Tuesday 22 July 2014

Hello, My Name Is Zoe

When I moved to my new house I couldn’t wait to start a fresh new life. I was six years old and I was going to have my own room. I had been sharing a room with my two sisters, Alex and Helen. Now that we moved out of our tiny apartment I was so happy. My dad found a new job so we had to move. At least I would still go to the same school. The first few months at my new house were normal and exciting. After I settled in, things started to feel a little unusual. Often when I was alone in my room I would hear scratching near my closet. I knew it wasn’t my dog Jerry because he never scratches the walls. The scratching would always get louder and it creeped me out. I would drop whatever it was I was doing and run away to my mom or dad. After awhile I got used to it but I knew more strange things would come. For the past five weeks I had scary dreams about my house. There was one dream that stood out the most to me. I was running I n a forest. I stopped when I noticed a girl about my age sitting on the ground bleeding from her chest. I screamed and passed through the girl. I woke up feeling sweaty and scared. Soon after, I saw a little girl sitting on my bed. I could also see her shadow in my room. I went over to her and got a closer view of her face. The girl had long, beautiful hair and dark brown eyes. She was wearing a small headband and a pink night gown. I was a little scared but I felt that she didn’t mean any harm. The girl smiled and said, “Hello, my name is Zoe.” The girl giggled and vanished. I was really scared now. I had never seen a ghost before. The next day I was playing with my SpongeBob plushies when Zoe came and sat down next to me. She was still wearing the same clothes. She smiled and said, “Can I play with you?” In shock, I said yes. Zoe and I played together silently. I could tell she was having fun. About ten minutes later Zoe stood up and said, “I have to go soon. My mom is going to come get me.” She walked to the door and waved goodbye. I waved back. She walked through the door and left. The last time I saw Zoe was on a spring afternoon. I was playing in our backyard. I needed to rest so I sat down under a shady tree. As I was resting I looked up at the clouds. I heard soft singing nearby. I sat up and saw Zoe sitting on my tire swing singing a baby lullaby. Zoe was wearing a white sun dress and a large white hat with a pink bow wrapped around it. She stopped singing and turned around to face me. She smiled as she got off the tire swing. She came to me and said, “I won’t be here any longer. I have to go soon to a place where everyone is happy.” I asked her where that was. “I don’t know now but when I get there I will. Before I go I just want to say it was nice meeting you and goodbye.” I waved to her and she waved back. Zoe lifted up her hat, passed through my backyard and faded into the fence. I’m twelve years old now and I haven’t seen Zoe since. I know that she’s in her happy place now. The place she told me about before she left the world forever.

Our Campus Haunts

Despite being small, my school is the oldest and most famous in my hometown. It only has a population of 300 students and 25 faculty and staff members; it’s not that it’s not a great school, but few people can afford to send their children here. The building is very old but also very elegant. It looks like an 1800s mansion, with a beautiful garden at the front and a line of oak trees from the gate to the building. It is also haunted. Even though it is prohibited, some of our teachers couldn’t help sharing their ghostly encounters with us. Mr. Eddie Mondragon told us this: “It was examination week, and I was working late to print all the test papers. I ended around midnight. As I walked out of the office, I was startled by a little boy running passed me. I thought it was one of our students, so I chased him. He stopped at the level four classroom. He looked at me and gave me a smirk. I was about to approach him when he just disappeared into thin air right before my eyes. It scared the hell out of me; I ran as fast as I could to my car and drove home.” Ms. Judith Lee told us this: “After examination week, I was doing my records on the level four classroom around 10 pm when I heard someone humming near the door. At first, I didn’t bother to look because I figured it was probably one of my fellow teachers, so I just continued recording. After a short while, I started to feel really cold, and the humming turned into a scary sound. I looked up, and to my horror I saw a 16-year-old girl wearing a bloodied white dress. She had a severe cut on her neck. She was banging her head on the wall, crying and humming at the same time. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t — I felt paralyzed. The next thing I knew, I woke up in an all-white room — the hospital. I was excused from work for three days.” Mr. Joel Samuel told us this: “I was doing my laundry on a Friday night (I live in the school dormitory) when I felt a cold wind brush through me. I looked up and saw a woman wearing a white nightgown pass by me. I thought it was just my fellow teacher; I even asked her why she was wandering the school campus at night. She didn’t reply, so I looked at her again, and it was then that I noticed she had no feet and she was floating. I froze and left my laundry undone.” Ms. Sarah Montez told us this: “After hearing Ms. Judith’s story, I started to feel nervous about wandering the campus alone at night, so I asked my friend Grace to accompany me to get my files at the faculty office. We were on our way when I noticed a little boy following us. I thought it was just one of the students, so I didn’t mind it. Grace left me for a while because she had to pee. So I went up the office alone and took the files as quickly as I could. I went back down the stairs and was waiting for Grace there, terrified. I heard some footsteps running down the stairs, getting closer and closer. I looked up the stairs to see who it was but I didn’t see anyone. I suddenly felt someone tugging my skirt, and when I looked down I saw a bloody little boy. I screamed; it felt like I couldn’t breathe. The next thing I knew, I was surrounded by my fellow teachers. They told me that I had fainted.” Ms. Delilah Summer told us this: “I was alone in the library because I had to do a favor for the librarian (who happens to be my best friend). I was arranging the books when I noticed someone walking behind the shelf next to mine. I asked if anyone was there, and the reply was a soft, ‘Shhh.’ I laughed at the thought of it, thinking it was just Joel or Harry, so I went to where the sound was. I didn’t see anyone there and my heart started pounding. Then, I felt someone grab me from behind, and I screamed. It was just Harry; I was angry and laughing at the same time. I thought that someone was going to kill me. He was there to return a book that he borrowed. He waited for me at the desk. I was on my final pile of books when I noticed something moving from the other end of the shelf — and it couldn’t have been Harry this time, because he was in my line of sight, just sitting at the desk. I went over to the other end of the shelf and I bumped into a hard body. I said sorry, and when I looked up, I saw that the figure was headless. I didn’t get the chance to scream — I fainted.” Me and my best friends Scarlett, Cassandra and Violet, were discussing the different stories we’d heard from different teachers. Albert, the old janitor, overheard us and told us something interesting. Before the school used to be a mansion, he said, it had been owned by a massacred Spanish family. The rebels broke into the mansion and killed the maids first. The husband begged and offered them a huge amount of money, but it still wasn’t enough; the leader of the rebels got annoyed and cut his head off. The wife freaked out and ran, but the rebels got her, then cut her feet and left her bleeding. Their teenage daughter took her little brother and they hid in the closet but the rebels found them. They raped and tortured the girl, then cut her head slowly. The little boy cried and screamed. He tried his best to hit the rebels while hugging his dying sister. One of the rebels begged the leader to spare the little boy, but he didn’t want to leave a witness, so he grabbed the little boy by the hair and hit him ten times on the wall until he stopped breathing. We looked at each other with eyes wide, and we asked Albert why he knew everything that had happened. He looked down with worried eyes, then said softly, “Because my father’s conscience bothered him until the day he died, and he passed it on to me. “He was one of those rebels.”

Let The Sunshine In

When I was lying in my bed one June night, I heard a little voice outside my window. “Let the sunshine in,” it sang. It sounded like a little girl. Being only nine, I was curious. I poked my head outside. Just a normal night. Nobody out there. Confused, I closed the window and lay back down.
For no reason, I looked at the clock. It read 2:37 am. I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard a car pulling into our driveway. Then I heard it again, that distinctive voice singing, “Let the sunshine in.” Now a bit worried, I wrapped my bathrobe around myself and tiptoed downstairs.
The house was silent but I noticed something on the couch. Walking toward it, I could see it was a sheet of paper. Picking it up, I realized it was blank, all except for one thing at the top of the page. It looked like a child’s drawing of a long black car. Beneath it was the word “Let” written in vibrant red ink. I picked it up and stuffed it in my pocket. I could deal with it later. Besides, it was Pajama Day tomorrow at school.
Walking toward the stairs, I suddenly remembered what I had come down to investigate. I looked out the window. No car in the driveway. Maybe I had imagined it. Yawning, I clomped back up the stairs to my room, when I heard it yet again, singing the same thing: “Let The Sunshine In,” I shrugged it off. Just a dream.
In the week following, I woke up suddenly one night having to go to the bathroom. Stretching, I pulled on my bathrobe. Then I noticed the paper was gone. What? I knew there was a paper in there. Just that night, I had looked at it before stuffing it back into my pocket. Suddenly worried, I rushed downstairs. What was happening?
When I reached the couch, I realized the paper was sitting on it. I picked it up and gasped. The car was a bit clearer, now more like a detailed drawing by a teen. And below it were two words written in red ink: “Let” and “The.” And at that moment, that little voice sang again, “Let The Sunshine In,” I ran upstairs to my room, bringing the paper.
I was very scared now. Looking behind me, I put the paper in the toy safe I had gotten two months ago at the Book Fair, then locked it. Nobody could get it now. But still, when I was falling asleep, I heard a little voice sing eerily, “Let The Sunshine In.”
Five months later, I was woken up in the night by a voice, yet again. “Let The Sunshine In,” it sang. I bolted upright and looked at my safe. Was the paper still there? I got up with shaking legs, and unlocked the safe. The moonlight bounced off the empty plastic insides. Nothing was there. I ran downstairs, skidding a little. Sure enough, there was the paper on the couch.
But this time, the car was beginning to look even more like a photograph, and it now read, “Let The Sunshine In,” still in that red color. I grabbed it and ripped it apart. Gathering the remnants, I flushed them down the toilet. As I was tiptoeing back up the stairs, that same little voice sang again, “Let The Sunshine In.”
The next night, I was afraid of falling asleep. After two hours of tossing and turning, I heard something. “Let The Sunshine In,” sang a little voice I knew all too well. I threw my bathrobe on and raced downstairs. On the couch was the paper, looking like new. With quivering hands, I picked it up. Underneath a picture of a shiny, long black car were four words written in blood-red ink: “Let The Sunshine In.” I stuck it in my pocket, getting more and more scared.
I ran up to my parents’ room, screaming and crying. My dad was away on a business trip, so I rushed to my mom’s side of the bed and shook her. She didn’t move. That’s when I noticed the sentence “Let The Sunshine In” etched into her skin with a knife, and the thin line of blood on her neck. I screamed and shook her more. She didn’t react. I flung myself, sobbing, onto her limp body. Finally, after hours of crying, I fell asleep.
I woke up wondering why my bed was so hard and uncomfortable. I glanced down, and saw my mother’s dead body. My eyes grew large and filled with tears as I remembered the events of that last night. Grabbing the phone, I called the cops. “Hello?” I sobbed. “Come quick! I think my mom’s been murdered!”
About fifteen minutes later, a police car pulled up at my house. After asking me some questions, they went upstairs and brought down the body, covered with a sheet. “The hearse will be here soon,” they told me. “Now, did you notice the marks on her face? They look like letters, and say, ‘Let The Sunshine In.’ Do you have any idea…?” I shook my head, still sobbing.
Soon, I heard a car come into the driveway. The policemen were upstairs, looking for evidence. Peeking out the window, I saw a long, shiny black car… the same one as on the sheet of paper! I dug into my pocket, but no paper was there. A little girl and a man who I guessed to be her father got out of the car and walked up to the front door. I let them in.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” said the man. He wrapped his arm around me gently. “Don’t worry. You still have your dad, right?” I nodded. “Would you like to hear my daughter sing?” he asked. “It make make you feel better.” I nodded miserably. And that’s when I heard it.
“Let The Sunshine In,” the little girl sang, “Let The Sunshine In…”
The little girl’s voice was identical to the one that had haunted me for all that time.