Writing Contest Winner! The Long Dark by J. B. Milligan

I  am very proud to present to you another of our winners in our recent Okefenokee Heritage Center Writer's Guild Writing Contest!

The following story is by J. B. Milligan, a Wayne County student, and our second place Secondary Story winner!  

J. B. Milligan



The Long Dark
by J. B. Milligan

      The woods never bothered Drew.  Nor had the talk of monsters under his bed, or the bogeyman in his closet.  None of the cliched children's lore of spooks and specters had ever made Drew even bat an eye in his days of youth, with one exception; the dark.  Even though he was long into adolescence, nyctophobia had long troubled him.  Why?  Drew had no idea.  Maybe it was the fear of not knowing exactly what may or may not be waiting for him on the other side, staring him down before the morning sun.  Or maybe Drew was a scared boy prone to over-exaggeration.  One night, though, he decided that he was sick of all the fear and irrationality.  He walked out his front door, and into the darkness that plagued him.  At first he walked cautiously across his front yard.  He heightened his pace after a while, until he was at a slight jog down the street that led to the driveway of his home.

      Eventually, he came to a stop.  He looked to his left and saw a dirt road leading to a dead end with trees blocking a small grassy area.  That's strange, thought Drew.  The roads in his neighborhood had been paved for years.  Drew began to have second thoughts about this.  It was midnight.  Something told Drew that his parents wouldn't approve of him roaming around.  No, I can't stop now, he thought.  I need to end this.  Drew took a left and jogged down the road.

      He came to the end of the desolate dirt road and was about to turn around when something caught his eye,  It was a light, hidden behind the trees.  A small light, but by all means an incandescent one.  Drew squeezed past the row of trees and stared in the light's direction.  It was a fire.  He made his way toward it, hesitantly.  As he got closer, he froze.  It was a tank, far in the distance.  The hulking piece of military equipment looked as though an enemy had met it, leaving it roasting in its own fuel and fire.  Then Drew looked up at the tree just above the tank. No, that couldn't be right - the branches were burning and aligned in such a way that they read, "War".  More than a little unnerved, Drew ran towards where he had entered, only that the trees and the road which had led him to this place were gone, replaced solely with darkness.  He turned to his left.  A large mass of currency lay in the palm of an unseen giant's hand, filthy and worn.  The stars in the night sky above spelled out, "Greed".  His heart pounding, Drew took a last look to his right, where the smoke from the fire had seemingly spelled out "Darkness." Drew had conquered his fear, and as the black clouds and smoke of darkness circled and swallowed him, the darkness had conquered him.