as far as I know most people in Africa are not familiar with Halloween I once explained to an ex-girlfriend of mine that it's a time of year when people celebrate ghosts and she almost slapped the black off my skin because she thought I was screwing with her in retrospect I didn't properly explain the creepy holiday anyway the point is most of my friend friends family relatives and Associates don't know about Halloween I'm from a country in southern Africa and I have to be honest Halloween is not a big deal here I'm not going to disclose
my name or that of my country because some of the stuff in the story is illegal and I don't fancy spending time in the big house again I only know of Halloween because of the many European and American horror movies I watch not to mention I'm a devoted patron of internet sites like Reddit and creepy pasta even with my knowledge of it I was never big on Halloween that all changed last year when certain circumstances led me to move back in with my parents but let me first explain how this 35-year-old man ended up staying
with his parents again I was never formally employed I did several Shady deals around town which provided for my bread and butter I was what most people would refer to as a scammer or con man or con artist now before you judge me you should know that this wasn't my dream profession when I was a kid my country's economy is not that good and decent jobs are hard to come by anyway one day a deal went bad and it cost me my house my furniture my car and this force me back into my parents' home
I'm not married and I don't have any kids that I know of and so my parents didn't complain too much because I wasn't bringing extra mouths to feed one night in early of October of last year I was binge reading stories on the internet when I realized that most of them were centered on Halloween that's when it dawned on me that we were close to the spooky holiday a light bulb turned on in my head and signs rolled up in front of my eyes I had an idea this idea was going to get me paid
big time I could feel it I had to create a haunted house I had the perfect house in mind the house next door had been vacant for years when I was growing up different families moved into the house but never stayed for longer than a year I never thought about it I figured it was because of the rent or the bills or something like like that my parents live in an opulent Suburban neighborhood and most people can't handle the cost of staying in that area I knew the real estate agency which owns the house had
security guards that watched over the place but I knew one of the guards his name was George he had dark skin he was thin as a rack bald as a coot and he had a thick mustache whenever I got the chance I always chatted with him for a few hours he would would pour his heart out to me he would talk about his wife his family his job his boss and a bunch of other things I never really cared to know about I wasn't sure if he even considered me a friend and I wanted to
use this situation to gauge the nature of our relationship I approached George with the proposal of using the house as a haunted attraction for a few hours during his shift and he was hesitant at first however as someone who had whined to me about his measly salary he agreed after I convinced him that this could be an opportunity for him to make some money on the side he vehemently warned me that if he lost his job because of this he would have my head now since his job was usually as boring as watching paint dry
he also offered to help me with running the haunted house and this was music to my ears I just need needed one more person for assistance and John happened to be that guy now Jon is a thick set man who had always had the same crew cut hairstyle ever since I met him back in high school I know I said he's Thicket but if you say that to his face he may drop you with a punch he prefers to be called Big boned but John well he's a huge baby he also lived with his parents
but but he also had a well-paying job as a baker at a local supermarket he earned enough money to fend for himself but I guess he still wanted his mother to do his laundry and his dad to check for monsters under the bed which is why he was still residing at his childhood home anyway John was on board with helping out with the haunted house and even made posters to advertise the place he put them up all over the neighborhood he also brought discarded cookies and muffins from the bakery which he suggested we should give
to our customers after they have gone through the haunted house I love the idea because it really captured the Halloween concept of trick-or-treating even though we were actually giving both a trick and a treat to our customers that also meant we'll be charging the customers more and so I gave a double thumbs up to the idea next I needed props to decorate the house since I was dead broke I had to work with what was at my disposal my mother has a lot of bed sheets which I borrowed without her knowledge my younger sister Ruth
was a hoarder of dolls when she was a child but she neglected all her toys when she reached puberty my dad kept all the Ruth's dolls in the garage I also borrowed several of these dolls without telling anyone about it so when I finally had my props and team I felt confident this haunted house scheme would be a success when we went to the house to set up for the first time I was shocked with the deplorable state of the place I had never gone inside our neighboring house before every time I spoke with George
it was always outside the gate the yard was choked up with waste High brown grass the windows were caked with dust the 7ft tall Doro wall was man with green Vines and the raw iron front gate had enough rust to give you tetus just by looking at it the house was a typical Suburban home painted white with a sloping Blue Roof it had three bedrooms a toilet a kitchen a lounge and a dining room the little bit of furniture it had was the crepet filled with either dust or cobwebs the place was already creepy and
required minimal effort on our behalf half George told us the house had an electrical problem so it didn't have power his bosses had sworn to get the problem fixed but they hadn't done anything about it yet we didn't mind because the lack of power served our purpose well now it took us a half a day to set up everything we needed our target audience was kids preferably below 13 and since they weren't that hard to scare we didn't go full psycho on the decorations so the rundown of the haunted house was simple as soon as
our customers arrive the front gate will appear to have swung open by itself but in reality it was being pulled open by George using a wire he would be hiding deep in the thicket of brown grass in the yard the customers would be met by a small wooden table with a glass jar on top labeled feed me where they will pay their admission Fe if they pay George was supposed to play a recording of witches laughing from his phone if they didn't pay then George was supposed to play a recording of barking dogs John and
I would be inside the house if we heard the sound of laughing witches from George's phone we would get into our positions if we heard the sound of barking dogs it meant the approaching customers hadn't paid so we would lock the front door we were not going to entertain broke kids I mean this was a business an illegal one sure but a business nonetheless anyway after payment the customers would follow the concrete pavement leading up to the front door the pavement was smeared with ketchup which I also borrowed from home without telling anyone my mother
became suspicious on how the ketchup was disappearing so quickly and since my father loved this stuff she considered him the biggest culprit and I kept my mouth shut the walkway was flanked with tall brown grass where we planted doll heads on sticks the customers would walk down the pavement and enter through the front door which led to a spacious Lounge where dead lizards hanging on strings will dangle down from the ceiling George provided us with the dead lizards I have no idea why he had them or where he got them and frankly I didn't want
to know the loud wailing of a baby will then arrest the attention of the customers and they would follow the crying to a closet in one of the rooms before they reached the closet a doll would pop out holding a butcher's knife and it's meant to chase the customers out of the room John would be in the closet playing a recording of a crying baby on his phone he would also be the one pulling strings for the doll to walk and to make threatening gestures with its arms now this particular doll was spine tingling to
look at even for me I have no idea why my sister kept this thing as a child it kind of looked like a Chucky understudy because of its shiny porcelain skin the nefarious smile on its scarred face and its long bedraggled orange hair the customers will then proceed to the bedroom where I will be we call this room the white room the room's Furniture only comprised of a small rickety table a wooden rocking chair and a large fitted in bookshelf all of this furniture would be shrouded with white bed sheets I would also be cloaked
by a white bed sheet and standing next to the Bookshelf waiting for the customers to enter the bed sheet I used was enough to cover my whole body including my feet I was always concerned that one day I would trip over myself and not only fall but shamefully reveal myself to the customers but thankfully it never happened when the customers entered my room I was supposed to run at them and chase them out of the house when they reached the gate they would find the admission fee jar gone and in its place there would be
a plate with either a muffin or a cookie not a bad home haunted house for guys with Z budget huh business boomed in the first week John marketed our haunted house well his posters were quite alluring I had warned him to only advertise in our neighborhood we didn't want George's bosses finding out about this and getting us arrested John even spread rumors that the old inhabitants of the house were satanists who used to sacrifice children for fortune and fame the new news spread like wildfire and brought us a lot of customers since our Suburban neighborhood
was extremely boring people were always eager to jump at anything that entertains them at first mostly young kids were our biggest customers but eventually teenagers and adults also took an interest in our haunted house George's shift usually started late afternoon and John finished work at midday so we would open the haunted house at 4:00 and close at around 700 p.m. for two amazing weeks we made great money which we split three ways I was having the time of my life and I was thinking of milking this cow until it ran dry I wanted to run
this business until the end of the year however one fateful night forced us to retire early from this dream job we didn't know we wanted it was 2 days before Halloween and it was almost closing time it was already dark and we had agreed to do one more act before we called it a day I heard girls giggling from the hallway and a guy's voice said oh my that is scary the sarcasm and his deep voice was all too evident the group of customers continued cackling as they made their way to my room I heard
one of them complaining how this was a waste of money they reached my room and stood by the door the bed sheet funing me was pure silk so I was able to see through it the glimmer of the Moon spilling through the barren Windows was enough for me to confirm what I already suspected it was a group of teenagers now teenagers are problematic for a lot of reasons most of the time they didn't want to pay they were barely scared with our stunts and some of them thought it best to write on the walls steal
or break something in the house before they left this group was comprised of two girls and one guy one of the girls had dark skin short hair and Hazel Brown Eyes the other girl had long black braids tied into a ponytail light skin and dark brown eyes they were both wearing white jean shorts and were garbed by a pink and red tank top respectively the guy accompanying them was a well-built kid with thick black afro hair he wore skinny blue jeans and a gray t-shirt what's going on in here the guy asked as the trio
walked into the room the girls snickered as they swaggered close to each other well that's really inovative dude we could see you under that bed sheet the guy said I sighed for being made out so easily but then I realized that the teenager wasn't talking or looking at me he was looking the opposite side of where I was standing in fact all three of them were looking in that direction I followed their gaze and my heart stopped a few feet to my right there was someone Seated on the rocking chair in the room figure had
a white bed sheet blanking its humanoid body my mind raced to think of who it could be I considered the possibility of George or John coming into my Act the figure slowly stood up from the rocking chair and a sound of snapping and crackling bones resonated from underneath the bed sheet the humanoid figure stood at a colossal height it was about 8 ft tall and slim like a willow its shoes were sticking out from under the bed sheet its feet were facing sideways like how Charlie Chaplain used to stand and just like Charlie Chaplain it
shoes size was ridiculously long the shiny black leather shoes of the figure looked like the shoes of a cartoon clown all of a sudden the figure began marching towards the teenagers and with every step it took its bug's bunny sigh shoes pounded on the hardwood floor with Force the teenage girls wrapped their arms around each other and shuffled behind the boy hey man we get it you're a ghost you scared the girls but now you need to stop said the teenage boy like a bouncer walking up to someone causing problems in the club the figure
striding had a malicious intent to it its Giant Steps were rapidly decreasing the distance between it and the teenagers all right that's far enough pal don't come any closer I'm warning you I've got skills of combat the boy yelled at the figure but the fearure was already upon them the teenage boy swung a punch at the bed sheet and it flapped to the ground revealing no one underneath it the leather shoes that rivaled the size of a duck's feet had also disappeared my knees wiggled and a wave of uneasiness jounced my scrawny body as I
stared at the bed sheet laying flat on the ground the teenagers faces were all bleached with fear the van ity of the girls had disappeared and the bravado of the boy had evaporated they all screamed so loudly they didn't realize I was also screaming with them I began running towards the door and the teenagers noticed me they probably thought I was another Apparition coming after them and they bolted out of that room they ran down the hallway and went out the front door with lightning speed now before I exited the the room I was dumb
enough to turn back and my heart jumped in my throat at what I saw the Bony humanoid figure was erecting from below the bed sheet it stood once more at an abnormal height and its inhumanly long shoes had reappeared I yanked my bed sheet to the floor and I ran like the wind I sped down the hallway and burst out the front door I screamed for help from from John or George and I think I even yelled out from my mother in the process George Stopped me before I ran out of the gate and asked
me what was wrong I was too petrified to reply so I just pointed at the house John came wobbling out of the house and asked the same question as George and after a couple of deep breaths I tried to explain but I was interrupted by a sound emanating from the house it was a sound of a crying baby did you leave your phone inside the house I asked John his reply shook me to the core no I have it with me he even showed it to me the sound of the crying baby became louder it
soon seemed like there was a crying baby in every room of the house what is happening George asked no one had replied to him because we had all know noticed the cadaverous figure covered with a white bed sheet that was by the front door its protracted shoes were now hovering in the air as the figure floated a few inches above the ground the sounds of crying children had reached ears shredding volumes some of the crying seemed to be coming from the doll heads on sticks in the yard my stomach was a knots when I noticed
the gobs of worms pouring out of the Dolls heads mouths and ears the figure by the door stretched out its arms like Jesus on the cross and one by one the lights of each room in the house switched on my mouth was dry in a gape when I saw the dead lizards hanging down from the ceiling of every room in the house I don't remember putting up all those lizards I heard George mutter the figure eventually lowered its arms and all the lights simultaneous ly Switched Off the front door abruptly slammed shut in front of
the figure and the crying stopped that night George stayed at her house I forgot the explanation I gave my parents but I guess it was more believable than the truth up until now I'd never spoken to anyone else besides George and John about that night I tried convincing them both that it was a prank of some sort but but even I couldn't believe it George quit his job the very next day he used the money he made from the haunted house to open up a barber shop I told you we made good money John also
quit his job and became a Paranormal Investigator he goes around the country exploring and researching ghosts and haunted places his team once went into the house next door with cameras and a bunch of ghostbusting equipment but I never asked what they found I had already seen enough I soon moved out of my parents house I couldn't stand the sound of a crying baby I always heard coming from next door in the middle of the night I now have my own apartment on the east side of the country I'm not an expert on Halloween but I
have a feeling it had something to do with whatever spirit that came after us that night I asked George if something like that had previously happened at the house and he said no he had even asked the other guards and they said they never experienced anything of the sort during their shifts but my reasoning is this by celebrating Halloween we may have invited or awoken something Supernatural in that house I know it sounds crazy but John contacted me the other day and he said according to his Nationwide research more people in this country are celebrating
Halloween this year and based on the statistics this year now has the most ghost sightings in the country's history
