Halloween 2016 Writing Contest!

Entry #1
Title: Drive in the Country
Author: Charlie Sapuer

There are strange and unusual things that happen out here in the west. Case in point …

When I was a might bit younger I was a lot more reckless than I am now, and I had an adventurous spirit. I would often vanish into the wilderness with little warning for days at a time. In those days I had had an old Jeep. It was sky blue with white trim. It was perfect for exploring. Best of all I took the roof and doors off and had access to the open air.

Part of my daily routine at the time was a round trip from the countryside village to The Big City, which wasn’t much more than a glorified town. But that town had a college and a military base, so the population was fairly big-city folk. I was one of the college students, and I had a part time job on the side to help with the cost of college, which was entirely do-able back in those days.

The trip was a long one. Each way was close to an hour, no matter which of the three paved roads was chosen. In bad weather it was a pack-your-lunch-and-dinner trip. However, there were some shortcuts to get away from the traffic, but not really get away from the time.

One such shortcut led across the local Native American reservation. The reservation was the barren lands between the City and the village I lived in. On the main roads it was busy and had a few gas stations and houses along the way. But off the main roads it was wilderness. Once my tires left the pavement it was just twisty dirt roads and quiet. Well, except for the very far southern end, where the dirt roads converged on the reservation proper. They were a friendly bunch, too. If I was out there I’d get waved at, or other such pleasantries along the way. That’s one of the reasons I would go through there.

But at night it was desolate. The only thing you could see were the stars above and whatever part of the road or trees or bushes happened to be in your headlights. I preferred that scenery to the black pavement and often would take that extra journey just to get away from it.

But the desolation wasn’t just a lack of lighting. It was a total lack of light. None of the local homes which could be seen in the daytime, most far from the twisty roads, could be seen at night. There were no people or even local pickups or tractors out after dark. In fact, on the occasion that I had the chance to pass through when the sun was setting, everyone seemed to melt into the background before it was too dark to see. Even house lights would go away as if swallowed by the darkness itself. I heard a rumor in the area that there was something out after dark the locals called Yee Naglooshii, and they were deathly afraid of it, and would hide away in their homes.

Now, at the job I had, back then, I would end up driving through the area well after sundown, and sometimes on closer towards midnight. It was on one of those extra-late drives where I found myself faced with something truly strange.

Everything seemed fairly normal. I was driving along the dusty track. I had added lights to the Jeep which were extra bright – made just for being out alone in dark places – though two of them had a sort of brown-yellow tint. It was still better than not seeing, but not by much.

I had rounded a corner which was a tractor-carved channel surrounded by high dirt berms to the sides. It was nearly impossible to see around the curve. All you could see was the berm ahead as you made the turn. Well, right as I got around the turn there was a pile of movement in the center of the road.

I could swear it was a pile of dogs fighting, but they were larger than any dogs I had ever seen and they looked kind of overly long-legged. From that half second glance it almost looked like three or four of the dogs were holding one down in the center of the road.

I hit the brakes as several of them jumped aside, but one was still in the road. I heard the thump as the underside of the jeep hit the critter. It was solid. And, not just once. It was several thumps. That critter was big enough that it must have tumbled and hit on the frame and transmission down there. The brake pedal suddenly went straight to the floor. Good thing brakes are meant to work somewhat still even in that sort of event, and I was able to slow to a stop. But it was too late.

But it wasn’t that what made my heart suddenly tighten up like a clamp was on it. It was the screaming. It was the most horrifying screaming I ever heard. I don’t even have words to explain what it sounded like. It wasn’t no dog, for sure.

I didn’t carry a gun at the time, but I did have a big hunting knife under the seat. It was a large Bowie style knife and I had hand-sharpened it enough that drawing it from the sheath made me nervous about cutting myself. I was also young and thought that I could handle anything with that knife.

The screaming continued as the critter scrambled into the darkness. I could hear it crashing through the underbrush headed towards the river. By the red glow of the tail lights, I could just make out a trail of blood from behind the Jeep and over the berm on the left. There was nothing I could do, really. I wasn’t going to chase that thing out into the night in hopes of putting it out of its misery with only a knife.

When I turned around I felt a chill run through me and I froze in place.

On the berm still ahead, lit in the dull brown glow of the lights, was something crouching and looking my way. It looked like a dog in that it had splotchy grey and white fur and pointed ears and was down on all fours. But the legs were weirdly long and the eyes were like black dots within white circles. Worst of all it was just silently staring at me. Had it been there the entire time? I thought back as I lifted the knife slowly to point the sharp end at the critter. Maybe. In my head I thought I remembered that it was there, watching, as I rounded the corner, when I was trying to avoid the others.

It crouched back a little as if the bladed edge of the knife was reaching all the way over to it. It still just stared right at me. Or, perhaps it was staring at the bright lights and couldn't see me past them, even though I was a step back and to the side of the Jeep.

Then I remembered there were maybe four more of them things which had scrambled out of the way when I drove up. Sure enough, there was a shuffling of dirt off to my left, behind the berm. I couldn’t see anything in the dim red glow of the tail lights if I wanted to. I didn’t even try to look away from that one staring at me. But I knew I wasn’t going to stick around there another moment. I stepped over and slid behind the wheel and found the gearshift. The critter on the berm faded back like the darkness sorta washed over it and pulled it away. I could have sworn I heard a voice. It didn’t sound like a voice. It sounded deeper, sorta like a windy burst through rustling leaves, though whatever the words were I couldn’t understand them. They sounded like something in the local language.

I dumped the clutch and tore out of there as fast as I could. Later, after I reached the main road and found a gas station with enough lights to see, I took a look at the Jeep. There were a few clumps of bloody dark hair on the bumper and front axle. Strange enough, the brakes had a tear in the steel line right down by the fenderwell as if someone had hacked at it with an axe from below. There were also a peculiar set of scratches along the skid plate in the center. They looked like five claws had grabbed onto it and dragged down the center.

I never cut through the reservation again.

Entry 3
Author: earving1 (Fluttershy)
Title: Nycto Pony

“The Nycto Pony”
There were pony friends heading to the ever free safety house since a heavy storm was coming , the ponies were Fluttershy, Gipsy, Tiger, Skye, Twilight sparkle and Penny, they were in a cart pulled by a horse in the deepest dark night and with barely moonlight because the clouds of the storm were full covering it , the friends were talking and chilling inside till then the cart got shaken a bit and the horse stop, Fluttershy noticed it and quickly step out of the cart to check the horse safety , he was alright so everyone got down and Skye the technician pony inspected the cart and found a very deep scratch on the back right Wheel, Skye said it is a very damaged Wheel we can’t keep going in the cart , everyone started to get nervous because they were alone in a very dark cold place and in the middle of the forest, till Twilight started to think and thought about making a light blast of magic to the sky to make an small recognize of the area , she sends the powerful spell and at distance she could see a very dims lights ahead so she told every pony to follow her, they did, they reached the first light and it was very close up to another like a pathway to follow, the path lead the way to a private property with a dark and rusty , Steel old big doors, the ponies entered to that place and some far distance there was an old abandoned building as they approached it and found tag name at the main entrance saying Everfree Asylum with a big N carved at the start, the Never-free Asylum, Twilight read it and she got really surprised to find this kind of hospital , mean while Fluttershy was leaving the pull horse outside, While Gipsy said Never-free my Fudge, Twilight approaches the reckless Gipsy and says We should not underestimate this place, I really have a bad feeling of all this. Suddenly a thunder approaches the steel entrance and every pony gets scared and go inside of the Asylum, Once in there they start to look around the place it’s an abandon pony asylum with old wood type floor, very long corridors, in front a small reception next to an stairs and to the other side a small corridor that leads up to the garden, without any pony noticing a very screwed pony approached with a brown sheets with a little blood drips at the end of his cloths, without a pony hoof, with dark eyes like a moonlight moon and with a very sharp scythe carved with a lot of red marks seems like the count of his pony victims , they finally noticed the creepy pony and everyone started to get in shock, except one pony , Gipsy with her reckless attitude takes few steps and step in front of the creature lifted her hoof and pointed it and say you don’t scare me even a little, you don’t exist , you are just a ghost fairy tale to scare kids!, the creature doesn’t seems to respond but its eyes turn in a really deep dark ones, the creature lifted its heavy scythe and swing it to Gipsy hurting her so badly, with the power of the swing Gipsy was throw inside to wicker drawer and few blood dips started to fall of the drawer , meanwhile every pony scream and tried to open the main door but it was locked so they ran away, Fluttershy ran to the garden with a big greenhouse, Tiger ran to the left corridor to asylum rooms, Skye and Twilight took the stairs and Penny ran to the right Corridor reaching the kitchen, meanwhile the creature swing one more time its scythe to the drawer killing Gipsy, the creature turned back its eyes to midnight approached the drawer while saying whispering “Nycto” , the creature with his one front hoof used its nail to stained it from Gipsy’s blood, and with the bloody nail he started to carved the red mark on its scythe, the creature end the carving and head over to the garden looking for that pink yellow pony, Fluttershy was hidden behind some bushes, the pony creature crawled to the garden and noticed few Butterflies hanging around over few flowers, the creature approached the Butterflies slowly , turned his eyes black again as the color of the hollow of the night, the creature lifted its scythe against the butterflies, Fluttershy nervous, said stop! Don’t harm them, the creature turned its head slowly and crawled quickly to Fluttershy, lifted his scythe, Fluttershy Made a big scream that every pony at the asylum could hear, the creature swung its scythe so fast pulling Fluttershy away of the bush Damaging her so badly at her torso making her Faint, at one corner of the garden there was a trapdoor open, the creature took Fluttershy, crawling and leaving a trail of blood behind of her , the creature throw Fluttershy to the trapdoor leaving her at the basement where there was so many wheelchairs that the asylum stored, shouting the trapdoor and blocking it , meanwhile Skye Ran a locked room, he easily managed to open the lock and he got inside it was a dark place but still with a window and the light of the moon but it seems he reached the security wing where he looked for something against the creature, he luckily find a shotgun with few shells and a sword, he charged the shotgun and sheathed his sword, He was ready to rock and roll the house trying to protect everyone he could but suddenly as he ended checking his gun, strange pony skinless vassals appeared it seems they are the subjects of the creature, as They quickly approached Skye looking for pony blood , Skye didn’t think it twice and opened fire against the subjects and one after one fell but Skye got distracted with a little spark coming out of the wall and a pony skinless vassal approached him but Skye managed to defend it using his shotgun to push away pony skinless vassal out of reach of his jaws , Skye used the stock of the shotgun to hit the creature knocking it out and finally pulled the trigger, Skye realized he stained and fill all the security wing with blood of the vassals and their body parts, but Skye got a mental overdrive , He shook his head and looked back the wing again , there wasn’t no more blood or creature parts on the floor, He got an hallucination ,he started to get the feeling of the curse of the Asylum, scared of what happened, He just walked slowly at the hall, in the meantime The creature crawled back to the house at distance Cookware could be heard, it was Penny! Trying to hide behind the counters of the creature, the creature crawling while saying “Nycto” approached the counters but it didn’t find nothing, Penny felt safe for a bit, The creature sway its scythe in cooking gas tank filling quickly the kitchen with cooking gas , Penny inside and relaxed but still nervous started to smell and say “what’s that smell? It is cooking gas?” the creature crawled away of the room, Penny was nervous and wanted to see what was going on , so she opened the counter to see the creature leaving but before doing the last crawling steps the creature left drop the sickle part of scythe to the floor and Penny quickly scream and said “No wait please, NO!!!”, the creature dragging its scythe created a sparkle that made explode the whole kitchen with Penny on it, leaving only pony remains of the explosion, the creature went back to Penny’s remains and stained his hoof’s nail with Penny’s blood and made another red mark to its scythe , Suddenly the creature listened to the Skye gun shots upstairs, so it crawled upstairs leaving Penny’s Blood trail behind in the stairs , Skye was wandering the hallways with the shotgun loaded , The creature appeared in the scene, Skye quickly went back to himself, He saw the creature and started to empty his shotgun on him while walking away of it, He shot few rounds to the creature but the creature don’t stop or got a little damage of the shells and Skye just said “what the hell are you?” ,Skye kept shooting up, till they reached the hallway end and Skye emptied his shotgun and the creature approached him so easily with the top of his scythe under Skye’s throat, he started to lift him up using the scythe against wall while saying “Nycto” Many times and the creature eyes that were midnight light they turned back deep hollow black , so the creature started to suffocate Skye, Skye just was trying to resist, but his resistance was futile ,Skye tried to use the sword against the creature as last resort but He couldn’t because he fainted so badly leaving him in near death state of suffocation. At far a sound was made like they dragged metal beds on the floor with an annoying sound, the creature left Skye on the floor and Headed where the sound could be heard, it was Tiger, that she was trying to hide under the beds but she accidently moved away the beds making the sound that could be heard earlier , the creature reached the rooms ,Tiger started to get really scared and said “oh please save me dear Celestia” while she moved the wall side under the bead, she pressed an action button with her hoof and a hidden secret room opened under the bed and since she was trotting slowly backside she didn’t notice the small rift so she felt down and rolled down to the secret room , the creature looked under the bed where tiger was she was gone, Tiger escaped from the creature for now, after tiger felt down she arrived to a room with a sticky black resin in the floor and walls with a big mountain of pony bones at both sides of the room and a stained red roof looking that it was pony blood seems tiger found the nest of the creature’s vassals at the end of the room there was a curious door, Tiger approached it slowly and carefully , she opened the door there was a downstairs in the dark She trotted down very carefully and she found a lot of wheelchairs around, She was looking for an exit or something like that but by her surprise she found somebody very special to her, it was a wounded Fluttershy, She saw it and the wounds and yelling she said “No, this can’t be, this can’t be happening!!!!” and she screamed so loud that the creature noticed the scream and crawled fast to the basement where Tiger and Fluttershy was, Tiger looked the wounds of Fluttershy she was really terrible, she approached her and hug her tight and told her that everything was going to be okay, the creature crawled approaching both of them, Tiger was distracted but she looked a shadow reflection, Tiger looked behind and was the creature lifting its Scythe going to attack and tiger just closed her eyes but Fluttershy reacted and with her last efforts she pushed away Tiger to don’t let her get hurt and Fluttershy received the Scythe stab making worst her wound that she already had , Tiger noticed the push and opened her eyes sawing how her best friend getting stab , Tiger won’t hold it up anymore She got really mad and pissed off so She kicked the creature three times, picked Fluttershy fast and flied away to the garden using the opened trapdoor and then the main entrance to the asylum, then headed both to upstairs and desperately she looked for a med kit, Flutter got a very severe wounds and if she don’t get medical treatment she would die very soon, Tiger in tears checked every corner of the second floor she didn’t want to her best friend died , she luckily find the medical wing of the asylum she picked up it up, picked up Fluttershy back with extreme carefully and Flew looking for a safe place in the house, Tiger went to hallway and noticed a string holding a metal circle , it was the attic, Tiger approached it quickly she listened whispers so she saw behind , it was the creature crawling approaching them, Tiger didn’t lost time opened the attic door and flew inside of it while creature just swigged its scythe failing the strike and Tiger pulled the string from out to inside achieving locking them-self’s in a safe place, One both were safe away of that monster She finally was able to cure Fluttershy wounds, with Extreme caress Tiger putted Fluttershy on a bed made of bandages on the floor , so she started firstly to softly clean Fluttershy’s wounds with some alcohol cotton, it was really severe wound then Tiger proceed to bandage the zone with extreme sweetness to don’t hurt her best friend. Twilight arrived to a kind of the library of the Asylum the most books it has mostly were of physiologic kind books and Happy-ness books and even kids’ books for certain kind of ponies, Twilight had a several time to full check the library with events that happened with others and since it’s a library it’s really hard to make a sound, after a while of time Twilight found an ancient old book hidden that was of some culture of the places of Equestria and she got really curious it sounded like a riddle of the ever free Asylum “in the place where ponies go when they get nuts, there’s a wing with an infinite knowledge can be learnt .only the ponies who worth’s truly their friends will discover the secret of the philosopher’s pedestal to be able to protect their friends”, Twilight read it again and started to think what it could be and then she said “the place where ponies go when they get nuts it’s the asylum, the wing to get infinite knowledge is the library and Of course! The pedestal that it’s in the middle of the library, But ¿how I will unleash it? ”, She approached the pedestal and she read what it was writing “Only the ponies that their hearts are Truth for their friends and their hearts will be able to unleash the power to protect them” after she ended of reading it a magical power blinked around the pedestal, Twilight take few trots back and the pedestal started to sink in a circle, revealing a staircase to a dark room, so twilight made a light spell to proceed down to that room, it was a stone room with few ancient pony carvings at the walls , and in the middle of the room there was another pedestal holding something that looks like a sword handle, not much to do Twilight grabbed it with her hooves and suddenly the sword handler powered up with twilight’s magic , revealing its true form , a gold spear with many gems stones in the handler and the bottom, with some few carved on it, Twilight proceed to read them and it says “the Friendship spear”, Twilight just found it was weird to found such a relic in the library’s asylum, so she went back to the library main room, and seems someone was waiting at the library entrance she watched who was and it was the creature with its scythe, looking forward to her death , so Twilight had the spear “with this weapon I swear I will protect my friends and i won’t let you put a hoof to any one of them anymore” Twilight ran to the creature and started to attack it with the powerful charged Friendship spear! The creature didn’t have much option to fall back defending the powerful attacks of Twilight , She accomplished to make fall back the creature to the main second floor hall, Tiger was crying at Fluttershy’s arm , Tiger knew even with the wounds healed Fluttershy probably wouldn’t make it so she was deeply crying till she listened the Fight between the creature and Twilight, but she didn’t know what was happening so she just looked like peeping with attic trap hole, she was glad it was Twilight , so she took Fluttershy carefully and Flew to Twilight and with full tears on her face begged twilight “Please Twilight , Fluttershy is not going to make it please help me to save her !” Twilight surprised looked Tiger and looked the deplorable state of Fluttershy, for few seconds the timed stop and Twilight just said to her mind “this can’t be happening! My friends are all I has, I swore to protect them not matter what, even if I manage to defeat the monster, Fluttershy will die ,There should be another way” The ancient Friendship spear Reacted to the Twilight Feelings so the spear started to Overflow Twilight with a immense glow of powerful ancient magic that any unicorn never had the creature didn’t react just was standing there , Twilight glowing made a very powerful spell to the sky destroying the roof and made a big flash so big that all Equestria could saw it even with the storm, after she made the spell Twilight fell to the floor exhausted of using a lot of ancient magic, She was conscious but still she couldn’t move a hoof, so creature crawling approached her , she said “please you don’t have to do this, there should be another way “ The creature said “Nycto” while it turned to dark black hollow its eyes, grabbed twilight from her neck and lifted her, choking her throat slowly suffocating her , Twilight couldn’t do a thing she was exhausted , The creature choked hard twilight sparkle making her to Faint, the creature approached a window so it threw Twilight out of the window of the second floor, making her deeply Faint and with few cuts of windowpane outside with the storm going on, the creature turned back and looked Tiger holding Fluttershy and approached them crawly and slowly , Tiger said “why you did this to us ?” the creature just whispered “Nycto” , the creature approached the mares and lifted its scythe ready to swing it, Tiger just hold Fluttershy and she closed her eyes but Suddenly Skye came and Deflected the Swing of the scythe with his sword protecting the defenseless mares , Tiger said “ Omg you are fine Skye!, thank you, you are my hero” Skye replied “you would need more than a suffocation to beat me, and I am happy that I could save you gurls” so the battle started Skye fought with his sword against the creature, the creature quickly approached Skye and Swing his Scythe on him but Skye could keep up defending easily the swung of the scythe with its sword, But Skye let his down guard on the Scythe bottom handle since with the sword He could only defend the Scythe Sharp Side , so the creature started to hit him with the Scythe bottom handle , getting really hard hits with it and finally Knocking Skye out to the floor, the creature approached Skye fainted in the floor and with its Scythe bottom Handle pressed Skye’s Throat against the floor with a very long time so it was Unknown if Skye Died or no, the creature finished with Skye and approached Tiger and Flutter again, Tiger said “please you don’t have to do this, we are good ponies” the creature just approached the mares lifted it scythe , Tiger knew it was the end no pony would save them anymore, she closed her Eyes and started to remember those beautiful moments she lived with Fluttershy Suddenly Applejack appeared and used her lasso to stop the Creature Scythe’s Swung, Rainbow Dash quickly picked up Tiger and Fluttershy away of the creature and Rarity used her magic to restrain the creature movement while Princess Luna used a Stone transform on the spell but in lower tier because for high tier you would need the elements of harmony , She made a blast on the creature destroying the Asylum main entrance and burying the creature stone body in the bottom of the debris of the Asylum, the storm ended , the sun was rising , the nightmare was over, a pony ambulance was outside , the pony paramedics with Rainbow dash help managed to rescue Skye, Twilight, Fluttershy and Tiger, they found Gipsy’s body but she was dead hours ago, they didn’t found penny her body remains disappeared , after everyone got saved , Fluttershy woke up on the pony town hospital bed and the first she saw was a sleepy Tiger on an uncomfortable chair and she asked softly to tiger “what happened?” tiger with a waken up mood said “oh you just wake up, I am glad that you are ok , well it happened a lot of stuffs but I realized at the end the important of caring your friends “ Fluttershy just didn’t get it , so tiger approached her and whispered to her ear “I realized that you are so important to me “ She kissed Fluttershy’s cheek and just said “you need to rest it was a really thought night go back to bed honey” so Fluttershy did , The ponies could recover from what happened that Night. And the next night at the Ever-free Asylum there was a stone hoof less at the top of the Asylum debris and that leg started to shake……. Does this will continue? I don’t know
Thank You for Reading, Written by Fluttershy(earving1) with the permission of using her friends names on the story, this story is pure fictional and it has few references to hidden Easter eggs , Hope that you enjoyed your reading and have a nice days Hugs
This story is protected by copyright © and all their rights reserved to their respective owners

Judges' Choice was decided by Milo and Ame as Cloudy, but don't let that influence your vote. Who gets the popular vote though? That's up to you.

To vote you click on the poll at the top of the thread, choosing the box for the story you want to win. However when I look at the results I'll also count in posted votes in comments that I don't see in the "who voted" list that shows on my end to make sure that everyone wanting to vote gets to.