Ghostly encounters
In part one of Ghostly Encounters, young Lonie and his friends heard a low moan while going home on a dark July night, and were looking for the cause.
Then Eddie began to laugh. “I got you that time,” and he kept laughing. It wasn’t so funny to the rest of us. “Come on you fellows, I was just funning around.”
We were standing in front of the first house.
“Look,” Eddie said. “I got a quarter that says that nobody in the crowd here will go in that house.”
We all said we had a quarter and would give it to the one who went in the front door and came out the back. We handed our money to Jimmy, and agreed that he would give it to the one who went through the house.
We stood looking at each other. I knew that none of us wanted to be the one.
I yelled, “Scary cat!” and started toward the front door. I walked up on the porch. The door was standing open. I walked over and looked in. It was black inside, but the moon lit everything up outside.
Then Eddie yelled, “Look at old scary Adcock, big brave man!” and then started to laugh.
I turned and stepped inside. I have always been sort of confused as to what happened next. I was standing in front of a fireplace. There seemed to be heat coming from it. I remember that there was no fire in it. Then I stepped away from the fireplace into the middle of the room. I always wondered how come it was so cold in there when it was a hot, muggy July night. It was like moving from a furnace into a deep freezer.
I was not sure then, and still not, of what I saw. I know that I was shaking from the cold. In the corner of the room there appeared a mist. The mist was light with dark figures in it. I often wondered if there was a light from outside playing tricks on a scared little boy. What looked like a figure of a man with a knife in his hand turned to face me. I will always remember that he held a knife in one hand, a smoking cigar in the other. All I can remember is his eyes. The eyes beamed like they had a light behind them. He made a sound and I the back door. The door was closed but went down under my weight. I made one leap onto the back porch and I was on the ground.
When I jumped from the back porch I had hit the ground on one knee. I scrambled getting up against the side of the house. A voice called me, and I stopped to listen. It was my friend Jimmy, he had gotten worried about me. He came running up to me.
“Are you okay?” he asked. I answered him moving toward the street where Robert and Eddie was. I was shivering from being cold. Eddie made some remark about “My hero.” I cut him short and he got quiet. I got away from there as fast as possible.
Robert and Eddie turned down Second Avenue and Jimmy and I went up Broad. I stopped in the Krystal and got a hot cup of coffee to see if it would warm me up. Jimmy turned down Fifth Avenue and I crossed the street and sat down on a bench to wait for a bus. I drank the coffee and it helped some to warm me up. I remember that when I got home I put a quilt over me when I went to bed. I remember my mother waking me up and shaking me to see if I was all right. She questioned me about all the covers over me, on a muggy July night.
I can still shut my eyes and see the face in the mist. By concentration I know that he held a knife in one hand, a cigar in the other. And two of the most evil eyes stared at me. I might say two of the most evil eyes that I have ever seen. I have always wondered just what did I see that night. I often heard that those old houses were used as a hospital during the Civil War. I know that people didn’t live in them very long at a time. I never had any desire to go in them anymore. A friend of mine lived there for about a week. I would sit on the porch, but never went back inside ever again.