by Scot McAtee
***
The house was dark and eerie. Mr. and Mrs. Part haven’t been in the house since his death because they have been staying this Mr. Part’s parent’s house.
Jared’s room looked as I expected it to look. Some band posters here and miscellaneous objects there, nothing weird. I thought that we wouldn’t find anything, but I was wrong.
We began searching the room. We looked everywhere.
I began looking under his mattress. Nothing. I looked in his lampshade. Nothing. My partner, John, found his iPhone in the bottom drawer of his dresser.
“That’s a weird place to keep it,” he said.
“Check the messages,” I said while checking his closet.
It had 12 new messages: 5 messages from his mother, 4 from his father, and 3 from an unknown number. The first message from the strange number was a link that went to a website that was a black screen, except a box requiring a username and password. The second message was a date: November 7, 1991. The next was a name: Nathan Harper.
The Battle Within
Nicole Stachelski
Fear is something that almost everyone has. If you fear something, you are going to more than likely try to stay as far away from it as possible. Fear is a very ancient and universal emotion in man. It can be defined as the sensation that you are in danger, that something bad is about to happen. Sometimes, you need to face your fears. You may be scared at the moment, but the experience afterwards will be priceless. They can often times cause you to panic in the occurrence.
A few weeks after shark week, my family and I went on vacation to Virginia Beach. There had been a few attacks that happened during shark week in the same body of water that I would be swimming in, and that terrified me. We enjoyed the view from our hotel balcony. There were a few parasailers here and there out in the water from a distance. My mom started becoming interested and started to look up ticket prices and places close to us. She thought it would be a neat experience, so she booked all of us parasail times. She did not tell us about any of this. She wanted to keep it a secret. The day next day, she finally told us that she had a surprise for us, so we all got in the car not knowing where we were going. As we pulled into the parking lot, I knew exactly what she had planned. I did not want to do it. My mom wanted me to have the experience, so she forced me to go, even though I did not want to. I refused to even get on the boat. After about an hour, my mom said to me, “Nicole, it won’t hurt you. You need to at least take the boat trip and you can decide if you want to go up or not.” So I replied, “Okay mom, I’ll only take the boat ride”
As I was getting on the boat, the captain asked me, “Why are you so against this idea?” I answered with one word. “Sharks.” I said. The captain’s name was Brian. He put all of our life jackets on us to make sure they were on right, then he started the boat and we headed off to about a mile away from shore. He stopped the boat and asked, “So, who wants to go first!” I very quickly started to panic because I did not want my mom to strap me down to the bar, but that’s exactly what she did. She walked me over to the end of the boat, and they harnessed and strapped me to the metal rod connected to the parachute. They immediately started the boat on full speed and watched as I drifted up in the air. Within 2 minutes I was 1000 feet up in the air, looking over the vast ocean and the beautiful sunset. I could see the hotel windows reflecting the sun’s radiant orange rays.
I looked below me, and saw the water a thousand feet below me and I started to panic. Words could not describe the fear I was feeling in that moment. I then looked back up at the sunset and started to calm down, because if I panicked, the parachute would move and I could possibly fall. They kept me in the air for about fifteen minutes. I was really enjoying the stunning view of the beach sunset. That was the most peaceful thing that I had ever heard, all you could hear was the birds chirping above you and the wind blowing your hair back as it wisped by your ears. That was better than any other relaxation on vacation. As they reeled the rope back in, I was sad because of how short the ride seemed. The closer I got to the boat, the more nervous I became, because I definitely did not want to be dipped in the water. Brian was trying to dip me into the water by letting me almost fall into the water by going slow and speeding back up when I was submerged, but I dodged all three times he tried. I held onto the bar with my hands and pulled by feet up doing an upside down plank and held my body parallel with the waves of the ocean. I did not get wet because I did this. I approached the boat landing and unstrapped myself from the bar and the harness that I was wrapped up in. I carefully made my way to my seat so I wouldn’t fall while the waves were crashing into the side of the boat making me unbalanced. Everyone was asking me, “How did it go? Did you like it?” I just didn’t say anything and I let them find out for themselves.
Fear can hold us back from things that we want to do. Unfortunately, I had to learn this the hard way. Parasailing was definitely worth the time and money. It calmed me and it was very relaxing. It ended up being my favorite thing I did on that vacation. You should always take advantage of the opportunities given to you, because you might not get to do them another time. You never know, you might surprise yourself and enjoy something you thought you would hate. It won’t hurt anything to just try. Fear is something that almost everyone struggles with sometime throughout their life. It is an internal conflict that we have to learn to overcome.
Another Day, Another Mystery
Nicole Stachelski
Anything can happen when you least expect it. Life is taken for granted by most people, until something happens to someone they love. Life lessons are learned by the smallest things in life. Riley Smith is a sophomore in college at Vincennes University. She lives off campus in an apartment of her own, about 20 minutes away from school. Every weekend, Riley is always hanging out with at least one of her friends. Her best friend’s name is Cierra Hart. Riley and Cierra spend almost every weekend with each other.
One Halloween weekend, in 2008, Cierra and I went out to a haunted house in Indianapolis. This was a well-known, best rated haunted house in the state of Indiana. We were terrified, but excited to go to this haunted house. Indy was about an hour drive from where we lived. We started heading that way at around 7 o’clock P.M. I planned with Cierra that we could meet some of our friends that live in Indy at the haunted house. We pulled up to the parking lot and the line was almost two miles long. We waited and waited. Finally, 3 hours later we were at the front of the line talking to the people around us. We were next in line to go. The tour of the haunted house took us 20 minutes to walk through. We screamed almost the whole time through. They had people in there that jumped out at you with chainsaws and axes. Cierra started to talk back to the guys who were trying to scare the victims that walked through the haunted house. Cierra said to the men, “I’m not afraid to punch you guys!” and we all headed back to the parking lot. When we got in the car to drive back home, Cierra turned to me and said “That was the best haunted house I’ve ever been in! I just hope nothing happens like that in real life.” I said reassuringly, “Oh, nothing will happen. You have nothing to worry about, Cierra.” We saw someone following us, but didn’t think anything of it since it is Indianapolis and there is a lot of people going to close places. I dropped Cierra off at her house. We both live by ourselves by our college campuses. Cierra got out of my car and said, “Thank you for this amazing night! Drive safe and I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Text me when you get home,” as she started walking toward her house. When she got inside, she didn’t realize she forgot to lock the door behind her. After I left, the car that had been following us the whole time, pulled into Cierra’s drive way but I thought it was our other friends, so I didn’t get out to say hello since it is almost midnight.
The next morning, I called Cierra to make sure she got in okay. I started to get worried when Cierra didn’t answer three calls in a row, but I figured she was still sleeping. I left her a text that told her to call me when she could to make sure s
he was okay and wasn’t scared still just in case something happened. When 3 o’clock P.M arrived, I left Cierra a voicemail on her phone that said “Hey Cierra, I’m getting really worried about you, so if you could contact me as soon as you can I would appreciate that. I hope nothing happened to you.”
A whole day passed by, without getting any contact from Cierra. I needed to drive to her house to make sure everything was okay. When I got there, I ran up to an opened door. I started panicking when I saw one of Cierra’s high heels on the floor with a red substance on it. I looked all around the house, and couldn’t find Cierra anywhere. When I got to Cierra’s room, I saw her phone was lying in a pool of blood with the number 911 typed in but never called. By this time, I thought she would be lucky if she even saw Cierra alive again. That’s when I heard a muffled scream coming from the closet. I opened the closet to see Cierra with her mouth duck taped looking like someone was trying to suffocate her. I immediately untapped her mouth crying tears of relief. Cierra started crying and hugged me as she told me the whole story. Cierra said, “All I remember was walking inside and getting into my bathroom to take my contacts out and wash my make up off. When I got into my bed, I could feel someone watching me. I reached toward the side of my bed and grabbed one of my high heels because it was the closest thing I could use for defense just in case anything happened to me. Then, out of nowhere I heard someone breathing really heavy right beside my ear, so I grabbed my heel and stabbed the “air” toward where I heard the breathing coming from. A man screamed with a muffled noise, and I ran across the room to turn the light on. I saw a man with my shoe in hanging from the side of his cheek, and he ran toward me with a fork in his hand. I slammed the door behind me as I darted out the door toward the kitchen, where I hid. He pulled his inhaler out of his pocket and started to use it, but I accidentally coughed. He dropped his inhaler and started scavenging through the mess trying to find me, but ended up finding me. When he found me he tied me up with a sweatshirt that was in my closet, and duck taped my mouth closed. He stole my wallet and fled from my house. I’m just glad that I’m okay.” “I’m glad you’re okay too. I was really starting to worry when you weren’t answering your phone,” I said. We called the cops immediately. I wanted to find the man that tried to murder Cierra. The cops showed up and I said to the main police officer, “I need you to try your best to at least find a fingerprint. This man is dangerous and will likely kill someone else.”
In life, there are people that will come into your life as blessings. These blessings in your life should not be taken for granted. Anyone’s life can be taken away from them when they least expect it. You won’t truly understand what it’s like to be in a situation like that, until you are actually in it. When you are, you will understand how precious your life is, and that you should make every day count.
My Dilemma
Nicole Stachelski
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” – L.P. Hartley. My past has been a bit bumpy these past few years, but that’s normal for a high school student, right? Like all people, I have learned from my past. I think every high school student has been or at least seen someone be in a relationship and knows how it works. Also, I’m sure that everyone has kept a secret from their best friend in order to save them from being hurt. I have been in that stressful situation. Nobody could ever imagine the stress or guilty pain of how it feels to lie to their best friend until they have been in that position.
My best friend is Olivia Copeland. Olivia and I both go to the same school, so we see each other every day. Also, my cousin, Ethan Crawn, goes to the same school as us, but he is a grade older. Ethan and I have grown up together and we always used to be with each other. Olivia has been my best friend for the past four years. We met on the first day of our sixth grade year when our lockers were right next to each other.
Before I met Olivia, Ethan had never talked to her. After Olivia and I started hanging out, he started to notice her. He came up to me and started asking me questions like, “Does she have a boyfriend? Does she know who I am? Can I talk to her?” “Go for it, E” I said. They started talking and hanging out a lot more than they used to. I called Olivia and said “Hey liv, did you still want to go see that movie that we’ve been talking about? It comes out tonight.” And every time I asked to do anything with her, the response was always, “I’ll go only if Ethan can come.” As time progressed, I noticed that they were both wanting to hang out with me more individually. They spent less time together than they used to. I was wondering what happened, so I went to Ethan’s house to talk to him and make sure everything was okay. “Hey Ethan, is everything okay with you and liv?” I said as I walked in the door. “Yeah, we are just fighting over something stupid right now, it’ll be fine.” He answered. “You need to call her and tell her to come over so that you guys can talk things out then,” I said. She came over and I made sure they worked things out. The next day, they were back to their inseparable ways.
One day close to the end of the school year, I went shopping with Olivia. As I was talking to her, she seemed like a different person. She used to be such a bubbly, free-spirited person, but now she barely gave a real smile or laugh. I knew something went wrong somewhere. “Is there anything that has been bothering you or something that happened recently?” I asked worriedly. “Can we go back to your house and talk about things?” she replied. “Of course.” We got into my car and I drove us back to my house. I sat down on the back porch with her at 1 a.m. “Is everything okay?” I asked concerned. “ No. Ethan and I have been fighting a lot lately and it is really upsetting me.”
The next day at school, I walked behind them to listen to what they were saying. As I walked my distance, all I could hear was back and forth arguing with each other. They argued about everything you could possibly think of, so I came up to Ethan’s locker to hear his side of the story. “What is causing all of this fighting?” I said. “She is busy all the time, I understand that she is on a nationwide softball team, so she travels all around the United States, but she never has time for me so I get mad.” He replied angrily. I walked away because I had to use the bathroom. As I was in the stall, I heard Lillie Smith, the school’s most popular cheerleader, and her clique walk into the bathroom. “I am so excited that Ethan finally asked me to go to that party. We are going to have so much fun.” I overheard Lillie say. “What if Olivia finds out?” said one of Lillie’s friends. “Trust me, she won’t.” Lillie immediately fired back, “Got it?”
Dismayed and in shock, I waited until they left to come out of the bathroom so they wouldn’t see that I was the one in the bathroom. I knew I had a decision to make. I could either keep it to myself and avoid breaking Olivia’s heart, or I could lie to her and not tell her the full truth and let her find out on her own. I don’t know what to do. I am going to go approach Ethan. I walk up to Ethan’s locker and slam it shut, looking at him with disappointment and infuriation. He knew exactly why, and I could see it in his face. “Uhh, what’s wrong?” he said. “Are you kidding me right now? I know what you’re doing and you can’t hide it from me. I can’t even believe you.” I fired back at him. “Okay, I know it’s wrong but please don’t tell Olivia.” He answered. “I have to since you won’t.” I said as I walked away in anger. I could hear him yelling behind me and I just ignored him. I walked to my class and sat down in the seat next to Olivia.
The last day of school, I told myself that I was going to tell her, because that’s what she would want me to do. I went to her house to pick her up for school, as I did every day of the school year. When she got in the car, I turned to her and said, “Liv, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you earlier but I was trying to save you the heart ache. I overheard Lillie in the bathroom, and Ethan is cheating on you. They went to the party together last weekend. I wasn’t planning on telling you but if it were me, I would want you to tell me so I am telling you.” She looked at me dumbfounded and speechless, like a deer in headlights.
>
I still remember what a gut wrenching feeling it was when I had to tell her. My heart was torn into pieces and shredded. I was scared for her and didn’t know how she would react. I felt guilty knowing my cousin was hurting my best friend and there was nothing I could do about it. Secrets aren’t my favorite things by far. They put me in the most difficult situations.
The Mysterious Haunting
Nicole Stachelski
One cool October night I was getting ready for a good night’s rest. Just as I was snuggled under the soft down comforter, I heard a noise. I quickly darted out of my bed and crept toward the door. As I slowly turned the knob and gently pushed the door open, I shrieked when I saw my name written on the wall across the hall. As I peeked out the door, I caught a glimpse of a red substance on my wall. I opened the door all the way and made my way over to the wall very slowly and carefully watching all the way around me. The wall said “Be careful, Anna” in red lipstick that was drug out from my bathroom.
My dog, Marshmallow, and I, Anna, just moved into this apartment a few weeks ago. I went from a beautiful blue house with a lake view to a small, run-down apartment complex five thousand miles away to the town of Lincolnshire, England. I moved here for better schooling and more college studies. The apartment I chose was definitely not the best by any means, but it could get me by for a couple years while I finish getting my degrees. I started getting concerned about the place because of all the noises and creaks I was hearing, so I went and knocked on my landlord’s door. I heard his footsteps coming to the door and saw his eye through the peephole. He opened the door saying in a soft voice as if he was sleeping a minute ago, “Yes, what do you want.” I replied, “Sorry to awake you, Sir, but is there anything that happened in my apartment before I moved in?” He instantly went pale and in a shaky voice answered, “Is there any particular in which you are asking this?” “Well,” I said, “there has been some strange things happening in this apartment. I heard a strange noise, like the slamming of a window or a door, so I darted out to see what it could have been. To my surprise, there was a tube of my lipstick on the ground that had been used to write Be careful, Anna on the wall. I don’t know how someone would know my name, I don’t know anyone here. I just thought that was out of the ordinary. Do you know of any previous activity in this apartment?” He immediately turned ghost white and hurriedly said, “Uhhh, I think I hear my phone ringing” and sprinted inside locking the door behind him.
I could hear him breathing heavily as he had his back against the door. I just went back to my apartment and started to get ready for the day, since it was only 9 o’clock in the morning. I washed my face, put my contacts in, and as I was brushing my hair I hear a noise coming from the kitchen. I walked out of the kitchen to see a box of Life cereal laying on the ground with my dog sniffing around it. I knew my Marshmallow hadn’t knocked the box over, because he was laying on the floor in the bathroom as I was brushing my hair beside him. I put the box back on the counter where it was, and didn’t think it was a big deal because it was probably the wind. The window is open and blowing in pretty hard right behind the box of cereal.
I had just moved here, so I am still trying to find a job to help pay for my expenses. Today, I have an interview for a local business that starts paying at $10 an hour. The business is called Silver Cone. It is a family ran small business, but since it is the only ice cream shop, it gets a lot of attention. The boss is short with strawberry brown hair and green glasses that match her glowing green eyes. I, on the other hand, am a taller lady with bleach blonde hair and blue eyes.
A few days later, I got a call from the owner saying that I got the job, and I start in a week. I was very excited to hear that I finally found a job that I would actually like, and get paid fairly decently. During the week, I only had 2 college classes to attend. Those classes are biology and photography. I finally found a full time job that I would actually like. They are flexible with hours, too.
That night when I was lying in bed thinking about how my future could possibly turn out, I heard a knock at my window. It couldn’t have been a tree because I heard three slow, loud knocks paced with the same amount of time in between them. I got up and hesitantly looked outside to see a dark ominous figure standing there glaring at me, the only think I could see was his eyes. His eyes are a deep dark brown, almost black. I screamed and ran to the kitchen to grab my phone to call the police. By the time I got to the kitchen, he was already standing there guarding my phone. I screamed “WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME” I heard him chuckle. He wasn’t walking, he was floating. His feet were not on the ground, they were hovered over the ground. He flew over toward me when I realized that I went right through him. This was not a man I was dealing with, I had a spirit on my case. I headed to my room and started to pack up my things. I convinced myself that I was moving, because this apartment is not a good complex to live in. There are ghosts and spirits in these apartments.
“During the fall was Halloween time, there is no way I am staying in this house with spirits on Halloween. I am moving out in the morning,” I thought. I found a note on the ground as I was packing my things to move out. The note contained a threat. The thread was that even if I move, he will follow me and torture me. This torturing would include taking over my body. This man/spirit was the one writing me notes and leaving threats on my wall. If I left, he would kill me, follow me and take over my body to the point where I was fighting to kill myself. This was not a good spirit, it was a demon. I had to stay, I had no choice. I want to live. I have to stay here”
“Okay. Write the information down, put in a bag, and we’ll bring it to the lab,” I said.
“Already doing it,” John answered.
We continued searching for clues. Below a large band poster on the wall, I noticed some pieces of his painted wall on the ground. I took off the band poster to find a hole in the wall.
“Hey! Bring me a flashlight,” I yell to John.
We shone light into the hole in the wall. There was a gym bag sitting on a wood beam.
“Can you reach it?” I asked swinging my arms toward the bag.
He reached in the hole and successfully grabbed it. We opened the bag very cautiously. Inside was a stack of passports, from all different countries. They were Nathan Harper’s, with birthdate November 7, 1991.
“What relationship does Jared have with this guy?” I said frustrated.
“I don’t know. I think we need to do some research…”
We continued looking around the room.
“Eve, look at this,” John said.
He held up an antique metal box. He opened the lid revealing a very expensive looking necklace charm.
“Maybe we should ask his parents about those. I suppose they would know what they are from.” I said. I expected it was something passed down through the family.
Again, we carried on with the investigation. I noticed one of his shoes had duct tape on the heel. I took off the duct tape and a flash drive, labeled #1, fell on to the ground.
“John, this was hidden in the heel of his shoe,” I informed him while showing him the flash drive.
“Okay, bag it up and check the other shoes.”
I found nothing else, and we didn’t find anything else suspicious in his room. We ended the investigation and went to work. We had so many questions that needed to be answered. Who is this kid? I thought.