“The Dare”
By Misty Nelson
Special to The Rip
Editor’s note: “The Dare” is the winning entry in The Rip’s scary story contest.
It was black as night. The electricity had been out for some time. The room was deathly silent, having not been lived in for years. The last family had left in a hurry, it was said. The small one bedroom house was considered haunted.
His friends had dared him to enter the house on Friday the 13th at midnight. Steven, of course, had never turned down a bet in his life. He walked in slowly, feeling the cold seeping into his bones. The only sound was his breathing. Steven flicked on the flashlight he carried and shined it around the room. It revealed moth-eaten furniture and cracked, peeling walls. Dust lay several inches thick everywhere. Almost directly ahead of him the flashlight illuminated a narrow hallway that lead to the bedroom and bathroom. Oddly the flashlight would only penetrate a few feet into the hallway leaving most of it shrouded in darkness.
As he looked around Steven suddenly heard an odd shuffling sound coming from the hallway … no, not the hallway but the walls in the hallway. As he listened the shuffling came louder, probably a rat or something, who knew in a house this old? He hesitated and then slowly walked forward into the hallway. He moved slowly and as he did the shuffling suddenly was right beside him. As he walked, the odd shuffling paced him right there the entire way. When Steven entered the bedroom the sound stayed behind in the hallway. Steven looked around the bedroom turning his back on the hallway as he did so.
The shuffling came from directly behind him. Steven froze, feeling his blood turn to ice. He slowly turned around and with a shaking hand shined his flashlight on the hallway.
Next door, the neighbor was startled to hear screams coming from the house. Stupid kids, he thought, always going into that house and scaring themselves silly. With a grunt he reached over and slammed the window shut. Then he turned the volume up on the television.
“Servotron”
By Eric Duhart
Special to The Rip
The sky was clear the moon was out, the only thing in view was a bunch of kids playing with their razor scooters. In the distance suddenly a scream was heard, a piercing scream that covered the sounds of the kids playing. But let’s go back to where it started.
It was an normal day for Montgomery Muntz. He was like every other weird person on your block. He never came outside and when he did, it looked like he had been awake for weeks. In his basement, he was creating something unimaginable, a race of robots called BEEBS. Each one went by a different version — Version 3.11, Version 4.20, Version 8.78. No one knew what these numbers meant except for Montgomery. But something went wrong with the main one, which he called Servotron. It had a mind of its own. At first, Montgomery thought it was a breakthrough, he created life made from old Atari 2600s. While the other versions worked, they were not as advanced as Servotron. Montgomery spent hours figuring out what Servotron thought of, what he wanted and what he needed.
But something in Servotron’s mind went crazy. He started to build other robots and rewired the other versions in the way he wanted them to be. Now that they could build each other, it would never end. The only thing standing in the way of the BEEBS from controlling the world was Montgomery. Montgomery didn’t know what was happening, so as time went by and Montgomery studied this machine, the machines started to slowly possess Montgomery. They would do these possessions in small doses, and since Montgomery had no friends, they could easily influence him. This made it easy for them to control his mind and eventually destroy him.
This brings us to the day with the shriek. Montgomery was rewiring Servotron when suddenly a wire shot from Servotron and entered Montgomery’s mouth, then one more wire shot through his eye. Eventually, all the wires were wrapped around Montgomery’s entire body.
The kids playing outside were about to run when they stopped and stared at something so frightening that they stood while their bodies were filled with fear. It was a huge robot with millions of wires sprouting out and what looked like their crazy neighbor attached to the robot. Before the kids could run, the robot attacked.