Written by Jonathan Wojcik
A 2016 Creepy Preview!
I typically put up a preview right when we reach about a hundred entries in our yearly write-off, and right now, there's still most of a month to
submit your own! The process is easier than ever! The mix of 2016 stories is an interesting one; with some truly outrageous pieces coming in last year, I feel like authors this time around are trending towards simpler, subtler and creepier. You be the judge!
If you're the author of any of these, let me know if there are any errors to correct!
The Hooligans: Forest
"It sprouted straight out of the floor, like it was some sort of bamboo. It was hard to get through it all, especially the door, but when I got outside, there was licorice everywhere."
The Hooligans series, now in its third year, has thus far been exclusive to the Bogleech creepypasta cookoff, but honestly feels like it eventually warrants a website of its own. Every "hooligan" has been supremely bizarre, scary and funny in its own special way, but this one might be one of the most outlandish creature concepts I've ever come across. If you've been liking this series, there's a
lot of it this year, with some pretty big new twists!
What the Sea Leaves
"Kelp beds and stranded fish really look cool, but smell like hell. We all plugged our noses, laughing as we walked out onto the empty sea-bed."
The ocean is always one of my favorite settings for horror; the sheer size of it, the volume of unknown life and phenomena it can conceivably hide, there's virtually no limit to the stories you can get out of it. This one implies something I haven't
quite seen before in the cookoff, not really taking a direction you expect from its build-up.
Rental House
"there’s something absolutely terrifying about flat land. To this day, it makes me feel... vulnerable. Like anything could come over the horizon and there would be nowhere to hide."
Speaking of unexpected directions, I'm sure this is going to be a new favorite for a lot of people.
Mikey
"Real quick: what's Michelangelo's catchphrase? What's that thing he shouts from his skateboard that almost immediately entered the vocabulary of every child from the late 80's to the late 90's?"
Maybe you'll like this "anonymous" entry, maybe you won't. I thought it was at the very least something different.
The Haunted Videos
"Everyone on the internet has a story about buying a VHS copy of their favourite childhood show or a copy of their favourite childhood video game, only to find a bloodier, more sadistic version of the show or game..."
That's it. The haunted video subgenre can go home now.
The Dreamlands: Red
"A red sun glared down from the sky like a malevolent god, and the sky itself was red, although paler than the glaring sun. The dunes themselves were an especially dark shade, as though a great army had fought here for a thousand millennia, until their blood soaked into the sands and stained every single grain."
The title may have already tipped you off that this one is in the style of the "Strange Tales" popularized by Lovecraft and his contemporaries. It captures that style quite well - I could really believe this was one published in something like
Astounding Stories - but with its own creative angle and some very cool entities, both sympathetic and possibly less so.
The Frog
"I heard boring conversations about what kids were going to do that summer. Going to Hawaii, getting to stay in some vacation home with their relatives, you know the drill. One group of whispering kids caught my ears though as they kept mentioning "the frog."
I won't lie, this is one of the top four or five in terms of legitimately creeping me out this year.
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