Laugh To Kill

• Hannah Bond, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2019

“No, NO! I swear! I didn’t kill him! I swear! Nooooooo!” Henry shrieked, “Don’t take me to that diabolical prison!” Henry Abbott, age 11, was visiting his Uncle Jim. Henry despised his uncle, but he never suspected that his greatest wish concerning him would come true. He had wished and wished that he would never have to see his wretched uncle again. Henry and Jim had been the only living people in the house and Henry was just a helpless child. Murder mystery! During the night Henry had heard an evil cackle. He had crept downstairs from his bedroom. A puff of smoke and a murder later and Henry was in the worst prison in the country.

“Let me out! Let me out! I’m innocent!” cried Henry. “Yeah right, kid” called the guard, Butch. Locked in a cell in the world’s worst prison. How could his life get any worse? Maybe being haunted by the spirit of his murdered uncle. He could hear him whisper “Break out...break out...BREAK OUT.” over and over again. As if the voice was coming from inside his head!

Suddenly, a part of the back wall of the prison cell became insubstantial. What if the spirit of Henry’s uncle was leading him out of prison? Henry clambered over the base of the wall and dashed across the grass until he reached the guards at the front portcullis. “How am I going to distract the guards?” Henry thought. “Maybe I could organise some justified payback.” Henry heard Uncle Jim chuckle. “You know what I’m thinking?” whispered Henry. “It helps that I’m inside your head” replied Uncle Jim, giving Henry a cold chill.

Just a few seconds later the guards cover their ears with their ghostly white hands, screamed and ran. “Now those guards are paying for their cruelty. They killed innocent prisoners. The spirits of those dead men sure are vengeful.” hissed Uncle Jim. He made the prison wall insubstantial and Henry dashed out, running, in the moonlight, back to Uncle Jim’s house.

Henry turned the cold, metal doorknob. He silently stepped inside the house. Henry saw, in a beam of moonlight, a glint from under the grill of a heating vent on the slippery floor. As he bent down to retrieve the mysterious object he heard an evil cackle. The same sound he had heard on the night of his uncle’s murder! He stood up slowly, grasping the shiny object in his tightened fist. Turning he saw…