“I’m Inky. Want to Make a Deal?”

Alex Pototschnik

Age 10

“I’m Inky. Want to Make a Deal?”

CONTENT WARNING: READER, PROCEED WITH CAUTION The following story is scary and suspenseful. It is not recommended for readers under ten or sensitive readers of any age.

“I dare you to go in there,” said Jack. We were standing in front of the old wooden cabin that was in front of the woods. No grass grew on the tiny front yard, and the house itself seemed to be being consumed by the twisted trees.

“Oh, come on!” I said, “You know that’s where the forest witch lives!” We both shuddered at the idea.

“I heard she eats little kids for breakfast—and adults for lunch!”Jack said. He snickered.

“I didn’t think it was funny.”

“So are you going in there, or are you too chicken?” he said.

“I guess I’ll do it,” I responded. “Besides, I’m not scared of anything!” I lied.

I opened the rusty gate and stepped into the front yard. The sound of the creaking gate echoed through the empty neighborhood. I stepped up to the house. The wooden stairs creaked and cracked under my weight.

The dusty air of the front entrance blew into my face. I stepped onto the dust-covered red carpet on the floor. No furniture was inside the room. Just me. Wind blew against the small, old house and shook the windows all around me. The door slammed shut behind me. “Must’ve been the wind,” I muttered. I stepped over to the collapsed staircase leading upstairs. I started digging through the broken wood. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Once I had moved all the fallen debris away, I started to think maybe being at this house wasn’t such a bad thing after all. There, at the center of the space I had cleared out, was a yellowed piece of paper. Written on the back in red ink were the words, “DRAWINGPAPER.”

I stuffed the piece of paper in my pocket and rode my bike over to my house.

When I got home, about five minutes later, I went straight up to my room and started drawing.

I was so focused on my drawing, I didn’t realize it had become dark outside. I ended up falling asleep in my chair, excited to finish my drawing the next day.

When I woke up the next morning, I grabbed my pencil and began to finish the stickman I was drawing. I was going to give it a weapon and make it fight other stickmen, but as soon as I was done with the final part of it, I noticed something wrong. The stickman’s hand was reaching out, as if to shake my hand. Written in the top left corner of the page were the words, “I’m Inky. Want to make a deal?”

I stepped back. How did the stickman move? Was it alive? I stopped at the back of my room, as five black fingers grabbed the edge of the paper, pulling something out into the real world. As the stickman slowly rose out of the paper, I noticed something odd. The smile on its round head wasn’t like how I drew it. This smile was twisted and evil. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. The stickman reached its arm out closer to me. I didn’t know why, but I stepped closer. “I’m Inky,” it said. “Do you want to make a deal or not?”

A shiver ran down my back. “What kind of deal?” I asked.

“A good one,” Inky said, “You give me fresh meat every day, and in turn, I won’t enter your world. So is it a deal?”

I thought for a moment, What did Inky mean he wouldn’t come into our world?

“The clock is ticking!” Inky snarled.

I reached out my hand to Inky’s. “It’s a deal,” I said.

The next day, I hid Inky in my backpack to take to my big, concrete box of a school. Honestly, the thing looked more like a prison than a place of education. But I had an idea. I was going to give Inky all the bullies at school. I figured that should satisfy him. I stepped into the building and took out the piece of paper. It was wet as if Inky was drooling. I placed Inky in my locker and went to class. I was going to let Inky out after school. Nobody would see the giant, evil stickman if they all went home.

Once my class was over, I went to check on Inky. When I got to my short, rusting locker, I was slightly confused. A whole crowd of people were standing in front of it. My heart began to race. What had Inky done? I pushed past the people and gasped. The open door to my locker was covered in scratch marks, and leading up to it was a trail of torn up clothes. But that didn’t seem to be what people were staring at. I looked up and saw what got everyone’s attention. It wasn’t the scratch marks or the trail of ripped clothes. No. What they were staring at was the writing on my locker. The dripping ink writing that said: “I’m still hungry.”

I ran out of the building. Nobody saw. They were too busy staring at what Inky had done. I had to find Inky. Who knows what Inky could do now that he escaped? I had to stop him before he ate more kids. But I knew I didn’t want to. I remembered the deal. It scared me to think about what he meant by “come into our world.”

I ran as fast as I could over to Jack’s house. With Inky loose, no one was safe. When I got to the door, I pressed my ear against the tall, black oakwood door. Screams. I could hear Jack screaming. I opened the door and ran inside, not knowing what was about to happen.

I ran into the basement to find . . . nothing. Nothing except for a blank piece of paper lying on the gray, carpeted floor. Jack’s dog seemed terrified of it, keeping at least a five foot distance between it and the paper. But that wasn’t what scared me. Because sitting on a chair that looked like it was made for kindergarteners was Inky. With Jack next to him. “Have you heard of my new friend Inky?” Jack said. “He’s hilarious!”

Inky’s smile grew wide as he mouthed the word, “Food,” to me. Inky opened his mouth wider to reveal thousands of tiny, razor teeth as he turned toward Jack. Inky was baiting Jack, getting Jack to trust him, so he could eat him. I knew his tricks. I had to stop him before he had a chance to strike. I had to. If I didn’t, then . . . I didn’t wait to find out. I grabbed Jack by the arm, ignoring his pleas to stay with his “best friend.” We had to get out. I was running so fast that I didn’t see Inky’s soulless, black eyes staring right through me. Inky was mad. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.

It was only when we ran out of the house that Jack snapped out of it. “I don’t ever want to go back down there,” he said, “Something’s down there. I don’t remember what, but something’s down there. And it wants to get me.” We started to run faster as we heard a terrifying howl.

Echoing through the neighborhood was a voice, a loud angry voice screaming, “I can heeeaar you!!! You sound delicious!!” Just then, we realized what happened. It had gotten Jack’s dog. It ate it. Swallowed it whole. And now he was coming for us. So we ran. Faster than we ever had before. And we didn’t look back. “Waaant to play hiide aaand seek? I’ll seek!” the scratchy voice echoed across the neighborhood.

We got to my house and stopped. We needed a plan. As we walked into the house to make a plan, we heard something. An inhuman scratching on the road. And it was coming closer. And closer. And closer. Until it was right next to our house. We slammed the door shut and locked it. I knew that wouldn’t keep Inky out for long, so we had to do this fast. Slowly, we crept upstairs, trying not to alert Inky of our presence inside the house. When we

made it up to my room, there was already a light scratching sound as if a wolf were trying to get in.

My room wasn’t very big. But it was big enough for my desk, which was about the only piece of furniture in my room other than my bed. In the corner, there was a stack of video games and all over the floor were drawings. Everywhere. Not a single inch of my room wasn’t covered in drawings or art supplies. I know it’s impossible to have an infinity of anything, but if I had to guess I’d say the amount of drawings there would get pretty close.

The light scratching turned into knocking, which turned into banging. Before, I would’ve thought that the FBI was trying to get in. But this was now. I had to concentrate.

I don’t usually get good ideas. I’m not the smartest person on Earth, so I don’t always have the best ideas, especially when a living stickman is pounding on my door like rain on a roof. Good thing Jack was there. We stepped into the middle of the cramped room, which wasn’t hard to do considering the room was probably a tighter fit than the space underneath my bed, and the free space that was left was covered with stacks and stacks of drawings, leaving a space no bigger than a postage stamp. The old wooden floor groaned in protest as we walked to the endangered species of free space in my room. As soon as we sat down, Jack had an idea.

“If paper burns, and Inky is like living paper, how about we burn him?” Good thing I’m friends with Jack. He’s a person who frequently gets good ideas. There was just one problem. We didn’t have anything to burn Inky with. There were no lighters or matches in my house. At least—not that I knew of. The heavy banging on my door, despite the fact that it was probably the loudest thing on Earth right now, kept getting louder and louder. I was honestly still surprised the door was still on its hinges. We had to find something fast. Inky was about to get in. He may be like living paper, but he is strong. I did not want to encounter him in my tiny, cramped room. He would have us cornered.

We searched for about an hour for anything flammable. Inky gave up on trying to get in by now, but just to be sure, every ten minutes we would make sure the door was locked. Eventually, we found something. It was in a secret cabinet in my basement that I didn’t even know existed. You learn something new every day, I guess. We went outside to find Inky, but he was gone. What would we do now? Inky had escaped once again. But had he, though? Or was he just trying to sneak up on us, so he could eat us without a struggle. I didn’t want to find out, so we went back inside to find Inky some other time.

We went back into my room. Once again, the floorboards creaked under-

neath us. We sat down on the floor and said nothing. Inky was still out there. We needed to do something. Just as I thought this, something splashed onto my forehead. Ink. I looked up and saw a stickman hanging from the ceiling, scratches running from the ceiling, all the way to the floor.

Inky jumped down, and opened his mouth, which ran all the way from the bottom of his face to his 2-D waist. Thousands of hands, wearing old-fashioned clothes, reached out of Inky’s mouth. It seemed Inky was growing more and more teeth by the second. “Found you,” Inky said right before all the people in his mouth started screaming. Thousands of people, who looked like they were from the 1600s, stared back at me, their mouths frozen open in a look of terror. “Did you really think you could avoid the curse?! I always get my targets!”

My heart was racing a million miles per second. “What curse?” I asked.

“The curse of the forest witch. Long ago, I was cursed by the witch. She was very powerful, and was even able to turn people, even beings of pure terror, into inanimmate objects. So that’s what she did. She turned me into a piece of paper. Over time, I grew used to the silence. For years, I slept in peace. Until you gave me this pathetic, mortal form. I was once a powerful force, feared across the land. But you woke me up. You brought a being of pure suffering into this mortal world and now you will pay with your life,” Inky opened his mouth wider, revealing hundreds more terrified people, desperately trying to get out, “just like so many people before you have.”

Inky closed his mouth, but the deafening screaming coming from within still continued. I knew we wouldn’t be able to escape Inky this time. “You took the deal. You let me into your reality. You broke your promise. You lied. You upset an ancient monster, and now it’s time to pay the price.” Inky continued, “You should know that about eldritch beings. We always get what we want, one way or another. This is what happens to liars.” Inky ripped open his face revealing even more huge, knife-like teeth, and eight red, tiny beady little eyes, “How would you like to be the newest addition to my collection?”

Halloween, 1754

The boy breathed heavily as he ran through the thick fog. He wasn’t supposed to be out this late, and now he could see why. The forest stretched on for miles. He was lost. The low growling got louder and closer until it was right behind him. He didn’t dare turn around. If the thing knew how terrified he was, it would be able to take his soul in a matter of seconds. He didn’t know if it was sent by the witch, or if it was something else, but he wasn’t going to find out. The warm breath against his neck continued as he franti-

cally ran through the thick trees. It was following him. That wasn’t good. It meant it knew. It could smell his fear. He turned around for a brief second and saw a pale humanoid creature. It stood about fifteen feet tall and had several arms. There was a pair of four spider-like legs where the creature’s legs should’ve been. The boy couldn’t quite make out its face in the dense fog, but it appeared to be smiling. This wasn’t good. It definitely knew. The rhythmic clicking of its legs echoed through the seemingly endless woods. That’s when he recognized it. It was the Collector. People all across his town, even other towns feared it. This was why there was a strict bedtime, and why no one built their house near the woods. No one could mention its true name, which the boy didn’t even know. This was bad. This was really bad.

He stared up at the huge, unmoving entity, frozen in fright. He could barely even blink. His eyes kept going straight up to the things head, which he could see clearly now. It had eight eyes, each one of them red and tiny. Even in the darkness, they were as clear as they would be if it was day. And the teeth. Hundreds of sharp, tiny teeth. Even the witch feared it for a reason. The Collector reached down its bony hand and grabbed the boy. It opened its face wide to reveal its “collection”—thousands of people dead and alive, from the past to the present, except . . . there was a spot missing. One of them was gone.

“You’ll be an excellent addition to my collection,” it said before placing the boy, ever so carefully, into the empty slot in its mouth. One last time, the boy looked out into the fog-covered forest, and soon all he saw was darkness as the Collector’s mouth closed in front of him.

Present Day

Hundreds of clawed hands reached out of Inky’s mouth and grabbed me. I tried to squirm free, but I couldn’t. The hands were too strong. The hands were strong despite being incredibly bony and thin. They didn’t want to let go. They wanted me to stay with them forever in Inky’s twisted collection of human souls. Slowly, I was pulled closer and closer to Inky’s gaping mouth. The sharp claws scratched at my skin and grabbed everywhere as they pulled my wriggling body toward the razor blade-like teeth.

I was inches away now. I felt Inky’s hot breath against my skin, and I closed my eyes. He was going to get me. I was going to join the rest of the people in Inky’s mouth, screaming and trying desperately to get out of his collection for the rest of eternity. This would be my life now. I screamed. If Inky didn’t eat me, I would be trapped. Forever.

Suddenly, I heard a scream of pain and dropped to the ground. I opened

my eyes. A stream of ink burst out of Inky’s many arms. Jack stood there holding an ink-covered weapon. “Quickly, run! While he’s distracted!” Jack shouted. We burst through my bedroom door and ran down the hallway. “You can’t hide!! I can smell you!” Inky screeched furiously. The blood-curdling screech echoed down the hallway. We ran down the stairs and out the door. I heard fast footsteps all throughout the house, coming toward the door.

Inky crashed through the door and came outside. We slowly backed up as the monster came closer to us. It looked like Inky had grown even more arms than he had originally. Instead of legs, his long, lanky arms somehow held him up, and let him crawl across the floor like a spider. Jack’s hand was trembling as he raised his hand to point the knife at Inky. Inky grabbed it and held it up to us. “I’m going to make you pay, foolish boy!” he shrieked.

We backed away slowly. More hands popped out of Inky’s mouth, all of which held weapons. We had nothing. We backed up slowly, looking for any means to defend ourselves from the eldritch stickman demon walking toward us. We were close to falling off the porch when I tripped over something and fell into the bushes. It was a water gun. I knew it probably wouldn’t do anything against an eldritch being like Inky, but it was worth a shot. Besides, what other choice did I have? If I ran, Inky would find me again, and if I chose to fight without it, I would get eaten. This was the only weapon I had. I climbed out of the bush and aimed the water gun at Inky’s face and shot a stream of water directly into his eye.

I watched as a stream of Ink melted off his hand drawn face. Inky shrieked in pain as all of his hundreds of arms reached up to grab his melting eye. Inky backed up. “Curse this pathetic mortal body!” he screamed. I shot more water at Inky. Another shriek of pain. Eventually, I cornered Inky in my room. Inky backed up, his melting body dripping with water. He opened his mouth in a desperate attempt to make me stop. His teeth grew long and needle-like, and he lunged at me, his jaw unhinged like a snake’s.

I quickly jumped out of the way as Inky crashed to the floor. I was scared. My water gun was empty. I was defenseless again. Inky started to get to his feet, but when he tried to step forward, his foot was stuck inside one of the pieces of paper! “No!” Inky screeched, louder than he had before. He tried to grab at my legs, trying to pull me into the paper as well, but it was no use. Soon all that was left of Inky was a small piece of paper with a drawing of an angry looking stickman on it. I had won. I had beaten Inky.

One Month Later . . .

I was sitting at my desk, wasting my summer vacation by drawing. It was getting late. As I turned off my light and got in bed, I heard a slight scratching

sound coming from within my closet. I decided to ignore it, but it continued, getting louder and louder until the sound overwhelmed me. Carefully, I stepped over the mountains of drawings on my floor, the floorboards creaking beneath me. When I opened my closet door, I saw nothing. Nothing but the locked box I kept Inky trapped inside. I stuck my head further into the dark closet to get a closer look and thought I saw a shadowy shape in the corner. I turned on the light to see what was there and screamed. On the floor was a puddle of ink, and an angry stickman limping toward me. It showed off its knife shaped teeth and grinned as the three most chilling words on Earth came out of its wide, horrifying mouth. “Reeemember the Deeeal?”