YA Spooktacular!

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Welcome to this stop of Story 3 for the second annual YA Spooktacular, hosted by Wicked Awesome Books and Frenzy of Noise.

This year, there are THREE stories written by some of your favorite authors that will be posted throughout the week. Each story is a choose your adventure, where you get to decide what path to send the character down. Sometimes you live, sometimes you die, and sometimes you fall into a pit of no return. You can pick up the first one by going to Pure Imagination and you can click on the banner above to see all the info about the event--including all the prizes! 

There are also some TRICKS or TREATS scattered throughout the story, where you can enter to win prizes and get bonus points toward the prize packs. The prize pack for Story #3 will be up tomorrow at Escape from Reality: http://christinabooks.blogspot.com. 

On Halloween day, the grand prize pack will be posted. You can click the banner above to see a full list of the YASpooktacular prize packs!

THE CORN STALKER 

Click here to start the story!

by Adele Griffin

“What do you need from us?” I asked.

Does it matter?” He smiled broadly, enough to show a full set of teeth, discolored and broken as glass, slightly bloodstained. I closed my eyes. No. This was not happening. Not real. Couldn’t be. And opened them again.

“Sorry, Josh. I’m as real as your pretty girlfriend.” He laughed, then spit a long bloody shot of phlegm over his shoulder, and in two strides had closed the distance between himself and Kara. 

“Poor girl,” he crooned. “You should have listened to your doubts. This is all your boyfriend’s fault, I’d say. Boys. Always looking for a little late-night fun in the corn. Ain’t that right, Josh?”

I didn’t answer. My mind was racing, dead-set on finding a way out of this. The creature’s skeletal fingers cupped Kara’s chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. “But what begins in curiosity,” he hissed, “often ends in tragedy.”

“Don’t touch me,” she whispered. “Please.” I knew that it was taking everything in Kara to stay calm. My protective arm around her shoulders squeezed her tight, but I could give her rigid body no comfort.

“One kiss,” the creature insisted. His voice wheedling and sing-song. “Why, look at you, dear. So young and rosy and fresh. Your fate is horrific. But my special kiss will make it much better.”

“Get. Away. From. Her.” I spoke though gritted teeth. Every particle of me wanted to run, now!—and yet Kara and I needed to stay cool if we were going to escape this nightmare. But as the beast’s red lips lowered themselves to my girlfriend’s neck—no! not my hot, awesome, almost-two-years-my girlfriend Kara! Whose cute nose-freckles I once had counted. Whose smart-ass grin each morning made Honors Chem vaguely bearable. I knew I had one chance. I had to take it. Even if the endless maze of night was all around us. Even if we were running blind. And terrified. And lost.

“Go!” My pull was so strong, so fierce, that it spun both Kara and the creature out of balance. After a gasp of surprise, Kara was instantly in control, a gazelle on my side. In those wild seconds, sprinting and lunging though the darkness, I wondered if it had all been an illusion.

The sealed exits. The “dead” girl in the orange hoodie, the Corn Stalker himself … we raced closer, closer. Euphoria and adrenalin burned in my lungs. I was right! It wasn’t real—look! Because we’d just made another right turn, and another, we were gonna get outta here—it was all just some crazy prank with actors and mirrors—I was practically laughing, thinking of the mugs of hot cider and breathless laughter coming to us just as soon as—

And then we saw them.

“Nooo …” Kara’s scream caught and died in her throat, as we stumbled to a shocked, confused halt.

An endless, twisting chain gang of young people. All in various states of decay and breakdown. Shackled at the ankles. Some without shoes, or coats. They shuffled slowly. Those who could swing scythes, did so. Their eyes barely registered us. The guys all looked defeated and exhausted. Like beaten dogs. The girls seemed altered in a different way. Their faces devoid of expression, as if spellbound.

“You see?” rasped the Corn Stalker, who’d swept in on us in a moment. “I can help Kara. She didn’t want to be part of this night. It’s often the case with the girlfriends. And so I save them. Call me a gentleman.” His laugh was thin, a child’s. “There is so much work that needs to be done. So many local farms. We must keep moving, moving. These mazes don’t create themselves. It’s intricate work. An art, really.” His fingers wrapping Kara’s wrist, tugging her.

And this time, pure terror conspired to make her limp as a rag doll. She stumbled from me, her weight traded as the Stalker handed me a scythe.

In mute disgust and abject horror, I watched the creature force Kara to submit to his death kiss. His fangs sinking expertly into her neck, drinking just enough to transform her into the slack-jawed, unfocused and trancelike state of the other imprisoned girls. Finished, he pushed her roughly to her place in the line. I saw the chains wrapped around her Doc Martens.

Somehow, my ankles also had been bound. The dread iron weights felt like a hundred pounds, dragging me toward my sure grave.

“Your fate is to know. Hers is blissful unawareness. It makes a kind of perfect symmetry, don’t you agree, Josh?” The creature wiped the fresh blood from his chin. “And symmetry is critical to our maze art. We’ll take a few more workers, and then move on. We must be quick.”

Somewhere far ahead, I thought I heard the blissful, muffled laughter of other couples.

Still leaping through the maze, still looking for the exits and escape.

Still searching, fruitlessly for the end of the game.

THE END.

Try again from the beginning and see if you can escape the corn stalker. (http://www.pageturnersblog.com/2011/10/yaspooktacular-story-3-corn-stalker.html) 

About the Author:

Adele Griffin has written a number of books for young adults, including Where I Want to Be, Amandine, The Other Shepards, the Witch Twins and Vampire Island series, Picture the Dead with bestselling illustrator Lisa Brown, and the new "Generation Facebook" novel The Julian Game. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.

You can find Adele here: her website, Twitter, her blog, Goodreads and you can order her books here: Amazon  B&N  The Book Depository

Now it's time for a Treat! Enter to win a signed copy of Tighter by Adele Griffin!

Contest is open through October 31 to US residents age 13 and up.

Enjoy your reading and good luck!

Christi

Click here to start the story!