Haunted Mansion

     It was mid April and raining outside, I lie awake in bed, motionless.  I was listening to the rain from outside my window.  The rain hadn’t stopped all day.  I was trapped in this dirty, old, creepy house with only my parents to keeping me company.  Some company they were though…always working or busy, they never had time for me.  Being an only child my parents got me a dog for my 12^th birthday a couple of years ago and since then he’s been my best friend, and my only friend at that. 
     When we moved into this house I was only 9 years of age.  We got it for a bargain because of how old it was and the real estate agent had told us the owners of it had strangely disappeared.  He said they were known for leaving without an explanation though so nobody was too worried about it.  I found it a little odd that someone would leave such a mansion of a house behind though, and not to mention everything they owned inside. 
     When I first walked in the double doors in front of the house I remember seeing cobwebs and dust everywhere, like someone hadn’t been inside for years.  I remember seeing the two rows of staircases on either side of the foyer hooking around to the dark top floor.  If you took an immediate right as you walked into the front doors you would find yourself standing in the overly sized living room and if you took a left you would find yourself in a large out-dated kitchen.  Going upstairs we found lots of bedrooms and in the middle there was another living room a bit smaller than the one downstairs, but it was still very big.  We only saw glimpses of each of the 7 bedrooms, the courtyard with not just an empty and dirty fountain but also a pool, and the giant covered porch wrapping around the entire courtyard with 6 white cracking columns on each side creating 5 arches between each of the columns.  Without a second look my parents said in unison, “we’ll take it.” 
     So now here I am 5 years later and still living in the same old house.  We fixed the cracking columns and cleaned out the pool and the fountain, filling them and then admiring them from the now clean porch with chairs and tables all around it.  Of course we hired a cleaning crew to dust off everything, vacuum, and sweep, and then we hired an electrician to fix the electrical in the top floor but we still had trouble with it to this day.  It constantly made strange noises and with the tiniest thunder storm it would all go out.  My parents still were busy all the time and we constantly had people over from their work, we had their work parties here every year too.  Christmas, Halloween, Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Labor Day! Any holiday you could imagine was always hosted at our house.  It got old… all the parties, all the noise and people I didn’t know.  I usually hid out in my room with my dog, trying to sleep or occasionally doing homework. 
     So now in my warm bed I lay awake listening to not only the rain, the lights of the hallway struggling to stay lit and of course the loud commotion of yet another party being hosted in the house this time because of the weather conditions.  I couldn’t sleep so I decided to count how many seconds after a crash of lightning it would be before I heard the growling of the thunder follow it, then I would count how many seconds it would be before the lights went out, which was never delayed very long.  With my dog at my feet I heard the biggest crash of lightning I heard all day and as soon as I heard it I started counting, 1..1000..2…1000…3…1000…and then there was the grumbling thunder shaking the floors and my bed, 1..1000…2..1000..3…1000..4…1000..5….and there go the lights. 
     I woke up the next morning to the sound of chatter in the kitchen downstairs.  I slowly pulled the warm blankets off my body and swung my feet down to the hard wooden floor, standing up I could feel a tension in my neck and a scratchiness in my throat.  I must be getting a cold or something.  Walking down the giant staircase to the trashed foyer and then walking through the foyer to the large now updated kitchen, I noticed something quite unsettling…the kitchen was empty.  Yet the chattering of my parent’s voices and others continued.  I went into the living room to try and figure out where their voices were coming from but I found nobody there either.  I walked back into the kitchen where I walked to the back door, opening it up to the courtyard where I then again find no one.  The chattering of their voices continues but this time they are growing louder in my head.  I search the house running around franticly trying to find them, but they are nowhere to be found.  I shout their names, I scream their names I cry out their names but there is no response, just the chattering of their voices in my head.  I run up to their bedroom, struggling with the door knob for my hands are shaky and clammy, finally opening the door I find my parents in bed...  The voices in my head stop as I see that their bed is stained with blood.  I walk over to their bed side to find that their throats had been slashed.  In shock I run to my room slamming the door behind me.  I run to the corner of my room and find myself in the fetal position on the floor.  I can’t breathe, I can’t move, I just lay there helpless and scared.  Suddenly I stop breathing all together for I have noticed something disturbing.  Someone is in my bed.  I stand up, walk over to my bed and look down at the blonde headed blue eyed girl in my bed.  I look at her throat that has also been slashed.  I look at the blood stained covers on top of her.  I stumbled back in horror; this girl I was looking down at was me.  I reached up to touch my neck.  I felt the deep gash where my throat had been cut.  I look down at my feet to find they were no longer touching the ground.  I looked around the room, confused and scared.  I saw that the door to my room had been opened and in the door way were my parents, but it was as though I could see directly through them.  We were all dead; our souls had left our bodies.  We were now ghosts and not the only ones at that… Going downstairs with my parents I couldn’t now see what I hadn’t been able to alive.  I saw all the spirits that lived in this house before us, and all of my parent’s party guests.  The trash in the foyer I thought I saw when I walked down the first time was now blood…it was everywhere.  All the families and married couples just lingered in the house.  I saw the previous owners of the house, they were floating around the house as if it were still theirs, not even noticing the rest of the spirits around them.  They were all trapped here forever, and now we were a part of them.  The house was cursed.  The spirits living here were too much for any human to survive here.  Within 5 years the spirits will have had enough and gotten rid of whoever lived in their home. 

                Years later someone else bought the house, with the cobwebs and dust.  Once again moving in, they thought they got a bargain, when in reality they bought a death wish.