The Durras Curse

• Ashleigh Swanson, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2022

The rain is pounding down hard on the car window that I can barely hear the song on the radio ‘Running Up That Hill’. My sister is singing along loudly to it, my parents are busy ranting about the people they work with and my dog is sleeping on my lap. There is about 10 minutes until we reach one of my favourite places on earth… Durras, my family's holiday house that I have been going to ever since I was little. Durras is a small little town on the south coast of NSW. In the summer it is beautiful with the warm sun beating down on the sand on the beaches, the waves washing up high on the shores and the beautiful sunrises. But in winter it has a different almost eerie kind of feel. I’m not sure what it is but there is a sense of coldness in the air, not from it being winter though, it is from something unwelcome. The coldness affects the personality of everyone who lives there permanently. Unfortunately, it is winter at the moment so it won’t be a fun time.
I suddenly snap awake from my daydream to see my parents pulling into the driveway of our holiday house and I can feel a wave of coolness wash over me and the car. I can tell everyone can feel it because of the awkward silence that we all fall into, I’m pretty sure even my dog can feel it because his tail has fallen and his ears have drooped down. We all get out of the car, welcomed by the smell of wet grass. Not wanting to be out in the rain we quickly haul our bags out of the car and up to our old but homely house that sits above the ground on stilts. When we enter, the house has a dark glow due to it being winter and I hear a strange sound coming from outside that started when we entered the house and closed the door behind us. I’m pretty sure the noise is coming from next door where two brothers live. They are really nice but in winter they turn really strange.
A few hours pass by and I go outside to look around before I go to bed. I look over to the house next door and there is something laying on the ground outside the house. It’s in the shape of a box, a suitcase maybe? I slowly approach it and notice a foul spell wafting from it. I bend down and try to open the box but it won’t open, it's like something is holding the lid down so it can’t be opened. Desperate to know what is inside, I sprint up to the house to get someone to help me open it when I suddenly hear a wrestling sound behind me. I look to see what it is and turn back to the box to find that it is gone.