It was a dark and cold night. Alec was calmly driving his car and was very sleepy. He has already drivn more than 150 miles to visit his sister in another country.
After a while he saw a road sign. It said that he should take the next turn to the left, to come to the place where he intended to go. He drove down the highway and continued to drive. But when he got a bit further there was a crossroad. Alec didn’t know which way he should go and checked on his map. It didn’t say anything about a crossroad there so he assumed that it is new. Since there was nothing else to do, he hoped that he is fortunate and went right.
He didn’t have luck and after a while he saw he was lost. “What should I do now?” he asked himself, and as if something would want to answer him, the red light on the instrument board of his car started flashing. “Oh great,” he said, “now I am out of gas too.” He was so mad at himself for not stopping at a gas station two miles before.
Alec didn’t see this until he stepped out of his car; he was on the road in the middle of the woods. The weather wasn’t nice, not just that it was cold; the wind was blowing very hard too and it also looked like it’s about to rain at anytime.
He slowly stepped away from his vehicle. The wind blew in his face and he shivered. I have my phone in the pocket! he remembered. I’ll call someone.
He took his phone out and started typing his sister’s number and quickly called it. Why isn’t it ringing?! What’s wrong? He looked at phone’s screen. There was no signal.
Alec panicked: “What am I going to do? I don’t know where I am!” There was no point in panicking. He should return in a car and think of a solution. But it was just so cold, he couldn’t go to a car, he would freeze to death! He was walking around his car and tried to warm himself. He was blowing in his fingers to keep them at least a bit warm.
“Come here…Come here…” suddenly someone whispered. Alec wasn’t sure it was real until it happened again.
“Who is it!?” Alec shouted. “Is someone there? Hello?” Nobody answered. I’m getting mad, maybe I’m already dying, he thought. Normally he wouldn’t do that but he was left with no choice, so he followed the whispers.
He was walking, then he listened carefully to determine where the voice is coming from, then he walked again. “Hello?” he tried asking again. Still no answer, just the words ‘‘come here’’ coming from ahead. But then a little point of light appeared. Is it a house? Am I saved? Alec wasn’t listening to the whispers anymore; he started running as fast as he could. The little point of light was getting bigger and bigger and suddenly Alec saw a little mansion in front of him. It was not new and it wasn’t too old. It just looked very spooky. Well, what else to expect from a ‘mansion’ in a forest? Maybe there is someone in the house that would let me use his phone.
He didn’t feel upset and sad anymore – he felt happiness; although there was that dark feeling inside him, like some sort of the sixth sense, that something is not right.
Without hesitating he walked to the door and knocked three times on it. Nobody answered. “Maybe there’s just no one home,” he assumed. But then the door opened. “Hello?” Alec shouted. “Is anybody in here?” Still nothing.
He decided to go into this ‘mansion’ anyway. Step by step he walked into a dark and smelly place. “It smells like death in her,” he said. He felts sickness just by thinking, that someone in there really is dead and he made a grimace, just like he was about to throw up. He never really liked dead people. Not even those in coffins and all set to get buried. It always gave him the creeps. “Hello!” he shouted again and hoped for an answer. “I never should have gone into this house. What was I thinking? There definitely isn’t a phone here, which I could use.”
The very next moment something squeaked. It sounded like someone was walking towards him, but he didn’t see anyone. He was terrified. Are there ghosts in here? I really hope, I’m just imagining this, he thought. I would much rather see dead people than ghosts in here. He started breathing faster and faster and the footsteps were coming closer to him. Something breathed in his ear and he felt dizziness, then he fainted.
Alec woke up on an old red couch. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He was still in the mansion. There was a lit candle on a table next to him. “Hello,” he heard someone saying. He sobered up in no time. “Welcome to my mansion,” said a tall guy standing in a corner. He was wearing a dark coat, so Alec couldn’t see him clearly.
“Whh…Who are you?” he stuttered.
“Better question would be, what am I,” the dark guy said.
“Then what are you?” Alec quickly asked, and stood up.
“I’m a ghost,” said the guy.
“No! You can’t be a ghost. There are no such things as ghosts. No. I don’t believe. You aren’t ghost,” he disagreed.
“It’s up to you, if you will believe or not. But maybe this will clear your mind.” Light suddenly went off and in just a second another candle has been lit on. A guy in a dark coat was now standing in front of him.
Alec screamed. “You really are a ghost,” he said. “What do you want from me? Did you bring me in here?”
“What do I want from you? Nothing much. Just maybe to kill you.” He laughed very evilly.
“No please. Don’t do that to me. I haven’t done anything to you.”
“Well you came here, didn’t you? You came here, to me.” The Ghost man grabbed him and looked him with his red and scary eyes.
“But I…I didn’t mean to. My car broke down and I heard some voices calling me here. I will leave this instant. Please let me go.”
“You heard some voices? Maybe you are just stupid. Maybe you were stupid to listen to them.” He grabbed Alec even harder. “But I will let you go,” he finished and released him.
Alec immediately started to run. Then he heard the ghost saying something else: “I didn’t say that they will let you go.” Alec turned his head around and saw ten, maybe even more, thin and white dressed people. They all had blood in their dresses. Now Alec was even more frightened. He almost fainted again, but he succeeded to maintain conscious this time. He didn’t want to give up and when the white people started touching and grabbing him he fought back and ran to the door, quickly opened them and ran outside the house.
He was screaming all the time and running as fast as he could. “Hey!” someone shouted from behind him. “Wait up,” he said. Alec recognized his voice – it was that ghost from before. He didn’t want to listen to him, he just ran faster. “Stop!” he shouted to Alec. “It’s not real! It was just a prank.”
Alec heard him and stopped. “Wait, what? A prank?” He didn’t see that he was standing on the edge of the gap. “What do you mean?”
All of the guys and girls that were in the mansion before were now running towards him. They saw that he was on the precipice and about to fall, if he makes a wrong step. “Yes, it was all a prank. There is no such thing as ghosts. And those ‘whispers’; we put a few radios in the forest, with their volume turned on differently, so someone would follow them and come here. We just did it for fun! See? There is two of us,” said the guy in a dark coat and pointed at a guy, dressed the same as he. “We are sorry; we didn’t mean to freak you out so much. Now watch out. You are standing on an edge of a gap. You make wrong step, you… well you might die.”
“What?” Alec asked. And just in that moment he slipped and fell down.
“Nooo!” everybody shouted. They all ran to the place where he was standing. It was too late. He already fell. They were just looking at him fall down. It wasn’t too high, and the river running below. But still, the fall could easily kill him. The group of random teenagers was terrified and didn’t know what to do.
Alec was now in the river. Everybody was watching his body, floating in it. “He died didn’t he?” they whispered between each other. “I’m afraid he did.”
But did he?
based on a ‘sound story’ from Project 4
written by Jan Forjan
