November 2009 - Choctawhatchee High School

8B November 6, 2009 Smoke SignalsNumber 13A SHORT STORYBy Evangeline MurphyStaff Reporter“You know that house is haunted.”My friend said, putting hisarm in front of my face to pointout the window.I looked out into the autumnday and smiled. The leaves onthe trees were now orange andred with the slight change in theweather. It felt nice. The grasswas still green in the fouro’clock sun.I looked towards the housethat Mitchell, who still had hishand in front of my face insteadof on the wheel, was pointingto. It didn’t seem haunted. Itwas rather nice, unlike themovies when they show theseold, rundown places with shuttersfalling of the hinges andwindows broken everywhere.“And you believe that?” J.C.asked from the back seat. Healso had his eyes trained towardthe house. I don’t see howthough. His black hair hunginto his green eyes.“I do. That place has notbeen lived in since 1956. Well,I mean, it was once. But theowners renovated it and stayedthere a week and then decidedto move out. So it wouldn’treally count has having beenlived in. They said somethingabout weird happenings goingon there.” Knowledge saidturning toward the house, too.Knowledge’s real name isBayla Lockhart. Can you tellwhy she got her name? She’s acomplete know-it-all. She justcalls it photographic memory.“What about you, Janie? Doyou think that house is haunted?”J.C. asked.“I’d like to. But at the sametime, I’m scared too.” I said,still staring out the window,even though we passed thehouse already.“Then why don’t we have asleepover?” J.C. said, soundinglike a really girly-girl.“Dude, you sound like agirl.” Mitchell said, turning intothe parking lot of the restaurant.“Are you sure he isn’t one?”Knowledge asked suspiciously.“Nice one, girl!” I said givingher a high five as wewalked into the restaurant.“Ha. Ha. Very. Funny.” J.C.crossed his arms.“You don’t sound soamused.” Mitchell said, peeringat him, making his eyes lookblack instead of brown.J.C. didn’t reply.We talked about the housethe whole time we ate. Therewere so many different storiesto that house. Well, J.C. hadgiven us that bit of informationand I highly doubted any ofthose stories were true.But J.C. had to causeKnowledge to throw her napkinat him. He ducked; making thenapkin hit the person sittingbehind him and then the waitress.Knowledge made himapologize.By the time I got home, weestablished that Mitchell wasgoing to call the owners and seeif we could stay the night thereto see if it was really haunted. Ididn’t want to, but the three ofthem would make me, so Iagreed quietly. So, just like themovies. We were probablywalking into a haunted house‘unknowingly’ and the ghostwill pop out and kill us all.Wow. I’ve been letting myimagination roam too much.I woke up the next day tothe annoying beep of my alarm.And my mother banging on mydoor to tell me to wake up. Ijust got my locker when J.C.grabbed the back of my backpackand dragged my down thehall to an empty classroom; Iwas yelling at him the wholeway.Knowledge was therealready, sitting all nice and prettyin on of the desks. Her glasseswere on the tip of her nose as shepeered down into her book.“I got her, Know.” J.C. said,still not letting go.I was wondering how fast Icould get out of my backpackand to my locker before J.C. wasable to catch me. The oddsweren’t in my favor.“You could’ve let her go toher locker first. Mitchell isn’there yet.” She said, glancing upfrom her book.He let go of mybackpack andslumped down into achair. I blinked, andthen he was asleep.I rushed back tomy locker andswitched out mybooks. I slammed mylocker, makingmyself jump, andtrudged slowly downto the empty classroom.J.C. was stillpassed out on thedesk, Knowledge andMitchell hangingover him. Slowly,Mitchell took a penout of his pocket, capstill on, and pokedJ.C.’s face.Nothing.So he poked himagain and again.Still nothing.“For Pete’s sake!”Knowledge slappedMitchell’s hand away.“Wake up, J.C.!Mitchell’s here!”“Mitchie!” J.C.said standing and givinghim a huge bearhug.“J.C.” he growled,“Put me down!”Knowledge hadsat back down andput her glasses backon the bridge of hernose, her gel blue eyes dartingfrom her book to us. I lookedover at it. It was a ghost book.“Really, Know?” I asked,walking over and picking it up.Ignoring the small pain shootingthrough my back from my backpackas I moved over there.“I couldn’t help it. I wantedto know more. See if there’s anythingin there that might help us.Did you know that sometimesghosts can take the shapes ofpeople or things you’re used toin order to mess with your mind?And that way, some can easilytrap you and kill you in the samehorrible way they died.” Shesaid simply.“And you still believe all ofthat?” J.C. asked grabbing thebook from my hands and flippingthrough it.“Well, yeah, some of it.Besides, it’s a really good readanyway.” Knowledge said, slippingthe book out of his handsand back into her bag.“Janie, you don’t believe thatall of this ghost stuff is just aload of-”“Jonathan Clarke. Don’t usethat language here.” Mrs. Lesliesaid, walking into the classroom.J.C. just looked down andmumbled a sad “Sorry.”We sat in our seats for thefirst class, not mentioning anythingabout the haunted house.Come to think about it, none ofthem told me why J.C. haddragged me here in the firstplace.They day came and went, justlike the flip of a textbook. Ha ha!Like anyone really reads theirtextbook. (Stupid joke, but bearwith me here. I’ve spent thewhole night wondering aboutthis ghost stuff and tried not tofall asleep in any of my classes…whata great day.)I reached the doors when,again, J.C. grabbed my backpackand pulled me in the oppositedirection.“Again with the pulling andthe waiting?” I asked.“Yep,” He said over his shoulder.I shrugged. Well, tried toshrug.Instead of a classroom, hedragged me to the library.“I’m surprised. You actuallyknow where the library is.” Isaid.“This is a library?” he askedstupidly. “I never would’veguessed.”Mitchell was sitting at one ofthe tables, homework out andwaiting for us.“Where’s Know? You know,because she’s, like, in the know.”J.C. said.I rolled my eyes.“Janie, do you think youcould come out to the house thisFriday?” Mitchell asked.“We’re really going throughwith that?” I asked.My eyes must’ve been wide,because J.C. asked, “Are youreally scared? You really believein that stuff?” at the same timeMitchell told me, “You don’thave to go if you don’t want to.”I just nodded my head,stunned. We were really goingthrough with all of this. I thoughtwe were all just joking, or atleast, not making serious plansto stay the night there.Knowledge walked in afterthat. I just kept staring straightahead, waiting for someone toyell “Tricked ya!” or something.“Well, the owners said wecould stay there tomorrow nightand-”“Tomorrow’s Thursday. Idon’t like staying over at people’shouses on school nights.” Iinterrupted Mitchell.“Sweetie, tomorrow’sFriday.” Knowledge said pattingme lightly on the head.I felt stupid after that.“Well, we are allowed tostay the night there tomorrownight, but only that night.”Mitchell said. He turned towardJ.C. “And no parties.”Mitchell then went overthings we needed to bring andthings that weren’t allowed inthe house. All of that jazz.Before I could make it stop, itwas Friday night and I waspulling up into the driveway ofthe supposedly haunted house.As I got out, and it felt like I wasin a very stupid horror film.Four kids walk into a housethat is haunted. Weird thingshappen, like the water turns onin the kitchen and no one knowswho did it. Then a person in awhite sheet jumps outand yells, “BOO!”But no, this is real.And I’m not bankingon a person walkingout in a sheet sayingboo. That would benice. And very differentthen the usual. Iactually wish it wouldhappen just so it wouldcalm my nerves.I walked inside andsaw Knowledgealready on the couch,lost in a book.Nothing really happenedduring the night.We watched TV., tookturns taking a shower,ordered a pizza, andwatched TV. Did Imention that already?One time, I turnedto the wall for a briefsecond and sworn Isaw writing on thewall, but then I blinkedand it went away.The lights flickeredand the TV turned off.J.C. just turned it backon.The lights flickeredagain and a girlappeared in the doorwayto the kitchen. Weall froze and let the TVdo the talking. Sheglared at us fromunderneath her eyelashes.Her eyes lookingblack, just like her hairwhich hung to her shoulders intwo braids. Her skin was thepurest of white.“She doesn’t sparkle.” J.C.whispered.She snapped her eyes to hisand he froze again.No one bothered to tell himthat vampires are mainly theones to sparkle, not ghosts. Butno one really cared at themoment…or ever. It’s not likeJ.C. listened to anything, anyway.Suddenly, the TV snapped offand the lights dimmed. Theydimmed again and again andagain. I was afraid that the lightswere going to go out completely.Everyone was too stunned tomove. They just kept their eyesstuck on the girl in front of them.I studied her a little closer. Shehad a black cat curled in her leftarm. It was hard to tell it fromthe black dress she wore. Theonly way I could tell it apart wasthat it was staring at me with theyellow-green eyes, tail swipingback and forth slowly. Her righthand was stretched down by herside, facing us was a crackedmirror.“What are you doing here?”she hissed.Her voice was like a child’s,simple and quiet, yet eerie andunknown at the same time.“Um…we were just…um…”J.C. tried.Her right arm slid slowly tobehind her back as he spoke.“What are you doing?” he asked,suddenly back to his normal,mocking self.I was thinking many differentthings in my head. Mainly it washer pulling out a knife and slowlywalking towards us. Going upto Knowledge first, since shewas the closest, and sticking itstraight in her before she couldrun away. Then pulling it out andwatching her fall down the floor,pain in her every move. Shemoved to the others next, doingthe same. The knife was glisteningwith dark red blood anddripped off as she movedtowards me. The black cat wasnow sitting on the body ofMitchell, interested and amused.Then I felt the knife go throughme…and pain.“What are you doing here?”she asked again, pulling me outof my overactive imaginationarythoughts.“We should be asking you thesame.” Mitchell said shakily.She tilted her head to theside and stared at him. Maybemy imagination isn’t that overactiveafter all.She slowly moved her armfrom behind her back and held itout in front of her, facing us.The cracks formed the number13. The number started toturn black as the lights flickered.There was a scream and shewas gone, the mirror still there inmid air before falling down andbreaking into pieces.All of our stuff was flyingtowards us, over our heads, allaround the room, sometimes hittingone of us. J.C. had grabbedKnowledge and me, dragging ustowards the door with Mitchellbehind us.I screamed, when we wereknocked towards the ground, butI was out screamed by another.The girl was there again, rightnext to the door, blocking ourway out. Her hair was swirlingaround her face with an unfeltwind. She looked angry, but hereyes held sadness.I looked around for anotherway out, but I was met with writingon the wall. It was stained onthere with blood.I had to pay a price that wasn’tmine to pay.Now you have to, too.-1313? Was that her name? I wasnever able to ask. The next thingI knew, Knowledge was pushedon top of me and everythingwent black…Years have passed since thattreacherous night. I still live inthe same town, though. A fewdays later, Mitchell decided todo some research and found outthat the girl was only thirteenwhen she died and her name wasAmelia Houston. She was alsothe thirteenth child of thirteenkids and was born on the thirteenthof October. Her nicknamewas thirteen and always had badluck. A sickly child growing up.She was killed in her houseby murders. They claimed thather father owed them, but theywere crazy anyways. The saddestthing was she had just gottenover being sick and wasfinally able to live her life,instead of being sick all the time.But only the good die young.I was passing the houseagain, telling my fourteen yearold son and daughter that thathouse was haunted. And Icould’ve sworn I saw her standingthere in the window. She wasstaring out into autumn day,orange and red leaves litteringthe place, and a small black catresting in one of the trees. Stillwaiting for someone else to payher price.And right below the cat,etched in the tree, was the number13.