The Haunted House

“Dennis, stop rocking that empty rocking chair with your foot”, I demanded. "I know it’s you, ‘cause you’re the only one close enough to reach it.”

Dennis was a year older than I, and boarded at our house after graduating high school the year before.

Home was a sixteen room brick house, built in 1876, and owned by only three different families. It was the typical turn of the century homestead, passed from generation to generation. There were eight bedrooms and it’s size alone made it the perfect hangout for all of our friends.

“I didn’t touch the rocker, I swear!” Dennis pleaded, sounding very convincing.

I had privately struggled for several months to explain away all the strange noises I heard on a regular basis, so I found no humor in this game. “Well, I think I’m done with this ghost story stuff,” I surrendered, “we all know there’s no such thing as ghosts anyway!”

As I stood up to freshen my soda, an upstairs door slammed shut, and I twisted around to see all four of my friend’s faces frozen in the same wide-eyed expression.

“I’m getting pissed now, I don’t know how you did it Dennis, but I know you’re behind this. Now knock it off.” I admonished, “It isn’t funny anymore!”

Returning to the room with Pepsi in hand I wondered aloud, “There has got to be an explanation, I wonder if someone left a window open up there, and the wind blew the door shut.” Seemed logical to me. “Dennis, why don’t you run upstairs and check it out?”

“I’m not going up there by myself”, Dennis complained. “I BELIEVE in ghosts, and I’m tellin’ ya , this house is haunted. I'll go if Jim will come with me."

“Awww m-a-a-a-a-a-n,” Jim whined, “I don’t really WANT to.”

“OK, I’ve got it”, I said. “Let’s all go to the bottom of the steps while you guys go up and check it out.”

The five of us relocated to the hallway and stood at the foot of the steps, and I said, “Ok, guys, we’re right here, now go check it out.”

It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, as the two of them tip-toed, ever so slowly, to the top of the steps. As they reached the last step, we all watched, as the door to the right of the steps, slammed shut, and we heard the others follow in close succession all the way down the hall. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!

The guys jumped and tumbled down the steps, knocking us down like bowling pins. We stumbled to our feet and ran out the front door, hysterical.

All five of us squeezed into Danny’s 1974 Camaro and pealed out, without anyone saying a word. All deeply involved in our own silent conversations with ourselves, Danny was the first to break the silence.

“Well, now what do we do?”, Danny asked.

No one knew what to say, but we all knew we weren’t going back to that house until my parents were home.

We ended up spending the night in that cramped Camaro, parked at a nearby lake. Five teens, forever bonded by an experience we would all just as soon forget.