Once again this year the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival has teamed up with the Harrogate Advertiser series to challenge local writing talents to let their imaginations get grisly with our annual short story competition.

The first prize-winner will receive a Weekend Rover ticket, worth £175, allowing entry to almost all the events during the Festival, which runs from Thursday 22 July to Sunday 25 July. The runner-up will get a goody bag of crime fiction books, samplers, bookmarks and other treats.

This year the winner will be chosen by Festival Programming Chair and renowned author Stuart MacBride. To get your creative juices working Stuart has also provided the first sentence of the story for you.

To enter, use the following sentence as your introduction and complete the story in no more than 300 words.