Dive into some of the spooky stories from the inaugural writing contest held by King’s Writing & Publishing programs
This October, King’s Writing and Publishing programs challenged writers to get into the spirit of Halloween by holding a microfiction writing contest.
Contest participants had up to 250 words to write a “spooky” story using the prompt:
“You’re walking through a cemetery at night and hear a typewriter clacking in the distance.”
Unique and chilling stories poured in, and a shortlist of seven was selected. From those seven, Shaune MacKinlay’s story about the late-night wanderings of retiree David Daniels was selected as the winner. MacKinlay will receive free enrolment in any 2027 King’s Writing Workshop, valued at up to $599.
Read the full shortlist and MacKinlay’s winning story.
Winning Entry
By Shaune MacKinlay, BA(Hons)’89, BJ’92
He yanked his scarf over his nose, puffing to warm its wool as he slipped through the hole in the chain link fence. Mount Olivet Cemetery offered a shortcut home after an especially boozy dinner party.
“Do it,” he whispered, his heart thrumming, “Don’t be a chickenshit.”
A single hop landed him on the well-trod footpath, squarely between the Hinch family crypt and the weathered marker of Corp. Matthew Leslie, lost to the Great War at 21.
The cemetery’s residents had become welcome companions during his post-retirement constitutionals. Baby Maye, six decades gone, her grave still marked with pink flowers; the Sisters of Charity, beneath their tidy row of white crosses; Johnnie Dubois, “Gone bowling” for eternity. As neighbours go, not bad.
A click, clickety, clack pierced the quiet. A typewriter? Nonsense.
Probably his own chattering teeth. A sensible explanation on this biting January night, the warmth of red wine and conversation quickly abandoning him.
Click, clack, click. Nearer now, on his left.
There, a woman on a bench, the cemetery’s wan light illuminating her snowy hair. Narrow knees pressed together under the weight of a Smith-Corona, her well-practiced fingers rattling its worn keys.
“Hello, David Daniels, aged 63. I was expecting you,” her rheumy eyes meeting his bewildered face.
Click, clack, clack.
An immediate, white-hot pain filled his chest. Pitching forward, gasping, his eyes found the brass plaque, affixed to the bench:
“In loving memory of Shirley Clark, obituary writer. How she loved a good ending.”
Shortlist
By Malcolm Appleton
Where does she get off? In a cemetery? I already know the answer. She would love this place—lonely and rotten, death all around. This is probably where she wastes her free time.
Nobody but me sees it. Today in class, I told her off. She had it coming. I said, “I know what you are. You try so hard to be alternative, with your shabby clothes and rice-powdered face. You take notes with a typewriter. You crave attention, you need it.”
And she looked at me a certain way… A giggle frozen in place. Wide eyes, popping from the skull. Now her face is there every time I blink.
I don’t feel quite right. Where’s the end of this winding path? My head is hot and I feel lump moving steadily southwards from my throat to my stomach. I keep trying to gag. Am I having a reaction?
A sound in the distance catches my ear. Is that… ticking? Tapping? It’s so familiar. It’s in my head, behind that tree, in the air I’m breathing. I don’t know, I don’t know… it’s somewhere. My insides are bubbling, it feels like the surface of a choppy ocean. I want it to stop. In slow motion, I curl into a little ball. I open my mouth with a shaky growl, and feel blood in my mouth drip slowly from my lips to the cold, invisible ground… and I hear the keys of a typewriter echo from somewhere within.
The End is the Beginning
By Katie Ingram
I’m almost back at the graveyard’s entrance when I hear it.
Clack.
It sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. My head is foggy.
Clack.
Maybe I should ignore it. It’s dark, and I’m so tired and cold. I’m always cold these days.
Clack.
No. It’s too loud to ignore. I zip up my windbreaker, as if it’s the only encouragement I need. I walk toward the newer section of the graveyard, the direction I think the noise is coming from, passing by unfamiliar stones.
Clack. This one is louder.
I whip around. There it is.
A typewriter.
Of course it’s a typewriter; I could almost smack myself in the head. Attached to the typewriter is a woman, sitting on a blanket, leaning a against a headstone.
“Hello?” I say softly. She jumps, staring wildly around until she sees me. “Sorry,” I say. “I heard the noise. What are you doing?” She sighs, sets the typewriter down, and gets up.
“I’m writing this ghost story, and I thought it would be cool to do so from a graveyard. Then I thought it would be extra cool if I used a typewriter, instead of my laptop…”
She continues to babble. I don’t get chance to ask her what a laptop is because I can now see the name on the stone she was sitting against.
Alice Jones 1965-1985
The fog in my head seems to get foggier. It’s me. I am Alice Jones.
Memento Mori
By Shane Mazerolle
You’re walking through a cemetery at night and you hear a typewriter clacking in the
distance. You attribute the sound to the dry autumn branches of the skeletal canopy above you, rattling in the wind like the trembling bony fingers of hundreds of interlocked hands. The clacking seems to grow louder as you continue down the path, but you don’t search for the source of the sound. You force yourself to think about tree bark, and quicken your pace toward the safety of streetlights ahead.
In the darkness, you wouldn’t see the black-cloaked figure, typing at a stone monument
mere steps off the path that you now tread. You don’t scan between the gravestones for me because you hope that I’m not here. But I am. I’m watching you blindly brave the path and reach the light of the street at last. I’m listening to your shaky exhale as you release the breath you didn’t realize you were holding.
You’ve breathed too soon. You’ve forgotten who the author of your story is. You hear the
screech of tires and glimpse yellow headlights. Now you’ll hear or see nothing ever again.
Good night ever-sleeping soul, requiem in pace.
Kukwes
By Mercedes Peters
Noel had been in Northport Cemetery for thirty minutes when the clacking began. It was soft at first; the music of typewriter keys danced in just above the hiss of the September wind racing through old hemlocks. The closer he got to the crematorium—tucked right into the dark heart of the place—the louder it grew. He’d expected something like this.
“They say the last thing you hear before Kukwes gets you is this awful clacking,” the fellas told him before dropping him off. “Like—like an old typewriter or something. But you’re fine. Just sneak in, meet our guy, and you’re Beta Phi for life, bud.”
Easy. Too easy. He smiled at the prank, kept going. The typing hit a crescendo as the crematorium came into view. A kid in a Beta Phi jacket Noel had never seen before stood nervously in the glow of the building’s security lights. He shuffled his feet as Noel approached, making no attempt to hide the Bluetooth speaker behind him.
“Let’s get this over with,” the boy said, “this place is creepy.”
“No Kukwes attack?” Noel asked.
The kid shrugged. “Seth bailed. Just me tonight. Sorry.”
As they started for the exit, Noel said, “You know, you got it all wrong.”
“Hmm?”
“You don’t hear a typewriter before Kukwes gets you.”
Noel let out a snarl as he slithered out of his skin, stretching to his full height. “It’s the sound of your own bones snapping in your ears as it feeds.”
By Jamie Samson
The stones around the crypt were wet with rain, smoothed to the dull grey of a tick’s swollen body. I tried to ignore my own pathetic stereotype – depressed teenager smokes in cemetery. Rain poured down, and I cursed as my lighter spit feebly, barely sparking. I backed into the door of a random crypt, trying to find a dry patch under the oppressive stone facade. The door swung open and I pushed my way into the cold interior, glad to see my lighter finally spurting to life.
The rain pattered on the ground, the roof, the trees, a dull whisper. But underneath the white noise, a staccato ran. I leaned further into the crypt, squinting through the dark, and saw a typewriter on the ground…typing. By itself. I walked towards it cautiously, looking around for the trick, but there was no one else there. The paper fluttered back and forth like ragged butterfly wings under the weight of the type bars. I got close enough to see the words: “She looked at the typewriter and saw…” and stepped back, a wave of nausea hitting me.
I turned to leave, but the door had closed.
The keys clacked, each slap of letter on paper louder than the last. I could feel the sweat on my back as I stepped forward, unable to look away from the page: “The creature approached the crypt, smelling the girl – her fear – and rejoicing in it.”
An otherworldly scream sounded at the door.
By Jane Stecyk
The whiskey doesn’t help, but I make it over the cemetery fence. The drugstore bouquet takes the brunt of the fall. Pink carnations litter the ground and I picture Gwen’s pink lips shriveling under the dirt. Anna got suspicious when she found stains on my collar. “Doesn’t your secretary wear this shade, Ernie?” I was careful after that, but Anna was like a dog with a goddamned bone. Her on one end, Gwen on the other, and me pulled between ‘em. Something had to give, and Anna’s the mother of my kids, you know?
I stumble through the cemetery, leaving a trail of pink petals. Then: Clack. Clack. My head swivels. Clack-clack-clack. A bird? What kind of bird squawks at midnight? I follow the sound and practically trip over the stone.
Gwen Sanders, 1927-1953. Daughter, sister, friend.
I raise an imaginary glass. And one hell of a secretary! I toss the crumpled bouquet
down. Clack-clack-clack. It’s coming from the fresh dirt beneath me, but the sound is clear and unmuffled. This close, it’s unmistakable—a noise I’ve heard daily for forty years—a typewriter.
“Gwen?” I whisper. “That you, doll?”
ClackclackCLACK! It’s like a slap—I fall down and scuttle backwards. A pale hand, pink
nails still shiny, reaches from the dirt and grabs my ankle.
“Hi honey.” Clumps of soil fall off her head as it emerges, hollow eyes fixed on mine. My
bladder lets go as her now-black lips smile. “Any correspondence today?”
Like I said—one hell of a secretary!
banner photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash
