Haunted Or Home To The Dead

• Nikita Martin-cu, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2015

The cold breeze hit me as I stepped out of my apartment building. Today was the day I was finally going to spend a night in our towns “haunted mansion”. Personally I think of it as just a normal house, just old. my bag is packed and I’m ready to go, now or never i thought.

I now stand in front of the Williamsburg mansion, most of the windows are smashed and the grass surrounding the house is dead. Not one thing about this house is welcoming, yet I’m not afraid. I walk further towards the house, look up at the mansion one last time before opening the door and just like every cliché horror movie, the door creeks in the most bone-chilling way. I walk up the rickety staircase, I look around and I only see, unlike the walls, a purely white door, yet the walls are covered in mould, I slowly and carefully open the door and am shocked with what I find; a girl with long black hair covering her face, sits in the middle of the room on an old wooden chair. At this point I am terrified but i start to walk towards the girl who looks about 6. The floorboards creek with every step i take, she looks up at me and to be shocked, where her eyes should be, they’re just black empty voids, her mouth is stitched and her face is violently pale, she could pass as dead.
In her hands, she holds a tattered old teddy bear. She holds it out to me, signalling for me to take it, I reach out with caution, grabbing the bear. It turns to ashes in my boney hand. I look up at the girl but she’s gone. I hurry down the stairs but then i remember why I’m here I came here to prove to the town that they’re suspicions are all in their head, determined to prove my point I set up my blanket just below the staircase. I lay there, with the events of the last hour or so running through my head. I practically just saw a dead girl and now I’m staying in the house that tens have died in, what am I doing? I’ll tell you what I’m doing, I’m going to prove my point and show all of them wrong; with that last thought, my eyelids grow heavy and I drift into a deep sleep.
I awake with beads of sweat dotting my forehead. I look around and remember where I am, I’m in the not-so “haunted mansion”. I did it, I have now proved my point! I pack up my blankets and make my way to the door, only to be stopped when I notice when a thick mist starts moving through the air. I start to run to the door but its locked! I turn around, to have my back against the wall, close my eyes and take a deep breath, letting darkness take over me.