A Halloween Story

Nov 01, 2019

(This original Halloween story was written by Poppy Miller, a grade 5 student at Prince Charles' Public School in Verona, as part of a writing project in Lee Casement's class)

Lauren Wilson stares out the window of the station wagon, out at the Ontario countryside.

“Are we almost there yet, mom?” Lauren asks.

Lauren's mom, Colette Wilson, looks back. “Almost, sweetie. We are just passing through Kingston - Verona is a little over half an hour from here.

“Mom, can I have my phone back now? I want to text Billy to tell him where we are.” Lauren’s older sister, Jay, asks.

Lauren’s mom frowns, but keeps her eyes on the road. “No, after you snuck off to that dance, un-allowed, with him!” Laurens’ mom is almost shouting now. She has gotten upset like this many times since she got divorced with Laurens’ father, Pierre Jackson, formerly Pierre Wilson. The whole reason they are moving is because of the divorce.

Lauren thinks about her father, and asks “Mom? Can I call dad when we get there?”

“Sure, honey.” Lauren’s mom responds. “In fact, this is the street that we will live on!” She turns onto a small two lane street.

Lauren sees a girl that looks about her age, standing in the rain. The girl’s eyes follow the big moving truck that Lauren and family are in. Lauren smiles at the girl, and she smiles back.

ONE HOUR LATER

Lauren polishes off the last photo … It is a photo of her and her dad outside in their old garden, both of them all smiles. This reminds her - she was going to call her dad when she got to the new house.

She walks over to her mom. “Mom, can I go and FaceTime dad now?” She asks.

Lauren’s mom looks up from polishing dishes. “Oh sure, Lauren. I set up a folding table up in your room to serve as a temporary desk.”

Lauren runs up the stairs, her laptop in her arms. She pulls open the door, and finds a plain room waiting for her: A small folding table, a small stool to sit, and an air mattress, on top of a little bed frame. Lauren sighs, then sits down at the makeshift desk. She opens her laptop, and gets logged in, and selects “dad” from the list of the people that she often FaceTimes. It loads, but after a while Lauren’s dad’s face pops up.

They chat for a while, but then Lauren’s dad asks “What does the house look like?”

Lauren responds “Um, I’ll text you some photos in a minute. I should get going anyway.”

“Bye, love you!”

“Love you too, dad!”

Lauren stands up, and closes her laptop. She smiles at the picture of her dad and her in their old backyard. She grabs her phone, and walks out the door. She snaps a few more photos, then heads out to the front porch to take a photo of the house from the outside. The house itself is a big old tudor style place. Lauren sends them, and waits for her dad. She continues to sit on the front porch. The girl that had smiled at her in the rain is walking up to her porch.

Lauren’s phone beeps, and her dad has answered. It says “WWOOH! CREEPY!!”

Lauren snickers. She lowers her phone, and finds the girl who smiled right there, closing her umbrella on the covered porch. Lauren stares. The girl smiles.

“Hello. My name is Zoe. What’s your name?” The girl asks.

“Hi, my name is Lauren. Sorry if I am being rude. I am not that much of an easy friend maker.” Lauren responds awkwardly.

Zoe laughs. “Oh, I understand! Sometimes, unlike you I start getting too friendly, and then I realize the person who I am being all nice to already has a best friend!”

Zoe laughs loudly again, and Lauren smiles, content. ‘I like this girl.’ Lauren thinks to herself. “Um, why don’t you come inside?” Lauren smiles.

Zoe smiles, and steps in. “You can put your boots on the mat, and let me take your coat.” Lauren says, not knowing how to act now that she is with a new person: where she used to live, all the friends she had, she had known all her life.

“Alright, thanks!” Zoe beams.  “We can go up to my room and talk now.”

After the next few days, Zoe and Lauren become very good friends. Lauren often  goes to Zoe’s house, but Zoe usually comes over to Lauren’s house.

One day Zoe comes over to Lauren’s house, and they don’t really know what to do. Then Zoe says “Do you know if there is any story to this house?”

This kind of takes Lauren by surprise. “No… I don't know of any story. My dad asked me the same question. Why?”

Zoe shrugs. “I don’t know. Just kind of seems like the kind of house that would have a story to it.”

This gives Lauren an idea. She grins. “You know what? Why don’t we look it up? I know the name of the house: the Emerald city, for all its lush gardens.”

Zoe smiles mischievously.

“Let’s do it.”

Lauren opens upher laptop and types in ‘EMERALD CITY, 4436 LONDON LANE, VERONA, ONTARIO.’

It loads for a while, but then a long story, and a trail of pictures pop up. Lauren continues to scroll down, and at the very bottom, it says:

THE BASEMENT IS HAUNTED.

Both girls gape at those four words. Then they look at each other, and say in unison: “Let's check it out.”

They run downstairs, and both are like “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Ladies first, and you are older than me, so, you are more of a lady!”

But, little do they know it, Jay is creeping up behind them and gives Lauren a shove!

Then, Zoe being Zoe, she grabs on, and they both fall down!

THE BASEMENT

When they wake up, Lauren and Zoe are on a red brick road.

“Nnnnha.... Where are we?” Lauren groans, sitting up slowly.

She looks around, and sees Zoe laying on the ground 10 feet away! Lauren sprints over to Zoe.

“Zoe… wake up!” Lauren yells sadly.

Zoe’s eyes open slowly. “Gggggrrraaaaaaad...”

“Are you OK?”

“My leg really hurts.”

A flash of light comes from the normally red sky.

“Do you think you can walk?” Lauren asks, worried about her friend.

Zoe stands up, and tries to walk.

“Ow!” Zoe winces in pain. “Kind of, but it hurts a lot."

"Could you maybe find something to wrap it with?” She smiles weakly.

Lauren looks around at the flat, lifeless landscape. “I’ll try…” She smiles weakly back.

Lauren spends the next half an hour searching for a wrap for Zoe’s leg, and the final outcome is some animal skin, of which the animal has disappeared.

They start walking along the red brick road, and continue to walk until dark. They find some sticks and use leftover animal skin from Zoe’s leg wrap to make a tent just large enough to fit the two of them. The two of them get tucked in.

Zoe falls asleep immediately, But Lauren takes a while: She keeps on seeing shadows looming up, and one time the wind actually blew up an image of her and her family, when her parents were not divorced. After that she rolled over and fell asleep.

They woke up early the next morning, and just found an egg for breakfast, then started walking right away. Several times, if one of them tripped or fell, a tunnel of light would seep through the red clouds up above.

They had walked until about noon, when they saw another figure in the distance. The two of them walked as fast as they could. They arrived a couple minutes later.

The girl turns to face them. “Hello. May I walk with you?” The girl says in a robot- like voice. She is very pale, and has only white eyes: no pupil, no iris.

Lauren backs up a little.

“Sure! We are a little lost.” Zoe says happily. She does not seem to notice how creepy the girl is.

Several times the girl flinches as if she is going to push, or hit one of them.

They continue to walk with the girl, and they come up to some steep steps in the road. The girl flinches, each one getting bigger. Zoe struggles down the steps. Lauren is in front of her.

Then, as soon as Zoe slightly loses her footing, the girl pushes her! Lauren grabs Zoe, hoping to keep her from falling, but ends up falling herself! Then, the girl disappears into thin air!

Zoe and Lauren crash down onto the bricks! Lauren’s chest is throbbing with pain, and keeps on getting stronger! Zoe is out cold. Lauren checks for a heartbeat — Nothing.

Lauren sobs. “NOOOO!!!” She screams.

The light keeps on getting stronger, as well as Lauren’s chest pain. The pain now feels horrible, like someone is slowly picking off all her skin, or just ripping her chest apart. The pain gets unbearable, then the light swallows them up.

THE END

EXPLANATIONS & CONFIRMATIONS

The reason Lauren passed away is because she had a heart attack. This story is fiction, including the characters, address, and lane.