A Halloween Tale
No one is really quite sure when the noises started in that house.
Or even when they stopped.
They do know that, however, people often times that would go into the old house, and curiously, were never seen again.
There was that guy hired to fix the roof.
The roof got fixed… but he was never seen again.
Then there was that salesman who stopped by once, right after dinner, and was never seen again.
Well, they did find his… shoe.
Then, late one Sunday, that…that was when the preacher fellow dropped in.
Years later, some kids would find a charred Bible with the name Reverend John Southford neatly written in the top right corner of the first page. That was his name, I think. No one ever saw him again to ask him.
The noises – (screams?) – were loud that night. ‘Least that’s what people say now. You know how memory can be.
But right after that was when the children started to tell the stories late at night, at sleepovers and around campfires and such.
They would huddle under their blankets with their flash lights on and tell these stories…
Stories about how a witch lived up there in the house, stirring up her witch’s brew.
Stories about how one stormy night that clapped with thunder, the owner of the house had caught the Jersey Devil itself and kept it chained up in that lighted room.
The children would say how the Jersey Devil hated the light and would cry out (scream?) every time the little chain was pulled to light the bare, yellow bulb.
Others said it was Mrs. Jane Leeds herself – the mother of the Jersey Devil, as that story goes, wailing at the thought of what she brought into the world.
No one is really quite sure what the noises were in that house.
Some say they still hear them, especially late in October, when the air is crisp, the ground fog is rising and the leaves rustle in the trees.
They claim they hear this wail (scream?), or hooves on hardwood floors, and it make the hair on the back of their scalp stand on end and their steps quicken to some place warmer and more well-lighted.
But it’s all just a story.
Right?
Hope everyone had a happy, spooky Halloween!
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