Spectator competition winners: children’s stories get the horror treatment

In Competition No. 3268, you were invited to recast an extract from children’s literature in the horror genre.

In the forthcoming indie slasher film Winnie-the-Pooh: Bloody and Honey, the seed for this challenge, an unhinged Pooh and Piglet run amok in Hundred Acre Wood, indulging in some eye-gouging and decapitation before gorging themselves on honey. Shudder.

I was pleased to see the Cat in the Hat –who has always sent shivers down my spine – pop up several times in the entry. Seuss channellers Chris O’Carroll and Brian Murdoch were unlucky losers, pipped to the post by those below who snaffle £25 each.

“‘Nay matey,’ said he; ‘not marooned, but marinaded in the blood of a warthog, and hung here in rusty chains for an eternity, and nothing to eat but jerky made from the yellow sea-snake, and sea-water slime to soothe my oozing tongues.’ 

Throughout this interview, his tentacles – for I can think of no other term for what masqueraded as his fingers – slithered over my jerkin, and rummaged in my pockets, for all the world like some warty footpad, intent on my money, and thereafter, my mortal soul. I felt rather than smelled his breath and watched his five putrescent nostrils quivering. 

‘Ben Gunn, lad,’ he said, ‘salutes you, and forages your good self. But he is remarkable hungry. Might you, lad, have some – ’. 

‘Cheese?’ I gasped. 

‘Milk-wit! Have you human thigh-meat about you?’ And, seeing my eyes widen, he added, ‘How do you think Silver became a timber-toe?’ 

Bill Greenwell/Treasure Island.

“‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any victims,’ grumbled Jo, baring her fangs.  

‘It’s so dreadful to be undead,’ sighed Meg, looking down at her old coffin.  

‘I don’t think it’s fair for some vampires to have plenty of blood, and others nothing at all,’ added Amy, with an injured stare at her nonexistent mirror reflection.  

‘We’ve got Father and Mother, and each other,’ said Beth contentedly, chewing the head off a bat. The four young faces brightened for a moment, then Jo said: ‘We killed Father last December.’ The conversation ended in a burst of dreadful laughter. 

‘Glad to find you so merry, my children of the night,’ said a cheery voice at the door, and Marmee entered of her own free will. The girls looked at each other, and bared their long, sharp teeth. A quick, bright explosion of red went round, like a gory burst of sunshine. 

Janine Beacham/Little Women

“In a hole in the ground lay the hobbit. Not a nice, cosy, bracken-lined hole, where you might make a secret den, but a wet, wormy, oozy hole, sending forth the stench of death. ‘I don’t think much of your burglar,’ said Sarin the dwarf, idly crushing a squirrel’s skull with the blunt side of his axe. ‘Fear not,’ replied Gandalf, ‘for many who live are dead within, while many who perish are undead.’ Raising his staff, he seemed to grow taller and more ominous, and in a deep voice commanded: ‘Guino, erio a buio, im connon cin!’  

An unnatural darkness settled on the gaunt trees and marshy ground. Only the harsh croak of a raven dared to break the silence. Then a mist rose from the open grave; the earth groaned; silent songbirds fell from bare branches; and Bilbo awoke. ‘I’m hungry,’ he said.’Give me BRAINS!’ 

Frank Upton/The Hobbit

“‘Heard the news?’ said Mole. ‘Little Portly has been found by the weir with his head ripped off. Otter’s beside himself.’ Rat stared grimly at Toad. ‘You’ve got to close the riverbank, Toadie. There’s a pike.’ ‘But Ratty, my good fellow. It’s the Toad Hall Festival of Natation. Every stoat and weasel in the wild wood is coming. Badger may appear.’ Grimly, Rat loaded his picnic basket with several cudgels, a brace of revolvers and a corsair’s scimitar. 

‘Coming, Mole?’ Poor Mole was torn between the prospect of gay and fashionable society and loyalty to his valorous friend. ‘You watch from the bow, Ratty. I will row.’  

A swan was a-dabbling in the backwater. ‘Get out, you fool!’ they yelled. Suddenly, the huge bird jerked like a puppet, appealed to them in mute agony, and disappeared in a froth of bloody bubbles.  

‘Moley: we’re going to need a bigger boat.’  

Nick MacKinnon/Wind in the Willows

“Wherever I am, there’s always Pooh, 

There’s always Pooh and Me. 

And I am filled with fear of Pooh, 

His claws that maul, his teeth that chew! 

How to escape, I wish I knew! 

‘Oh Pooh!’ I say, ‘please let me be!’ 

But he just laughs, does Pooh. 

 

‘What’s twice eleven?’ I said to Pooh. 

‘It’s death!’ said Pooh to Me. 

‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s twenty-two.’ 

‘Wishful thinking, friend,’ said Pooh, 

‘The answer, though, is death to you! 

Your blood will quench my thirst,’ said he. 

‘I’ll drink it all,’ said Pooh. 

Robert Schechter/‘Us Two’

“Sophie and her mummy were busy getting supper ready – they were going to have nice juicy steaks – when there was a knock at the door. ‘Who can that be?’ wondered Sophie’s mummy. 

It was a tall, dark man in a long, black cloak. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Won’t you come in?’ 

The man went straight into the kitchen and drank all the blood in the steak dish. Next he started to drink Sophie’s tomato juice, but he spat that out. Then he sank his fangs into Sophie’s mummy’s neck and completely drained her of blood. 

Just then Sophie’s daddy came home. ‘Hello, darling’, he called out, ‘here’s that garlic you wanted.’ At that the man spread his cloak-like wings and flew off. 

So Sophie told him what happened, and her daddy said he would hang the garlic up in case the strange man ever came again. 

But he never did. 

David Shields/The Tiger Who Came to Tea

No. 3271: Serial Drama

You are invited to supply a poem about the Oxford comma. Please email entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 12 October.