Page 8A
_ At just the right time li
. on just the right night, as
if on schedule, a train
comes whistling down
the tracks - a train that
Si
The Kings Mountain Herald
‘That house was haunted’
By EMILY WEAVER
Editor
Fire Chief Frank Burns said that there was a two-
story house on Baker Street he heard was haunted.
One man who lived in the house complained that
he would often hear footsteps up and down the stair-
way, but when he looked no one was there. He
would hear the cabinet doors slam in the kitchen. No
one was there. The hallway light would come on
without any human hand flipping the switch.
Burns said that he didn't think too much of it at
the time, but after the house caught fire years later,
he remembered the tales.
A woman was living in the house at the time. She
jumped from a window to escape the blaze.
"I'm glad it burned. That house was haunted," he
remembered the woman saying.
The chief heard the same account of strange ac-
tivity from her — a woman who had never met or
‘spoken to the man who once occupied the house,
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
footsteps, cabinets slamming shut by some unsee-
able force, and that hallway light that kept turning
on by itself.
Could the house have really been haunted? How
could two people, who never met, give the same
strange accounts if they both didn't have the same
experiences?
Maybe we'll never know. The house is gone now.
The fire destroyed it...and in the ashes, settled years
ago, rises a mystery.
The chief. was able to solve at least part of that
mystery. Remember that hallway light that kept turn-
ing on by itself? That was from faulty wiring, Burns
said.
When the house was remodeled, a nail was left
inside the wall near the wires. When the house
would get heated up, the warm nail would act like a
conductor of electricity, short-circuiting the wires,
and causing the light to come on. It was that wiring
and that nail that actually caused the fire that
night....or was it?
Yet their stories were the same: disembodied
AND THE CONTEST WINNERS ARE...
Our thanks to the 77 young authors who entered our contest. Your imagination and creativity were
amazing. We at The Eagle hope all of you have a safe and happy Halloween!
Witch scared ghost,
ghost scared kids
By Sydnie Hay
Grade 1
Runnerup
The haunted house and the spi-
derweb and bats scared the chil-
dren. The witch scared the ghost
and the ghost scared the children.
..then the
furniture started to
move
By Ross Satherland
"4th grade
Runnerup
. Krackle, krackle, snap, snap.
The leaves on a Halloween night
were crunching under three kids’
feet while they were walking under
a bridge to go trick or treating. The
first house they went to was awe-
some. The ninth one was the best
one. That’s what they thought, at
least. .
“I think we should go to that
one,” said Anika. “Let’s not just
stand here the!” exclaimed Joe.
*Let’s go.”
So they walked straight up to the
front door and rang the doorbell.
No answer. They tried again. No
answer. They tried one more time.
Still no answer.
Finally Joe got so annoyed with
this little joke he broke the door in
and said, “All right, that’s it. Who's
the owner of this house?”
But as soon as he got a good
look at the house he calmed down
and said, “I don’t think we should
be in here.”
‘But all of a sudden something
grabbed him by his shirt and he
disappeared into the darkness.
We both ran after him but we got
pulled into the darkness too. The
hand did not feel like a hand. In
fact, it felt like the arm of a couch.
All of a sudden a very bright light
came on, bright enough to light up
a football field. A lot of furniture
was around us. We were tied up in
a cage.
All of a sudden the furniture
stared to move. What could be hap-
pening? I thought.
A witch, a mummy and a ghost
surrounded us, a couple of ghosts
and witches, in fact. We ended up
with Joe at least. We all three were
really, really, really scared.
f
“Who’s idea was this anyway?”
Joe asked. Anika and I both said,
“YOURS!” Joe got so angry he
started to break the bars. He broke
enough for us to get out. We saw
the door.
We all three ran out, and the
witch ran upstairs and the ghosts
and mummy came out. We ran all
the way to my house terrified, but
we calmed down.
Sometimes on
Halloween you can see
a light...
By Katie Ellis
8th grader
First Prize winner
We crept along the edge of the
woods toward the old, supposedly
haunted house. There was a rumor
than an old lady from Europe used
to live there. They said, “One day,
she turned off all the lights and |
they never turned back on, but
sometimes on Halloween you can
see a faint light in an upstairs
room’
After hearing this, Carly, my an-
noying little sister, Hannah, my
best friend, and I planned to go and
find out about the old house. Han-
nah was not, at all, happy about
going there instead of trick-or-
treating. I begged her a lot and she,
finally, gave in. And, of course, my
annoying sister just had to be lis-
tening to our conversation and de-
cided to invite herself. I had to let
Carly go or she would tell Mom
and everybody at school would
think we were liars, since we
bragged about not being scared of
the old house.
Halloween night, eventually, ar-
rived and we were excited about
our adventure. We were all dressed
in our costumes, just to fool Mom.
Carly was a cute little orange
pumpkin. Hannah was a scarecrow
and I was an adorable witch. All
three of us strutted out the front
door with big grins on our faces.
We raced across the street and
made our way up the old house’s
winding driveway. :
Once on the rotted front porch
we looked around in the darkness
to make sure no one was watching.
“Maybe I'll just wait out here,”
Carly cried right as I touched the
doorknob. “No...you’re coming
whether you like it or not,” I de-
manded back at her and flung op-
en the faded blue door.
I was the first one to step in the
" foyer. The house looked as if no
one had been there in centuries.
Cobwebs were strung from corner
to corner. Hannah and Carly
stepped in right behind me. I could
hear their teeth chattering. First we
looked around the first level, and it
was boring, so I decided to go up-
stairs.
“Don’t go up there. What if the
stairs don’t hold you,” Hannah said
to me.
““If” is a big word, Hannah.”
Hannah came up to the step I
was on. Carly refused to come, so
she waited. I reached the top of the
saircase before Hannah, and when
I turned around to make fun of
her...
Crassshhh...Bang! “Ouch!” Han-
nah screamed.
She fell through the old stairs
and was now in a deep, dark hole. I
couldn’t even see her. “And this is
why...” She was interrupted by an-
other voice.
“Who’s in my house?” the voice
demanded.
Then, suddenly, an old woman
with a huge brown wart on her
skinny, long crooked nose, came
raging toward me. I was absolutely
terrified! I froze in place and didn’t
know what to do.
“Fredrick, get these hulligans
outa’ my house,” she yelled toward
another room. Then it was silent.
My legs were shaking and I could-
n’t run away.
-
I heard a realy loud, long creak.
Then silence again. The nasty-
looking old lady started grinning.
Bang! !
Loud footsteps were coming to-
ward me from behind. I was too
horrified to turn around. I had an
idea. I searched for Carly’s eyes,
but she looked straight at the old
lady. I wanted to scream her name,
but she looked.
As I jumped into the hole with
Hannah I told her to jump. I was
sure that there would be a way to '
get out down there. I landed hard
on my feet, but caught my balance
quickly. I turned around and Han-
nah helped me catch Carly. She
was heavy, too!
We were on our hands and knees
searching for a door or something
that could get us out of there. Han-
nah found the cellar door and we
climbed out. I glanced back and
saw the old lady sitting at the win-
dow. “Fredrick”, a huge mummy
was halfway out the door chasing
us, and a ghost was in the window.
We didn’t slow down until we
slammed our front door shut be-
hind us. At the same time, we
sighed of relief that we wee all
safe.
“Are y’all OK?” my Mom asked
me.
“Maybe next we will stay home
and watched scary movies,” I sug-
gested.
“Good thinking,” Hannah
grinned.
PRINT THEM ALL.
A BIG "THANK YOU" TO ALL 77 YOUNG
AUTHORS WHO ENTERED OUR CONTEST.
OUR JUDGES NOTED A SURPRISING ATTEN-
TION TO DETAIL AND DESCRIPTION AND
SOME VIVID IMAGINATIONS, MAKING THE
DECISIONS DIFFICULT. WE WISH WE COUILD
RON ISBELL, PUBLISHER