Sophomore Elisa LaRocca’s short story, “The Truth about the Creature of Aspen,” is the winner of Mrs. Settembrino’s English 10 CP short story contest. Fifty-one stories were submitted, and three stories were then nominated. The nominees’ peers then read the three stories, and each of them voted for the ‘best’ one. All sophomores competed against each other anonymously. Congratulations, Elisa!

The Truth about the Creature of Aspen

            Aspen, Colorado was a small, spooky, deserted town. Very few people lived here and those who did, lived here their whole life because no one would ever want to move into a town this creepy. Sounds and creatures filled the silent nights, random gusts of wind would push through the doors on houses, causing a cold shiver to take over the bodies of the very few people who lived in the town of Aspen. It was October, a few weeks until Halloween night, this is the day when all the creatures have a chance to come out and still be hidden within the many costumes of children. The creatures of Aspen were unusual, some were cute, some were frightening, some were big, small, tall, and short, all types of creatures lived here and they longed for October 31st; this is the day they wait for all year and it’s over within twenty-four hours.

As I walked through the dark, chilly night, trying to cover myself from the people who filled the town, I saw many different things: bowls filled with candy on front steps of houses, orange and purple lights being assembled in windows, big, plastic figures that seemed to look kind of like me on front lawns. My whole life my parents taught me to hide from humans, but I never truly understood the real reason why. What I did understand was that we were different, we looked crazy, we were only awake at night, we ate different things, lived in different places, but why didn’t humans accept us for who we were? We would never do anything to hurt them, but every time I asked my mother, she changed the subject within a split second. I have gone fourteen years without knowing why I have to hide myself from people and why I’m not allowed to go to certain places at certain times, but this Halloween as I’m going to find out the truth and it won’t be from my mother.

It is now October 20th and there’s only eleven more days until I find out the truth, but am I really ready? I have waited this long, but what if my mother never told me the truth because she was trying to keep me from getting hurt. Then I came across a bizarre idea, I wasn’t going to tell my mother my plan; on Halloween night I will tell her I’m going trick-or-treating, like every other year. I suppose she won’t suspect a thing because I go out every year on this day, I just have to make sure she will be home all night. I wasn’t positive on how I was going to make sure she wasn’t leaving our house, but I’m sure something will come to mind as I walk the streets at night.

Every night at midnight, I roam the town of Aspen, always discovering new things. My father always reminded me to be as careful as a women balancing twelve glass plates on her head when I was out because if I made one sharp movement that made me noticeable, something terrible would happen. He never told me the consequences, and I never asked because I knew better than to do that. I slowly walked down my creaky steps trying not to wake my father up, but as I got to the second to last step, I heard him call out, “You better not be going out again! I constantly tell you it’s too dangerous out there; the humans hate us!”

“I know father, I just forgot my favorite blanket outside and I can’t sleep without it. It’ll be quick, nothing bad will happen, I promise!” I called back as I left my house, cautiously closing the front door. Something seemed strange tonight; it felt as if the breeze was a little colder tonight and a little stronger. I had a strange feeling, but I still proceeded on my usual route at this time of night ignoring everything my father just warned me about.

As I entered the center of town, my eyes started to tear and I got this sense of disgust, but I couldn’t understand why. I never came across such a feeling; thoughts filled my head, especially the words my father shouted to me as I left the house. I didn’t know what to do or where to go or what to think, but I knew the right thing was to turn around and go back to my house. I stood there contemplating between the right choice and the risky choice. In this type of situation I always went with the risky choice because I loved sharing stories with my friends, but also, I simply was just a teenage boy doing what they do best and that’s getting into trouble.

I ran to the nearest tree and hid behind it; I tried to catch my breath. I turned my body slowly to look around the tree to see why I had this feeling. The knot in my stomach grew bigger and bigger and as soon as I turned to see what was happening, I heard a high pitched sound that made my ears throb. I jolted back in fear, bouncing off something which sent me flying forward, face-planting back into the tree I was originally hiding behind. I tried to remain calm and get my thoughts back in place, but before I could even do that, there was a tight grip on my wrist causing a tingling sensation to travel up my arm. Many thoughts fled my mind, I should’ve listened to my dad. Why didn’t I just stay home? I knew I had a bad feeling about tonight, but I still continued to roam the streets.

After containing my feeling of fear and getting my mind back into the right place, I looked down to see what the tight grip was, but nothing was there. Not only was there nothing grabbing my wrist, but nothing was in sight, which made me wonder what the high pitched sound was. I took a few steps to the tree again and peeked around it. After not noticing anything for a while I turn around with my back pressed against the tree taking a deep breath and closing my eyes. I was safe, maybe my mind was playing games with me and maybe my mind was trying to tell me something.

As soon as I opened my eyes after relaxing myself, I noticed this small little figure in front of me. I wasn’t nervous and I wasn’t scared, I was just concerned and curious. “Mr.Creature, when you’re calm can you come count my candy with me, please?” Came a voice from the little girl in front of me. At this moment I was confused on why she was asking me to help her. She has parents; why can’t she ask them? And why was she even out on the streets this late at night?

“Uhm, I, Uh…” I couldn’t gather my thoughts, she caught me in such amazement.

“What type of creature are you? Mama and papa always told me there’s many out at this time of night. I’ve never seen any before. My sister always tells me to stay away from the vampires, I don’t understand why though. I’m not even sure what they look like.” The little girl’s voice started to fade away and I started to zone out. Standing behind her in the distance, something caught my eye. It was circular and it was dangling from what seemed to be her front porch. “Hello? Awfully good creature, are you listening to me?” Her sweet little voice came back to me loud and clear, along with tapping on my arm.

“Yes, yes, I heard everything you said. May I ask what the thing hanging from your porch is?” I replied after being silent for so long.

“Oh, that? That’s garlic. To keep the vampires away!”

“Garlic?”

“Yes! That’s garlic. I hate garlic and my mama says vampires do too. Do you know if that’s true?”

As soon as she said this, the thought immediately came to my mind. This is why I was feeling a sense of disgust, because of the garlic. I heard someone yelling in the distance, but I wasn’t quite sure who or what it was. Right now, I was just focused on the little girl standing before me. “Abby! Where did you go?” Exclaimed the little girl’s sister, who now had a name.

“Right here! I’m over here Amy! With this creature, come here! He’s so nice! Look!” She replied as happy as a pig in mud.

Bang! Clash! Amy, Abby’s sister, slammed the door shut, sprinting toward us. She looked angry, but yet contented. When she finally got to us, she started yelling at Abby, asking what she was doing out this late and how could she have the nerve to just walk out of the house and start talking to some stranger when she’s only five years old. I wasn’t sure if I should leave and never see these two girls again, or stay and face the consequences because they seemed pretty decent compared to stories I’ve heard about humans. “Wait… Are you a vampire?” Amy shouted as loud as a fog horn.

I tried to calm her down, telling her I wasn’t here to hurt her and that I got lost, so her baby sister was just helping me. “He’s nice Amy. Really. He was helping me. Please don’t hurt him, please?” Abby said this trying to calm her sister down and it actually worked. They both stared at me in amazement and this predicament soon led to me asking,

“So, Amy, what do humans have against vampires?”

“Well, you see, long ago, back in the 1600s, human and vampires got into a war, I guess you could call that. So all the vampires came back to our town and set the human’s town on fire, causing a brawl to break out, which then lead to vampires and humans becoming enemies. Vampires to us are what garlic seems to you.” She began to go into detail on the whole story, when I noticed a bright light shining in my eyes.

“What time is it!” I jumped up exclaiming trying to find a clock somewhere. Abby looked at her little watch, then looked at Amy because she didn’t quite know how to tell time yet.

“It is about to be four a.m.,” Amy reported to me.

“I need to get home!” I shouted.

“Wait! Mr. Creature, are we going to meet again?” Abby said looking up at me with a pouting face

“Yes, yes, we will meet again. In fact, meet me here on Halloween night at 11:00 p.m. We can go trick-or-treating together. Deal?”

“Yes! Yes, Mr. Creature, I’d love to!” She said showing excitement, jumping up and down pulling on my cape.

I started to walk away when I turned around and saw Abby and Amy waving at me, “Oh! And girls, you can call me Dracula!” I said giving them a warm smile and then turning around and proceeding on the route back to my house.

*Continued*

I woke up finding myself tied to the tree I originally was hiding behind in the first place. I look around confused, wondering if Abby and Amy were even real. I didn’t know where I was at this point in time, I could barely even remember my name. I asked the people who they were and why they were surrounding me.

“Dracula, you’ve been here for almost two days, you were unconscious and now we are going to get back at you for all the things you vampires have done to us humans!” I heard a human shout in the distance. This was when I realized I never met Abby or Amy and I wasn’t meeting them on Halloween night, I didn’t even know if I was going to be alive to see Halloween night this year. I should’ve listened to my father…