiled a little. This is why she loved her conversations with Troy. He didn’t sugarcoat, he didn’t make excuses, and he didn’t treat her like a snotty teenager. He was everything her father wasn’t.
“And I’ve got you” she said.
“Yes you do” Troy smiled back. “Always. Poor girl”.
The bell on the door jingled and Jacob walked in carrying his bike helmet.
“My book come in Troy?” He asked.
“That it did, my lad” Troy pulled a parcel from behind the counter. Jacob ripped off the brown paper wrapping.
“What is it?” Tennille asked, although she had a pretty good idea what it could be.
“Murder, Mayhem and Madness: A history of the serial killers!”
Tennille rolled her eyes, it was what she thought it would be. “Not more serial killers”.
“This is great stuff babe” said Jacob, flipping through the book. “Take Richard Chase, ‘the vampire of Sacramento’. He put the blood and brains of his victims in a blender and then drank them’ he thought he blood was turning to powder and he needed fresh good to replenish it” he said, never taking his eyes off the pages.
Tennille rolled her eyes. “Thanks for sharing”.
“You like your horror to stay make believe” Jacob said “I like mine served up real”.
“So was last night real or make believe then?” Tennille asked
Jacob grinned.
“What happened last night?” Troy asked.
“Oh, last night we did a fear-“ Jacob caught Tennille’s warning eye.
“A fear what? Troy asked.
“Nothing, just a game” Tennille finished You know, geek stuff”
Troy looked her over.
“Don’t ever go into politics Tennille” He said “you cant lie to save your life. Now what did you two do last night?”
Tennille knew that tone. You could tell Troy anything and never worry about being judged, but he was not a person you lie to.
“We, uh, took a fear test, a ritual, sort of”
“I failed” Jacob said “Not exactly the apt student. But Tennille passed with flying colours”
“Ritual” Troy asked. “What ritual?”
Tennille sighed and pulled the journal from her backpack, and handed it to Troy. He adjusted his glasses and read the first paragraph out loud.

The stealers are all around us. They wear our names and face.
But they are not us. The most dangerous thing we are ever told is:
There ‘is nothing to be afraid of’ because, in truth, there is so very much to fear.

Troy glanced from Tennille to Jacob.
“Where did you get this?” He asked
. “It came with one of the shipments a few weeks ago” Tennille answered, doing her best to sound nonchalant “No idea who wrote it”.
Troy flipped through the pages, examining the spider like handwriting, stopping occasionally to look at a drawing or a diagram.
“I don’t mind if you borrow books” he said “but I expect you to tell me when you do” he continued “and it would be nice if i could see it myself first. This is a singular fund, Tennille”.
“It’s just a diary of some crazy old kook, Troy. She writes about these monsters called the Stealers that attack humans when they are most afraid- like,can’t-speak-or-breath afraid. They take of your body and send your conscience to some demonic hell, then they live your life out. They look and act like regular humans, so it is impossible to tell who is a Stealer and who’s not. A pretty fun read actually”.
“Better then most trashy thriller novel’s I’d say” Jacob added, eyeing the stack of Stephen King novels with disgust.
Troy stopped at another page.
“On the winter solstice night, shun your fears. Bury them. I know it. I saw it. They will take your soul. Troy looked up and scowled. “The winter solstice was last night, and you tempted these creatures to come and take you?”
“Troy” Tennille said, “we were just playing around”.
“No, Tennille” said Troy “cowboys and Indians is playing around”.
“Don’t tell Native Americans that” Tennille said.
“Come on Troy” said Jacob “It isn’t real”.
Troy closed the book.
“Jacob, Tennille. No-one loves settling down to a good horror tale and getting chilled to the bone more then I” he waved a hand around the store. “It’s my life! But this….” He rapped the book with his knuckles. “This is insanity! This is cult. Dark magic, chants, rituals, secrets.”
“All that stuff is our bread and butter” Tennille countered.
“Yes, but we sell fiction, you don’t know anything about this book or where it came from”.
“We know it’s not real” Tennille said.
“But ritualizing makes something real in here” He said- tapping his head. “And that is when it gets dangerous” he said “So the author, ever wonder what happened to her? He asked.
Tennille and Jacob just shrugged.
“It’s just a book- - -“
“A book that doesn’t belong to you”
“Im sorry, Troy” said Tennille, “I wont do it again. But it is not like we believe in it”
“If you didn’t believe in the possibility, you wouldn’t have challenged these creatures. And the minute you start to believe in something it has power over you”.
The door jingled and two black-clad goth girls from Cutter High walked in.
“Customers Tennille” Troy turned to greet them. “Go and finish the display. I feel a holiday rush coming on”.

more chapter 5....

A little after five Tennille waved goodbye to Troy and headed home. It was really dark.
The ground reflected green and red from the Christmas lights that were strung between telephone poles and street lights. Cutter’s Edge Wine had it’s annual display of gnomes in the front window. Bunnings warehouse had it’s plump, Styrofoam snowman out the front, which was kind of creepy- Mr Cullen- the owner had given the snowman glass eyes, rather then black coal eyes. The effect was more unsettling then festive. The eyes were too realistic. They gave the impression that a living human as trapped inside the snowman, his eyes wide, pleading for rescue, his mouth unable to scream.
Tennille paused under the lamppost where her bicycle was locked. She was bothered by Troy’s reaction to having taken The Stealers and even more troubled about his attitude about what she and Jacob had done with it. It was certainly possible that whoever had written it was completely mad- where there wasn’t scrawling handwriting, the author had drawn horrible images of smoky monsters, people with their eyes scratched out, and cryptic symbols. But insanity, as far as she knew, wasn’t contagious”.
A sharp hiss startled Tennille and she looked up. Steam rose from a manhole across the street. A sudden gust sent the vapours whirling, and for a moment two figures were revealed behind, one much smaller then the other, huddled together, talking.
Tennille’s pulse stuttered. She squinted, but the wind died and and the steam folded back on itself like a curtain. She got up. She thought she knew the smaller person.
Tennille crossed the street toward them, when a white light burst out of the night. She raised an arm to shield her eyes, and looked into the headlights of an oncoming truck. She froze for an instant, watching the drivers face, hearing the angry horn and screeching brakes. She darted out of the way just as the truck sped past. The two figures turned at the commotion.
“Gerard!” Tennille cried, racing up to him “What are you doing here?”
“Just, you know, coming to see you”. Gerard said “Mrs Valo had fallen asleep”.
“Do you know what dad would do if he knew you were out after dark?”
“That’s what I was just telling him” I recognised that voice that interrupted my triad on Gerard.
Tennille’s attention shifted to the other figure. She recognised his sweet smell.
“Is this your little brother?” Taylor asked. He popped his gum and smiled.
Tennille nodded. “My soon-to-be-MURDERED-little brother”.
“I was giving him the ‘don’t walk around by yourself after dark lecture” Taylor hesitated “God, I sound like my mum”.
“I know the feeling” Tennille said, looking into Gerard’s eyes.
“It was light out when I started” Gerard said, perhaps thinking this made it Ok.
“So what brings you out to these evil streets after sunset?” Tennille asked nervously.
Taylor took his backpack off his shoulder. “Funny you should ask. You work at the bookstore right?”
“Uh-Huh” Tennille was unable to form sentences again.
“I have something for you”
He pulled a book out of the pack and handed it to Tennille. If it was even possible for Taylor to look sheepish, he did now.
“A thank you for bailing me out the other day” he said “you saved my butt in English Class”.
Tennille looked at the cover, it was an ornate, leather bound edition of Hp Lovecrafts Faust.
“I confess” said Taylor “Im a closet horror buff. We can be geeks together”.
Tennille blushed. “Wow, I don’t know what to say”
“Just say we will hang out sometime”
“Of course” Tennille smiled. Gerard looked from his sister to Taylor and rolled his eyes.
“Can we go already?” he demanded.
Taylor looked down and Gerard. “No more walking around at night, right? There are worse things then vampires out here” he said, winking at Tennille and walking away. Tennille stood dumbfounded for a few more seconds and then turned to her brother.
“You were supposed to stay put. Your sick”.
“I feel fine”
“So what else did you talk about with Taylor?”
“Not you, if that’s what your asking” Gerard replied, malice in his tone.
“I wasn’t- come on, we are going home”
Gerard walked silently beside her as she pushed her bike along the roadside. It wasn’t just Mrs Valo being such an incompetent guardian, or Gerard sneaking out in the dead of winter, that pissed her off so much. The truth was, she didn’t want to be the ‘mummy’. She didn’t want to make dinner, and do the laundry and vacuuming. She didn’t want to have to look after Gerard and take his temperature, and worry about him, and scold him. She wanted mum, wherever she was, to stop being a selfish jerk and some home.
When they got back to the house dad’s truck was still gone; a stroke of luck for everyone. Gerard bounded up the stairs to his bedroom without a word, not even giving Tennille a chance to send him there. She kicked off her soggy wet sneakers and stormed into the living room.
“MRS VALO!”
The old woman was slumped on the couch, her hair a silvery mop. The DVD menu cycled endlessly, playing the same forty second music clip over and over again. An untouched cup of tea sat on the table in front of her.
“Mrs Valo?” Tennille asked, nervous, all her anger from before forgotten.
Tennille crept closer, reaching out to take the women’s shoulder and gently shake her. The old lady’s head flopped to the side, her hair tumbled from her face, and her blank un-blinking eyes stared into Tennille’s own. Her face had contorted into a rictus of terror.

She was dead.

HOLY SHIT! Tennille you CANNOT JUST STOP IT THERE! OMGGG!!!

I love the story, Tenielle, but you should do spell check on Microsoft Word XDDD

So during my boredom today, what with no Troy, Uni or work today...

among loooking at Taylor stuff and doing the forum thing i did another chapter....

Chapter 6

Tennille’s dad came home just in time to see Mrs Valo being wheeled out of the house on a gurney.
The ambulance rolled away without even turning on its lights or sirens. The babysitter had been pronounced dead on the site by the coroner- a heart attack, most likely. Gerard had watched them take the body away and then shut himself in his room. Once the dust had settled, dad poured himself a scotch, sat down at the kitchen table, and stared out into the winter night. Tennille stood in the doorway watching him.
“Dad?”
He took a sip of his drink. “Yes, hon?”
“What should we tell Gerard?”
“I don’t know”. He was quiet for a moment. “She was old. People die. He’s only eight, but I’m pretty sure he knows that”.
“Yeah” Tennille frowned. “There’s a big help dad”.
She walked briskly out of the kitchen, leaving her father to drink alone. The glow of their sad little Christmas tree left the living room steeped in shadow. Dad had brought it home the week before, and that evening had been a happy one, rare in their house these days. They had dragged out the box of ornaments from the closet, smiling and laughing. Dad had belted out Christmas carols in his booming voice as they unpacked them. Tennille had thought he was laying it on a bit thick, but with mum missing she couldn’t blame him for trying. Gerard had run around the tree tossing handfuls of tinsel at it, and the family spent the whole evening piling on the shiny orbs and angels and garlands, as if they covering up the trees bare spots would cover up the gaping hole that was mum’s absence.
Tonight, in the multicoloured gloom of the trees lights, Tennille thought again of her mother. She pictured her decorating someone else’s tree. She wondered if she was happy, or if she missed her family. She wondered if she was dead. Dead like Mrs Valo. Dead and gone.
The old woman’s cold cup of tea still sat on the coffee table. Tennille stared at it for a long time, and then she picked it up, tossed the tea in the sink, and put the mug in the dishwasher. She went upstairs to her bedroom.
Tennille couldn’t sleep. Whenever she closed her eyes, the image of the dead woman’s face rose from the dark. Her mind raced. Why was Gerard acting so strangely? And what had he really been doing wandering around by himself? She had tried to bring it up again on their walk home, but Gerard had just kicked a stick down the side walk not saying a word. Tennille had marched along, as angry as she was relieved, and thanking god that Taylor had bumped into her little brother.
She smiled in the dark. Taylor.
There was a person she never expected would enter her realm of existence. Nothing made Tennille Way’s palms sweat, not even her first viewing of Psycho- but Taylor did. Was he really interested in her? He wasn’t the pig-headed jock she had expected. He was smart, sweet and a horror freak to boot. What parallel universe has she entered?
Tennille twisted again in her bed, smacked her fist into the pillow and tried to find a comfortable spot for her spinning head.
Gerard.
He was mixed up, deeply troubled, doing battle with his own demons- and she didn’t know how to help him. Horror wasn’t something terrible she witnessed on a movie screen or read in a book anymore. It was real. It surrounded her, and nobody would face it until it was too late.
Dad still acted like mum was still on some long business trip. Like she’d come through the front door any day now, tan, tired but happy to be home, arms full of lame t-shirts and gift shop snow globes, eyes full of love, for him, for her and for Gerard.
Without realizing it Tennille had pushed away her covers and sat up in bed, her knee’s pulled to her chest. She heard something…music.
“You better watch out, you better not cry”
Tennille looked at the clock. The red digital numbers glowed; 12:51. Either some carollers were pulling an all-nighter or dad was still awake with the scotch and playing the goofy Christmas album that mum loved.
“You better not pout I’m telling you why”
Tennille got out of bed, shivering as the cold air hugged her body. She grabbed her robe and went out into the hall.
“Santa Claus is coming to town”
The wooden steps felt like marble beneath her bare feet. It was colder downstairs.
“He’s making a list, and checking it twice”
The voices were coming from the front yard.
“He’s gonna find out who’s naughty and nice”
Tennille pulled her robes snug and walked into the living room. It was dark, except for the trees blinking lights. Dad was standing at the square kitchen window, holding Gerard in his arms.
“Dad, what’s going on?”
Tennille came up beside them, outside five children sang, their carolling books obscuring their faces. Whit breath wafted from behind the books and snaked into darkness. A light snow was falling, sticking to their coats and hats and scarves, sparkling in the glow of the porch lamps. Gerard yawned.
“Santa Claus is coming to town”
Tennille shivered and moved closer to her father.
“It is almost one in the morning. What are they doing here?”
“We see when you are sleeping”
Tennille reached for her father’s hand.
“We know when you’re awake”
“Daddy” said Gerard. “I don’t like them”
“I knew they’d come” dad bowed his head. “I’m so sorry Tennille”.
The children’s voices turned raspy.
“We know if you’ve been bad or good”
The carollers lowered their books.
They were children, but not human- red and green veins crisscrossed their ashen skin, and there sunken eyes peered out, red as blood. Gerard buried his head in his father’s chest.
The smallest of them stepped forward and smiled; its fangs flashed like polished daggers.
“Were with you” it hissed we’ll always be with you”
“Daddy” Tennille wailed.
With an ungodly screech, the demons crashed through the window, taloned hands outstretched and knocked Tennille into the Christmas tree. The tree toppled, ornaments busting into a thousand gleamed pieces. The shards sipped into her flesh, and blood poured from dozens of tiny wounds in her arms, neck and cheeks. All around her, the brightly wrapped presents split open like living organs, spilling out fetid, rusty-red ooze.
Dad didn’t fight the demons as they ripped Gerard from his arms; he simply dropped to his knees and hung his head.
“DON’T LET THEM GET ME!” Gerard screamed. “TENNILLE HELP!”
Tennille stumbled to her knees.
“Daddy” she cried. “Help him! Save him!”
Blood dripped down from her forehead as she lurched for Gerard, but the wiry branches of the Christmas tree wrapped around her wrists and ankles like chains and yanked her backward.
The creatures turned on her. Saliva dripping from their fangs as they approached. Fear, like death’s icy grip, froze her in place. One of the demons smiled and brushed her bloody cheek with a long grotesque finger.
“You’re weak. Scared. You’re a cripple” it hissed “you’re all cripples”.
The spot where the demon’s finger had touched Tennille’s face ached with a sharp and wicked cold; she felt the blood congeal on her skin. She looked down in horror as the puzzle-shaped pieces of her fell onto the floor and splintered. In that moment her face was no more then a white skull.
“Tennille!” Gerard cried.
Amid his screams, Tennille heard faint music- a calliope tune that sounded familiar. The demon children chanted as they dragged Gerard out of the broken picture window.

Once he’s gone there is no way back.
Once he is in there is no way out.
Left to linger in the black,
Lost to endless fear and doubt…

Gerard’s faded crying mingled with my horrific chorus.
“No way out. No way out. No way out”





MORE ON NEXT PAGE!!

More of Chapter 6....

Tennille sat up in bed. The terror swelled in her windpipe. The air couldn’t get past it to her lungs.
Gradually her ragged gasps slowed. She leaped out of bed- she had to make sure that Gerard was OK.
Tennille tip-toed across the hall and peeked into Gerard’s room. Master Squeak screeched at the sudden intrusion and scrambled around in his cage.
“Gerard?” Tennille called. “Gerard, wake up”.
She flicked on the light. The quilt was askew; the hapless koala lay sprawled on the floor. But Gerard was gone. She ransacked the sheets of the empty bed and swung open the closet door. Nothing. She ran down the hall and to the bathroom, turned on the light and pulled back the shower curtain. Nothing. Back toward dad’s room.
Where was he? Was she still dreaming? Had he been scared by the dark and gone to sleep by dad?
She peeked into the master bedroom. Her father snored low and deep. She tip-toed to the far side of the king sized bed. She realized that dad was sleeping alone.
Tennille sprinted back into the hall and down the stairs. The smell of smoke poked at her nose.
She paused, and, hearing the crackling of burning wood in the fireplace she went down to the den. The room was dark, but for the ember glow in the fireplace, which cast Gerard shadow- long and distorted on the wall. He knelt in front of the fire place, a chequered blanket around his shoulders. Tennille stepped down the two stone steps into the room. Gerard spoke without turning around.
“Needed to warm up Sis, that’s all” His voice was icy calm as he prodded the embers with a poker. “Dad never fixed the cracks in my window. The cold still gets in”
The he spoke softly his voice sounded older….much older.
“You shouldn’t be doing that. You know what dad has said about messing with the fireplace”.
“Dad doesn’t care, I could burn the entire house down and he wouldn’t even get out of bed” Gerard said. Still not looking at Tennille.
“Come on” Tennille said, squatting next to her brother- tilting her head to view his profile. Shadows from the fire played on his skin. “you don’t mean that, you know dad loves us, he loves you”.
“Dads old and lost and afraid, you can smell the fear on him like rotting fruit.
“Why did you leave the house today Gerard? Were you afraid, its okay, tell me the truth”.
Gerard’s arctic blue eyes sparkled.
" No, I wasn’t afraid of anything” he answered
Tennille touched his arm, its coldness startled her.
“Gerard, I want to help you, please, talk to me”
“I don’t need help, I’m fine” Gerard replied simply. He stretched a hand toward the fire and waved his fingers above the bright, wagging tongues smiling like a child with a new friend. He stretched his arm further, and dropped his hand lower, closer to the flames.
“Gerard! NO!” Tennille screeched, she lunged at him and they went tumbling away from the fire. Gerard dropped the poker and it landed on the floor with a loud clang. Tennille looked down at him.
“Are you nuts?”
Gerard stared at the blaze; the flames flickered in his eyes.
“I just wanted to see how hot it was” he answered.
Gerard looked at his hand, it was red, and the tips of his fingers were already blistered. He examined it like a new toy.
“It feels….funny”
“Gerard we have got to run that under cold water. I don’t know what I going on in your head lately, but you know what fire-“
Their father stormed into the den.
“What the hell is going on?” he screamed.
“Who lit the damned fire” he hollered.
“Gerard did” Tennille answered “I was just trying to stop him from hurting himself.
“ME!” cried Gerard. “I didn’t do it; I don’t even know how to make a fire. The smoke smell woke me up, and Tennille said I would be sorry if I told on her and she pushed me at the fire”.
“See?” he thrust his burnt hand up to his fathers face.
“He-he’s lying” Tennille stuttered. Stunned. “He started it, I cam down stairs looking for him because I was worried when he wasn’t in his bed”
“Worried…you were beating up on him” dad yelled.
“No I wasn’t, I was trying to stop him from hurting himself” Tennille stammered.
“TENNILLE LEE WAY! There will be NO lying in this house” dad bellowed, his face reddening with anger.
He was boiling, but he wasn’t the only one “you are so wrong about this dad”
“I thought I could depend on you Tennille, I thought this family mattered to you” he was staring at his daughter but seeing someone else. In his anger he flung his arms up and knocked over mum’s favourite vase.
“DON’T YOU DARE!” Tennille seethed. “I am NOTHING like her”
Dad’s anger deflated before Tennille’s eyes. He looked at the floor because he couldn’t bear to look at his daughter.
Gerard squeezed dad’s leg. “We know you love us dad, we know you are here for us no matter what”. Gerard grinned at Tennille, using the words she had used earlier, she knew now that she had lost.
“Can I go to my room now?” she asked.
Dad nodded. Tennille glared and Gerard and the marched off for her bedroom.
“And as for you little man, lets fix up that hand and get you into bed. I will bring you a few extra blankets, you are freezing”
Tennille turned around one more time to see dad embracing Gerard in a warm hug while Gerard leered at her, this was so unlike him. He didn’t even look like her little brother at that point in time.

1)LOVED THAT!! omgggg!!!! wow! omg! still love it!
2)those potter people are stealers too arent they?! i bet! maybe not! but i bet! or at least they know something.

LOL!! There are a few twists in my idea's....LOL!! And it shocked even Troy when he was reading my brain storming page, he is haning on everything i type, i am doing another 2 chapters tonight that i will post tomorrow morning or arvo, depending on if i have anything else to do later.....

hahha and what time is it there now? lol cause its 11:30 pm here lol. on monday. and yaaaaaaaay for twists.

Just past 3:30pm on Tuesday afternoon right now!

wooo. when its that time here, ill just be getting out of chinese tomorrow lol. that made no sense lol.

Well as long as it makes sense to you then it is all good....

Troy just read the next 2 really really draft, like way more draft then when i even post the draft on here draft (ok that makes sense to me) and he is loving it! LOL! He is funny!

tennille are you trying to kill me!? just saying! you cant leave a girl in suspense like this!

Oh dam, i forgot i was posting it on here, i have the disk with the story on it in my locker at University, i will grab it when i go in tomorrow and post the next 3 chapters before the weekend....