Ghost Walk

Tom sees a ghost...or does he?

Ghost Walk

 

Tom worried about getting too old for the Halloween ghost walk. But his friends Scott and Charlie were doing it again, and they were both 13 too. Besides, he liked the idea of ghosts and Halloween even if it was hokey. 

He had another good excuse to keep going - his dad helped every year to put up all the ghosts and ghouls along the paths in the woods. This year, Tom offered to help, but his dad said no because then it wouldn’t be a scary surprise when he walked the path.  OK, dad.

And like last year, it was pretty good, pretty spooky, as they passed ghosts, witches, huge birds and other weird stuff. Ahead Scott and Charley were joking about ghosts going to the bathroom. Tom was just trying to capture and hold the spooky aura in his mind as they neared the end. When the black hooded ghoul against the tree nodded to him, Tom began to nod back before catching himself.  What the....?  He looked away and kept moving. He was sure it had happened; he felt the eyes on him as he passed. He looked back. The grotesque face under the black hood again nodded at him.  The mouth twisted, and he heard a weird guttural sound, like he was clearing his throat. He? 

Was it just a joke? Maybe one of the parents was inside the ghoul costume. He glanced ahead to Scott and Charley, just walking along and still joking about something. They hadn't seen anything. Scott turned back, “Watch out, Tommy, here's the Granny witch on her broomstick, coming to get you.“

Before they came to Granny, Tom took one last look back: the ghoul was gone, and the place where it had been was lit in a white light, like a spotlight shining down from the tree branches. In the breeze a few leaves fell softly through the light to the ground.

His Dad was waiting when they came out in the parking lot. “Spooky enough for you?” he greeted them. 

“Pretty cool, Mr. Addison,” said Charlie. “Yeah Dad, you got those woods real spooky,” Tom added. He was sure now that Charley hadn’t seen anything. They waited for Charlie’s little sister Lauren to come out of the woods with her friends. Charlie and Lauren would be walking home with them since their house was on the way.  When she arrived, Tom checked for any sign she’d seen anything unusual… none.

After leaving Charley and Lauren, he decided try his Dad while they walked the rest of the way home. “I saw a weird thing out there, Dad. One of those ghosts near the end must have had somebody in it, because I swear it looked at me and made a noise.” To his surprise his father didn’t laugh it off.

"Where was that?”

“Near the end, after the trail makes that turn by the big rock.” 

After a moment, his father replied, “I don’t know what that was all about. Nothing alive there that I know of.” They were coming up the driveway now. “I guess we did a pretty good job this year if we scared you that much,” said his father with a chuckle.

In the kitchen his mother asked if he had a good time, who he walked with and all that stuff. Yup, yup and yup. He told his parents he had homework to do in the couple of hours before bedtime, and went to his room.

He tried to read, but kept thinking about the face turning to him, the eyes, the sound. He liked the magic and wanted to keep the memory going. Maybe there was something really eerie about Halloween after all. After a half-hour, he gave up and went to the window. He looked out on the clear night sky above the trees. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he decided what he would do that night, after bed-time.

In bed Tom lay awake until little after 2 and then got up, dressed and snuck quietly downstairs. Outside it was cooler and the breeze was gone. The street was empty. What if a police car came by on patrol?  Charlie’s house was dark.

He got scared as soon as he entered the woods. What if his ghoul was back, or some other ghost spoke to him?  But it was just the same home-made and store-bought ghosts, all alone now with no one to scare. No sign of his ghoul or the white light … just woods at night, empty. That was the scariest.

Now he felt empty too, frigid and shivering. So much for his special world, his mystery. He turned and walked rapidly back down the trail to the lot. The Halloween ghosts seemed to mock him as he passed. You fell for us? He longed to just be back in his bed.

The wooshing noise behind him happened just before Charley’s driveway, like a big wind gusting through the trees. He turned to look behind " nothing, no wind, no trees blowing, quiet.  Hah, fooled again! He carefully opened the back door and slipped into the kitchen. The clock read 3:35. Moving quietly up the stairs and into bed, he listened for anything.  ...Yeah, a woosh … right, you sucker.

He fell asleep and dreamed the same old dream, running after the soccer ball but not quite getting to it. He awoke to the sound of someone in his room. His mother, what was she doing?  Pulling back the curtains and opening the window. From the sunlight he could tell it was late.

“Time to rise, sleepyhead. You had a rough night, but I think you’ve made up for it.” His mother smiled at him.

A rough night - what was she talking about?   “What do you mean, what happened?"

“You don’t remember your sleepwalk? You were walking in the hall and mumbling something. You woke us up, and I had to pull you away from the stairs.. You said something about someone coming to see you.”

“Get out” was all he could say.

“Get out yourself, you sleepwalker you. I was afraid you’d tumble down the stairs going to greet your visitor. But with a little gentle coaxing, we got you back into bed. Your father was really pleased having to get up at 2 am and deal with his wayward son.”

He fumbled for a response. “Sorry…I don’t know what happened.”

His mother was still smiling, standing at the foot of the bed.  “That’s for sure!  Now you’d better get up and have some breakfast or you’ll miss soccer.”

Reviews

[Dave Potter]

Nice job at being spooky. I hope to read more, Dave

[Jade]

I enjoyed reading this, nice imagery and detail

[AUU]

I enjoyed the read. There's something very endearing about a child's experience of Halloween. As you get older Halloween seems all the more commercialized and magic is somewhat lost.

You did a fantastic job. I especially liked the description of the ghoul.

Be careful with copy-pasting from a word processor. Not all things are pasted correctly (you may noticed a stray " where there could have been a dash). Also. Some indents for the paragraphs would make this easier to read.

[EDIT]

The formatting looks a lot cleaner now!