Short Stories

Short Story #2: The Spoopy Garage

     "Welp, that's the last of it."  Ashley said, brushing her hands together.

     She stood back and admired what had taken her an entire weekend to put together.  The cool autumn wind blew softly as crisp colourful leaves continued their journey across her driveway. 

   Suddenly, she hear the sound of crunching leaves behind her.  She quickly turned her head to face the noise.

   "Hey Ash!"  It was her neighbour, Brian.  "Finally done, huh?"  He walked up the driveway and stood beside her, his hands on his hips.  He looked ahead at her garage.  "What is it?"

    Ashley scoffed.  "What do you think it is, genius?  It's Halloween for crying out loud!"

   Brain turned his head to the side.  "All I see is a garage door covered in skeletons and fake spiderwebs."

   "It's not just that,"  she pulled out a remote from her pant pocket and grinned.  "Watch this!"  She pointed the remote at the garage door.  It started to open.

   A glowing red light started to emit from inside the garage.  As the door kept opening, more stuff came into view.  Zombie looking mannequins were placed on opposite sides of the entrance,  both pointing to an ancient looking door covered in cobwebs, fog creeping out from under it.  A bright red message on the door read: ENTER IF YOU DARE!  

    Brian eyed Ashley and raised an eyebrow.

   "A haunted house, huh?  In your garage?"

   "Yep,"  Ashley said proudly.  "Just wait 'till you see what's inside!"

    "Question.  Where's your car?"

    "Not important."  She brushed her frizzy hair aside.  "What's important right now is that this is gonna be the spookiest haunted house on the block!  It's gonna freak the kids out!"

    "Don'tcha mean the spoopiest haunted house?"  he smiled and began walking further up the driveway, kicking leaves aside.

    "Brian, stop being twelve."  she followed.

    Brain approached the garage.  "Can we go in?"

   "If you want to.  I mean, it's pretty scary."

    He put a finger out.  "First of all, it's spoopy."  Ashley rolled her eyes.

    "Second, how scary can it be if you built it?"

    She threaten to punch him.  Brian stepped back, chuckling.

    "Look man, I spent over a thousand dollars on this, I'm pretty sure you'll get a few scares."

    Brian sputtered.  "A THOUSAND?  What are you, insane?"

    "No..."  Ashley looked at her feet.  "You know when we were talking about my car?"

    "Yeah?"

    "I sold it."

    Brian threw his hands up in the air and quickly spun in a circle.  "Of course you did!"

   "Look, I'll take this all back once Halloween is over and buy a new one!"  she walked towards the ancient-looking door and opened it.  "Just come inside, it's totally worth it." 

    Brian was hesitant, but then he remembered again that this was Ashley's doing.  It couldn't be that scary.  "Ok fine, let's go then."

. . .

    After 10 minutes, they both stepped back into the light.  Ashley's ears were still ringing from Brian's constant screaming.  She snickered at his pale face.

    "Was the spoopy enough for ya?"

    Brian, still shaking, swallowed and shook his head.  "Th-the correct term is spooky, Ash."

   Ashley laughed and shook her head.  "Ok Mr. Smart Man, wanna go in again?"

   "Nope!"  Brian quickly said, and took off down the driveway, running back home to watch some calming cat videos.

   "See you on Halloween!"  Ashley called out.  Then she turned back and closed the garage.