So my brother, being a fantatic Goosebumps fan, has asked me for his birthday a personlized Goosebumps story just for him. So I took one of his radical horror ideas and twisted it into a legible, grammically-correct novel for his pleasure. If you have read the books, or hate/love them, it would be extremely handy if you can nitpick this to the world's end.
NOTE: I had to dull down my description for it to make sense to my brother.
Now that I have that out of the way, enjoy! Here are the first 4 chapters:
1
I really didn’t want to change schools. Or move cities, for that matter. But there I was, in the backseat of our SUV, with cardboard boxes crammed into every available space. My mum, who was driving, was blabbering on about some of the buildings and monuments that were rushing past my window. I wasn’t paying much attention.
“And there you can see Black House, a very popular tourist attraction just out…”
“Are we there yet?” I asked, stopping my mum in mid-sentence.
“Uh…well, no, Max, dear,” she said, taken aback, “Another five minutes, I think, according to my map here.”
I looked in her rear-view mirror and saw she was upset with me.
I resemble my mother quite a lot. We both have thick, dark, chestnut hair, piercing blue eyes and freckles. When mum jokes around she always tells me she can imagine me with a bone in my nose, looking like a caveman. Her jokes are funny, but a little bit insulting. Cavemen are stereotypically short, and I tower over her.
“Cool,” was my answer, and I pulled out my music player from my jeans pocket. I plugged my headphones in and turned the volume up loud, drowning out the sound of my mother’s voice.
The basis upon which my life exists: I never listen to my mother.
A few minutes later my mum announced loudly, so I could hear over my music, that we had at last arrived in Bulligong.
The headphones snapped out of my ears as I hurriedly craned my neck to see what my new town looked like.
The town seemed a century old, at the least. Most of the homes were petite, with cream-coloured picket fences and blooming rainbow flower beds. The oak trees on their evergreen lawns and the rocking chairs resting on the veranda swung back and forth with the breeze. There was no games arcade, no takeaway stores, not even a set of traffic lights. I was a little disappointed.
I sulked and ducked my head back down again. I was a city kid, not a town boy. Everything here seemed so… peaceful.
Which was probably a good thing for my mother. She seriously needed somewhere she could take a break from reality for awhile, to get her mind off the divorce and grandpa’s death.
Now that I thought about it, I should’ve listened to her speech about this part of the world. I guessed it didn’t hit me till now.
The reason we were moving to the remote town was because grandpa left a house here to us in his will. It gave mum an opportunity to get a job here and leave our old city and life behind.
My hands fumbled for the black skull necklace I was wearing. It was a birthday present from grandpa a couple of years ago. I haven’t taken it off since. Not even when the bullies back at my previous school tried to snatch it from me. They stopped that, though, when I became the champion at spitting.
Yeah, you heard me right. Spit champ. We used to see how far we could expel saliva behind the teacher’s back. I kept winning, so, naturally, everyone started to like me.
“…And I enrolled you at the primary here, so you’ll help me unpack some gear today and tomorrow you can ride your bike to school with this map here,” said mum, an informative tone to her voice.
Woah. I hadn’t even realised she was speaking to me.
“Do I have to go to school already, mum?” I pleaded with her, my eyes rolling dramatically.
“Would you rather go to school or do chores?”
She had a very good point.
The car slowed to a complete stop and mum turned the engine off, yanking out the keys. I didn’t need her telling me we had arrived at our new house to know we were there at last.
2
Without direction, without purpose, I found myself walking.
I waltzed right out of my new bedroom. I passed all the boxes on the floor. Somehow, I managed to not bump against a single one.
My hand reached for the front door, and I opened it, strolling right out into the crisp, fresh night air.
I kept walking. Past my mum’s SUV, past the delivery van parked on our lawn.
The moon was a full one, and it illuminated the footpath. Where I was headed was a mystery. All I knew was that I had to keep walking.
Soon I approached a twisted, black iron fence. It enclosed something I couldn’t see.
I was compelled to this place, because I knew, as I got closer, that this was my destination.
The gate swung open at my slightest touch.
Now I entered a dense fog, of which I couldn’t make out anything. Even the gate had disappeared behind me. Where was I?
A choir of singers were now calling out my name… several of them humming it in a raspy tone. “…Max….Max…” they spoke. I was awfully confused. They sounded like the static when tuning an old radio.
I surveyed the scene. Where was everyone? All I could see for miles and miles was darkness and fog… wait, that was a lie!
A black, spooky fortress appeared as the mist cleared in front of me. It was stories high, with torrents of towers and arched windows. A howling wind swept the fallen, withered leaves from the dead trees on the lawn all the way to me. A leaf landed in my hand and I crushed it with my fingers. The dust-sized pieces were carried away by blasting air.
I was curious about this ancient castle. Why was it here? It was scary enough to send chills down my spine, but not quite horrifying enough for me to run away.
It was like a puppeteer with his marionette, and I was the unfortunate marionette. I had no control over my actions. I felt my foot crunch against the gravel path.
At once, a shrill scream pierced the choir singing. I covered my ears to block the noise.
The screaming grew louder. It was coming from the castle.
As I focused on the fortress, a spotlight of bright green light beamed from the up most, and biggest, window. I squinted my eyes. The shrieking continued to get louder until it was deafening.
Petrified, I shouted out a plea for help, but I couldn’t hear my own voice. I couldn’t move. The puppeteer had me frozen.
The front door slowly creaked open.
A green, elastic, ghostly hand darted out and grabbed my neck, strangling me...
3
“AAAAAHHH!” I screamed as I sat up, drenched in sweat.
My eyes whizzed around frantically, looking for the hand.
No hand. No shrieking. No castle.
Just my new bedroom, cluttered with cardboard boxes, and myself, lying in bed, stuffy.
It was just a nightmare, Max, I assured myself, Go back to sleep.
Easier said than done, it turned out.
It took several hours for me to sleep again. I tossed about, fruitlessly trying to empty my mind. It was just so difficult to picture anything but the disturbing, frightening images from my horrific dream.
When morning arrived and my alarm bell drilled through my brain, I hadn’t had much rest. I stifled a yawn at the breakfast table so my mum wouldn’t see I was tired. There was not much point in her fussing over me.
I finished getting ready for school, so I worked on my bike. I was checking the chains for a tangle when my mum approached me, an object hidden in her hands.
“Max! There you are! I needed to give you this.” She shoved a folded map into my chest. I grabbed it and opened it up, studying its features.
For a tiny map its size, it was complexly detailed. It displayed every footpath, house and street. It was a little challenging to find my school’s location.
“Hey, Mum? You don’t happen to have a pencil on you, do you?” I asked. I was planning to circle my school on the map so I wouldn’t have trouble finding it again.
“Hang on, dear; I’ll go fetch one for you.” She dashed back inside quickly and emerged with a marker.
“Thanks Mum,” I said gratefully. I drew a large oval around my school and a line through the roads leading to it. I showed her this, and she grinned.
“Now I won’t have to worry about you getting lost,” she joked, but I could tell by her expression she was concerned. I have quite a knack for losing my way.
Minutes later, a heavy bag on my back, I was pedalling as fast as I possibly could down the concrete footpath. I’d forgotten to brush my teeth and now I was running late. I hoped my new teacher wouldn’t mind.
Turning the street corner, I could see what appeared to be a rundown hall. At first, I was in disbelief. This was where the school was located? Then I groaned as the realisation slapped me in the face. An ancient, rusted signpost read ‘Bulligong Primary. Teaching excellence since 1879.’
What, oh what did I do to deserve ending up in a place like this?
No, I scolded myself silently, I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I made up my mind to give it a chance.
4
All I could see were the faces of angry, annoyed kids my age staring at me. It was like my presence deeply disturbed them. I suddenly felt very hot. I pretended not to notice.
The lady at the school office had showed me to my classroom. She had rapped on one of the white-washed doors.
And that was another thing. The school might have come across as ancient as my great-grandma, but its insides were jazzed up to be almost bearable.
A balding, bony man wearing tiny spectacles and a suit had answered the door. His badge read ‘Mr. Hopkins’. He told the clerk (once she explained why I was late) “I’ll take it from here.” And with one skeletal, withered hand, he had clutched my shoulder and led me into the classroom.
So here I was, feeling extremely embarrassed, as Mr. Hopkins introduced me to the class.
“This is Max Henderson, everybody, I hope you make him feel welcome.”
The cold, icy stares pretty much gave me an impression that I wasn’t going to get a warm welcome.
“So, Max, do you want to tell us a bit about yourself?”
I shook my head violently.
“Come on Max, no need, no need to be shy! We’re all friends here.”
I seriously doubted that.
“Um,” was the word that escaped my lips. I hated public speaking. I focused on the wall behind the rows of students so I could pretend they weren’t glaring at me.
“I moved here from the city,” I managed to mumble.
“That’s fantastic, Max!” beamed Mr. Hopkins. I was amazed that someone so elderly could be so energetic and positive. “Any reason why? You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”
I felt it oddly rude for a teacher to ask such a thing. Hadn’t he heard of privacy? But I thought about it harder, and a sudden idea made up my decision to answer his stupid question.
“Uh—yeah. My grandpa, Ronald Grim, died a few weeks ago.”
It was a pretty small town, right? So there was bound to be somebody in this class that knew my pop or, at least, someone in that family might.
And to my absolute joy, a boy in the back row flashed me a thumbs up. Success!
“Wow. I’m really, really, sorry to hear that,” said Mr. Hopkins, with a comical grimace. “Err—well, you might as well take a seat. Oh look, that jolly boy over there is calling for you to sit next to him. Why don't you sit over there,” he pointed to a chair next to the boy, “and then we can get started?”
I was glad to be rid of Mr. Hopkins. He was acting, to a point, unbelievably creepy, and it made me question if it was just a façade or a figment of my vivid imagination, heightened in such an uncomfortable moment.
I made my way through the angry faces. I wasn't bothered as much as I was before about their treatment of me: It seemed the discovery of a friendly face bought fresh hope to my low confidence.
“Hi.”
“’G’day, Max,” the boy responded in a strong Australian accent, as I took the available seat beside him.
“So… what’s your name?”
“My name? Well, my name is Evil.”
.....to be continued!
Thanks in advance for your critque!
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