Silhouettes (contest entry, not a story)

1: Ainslie James1

Ainslie had always loved letting herself believe silly things. When she was very young, she'd wake her mother up every time an infomercial interrupted her Saturday cartoons, telling her about the wonderful product and warning her that it was a once-in-a-lifetime offer. At a bit older, she would read scary storybooks and stay up to all hours of the night imagining that they were true, and adding her own terrifying details. So when her mom told her they were moving to a tiny Southwestern town after the end of eighth grade, she was willing to believe that all the buzz about tiny towns being boring was true. And when she got there...well, she wasn't opposed to putting some faith in the local lore, and giving Schatten Mountain a wary eye.2

2: July O' Connor3

Nothing ever changed in Frankfort. July was born there, grew up there, and felt like she would die there, and the whole time nothing had changed, except for she and her neighbour, Payton, being friends, thinking each other were yucky during the middle of elementary school, and being friends again. Not exactly newsworthy. The only real source of excitement was during the storms, when all the local kids would keep at eye on Schatten Mountain, and talk about what they'd seen the next day. Something was wrong with that place. What it was depended on who you asked - werewolves, a crazy man, the ghosts of a family supposedly slaughtered there several years ago. Nobody knew what, but they all knew it was something. So, when the new girl came to town, July felt no guilt in relating each and every one of the stories as fact.4

3: Payton Williams5

Small towns are the death of artistic boys, and Payton was suffocating slowly. When he imagined himself, he was a million different things - a writer, an actor, a musician, anything but a second-string player on the basketball team, second-rate student, and second class from the bottom on the social hierarchy. High school was starting, though, and he just knew things were going to be different. When he showed up to the lunch table to find July sitting with a big-eyed blonde, entranced by the tales of Schatten Mountain, he felt it even stronger. When a boy he'd never met, but had a sickening sense of familiarity about, joined them, he knew. Things would be different, all right, but maybe not the way he'd hoped.6

4: Ull Ashford7

Ull Ashford was born on Schatten Mountain, and lived up there with his grandparents until the beginning of the summer, when they both passed in a tragic accident - his grandpa had chopped a tree onto their heads. He'd been homeschooled, and was both sociable and bright, but he hadn't expected to end up down in the town...he'd ventured there only rarely, his grandparents preferring the town on the other side of the "mountain". Now, though, he was getting some whispers, and some turning heads. About half were because he was stunning, in a non-traditional way - a ponytail of dark, clean hair, colouring and cheekbones, and vivid blue eyes strongly suggesting his almost purely Native American and German heritage. The other half were what he expected...people worried about the Mountain Boy. They had stories there, he knew. They thought he was different. They had no idea how right they were. Then he saw him - between two of them, a blonde girl and a petite redhead, he saw him. A brother in the Way.8

There you go. "Schatten" is German for shadow, if my German friends are to be believed.