Frightful Flash Fiction Competition Winners

Here are the four winning stories in our Flash Fiction competition:

Younger Children's Section Winner

Halloween

by Sinéad Bourke, Age 8, Co. Meath

It was Halloween Ciara, Conor and Niamh were trick or treating they went up to one of the houses and there was a sign on the window saying DO NOT COME IN OR ELSE!

So they ran home. Ciara opened the door but their parents weren’t home and there was a ghost behind Conor. Ciara screamed for help. Their neighbour came and said “What happened?”

“There’s a ghost behind Conor”

“Let me call for help”

But no one answered so she drove everywhere looking for help until she found a house that had lights on so she knocked on the door and someone answered.

It wasn’t a person, it was a witch, so the next door neighbour ran into her car, but the witch got her broom. The neighbour drove home but the witch was on her broom so she saw where she was going, so she followed the car home. She went down to the grass and ran into the house and got her phone and called Frankinstein to the house. They had a fight.

If the ghost, witch and Frankinstein won they got to stay. If Ciara, Conor, Niamh and the neighbour won the ghost, witch and Frankinstein would have to leave.

So they played rock paper scissors.

Ciara against the Ghost, Conor against the Witch and Niamh against Frankinstein and the neighbour keeping score.

So they played rock paper scissors. Ciara won, Conor won and Niamh lost. So they have to go!

“We won!” shouted Niamh.

The End.

Older Children's Section Winner

My Spooky Story

by Sophia Ní Fhloinn Ní Raghallaigh Rang a Sé, Gaelscoil Longfort

On the day of Halloween, a little boy decided to go and look for houses to trick or treat at. He came across a big black, old, shabby house falling to pieces. He asked a few of his friends would they go with him to the house. As they walked closer to the house they heard ‘BANG, BOOM, CLAP’. Even though he heard the noises he wasn’t afraid.

His friends Jack, Beth and Rose told him that a little girl once lived there with her parents, she was an only child, and she felt very lonely and sad. She was left in her house all by herself, day and night.

She was constantly frightened and one night as she walked down her stairs she fell through the staircase. Suddenly she heard three knocks at her door and it flung open. She wasn’t hurt just a little worried about the door opening.

She quietly walked outside the door to see if she could see anyone but no one was there, she walked back in quickly to go and get her flashlight. She returned back outside but still could not see anyone.

Her parents returned to find their daughter spooked, up sitting in the dark with the flashlight still on.

Teen Section Winner

The Dance of Doom

by Robyn Coughlan, Co. Longford

From the light of the street lamp, I could just about make out the shape of it dancing forward. The street was completely deserted and the only sound I could hear was the pitter-patter of it's straw-filled feet tapping lightly on the concrete.

6ft tall it was... and its eyes. Oh god its eyes. Red, burning slits, redder than the depths of hell.

I should have listened to my grandmother when she told me not to go into the cornfield. The field that held more evil than it did corn.

I was frozen in fear as it got closer. I didn't know how those straw-filled legs even kept it up.

It danced forward - the same dance it had been doing when I found it in the field. It was like it was waltzing, but without a partner. As it spun, and leaped in the most inhumane of ways, I found a tear escape from my eye and roll lightly down my face.

It was now only a couple of feet away from me and I could make out the evil grin that formed on it's cloth face.

I crouched on the ground, and closed my eyes - awaiting my fate. I could hear it as it got closer.

Pitter-patter-pitter-patter.

And then, it stopped.

Slowly, I opened my eyes and looked up. It was gone.

With a sigh, I blamed it on my over-active-imagination and stood up, beginning to walk away from the horror I had just endured.

Pitter-patter-pitter-patter.

There it was again. My heart dropped into my stomach when I turned back and saw what was there.

The scarecrow.

Only this time it was right beside me - bent down so that it's face was level with my own.

“Hello,” it hissed. “Would you care to dance?”

Adult Section Winner

I love your nails!

by Andy Jones, Co. Cavan

Imelda, who looked after the cosmetics, was a bit “tarty”, to be honest. The chemist’s son was always telling her that he “loved her nails, her hair, her frock”, when he was “helping” her in the stores. I was the messenger boy, so I could hear the stocktaking that went on sometimes.

One day she didn’t turn up for work. The boss’s son also failed to materialise, so when he appeared the next day but she did not, rumours went into overdrive. In those days, when a woman disappeared like that, there was usually a good reason. “She’ll be back slimmer” was the consensus.

No further thought was given to Imelda. Occasionally, someone would make a smart remark to the son, and he would go red, but that was it.

About a month after the bit of excitement, I was in the yard straining the noxious cough medicine the shop made, through layered muslin. The stuff had been simmering for weeks in a big cauldron on an old gas stove. It was a messy job.

I was almost finished squeezing the last few dollops out, when something caught my eye. I knew immediately that Imelda was NEVER coming back. A cluster of her favourite purply-red finger nails rested in my hand.