“Abandoned” by Adilene Orozco Salvador    

Everyone in town knew about her, the ghost living in the old abandoned house. Why wouldn’t they, with the creaking of the wooden floorboards and her ear-piercing cries each night? She was real, and though nobody ever saw her, they knew she hated when others trespassed. There were stories of people who went in and never came back. Stories of survivors who went crazy, unable to explain what happened when they went inside. So why, why did this family decide to move in? With their smiles and laughs as if they weren’t invading the very place she calls home? Perhaps they were non-believers, maybe they just didn’t care. Or maybe they were those types of people, the ones who feed on crumbs of paranormal activity. No matter, she’ll get rid of them soon enough, starting with the girl.

        In a small bedroom, her bedroom, now covered with dust and cobwebs, sat a young girl, perhaps 12 years of age. She sits on a wooden chair, feet flat on the floor with her back straight, her repulsive green eyes gliding across the room. “This house could definitely use improvement, right, James?” she mutters rudely as she unpacks her suitcase on a dusty, crooked table.

        “Yup! I heard it’s haunted too, how exciting!” replied James with naive glee in his voice as he judged the strange paintings on the wall. There seemed to be no order to them, just blobs of dulled paint and lines that used to resemble faces, which is likely what someone like him would think. “Just imagine it, Chelsea, all the scary stuff we could find!”

        The girl, Chelsea, gives her little brother a lopsided smile. Amused, she says, “Haunted? Oh, right, I think I remember mom and dad talking about that, be careful, you never know when a ghost is right around the-” Her voice cuts off mid-sentence as she places her hand on her mouth. Chelsea had only a few seconds until everything went dark. The girl took her away, someplace no one would find. It was punishment for dirtying the very place the ghost had once called her own. That girl, Chelsea, was never supposed to be there. She had no right to barge into the girl’s room and try to make it hers. The ghost just did what she had to, and soon, she’d get rid of the rest, too.

        “Chelsea?” James turns around, but he can’t see his sister anywhere in the room. “Where did you go? Chelsea, please,

you’re scaring me!” His voice gets frantic and his heart starts to race. With that in mind, he quickly leaves the room and heads downstairs to the main entrance, breath staggering and voice shaking as he yells for help. But she can’t let him call for help. No, she will make sure Chelsea was never real to begin with. It’ll make getting rid of them easier after all. 

        Unamused, his mom turns to look at him. “Now what did you do?” she asks, used to her son’s rowdy yelling. “And where have you been? I need help moving some furniture arou–oh! James, what are you doing!?” his mother exclaims as James wraps his shaking arms around her, tears falling down his face.

        He calms his breathing and looks up at her. “Mom, mom, she’s gone! I can’t find her, I can’t find her!” He squeezes tighter and lets out a sob. As he says this, though, his head starts to ache and a sense of fogginess fills his mind. 

        His mother looks at him in utter confusion, a bit of worry in her tone, “Gone? Who is gone?” No one, no one is gone. She pulls him off from her after a few minutes and calls out to her husband to come inside the house. He comes in carrying a couple of cardboard boxes and sets them down near the entrance. 

        “Yes, dear?” he says, as he starts organizing where each box will go. Once he finishes, he turns around and sees his son’s tear-stained face. Getting up, he walks towards James, placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder and bringing him in for a hug. James melts in his father’s embrace, the warmth helping him calm down. He tries to remember why he was crying, but the thought of it makes his head hurt, and he’d rather not feel any pain. He lets go of whatever he was searching for… it was probably nothing important anyway. 

        A few days later, no one spoke about the family that moved into the old abandoned house. And if someone asked, they’d say, “A family? What family? No one has ever lived in that house since the death of that poor girl 20 years ago. Yes, the poor girl lost her mind and her family in some car crash, hid herself in the house and lived the rest of her days rotting away. Nobody goes in there, nobody.”

The End