Chapter 1: the moon, the man, and the haunted house
That night…I believe it was Halloween or something like that. My friends and I were out walking going to a nearby haunted house that was new. The night air was cold; the wind blew with a sudden eeriness. Holding on to my purse tightly, swearing at myself for not bringing a better jacket, I look up at the moon. The moon, so beautiful yet, filled with infinite mystery. Science and many literatures portray it differently. I just say its one huge foreshadowing of one’s future depending on how and when you look upon it. Sometimes I wonder about it…
“Zoey?” said Jack. “You look awful! You okay? Is the moon creeping you out? Ha-ha you always get so scared of everything.”
“Shut up!” I retorted. “You’re the one who gets scared if a spider crawls on your leg! Besides, you don’t look that awesome yourself you half-wit zombie!”
“Why I ought a--”
“Oughta what Jack!?!”
“That’s enough! The both of you; be quiet.” Jason said with slight anger in his voice.
Jason…he’s the short tempered, adventurous, trickster, strong and dare I say sexy guy of my group of friends. He has a younger brother named Trent. They both moved to my neighborhood about a year ago. Compared to his older brother Trent is an angel. Trent is fifteen while his brother, Jason, is eighteen. Trent is shy, quiet, funny, helpful, and he too is quite sexy. On top of that, Trent doesn’t look like he truly knows how much females love him. How cute! Oh…and there’s Jack. He’s very annoying, doesn’t know when to be quiet, loves to imitate Jason, and he’s a pervert!
“Hey you guys! We’re almost there! Just one more block”. Said Paige.
“Well there better not be a long line or I’m gonna be angry!” yelled Liz.
“I’m pretty sure at the pace we’re walking we’ll get there in no time.” Insured Trent.
Liz and Paige are my best friends for life (bffl). Liz is my punk rock friend who never holds back on any complaint that she has. That’s why some teachers at our school are afraid of her. Paige is the more intelligent one with a lot of passion for fashion, outdoors, and “exploring thoughts within our minds.” Aka, she’s a nerd. But, I’m pretty sure she knows that already.
We finally get there to the said “haunted house” and to our surprise it was closed. Jack decided to ask that dude in charged why it was closed. However, the guy wouldn’t answer. When I walked up to this man he look frightened; as if he’d seen a ghost or something. So we headed back to my house. Disappointed and confused we pondered on the way back of what where the possibilities of the haunted house being closed. We came up with the funniest stuff too. Like the guy had bad gas! When we got back to my house we sat outside watching the children in their little costumes walking around, getting candy and toys with grins on their faces. One by one my friends left to go back home, telling me that they’ll see me at school Monday. I sat on my porch waving good-bye to them as they walked off. I turned around to reach for the front door when I heard something eerie.
“…Zoey…Zoey…Go back…back to the haunted house…”
I looked around to see if maybe it was Jack playing minds games but, I didn’t see him anywhere. With a questioned look on my face I walk back inside.
“Maybe it’s all in my head.” I thought to myself.
I looked at the moon again for a while before closing the front door. When my sister walked pass me greeting me home, she walked back outside to get our dog Ray because it was getting cold outside. Lee hugged Ray and told him to get inside. Lee gazed at the stars when she sworn she say a silhouette of a man hovering over our house in front of the moon with his back being lit by the moon. She blinked again to only find the moon sitting there with nothing in front of it. She was a little frightened by it but easily got distracted from it because our dog was barking. Later that night I put Lee to bed and started to drift off to sleep myself. Since I didn’t care where I slept I decided to crash upon the living room couch where I normally crash when I get home from school cause I’m too lazy to make the trip to my room. In deep slumber I had begun to notice weird happenings in my dreams, like someone’s radioing me some kind of message that was too choppy to understand. Then I see a face hidden within the shadows, touching my face with cold, rough, scarred, yet gentle hands saying… “I found you…Zoey. You must return to the haunted house…you must if you want to be safe”. For a moment I felt like I couldn’t awaken but I somehow I did; when I did however it looked like a constant twilight was in the sky, like it wasn’t morning nor night. The sky was reddish orange with purple-ish clouds. I turned on the TV to look at the weather channel.
“Good morning…I think. Today is Sunday with highs in the fifties and sixties with lows in the mid thirties…” said the weatherman.
“Morning?” I thought in question. “It can’t be morning when it looks like night...or is it? How come it looks this way, I don’t remember the sky ever looking like this.”
Pondering to myself I slowly go back to sleep to see if maybe I was seeing things or was this real. Nodding off I thought I saw a silhouette of the same shadowy figure looking at me threw the living room window. Before I could react, my laziness kicked in and I fell asleep yet again. Then I heard it again…
“Zoey…the haunted house…you must come now…before it’s too late…Zoey.”
End of chapter 1
