by J.P. Yager
done.”
Blake shook his head. “Anyway. Scary puzzle story aside, I got you beat, stinky Pete.”
Pete finished his beer and opened another. “We’ll see.”
“This one is so horrible, you can barely imagine it. So I was having dinner with Pete’s mom…”
Pete flicked his bottle cap at Blake and hit him in the shoulder.
“Just kidding.” He straightened up. “No, that was a different time. So this isn’t a haunting story per se, this was just plain scary. Maybe it was a ghost...who knows. This only happened the one time.” Blake got that expression you get when you’re seeing something all over again and he even took on a wistful tone, “So I was like ten or eleven years old. I had woken up from a bad dream. This wasn’t a huge deal but I was scared enough to turn on my light. When I did, I saw there was a man across from my bed propped against my dresser. He was just leaning on it.”
Reece put a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide open.
“I was shocked too, trust me. I was a little kid, so I was scared, ya, but also thinking, maybe it’s a dream. I pinched myself a few times. Nope it was real. I see this guy and I notice that’s he’s not looking at me, he’s looking through my open door. I also note that it’s not transparent or anything ‘ghostly’. He’s just a dude leaning on my dresser. Then I see his neck. It’s stitched and crusted with blood. His clothes are not from our time either. He looks bad, pale. I want to yell to my parents, who I can hear in their room across from mine, but I don’t want this thing to look at me. I’m convinced if I do he’ll come at me. So I just sit there for like ten minutes just staring at him. Finally this thing stands up straight and walks right out of my room and never came back.”
Jack saw Erin shake off a chill. He smiled to himself. She was cute when she was scared.
“C’mon. My story was better than that.” Pete interjected.
Blake scoffed. “A haunted puzzle thrower? No way.”
Pete flicked another bottle cap toward Blake but missed. The alcohol was taking effect. Pete ignored his miss and turned his attention toward Reece. “Let’s get back to my old haunted house. What did you hear about it?”
Reece, never one to like being the center of attention, did look like she was excited to tell this story. It was almost like gossip which was her favorite thing in the world.
Jack noted quietly how once one person told a scary story, everyone went into their own story banks or ones they’d heard. It was like humans couldn’t help it. It was the love of getting scared and scaring others.
“This didn’t happen to me, but I heard this from Daniel McCullough.”
“My old neighbor’s kid?” Pete asked.
“Yup. This is after you guys moved out during your sophomore year and moved to the fancy north side of the town. Your mom was trying to sell the house.” Pete nodded. Reece continued. “He told me that he and his dad had been asked by your mom to make sure all the lights were off.”
“She didn’t tell me about this.” A boyish smile spread across Pete’s face.
“Daniel swore me to secrecy. I don’t think his dad wanted to look crazy either. Anyway, on this night it was already dark and they did see a light on. It was the one above the garage.”
“That’s my mom’s room. That room always gave me the creeps.” Pete added.
“Let her finish.” Blake flung Pete’s old beer caps back at him.
Reece let everything calm then went back to it. “Well, they went in and up the stairs to turn off the light. They went down the hallway and into the master bedroom. When they entered they saw the light on and the ceiling fan going. They went to turn the light off when the bathroom light came on. They thought it was weird, but went in to turn it off anyway. As soon as they entered the bathroom, though, Daniel and his dad heard a woman scream at the top of her lungs. It was deafening, he told me. They knew for a fact the place was empty and saw no one else was there. Without a thought, they ran out and never came back. He said later they realized the light was still on. It remained on until the house was sold again.”
“Eerie.” Erin was scratching the goose bumps going up her arms.
“I’m not surprised.” Pete added. “I feel bad for whoever lives there now.”
“Decent story.” Blake judged then turned to Jack. “What you got buddy?”
“I think I’ll go last. Mine’s the best for sure.”
“Alright. Alright.” Blake turned to Erin instead. “You got one?”
Erin clearly didn’t like the way the night had turned out. She hated all things related to ghosts and scary movies. But looking like a chicken was worse. “There is one night that stands out that happened to me.”
Jack cocked his head, delighted. He hadn’t heard about this before.
“This happened when I was very young. I used to have nightmares about all kinds of things. But the worst ones I had were with the Yep-Yeps.”
“Hold on. The what?” Blake asked.
“I called them the Yep-Yeps, sorry. They were those things on Sesame Street. They were these aliens that came down from this lame space ship. They were pretty much just a mouth and two eyes.” When she could see they still didn’t remember, she added. “They’d come up to things, like a phone, and they’d all say, Phone… phone… yep… yep… yep…”
“Oh ya!” Reece exclaimed. “I didn’t think they were scary though. They were cute.”
“Well, I was freaked out by them.” She shook it off physically. “I hated those things. They gave me nightmares all the time. Well, this one night I’m having this dream. I’m in this strange village and right on cue, out come the Yep-Yeps. They are hopping down a road towards me. That was the worst part, waiting for them to come. God knows why I always waited. I get scared of course, but I’m tired of being afraid of them. So I stand up to them. I tell them they can’t scare me anymore. They turned to each other chattering ‘Yep, Yep, Yep’. One of them turns to me and speaks English for the first time. It tells me, ‘Alright, but beware, everything here isn’t what it seems.’ Then they hop off to who knows where. Now I’m freaked out in the dream, but I shrug it off. The Yep-Yeps are gone. I don’t care about anything else. I walk away from where they disappeared and I see a woman with a small dog. It’s one of those little wiener dogs. I have a strange feeling about it, but it’s a puppy. Without asking the woman for permission I go to pet the dog, and oh god I’ll never forget, its head turns around.” Erin’s eyes grew larger as she went on, “And it’s only its head mind you. But when the little dog’s head turned it was now ten times bigger and horrible looking, still connected to its tiny body. I saw giant bloodshot eyes and worms crawling in one nostril and into its ears. Just the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen . I close my eyes and pray to wake up, just please wake up. Then I feel I’m in my covers. I’m safe. I look up and there, swear to God, is the dog’s head floating above my bed. I duck back down under the covers shaking. Look again and it’s still there! I must have went back to sleep because I don’t remember much after that.” Erin pulled her sweater over her head. “God it still freaks me out. That’s why I don’t like this stuff.”
“It sounded a little like mine, but I’ll let it go. It was pretty creepy. Nice one Erin.” Blake was taking his role of the night’s ringleader serious. It was weird not having Shannon leading things. “And last and probably least, take us home Jack.”
Jack laughed at him good-heartedly. “Now this really happened. You do one of these ghost story nights with my parents and they’ll tell you this is completely true. So prepare yourself.” He looked around. No one seemed any more ‘prepared’. “Alright. So this began when I was about three or four. My mom and dad would tuck me in and I would tell them that I saw a light outside my window. They told me those are stars. I would keep saying it was a big light, but they didn’t pay any heed to it. This went on for a while until one n
ight I told them I could see a little boy. From then on, he would visit me and we would play. My mother thought it was cute at first. I had an invisible friend. My dad began to get concerned as days turned into a year. He would hear me have one half of a conversation like I was really talking to someone. When I began to go into detail about this little boy, my mom told my dad I should see a specialist. I said he was dressed in old clothes and that he kept telling me he was very cold. Freezing cold. Time went on and they didn’t make enough money to take me to a shrink, so they hoped I would just grow out of it. Of course nowadays I would’ve been medicated. I kept it up for another few months. Then my parent’s divorced, we sold the house and moved up here. After we left though, I never talked about the light or the little boy again.”
“Lame.” Blake said. Pete nodded in agreement.
“Hold on, it doesn’t end there. My mom began working on her master’s years later and did a paper on the area had been around where the old house was. She discovered our house had been built where an old farm had been. It had had a giant light atop the silo.”
“Nice.” Blake smiled.
“And a little boy had drowned in the pond at that old farm. It had been in the middle of winter.”
“Wow.” Pete let a breath out. “That’s good.”
Jack leaned back, proud.
“Beware the