Festive Scavenger hunt 2024 winners
Shaking off the last of the festive season with the Xmas Scav Hunt winners announcement!
Thanks, as always, to everyone who entered, your creativity never ceases to amaze me!
Without further ado, the winners are:
Prompt 1: Gift of Survival Faith Warne
Prompt 2: The Last Mince Pie Kes Stephenzon and the master pie-catcher, Kizzie RIP 🖤🌈
Prompt 3: Stocking Stuffers Fran Gibbin
Prompt 4: Plague Bells Ring Louise Kruyer
Prompt 5: Festive Fallout Anne Holdorph
Prompt 6: Boxing Day Leftovers Andy J Turley
All Prompts Prize: Clare Coombe for a fantastic collection of drawings
Prizes will be heading out with the January boxes, unless you are skipping in which case I'll send them separately. And I'll be sending an email next week to share the winning entries. Well done all who entered ❤
Keep scrolling to see the winner entries...
Prompt 1: Gift of Survival by Faith Warne
The Cat Ran Away with the Turkey
The cat ran away with the turkey.
The sneaky greedy old thing,
I’m not really sure
How it got through the door.
The turkey’s much bigger than him
The cat ran away with the turkey.
Mum said, ‘I’ll murder that beast.’
For outside it sat
With ten other cats,
Enjoying it’s Christmas feast.
The cat ran away with the turkey.
And mum with her cleaver in hand,
Ran out in the street
Like a wailing banshee,
Sure, the neighbours will understand.
The cat ran away with the turkey.
And mum, well she’s just been arrested,
This isn’t the way
That our Christmas day
Should be going, she loudly protested.
The cat ran away with the turkey.
Now he lays and purrs on my bed.
It’s a good job that he
Chose to join me,
If he’d gone to my dad, he’d be dead.
Prompt 2: The Last Mince Pie by Kes Stephenzon and the master pie-catcher, Kizzie RIP 🖤🌈
Prompt 3: Stocking Stuffers by Fran Gibbin
Prompt 4: Plague Bells Ring Resignation Letter by Louise Kruyer
Name: Luminous Lu
Position: Chief Scavenger and Occasional Zombie Watcher
Company: Apocalypse Corp.
Mutant Squirrel Boulevard,
Wasteland Central.
Date: 3rd Moon of the Mutant Squirrel Age
To Whom It May Concern,
I hope this letter finds you well, or as well as one can be expected to be given the circumstances of a world overrun by mutated squirrels, radioactive tumbleweeds, and those ever-annoying plague bells ringing day and night. As you might have guessed, I am writing to tender my resignation from my position as Chief Scavenger and Occasional Zombie Watcher.
While I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Apocalypse Corp and have learned invaluable skills, such as avoiding flesh-eating beetles and making gourmet meals out of canned beans and dust, I have decided that this job is no longer beneficial to my mental (and very much my physical) health.
The constant chiming of the plague bells, signalling yet another outbreak of some unpronounceable ailment, has driven me to the edge. It is with a heavy heart (and an even heavier gas mask) that I must step down and seek out a quieter, less bell-ridden existence.
I will miss the thrilling scavenger hunts through abandoned supermarkets, the nightly zombie defence drills, and most of all, the dubious pleasure of watching mutated pigeons engage in aerial dogfights.
As I embark on my new journey (possibly towards a less bell-happy bunker in the distant hills), I leave behind my collection of barely functional tools and my extensive journal on zombie behavioural patterns. I sincerely hope they prove useful in the ongoing battle for survival.
May your cans always be full, your defences sturdy, and your plague bells silent.
Warmest (though slightly irradiated) regards,
Luminous Lu
Prompt 5: Festive Fallout by Anne Holdorph
Prompt 6: Boxing Day Leftovers by Andy J Turley
The bridal feast
December 23rd 1897
It's strange how the season influences the mood, if I had still been at home in England much of my time would now be taken up with the jovial gaiety that accompanies this time of year, the friends and relatives for whom the season puts aside the petty differences that separate fellows for a short time. But alas here am I snowbound unable to traverse further than this damp backward squib of a village whose pious inhabitants seem not to care to celebrate the joy to the world that this season bekons in.
December 24th 1897
I awoke rather rudely this morning, not in the warm bed of my lodging house but on a hard stone floor, my wrists encircled by rusted chains of iron which themselves were fastened to a cold stone wall, how I ended up like this I couldn't tell my memory was strangely blank of the affair, was I in the building in which I had fallen into a slumber the night before or had I been taken my, body traversed to a location unknown.
My prison was unadorned apart from a companion similarly adorned in chains by my side, he had the swarthy countenance of one of the local rustic's no doubt, strong limbed from working the fields no doubt.
My companion had awoken with a startle and had immediately started to try to wretch his chains from the wall, I had tried to speak to him but my words were of a different tongue, they went unheaded "Doamne ajuta-ma!" he cried over and over before he collapsed sobbing into the unconsoling granite wall to which we were both tethered. My own exhaltatations to whoever was beyond the rooms only door were equally as fruitful, whoever had imprisoned us was either absent or deaf to our protestations.
December 25th 1897
We were both awoken in the early hours by our cell door being swung open with a frightful bang, having no candle to illuminate beyond the doorway all we could perceive was somthing indistinct moving slowly in the stygian darkness. Slowly the Shadows coellesed into a specteral shape of a man, my companion dropped to his knee's and with clinking chains crossed himself like a penetant at the face of an altar "Tatăl nostru Care ești în ceruri, sfințească-se numele Tău, vie împărăția Ta, fie voia Ta....", this I took for the prayer of our lord, I stood defiant chained though I was "who are you, by what right do you hold me... hold us against our will!"
The shape now a mustached man of some years stood bolt upright with a bearing of freocious privilege before me, meeting my demand with a wry rictus smirk as one would meet a petulant puppy. A long boney finger skirted my cheekbone, i clasped the offending arm with both hands and tried to remove the iron stiff gesticulation but with all the might I could muster could not move it an inch. "English? Yes?" He said "I am indeed sir and you are holding a subject of her majesty queen Victoria against his will" I replied trying to hold onto the dignity becoming of my heritage "I demand you release me this instant". He didn't move and his face was bereft of emotion
"You know a Mr Harker I presume"
"No sir I do not know the man"
"Strange that providence should deliver another of his countrymen to me, so soon after I lost him. No matter.... no you won't do"
He flung me aside like a rag doll my chains snapping me back the whiplash shooting immeasurable pain to my shoulders. "Tonight I shall savour the produce of my homecountry one last time before i depart this blessed land" he turned and with one outstretched arm lifted my companion so his feet kicked the air attempting to find purchase, the fiend turned my companions head aside and with a savage ferocity plunged his teeth into his neck.
It's often said that soldiers in the east European campaigns faced with unimaginable horror are immobilised both in movement and speech, this I thought was something I now experienced at the sight of this poor rustic being exanguated and torn, feeding this obsene caricature of a human being. My companions convulsing stopped and his carcass dropped to the floor, it's life blood stolen, "I bid you farewell English, tommorow I travel to your shores and delight in it" he smiled once more displaying his bloody teeth and then he was gone.
December 26th 1897
I am not sure how I slept but I awoke startled and the sight of dessicated husk of what remained of my companion shocked me still more, that sleep had not rendered some obscenly horrific pantomime onto my subconscious but the events had really occurred.
With a renewed force I pulled at my chains but to no avail, the chamber door had been left open but I could not see beyond the passage leading to it, the silence was broken by the sound of horses outside the room and voices, I cried and cried but whoever it was paid no heed to my protestations, then the sound of scrapping across the ground and the jangle of a coach being loaded, the horses sounded disturbed by thier cargo and thier noise faded into the distance, I was alone abandoned and forgotten with no hope of escape, I fell to the ground bereft of hope and wept bitter tears.
My mind was a fog of conflicting thoughts, no one would know of my fate, my friends and family would no doubt make efforts to trace me but what chance did they have in this backward country, I would be long dead even if they were to find this cold abode of death, and the night was drawing in.
I lifted my face from my hands to see a young woman standing in the doorway resplendent in a white wedding gown which matched her palour.
"Help me please" I croaked, my throat dry from calling earlier,
"mâncare gustoasă" she said
I didn't understand the words, she giggled like a schoolgirl and disappeared into the passage beyond the door, a saviour at last she would fetch assistance, I stood and brushed myself down with hands to give myself a little dignity for my rescuers upon thier arrival, I waited.
The young woman arrived back at the door but was accompanied by two more women also adorned in bridal wear, they also had a deathly palor and as they approached there was a cadaverous stench, my hopes faded as I realised that this was my fate and there was no earthly respite to my torment, I crossed myself as my companion had done, and with my last breath committed my soul to the grace & safekeeping of our lord, these dissolute brides were upon me and the last thing I saw was a flash of teeth.
All Prompts Prize: Clare Coombe for a fantastic collection of drawings
