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.