Welcome to another stop for the second annual YASpooktacular,
hosted by Frenzy of Noise and Wicked Awesome Books!
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. *cue creepy music*
There are also some TRICKS or TREATS scattered throughout the story, where you can enter to win prizes (we have a treat here!) and get bonus points toward the prize packs. The prize pack for Story #2 will be up tomorrow! 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!
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About the author:
Lani Woodland has been an avid reader since elementary school when she first discovered the Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley Twins series. In sixth grade she began writing plays and recruiting (with force when necessary) her friends to act them out. Most of these early works were inspired by She-Ra, the epitome of girl power to her young self. She graduated from BYU with a BS in Family Science. Lani has always loved scary stories, and has a hard time enjoying any book without at least a little romance in it. She lives in Southern California with her husband, their two children and a large collection of board games.
You can find Lani on:
Twitter, on her
blog, on her
website and on
Goodreads
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You can pick the story up at the beginning
by clicking on the banner!
Before you can respond, Stace’s loud voice interrupts you. “What’s up with the lack of music?”
You don’t want to admit you were too freaked by Des’s trick to put it back on so you shrug.
“Feel free to put some on.” She holds out her ipod and smiles. “Good thing my Halloween playlist is here to save you.” She heads up towards the attic, ipod clutched firmly.
Des and Tara start making out on your couch.
“Listen, there’s something I want to tell you,” Michael says. He’s leaning in so closely to you can feel his breath tickle your neck. It gives you goosebumps. “But not here. Let’s go for a walk.”
You instantly think of the dock and smile. “I know just the place.”
**
The dock is dark and empty, and a fog has rolled in. It’s moody and romantic and perfect. Michael looks both happy and nervous- a good sign that he’s gearing up to make a move.
“I was starting to think you guys weren’t coming,” you admit.
“Yeah, some of the guys thought it would be funny to try and scare you while you were all alone.”
“Des,” you mutter. “What a jerk. Did Stace talk him out of it?”
Michael nods and you smile in relief. You could always count on Stace.
Michael rubs his hand through his hair and looks nervous. “I don’t know how much time we’ll have before someone comes out and interrupts us, so I just want to say…”
He pauses and your heart beats in anticipation. It’s all you can do not to shake him to get him to talk faster.
“…you look amazing,” he finally says. His eyes travel freely up and down your body. You can tell he appreciates your skimpy costume.
“You look pretty amazing yourself.”
Michael wastes no more time. He steps forwards, his eyes intense, and cups your face in his hand. Goosebumps erupt all over your skin as you anticipate his lips touching yours. He leans in slowly, and you smile as you feel his eagerness radiating off him.
“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time but you were always surrounded by your friends or busy with your family. “ He is staring at your lips. “I wanted to wait until Halloween to do this so it would be special.”
“Then don’t waste any more time,” you reply before leaning in.
Your lips meet. His kiss is confident and you return it eagerly. Your kissing grows more passionate as Michael trails kisses from your mouth down to your neck. A sigh of pleasure escapes your lips. Michael is taking this further than you had thought, and you don’t mind at all. Your body reacts with excitement as you begin to wonder just how far Michael is willing to go out on the dock, but then you jump at his painful nibble on your neck.
“I’m sorry,” Michael says, looking embarrassed. “I got carried away.”
You press your hand to your neck and pull it away to check for blood. There’s a small smear, but you can tell it’s nothing serious.
That’s when you hear a banging noise, and your head jerks around to see where it’s coming from. The figure of Stace is visible from the attic window. You realize Stace must have been watching you, and you wonder why she would be so rude as to interrupt.
That’s when you notice she’s screaming. You can’t hear it because of the music Stace has blaring from the house, but you can see her mouth open wide as she beats on the window. A dark shadow rises behind her and Stace turns around to face him. The figure crashes into her and Stace disappears from view. You feel a scream tunneling up your throat but then you catch a glimpse of the attacker’s face and it’s Des in that stupid mask again.
Instantly your fear morphs into annoyance. “I thought you said Stace talked Des out of his stupid prank.”
“She did.”
“Then why is she pretending to be murdered in my attic? Excuse me for a minute, I need to talk to her. I’ll be right back.”
You stride purposely towards the house, determined to tell Stace off. The patio door is wide open. You step over the threshold, and head for the attic.
Sure enough, the dark figure is still there, wearing a lame monster mask, hovering over Stace.
“Hey Stace, thanks a lot for ruining my make-out session with Michael. And Des, Michael already told me about your stupid prank.”
The dark figure shies away from you and you tsk and roll your eyes. “You’re not scaring me, especially not with a cheap mask from the drug store.” You reach up and snatch the mask off, ready to smack the stupid grin off Des’s drunken face.
But the mask won’t come off. Instead your fingers clench into spongy flesh, like a cold corpse and you realize there is no mask. This is really this monster’s face. You scream and practically step on Stace as you back up. You grab her wrist, to pull her up, but her hand is too limp, too cold. There is no pulse. She’s dead. You let go and make a run for the door. The music is still blaring strong, but it’s unnaturally quiet downstairs, and as you descend the staircase, you realize why. Everyone is gone. You yell out their names, but there is no answer. Des and Tara are no longer playing tonsil hockey on the couch.
You make a run for the front door but it’s locked. You twist the bolt, bruising your fingers as you force it to move, but it won’t budge. In desperation you flee for the back door, still wide open. You remember Michael, waiting for you at the dock, and hope beats in your chest. Michael will know what to do.
Your foot catches on something as you run and you trip and fall hard. Pain runs through your scraped-up leg, but adrenaline tells you to keep running. You stumble to your feet and look behind you, sure the white-faced man must be right behind you, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
You check to see what you fell over. It’s a body. No, two bodies. Your hands tremble as you bend down and start shaking whoever they are.
You’re so frightened you can hear yourself gasping for air, but you keep telling yourself they are just drunk and passed out. You need to get them out, but neither will wake up. With a grunt you roll them over. One of them is wearing a mask. You rip it from his face and it’s Des. And next to him, lying in blood, is Tara. Again you fumble for a pulse. There isn’t one. They’re dead too. You scream so loud your throat burns. Michael appears at the back door and you sob in relief.
“Michael! You need to call the police! We have to get out of here!” The monster from the attic appears behind Michael and you shout like a scream queen. “Behind you!”
He turns and looks at the monster. He doesn’t even flinch. Michael looks at you again. “Don’t worry. Everything is fine.”
Michael steps across the threshold. “Don’t worry, my love. It’s all going according to plan.”
You startle at his strange words. “According to plan?”
“I’ve been planning this for months. My friend here agreed to help me out.” He slaps the monster on the shoulder with a friendly pat. “You have no idea how long it took me to arrange all of this. I told you, I wanted this Halloween to be special. And now it will be.”
He smiles and his incisor teeth elongate into razor-sharp fangs. His eyes gleam red, and you realize that Michael was the one behind this all along.
“You killed them? You killed them all?” You manage to say through your terror.
“Of course. I had to convince you to join me in the afterlife and I knew you wouldn’t come as long as you still had your family and friends around. So I cleared them off for you. I was surprised you hadn’t noticed your parents dead in the attic earlier. Now there’s nothing to hold you here. We can finally be together.”
He grins wider. You want to scream and run but you’re frozen, too scared to move.
“I told you I wanted this night to be special. Happy Halloween.” He lunges, and your world goes dark.
Continue the story by going to
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As if that part of the story wasn't awesome enough, we have a treat for YOU!
Click the button below to enter to win a signed copy of
Lani Woodland's INTRINSICAL and a swag pack!
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Make sure you visit Lisa M. Potts tomorrow and enter to win the prize pack for story 2!
Good luck and HAPPY HALLOWEEN
from FallenArchangel!
*A big thank you to Nikki and Danielle for organizing and inviting us to participate*
in another awesome year of YASpooktacular
