Chapter I

Locke

Chapter I

As he reached his hand to the doorknob, he realized how much his palms were sweating when he turned it. Maybe, it was because he only knew one of the voices that were making their way through the door, or maybe it was because the voice he knew was that of a pretty girl he had met a few days ago. Either way, he took a deep breath and proceeded downstairs into the basement where they were waiting for him. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he turned to his right, seeing as how there were several boxes blocking the path to his immediate left, to see two random guys, a girl, and the girl he met the other day, Janice. Janice was a beautiful young woman with a dark sense of style, bright green eyes, and dark brown hair. Today, she was wearing a tight black shirt that exposed her shoulders past the collar bone, a shiny leather jacket but unbuttoned, dark gray jeans, and a pair of black and red converse. She had piercings that included her right eyebrow, her nose, and the left side of her lower lip. She looked up at him and smiled,

“Hey, Adam, what took so long?” She asked.

“My bad, I had a little trouble finding this place. I've never been to this side of town,” he replied, not really making eye contact. He looked to the others that were sitting on the long, dusty looking couch and offered a nod in which they returned casually.

“It's alright. This is Kyle's house.” She stated, as she pointed to the guy sitting to her right. Kyle was tall and skinny and seemed to be about Adam's age, in his mid-twenties. His face was a little difficult for Adam to make out, because of the hood Kyle was wearing. The sweater he had on was black with the words, “ Silly Alien, Brains are for Humans,” written in dark red lettering. He had on dark blue jeans and Adam had no idea what his sneaker brand was, but they were old, white, and falling apart around the fronts. “This was his idea. Have you ever done anything like this before, Adam?”

Adam shook his head. “No, never.” This was true, of course, the only time Adam had ever even seen a Ouija board was in the horror movies. He never had any desire to mess around with one, nor had he ever been asked to in all his 24 years of living.

“Kyle, here,” she said, flashing Kyle a tired glance, “swears up and down that his house is being haunted by a ghost or something.”

“It IS being haunted Janice,” he said sharply. “This isn't a joke anymore. I need to figure out whats going on because I can't take it anymore.” He sounded extremely annoyed.

“He's been complaining to me about it for a few weeks now, Janice, I don't think he's messing with us,” one of the girls said, she was sitting on the far end of the couch, after the guy sitting next to Kyle. She wasn't dressed in dark clothing at all, matter of fact, she was wearing a hot pink t-shirt, with tight black yoga pants. She had a pair of white and pink sketchers to match her top, and a turquoise headband keeping her platinum blonde hair out of her ocean blue eyes. “Aren't you going to introduce us to your new friend? Hey there, my name is Alisha.” She said to Adam as she lifted herself slightly off the couch to shake his hand, right before plopping herself back down. “And this is my boyfriend, Jack,” she stated, putting her arm around Jack and kissing him on his cheek.

“This is Adam. I met him a few days ago and I wanted him to meet you guys. He seems like a cool kid. Plus, I figured the more people we have here for this the better, right?” She replied to Alisha.

“I'm not too sure how it works, but Jack knows a lot about this stuff. When I told him about how Kyle thought his house was haunted, he wanted to talk to it,” she said with a sarcastic chuckle. “So, he called his aunt and got her old board out of the attic.”

She pulled the Ouija board out of a bag that was sitting between Jack and herself.

“Usually,” Jack followed, “it doesn't really matter how many people use it, as long as we don't say anything disrespectful to the entity. What this is, is a séance, in which we try to contact whatever may be haunting the house.” He grabbed the board from Alisha, and set it on the small rectangular table in front of them, which was covered in a small layer of dust. The board seemed ancient, the surface was slightly uneven and discolored. There were the normal letters of the alphabet in the center, which looked like it had been written in quill, in elegant strokes. There were two words on the top left corner, and the top right corner: YES and NO. Underneath the elegantly written letters, there was a row of numbers increasing from one and ending in zero. There was a GOODBYE printed at the bottom center, right below the row of numbers, also. “Now we have all heard the stories about ghosts actually coming out of the Ouija board and cursing anyone who uses it,” he continued, “But let's be serious, we're not twelve. The only time you would have to worry is if you were being insulting, demanding, or actually trying to release a spirit through Ouija, but I've heard that was very difficult. If there is anything haunting this place, we are just going to talk to it, find out why, and hopefully put it to rest.”

Adam made his way to the couch as the others pushed over to make some room for him, he sat next to Janice. “So you guys really think this house is haunted, and that this is going to work?” He asked curiously.

Jack smiled, “Who knows, really? I've done this a few times, and it's really only worked for me once, but I'm pretty sure that the people were just trying to humor me. I'm not even sure if they were really serious in the first place. Not too many people believe in this kind of thing, but Alisha was telling me how creeped out Kyle was, and I knew he wouldn't be looking for laughs.”

Kyle sat straight up and removed his hood, to reveal a very worried, tired expression. “Thanks, Jack. I appreciate you helping me out with this, but I can't lie about being nervous. I've never done anything like this, and I know you said that there's nothing to worry about, but I don't want things to get worse.”

“What kind of things are happening here, Kyle?” Adam asked before Jack got a chance to answer.

“All kinds of things, man,” he replied. “Doors will slam shut, the lights will flicker, sometimes go out for hours at a time and just turn back on. I swear, I can hear a lady humming on some nights. The thing that bothers me the most, the thing that really makes my skin crawl,” he ran his hand through his hair, frustrated, “is that things don't stay where I put them. There will be times where I know I put my phone down on the desk in my room, and it'll turn up in the kitchen or the bathroom.”

Janice gave her forehead a quick scratch before asking, “Kyle, are you sure? Even though you may believe there's something going on, don't you think that your mind could just being playing tricks on you? That there could be a reasonable explanation?”

“You think I haven't already thought of that, Jane?” He sounded defensive, almost offended. “I've done hours of searching around online to try and find something to explain it, and of course all I got was the normal bullshit. I don't know whats true or not, and at this point, I'm willing to try anything. You guys don't understand, I can barely sleep at night.”

“Alright, alright,” Alisha said, with a deep inhale. “I don't really see the harm in us trying this out. S**t, if he's already going through hell, how much worse could it really be?”

“Kyle?” Jack asked. “Is it just you experiencing these things, or is anyone else?”

“My parents thing I'm going crazy,” he replied softly, “but my little sister says she believes me. She has an imaginary friend, but if she noticed the things I noticed, she'd be terrified. I don't think it's bothering anyone else.”

“Hm,” Jack sighed curiously. “My family, believe it or not, they are really big believers in this sort of thing. I mean, I don't know too much, before recently I didn't care, but I'm pretty sure that if it's only you feeling this entity, that it's haunting you, and not the house. That shouldn't have any effect on us contacting it, though.”

“What happens if we can't contact it, or if it doesn't go away,” Kyle asked.

Jack raised an eyebrow in thought, “Well, I guess I can always go back to my aunt for advice. I'm sure she'll know what to do, but she doesn't like me doing this type of thing. She says it's dangerous.”

“I thought you said it wasn't,” Kyle responded, with rising fear.

“Don't worry, man, seriously,” Jack said, smiling widely, now. “We are going to figure this thing out, and we are going to get your house unhaunted.” Kyle sat back into the couch and put his hood back on. It was clear that he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Either option he chose would be risky, that's if any of this was even true to begin with. Adam honestly didn't know whether to believe Kyle or not. In his mind, he was just along for the ride. Janice was the real reason he had come out to chill with these guys, so he hadn't had a worry in the world.

“Jack is the best chance you have right now, Kyle. No reason to not give it a shot, right?” Alisha stated. “We ready to get started?”

Before anyone could respond, Jack pushed the table out a little bit further infront of them, and proceed to sit on the floor, right infront of the Ouija board. “Alright, everyone,” he begun, “Grab a seat around the table, sit on your knees and join hands. OH, wait. Alisha, can you grab and light the candles that Kyle brought down?”

Alisha nodded and proceeded to a small desk, placed under the basement stairs. She returned with 3 candles, and placed them in a triangle around the Ouija board. She lit the candles, and joined the others sitting around the table.

Kyle got up from his spot to hit the lights, but took a long, deep breath before returning to the table. The basement was dark now, and the creaks from the upper floors echoing down gave Adam the chills. The only noticable light was from the candles glowing ominously, and a small, faint, flashing green light, probably from a cable box or something like that. Adam found himself a little nervous now, too, but didn't really understand why. It was kind of like this little feeling in his chest, that was telling him this was a bad idea, but that's ridiculous. What could possibily go wrong, nothing would probably even happen, right? Either way, his thoughts were cut short when Jack initiated the séance,

“Is everyone ready to start?” he asked. The eeriee feeling must have been the mutual throughout the whole room, because no one answered, they just looked at each other and offered slow nods. “Alright, then,” he continued, “Everyone join hands and try to clear your mind. Push all the negitive thoughts to the back of your head, and try to think positive. It's important that we stay polite during this conversation, because we obviously don't want to offend this entity, that very well could make things worse for Kyle, here. We will go around in a circle, and we will each ask our own question. The goal here is figure out why this entity is haunting Kyle, or haunting the house, and figure out what it wants. How to make him stop and carry on to other side. I think it's only fair that Kyle starts us off with the first question. After him, we will go clockwise making me next, then Alisha, then Adam, and finally Janice. You guys ready? Put your hands on the moving piece, and I'll start the séance.”

Janice and Alisha were at the ends of the table, so they had to lean forward a little bit, but one by one, everyone put their hands on the piece, and Jack began the séance.