Scenes from the Shadows competition

Casting Shadows in an anthology containing short stories and poetry from three different authors, E.J. Tett, Jo Robertson and Joleen Kuyper.

“While all of the stories and poetry surprise the reader with unexpected gore and paranormal twists, the reader will still find the stories and poetry carefully crafted. Readers that enjoy dark, paranormal tales will certainly find something to admire and love in this haunting collection.” The Examiner
Available from:
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This competition is your chance to win a copy of the anthology! All you have to do is choose one of the scenes below and draw it in your own style. You can use any media. Photo manips are allowed. To enter, note ~redwinegoblin or myself with a link to your work.

Scene 1: This scene is from ‘Remembering.’ The main, un-named character is sitting slumped in a boat in the middle of a large, idyllic looking lake. There is a solitary house in the background, which is where he has rowed out from.

He is bloodied, the only survivor of a massacre. Physically he is 'average.' Not ugly, but not the sort of guy that gets all the girls instantly.

He has a decision to make, whether to kill himself and the monster that has already possessed him once by jumping into the lake, or to listen to the voice in his head and row himself back to the shore to carry on what the monster started when he was at the house.

“So here I am now, out on the lake in a small boat. I weighed anchor almost two days ago and the more I stare back at the house, the more I remember.”

Scene 2: From ‘Whistling in the Theatre.’ Martin, Chloe and Jimmy are looking for Renee. Martin is well groomed, a bit posh, late 20s. Chloe is petite and also a bit posh in an actor kind of way, dark haired. Mid 20s. Jimmy is more chilled about his appearance, and a bit older, mid 30s. They're all on stage.

Off to the side of the stage, Renee is half in the shadows, sort of transparent. The others can't see her. She's in her late 20s and blonde. Behind her are others caught in the shadows, in old fashioned dress (say 18th / 19th century), all women. (You do not have to draw all the character with this scene.)

““What do you mean?” Renée watched as Lorraine’s lips pursed. “Where has she gone?”
Jimmy, Martin and Chloé all looked helplessly at her. “No one knows. Her flatmates, her parents... no one’s heard from her,” Chloé said, glancing nervously around at the shadows. “We were all here, then suddenly... she wasn’t.”
“I’m here!” Renée yelled at him, though she knew her voice just sounded like a whisper of wind to them. She’d been shouting for hours. They hadn’t heard a thing.”

Scene 3: From ‘Just the Dust.’ Lisa is crawling along the floor of an abandoned train station. Everything is covered in dust, even the air is thick with it. Lisa is 28, average looking - not ugly but definitely not a stunner either. There is no one else around, but there are cockroaches coming toward her and the skin on her hands is peeling off a bit.

“She tried touching her face to figure out what her features were. All she could feel was the dust and scrapes. Her nose felt big, she realised after she poked and prodded at herself more. And her lips were narrow. She felt down. Large chest, medium waist. Her legs were still painful, though it was more a dull ache now. She thought they were long but she wasn’t sure. “Quite tall,” she muttered. She still couldn’t picture what she looked like. Her hair was dry with dust and matted with blood, and she couldn’t remember what colour it was."

Scene 4: This is from ‘The Immortal Benedict Calhoun.’ Ben, an average looking man wearing a suit, is standing at the top of a hill, waiting for a wolf. When it breasts the hill it rises up onto its hind legs and towers over him. A werewolf.

“He sat and watched the sun set. It was beautiful, he thought, in spite of how apprehensive he felt about what was bound to happen when night fell.
“You chose this,” he said quietly to himself. “You want this.”
A wolf howled from the valley below and he shivered and pulled his suit jacket tighter around himself. “You chose this,” he said again, and he waited.”

Scene 5: This is from ‘Eyes.’ You only have to draw the monster. The monster lives in a lake and eats human flesh. It has silver grey skin, which is scaled like a fish, and is very human in shape. It has no eyes. It has gills on its neck which help it breathe under water.

“When Elle turned back to the lake she saw the monster. Only its head was out of the water, the rest of the creature lurked beneath the lake’s surface. Its skin was grey and flaccid, it had two large eyeless sockets on the front of its face and its teeth, when the creature pulled back its lips at her, were pointed, like a piranha’s.”

Scene 6: From ‘Roses.’ A woman is walking into a big, empty, half-refurbished living room. There are paint pots and the remnants of decorating gear all over the place.

The woman is staring at a small pool of blood. In the blood are two or three orange rose petals. The woman is terrified.

Physically, she's late 20s-early 30s. Red hair. She's dressed for decorating so isn't looking at her most glamorous.

“Her eyes fixed on the blood again. It had been joined now by a single orange rose petal. She felt her heart hammering in her chest as the fear surfaced again. She grabbed a small dust-sheet and threw it on the blood, covering it completely. There, she thought. No more blood. No more petals, just painting. She picked up her paint-roller and, brandishing it like a sword, started to climb the ladder again, ignoring the insistent rolling of her stomach and the smell of roses that had begun to drift into the room again."

Prizes:
1st: A copy of ‘Casting Shadows’
2nd: A short story of your choice written by one of the authors
3rd: A poem of your choice written by one of the authors
Prize donations welcome!

Judges: ~malinas and ~redwinegoblin

Closing date: TBC

Any questions please ask or