The Haunting

One, two, three, HORROR, whoops...I mean FOUR! Oh, hi kids. Your PUTRID-PAL, CREEPS, is just getting into SHIVERING-SHAPE and AX-ERCISING for the coming FEAR! But while I’m busy doing some rounds of TERROR-ROBICS, do not feel the need to WEIGHT for me to read tonight’s tale with you. Just take a GHOSTLY-GANDER at...

Over in Chicago, Illinois, back in the Spring of 1962, a little boy watched The Twilight Zone come on a television set in an apartment one night, as he sat on the floor. A young man came into the front room and sat down in a recliner. “Hia, Jack, ready to spend a fun week with your Aunt Donna and I boy?” he said to the boy, asking him. Jack turned around and replied: “yeah, Uncle Charlie!”. “Good, we’ll get some ice cream tomorrow then and visit a park!” Uncle Charlie said, smiling at Jack. Jack smiled back at him and turned back to the t.v. then. Uncle Charlie took out a cigarette from his shirt-pocket along with a match and lit it, smoking. A young woman came into the apartment with a grocery bag. “Oh, so your Sister dropped off Jack I see, Charlie. Stay away from my makeup kid!” she said to Uncle Charlie, and then to Jack. “Oh, evening, Donna” Uncle Charlie said to the woman. “Hello Aunt Donna” Jack said to her. “Honestly, Charlie, we have to babysit the six year old this week!” Aunt Donna said to him rudely and gave Jack a disgusted glare. “Now, come on Donna, it is a fun vacation for Jack” Uncle Charlie responded to her. Aunt Donna walked out of the front room with the shopping bag. “I’m sorry about Aunt Donna, Jack. You and I will have a fun week this week” Uncle Charlie said to Jack. Jack smiled at him.

Uncle Charlie got up and went into a kitchen where Aunt Donna was putting milk, eggs and cheese away in the refrigerator from the grocery bag. “Donna honey, please be nice to Jack. He’s just six years old” Uncle Charlie said to her. “Well, you were the one who wanted the brat to spend his Spring Break with us here, Charlie. The kid’s as close as you’ll get to having a Son” Aunt Donna answered meanly and pushed him back, walking away. Uncle Charlie sadly sighed. The doorbell rang suddenly and Uncle Charlie answered it. There was a short gypsy lady holding a book in her hand. “Good evening, miss, can I help you?” Uncle Charlie asked. “Good evening sir. I came all the way to America here from Romania. I am a gypsy who felt that you needed my help. My name is Esmeralda” she explained to him, introducing herself. “Excuse me Esmeralda, but what can you help me with ma’am?” Uncle Charlie said, asking. “Just take this book sir for my assistance” Esmeralda replied, handing it to him and walked off.

Jack walked into the kitchen and got a cookie out of a cookie jar. “Wait a minute you little brat. Put that cookie back” Aunt Donna said meanly to him. “But Uncle Charlie said I could have one Aunt Donna!” Jack replied. She smacked the cookie out of the boy’s hand and he cried. “NOW, PICK IT UP AND TOSS IT OUT KID!” Aunt Donna screamed at him and walked out of the kitchen. Uncle Charlie came into the kitchen and hugged Jack. He walked back into the front room and saw Aunt Donna. Jack came into the room eating a cookie. “Donna, why in the world did you smack him?” Uncle Charlie asked, mad. “Because Charlie I already have to babysit a fool like you in our house here!” she told him, standing by the window. She walked into a bedroom, slamming the door shut. Uncle Charlie got the book from Esmeralda off the coffee table and opened it. He read from the first page out loud: “Corruma, Lamda, Prudima!”. The page suddenly glowed red and Uncle Charlie dropped the book on the floor then. The two lamps within the front room went out and he hugged Jack. The t.v. went off too and the page stopped shining red.

The lamps turned back on and so did the t.v. Uncle Charlie went into the bedroom where Aunt Donna had gone into, and saw her pouring wine from a bottle into a glass and drink it in bed. “Hey, Charlie, what the heck are you doing creeping in here?” she asked meanly. “The lights and television set went out, Donna dear” he responded with a sigh. “Oh, you forgot to pay The Land Lady the electric bill with the rent check you moron” she said to him meanly and hit Charlie right in his stomach. He gasped in pain. A white figure that was misty appeared in front of the wall in the bedroom then and shrieked in a lady’s voice. The white misty figure had: black eye-sockets and a gaping mouth of rotting-teeth. The misty figure stood as tall as Uncle Charlie and it seemed to have eerie strands of white hair floating in all directions. Aunt Donna screamed at it, jumped out of bed, racing out of the room, spilling her bottle and glass of wine on the floor. As Aunt Donna ran to her front door, the lights went out a once more and the television went to static. Then, in the corner of the living-room, there was a second white figure, but this one was like white slime, also having eye sockets of black. The thing’s neck was skinny, looking like it had been squeezed. The figure was entirely bald, having random holes within its slime-like body.

The slime-like figure of white shrieked in a high-pitched voice. Within the glow of the television, Uncle Charlie stumbled out of the bedroom holding his belly with one of his hands, gasping. Aunt Donna screamed, pulling on the doorknob. The figure within the living-room floated across to her, clutching her as it shrieked. Then the t.v. turned off a second time, the shrieking in the rooms stopped and it was dark, except for the lights outside. The lamps came back on in the living room and Uncle Charlie hugged his nephew. Aunt Donna was panting in fear at the front door and she ran out of the home screaming. There was a section of one of the walls that had four mirrors on it.

She ran passed them and two creepy children materialized within the fourth large mirror. One was a girl with brown, short curly hair, dressed in a light blue dress. The second creepy-child was a boy with red, short curly hair, dressed in a pair of light-blue suspenders and overalls. They both stood in their bare-feet and their skin was dead white. Their eyes were without pupils and milky white. They turned their heads the direction Aunt Donna ran, causing sounds of cracking bones. Aunt Donna reached the end of the hall, turning around. Uncle Charlie was there. “You idiot. I hope those things kill you and our Nephew too, because if they don’t, then I will when I come back here for my stuff” Aunt Donna threatened Uncle Charlie. The elevator at the end of the hallway opened and Uncle Charlie grabbed her wrists. “Donna, I have had it with your wicked abuse. No more” he said to her and the two apparition children from the mirror grabbed her around her waist, laughing eerily. As they pulled her, Uncle Charlie let go and they all fell down, into the elevator shaft, the phantoms laughing, Aunt Donna screaming. Uncle Charlie sighed a huge sigh of relief and smiled. The elevator closed. Uncle Charlie came back into his apartment and he along with Jack saw the t.v. turn on. On it was Esmeralda with the book open. She turned a few pages and read aloud: “Dwongo, Gongo, Parango, Vongo!”. She was surrounded by a white misty phantom that had a gaping-mouth and a black eye-socket, floating upwards into darkness. “Glad I could assist you sir. I now have my book back as you can see and my inhuman phantoms that have eaten your wicked Wife. The Haunting is over” Esmeralda told Uncle Charlie and then the t.v. turned off.

Esmeralda had a HELPING OF HORROR with those human-eating phantoms! Now Uncle Charlie and his Nephew Jack can have fun for the UPCOMING SHRIEK with THE ICE SCREAM in the park aha-ha-ha-ha. You can always TELE-GROAN Esmeralda by the way. She has time to help you even though she’s BOOKED UP ha-ha-ha-ha.

      The misty phantom shrieking within Uncle Charlie's bedroom.

The white misty phantom behind Esmeralda on the t.v.

The slimy phantom within the living-room.