Ghost

The part 2 to 'Breathe'. The reason I'm still terrified of that basement...

... Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump...

 

It was eerily quiet. The only sound I could hear was the sound of my heart as it pounded inside of my chest.

 

... Thump. Thump. Thump...

 

I made my way through the darkness, and suddenly I felt a hand gripping my shoulder.

 

... Thumpthumpthumpthump...

 

I jerked my head around to see what'd grabbed me and...

 

"BOO!" my cousin yelled.

 

I let out a small scream, and we both fell into a fit of giggles.

 

"I scared ya, didn't I?" my older cousin grinned.

 

"I knew it was you!" I said, shaking my head.

 

"Did not!" she said.

 

"Did too!" I shot back.

 

"Did not!"

 

"Did too!"

 

My cousin was about to reply when a sudden, strange noise came from the other end of the basement, effectively ending our argument and sending us running for the door.

 

We bolted out of there and slammed the door shut behind us, and leaned up against it as we tried to catch our breath.

 

My younger cousin, who'd happened to hear the noise, came over to

see what we were up to.

 

"Watcha doing?" she asked us.

 

"We're playing Haunted House!" I replied excitedly.

 

"I thought you were playing hide and seek," she said, frowning.

 

"This is sorta like hide and seek. Only, we play it in the basement." my older cousin explained.

 

"Do you wanna play?" I asked.

 

She thought for a moment, but didn't answer us.

 

"Come on!" we urged her. "It's fun!"

 

"I don't really like haunted houses..." she replied, eyeing the door warily.

 

"But it's not a haunted house!" I answered. "It's just pretend!"

 

"Yeah, we're just going into the basement!" my older cousin said.

 

"Why are you going to the basement?" My little sister, who'd come looking for me and my cousins, suddenly chimed in.

 

"We're playing a game," I replied.

 

"I wanna play!" my little sister chirped.

 

"You can't! You're too little," my older cousin said.

 

"I wanna play!" My sister said again, stomping her foot and looking up at us stubbornly.

 

"We're going into the basement. You're gonna get scared," I argued, but my little sister wasn't deterred.

 

"I'll play if she plays!" my younger cousin exclaimed.

 

"Fine..." my older cousin huffed, eliciting squeals of joy from my little sister.

 

My older cousin only mumbled to herself as she turned around and opened the door. The frown on her face, however, was soon replaced by a mischievous smirk.

 

"Last one in is a big 'ol scaredy cat!" she turned to us and shouted before disappearing into the darkness.

 

We grinned, and ran in after her.

 

Or at least I did, anyway.

 

It was too dark to see if the others had followed, and-

 

Oof!

 

Judging by the small, sister shaped object that I'd just bumped into, they'd followed us in.

 

I smiled to myself. It seems that noone could've resisted a game of Haunted House.

 

It was really quite fun, actually, in a terrifying sort of way.

 

As for the rules- heck! There were no rules. All you needed to do was run around in the dark, and scare the shat out of anyone unfortunate enough to come your way.

 

But that was only half the fun.

 

The other half, my three companions would just have to learn the hard way...

 

I snickered quietly to myself as I crept up on them, ready to pounce...

 

What happened next (and for the next ten or so minutes afterwards) was a blur of shouts, screams and laughter, and after what seemed to us like hours of chasing, we finally caught up to each other, and were headed towards the door.

 

In fact, we were almost at the door, when we saw something jump out in front of us.

 

We froze.

 

There, in the middle of the room, stood a shadowy, black figure.

 

The four of us screamed. I mean we really, really screamed. For a moment, we were all genuinely terrified.

 

And then, suddenly remembering our game, we started laughing hysterically.

 

The figure seemed to watch us for a moment, and I'm fairly certain that if it'd had a face, it would've looked very confused.

 

After a few moments it disappeared, and the four of us bolted out of the door, hoping to see if we could catch whoever had jumped out and scared us.

 

We were sure it'd been either my dad or theirs. But we saw noone, and my younger cousin turned to me.

 

"That's so funny that your dad came in to scare us," she said, still giggling.

 

"My dad? I thought that was your dad!" I replied.

 

"I don't care who's dad it was, just make them do it again!" my older cousin shouted excitedly.

 

"Yeah!" we agreed, and headed towards the living room, where we knew our dads were probably watching tv.

 

Sure enough, they were both in there.

 

"Daddy! Daddy!" I yelled, trying to get my dad's attention.

 

"Huh? What is it? What's wrong?" my dad asked.

 

"Do it again! Do it again!" my little sister replied, jumping up and down.

 

"Do it again! Do it again!" the four of us chanted, joining her in the chorus.

 

"What? Do what again?" my dad asked and looked at my uncle, who just shrugged.

 

"Go in there and scare us again, like you did before!" I replied, motioning toward the basement.

 

Suddenly, both of our dads looked very confused.

 

"What are you talking about?" my dad said, a bewildered look on his face as he added,

 

"We were never in there!"

Author's Note

Ok, I tried to fit this all into one story, and I hope it wasn't too bad =)

It really is based on something that happened when my cousins first came to visit (we were really little kids when this happened). As you can tell, we had a pretty interesting time together :)

PS- I didn't use any of their names because I'm not sure if my cousins or sis would've been ok with that, or whether they're paranoid about internet privacy. xP

Reviews

[Craig2591]

I found your story in the "You think your writing is bad?" contest. I don't think it belongs there. It's well told and fun (though a little predictable).

The only error I found is 'no one' is two words (not noone).

I enjoyed it!

[Mama Topaz]

Fun story!!

So... was it a one-time incident or did you see other strange things in the basement? Basements ARE scary... and scaring ourselves can be fun, too... and your story captured everything nicely, I think!