I sit in my class, tapping my pencil on my desk and chatting with my buddy Jesse, as we wait for our teacher, Ms Henderson, to organize her lesson for today. Social Studies isn’t my best class, but it could be fun sometimes. She does come up with some awesome project ideas.

“So, what are you doing this weekend?” Jess asks, even though it’s only Tuesday. Some days the weekend just can’t come fast enough, and last week I spent the whole weekend cleaning my room, or my mom would’ve killed me! It’s not my fault I get busy with school and… stuff…

“I was thinking about heading to the skate park. It’s been awhile,” I sigh. It really has been awhile. I’ve been playing on my computer for so long I forgot what it's like on my board. I could totally use the exercise… At least that’s what my dad says. He’s been on my case saying I’ve been spending too much time in front of a screen… Well, I guess he may be right… This time.

“Cool! I wanna come! I just need to get outta going to visit my grandparents this weekend,” Jess smirks. Yeah, my buddy is always game for some fun. Sometimes we play one on one basketball, or head to the batting cages. And once in a blue moon, we hit the gym and work on weight training. But, seriously, it has been ages since we’ve been to the skate park.

A minute later, Ms. Henderson calls us to attention. She always takes a little while to get her stuff organized. Not saying she is unorganized, just sometimes she seems a little scattered. That’s why everyone starts chatting the moment we enter class.

“Okay class, seeing as next weekend is halloween, I have a new project for you,” our teacher cheers. She looks super excited about this one. She is practically bouncing on her toes!

I perk up at this. This might be good. What kinda project would we be doing this time?

Once we had to do a service project for the community. Me and my friends made sack lunches of the homeless and handed them out. It was actually pretty fun! Another time we were in charge of setting up decorations for the school dance. The dance was lame, but the set up was pretty awesome! Our theme was “dancing through the decades.” We got to dress up way old school!

“I want you to pick a partner and come up with something spooky. You could go investigate the graveyard, some of the old mines that collapsed, you could even look up the history of our town and write a report on the original founders if you like. Just come up with something fun and be prepared to share it Thursday!” Ms. Henderson gave her spiel with a wide grin.

Actually, that does sound fun! There are so many things running through my head at the moment, trying to come up with the best idea… And then I have it! The perfect Halloween project!

“Hey, Jess. Wanna do ours on our local haunted house?” I said with a smirk. The Peterson house has been rumored to be haunted, but nobody actually knows for sure. It would be cool to find out one way or the other… Either way, it would make a fun Halloween project.

I could tell instantly he was up for it! The sparkle in his eye tells me we could make this epic! A giant smile appears across his face as he nods his head enthusiastically.

“Dude! Yeah! That would be perfect, man. We could get the news articles about what happened to the house, and we can even go explore the burned down house! We can even see if it's really haunted,” Jess teases.

This is why we work so well together. We are normally on the same wavelength and can read each other’s thoughts… Maybe we are telepathic? If we are hunting ghosts, it could happen!

Neither of us believes in ghosts, but hey! What’s Halloween without a haunted house? I mean, yeah, we could do any of those other things Ms Hendo suggested, but how often do you get a grade for looking into an old creepy house?

“Wanna meet after school. You can come over to my house and we can look up those articles. Then we can take my car to the edge of town and go investigate the remains of the house. I’ll bring my camera just in case we see a ghost!” I wink with a chuckle.

“Maybe we can go to the back yard where they are buried? There are three crosses, right?” Jess asks, kinda looking confused. No one I know actually understands the whole story. Maybe they had a dog? I guess that is another thing we will be looking into…

“Yeah, sure. And you are right, there are three crosses… I’m just not sure why,” I admit. I guess we really do need to study those news articles to find out what actually happened to that house. All I know is someone died in it and then it burned to the ground… Well, sort of. It is still (barely) standing. There has been talk of taking it down as it has been deemed structurally unsound, but no one has gotten around to doing anything about it. And… Well, there are three crosses, so there must have been three bodies?

The rest of school went by in a blur. I had my mind focused on our upcoming project. There is just something about the house and the crosses that seemed to be bothering me. I can’t explain it, but something pricked my heart, and I just couldn’t focus no matter how hard I tried! I know anytime I pass a cemetery I feel sad, but this… This is deeper than sad. It’s like… Betrayal? I don’t get it.


After school, Jesse and I walk into my house discussing our project. We are still hyped up about the project. I really am wondering about the whole truth to the so-called ‘haunted house.’ Maybe we can share what we find out with our friends! They love a good ghost story!

I go grab some chips and sodas and bring them over to the table, placing them between me and Jess.

“Danny, this is gonna be so cool!” Jess smiles, munching on some chips. “I love Halloween!”

I love it too, I think absentmindedly grabbing myself a handful of chips and stuffing my face. (I always get hungry right after school.) There is just something about this time of year where getting the crap scared outta you is totally fun! Ghosts or not, I really enjoy it.

I pull out my laptop and open up a search bar for ‘Eliza Peterson’ and ‘haunted house,” because she was the one who is supposed to be the one haunting the house in the first place… There can’t be too many Eliza Petersons haunting houses, can there?

I crack open my root beer as I wait for the computer to do its thing. I take a long sip and almost spit up when I sit up and take a look at the search results…. I don’t really know why I am so surprised, but I am.

Surprisingly, it shows up in the first search. There are multiple articles about the incident. I click one of the links and it opens up an old newspaper article.

“Hey Jess, look at this!” I exclaim, pointing to a picture of a girl about our age. She was pretty, from what I can make out of the blurry black and white photograph.

The headline read “The body of Eliza Peterson has been found a week after the house fire on October 29, 1894.”

“Eliza was only 18. Casper, her husband was 22, and had convinced her parents to let her marry him, even though they were really reluctant, they finally allowed it… Man, she was as old as we are!” The thought kinda throws me off. Why would she agree to marry him? Were they in love or was it one of those arrangements? Were they getting money out of it?

I don’t think I’d be ready for that type of commitment at my age. In fact, I haven’t had a girlfriend for months now… Not since Steph cheated on me. That’s why I hang out with my buddy, Jess. He’d never betray me. What would it be like to be married at 18? Would it be scary or was he excited about it?

Unfortunately the article doesn’t answer any of those questions. I’ll just have to leave all that up to my imagination, since there is no way I can ask Eliza in person.

“It says Eliza caught her husband in her own bed with their maid, Ruth Harrison!” Jess continues reading the article in disgust. Now I know why I had the prickly feeling earlier. It was a tragedy, not a fun spooky story.


“Oh, yeah! If I was that chick, and I’d found my husband in bed with a maid… Or anybody really, I’d totally haunt that house too!” I admit. “I’d probably haunt the whole freaking town to vent my anger!” My stomach twists in empathy, thinking back to Steph. This story is a lot more depressing than I expected it to be. I didn’t really think it would hit home this much.

“She stabbed them both in her bed, and their bodies were still naked! Yuck!” Jess grimaces.

I am so glad there are no pictures of that! I don’t even want to think about what that would look like. I’d probably have to burn my brain after seeing something like that.

Now I’m gonna be sick. I guess that explains the third cross. But why would they bury the mistress right next to the wife? Are they trying to torture the poor girl even in death? If I were her, I’d be pissed! I wouldn’t even want to be buried next to my husband if I were Eliza! In fact, I think they should’ve just left the other bodies in the house and buried her out back and finished burning the house to the ground with them still in it!

“Then she slit her wrists in the bathtub just before setting the whole place on fire,” I say sadly. The whole thing makes me want to throw up. Whether the house is haunted by ghosts or not, it would always be haunted by the memory of a cheating husband. That is almost worse!

Yeah, if anyone had any reason to haunt someone, it was this girl. She must have been so angry! No… Anger is not a strong enough emotion. She was probably raging with fury. Not to mention heartbroken by betrayal!

I know I’m a guy, but even I don't know if I could take a broken heart like that. Yeah, Steph cheated on me, but we were not married like Eliza. I also didn’t have to move from my parents to be completely supported by some jerk! If I was married and found my wife in bed with another dude, I’d go ballistic too.

“They had only been married for a year, man! And it said she was pregnant…” Jess continues, his voice getting softer with pity.

Now I am really sad. They were going to have a baby…

What kinda jerk cheats on his pregnant wife and in her own bed?! It’s a good thing the guy is dead, or I’d go punch the man myself! I don’t understand why this is getting to me this much, but I am burning up with anger and aggression with no outlet. I am completely frustrated by what I’ve learned.

I would’ve been totally pissed and yeah, I might have done something crazy like kill them. And if the pain was so bad… I don’t know… Maybe she was hurting so bad that she just couldn’t take the pain… Maybe she thought she had no other choice?

Could she not go live with her parents, or would she have been the same of the town? Would everyone shun her for her husband's mistakes? I don’t understand why, but it seems like the same kinda backward thinking people in small towns would do.

“It says no one even knew they were missing. The firefighters just put out the fire and didn’t check for bodies. They weren’t found until a week later…” Jess says, confused.

I am confused, too. “What?! What the heck were they thinking of not checking for bodies?!” I demand, feeling very unsettled about the whole thing. It sounds like a freaking cover up! Did someone know what actually happened and not stop it?

“I have no idea, dude. I just know that they were sloppy! But, it says here that when the cops finally showed up they were scared off because Eliza showed up and chased them off the property. No one believed them of course and they sent someone else to check out the house and they found all three bodies. I guess that was where the rumor got started,” Jess sighs.

I think about that for a moment. Whether they saw a ghost or not, they should have taken the bodies and laid them to rest as soon as possible… Well, at least Eliza deserved some peace after what she went through.

We stare at the computer screen, snacks completely forgotten. I am completely lost in thought.

“Well as great as this is, I really want to see the house for myself now.” Something was still nagging at me! I need to see the whole thing for myself!

“Danny, man… I don’t know if that’s a good idea…” Jess looks unsure. He was fine with it just an hour ago! I know this info changes a lot of things, especially about our report. We would be exposing some major issues that no one else has thought to look into. Now everyone will know why Eliza had supposedly haunted her house… And that she was pregnant. I’d never heard that until now… but it doesn’t stop the fact that I need to be there!

I shake my head, determined. I need to see for myself, and no one's gonna stop me! If I have to go by myself, then so be it!


It took 15 minutes to drive to the outskirts of town and find the ‘haunted house.’ This is actually the first time I’ve driven out this way to actually look at the house. I’ve driven past it to get out of town and all, but I’ve never stopped… Even though I’d always been curious about the crosses in the back of the house that can be seen from the road.

I had my camera and my phone with me. We really didn’t need to bring a lot of equipment for our assignment. We’d probably spend the weekend typing up everything we learned and in a few pictures of the house and the crosses…

Jesse still looked scared about the whole thing. As long as I’ve known Jess, he’s never been superstitious, but I think something switched when we were reading the news report. He almost looks like he is gonna pass out.

I’m not gonna call him out on it. I’m scared too, but there is something that I desperately need to see… And I don’t even know why I feel this way? It’s not like I’ve known them personally, or they were even alive during my lifetime. But I feel… a connection to this? Maybe I need to have my head examined after all this…


Is it the injustice for Eliza? Am I feeling the betrayal she felt, even though hers would be a million times worse than mine. I was not in love with Steph, and nowhere near close to marrying her, but Eliza had given up her life with her parents to marry some two-timing snake… And she was having his baby, so she had to have some feelings for him… Right?

I look around to make sure no one is watching us, and we slip through the hole in the fencing and past the “NO TRESPASSING” sign. I really don’t need Sheriff Davis showing up and busting us… Then he’d tell our parents and we’d never hear the end of it!

The whole place is dilapidated, but not as bad as it could have been. I mean it is still standing… Sort of.

I shove the door, but it’s stuck. Must be waterlogged or something, so I push harder and slowly the heavy creaking door opens. The door is blackened, along with the floor, and every other wood surface. The smell of charred wood, smoke and mildew fill my nose. I think I’m gonna be sick! The wood is moist and mushy! Yuck!

I never really thought about what the house itself would feel like when I stepped into it. The only thing I can think to describe the surface of the house is squishy. I’m probably going to die of black mold poisoning or something… Is that a thing?

I take a minute standing there in the foyer getting used to the creeping evil I feel in the house, and look at Jess, he is turning green. Yeah, he can feel it too.

“You okay?” I’m not sure how I’m expecting my best friend to respond , because, NO! He is not okay, and neither am I. I just hope he doesn't end up puking all over the place… I guess I wanna know if I gotta rush him outta the house right now.

“Yeah,” he croaks. “It smells like death in here, man.”

And I couldn’t agree with him more. It wasn’t just the smell. It’s the feel. It feels… heavy… suffocating… empty… lonely… Is that what death feels like? I hope not, because I don’t wanna feel like this when I die!

“The article said the husband was upstairs in her room with his mistress,” I said. I don’t really have to say it, he knows it… But I just want to fill the oppressive silence with something… Maybe I should have talked about the skatepark instead? But somehow that just seems disrespectful to talk about our future plans when the people in here didn’t get to have a future because of the husband's ridiculous choices!

Jesse nods his head carefully, looking at me with trepidation. I just jerk my head toward the stairs. I don’t know why it's so hard for me, but I force my feet to move and carefully make my way up. There is a moldy burnt rug covering the steps making squelching noises beneath my feet.

I’m actually surprised the stairs hold my weight pretty well. Yes, they creak in protest of actually having to be used, but they don’t open up sending me to the deepest level of hell, so that’s a plus. I can hear Jesse’s steps right behind me, so at least I know he didn’t ditch me.

We make it down a short dark hallway. The window here is all covered in soot and shadows from the tree out back. It makes it kinda hard to see, but I’m not sure how much I actually want to see up here… So I will stick with the creepy shadows that feel like they are following me.

There is a closed door on the right and I push the heavy burrier open. It scraped across the soggy floor, sticking because the floorboards are completely warped. But I wouldn’t let that stop me. I am here to get answers.

The room was huge and was probably beautiful before it was burned. Everything was furnished for a nobleman. This definitely had to be the master bedroom. And if he were a real man, he would have shared this one with his wife. But he was nothing but a selfish piece of garbage. He didn’t deserve her!

“I don’t think this is the right room.” I state, grumbling out my frustration. The prick was freakin’ rich, but he treated his wife like trash! How could he do that to her? And what was the point of taking the maid to her room when he had a huge bed like this? Was he trying to hurt her more?

“Why not?” Jess asks, looking at me bewildered. Yeah, I know bud. She should have had this room!

“It said they were in her bed. I’m guessing this was Capsers,” I say in disgust.

I back out of the giant room and go across the hall to a much smaller bedroom, which was cracked open. This door gave way easily. And it was just as I had expected… And for some reason that hurt.

“This is it,” I state. A heaviness presses down on my shoulders at the words. I feel like the room is shrinking in on me. I’ve never been claustrophobic, but man… I don’t know how to catch my breath!

“How do you know?” Jess asks skeptically. He is looking around the small room too, probably wondering the same thing I was. How could a man put his wife in something so small, especially when she was pregnant?! Did it always feel like the walls were shrinking in on her? Or is that just me?

“I can feel it. The anger in this room,” I whisper, making my way to the smaller bed.

A sudden rage builds up in my gut and it pushes away my anxiety. All I want is revenge… For Eliza of course. Why would I need revenge? I don’t! I also probably shouldn’t be having violent visions of burning the house down… again!

I pull my camera to my face, focusing on the messy bed, and I click the button, taking a picture of the bed of shame. Amazingly, I swear I can still see the bloodstains on the bed. That thought didn’t make me feel any better, though.

I look down at my camera screen, showing the picture I’d just taken and almost freak out.

There, in high-definition, on the bed are two ghostly shadows staring at me. Their eyes are full of sorrow and regret. And yeah, they are still naked! I have to burn my eyes now… But how do I forget this picture? I wanna burn my camera too!

However, I am not gonna feel sorry for them. I don’t know if I would say they got what they deserved, but they were not exactly innocent in the pain they caused Eliza. This should have never happened. Seriously, though! How did they think she would react to finding them in her bed? Surely they wouldn’t think she would be happy for them! They can’t be that stupid…

I backed out of the room, trying to calm down my heart. My whole body is shaking in shock. I wonder if this is the first emotion Eliza felt when she saw them… It seems to be a likely reaction… If she was in shock, she could have walked numbly all the way down to the kitchen and grabbed a knife… She could have been going back and forth in her grief of disbelief and anger… maybe even bargaining before she grabbed the knife and decided to end their lives.

But that also has me wondering if she saw them in her bed… They stayed there just to wait for her to come back and kill them? Or were they in the middle (I just threw up in my mouth)… and she caught them and they just didn’t care that she saw them in the act? That doesn’t seem to make sense to me.

There is one more door at the far end of the hall. Like a beacon, it’s calling to me, and I can’t stop my feet from trudging toward their own doom. I don’t know why I feel like this is such a bad idea, but I just know. I know once I open that door, there is no going back…

My stomach twists, because I’m pretty sure what I’m gonna find in there. I try to block out the visions spinning faster and faster in my head. The newspaper had mentioned this room, and I have seen enough horror movies to help my imagination come up with some pretty gruesome scenarios.

And I was right. As I push the last door open. The creak sends shivers up my spine, and the smell makes me dry heave. My body is still shuttering from her bedroom, and I’m starting to sweat down my face. I’m sure I’m about to pass out any moment now…

I look across to see an oval mirror, smashed and splattered. A large tub filled with coppery bloodstains and a scorch mark. There is no water, but there is a ring of blood right up to the rim of the tub… It seems to have flooded to the floor. I see scorch marks on the walls, and I want to cry. This is the saddest thing I have ever seen in all my 18 years.

I pull my camera up to my face, focusing it on the tub that makes me spiral into my own depression, and take another picture.

I can’t stop the tears that are leaking out of my eyes. I can hear Jess behind me, sniffing. He must be fighting the sadness too… I shouldn’t have brought him with me…

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. It doesn’t even begin to cover the sorrow I’m feeling. I feel regret and anger. I want to fix this… But how do I fix something that happened over a hundred years ago? I can’t! I don’t have a do-over button, or a time machine that can let me go back to the past and change everything.

We back out of the bathroom and suddenly a beautiful girl in a flowy yellow dress appears before us.

Did I say I was in shock before? Yeah, that was nothing! My legs are locked up and my heart is in my throat. And if I can’t get control over my lungs, I swear I will faint any second now. I’m not scared of her, though. Just in shock!

She gives us a melancholy smile. She really is beautiful. She is no longer in pain. Or pregnant, for that matter… I do see the slits at her wrists. I can see the blood stains on her sopping wet dress that sticks to her body like a second skin. I can see every beautiful curve of her body… If she wasn’t dead, I’d totally be turned on!

I swallow hard, trying to control this weird urge to touch her.

“Hello, Daniel. You are nothing like my horrid husband,” she whispers sadly, floating right up to me and caressing my cheek. I can feel the cold touch of her hand. Is she a vampire and not a ghost? Maybe that would explain why I’m so drawn to her… I want to feel her touching me forever…

“No, I’m not.” Of course I’m not like that bastard! “I would never do that to you,” I insist. My voice comes out husky, which is weird, because it’s never done that before…

“And Jesse, you are so brave to come face my wrath with your friend…” she smiles, gently behind me. I feel slightly jealous at that look for some reason. That doesn’t make sense. I don’t own her.

“Thanks?” He chokes out. I can hear him taking a step away from us. Where is he going?

Then a twinkle shimmers in her eye as she leans closer to me, whispering into my ear, “I think I’m going to keep you, Daniel.”

“What?” I don’t understand what she is going on about. How the hell does she plan to keep me? Not that I would run for her… In fact, I would love for her to keep me.

The camera flashes as it falls from my hand and she kisses my mouth with a passion I’ve never known. Her kiss is addictive and I need it… I need it so bad as I deepen the kiss, pulling her body flush against mine. And everything goes dark.

The next day…

The police received a call about a car parked in front of the Peterson house. Police cautiously pull up to the house, investigating Danny’s car. They look around the property, but find on one on the land. Finally they go into the old house, but the only thing they found in the house was a camera.

The pictures show Danny kissing a beautiful young woman in a yellow dress, as Jess chases two shadowy figures through a dark vortex.

The end.

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