HOW DARK AND STORMY WAS IT? : An evil mayor. A greedy nephew. A boy who plays with slugs. The winning entries in our scary story contest may give you the creeps.

Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton would be proud.

So would Snoopy.

Scores of the more than 1,300 entrants in The Times’ Scary Stories contest opened their chilling tales with the lines first used by Bulwer-Lytton in his 1830 novel “Paul Clifford.” It was a dark and stormy night. . . .

There were variations on that line. A story about a Daytime Vampire looking for something to mask the smell of “bad German soup” started: “It was a dark and stormy night. Well, it wasn’t really stormy, or dark. . . . It was a dim and slightly humid evening.” Another essay provided emphasis: “It was a dark, Dark, DARK and stormy night.” And there was politics: “It was a dark and stormy night when Bill Clinton was elected.”

Mostly, however, there were creativity, energy and great care in the stories and poems. Some folks illustrated their tales with drawings or photos; others had their works bound or sent their work efforts via Federal Express--or had their moms hand-deliver it.

While most stories entertained, some--particularly those by elementary, junior high and high school students--made us think.

Witches, ghosts and ghouls predominated, but other recurring (and troubling) characters and themes showed just how familiar today’s children are with the real dark forces in life: kids abandoned or left home alone, parental alcoholism, child abuse.

We can only hope that such are the products of fertile imaginations bubbling up for Halloween.

One of the scarier aspects of the contest was picking the winners from so many deserving entries, and we like to think that there are far more winners than the eight stories published today.

Kay Eatmon of Lompoc, one of many teachers who submitted work from their students, included this note with her batch of essays:

“Thank you so much for doing this. I teach English at a continuation high school and got stories from kids who have not written one page--let alone two--in four years of school. We had fun. . . .”

No, Kay, thank you. We had fun, too.

--The Editors of View

The Stories Begin on E2