Thursday, October 9, 2014

Story 53: A Proper Ghost Story, Part 1



            “… and the blood poured over them, forever and ever until the end of time.  The End.”  The school-age audience gaped back at The Storyteller until one girl raised her hand.  “Yes?”
            “Sorry, thank you for the story, but it wasn’t really… scary, it was just gross.”  A few “Yeah”s agreed.
            “Oh.  I thought ‘gross’ was what all the kids wanted nowadays,” The Storyteller said.
            “Actually,” the little girl said, “we’ll take just scary, `cause right now I feel a little like I want to barf.”  The idea spread like wildfire and all the kiddies’ faces turned green. 
            “Ooh,” The Storyteller winced and held her hands out to hold off any of that.  “All right, no barfing, please.  So, you all want scary?”  Their heads nodded.  “Creepy?”  Nodded.  “Spine-chillingly terrifying?”  Nodded – one clapped his hands.  “Ooey, gooey, and hairy?”  They shook their heads and a few gagged.  “Very well, then.  I think I can whip up something to your liking.  I call this one:"

A Proper Ghost Story

            There once was a young lady who recently came into a small fortune and decided that it was high time that she struck off on her own in the world.  So, saying “Fare thee well” to her mummy and her daddy, she traveled from city to city and town to town, searching for a place she could now slap on the label of Home.  She found a lovely little suburb in the Midwest of the U.S. and soon found a lovely little house that she bought surprisingly dirt cheap.  Grave-dirt cheap, in fact, because it turns out that the lovely little house was, in fact, HAUNTED. 

            <Gasps and hands flying to faces>

            Of course, our young lady was not informed that she was purchasing a haunted house at the time of the sale because her real estate agent was unethical.  <What’s “unethical”?>  <Means you’re mean.>  So she moved in her few possessions – she had been travelling very lightly up until now – and settled in with all her plans for the great interior decorating projects she had in store for her new abode.

            That is, until, THAT NIGHT.

            That night, she went to sleep on her air mattress – very handy in her previous lifestyle – in what was now her bedroom.  The walls were bare, the floors were bare, and even the windows were bare because she needed to buy curtains, which will take forever because you have to decide on your color scheme, and what to have for summer and what to have for winter, and – she lay there for a while, realizing all the responsibilities and never-ending to-do lists being a homeowner entails.  She lay there, in the dark, slowly moving from thoughts of interior design to noticing how the wind moaned through the nearly empty house.

            Whooooooosh, whoooo, whooo, whoooo-OOOOOHHHH-ooooohhhh!

            The full moon shone through her room’s window <I thought she was in the dark?> … until clouds blocked it from sight and left her in darkness once more.  She also thought she saw some bats fluttering by outside, unless they were just some very confused birds.

            And then, she heard IT.

            Drip, drip, drip.

            She tried to ignore it but the bare house was an echo chamber.

            Drip, drip, drip.

            She put a pillow over her head.

            Drip.

            Knowing that would be all night, she got up and walked to the main bathroom.  The faucet was leaking, and tightening everything did not help.  Another to-do item for the next day: pick up some putty.

            BANG!

<Everyone jumped>

            The crash came from the living room.  Quickly, she ran back to her bedroom, picked up the baseball bat that was propped against the wall next to her mattress, and tip-toed to the living room.  She creaked slowly down the hallway, CREAK, CREAK, CREAK.  She came to the living room door and sloooowly pushed it open, CREEEEEAK.  She gripped the bat harder, sloooooowly looked around the door, and saw –

             "It’s 4:00, story time’s over, see you all next week!”
            “Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!”

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