The youth of Kenosha sent us their scariest stories, and we had a great time reading them!  Our winner for grades 8-12 is Nina P., an eighth-grader at All Saints Catholic School.  Judges loved the surprise ending, the sensory details, and the tension that builds throughout the story.  “Everyone can relate to being alone and scared,” said one judge, “and this writer took me into that experience.”

Want to read more scary stories?  Check these out:

• Audrey P.’s “Scary Spaceships,” our winner for grades PreK-2.
• Madeleine B.’s “Untitled,” our winner for grades 3-5
• Lupito G.’s “The Whispering Void,” our winner for grades 6-7

The Whistle

It was a dark and stormy night, and Nina had just finished her homework.  She watched out her window as the bright lightning flashed in the dark sky.  The smell of her pumpkin candle filled the air.  The lamp in the corner lit up her dark room.

When suddenly, she saw something else too.  She didn’t know what it was.  At first she thought it was just a neighbor walking, until she saw that it had green skin, and walked very strangely.

She rushed downstairs to tell her mom what she had seen, but she couldn’t find her.  “Mom, where are you?” she yelled.  But she heard no response.  Was she home alone?  Maybe she left to go pick up dinner while I was working on homework upstairs, or left to pick up Ava. Nina told herself.  Her dad was still at work, and her sister was at a friend’s house.

She looked out the window again, but this time the creature wasn’t there.  “Was I hallucinating?” She whispered. So she turned on the tv and started watching her favorite show, but suddenly she started hearing a very strange noise.  It sounded like someone was whistling.  She heard it get louder and louder.  It sounded like it was getting closer.  She was so scared so she got up and went to grab her phone to call her mom.  As soon as she stood up the lights went out.  The power was gone.

She continued searching for her phone in complete darkness, but couldn’t remember where she had put it.  “Maybe I left it in the kitchen,” she wondered.  She finally found it, under a bag of chips on the counter.  She pressed the power button but the screen stayed black.  It was dead, and she had no way to charge it.  Now she was even more frightened, and started panicking.

She ran to the window and looked to see if she could see the creature that she saw before, but it was still gone, and the whistling had stopped. So, she ran to the lightswitch and flipped it as fast as she could.  The lights stayed off.

She was so scared at this point that she ran upstairs and jumped into her bed.  She pulled her blanket over her head and closed her eyes super tight.  CREEKKK.  She heard the front door open very slowly.  “Please tell me my mom is home, the door was locked so she is the only one who could get in.”

She got up from her bed and peaked her head out of her bedroom door.  “Mom?” She whispered. She heard no reply.  “She probably didn’t hear me.”

She decided to go back into her bed and held her blanket over her head.  CREEKKK.  Her bedroom door slowly opened.  She was breathing so heavy and her heart was pounding out of her chest.

“Nina?”  She heard her mom’s voice.  She was so happy, her mom was home!  So she lifted up her blanket, only to see her mom was not there.  It was a big, green alien.