HUMOROUS GHOST STORIES
Seven Ghost Stories with a Twist of Humor
By Caitlind L. Alexander
LearningIsland.com
Editor: Jennifer Robinson
Smashwords Edition
(c) Copyright 2011 Caitlind L. Alexander. All rights reserved.
Published by LearningIsland.com.
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Humorous Ghost Stories / Caitlind L. Alexander
Summary: A compilation of seven spooky, scary ghost stories with a twist.
1. Ghosts. Juvenile Literature. 2. Pumpkins. Juvenile Literature. 3. Halloween. Juvenile Literature.
Reading Level: 4.5
Words: 11,751
Scare Factor: Age 9 and up. Some hints of unfriendly ghosts, no overt violence.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Wrong Way Round Hall
“Come On, Carrie,” I yelled up the stairs. “I want to get going.”
Finally my sister appeared at the top of the steps. She was dressed in a fairy costume. Her wings weren’t quite straight and her dress was a bit too long, but she looked OK. I had to admit that her costume was a lot better than mine.
There were some things I hated about being thirteen. First, your parents decided that it was up to you to pay for a lot more of the things you wanted. They also considered you old enough to start taking care of your younger sister.
I had to admit that Carrie wasn’t all that bad. But right now she was being a pain. She walked down the stairs slowly. The whole time she was watching her reflection in the big hall mirror.
“Would you come on!” I yelled.
“Why are you in such a hurry?” she asked.
“Because this is my last year to go trick or treating,” I answered. “Mom and Dad think I’m too old. The only reason I get to go tonight is because they have that Halloween party at the Johnson’s. That means I’m taking care of you, so I get to go one last time. I want to make it count!”
“I’m coming,” she said. By then she had reached the bottom of the stairs. I ushered her out the door and we took off toward “the hill.”
The Hill was what we called Pleasant Heights. It was a bunch of homes set on a hillside. They were some of the nicest and oldest homes in town. We figured if they were rich enough to afford fancy houses with a view, they should be rich enough to afford some decent candy. At least we were hoping so.
And we did all right. By the time we got to the end of the street, we had gathered quite a haul. Our bags were pretty full of chocolates, jawbreakers, candy bars, and all sorts of other great stuff.
The houses here were only on one side of the street. That way they had a nice view overlooking the city.
When we got to the end of the street, we tried to think of where to go next.
“I think we should go to Cedar Street,” Carrie said.
“Why Cedar Street?” I asked. “Those are small houses, not rich ones.”
“Yeah,” Carrie answered. “But the houses are close together. We can hit more houses in less time.”
I had to admit she had a point.
“OK,” I agreed with her.
Suddenly I saw a lane branching off from the end of the turn-around.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Carrie stared at it in the darkness. The lane quickly disappeared into a mass of trees.
“There’s a sign,” she said.
“And there’s a light on the sign,” I added. “And a pumpkin decoration beneath it!”
We hurried forward.
“Wrong Way Round Hall,” she read.
“Wow! The names some rich people think of for their estates,” I added.
“You think it’s an estate?” Carrie asked. There was no way to see the house through the thick tangle of trees.
“Only rich people name their houses,” I said. “It has to be something huge.”
“This is one house I HAVE to see,” she said. “I wonder if it’s sitting on its roof or what.”
“Sitting on its roof?” I asked.
“Well, it does say it’s the wrong way round,” Carrie answered.
“That would be cool!” I had to admit that Carrie was pretty cool herself. She wasn’t one of those prissy sisters who was afraid of her own shadow.
Carrie headed off down the lane and I followed her into the darkness. The roadway meandered back and forth like it wasn’t in any hurry to get where it was going.
The sun had set and the light had already faded. With every step we took, the lane was getting darker and darker. It also seemed like the lane was getting narrower and narrower. I was just about to suggest we turn back when we saw that it got lighter ahead of us.
“It must be right up there,” Carrie said.
We both hurried forward. We were happy to get out of that dark lane.
Suddenly a clearing opened up before us and we saw the house. It was nothing like what we expected.
Instead of a stately mansion, it looked like a run down shack. The house was on the small side. A large, glassed in porch covered the front.
The yard was covered with plants. A few were flowers, but most of the space was a huge pumpkin patch covering the entire front yard. It looked like there were about a thousand pumpkins growing there. Carrie and I stared at the patch a moment.
“At least that explains all the pumpkin decorations,” I said.
“You aren’t kidding,” she answered.
We looked at the front porch. The door to the glassed-in porch was held open by a carved pumpkin. A flickering candle light escaped out of his evil looking grin.
But he wasn’t alone. About 50 of his friends covered most of the rest of the front porch, but instead of smiling faces, many of them wore evil grins.
“Well, they’re at least decorated for Halloween,” I said.
“And we walked all this way through the trees,” Carrie added. “We may as well trick or treat.”
“They’ll probably give out pumpkin cookies,” I said with a frown. “I hate pumpkin cookies.”
We headed up the pathway. The stairs up to the porch looked so old and rotted I was afraid we’d fall through. We climbed them carefully.
As we walked across the porch, the boards creaked a warning. Carrie raised her hand and knocked on the front door. The sound was so loud that I jumped.
When she stopped, it seemed like the silence pressed in around us. Then I heard it. It sounded like a snickering sound, but it was so quiet I wasn’t sure.
Carrie and I looked at each other and I knew she heard it too.
“Who’s playing a joke on us?” Carrie asked loudly. We looked around but didn’t see anyone. That’s when I noticed there was something different.
All the Jack-o-lanterns on the porch were looking at us. When we were out in the yard, they had been looking at us out there.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “This candy had better be worth it,” I mumbled under my breath.
Just then the door to the house swung open. As it did so, I could hear a scary creaking sound behind us.
“Trick or treat,” Carrie and I said together.
We looked into the darkened house. Nothing moved.
“Trick or treat?” I said. It was more of a question than anything else.
“We’ll take the trick,” I heard a gravelly voice say from behind me.
We both jumped around and stared. There was no one behind u; at least no one that was human.
All of the jack-o-lanterns had moved forward. They surrounded us in a tight group. They were so thick, that there was no way to jump over them.
“Yeah, we’ll take the trick,” I heard another one say. “But the trick is on you!”
“Wh-what do you mean?” I stammered.
All of the jack-o-lanterns began rocking back and forth. With each rock they inched closer and closer.
“Didn’t you see the sign?” one of them asked.
“What sign?” Carrie said. I had to admire her bravery. She sounded more mad than scared. On the other hand, I was about to faint. I couldn’t even breathe, much less talk.
“At the end of the lane,” another jack-o-lantern challenged. He rocked forward. A bit of drool hung from the edge of his mouth.
“The only thing we saw was a sign that said Wrong Way Round Hall,” Carrie answered.
“Exactly,” another jack-o-lantern said. “Here we do things the wrong way round.”
They all laughed wildly. Their evil grins were getting wider and wider in the moonlight.
“What do you mean? Carrie demanded.
“Well,” the front jack-o-lantern said hungrily. “You do eat pumpkins, don’t you?”
Werewolf Fever
“There's a werewolf around. I just know it.”
“Johnson lost another lamb last night.”
“They found what was left of it torn to bits down by the railroad track.”
“And they found tracks of the monster too.”
“It was horrible.”
“They were huge.”
Sheriff Corbin listened as the talk around him started raising the pulses of the crowd. Finally he stepped in.
“All right, that's enough,” he yelled. “Frankly I don't believe all this talk, but if you folks are going to get all agitated up about it, then we're just going to have to figure out a sensible solution. Otherwise everybody is going to start killing off everybody else and before you know it the whole town will be staying up there on cemetery hill.”
“But what can we do?” someone asked.
“It's an unearthly monster,” someone else cried, and the talk started again.
“He'll kill us all.”
“We haven't got a chance.”
“There's no way to handle this.”
“Maybe the Reverend can do something. He's got to have some holy water or something like that.”
The sheriff almost laughed. He'd read enough stories about werewolves and ghosts to know that crosses only worked with vampires. Besides, all that stuff was just talk. It was funny how superstitious people could get in a small town and what funny things they'd believe.
The Reverend was quickly fetched, and just as quickly dismissed when he said he didn't know how to take care of werewolves. The sheriff could tell by the twinkle in his eye that he didn't really believe all this talk either.