by Melody Grace
Although she’d never seen this man before, and now certainly wasn’t the time, she approached his bedside. Her lips were eager to show love upon his face. Internal butterflies fluttered to her heart, spilling out through surprise tears in her eyes. She kissed him.
Even now, ten years later as she watches their children run and play with young Orcs, she’ll never know the exact reason why she kissed him. But it doesn’t really matter. All she knows is, it’s the best thing she ever did.
Going On A Ghost Hunt
Story // Terrance V. McArthur
Illustration // Nick Dunkenstein
* * *
Brandon asked, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“Come on,” Danielle said. “This’ll be fun.”
Luke said, “Justin, my uncle, let me borrow his ghost-talker. I want to try it.”
Brandon did not want to do it, but he followed his friends down the dusty hallway of the old Cooper house, the house next door to his grandma’s. He asked, “Why do you think we’ll find a ghost here?”
Danielle turned her flashlight on Brandon and said, “Everybody knows this place is haunted. You’ve heard the stories about Jacob Cooper.”
“Yeah,” Luke said, and he turned his lit-up cell phone toward Brandon, shining more light at him.
“Just because there are stories about a ghost,” Brandon said, shading his eyes against the bright lights, “does not mean there really is a ghost.”
“You’ll see,” Danielle said.
“And you’ll hear, too,” Luke said. “That’s why we brought the EVP finder.”
“EVP?”
“Uh-huh,” Danielle said. “EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomena.”
“Yeah,” Luke said. “It’s like a radio scanner, only it picks up words from the air, so ghosts can talk to us.”
Brandon was not so sure if he wanted to talk to a ghost, but he followed Luke and Danielle into the spiderwebbed kitchen.
Danielle stopped walking, and she said, “Here’s where the stories say Jeremiah Cooper killed his family—his wife, Mariah, and their son, Jacob. He got away from the police, and he was never seen again.”
“Wicked,” Luke said, “but Jacob was seen in the house after he was dead. That’s why it’s empty, now. Anybody who tried to live here saw things, and heard things, and felt things.”
Brandon’s eyes widened. He asked, “Felt things?”
“Yeah,” Luke said. “It gets really cold, and it’s like threads going across your face.”
“That could just be spiderwebs,” Brandon insisted.
Luke said, “You think so? I don’t. Jacob’s still here. That’s what I think.”
Danielle told Luke, “Set up the EVP over there. I have the video camera, and Brandon has the voice recorder, and he’ll be the voice announcer to record where and when we start. That’s another part of evidence. Let’s get ready.”
It did not take long for Brandon to set up the recorder, but Danielle double-checked it, just in case.
“When we find something,” she said, “we want to have evidence, something that proves we made contact with a spirit. The camera will show what we see. The EVP device locates words from the radio waves electronically.”
Brandon asked, “Do we really need the sound recorder?”
Danielle said, “Ghosts can be pretty quiet. We may not hear anything, but if it’s recorded, we can play it back louder, and then we’ll hear it, right?”
“I guess,” Brandon said. He thought for a moment, and he asked, “Danielle, how do you know all this?”
She said, “There’s a book I read at the library. It was full of information.”
“What was it called?”
“Ghost Hunting for Beginners.”
“Oh,” Brandon said. “I don’t know about this. The two of you can have fun and hunt ghosts. I want to forget this whole thing.”
“No! We need you,” Danielle said.
“Why?”
Danielle explained, “Your grandma lives next door. That makes you kind of connected to this place, and she gave you the key, so you have to be here.”
Brandon shrugged and said, “All right.”
Danielle looked at the others and said, “It looks like we’re ready. Is everybody set?”
The boys nodded.
“You know what to do. Start your machines now,” Danielle said.
Danielle turned on the video camera. Brandon flipped the switch, and the digital recorder began recording. After that, the EVP detector whirred with the sound of static. Danielle pointed at Brandon.
He stated the date and time, and said, “Ghost Hunting Log. Location—The Cooper House, 309 Terrace Street, Ashtree, California.”
The three young ghosthunters waited. They said nothing. They tried not to move or make any noise. After five minutes, they had not seen or heard anything. After ten minutes, there was still nothing happening, and Brandon was getting bored. He thought of something he could do.
Brandon said, “Is anybody there?”
Danielle and Luke went “Shhh!”
That did not stop Brandon. He said, “Mariah? Jacob? Is anybody there?”
It was so quiet; Brandon could hear his heart. He felt cold, which was strange, because it was a triple-digit day in the summer.
“Is that you, Jacob?”
There was no answer.
“Are you there, Jacob?”
Brandon felt even colder.
He heard a sound, a rolling sound, like a far-away car driving by him.
Luke whispered, “Look,” and he pointed his phone-light toward a dark corner of the kitchen.
A small ball rolled into the lighted area.
Behind the ball glowed two red points of light.
The eyes of a rat.
Luke dropped his phone and the EVP machine, and he shouted, “Aah!”
Danielle gasped and flinched.
Brandon shuddered.
Luke ran.
Danielle followed him down the hall.
Brandon ran, too, trying to catch up to his friends.
The rat hurried into another corner of the house.
From the left-behind ghost-talking EVP machine, there was static…and a few soft words: “I…want…to…play………I’m…..lonely.”
Ratta-tat Tommy
Story // Michelle River
* * *
“Stacey it’s your turn. What do you pick truth or dare?” Pippa asked, secretly hoping Stacey would choose dare. Ever since their last sleepover, a month ago when Stacey froze her training bra as a joke, she had been planning the perfect dare. She even got the Mary and Isabella to agree with the plan, all they had to do was wait for her to choose.
Stacey grabbed her blonde braided pigtail and bit her lip. Pippa, Mary and Isabella sat on the edge of their seats; smiles plastered on their faces. Please pick dare, please pick dare they pleaded silently.
“Hmmm, I chose dare!”
The girls erupted in screeches of glee and giggles, leaping at each other in excitement.
“Haha Stacey, we knew you would pick dare,” Pippa said, running towards her dresser and grabbed the folded yellow pillowcase she had put there earlier. “Have you ever heard of Ratta-tat Tommy?”
Stacey looked at the pillowcase confused, then back at her friends. They were all staring at her with wild eyes and huge smiles. “No, what’s that?”
“It is a game. You know about Tommy Hilliard, right? The boy that went missing ten years ago? Well, they say he was a peeping Tom, used to peek through girls’ windows at night, sometimes would knock on the glass to scare them and then run away laughing. Rumour is one night he looked through the wrong window and someone caught him. He was never heard from again,” Pippa walked towards her closet and opened the door, parting her clothes in the middle and making a space just wide enough to stand between them. “They say, if you ask him nicely, invite him over, he …”
“You guys are so full of it!” Stacey exclaimed, throw
ing a pillow at Isabella who grabbed it and laughed. “I am not doing that; I don’t even believe in ghosts.”
“If you don’t believe in ghosts then prove it,” Isabella chimed in, walking over to the opened closet and waving her arm toward it like a model from The Price is Right.
“It’s easy Stacey. All you have to do is go into the closet, put the pillowcase over your head, knock on the wall and say ‘Ratta-tat Tommy are you there? Your friends are here, and they invite you to stare.’ Say that three times and then count to five and leave, simple.” Pippa said, her arms now crossed.
“You have to, we all did ours it is your turn,” Mary said.
“ Ugh , fine,” Stacey said, walking into the closet putting the pillowcase over her head. She could hear them snicker from behind her as they closed the door. “But after this, we are playing something else. This game is stupid,” She yelled towards the closet doors.
It’s really dark in here, she thought. Stupid Pippa and her stupid game. Should have known they would plan something like this. Next time I will make sure to get them back.
“We don’t hear you!” she heard Mary shout, followed by laughter.
Stacey rolled her eyes, knocked on the walls in front of her, breathed deeply and began, making sure to talk loud enough so they could hear it through the doors. “Ratta-tat Tommy are you there? Your friends are here, and they invite you to stare.”
Ok, that was one. No big deal, just two more times and I can get out of here , she thought as goose-pimples crawled along her arm and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. The closet feeling much cooler than it did a few moments ago.
“Two more times Stacey,” she heard Isabella yell.
“Ratta-tat Tommy are you there? Your friends are here, and they invite you to stare.” She choked out; her voice raised almost yelling it for the last time. “Ratta-tat Tommy are you there? Your friends are here, and they invite you to stare.”
Ok you did it, see nothing, no big deal. Just count to five and get out of here.
“One … two … three … four …” Strong hands gripped her shoulder from behind and she screamed, running through the doors into the bedroom ripping off the pillowcase and throwing it on the floor. The closet doors banging closed behind her. “That was NOT funny guys.”
The girls cackled in laughter, holding their stomachs as they tried to catch their breath.
They were all the way on the other side of the bedroom, sitting on the pile of pillows they had come from just minutes ago before she went into the closet.
“No that was hilarious, you should see your face. You are so scared.” Pippa howled, holding up her phone. “I got the whole thing recorded!”
“Very funny, how did you get inside the closet with me without me noticing?” Stacey asked, getting her breath under control. They got me good, she thought.
“What do you mean, we weren’t in there? We were here the whole time, eating popcorn and waiting for you to run out screaming. Which we knew you would, you scaredy cat.”
“No. You one of you grabbed me right as I was about to say five, that’s why I screamed,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. It was bad enough they scared her, but to lie about it was another thing.
“Honestly Stacey, we were here the whole time,” Mary said. She sounded sincere.
“I don’t understand. I know what I felt.”
“I promise, it wasn’t us,” Pippa said, putting her two fingers up like they did when they were kids. “Stick a needle in my eye. Look, you can watch the recording.”
Stacey grabbed the phone, hitting the play button showing a clear shot of the closet doors. No one was around them; she was in there by herself. She could hear herself begin to speak through the speakers when shuffling noises from the closet grabbed their attention and all four of them turned towards the closed doors.
“Did you hear that?” Stacey whispered.
All four of them nodded their heads, gripping each other as they stared at the closet; the doors slowly creaked open. They looked at each other and screamed, running from the room. The echo of a soft knocking sound following them down the hall from within the closet.
The Under Toad
Story & Illustration // Vonnie Winslow Crist
* * *
Standing on the shore, Sheila bent over every now and again to pick up a seashell. But when she spotted a wave rushing toward her, she ran from the foam so quickly her toes were barely wet.
“Come in the water,” called her brother, Bret. He was in the ocean up to his waist.
“No, thanks.” Sheila didn’t want to add she was afraid of the under toad.
“The surf is calm. It won’t knock you over,” shouted her brother as a gentle swell washed past him.
Sheila looked at her mom and dad sitting on the beach beneath an umbrella in striped folding chairs. If the under toad grabbed her, they should be able to save her in time.
“Okay,” she said. Setting her bucket of shells safely above the tide line, she walked into the saltwater.
She felt her toes sinking into the sand as the seawater swept in and out. Looking up, Sheila spotted gulls floating on the late afternoon winds. Their cries were so loud she heard them over the slosh of the surf.
“You’re right, this is fun,” she told her brother.
“Why didn’t you come in earlier?” Bret asked as a cresting wave splashed his face.
“I remember Granny warning me to be careful of the under toad which sleeps at the edge of the ocean,” said Sheila.
Her older brother laughed. “It’s undertow, not under toad. You don’t really think there’s a big amphibian lurking beneath the ripples?” He laughed again.
“Granny told me the under toad pulls careless children out into the deeper water. Then, it drowns them,” replied Sheila.
Bret laughed so hard he snorted.
Sheila felt silly until she saw two large, webbed, green hands reach up from the ocean. The frog-like hands wrapped around Bret’s arm and yanked him below the surface.
“Mom! Dad!” Sheila screamed as she raced from the ocean. “The under toad has Bret.”
They didn’t laugh when they raced into the surf to look for her brother or hours later when the moon rose, and he was still missing.
Sheila knew the under toad had Brett, even if no one else but Granny believed her.
A Witch In The Woods
Story // Pedro Iniguez
Illustration // Chlo’e Camonayan
* * *
Isabella wandered the woods all alone, straying from the path she’d come to roam. There was no sign of dad and she felt sad, while wishing badly she was home.
The woods had mushrooms that looked like toes, nestled beneath black-winged crows; and trees with thorns that looked like horns, where only nasty things would grow.
She said, “I wish my family was here, but there’s no one near.” Then she heard a push in the bush, and asked, “What’s that I hear?”
Just then a creepy witch sprang about, with a screech and a shout. “Come here, my dear, do what I say and try not to pout.”
“I’m a witch and not very charming, and in all truth, I am starving.” The wicked hag held out a bag and said, “Now get inside my darling.”
Isabella felt sickly as she felt her hairs grow prickly. The witch looked cruel with a mouth full of drool; it was time to think quickly.
“Now this may sound sour, but before I’m devoured,” Isabella thought, it’s worth a shot, “if you’re a witch, show me your power.”
The witch let out a cackle, like a wild, wicked jackal. “You dare question me? Well, you’ll see,” she said as sparks from her fingers started to crackle.
The witch said, “I can summon a hex or a curse, whichever is worse! Would you like to be a bat, or a rat, or maybe a horse?”
“I can turn you into a worm or a bug, or even a slug. I can make you a bear, a hare, or even a pug.”
Isabella said, “I don’t mean to sound crazed, but I w
asn’t fazed. If you want some advice, create something nice, and then I’ll be amazed.”
“Very well,” scoffed the witch, “watch this humble flea turn into a bumblebee, and this newt become a fruit as it dangles from a Christmas tree.”
Isabella smiled and said, “That’s better, alright, let’s see about adding some light, and perhaps something pretty, like a kitty, and making these woods bright.”
“Easy,” said the hag, “though I don’t mean to brag. I’ll add a bunny, and make this place sunny, it just needs a finger wag.”
The witch said, “I’ll even top that a notch and add some strokes of rainbow splotch. I’ll create chocolate streams, and a few more sunbeams, just you wait and watch.”
“Is that all?” Isabella asked with a growl, “How about maybe a dove or a big owl? Bet you’re too lazy to make daisies,” she said wearing a scowl.
“Easy,” cried the witch summoning a bed of flowers, “I can do this for hours!” She waved her hand and changed the land, and out sprouted three treehouse towers.
Isabella smiled and nodded, then applauded. “Not too shabby, for a lady who’s crabby, but maybe you’re getting tired,” she prodded.
The witch laughed. “Please, this is a breeze,” and created shiny jewels from toadstools, and said, “That was just a tease!”
Then she gave out a yell, and casted a spell, turning rocks into dandy, bright candy shaped like big bells.
Just then, after a very long while of casting magic in style, the witch smirked while she looked at her work, as it spread for miles.
She’d made chocolate streams, flowers, and raccoons; lollipop trees, marshmallow clouds, and balloons. Then, she didn’t feel mean; it was the most beautiful scene, where she could spend her afternoons.
