Old Man Blake

• Mitchell Brown, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2015

The old, wooden fence creaks as Peter opens it. He turns back to see his friends on the other side of the gate - the safe side. They were the ones who dared him to do this, to go into old man Blake’s haunted home. There had been rumours of demons, ghosts, vampires and even baby dragons living there now...after old man Blake’s death, several years ago.
Peter slowly steps towards the door, being edged on by his friends. He looks back at the gate, shivering with fear.
Slowly, Peter places his hand on the doorknob and turns it. The door flies open and a large, red face with a black moustache and devilish horns jumps out and Peter falls into its mouth. Peter can only just see his friends running down the street, as the face laughs evilly and shuts the door.
When Peter wakes, he is in a small room with red blood splotches everywhere. He gets to his feet and steps backwards. He hears the door creak open and he runs towards the wall opposing it. But this time, the face doesn’t appear. Instead, a ghost with a plate of cookies in its hand comes into the room. Peter recognises it as old man Blake and his face turns as white as the ghost’s, before he falls to the floor. The ghost leaps over and slaps his cheek, as if stopping him from fainting. Tears run down Peter’s face as he inches back further.
Strangely, the ghost does the same. It backs away to the door and then phases through it, leaving Peter in the room by himself. Slowly and silently, he gets to his feet. His jaw trembles as he nears the door, He grabs the doorknob and rips it away from the door, leaving a hole where it was.
Peter looks through the hole and sees an eye looking back at him. He falls backwards and lands on his bottom. He crawls back towards the wall, as a ghostly skeleton phases through the door.
The skeleton’s body is made of old bones, and so is the axe it is holding. It runs at Peter, swinging its axe around. It stops suddenly and throws the axe at Peter, who ducks and dives under the skeleton’s legs and jumps against the door.
The skeleton, who is completely defenceless without his axe, crashes to the ground, sending bones and ribs all around the room. The skull, which still has the eye in it, lands in Peter’s hands.
Peter grabs the axe from the wall and places the skull on the handle end. Then he holds it high above his head and runs at the door. He slices the door into tiny pieces and then jumps over them, escaping into the hallway.
He can see the door only a few hundred metres away. He sprints towards it, grabs the doorknob and wrenches it open before running outside, jumping over the gate and bolting down the street to safety.