As soon as we rounded the corner I knew I should have turned around right then. The Haunted house seemed more than just a theme for Halloween, it seemed like the real deal. The house itself seemed to be rotting and falling apart. It had to be at least three stories high. The yard looked like it hadn’t been kept in over three hundred years and there were gravestones scattered across the right side of the yard. I went over to one of them expecting a cheap plastic gravestone but instead finding it stone. I looked closer and read the name. Rose Gertrude, I remembered that name. She was an old lady that moved here a couple of years ago but died last year. Was she possibly buried here in the yard? Did all the other gravestones possibly belong to people once alive? Ughh, I didn’t want to think of that. This is just a fake haunted house I tried to convince myself.
“Are we going in or not?” Bella said annoyed.
“Alright, I’m coming!” I started up the cracked path to the haunted house. We knocked three times on the peeling door stained with crimson. We waited there in the eerie silence. The rusted golden knocker, shaped like the head of a raven, seemed to be staring at me. Then the door slowly opened and we heard a deep scratchy voice that sent a chill to the very center of my body. “Come in if you dare”.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Alecia squealed.
“Don’t be a baby” taunted Bella. “This is probably going to be like all the other stupid haunted houses we’ve ever been to.” Boy was she wrong.
SLAM!! As soon as we had entered the house the door slammed behind us.
“Now w-we’ll be t-trapped in here for-forever” stammered Alecia.
“Stop it Alecia! It’s already scary enough,” I yelled.
“You guys are both babies,” Bella complained.
We had entered into the foyer. There was a main hall that led to the dining hall. Maybe… and there was a staircase that went up on both sides of the hall. There was a huge chandelier hanging from the ceiling that was flickering. The maroon carpet was worn down and fading. There were end tables on either sides of the room. There was a vase on each end table and they contained real black flowers of some kind with huge thorns on the stems. There had to be at least a half inch of dust on the ground and as we walked around the room the dust swelled around us making us cough. Next we decided to go up the stairs and into the side rooms. As we entered the hall, I tripped on an upturned rug and the lights suddenly went out. Then all was quiet.
“Bella, Alecia” I managed to whisper.
“Yeah” Bella and Alecia responded at the same time. I was about to say something when a fierce chill ran all the way down my spine lifting every single hair on my neck. I reached for the mini flashlight in my pocket but was afraid to turn it on. Finally I gathered up enough courage to turn it on. What I saw next left a permanent picture in my head. The thing was about half a foot away from me making harsh rasping sounds. Its face looked cold and blue. It was dripping from head to toe in water and was wearing a pale yellow night gown. “It” was a girl who looked like she had just taken an ice cold bath with her night gown on. In an instant she was gone but not before I heard Alecia scream in terror. “It’s a ghost, it’s a ghost!!” That’s when the lights came on and I saw a trail of water running down the dreary hallway.
“Let’s follow it!” exclaimed Bella. So of course we followed it.
The trail of water led us to the bathroom. The tub was full of water and the faucet was still on. The water was seeping over the tub and running all over the stained tiles on the floor. The toilet was also overflowing, gross. I went over to the bathtub and looked into it, afraid of what I would see. Sure enough there was something at the bottom but not what I thought it would be. It was a rag covered in crimson spots and it was plugging the drain.
“Do you think that’s supposed to be there?” I asked.
“Duh, this is a haunted house isn’t it” Bella pointed out.
“Whatever”, I thought in my head. We decided to leave and go check out the rest of the haunted house. There were two other rooms upstairs, so we went into the smaller room first.
This was the baby’s room. I was pretty sure because of the cracked pink walls and rusted metal crib. This room was so far the creepiest but I was not sure why. There was just something about the mobile hanging over the crib and how it spun slowly by itself. The faded pink carpet and black and white pictures hanging on the wall in silver frames also gave me the creeps. Alecia suddenly went over and spun the mobile really fast. The string on the mobile made a loud snapping sound and fell by the edge of the crib.
“Great job Alecia. Now go pick it up” Bella snapped. As Alecia bent down to grab the mobile it disappeared under the crib.
“Where’d it go?” Alecia asked.
“Maybe it’s just under the crib.” I said. So Alecia bent down on all fours and looked under the crib. A decayed hand suddenly came from under the crib and grabbed Alecia’s arm.
“Ahhh, Let go of me!!” she screamed in horror. So I grabbed the nearest object I could find (which was a pink and blue rattle) and started hitting the hand with it. Finally the rotted hand let go of Alecia and went back under the crib. We left that room as fast as we could.
The next room we went to was the master bedroom which was right by the baby’s room. This room was dull. The carpet was gray and the walls were brown from dirt and dust. There were also cracks in the walls and cobwebs wherever you looked. The bed was at least a king size bed. It had big wooden posts and ripped brown curtains dangling from the top of the bed. There was another door that led to the closet. It looked like it had been nailed shut for some unknown reason. I walked over to the other side of the bed. There was a brown-crimson stain on the floor by the bed. I gasped and slowly covered my mouth.
“What is it Chloe?” Bella asked. I just pointed to the floor. Bella and Alecia came slowly over to where I was standing. They looked down at where I was pointing and gasped too. Next to the crimson stain was a skeleton with a knife sticking where the heart should have been and in the ribcage was a huge web with two grotesque looking spiders. Bella was about to say something when she was interrupted by a loud banging noise. Bang, Bang, Bang. It almost sounded like someone was banging on a piano except it was coming from the nailed up closet in this room. We all stood there for a second rooted to the spot by fear. I tried to move my legs but they were as stiff as boards. Then the noise started to get louder and my mind started to work again. I ran out of that room as fast as my legs would take me and I was closely followed by Bella and Alecia. Then the noise stopped abruptly and we all stood there looking at each other.
“How about we get out of this creepy house,” suggested Alecia. I kind of agreed with her but we hadn’t seen the whole house yet and all of this stuff was fake… right?
“No” said Bella. “This house is a little creepy but it’s not that bad.”
“That’s only because you weren’t grabbed by a hand,” Alecia said defensively.
“A fake one you mean,” replied Bella.
Alecia tried to think of something but didn’t respond. All I heard was her muttering under her breath “That’s what you think. It felt pretty real to me.”
So we went back down the creaky stairs and into the foyer. We were going to go into the hall when I noticed a sign hanging by the entrance.
It said Haunted House this way and it was pointing down the dark hall.
“Does that mean we haven’t even been to the haunted house yet?” Alecia asked.
“No we were just supposed to come here first,” explained Bella. So we started down the hallway. There were suits of armor on both sides of the hallway and paintings in between them. While we were walking down the hall I kept feeling like someone was watching me but every time I turned around there was nothing behind us. I guess that is just one of the effects of being in a haunted house. We finally got to the end of the hallway and appeared in what seemed like a dining room. I turned around to talk to Bella but she wasn’t there. I was trying to figure out what was going on when everything went black. I tried to yell out but my voice was muffled by a bag that was put over my head. Then I could feel myself being steered down a steep staircase. My feet pounded on the stone steps, the sound echoing off of the walls. It seemed like I had been walking down those steps forever. Then the floor started to level out and I could feel the stone ground change to tile. I suddenly slipped on something slimy on the floor and blacked out.

*



*



*

Next thing I knew I was lying down on something cold, hard and metal. I was still blind folded so I couldn’t see, but I heard someone in the background. I was pretty sure it wasn’t Bella or Alicia so I pretended like I was still asleep. Then I heard them washing their hands or something and I decided to take a peek. I saw a big man with a white mask on so I couldn’t see who it was. He had a white apron on that was stained with blood and he was washing a rusty butcher’s knife. I decided I shouldn’t stay here any longer and went to get up but was strapped to the table. That had done it, the butcher noticed me. He proceeded towards me slowly. I fumbled with the buckle on the strap that was holding me down. Finally I undid it and broke free. The butcher lunged at me with the butcher’s knife and barely missed hitting me. His knife got stuck in the table and he got distracted trying to pull it out. I frantically searched for the door and finally found it. I ran to the door and tried to turn the knob. It was locked. I had to hide somewhere before the man came looking for me. The first thing I saw was a shower and I was about to go over and hide in it when the man got the butcher’s knife unstuck. I kneeled down and started crawling slowly to the shower. That would be the only place he wouldn’t find me. I peeked over a sink to see if he was still looking for me. His back was to me and he was kicking boxes and moving them aside. He went to turn around and I dived down onto the floor. I stayed still until I heard him kicking boxes around again. Finally I reached the shower and slid into it.
“AAh!” I covered my mouth quickly to smother my scream, because I had just gone into a butcher’s shower. The butcher had still heard me. He was coming straight for me and I had nowhere to go! So I decided to make myself as small as possible and go against the wall of the shower no matter how dirty I got. The butcher got closer and closer until he got right by the shower. A foul odor reached my nose as he passed me. He smelled like rotten meat and it was making me gag. I guess he gave up on trying to find me because he unlocked the door. He was about to leave when there was a noise in the opposite side of the room. He went over there eagerly hoping to catch me. This was my chance to leave and I was going to take it. So I got up, hurried over to the door and went out.

I was not sure if the guy heard me or not but I didn’t care I just had to get out of there. I thought I heard the butcher following me but every time I looked back he was not there. I still had that creepy feeling about me when I entered the dining room. “Long time, no see,” I thought as I started walking around the table examining the food. The food was the only thing that looked normal in this haunted house. There were huge turkey breasts on platters that were still hot from the oven. There was warm, brown gravy and golden-brown rolls on a dinner plate. I was still examining the food when someone tapped me on the shoulder. Fear spread over me like ice. Thinking it was the butcher I turned around slowly fearing for the worst. But I was surprised to see that it was Bella. I screamed from the relief that I was feeling.
“Bella where were you???”
“I got stuck in the attic,” she replied. “It was scary! Where were you Chloe?” she questioned.
“I was being chased by a killer butcher,” I remarked.
“Why were you looking at that gross and moldy food Chloe?”
“It’s not gross.” I said turning around to show her, but I was surprised and grossed out to see that the food was indeed moldy.
“It wasn’t a second ago” I said trying to convince myself. “Oh well,” I thought in my head. This is a haunted house after all. “Where is Alecia?” I suddenly thought, so I asked Bella.
“I don’t know. I think she is somewhere upstairs.”
“Let’s go look for her and get out of here.” I suggested
“Good idea,” replied Bella. So we decided to leave the dining room and go look for Alecia. I took one last look at the fancy wooden dining chairs that surrounded the table and the food that once looked so good. Then Bella and I left the room.

The next room we went into was the kitchen. There were dusty bowls on the counters and in the sink. The dirty fridge was cracked open and I went to look inside.
“Gross!” I said as I peeked into the fridge and mice ran out. There was mold all over in the fridge and on the food. BEEP! The oven went off in the kitchen and the room started to fill with smoke.
“Why was the oven on?” I asked.
“I don’t know, let’s open it,” Bella replied. We approached the oven with caution as the smoke kept billowing out. I slowly reached for the oven handle and opened it. All the smoke suddenly came out giving us coughing fits. Once the smoke cleared from the air, I peered into the oven and there was a burnt loaf of bread still smoking. Bella found an old oven mitt sitting on the counter and reached into the oven to take out the loaf of bread. The oven door started to close on Bella but not before she had gotten the loaf of bread.
“Ha,” said Bella. “You can’t outsmart me!”

We went over to the dust covered table, plopped the bread out of the pan and saw something embedded in the smoking loaf. We reached for the object with a fork that happened to be setting on the table and started digging into the bread. Finally, a key was uncovered. It was a small, old-fashioned skeleton key with sapphire “eyes”.
“Let’s keep this key!” I squealed with excitement.
“And go find Alicia,” stated Bella.
We headed up to the attic to see if we could find any clues to where Alicia went. We found no trace of her but we found a picture of an animal with sapphire eyes.
“That could have something to do with the key we found!” said Bella.
“Yeah, it could,” I said “We should go look for that animal.”
“I bet it’s in a game room!” Bella said with excitement and when she said game room she meant those rooms that have animal heads all over the walls.

*



*



*

We had searched almost everywhere in the haunted house and we still hadn’t found the game room. The only place we hadn’t searched was down stairs and I didn’t want to go down there again. We decided to go search for the game room downstairs even though I didn’t want to. By the time we got to the bottom of the stairs I was so sure the butcher guy was going to chop my head off. When we rounded the corner, I stopped in my tracks.

“Aren’t you coming?” asked Bella.

“If you go first,” I replied. So Bella just rolled her eyes and turned the corner. I took a deep breath and turned the corner too.
“BOO!” I was so scared I didn’t even scream I just glared at Bella for making me jump about ten feet in the air.
“What?” she asked as I was glaring at her. “I couldn’t help it. You are so fun to scare.” I just grinded my teeth together and kept on walking. We looked all over the basement and we still couldn’t find the game room. We even looked for secret passages and doors in the walls. The only door we didn’t check was the boarded up closet in the master bedroom.
“We should go see if we can get in the closet that is in the master bedroom,” Bella said
“Yeah…” I sighed, thinking of that banging noise we heard. We went up to the master bedroom and started yanking on the boards that were holding the door shut.
“It’s no use, unless we can find something to pry the board off,” I pointed out.
“There isn’t anything to use….. What about the knife sticking out of that skeleton over there.” The color drained out of my face at the thought of grabbing the knife out of the skeleton.
“Oh I’ll just grab it you wimpy,” said Bella. She went over to the skeleton and grabbed the knife without thinking twice. SNAP! Bella started ripping the boards off one by one. Finally she uncovered a brown door with a brass handle. We opened the door and slowly peeked through it. This was indeed the game room. There were all sorts of animal heads on plaques. They were on the walls above pictures. There were lion, deer, elk, moose, and all sorts of heads. At the very end of the room there was a white tiger and it had sapphire eyes! We ran to the head and looked at it. Under the head there was a name on a plaque. It said Rose Gertrude.
“So she must have shot this!” I said. There had to be a trap door somewhere or we were at a dead end again. Bella started examining the tiger closely from the ears down.
“Hey there’s something in the mouth!” shouted Bella. We looked at the mouth and I touched it. The mouth fell open and there was a keyhole in the back of the mouth.
“I bet the key goes to this.” I said. So we tried putting the key in the keyhole and turned it. A secret entrance opened in the wall next to the white tiger. We peered inside and saw a tunnel. We went down the tunnel and came to a turn. We took a deep breath and rounded the corner. Alecia was tied up in a chair and was unconscious. Bella and I ran to Alecia and woke her up. We used the knife that Bella had to cut the rope that was binding Alecia. I woke her up and was about to say something when the butcher appeared. All three of us screamed and ran out of there as fast as we could. The butcher chased us all the way to the front door. We opened the door, which was amazingly unlocked, and ran out of the house. The guy went all the way to the front door then hesitated. We stood there staring and wondered what he was doing when he started running after us again. We screamed and held each other. When the daylight touched the butcher, he vanished into thin air! Alecia, Bella and I stood there in shocked amazement. We never figured out how that happened but that is why I’m never going to a haunted house again!