Ghosts.

Here’s another selection from one of my old journal books from my high school years. This story was written on June 26, 1987 and is presented here exactly as written.

GHOSTS – A SCARY STORY

“Please take this over to where your sister is,” said Mother, handing Pete a bowl of macaroni covered with cheese. His sister, Linda, was babysitting two little boys across the street and was waiting for her dinner. “And,” Mother added, “you had better come home immediately.”

“Aw, ma, just fifteen minutes is all I want.”

“Well, all right. Fifteen minutes. That’s all.”

Overjoyed, Pete darted out of the house to the house across the street with Linda’s dinner. The two boys, Joe and John, were always full of mischief and ran outside in such an attitude to greet Pete. They were wearing Ghostbuster uniforms. Pete smiled. He knew that the boys loved to watch Ghostbusters. They had seen the movie, the cartoon series, and had eaten the cereal under the influence of the Ghostbusters.

Then Linda came outside. “Joe and John, come inside. Hi, Pete. Thank you for the dinner. Come in.”

Pete stepped inside the cool house. He saw the house was dark and asked Linda why.

“Don’t ask me,” replied Linda. “Ask the Ghostbusters.”

“Oh,” said Pete, and turned to Joe. “Why is the house so dark?”

“We’re ghost hunting,” replied Joe.

Pete laughed. “Ghost hunting! Well, I hink you’ve got quite a task there!”

“Don’t laugh!” said John. “You’ll wake up the ghosts. Let’s go. The ghosts are down the hall.”

“Come with us.” said Joe.

Pete laughed to himself as he watched the boys go into the hall. He watched them as he stooped down to pick up a white teddy bear. He gripped it in his hands and smiled. Suddenly he screamed “Ghost!” and threw the teddy bear. The boys whirled and screamed. Pete laughed. “How’s that for a ghost?”

“That wasn’t funny!” cried Joe.

“Look!” yelled John.

The teddy bear floated up into the air by itself and glided towards Pete and gently landed in Pete’s hands. “How’d you do that?”

“A ghost did that. He wanted to keep the hall clean.” said John.

Pete let out a burst of laughter. “So you don’t have to make your beds, huh?”

Suddenly, there was a flash of green light at the end of the hall. Pete froze. The light began to move into the hall into Joe’s room.

“There’s a ghost in my room!” yelled Joe.

“Let’s go get him!” cried John.

The two boys darted into the dark hallway into their rooms. It was a while before they re-appeared, gliding in mid-air down the hallway to where Pete stood.

“We must get that ghost! We’ll have to use the laser guns!” yelled Joe.

“Laser guns,” giggled Pete. He picked up the same white teddy bear and waited until the boys had gone into the hallway and, when they reached the middle, Pete yelled “Ghost!” and threw the teddy bear at them.

Joe drew out his laser gun and fired. The teddy bear exploded and its stuffing rained on the rug. Pete was shocked and John was crying, “My teddy bear!”

Joe said, “Don’t cry! C’mon, we must get the ghosts!”

The two boys disappeared in the darkness of the hallway. There was a long silence. Pete was now convinced that these boys were real Ghostbusters and he began to worry.

“Joe? John?”

Suddenly there was a roar and a streak of green light zipped out of the hall with the two boys chasing it. The streak zipped around Pete and the living room before Joe fired at it. Suddenly the ghost stopped in front of Pete and then roared.

“Stay still!” commanded Joe.

Joe fired at the ghost. It darted into the hallway in a flash of bright light. The boys chased after it into the same room. Joe, the last one to enter the room, told Pete, “This time, don’t say anything!” With that, he once again disappeared.

“I hate this,” said Pete to Linda.

“Well, they do this each time I babysit. They like it. And, it helps to stay out of the whole thing to begin with.” Linda replied.

Suddenly there was a very loud boom as a flash of red light blinded Pete. A blue ghost zipped out of the room with the boys after it.

“Pete!” yelled Joe. “Help us! We need you!” The ghost roared at him.

“Yeah, Pete!” cried John. “You do it by yourself.”

“Yeah, Pete,” said Linda. “Why don’t you go in there and see for yourself? This is really no laughing matter. There are really ghosts in this house.”

Pete thought and then said, “Well, all right. Gimme a gun.”

“Alright Pete!” yelled Joe.

Pete accepted the gun and put the point to his nose and sniffed. Nothing special but a couple of wires. Nodding, Pete walked into the dark hallway. He kept looking around him, checking for ghosts. He walked on, listening for odd noises. Just ahead was a laundry room and then to the right of the room was Joe and John’s parents’ bedroom. Pete said aloud, “I’m chicken.”

Suddenly there was a glow in the laundry room. Pete whimpered in fear and began to walk away from the room. Another glow appeared right in front of Pete, blocking his way to the living room. Pete whimpered again and turned to the laundry room. there was a second, brighter glow as the ghost was hiding from Pete. Pete began to crawl on his knees and then on his belly to avoid being seen. He was a real failure, he thought.

He peeked under the washing machine to see the glow, but it disappeared after a while. He began to rise slowly and then after he stood erect, a ghost flashed right in front of him. Pete drew and fired the gun without thinking about it. The bottle of bleach burst and got Pete soaked. The ghost had dodged the laser beams and hid again.

“Waugh!” Pete screamed and fired again at the ghost’s hiding place. This time he got the electrical cord of the washing machine and caused a short circuit. The power went out in the house. The ghost went inside a small crevice and hid there. Pete immediately stooped and tried to get the ghost out by prodding his fingers inside of the crevice. When the power came back on, Pete convulsed wildly, throwing his legs, arm and head around while a very loud buzz rang through Pete’s body. The crevice was an electrical outlet.

The ghost laughed while it floated in mid-air, watching the whole thing happen. It was laughing so hard it didn’t see Pete reach for his gum, aimed it at the ghost and fired. At once the ghost dissolved.

The event caused an uproar among other ghosts as they dashed outside of their hiding places to surround Pete entirely. One of them grabbed a gun and pointed it at him as they forced him to march into the parents’ bedroom and bathroom. They locked him in the shower. Then, there was a very fat ghost who floated to the shower and stuck its mouth at the top of the shower and then SPPLLLCCCH!

Pete was neck-deep in slime.

The event made all the ghosts laugh. Pete got so mad that he at once banged the door open to get himself out. Then Pete saw a huge gun that lay on the parents’ dresser and picked it up. “Waugh!” Pete screamed and fired it at random places. He hit three ghosts while 2 dozen others were zipping around in the room, fleeing from their hostage. Pete fired again and downed 12 more and then the last of the ghosts fled the house.

The triumphant Pete re-emerged into the hallway, covered with slime and marched towards the living room. The boys cheered for their hero while Linda rushed over to give Pete a nice, wet kiss.

“What on earth happened to you?” asked Mother when Pete came home.

“Well, it’s a long story,” smiled Pete. “But to make a long story short, I went ghost hunting and won.”

“Won what?”

“Won the battle of the ghosts, I got rid of every one of them.”

“Except one,” replied a ghost, then fluttered away to hide.