The Ultimate Ghost Story...(humor and fright...in one!) *~amers~*

This is my one and only ghost story. I'd better make it good, huh? I'll tell you my story and then you can tell me how much you laughed, okay? Here goes:

Seven years ago, I was a shy, quiet little fourth-grader. Then this girl Bonnie moved to town. She ate napkins and choclate milk cartons. (Honestly!) I started hanging out with her and she was the craziest person I'd ever met. (I'm still friends with her now, and she's still pretty crazy...) Bonnie lived about 10 blocks away from me, which is really far when you're nine. One night, my mom decided to let me sleep over at her house. (The first of about a million times)

Before I tell you about our sleepover, I should probably tell you about her house. It's one of the scariest places I've ever been. It's a really old house, over a hundred years old, one of the oldest houses in our area. It's a pretty big house too. She had a closet that was boarded up in the back, and when we tore the back down, we found a stairway. She had another closet that had a little door in it that would close magically. We would play around with it all the time and it was so mystifying, even though today I know it had something to do with air currents and such. In her attic, behind the wall, we found steps that led upwards. Never could figure that one out. Her basement was probably the scariest of all. When she first moved in, she found bloody knives and old cheekbooks hidden in the closets. They had a dirt-floored room and that always scared me. I'm not really sure why, I just always had a feeling that something bad happened there. There was another basement room that had these intricate drawings of castles and dragons and demons on the wall. Luckily, she painted over them, but they still scare me. The scariest part of all was the furnace pipe. Supposedly, a gangster had lived in the house before her and hid his treasure and murdered his mother all within those walls. On the pipe was a face, finger-painted in orange. It was kind of crude, but creepy nonetheless. It frightened me then and it still frightens me now. I can close my eyes and see it and I still shudder, years later. Beside the face, on either side were two handprints, also in orange. Only after about 5 years did I muster up enough courage to put my hands on top of the handprints. One night Bonnie and I slept down in the basement. I couldn't sleep and ended up staring at the face and hands for 4 hours.

Anyway, stop laughing and let me get back to the story. Bonnie, my friend Charlene and I had a "poetry club" in the attic. Charlene's prized poem went: "There was a cat. He was fat. He had a hat. That was that." Great, great poem. One night we deicded to have a sleepover, one of my first ones. Bonnie's sister had left earlier to go to the movies. Bonnie's mom calls to us that she and Bonnie's dad were going to the grocery store, so we would be alone. I was only 9, so being home alone was a big deal even though now I look back and wonder who would leave 3 9-year-old girls home alone. Anyway, we were up in the attic, fooling around: Telling stories, doing hair etc. Then we heard a noise downstairs. Footsteps to be more specific. We thought someone from her family was home so we called out to them. No answer. We kept hearing the footsteps and we were relieved when we thought her dog Louie might be the culprit. But Louie was sleeping on the blanket beside us. Someone was there: we decided to make a plan of action.

I hid around the corner at the top of the steps, armed with a curtain rod. (And I had the best weapon..lol..) We placed colored pencils on the steps in hopes of tripping the person. (SO bright!) Charlene stood above the railing of the steps with wood floor cleaner, to pour in the villian's eyes. And Bonnie? Well, she was the "bait". She sat behind a folding chair at the top of the steps, to lure someone up so I could hit them with the curtain rod.

We stood ready in our positions for about 15 minutes. During this time we all had to take like 3 bathroom breaks. Bonnie ran out of toilet paper, and her toilet didn't flush so this was all pretty amusing. After we all peed the nervousness out we stood there, waiting. We could hear the footsteps below, walking, pacing, back and forth, in the hallway of the second floor. They kept walking and walking. After awhile, we heard the steps starting to creak. Creak..The first step. Creeeak. The second step. Charlene looked over at me and she was ready to pour. The footsteps kept coming, slowly, methodically. Charlene looked down and she got the strangest look on her face. I'm still trying to place that look. Fear, amazement, curiousity...It's not really any of those, but yet all of those. The footsteps kept creaking. One creak, two creak. Slowly they made their way to the landing, and kept continuing upwards. I couldn't see anything since I was hiding. Creak. Creak. Creeeeak. The footsteps stopped at the top of the steps beside me. I swung with all my might, and hit nothing but air. Charlene's and Bonnie's faces were complete fear now. The footsteps walked across the room, and stopped in the middle, directly under the light. I smelled the faint odor of cigar smoke, and I remember thinking that that was really weird and out of place. I shivered and I noticed that the room had also gotten very cold. Bonnie had turned her chair around and was huddling underneath it in fear. Charlene was leaning against the railing as if she were about to fall down. I stood there with my mouth wide open holding a curtain rod. We stood there watching, for a few seconds. A small cloud of smoke appeared from the middle of the room and went towards the ceiling and disappeared. We all stood there, in awe, and in fright. We must have stood there for a few minutes, just staring until we heard Bonnie's mom call out for us from downstairs.

How it changed my life. Wow. I've believed in ghosts ever since then. Sometimes, it feels like a dream, but that's because the memories are so vivid. I really believe that the ghost of a gangster lives in Bonnie's house. In the attic, there were many holes and patches in the wallpaper, where they later found gems and old money. Maybe the ghost was looking for his treasure...who knows? Ever since then, Bonnie's attic has always seemed a little bit colder than the rest of her house. I've been at Bonnie's house hundreds of times since that incident but it still scares the boogers out of me. There was just a feeling about that house and all of my friends who've been there have felt it. It was just a creepy place with a creepy past. Sadly, two years ago, I moved away. A year later Bonnie moved to a new house. A family bought her house and a few months later the man came home, drunk and high and set a fire in the basement to get insurance money. The fire must have damaged the home pretty bad, since it's had caution tape around it ever since. Every time I drive past, I get really sad and caught up in so many memories. The city is planning on eventually tearing down the house along with all our memories inside.

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