Deadly Darkness
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Lucy Wang, Grade 6, Wilkins Public School
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Short Story
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2011
Excellence Award in the 'Step Write Up 2011' competition
The bubbling died in the sinister shadows. It was a huge relief;it was a temporary relief. A of sweat dripped from my forehead, hesitated around the edge of my nose to hang at the corner of my mouth. I caught it with my tongue.
It tasted putrid as it stuck in my throat with a stale smell from my breath. In an insidious rumbling of of menace and eerieness,the bubbling started again malice lurked in the dark - like a grey-hooded ghost - in a murky memory of unconscious children,terrifing giggles and dread. Breathing, approaching, breathing, approaching , breathing, approaching... nearer and nearer still...
From the doorway the shadow appeared twising a rope into a noose-like shape.
***
“Do you like them?”he had asked in a gushing, parental sort of manner.
I was at the museum for the new waxworks exhibition. Proudly, the wax figures stood on their pedestals,poised in a glory of praise. He was an artistic, imaginative young man. His red hair, which stood out in eccentric tufts dotted with clay, was amusingly appealing as he rushed from sculpture to sculpture, I was so captivated that I was honoured when he suggested that I have a look at his new creations in his downstairs workshop.
It was hot inside. Hot and humid. Humid and steamy. Steamy and suffocating. I decided to have a look around while I waited for him to come back with a brochure. The statues were different from any I’d seen before- so realistic perhaps? Gradually, I began to have a nagging thought about the figures. Stare- a familiar face? Stare- was it her? Stare- and was she actually an adult dressed as a child in some of them? It was all just too overwhelming, when... like a stalker, the truth crept right up on me- just as the bubbling started again .
With a maniacal smirk, the sculptor approached, I struggled to get away: heart aches - lungs collapse -scant air - evil grin - dead children - bubbling wax humdroom - overwelming pain - tightening noose - stiff body tightening - falling ... falling ... falling...
Skillfully, he placed my cooled-down body.
“Enjoy the waxworks, did you?” he sniggered. “Hope you enjoy it even more tomrrow when you are the star attraction. ”