Download - Charlie and the Ghost House
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Story art by Charles Mills
Charlie drove down the road and realized he
had better slow down as he rounded a corner and his
car almost went out of control sliding in the mud. His
heart was racing and he was sweating slightly and hisanger was fresh. He could still hear her saying all of
those cruel things as he drove down the raod with rain
coming in sheets and roaring off the roof of the car as
he drove.
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Lightining flashed and Charlie saw the outlines of
trees bending and twisting in the wind as he just
drove to put some space between himself and home.
He slowed down and forced himself to pull over for
a moment to collect his thoughts. He took a few deep
breaths and began to talk to himself, or the car or
whatever might be listening. As he muttered angrily
he checked his belt to make sure his little revolver
was still there. He took it out for a moment and
clicked the cylinder in a circle. t sounded clean andcrisp and he checked the glove bo! for his speed
loader.
Charlie watched the rain for a moment and pushed
the gun back into his belt. He was so tired of having
to run away from the house to get peace from his
mother"s tirades. #he didn"t like his friends, didn"t likehis jobs or any of the things he did. #he made life so
difficult and he could feelt he stress mounting up till he
just couldn"t stand it anymore. He could not open her
mouth and force her meds down her throat and he
hated what he had to endure when she stopped
taking them and got in one of her moods. $hen thathappened there was nothing to do but just get up and
get out while he was still sane.
%he storm began to let up and Charlie put his car
into gear and the engine died. He put it back in park
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and tried to start it but the engine would not do more
than spin. Charlie tried once more and instead of
damaging his battery Charlie decided to just go home
and get someone to come out and take a look. Hegot out and slammed the door, cursing to himself.
$alking along the road, Charlie felt the rain begin
to fall again and he gritted his teeth. &f course, all
that driving and he had to walk back in the rain.
Charlie walked along and after a few moments he
found himself passing an erea where the trees
seemed to part a little and he looked to his right. %he
trees made a tunnel over an old rusted gate and up in
the tunnel, hidden from normal view, was a tall
standing old house, empty, dark and abandoned.
Charlie saw it better when the lightning flashed and
he grined. How neat, an old house to check out.
He walked through the rusted gate and made his
way down the overgrown driveway through weeds
and thorns that poked him through his pants. He kept
moving through the darkening tunnel of trees, the rain
began to hit him over the head harder and he went
past a tumbling wooden fence to the huge porch onthe old place, pausing to look up at it as he got ready
to go in and see what adventure waited.
%he house towered over him, tall and gray with
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windows that seemed to stare down at him like eyes,
watching him come toward the porch, framed by wood
that had paint streaked with gray from years of being
forgotten.
Charlie went up the steps and to the door. %he
front door window was a tall oval one with etching on
the edges and when the house was new it must have
been a very nice door, kind of like all of the rest of this
old ran down dump.
Charlie tried the knob and at first it felt as though
the door was locked then it let loose and turned. He
pushed the door open and was at once greeted with a
small gust of wind that carried the stench of years of
mold and decay to his nose. Charlie didnt care, he
walked in and kicked the door shut behind him. As
the dim light of night seeped through the windowspast the rotting curtains, Charlie took stock of the
room he was in.
%he walls were covered with chipped, torn paper
that had chunks missing and the ceilings were
covered with metal plates, some of which had
loosened over the years and were on the floor, bentfrom falling. %he ceiling had a massive candleabra
hanging from it and the webs that hung off of it looked
like something you would find in the fall in haunted
attractions. Charlie walked forward and saw an old
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settee against a wall and the middle of it had been
torn to bits as mice had gone in and made homes
inside of it.
Charlie was enjoying his visit and he went into the
living room where a huge fireplace was built into one
wall and old furniture sat, rotting and torn with the
finish peeling off of it.
Looking up at the Chandalier, Charlie couldnt help
but think about bringing tools back and taking that old
thing out of here. After all, it was old, probably worth
alot, and all that was going to happen to it was that it
would sit here till it eventually fell from the ceiling
and...
%here was a noise and Charlie looked toward the
big window off to the side. A rat was scurrying along,
stopped to look at him and twitch it"s whiskers, then it
ran along and vanished into a hole in the wall.
Charlie liked little mice and rats but didn"t plan on
getting friendly with this one.
&ver in the corner was a rocking chair, and Charlie
grinned at the sight of the old thing with its torn
padding and chipping paint. %hen he stopped and
stared. %he old chair seemed to move, or was it his
imagination.
Charlie stood perfectly still as he watched the chair
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and in a moment he realized it was not his mind, the
chair tipped forward and then began to rock back and
forth. He felt a bit nervous and helpless in this strange
house far from where he lived, but beyond that hewas only fascinated and he moved forward to look
closer as the old chair rocked and rocked by itself.
After a moment Charlie got the feeling he really
needed to not be in this house so as the storm raged
outside he went to the front door and took the knob in
his hands. He pulled and pulled but the door wouldnot open.
Charlie was much more upset now, feeling
trapped, and he tugged hard on the door. He then
heard the sound of music and spun around. t was
some old classical song being sung on a scratchy old
vinyl record and Charlie went toward the sound,checking to make certain he still had his gun. t was
there, and even though he realized it was useless to
him now he still felt more bold with it on him.
n a small room that had a rotting couch, Charlie
saw a very old record player spinning with the record
on it and a musical carousel sitting ne!t to it. Charliewalked closer and looked at the carousel that began
to spin slowly.
As the carousel moved Charlie heard the sound of
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children laughing and he stood motionless as a mist
began to spin around him like a tornado. 'ow Charlie
was getting scared and the mist spun and began
taking the shape of children running around singing invoices that echoed through the room. Charlie turned
and ran out of the room now overwhelmed with fear,
and he tugged and fought with the front door which
remained stuck shut.
Charlie drew his pistol and fired at the front door
window. %he bullet smashed a small hole in thecenter and as if it was made of fog, the hole faded
and disappeared. Charlie realized his gun was
completely useless.
He turned around, suddenly terrified at the fact
that he was in this place and could not get out, and he
saw a man standing behind him. %he man wasdressed in a tailcoat and top hat, and he walked
toward Charlie who stood frozen as the man passed
through him and made him feel freezing cold.
Charlie watched the man go out through the front
door as if it wasn"t there and he began beating the
door with his fists, but it held strong. Charlie wasyelling now, fearful, and he began to run through the
rooms trying to find a broken window or anything that
would let him out of this house full of ghostly images.
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He found one window with a missing pane, but the
opening was too small for him to fit through. He
turned around saw the figure of a ghostly woman
floating through the room with a candle holder in herhand and she vanished through a wall.
Charlie went back toward the front of the house
and he saw an old wooden chair sitting in the hall
way. He picked it up and moved toward the front door
again and began beating the window hard as the
chair began to break up. %hen he heard somethingthat turned his blood ice cold.
%here was a growling noise from deep in the
house and he heard it as the thunder died down for a
moment. He was blinded by a sudden flash of
lightning, and he felt the house vibrate as something
in its dark shadows stirred forth.
Charlie turned and slowly took a step forward
toward the back of the house, wondering what new
horror awaited. He saw what looked like two candle
lights in the dark ahead and they slowly were followed
by the body of what appeared to be a huge black dog
with hideous teeth that was growling and seemed togrow ever more menacing in the flashes of lightning
and thunder that shook the house. Charlie realised
that this dog was not like the phantoms in the house,
just a misty figure in the moonlight, but a huge, raving
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monster animal that could see him. Charlie reached
down and groped for his gun...and to his horror he
found empty space. n his haste to pick up the chair
he had dropped it.
%he dog was huge, some kind of very large black
animal that was almost a mutant among living things
and Charlie was more terrified than he had ever been.
(orget the ghosts, fear the dog.
%he dog suddenly let out a snarling bark that was
more of a roar and sprang forward, its slashing teeth
grabbing at the space where Charlie had been. He
was running, panic stricken, for another room and
mounted stairs and began to run for a bedroom. %he
dog turned and followed and Charlie went into a
bedroom and smacked the door shut just as the dog
got to it and with an echoing bang threw it"s weightagainst the door.
%he dog snarled and tore at the door as Charlie
backed up and breathed hard, shaking in panic and
the stench of rot filled his nose. He turned to look
toward the bedroom window and stopped short in
horror again. &n a rusted, rat eaten bed under arotting blanket lay the remains of a man, his dried
flesh shrunk and his bones showing through a
thousand holes as he lay with his sightless eyes
staring upward.
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Charlie walked forward and looked at the man, and
he realized that he had been there for a long time.
&utside the bedroom, the dog barked in a rage and
clawed furiously at the door.
Charlie stood, terrified and not knowing what to do.
As he stood, the bedroom window opened and the
curtain blew as a gust of ice cold wind blew into the
room. Charlie lunged for the open window and it
slammed shut as he got to it and the form of a man
walked through the room and through the door as if itwas not there.
#haking and dripping with sweat, Charlie heard the
dog tearing at the door and smashing it"s body into
the wood, which began to split. Charlie cried out in
panic and looked at the door as it began to break
apart and he looked around the room.
He dashed for a closet and began to kick the wall
with all of his strength. He kicked until the plaster
cracked, then chunks began to break loose. His heart
was pounding and behind him the dog had bashed a
hole in the door and was tearing through it.
Charlie kicked till his leg was throbbing in pain and
knocked a hole in the wall and began to tear through
it, scraping himself on the wall till he bled from several
injuries. As the dog ripped through the door, Charlie
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tumbled into another bedroom and ran to the door,
flinging it open and dashing back down the stairs. As
he moved, candles lit and wind blew as ghostly
figures swirled through the house in a chaos of voicesand moving figures.
Charlie ran down the stairs as the dog tore back
through the hole to come after him again.
&n the first floor, dripping with sweat with his
wounds stinging, Charlie ran into the hallway and
found his gun on the floor as he heard the dog
charging down the stairs barking in fury.
Charlie ducked into the kitchen, turned and aimed
his pistol. %he dog came around the corner and
Charlie fired. %he bullet struck the dog, who kept
coming, and he fired again and again as he dog came
on and jumped at him.
%he dog"s head smashed into Charlie"s chin and
he tumbled backward and hit his head on a counter,
crying out in pain as he fell.
Charlie"s gun fell out of his hand and he landed on
the floor, his head aching and he blacked out.
$hen Charlie woke, his head was hurting and he
felt his wounds stinging. He tried to move and found
the dog laying on him, it"s eyes staring into his, blank
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and empty. He was dead, and a real mess. Charlie
twisted himself and dumped the dog on the ground, a
dead animal, very much real.
He stood up, aching and dirty and picked his
empty pistol off the ground. %he storm was over,
there was light streaming in the windows of the old
house and he used his speed loader to reload the
gun. He then walked through the house and found it
very much like any other house. %he front door was
slightly open blowing back and forth in the morningbreeze. He looked into the living room and saw the
rocking chair, just sitting there as any other chair in
the world, and he walked up to it and touched it. t
rocked and creaked for a moment then stopped.
Charlie walked up the stairs and into the room
where he had seen the dead man and found a bedsitting with holes eaten in it by mice and nothing
more. He shook his head in wonder and thought that
the dog may have been a starving, sick animal,
possibly even rabid. Charlie decided to go to the
doctor when he left the house.
Charlie walked outside and looked up at the oldhouse and as he wondered what in the world he had
seen last night in the storm he seemed to see the
windows in the old house looking down at him like
some kind of eyes....but then no that had to be his
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imagination. As he turned to walk away a curtain
moved in an upstairs window, blown by a breeze, or
perhaps someone unseen watching him leave........
)oing back down the walkway through the mud,
Charlie wondered what was wrong with his car, and
he walked to it, almost running, an!ious to see what it
would do. He got in and turned the key and the
starter began to labor. He floored the pedal and the
started caught the and the engine roared to life.
Charlie breathed a huge sigh of relief. t had gotten abit too damp with him running around like a mad man.
)oing back home, he found that his mother had
retrieved her meds and was back to normal,
innatentive and lost in her own world. %hat worked for
him. $hen she had gotten back into her routine of
cleaning the house and mumbling to herself, Charlieasked her if she knew anything about an old house
down the road. #he smiled and looked as if lost in a
memory for a moment. *&h that old place, just a
moldy old house that has been there forever with alot
of strange tales told about it, probably the work of
active imaginations and people who like to scare kidswith a good ghost story. t"s the old +ishkey house.
$hen was a kid they told me that place was
haunted, some sort of a portal to ghosts from the past
who lived there at one time or another. $e can go by
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and look at it sometime if you want.* Charlie didn"t
answer, he just shivered.
Charlie"s mother went back to her chores, then
she paused for a moment. #he looked at Charlie and
said reflectively *you know, it"s just the two of us,
maybe we should get a dog.* Charlie just looked at
her blankly.