30 October, 2009
Fall 2009 CYOB Spooktacular
The following is my contribution to this season’s edition of Choose Your Own Blogventure, a modern tribute to the Choose Your Own Adventure books of yore. You can read the entry that led to mine here, or you can start at the beginning here. Enjoy!
———
Julie was right, we needed to get home and leave this craziness behind us. “Okay” I told her. “We’re going.”
We hurried back to my house, locked the door, and ran up to my room. Once safely inside, we both slumped onto my bed and just laid there for several minutes, reflecting on the events of the night. Did we just really encounter a fictional character in the flesh? “Julie, hold on a sec,” I said. “Was that really Annelise? The girl from the movie?”
“I thought it was. But now that I say it out loud, it seems kind of ridiculous” said Julie.
“I have an idea,” I said. I fired up my the computer on my desk. “Let’s just see what IMDB has to say about this.” As I read the movie’s entry, my blood grew cold. “It says here, that the girl who played Annelise is named Chloe Hardaway.”
Julie rubbed her chin. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
I turned gravely to Julie. “There’s more. It also says here, that she disappeared shortly after the movie’s completion five years ago.”
Julie’s face turned white and we both sat in silence for several minutes. “Whoa,” was all Julie could say.
“Yeah. Whoa.” I replied.
We sat in there in silence for what seemed like hours. Finally, Julie looked uneasily at her watch and said, “Uh, it’s a lot later than I thought. I really need to be getting home.” We both looked at one another and sound good night. I watched as she disappeared into the night. It really wasn’t that late, but I just wanted the night to be over. I crawled into bed and fell asleep thinking about that old iron key.
The next morning I made my way back to the Halloween House. The chest was still there, and it still looked as ominous as ever.
It was open!
As I slowly crept over to it, I was relieved to find it empty. Or was it? I couldn’t actually see the bottom of the chest, only an inky blackness. A blackness that seemed to be calling to me. Before I knew what was happening, I found myself leaning into the chest and falling into the emptiness inside.
I fell for what seemed like an eternity. At some point, I must have blacked out, because the next thing I remember I was in a strangely familiar place. Oh my God! It was the library from the film! I was in the movie! And I was dressed like Annelise!
And I wasn’t alone. The old woman from the Martinez house was here, glowering at me from a corner of the library.
“I entrusted you with the key and you threw it away,” she said in a raspy voice. “And now, there’s no escape. You are trapped here forever.”
I looked around and she was right. There was no chest and no key. I was trapped here. Trapped in a movie for the rest of my days!
10 comments-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Pingback: CYOB: Kate and Julie pass the key to someone else « Bright Yellow World
abbersnail
Ooooh! I love this ending!
October 30, 2009 at 10:35 am
flurrious
Oh, excellent twist! And you made me look up Chloe Hardaway on IMDb — just in case.
October 30, 2009 at 4:06 pm
trev
Thanks. I was trying to go for the feel of the original books. If my memory serves me (which it might not), they often had endings such as these, with the main character trapped in some kind of weird state.
October 30, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Allie
Oooh! Great ending!
October 31, 2009 at 6:50 am
Allie
And it did, totally remind me of the original books!
October 31, 2009 at 6:51 am
Jamie
I love that you brought the old woman back into it. GREAT ending!
October 31, 2009 at 11:27 am
nancypearlwannabe
Okay, this one was super creepy! Very Twilight Zone. Also, love the illustration- totally spooktacular.
November 1, 2009 at 6:43 am
yoursurprise-bellatio-2
I am really loving the theme/design of your blog. Do you ever run into any browser compatibility issues? A few of my blog readers have complained about my blog not operating correctly in Explorer but looks great in Firefox. Do you have any tips to help fix this problem?
December 3, 2011 at 4:54 am
trev
Thanks for the kind word on the design! To give credit where credit is due, this design is a heavily modified version of the Colourize theme by Styleshout. There are a few wonky bits in this blog’s design, which I am solely responsible for. One day, I plan to re-design this whole theme from scratch, but unfortunately that is down a bit on the to-do list.
To answer your question, browser compatibility can be one of the big headaches of any web design project, and Internet Explorer is usually one of the main “headache givers.” I would suggest that you make sure your design uses valid HTML/CSS (this is a good place to start for that). If it’s valid code, I would find out what version of Internet Explorer is having issues with your blog. If possible, take a look at your site using that version of Internet Explorer. See what the problem areas are, and then poke around the internet to see if you find an easy fix for it (odds are your site is probably not the only one experiencing the issue). If the problem exists on really old versions of IE, you may not want to worry about it. Personally, I feel that utilizing code that works properly for modern (and future) browsers trumps extreme backward capability. The exception to this would be if a large portion of your readers are still using the old browsers. In that case, you may have to adjust your code to accommodate the obsolete browsers.
Sorry for the lengthy answer. Hope it helps!
December 4, 2011 at 9:21 am