• Chapter 1
    Joanne fell onto her bed and sighed. She was bored, as usual, and was trying to think of something worth doing. She stood up and morbidly walked out of her room into the hall and went out onto the front porch. She sat down on a step and laid her head on her palm. Her hair rippled about her face as a gentle breeze blew by. She just sat there waiting for something to happen, and something did.
    The blaring sound of a police siren filled her ears. She flinched a bit and watched as it passed, filled with curiosity. She stood up and followed the car with her eyes until it disappeared in the distance.
    She ran into the house and grabbed her shoes, then ran back outside to the garage and pushed her bike out. She jumped onto the bike and pedaled her way down the street as fast as she could manage. She followed the sound of sirens to the old mansion on Sycamore Street.
    She surveyed the scene of ambulances and police cars scattered about the mansion’s front, just outside the black steel gate. One police was setting up the tape for the police line. She then spied a stretcher being carried out of the mansion’s front door. On it was a body bag. Joanne bowed her head as they loaded the body into the ambulance.
    She approached one of the policemen and asked him what had happened.
    “This woman died last night in her room. We don’t know exactly what happened except the diagnosis from the doctor says that she died of fright. Poor woman.”
    Joanne’s mind raced with questions, she thanked the man and walked away. As she slowly pedaled home, her mind buzzed with curiosity. She finally came to a conclusion. She decided that she would go and investigate the mansion herself, but first she must find some things out.

    Chapter 2

    She went around town interviewing people about what they knew of the house and what the lady’s name was. The lady’s name happened to be Dorothy Winchester, a middle aged woman who had moved to the house three months ago from California. The lady was as healthy as an ox and most people were puzzled that she could die so suddenly; she had no medical problems. That was all she really needed to know, except she thought that she might go to the library and do a bit of research on the house itself.
    In the library she discovered that there have been over fourteen deaths in the mansion over the past one-hundred years. She shivered at that fact, but she had already made up her mind to investigate. She left the library. She had found out enough.
    When Joanne got home she had already planned that she go and investigate that night because if she proceeded to do so in the daylight hours, she could get fined by crossing a police line. She rummaged around in her closet and found her old backpack, which she intended to use. She opened up the bag and put inside a first-aid kit, a few bottles of water, her cell phone, a camera, and the map of the house which she had checked out at the library. The last thing she had to get was her flashlight, which she always kept in her bedside table, and hooked it to her belt.
    She snuck out of her house and locked the door behind her. She took out her bike and silently pedaled down the street in the shadows, eager to stay hidden. After fifteen minutes of pedaling, she finally can to the large, black, steel gate which guarded the evil mansion’s stone walls.
    Joanne cursed as she saw that the gate had been chained shut. She circled the immense grounds of the mansion around the gate. She came to a hole that seemed to have been dug out by an animal, under the gate. She got on her knees and clawed at the hole, digging it as deep as possible, so that she could fit underneath it. A half an hour of digging resulted in her ability to pull herself under the gate.
    She winced as she stood up on the other side of the horrid gate. She stretched her aching muscles and trudged towards the house. All of a sudden the house trembled and an ear-splitting roar emanated from its walls. Joanne gasped and fell backwards as the tremor reached her. She crawled back to the hole, or where the hole was supposed to be. The hole had been filled in. Joanne’s eyes widened as the scene got quiet once more. She was trapped within the mansion’s grounds. She glanced towards the house, not eager to enter the creepy mansion… but she knew she wanted to, for her curiosity overcame her.

    Chapter 3
    She slowly took her first step onto the rickety front porch of the mansion. The floorboards creaked under each step. She approached the door, which suddenly flew open without warning, throwing Joanne backwards. She crouched covering her face with her hands, waiting for something to happen to her, but when nothing did, she looked up. The door was wide open, but no one was there.
    She slowly stood up, the floorboards creaking under her newly applied weight. She laid her hand upon the door frame peering into the blackness of the inside. She turned on her flashlight, and shined its glare around the entrance hall.
    A grand staircase was the first thing she saw, with a ruby red carpet with gold trim running down its steps. The banister was missing a chunk out of it on the way up. Moving her flashlight’s glare to the left of the grand staircase, a hallway, and to the right another hallway and a door on the right wall.
    She stepped into the entrance hall, and slowly paced her way to the door. She turned the knob and swung the door open. Her eyes scoured the room, and it was a half bathroom. A simple half bathroom with white walls, a toilet, and an ivory sink with a pink bar of soap and a hand towel on a small rack. She shut the door once again.
    A huge crash broke the stillness and silence of the once-quiet room, then the steady sound of spraying water. Joanne let out a piercing scream and flung the door back open. She stared in amazement at the remains of the disturbance. The toilet had been ripped from the floor and flung against the wall. The remains of the water line from the toilet were spraying water in an endless cascade. The wall where the toilet had impacted had a large gash. The toilet had smeared bloody handprints on it as well as the wall… The faucet on the sink was dripping… Dripping a crimson liquid… The faucet rattled, and Joanne scrambled out of the room and slammed the door behind her. She went pale as a ghost.

    Chapter 4
    Joanne crept down the right hall and tried to open the first door on her left. It was locked. She took out her hairpin and picked the lock. The door swung open. She glanced around, uneasy as to what she might find. She stared open mouthed. What she had come into was a dusty old bedroom with pink walls. A small pink bed was on one wall. There were shelves covering the room. Everything was covered with a thin sheet of dust. It was a little girl’s room. To add to Joanne’s uneasiness, scattered about the floor were the heads from stuffed animals… On the shelves were the bodies, but on the floor were the heads, with the eye’s taken out of each one. There was a knife on the bed. She heard a faint giggle and the door slammed shut. With a late response, she whirled around and yanked at the doorknob. Pushing on the door and turning the knob as the giggling started up again, this time louder and never ending, driving into Joanne’s brain. The giggling stopped. The door flew open and she fell through the threshold, panting.
    The door slammed back shut, and the sound of a turning lock could be faintly heard. Joanne shook with tremors of fear and tears flooded her eyes. She lay back against the wall and cried, and the house shook with her in response. She hit the wall with her fist and left a crack. She felt like she was in a prison.

    Chapter 5

    Joanne made her way down the dark corridor to a door at the end of the hall. The door was slightly cracked and Joanne approached it with caution. She pulled it open slowly and the hinges groaned. There was a sort of glow flickering behind the door and as it was opened it was revealed to be a fire. The room was a dining area with a long cherry oak table with a red tablecloth. In the far corner of the immense room was an old desk. Yellowed pages were scattered upon it.
    There was a small fire in the fireplace. The fire poker was lying on the ground in front of a couch. As she took a closer look at the couch, a message had been burned into the back. “I see you!” Joanne gasped in horror and whirled around as the rocking chair by the mantle started rocking by itself. Joanne backed off towards the grand table.
    She turned back towards the table and saw a plate on the table with food remains on it and she looked at it with disgust because the food was covered with blood. She ran through double doors at the far end of the room and found herself in the kitchen. She slowed to a walking speed and looked around. She saw a walk-in fridge.
    Joanne opened the fridge’s door and the headless body of a bloody man fell on her. She blacked out in terror.
    She awoke to find the fridge door still agape and no sign of a body or blood. She heard a scream and the terrible sound of a crazed laughter, and the double doors rattled. Tears ran down Joanne’s pale cheeks. She had never been so frightened in all her life.
    Shaking, she jerked her head around as a grey figure scuttled about the floor, knocking about pots and pans. She couldn’t quite see what it was because of its blinding speed, which was inhuman. But even if it was quick, it was in the shape of a small bony human. It disappeared behind a counter, and Joanne knew it was going to come for her.
    She scrambled through the double doors and ran through the dining hall. The sounds of small feet close behind her. Her heart raced and her breathing was irregular as she ran for her life. She soon found herself in a strange closet in which she locked herself inside as she heard the tiny scampering rush past the door.

    Chapter 6
    Joanne turned around. The closet was full of boxes. She really didn’t want to open the boxes because she wasn’t sure what they contained… She heard the scampering again and she saw the shadow of the creature in the crack beneath the door, and it stopped. A single grey, bony finger ran under the crack under the door, making a scraping sound was it ran against the floorboards. Joanne caught her breath as an ear-splitting roar rang through her ears from the other side of the door, making the door shake violently. Suddenly, the door exploded and Joanne’s eyes filled with a white light.
    She regained consciousness in a strange sitting room. It was quite fancy with beautiful furniture. Suddenly she heard a series of arpeggios, and the upbeat tune of a piano filled the room. Joanne screamed. Her eyes darted around the room towards the sound… Her eyes fell upon a grand piano with the ivory keys magically playing before her eyes. The playing stopped abruptly. Joanne realized that it was an automatic piano. A sigh of relief uttered from her lips. She looked around but realized the room was a dead end. They crept out of the room and went up a flight of stairs that strangely wasn’t on the map that she had. Joanne looked down the hall that was located at the top. Joanne looked both ways. To the right was not very much and just a wall, but the other way was a long hall with no doors along the way and a blank wall at the end. For some reason magically out of thin air a double-door appeared. Joan stared down the hall, dumbfounded. She crept up and carefully opened the door… There was a loud creek as the door tore from Joanne’s grasp flew open. Joanne jumped, and held herself to keep from shaking. The room was a bedroom. Her mouth flew open in horror. There was a figure in the bed…

    Chapter 7
    Joanne let out a hideous scream. The figure stirred in the bed, and slowly rose. Joanne’s eyes bulged with fear and she fell to the ground clawing at the floor, trying to back herself out of that wretched room, her heart racing. It was too late. The figure lurched towards her. Her flashlight dropped to the floor and flickered as she blacked out.
    Joanne awakened to find herself in her house, in her bed. Her eyes wandered about the room, her mind racing. She thought to herself, “Why am I here? What happened to me?” She finally found the strength to pull herself out of bed.
    She looked her bedside table to find that her flashlight was not there. She stopped in uncertainty and slowly looked up. She stared in horror upon the figure in her doorway…

    The end…
    Or is it…