Prologue
October 28th, 2005
The girl squealed with excitement as the basement door closed and the lights went out. She loved scary pranks like this, especially near Halloween.
“Don’t move,” her date shouted through the door. She could hear it in his voice - he was grinning. Adrenaline pumped through her, and the girl was ready for a great scare. Her date’s house was scary, and it was a great place for him to take her for a first date. The two shared a love for scary things. Although they had just met, the girl was sure he was the one. She was only fifteen and there was no reason to decide, but she always got her hopes up.
The basement was pitch black. The girl sat down on the cold cement floor, waiting for something to happen. She expected her date to have a plan to sneak into the basement another way and scare her, but who knows what he had up his sleeve. The girl sat there, unable to stop smiling. She even may have let out a giggle or two.
She looked up at the dirty windows. Pale blue sunlight filtered through the few cracks in the dark room, giving her a bit of light to see what was around her. She looked around the room. Boxes made shapes of people sitting and staring at her. Old televisions and ironing boards cast shadows on the wall. One of the shapes even looked like a woman in a bent back position. The girl was scared, but she believed there were no spirits in the house. Her parents always said for her not to scare herself and things that are spooky are usually illusions. The girl knew there were no shadows watching her, but deep down she really felt like she was being watched.
The girl looked around the room some more and tried to enjoy the fear, but the fear was taking control over her. She hadn’t been genuinely scared like this since she was little. There was no shadow of a woman bent back anymore -- it had somehow disappeared. The girl reminded herself that visions change and she just wasn’t seeing the same way she did a minute ago. It was just her eyes getting used to the darkness. It was just her mind playing tricks on her. But deep down, ten sets of eyes were all on her and she knew it. She knew it well.
There was one thing left to do. To overcome the fear, the girl said aloud to herself, “Ghosts aren’t real. It’s an illusion. It’s okay.” She forced a smile and laughed at herself for being so silly. She walked to the other side of the room, touching all the boxes, and then to the other side of the room. “They’re boxes,” she looked up at the windows. “Boxes.”
Just then, loud banging sounded from a different side of the room. It was really loud, like more than one person was definitely in on this. The girl could not move. She was scared. Tears welled up in her eyes as the banging grew louder. The banging was now coming from all sides of the room and she could hardly hear herself scream.
“Stop it! This isn’t funny, stop!” The banging kept going and the room shook.
The girl could see the room’s dim blue shadows through her tears. She fell to the ground, catching one last glimpse of the basement, and it seemed like there was a shadow of a man with eyes watching her and stepping closer. The banging kept going. She was not going to look up again.
The girl continued to sob, and kept her head in her knees, making herself as small as possible. “Stop it!” She yelled a final time, as loud as she could, lifting her head up but still keeping her eyes closed. The banging stopped and a light went on. Her date ran in, scrambling down the stairs as fast as he could and almost tripping along the way.
He knelt down next to her and said all these things like “Are you okay?” and “What happened?” His girlfriend was not amused.
“I HATE YOU!” She yelled, getting up as fast as she could and punching him in the nose. The girl ran out of the house and back home, running into her date’s sister along the way. The girl wanted to tell her that her brother was a jerk, but she didn’t bother turning around. She didn’t want to be anywhere near that house again.
Her date was left confused, wondering what he did wrong. He hadn’t even started the joke yet! He knew he was missing something. So he spent the rest of his teenage years in that lonely house without a girlfriend, wondering what he did wrong, questioning himself, beating himself up with his words when none of it was his fault. It was the house that had turned on him.
