BY GEORGE REDDISH

There I was in the dreadful house right below a spiral staircase I could hear a tapping on a window. The door shut with a slam. I could see shadows moving at the top of the creaking staircase. A closet was moving to my right where I could hear a moaning and groaning. The moonlight was shining down on my body through a double glazed, smashed window. How on earth had I got myself into this mess. I thought back to how it had all started….

I was coming back from school and I was with my best friends Ben and Jack and we decided to take the shortcut through the woods because the Simpsons was on at 6:30. We went through the dark, eerie woods. I could sense thousands of insects crawling all around us. I could hear the song of the wind howling in our ears. I could see spider webs hanging from tree to tree. Then we all stopped as we turned around a slippery corner. Right in front of our eyes was a horrific sight. It was an old haunted house. The porch had two stone gargoyles staring down at us. It was a 3 storey crooked house. On the roof the old stone tiles were crashing down on the muddy drive. The old garden was a huge patch of mouldy grass with a dozen oak trees round the perimeter. The fence was just a few wooden blocks strapped to a long metal wire.

We stared at the house for a while then Jack mumbled to me, “I dare you George to stay in that house for one whole night.” I froze in terror. I was petrified by what Jack had just said. I didn’t know what to do. But I had to carry out the deed because if I didn’t they would call me a wimp for the rest of my life.

I stumbled into my house still in shock. I packed my bags ready for the big night. I called Ben and Jack and told them I was going to do it. I grabbed my bags and headed off to the mysterious house. As I was going through the barren woods I was thinking how I was going to survive in the old haunted house. I had covered a lot of ground from my house and I was nearly at the slippery corner. I kept on walking until I got to the dreaded corner.

I went round the corner were we had first seen the house. I stumbled up to the terrifying house and started to open the creaky wooden door. As I pushed the door gradually I started to walk in and then I stopped dead at the bottom of a creaking staircase and that’s how I find myself here now. I slowly walked up the hardwood spiral staircase and looked for a room that wasn’t drenched with water and covered in cobwebs. I finally found a room that was just bearable to sleep in. I lay down in an uncomfortable king sized bed and shut my eyes and drifted into a deep sleep.

I could hear noises of a woman screaming and suddenly I sat up in the bed and curled up into a ball because I was so frightened. I didn’t think I would survive the rest of the night. It felt like I was being tortured all night. I tried to get to sleep but every time I closed my eyes I could hear a faint scraping on the window then suddenly the creaky, old bed snapped under me with a deafening crash. Then everything went black.

I opened my eyes to see that the sun was shining. I could see a rainbow from outside the window. I got out of the battered bed and walked downstairs to the old door and opened it to find Ben and Jack with smiles on their faces.