Hide and Scare

My house has always been creepy. Situated in the mountains with hills rising up on three sides and a steep bank sloping down on the fourth, it is neighbor to an abandoned volunteer fire station that closed down 3 years ago due to lack of funding, as well as a mysterious tractor that has sat on a small lot down the street, untouched for the last 67 years. Not lacking in isolation, my home has been the choice hangout on Halloween and scary movie nights since the time I was 10 years old. My friends have never been shy about letting me know that the garage is a frightening place, or that the hallway is ominous, especially at night. Rattling pipes and an air flow pattern that tends to suck doors open and shut don't help in easing the haunting aspects of the house. I'd like to say I'm immune to the frightening qualities of my family home, but the dark figure I've been catching sight of out of the corner of my eye since I was 5 years old has always struck me as the most unsettling thing about the place.

This said, I never actually considered anything supernatural until last October, around Halloween, when a few of my friends and I decided to play a good old game of hide and scare. After a few attempts as sneaking up on one another, we received a call from another friend who was driving to my house to join us. We were gathered in front of the house to wait for them when my eye caught a dark figure at the top of the driveway, backlit by the orange floodlight that remains on across the street, illuminating the fire station parking lot. I nudged my friends, who saw the figure as well, and just as I was about to voice my thoughts on how strange it was for someone to be walking along a road at night, five miles up a mountain, the headlight of my other friend's car shone on where the figure was standing, and in an instant, there was nothing there. My friend claimed to have seen no one at the top of the driveway and we dismissed it as a trick of the light.

Later on, I was squeezing between my old dog's pen and the nearly vertical hillside to sneak up on a friend. I was stopped in my tracks when I felt a presence behind me and two hands rested on my shoulders, pulling my hair slightly. I laughed lightly, believing to be one of my friends, but my delight turned to terror when I saw all 5 of my companions at standing on the back deck. That's when I heard a gurgled, practically unintelligible, deep, masculine voice say something that sounded like "found you."

That's when I screamed. And I mean screamed.

I could feel hands pulling away from my shoulders as I darted forward, trusting my instincts which were screaming at me to run. Alarmed, my friend shined her flashlight to where I had been standing, and when I glanced behind me, I saw nothing. None of my friends could offer any explanation and we opted to hang out inside the living room for the rest of the night.

Further research about the house has revealed that its previous owner, a cop, died in prison after being arrested for molesting his daughter who has been missing ever since.