As Teague walked home after school with his two best buds, he couldn’t help but wonder what crazy pranks they’d pull over the summer. To his left was Johnny Wolfgang, and to his right was Doug O’Conner.
          Now Teague had long black hair he often parted on the side or spiked up with gel. He had brown eyes and even though he was 16, most strangers took him to be in his early twenties. While his two friends enjoyed videogames and T.V. in their leisure time, Teague was a little more suited to activities outdoors, such as fishing and playing ultimate Frisbee. He also loved visiting his pet cat, Cassie, who his uncle was keeping at his house while their house was being rebuilt, since they couldn’t keep her in the hotel. While Teague was a little more on the reserved side, Johnny Wolfgang was definitely the most outgoing of the three.
          Johnny was rocking a blond mullet he’d been sporting since 7th grade. He had light green eyes and was laid back. He had a very dry sense of humor, and could usually stay calm in stressful situations.
Lastly, Doug had large, bright blue eyes and brown, curly hair. He was sporting a Jew-fro under his baseball cap. He was usually rather quiet unless he was hanging out with Teague and Johnny. He also had a strange infatuation with cats. As a matter of fact, it seemed every time Doug called Teague on the phone, he asked “how’s Cassie doing?” before he got to why he was calling.
          Teague, Johnny, and Doug had a lot in common. They all liked college and professional football, liked the same movies, books, you name it. And strange as it was, they all seemed to have an obsession with PBJ sandwiches. Lastly, they were all roughly the same size, each of them standing between 5’7-5’10 feet tall and weighing between 160-175 pounds. But while they had a lot in common, they also disagreed on many topics. They all had different interests in school, different teachers they liked and disliked, and could all think of at least five things one of them did that annoyed the heck out of one of the three of them. For example, it annoyed Teague that Doug liked to come over just to his house just to play with Cassie the cat. It irritated Johnny that sometimes all Teague wanted to do was talk about Dalia. And sometimes Doug got fed up with Johnny asking him for coupons for the local doughnut shop (which was owned by Doug’s uncle, Artie.)
On this summer afternoon the three boys were all dressed in their favorite outfits. Teague was wearing a long-sleeved flannel shirt and jeans. Johnny was strutting around in his favorite football jersey and Adidas Samba shoes. And Doug was sporting his short- sleeved plaid shirt and rocking a pair of blue Vans shoes.
A light bulb appeared over Doug’s head as he pulled out a PBJ sandwich out from his backpack and said “I’ve been saving this baby all day. Good thing I didn’t eat her at lunch.”
          “What the heck, Doug?” asked Johnny. Doug bit his lip and quickly changed the subject. “You know, not to brag or anything, but I just realized all three of us have got like, the coolest names at school.”
Johnny randomly asked, “So Doug, how’d your U.S. History final go?”
“Terrible. I got number five wrong. The question was ‘what is popular opinion?’ and I didn’t remember the exact definition so I wrote ‘opinion that’s popular.’”
“Oh, I did that on my chemistry final. One question was ‘what is a Pi bond?’ and I put ‘a bond of Pi.’”
   “Hey Teague, when are you going to ask Dalia out?” inquired Doug. “I still don’t get how someone can like someone for like ten years and not have even asked them for their number. I’ll bet you even Snotman has her number.”
“Let’s face it I’m too big a chicken. Hey I’ve got to go now, see you guys!” Teague waved to his friends, entered the motel, and headed upstairs to room 42. He knocked on the door and Freddy opened it for him. Teague sat himself at the table and asked Freddy if there was anything good on TV.
“Nope,” replied Freddy.
          “Where are Mom and Dad?” he asked.
“They’re at Grandma’s again. Kelly went with them. They probably won’t be back till tomorrow. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go work out in the fitness room. Oh yeah, and Mom wants you to go buy some bread at Pete’s. There’s money on the T.V. Later.” “See you,” said Teague.
Teague sat back down on his bed and stretched his arms behind his head. He couldn’t believe it was now summer. The only downside of summer was that he’d no longer be seeing Dalia. She’d just graduated and was probably going to move onto bigger and better things. If only he could find her by herself and tell her how he felt about her.
If only he could get her away from her girl friends for just five minutes. Perhaps he should’ve taken Doug’s advice: find her and her friends at lunch, wave a bag of Doritos in their face and scream, “Give me twenty minutes with Dalia alone and I’ll give you some chips!”
After a few minutes of daydreaming, he decided he’d better go buy the bread. He glanced at the money on the T.V., grabbed the money and a flashlight, headed downstairs, waved to Gretchen, and walked through the automatic doors, heading towards Pete’s to buy some bread. “Guess I’ll go buy some freaking bread…actually I shouldn’t rag on bread, you can make French toast with it… and PBJ sandwiches. Although it doesn’t make much sense to go buy a loaf at 10 at night, but if it’s just a few blocks away…well it’ll only take a minute,” he said to himself.

*****

          Outside it was ice cold, strange climate for a summer evening. A thin layer of fog was hovering just inches above the road. The tall, dark silhouettes of the cacti and sand dunes seemed to stretch out for miles. As much as he hated to admit it, Teague was at the moment, a little scared of the black dunes and cacti shadows.
“Quit being a chicken, it’s just a few blocks away,” he told himself.
           As he made his way down the dark road, he walked past a particularly large cactus. He looked up at the sky at the huge, white moon and felt a light breeze rush past him. As strange as it was, the breeze almost seemed to whisper his name. As he continued walking, he couldn’t help but feel exceedingly uneasy, like as if he were in some sort of danger. On the other side of the road, he saw the shadow of a mysterious figure crouched down behind a boulder. Teague immediately noticed the strange shadow and jumped back a foot or two in shock.
He dashed across the street to see what the shadow was. He looked around but couldn’t find it anywhere. Surely it would appear somewhere. The figure had been about the size of a raccoon. Where on earth had the figure gone?  At that moment, a feeling of fear struck Teague like a great typhoon. He stepped backward, and when he was just about a foot in front of the boulder, an unusually loud yowl made Teague jump up and scream out of surprise. He showed his flashlight on what turned out to be a white cat with a few black and brown spots. He’d stepped on its tail.
           “Oh man, sorry cat!” Teague reached out to pet the cat, feeling sorry for hurting it. The cat hissed, leapt forward, and bit down hard on Teague’s hand as if it were a mouse. “OWCH!!”  he cried as he began dancing in pain as if he were on fire. Teague shook his hand around until the cat released its jaws. The cat ran away into the shadows. For being a cat, this animal could really bite! Teague’s hand was now pouring blood from a large, deep cut. He turned around, searching for where the animal had gone. As he looked on the other side of the street, his heart stopped and his jaw dropped. His eyes opened wide and he felt a chill of fear creep up his back.
Slowly making its way across the road was an unusual oddity crawling with a strange swagger.
         It was a creature unlike anything Teague had ever seen. The creature was about the size of a bear cub. It was pitch black in color and was covered in deep, red scars. As he showed his light on it, the creature stared at Teague with large, glowing red eyes as it slowly continued walking on all-fours.
           It had long, triangular ears shaped like a jack-rabbit’s. Its thick eyebrows contrasted its stringy mane, which flowed from all directions under its head like clumps of seaweed. With a rusty chain around its neck, long claws on its paws, a bushy, twisted tail, and spiked shackles on its ankles, the creature looked like one that was certainly not from Earth. The creature continued staring at Teague with its large neon-red eyes. They seemed to stare straight through him. He noticed that on its large irises there lay small pupils colored a much darker red. The creature appeared to be frowning at Teague, and a look of hatred seemed to appear on its horrifying face. Its eyebrows slanted down and illustrated the anger on its face too clearly.
While it wasn’t all that big of a creature, it looked as though it could seriously hurt or even kill Teague what with its 3-inch long claws. While Teague stared back at the creature in horror he thought for just a few seconds he heard whispering around him.
          He could clearly hear the whispering, but he did not understand it one bit, for it was in a foreign language. Where was the awful speaking coming from? Teague rubbed his eyes and blinked once. As the creature continued glaring at Teague, he felt his heart thump against his ribs. His breathing became low and extremely rapid. He had a feeling of terror he’d never quite experienced before. The second he blinked again the strangest thing happened: the creature disappeared.
          All of a sudden, Teague heard someone or something speak. He couldn’t make out where the speaking was coming from, but it was very close to him and in a deep, deep voice. Whoever or whatever it was was speaking spoke slowly, and in a gravelly, earth-shattering voice. The words were in a foreign language, and sounded something like this: “klay-esh ko-mone khe-mosh kahn.”
          Teague began breathing heavily as if he were hyperventilating. Without hesitation he turned around and nearly tripping, bolted back towards the hotel. He looked back to make sure the creature wasn’t following him. The creature had somehow disappeared in the night. Although the creature was black and so was hard to see in the dark, big, red eyes could be seen from 200m away. And the giant eyes were nowhere in sight. As for Teague, his heart pounded harder and harder as a wave of terror swept over him. He burst through the hotel doors and tore up the stairs. He sprinted down the hallway, his breathing so loud it could be heard from downstairs.
          He shakily thrust his room card in the slot, shoved the door open, and slammed the door to his room behind him. Teague felt as if his heart were about to burst from his chest. The memory of the horrifying mug of the strange beast stuck to his mind like glue. When several loud taps suddenly came from the door, a startled Teague leapt from the floor. As the door swung open, he realized it was just Freddy, who was carrying several brown boxes. Freddy squinted at Teague and began snickering.
“Some idiot broke the treadmill again and that bald guy is still hogging the dumbbells. He can’t bicep curl to save his life anyways. He’s always using his back and I’m like, ‘bro, do you even lift?’ So I thought what the heck, I’m going to go buy some pizza and doughnuts!” 
Teague stared at him blankly for a minute, still unable to believe what he’d just seen. Still tingling with fear, he finally responded, stuttering “Oh you’re- you’re, uh taking advantage of M-M-Mom and Dad not being here, huh?”
          “Yeah, I mean how often do they ever go out without taking us?” Freddy answered his own question. “Their anniversary is just about the only time that ever happens.”
“Are you g-going-going to s-save an-any pizza for them?” asked Teague as he started to shudder.
“No because it’s a secret. And no, I’m not saving any for Kelly. She can go fall in a ditch.”
“N-now you’re talk-talking,” said a hesitant Teague, who gave Freddy the thumbs up. Freddy raised an eyebrow at Teague and said, “Dude, you should see the look on your face! You look like you’re going to have a heart attack. Did I scare you or something when I pounded on the door? I mean, I was trying to startle you but I didn’t mean to scare you that bad!”
Teague shook his head, trying to wash the image of the black creature away. “No it’s just when I was heading towards Pete’s I got real scared when- uh…oh it’s nothing.”
“Okay,” said Freddy as he headed into the bathroom to brush his teeth. Teague frowned in pain, feeling sick to his stomach with how uneasy he felt. He trudged to the desk, pulled a sticky note out of the drawer, and nervously wrote down on it the words “klayesh komone khemosh kahn,” hoping that maybe one day he’d learn what that meant. As he wrote, his hand shook so much his handwriting became even worse than usual. He spelled the foreign words just the way he’d heard it, but wasn’t sure whether or not they were spelled right. They were in some foreign language after all.
          “I’ll go get some bread in the morning,” he told himself. He carefully placed a band-aid on his cut from the cat’s bite.
“Man that cat could really bite. I wonder what that black, red-eyed creature was,” he whispered to himself. Teague paced over to the window and peered outside. He looked at all the black cacti. As he stared out the window, he immediately staggered backwards and whimpered. A strange but familiar face slowly poked out from behind a cactus. The beaver-sized black creature with big, red eyes was back. It stood staring inside the second story window from fifty feet away looking right at Teague. It had been watching his every move, hiding behind the biggest cactus around. The creature looked away for a moment and began pacing back and forth, back and forth as if formulating some evil plot. Teague kept backing up until he bumped into one of the two hotel beds and fell to the floor. Freddy heard the crash and rushed out of the bathroom with his toothbrush in his mouth.
“What the heck are you doing, Bub?” he asked. Teague quickly looked at Freddy and yelled, “Didn’t you see it?! It was just outside! Please tell me you saw it! I saw it when I was going to Pete’s and it followed me home! It was just staring at me from outside!”
          Freddy cocked his eye brow at Teague and paced over to the window. He looked around at the outside world and saw nothing but dark sand dunes, stars, and black cacti. “What followed you home, Teague?”
“I don’t know what it was! It was black and had a heart shaped face and had ears like a jack-rabbits. And it-”
“Are you sure it wasn’t your imagination?” Freddy interrupted. “There’s no such thing as a black jackrabbit. I mean there is but they’re actually more gray in color-”
“It wasn’t a rabbit, Freddy! It was the size of a medium-sized dog! Like say, an English bull terrier or something!” yelped Teague, thinking of Doug’s white English bull terrier, Brutus. His eyes widened again.  “And it-”
“I don’t know that much about dogs!” said Freddy, indicating he didn’t know how big that would make the creature.
“That’s not the point! Look, it was a creature of some sort! It had shackles with spikes on them and a chain around its neck! It had a bushy tail and its eyes… its eyes were bright neon red and glowed in the dark! It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen! Come on you’ve got to believe me!” cried Teague.
Freddy curled his lip and rolled his eyes. “I’m sure you were just having a nightmare or something. You were here by yourself for awhile after all. You probably fell asleep and had a nightmare and you’re just reimagining it.” He then turned around and sauntered back to the bathroom.
          Teague sat back down on the bed and thought, that most certainly wasn’t a nightmare. And this is for real. He sat back down on the bed, his eyes opened wide and his whole body shaking.
Finished brushing his teeth, Freddy gaited out the bathroom, looked at the table, and frowned.
“Where’s the bread, Teague?” he demanded.
“I didn’t get it because-”
“You had one job,” said Freddy. “Last week I told you to get white bread, and you got that whole wheat crap-”
“Sorry I’m trying to eat healthier,” said a sarcastic Teague, shaking his hands in the air.
“Look, I’ll go get it in the-”
“How am I supposed to make toast in the morning without bread?!” Freddy complained.
“Screw the bread! We’ve still got like five bags of cereal so just chill,” cried Teague.
“You’ll regret this Castellano,” said Freddy as he opened the door. He turned around and closed it behind him.
“We have the same last name, moron,” said Teague.
For the next few hours, he pictured the abnormal creature that had followed him home. Out of terror, Teague didn’t sleep very well that night. All he could do was lie on the bed and picture those big, angry, neon-red eyes that stared at him in the dark. Its terrifying face haunted his mind and as he felt his beating chest, Teague knew for himself he was more scared now than he’d ever been before. As if that wasn’t bad enough, if Freddy didn’t believe him, then perhaps nobody would.

Doug looked up at Johnny and smirked at him like an old man who was ready to lay down a royal flush in Poker. “Dude, you’ve gotta quit landing on my hotel if you’re sick of paying me. Now cough it up!” muttered Doug.
“SCREW THIS!” yelled Johnny as Teague and Doug started cracking up. The three boys were playing Monopoly at Doug’s, and Johnny was going bankrupt as usual. Doug thought back to the last time they had played a game and started cackling. The last time it had been Uno, and he had used all three of his “draw four” cards on Johnny, who then threw his hands up and started yelling obscenities. Teague, Johnny, and Doug were all finished with work for the week.
“Hmmm,” thought Johnny. “Should I buy this lot for $450? Or the one with the-”
But before he could finish his thought, Teague and Doug began to sing. “Pressure, pushing down on me, pushing down on you, no man asks for. Under pressure, that burns a building down. Splits a family in two-”
“Shut up and let me think!” groaned Johnny.
  Since it was a Friday night, the three amigos were happy to kick back and relax for the weekend. Teague was working at Pete’s Market where he shelf stocked, cleaned the bathrooms, and worked as a bagboy. As for Johnny, he was working the cash register at the gas station. Lastly, Doug kept busy making doughnuts at the doughnut shop.
“Dude Doug if I were you, I’d ask your boss if I could get paid in doughnuts once in a while… seven doughnuts an hour! He is your uncle after all,” snickered Johnny.
“What a brilliant idea!” said Doug.
“Yeah, his parents must be like part computer or something!” sniggered Teague.
“Oh, oh! SpongeBob! Plankton said that to Karen!” said Doug, recognizing the reference Teague had made.
“Hey,” he continued, “why are we sitting here on Friday night stealing all Johnny’s money? We should go eat out instead of playing Monopoly. I’m starving right now, dudes. Whose idea was this?!”
“Johnny’s,” said Teague.
“Oh yeah. Well this is the last time I listen to you, Johnny. You and your dumb ideas.  We’re all hip, young, and single, so let’s go enjoy not having to hang out with a bunch of over-dramatic chicks. I mean Julie dumped me yesterday, so we’re all bachelors. Here’s to not taking orders from her anymore!”
With that Doug raised his root beer can and started chugging it. Then the three teenagers got to their feet to get ready for a night out on the town to kickoff the first summer weekend.
Teague hadn’t told Johnny and Doug about the strange, spine-chilling creature he had seen a few nights before. He decided he’d try and just shake it off. Although as hard as he tried, he couldn’t seem to get its face out of his head. The idea of going out for a bite with his pals made him smile from ear to ear. He figured it’d be the perfect way to forget about, well whatever the paranormal creature was.
“Hey where do you guys think-” “CAL’S!” shouted Teague and Johnny, already knowing Doug was asking where they should go pig out. “You guys read my mind!” agreed Doug.

*****

After a gigantic and delicious meal at Cal’s Diner, the three teenagers were leaning back in their booth, grabbing their now protruding bellies, and groaning in misery. They hung out in their booth, debating whether or not to order more food. The checkered floor and turquoise-colored walls of Cal’s Diner gave the restaurant an appealing atmosphere.
Now if it’s one thing Teague, Johnny, and Doug were good at, it was poking fun of each other without being offensive or crossing any line. Doug was actually just in the middle of a story when Johnny confirmed this.
“…So yeah he’s pretty gung ho about applying to Harvard. Yeah Harvard can you beat that? I mean he’s got the easiest class schedule at school! He’s like a library aide first period, then has two P.E. classes, Art, Open period…He should be taking like Advanced Chemistry and Biology and all that hard stuff if he wants to go Ivy League. Hate to say but he’s chasing a dream he knows won’t come true,” said Doug as he finished his story.
“Yeah, kind of like Teague!” said Johnny, referring to his attempts to woo Dalia. “Hey shut up!” cried Teague.
“Ha-ha-ha you know I’m kidding homeboy. You two are meant to be she just doesn’t know it yet,” Johnny assured. Doug started cracking up and gobbled down the rest of his French fries.  “Ssssoooo fuuuullll,” he groaned.
“Tell me about it,” said Johnny. “Whatever you do don’t make me laugh. You know it hurts your stomach to laugh when you’re about to explode for eating too much.”
Doug thought back to a comical memory and decided to bring it up, just to make Johnny laugh.
“Hey remember that time when Teague sat on a toilet at school after we hid ketchup packets underneath the seat? Then he cussed up a storm and-”
“HA-HA-HA, oh my gut!” moaned Johnny, grasping his stomach as he loosened up his belt.
“Oh it hurts! I hate you, Doug!”
Teague snickered and realized it was about time to head home. “Okay guys, I’m going to head back to the hotel before I order another shake. Thanks for the fun time! See you later!”
“Hasta la vista,” replied Johnny as he put on his fancy sunglasses. As Teague opened the door to leave Cal’s, his two buds suddenly remembered it’d be Teague’s birthday in just a few hours. They both made sure to wish him “happy birthday” the moment he left. “Thanks guys! We’ll have to hang out again real soon. Later!” called Teague.
Clutching his stomach, he exited Cal’s and slowly waddled his way home. He’d eaten three bacon cheeseburgers, two orders of fries, and washed it all down with a large Sprite and an extra large Oreo shake. “Oh I think my heart just stopped,” he complained as he made his way up the spiral stairs. He knocked on the door to room 42 and Kelly answered and let him in.
“How was Grandma’s?” he asked.
“It was okay. We just worked on old puzzles and watched all these lame black-and-white sitcoms.”
“Sounds about right,” muttered Teague. He slowly lay down on the floor.
  He thought about the good time he, Johnny, and Doug had had at Cal’s. He wished every night could be that much fun. After all, having some fun was the only thing that could take his mind off what he’d seen crossing the road just a few nights before. But with the memory of having just had a ball at Cal’s in mind, Teague fell asleep in about 20 minutes.

It was 4 in the morning and the only light outside was that of the great full moon and the few lamps that lined the street. Teague lay fast asleep on the floor while the rest of his family slept in the two beds and couch. As the light from the moon seeped through the window onto Teague’s face, he frowned in his sleep and began flopping around. A sudden scratching noise at the window, like that of a saw cutting through wood, woke Teague up. And as if there were an earthquake outside, Teague’s eyes shot open like Squidward’s when he found out SpongeBob and Gary were bunking with him after nematodes ate his house.
Teague leapt to his feet with a gasp. What on earth had made the scratching sound at the window? He glanced at his family and they were all still fast asleep. And the moment Teague looked at the window, he scrunched his face up. An old piece of paper that looked like it could’ve been written by one of the Founding Fathers was taped against the window glass. He sauntered up to the window for a closer look. Written on the old parchment in what appeared to be blood was a familiar message Teague had heard just a few days before. It said: KLAYESH KOMONE KHEMOSH KHAN.
Teague rubbed his eyes and looked again. His eyes hadn’t deceived him! The paper was still there. The fresh blood from the letters streamed down the paper and onto the window glass. Teague scratched his head, wondering for a moment what he should do. And without warning and quick as the blink of an eye, a hoof, like that of some farm animal, appeared from beside the window, snatched the paper off the glass, and disappeared…like a child snatching a brownie from a plate and making a break for it. The hoof, which Teague had only seen for half a second at most, was dark brown and had been covered in cuts. Teague quickly glanced outside and looked all around at the outside world. What had left the message on the window?! And where had it gone?! How had it escaped so fast?!
Without hesitation, an alarmed Teague leaped over to the door of his family’s room and threw on his tennis shoes. He left the room and sprang down the stairs like a kangaroo, hoping he’d make it outside before whatever had taped the message to the window was out of sight. Teague left out the back door to avoid any suspicious from whoever was working the front desk at 4 in the morning. He dashed outside and nervously looked around, his beating chest making him shake. He looked to his left. Then he looked to his right. Then he looked forward and froze.
Standing twenty feet in front of him were two figures sitting in the sand. One of them Teague had seen before. It was the black, red-eyed creature with a heart-shaped head and jack-rabbit-like ears. It was sitting across a tall person wearing a dark cloak. The person appeared to be holding a dead goat in its arms. And they lowered their head and took a giant bite of flesh from the goat’s stomach. The person began to chomp away the meat and suddenly stopped. A piece of meat fell from their mouth and the person turned their head and looked in Teague’s direction. And Teague gasped at the sight.
Teague couldn’t tell whether this “person” was a man or a woman. Where their head should have been…there was the head of a pig. And where the person’s hands should have been, there were hooves. And where the pig head’s eyes should have been, there were two big, black holes.
The flesh surrounding the eye’s perimeter was torn, and the drooping flesh resembled the guts of a pumpkin. The pig head was covered in scars and cuts as if it’d been in some terrible accident. Its head was covered in long, black, greasy hair. Teague’s eyes stared at the tusks of the head. The meat from the goat was stuck to its left tusk. And a stream of blood poured down from its mouth. Suddenly, the “human-pig” rose to its feet, dropping the dead goat’s body to the ground in the process. It blinked at Teague and the second it did, its scary black eyes resembled tiny slits on its rotting head. The black creature rose to its paws. The human-pig picked up a chain that was connected to and wrapped around the black creature’s neck, as if the black creature were a pet dog. And the two glared at Teague and slowly began to step forward towards him.
Teague backed away as his body began to tremble and sweat poured down his brow. He fell to the sand and began to scoot against the sand on his back. As the human-pig stared into Teague’s eyes, it opened its fleshy mouth and exposed its yellow teeth. As it limped towards him it swayed its arms back and forth in a twisted manner. Closer and closer it got, the black creature following beside it on its chain.

Although it was 4 in the morning, a few people in Frisius were already up and out of bed. Some people were getting ready for work. Some people were up to get a drink of water or use the bathroom. But whatever it was, a few men and women heard the loud shriek outside that seemed to be coming from around the hotel. Teague’s scream of terror could be heard from people living in several homes around the hotel. Upon hearing Teague’s cry, a few people rushed out of their homes to see what was going on. But just moments before they made it outside, the human-pig and black creature had disappeared from sight, running as fast as possible into the shadows taking the dead goat with them- leaving Teague alone, lying and shaking in the sand. Before he knew it, a little crowd of Frisius parents were gathered around him, a variety of strange looks on their faces.
“What the heck’s going on here, Bub? How come you’re screaming? Why are you outside at this hour?”
“But-but-but- there was just-just- didn’t you see it?! It was-”
“HEY WHO THE HECK’S SCREAMING OUT HERE?! I’M TRYING TO SLEEP!”
Teague and the crowd of parents behind the hotel looked up at a window on the second floor of the hotel. Freddy‘s tomato-red face was sticking out the window, and the bags under his eyes indicated he was dog-tired.
SHUT UP FREDDY!” came a voice from inside the window. It was clearly Eddie, and hearing his voice from the ground, a few parents surrounding Teague began to snicker.
“Teague, what the heck are you doing lying in the sand?! Are you the one who’s screaming? Why are all your people out here?”
“We came to see what was the matter,” said the man standing closest to Teague. The coffee cup in his hand illustrated he’d wasted no time in getting outside the moment he heard Teague scream. He took a sip and turned to Teague. “So son, what is the matter anyways?”
“Okay,” said Teague rising to his feet. “I’ll tell you why I was screaming. But I don’t think a single person here is going to believe me so-”
Teague frowned as he saw that half of the adults surrounding him were moving their arms forward in circles as a way of saying “get on with it already.”
Teague placed his index finger against his chin and quickly explained what happened in just a few breaths. When he finished his story, everybody standing around him was looking at him as if he were crazy.
“Hey Teague, I think you need to lay off the scary movies!” shouted Freddy from the second floor. “You keep having nightmares! Now get back up here and go to sleep!”
“It wasn’t a nightmare! I really saw it! Those two creatures are real! They’re haunting me and I don’t know why! I know it sounds crazy but I swear I’m-”
“Hey kid, aren’t you the guy who burned down his house recently while he was cooking?” interrupted the bald man beside Teague.
“Well yeah but that was an accident! I was just-”
“Frying eggs,” said Freddy, finishing his sentence.
“You burned down your house when you were cooking eggs?!  What a goofball!” said an old man standing in front of Teague.
“No! Listen! I put the paper towels a little too close to the stove and-”
“Why don’t you go back to bed before you burn something else down?” said a hippo-sized woman. And with that everyone began to laugh. Teague looked up at Freddy for backup, but Freddy shrugged his shoulders and popped his head back in the window.
“Okay everybody party’s over,” said the hippo-sized woman. And with that, all the adults left to head back to their homes next to and across from the hotel.
Teague got up to his feet glared at all the adults leaving for their homes. Not a single one of them believed him. How could those jerks hold something as big as accidentally burning down a home over his head? Teague had always enjoyed living in Frisius, but with the way these adults had just treated him like a five-year-old, he suddenly wished he could move away all on his own to a city far away. Somewhere far away from these people who didn’t take him seriously for one minute.
As Teague looked out at the sky in the distance, the yellow sun slowly began to rise over the horizon. The sand dunes steadily changed from black to gray. All Teague wanted to do was sit down in the sand and sulk. He wanted to leave Frisius and go somewhere where the people would actually take him seriously. But where would he go if he could somehow leave? Maybe California. Everyone always talked about how great it’d be to move to California. And as Teague thought about this, the song California Dreamin’ came to mind:

Stopped into a church
I passed along the way
Well, I got down on my knees
and I pretend to pray
You know the preacher likes the cold
He knows I'm gonna stay
California Dreamin'
On such a winter's day

And Teague thought about that song as he continued gazing at the sand in the distance. Rather than sitting down and feeling bad like he wanted to do, he instead he made his way to the front of the hotel, slinked inside, and trudged up the stairs. He grabbed a pair of headphones from his room, headed back downstairs to the lobby, and sat down at one of the computers. He got onto YouTube and began listening to OK Go’s This too Shall Pass. This song always cheered him up when he was feeling down. He must have listened to the song 20 times because before he knew it, a crowd of visitors were walking back and forth beside him into the kitchen for the complimentary breakfast.

Eddie Castellano cleared his throat to call attention to his family at the breakfast table the next morning. “OK, all in favor of skipping the song and just eating the cake say ‘aye!’” yelled an enthusiastic Eddie. Everyone in Teague’s family yelled out, “aye” except for his mom Sierra, who gave her husband a mean look. It was 8:00 in the morning, and a Saturday. It was also Teague’s birthday.
  He would officially turn 17 in a few hours. He glimpsed at his cake and shuddered with fear.
  The cake looked so delicious. At the same time, he got an ill-feeling in his stomach upon examining his cake. It was just about the exact same shade of red as the human-pig’s face, which he’d just seen only five hours before. When he looked at the cake, all he could see was a horrifying pig-face with two black holes for eyes staring back at him.
  Although Teague was dying to tell his family about the two paranormal creatures he’d seen, he decided they probably wouldn’t believe him. He figured they’d say he just had a nightmare or something like that. After all, it seemed Freddy hadn’t believed him.
  On the bright side, Johnny and Doug would most certainly believe his stories. As he took a giant bite of birthday cake, he quickly decided he’d make it a goal to tell Johnny and Doug about what he’d seen as soon as possible. While extremely anxious to tell his friends, Teague was at the same time, very sleepy. After seeing the human-pig’s horrible face at the window, he’d just curled back down on the floor and chattered his teeth until the sun rose. Now he was feeling tired and groggy.
  The phrase the human-pig had scratched on the window was now gone. There were no signs of any damage to the window now, which appalled Teague to the point where he felt as if he was going to faint. It’d be pretty hard for his family to believe his story about the human–pig at the window now that the evidence was gone. Unfortunately for Teague, he had more on his plate to worry about today. It just so happened that business at Pete’s was slow lately.
  As a result Teague was required to work at least four hours today. He wolfed down a few more pieces of cake, and decided he’d go to Pete’s at 9:00. At 8:50, he said good bye to his mom, headed out the door, walked downstairs through the lobby, waved to Gretchen, and made his way down the street towards Pete’s. 
At 9:00 he entered Pete’s as the smell of pizza pockets and bratwursts wafted towards his nose. He slouched over to a pile of boxes, took the first one off, walked over to the food shelves, opened the box, and began shelving the cans of ravioli. Teague glanced around and noticed he was the only worker there. His boss Pete waddled out of the storage room and grinned at Teague.
“Hey Pete, am I the only employee here today?” asked Teague.
“Yeah, everyone else is taking today off. Good for you for showing up. Now you can say you showed up when no one else was willing too.”
“Big deal,” whispered a frowning Teague.
“Hey before you put those cans up, would you mind cleaning the bathrooms first?”
“Sure thing,” said Teague. He grabbed the mop, headed into the bathroom, and got to work.
  15 minutes later, as Teague exited the men’s bathroom, the doorbell jingled and he turned around. A young lady and a young man around his age who were holding hands walked inside: they were obviously dating. Teague had never seen the guy before, but he immediately recognized the guy’s woman from school.
“Hi Teague!” she said with raised eyebrows and a flashy smile. Teague shrugged his shoulders, looked down at the floor, and quietly returned the greeting. 
  “Hi Dalia,” he whispered and awkwardly waved.
Dalia’s boyfriend looked at Teague, grabbed a grab ‘n’ go hotdog, threw on some ketchup, and took an enormous bite.
“Who’s this chump?” he asked with his mouth full.
“Don’t be rude,” said Dalia, giving him a playful punch in the arm. “He’s a nice guy....almost like a brother to me. This is Teague.”
Teague’s mouth dropped as an equation suddenly entered his head: Nice guy + brother=friend zone. Brother? How could he be like a brother? They rarely even talked!
He watched Dalia buy Fuji apples with this guy he had never seen before. He turned around, kneeled down on the floor, and put a can on the shelf. He lowered his eyes to the ground and frowned. Dalia was dating another guy again. He sighed and slowly closed his eyes. Still tired from lack of sleep, he looked up and glared at the cans on the shelf, wanting more than anything to knock them all down and begin punching and kicking the cardboard cutout of a talking banana standing beside him. He gazed at his reflection off the tile floor. His mouth still in a frown, and his eyes droopy, he indeed looked very disappointed. About 10 minutes later, the couple left and Dalia smiled and waved at Teague. Not thinking, he didn’t wave back. Pete glanced at Teague and said “I’m in a pretty good mood today, Bub. What do you say we turn on the radio?”
  Teague wanted to tell Pete he wasn’t in the mood for any music, but instead gave his boss the thumbs up, just to be agreeable. Pete turned the radio on and turned to his favorite station. The Human League’s popular song Don’t you want me? was in the middle of playing. While Teague was quite familiar with the song, and while it was actually one of his favorites, the lyrics of the song seemed to rub it in that Teague was currently feeling pretty sad that Dalia was currently dating someone. Pete turned the radio up and the lyrics boomed: …. I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, that much is true. But even then I knew I’d find a much better place, either with or without you. The five years we have had have been such good times, I still love you. But now I think it’s time I left my life on my own, I guess it’s just what I must do… It’s much too late to find, when you think you’ve change your mind. You’d better change it back or we will both be sorry. Don’t you want me, baby? Don’t you want me? Oh! Don’t you want me baby? Don’t you want me? Oh…!”
Teague began putting boxes on the shelf again, glancing at the clock nearly every five minutes. How was it only 9:30? If felt like he’d arrived at work a whole three hours earlier! When he finally finished his shift, he waved at his boss and left the store. He slowly trotted home, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his head looking down at the sidewalk. What a rotten day it had been so far. As he walked home, the song Daydream Believer by The Monkees came to his mind. Teague quietly sang the song to himself. But instead of singing “Cheer up sleepy Jean” at the chorus, he sang “Cheer up sleepy Teague” as if it’d help him feel happy. “Cheer up sleepy Teague, oh what can it mean, to a daydream believer and a homecoming queen,” he sadly sang. On the way home his phone buzzed in his pocket.
   He glanced at the name “Doug” on the screen and gave a little smile. “Hey, Doug,” he quietly said into the phone.
  “Hey, why if it isn’t the birthday boy!” yelled an excited Doug.
“Oh, thanks dude,” Teague said quietly.
“What’s up, Teague? You sound sad.”
  “Oh it’s nothing. Thanks for calling Dude, and wishing me happy birthday, but you called at a pretty bad time; I’ve got to go. Sorry, can I call you later?”
“Sure thing! Oh I see why it’s bad timing, you must be stuffing your face with cake right now and living it up with the family, huh?!”
“Uh, yeah,” lied Teague, feeling even worse now.
“Alright sure Teague, take it easy. Bye.”
  For the time being, a disappointed Teague decided he was going to make the most out of what already seemed to be a pretty lame birthday. He went back to his hotel room and grabbed his dad’s fishing pole and tackle bag.  He looked up and saw Freddy sitting comfortably at the table and talking on the phone.
  “…Yeah we can hang out tomorrow after work. Yes I know. I miss you too. Okay well… I’ve gotta go. Bye.” Freddy hung up and glanced at Teague, who looked as if he’d just eaten a whole lemon. 
“That was uh, you know…. the girlfriend. So…. li’l bro, do you like anybody right now? Hey….are you crying?”
“Yeah... Dalia just starting dating someone from school. They were buying apples while I was scrubbing the fricking toilets at work.”
“Sucks for you. You should’ve grown a pair and asked her out. I’m going to go work out. You want to come?”
“No maybe later you go ahead,” replied Teague.
“Suit yourself,” said Freddy as he headed out the door. He closed the door behind him leaving Teague alone in the room. Teague looked out the window and saw it was still a few hours from sunset. He’d have a few hours to fish before it got dark. As he looked out at the bright sun, the recent memory of seeing Dalia at the market with her boyfriend flooded his mind. A few tears left Teague’s eyes and fell to the window-sill. He turned around and left the room. He made his way down the stairs and past the front desk.
“Have fun fishing, Teague!” shouted Gretchen.
“Thanks,” said Teague, giving Gretchen a quick wave. He slowly made his way down the sidewalk, trying to hide the fact he crying as he did so. A few strangers he passed asked why he was crying.
“It’s no big deal,” he’d say. And just when he thought things couldn’t get worse, he passed by Dalia and Adam walking hand in hand past him.
“Can’t I go anywhere without seeing these two?! I can run but I can’t hide…” he thought. And before he knew it, the tears sloped down his cheeks like an Amazon rainstorm.
“Oooohhh” said Dalia in sympathy. “Why are you crying Teague?” asked Dalia.
“Who cares?” Adam whispered.
“Oh well, It’s a little complicated, but I’m fine, Dalia. See you,” said Teague in a sad tone.
“Bye! Hope you feel better!” she called.
In about a half hour, Teague arrived at Sequoia pond. He gazed at the sparkling water and wondered what he’d catch today. On any other day, he’d most likely watch TV and eat Hostess cupcakes to cheer up after an unfortunate day. However on this sunny afternoon, he thought he’d try something different. With his rod in his hand, and a spoon on the line, he reeled in 11 good-looking rainbows that afternoon.
  At dusk, he packed his tackle box and got ready to leave for home. Suddenly his phone buzzed. He opened it up and read the text message. Then he read it again. Then he read it again. A shocked Teague didn’t want to believe what he was reading. He read the message one last time and felt his heart stop. The message said: “Klayesh Komone Khemosh Khan.”

  *****

Thomas Murphy stepped out of his old Chevy Impala and gazed at the halfway finished home. What’s going on here? He thought. Where are all the workers? Rogers said they’d still be here working when I got here... He pointed his flashlight up and turned it on. Not two seconds later, he dropped his flashlight and screamed at the site.
The bodies of 17 middle-aged men lay motionless on the floor planks. It appeared they’d been murdered. Thomas shakily picked his flashlight back up and bolted to the front porch of the halfway-finished home. He jumped up the front porch steps and showed his flashlight on the general contractor. His lifeless yet open eyes were staring straight into Thomas’s. Thomas leered down at the floor planks and noticed a giant pool of blood soaking between three or four deceased workers. He studied the pool and fumbled for his flashlight, trying not to drop it again.
A track of hoof prints were clearly indented on the blood pool. They’d walked through the blood and across the floor planks and off the house’s foundation. They didn’t leave tracks in the sand, but it was clear they lead straight behind and away from the home. Thomas cocked his head and rubbed his eyes. He nervously followed the hoof tracks and saw they led to a sweatshirt lying in the sand. He walked down the back steps of what would eventually lead to a patio. He picked up the sweatshirt and read the front print: “Rogers Construction: Serving Frisius since 1954.” He turned the sweatshirt around and looked at the back. The last name “Burkus” was printed on the back in white.
“This is Danny Burkus’ sweatshirt” he whispered. He noticed a pair of shoes that had been sitting under the sweatshirt. “Why’d he take his shoes off?” he said, recognizing Danny’s new basketball shoes he’d been playing in after work with him and the other coworkers.
Thomas jogged up the back stairs and began scanning the floor planks looking to see if Danny was lying deceased on the floor with the other men. But he didn’t seem him at all. And his truck was still parked next to the house. Where was Danny? And why was his sweatshirt and shoes lying behind the house? But most importantly, who or what was responsible for killing all these poor men?
His body covered in Goosebumps, and the hairs on his arms beginning to stand up, Thomas looked across the street at the hotel Eddie Castellano was staying in. Since these murdered men were rebuilding his house, he figured he should probably fill Eddie in on the tragedy that’d happened. Thomas dug into his pocket, pulled out his phone, pressed “call” when he reached Eddie’s name in his contacts, and thought for a moment about how he would break such terrifying, awful news.

Back at the hotel, Teague’s family was having a heck of a time. His dad and Freddy were watching the football game while eating pizza and chicken wings, and his mom and Kelly were scrapbooking. “Come on get that ball! It’s right there!!! COME ON CATCH IT! OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!” yelled Eddie at the T.V. screen. He shook his head in annoyance. “Here’s the problem Freddy,” he began, shoving a few chicken wings into his mouth. “You’ve got all these great athletes. All their receivers can outrun just about everyone, can block well, and can easily get open. But they can’t catch to save their lives!” “Tell me about it. The ball was right there,” agreed Freddy. “Will you two shut up?!” asked Sierra from the table.
Suddenly Eddie’s phone rang. “Oh great. Now I gotta answer the dang phone. Freddy turn that down!” Eddie picked up his phone, said hello, and immediately sat back on the bed as he listened closely to Thomas’s shocking news.

Ten minutes later…

Using his copy of the hotel card, Teague flung the door open and let out a sigh of relief that he’d made it home. In the process, he’d startled Kelly, who violently flinched as though she’d been stung by a hornet. His whole family glanced his way.
“Any of you guys know someone named Danny?” asked Teague as he panted, feeling out of breath.
Eddie rose one eyebrow and gave Teague a stern look… one which resembled Professor Snape’s when everyone found out Harry Potter could speak to snakes.  Eddie hesitantly responded. “Sure Teague, I know a Danny. I was just telling these guys about him when you opened the door. Why do you ask?”
“Well, I just got this really bizarre text message from an unfamiliar number. I called the number and the voicemail said ‘Hey this is Danny. I’m not at home right now. Leave your message at- well you get the idea.’”
“Let me see the number, bud.” Teague handed his dad the phone while the rest of the family huddled around. Eddie leered at the number and made a face. He glanced at his family.
“This is Danny Burkus’s number,” he said.
Sierra, Freddy, and Kelly all gulped. The name didn’t ring a bell to Teague.
“Danny Burkus?” he asked.
“Yeah, Son, but he’s uh, missing right now.” Eddie glanced out the window and raised his eyebrows. “Hold the phone-” he began as he walked towards the window. Eddie poked his head outside and glimpsed across the street.
There were several police cars parked at their halfway finished home. A few officers who were holding flashlights were pacing around on the floor planks. “Dad, what do you mean when you say Danny Burkus is missing? Who is that? How come there are police cars at our house?”
“They must be investigating the crime scene,” responded Kelly.
“CRIME SCENE? WHAT THE HECK DO YOU MEAN?!” asked Teague.
“Teague, Danny Burkus was one of the men rebuilding our house. You see, I just got a call from Mr. Murphy about ten minutes ago.  I hate to tell you this but he gave me some terrible news. He told me the workers rebuilding our house were murdered tonight. Except for Danny Burkus, every single one of them was found dead on the floor planks in a pool of blood. They found a kitchen knife coated in blood at the scene.  Now Danny Burkus is missing. They found his shoes and sweatshirt just behind the house. That’s why there are police cars at our house right now. They must be gathering evidence to find out who might have murdered them. But now there’s this strange message you got from Danny’s phone. I know for sure that’s his phone number because he contacted me regularly with questions about the house. The question here is where is he? And how on earth did he get your number? When did you receive that message, son?”
“Just 10 minutes ago,” replied Teague.
“He must have escaped before he sent you that. I’m sorry I had to tell you such bad news the second you walked in, and on your birthday and everything. But I just got done telling these guys about what happened when you opened the door.”
“It’s okay, Dad. This birthday has already been pretty lame. I don’t think it’s getting much worse. This is all so sudden though. Who could’ve done something so-” RRRIIINNNGGG came the phone, interrupting Teague.
Kelly covered her face in her arms and quietly said “who could’ve done such a horrible thing?”
Sierra put her arm around Kelly. She too, looked very glum. Even Freddy, who usually stayed calm in horrible situations, couldn’t help but wipe the smile off he’d worn during the football game. He looked down at the floor in silence like a little child who’d received their first scolding.
Eddie hushed his chattering family and answered the phone.
“Hello? Oh hi, Tom.” Eddie nodded and listened closely again to Tom. Teague paced over to the window and looked out at their house across the street. He could see Tom walking in circles talking on his cell phone to his dad.
After a minute or two of listening, Eddie said “Thanks for calling, Tom. Have a good night. Uh huh… Uh huh. Yeah I’ll try to. As soon as this story breaks out however, I think we’re all going to have a hard time sleeping. Mmm hmm. Ok thanks a lot. Bye.” Eddie hung up and glimpsed at his family.
“Well guys, that was Mr. Murphy again.  He said the officers are still unsure of who murdered that whole team. However, they did find footprints all over the floor boards… well, according to Mr. Murphy, they’re not exactly shoe prints. Murphy said they’re more like hoof prints, like that of a farm animal.” 
Freddy threw his hands in the air and cried “Hoof prints? There aren’t any animals with hooves around here, wild or domestic!”
“Yeah, that’s really scary,” added Kelly casting her eyes to the left and right.
Suddenly, Teague thought back to the night before. He remembered the terrifying face of the horrible human-pig that had watched him from just outside the second story window as he tried to sleep.
He remembered the foreign phrase it’d scratched on the window with its hooves. He remembered hearing someone or something speak those foreign words the night he saw the scary black creature with large, bright-red eyes. Now Danny Burkus, the man who escaped the construction-worker massacre, had texted him that exact phrase. What on earth did “klayesh komone khemosh kahn” mean? Teague looked at the text message on the phone again and dropped his jaw in shock. He noticed there was a last part of the text he hadn’t seen earlier. The whole text said “Klayesh komone khemosh khan- A.W.”  Teague hadn’t seen the initials “A.W.” a few spaces below the foreign phrase. Now that he saw them, he wasn’t sure what to think. “A.W.? What’s that stand for? Maybe A.W. is a person who got hold of Danny’s phone or something after he went missing…”
 

When Teague awoke the next morning, he remained wide awake on the carpeted floor for about an hour. Slowly the memory of the fear he’d felt just hours before seeped into his mind.
“I’ve got to tell someone about all this! Maybe those two scary creatures I saw have something to do with the death of those construction workers…” He glimpsed at the clock and saw that it was 9:30.
Although his family remained sawing logs in their beds, he figured it wasn’t too early to call Doug and afterwards Johnny. He dialed Doug’s cell number and waited as his heart rate substantially sped up. Just before the message system started up, Doug answered his phone and said “Hello?”
“Hey Doug, it’s Teague. What’re you up to?”
“Watching Harry Potter,” replied Doug.
“Goblet of Fire?” asked Teague.
“Yeah,” said Doug.
“Okay sorry I’m getting sidetracked. I’ve got to tell you and Johnny something.”
Doug quickly said, “Okay I’ll call Johnny up and you can both come over in an hour. My family’s going shopping and they finally trust me to stay home without burning the house down.”
Suddenly Doug remembered the reason Teague was living in a hotel at the moment was that he had burned down the house while cooking. “Oh sorry, no pun intended,” he quickly added.
  “Ok Doug I’ll see you then. Bye.” Teague hung up and made his way to the kitchen. He was surprised to see Kelly was up and dressed and having a bowl of oatmeal.
“Guess I talked on the phone longer than I thought,” he remarked.
Kelly smiled and said “Tell me about it.”
“So,” she continued, “I heard you’ve got a crush on Dalia Hopkins.”
“Dang it, how’d you find out about that?!”
“You don’t think I hear things?” asked Kelly, a sly smile spreading on her face.
“Is that a Rocky reference?” asked Teague.

Johnny had just gotten done reading the front page of Frisius’ newspaper when he looked up at Doug and Teague. Doug had just let Teague in so they could listen to whatever it was he had to tell them. Johnny took a sip of coffee and looked up. Suddenly, he jerked his head down, read the last part of the article, and dramatically spat the coffee out of his mouth.
“Holy cow! Teague, does what you have to tell us have anything to do with this?”
He showed Teague the front page which said “Murderer in Frisius?” in giant, bold letters.
“Yeah that’s exactly right!” yelled Teague. “I’ve got a lot to tell you guys so if you don’t mind interrupting for five minutes that’d be great.”
“Go for it,” remarked Johnny.
“Okay,” began Teague.
And for the next 10 minutes, he described in great detail the encounter he had with the black creature with big red eyes and the human-pig. He also mentioned his dad telling his family about the massacre of all the men rebuilding his house. When he finished, Teague looked at his friends. As he expected, their whose mouths were wide open.
  “Are you sure you weren’t dreaming or having a nightmare?” asked Doug. “Yeah, I’m sure. I know it must sound hard to believe but I’m not making this up. I’m telling the truth.”
“So you saw a black, red-eyed creature with a mane, huh? That doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard of. That sounds like a cryptid. You know like the Chupacabra or Bigfoot or something like that. More importantly however, who takes a walk in the middle of the night to buy a frickin’ loaf of bread?” 
Realizing he’d just been burned, Teague couldn’t think of any other comeback than just “Shut up Johnny.”
Doug and Johnny listened and nodded their heads occasionally as Teague continued his story about receiving a text message from Danny Burkus’ phone the night before, a message that was in a foreign language. A language that looked like nothing he’d ever seen or heard of. They were intrigued by the fact that Teague had received a text message from someone he didn’t know personally, and that it was possible that “A.W.,” whoever that was, was the real person trying to tell Teague, well, whatever that message meant. “Wait a second,” interrupted Johnny, “The front page of that article says the police officers found hoof-prints on the planks of your unfinished house. Now you’re telling me a human-pig hybrid came and scratched some gibberish on your window glass with its hooves. You don’t think-”
“Hold the phone. I haven’t read the front page yet of today’s paper.” Teague handed Doug the newspaper and let him read, realizing at the same time that he and his friends had a bad habit of interrupting people when they were speaking. When Doug finished he looked up and said, “Well gang, looks like we have a mystery on our hands.”
“Okay Fred Jones,” responded Johnny. 
Doug continued, “Teague, in all seriousness, tell me one more time what it is that foreign phrase you’ve run into a few times.”
“Klayesh komone khemosh kahn,” replied Teague. Doug dramatically smacked his forehead and yelled “OF COURSE!”
Teague and Johnny exchanged weird looks as if Doug were crazy.
“You know what that sounds like?!” Doug cried. “That sounds like Bakoshtangan! The language that’s spoken in Hell!” Curious, Johnny asked, “Ba-kosh-ton-gan, huh? What the heck is that?!”
“No, no. It’s pronounced Bok-osh-tongan! Anyways, you guys believe in Heaven and Hell, right?” asked Doug.
“Sure,” said Teague.
“Yeah,” responded Johnny.
“Well I’ve got a cousin from Seattle, Washington about our age. You might think this is weird. I mean I think it’s weird- but uh, anyways, he spends a lot of his leisure time studying the lifestyles, people, and languages you can supposedly see and hear in Hell. Bakoshtangan is one of several languages spoken in Hell, it’s mainly spoken by demons. So my cousin has been studying the language out of some strange book the past few years and let me tell you, that phrase you told us about sounds very similar to that language. He’s spoken some to me before for the heck of it and that phrase sounds a lot like it. It’s just a feeling I have, you know? Like you can tell when someone is speaking Spanish or French or German because it’s kind of obvious because of the accents and the wording. Let me tell you, there’s no language that sounds anything like Bakoshtangan, and from what I’ve heard of it, that sounds just like it. Perhaps I could call my cousin and ask him.”
“Call him man! Call him. This is insane!” yelled an overwhelmed Johnny.
“Should I call him up, Teague?”
“I’ve got to be honest Doug, That language you’re talking about almost sounds made up. But if you say it’s legitimate, I trust you. Go for it.” 
Teague thought for a minute about the reliability of whatever book it was that Doug’s cousin was studying. How could somebody write a book about Hell and what it was like unless they’d actually been there? Teague seriously doubted there was a real language called ‘Bakoshtangan’ that demons in Hell spoke. But what was he supposed to do? “Yeah dude,” began Doug. “I wouldn’t be pulling your leg with something serious like this. Think about it. If we gather as much information as possible maybe we could figure out who or what killed those construction guys.” Doug grabbed his home phone and dialed the number for Trace O’Conner. Over in Seattle, an annoyed Trace was busy watering his plants when the phone rang.
“Ugh!” he groaned. He walked over to the phone, answered it, and screamed into it, “I ALREADY TOLD YOU HOW TO ESCAPE THE FRIEND ZONE SO NOW WE’RE EVEN!!!” Doug stared at the phone, a puzzled look on his face. He glanced at Johnny and Teague who both started cracking up. “Trace, it’s Doug. What the heck are you talking about?!”
“Oh I’m sorry, Doug. I thought you were this Chinese guy that keeps- uh never mind. What do you want, buddy?”
“Hey wait a minute, who’d you think I was? I want friend zone advice…” Suddenly, Doug remembered he was on a mission and didn’t have time to get sidetracked.
“Alright, forget the advice. This is important so listen up. Did you hear about the murder of a construction team here in Frisius? I know it was on national news on TV. It’ll probably be seen around the world, too.”
“Yeah I heard about that. I just saw it on TV just an hour ago,” replied Trace. He continued “That’s pretty awful. How many guys did the anchorman say were killed? Hmm I think he said about 17 or so.”
“Yeah it’s really something else,” said Doug. “Before last night, I’m sure a lot of people in the U.S. had never heard of a little town like Frisius. But now it’s all over the news. There’s going to be a memorial service for them is what our town’s newspaper said. Everybody’s talking about it right now.”
“Hey, didn’t one of the construction guys escape during the murder. What was his name? Darren? Daniel?”
“Uh his name’s Danny Burkus,” replied Doug. “That’s one of the reason’s I’m calling. Okay listen up. Those guys who were murdered were building my friend Teague’s house at the time they were killed. After this guy Danny escaped, he texted Teague a strange message.”
“And?” asked Trace.
“Well the thing is, we’re not sure if it was Danny or not. We know it was from his phone, but maybe someone else got a hold of his phone. I mean he is missing after all. If it was really Danny you’d think he would’ve used his phone to call the police if anything after he escaped from the murderer. Anyways, at the bottom of the message was a dash mark and the initials ‘A.W.’ next to it. So the question is, who or what is ‘A.W.’, if that’s a person, and are they using Danny’s phone to text Teague. Oh and of course, how did they get Teague’s phone number?”
“Oh wow,” said Trace. “That’s quite a big mystery. Well what did the message say, Bud?”
“That’s the strange part, Trace. The text message wasn’t in English. It looked like a foreign language. I’m not 100% sure, but I think it actually think it looks a lot like Bakoshtangan. So I called to ask you if you can translate it… I mean if it really is. Anyways, I’m looking at the message now on my friend Teague’s phone and it says ‘klayesh komone khemosh khan.”
When he heard this, Trace opened his mouth wide and exhaled deeply. Had he heard Doug right?
“Say that again, cousin,” Trace said. Doug said it a little more slowly this time.
“Klay-esh ko-mone ke-mosh kahn.” Upon hearing this Trace dropped the phone. He was pretty sure he understood what this phrase meant. Doug could hear the clatter of the phone bang on the kitchen floor. Trace exhaled slowly and picked up the phone. Then he opened his mouth wide and thought about what Doug had said. He honestly couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.
As he started to gasp, a nervous Doug shouted, “come on Trace do you know what it means or not?! You’re making my friends and I nervous.”
“I’m pretty sure I know what that translates to. But I want to look in the Bakoshtangan-English dictionary I have on my bookshelf just to make sure. Hold tight a minute while I look up the word ‘kahn.”
Trace replied a few moments later after looking up the word. “Oh my gosh buddy. You are one smart guy. You’re absolutely right… that is Bakoshtangan. How you figured that out is beyond me… Are you sure you want to know what that translates to in English?”
“Yes Trace, I’m sure. What does it mean?”
Trace slowly responded with, “It means ‘soon you’ll wish you were dead.”
 

Doug took the phone away from his ear and opened his mouth wide enough to fit five apples in it. He looked at Teague and Johnny sitting on the couch and mouthed “I don’t believe this!”
Teague and Johnny exchanged alarmed looks. Doug placed the phone back to his ear and said “ok thanks, Trace. I’ll talk to you later!” With that, he hung up and slammed the phone back on its charger. He jerked his head towards Teague and screamed “Teague! Teague! My cousin knows what ‘klayesh komone khemosh kahn means! It translates into English! It means ‘soon you’ll wish you were dead!’”
Teague, who’d just been taking a sip out of his “Frisius High School” water canteen, dropped the canteen on the couch cushion and cupped his hand to his mouth. “What did you just say?” he asked Doug.
“I said it means ‘soon you’ll wish you were dead!’”
“Soon you’ll wish you were dead?! Guys, um-I have- I have to go! I’m going to leave! I- I have some thinking to do!” cried Teague. He leapt off the couch and made a run for it. He sprang up to the front door and violently opened it. In no time at all, he was out the door and out of sight.
“I feel bad so bad for Teague! He must be scared out of his mind!” yelped Johnny.
He began yanking on the collar of his shirt and realized how hot it was. “Doug, can we open a window or something?” he whined.
“Sure, I’m on it,” replied Doug. He walked to the front window and opened it halfway.
Doug paced back into the living room and shrieked. One of his two dogs, a Doberman pinscher named Cato, was shaking his head back and forth chewing on a pillow.
“Cato you dumb dog,” Doug cried. “Gimme that,” he said and he yanked the pillow out of Cato’s mouth. Cato whimpered.
Doug opened the sliding door and pointed at Cato. “Go act dumb outside. See this is why everyone likes Brutus more than you. He doesn’t chew on crap and he can actually fetch,” he said. With that Cato ran outside, around the house, and to the front yard.
Johnny turned to Doug and raised his eyebrows at him. “Doug, I’ve been thinking…”
“Yes?”
“Well, I don’t mean to be a shallow friend, but to be honest, I don’t really think I believe Teague.”
“What, about seeing those two scary creatures?”
“Yeah,” muttered Johnny.
Doug looked away and put his hand up to his cheek.
“I’m not sure I believe him either. I think he just had a nightmare and thinks what he saw actually happened. That happens to me all the time.”
“That’s not what I was thinking.”
“Well, what are you talking about then?”
“I think Teague is making it up. I think he made up the story about seeing that black creature and that- well that human-pig hybrid behind the hotel.”
“What on earth makes you think that?” Doug sneered.
“I think he just wants attention from us.”
“How do you figure? He doesn’t care about attention from us! If anybody, he wants attention from Dalia. But now she’s dating that one guy, uh I forgot his name.”
“Exactly,” replied Johnny.
“You better start making sense, Wolfgang. Why would Teague make something up like that?”
Suddenly, from outside, what sounded like a giant sneeze came from not too far away. “Ah-ah-ah-A-CHOO!”
“What the heck was that?!” cried Johnny.
“It sounds like somebody sneezed,” said Doug.
“Obviously. But where’d it come from?” said Johnny.
“Okay what were you saying about Teague?” asked Doug.
“SON OF A-” cried a voice from outside.
“WHAT THE-” Johnny and Doug screamed simultaneously. Somebody outside had just screamed and nearly swore. But it sounded so close by.
Then from outside, Cato began to bark and somebody said “shut up!”

“What the heck’s going on?” asked Doug. “Alright shake it off. So why do you think Teague would be making up stories about seeing ghostly creatures?”
“Well, he’s infatuated with Dalia, right? He won’t stop thinking about her. He thinks about dating her, going for walks with her, talking to her on the phone, you name it! Heck he should just get a life! He-”
“Hey get on with it already! I know he likes Dalia. I don’t blame him! Don’t give him a hard time. Get to the point,” said an annoyed Doug.
“In a nutshell, I think since we get sick of him talking about her all the time, and since we get sick of assuring him to just ask her out already, I think he’s making this story about seeing paranormal creatures up just so we’ll give him the attention he doesn’t get every time he talks about Dalia and we try to change the subject.”
“You seem to have given this a lot of thought, Wolfgang. Why would Teague lie to us? He’s one of the most honest people I know.”
“You don’t know that many people, O’Conner. Who would you hang out with if you, Teague, and I weren’t pals?”
“I know plenty of people! And I think Teague’s telling the truth!” snapped Doug.
“Okay now you’re just flip-flopping! Quit being a dang pancake! You just said you’re not sure you believed him and now you’re saying he’s telling the truth. Make up your mind!”
“Well you have to think about it some more! You’re just flat out accusing Teague of being an attention-seeker. Do you really think he’s that low that he’ll make up some story about seeing paranormal creatures just for attention?”
“Well think about it! It seems logical right? That human-pig hybrid he talked about, that seems made up! It’s too unbelievable. There’s no way a human-pig, as hard as just that is to grasp, can somehow spy on Teague from outside a second story window and leave a note up on the glass…. Especially when there’s no way it could’ve gotten that high. I don’t see any trees or saguaro cacti around here. Do you?!”
“Well no, but this is Teague we’re talking about. He never lies.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” groaned Johnny.
“Yeah but-” Doug began, lost for words. He closed his mouth and put his hand up to his chin as if he were in deep thought. He thought for a moment and seemed to be staring intently at the wall. Johnny tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for Doug to say what was on his mind. Finally, Doug looked up at Johnny and said, “Well Johnny, I suppose you make a good point. I don’t think any less of Teague, but you must be right. I guess he is lying after all.”
“You said it. It’s not that I have it in for him or anything. Like you, I don’t think any less of him. I just think he’s making up these stories about seeing strange creatures in the night.”
“There’s just one problem, Johnny.”
“What is it?”
“Should we be honest with him and tell him that we don’t believe his stories?”
“No, I think we should just wait it out before we do that. I don’t want to hurt his feelings or anything-”
There was a knock on the door, interrupting Johnny. He frowned at Doug and said “That’s probably Mrs. Carmen. She comes over like every other morning to visit my mom.” Johnny walked to the door, opened it, and gasped. It wasn’t Mrs. Carmen. It was Teague.
“Oh hey Teague!” Johnny said in a shaking voice. “I thought you had some thinking to do.”
“Oh I’ve still got some thinking to do. I just forgot my water canteen. I think I left it on your couch.”
“Oh well come on in, pal,” Johnny said, winking at Doug the moment Teague took his eyes off either of them.
“Wow,” began Teague in a strange voice as he slowly waddled into the living room. “It’s nice and fresh in here since you opened the window. So what’s been going on since I left?”
“Oh well, we’ve just been hanging out,” replied Johnny.
“Yeah,” Doug nervously added. “We’ve just been talking about uh- football! How about those Ravens? Boy they’re kicking-”
“How come you two look so nervous?” Teague interrupted. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you two were just secreting about somebody.” He looked at his two friends and began to laugh at what he’d just said.
“No secreting here,” chuckled an unsteady Johnny.
“You know it’s funny,” said Teague. “The other day, I had an accident with a gallon of milk I accidentally dropped on the floor at the hotel. I totally forgot to tell you two all about it. But I think I’ll just forget about it. You’d probably just think I was making it up.”
“Why would you make something up?” Doug asked in a soft, innocent voice.
“I don’t know,” Teague said, a giant smile spreading on his face. He mumbled something.
“What’d you say?” Johnny asked.
“I said ‘maybe to get attention,’” sneered Teague.
Johnny and Doug’s mouths dropped open.
“You know,” grumbled Teague, “if you two didn’t want me to hear what you were saying about me, you probably shouldn’t have opened the window. I heard everything both of you said. Jerks.”
“Oh Yeah?” Johnny shot back. “Well why were you eavesdropping?”
“Yeah. And was that you who sneezed and screamed ‘son of a-?’” asked Doug. “Oh, and was that you who yelled ‘shut up’ when Cato began barking?”
“Yes. I was hiding in the bushes and the flowers made me sneeze. And then a bee stung me so that’s why I screamed. Oh, and when Cato saw me he got excited and started barking. I didn’t want him to give me away so I told him to shut up. Oh and Johnny, I listened to your guys’ conversation because I left my water canteen here, you idiot. I took five steps off your porch when I realized I left it on your couch. And I came back just as you two started talking about me. So I hid in the bushes the second I heard you say my name, and carry on about how you think I’m lying.”
“You’re calling me the idiot. You’re the one who left your stupid canteen here,” Johnny grunted.
“Sorry I’m a nervous wreck right now. Sorry I’m a human being who makes mistakes,” said Teague sarcastically.
Doug turned to Teague and put his hands up to his chest like an innocent person in a lawsuit. “Hey Teague, I’m on your side, man! I just thought you were having a nightmare about those scary creatures! I just thought you were dreaming but thought they were real.”
“PANCAKE!” screamed Johnny, pointing an accusing finger at Doug.
“Quit flip-flopping, Doug,” groaned Teague.
“You know what, Teague? Why don’t you just go ask Dalia out and stop making stories up about seeing monsters!” yelled Johnny.
“Well there’s three problems with that,” yelled Teague. “One, she’s already dating that jerk Adam Brown, two, I’m not making up those creatures I saw up, and c, I don’t need attention from you or Doug! If you two want to base your self esteems off getting attention from other people, be my guest. But I don’t need friends to be happy. Now give me my canteen!”
Johnny angrily threw the canteen to Teague. He caught it, turned around, and stormed towards the door. He looked back at Johnny and Doug. “If you don’t believe me, well see if I care! I know there’s someone out there who will.” With that, Teague closed the door behind him, and disappeared outside into the bright sunlight. As he stepped off the porch, he caught a glimpse of Doug’s dog: a Doberman pinscher named Cato. He was lying on the grass basking in the warm sun. Teague approached Cato and patted his head. Then, as if Cato were human, Teague said “You believe me about seeing those creatures, don’t you boy?” Immediately after he said this, Cato looked up at Teague, and quick as a whip leaped up to its feet, turned around, and sprinted away into the backyard.
“Stupid dog,” muttered Teague.  And he thought about how Freddy didn’t believe him either the other night. “My two best friends don’t even believe me…just like Freddy. This is just perfect.”  Teague walked down the sidewalk and glanced back at Doug’s house. Through the window, he could see his two friends hanging out with Brutus, Doug’s English bull terrier in the living room. It almost looked as if they were teaching him new tricks. Teague clenched his teeth so the veins in his neck seemed to pop out.
He jumped up when he heard a high voice call his name from across the street. “HEY TEAGUE!” He turned his head and saw Dalia taking a stroll with her boyfriend. They were arm in arm and were each carrying grocery bags. Teague waved at Dalia and smiled. He looked away and clenched his teeth even harder. And with that, he trudged back to the hotel room. “There’s someone out there who’ll believe me. I know it,” he whispered.
 

Unfortunately for Teague, the carpet he was trying to fall asleep on was hard as a rock and yet rough as sandpaper at the same time. He turned back and forth on the floor in rage as he struggled to fall asleep. He turned his head and it banged against the leg of the bed his mom and dad were sleeping on. He yelped just loud enough to wake his dad up.
“WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?!” roared a tired and annoyed Eddie.
“I just hit my head on the bed’s leg, gosh!” muttered Teague.
“WELL QUIT IT!” screamed Eddie.
Stupid Johnny and Doug, thought Teague. I can’t believe they think I’m making those creatures up. I know they’re real. I wasn’t dreaming…
Suddenly, the bedroom door violently shot open and slammed against the doorstopper. Everybody jumped up from wherever they were sleeping. While Teague, Freddy, Sierra, and Eddie all shrieked in surprise, nobody screamed louder than Kelly.
“What’s going on?!” Teague’s grandma (whose name was Emily) cried. “Is someone hurt? Is something wrong?”
“THE ONLY WRONG THING HERE IS YOU’RE DISTURBING ME! GO BACK TO BED, MOM!” yelled Eddie.
“Okay then, goodnight,” Emily said as she walked out the door, down the hall, and towards her bedroom. “I’m sorry, Mom!” Eddie called. “I’ve had some long days at work lately and I’m tired as fetch!”
“It’s okay, Eddie. Good night!” Emily called just as she entered her room. She closed the door and got back into bed.
Teague lay awake staring up at the ceiling. His family fell asleep in about five minutes. Teague, fed up with being with not being able to sleep, slowly got to his feet and tiptoed out into the living room. The moon outside gleamed through the glass and reflected off the glass of the artificial fireplace. Using the moonlight as his guide, Teague cautiously crossed the living room and crept towards the backdoor to the backyard. On his way there, he quickly made a brief stop in the kitchen. As he passed by the counter, he reached into the open bag of Oreos and groaned. The bag was empty. He slithered towards the backdoor and made his way outside. He sat on a lawn chair on the back patio and looked up at all the beautiful stars. It was a cool night, and Teague and his family were 100 or so miles away from their hotel room in Frisius. They were staying at their grandma’s house for the night, and given they were in a different region of the state, rolling green hills, woodlands, and mountains had replaced the sand dunes and cacti back home. Teague scanned the moonlit grass and shuddered. The face of the human-pig was still haunting his mind. He’d never seen anything so strange and so terrifying. And yet, his two best buds didn’t even believe him. Just when Teague’s fear began to get the better of him, and he was ready to get up and head back inside, something startled him over by his grandma’s oak tree. The swing hanging from the lowest branch was slowly swinging back and forth all by itself. The chain made a creaking sound. And yet there was no breeze or anything. So how was the swing moving back and forth?
And then Teague saw a pale hand slowly reach around the tree and grasp the bark. But this wasn’t just any ordinary hand. It was an old, wrinkly hand, with veins popping out if it like termite tunnels through wood. While the tree stood about 20 feet away from Teague, he could clearly see the hand in the pale moonlight.
Just as he gasped, and horrified, clenched his mouth, a head slowly emerged from behind the tree and locked its eyes on Teague. The head was that of an old woman, and she wore a raggedy, ancient white robe.
Her beetle-black eyes stared into Teague’s. Her wrinkly, cracked face gleamed under the moon’s bright rays. She opened her mouth to reveal her yellow teeth. And her face, to Teague’s horror, was missing pieces of flesh. Without warning, she hovered towards Teague quicker than the blink of an eye. As she hovered, she appeared as stiff as the oak tree she’d just been hiding behind. Teague jumped from his chair and tripped on one of its legs. The ghost of the old woman followed him and bent down to face him. Her face, just inches from his, she opened her mouth to speak. Her foul breath reeked of old onions. Her black eyes looked Teague up and down. She reached her skinny, wrinkly arm and grasped the back of Teague’s head. He could feel her icy, bony fingers run through his untidy hair. Overtaken by fear, he flinched and tried to move. But he couldn’t get up. “Wh-what do you want?” he stammered
“Help,” the old-woman ghost said in a gravelly voice.  She floated around Teague in a circle. He let out a cry and tried to back away. The pieces of flesh missing from the ghost’s face, and the cracks and wrinkles on her cheeks reminded Teague of the chipping bark from the base of the oak tree just 20 feet away. Trying to avoid her eyes, he looked down at her arms. They were bruised and covered in large cuts. She reached down to her ruined, torn, white dress. The old woman turned and floated slowly toward the tree. As she floated away, she began to sing what sounded like a lullaby. But when she sang, she did so in a foreign language. It sounded something like this: Quaz anf vlad shak kon-osh be-fod, glasaj ong bla-kash gref ob-lauf.”
His heart pounding and his arms shaking, Teague jumped off the patio and dashed back into the house. He found himself somehow now able to move. He jumped onto the living room couch, crawled into a ball, and hid his face into his arms. Streams of sweat poured down his face and he dug his head deeper into his arms. A few tears flowed down his face as he cringed in terror…. And suddenly….BAM!
Teague jumped up and turned his head around, looking out the giant window. The great black eyes of the old ghost woman were looking him up and down as she ran her bony hands up and down the window glass…..

*****

As Doug crawled into bed that night, he couldn’t help but think about how wonderful life was going for him. He’d just gotten off the phone with Angelina McNeal an hour ago, and she’d agreed to go on a date with him. He stretched his arms out and placed them behind his head as he lay down. As he thought about how lucky he felt, he couldn’t help but feel a little bit bad for Teague.
“Oh be quiet, Doug,” he whispered to himself. “Teague will be fine. As soon as he and Dalia are a couple, he won’t have to make up stories about seeing monsters and crap.”
Hmmmm, Doug thought. I wonder if mom’s awake. Given his dad was currently stationed in Afghanistan on a deployment, it’d be just Doug and his mom for a few more months. Doug listened closely and heard snoring on the other side of the wall. His mom was fast asleep. He closed his eyes and decided he’d call for Brutus, his white English bull terrier, who according to Johnny looked “exactly like Spuds Mackenzie, complete with the black eye patch and everything.” Doug whistled for Brutus and called “here boy!” in about 30 seconds, he heard the sound of light paw prints walking across the carpeted floor. As Brutus approached him, he reached out and pet his head, right between his pointed ears. And in about five minutes, Doug fell asleep, his hand still lightly touching Brutus’s head.

When Doug awoke a few hours later, he quietly yawned and stretched his arms. He reached down and pattered Brutus’s head. He continued petting the dog’s head when he heard a panting sound from about 15 feet away. Doug’s eyes shot open and he sat upright and looked out towards the entrance of his bedroom. The moonlight shone through the window so Doug could make out the visitor outside his room. It was Brutus the bull terrier, looking at Doug with its triangular, black eyes, which were filled with fear. He had never seen an animal look so frightened. But Brutus wasn’t near as scared as Doug. If Brutus was just outside the bedroom door, and Cato was sleeping outside, then what had Doug been petting?
Doug’s eyes darted to the floor. He hadn’t been petting Brutus. His hand was resting on the head of what appeared to be a dog-sized, black creature with long, jack-rabbit like ears, a scar-covered body, and giant red eyes the size of pears. Doug opened his mouth but found he couldn’t scream. The second his hand left the creature’s head, the black beast bolted out the door, past Brutus, and down the stairs. At that moment, the real Brutus scurried to the bed and jumped on a panic-stricken Doug.

Johnny gazed around at the kitchen and couldn’t believe his eyes: the kitchen was finally clean! The dishes were put away, the floor was swept, and the counters were nice and shiny. “Finally!” he groaned as he slumped into a chair at the table, resting his hands behind his head. Just as he put his feet up over the table, his mom called his name from upstairs. “Johnny? Thank you for cleaning the kitchen! Did you remember to feed Ginger and Homer?”
“No,” Johnny loudly replied. “But I’m on it.” He growled and got up from the chair, made his way into the kitchen, and filled Ginger and Homer’s food bowls. His extremely fat cat Ginger was always lugging around the kitchen, so Johnny figured she’d be hanging around somewhere. He opened the sliding door to the backyard and looked around. “Ginger?” he called. “Homer?” “Where are those two?” he quietly whispered. Homer, Johnny’s fawn pug dog, usually came running the second one of his owners called his name. As Johnny passed by his dad’s shed right by the fence, he thought he heard the sound of scratching coming from inside. Johnny froze on the spot and listened closely. He heard the scratching sound again. Johnny opened his mouth and raised his eyebrows. He paused a moment, turned around, and walked quietly to the shed’s door. He opened the door and peered inside. As he opened the door, stepped inside, and looked around, he flipped the light switch on so he could see. The second the light turned on, the scratching sound stopped. Johnny stepped forward and looked around. When he was about five feet away from the shed’s entrance, the door slammed shut by itself and the light turned off. Johnny yelled in surprise and ran towards the door. Since the lever you pulled to open the door was on the outside, Johnny was stuck in the shed with all the lights off. Worse still, the scratching sound started up again. It sounded so close. And as it got louder and louder, Johnny pounded harder and harder against the door. He was stuck in the shed! And something close by was scratching the wall as if trying to escape. Johnny cried out in fear and began slamming his body against the door. “HELP!” he cried. “MOM! HELP! I’M STUCK IN THE SHED!” But how would his mom hear him? The shed was separate from the house. There’s no way she’d hear him unless she came outside. Suddenly the scratching stopped. Johnny stopped kicking the inside of the door. Then he heard the sound of a barking dog: Homer. The barking was coming from just outside the shed. Homer could hear Johnny crying in fear from inside and tried to help him. Johnny threw his weight against the door again. That’s when the light suddenly turned on. So he jerked his head and looked behind him. Then his jaw dropped open. He fell to his knees and wailed in fear. There was a boy there in the shed with him…. A little dead boy of about 10 years of age. He had dark skin and his black hair fell in clumps like the moss of a temperate rainforest over his brown eye. His right eye had been gouged out long before, and the skin hanging around the perimeter of his missing eye resembled a pumpkin’s interior. His eye locked on Johnny’s eyes hungrily. The boy’s limbs were skinny as a twig. It appeared he’d died long before of starvation. He licked his bleeding, cut-covered lips. He opened his mouth and exposed his crooked, yellow teeth. The dead boy sat crouched on the back shelf of the shed, moaning loudly like a strange animal. His ragged, brown gown hung low from his skinny body like a tiny hammock nearly touching the ground. The dead boy placed his hands against the wall and dug his long nails into the wood. And like a cat sharpening its claws, he scratched through the blood-stained wall again. The boy opened his mouth and whispered “teqo eekookh a lahe, Johnny.” The feral boy suddenly jumped down from the shelf and screeched and yowled. And he charged forward at Johnny, crawling like a giant spider moving in for the kill. He grasped Johnny’s arm, opened his mouth wide, and shot his head forward. He was ready to sink his sharp teeth into Johnny’s shoulder. But just as the boy’s head came forward, Johnny reached back and threw his arm forward, slugging the ghost in the stomach. The boy snarled and bit the back of Johnny’s leg. Johnny cried in pain and suddenly, remembering a wrestling movie Doug had taught him, picked the boy up by the legs and slammed him to the ground. Johnny scrambled to his feet and lunged for the door. Several tears rolled down his cheek as he kicked the shed door open and fell to the grass. He army crawled across the lawn and worked to his feet.  He looked down at his bare leg and saw it looked normal. There was no blood, teeth marks, or scratches. Then wondering if the hungry dead boy was still in the shed, Johnny sprinted to the door and flipped the light on. There was no one there.
Homer the pug came dashing through the shed and jumped on Johnny’s lap. “You saw it too, didn’t you boy?” Johnny whispered as the dog nestled his head against his chest. And at that moment, he realized Teague wasn’t making up the two ghostly creatures he’d seen. And just a few blocks away, Doug was beginning to realize the same thing.

When Teague awoke the next morning and stretched his arms, he observed the gleaming sunlight peeking through the window. He rose to his feet, walked out the bedroom door, and made his way into the living room. He stared at the giant window and suddenly the memory came back to him: the ghost of the old woman banging against the glass as Teague had sat clumped in a ball on the couch trembling in terror.
“Good morning sweetie,” said Teague’s grandma, Emily, from the kitchen oven. Teague sniffed the air and said, “Good morning, Grandma. Is that bacon I smell?”
“It is indeed. How’d you sleep last night?”
Teague wanted more than anything to say “I slept terrible, Grandma! I saw another grandma last night- a dead one! She chased me inside the house after I stepped out for a little fresh air!” But instead he said “I slept okay.”
If Freddy, Johnny, and Doug hadn’t believed him about him being haunted by paranormal creatures, what made him think his grandma would believe that he’d seen and been chased by the fearsome ghost of an old woman?
He sat himself at the table and began gobbling down the scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. How he wished his grandma lived in Frisius just so he could visit her three times a day… just in time for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
As he took a giant bite of toast covered in marmalade, a strange combination of thoughts entered his mind. How happy he was to be eating such great food. At the same time, how much he was beginning to loathe the night time. And how he angry he was that his older brother and two best friends didn’t believe that he was being haunted at night. As this last thought entered his mind, Kelly waltzed out into the living room and sat down across from him at the table.
“Good morning, Grandma,” she hooted.
“Good morning, Kelly.”
Then Teague thought: maybe Kelly will believe me.
“Okay you two. I’m going to go take a shower. I’ll be back in a bit,” said Emily as she strolled out of the kitchen.
Perfect! Thought Teague. Now I can tell Kelly about the creatures and ghosts who are haunting me!
Kelly grabbed the newspaper and began to read the funnies while eating her toast.
Teague cleared his throat, but she didn’t look up.
For crying out loud. This is like trying to talk to Dalia! Teague thought. He had to admit, he was having a hard time trying to think of how to tell his sister everything. Now that three people didn’t believe him, it seemed unlikely the fourth person he tried would.
“Hey Kelly?” he timidly asked.
But before she replied, she burst out laughing at one of the comic strips.
Teague was now boiling in rage. None of those comics are even funny! Just set that paper down and listen to me!
“Kelly?” he asked again.
“Yeah Teague?” said Kelly. But as soon as she answered she began cracking up again.
“Listen this is important okay. I swear I’m not making this up,” said a serious Teague.
“I’m all ears,” replied Kelly, fighting not to hold down her laughter. She began “coughing” as a way to hide her snickering.
Teague rolled his eyes and groaned.
“Listen. Last night I-”
“HEY GUYS! GUESS WHAT?!” Yelled Freddy as he bolted into the kitchen. “I just turned on the T.V. and guess what’s playing?!”
Teague turned his head and yelled “Can’t you see I’m trying to talk?! Go tell someone who cares! Go tell Muffincake, or whatever the heck your girlfriend’s name is!”
Freddy gritted his teeth.
“Oh yeah, li’l bro? Why don’t you go tell Dalia and her boyfriend all about whatever you were going to tell Kelly?! I’m sure you’d just love to see those two pretend to listen to you as they hold hands and think of each other.”
“You dirty-” began Teague, but then suddenly, he thought of something. Dalia was always hanging out at the library by herself. Maybe one day if he ran into her there, she’d listen to and hopefully believe him. And he could read up on ghosts and paranormal creatures in the meantime. Teague wandered into the kitchen with a big smile on his face. He grabbed a last piece of toast and took a bite.
“I just burned you big time why are you smiling?!” demanded Freddy.
“You gave me a good idea. I should thank you,” said Teague as he pat Freddy on the shoulder and left the room.

*****

Hurry up and open! Thought Teague as he stood waiting outside the library the next morning. The morning sun was still low in the gray sky. It looked as if Teague were the only one outside at the hour.
“Doesn’t that just annoy you?” came a nearby voice, startling Teague. He looked to his left and saw Dalia walking towards him.
“Oh hey Dalia! What a coincidence…. Doesn’t what annoy me?”
The library opens at 8 am and yet Mr. Randall doesn’t show up to open it up until like 8:15. This happens to me every single day.”
“You come here every day?”
“Yeah of course. I love reading! Say speaking of reading, I thought you didn’t like to read,” said Dalia. “I just remember you saying you only come here cause they have good movies.
“Oh yeah. Well I’m just here for an um… book report.
“But isn’t school over?”
“Oh uh… yeah. Did I say book report? I meant book club. Yeah I’m in a book club so I have to-”
“But I thought you didn’t like reading?” asked Dalia laughing.
“Alright, alright. I’m here to research ghosts and paranormal creatures,” said Teague.
“Really? Wow, that’s interesting! How come?”
“I’ll tell you inside….it’s kind of a long story. Man, where is Mr. Randall?”
“I know right,” agreed Dalia.
Teague looked across the street and saw Doug’s uncle, Artie, just opening up the doughnut shop.
“Say,” began Teague. “Do you want to go grab some doughnuts to kill time before Randall gets here?”
“You don’t have to ask me twice,” replied Dalia.

*****

“So after seeing that old ghost and those two creatures, you could basically say I get pretty scared going to bed at night,” said Teague as he finished up his story.
Dalia’s mouth dropped. He’d just told her about all the scary things he’d seen in the last few weeks. She was lost for words.
“Teague, have you told anybody about all this?!” she finally asked.
“I told Freddy, Johnny, and Doug and none of them believe me,” said Teague.
“Oh don’t worry, Bud. I believe you.”
“Hey Dalia, you’re still coming to this dump?”
Teague and Dalia turned around. Her boyfriend, Adam Brown had just walked in.
“Who’s this chump?” he asked, pointing at Teague.
“It’s Teague. I introduced him to you last week, remember?”
“Oh yeah. Well, I wouldn’t hang around him. Anybody whose idea of fun is to hang out here is a real loser.”
“Are you ragging on libraries, Brown?” asked Mr. Randall as he stepped forward.
“Maybe I am, Sir. What are you going to do about it?”
“Didn’t you just say only losers hang out here?”
“Yeah. Your point?”
“Well you’re here. So what would that make you?”
“I’m just here to pick up my girlfriend so we can go get some doughnuts,” groaned Adam.
“I actually just got done eating a doughnut,” said Dalia laughing.
“Who’s your girlfriend, Brown? Dalia?”
“Are there any other girls in here?” asked Adam sarcastically.
“No, no. It just surprises me that someone as beautiful as her would somehow agree to date an ogre like you.”
He turned to Dalia. “Honey, you can do a lot better. How much is he paying you to date him?”
Adam turned red in the face as all the rest of the people in the library, all of them teenaged boys, most of which wore glasses, suddenly turned around and began cheering and applauding Mr. Randall.
“Come on Dalia, let’s get out of here. This place is infested with bookworms.”
“Actually, I think I’ll stay here,” said Dalia. “And I also think that you’re now single.”
Adam stormed out of the library and Teague began to smile. As he did so his phone vibrated. He checked his phone and saw he had two new messages. He read the first and saw it was from Doug. It said “Dude Teague, I believe you about those creatures!” The second was from Johnny. It said “Teague, Dude, I believe you about those creatures!”
Dalia was now single, and Teague’s two best friends suddenly somehow believed him about being haunted. 'Looks like the tables are beginning to turn' thought Teague.

 

It had been nearly a week and a half since Teague had told Johnny and Doug about everything: the strange black creature crossing the road. The Human-pig. The strange message which meant ‘soon you’ll wish you were dead’” in Bakoshtangan. Johnny and Doug had told Teague all about their recent experience with the unknown. Like how Johnny had been bitten by a strange, hungry ghost, and how Doug had spent a great amount of time patting the black creatures head, thinking it had been Brutus the bull terrier.
There were still a few things Teague wanted to figure out: Who texted him that message? Who or what was ‘A.W.?’ Did the human-pig kill the men building his house? Or was someone else responsible? As terrified as he was, Teague was so glad he was able to tell a few people about what had been going on the last few weeks; more importantly that they believed him. It was 6:30 in the evening, and Teague had spent the last hour or so lying on his bed reading an interesting thriller book.
He could hear the rest of his family watching the news. Every now and then he caught a few words from the anchorman. “…. travel south of here about 30 miles and you’ll find a little desert town called Frisius. It was here in this little city that on June 16th at approximately 10:00 pm, the murder of 17 construction workers took place. The construction team was rebuilding the home of local residents when all 30 or so of them were brutally attacked. But who or what attacked them remains a mystery, as at the scene police officers discovered hoof prints all over the floor planks of the half-way finished home…” Teague looked out the window at the new team building his home. He couldn’t believe news reporters were showing photos of his soon-to-be home on national TV. It seemed everyone in the U.S. from Hawaii to Alaska to Maine had heard about the massacre at the Castellano home. When he found out the day before that the FBI was coming to town to investigate, he was stunned that this event had actually taken place. It just seemed like such big news. Nothing big ever really happened in Frisius.  He continued watching the men walking around with buckets of nails and floorboards. “I hope these new guys don’t get murdered like the last crew,” he thought. Aside from maybe getting out of the friend-zone with Dalia, there was nothing Teague wanted more than to find out who or what killed all the construction workers. That’s what Teague was thinking about when the phone rang.
“Want to get that, Teague?” asked Kelly, who was sitting at the table reading the newspaper. Teague picked up the phone and said, “Hello?”
“Hey Teague, it’s Johnny! I got some good news!”
“Really, what?”
“Well Dalia broke up with her boyfriend last week so I set her up on a blind date.” “Who’s the lucky guy?” Teague jealously asked.
“You, Silly! I set her up with you!” Teague couldn’t believe what he was hearing! “But Johnny, the point of a blind date is to go on a date with someone you haven’t met yet! I’ve known Dalia since first grade. I’m going to look like a moron when I walk in saying ‘I’m your blind date.’”
“Who the heck cares, Teague? You’re going on a date with your dream woman in 25 minutes. Now shut your face and go do whatever you do to get ready for dates,” yelled an excited Johnny. “Well to be honest, I’ve never gone on a date before, Johnny.”
“Well then consider tonight to be the new best night of your life. Oh yeah you’re meeting her at Cal’s at 7:00. Sorry for the late notice I’ve been watching all the Harry Potter movies at my house all morning, and I just remembered your date about five minutes ago. Alight, good luck Teague.” With that Johnny hung up. Teague walked to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and spiked his hair up. When he came out his family was full of questions.
“You look like you’re going somewhere,” said Kelly.
“What are you smiling at?” demanded Eddie. 
“Things are finally starting to go my way that’s what I’m smiling at!” With that Teague said good bye and left the room. He sprinted down the stairs and started walking as soon as he hit the first floor. It had just been mopped and marked with a caution sign, and he didn’t want to break a leg right before his date. He snickered as he passed by the giant milk stain on the green carpet from when he’d dropped the milk jug on the floor. When he passed the front desk he shouted “hi” to Gretchen.
“Looking good, Teague,” she responded.
“Good to know cause I’ve got a hot date tonight!”
“Okay have fun,” she said. Teague turned around and headed towards the double doors just as Gretchen remembered something. “Hey Teague!” she called to him. He turned around. “Yeah, Gretchen?”
“Are you okay what with this big massacre that just happened at your soon-to-be new house? I saw it on the news and couldn’t believe that really happened!”
“Yeah I’m okay, thank you. I couldn’t believe it either. I don’t think crime has ever been a big problem around here and then bam, something like this happens. Alright well, don’t want to be late for my first date. Later, Cupcake.”
“Bye!” called Gretchen.
Teague walked through the automatic doors, waited until he was a little ways away from the hotel, and started laughing. “I can’t believe I just called Gretchen ‘Cupcake!” he said to himself. Suddenly he felt a strange feeling of cockiness sweep over him, a feeling he didn’t believe he had ever felt before. He walked down the side walk with a feeling of triumph. Luckily for him, a date would be just what the doctor ordered when it came to finding something to take his mind off the fear he’d been experiencing the last few weeks. 
And little did Teague know that Gretchen remained behind the counter back at the hotel, blushing at the idea that she’d just been called “Cupcake.” Teague smiled and said to himself “If I wasn’t already in love with Dalia, I’d totally ask Gretchen out. She’s only like what- 4 years older than me?” He laughed at the thought and continued walking down the street until he was looking at the double doors of Cal’s Diner. “Looks like things are finally starting to pick up. It’s about dang time.”

*****

“Hey Dalia, I’m your blind date,” said Teague, feeling like a complete idiot as he sat across from her at their booth. “Hey I know you! That Johnny Wolfgang, what a goofball, setting me up on a blind date with someone I already know,” said Dalia. “Don’t sweat it,” she continued, “At least you’re not Ben Snotman.” Teague suddenly remembered his dream about asking Dalia out to prom and her joking that she was already going with Ben Snotman. Recalling this only made him smile.
“So uh, weren’t you dating someone just last week or something? I mean, after you broke up with Adam in the library?” asked Teague. “Yeah,” Dalia responded. “He wasn’t a very nice guy. I’m much more comfortable around people like you.” Teague smiled again and said, “Really?” 
Dalia answered, “Yeah, you seem a lot cooler than most of the boys at school. A lot of the most popular guys are only popular because they’re naturally athletic. I don’t think you have to be good at sports to be cool. Some people who aren’t super athletic make up for it by being good at other things like writing or playing instruments or skateboarding. You get the idea.”
“Yeah! I mean most of the jocks at school are full of themselves. That’s why me, Johnny, and Doug don’t play football. We don’t want to see those guys for two hours after school five days a week. That’s why we just run Track in the spring. But enough about sports. Are you having a nice summer?”
“Me? Yeah, I’ve just been hanging out and shopping in the city. What about you?”
“I guess. I’ve been having some late nights the last few weeks though,” replied Teague.
“Tell me about it! Ever since the town found out about all those construction workers, everyone’s been having a hard time sleeping! The story hit national news and I heard the FBI’s in town right now. Wait a minute, weren’t those workers rebuilding your house?” “Yeah they were. I just want to find out who killed them. There’s got to be some way to find out.”
“Wow, you seem pretty confident. You can do it! But dang, who would have ever thought something like this would ever happen in a little place like Frisius?”
“Order 52 is all ready!” yelled a man from the counter. Teague got up walked to the counter and picked up his food.
“Thanks, Joe,” he said. The smell of the BBQ pulled pork burger made his mouth water. He sat back down at his booth with Dalia and nearly drooled as he picked up his burger and took a giant bite. He had juice running down his forearms. “Delicious,” he said in an Elvis-like voice. He looked over at Dalia and observed that she seemed to take little bites of her hamburger at a time. She seemed to eat the burger in a neat way, frequently wiping her face and hands with a napkin.
“Maybe I shouldn’t eat like a pig in front of her,” he thought.
Dalia glanced at Teague and said, “Yeah so as I was saying, my friends won’t even go out to fetch the mail at the end of the day unless they’re with someone.”
“I know what you mean,” began Teague. “I’m too scared to even go buy some bread at Pete’s at night.” (everyone in Frisius knew most items, including bread, were marked down at night at Pete’s.)
“I think when they capture whoever killed all those workers though everyone will chill out. Man it seems like we’re in a horror film or something…”

“You know Teague,” began Dalia, “I was picturing my blind date being some buff, handsome guy. But honestly, I’m so glad it was you. It doesn’t matter that I already know you. And speaking of muscles, you look a little bigger than I remember you when you were a freshmen. Have you been working out?” “Are you hitting on me, Sugar Baby?” asked Teague.
“Sorry, what’d you say, Teague?”
“Uh, nothing.” Teague decided it was best she didn’t hear his question. Sometimes he accidently said his personal thoughts out loud. A few minutes later, Teague waved goodbye to Dalia as she drove off in her blue Expedition. Then he realized something. “Dang it, I’m such an idiot!” he protested.  Given he was only about a mile away from his hotel room, he had walked to Cal’s to meet Dalia for their date rather than driving. He’d forgotten to bring his phone and so couldn’t call a family member to pick him up. Cal’s Diner was also closing right now so he couldn’t use their phone behind the counter. There seemed to be no one around he could ask to borrow a phone from, and even if there was, he’d be pretty hesitant about asking someone he didn’t know personally. Teague thought, “Huh, you’d think I would have told Mom and Dad where I was headed and how long I’d be there. Guess I was so gung ho about the date I didn’t think about how I’d get home. Moron…”  This thought in mind, Teague decided he was pretty scared about being alone at night based on some of the things he’d seen and heard about the last few weeks. He started scampering down the sidewalk as fast as he could. The streetlights somewhat helped him with his fear. Faster and faster he ran till he had trouble breathing. He walked the next the block or two and was just 100 yards from the hotel before he knew it. That’s when he heard a strange sound coming from his right side….

He looked to his right towards where the sound was coming from and saw it. It was just 20 feet away from him. It was moaning while it scratched its back against a cactus. It was a dark figure about four feet tall. It was shaped like a human but had arms that hung down much farther below its waist. Like an ape, its limbs seemed unusually long compared to its torso. Teague stared at the evil creature in absolute terror. He was almost hypnotized. Even though he’d have liked to yell and make a run for it, he found himself unable to move or speak. The creature had not yet seen Teague, and he suddenly snapped out of his strange, hypnotic state. Maybe he could sneak past whatever this creature was without it seeing him. But what was the creature? Why was it here? Was it waiting for him? What did it want? The sound of the evil creature scratching its body against the cactus was extremely disturbing.  The black ape-like creature suddenly turned 90 degrees and looked in Teague’s direction. Teague froze hoping it might not see him. Then the ape-like creature looked up at the stars and let out a deep moan. The moan was one that no other animal on earth can mimic. It was too scary and horrifying to describe. The creature looked back down at Teague. It used its hands to furiously scratch its back and moaned even louder. Teague stared while it moved its skinny arms up and down in an unnaturally fast way. Without warning, the creature looked back at Teague angrily and opened its mouth. Then it charged forward at him at about 20 miles an hour. It moved in an unnatural way, twisting and flailing its arms and legs as it ran towards Teague. “AAAAHHHH!” yelled Teague. He turned around and tripping, fell and landed hard on the sand. He jumped back to his feet, turned his head, and seeing that the creature was nearby and ready to lunge on him, he threw his hands up and screamed again. He picked his feet up off the sand and made a run for it. He sprinted like Usain Bolt in the 100m. He turned his head back and saw the creature now crawling like a monster forward towards him. The creature dove for Teague and grasped his ankle. Teague fell forward face-first on the sand. He turned to his back and within seconds the creature had its hands around Teague’s throat and was howling like a mad caveman.
The creature opened its mouth and roared, its sharp teeth pointing right at Teague’s neck. Teague covered his face with one hand and punched the creature in the face with the other. The creature groaned and rolled over on its side, its black hands releasing Teague’s neck. He jumped to his feet, a few tears rolling down his cheek. Teague made it to the sidewalk safely and broke for the hotel, trying with all his might not to look back at the monster. As soon as he arrived at the hotel he busted through the automatic doors, relieved, sweating, and his heart pounding. 
“Uh, Teague, are you okay?” asked a concerned Gretchen from behind the counter. Teague glanced at Gretchen and before he knew it he was talking faster than he’d ever talked before. “There’s something out there Gretchen! It started chasing me!” he cried in between deep breaths.
“What was it?” she asked.
“I have no idea! It was black and it was shaped like a chimpanzee! Only it was like four feet tall and it was moaning and it- it was scratching its back against a cactus! It was the scariest thing I’ve ever see! It was- it was a monster!” Gretchen opened her eyes in surprise and said, “Holy cow, Teague! You sound pretty serious. I’ve never heard of anything like that! Where did you see it at?”
Teague quickly responded, “It was just a hundred feet away from here! Listen, I swear I’m not making this up. I’m a terrible actor and I couldn’t possibly think up something like this. I mean why I would anyways? You believe me right? It’d really mean a lot if you did because my family definitely wouldn’t if I told them. I probably won’t even bother telling them.”
“Yeah Teague I believe you. But maybe it wasn’t some strange creature. Maybe it was really some guy in a suit just playing pranks on a Friday night. Oh wait, who’s dumb enough to use a cactus as a back-scratcher? Actually, maybe it was someone in a pretty thick suit so the cactus needles wouldn’t-” Teague interrupted, “there’s no way that was a suit, Gretchen. It was all too real. And that moan, oh man that was the scariest sound I’ve ever heard! On top of that, it about four feet tall! Do you know any teenager or adult who’s four feet tall?! Oh, sorry I interrupted you.”
This was all so sudden. Gretchen didn’t really know what to say. The news had certainly caught her by surprise. “It’s okay. Gosh I believe you and everything but I don’t know what to say. That sounds pretty scary… and weird.  Maybe I should go take a look outside. Or maybe I could walk you up to your room if you’d like.” “You don’t need to do either of those things. Don’t worry I’m not a baby. I’ll be fine. Thanks so much for the offer and for listening. If someone told me they saw a moaning apelike-creature in the middle of the night scratching its back on a cactus I don’t think I’d believe them. Good night!”
“Don’t worry Teague I believe you. Good night.”
Teague dashed down the hall and up the stairs to his room. He opened the door with his card, his hands shaking so much it took nearly five attempts just to get the card in the slot. He immediately flipped on the light and saw a note on the door. His heart throbbing, he slowly made his way through the room, as if making sure there was no one else in there with him. A million thoughts were swirling in his head “Why is this happening to me?! What are all these creatures I keep seeing? Where are they from, and what do they want?!” He read the note which said: Teague, you know how Grandma moved into town a week ago? Well we’re at her house and we’ll be back in the morning. We left a message on your phone. If you want to come on over, the address is 729 Maple Street. There’s chicken and salad in the fridge. See you soon. Love, Mom.”
“Of all the nights they could have could gone to see her it had to be tonight! Fricking Grandma!” He immediately took back what he said. He wasn’t really angry with his grandma, he was just stressed out and scared to death. He was much too scared to leave the room, much less go outside, start the car, and drive down to his grandma’s. Instead he hopped onto his bed and decided he’d sleep with the light on.
“How am I going to fall asleep after that? What the heck was that thing? Maybe I should drink some warm mi-” suddenly the light went off. Then it went back on. Then off again. It stayed off. Teague opened his mouth wide and pulled the cover over his face. He lay still and heard a thumping sound from above. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. A drop of sweat rolled down Teague’s face as he clenched his teeth. He tried not to imagine whatever was in the dark room with him. But one thing was for certain: he was not alone. Something yanked the blanket off of Teague and he kicked up in surprise and yelped. He peered up at the ceiling and saw a face looking down at him. The ghostly face stared at him with big, black eyes. It was the ghost of an old man. He had a three-foot-long white beard, and pitch black eyes that made Teague tremble in horror. The ghost opened his huge mouth and Teague saw he had no teeth. The ghost’s mouth now open, he let out a long, horrible moan. The old ghost then groaned in a sinister voice saying, “OOOOHHHH. UUUUHHHH. AAAAHHHH….” The old ghost-man was wearing a ragged gown, like one you get in the hospital. He had dark skin that had a strange blue glow to it. And it gleamed in the moonlight. He crawled across the ceiling in very abnormal and rapid way, almost like a giant spider! Teague watched in terror, hypnotized. All he could do was feel his beating chest. Too terrified to move, he felt as if he were about to die of fright. The old ghost-man dropped eight feet down to the floor and stared at Teague in the darkness.  The moonlight shining through the window however, Teague could see his horrible face. Without warning, the ghost got his terrifying face just inches from his and looked him up and down. Teague was too scared to even back away. He had his wide-open eyes locked on the brown face and black eyes of the ghost man. And Teague stared into the ghosts’ eyes, the eyes that seemed like an endless tunnel of darkness. The ghost man opened his toothless mouth again and whispered “She’s coming, Teague,” in his ear. Then he turned around and he jumped out the window. Teague watched in shock at what happened next.  The glass didn’t shatter. Being a ghost, the old man went right out the window with no trouble and slowly hovered away into the moonlight. Unable to believe what he’d just seen, Teague jumped out of bed and flipped on the light. He was too scared to even scream. He couldn’t make a sound. He wished he was just having a nightmare, but he knew it was all too real. He was indeed being haunted by paranormal creatures and ghosts. He tried to call Johnny or Doug but neither of them answered. Go figure. It was 12 in the morning. Teague’s phone suddenly vibrated loudly beside him and caused him to leap off the bed. He opened his phone and saw his mom had texted him “good night, honey.”
He sat wide awake on his bed just shaking with fear, his entire body numb. He considered heading down to the lobby and falling asleep on one of the couches by the fire place, but he was far too frightened to even move. He finally fell asleep at seven in the morning just as the sun was rising.
When he awoke about four hours later, he suddenly remembered what had happened just eleven hours earlier. He shuddered and didn’t want to accept what had happened. “I’ve got to tell someone about this! What did that ghost mean when he said ‘she’s coming Teague?’ How’d he know where I’m living? How’d he find out my name? I think I’ll take a walk to clear my head…” Teague quietly made himself a quick bowl of cereal and slipped on his shoes. Then he quickly dashed down stairs and out into the gleaming orange sun.

Blazing sunlight seemed to blind Teague the moment he took his first steps outside the hotel. “Judas Priest that’s bright,” he whined. A few blocks later, he passed by the library. He just began whistling an annoying tune when who should walk out with a few books but Dalia Hopkins. Teague hadn’t seen her and continued walking. “Teague!!” she yelled from across the street. He turned and faced her. “Hey good morning, Beautiful! I’m just out taking a walk! Want to join me?” “Sure, wait up!”  When she joined Teague, he immediately made a face as he gazed at something out in the distance. “What is it?” she asked. “Look at that big boulder over there. I walk past here every day and I’ve never seen that.” “Huh, I’ve never seen that boulder either.” Out on the sand about 200 feet away, was a large boulder about the size of a Geo car. “Strange… you want to go check it out really quick?” “Um, okay,” said a reluctant Dalia. The two friends strolled over the sand and past the cacti leaving footprints behind them. When they were about 20 feet from the boulder Teague looked up and gasped. “Holy cow, what’s that horrible drawing of?” asked Dalia. Across the surface of the boulder were two crude chalk-drawings that looked familiar to Teague. He gazed at the drawings and gasped, unable to believe what the drawings depicted. On the left side was a drawing of a strange, paranormal creature. It had a heart-shaped face and had long ears shaped like a jack-rabbit’s. It had two big eyes and a mane. It had a thick, twisted tail and was covered in scars and shackles. To the right a foot over was a tall human being covered in a great-big cloak. Only, instead of a human head, the person had a pig-head. The pig head had long, curly hair and two holes for eyes. Underneath the drawing of the human-pig were the initials “A.W.” Teague’s heart began to race and he choked in fear. “Dalia,” he gulped, “I’ve seen both of those creatures before. I’ve also seen those initials. I hate to admit, especially in front of a girl but, I’m so scared. I’ve seen both of them in the last few weeks.” Dalia looked at Teague, a shocked expression on her face. Although the news seemed very sudden, she immediately realized she believed him. He didn’t seem like the lying-type.   She responded to the news with a million questions on her mind. “Are you serious?! Oh my- when and where did you- Teague this is scary! Did you see them recently? How do you sleep at night?!” “What do you say we go back to the library and I’ll tell you all about it?” he asked.

For the last few days Dalia had gotten to know Teague a lot better. She had asked him a few weeks before who he typically hung out with.
“You know Johnny Wolfgang and Doug O’Conner? Those two guys are my best buds. We’ve been pretty good friends since second grade.”
“Oh yeah I know Johnny pretty well. I had Art with Doug last year; he seems okay.” “Well we’re going catch a movie at the cinema on Friday. You want to come? We’re going for pizza afterwards. We love eating you know? Only downside is we also have to run it off at the track.”
“Sure, I’d love to go with you guys!”  she’d said.
After the movie, Dalia had decided that Teague, Johnny, and Doug were some guys she didn’t mind hanging out with. And after about two weeks of getting to know them, the four were hanging out almost every other day. Once the next Friday night rolled around and the four friends were hanging out at Johnny’s, Teague decided he’d let Johnny and Doug in on the latest news of the boulder he and Dalia had seen.
  “….So now there’s a big boulder with the human-pig and the strange black creature drawn on it in chalk! It’s almost like a cave painting,” shouted Teague. “This is absolutely crazy! Maybe you’re not the only one who’s seen them! Maybe someone else saw them and drew them on some…. uh- on some boulder that magically appeared. How the heck did that boulder get there?! This is the craziest summer ever! Teague how about you show the boulder to me and Doug?” “That’s a good idea, Johnny. Let’s go guys!” said Teague. “Oh Teague, those drawings are so scary! I don’t want to go see them again,” remarked Dalia. “Hey just remember, Teague’s seen those two in real life. That’s at least a thousand times worse,” replied Doug.  “Okay I’ll be quiet now,” Dalia quickly added. And so the four friends headed out the door while Teague and Dalia led the way. “So Teague, you’re the only one you know of who’s seen these uh- paranormal creatures, right?” asked Dalia. “Yeah, you three are the only people I’ve told about them. Well I guess I told this one lady that works at the hotel. I don’t think my family would believe me so it really means a lot to me that you guys do.” “If you think about it, there might be a reason they only appear around Teague. Maybe they’re trying to warn you about something. At the same time maybe they’re just trying to wreck your life. I mean what with the whole “soon you’ll wish you were dead thing.” Maybe they’re just trying to scare you,” remarked Johnny. When the four friends passed by Pete’s Market an old man carrying several bags of groceries glimpsed at them and shook his head. “You kids shouldn’t be wandering around. That sun’s going to set real soon. I hope you four are heading home. Shouldn’t be walking around late at night what with this murderer in town.” Johnny pointed to Teague in response and said, “Stay out of this, old man. That murderer killed the construction guys rebuilding his house. And we’re going to find out who and for what reason they did it.” “You kids won’t find squat. Leave that to the cops,” the old man remarked. “Cops? You know ever since that murder took place they’ve been hanging around the doughnut shop even more than usual.” Johnny then pointed at Doug and continued, “Ask Doug he works there. Meanwhile we’re out here actually doing something about it. So if anyone ought to start heading home it’s you, cause it’s way past your bedtime, old man.”  “Lousy punk,” the old man scoffed before walking away.  When the old man was out of the hearing distance, Teague, Dalia, and Doug burst out laughing. “What’s so funny?” asked Johnny. “Dude Johnny, that was pretty awesome. You just burned that old man. I mean it was kind of mean, but it was pretty great at the same time.” Johnny just smiled at Teague’s remark. “Hey over there guys. There’s the boulder!” announced Dalia. The four friends started making their way to the boulder, silent as they crossed the red sand that seemed to glow under the setting sun. When they arrived, Johnny and Doug started shuddering in fear at the sight of the terrifying, crude drawings.
“Holy Cow! Look, there’s those initials again. A.W., the same initials in that text message!” Doug pointed out.
“Teague, I’ve believed you about seeing these creatures as of a few days ago when I was petting that black creature thinking it was Brutus. But there’s no way I can’t not-believe you now. I’ve never seen this boulder until today. I know someone else drew these two drawings because I can’t see you drawing these just to mess with us. Plus you can’t draw this good I’ve seen your artwork and it sucks. But who do you think drew these? Maybe someone else has seen these two- this uh- human-pig, and that animal with- oh man this is too much! That thing has got shackles and a chain around his neck!” yelled Doug pointing at the drawing of the first creature Teague had seen crossing the road at night. “Maybe they’re self portraits. I mean maybe those two creatures drew these pictures of themselves. What if they drew themselves on this boulder because they want to take over Frisius? They’re saying ‘hey, we’re here now. And we’re going to take over this place.’ Uh… sorry I’m letting my imagination take over,” said Doug.
“Hey you never know, Doug. That’s a very possible theory,” said Dalia.
“Yeah well said Doug,” the other two agreed.
Johnny added, “Let’s get out of here, guys. This is scary as heck. I’m going to have a hard time sleeping tonight. Kudos to you, Teague. If I had seen these two creatures I’d be in an insane asylum right now.”
“To be honest these two had nothing on that ape-thing that was scratching its back against a cactus. And they certainly had nothing on that old-man ghost crawling around in my room,” said Teague.
He continued, “Gosh guys, I’m going to be so scared when I get home and it’s time for bed. My family doesn’t know anything about any of this and when they flip that light off I’m going to be staring at the ceiling all night absolutely terrified.”
  Johnny spoke up, “Hey Teague, how about you and Doug come over to my house and we’ll stay up late since it’s Friday. You know, me and Doug will keep the light on until you fall asleep. But let’s get out of here, guys. I’m not going to be able to un-see these pictures for weeks!” After hearing this, the four friends turned around and started walking through the sand back to the sidewalk. The sun slowly but surely began to set. When the four friends got back to the sidewalk Teague said to Johnny, “Hey Johnny, thanks so much for the offer!” “Yeah anytime, dude.” A few minutes later Doug thought of something and thought he’d tell the others.
“Hey maybe these creatures won’t appear to you if you’re with other people. I mean, because they’ve only been appearing when you’re by yourself, right?” Teague responded, “Yeah! They’ve only been coming when I’m alone. Maybe you’re right!”
“Course I’m right,” replied Doug.
“Hey Teague?” asked Johnny. “Remember that text message you got from Danny Burkus’ phone? You know, the one that said ‘soon you’ll wish you were dead’ in that- what language was that, Doug?”
“Bakoshtangan.”
Yeah that, Bakoshtangan. Remember that?”
Teague said, “Yeah of course I remember. It said ‘klayesh komone khemosh khan.’” “Yeah, and didn’t you say there were initials at the bottom, possibly indicating the message was from someone else who was using Danny’s phone?”
“Yeah, at the bottom of the message was a dash mark with the initials ‘A.W.’ next to it.”  “Yeah of course!” yelled Johnny.
He continued, “A.W.!! I think I have a theory, guys! I think I know who that might be,” began Johnny. He considered his theory for a moment and he choked at the seemingly-crazy possibility. Looking at his friend’s curious faces with widened eyes, he continued. “Have you guys ever heard of ‘The Banshee of Frisius’?”  There was a moment of silence as Teague, Doug, and Dalia exchanged glances.
“The Banshee of Frisius?” asked Doug. “Doesn’t ring a bell,” he answered.
“Yeah, I’ve never heard of that either,” said Teague.
Dalia piped up, “I’ve heard that story! My older brothers used to scare me at night when they told it to me! I’ve never really believed in ghosts though.” Suddenly, a thought came to Dalia. A possibility filled her mind as to who “A.W.” might be. Then she looked at Johnny and let him know she was thinking the same thing. She had quite a horrified expression on her face.
“Oh my gosh, Johnny!!! You don’t think A.W. is- ” “I think so,” he responded. Curious as to what Johnny and Dalia were talking about, Doug thought he’d ask them. “What on earth are you guys talking-” “HEY GUYS, LOOK!” shouted a startled Teague. The others turned around and looked out at the sand dunes where he was pointing. “It’s gone,” he said. All four friend’s mouths dropped and the fear they felt nearly tripled.  The giant boulder, the one with horrifying drawings that they had been standing just a foot away from only a minute before, was no longer there. There, where it had just been sitting, was nothing but more sand.
 

Gasping for air as if they were out of oxygen atop Mount Everest, the four friends gazed out at the sand. “Oh my- that- that boulder was just right there! What happened to it? How could it have just- just disappeared?!” stuttered Dalia.
“Let’s get out of here!” yelled Doug. The four friends looked at each other and made a break for it. They started dashing down the street, the only light coming from the street lamps. The moonlight in the distance cast strange shadows off all the house tops and cacti.
At the moment, the only thing they were concerned about was getting home, and doing so as fast as possible. Their heartbeats increased from both running and from fear. In a matter of minutes they reached Dalia’s home. Johnny nearly ran into Teague as they had all halted at one spot without warning. It was about 9:00 at night, and Dalia’s father was sitting in the rocking chair on his front porch when the four friends reached the front of the Cisneros-Hopkins’s home. They stopped running and hands on knees, tried to catch their breath.
As Teague looked up at Mr. Cisneros-Hopkins, his eyes widened. He was Hispanic.  Teague had always wondered where the “Cisneros” in Dalia’s last name came from. Apparently she was half Hispanic. “There you are, Dalia” said Mr. Cisneros-Hopkins. “I was wondering when you would be getting home. Don’t stay out too late, alright? Hey, why are you four running anyways?” Doug looked up at Mr. Cisneros-Hopkins and was just about to respond when Mr. Cisneros-Hopkins said, “Well whatever reason it was, you boys better watch out, cause Dalia almost beat you and put you all to shame.” “Hey, she got a head start,” said Johnny.
“What are your names?” grunted Mr. Cisneros-Hopkins, referring to Doug, Johnny, and Teague. “I’m Doug,” he put his hand on Teague, “This guy here is Teague, and that guy there is Johnny.” “Hmpf. Nice to meet you boys. Okay well make sure next time you four hang out you don’t get home so late. I-”
“ANTONIO? IS DALIA HOME YET? HEY CAN YOU COME HELP ME OPEN THIS JAM JAR?” called Mrs. Hopkins.
“QUIT SCREAMING, WOMAN! YOU’LL WAKE THE WHOLE TOWN!” yelled Mr. Hopkins back at her. “That woman will be the death of me,” he muttered.
He got off his chair, grunted, and headed inside. Teague, Johnny, Doug, and Dalia, having had a moment to catch their breath, glanced at each other and suddenly remembered why they’d been running. They’d just seen two extremely disturbing drawings on a boulder, drawings of two paranormal creatures, creatures which Teague had actually seen in real life. And yet in no more than minute, as they were walking away, the boulder had somehow disappeared. Teague looked at Johnny and remembered there had been something on his mind.
“Hey buddy, what was it you were saying before I pointed out that the boulder disappeared and we ran away?” asked Teague. Johnny’s eyes opened wide and he remembered what he was just about to tell them before they made a run for home. “Guys, you aren’t going to believe what I thought of! I mean, not literally, it’s just too much to handle! It’s blowing my mind I can’t even-”
“Get to point, Wolfgang! Who do you think A.W. is?!” yelled Doug. He just wanted to know because he wanted to get home. And who wouldn’t at time like this?
With her eyes gleaming in the moonlight, Dalia looked at Johnny and said, “Johnny, you don’t really think A.W. is Arabella Winslow, do you? Because that’s what I think you’re thinking. And now that I think about it, I think you’re right.”
“Enough tongue twisters, what are you two talking about? Who’s Arabella Winslow?” demanded Teague.
“Keep your pants on, Teague! All in good time. Dalia, that’s exactly what I’m thinking. It’s horrible to think about, but what other explanation is there?” asked Johnny.
“I don’t know. The idea is just too fantastic. I can’t believe this is really happening. This is so scary!” Dalia wanted to cry but she resisted the tears and said, “Johnny, you should tell Teague and Doug that story so we can fill them in.”
“I like your thinking.”
Johnny turned to Teague and Doug. “Guys,” he began, “Let me summarize the story of Arabella Winslow really quick. Some people nickname her “The Banshee of Frisius…”
October 1996….

Mr. Winslow was just tucking into his mouth-watering steak at the dinner table when he glanced at the clock. “Hmmm… those two should have been here an hour ago.” It was a quarter past ten at night and Mr. Henri Winslow was awaiting the arrival of his wife Helen and his 13-year-old daughter Arabella. Except for the light above the dinner table, all the lights in his house remained off. Henri had been feeling pretty bad since Monday and so decided to reward himself with a big steak for surviving a lousy week. Today was Friday, and he had some big plans to celebrate the weekend. He began soaking his medium-rare steak in steak sauce and was just about to take his first bite when he heard a knock at the door. He flipped the front porch light on and opened the door to see a man wearing what looked like a fire-fighter suit standing there. “Good evening Mr. Winslow. How are you doing tonight?” “Um, fine thanks. You can call me Henri. How are you doing yourself?”
“Not too good I’m afraid. My name is Eugene Esplin. I’m an EMT for the county fire department. I’m afraid I have some bad news regarding your wife.”
“Uh oh. That doesn’t sound good.”
“Henri, your wife Helen was in a car accident about a half hour ago. She was coming down the highway and um, fell asleep at the wheel. Paramedics arrived immediately after we got the call from witnesses. I hate to say but, her injuries were very severe. We did everything we could. She passed away almost immediately after the incident.” “Oh,” Henri began. Immediately tears began to run down his face. “I um- what about Arabella? Is my daughter okay?” “Henri, I am so terribly sorry for your loss. Luckily now that you mention it, your daughter Arabella is fine! She’s very, very lucky to be alive. We’re just keeping her at the hospital while she rests overnight and she’ll be fine to take home in the morning!” Henry smiled at the fire-fighter and rubbed his eyes. He sniffled and said “Well, I guess there’s some good news after all even during times like this. Thank you, Eugene.” “Good night, Henri.” And with that Eugene gave Henri a hug and left his home.

*****

“Hey Daddy,” asked Arabella.
“Hmmm?”
“Do you think you’ll ever get remarried?”
“Oh um, I’m not sure sweetheart,” replied Henri. Arabella had just turned 13 a week earlier. She had been taking the news of her mother’s death very well. The father and his daughter sat across from each other at the dinner table, each of them enjoying a plate-full of spaghetti and meatballs.
“You know, with your mother’s passing and everything this has been a pretty tough week. At the same time I’m just so glad you’re okay. If there’s anything I can do to make you feel better just let me know.”
“Thanks, Dad. I’ll be okay.” Henri kept his next thought to himself.
“What am I going to do?” he thought. “How am I going to take care of her by myself? I’m out of a job! I can’t take care of her on my own. I need a temporary solution to get by. That’s all I need.”
When the phone suddenly rang, Henri jumped up from his chair and quickly answered, hoping whoever was calling had some good news for him. He could really use some now. “Hello?”
“Henri, my man. It’s Danny Burkus. What’s going on?!”
“Oh hi, Danny.” Henri sighed, “Just trying to think of how I’m going to get a job. You probably heard about the big layoff at my office last week.”
“Oh I didn’t hear about that. I did hear about your wife’s passing though. I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks, Danny.” Henri listened on the phone as Danny asked him if he’d like to get together with him and his other good friend Roark to go watch some football.
“I don’t know Danny. I have a kid here at home.”
“Alright suit yourself, Henri. I’ll call you later. Alright good-” Henri cut Danny off short, saying, “wait I’ll come with you and Roark! Let me just um-” he glanced at Arabella, who hadn’t been listening to him talk on the phone.
“I’ve got to go, sweetie. You want me to get you a babysitter?”
“No thanks, Dad. But can I watch T.V. and stay up late since it’s Saturday?”
“Sure thing. If you need anything just call me. Oh and if you need a snack later there’s- well you can just have more spaghetti I guess.” Henri opened the door. “See you later!” he called.
“Bye, Dad!”

Arabella had her eyes glued to the T.V. screen. Her father had yet to return home. She ran her hand through her jet black hair and wondered how she would spend her weekend other than watching T.V. She always tried to take advantage of the weekend given school had started a few weeks earlier and free time was now scarce. “I wonder where Dad went with his friends” she thought. As Arabella thought this two things happened at once. The T.V. went off by itself and a bedroom door upstairs slammed shut. Arabella jumped on the couch as her heart began racing. Her father was still out with Danny and Roark. How had the door slammed shut by itself? Or was there someone else in the house? A light upstairs flipped on. “Is someone up there?!” Arabella called. There was no answer. “Dad?! Are you home?” she yelled. There was still no answer, and it was the silence that really drove her fear. Then she heard a loud creak coming from upstairs. Arabella clutched the sides of the couch and become overwhelmed with terror. Then she heard the thumping noise. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. Someone or something was coming down the stairs. Whoever or whatever it was crawling down the stairs in a strange way… almost like a caterpillar! Little did Arabella know the person crawling down the stairs had recently become possessed by a demon. Over time, the person became driven into a crazed state. While they used to be sensitive and loving, they were now no longer in control of their actions. All they really wanted was to feel happy again. And they had turned to the worst possible source for that desire: alcohol. Arabella glanced over at the staircase just as a face poked out from just behind the wall. It was a familiar face. The man stared at Arabella. His cold icy eyes opened wide and he smiled an evil smile… a smile that stretched from ear to ear. Arabella screamed louder than she’d ever screamed before. Still staring into her dark eyes, the man laughed and in a sinister voice yelled, “SURPRISE!” The man jumped up and charged towards her.  He picked her up off her feet by her armpits and stared into her eyes. Arabella gasped, “Please don’t kill me! I haven’t done anything wrong!”
“Well I heard your mom died a few days ago. Maybe now you can join her,” said the man. And he laughed his evil laugh. Arabella’s heartbeat sped up even more when she noticed the butcher knife in the man’s other hand. He raised the knife up at her. Arabella opened her eyes wide in fear.
“Please have mercy on me!” she yelped. The man frowned and said “I’m so sad. I just want to feel happy again, you know? I think this might do the trick.” That said, the man grasped his butcher knife harder and pointed the blade at the terrified girl. With one sudden movement, the man took a big swing and brought the knife through her neck. The swing was just hard enough to decapitate the poor girl. Her head detached and dropped to the floor. He dropped her body on the rug and laughed his terrifying and evil laugh again. It echoed through the living room and traveled up the staircase and filled the whole house. It was evident the once kind and generous man was now a possessed murderer. As for Arabella, her body was now twisted in a strange way on the now bloody carpet. Her lifeless head rolled across the floor like a bowling ball rolling down a lane. Her long black hair now partly covered her face. Her head stopped rolling after a moment or two and remained still on the carpet. The man dropped the knife and got down on his hands and knees and crawled across the floor, pushing her head to the side with his left hand. He crawled up the stairs in his strange, caterpillar-like way. He made a strange screeching noise and flipped the upstairs light off with his foot. All the lights off, he crawled into the bedroom and hid under the bed.

That same night, just two hours later, Mr. Henri Winslow entered the living room and gasped at the sight. He cupped his hand to his mouth and felt his heart stop. “oh my- what happened here?!” He took one look at the head on the floor and opened his mouth big and wide. “AAAAAHHHHH! ARABELLA!!! OH NO! WHO DID THIS TO YOU?! I- I HAVE TO CALL THE COPS!” He looked around the living room and froze in terror and shock. Arabella’s head, partly covered by her long, dark hair, sat upright on the floor, staring at Henri. Her mouth and eyes remained wide open. Her body lay just three feet away. It had soaked the carpet with blood that had dried soon after she was killed. Henri suddenly heard a rustling sound outside and looked out the open window on the other side of the room. It was about 15 feet away. Slowly but surely, a horrible face rose up until it was looking inside the house. “WHAT THE- ” yelled an extremely startled Henri. But now, as the face from just outside stared at him, Henri was no longer just startled… he was now more terrified than ever before. A chill of terror swept over his entire body. The face from outside belonged to a horrible creature. The creature had big, red eyes that glowed in the dark. It had long, deep cuts all over its heart-shaped face.  It had long ears shaped like a jack-rabbits and had long hairs both stringy and curly spouting from the perimeter of its terrifying, black face, forming a mane. Overwhelm with fear, Henri found himself only able to stutter his next words. “G-go away! Go back to where y-you c-came from!” What Henri didn’t know was that this black creature outside his window came from Hell.  He was unaware it wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon. Lastly, he was uninformed that this creature had a name. And the creature’s name was Karzonawk. Karzonawk was a male, and he could understand and speak both English and its native language, Bakoshtangan. Given Bakoshtangan was a language originating from Hell, Henri would soon find out he was incapable of translating the statement the creature was about to speak to him. Karzonawk, still staring at Henri from outside, could easily jump into the open window and get closer to him. Instead he opened his mouth and began speaking in a deep, evil voice. Slowly he spoke to Henri saying, “Gasha quar flaust drakas.” In English this meant “I know who did this.” Karzonawk was informing Henri that he knew who killed Arabella. Karzonawk lowered his head slowly until Henri could no longer see him. He crawled across the Winslow’s backyard and climbed up the fence. The creature turned around once on top and took one last look at the Winslow’s home. Then he jumped off the fence top and was soon out of sight……

While Arabella Winslow, AKA the “Banshee of Frisius,” was well known throughout town, no one really knew who killed her. No one in Frisius knew what ever happened to her father, Henri Winslow, and what actions he took following her death. He seemed to have disappeared shortly after she was murdered, unable to handle the news of his daughter’s death. As a matter of fact, the knowledge that she was dead was only backed up by a mere photograph….

The next night….

It was a dark and silent night. The moon was full and the cacti cast their strange shadows under the streetlights along the sidewalks. Huffing and puffing, the man looked all around him, a feeling of paranoia washing over him. He was carrying a very large burlap sack against his back. He carried a second sack in his right arm. He had decapitated Arabella Winslow in her own living room. He was now carrying her body in the large sack, and her head in the smaller one. He stopped in front of the largest cactus around and, using his shovel, began to dig and dig. About an hour later, he tossed her body in the first hole and her head in the smaller, second hole. After finishing the burial, the man grabbed his shovel and took off for home. Feeling a little arrogant, he figured he had nothing to worry about. The police and investigators would never catch him…
Two Hours Later….

Arabella Winslow lied in her crude grave. Although deceased, her ghost arose from the sand just two hours after her killer departed. Her headless body was now floating a foot above the sand. It searched for her head so that she might see. “Down here!” cried a horrifying, muffled voice from below the sand. It was her head calling to her body. Arabella’s body followed the voice. She dug through the sand with her hands until she reached her head. She picked up her head and placed it firmly on her neck, but it immediately rolled off and fell back down. Arabella’s head screeched, “Guess I’ll just carry my own head around till I can figure something out.”      Having died a very violent death, Arabella’s once beautiful face was no longer. She was now angry, and that anger appeared on her now terrifying face. It glowed a light blue hue and her mouth remained open at all times… even when she wasn’t speaking. “How did I die? Why am I buried in the sand? Did someone kill me?” Arabella asked herself. To her, the whereabouts of her death were a mystery.
Mr. Rutgers, a 25-year-old man, was just taking an evening walk. He happened to be a journalist for the local newspaper. Coincidentally, he also happened to be carrying his camera. It had been a long day at work and he was just heading home after hitting Cal’s for a burger and a shake. Tired, he stared down at his loafers as he walked up the slightly elevating sidewalk. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw bright white light passing by. Startled he asked, “Hello?! Is anybody there?!” He then caught glimpse of a headless Arabella Winslow, now a frightening ghost who was floating past him. She was carrying her head in her arms. As he looked at Arabella in shock, a flood of horror swept over him. He placed his hands over his head and screamed “AAAAHHHH!!! It’s- it’s  a g-g-ghost!!” Somehow he managed to take a picture of her before sprinting away, yelling as he ran down the street, waking up a handful of neighbors in the process.    He sprinted down the street until he reached his home. He tripped on the steps leading up to his front porch and swore. He tried frantically to open the door, but to his surprise it was locked. “Are you kidding me?!” he cried. Over and over he rang the doorbell until his wife Eloise answered. “Gerald, what on earth is all the ruckus about? Haven’t you heard of using your key?” she asked. “Ain’t nobody got time for that! I just saw a ghost! Not just any ghost. She was carrying her own head because she was headless! Look at my camera, I caught a photo of her! Mr. Rutgers showed his wife the photo and she gasped in horror. “What is this world coming to?!” she asked.

The next day, Mr. Rutger’s photo earned him a raise at it appeared on the front page of the newspaper. Above the photo read the headline: “HEADLESS GHOST SPOTTED IN FRISIUS.” The next night, he was found dead in his bed, no signs regarding how he had died. His wife Eloise had found him lying in bed that night, his body twisted like a pretzel. His wide-open eyes and mouth indicated he had died of something horrifying. Perhaps he had died of fright. The thought that maybe the ghost he had seen had killed him was now a debate going around town. Over the next few weeks, several other citizens had passed away, dying with that same look of terror on their face as the journalist. What the citizens didn’t know was that the one who had killed the five people in the last week was indeed Arabella. She killed anyone who came into contact with her. As long as they avoided seeing her ghost at all, they’d be okay. Regardless of this, an unavoidable fear was sweeping across Frisius at the thought of a mysterious ghost floating by in the night.
Now one of Arabella’s best friends, who had had a sleepover at her house on several occasions, was tucking into bed one night when she saw Arabella’s ghost float past her bedroom window. She immediately recognized the ghost as Arabella. There was no mistaking her white satin dress she liked to wear during their sleepovers. Yet now as she floated by, she was headless. And she carried her now horrible, terrifying head. Arabella’s friend screamed at the sight of the now deceased Arabella. She was able to tell her parents of the sighting before she too died of an unknowable cause. There was no proof that the headless ghost was Arabella Winslow’s, but the rumor spread throughout Frisius and soon became a popular theory, a paradigm almost. And that paradigm was correct.
Arabella’s school mates had wondered where Arabella had been the last few weeks, as she obviously hadn’t been at school. The attendance office had called Henri multiple times stating Arabella’s absences were unexcused. When word of a headless ghost floating around town at night about once a week reached Frisius police officers, they decided they’d ask Henri about the matter. When they visited his house, to their surprise, there was no one there. There were no signs of anyone having ever lived there. The officers entered the home as the door had been unlocked. When they flipped on the light, all they saw was an empty house. Then they saw the living room carpet all covered in blood….

Johnny had just finished telling Teague and Doug about the story of Arabella Winslow. The two boys were full of questions. Doug put his hand up on his head, feeling as if his brain were about to explode. As they stood there quietly, their mouths and eyes indicating the story was too much to handle, Teague finally broke the silence. “What about her parents? Whatever happened to them? Her murderer was never caught? How come no one has seen her in 15 years?” “Easy there, Teague. I have no idea. Some people say her mom died in a car crash shortly before she was murdered. As for her dad, well some people think he ran away after she was killed. He just sort of disappeared after her death. It’s said the news was too much for him to bear, so he left.”
“Was her dad home when she was murdered?” asked Doug. “No one knows,” began Johnny. “I would think he was probably away. I’m sure Arabella probably screamed when her murderer came to her. All that screaming would have gotten her dad’s attention I would think. And who’s dumb enough to kill someone if their pop is home?” “That’s a good point,” remarked Doug. Johnny spoke up again saying, “Teague, now that you mention it, I’m not sure why no one has seen her in 15 years. But I think you’re the first one to see her since 1996.”
“What do you mean, Johnny? I haven’t seen Arabella’s ghost. I’ve seen a black creature with neon-red eyes, a cloaked human who has a pig-head for a head, a black ape-like creature that uses cacti as a back scratcher, and even the ghost of an old man who crawled around my hotel room like a spider. But I haven’t seen Arabella.” “Oh but you have, Teague,” said Johnny.
“How do you figure?” asked Teague.  Johnny took a deep breath and said, “I’m saying Teague that I think Arabella Winslow is the human-pig. So, I think you have seen her.”
Teague, Doug, and Dalia looked at Johnny in absolute shock at what he’d just claimed. His theory certainly caught the three of them by surprise. “Think about it guys,” continued Johnny as he turned back to Teague.  And suddenly, to emphasize his proof, Johnny was now pointing at Teague and talking loudly. He wasn’t exactly yelling, but he was sure talking louder than people usually talk. “Teague,” he began, “she texted you in a foreign language saying ‘soon you’ll wish you were dead!’ She came to your bedroom window at the hotel and scratched that same phrase on the glass. And she’s the one who killed all the construction workers rebuilding your house, just like she killed those five people back in 1996! That’s why her initials were signed below that drawing of the human-pig on the boulder. I’ll bet she drew that as a self portrait and signed her work!”
Teague cupped his hand to his mouth upon hearing Johnny’s theory that the human-pig was none other than the infamous Arabella Winslow. Doug, who like Teague, couldn’t believe what he was hearing, glanced at Johnny and said, “But Johnny! You said that Arabella’s ghost is headless, and that she walks around carrying her head so she can see where she’s going. How can the human-pig be Arabella if Arabella is headless?!” “I already thought that out, Doug! Okay, you guys have heard the story of La Llarona, right?  You know the Latin American legend? She’s the weeping woman who drowned her kids in the river and spends her nights weeping and searching for them?” Teague, Doug, and Dalia looked at each other and nodded.
“Well,” began Johnny, “I don’t know if you guys knew this or not, but there are a few different versions of that story. And in one of those versions, La Llarona is given a curse for her misdeed. And because of her curse, she is given a horse’s head to replace her own beautiful face. And since Arabella killed five innocent people all those years ago, I think maybe she became cursed too! Now she has a pig head for a head! What do you guys think?”
Teague took a deep breath. His heart pounded against his rib cage. He opened his mouth and searched for words. He stuttered and finally said, “I think you’re right, Johnny. I mean the initials “A.W.” were right under that drawing of the human-pig. And who else could A.W. be?”
“Maybe it’s a typo for A&W, You know the root beer brand,” said Doug. The other three started laughing. A little humor goes a long ways in a terrifying situation like this. Doug spoke up saying “Johnny, I think you’re right also. I guess A.W. must be Arabella Winslow. And Arabella must be the human-pig.” The four friends thought for a moment and sighed. This news was almost too much for them to handle. They all thought that in a matter of seconds they would go insane.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not getting any sleep tonight,” remarked Dalia. “Me either,” said Teague, although despite his agreement, Teague wasn’t that scared after all. He’d already seen the two creatures drawn on the boulder in real life. Seeing drawings of them didn’t scare him too bad. Still, he couldn’t help but feel 100% responsible for his friends being scared. “Guys, I’m sorry for showing you that boulder today. I wish I didn’t. I mean, we’re all so scared now. If I wasn’t being haunted by paranormal creatures, I’m sure you guys would all be having a blast this summer.”
“Hey don’t feel bad, Teague! I mean you’re right. Tonight has been very terrifying. But I was already kind of scared anyways. After all, after the human-pig, uh I mean, after Arabella killed all the guys rebuilding your house, well I had a hard time sleeping. Everybody in Frisius did but it’s not your fault. You can’t help some ghost coming and striking fear in the town. I’m here for you. That’s what friends are for,” said Dalia.
“Well said, Dalia. Teague, we figured out who the human-pig is. We’re on a roll. We should try and figure out why she keeps haunting you next! There are still a lot of questions that need answering,” said Johnny. “Yeah!” agreed Doug. “We still need to figure out what all these paranormal creatures want and why they’re lurking around town.” Suddenly another question that needed answering came to Teague. “Why had Arabella Winslow, who now had a pig head for a head, text him “soon you’ll wish you were dead” in a foreign language? What on earth could a ghost he didn’t even know possibly have against him? Was he next on her list of people to murder?”

“What a night!” remarked Dalia, who began shuddering. The four friends couldn’t help but talk a little louder than usual as they were feeling very uneasy and terrified. “I think I’ll hit the sack now guys. Maybe we should get together tomorrow so we can get closer to solving all these um, unanswered questions. Good night, guys! Good luck on getting some sleep. I know it’ll be hard for me.” Dalia turned around, headed up to her porch and entered her home. The three young men turned around and walked back down the driveway and to the sidewalk. The three were scared of the night, yet they were all at least glad none of them were alone. As Teague thought about all the ghosts and frightening creatures he’d seen in the last week or two, he only wished he could hear a nice joke so he could laugh. He could really use a good laugh to take his mind off his fear. That thought in mind, Doug broke the silence by saying, “Hey, anyone else notice that Mr. Hopkins grunts a lot?” Teague and Johnny made eye contact and burst out laughing. That remark was just what Teague needed. Within only a few minutes, the three boys had reached Johnny’s house. Getting some sleep would be a little easier if they knew they weren’t by themselves. Everybody won. Teague called his mom real quick and Freddy answered. “Hello?” asked Freddy. “Freddy, it’s Teague. I’m crashing at Johnny’s for tonight. Tell Mom I’ll be back in the morning.” “Fine,” said Freddy, and he hung up.
Johnny’s mom was in the kitchen and upon seeing Teague and Doug said, “You boys must be having a sleepover, huh? Okay well have fun. Just don’t make too much noise cause I’m heading to bed now. Good night.” “Good night, Mrs. Wolfgang!” called Teague and Doug in unison. The three friends got out some sleeping bags and got all ready for bed. They thought to lighten the mood that they’d all go around and tell their best jokes before they went to sleep.
Back at her home, Dalia crawled into bed, her heart still beating and her teeth clenched. The poor girl was nearly frightened to death. She thought maybe she’d go fix a PBJ sandwich before bed to take her mind off that horrible boulder with the two crude chalk drawings. She went upstairs and came back down in five minutes with a half-eaten PBJ sandwich. She settled back under the covers and fell asleep in about 20 minutes. Little did she know that there was something outside. The black ape-like creature had crawled on its knuckles towards her home. It hopped on its knuckles as an ape might do. Its lanky arms were longer than its short black legs. Its short fir was a little frizzy looking, as just a few days earlier it’d used a cactus to relieve an itch on its back. The evil, black ape-like creature crept up to Dalia’s bedroom window. It peered inside and watched her as she slept….
 

When Teague awoke the next morning, he found himself gazing up at the underside of Johnny’s kitchen table. “What the heck, how’d I get down-” suddenly the most wonderful aroma surrounded Teague’s nose- pancakes! The sweet smell of pancakes, jam butter, and maple syrup made his mouth start watering. Mrs. Wolfgang poured more butter on the pan and noticed Teague lying under the kitchen table. “Teague, did you wake up on the wrong side of bed?!” she asked laughing.
“Yeah I guess so,” replied Teague. “I have a bad habit of waking up in different places than I fall asleep in.” Teague got up to his feet and joined Johnny and Doug in the living room. The three friends gobbled down pancakes and played a few rounds of video games. “I don’t know about you guys but I got zero sleep last night,” remarked Johnny. “Tell me about it,” agreed Doug. “Those fricking chalk drawings on that boulder scared the heck out of me. I’ll bet you slept like an angel Teague. You’ve seen those two creatures in real life. I’ll bet seeing them in drawing form didn’t affect you one bit.” “Yeah they weren’t too bad,” said Teague. “I wonder if Dalia slept okay.”

Johnny looked up at his mom as she brought another round of pancakes into the living room. “Mrs. Wolfgang you’re awesome,” said Doug. “If my mom found me eating on the couch she’d start tweaking out.” To this Johnny replied, “Well mom’s act a lot different when you have friends over.” “True,” said Teague. Johnny looked at his phone and said, “holy cow it’s only 7:30! Why are we up so early? Hey wait, Mom? Why are you up and making breakfast so early?” “Well me and your dad are leaving early to head down to the mall,” replied Mrs. Wolfgang. “Oh the mall. Well didn’t we just down there a few weeks ago after we went to Costco?” “Yeah but didn’t you hear the news?” she asked. “News? No what is it?” asked Johnny.

Back at the hotel, Freddy was in the middle of brushing his teeth when his mom called his name about fifty times. “Just a minute, Mom!!” he yelled back. He started gargling his mouthwash and began sputtering upon hearing his mom scream his name one last time. “FFFRRREEEDDDYYY!!” she called. “WHAT?!” Freddy roared back. “Do you want to go to the mall with me, your dad, and Kelly?!” Freddy thought for a moment and pictured himself groaning next to his mom while she compared prices on granola bars. He imagined a three hour shopping trip that could easily be done in twenty minutes had his mom not had to compare prices on everything she bought to end up saving five bucks in the end. He was just about to yell “heck no!” when he realized something- there’d be girls around his age there! “Hot babes…” he whispered. “FREDDY?! DO YOU WANT TO GO OR NOT?!” “ALRIGHT!” he called and slammed the bathroom door.
A few blocks away from the hotel, Dalia had just woken up. She sprang up out of bed panting and sweating. She’d just had the most horrible nightmare. The drawings of Arabella the human-pig and the black creature Karzonawk had haunted her dreams. And how glad she was to finally wake up and realize it’d only been a bad dream. She quickly got dressed into her day clothes and headed downstairs. Her dad was up and eating toast and reading the newspaper. She sat down across from him and noticed the newspaper’s big headline on the front page. It read: “Frisius Police Still on the Hunt.”
“Hmmm….” Dalia thought. “I don’t think the police are ever going to find out who killed those poor construction workers rebuilding Teague’s house. And if we told them it was none other than Arabella the former headless ghost, they most certainly wouldn’t believe us.” She looked up at her dad and realized he was up a little earlier than usual. It was after all, a Saturday. Her folks weren’t usually out of bed until 12:00 at the earliest. “Well you’re certainly up pretty early,” she remarked. Mr. Hopkins grunted and said , “yeah well me and your mom are heading over to the east side to hit the shopping mall.” “You? Shopping? With Mom? There’s  something wrong with that statement.” “Well the only reason I agreed is because we could use a nice flat screen TV for the living room,” said Mr. Hopkins. “Why because football season starts up soon?” asked Dalia. “Exactly!” replied Mr. Hopkins. Dalia rolled her eyes and realized that in a month or two her living room would be occupied by about 10 of her dad’s friends every Sunday night as the football fans would be huddling together wearing their different colored NFL jerseys. Her dad’s friends were fans of all sorts of teams: The Broncos, the Raiders, the Patriots, the Seahawks, you name it!
Dalia’s phone buzzed a few minutes later just as she was taking a swig of orange juice. She looked at the contact name and saw that it was from Doug. The message said “hey Dalia, are your parents going out of town at all today?” Dalia texted back saying “yeah they are! Ha-ha-ha how did you know that?!” Doug’s next message explained that there was apparently some huge sale at the mall and so flocks of parents were heading off today. It was like Black Friday in July. Everything from flat screen TVs to can openers to socks was on sale at the Evergreen Mall east of Frisius about an hour away in the big city. It seemed as though 90% of the Frisius parents were dragging their kids with them in a race to the mall for the best deals. Within minutes Frisius would be a ghost town. As Doug was in the middle of telling Dalia his folks were going to the mall, Teague got a message from his mom asking if he’d like to go shopping for the deals with them. Teague glanced at Doug and said “looks like all our parents are going.” Johnny said “hey you know what? If we wanted to figure out what the deal is with all these paranormal creatures, today would be a good day. If we stay here while all our parents are out, we’ll be able to stay out to discuss the matter as long as we want because we won’t have a curfew or anything.” Doug thought about what Johnny said for a moment and said “hey that sounds like a great idea. How about I ask Dalia if she wants to meet up today? We can see if we can get closer to figuring out why the human-pig, AKA Arabella Winslow, killed all those construction workers. “Alright I’ll ask her now.” Dalia read Doug’s last message and replied with gusto. “Sure thing!” her message said. “Where should we meet up at?” Upon sending the message to Doug, Dalia realized she didn’t really want to discuss such a horrifying deal. At the same time, the recent events that had been haunting Teague for the last few weeks was beginning to make summer very interesting. Prior to getting to know Teague, Johnny, and Doug better with what started out as a “blind date” with Teague, Dalia’s summer had been very dull and boring. And even trying to solve the mystery behind a massacre by a vengeful ghost, as terrifying as that was to talk about, beat shopping at the mall with her mom…
Teague, Johnny, Dalia, and Doug were all sitting together on the couch at Doug’s house. All four of the friends’ parents had left a half hour before on a race to the mall. Given their parents were gone, it really was an ideal day to get together to discuss some of the possibilities as to why Arabella who they now knew as the human-pig, had killed the construction team that was rebuilding Teague’s house after it had caught fire. It was likely their parents wouldn’t be back for another few days. Suddenly, a new thought came to Teague’s mind. “Hey you know what? I’ll bet we could find that article online! You know the one about Arabella Winslow’s ghost. The one with the picture of her headless and floating around at night!” “Hey that’s a good idea Teague! How come none of us thought of that earlier?!” yelled Doug as he jumped up on his computer chair. He quickly accessed the internet and typed in “Headless Ghost Spotted in Frisius” in the search engine. Teague, Dalia, and Johnny huddled around Doug and they all silently read the article’s first few paragraphs:

Nighttime in Frisius has never been a time to fear. Crime rate has never been a problem in town. Stroll through the neighborhood in the evening and you may find adolescent couples taking strolls and little children playing hide-and-go seek and a number of other night games. But then again, a recent photograph may have an effect on the amount of night time activity in Frisius. Gerald Rutgers, editor of the Frisius Herald, just two nights ago snapped a picture of what many people are now calling
“The Banshee of Frisius” (see picture below right.) the figure, who according to Rutgers is “apparently the headless ghost of an adolescent girl” was reportedly floating above the ground across Main Street just as Rutgers was heading home after work. As if spotting a headless ghost floating around Frisius at night isn’t terrifying enough, what may be even more frightening are the events that have since followed. Since this photo was shot two nights ago, the death of three Frisius citizens has occurred.
The cause of the resident’s deaths is currently unknown. Many people think this headless ghost that was spotted may be responsible. There is also a rumor going around town regarding who this headless ghost just might be, that is, if it really is a ghost and not just a hoax. Given the suspected person is a minor; we won’t be revealing their name. It is apparent however, that the popular theory as to who the ghost is, (with emphasis that it’s unknown whether or not the ghost is real,) has become widely accepted around town. One thing that’s for sure, it seems everyone in Frisius is wondering the same thing: is there really a headless ghost floating around town at night?

After having read the first half of the article, Dalia quietly said, “it was Arabella. She got beheaded and then murdered those people.” “Well duh,” thought Doug upon hearing this. Dalia gazed at the photo of the headless Arabella with eyes as wide as two dinner plates. She could feel her heart beating against her ribs. All four of the friends could. It was indeed a very disturbing photo. As Johnny stared at the horrifying picture, he said “that photo’s even scarier than those chalk drawings,” and Doug nodded in agreement. “You know,” began Doug, “there’s got to be some reason for Arabella and those creatures appearing to you Teague. I don’t think they’re just appearing to scare you. I mean, I thought that earlier, but after consideration, I think maybe they’re trying to get a message across to you. But the big question is, if that’s the case, what is it that they’re trying to tell you? And why are they trying to tell you in particular? I mean, you’re not really affiliated with them…right?” Dalia thought for a moment and said, “You guys don’t think the police officers would believe us if we told them it was Arabella who murdered those construction workers, do you? It’s hard to believe. And if they asked for proof, well we don’t really have any. I mean, sure, there’s the picture of her and her initials on that boulder. But now that the boulder’s gone, that doesn’t do us much good. “Yeah,” began Teague. “That’s just how it works in the movies isn’t it? A group of kids discover something hard to believe and tell the police but they never believe them and just laugh at them. We shouldn’t ever bother, Dalia.” “I guess you’re right, Teague,” she replied. “You know what I really want to know?” asked Johnny. “Why did Arabella kill all those men? They didn’t do anything to her. Back in 1996, she killed anybody who saw her, okay we know that much. But the only way those workers could see her is if she was hanging around while they were working. It’s as if she was looking to kill them. And another thing, how come no one has seen in her 15 years and now all of a sudden she appears to Teague with a new pig-head? And whatever happened to Danny Burkus, you know the only worker who escaped from Arabella? I wonder if the police officers are still looking for him.” Dalia glimpsed at Johnny and said, “yeah they’re still looking for him. I read it in today’s paper on the front page. The police officers said that the hoof prints on the floor planks of Teague’s soon-to-be new house look the prints of a domestic pig. I think that confirms that it really was Arabella who killed them.” Johnny looked over at the table and saw the newspaper. “Hey Dalia,” he asked. “Do you mind if I look at today’s newspaper?” “Go ahead!” she said smiling as he sat down at the table and started reading the front page. “For crying out loud,” said Teague, as he furrowed his brow in frustration. “We just keep thinking up new questions about everything that’s going on. How are we supposed to find out all the answers? We can’t draw any conclusions because we don’t know squat. Do you know what I mean? Sure Arabella’s the human-pig we figured out that much. But how are we supposed to find out what her and all the creatures that appear in the night want? They haven’t appeared to anyone except me. The only thing I can say is that they want to ruin my life or something; I mean what little of a life I have. I just can’t figure out what they want on my own though. The only thing I can do is thank you guys for believing me about seeing them.” Teague rubbed his eyes and quickly wiped them before his friends could notice he was crying just a little bit. Fortunately for him, his friends didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah it’s a pretty tough case to solve,” agreed Doug. “I feel like we’re a bunch of lawyers trying to crack a case.” “You know what, Teague? I think you’re definitely right. They must be trying to ruin your life what with the whole “soon you’ll wish you were dead thing” in that mumbo jumbo language of theirs. But hey, I think we should just stick together and keep at it. If we know they’re trying to ruin your life, at least we know they probably don’t want it. I don’t think they’re planning on killing you is what I’m trying to say. I don’t know if that helps at all but that’s what I’m thinking,” said Johnny. Teague glanced at Johnny and smiled. He couldn’t help but feel a little happier. The last few nights, he had feared for his life. And now, he had to agree, he could be terrified of the creatures all he wanted, but he had no need to fear that he’d lose his life to the insidious beasts from Hell.
Johnny, having given his input on the discussion, turned back to the newspaper and continued reading the front page. He chuckled at a quote in the article titled “Frisius Police Still on the Hunt.” The quote was by the police captain and read the following: “If you examine the floor planks of the house that’s currently under construction, you’ll notice a pattern of what appears to be hoof prints around the scene of the crime. We’ve come to the conclusion that at some point, there was what our detective believes to be a domestic pig at the construction site. However, that doesn’t tell us officers very much about what could’ve happened and how all the workers exactly died. Unfortunately, there is a serious lack of evidence regarding who or what killed the poor men, which correlates with the minimum amount of information we’ve covered regarding the actual killing process, but we’ll stick close by and continue to search for answers. We won’t be giving up any time soon.”
Johnny turned to the classifieds page and paused as he looked at an advertisement for a yard sale. An odd feeling suddenly occurred to Johnny as he perused through the advertisement. For some strange and unexplainable reason, he felt like he was supposed to go to the yard sale. He felt he just had to be there, like he had no other option. “I have to go to that yard sale! But why? I hate yard sales. So why do I feel as if I have to go to this one?” he thought to himself. He turned to his friends and said, “Hey guys, I just read an advertisement for a yard sale a few blocks down. I think I’m going to go check it out.” “Yard sale?” said Teague. “Since when do you go to those?” “I don’t know,” Johnny replied. “I just feel like I’m supposed to go there; like it’s destiny or something. I’ll catch up with you guys later.” “Hey Johnny, we’re meeting up for pizza tonight at Mario’s! There’s still a lot more to discuss about what’s going on. Be there or be square! 8:30 sharp!” yelled Doug. “Okay I’ll be there! That’s just what I need. I’m getting paranoid with these stupid creatures that are lurking around. And I haven’t even seen them in real life. Those darn those chalk drawings scarred me for life! Later!”
With that Johnny rushed out the door. Doug snickered and said, “Johnny going to a yard sale? Man I think he’s going crazy because Johnny hates those! Too many bad memories of seeing his mom get ripped off when she sells his dad’s tools for like a buck a pop.”
Johnny was bolting down the sidewalk looking like a dog chasing a Frisbee. “Why am I going to a yard sale again?” he thought to himself. In about a minute he arrived at the house and nearly tripped on one of the boxes. “Oh great no one else is here!” he thought. “Awkward…” He went through the boxes like nobody’s business and saw nothing but garbage. He turned to the old lady running the sale and said “excuse me ma’am but don’t you have anything good here? This is low even for a yard sale. Do you really think people want to buy this crap? That China hutch is 50 bucks? Give me a break.” To this the old lady replied, “Check out the DVD’s and shut your trap. There are some decent movies in there.” Johnny grunted and looked through the DVD’s and saw about 10 different Scooby Doo DVDs.
“Now we’re talking,” he mumbled. The moment he said this, Johnny noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He sauntered over to a particularly large box and gazed at an exotic-looking wooden board. The board was sticking halfway out of the box and almost seemed to be calling his name. It was a strange and indescribable feeling, and yet, Johnny couldn’t help but look at the board and wish it were his. He kept his eyes glued on the board and grew extremely curious. He remembered hearing a lot of stories about teenagers who’d used one before.  He couldn’t quite remember what these types of boards were called. The old lady caught his eye and said, “Now how did that get in there?! I thought I threw that out years ago!” She jumped out of her chair and snatched the board out of the box. Upon seeing this Johnny yelled, “Wait, Ma’am! I think I’d like to buy that! My friends and I are really going to need that!”

The old woman running the yard sale had refused to sell Johnny the wooden board. “It’s much too dangerous,” she had said. “I don’t want to be held accountable if you mess with this thing and it ruins your life.” Johnny wanted to say “why don’t I just buy it at my own risk?” but instead he just watched as she threw it in the garbage bin. “As soon as she heads back inside, I’ll nip it from the trashcan,” Johnny thought. Johnny decided he’d head home and come back to the house at dusk to snatch the board he wanted so bad. He left the woman’s yard a few minutes later and went home. He spent the whole afternoon watching TV from the couch eating bowl after bowl of Chow Mein.
Once the sun began to set, he slipped on his red and blue sneakers in a very sneaky manner and made his way outside. As soon as he stepped off his front porch, the memory of the mysterious boulder he’d seen a few days earlier, the one with the chalk drawings of two paranormal creatures which had somehow disappeared, came to his mind. Now Johnny was suddenly shaking with fear and found himself hesitant about heading back to the old woman’s house. “Maybe I should just turn around and go back home,” he thought. But Johnny thought for a moment and decided that the fear that came with going back to smuggle the wooden board was worth it if it meant being able to bring the board back home. So Johnny continued sauntering down the driveway and was soon hunching his way down the sidewalk. To lighten the mood, he nervously began singing Daydream Believer by The Monkees. As he continued, he looked all around at the black sand dunes that surrounded him, and the sight scared him enough to start sprinting down the sidewalk. He finally made it to the old woman’s house after what seemed like an hour when in reality it had only been about five minutes. The “yard sale” sign was now lying in the moon-lit grass. Johnny glimpsed up at the giant moon and shuddered in terror again. Why he was so frightened he had yet to discover.  He spotted the trash can and quickly approached it, eager to start making his way home. His heart pounding against his chest, a new thought came to Johnny: “what if the garbage trucks already came by and now the board isn’t here?” Johnny’s heart sank as he realized this was very possible. On second thought, the garbage trucks wouldn’t be coming by until Tuesday.  There was no reason the board wouldn’t be there. And the woman had been anxious to get rid of the old thing. It’d been sitting in her attic after all. She’d thought she’d already thrown the board out years before. Johnny relaxed a little and gingerly took the trash can lid off. He peered inside and saw there was nothing there. The wooden board he’d wanted so bad was gone…

While Johnny Wolfgang had proceeded to spend his whole day eating Chow Mein and watching “Untamed and Uncut,” his three friends Teague, Doug, and Dalia had spent the day trying to get closer and closer to figuring out what Arabella and the paranormal creatures wanted and why they kept haunting Teague. It had been an hour or so since Teague and Dalia had left his home, and Doug was now putting in a few hours of work at the doughnut shop before he’d be meeting his three friends at Mario’s. The friends had originally planned to meet there to continue discussing the main issue with Arabella and the strange creatures, but given they didn’t seem to be making much progress what with the lack of information they had, they now planned to just have fun and take their minds as far away from their fear as possible. Doug couldn’t wait to head on over to Mario’s Pizza to meet Teague, Johnny and Dalia there. He’d never actually been to Mario’s but he remembered Johnny saying awhile back that their pizza was “unbelievable.” In the mean time, Doug had just a half hour more of making doughnuts before he could lock up and leave the shop. Business tonight was unusually slow, and he was the only employee at the shop tonight. His uncle, who was also the shop owner and thus his boss, trusted him to go ahead and lock up at closing hours.
Doug continued making the doughnuts when he looked out the kitchen window and saw that there were no customers yet. There hadn’t been any for nearly an hour.  The last customer that had come in had been the Frisius Chief of Police. He and Doug had made small talk and Doug had asked him if he and the cops were having any luck with figuring out who killed the construction team rebuilding Teague’s house. The Chief had told him they weren’t getting anywhere as there had been no evidence that provided any suspects. Doug thought about telling him that he and his friends were sure the murderer was none other than Arabella Winslow, but he thought if he did the Chief would just laugh at him. He finally grew a spine and told the Chief what he and his friends were thinking.
To his dismay, the Chief hadn’t laughed at him at all. He’d simply looked at him and said “I’m not sure if I believe in ghosts or not, kid. The thought has never really occurred to me. But given the strange circumstances, I’d almost say that that is very possible. Unfortunately, there’s just no proof. We don’t want to strike any more fear in the citizens by releasing that theory to the press. I wish there was more we could do, but there’s just not very much evidence at the crime scene.”
Having said his piece, the Chief bid Doug good night and Doug thanked him for listening. Now, an hour later, Doug only wished someone else would pop in for a visit so he wouldn’t be alone. Realizing he was the only one in the shop seemed to frighten him. He thought about the description Teague had used to describe Arabella and her new pig-head, and the thought made him terrified. He tried not to look out the window as every time he did he could just picture Arabella and her hideous and cursed pig head staring in at him. Johnny set aside a dozen doughnuts in a box which he’d go lay out on display. He picked up the box to set them out when he realized he had to use the bathroom pretty bad. He looked in the box at the dozen doughnuts and his stomach growled. He suddenly realized how hungry he was. No problem, he’d be meeting his friends at Mario’s in about 20 minutes. Doug left the kitchen and headed into the bathroom, his heart racing as he soon pictured Arabella’s new head again. How he wished he could just get the image of out his head.
When Doug finished up in the restroom, he headed back into the kitchen, whistling to try to lighten his fear. He glimpsed at the box of doughnuts sitting on the counter and peered inside. To his horror, the dozen doughnuts that had been sitting in there just moments before were gone. “WHAT THE- ”   He’d only been gone from the kitchen about a minute. Had someone snuck inside and eaten them? If so, they’d have had to snatch them pretty dang fast. Regardless, Doug’s heart had started to race as he looked around and couldn’t find the doughnuts anywhere. He could care less if the doughnuts were gone, but what he really wanted to know was who took them, and he was now more scared than ever before. His eyes opened wide as saucers and his teeth clenched. Who had taken the doughnuts while he’d been gone for just a minute? Doug looked out the kitchen window at the display and saw that he hadn’t set them on display and simply forgot. So where had the doughnuts gone? Doug looked out the window at the drive through on his left and yelped in surprise. The window was open. It’d been closed before he headed to the rest room. Someone had somehow opened the window, snuck inside, helped themselves to a dozen doughnuts, and snuck back out the window all while Doug had been in and out of the restroom in no time. “What the heck is going on?!” Doug screamed. He dashed out the kitchen and looked around to see if the thief was still inside the shop. “HELLO?!” he called. “Is anybody in here?! Look, I don’t care if you stole a few doughnuts just show yourself cause I’m freaking scared!”  Doug bolted back into the kitchen. He couldn’t stop shaking. What on earth was going on? Doug glanced back out the window and screamed at the top of his lungs.
Staring into Doug’s soul from just outside the window was the horrifying face of the black-apelike creature. When he saw it’s horrible face, he immediately realized this was the same creature who’d charged after Teague a week or two earlier as it’d relieved an itch on its back using a cactus. Its entire body was coated in short, black fur. Teague hadn’t seen its true face and so hadn’t described it to his friends. But now that Doug was staring right at it, he could confirm it was the most horrible and terrifying face he’d ever seen. Its eyes were huge, black and sunk into its face like the craters of the moon. It had a large mouth that at the moment remained wide open, revealing its yellow-brown teeth. Its face was full of cracks and wrinkles and upon seeing it Doug’s heart felt as if it were about to burst. He backed up into the pantry behind him and tried to scream, but he was unable to make a sound.
It was as if he had suddenly been cursed and was struck dumb. The ape-like creature made a strange gesture at Doug with its arm. It almost looked like it was beckoning him. It started to grunt as if it were stressed out about something. It then frowned at Doug and its eyebrows slanted down towards its black holes for eyes. After showing Doug it was frustrated, the creature looked up towards the sky and began moaning. It was a deep and horrible moan that sent even a larger chill up Doug’s spine. The creatures moan echoed in Doug’s ears as he covered them until the beast calmed down. Finally, Doug found himself able to speak. He opened his mouth and began to stutter. “Ww-what do y-you want? Wh-why are you  here? Where- the- wh-where do you c-come from?” the ape-like creature stopped moaning and grunted several times. Then it grinned an evil smile at Doug. Much to Doug’s surprise, the creature opened its mouth and began to speak. It slowly spoke to him saying, “Gas-kon esh-ka, Doug.” Then the creature opened its mouth larger than ever before and began to laugh. As it laughed and taunted Doug, its ghastly shrieks traveled to all corners of the restaurant, causing Doug to cover his ears again, for the horrible guffaw was the most terrifying sound he’d ever heard. It was too much to bear and just as Doug believed he’d die of fright, he spoke once more to the beast.
“How-how do y-you kn-know my name?” Doug asked as he trembled to the floor and chattered his teeth. A drop of sweat began to run down Doug’s brow as the creature continued staring at him. It spoke once more saying, “Frok Neish Arabella.” The word “ARABELLA” in particular, echoed in Doug’s ear. This horrible beast personally knew Arabella Winslow, the ghost with the hideous pig-head. The creature, in one jerky movement made a strange gesture at Doug with its hands, turned around and crawled away faster than Doug could sprint the 100 m in track. It moved just like a chimpanzee might, and as it hobbled away in a twisty and unnatural way, Doug noticed it looked just like “Jacob’s Creature,” the supposed juvenile Sasquatch in the photo taken by Rick Jacobs in Pennsylvania. He jumped to his feet as soon as the creature was out of sight. He checked his phone and saw it was exactly time to close up.
Doug threw on his jacket, turned off the lights, locked up the front doors and jumped in his dad’s green Toyota Tacoma. He locked the doors and started the engine. The moment he started the engine, he heard a scratching sound coming from the backseat. Doug’s heart skipped a beat and he clutched his chest. Was this really happening? Doug squinted his eyes and made a face. For a moment he pretended he hadn’t heard the scratching sound. He felt his chest again and a drip of sweat rolled down his temple as he continued trembling in fear. Then the poor boy heard the scratching again. He slowly turned his head around and opened his mouth in shock. There it was again. It was staring at him from the back seat of his truck. It was none other than the ape-like creature that’d paid him visit just moments before. The creature stretched its skinny black arm forward and patted Doug on the shoulder. It must have stretched its arm out at a hundred miles an hour, and upon being touched Doug flinched and flopped forward in his seat, somehow striking his head against the steering wheel. The apelike creature manually unlocked the door, opened it, and hopped out faster than a person can even exhale. His heart racing and his temples throbbing, Doug placed his trembling hands on his head and screamed. He ran his hands through his curly hair and exclaimed to himself, “This-this isn’t- happening. This is all-all just- just a bad d-dream!” he stuttered. But in his conscious, he knew this was all too real. While his heart beat against his ribs, Doug stomped the gas pedal and took off for Mario’s as fast as he possibly could. What Doug didn’t know was that at the same time he was driving like a maniac towards the restaurant, one of his friends was just arriving home. And that friend of his would soon experience the same terror he was experiencing as they would soon be coming home to a heart-stopping surprise…..

Doug’s billiard-ball sized eyes shot back and forth as he looked around while sweat continued to pour down his frightened face. He’d just arrived at Mario’s in one piece despite running several stop signs. Everyone who sat dining looked at him strangely as they noticed his extreme fear. He finally spotted Dalia at a table with Teague. She looked up and waved at him with a smile that stretched a mile wide. Given Doug was standing in the middle of the aisle, a man tapped his shoulder and said “excuse me, young man.” Upon being touched Doug jumped out of his socks and screamed, “AAAAHHH!”  He turned around breathing heavily and panting like a dog. The man gave him a strange look and began laughing.
“You must have seen that new horror movie in the theater, huh?” Doug thought for a moment and hesitantly said, “Uh yeah. I’m kind of uneasy right now. Sorry, you just startled me is all.” As Doug apologized to the man for being so jumpy, Dalia and Teague, having arrived a few minutes before him, exchanged weird glances at each other. Doug looked around at the interior of Mario’s. The lights were dim and the floor was checkered. A giant stage stood twenty feet in front of them. The karaoke show would be starting in a half hour. “What’s going on with Doug?” thought Teague and Dalia. Doug spotted his two friends and nervously approached their booth. He sat down next to Dalia, shaking like a rattlesnake’s tail as he slowly took a seat. After a moment or two of awkward silence, he finally felt brave enough to talk about how he was feeling.
He turned to Dalia and then to Teague and said “Uh, guys?  Do you want to know why I’m so uneasy at the moment?”
“Sure. What’s going on, Buddy?” asked Dalia, her voice significantly higher than usual. Doug looked around the restaurant and noticed that about 90% of the customers were sadly attempting to squeeze down their laughter by pretending to cough or clear their throats. He soon realized they were still laughing at his over-dramatic reaction to the man politely asking him to move. He shook off their laughter and thought about where he should start with his story about encountering the black ape-like creature at the doughnut shop. Before he began, Dalia asked “Are you okay, Doug? You’re really shaking a lot right now. How come you’re so scared, Bud?”
Just as she asked this, all three friends heard someone enter the restaurant. Whoever it was pushed the door open a little harder than they probably meant too, as the right double door slammed into the wall making a loud bang. Everybody turned around to see who’d just entered. The person entering had done so in a way that created a high profile. Much to the surprise of Teague, Doug, and Dalia, the person who’d just entered was none other than Johnny. He was about 15 minutes late.
As he walked towards their booth, the three friends observed that his eyes were shot open wide. The expression on his face was one that gave the friends an uneasy feeling. He looked as if he’d just witnessed Death himself. The same look of terror that showed on Doug’s face also seemed to appear on Johnny’s face. “Are you okay, Johnny?” asked Angelina, one of the waitresses, who was also in the same grade as Teague, Johnny, and Doug. Johnny slowly turned to her and flashed her an extremely creepy smile. He gave her the thumbs up and waddled toward the booth where his three friends sat. When he sat down next to Teague, it was apparent that the four friends were all as of right now, scared out of their minds.
Johnny and Doug were both sweating like pigs and their eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of their sockets. Teague and Dalia gazed at each other, both terrified and curious as to what was going on with Johnny and Doug. Why were they suddenly so scared?
Dalia glimpsed at Johnny and said, “Okay you guys are really starting to freak me out now. What’s going on? I’m sorry you two are scared but you’ve got to tell me what the deal is!” Doug shrugged his shoulders and finally stopped chattering his teeth. “Okay. You want to know what’s going on? I’ll tell you. I just saw-” Doug paused. He looked to his left. Then he looked to his right. “Uh, do any of you happen to have a pen?” he asked. “Sure,” said a confused Dalia as she handed him a pen from her sky-blue purse. Doug got to his feet and strolled over to the front counter, running his hand through his curly hair as he did so.
“Hey there, Doug!” said an enthusiastic Angelina. She looked at him curiously and asked, “how come you and Johnny look so scared? And appear so paranoid? Did you two see that new horror film in the theater? What was it called again?” Angelina chuckled and Doug responded with “uh well it’s kinda top secret. I mean, it’s hard to explain.”
He began chattering his teeth again and noticed hundreds of Goosebumps appearing all over his forearms. It wasn’t even cold. It was actually rather hot in the restaurant. “Okay, well what can I get for you?” asked Angelina. Doug, trying to sound casual and not jumpy as he apparently was, asked her for the junior crossword puzzle that came with the Kid’s Menu.  Teague, with his keen hearing, overheard his request from their booth about 20 feet away and began snickering. “Uh yeah I need that crossword puzzle for my little bro,” Doug explained. “Hey you don’t have any siblings!” yelled Teague from across the restaurant. “Shuuut uuup,” called Doug.
“Here you go, Pal,” said Angelina as she gave him the crossword puzzle and bit her lip to keep from laughing. As Doug made his way back to the both, she turned around and cackled. When he sat back down next to Teague, Doug began furiously writing on the backside of the puzzle. “Oh okay, you just needed paper to write on. You didn’t actually want to do the kid’s puzzle,” remarked Dalia.
“Hey, maybe he’ll do it once he gets home.  Children just love the junior crossword puzzle,” joked Teague.
“Well what are you writing?” Dalia asked.
“I don’t know,” he quickly replied.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I mean I’m writing down what the creature told me. It uh, spoke to me in another language. It sounded a lot like- um like Bakoshtangan. Remember what that is? It’s-it’s one of the languages people speak in Hell. I’ll c-call up my cousin Tracy and ask him to trans-translate what it said. I’m-I’m, um I’m just writing it down so I don’t forget.”
The news that Doug had seen a paranormal creature caught Dalia and Teague by surprise. Johnny on the other hand, who appeared hypnotized, didn’t seem to react in any way. “You saw a creature?!” asked Dalia in disbelief. It was then that she and Teague began bombarding Doug with questions.
“What’d the creature look like?! Maybe you saw one of the creatures I’ve seen! So you kind of have to believe me now, right?!” asked Teague. Before she knew it, Dalia was asking “What did it say to you? When did you see it? What were you doing at the time?!”
“Alright!” yelled Doug. “Keep your pants on. Before I tell you the story, here’s the scariest part: the creature knows my name! Look at this!” Doug showed Dalia and Teague the paper.
They both read the two statements and gasped. “Gashkon Esfa, Doug,” read Teague. “Frok Neish Arabella,” read Dalia. “Oh my gosh!” she screamed after reading the sentence.
“How’d the creature figure out your name? And why did it mention Arabella?! You know what this means? There really is a connection between Arabella and these scary creatures! They must be affiliated somehow! Oh, Doug, please tell us what happened! I want to hear the story!”
“Okay,” he replied. He let out a deep breath and continued.
“So just a half hour ago, I was working the night shift at the doughnut shop. I was the only employee there and a little later I realized I had to use the restroom. So I headed to the restroom and was back in the kitchen in 35 seconds flat. The first thing I noticed when I got back was the window was open. Before I left to use the restroom, it’d been closed. That meant someone, or in this case, something snuck in while I was out. Then I peered inside the doughnut box I’d left full of doughnuts and saw it was empty…”

Giving the terrified teen their undivided attention, Teague and Dalia listened closely as Doug nervously finished up his chilling tale. He ended his story saying, “So after the apelike creature jumped out of my truck, I stomped on the gas pedal and got over here as fast as I could. I think I might have ran a few stop signs but luckily there weren’t any cars on the road at the time.” As Teague and Dalia listened, they only wished that this was all just a nightmare and that they could wake up right now in their own beds and with the sun in their faces. At the same time, Teague certainly had a case of mixed feelings. While he was frightened at the idea of the apelike creature paying Doug a visit, he was also in a way excited. Now that Doug had seen it too, the two of them could relate to each other. In addition, if two of the four friends had seen the same mysterious creature, then it’d be a lot easier for Johnny and Dalia to believe them both, as opposed to three of them feeling obligated to believe the testimony of just Teague, which had been the case up until now. 
It just so happened that while out of the four friends only Teague and Doug had seen any of the creatures that had been appearing in the night, the creature had indeed appeared outside Dalia’s window a few nights before. It’d crept just outside her window and watched her as she slept. As for the creature, how it figured out Doug’s name was beyond any of the four friends. Now that Doug’s story was out, there was still one more question that needed answering: Why was Johnny so scared? Dalia made eye contact with Johnny who quickly darted his eyes away. “What happened to you Johnny? Doug told us why he’s scared, but what’s the matter with you?” Johnny glimpsed down at the table and quietly said, “I’m so scared guys.”
“We all are, Johnny,” began Teague. “But you in particular seem even more scared than Doug. Come on what happened to you? You can tell us anything. I know you probably don’t want to, but we can’t help you out unless you spill it. So what’s going on? Is it something you saw?” asked Teague.
“Yeah, Johnny,” began Dalia. “Was it something at the yard sale you went to this morning?” Johnny looked down at the table and started playing with the parmesan shaker. He inhaled deeply and mumbled, “I think someone’s watching me.”
Teague, Dalia, and Doug raised their eyebrows and gasped. “What do you mean watching you?!” asked a stunned Dalia. “
Someone or something was in my house tonight,” replied Johnny.
“How do you know? Did you see whoever or whatever it was? Did they vandalize your house or something?” asked Doug.
“It was on my couch. It hadn’t been there when I left,” whispered Johnny.
“Alright Johnny you got to quit being so vague, man. What the heck is going on?” demanded Teague. “
Okay,” began Johnny. “You know how I went to that yard sale this morning?” His three friends nodded. “Well it kind of has something to do with something I saw there.” Johnny’s friends moved their heads together and listened closely as Johnny prepared to tell them a little story.

*****

Johnny gazed down at the bottom of the garbage can in disappointment. His heart sank as he carefully placed the lid back on. He’d snuck out of his house in the night feeling very paranoid only to find out that someone had beaten him to the board in the garbage can. “I wonder what happened to the wooden board,” he thought. Johnny glimpsed at his arm and noticed his Goosebumps. It was a rather cold night, especially for being in the summer. He wished he’d thrown a jacket on over his T-shirt. Johnny looked around him at the cacti and dunes. He couldn’t help but feel frightened again. “I wish I was home right now,” he whispered.
This thought in mind, a sudden scream behind Johnny made him leap up and yell. “HHHHEEEEYYYY!” came the high pitched voice. The old woman who had been running the yard sale was charging forward at him holding a rolling pin. Johnny opened his eyes wide and screamed. He dove in the bushes and out of the old woman’s way as he screamed “WHAT THE-?!” As he took cover in the bushes, the frustrated old woman asked in a demanding tone “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” she screamed. Her eyes were nearly bulging out of her sockets. She immediately looked in her hand at the rolling pin after asking this. The old woman’s voice softened and she said, “Oh I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to hit you with this. I was just baking cookies is all when I saw you through the window looking inside my garbage can and immediately knew what was going on.” “How big of cookies are you making that you need a fricking rolling pin?” Johnny asked. The old woman dodged his question and said, “Listen kid, why are you so interested in that board? Don’t you know what something like this can do to a person’s life? I’ve been looking for it for years so I could throw it out. That very board you want drove my daughter insane years ago. How it ended up in my yard sale is beyond me. But I’m going to make sure no one else ever has their life ruined by that evil thing. Not if I can help it at least.” “
“You’re too late. The board is gone,” replied Johnny. “What do you mean gone?” spat the old woman. “The garbage isn’t collected for another few days.” The old woman opened the lid and looked inside. She too realized someone had taken it.

*****

Johnny listened to the old woman chew him out for another couple of minutes. Finally when she let him go, he slowly waddled down the path towards his home. He didn’t exactly know what to think. Who had snatched the board from the garbage can? Sure, he had his own reasons for wanting the board based on some circumstances. But why would anybody else want it? Johnny suddenly frowned at the realization that he still couldn’t remember what the name for these types of board was. “I should have asked that crabby old lady,” he muttered. That thought in mind, Johnny slowly approached his front porch when he looked at the front window of his home at a strange surprise. His jaw suddenly dropped.
Johnny had left the lights off when he left his house. At the split second he noticed that the lights were now on, whoever was inside turned them off so that it was dark again. This confirmed someone or something was in his house, and they had flipped the lights off so they could make a quick getaway now that they realized Johnny was back. Johnny quickly unlocked the door and dove inside. He turned the light on and nervously asked, “Is- is any- is anybody here?” Johnny darted his eyes towards the back door. It was just slightly opened. He dashed towards the door and looked around outside. The very first thing he saw were the tracks in the sand leading away from his house. They were hoof prints. “Arabella…” Johnny whispered as he gasped. He gazed up at the full moon and the stars and fell to his knees. And he started to shake. And he shook, and he shook, and he shook. Had Arabella Winslow, the half-human half-pig, really been in his house? Johnny slowly got back on his feet and bolted inside. He slammed the door and locked it.
Johnny opened his mouth even wider at the next thing he saw in his living room. There it was. It was on his couch.  The wooden board that had disappeared from the garbage can was now sitting on the cushion. He read the name carved into the board’s box. Now he remembered what these boards were called. “Ouija,” Johnny whispered. “They’re called Ouija boards.” And again, it almost seemed to be calling his name. Had Arabella Winslow brought him the Ouija board he’d wanted? Johnny tilted backwards as if he were about to faint. If it really was her who’d just left his house, how did she figure out he wanted the Ouija board? And how did she find out where he lived?
Johnny looked at the clock and realized he’d be late to meet his friends at Mario’s. And thank goodness it was time to go because Johnny needed any excuse to leave his house. It was now the last place he wanted to be. “This isn’t happening!” Johnny stammered. “There’s no way that she was just in my house!!” Johnny could not stop shaking. How would he get any sleep that night?
Johnny opened the front door and scampered across the porch and down the driveway towards his car. As he did this, Doug had just entered Mario’s in a way that called a lot of attention to himself.

*****

Johnny had just finished telling the story of coming home to find that someone, supposedly Arabella Winslow, had been in his house and left him the Ouija board he’d wanted. As he finished telling the story, Teague, Dalia, and Doug stared at him in disbelief.
“Let me get this straight,” began Dalia. “You think Arabella the human-pig went into your house and left you an Ouija board on your couch?!”
“It sounds stupid when you say it in that tone of voice, but I’m telling the truth. Someone snuck into my house and left it on my couch! Then I went outside and saw hoof prints leading out my backdoor!”
“Sorry Johnny! I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic… I believe you and everything! I just don’t want to… if the ape-creature visited Doug, and Arabella was in your house, well maybe one of them will pay me a visit next!”
Doug snapped his head up and said, “Hey Johnny, how about we head back to your house after we eat and check out the hoof prints! I want to see them!”
“What you need proof or something?!” spat Johnny. “I’m not lying, bro,” he said angrily.
Teague glanced at Johnny and asked, “Hey Johnny, why did you want an Ouija board anyways? Haven’t you heard of what those things can do to people?! What were you thinking?”
Dalia gave Teague a dirty look and said, “Come on Teague, don’t give him a hard time. He’s clearly scared…”
“Give Teague a break, Dalia,” groaned Doug. “He’s seen things none of us have seen. He’s had to deal with these creatures and ghosts longer than any of us.”
“I also saw the ghosts of that old man and woman,” stuttered Teague.
“I wasn’t giving him a hard time,” remarked Dalia.
“What about me, Dalia?” asked Doug. “I saw that ape-thing. It was in the back of my truck for Pete’s sake. It’s not just Johnny that’s scared you know.”
“I never said that!” declared Dalia.
“Come on Johnny, tell us why you wanted that board!” bellowed Teague.
“I thought maybe we could somehow use it to contact Arabella and ask her why she’s haunting Teague,” replied Johnny.
“But do you even know how the board works, like how you’re supposed to use it?”asked Dalia.
“No but-”
“Well that sure helps,” scoffed Doug before Johnny could finish.
“Hey shut up guys. He’s just trying to help me out. That means a whole heck of a lot,” said Teague.
“Yeah guys I’m just trying to help,” agreed Johnny.
“But what if we tried that board out and got cursed or something?” whimpered Dalia.
“Do you really think I care, Dalia? These creatures are already haunting me anyways. They’re haunting all of us now, not just Teague. Well except for you… you haven’t even seen any of them!”
“Well they might come visit me next! Don’t forget that!” announced Dalia.
“Hey Johnny, come on don’t be like that. Dalia’s really scared too. Plus she’s a girl.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Teague?!” asked Dalia, suddenly frowning.
“Give me a break Dalia… I’m just defending you!” cried Teague.
“Yeah Dalia, quit overreacting!” exclaimed Doug.
“Well you know how the old saying goes,” began Johnny. “For every male action there is a female overreaction!”
“Johnny… this isn’t a time for jokes!” yelled Dalia.
“Who said I was joking?” sniggered Johnny.
“Shut up Wolfgang,” agreed Doug. “This is serious!”
“Hey,” began Teague, “Humor goes a long ways when we’re all freaked out!”
“I’m sorry Johnny, but I’m not using that Ouija board!” said Dalia.
“Don’t be a chicken. We should all try it out,” piped Doug.
“Don’t call anybody names, dude,” sneered Teague.
“Yeah Doug,” agreed Johnny.
“It’s okay guys. He’s just frustrated,” said Dalia.
“Well we’re all frustrated!” shouted Teague.
“I know that. It’s just-”
“Yeah well try having that ape-thing in your own car, Teague!” yelled Doug.
“Oh yeah, Doug?! That thing chased me to the hotel like 100m!” shouted Teague.
“Why don’t you try having Arabella sneak in your house while you’re out!” roared Johnny.
“You don’t even know if that was her, Johnny!” snapped Doug.
“Yeah, Johnny! Plus I had that old man ghost get all up in my face in my hotel room!” exclaimed Teague. “You didn’t even see her!”
“Come on Teague. Don’t be like that,” said Dalia.
“Be like what?!” demanded Teague.
“I agree with Dalia,” remarked Johnny.
“Johnny, you shouldn’t have gone back to that lady’s house for that stupid board!” yelled Doug.
“He has a point, Johnny,” Dalia mumbled.
“Guys, again, he’s just trying to help,” announced Teague.
“Who said he wasn’t?!” spat Dalia.
“You kind of implied that,” said Johnny, looking at Dalia.
Doug looked at his three friends and shouted, “Alright, guys! Come on we’re better than this! We’re all being jerks right now. All four of us are well-known at school for being really kind people! Let’s just take a deep breath and-”
“How am I supposed to sleep at night knowing Arabella might come back and visit me?!” demanded Johnny.
“Teague’s been dealing with them longer than any of us,” Dalia reminded Johnny.
“That’s rich coming from someone who hasn’t seen jack squat,” uttered Johnny.
“Shut your mouth, Johnny!” yelled Teague. “Remember, she’s still seen that boulder with those two freaky drawings. Plus I’ve seen more than all of you combined!”
“What do you want, an award?” spat Doug.
“Oh be quiet, Doug. At least no one was in your house. Again, that old man ghost came into my hotel room!” replied Teague.
“Yeah but remember Teague, that ape-like creature snuck into the back of his truck!” piped Dalia.
“BIG FRICKING DEAL!” Yelled Johnny!
“Hey, that’s still pretty scary,” said Teague.
“Yeah Johnny!” agreed Dalia. “Don’t be mean!”
“That wasn’t mean,” said Doug.
“Hey, I’m just trying to help, Doug,” replied Dalia.
“Maybe he doesn’t want your help,” snorted Johnny.
“Okay, Johnny, I think we would all agree that that was a mean thing to say,” said Teague.
“No it’s fine,” muttered Dalia.
“You’re right, Teague. That was pretty rude. Sorry Dalia,” said Johnny.
“Don’t beat yourself up,” uttered Doug.
“I’m not beating myself up.”
“Chill out Johnny,” groaned Teague.
“Quiet, Teague,” grunted Doug.
“You be quiet,” mumbled Teague.
“Guys, come on! Let’s just-”
“Stay out of this, Dalia,” said Doug.
“Don’t be like that!” exclaimed Johnny.
“Be like what?!” asked Doug.
“GUYS, SHUT UP!” yelled Teague.
“YOU SHUT UP!” yelled Johnny and Doug simultaneously.
“You should let them settle their differences, Teague,” said Dalia.
“Says the one who hasn’t seen any of these scary creatures!” yelled Doug.
“That has nothing to do with anything!” snarled Dalia.
“You’ve only seen like two, Doug!” Johnny snapped.
“You’ve only seen two yourself!” hollered Doug.
“Guys,” Dalia cried, “does it really matter? We’re all scared, so why does it-”
“Dalia hasn’t seen any of them in real life!” yelled Teague. “But you don’t see me giving her a hard time!”
“That’s only because you like her!” shouted Doug.
“Teague likes me?” Dalia asked.
“Shut your face, Doug!”
“Yeah Doug!” agreed Johnny.
Teague turned to Johnny and said, “You can shut up too, Johnny! Just because you think Arabella was in your house doesn’t mean that she really was!”
“You want proof, buddy?! Let’s head back to my house right now so we can all get a good look of the hoof prints!”
“That’s what I said like five minutes ago! And you got all butt hurt you were like ‘what you don’t believe me or something?!” yelled Doug.
“Okay guys! Let’s just please stop arguing! We’re all really good friends! Let’s not let fear tear us apart and make us enemies!” cried Dalia.
“You’re right,” said Teague, Johnny, and Doug in unison.

So, the three friends stopped their bickering and each of them apologized to the other three. After the four friends all made up and hugged Dalia thought of a fantastic idea. Mario’s manager was walking around passing around a sheet of paper on a clip board. About every seventh person who received it appeared to be signing their name on it.
“What’s that clip board going around for?” asked a curious Teague.
“That’s the signup sheet to sing karaoke on the stage!” yelled an excited Dalia. “I used to sing here every time I came here when I was little!” she said laughing.
“No way I’m doing that!” yelled Doug.
“Me neither!” concurred Johnny.
Teague thought for a moment and a strange thought came to his head. “Maybe if I sing a song Dalia will think I’m a cool guy,” thought Teague as a smile spread across his face. “Pass that over here!” shouted Teague to a man sitting at the table across from him.
“You can’t sing worth crap, Teague!” snickered Doug.
“You can’t say much unless you’re willing to get up there yourself, chicken!” yelled Teague.
“Okay I’ll shut up now,” yelped Doug as Johnny and Dalia laughed.
Teague looked at the signup sheet and browsed over the songs they had.
“What are you going to sing Teague?” asked Doug, with a big smile on his face.
“Still thinking about it,” replied Teague.
Teague’s three friends looked his way and smiled at him. Then Teague smiled back. Sure the three friends had had a very pointless argument. But they’d all made up and were happy again. Teague couldn’t help but wonder where he’d be if he didn’t have his friends around.

*****

Teague stood up on the stage as twenty five pairs of eyes stared up at him. He stood sweating and nervous while Johnny and Doug covered their mouths to keep from laughing. “I wish the DJ would hurry the heck up and find that dang CD so I don’t have to stand up here for so long,” thought Teague. He looked down at the front row where the people who’d signed up were sitting. Dalia was up after just a few people, and she gave Teague a big smile and waved at him. After Teague waved back, the DJ came back from the back of the restaurant with the CD. He popped it in the CD player and the song began.
Before he knew it, Teague was singing to one of his favorite songs at the top of his lungs:  “EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE, AND EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE; EVERY BOND YOU BREAK, EVERY STEP YOU TAKE, I’LL BE WATCHING YOU! EVERY SINGLE DAY, AND EVERY WORD YOU SAY, EVERY GAME YOU PLAY, EVERY NIGHT YOU STAY I’LL BE WATCHING YOU! OH CAN’T YOU SEE YOU BELONG TO ME? HOW MY POOR HEART ACHES WITH EVERY STEP YOU TAKE!”
Teague gazed out at the crowd as he continued to sing his heart out. As he did this, Johnny shouted to Doug, “Holy cow dude, Teague can sing! Remember in elementary school when we joined the choir? He had the most annoying, monotone voice of us all!” “Yeah,” agreed Doug. “Just listen to him now!”
As Teague continued singing karaoke to The Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” he couldn’t help but notice all the dilated eyes staring up at him. While all the women and girls seemed to be whistling, the men and boys seemed to all be clapping. Teague just smiled and couldn’t help but feel extremely popular. When the song ended a few minutes later, the crowd erupted into applause and Teague jumped off the stage. Dalia leaped off her chair, patted his shoulder and shouted “Good job, Teague! I had no idea you were such a great singer!”
Teague just shrugged and said, “That’s the first time I’ve ever sang in front of an audience.” Just as he said this, Johnny and Doug came rushing up and hugged Teague and Dalia. The four friends all hugged for a moment while the crowd’s cheering slowly but surely began to die down. After a few more songs were sung, Dalia hopped on the stage and got ready to sing. Teague sat back in his booth and stuffed a giant piece of pepperoni pizza into his mouth while Johnny and Doug watched and laughed. Teague couldn’t help but feel bad he and his friends had been arguing over such a stupid topic. He was just glad they’d made up. At the same time, as he looked up at Dalia, up at her nearly-white hair and tan face, he couldn’t help but think about how beautiful she looked. He wondered what song she was going to sing. As Teague began to get butterflies in his stomach, the very last thing on his mind was the possibility that at this very moment, something was watching him from just outside the restaurant’s windows…

 
While Dalia glanced down at the crowd and grinned, she noticed Teague looking right into her emerald-green eyes, and he looked happier than she’d ever seen him before. Dalia held the microphone closer to her mouth as the karaoke song began. Teague recognized the song off the bat and chuckled. He knew Dalia was a huge ABBA fan so he wasn’t surprised when he recognized the song she’d be singing. Dalia began swaying back and forth and began to sing along to the music: “…AND WHEN YOU GET THE CHANCE… YOU ARE THE DANCING QUEEN, YOUNG AND SWEET, ONLY SEVENTEEN! DANCING QUEEN, FEEL THE BEAT FROM THE TAMBOURINE! YOU CAN DANCE; YOU CAN JIVE, HAVING THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE! SEE THAT GIRL, WATCH THAT SCENE, DIGGING THE DANCING QUEEN!”
It appeared that Dalia’s applause for ABBA’s Dancing Queen even beat out Teague’s!  As Dalia jumped off the stage at the end of the song she was met with applause and hugs from Teague, Johnny, and Doug. The four friends sat back down at their booth. The friends began talking, laughing, and joking. They seemed to be having more fun than they’d had in perhaps months.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the restaurant, Ben Snotman, another boy in Teague, Johnny, and Doug’s grade, who was also the school’s tattle-tale and nerd, and who like Teague had a big crush on Dalia, thought he’d grow a spine and approach Dalia to say hi. He ran his hand through his bed-head hair and accidentally elbowed his stomach upon bringing his arm down.
“OUCH!” he cried in a high-pitched, whiny voice. He slowly approached Teague, Johnny, Doug, and Dalia. He made quick eye-contact with Dalia and said “Hey Dalia! You did a wonderful job singing! And you look so beautiful tonight!”
“Awww, thanks, Ben!” said Dalia as she put her hand on his shoulder. Teague glanced at Ben jealously and thought, “Lucky!!!” Ben shot his eyes down at Dalia’s hand on his bony, little shoulder and felt shocked at the physical contact. Like Teague, he’d never had a lot of luck with the ladies. “Don’t panic!!” thought as he gritted his teeth.
Ben began shaking and quickly looked back into Dalia’s eyes. “Um,” he nervously began, “the uh- light shone off your brilliant green eyes like the shiny array of a red apple.”
“Awww!” cried Dalia.
“What does that even mean?!” asked Doug, trying not to laugh. Dalia glanced at her friends and said “hey guys, I’m going to go talk with Ben for a little bit. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” With that Dalia and Ben left for his booth.
Teague looked at his friends and made a gagging noise, his way of displaying disgust at Ben Snotman’s sad attempts at wooing Dalia. “Well, it’s better than anything I can think of to say to her,” he said.
“He probably searched for pick-up lines on Google for the next time he’d see her. He was prepared… the sly dog,” said Doug.

When the four friends left Mario’s Pizza and were just about to jump into their cars, they all immediately realized they didn’t want to go home to sleep by themselves. Even though they’d been having a ball the last hour and a half, they were soon reminded that any of the strange ghostly creatures could pay them a visit at any time. Just as Dalia was opening her car door, she turned to Doug who was getting into his car a few feet away and shouted, “Oh Doug, I’m too scared to go home! My parents are still shopping in the city and won’t be back for another few days!”
Doug turned to Dalia and said, “Tell me about it. I don’t know how I’m going to sleep tonight. I might just stay up all night long watching comedy movies or something.”He turned to Teague and said, “Do you think you’ll be getting any sleep tonight Teague?”
“No I don’t think I’ll be getting any. We might have to all be nocturnal for the next few days,” said Teague sadly. Johnny turned to his friends and said, “Maybe we should all just crash at my house, I mean just until all our parents get back in a few days. I wouldn’t mind at all. I need the company just like all of you.”
“What about Dalia though?” asked Doug.
“Yeah,” agreed Teague. “It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to have a girl sleeping over at a house with three guys even if we are all friends. I don’t think your parents would like that and I wouldn’t blame them,” said Teague looking at Dalia.
“You’re right, Teague. But maybe we could make an exception, I mean if Johnny doesn’t mind. I mean, I trust you guys and everything. It doesn’t seem smart for me to stay the night with you guys, but I suppose if I just slept in a different room it’d be okay, right?”
“Yeah sure thing, Dalia,” said Johnny. Come on over with us. We can just hang out until we feel comfortable enough to go to sleep. I don’t think any ghosts or creatures will bother us if we all stay together.”
As Johnny said this, Teague turned around and realized that everybody was gone. The four friends were all alone. Every single person who’d been at the restaurant, including all the workers, had headed home while the four friends had discussed how they were going to get sleep. It turns out they’d been talking longer than they’d thought. They’d been talking nearly 10 minutes and it was now 10:30 pm.
Teague, Johnny, and Dalia all exchanged fearful glances as they realized they were alone. Johnny looked away and noticed that Doug appeared to be staring at something out in the sand dunes. He stood frozen in terror and had his arm straight out. His eyes and mouth were wide open. He looked like he’d just spotted Godzilla or something like that. He was pointing out at something in the distance. “What is it, Doug?!” asked Dalia in shock.
Teague, Johnny, and Dalia looked towards what Doug was pointing at and saw it. It was a bright orange glow about 300m away. It appeared to be a camp fire. “Why’s there a fire over in the dunes?!” asked Teague.
“Yeah, who’s out there?” asked Dalia.
Doug suddenly put his arm down and quietly said, “I don’t have a good feeling about this,” he whispered.
“Maybe we should go check it out,” said Teague. The other three looked at him and hesitantly shook their heads in agreement.
  “I really don’t have a good feeling, guys,” whispered Doug.
  “I don’t either,” began Teague. “But my curiosity is getting the better of me. What about you guys? Isn’t it strange, a fire out in the middle of the desert late at night?” The other three had to admit, they were pretty curious as to why someone had a fire going when there appeared to be no one nearby. Teague shut his car door and silently crossed the street. His three friends followed him in a straight line, not wanting to be alone in the parking lot.
Teague turned around at his friends and asked, “Do you guys mind walking next to me? I don’t want to lead the way because I’m terrified right now.” His three friends quickened their pace so they all were trotting next to each other. “Thanks, guys,” said Teague.
The four friends seemed to be slowing their pace with each step they took. They continued to walk with the thought that they were all in grave danger in the back of their minds. As horrified as they all were, they were at least glad they were all together.
When the four friends were about fifty feet away from the camp fire, they immediately halted in their tracks and simultaneously, their jaws dropped and their eyes shot open. Their hearts pounded and they suddenly regretted ever leaving the parking lot. They were finally close enough to see who had started the fire.
There they were. They were dancing around the fire in a freaky and twisted manner. The fire’s flames danced to the beat of the music. And there stood the black apelike creature. It was twisting and flailing its body in all sorts of unnatural ways as it howled its evil moans. It stomped its feet into the sand and began a juba dance. Next to the apelike creature there stood another bizarre beast. It too was black. It had a head shaped like an owl’s. It had large yellow eyes and a nose shaped like an elephant’s trunk. Its trunk was a foot long and hung down to its waist. It had a body much too small for its large head, wings like a chicken’s, and the legs of a goat. It stood about two and a half feet tall. Finally, there stood a third creature, which like the other two, was black in color. Its true face could not be revealed because it was wearing the most terrifying mask any of the friends had ever seen. The mask was painted white and covered in red markings painted around the eye and mouth holes. Three orange feathers poked from the top of the mask, and the opening around the creature’s mouth exposed its razor sharp teeth. This mask-wearing creature was beating a drum with its black paws while the other two danced to the horrible beat.
The echoing beats were some of the scariest sounds the friends had ever heard. As they watched in terror, the full moon’s light began to reflect off the nearby cacti and strange shadows began to cast out against the black sand. The four friends stood still where they stood unable to move or speak.
They stood there trembling and shaking trying to speak, but as they moved their mouths they couldn’t make a sound. They were too frightened to move. It was as if they were under an evil spell. Was this really happening? As they remained still, they all thought they heard whispering all around them. The wave of evil speaking surrounded them. They couldn’t quite make out what the words were, but they were extremely close by and seemed to be in a foreign language.
The masked creature holding the drum continued to beat it. It looked up at the moon and shrieked a heart-stopping shriek that caused the four friends to cover their ears and clench their teeth. The black ape creature suddenly stopped its evil dancing and crouched down. It got on its knuckles and hobbled over to the nearest cactus and began scratching its back against it. It moaned a loud moan as it did this. Teague watched this and realized it seemed all too familiar to him. As the ape creature did this, the creature with the owl-shaped head and trunk-nose began waving its trunk back and forth and grunting a strange and horrible grunt. The masked creature, even though it stood not much taller than three feet tall, suddenly pulled out a dagger and threw it at the cactus right next the one the ape creature was using as a back-scratcher. At seeing this, the three creatures threw their heads up towards the moon again and moaned their deep, blood-curdling moans.
This scene was much too terrifying for the friends to bear. They finally gained the courage to leave the scene. It was as if they suddenly snapped out of being hypnotized. Just as they were all ready to turn around and break for their cars about 300m away, the black apelike creature spotted them.
The black apelike creature stopped its itching and made a strange gesture at them with its lanky arms. Without warning, it dove forward in an unusual roll. It popped up on its hind legs and sprinted towards them, moaning louder than ever before as it did so. It wasn’t hobbling like a chimpanzee anymore. It was now dashing their direction. It was running like a human, bolting on its feet like a track athlete.
Although the horrible creature was well behind them about 50m, it appeared to be a much faster runner than the average person. “AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!” the four friends screamed as loud as ever before. They broke away from where they were planted and dashed across the dark sand under the full moon. They didn’t turn around to see whether or not the ape creature was on their tail. The only thing they were worried about was getting back to their cars as fast as possible. As they continued sprinting across the desert sand, they could still hear the beating drums in the distance and the moaning of the ape creature as it continued chasing them. As for the foreign whispering they had heard earlier, it was now louder. It was still a whisper, but seemed to get louder the closer they got to the street. After about 30 more seconds of what was by far the scariest, most terrifying moment of the friend’s lives, the four teenagers dove into their cars, screaming the whole way. Doug peeled out of the parking lot, followed by Johnny, then Dalia, and finally Teague. Just as Teague turned out of the lot, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a black figure come sprinting out of nowhere. It jumped on the hood of his car and peered in at Teague. “HOLY CRAP!” yelled Teague as he stopped the car. It was the black apelike creature, crouching on his hood and looking in at Teague. It appeared to be laughing at him and doing another little dance.  Although Teague was absolutely terrified at the moment, he suddenly felt a courageous feeling flow within his veins. He looked at the black creature and suddenly wasn’t that scared of it anymore. He stared at it dancing and laughing on the hood of his car and began to feel almost angry at it. Teague rolled down the window and poked his head out window. The ape creature turned its head, looked at Teague, and snarled.
“You think this is funny?!” asked Teague. “You think this is a freaking joke?! I’ll show you something that’s funny!” Teague stomped on the gas pedal and was suddenly hitting 25mph. The ape creature immediately flew off the car and bashed its head on the street head-first. Teague’s car ran over the beast and Teague hit his head on the roof as the car jerked up over the beast’s body. “Ouch!” yelled Teague. He couldn’t believe he’d just run over the terrifying creature. He jammed his car in reverse and went back to finish the job. He ran the creature over again and screamed, “Who’s laughing now?!” he yelled and began laughing like a maniac. With that, Teague stomped the gas pedal again to try to catch up to his three friends.
Although he was feeling victorious at the moment, the unnatural and terrifying scene he’d seen just a few minutes before came back to Teague’s mind and haunted him.
Why on earth were these horrible creatures dancing around a fire in the sand dunes? Were they plotting against Teague and his friends? Where they celebrating something? That thought in mind, Teague pulled into Johnny’s parking lot and noted that the three cars had arrived there safely. He dashed up to the porch and nearly tripped on the concrete step. He rapped on the door.
The door slowly opened. It wasn’t Johnny that had answered. It wasn’t Doug either. And it wasn’t Dalia. It was the black apelike creature, the very same one he’d run over a few minutes earlier. Its head had a deep gash and blood slowly trickled down its face. It grinned at Teague, and began laughing. But Teague was already half way down the driveway. The creature then hopped off the porch and scrambled away from the house in the opposite direction.
Unaware that the creature had been in his house, Johnny poked his head out the door and yelled, “hey Teague! There you are! What took you so long? Come on inside.” “Hey whichever one of you arrived last didn’t close the door,” said Johnny, looking at Doug and Dalia sitting on the couch.
“I could have sworn I closed the door,” muttered Dalia. I even watched it close behind me. What Johnny, Dalia, and Doug didn’t realize was that while they’d been in the kitchen, drinking water and trying to catch their breath, the apelike creature had answered the door for Teague. Still extremely frightened, they hadn’t even heard Teague knocking.
Startled by Johnny’s shouting at him, Teague jumped back and yelped. He then sprinted up the drive way and onto the porch. He gave Johnny a giant hug as he started shaking again. “Alright man, get inside already. What’s going on?”
Teague dove on the couch next to Doug, eager to get inside as quick as possible. “What happened, bud?” asked Dalia.
“Guys, you want to know why the door was open?! Dalia didn’t leave it open! The apelike creature opened it for me. HE WAS IN HERE JOHNNY! YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT TOOK ME SO LONG? I WAS BUSY RUNNING HIM OVER WITH MY CAR AFTER HE JUMPED ON MY HOOD! AND SOMEHOW HE BEAT ME HERE!”
Johnny, Dalia, and Doug all gasped. “You’re lying!” cried Johnny. There’s no way that ape-thing was in here! How did he- how does he know where I live? How are we supposed to-” Johnny popped his head up and had an idea. “Of course!” he yelled.
He glanced at his three friends, all huddled together on the couch, too terrified to speak. Both the apelike creature and Arabella Winslow had been inside this very house! The thought made them want to leave. But wherever they went, Arabella or any of the creatures could follow them. What did these horrible things want? Why were they haunting them? Why wouldn’t they appear to anybody else? How did they find out where they lived?

Dalia scratched her head and realized it’d been about two days since she showered. Oh boy, I really need to take a shower, she thought. Showering was after all, a little higher on her priority list than the three boys she was with.
Teague, Johnny, and Doug were all trying as hard as they could to forget about how scared they were at the moment. And it didn’t surprise Dalia that the three of them did this by playing video games.
“You want to play, Dalia?” asked Teague, offering her his control.
“No thank you,” Dalia replied.
“Hey Johnny,” she asked.
“Yeah?” Johnny asked, his eyes still staring at the screen as he jammed away on his control.
“I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be back in a little bit.” But Teague, Johnny, and Doug had only been half listening. “Okay Dalia. Just make sure you let the water run for a little bit before you hit the switch to shower. My shower is a little tweaky.”
A few minutes later, the shower upstairs turned on and the water began to run. And the three boys, still playing videogames, heard the singing from upstairs:

I love the flowers
I Love the daffodils
I love the mountains
I love the rolling hills
I love the firelight
When all the lights are low
Boom-dee-a da boom-de-a-da
Boom-dee-a-da boom!

Then the water turned off. About 15 minutes passed by.

“Hmmm,” said Doug. “Guess Dalia likes to sing in the shower, too!”
“Yeah,” replied Johnny. “But what’s taking her so long to get down here. She turned the water off like 20 minutes ago.”
“You know how girls are,” said Teague.
“True,” agreed Johnny.

That’s when the door suddenly opened. And in walked Dalia. She looked at the three boys playing videogames. “You guys are still playing that?” she asked chuckling.
The three boys simultaneously dropped their controls. They dropped their mouths and turned around.
“What is it?” Dalia asked looking puzzled.
“B-b-but-you’re-you’re supposed to- b-be upstairs sh-showering!” Teague stuttered.
“I did shower!” said Dalia. “See my hair is wet,” she added shaking her semi-wet hair. “I went home to shower since I didn’t bring a change of clothes. You guys must have been so into your game that you didn’t hear me say I was going home. You didn’t even hear me leave!” she laughed.
At hearing this Johnny’s eyes got even bigger.
“But if you went home to shower, then who was showering and singing upstairs?” asked Johnny. He turned off the T.V. and the four friends huddled on the couch and began to shake.

One good thing about Teague having seen more frightening creatures and ghosts than his three friends was that he could remain somewhat calm even when his friends were tweaking out. They weren’t used to seeing all these terrifying creatures yet like he was. As Johnny, Doug, and Dalia all sat shaking on the couch, Teague leaned back on the recliner chair with a bored look on his face.
As the friends all sat huddled together, a sudden dark feeling overcame them. They all simultaneously got the uneasy feeling that they were being watched. Doug darted his eyes all around and whispered, “it feels like someone is watching us.” Dalia covered her face and tried not to cry. Johnny went over to the window and looked around. “You’re right Doug, it almost feels like something else is in here.”
Even Teague had to admit he wasn’t the least bit comfortable. He could almost sense an evil presence in the house. It was as if there was an unwelcomed guest among them.
He glanced over at Johnny, who was beet-red in the face being full of fear.
“Guys,” Johnny whispered, “I think there’s something in here… something that isn’t supposed to be here. I think we should –”
“AAAAAHHHHH!” screamed Dalia. “JOHNNY! LOOK BEHIND YOU!”
Johnny turned around and cried out in unison with Teague and Doug.
Johnny’s computer had just turned on by itself. The cursor was moving back and forth, back and forth. The monitor showed Johnny’s desktop, and the cursor kept moving up and down up and down.
Johnny backed up and fell to the floor. He covered his ears at the next thing that happened: the computer began talking. A flood of Bakoshtangan came spewing out from the monitor: GIBESHJA RAFGHAL TYUQ VIRNOK!
When the talking stopped, a popup came up and covered the whole computer monitor. It was a Skype-like live video, and the face that appeared seemed very familiar to Teague. It was as the friends understood, the human pig, AKA Arabella Winslow, the “Banshee of Frisius.” There it stood, its black eyes staring at the four of them. It was leaning against a black cactus. It showed them its yellow teeth as it grinned at them.  Dalia stared deep into its eyes. Its bruised pink face seemed to glow and its greasy black hair fell all over its face. Arabella the human pig opened its mouth and started to laugh. The animalistic laugh traveled all through Johnny’s house. Then, just like that, the computer turned off.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. The four friends could feel the beating in their chest. Johnny rose off his feet, whimpering and shaking, trying not to fall back down.
“M-m-maybe we sh-should try- try the b-boar-board out now. To try t-to contact Ara-Arabella,” he stammered.
“I don’t know,” gulped Doug. I-if we t-tried- tried t-o contact a gho-ghost, what’re the odds Arabella would b-be the one to re-respond? There’s- there’s hundreds of-of ghosts out there.”
“We should just-just give it a try,” stuttered Teague. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Yeah,” agreed Doug. “Let me call my cousin and ask him what ‘gaskon eshfa’ and ‘frok neish’ mean. They’re what that ape-creature told me at the doughnut shop.”
Doug disappeared into the other room with his phone, and returned 10 minutes later.
“Okay,” he said. Trace told me that ‘gaskon eshfa, Doug’ means ‘you’re next, Doug.’ And ‘frok neish Arabella’ would mean ‘Arabella told me.’ So the ape-creatures said ‘you’re next Doug.’ And when I asked it how it knew my name, it said ‘Arabella told me.’"

Slowly floating by like ice cubes on water, the great clouds in the sky began to block out the moonlight that’d been lighting Johnny’s living room. The four friends all sat in a circle at the dining room table. Aside from the ongoing fire place in Johnny’s living room, the light above them and the lit candles on the round kitchen table were the only lit lights in the house. They all placed their fingers on the planchette, which was the wooden heart-shaped piece that sat on wheels on the Ouija board’s surface. Sprawled across the board’s surface were the 26 letters of the alphabet. The word “YES” was engraved at the board’s top left corner, next to an illustration of the sun, while the word “NO” was engraved at the top right corner, next to a pictured moon. Luckily for the friends, Johnny, who had done his homework on Ouija boards a few nights prior, was there to help then conduct the séance.
     With a piece of paper and pencil next to him, Johnny slowly spoke up to the board, asking “is anybody there?”
     The planchette, with the friends’ pointer fingers still touching it, wheeled over to the right and remained still above the word “YES,” causing Dalia to squirm in disbelief.
     Johnny cleared his throat and asked “what is your name?”
The planchette moved back and forth across the Ouija board. The four friends watched it move and called out the letters at it traveled to each. When the planchette stopped moving, the letters, as Johnny had written down, spelled out the name ARABELLA. 
“Arabella?!”  Dalia screeched. She put her left hand to her forehead as if she were about to fall out of her chair and faint.  She gazed around the dim dining room and saw that like her, her three friends had the same horrified look on their faces, what with the wide open eyes and mouths. After a moment that was most shocking and horrifying, Johnny, the medium of the séance, hesitantly asked “will you show yourself to us?”
     Their eyes bulging, and their hearts pounding, the four friends sat still and silent as the light turned off by itself then quickly turned back on, causing all of them to cry out in terror. The planchette, on its little wheels, moved to the “s,” then to the “o,” moved off to where there were no letters,” back to the “o,” and finally went to the letter n.” It spelled out the word “soon.”
     “SOON?!” Bellowed Doug. “SHE ALREADY SHOWED HERSELF TO US ON JOHNNY’S COMPUTER SCREEN! PLEASE! I CAN’T STAND SEEING THAT HORRIBLE PIG-FACE! WHY MUST SHE SHOW HERSELF AGAIN? I FEEL LIKE I’M GOING TO-”
“AAAAAHHHHH!!!” wailed Teague.  “IT’S HER!!! I SAW HER! SHE’S OUTSIDE IN THE BACKYARD WATCHING US!”
To the shock of the four, the Ouija board suddenly sprang up off the table by itself and flew towards Johnny’s open fire place in the living room in the blink of an eye! It flew into the fire and the black metal doors of the fire place slammed shut! The four friends turned their heads simultaneously to the backyard and cried out louder than ever in their lives. Arabella the human-pig dashed across the backyard faster than an Olympic 100m sprinter! They witnessed the flash of the black robe and hideous pink head, but only for a very brief moment. Johnny had asked Arabella if she would show herself to them, to which she replied “soon.” Immediately after, they saw the so called human-pig in the backyard. There was no other explanation: Arabella really was the human-pig. She was given a new head since somebody had beheaded her. None of the four friends could deny this statement now! The four jumped out from their chairs and made a break for the couch.
     Then Arabella got closer. One second she had sprinted across the backyard, and the next she was right outside the sliding door, staring at the friends with those deathly black eyes. Johnny stumbled to the sliding door and turned the rod to close the blinds. He dashed back to the couch and plopped down next to Dalia, who was seated next to Doug, who sat beside Teague, their arms all around each other because of their terror. They sat their on that couch with their eyes wide, their teeth chattering, and their bodies shaking. “H-how can this be hap-happening?! What does that cursed ghost girl want?! W-we haven’t done anything to her!” whimpered Dalia, who had a sudden urge to use the bathroom.
     “Guys? I have to use the bathroom really bad! Please watch out for me?”
“Sure thing,” cried Doug as Dalia nervously made her way to the bathroom. She quickly flipped on the light to make sure that no one else was in there. The coast was clear, and in about a minute she was washing her hands. She looked down at her shaking hands in the cold water. She wiped away a few tears and decided she’d try to hide the fact that she’d been crying. So she looked in the mirror and screamed at what she saw.
     The terror-filled shriek echoed throughout the halls of Johnny’s house. When Dalia glanced at her reflection in the mirror, her beautiful face was GONE. In its place was the head of a slime-green, wart-covered goblin, with two giant black holes for eyes, just like Arabella’s. She had two brown curved horns on her head covered in jagged markings and two slits for a nose.  Her forehead was wrinkled and covered in orange cuts. Her hair was grey and dry and resembled male pattern baldness. When she looked in the mirror, with her still-human palms placed firmly against her ears and screamed, all she saw was the hideous goblin, opening its toothless mouth shrieking the most terrible scream. Her gums were a raw-pink color with patches of black.
     Dalia couldn’t believe her own eyes. Her head was gone! She had a new bone-chilling goblin face! She tried to yell “WHERE AM I?! WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FACE?!” But when she opened her mouth, her voice had changed with each word she spoke. It was no longer high and sweet. It was now deep and evil. And when she spoke, the language she spoke in was not English.  It was Bakoshtangan. When she tried to ask where she was and what happened to her face again, she yelled “AKIN RAH BLAF GISETZ OPESHKIF LAH KOP?!”
     Doug leapt off the couch and rocketed up the stairs to see what was going on, yelling “I’M COMING DALIA!” as he trudged up the stairs quick as a rat. When he reached the sixth step, he clutched his chest and wailed.
     Staring down at him was none other than the apelike creature. It roared at him and, turning to bolt back down, Doug tripped and tumbled down the stairs.
Teague sprang off the couch like a gazelle and sprinted for the stairs. Johnny, who couldn’t help but fear for his life, dove into the kitchen and ducked behind the island. Teague picked Doug up and looked up at the ape creature charging down at them. Teague and Doug stumbled back to the couch as Doug screamed “TEAGUE! WHAT ABOUT DALIA! SHE MIGHT BE CURSED UP THERE OR SOMETHING! DIDN’T YOU HEAR HER CRYING IN BAKOSHTANGAN?!” 
     “I’ll go get her!” shouted Teague. He quickly armed himself with Johnny’s mom’s lamp to use to bash the ape creature’s head in. He turned around and, to his surprise, the ape creature was right behind him! Teague tripped on the giant rug and the lamp leaped from his hands right onto the ape creature’s head. It knocked it on the head hard enough to send both the creature and the lamp itself crashing to the floor. The creature moaned in pain as the glass sprayed across and the floor.
     Johnny, still crouched down behind the counter yelled “Oh no! Was that my mom’s lamp, Teague?!” Teague ignored Johnny and the ape creature hopped to its feet and sprinted for the sliding door. Doug took a running start and dove for its legs. He grasped its calves hard enough to tackle the beast to the floor so it landed arm first on the hardwood surface. It moaned in pain again. Before Doug could figure out what to do next, he let go as he was caught by surprise by something outside. He spotted two neon red eyes the size of large apples staring inside at him. The ape creature wriggled out of Doug’s arms, unlocked the sliding door, got down on its hands and knees, and crawled away in a flash, leaving Doug to close the door.
As he did this, loud cries from upstairs rang through the house… DALIA! She bolted down the stairs with her hands in the air screaming up a storm. “What is it Dalia?!” asked a horrified Teague. “My face! What happened to my face?!” she cried. “It’s gone! I look like- I was just looking in the mirror and-”
     “Dalia, what on earth is wrong?! There’s nothing wrong with you face! You look as beautiful as ever! I-”
“Teague, come here! Is this the creature you saw the night you went out to buy bread?!”
Teague ran to the sliding door and Dalia followed behind, only she headed for the mirror in the kitchen. She looked in the mirror at her reflection and saw a nearly white-haired girl with big green eyes, a tan face, and a million-dollar smile. Her face was back to normal! She jumped for joy!
     “That’s it!” yelled Teague looking outside at the black creature with neon red eyes, a flowing, curly mane, and ears shaped like a jack-rabbits!
“I knew I wasn’t just seeing things! And Freddy didn’t believe me! He thought I was just having a nightmare!”
     A sudden scream behind Teague, Doug, and Dalia made them all jump out of their shoes. They turned around to see it was just Johnny. He was looking down at the shattered glass from the fancy lamp Teague had broken over the ape creature’s black head.  He picked up the light bulb and examined it. “My mom is going to want a complete and total refund!” he wailed.
     Teague, Doug, and Dalia began to laugh, although it didn’t last long at what Doug shouted next: “JOHNNY, DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU! JUST COME OVER HERE WITH US!”
     Johnny turned around and dropped the light bulb he was holding…

Johnny’s eyes met with another pair of eyes, a big, round yellow pair. They belonged to a black demon that was hovering a foot off the ground, glaring at the four friends. Johnny howled with terror and plunged onto the couch next to Teague. There was a large blanket a few cushions away, so Johnny grabbed it and threw it over all their heads. Then the lights turned off again all by themselves, just like they had during the séance. But this time, they stayed off. The four friends all sat there, too scared to speak. They hugged each and decided to try and fall asleep together.
     Teague poked his head out the blanket and saw that the yellow-eyed demon was gone. He blinked, opened his eyes, and saw that the demon had appeared again, and was hovering close enough that its face was just a foot away from his.
     Teague whimpered and threw his head back under the cover. And the demon continued hovering above the floor, staring at the four bumps that made up the friend’s heads under the blanket. He didn’t dare utter a word, but his slow, deep breathing was terrifying enough to send Goosebumps up the arms of the four friends. The demon began grunting and panting like a dog. From within the walls, the friends could hear pig-like grunts echoing throughout the house. It must have been Arabella. As horrified as they were, the four friends were able to fall asleep in each other’s arms in about an hour.

     At around three in the morning, it was still pitch-black outside. Teague slowly opened his eyes and could hear his three friends snoring. How he wished they would wake up too. He couldn’t go back to sleep, especially with Johnny’s head resting right on his neck so that he was snoring right in his ear.
     Teague slowly sat up and uncovered himself from the blanket. He was careful to not wake his friends, but at the same time was tempted to make as much noise as possible so that they’d wake up and he’d be less scared.
     Feeling extremely thirsty, Teague quickly flipped on the light to get a glass of water from the fridge. He yawned, rubbed his eyes, and flipped on the light, figuring it wasn’t bright enough to wake his friends, especially since they were still under the blanket. He stopped rubbing his eyes, opened them up, glanced up at the ceiling, and cupped his hands to his mouth at what he saw.
     His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. He fell to the floor in fear and like he’d done several times before, tried to scream. But no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t. He felt he were about to die of fright. He dug his body into the floor and backed into the wall. The entity on the ceiling put the black ape creature to shame in terms of scariness.
     “Please leave me be! Y-you will be the d-death of me!” cried Teague. “W-what do you want f-from me?!”
     “Upon hearing Teague’s cries, his friends suddenly woke up. The first thing they saw was the entity staring down at Teague.
“AAAAHHHH!!!!” Cried Johnny, Doug, and Dalia in unison.
The entity on the ceiling finally answered Teague’s question, speaking in a low, raspy voice. “I want you and your friends to help me.”
     Johnny jumped to his feet and immediately fell to his knees and looked at the entity. “PLEASE! TELL THAT CURSED ARABELLA AND THOSE CREATURES TO LEAVE US AND NOT COME BACK! WHY IS SHE ANGRY WITH US? WE HAVEN’T DONE ANYTHING TO HER! IF I SEE HER PIG-FACE AGAIN I’M GOING TO DIE OF FRIGHT!”
     The entity turned to Johnny and floated down from the ceiling. “You must be mistaken, Johnny-”
“HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME?!”
     The entity dodged his question and said “You’re mistaken. Arabella isn’t angry with you guys. And she doesn’t have a pig head for a head. You must be referring to her friend.”
“No I think you’re mistaken!” yelled Doug. “Last night we contacted Arabella and asked her if she’d show herself to us using an Ouija board. So she said “soon,” and immediately after that we saw her dash across the backyard!”
     “That was her friend running around the backyard,” replied the entity.
“We also saw a picture of a human-pig drawn on a boulder with the initials A.W. right below it. Hmmm I think A.W. stands for Arabella Winslow! What makes you think we’re mistaken?” cried Dalia.
     The entity replied, “Because I am Arabella Winslow. My father killed me 16 years ago, and you four will help me find him.”
     Teague, Johnny, Doug, and Dalia gasped. Johnny’s theory was false. Arabella wasn’t the human-pig. They were two separate ghosts. The real Arabella Winslow, the one they were sure was the human-pig all this time, floated amongst them right now, staring at them with ice cold eyes and tangled black hair that covered half of her clammy, petrifying face.

Arabella glared at the four friends with her deep brown and angry eyes. They seemed to sink deep into her complex face. Her mouth stretched in a chapped and twisted frown. Her face was covered in dirt and her black, split-end hair flowed from all directions. Her nose resembled that of a skeletons’, and it appeared that pieces of flesh had fallen off her face.
     Her long, twisted, pale arms seemed too skinny to be real. She had long, bony fingers and grubby bare feet that boasted sharp toenails. And her neck- it was circumnavigated by a line of stitching, indicating where her head had been sewed on.
     Had the friends not already been accustomed to seeing creatures not meant for human eyes, they might have died of terror at seeing Arabella’s angry, demon-like face.
“How-how is it that your dad killed you?” asked Doug. “H-he ran away after you died be-because he couldn’t handle your death!”
“He ran away so he wouldn’t go to jail or face execution!” snapped Arabella.
She continued, “And you four will help me find him by telling me where he lives!”
“Why don’t you just look in the phone book?!” cried Dalia.
“I’ve already looked there!” Arabella moaned.
“Well if YOU don’t even know where he is, what makes you think we know?” demanded Teague.
“I don’t think you know, but you’d better find out by tomorrow at sunset, or I’ll have Dalia’s head!” screeched Arabella as she pointed an ugly, twisted finger at Dalia.
“TAKE THIS!!!” wailed Doug as he heaved a wooden chair at Arabella. It sailed through the air, through her ghostly body, and into the wall, leaving a giant hole in which the leg’s chairs stuck out.
“AAAAHHHH FRICK!” roared Doug. “I forgot that she’s a ghost!”
“Doug!” moaned an annoyed Johnny.
“See you tomorrow!” screeched Arabella. And with that, she climbed up the wall, and in the blink of an eye, she vanished.

“What am I going to do?!” Dalia mumbled, a few tears running down her cheek. “Arabella is going to kill me if we don’t find her dad!”
“So it was her dad who killed her?! But- h-how could it be?” muttered Johnny. “People always say that her dad entered the living room and screamed at the sight of her headless and deceased on the floor! They said he was about to call the cops when he decided to just abandon the house! The mystery is out!”
Teague looked at Dalia scared and sad face. He felt his chest rise, and without warning he ran to her and grabbed her by the hand.
“She’ll have to kill me first before she lays a finger on you, Dalia,” he heroically said.
Dalia patted his arm and flashed him a smile. Johnny looked around the room and wailed “how the heck do Arabella and her friends keep getting in here?!” Even Johnny, who was much braver than most people, couldn’t help but feel almost petrified at the idea of all the ghouls coming and going into his house.
“Hey wait a minute!” Doug suddenly cried. He sauntered over to Johnny, looked him right in the eyes and said, “Sorry bro, but you’re wrong. Arabella isn’t the human-pig. We just saw who she really is. If Arabella isn’t the human-pig, then who is?”
“And what about those other creatures?” asked Dalia. “You know, the black jack rabbit thing and the ape creature? And that owl with the elephant trunk and goat legs?”
“Well, we know one thing,” began Teague. “They know Arabella, and they must be her friends.”
“So let me get this straight,” groaned Doug. “We have to find a murderer so that Arabella won’t murder Dalia?”
“What does Dalia have to do with anything? What do any of us have to do with Arabella’s death? We were practically babies when she was murdered. Why does she want our help so bad?” howled Johnny.
“Yeah!” agreed Teague. “What makes her think we’re willing to help her after her and her scary friends have been haunting us?”
“Hold the phone!” yelped Doug. “Wasn’t that creature with the curly mane and jack rabbit ears the first creature you saw, Teague?
“Yeah. I came across it while I was going out to buy bread at Pete’s. Just moments before I encountered it, some stupid white cat bit my hand.”
“Maybe that creature is like Arabella’s spy! Maybe she had it look for someone to help her find her dad and it just happened to come across you.”
“Hey I think you’re right,” sniffled D alia. “Maybe you were the first person it saw so it decided you’d be the one to help Arabella.”
“So what you’re saying is I- well we are unlucky? I mean, these creatures could have picked anybody to haunt and it just happened to be us? Wow, I’ve always loved bread but now I suddenly hate it. If I hadn’t gone out to by that dang bread, none of this would be happening right now!”
“Maybe Arabella’s bluffing,” continued Teague. “maybe she wants our help really bad but she doesn’t have the guts to kill Dalia. You know, like she just wants us to cave in.”
“I don’t know, Teague,” added Johnny. “Didn’t you see how angry she looked? What do you think she’ll do if she finds her dad? I’d say she’d get revenge on him. I’ll find out where her pop lives and tell her if it means her and her horrible friends leave us the heck alone.”
“But Johnny,” said Dalia, “if we help her find her dad, and if she plans on killing him, we’ll have to live knowing that we helped someone commit murder.”
“It’s either you or her dad though, Dalia! I’d sooner see a criminal perish than you!”
“I can see where Dalia’s coming from,” said Teague. “I don’t want to live knowing I helped someone kill someone else, even if the person being killed is a criminal.”
“I still don’t get how her dad could be the one who murdered her,” yelped Doug.
“You’re right, Doug,” agreed Dalia. “He sounds so sweet from the stories I’ve heard… about how he wept after his wife passed away and tried to take such good care of his daughter. How could he be the one who killed her. Could Arabella be lying? Or could she be wrong?”
“I’m not sure, Dalia,” said Johnny. “But I think we’d better find out where he lives.”
“But how are we going to do that?” asked a curious Teague.
“What’s her dad’s name again?” asked Doug.
“It’s Henri,” replied Johnny. “And not to worry about where he lives, Teague. I’ve got an idea.

Ignoring the fact that Johnny had an idea regarding how to find Henri, Teague threw his arms in the air in fury and yelled, “Alright, I want answers and I want them now!” snapped Teague.
“Chill out Teague,” replied Dalia. “What are you talking about anyways?”
“Well, if Arabella was just here threatening us, then who on earth is the human-pig that we’ve thought was really her for the last three weeks?!”
“That’s true Teague, it does seem unbelievable. But seriously guys, listen up! I know how we can find out where Henri’s living nowadays!”
“Lay it on us already!” Doug sneered.
“Alright! Well, nobody seems to know where the guy lives right? Ever since he disappeared 16 years ago after murdering Arabella? But suppose he had a brother, or sister, or any relatives or close friends. What if he told somebody, someone in one of those categories, that he needed a place to stay while the crime he committed cooled down? So I was thinking-”
“Oh I get it! You’re saying we should look up “Winslow” in the phonebook, contact all the Winslow’s in the general area, and see if they know anything about where Henri’s living as of late.”
Doug and Dalia patted Teague’s shoulder and both congratulated him on “his” idea. “Wow way to steal my thunder, Teague… that’s exactly what I was going to say,” snarled Johnny.
“Let’s see,” began Dalia, checking her phone to look at the time. “It’s 5:09 am, much too early to call anybody, but I suppose we could look in the phone book for any Winslow’s.”
Johnny paced into the kitchen and snatched his phonebook off the counter next to his home phone. He opened it and quickly found the “W’s.” Teague, Doug, and Dalia joined him and began scanning the page with him. “Jeez Teague, quit breathing down my neck,” muttered Doug.
“Let’s see,” said Teague as he scanned the names in the book. “Whitney, Wilson, Wing, Wise, Withrow…”
“Oh no!” moaned Dalia. “There’re no Winslow’s in here.”
Dalia’s heart sank, as did her three friends’. If they didn’t locate where Henri lived by sun down, Arabella had threatened to behead her. And there was plenty reason to be scared… what good were her and her friends against a ghost who couldn’t feel pain and who’d claimed the lives of many people just 16 years before?
Johnny slammed the phone book feeling terrified and frustrated.
“That’s it! We’re done for!” shrieked Doug.
“Hold that thought!” exclaimed Teague. “I just realized something... Arabella didn’t kill the men who were rebuilding my house! It was the human-pig remember?! And just an hour ago we discovered that Arabella and the human-pig are two different ghosts! We finally uncovered the mystery behind the massacre! The hoof prints and everything! It all fits!”
Teague looked at Dalia and saw that her eyes were cast down at the floor, and her mouth was in a frown. She looked extremely sad. He sat down beside her and quietly said “you know, if it makes you feel any better, I think Arabella is blackmailing us. I don’t think she’ll come back to kill you. Why would she choose to kill only you, as opposed to two or three of us four? I think, since the human-pig is the real culprit of the massacre at my soon-to-be house, he or she is the real ghost we should watch out for. Until it threatens us, I think you will be perfectly safe.”
Dalia looked at him gave him the biggest smile he’d ever seen.
“That’s a nice thought, Teague. Thank you for saying that! But let’s face it, Arabella and those creatures won’t leave us alone until we find her dad. I don’t know how we’re going to do that since none of his relatives we know are listed in the phonebook.”
“We’ll think of something,” said Doug. He continued, “but I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve got work in a few hours.”
He looked outside and saw the moon was still out. And slowly but surely, the dark sky was getting lighter and lighter.
The other three looked at him and let him they also had to work today.
“Work,” grumbled Teague. “It’s always nice to earn to make some dough, but that’s the last thing I want to do! Hey guys, when are your families getting home from the east side, I mean, since like mine, they all left on that huge shopping spree?”
“My family’s coming back on Thursday,” replied Doug.
“As is mine,” muttered Johnny.
“Yeah, same here,” said Dalia.
“Wow, what a coincidence,” remarked Teague. “I think for the next three nights until Thursday, we should stick together when we’re not working, that way we won’t have to face Arabella and her creature friends alone in case they decide to pay any of us a visit.”
“I don’t mind if you guys stay here the next few nights until my family gets back,” replied Johnny.
Johnny’s three friends all gave him a giant thanks by crowding around to give him a giant hug.
“Alright, alright,” he grunted. “It’s not that big a deal. Just don’t eat all my pop tarts.”
“Too late,” said Doug in a muffled voice, who was already in the kitchen, his mouth full of strawberry pastries.

“Good morning, Doug,” said an enthusiastic voice.
“Morning, Uncle Artie,” said Doug.
“How’s Teague doing?” asked a curious Uncle Artie.
Doug thought for a minute about whether or not he should tell his uncle about how he and his friends had encountered Arabella Winslow, and as a result, was scared of their own shadows.
“Uh, he’s doing okay,” replied Doug.
“Yeah, I haven’t seen him in awhile! Does he still like that one girl… uh what was her name? Uh Dalia! That’s right. Does he still like Dalia?”
“Yeah. How the heck did you know? He doesn’t tell many people about girls he likes!”
“Eh, small town right? Pretty much everybody knows.”
“You say that like that’s huge news or something,” said a confused Doug as he began wiping down the counter. Doug’s Uncle Artie, being the owner of the Doughnut Shop, put on his business hat and strolled into the kitchen. Doug poked his head through the window, looked at Uncle Artie, and said, “hey Uncle Artie? Have you heard of ‘the Banshee of Frisius’? You know, Arabella Winslow, the ghost girl of Frisius?”
“Uh no, why? Is that an urban legend or something?”
Doug decided he would fill his uncle in on the story while the two of them worked. However, his hope that maybe his uncle knew or had known Henri Winslow, or in any way could lead him closer to finding out where he was living, was gone.

Teague slowly walked through the aisle of Pet’s market, a bored look on his face, and a broom and dust pan in his hands. Suddenly his phone vibrated as he got an incoming text. He quickly checked his phone and saw he had a message from Doug. The message read “Hey Teague, what up man? Hey, try asking your boss Pete if he knows any of the Winslow’s! You never know, eh? He might have helpful information for us.”
Teague snickered at the text and realized it was a very good idea. In the next few minutes he texted Johnny and Dalia really quickly (so that Pete didn’t see him slacking on the job). He told them both about Doug’s idea to ask their bosses if he or she has any helpful information on where to possibly find Henri. Teague finished sweeping the floor and rushed over to Pete.
“Done already?” Pete asked. “Yeah, and I did a dang good job, too” replied Teague. “Hey I actually wanted to ask you something. Do you happen to know someone named Henri Winslow? Or perhaps any of his relatives?”
“Hmmm….” Pete thought. “I do indeed know Henri. I graduated from Frisius High School with him. He, his brother, and I played football and ran track… oh boy does that bring back memories. Castellano, you best enjoy your senior year when it starts in a few weeks! Go out with a bang! Cause life won’t get any easier. Uh, anyways, I was good friends with Henri’s brother Ted, but I never got to know Henri too well. He seemed like a nice kid though. Last I heard, he ran away from town after someone murdered his daughter Arabella. But that was a while ago. You must have been just a baby when that happened.”
“Yeah I heard that story, just a few weeks ago actually. Well I was wondering if you happen to know Ted Winslow’s phone number at all? Long story short, if I could get his number and get a hold of him, I’d be doing one of my friends a HUGE favor. She’d really appreciate it.” “Maybe she’d even kiss me,” thought Teague, as a huge smile spread across his face.
“Hmmm,” said Pete again in deep thought. “Sorry Bud, can’t help you out much. I’m not sure what Ted’s up to nowadays. I don’t know where he’s living or what his phone number is. Sorry I couldn’t help you or your friend.”
“It’s okay,” replied a disappointed Teague. “Thanks anyway.”

After their 8 hour work days, Teague, Johnny, Doug, and Dalia were all sitting around together at Johnny’s, just like they had the night before.
“Hey Wolfgang,” said Teague. “Does your boss know Henri or any relatives or friends of his?”
“Well,” said Johnny, “He told me he doesn’t know Henri but he knows the story of Arabella and how she became a vengeful ghost. Like everyone else in town other than us four, he believes Henri is innocent and simply left town because he couldn’t handle Arabella’s death.
“Dang it! What about you Dalia?”
“No,” Dalia said sadly. “Like Johnny’s boss, he knows about Arabella but doesn’t know any Winslow’s personally. I don’t know what we’re going to do. Arabella will be here in about an hour if she gave us her word. I’m so scared for my life.”
“Don’t worry Dalia,” said Doug. “Like Teague said, Arabella’s just blackmailing us. She’s not going to come for your head. She’s just saying that so we’ll-” But Doug stopped right there as he realized who was in the kitchen.
A pair of gigantic black eyes stared at the four friends from the kitchen. A mane of greasy black hair hung down behind the pink, bruised head. The hideous, horrifying face of the human pig stared at the four friends. The human pig stood about 7 feet tall. It was wearing a long, black robe that exposed its torso as it was shirtless underneath. For some strange reason, it was wearing a pair of gray boxers. Underneath the black robe, the four friends could see that the human-pig was mostly human. It had a pig head of course, and hooves for hands and feet, but other than that, it had the body of a man. It had the body of an old man, almost skin and bone. Its human skin was wrinkly, thin, and in a terrifying way, too skinny. Its long legs seemed much too skinny, as if the human-pig were starving. From the kitchen, the human-pig suddenly began to grunt a horrible, bone-chilling grunt.
The four friends screamed at the top of their lungs. And yet, just moments later, Teague stood up and faced the human-pig face to face. Still extremely frightened, and his heart beating against his chest, Teague looked into the human-pig’s black eyes and screamed, “MY NAME IS TEAGUE CASTALLANO! WHO ARE YOU, AND WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME AND MY FRIENDS?!”
The Human-pig replied, “Danny.” And with that, it slowly walked out of the kitchen, its long, skinny, wrinkly legs jiggling about as it took each small step. The human-pig turned to leave the kitchen and waddled down the hallway and out of sight. The four friends could hear the door that led into the garage slowly open with a creak. And in a few moments, it closed shut.
Teague looked at his friends, and saw them all trembling with fright on the couch. He shuddered, and yet bravely said, “guys, we need to call our parents and see if they know Henri or any of his relatives or friends. We can’t give up yet! Otherwise those creatures and that cursed girl will keep visiting us!”
But Teague’s friends were too terrified to even move. They just sat there, staring and shaking.
“Okay, I’ll call my dad right now.” Teague reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone and dialed his dad, which was marked as “Jerk” in his contact list. “Oh, I’d better change that,” he thought. He’d changed the contact “Dad” to “Jerk” a few years ago when they’d been in a big argument over the T.V. remote.
“Hey Buddy, what is it?” asked Eddie when he answered the phone.
“Um, I have to ask something, Dad. First of all, are you guys coming home soon?”
“Yeah sure thing! We’re coming back to the hotel on Thursday. Do you need us to come sooner? I never thought I’d say this, but I almost miss you, Buddy.”
“I miss you too,” said Teague. “Hey, one other thing, do you happen to know someone named Henri Winslow?”
Teague listened to his dad’s reply, and as he did this, Johnny, Dalia, and Doug stared at Teague. They seemed to be experiencing anxiety.
In about a minute, a huge smile spread across Teague’s face. He sprinted to the kitchen and began writing on a sticky note as he listened to his dad speak. When he was finished, Teague shouted, “ALRIGHT, THANKS DAD! LATER!” and hung up. Teague dashed back to the living room. “Guys, my dad says he and Henri went to high school together, along with my boss Pete. My dad doesn’t know Henri’s number.” Teague’s friends faces dropped in disappointment again. “However, he knows Henri’s brother, Ted. He gave me Ted’s number and I wrote it down on this sticky note. Now we can call him up!” At that moment, Johnny, Doug, and Dalia jumped for joy and started to shout “HOORAY!” Teague joined in and before they knew it, they were all hugging. Suddenly, Doug pointed outside and yelled, “LOOK!”
The other three looked and saw it too. It was dark. It was much past sunset. Arabella hadn’t come for Dalia like she’d said she would. Teague looked at Dalia, who was crying tears of joy.”
“I told you she wouldn’t come to kill you,” said Teague, a giant grin spreading on his face.

It was 7 in the morning and the golden sun shone bright in the sky. The black birds in Johnny’s backyard seemed to be even more annoying than usual. Teague, Johnny, and Doug all sat together at the breakfast table each eating huge bowls of Lucky Charms. The sky looked very beautiful this morning. It was an ocean of blue and pink that stretched out for miles. As Teague shoved more and more cereal in his mouth, he looked out at the sky and saw legions of flocks of geese flying by, getting ready to migrate. He glanced at Doug and Johnny and saw that they too, were admiring the scene.
“That’s one heck of a sunrise,” said Doug.
“You said it,” agreed Johnny.
For the last half hour, they took advantage of the fact that Dalia was still snoozing and they could talk about things they didn’t normally talk about in front of her.
“If you want good pies you need to head down to Joe’s,” exclaimed Teague.
“No way, their pies suck,” replied Doug. “Everybody knows that Hilary’s Pie Shop makes the best dang pies around. You know, they’re actually made with love, they’re not full of bull crap like they are at Joes.”
Immediately after Doug said this, Dalia slowly got up off the couch and stretched her arms out.
“What a night,” she said with a yawn. “I haven’t slept like that since Teague showed me that boulder with the human-pig and that black creature.”
Dalia slowly made her way into the kitchen and gave the three boys a strange look.
“Want some Lucky Charms?” asked Teague as he tipped the open cereal box in her direction.
“Uh… do you three mind putting on some pants and a shirt?” Dalia asked.
Teague, Johnny, and Doug all immediately looked down and saw that they were all dressed only in their boxers.
“Sorry,” Johnny apologized. “I guess we’re still not exactly used to having a girl around all the time. At this Teague and Doug began howling with laughter. The three boys excused themselves to go get dressed and were back at the table within a minute.
“If you don’t want cereal you can fry up some eggs,” Johnny said to Dalia.
“Oooh that sounds good. Thanks!” said Dalia. In about 10 minutes, she was sitting at the table with her friends eating scrambled eggs and scraping marmalade on her toast. As Teague sat there, he couldn’t help but think about how much fun it was to just eat breakfast with his friends. It sure as heck beat being haunted by Arabella and the paranormal creatures. And on an even brighter note, the four friends had something to look forward to. They were all eager to call Ted Winslow up and ask if he knew where Henri was living nowadays. He was his brother after all. The chances of him not knowing where he was were slim, right?
Johnny suddenly dropped his spoon in his cereal bowl and looked up at Dalia, his mouth open so wide, it looked as though you could fit whole honeydew in his mouth.
“What’s up, Doug?” asked Dalia, a tiny bit freaked out.
“Do you think the human-pig is still in my garage? Remember, it went in there after it left the kitchen.
“I’m on it,” muttered Teague, as he got up from the chair and headed to the garage. The other three awkwardly looked at each other. A sudden blood-curdling scream that must have been Teague caused the three at the table to jump up and likewise, yelp in surprise. Teague ran back into the kitchen and Dalia yelled “What is it, Teague?!”
Teague glimpsed at the look of terror on his friend’s faces and started cackling.
“I’m totally kidding guys! There’s nothing in- OOF!” A banana that Johnny had thrown smacked Teague’s face, cutting him short.
“Not funny, bro,” Johnny chortled as all four of them began laughing.
“Um but seriously,” began Teague. “The human-pig left a lot of hoof prints on your garage floor so we might have to go scrub them off sometime maybe after work.
With that said the four friends loaded their dishes in Johnny’s dishwasher, put their shoes on, and made their way outside. It was such a pleasant day, and all four of them could say the last thing they wanted to do was go to work. But they said goodbye knowing they’d see each other again in about 10 hours.
*****

The four friends sat back down on the couch and got ready to call Ted Winslow. Teague plucked up Johnny’s home phone and dialed his number. The other three watched Teague, feeling anxious as to what was about to happen. Would Ted answer the phone? Would he really know where Henri was currently living? And if so, would he really tell them, given they were strangers?”
“Hello?” said a gruff voice on the other end of the line.
“Hi,” Teague slowly said. “I’m Teague Castellano. You obviously don’t know me but I have a question about you brother Henri. Hold on, this is Ted Winslow, right?”
“Yeah,” replied Ted.
“Well, Ted, it’s very important that we-”
“Hold the phone, Teague. You’re not a police officer, are you?”
“Uh, no sir, I’m a 17 year old kid. Why do you ask?”
“Don’t worry about it,” replied Ted.
“Okay. Well as I was saying, it’s very important that we find out where Ara- I mean, where Henri is living as of now.”
“Okay, Sonny. Why would you like to see him?”
“Well, it is rather difficult to explain. See I don’t know Henri personally. I know this sounds crazy, but my friends and I have seen his daughter Arabella. Yeah that’s right, we’ve seen your niece Arabella.”
“That’s not possible!” cried Ted. “No one has seen her in 15 years! Well, listen up Teague. I too have seen Arabella. It was 15 years ago. As far as I know, I am the one person to have seen her as a ghost who she hasn’t killed. That is, unless you really have seen her. Perhaps you could describe her for me? Maybe then, I will believe you.”
“Well,” said Teague, “she’s wearing a white satin dress. She has dark black hair, some of which covers her face. She has dark brown eyes and her legs and feet are covered in dirt. Oh, and her fingernails and toenails are really long!”
“Anything strange about her head?” asked Ted.
“Yeah,” replied Teague. “It’s sewed on because your brother Henri, um well-”
“I’m aware of what- HOLD ON! You know something Bub, it’s very well accepted around these parts that it’s a mystery as to who killed Arabella! How is it you know the truth that it was indeed my own brother Henri?! Why, other than Arabella, I’m the only person who knows that!”
“I’m telling the truth, Sir. Arabella herself told me!”
“Okay son, I have to admit. It is hard to believe my niece has appeared to you, especially since no one in Frisius has seen her in 15 years. But I’ll be blunt, your story sounds convincing. I believe you. But before I tell you anything, you must know something about Henri first.”
“I’m all ears, Mr. Winslow,” replied Teague.
“I know you don’t know Henri personally. I also know that he wouldn’t dare harm a living person unless he had a very good reason. As to this day, I don’t know why he murdered Arabella. Perhaps he was having a nervous breakdown. My sister in law passed away in a car crash shortly before Arabella was murdered. He was going through a hard time. While that doesn’t excuse him killing his own daughter, I know from the bottom of my heart he wouldn’t dare harm her with a sane mind. Are you following me?”
“Yeah, of course I am,” said Teague. “I never even considered maybe he wasn’t thinking straight when he committed the murder.”

October 26, 1996

Henri Winslow paced down the moonlit sidewalk on his way to go meet his friends at the bar to watch a football game. He’d left Arabella, his 13-year old daughter, home. She assured him that she’d be fine without a babysitter, and so he didn’t see the harm in leaving for just a few hours.  It’d give him a chance to cheer up, given his wife Helen had recently passed away in a car crash. As for Arabella, she taken the news very well and seemed to get over it pretty quick. She had told him she was sure she would see her mom again someday.
But as Henri continued walking down the sidewalk, a sudden thought came to his head. He glanced around and wondered why he was outside.
“Where am I going again?” he thought.
Henri looked around again, turned around, and started heading back home. As he turned around, a sudden feeling overtook his whole body. It was uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but his stomach began to hurt. He grabbed his stomach and groaned. And Henri looked up at the moon and frowned. His eyes suddenly dilated. He clenched his mouth and showed his teeth. For some reason, Henri was ANGRY. He stormed down the street, and within minutes, he was sprinting home. Then, as if he’d become a wild animal, he got down on all fours and crawled home in a bear-crawl-like manner. But the way his body twisted in an unnatural way made him look terrifying.
Henri reached his home. But instead of going straight to the front porch and to the door, he decided to enter his home in a different way. He crawled over to the boulder next to the fence and jumped over into his back yard. He dove into the bushes and peaked into the window. His daughter Arabella was sitting on the couch watching T.V. Henri frowned again and crawled in his strange manner again and from the ground, looked up at one of the top windows, which appeared to be slightly open.
Henri crawled up the wall, his arms and legs flailing about. He indeed was a horrifying sight to witness. He finally slithered into the window and entered his home in an intentionally loud manner. He thumped across the upstairs den and down the steps, where Arabella sat cringing in terror.

Henri had just woken up and yawned. He looked around him and muttered “what the heck? How’d I get under the bed?” He rubbed his eyes and army crawled back from under the bed, so as to avoid hitting his head. Once out and on his feet, he slumped downstairs to a horrible sight. He glanced at the living room rug at what lay on the carpet and cried out louder than ever before. Someone had murdered his daughter! They’d cut off her head, which sat on the carpet staring up at him. He rushed to the home phone to call the cops. But on his way over, a sudden memory came to mind. It was the most unpleasant memory he could imagine. Without warning, it seeped into his mind. “No,” he whispered. “No, no, no, it can’t be….”
“I killed Arabella,” he slowly cried.
He fell to his knees and began to cry. “WHAT HAVE I DONE?!” He shouted dramatically. He turned his head around and looked at Arabella’s lifeless body on the rug. “What the-” he muttered. Arabella’s decapitated head had just been sitting on the rug about 15 feet away. But now, it wasn’t there. As Henri put his hand on his head, wondering where her head had gone, he heard the most terrible sound come from close by. He turned back around and saw Arabella’s head…. It was sitting on the island just three feet from him, staring at him again, with its big, black, unforgiving eyes.
Henri screamed and the head opened its mouth even wider as if it were alive. It began rocking back and forth, back and forth, the black hair waving around like a flag. “OOOOOOOHHHHHHH….” The head moaned in a deep, unnatural voice that wasn’t anything at all like Arabella’s. Henri cried out and ran to the phone. He snatched it from the charger and sprinted upstairs. He began to dial the number for Ted. Henri knew not why he’d killed his daughter, but perhaps his brother would know what to do.

Present Day
Teague listened closely as he continued listening to Ted. Teague didn’t know very much about Henri Winslow. Prior to talking to Ted, he’d thought he was nothing but a murderer. But having listened to his brother, a thought had come across his mind he’d never considered: Maybe there was more to the story. Perhaps Henri had been experiencing a nervous breakdown and wasn’t thinking straight when he murdered Arabella. Had he been thinking right? Was he in control of his actions? Had he been losing his mind?
As these thoughts swirled around in his head, Ted paused his speaking on the phone and took a deep breath. “So Teague,” he began again, “for the last 15 years, my mind has been troubled. Every single night, I ask myself if I should have helped my brother leave his home so that the police wouldn’t find him. They didn’t accuse him right off the bat of killing Arabella, but the circumstances leave anybody a suspect. There’s no proof that it was Henri; the police officers simply wanted to ask him a few questions. Once I helped him to leave, they too believed he went insane. He lost his wife and daughter in just a few weeks. They couldn’t blame him for leaving town.”
“Wow,” Teague sighed. “I never thought of it that way.” Before he realized it, a tear or two ran down his cheek. It was after all, a sad subject they’d been discussing. From there however, Ted finally confided to Teague that there was an on old, deserted shack that lay a few miles outside of Frisius. It was the place he’d helped Henri escape to following Arabella’s death. As Ted put it “I’m not sure if he’s still living there. His car is still parked there, but every time I’ve gone to say hi, well he hasn’t been there. I haven’t seen him in 10 years, but the last time I did see him, he was still living there, keeping a low profile. As a matter of fact, I haven’t even thought of him for a while until you called me. I simply thought he didn’t want to contact me anymore. He never returns my calls.”
“Do you think it’s possible that maybe he went back home?” asked Teague.
“I suppose it is. But I highly doubt it. I’ve been to his home and knocked on the door, but it’s locked and there’s no sign of him living there. Now that you know where that shack is located, well perhaps you could try his home too. The address of the last real home he lived in that I know of is the same home he murdered Arabella in. The     address is 1246 Rocky Street. And of course that’s here in Frisius.”
“I know where that street is!” exclaimed Teague.
“Don’t get too excited though, Bud. Like I said, Henri could be anywhere for all I know.  I haven’t seen him or contacted him in about 10 years. He’s impossible to get hold of. I really do miss him though. I’m sorry Teague, but I don’t think you’ll ever find Henri.”
“I know you don’t think so. But I disagree. I’m going to find him not matter what it takes. But that’s all I needed to know, Mr. Winslow. Thank you so much for the information. You’ve no idea how much this means to my friends and I! Have a good night!” yelled Teague.
“You too, Mr. Teague. Goodbye.”
With that, Teague hung up and looked at his friends. He showed them the paper he’d written on. It had directions on how to get to the shack that Henri was possibly living at, and the address to his home. It was very unlikely he would be found at either, considering what Ted had told him. But Teague didn’t care. He had a feeling he and his friends would come out on top and find him.

Like melting chocolate ice cream, the sandy dunes of Frisius appeared a light brown under the gray morning sky. The typical colorful sunrise that coated Frisius particularly in the summer was absent today.
“Well, it’s Wednesday,” said Dalia at the breakfast table.
“Yep. Looks like all our parents are coming home tomorrow. Looks like we’d better see if we can go find Henri tonight,” muttered Doug.
“I wonder,” began Teague, looking out at the rising sun. “How come Arabella got cold feet? She said she’d come kill Dalia. That was a day and a half ago.”
“You know what this means right, guys?” asked Johnny. “I just realized something. We don’t even have to go find Henri. The only reason we had to get his address is so that we could give it to Arabella so she’d spare Dalia. But Arabella didn’t have the spine to show up.”
“Yeah that’s true. But remember, just because Arabella hasn’t bothered us again doesn’t mean the others won’t. The human-pig sure gave us a scare Monday night when he was spying on us from the kitchen,” replied Doug.
“Hold the phone!” cried Dalia. “What did the human-pig say again? Teague, what did you ask him when you spoke to him from the kitchen?!”
“I shouted ‘my name is Teague Castellano. Who are you and do you want with me and my friends?’”
“That’s right!” shouted Dalia. “And what did he say after that?”
“He just replied ‘Danny.’” Then he waddled into Johnny’s garage. “
I wonder why he was just wearing boxers under his cloak,” Doug replied.
“Forget about the boxers, Doug! He said his name was Danny, right? Wasn’t the worker who escaped from the massacre at Teague’s soon-to-be-home named Danny?!” cried Dalia.
“That’s right!” yelled Teague. “You’re right Dalia!”
“So what’s the big deal? The human-pig just has the same name as Danny the worker. It’s a somewhat common name isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” said Dalia.
“Yes. It’s just a coincidence I suppose,” muttered Teague.  “But I really do want to know whatever happened to Danny. He just disappeared and no one has heard from him since. I really think the police have given up looking for him. That and finding out who killed all those men.”
“Do any of you think we should tell the police that it’s the human-pig responsible for the massacre?” asked Johnny.
“Do you really think they’d believe us?” asked Dalia. “I know where you’re coming from Johnny, but there’s no way they’d believe that a human-pig hybrid paid those workers a visit and murdered all 30-some of those poor men.”

Johnny looked at the time on the oven and said, “Well, it’s 8:40. We’d best be leaving soon so we’re not late for work. So, do you guys think we’ll go try to find Henri?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Teague. “All this time we’ve been trying to find out who killed the construction workers, we’ve found out a few things. It wasn’t Arabella. It was the human-pig. But it’s not like we can bring the thing to justice.”
“We know one thing,” began Doug. “The human-pig is a male. Remember, we saw it in just its boxers, and it had the body of a man.”
“That’s right,” agreed Teague. “So we found out the human-pig killed them. We also learned that contrary to popular belief, Henri Winslow killed his daughter. We’re the only ones in town other than Ted who know the truth- that it was Henri and not somebody else. But Henri and Danny are both missing and we’ll never find either of them.”
“What are you saying, Teague?” asked Dalia, a very sad look on her face.
“I’m saying, we’ve done all the research we can do. We found out who killed all the men rebuilding my house. The mystery’s out. We’re never going to find Henri or Danny. All we can do is stay together till our parents get home, and then make sure we’re never by ourselves so those creatures will leave us alone.”
“There’s still one thing I want to know,” exclaimed Doug. “How come those creatures only visit us and not any one else?” he asked.
“I don’t think we’ll ever know,” said Teague. “We’d better head to work now. And we’d better enjoy these last two weeks before school starts. We’re going to be seniors really soon!”
Dalia looked at Teague and said, “I have a feeling we can still hang out for awhile even during the school year. I’m staying here in Frisius to work for a year before I go to a community college. I’ll still see you three around this next school year!”
Teague looked at Dalia and smiled. This was the second-best news he’d heard all summer, the first being about a month ago when he’d went on a “blind-date” with her that Johnny had cleverly set up.

*****

Arabella looked all around the living room. She sat down on the couch and looked at Karzonawk, who was one of her best friends. Karzonawk remembered just two months ago when he’d encountered Teague at the beginning of summer. Teague had been out for a late night walk to buy bread at Pete’s when he’d seen him. He’d stared at the teenaged boy with his big red eyes. He’d clearly scared him pretty bad, which was the ultimate goal in the plan he, Arabella, the human-pig, the ape-creature, and the rest of the gang had cooked up.
Arabella looked at Karzonawk and patted his long, jack-rabbit shaped ears. Karzonawk shook his head back and forth to indicate this made him happy. He shook his chain which was tangled on his tail and looked down at the spiked shackles on his ankle.
He looked up at Arabella and decided to ask something that’d been on his mind. But instead of speaking to her in Bakoshtangan, which was customary, he spoke in English, deciding that since it was his second language, he could use the practice.
“Tell me again, Arabella,” he said in his deep, scary voice. “Why are we waiting here again?”
Arabella patted his back as if he were a dog and said, “To find out if Teague has found my father yet. I must confront him so I can finally know why he murdered me. It is something I will never forgive him for.”
“Of course,” Karzonawk replied. “It’s been 15 years, but I think we will finally find him. Your determination will soon pay off.”
The ape-creature suddenly hopped off the top of the entertainment center which held Johnny’s T.V. inside. He’d been lying on top of it, snoring in deep sleep for the last few hours while Karzonawk and Arabella had been discussing how to find her dad. The ape-creature stretched its lanky, black arms and rubbed its eyes.
“So, you’ve finally decided to wake up, eh?” screeched Arabella.
“Why exactly are you two speaking in English?” the ape-creature hissed.
“Because Rakasha, unlike you, English is my native language,” Arabella snapped.
“True,” muttered Rakasha the ape-creature.
As Rakasha said this, there came a loud thumping from the top of the stairs. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. The human-pig came slowly walking down the stairs. He turned to face Arabella, Karzonawk, and Rakasha.
“Rikro vixal kribesh re jon,” he said in a gruff voice.
“You can speak in English,” Arabella said. “You can all use the practice.”
“In that case,” the human-pig began, “there’s no sign of those four yet.”
“Not to worry, they’ll be here any minute,” Arabella said, an evil smile stretching across her face.

Teague, Johnny, Doug, and Dalia, had all met outside the gas station Johnny worked at so they could walk home together. It was on the way to his home anyways. The four of them couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. They’d spent countless hours of their free time this summer discussing how they could find Henri. And now they had a glimpse of reality. They would not find him. Still there remained for them a list of unanswered questions. Without a doubt however, it had been a very interesting summer thus far. But above all, it had been most terrifying. Even when they were together, the four friends couldn’t help but have extreme difficulty in falling asleep. And when they did, they typically had nightmares. Their nightmares could be about anything: from the strange, unnatural gait of the ape-creature, to the terrible black eyes of the human-pig. But most frightening of all was the fleshy, clammy, ghostly face of Arabella Winslow, the Banshee of Frisius.
The four friends tried to avoid such talk of their night terrors, as it only increased their fear of being alone, but sometimes they couldn’t help it. After all, one thing’s for sure, they could all relate to each other, each of them having experienced the same, unbelievable fear of the unnatural.
The four friends sauntered down the moon-lit sidewalk with a feeling of mixed emotions: terror, confusion, excitement (that their parents would be home soon,) and disappointment. Teague glanced at Dalia, her long, brown hair flowing behind her. She looked so nice under the moon, and she looked back at him and gave him a strange look. He quickly looked away from her eyes, wondering if he’d done something wrong. Then he looked down at the ground and continued walking. It only took a few seconds for him to realize that he and Doug were the only two still walking. Teague and Doug suddenly turned around and noticed that Johnny and Dalia had stopped in their tracks. They were planted 10 feet behind them, staring at something in the distance. Their eyebrows raised, their mouths open, it was an expression Teague and Doug were all too familiar with. It appeared Johnny and Dalia were beyond TERRIFIED.
Teague had never experienced such a strange feeling of mixed emotions. He was happy because Dalia hadn’t been looking at HIM weird. She’d been staring at something in the distance. But whatever that thing was, Teague was sure he didn’t want to know.
But he and Doug looked out in the direction Johnny and Dalia were hypnotized by. And they saw the two, running by in their own strange way. Out in the distance, just fifty feet or so away, the ape-creature and the creature with neon-red eyes and jack-rabbit-like ears were running. Rakasha the ape-creature, and Karzonawk, with his jack-rabbit ears and neon-red eyes, were running in the same direction that the four friends were heading. Teague stared at Rakasha and Karzonawk, and in his wave of fear, suddenly wondered if these two paranormal creatures had names. Under the giant full moon in the sky, the two creatures looked so sinister. As they ran, Rakasha let out an eerie and horrifying moan, as if he were ready to kill something.
Doug suddenly tapped Teague on the shoulder and Teague cried out in surprise. “Look in the ape-creature’s hand,” he screeched. Teague looked and suddenly noticed it was carrying a sharp stick. The two must have been hunting for something. Rakasha the ape-creature threw the sharp stick at a tiny shadow the four friends could barely make out and moaned again. The tiny shadow stopped. He must have hit it straight on.
Johnny watched in terror as Rakasha picked up whatever the shadow was. It almost looked like a rat of some sort, as from the long distance away, he could barely make out a small tail hanging from its body.
Dalia let out a whimper as she saw Rakasha tear the rat in half and give the tail-end to Karzonawk. Karzonawk took the rat in its claws and shoved in its mouth. Rakasha threw the other half in its mouth and the pair took off running again.
“How many times do I have to run the ape-creature over with my car before it dies?” Teague whispered.
Dalia turned to Teague, her emerald eyes filled with fear. “Where do you think they’re headed?” she whispered.
Johnny looked out at them and cried, “They’re headed straight for my house! Look!”
The other three looked and sure enough, Rakasha had hopped over the fence to Johnny’s back yard while Karzonawk leaped like a cat on top, and from there jumped down so the both of them were no longer visible.
“Come on guys!” Johnny yelled. “Let’s go see what they want!”

The four friends began sprinting over towards Johnny’s house. As he bolted as fast as he could, Johnny imagined himself running the 200m in track, with everybody in his grade cheering for him from the stands. He didn’t think he’d ever felt such a strange mix of adrenaline and fear like this before. He looked back at Doug and Dalia. Their eyes were open wide, and the bright, luminous moonlight reflected off their eyes. After just about 30 seconds, the friends scampered onto Johnny’s driveway. They crept up to the window. Once they stepped onto Johnny’s porch, something caught their eyes. Johnny peered into the window and gasped. Given the lights were all off, he could easily see Karzonawk’s giant, neon red eyes. They were staring out the window at the four friends, as if it were looking into their very hearts. The breeze that had been blowing for the last hour seemed to almost howl. As Teague listened closely to it, he briefly looked around at all the cacti, and almost thought he heard whispering around him. As strange as it was, he imagined giant pan flutes all around him, being played by giants as the music traveled all around with the breeze. Johnny whispered “Oh no, they’re here” under his breath. Dalia put her face into her hands and moaned. She didn’t think she could bear seeing any more horrible creatures. Johnny ruffled through his pockets and grabbed his keys. Shaking and trembling, he put the key through the keyhole and slowly opened the door. The very first thing he saw made he and his friends jump back nearly 10 feet. Arabella was stuck to the wall like a spider, her hands stuck there, and her evil face staring at the four of them. Her black hair flew like a waterfall behind her rotting head. Her deep brown eyes glared at the friends and her mouth opened wider and wider as she showed them her rotting teeth. The flesh that had fallen off her face made Doug clutch his chest and whimper like a little dog. Her dirty, skinny arms rested against the wall like a pair of octopus tentacles. And her finger and toenails looked as though they’d been gnawed by a rat. She hissed at the four friends in her spine tingling voice “it’s about time you four showed up.”
Johnny glanced around the corner and saw that the human-pig was stuffing its unearthly, frightening face with what appeared to be pop-tarts. Had Johnny not felt he were going to pass out by terror, he most likely would have called the hybrid a bad word.
Teague finally decided to be brave. He stepped towards the open door and passed his three friends. He cautiously entered Johnny’s house and flipped on the light. Following suit, his three friends slowly came in after him.
Teague looked straight into Arabella’s shocking brown eyes. Karzonawk began to circle Teague and looked him up and down. Teague tried his best to stand his ground and not get scared. Rakasha joined the human-pig in the kitchen and helped himself to a few pop tarts himself.
Arabella stared at Teague and cried “your time’s up. You didn’t give me the address to my father’s house. And for that, I’ll have Dalia’s head.” With that, Arabella pulled out a kitchen knife from behind her. It was as if it had come out of nowhere. She pointed it straight at Dalia and said “Are you ready?” and an evil grin spread across her face.

Dalia whimpered and backed into the corner as Arabella approached her. The ghost’s eyes flashed maliciously. Dalia clutched her chest and felt the blood flow in her veins. Her body started to shake. Her eyes opened wider and wider and her nostrils flared. And then to everyone’s surprise, Teague, the kid who didn’t have the guts to ever ask Dalia for her phone number, stepped between Arabella and Dalia. He faced the ghost girl, and frowned at her.
“Don’t try to be a hero, Teague. Don’t think I’m not willing to kill both of you.”
Johnny and Doug, who were both frozen with fear, almost wanted to cheer Teague on. They couldn’t believe how brave he could be when he set his mind on something!
“You’re bluffing, Arabella! You need me alive! You need me so I can tell you where your dad Henri is! If you spent as much time trying to forgive your dad as you did plotting his death, maybe you wouldn’t have wasted all these years trying to find him! Maybe you’d be happy right now!” Teague sneered.
“CAN I GET AN AMEN?!” cheered Doug.
Arabella turned to face Doug quick as a whip. “SHUT UP!” she snapped, and with that Doug looked down and whimpered.
Arabella turned back to face Teague. “You’re right,” she screeched. “I do need you alive. I can read your mind. You do know where my father is. But you’re not going to tell me. You don’t want to help me find him and potentially kill him. However, maybe if I kill Dalia, the girl you’re in love with, maybe then you’ll be willing to talk.”
With that, Arabella moaned a loud, deep, unearthly moan. Quicker than the blink of an eye, she was down on the floor, crawling like a monster towards Dalia. Her arms and legs twisted behind her. Her hair flowed back as if it were caught in a strong breeze. The white, ragged dress she wore flailed about against her skinny, grey body.
Teague jumped between Arabella and Dalia again. He looked at Arabella’s cursed face again. She looked into his eyes with hatred. He felt his beating heart and realized he feared for his life, despite what the ruthless ghost girl had said about needing him. He gazed at Arabella and glared at at her again. “IF YOU KILL ANYBODY TONIGHT, IT’S GOING TO BE ME! I WILL NOT HELP YOU FIND YOUR DAD. LIKEWISE, I WILL NOT STAND HERE AND WATCH YOU KILL DALIA!” he roared.
Upon hearing this, the frown on Dalia’s face turned into a giant smile. As for Johnny and Doug, their mouths dropped down even farther. How had Teague grown to be so brave?
And then suddenly, just as fear stirred faster and faster into the hearts of the four friends, for the very first time, they heard Karzonawk speak. “Arabella,” he announced in his deep, gruff voice, which made even Teague jump back with fright.
Arabella turned her face and neck 360 degrees and cried “WHAT?!”
“Look in his pocket,” he groaned.
Arabella glanced at the human-pig, who nodded his rotten head at her, his greasy, black mane of hair shaking behind him. To express his strong agreement, he suddenly pounded his hoof on the counter. Arabella looked to Rakasha, who simply shrugged, and made a strange gesture with his hand.
Arabella suddenly approached Teague, her eyes flickering with mischief. Her long, skinny arms flailed about in the most unnatural way. Her mouth opened wider and wider, and an extremely loud shriek escaped her mouth. All four of the friends cupped their hands to their ears and clenched their teeth. And the terror Teague felt caused him to drop to the floor. Arabella reached into his pocket and snatched a sticky note. She pulled it out and gazed at the note as Teague’s arms and hands began to shake. Arabella quickly realized the address and directions on the sticky note were directions to Henri’s shack, and Henri’s last known address, given Teague had clearly marked them with those two categories.
Arabella looked up and glared at Dalia, whose teary face illustrated she’d never been more terrified than at this very moment.
“You’re a lucky girl, Dalia,” she shrieked.
Arabella turned to the human-pig and said “well, I’ve got what I need, let’s go find my Dad!”
It happened before any of the four friends could even think. Arabella hopped onto Karzonawk’s back, even though she was much bigger than him. But perhaps, being a ghost, she didn’t weigh very much. Karzonawk bolted like a dog to the front door. The human-pig dashed to the door right behind them, and Rakasha hobbled like a chimpanzee over. Arabella opened the door, and all the terrors disappeared outside, slamming the door behind them. Wanting nothing more than to feel loved, the four friends trampled to the center of the living room and hugged each other in their group hug. Dalia gasped as tears continued to run down her cheeks. “It’s okay,” Teague whispered. But then without warning, he jumped back and yelled, “Guys! We need to race those guys to Henri’s! Not just that, we have to beat them! We have to tip Henri off that they’re coming for him!”
“But Teague,” Johnny announced, “you said we’ll never find him! If we can’t find him, what makes you think they’ll find him! They’re wasting their time!”
“Forget what I said!” Teague cried. If he’s either at his shack or in his home, we have to make sure we help in possibly saving his life! Come on we have to hurry!”
“But Teague,” Dalia moaned, “they took the note with the directions to his shack and the address of his house!”
“I have a copy!” Teague shouted. “Now let’s go! They already have a head start!”
Teague snatched the doorknob, opened the door, and dashed outside out of sight. Johnny, Doug, and Dalia sprinted for the door behind him. Dalia, being last one out, quickly glanced around the home, making sure no one else was in Johnny’s house. She felt her chest again as her heartbeat started to slightly slow down. She gasped in fright and finally closed the door. She ran off the porch and ran after her friends. As she dashed down the sidewalk which led to the driveway, she noticed that Arabella, Karzonawk, Rakasha, and the human-pig hadn’t even left yet. Arabella was still sitting on Karzonawk, but Rakasha was holding the handle bars of a cool-looking bicycle.  As her firmly held it, the human-pig was straining to pump its flat tire as fast as he could.
“HURRY UP! THEY’RE ALREADY OUT HERE!” Arabella screamed.
“I’m trying!” the human-pig grunted. “It’s hard to pump this tire when you keep yelling at me!”
“What did you even run over?! A nail?” she demanded
“It’s an old bike! I’m fixing it up!” the human-pig replied.
Doug, who was at the steering wheel of the Johnny’s dad’s Dodge Ram, laid his hand on the horn and yelled, “Come on Dalia!”
She jumped in the backseat next to Johnny. Teague turned around from the front passenger seat and smiled at Dalia, who returned it with her own. He turned back to Doug and nudged him. Doug floored the gas pedal harder than ever before and the engine roared. He backed out of the driveway and sped down the street. Teague glanced in the rearview mirror. Arabella, Karzonawk, Rakasha, and the human-pig, were right on their tail, each racing them in their own strange way. Karzonawk was running on all fours, carrying Arabella on his back as if he were a horse. With how fast the dog-sized creature ran, he would put a roadrunner to shame. As for Rakasha the ape-creature, it was hobbling forward on its fists like an ape, and yet traveling as fast as a cheetah. And the human-pig, as terrifying as it was, looked comical riding its bike at such a high speed, its hooves touching the pedals, and going around and around so fast it was hard to even see them. And being nearly 7 feet tall, riding a bike that was clearly too small, he indeed was a sight to see.

Doug steadily pressed his foot to the gas pedal harder. He turned his head to the rearview mirror, his curly hair shaking as he did so. “STEP ON IT, DUDE! THEY’RE GAINING ON US!” roared Johnny.
“We’ll see about that,” scoffed Doug. That said, he stomped on the gas pedal and started hitting 70mph. He was sure he was going well over the speed limit on this back road, but there was no one else driving at this time of night. As they continued roaring down the road, Dalia looked out the window and shuddered. It seemed that the road was being caked in a thick coat of fog. Fog in the summer? There was something fishy about that. She looked up at Teague in the front passenger seat. She put her hand on his shoulder. Given he had been willing to give up his own life for her, her opinion of him had rocketed upward in the last hour. Teague slowly turned his head and his eyes darted towards her hand, which still rested on his shoulder. He raised an eyebrow, not being used to physical contact from girls. “Okay, this is getting weird he thought.”
Doug looked in the rearview mirror again and saw that Arabella and the ghostly creatures were steadily gaining on them. They just wouldn’t give up. And they didn’t even seem tired. Even the human-pig, still riding the bike much faster than even the fastest animals on earth, didn’t even appear to be breaking a sweat. Doug on the other hand, was drenched. He wiped a stream of sweat off his forehead and muttered something under his breath. Teague didn’t quite catch what he said, but was pretty sure he’d cursed Arabella. Dalia felt her stomach as her chest pounded. Johnny glanced at her and nodded. He had a look on his face that a skydiver might have if his or her parachute wasn’t opening. Teague dug his hands into his seat as sweat rolled down his arms. He gritted his teeth as he sank deeper and deeper into the cushioning. He glanced into the rearview mirror again, rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t imagining, and looked again. His eyes hadn’t deceived him…. Arabella, Karzonawk, Rakasha, and the human-pig were now joined by three new creatures. Two of them, Teague and his friends had seen before. The creature with an owl-shaped head, a trunk-like nose, and goat legs was riding a red scooter, its wings placed firmly on the handles. How could a scooter be going so fast? Right behind it stood the black creature that wore a heart-stopping white mask, with red markings around the eyes and three orange feathers poking out at the top. It appeared to be riding a skateboard. And finally, just behind the masked creature, was a new face. It rode a long board, and a look of pure evil showed on its face. Like the human-pig, it appeared to be half human, half animal. But rather than a rotting pig head, it had the head of a mangy, black Labrador retriever.
Dalia, who’d turned to see what Teague was gazing at, cupped her hand to her mouth and cried out.
“Don’t worry guys! We’re almost to Henri’s shack! We’re going to beat those guys!” Doug exclaimed, a smile spreading across his face. He looked in the mirror at Johnny and yelled “Johnny! Is there any way we can slow those guys down?!”
“What do you mean?’ shouted Johnny.
“I mean is there anything we can throw at them? Maybe we can knock off one of those skateboarders or maybe the human-pig since he’s on a bike!”
“Good idea man! But I don’t think-”
“Hey Johnny, look!” Dalia said. “There’s a whole case of unopened water bottles back here!”
“Okay, we’ll use those! Nice thinking Dalia!” Johnny lowered his voice. “Guess I’ll buy my mom a new case some time,” he whispered.
Teague looked back at Johnny and Dalia and laughed at the idea. Johnny tore the case of water bottles open, pulled a few out, and rolled the window down, ready to bean Arabella and her creature friends.
“Don’t aim for Arabella, Johnny!” shouted Teague. Remember, she’s a ghost!”
“Oh yeah, I won’t be forgetting about Doug trying to throw that chair at her!” and with that Teague, Doug, and Dalia began to cackle. Johnny on the other hand, furrowed his brow. He was tying to think of some excuse for there now being a giant hole in the wall in his living room, after all, his family would be coming home from the mall the next day.

Johnny shot his arm out the window, and aimed right at the human-pig’s face. He threw the water bottle as hard as he could. It soared straight at the rotting pig’s face, but he ducked just in time. “DANG IT! I WAS SO CLOSE TOO!” Yelled Johnny.
“Come on Johnny! Show them your good arm!” roared Teague. “I’ve seen you play baseball in P.E. and you’re good!”
“Are you kidding me?” asked Johnny. “I’m a terrible pitcher!”
“Hmmm, true,” muttered Teague. “But you’re one heck of a batter!”
“That’s only because Mr. Frank pitches like a girl!”
“Hmmm….” Teague thought again. “True…”
“Johnny shut up and throw more water bottles!” sneered Doug.
“HOLY COW!” Johnny cried. “Look at that! The human-pig has ear phones he’s- he’s listening to an I-pod! Where’d he get an I-pod at?”
“What?” cried Dalia.
“Huh?” asked Teague.
“Johnny, what on earth are you-”
“No I’m serious, look!” stuttered Johnny.
Teague, Doug, and Dalia turned around to glimpse behind them for a moment. Sure enough, the human-pig continued pedaling his bike, ultra fast, all while listening to an I-pod. Doug shook his head in disbelief. “I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“I wonder what he’s listening to,” said Teague, just as Johnny chucked a second water bottle back as far as he could. “GOT HIM!” he cried. No one else had seen it, but the water bottle had smacked the human-dog’s face and caused him to turn left and fall off his long board head first. Unfortunately, he’d shaken it off quickly, brushed some dirt off his knees, and hopped right back on, pushing off the road with his paw as hard as he could. Given the human-dog and his friends were traveling at about 60mph, even pausing for a break would leave them having to struggle to catch up, and the human-dog panted and panted as he used all the strength he had to catch up to Rakasha, who was immediately in front of him. Doug put his hand up to his mouth and scratched his chin. He looked up at the full moon and all the stars. He couldn’t really believe that he was spending his Wednesday night speeding down the road racing a load  of ghosts and paranormal creatures to a stranger’s shack to warn him that his opponents were out to kill him. Doug remembered suddenly that Johnny had a CD in the CD slot and so he turned on the radio to take his mind off his fear. The first track was none other than Dragula (Hot Rod Herman Remix) by Rob Zombie. Immediately, the song boomed throughout the interior of the truck as Dalia sank back in her seat, the song being a little too loud for her. As Doug continued to drive, he couldn’t help but drum his fingers against the steering wheel. It sure did lighten the mood for him. And as the song continued to play, it was safe to say that the hearts of Teague, Johnny, Doug, and Dalia were now pounding harder than ever before. All the while, the lyrics of Draguala-Hot Rod Herman Remix echoed in Teague’s ears: “HEY I AM THE LIFE, DIG INTO THE SKIN. KNUCKLE CRACK THE BONE, 21 TO WIN. HEY I AM THE DOG, HOUND OF HELL YOU CRY. DEVIL ON YOUR BACK, I CAN NEVER DIE…”
And the beating drums, guitars, and various instruments in the song rang through the truck. Teague had never heard the song until now, but the words “I can never die” almost reminded him of Arabella’s creature friends. Perhaps they were invincible. Maybe they could never die. As the thought sunk into his mind, he glanced out the window and uttered a cry of surprise: the human-pig was now riding right beside his window. He’d ridden the bike so fast, he was now neck and neck with him. He rode the bike on the narrow stretch of rode between Johnny’s roaring truck and what looked like an endless sea of sand and sagebrush that gleamed under the starlit, purple sky. But in the arid land that surrounded Frisius, once in awhile, you could spot the occasional juniper tree.  And suddenly, Doug had an idea. He looked up ahead and spotted a particularly large juniper tree. It was coming up fast, and in about five seconds, Doug suddenly jerked his hands on the steering wheel and turned right.
The human-pig, who’d been riding his bike just outside Teague’s window, was forced to turn right to avoid being hit by Johnny’s truck. He maneuvered the handle bar and unprepared, rode his way up a giant sand dune. The bike tires left the sand, and the human-pig soared in the air, about five feet above the sand. Forward and forward he went, and before he had time to bail out, the front tire of his bike slammed into a giant tree trunk. The human-pig flopped forward and smashed into the tree’s largest branch. Immediately falling from an unforgiving fall, his head smacked against a branch and he landed arm first on the warm sand.
Teague, Johnny, Doug, and Dalia, all turned their heads quickly. They caught site of the human-pig, slumped up and injured, his head resting on the trees trunk. And the four roared with laughter.
Good one Doug,” shouted Teague and Johnny at the same time, smacking Doug’s back.
As for the human-pig, groaning, he jumped back on his unharmed bike, and kicked his hooves off the ground in an attempt to catch up to the car. He pedaled as fast as he could, somewhat out of breath, and his thighs aching from riding his bike at such a high speed. As he rode, the human-dog, still riding his long board, passed by and laughed at him, having witnessed the tree-accident. The human-pig swore at the human-dog in Bakoshtangan and put his ear phones back in. He turned his I-pod back on, found his favorite song, and played it. He had a somewhat different taste in music than Johnny. Rather than listening to a heavy-metal song like the Dragula Hot Rod Herman Remix, the Human-pig began to slightly shake his head back and forth to the singing of Gloria Gaynor as she sang I will survive: GO ON NOW GO; WALK OUT THE DOOR. JUST TURN AROUND NOW, ‘CAUSE YOU’RE NOT WELCOME ANYMORE. WEREN’T YOU THE ONE WHO TRIED TO BREAK ME WITH GOODBYE, DID YOU THINK I’D CRUMBLE? DID YOU THINK I’D LAY DOWN AND DIE? OH NO NOT I, I WILL SURVIVE…”
For being such a terrifying creature, his taste in Disco music sure didn’t match his eye-popping image, or personality.

Suddenly, Doug turned the steering wheel to the right again and into an eerie looking driveway, so hard Johnny had jerked right and fallen on Dalia. “Sorry,” he murmured. “It’s okay” she groaned, her face against the window. Doug turned his head. “Sorry guys,” he said, as he stopped the truck.
“Where the heck are we?” Teague asked. But he quickly looked outside and realized why they’d stopped. They were right beside a giant, filthy, black shack. The four friends hopped out just as Arabella and Karzonawk arrived, the rest of her gang in sight just 50 feet behind, making their way up the road. Teague dashed to the front of the shack moments before Arabella got there. He kicked the door open and peered inside. He was soon joined inside by Johnny, Doug, and Dalia. An old couch sat in the corner, some of its stuffing on the floor as there was a large hole. The floorboards under their feet were caked in grime and dust. The table in the kitchen, if you could even call it one, was broken in half and missing a leg. It was dark, and Teague crossed the floor cautiously. “I don’t think Henri’s here,” he whispered. His three friends nodded in agreement. The four of them hunched outside as Arabella, still riding on Karzonawk, arrived at the front door. “Well?” she screeched, looking at Teague.
“Your dad isn’t here,” muttered Teague.
Arabella said “well, I suppose we’d better check his house then,” and in frustration, she gave Johnny a hard shove into the shack’s front wall. He grunted in surprise, and in the blink of an eye, Arabella and Karzonawk were riding away. The four friends could clearly hear her shriek at her gang “WE MUST TRY HIS HOUSE! HE ISN’T HERE!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the human-dog and Rakasha groaned. “Waste of time,” the human-pig complained.
Within just a few moments, Teague and his friends were back in Johnny’s truck, driving up the road. They were racing Arabella and her friends again, and as they passed the exhausted creatures, they rolled the windows down and laughed. They were still most frightened by the terrifying creatures, but the fact that they were beating them again made them all smile. The giant moon in the sky illuminated the inside of the truck as it hummed up the road. It looked like they were going to beat Arabella to Henri’s house.
Dalia glanced outside and noticed the masked creature, riding its skateboard, and the elephant-owl, riding its red scooter, was right even with the truck, as the human-pig had been earlier. The masked creature’s mask shone bright under the moonlight. It stared at Dalia and made a strange gesture at her. She could see it opening and closing its mouth, it was clearly speaking to her even though she couldn’t hear it with all the windows rolled up. As for the elephant-owl, it looked at Dalia and lifted up its trunk with one of its wings. Dalia hadn’t the foggiest what the purpose for this action was, but it looked as though he were taunting her.
Johnny gazed up ahead and out of the corner of his eye, saw Arabella riding on a running Karzonawk up ahead. Karzonawk’s chain rattled and shook as it ran on all fours. Arabella, noticing the headlights, turned around and screeched at the truck. Teague shouted back at Johnny, “Hand me a water bottle!” Johnny handed him one and Teague rolled the window down. He looked out at Arabella’s vicious face. Her eyes, although almost black, shone bright in the dark. She pointed straight at Teague’s face, and she showed him her crooked, dirty teeth. Since Karzonawk was running about 60mph, Arabella’s black hair became even more untidy, partly covering her face, and making her look even more sinister.  After a few more moments, just as the truck passed Arabella and Karzonawk, he heaved a water bottle straight at Karzonawk. It zoomed back and spun about like a tomahawk. It smashed his face, right between his giant, evil, red eyes. The creature grunted with pain, jutted forward, and face-planted in the sand, causing Arabella to fall off his back. “HOORAY!” Teague’s three friends shouted. Now Johnny, Doug, and Dalia, were all hitting the back of Teague’s back in giving him kudos for good aim. Arabella rose back off the sand and frowned. She clenched her teeth and looked up at the giant moon. She turned to Karzonawk, who was just working his way up to his feet. “Come on Karzonawk!” she beckoned. Karzonawk groaned and hobbled forward. Arabella raised her twisted and dirty arm in the air and howled a heart-throbbing shriek. The human-dog and human-pig soon met Arabella and Karzonawk, riding their bikes and long boards. “What happened?” asked the human-dog, frowning at Karzonawk. “Never you mind,” Arabella cried. “That Teague just chucked a water bottle at us. Let’s show them who they’re messing with! Let’s beat them!” Upon hearing this, the human-dog looked up at the moon and howled at the top of his lungs. He loud, earth-shaking cry echoed throughout the desert. Rakasha waved his long arms in a strange and creepy dance. And with that, Arabella, Karzonawk, and all the other creatures left their rooted spots and took after the truck. As Rakasha charged forward, his hands and feet dug harder and harder into the sand, which because of the moonlight had a luminous blue color to it. The elephant-owl looked up at the sky as he continued to ride his scooter. As he gazed up at all the stars, he shrieked a bloodcurdling cry to illustrate his deep fatigue and exhaustion. Arabella turned her angry face back and glared at the elephant-owl. “Not to worry, we’ll be there soon!”
As Doug continued driving like a maniac, Johnny looked back behind him and saw that Arabella and the paranormal creatures looked angrier than ever before as they struggled to keep up with the zooming truck. With their mouths clenched, their evil eyes flashing, and their brows ferociously furrowed, they indeed appeared formidable. Suddenly Johnny cried out “Look at that! That human-dog is about to pass us!”
Sure enough, the human-dog was riding his long board as fast as he possibly could. His fat tongue hung down from his mouth as he panted harder and harder and shook his black head around. He turned his head 90 degrees and stared inside the window at Teague with his humongous red eyes. He showed Teague his razor-sharp teeth, which appeared more wolf-like than dog-life. Harder and harder he pushed off the ground until at last he was in front of the truck.
“Don’t worry about him!” yelled Doug. “He’s not going to kill Henri! If he dies tonight, and we’ll do everything in our power to ensure he doesn’t, it will be because of Arabella!”
In no time after he said this, the human-dog was nowhere in sight. He and his long board had disappeared into the night. Noticing this, Doug stepped on the gas pedal harder and the truck engine roared again. Then, so sudden it made all four friends wail as loud as they could, something jumped out at the car and landed straight on the hood. It was the human-dog, who proceeded to shove his head forward to get a good look at the four friends. He smiled at them hungrily and pierced their hearts with his evil red eyes. Then, with one arm grasping the side of the truck above the window, the human-dog grasped his long board with the other hand and swung it behind his head. He was ready to smash the windshield with the long board. He let out a loud growl and swung forward. But just a moment before his board collided with the windshield, Doug swerved the truck right and the board leaped from the human-dog’s paw. The human-dog screamed something in Bakoshtangan and snaked his body over the hood and to the right. His head was now right by the door handle on Doug’s side of the truck. He reached for the door handle, but Doug was too quick. He swerved to the right hard enough to send the human-dog flying from the car as it sailed through the air and bashed straight into a sign beside the road. Dalia breathed a sigh of relief as Doug shook his head to forget about what just happened. Slowly but surely, the heart rate of the four friends decreased, as did their breathing. Arabella and the creatures were now well behind them. Teague rubbed his arm and whispered “thank goodness. That was such a close one.” The four pals, feeling a little less panicked now, gazed out the windows at the purple dunes that resembled a giant, crumpled cloak that stretched over the globe. They avoided looking behind them, as doing so only terrified them beyond belief. On and on they drove up the rode, and up the dunes. The giant moon looked so close by that Teague couldn’t help but gaze at it feeling as if he could almost reach out and grab it. He stared at the moon, his heart throbbing, trying to forget about all the monsters that were chasing them down. Even with the windows rolled up, he could hear their bone-chilling moans and shrieks. How he wished they would just shut up. Even though he felt anything but relaxed, Teague’s mind wandered to a fantasy he’d thought up before. He and Dalia were walking through a field of tulips somewhere miles and miles away. They were far from any cities or towns, far from any ghosts and paranormal creatures. They were just strolling and holding hands walking through the tulips, the glowing sun beginning to set. And while Teague fantasized about what in his opinion would be the happiest moment of his life, Johnny on the other hand, had a much different idea about happy was. He was sitting on the couch, eating Potato Skins, and watching T.V.
After about 10 more minutes of driving, and after a few more thrown water bottles by Johnny, Doug pulled Johnny’s truck into a driveway below a deserted-looking house. He looked up at Henri’s house and said “come on guys. Let’s go see if Henri’s in there.”

Just as Johnny sprinted up to the door of Henri’s, the human-pig seemed to come out of nowhere. He gave Johnny a good shove to the ground. Johnny looked up at the human-pig angrily. “JERK!” He sneered. Teague, Doug, and Dalia rushed to the front porch just as the-human-pig kicked the door off its hinges, and it blasted into the wall. “Good work,” Arabella muttered as she floated into the house. She was followed by Karzonawk, Rakasha, the human-dog, the elephant-owl, and the masked-creature, and finally the human-pig, who’d politely let his friends waltz in first. Teague and his friends dashed in immediately after them. They’d been ahead of them the whole time, but in the end, Arabella and her friends caught up and barely beat them there. It seemed almost pointless to go warn Henri that Arabella, his own daughter, was ready to kill him, since she was already there. But Teague wanted to do everything he could to prevent Arabella from killing anybody else. So they charged into the house ready to yell to Henri “WATCH OUT!” Assuming he was there at least. However, when Teague entered the dark house, the first thing he saw was a surprised look on Arabella’s face. Her eyebrows were raised, her eyes and mouth wide open. Then Dalia turned towards the kitchen table, and saw the silhouette of a man standing on the table. And she gasped. The man was holding what looked like a rope. But that was all anybody could make out in the darkness. The man turned around and looked at everybody who’d forcibly entered his house. But he said nothing. He simply held the rope up, which appeared to be attached to the ceiling. A loop on the end, which he firmly put over his head and around his neck, indicated he was ready to hang himself with the noose. Arabella’s eyes opened even wider, and she quietly said, with softness to her voice, “Dad?”
Henri turned around and looked at Arabella. From the moonlight gleaming through the window, Teague and his friends could see Henri’s face now. He was ragged and unshaven. He looked as if he’d had a hangover. And yet, he was a handsome 30-something-year old man. And as he looked into Arabella’s eyes, his own eyes filled with tears. But he remained silent.
“Daddy?” Arabella cried. “Why are you ready to hang yourself?”
Henri, although he didn’t show it, was very surprised to see that Arabella was a ghost. He’d never known that she’d come back as a ghost. He hadn’t seen her since the night he buried her in the sand next to the largest cactus in Frisius. He was so sad that his face didn’t even looked shocked or puzzled at seeing Arabella. He just looked at her as more tears flowed from his eyes. Then he finally said, “I don’t know why I killed you 15 years ago, daughter. The only thing I know is that I can’t live with myself anymore. I’m sorry, honey. Goodbye.”
But just before he leaped from the table to commit suicide, his eyes did something very strange. His pupils seemed to disappear into the back of his head, so that his eyes were all white. At seeing this, the human-pig pointed at him and screamed “HE IS POSSESSED ARABELLA!!!”
“What?!” Arabella yelled in disbelief. At this, Henri suddenly clutched his chest and fell back-first onto the table top, the rope coming down with him. And immediately, a blue-white fog escaped his mouth and hovered over the kitchen floor. It took the shape of something strange. Something short. It changed its color from blue-white to a deep red color. And when it was finished forming in the blink of an eye, it stood there, and stared at Arabella. It was a DEMON. It was one of the most infamous demons from Hell. And his name was Poktukjuhfu (POCK-TUCK-JUH-FOO).
“POKTUKJUHFU!” The human-dog screamed.
The elephant-owl, Karzonawk, and masked-creature snarled.
Rakasha flailed his chimpanzee-like arms in disbelief.
Poktukjuhfu glared at everybody in the room with his glow-in-the-dark green eyes. He had a dark-red body. His beak-like nose flared under his giant, terrible eyes. He clenched his mouth and showed his brown teeth. He stomped his legs, which were that of a ram. Yet he stood no more than three feet tall. The horns on the back of his head represented a mountain goat. The beard on his chin was white and stringy. His tail was that of a stereotypical devil. And in his right, clawed hand, he firmly grasped a dagger.
When he turned to Dalia, she let out a heart-stopping shriek. He was indeed a terrifying sight, perhaps even more so than Arabella. As he noticed the fear he struck into the room, he let out the most diabolical, echoing laugh. Rakasha, a look of terror on his face, stepped forward and pointed a hand at Poktukjuhfu.
“YOU! YOU POSSESSED HENRI AND MADE HIM SLAUGHTER POOR ARABELLA HERE!”
“Yes,” Poktukjuhfu said in a cold, snake-like voice.
Johnny looked over at the table and gasped, seeing Henri’s crumpled body on the table, as it lay there in the pale moonlight. He turned to the hair-raising masked-creature and whispered “will Henri be okay?”
“He’ll be fine,” the masked-creature whispered. “It’s Poktukjuhfu you must worry about. He will kill you on sight.”
The elephant-owl stepped forward with his bird leg. He pointed a wing at Poktukjuhfu and sneered, “15 years we’ve been looking for Henri to confront and demand why he killed Arabella! And all these years, we should have been looking for you! You’re the real criminal. And you are hated by everyone on earth and in Hell. And tonight, you shall die for your crime.”
“Well, we’ll just see about that,” Poktukjuhfu scoffed. And he laughed again a laugh so cold, so loud, and so evil.

Teague opened his eyes wide as he looked around at the great circle of people, ghosts, demons, and creatures. Right beside his friends stood Arabella, Karzonawk, the human-pig, the human-dog, the elephant-owl, Rakasha, the masked-creature, and finally, the only stray from the semicircle, Poktukjuhfu. As Teague glanced at Arabella and her creature friends, he realized that while since the beginning of summer they’d been arch-enemies, they were now his allies in the melee against Poktukjuhfu.
The human-dog rubbed his paw against the rug and glared at Poktukjuhfu.
“You’ll pay for this cretin,” he sneered.
“GET HIM!” the elephant-owl screamed.
The human-pig dove for Poktukjuhfu the demon with a loud shriek. He smashed into the wall. The demon had dodged him just in time, jumping out of the way. The demon sprinted towards Johnny, who cried out and stuck out his foot, tripping the cunning demon, who let out a roar. Johnny tried to pick him up, but he scrambled away for his dagger which he’d dropped. He picked up his dagger, and pointed it at Teague in a threatening way. The elephant-owl dove forward and Teague watched in amazement as his trunk suddenly stretched out about 10 feet and wrapped around Poktukjuhfu. He picked him up with his truck and began to slam him against the wall. The human-dog noticed a lamp standing on a bookshelf next to the T.V. He grasped it and flung it at the Poktukjuhfu. It shattered over his head as he cried out in pain. But still, the demon held firmly onto his dagger, and without longer hesitation, he plunged it into the owl-elephant’s trunk. He shrieked in pain and dropped Poktukjuhfu. Seeing this from the kitchen, the human-dog took a running start and jumped off the couch. He rocketed towards the demon, his red eyes flashing, his sharp teeth showing. He grasped the demon in his paw and opened his mouth nice and wide. He held the demon up to his mouth, ready to take a large bite off his head, when suddenly, the demon thrashed about and bit the paw holding him. The human-dog yelped in pain and immediately let go. Poktukjuhfu laughed at the human-dog and took off for the sliding door.
“OH NO YOU DON’T!” Rakasha screamed as he tackled the ruthless demon. It was an all-out brawl taking place in the living room, complete with a vast amount of shrieks, groans, and yelps. How hard could capturing and killing a demon possibly be? But every time someone caught the sinister Poktukjuhfu, he somehow managed to escape. As he ran about the living room and kitchen, he laughed and taunted all his enemies. It was only a matter of time before a legion of ghosts came to watch the fight. They hovered and surrounded the outside of Henri’s house. They peered inside the window to watch. Since they couldn’t all watch at once, given there was about 30 of them, they took turns, five of them watching for about a minute at once. Some of the men watching looked sad. Others looked excited. And some of them looked bored. Nonetheless, they’d all been at the same place when someone had murdered them. They’d been rebuilding Teague’s house when under Arabella’s orders, the human-pig slaughtered them. But the reason Arabella wanted them killed, was a mystery to them. A mystery they would find out within the next hour. As they watched the brawl in the living room, the majority of them cheered for those fighting against Poktukjuhfu, in other words, everyone inside the house other than him. “Get him Dog-man!” one of them yelled.
“Stuff him Pig-dude!” another yelled.
“Does that owl have a trunk?!” one of them asked.
At this point in the fight, the masked-creature was struggling to keep hold of the demon while Johnny punched him in the face. “Where’s his dagger at?!” Johnny cried.
“I don’t know!” Teague yelled.
Poktukjuhfu cried out in Bakoshtangan, what almost sounded like some sort of magic spell. But as he finished, his entire body became wet and slippery. He slipped like a fish out of Johnny’s hands and sprinted for the door again.
“Lock the door Dalia!” the human-dog screeched.
Dalia sprinted towards the door, but the demon had already opened it and dashed outside. He wasn’t even halfway down the driveway when a ghostly hand reached for him and grabbed him by one of his two horns.
“Where do you think you’re going, Bub?” the voice sneered. It belonged to none other than the general-contractor, who at the beginning of the summer, was the first to see Danny Burkus acting strangely, when he’d stared out at the dunes as his co-workers continued to work. The general-contractor held him up to his face, and hovered over to the open front door. He turned to the human-pig, said “here you go,” and tossed him over. The human-pig caught him in his hoof. Teague turned around to see who’d thrown him. He saw the general-contractor and cried out “Mr. Folkston? Is that you?! Y-you were rebuilding my house before you were murdered!”
Mr. Folkston smiled at Teague. “Hello, Teague. As you can see, I’m now a ghost,” and as he said this, a tear ran down his face.
“You know him, Teague?!” cried Dalia.
“Yeah! He was in charge of the men who were rebuilding my house! Do you know how you died, Mr. Folkston?” Teague asked.
“No, I just remember a tall shadow and a kitchen knife. That’s all me and my workers remember,” Mr. Folkston replied.
Although he’d only talk to Mr. Folkston a few times, and didn’t know him all that well, Teague felt so sorry for him and his men. He wanted to run up to Mr. Folkston and give him a giant hug. He wanted to say, “You and your men were doing a fantastic job on my house when you were alive,” but as he opened his mouth to speak, the sound of a T.V. falling to the floor made him turn his head.
“OOOWWW! MY FOOT,” someone yelped.
“HOW DOES HE KEEP SQUIRMING AWAY?!” Rakasha roared while holding his foot and leaping up and down.
The elephant-owl jumped off the kitchen island and opened up the drawers containing plates and bowls. He threw a bowl aimed at the demon but he jumped out of the way. Arabella pointed behind the couch as she spotted him again. “How’d he get back there so fast?” she howled.
“Beats me!” Karzonawk cried. “How in the heck is- HEY!”
Poktukjuhfu had jumped on Karzonawk’s back as if he were a cowboy. Karzonawk kicked back like a bull in an attempt to knock him off. Teague jumped towards Karzonawk and punched Poktukjuhfu so that he fell off. As Teague reached for him, Poktukjuhfu pushed Teague back so he tripped on Karzonawk and fell back head first. The human-pig, who’d just come sprinting down the stairs, was now wearing a cowboy hat. “Get him my friends! I’ve got and idea!” The human-pig dashed to the kitchen table and picked up the rope Henri had nearly used to take his own life. In the meantime, Poktukjuhfu had finally spotted his dagger, which lay behind the T.V.  He dove out of the way of the human-dog’s paw and grabbed his dagger, and pointed it at the human-dog. Without warning he threw the dagger at the human-dog’s paw. It struck! The human-dog yelped in pain, and angrily began to chase Poktukjuhfu around the kitchen. Johnny threw his hands up to cover his cheeks in panic. He glanced over at the human-pig, who was standing next to the table beside Henri’s unconscious body. He appeared to be tying the rope in some kind of knot. Johnny’s eyes wondered up to the ten-gallon hat on his head.
“WHY THE HECK ARE YOU WEARING A FREAKING SOMBRERO?! WHAT ARE YOU A COWBOY?” shouted Johnny, pointing at the human-pig.
“Chill!” the human-pig replied. “Trust me!”
The human-pig took off his ten-gallon hat and threw it while flicking his wrist, as though he were skipping a stone on the water or throwing a Frisbee. The hat sailed towards Poktukjuhfu and landed straight on his head, and being too big, sunk down and covered his face. The demon reached up to pull the hat off so he could see again, but before he could, Rakasha quickly ripped a pillowcase off a pillow and slammed it over his head. The demon roared and shrieked and tried to escape, but the human-pig, from 20 feet away in the kitchen, threw his rope forward and lassoed the demon as if he were a calf.  And with that, he tugged forward so that he came flying from his spot and towards him. The human-pig grabbed Poktukjuhfu by his goat legs and held him up high so he was looking in his bright green eyes. “I’m sorry Poktukjuhfu. But this is for your own good.” And with that, the elephant-owl, who was clutching Poktukjuhfu’s dagger, threw the knife which flew threw the air and struck Poktukjuhfu’s back. The strange demon uttered a groan and whispered, “You win this round.” And with that, his eye lids slowly closed and he breathed his last breath. The human-pig set Poktukjuhfu on the table and sighed. “It is finished,” he said. And he put the bloody dagger down and glanced at Teague and his friends, in a big group hug. Their eyes were watering with tears. It was finally over. Dalia gasped and choked, trying to hold back her tears. Teague, wanting to ask the human-pig something, turned around and left the group hug. He turned and looked at the human-pig. “Excuse me, but I just have to know something. It’s been in the back of my mind all summer. Why did you slay all the men who were rebuilding my house? I mean, we were on your side just now in trying to kill that demon, but why did you kill those innocent men?”
The human-pig said “Let me show you who I really am.” And to the surprise of Teague, an eerie red glow appeared to coat the human-pig. It was a sparkly substance, and it started small and gradually built, until the human-pig was no longer in sight. And as soon as it built up, it began to recede and disappear until it was gone. Teague gasped at the sight and backed away. “What the- how, you’re not really-”
On the floor, there lay a body, which appeared to be unconscious. By the looks of it, he was a construction worker. And standing next to the worker, was a small, stout, and horrifying demon. He looked somewhat like Poktukjuhfu, but he was blue and had purple eyes. The horns on his head were that of a ram’s. He had the legs of a turkey, and the wings of an eagle.
“W-WHO ARE YOU?!” Teague cried.
“I am he who possessed Danny Burkus here,” said the demon, pointing at the man who lay unconscious on the floor.
“What do you mean possessed?” asked Teague.
“I took over his body and transformed him into the human-pig you referred to. And then, with control over his body, I killed all those workers.”
Johnny suddenly stepped forward and cried “So that Danny guy was never missing! He’s been here all along haunting us! And it’s your fault! Don’t you know how worried everyone’s been?”
The demon looked up at Johnny and said “Yes. I was under direct orders of Arabella. You see I-”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Teague cried. “This whole time everybody thought Danny was missing somewhere. And it turns out you transformed him into a human-pig hybrid just so you could scare us! Is that how you get your sick kicks?”
Arabella, who’d been lingering in the corner watching the argument, suddenly floated forward towards Teague.  She looked at him and said “let me explain something to you, Teague.”
“What is it?” he demanded.
“All summer long we’ve been haunting you and your friends. The reason we did this was so that you knew we meant business.” She pointed at the demon and said “I instructed him to kill those construction workers to strike fear into the town. Once you knew what we were capable of doing, you were sure to help me find my dad. You’d be so scared; you’d be willing to do anything for us.”
“But why’d you choose me and my friends to haunt?” Teague stammered.
“I sent Karzonawk to Frisius to find somebody we could blackmail. I told him to choose the first person he saw. While you were walking to Pete’s one night for Heaven knows what reason, he chose you.”
Doug turned to Teague and yelled “WHY COULDN’T YOU HAVE JUST BOUGHT THE BREAD THE NEXT MORNING?!”
“I HATE BREAD!” Johnny roared. “I’M NEVER EATING BREAD AGAIN JUST FOR THIS!”
“Okay,” began Teague. “I think we should all introduce ourselves so we know each other’s names. You already all know me and my friends. But I don’t know very many of you.”
The paranormal creatures gathered in a circle and introduced themselves. It was clear they’d all been under Arabella’s orders to help her find her dad.
“I’m Nayhemhabakkuk,” the elephant-owl said.
“I’m Marklelly,” the human-dog replied.
“I’m Rakasha,’ said the ape-like creature.
“I’m Ajovkibesh,” replied the masked creature.
“You already know me,” said Arabella.
The blue demon which had took over Danny Burkus’ body and transformed him into the human-pig stepped forward and joined the circle.
“I’m Billy,” he said.
“What the heck?” asked Doug. “You all have these super weird names and then you’ve just got Billy over here!”
And upon hearing this, every single person, ghost, creature, and demon laughed harder than ever before. But nobody laughed harder than Dalia. Billy, the blue demon, suddenly stepped backward and walked toward the door. He opened it and walked outside. He met the ghosts of the construction workers and opened his mouth to speak to them. At the same time, Danny Burkus and Henri Winslow slowly woke up and got to their feet, a very puzzled and confused look on their faces. Teague and his friends, along with Arabella and the paranormal creatures, went outside, curious as to what Billy had to say to the workers. Danny and Henri, having no clue as to what on earth was going on, looked at each other. They shrugged their shoulders and followed the party outside.

Everybody outside watched Billy the blue demon as he trotted up to the general-contractor and looked up at his face. “Excuse me, sir. Are you aware as to why you’re a ghost?”
Mr. Folkston sadly replied “Yes I know we’re all ghosts. But all my workers and I haven’t the faintest idea how we died.”
“Well,” replied Billy, “I’m afraid that’s my fault. I possessed Danny here and made him murder all of you with a knife,” he said as he pointed at Danny, whose jaw immediately dropped. A tear ran down Billy’s face and he looked out at all the workers. “I can’t make up for killing all of you,” he said. “The only thing I can do is say I’m so sorry for what I’ve done. And from this day forward, I will never kill another living being again!”
Upon hearing this, the ghosts of the construction workers broke out into applause. As they clapped and cheered, Arabella approached them and cleared her throat.
“To all you men, I’d just like to say one thing. I ordered Billy here to kill you. He was only being a good friend and doing as I asked. I’m sorry. I don’t expect any of you to forgive me.”
“It’s okay,” said Mr. Folkston.
And for the next 15 or so seconds, the other workers assured Arabella that they forgave her. Billy began to slump through the crowd, ensuring that he introduced himself to every single worker. He shook each of their hands.
“Hey man, I’m Rex Wilkins,” said one short man as he shook Billy’s hand.
“I’m Caesar Richards. It’s a pleasure,” said another.
Arabella floated towards her dad and looked at him.
“Daddy?” she asked.
“Hmm?” he replied.
“I’m so sorry for trying to find you all these years to get revenge on you. It wasn’t your fault. I didn’t know you were possessed.”
“It’s okay, Sweetie,” he said. And as Arabella floated forward to hug him, her face began to change. Her mouth closed and her teeth became white again. Her black hair became straight again rather than tangled and messy. The dirt on her arms and legs and feet disappeared. Her skeleton-like body became whole again. And for the first time in 15 years, she once again looked pretty. She was no longer cursed. She now looked like she had before she died. Only now, rather than walking, she floated. And she rushed forward to her dad and gave him a big hug. And the two of them, now smiling at each other, cried tears of joy.
Meanwhile, Billy went around and continued introducing himself.  He finally shook the last ghost’s hand. Then he looked to the left and saw that there was a new ghost floating around. It was a woman, and she was very beautiful.
“Are you one of the workers?” Billy asked.  “How come you’re not wearing a uniform?”
The woman looked down at Billy and said “I’m not a construction worker.”
“Excuse me but, who are you?” asked Marklelly the human-dog, stepping forward.
But Arabella looked in shock at the ghost and answered Marklelly’s question.
“Mom?” she asked.
“Yes honey, it’s me. I’ve missed you so much!” And immediately after she said this, Mrs. Helen Winslow quickly floated forward and hugged Arabella. Mrs. Winslow turned to face Henri. He had his hands in his pockets and a nervous smile on his face. “Come here, you!” she shouted, and Henri ran forward to hug his wife and daughter. They all hugged so tight, and tears of happiness streamed down their faces. Under the moonlight, the family reunited, and all of Arabella’s anger vanished. She had never felt so happy to see her mother and father again. And with everybody in plain sight, Arabella vowed she would never again, kill, threaten to kill, order to kill, or blackmail anybody ever again. That being said, Billy the blue demon turned to the 30 ghosts of the construction workers again and said, “You know guys, like I said before, I can’t really make it up to you for killing you. But believe it or not, being dead has its perks.”
“Such as?” asked one of the workers, as he stroked his moustache.
“Well,” began Billy, did you know that you can go through walls?”
“No way!” the ghost with the moustache said.
“Yes way,” said Billy. “If you guys like hamburgers at all, you can very easily glide through the wall, steal the burgers when they’re done, just before they’re served and bam! You’ve got yourself a free delicious burger. Oh and you can do that with French fries, milkshakes, sodas, well you get the idea!”
The ghosts of the workers cheered at this thought.
“Come on!” shouted Billy. “Let’s celebrate Arabella’s reuniting with her folks by grabbing some free grub! I’ll lead the way! How’s Cal’s Diner sound to everybody?!” and the workers followed Billy down the street, knowing the coast was clear. Everybody in Frisius had gone to bed for the night.
Ajovkibesh, the masked creature, trotting excitedly before the party heading towards Cal’s, turned around and looked at Arabella. “Are you coming Arabella?”
“Boys,” Arabella said, as she shook her head and smiled. “Okay I’ll come, but I’m not stealing any food.”
And Arabella turned to face her mom and dad, now happily reunited. “See you in a half hour!” Arabella cried.
“See you!” her parents replied, their tears of joy glistening in the moonlight.
And soon, the front of the Winslow’s home was empty, except for Teague, Johnny, Doug, Dalia, and Mr. and Mrs. Winslow. Teague and his friends said goodbye to the Winslows and decided to head home. They all hugged one more time, and before they knew it, and as embarrassed as the three boys were, they were gasping to hold back their tears. It had been such an emotional night. The four of them would no longer be haunted by any ghosts or paranormal creatures. They could go on and live normal lives again. And Arabella was now with her family. She was no longer frightening to look at. She was still the ghost of a 13-year-old girl, but she looked beautiful, just like her mom. Johnny hopped in his truck and waved to his friends. “No more sleepless nights!” he called. “Still don’t know how to cover that hole up though, Doug.”
“Sorry!” Doug called. “You can tell your parents it was me! Just say we were playing Monopoly and I threw a chair at the wall cause you were beating me!”
“They won’t buy that! They know how bad I am at Monopoly! Remember the night we went to Cal’s and ate a boatload of food. You guys both bankrupted me for like the fifth time this year alone!” With that, Johnny started his truck and drove down the driveway. “Hey wait a minute Johnny! We’re a long ways from home remember?!” yelled Doug. Johnny stomped on the break and the truck stopped with a screech. “Oh right! Sorry, hop in guys!” Teague, Doug, and Dalia got into his truck and thanked him. While Johnny drove, Doug turned around and looked at Teague and Dalia in the back. “Hey guys, remember how those ghost dudes were going to Cal’s? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving! How’d you guys like to go grab some burgers and a shake?”
“Yeah that sounds good! I’ve got money,” said Dalia, as she wiped her eyes and sniffled. Teague smiled at Doug and nodded his head. So Johnny turned back and grinned at Teague and Dalia. After he drove up the road, he reached Cal’s in about 15 minutes. He parked the truck and his friends jumped out just as Doug’s stomach gave a loud growl. They sauntered to the front door and entered. As they slid into a booth, the fact that he had nothing to fear anymore entered Teague’s mind and this made him shrug his shoulders and relax in the cushiony seat. Teague thought of something else and grinned. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He looked at Dalia and said “hey Dalia, what’s your phone number?” As he asked this, he was amazed. He hadn’t stuttered or sounded nervous at all! He’d sounded confident. Dalia laughed and told him as he entered it in his contacts. “Wow Teague. You must talk to girls a lot because you didn’t even break a sweat when you asked me for my number!” Dalia exclaimed. Doug laughed and said “you’re the first girl whose number he’s ever asked for!” Teague, knowing it was true, insisted this was a lie. “No, that’s not true! I get numbers all the time! I’m kind of a honey dripper, Baby.” Dalia gave Teague a very strange look and started to laugh. Johnny turned around in his seat and shouted at Joe, one of the workers who’d recently graduated whom the four of them knew. “Yo Joe, what’s taking our food so long? I could eat a horse right now!”
“Coming right up!” Joe shouted. He waltzed into the kitchen and suddenly screamed “HEY WHAT THE HECK?!” A worker named Carl rushed into the kitchen and said “what’s up Joe?”
“Dude, what happened to the burgers I just cooked up? They were just right here! How could they have just disappeared?!”
“I don’t know, man! But we’d better whip up some more before Mr. Strom skins us alive!”
The four friends had heard the conversation in the kitchen and cocked their heads in curiosity. “How could those hamburgers have disappeared?” asked Dalia.
“Hey look!” Teague cried, pointing outside. Johnny, Doug, and Dalia turned their heads and looked outside. Marklelly the human-dog and Rayhemhabakkuk the elephant-owl were both running away from Cal’s each clutching a cheeseburger, and by the looks of it, roaring with laughter. Immediately following them came three or four construction worker ghosts, each holding onto malts.
“So, that’s where our food is,” said Teague, frowning. But he looked at his friends, and the four of them began howling with laughter.
Teague turned to his friends and said “Hey, I’ve got an idea! We’ve all seen some pretty horrible stuff this summer that no one deserves to see, right?”
“Yeah,” his three friends agreed.
“How about tomorrow night we go see that new horror movie in the theaters! I’ll bet it won’t even be scary to us since we’ve seen ghosts and demons in real life.”
“Sounds good!” his three friends shouted simultaneously. As the four friends waited a little longer for their food, they all relaxed in their seats and couldn’t help but feel happier than they had in what seemed like forever. Teague looked into Dalia’s eyes and realized that he’d never met anyone quite like her. And no one could make him as happy as she did. I’m going to ask her out sometime before 2011 ends, he thought. And his smile grew even wider. If I can stand up against the Banshee of Frisius, I can grow a spine and ask her out. As Teague sank lower into his seat, he realized that tonight, at this particular moment, might have been the very best moment of his life.

*****

The four friends slunk into the movie theater, a variety of snacks from Pete’s Market stuffed in their pockets. They found some good seats just as the commercials ended and the movie began. About 15 minutes later, the movie theater was filled with people, many of whom were indicating extreme fear. Some were clutching the sides of their seat. Some were clenching their teeth. Some were shaking. Some were sweating. But everybody seemed to be involuntarily expressing their terror, well that is, all except for Teague, Johnny, Doug, and Dalia, who began to laugh every time a scary part came on the screen. After the movie ended, the four friends walked out with their heads held high, and a somewhat bored look on their face. “That movie was nothing!” Dalia said, with a laugh.
“Are you kidding me, girl!” shouted a girl who was holding her friend by the shoulder, who appeared to be shaking with fear. Dalia shrugged and the four of them wandered out of the theater and stopped on the sidewalk. They said goodnight to each other and separated as they walked to their cars or trucks. Teague began to walk up the sidewalk, towards the exit of the parking lot. Dalia turned around and shouted “Teague, where are you going?”
“The hotel is like 2 minutes away remember? I walked here.”
“Okay, good night Buddy!” she said, and waved at him. As Teague walked down the sidewalk, his three friends drove by in their cars, each of them honking at him. Teague waved at the three of them as they each passed and looked up at the moon. How did I get such good friends? he thought. And as he thought this, he also wondered what Arabella and her creature friends were up to right now. In a few minutes, Teague entered the parking lot of the hotel. He looked to his right and saw that his dad’s SUV was parked by the double doors. “HEY, THEY’RE HOME!” shouted Teague. He busted through the front doors, waved to Gretchen, who gave him a huge grin, and ran up the stairs. He opened the door with his card and walked inside. His dad was watching reruns of a football game, his mom and Kelly were doing a puzzle, and Freddy was snoozing on the other bed. His dad, mom, and sister turned to him and said hello. Teague ran up to his dad and gave him a huge hug. “Hey Buddy,” his dad said. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too, Dad,” and Teague sat back on the bed. Teague suddenly noticed a sheet of paper lying on the table next to his mom. It looked like a flyer. He picked it up and looked at it curiously. Of course! He’d forgotten all about it. His parents went nearly every year. It was a flyer for the F.F.D. It was the famous Founding Frisius Dance, a dance held annually on December 19. It celebrated the anniversary of the day Hans Frisius founded the town. It also gave high school guys like Teague a chance to get to know any girl they might have a crush on. Teague set the flyer down and his mom Sierra said “Well Teague, are you going to ask anyone this year? It’s for 14 and up, and you haven’t asked anybody since you were old enough to go three years ago. “Hmmmm, maybe I will Mom.”
Freddy, who’d woken up about a minute earlier said “Well get a move on Teague, before all the hot tamales are taken!”
“I finally got asked this year!” Kelly shouted excitedly.
Teague brought his hand up to his chin and thought for a minute. He wondered if Dalia would say yes if he asked her to the Founding Frisius Dance. He got up from his seat and walked to the bathroom. He flipped the light on and looked in the mirror. Dalia was beautiful as an angel, and was always receiving compliments on her attractiveness. Teague on the other hand, typically received compliments on how “nice” he was. He remembered a lady at the grocery store calling him a “handsome young man.” But that was just one occasion. Dalia’s last boyfriend had been Frisius High School’s quarterback. With that in mind, Teague thought about what he was good at.
Hmmmmm. I suppose I’m good at video games. And Monopoly. Oh, but girls don’t care about that. They want to be with somebody who’s busy. They like guys who are confident and who have dreams and goals.
With a new idea in mind, Teague changed into a t-shirt and shorts. He put on some cool blue shoes and headed down to the fitness room. Freddy had spent so much time in here, and was he had to admit, bigger than Teague. Girls like guys with muscles. That’s why they all think Freddy’s hot stuff. Why didn’t I spend more time down in here? Teague thought. The T.V. was on and playing The Simpsons. Teague watched with interest as he’d never seen the show. He laughed as he watched and started with pull-ups. After doing 10, he was so done with that. But each time he’d pulled himself over the bar, as corny as he thought it was, he imagined Dalia standing beside him, yelling at him “you can do it! Just five more!”
He started doing push-ups and after that sit ups. Sweat poured down his cheeks and he panted harder than ever before. But as his chest moved out and back in, Teague felt fantastic. He looked in the mirror again. I think there’s a chance she’ll say yes! I’m going to ask her!” After about a half hour of working out, Teague, deciding he was pretty tired, slowly sauntered out of the fitness room, headed upstairs, and used his card to open the door. He showered up, got changed, and made his bed on the floor. He lay down and closed his eyes. His mom and Kelly continued talking excitedly about the dance. Teague’s dad Eddie sipped his Dr. Pepper. “How could anybody talk about the same thing for so long? You two have been talking about that dance for an hour and half. Teague here hasn’t even said a word about it.”
“Well I’ve been thinking about it,” Teague quietly replied.
Eddie looked down at Teague on the floor and smiled. Teague soon fell into a deep sleep. He dreamed of taking Dalia to the dance. Since the dance was held outside, he dreamed of dancing in the middle of the parking lot, everybody cheering for them. And when Teague awoke the next morning, he sat up and rubbed his eyes. Then slowly but surely, he realized that like usual, he’d only been dreaming.

Freddy sat up from his bed, glanced at Teague, and smiled. Freddy couldn’t help but feel sorry for his little bro, thinking about how he’d probably be spending the big night of the dance hanging out at home. As for Teague, it had been three days since the night that Teague realized that Arabella and her friends would never haunt him again. But for the last two nights, he couldn’t help but still have nightmares about Rakasha and Billy. As he woke up this morning, Teague sat himself down at the table and poured himself some oatmeal. After heating it in the microwave, he sat down and ate away. He gazed outside at the pink sky. He looked out at the cacti across the street. Since it was still really early in the day, they appeared gray rather than green. Teague had always thought that the desert-town he lived in was beautiful. But at times like this, he always wondered what it’d be like to live somewhere else. What would it be like to live somewhere nice, green, and mountainous? What was it like to live in a city surrounded by maple trees, where the air was so clean rather than arid? But where was such a place? He looked up at Freddy and thought he’d ask him. “Hey Freddy?” Teague asked.
“Yeah?” Freddy replied.
“Which state is called the Evergreen State again?”
“Hmmmm. I’m pretty sure it’s Washington.”
“Oh yeah that’s right. Hey, what do you think it’d be like to live in a place like that? You know a place with lots of woods, critters, and clean air?”
“I don’t know, I suppose it’d be pretty cool. But you know I heard that a large part of Washington is actually kind of arid, kind of like it is around here. I mean, there’s like lots of trees and mountains on the west part of the state. But over the east side, I heard it can get pretty… dry.”
“Wow. Pretty interesting,” Teague replied.
“So,” Freddy began. “Have you asked anybody to the dance yet?”
“Not yet. I’m going to call Dalia Hopkins and ask her to it though. Do you know her? She’s really popular. She’s a basketball and track star?”
“Never heard of her, but right on. She can’t be all that great if I’ve never heard of her, right?”
“Debatable,” replied Teague.

*****

Teague sat himself down next to the fire place in the lobby. His breathing was abnormal, and he looked very nervous. “Just do it!” he said to himself. Quick as a fox, he pulled his phone out and dialed Dalia’s number. He waited a minute, and a beautiful voice on the other end said “Hello?”
“Hey Dalia, it’s Teague!”
“Oh hey! How are you? Hey guess who asked me out yesterday?”
Teague dropped his jaw. “You mean like to the dance?” he asked.
“No I mean like, who asked me to be his girlfriend,” Dalia replied.
“Oh. Um who asked you?”
“Drexel Wilson.”
“Oh. Um that’s uh- nice. Hey I guess I called at a bad time. I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Ha-ha-ha okay Teague. Hey have you asked anybody to the dance? Drexel and I are going. Do you know who is he is, Teague? He’s in your grade? He has long, brown hair and he’s tall?”
“No I haven’t. Yeah I know who that is. See you,” said Teague.
“Bye, Teague! Have a great last week of summer.”
Teague hung up his phone. He indeed knew who Drexel was. Who didn’t know the biggest jerk at school, who a lot of people loved, and yet, a lot of people despised. He remembered when Drexel threw a chair in Health Class and when he punched a kid who called him a “fat jerk.” And as Teague thought about how Dalia was now dating a bully like Drexel, he couldn’t help but wish he was right there, where Teague, even if it landed him in the hospital, would rearrange Drexel’s face.
“How could somebody so beautiful and kind like Dalia want to date that jack-”
“Hey Teague!” yelled Gretchen from the front counter.
Teague turned to Gretchen and tried to hide his anger. He got up from the couch and walked up to her. “Hey Gretchen, how’re you doing?”
“Good thanks. What about you?”
“Uh, well I’m just trying to enjoy the last week of summer.”
“Yeah I know how that goes. I remember graduating a few years ago. It felt so great. I’ll bet you’re excited for senior year. But hey, the real reason I called you over here was I realized I never asked you how your date went last month!”
And for the next 10 minutes or so, Teague described the date with Dalia to Gretchen. He remembered it so well, as if it had only been the day before. Then bluntly, he explained why he’d looked so angry when he was in the lobby. Gretchen couldn’t help but feel bad for him.
“Well Teague, there’s plenty of fish in the sea,” she said.
“Maybe so, but there’s no other fish like her,” he sadly said. And with that he bid Gretchen goodbye and headed outside. He walked to Pete’s Market and bought bags and bags of sweet cakes and salted snacks. He jogged over to Sequoia Pond and sat down at a picnic table. And as he watched the birds fly by, he ate, and he ate, and he ate. And while he ate, about five different couples that were holding hands while out for a stroll walked by. As he ate and cried, he pulled out his I-pod and listened to another of his favorite songs: Adele’s Set Fire to the Rain. And the words rang through his ears as if there was no such thing as time:

But there's a side to you
that I never knew, never knew.
All the things you'd say
they were never true, never true.
And the games you play
you would always win, always win.
But I set fire to the rain.
Watched it pour as I touched your face,
well, it burned while I cried
'Cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name!

A flashback of his entire summer seeped into Teague’s mind. Like standing between Arabella and Dalia when everyone thought Arabella was about to kill Dalia. And the tears ran down Teague’s face some more. Why was he so sad? He was the bravest person in Frisius! But like a lost bear cup, Teague sprang to his feet and he ran. He ran and ran and ran. He must have run at least two miles. He arrived at the place he used to run to when he needed to be alone. He hid under the bridge that ran over the river. He hid under the bridge along the river bank. He buried his head in his arms as he sat on the rocks. And he cried until he fell asleep. When he woke up, he silently walked back to Sequoia Pond to finish his chips that were hopefully still there.

When he finished his first bag of chips, he growled and began trying to tear the bag in half. When he realized he couldn’t, he crumpled it in a ball and shot into the nearby garbage can. It hit the edge and rolled off into the sand. Teague jumped up from his seat and groaned loudly. He jumped toward the garbage can and kicked it over as hard as he could. After he calmed down a bit, he picked up the garbage and stared at the pond. His anger became sadness, and before he knew it, he’d sat at the table thinking for about five hours. But five hours didn’t seem that long, because before long, the sun was beginning to set. It lit the sky with rays of orange, red, and pink. As Teague looked at the glowing and setting sun, he wished Dalia were there to watch it with him. And as if he’d just ran a marathon, he rested his head on the table and fell into a deep sleep. About an hour later, his phone rang, waking him up and surprising him. He looked at his phone and saw it was his mom. He answered and said “hey Mom, I fell asleep at Sequoia Pond. I’ll be home right away.” That said, he hung up.
 

School had started a few months earlier and Teague, Johnny, and Doug were now seniors. It was December now and the snow had come and coated the sand dunes, making Frisius look like a little city set in a giant bowl of vanilla ice cream. It seemed everybody was talking about the upcoming Founding Frisius Dance. Even though nearly all high school students in Frisius dreaded the school year starting, the famous dance was at least something to look forward to at the end of the year. Fortunately for Teague, he no longer had nightmares about all the horrors he’d faced during the summer. As the school day ended, Teague began to walk home. He no longer lived in the hotel. His new home had been completed. As he slunk towards his home, Teague wanted nothing more than to call Dalia and talk to her on the phone. But he knew it was no use. She had a boyfriend now. He had Senior English with him, and as he watched Drexel threaten to beat up Johnny when he’d accidentally stepped on his foot, Teague had again wondered what Dalia saw in jerks like him.
Teague had just switched into Art class to fulfill his “art” credit he needed to graduate The first question was “what is your name?” His first assignment was to answer a few questions about himself.
“Why don’t you look at the top of the paper where I wrote it?” Teague mumbled.
He proceeded to answer the next questions. They could be anything from “what is your favorite color?” to “what are some of your hobbies?”
As Teague answered the questions, he reached into his back pack and pulled out some chips. He began munching them when Freddy walked into the room. Since they’d gotten a new home, he and Freddy now shared a room. They could have had separate rooms, but as his dad put it to his mom “Teague and Freddy can have their own rooms when they move out of here, which I hope is soon.”
“’Sup Tubby?” Freddy asked.
“What do you mean, ‘Tubby’?” Teague asked.
“You’re getting kind of tubby, bro. You’ve been eating nothing but chips and sweet cakes for the last week.”
“Are you ragging on my sweet cakes? You know eating these after school is the only thing I have to look forward to. I’m going to dread the day that stupid dance is held. Dalia’s going with Drexel the dingus.”
“You know, you could call this guy ‘Drexel the dingus’ all you want, but for all you know, he could be calling you ‘Tubby Teague’ behind your back.”
Teague chucked his bag of sweet cakes at Freddy who caught them and began stuffing his face.
“Well you know, one day when I have a body like Sylvester Stallone in the Rocky movies she’s going to wish I’d asked her out before that jerk.”
“You’re not going to look like him if you keep eating all those chips,” replied Freddy.  Teague threw the bag of chips at Freddy and sighed.  Then he hopped off the top bunk and dropped to the floor. He began to do some pushups and sit ups. It helped take his mind off the dance and the disappointment he had to face. He exercised and exercised until at last his whole body ached. When he felt he’d had quite enough, he sat on his bed and drank from his water bottle. Sweat poured from his face, and the adrenaline couldn’t help but make him cheer up a little bit. But as he sat on his bed, he tried to think of something that he could look forward to in the upcoming months. Track season wouldn’t be for quite awhile. Maybe he could try joining a club or something. He wished he could call up a friend to tell them about how was feeling. But Teague didn’t like discussing his problems with anybody, not even his two close friends. Perhaps he could just suck it up and deal with it. Life isn’t always a cakewalk after all. And like Gretchen had said earlier. There were indeed plenty of fish in the sea. There was just one more week until the dance. Teague wondered if there was anybody else he could ask to it. As he thought this, he climbed into bed and flipped the lights off. He stared out the window at all the stars. As he gazed at the moon, he couldn’t help but wonder what it’d be like to visit the giant, natural satellite. He wondered if it would ever be possible to perhaps live there. It seemed like there was nothing else earth had to offer him. As Teague struggled to fall asleep, he felt as if his life had just crumbled to the ground. Everybody looked forward to being a senior. But at the moment, at least for Teague, it felt like just any other year of high school. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he felt heartbroken. Maybe if he were more like Drexel, Dalia, or at least some other girl at school would find him interesting. Maybe if he started treating people like dirt, perhaps some girl would come along and suddenly become infatuated with him. All he’d have to do is start acting like a bad boy. He’d just have to show up to class late, bully certain kids, and not care about what other people thought of him. But Teague couldn’t imagine ever acting like Drexel. If only there was something else he could do that didn’t involve not being himself. Maybe guys like him just weren’t interesting. Teague frowned and turned over on his pillow. He finally closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Many days and nights had passed since Teague had first seen Karzonawk staring him down while he moved his sleek black body across the street. It had been six months ago as a matter of fact. The December snow had fallen upon Frisius. Carolers walked about the street on a daily basis, much to the rage of Eddie, and the townspeople began hanging up Christmas lights and wreaths. It was the big day everybody had been waiting for. It was the night of the Founding Frisius Dance. Indeed it was a Monday, and probably the only Monday anybody had ever been looking forward to.
“Oh great, it’s Monday!” groaned Freddy at the breakfast table.
“Cheer up, Silly! Remember, it’s the 19th. You’ll get to take Betty to the dance tonight!” chimed Kelly.
“Oh yeah, how silly of me,” replied Freddy.
“Hey, Freddy and Betty! I just realized your names rhyme,” said Teague.
Teague’s dad Eddie sat himself at the table and poured his cereal. He looked at Teague and smiled.
“So Buddy, did you ever find anybody to take to the dance tonight?”
“No,” Teague replied. “But I suppose there’s always next year.”
“Way to stay positive, Teague. It’s a pretty overrated dance. I’d stay here to keep you company, but your mom wants to go really bad since we haven’t gone the last couple of years. If you ask me though, I think grabbing some burgers at Cal’s tonight would be a lot more fun than some dance. Maybe you can do that with Johnny and Doug.”
“No, they’ve got hot dates to the dance. I suppose I could go myself though.”
Eddie put his hand on Teague’s shoulder and said “it’s okay, Teague. Like you said, there’s always next year. And every single year after that.”
“Thanks Dad.”
Kelly turned to Teague and smiled at him. “Don’t worry, Teague. You don’t have to go to a dance to have fun. Life’s too short to stay miserable. Just get all your homework done as quick as you can tonight and watch some movies or something. Like dad said, go to Cal’s or something. Just stay busy and do something fun to keep your mind off the dance.”
Teague’s mom Sierra walked into the kitchen and hugged Teague around the neck. He finished his cereal as quick as he could and hurried upstairs to brush his teeth. He wiped his red eyes and put on a hat. He threw on his backpack and was soon out the door heading to school. At 8:28, he entered his English class and plunked his backpack down at a desk right between Johnny and Doug. Once the bell rang at 8:30, Mr. Buck walked to the front of the class and beamed at his class. “So guys, who’s going to the dance tonight?”
At that moment, every hand in the class shot up, except for Teague’s.
“Sorry, Castellano,” Mr. Buck said. “Are you having a rough day?”
“You bet I am,” said Teague, as he rested his head on his arm.

*****

“Hey Teague, are you sure there’s nothing I can do to make you feel any better?” asked Sierra.
“No thanks, Mom. I’m fine,” Teague replied as he took a bite out of his cheeseburger. “It’s okay. Go ahead and have fun at the dance. Like Dad said, there’s always next year.”
“Okay, see you later. I love you.” And with that, Sierra closed the door behind her. She, Eddie, Freddy, and Kelly walked down the driveway and onto the sidewalk, heading excitedly to the dance. Teague took the last bite of his cheeseburger and a tear or two ran down his face. Although he was feeling terrible, he had to admit, he was eating one heck of a hamburger. But once it was gone, he wondered what he’d do the rest of the night. His homework was done, but he wasn’t in the mood to watch T.V. Suddenly, Teague’s phone vibrated. He yanked it out of his pocket and read the message. It said: Hey Teague. Did you ever find somebody to ask to the dance?
It was from Dalia. Teague frowned at his phone. He wanted to text back and say: “no, but I hope you have fun with that jerk Drexel.” Instead, he texted back: “No, I’m at home right now just hanging out. Everyone in my family is going though.”
A few minutes later, Dalia texted him saying “Oh, so I guess we’re in the same boat right now, huh?”
Teague read the message, and scrunched up his face. What did she mean they were in the “same boat?” Wasn’t she at the dance right now with Drexel? In no time flat, Teague called Dalia to see what was going on.
“Hello?” Dalia asked.
“Hey Dalia. Hey aren’t you going to the dance with Drexel?”
“Oh, hi Teague. Um, no I’m not going anymore. He dumped me yesterday and is now dating Jessie Andrews. He’s using the ticket he bought for me on her. So right now, I’m at home, just like you.”
“Oh man. And I here I am thinking I had it hard,” Teague said.
“Oh really? What’s the matter with you?” Dalia softly asked. “Is everything okay?”
“Well it’s kind of hard to explain. Hey, do you know if they’re still selling tickets for that dance? Maybe I could buy you and me one and we could go.”
“That sounds nice. But the dance is over in about a half hour. And I’m pretty sure it’s too late to buy tickets.
Hey would you like to come over to my house? I have an idea! It’ll be a surprise. I promise it’s not bad or anything. I think it will make you and I feel better!”
“Um, okay? When can I come over then?”
“Hmmmm. Give me about a half hour, okay? I’ll see you then! Bye.”
“Goodbye.”
Teague ran to his dad’s shed and looked around for what he was going to need.
“Aha! There it is!” he said excitedly.
He grabbed the apparatus he needed and headed back inside. He opened the package and put one of the bolts through the metal plate. He put the plate through the clamp. After putting on several washers and nuts through the holes, he was all finished working with the clamp. Next he attached the motor to the plate using screws, and putting nuts through the screws. Finally, Teague put the tripod up and attached the metal plate and clamp to it. He plugged the motor in and attached the disco ball to the chain hanging from the metal plate. Voila! He had a disco ball all set up. Since his dad worked at a party store, Teague had learned how to set up disco ball a few years back. Just as Teague finished up, the doorbell rang. Teague walked to the door, feeling very nervous, and shaking the whole way as he made his way over. He opened the door and there stood Dalia.
“Hi,” she said a huge smile on her face. But Teague could tell she was trying to hide her broken heart.
“Hey come on in!”
He invited her inside and she looked around. The disco ball caught her eye and she grinned.
“My idea is, well since neither you or I can go to the dance, well we can just have our own little dance here in the living room.”
“Oh Teague, that sounds great!”
“Just a minute, let me look and see if I can find some good CD’s to play!”
Teague walked over to the shelf that held all the CD’s. He browsed through the artists, and asked Dalia if she’d heard of every other CD he looked through.
“You ever heard of the Monkees?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“What about the Police?”
“No.”
“How about Barry Manilow?”
“No, sorry.”
“Led Zeppelin?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Dalia sighed.
“What planet are you from?!” Teague laughed.
He popped a Barry Manilow CD into the boom box and took Dalia’s hand. He dimmed the lights and the disco ball lit the room. And just as the song Stay began to play, Teague and Dalia began to slow dance. From the boom box, Dalia listened closely to the song and immediately loved it. It was pretty loud, and yet not loud enough for the two of them to have a conversation. The moon showed through the window, and as if he were in a dream, Teague looked dreamily at Dalia. And as they danced, he remembered the night he sang Every Breath you Take by The Police at Mario’s Pizza. He imaged him and Dalia, dancing to that song on a giant record player, dancing the night away as if there were no tomorrow. And later on, they danced on a giant and colorful jukebox. It was he thought a very strange imagination he had. As Dalia looked back at Teague, her eyes seemed to sparkle. Teague didn’t think that he’d ever seen her so happy.
“So,” began Teague, “what happened with you and Drexel? I wanted to tell you I wouldn’t recommend dating him, but I thought maybe you’re old enough to make your own decisions.”
“I don’t know,” Dalia said sadly. “We’d only dated for like three weeks, but in that time we became so close. I don’t think I’m going to date any one else for a long time.”
“Oh. Well that’s a shame, because I know a really cool guy that’s wanted to date you for the longest time.”
“Really? Who’s that?” Dalia asked.
“Well, it’s me, Dalia. I feel so happy when I’m near you. There’s nothing I hated more than to see you hold hands with Drexel and all those other guys. Look, I know this sounds weird. You might leave after I tell you this, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“Oh. What is it?”
“Well the thing is, I’m in love with you. Every time I saw you at school, I’d see you date all these guys that don’t deserve you. Look, I know I’m not an all star quarterback or anything like that. But I think there’s more to look at in dating than just accomplishments, you know? I think if you got to know me, well maybe you’d like me too.”
And as Teague said this, the song ended.
“Dalia, I know you just got replaced by Jessie, but I can’t wait another day to ask. Will you go out with me?”
Now that the song had ended, Dalia let go of Teague’s hand and backed away. “Teague, you’re a really sweet guy and everything. I’m sorry. I’m touched by what you said, but I really only like you as a friend. I’m so sorry.” And with that Dalia said “I have to go, Teague. I’ll see you around.” And with that, she opened the door and left. Teague sat himself on the couch and turned off the boom box. “I probably shouldn’t have told her I love her,” he groaned. “I probably went a little too far. Too bad I had to scare her off.”

Teague sat on the couch for what felt like a whole day, but about five minutes after Dalia left, there was a knock on the door. The dance was over, so it was probably Teague’s family. I wonder if they brought me malt, Teague thought as a smile spread across his face. Teague walked over to the door and opened it. It wasn’t his dad. It wasn’t his mom. It wasn’t Freddy, Kelly, or Arabella. It was Dalia.
“Hey, you came back!” Teague said.
“Yeah! Teague, I am so sorry. How could I reject you? You were going to save my life when we thought Arabella was going to kill me. How could I say no to someone like you? I know I said I only like you as a friend, but like you said, maybe I’ll end up liking you back in the end. I’ve already had my heart broken before, it’s a risk I’m willing to take. You’re right, all the guys I’ve dated aren’t nice at all. You on the other hand, are possibly the kindest boy I’ve ever met.”
“I’m not a boy, Dalia, I’m a man. But thanks. Wait a minute. Are you only saying you’ll go out with me just because I was willing to save your life?”
“Well that’s one thing I suppose. But it’s not because of that. It’s because you’re a wonderful person.”
“Oh… thanks. Hey, why don’t you come back inside? I had more fun dancing here with you than I would’ve had I gone to that dance.”

Teague stepped back and let Dalia inside. She slowly walked in and looked around curiously.
“So you really liked that Barry Manilow song, huh?” said Teague.
“Hey, I know another good song to dance to! Just a moment.” Teague browsed through the CD’s and found the one he was looking for. He put it in the boom box, found the track and hit play. And Teague’s favorite song boomed out of the speakers:
Fill your days, and your nights, no need to ever ask me twice, oh no. Whenever you want me. And if ever comes a day, when you should turn and walk away, oh no. I can’t live without you. I’m so caught up in you….”
He and Dalia began dancing again. When he danced with her, he imagined they were dancing on a cloud way above the globe, just as the sun was beginning to rise. In his imagination, Teague was dancing while looking down at the snowy, blue peaks miles and miles below them. They looked just like the Himalayas. And far out in the distance was nothing more than a sea of purple and blue clouds and the giant sun rising slowly above them.
Teague and Dalia talked about their favorite foods and what they liked to do on the weekend, at least, when they weren’t trying to find a ghost girl’s dad for her. They wandered on to what their plans for after high school were. Both of them had no idea yet what school they’d like to go to, or even if they were planning to go to school. They were just two innocent teenagers, who at the moment didn’t have a care in the world. As they danced and talked in the moonlight, Teague’s dad Eddie, who’d been walking home from the dance in a hurry, stepped onto the porch and furrowed his eyebrow. He’d come back home because he’d forgotten his top hat that went along with his tuxedo. He needed his hat if they were going out to eat! As he peered in the window and looked at Teague dancing inside with Dalia under the disco ball, an evil smile spread over his face. And he began to snicker. And in just a moment, he began laughing a laugh that mimicked Patrick Stars’ as he looked at the embarrassing picture of SpongeBob at the Christmas Party at the end of The Secret Box.
Look at Teague, he thinks he can dance. He’s stiff as a corpse. I’ll have to teach him how to really mamba next year so he’ll go to the dance not looking like a freaking clown, thought Eddie. And figuring the hat wasn’t all that important, Eddie turned around and headed down the road heading towards the dance, laughing his head off the whole way.

When Caught up in you came to an end, Teague and Dalia stopped dancing. Dalia’s phone went off as she got an incoming text. She looked at the screen and quickly read it. “It’s from my mom,” she said. “I’ve got to get home, Bud. Thanks so much for the dance!”
Teague looked at her and smiled. “It was my pleasure,” he said.
Dalia waved at him, opened the door, and disappeared once the door shut. Teague looked out the window as she stepped off the porch, and as soon as she was out of hearing distance, he leaped up in the air in triumph and screamed “YYYYEEEEAAAAHHHH!!!”
Teague threw his fist in the air as if he’d just won a million dollars. He pulled out his cell phone and got ready to call Johnny and Doug to tell them the good news. Arabella and her family were reunited and happier than ever before. The paranormal creatures were now his friends. In fact, he, Johnny, and Doug had just been playing kickball with all of them at the park a few nights earlier. Johnny had pegged Rakasha really good as he’d been rounding second base, but Rakasha had claimed it just barely missed him, and so kept running and scored a homerun. “This is bull crap!” Johnny had yelled. “Rakasha, I totally nailed you, bro!”
But best of all, Dalia had agreed to go out with him. There’d be no more long days of feeling heartbroken. And as Teague got ready to call Johnny, his eyes began to water. He couldn’t believe how happy he was. He sat on the couch and began to cry. He was a senior now, and life seemed to suddenly feel fantastic. He was so glad to be alive! Before he called his friends, a variety of exciting thoughts swirled in his head: First thing I’ll do on Friday is hang out with Dalia and- and watch the sunset with her! This is going to be great! Teague walked over to the boom box and played .38 Special’s Caught up in you just one more time. As he listened to the song and looked outside and gazed at the moon, he realized that the very best part of this magical night was knowing that it had really happened…. Because this time…it wasn't a dream!!!