Ghoulishly Yours

"Lou!" he yelled out and slid into the room, not stopping in time to keep from running into an old table and chair. His eyes darted frantically around the room for any sign of the beloved girl, but she was nowhere to be found.

The other boys came screeching in much in the same way that Kid had…their guns drawn and ready for action. "Lou?" they questioned.

Kid immediately split them up again in a desperate attempt to search the entire top floor. Noah and Buck took the adjoining room without orders, and Jimmy ran down the hall. Cody stayed in the room and timidly listened to everything around him, while Kid tried to get light in by opening the window.

And then, with a horrible squeaking creak and a slow motion, the top to a coffin in the corner began to rise. Cody's eyes widened it pure terror and he began taking steps backwards towards Kid. His hands were continuously feeling behind himself, while his eyes never left the motion. "Dr…Dr…Dracula!" he whispered. "Kid…Kid…"

His friend did not respond, and when Cody had come within arms reach of him, he grasped his shirt sleeve. "Cody, quit it!" Kid snapped. "Let go of my…"

Immediately he was drawn to the very same motion that had attracted the young Cody's fear. "Don't move," Kid ordered, watching the top opening inch by inch.

"Don't worry."

Kid stepped towards the movement, licking his lips and trying to drown his fears simultaneously. His ears strained as he listened for the sound of struggle, grunts and groans filling the air. "Hello?" he called out.

The only reply was yet another noise of strain. And then, in one final heave, he saw it…a white webbed hand came out of the box with fingers out stretched.

"Kid, get me out of here!" came a cry of anger as Lou let the lid fall back down.

His eyes widened at the realization that the moving object in the coffin was none other than Louise. Kid took off and hesitantly Cody followed right behind him…the top to the large carved box requiring both of their efforts to open. "Lou! We're getting you out, we're getting you out!"

When they finally were able to open it up wide enough for Lou to climb up, they let it fall back with a loud crash. Kid gasped when he saw her appearance. Her hair was matted and tangled with white stringy spider webs, and her face was covered with dirt. She quickly began brushing it off frantically, looking to the boys for support.

"Help me, won't you?" Lou pleaded, the thought of creepy spiders crawling around her body increasing the speed of her arms knocking the sticky strings from her hair. "Kid, HELP me!"

Kid watched her with terror unlike any that she had seen before. The whites of his eyes were visible on top and bottom and he slowly backed away from her. "Lou," he said slowly, "there's something you gotta know about me."

She looked at him, and then over at Cody who had suddenly disappeared from the room. "What!?" Lou jumped and twisted in all different directions to break herself free.

"Lou, you know how much I really love you, right?" Calmly, he moved towards the door.

Lou narrowed her eyes, and whisked a web away from her face. "KID, I could care LESS right now! Come on, I'm scared here, help me out of this!"

Kid swallowed, "Lou, every since I was a little boy, I've had this fear."

She grabbed the sleeve of her coat and ripped it off, stomping with her foot. "I'd be worried about your fears now if I were you…ME for instance!" Lou stopped in the middle of her mania for a moment and put her arms across her chest sarcastically. "Okay, tell me, Kid, what were you terrified of as a boy?"

He licked his lips and watched the eight-legged creature crawling around her neck as it slowly made its way down her arm. Kid tried to overcome his terror and brush it off, but he couldn't. Instead he stepped backwards and answered, "Spiders!"

Within two seconds he had bolted out of the door before she had time to give a response.

Lou looked down at her arm, saw the creature and froze…only seconds before bellowing out with a horrendous yelp and taking off in the footsteps of the man that had just left.

Noah slowly backed up, and not thinking that the sound he had heard was completely human, he securely grasped the handle of his gun. His eyes darted around the room looking for any sign of Lou.

Buck on the other hand was in the same darkened room, but neither of the two men were aware of the other's presence.

With slow backward steps, they moved in the same direction…both men looking around anxiously for anything that might jump out at them. In more than a few seconds, they both ran into each other and wheeled around with boyish fright and a girlish scream. "Stop or I'll kill!" Buck and Noah yelled simultaneously.

When they realized their mistake, they busted out with laugher. "You tell Cody about this, and you won't have to worry about being afraid again," Noah threatened.

Buck gave the same ultimatum, and then they shook on it. "Deal."

So, with a new burst of courage, they walked back down the hall…side by side.

Jimmy made a complete circle around himself before stepping out of the far room. He'd reached the conclusion two spider webs, three creaky floor boards, and seven whistles through the window ago that there was no sign of Lou anywhere.

With resignation he headed back out the way he had come…hoping that he hadn't gotten himself turned around in the process.

It was then that he heard the muffled scream--distinctly from a woman--and took off through the darkness, tripping over chairs and the edge of a floor rug.

"Kid! Get back in here or I swear I'll kill you!" she screamed plodding down the steps in the darkness after him.

"Kid?" When he didn't respond the first time, she stopped and looked around. An unsettling feeling passed over her…one that was hinting at the fact that something terrible was about to occur. The spider was now (I as the writer can safely say) smashed and pounded into the ground a few seconds before, and all that remained were the gooey webs on her forehead.

Just then Buck and Noah burst down the corridor side by side and answered Lou's distress call. "Kid's gone," she whispered before they had the chance to make any comments.

"He can't be," Noah laughed, thinking that this prank had gone to far.

"He is," Lou mumbled.

"How do you know?" Buck stepped forward, trying to calm the panic before it started in full-force.

"I just do! He was right here in front of me, and now he's gone." Lou called out, "Kid?"

The three comrades walked shoulder to shoulder…Louise once again making sure that she placed herself between the other two men. They walked back down the steps that lead to the front door, and hoped that Jimmy would show himself as well. It was decided that there would be no more splitting up or dividing into search parties.

There's power in numbers, as Lou reminded them.

Buck and Noah's eyes continuously darted from side to side, while Lou remained staring straight ahead. She watched every single flicker of light that came in through the closed curtains, and hoped that this would all turn out to be some nightmare. The shadows on the walls were deceiving, and more than once the three of them jumped at the motion.

"Hey, Buck?" Lou asked calmly.

"What?"

"Do you believe in ghouls?" she asked, trying to sound very scientific about the whole thing.

"No."

"What about goblins?" Again, she posed the question with simplicity.

"No," his voice trembled.

"Ghosts?" Lou bit her lip.

Buck stopped, causing them all to do the same thing. He slowly faced her with his dark eyes. "Yes."

"Ghouls and goblins…" she opened her mouth and stammered, " and ghosts?"

Noah stepped back from the two of them feeling deep, passionate, overbearing fear and said the only sensible thing he could think of, "Oh my."

Kid wasn't sure where he had made the wrong turn…he just knew that he wasn't in the original spot that he had originally intended to be, originally. He was lost in the hallways of a strange place, cut off from his friends, and not able to see anything in front of his face.

Another screech struck through the air as he lifted his left foot to take a step forward. He blinked several times to try and make out any distinct marks in the darkness. And then, with a glowing radiance almost more dramatic than the rising sun, a pair of green eyes beckoned him forward.

So, in a trance, he followed those same overbearing eyes…a soft cooing sound urging him onward, begging him to come hither and join. He knew that he needed to look away…to follow the advice and warnings that had been given in that letter, but he could not. It was too captivating and beautiful.

Thus, he moved onward with no intention of going back…

Buck had the innate feeling that they were being watched by someone or something. He didn't want to alarm anyone too suddenly, so at first he kept the notion to himself. However, it was when he saw a pair of lovely green eyes glaring from behind that he was unable to keep it all concealed inside of himself.

And then came a rustling.

"Kid!" Lou ran to his side and caught him just as he was about to step off a rather steep slope. "What's gotten into you?" she asked.

Kid shook his head trying to break free of the cloud that hung over his mind and weakened the inner will. He looked slowly to Lou, trying to make out her features. She was lovely, even in a dark haunted house.

"I…I don't know. I saw the light, I heard singing, and I just went," Kid placed his hand on his forehead and tried to piece the events together.

"Well, you disappeared for almost an hour and had us all scared stiff," she scolded, helping him find his way back towards the other riders.

Another screech bellowed through the air just as she finished, causing them all to stiffen and turn in the direction of the green eyes that were a beacon…although not a welcome one. They moved around through blackness and tried to find their way out of the building…the nighttime's cruel relentlessness only making their vision worse.

It seemed that no matter which way they went, the eyes only followed them. They never gave away, except for few short-second intervals when they flashed off and then back on again…teasing, taunting, and mocking their very existence.

Jimmy watched the eyes, his instincts telling him that something was seriously wrong with the vision before him. There was something almost funny in the screech and the cries that came from the back end of the house. But with Cody's wide eyes, and Buck's near superstitions, he didn't think that this was the time to bring up his guesswork. Sneaking around the outside of the others, Jimmy headed straight for the sound, realizing that if he closed his eyes he's be just as well off as if he kept them open. The house was dark that it wasn't as if he could see very well anyway. Thus, Jimmy led himself towards the noise using nothing but his own sense of touch.

Kid and Lou froze in position and waited for something to happen…although not sure what…while Buck seemed to slowly understand what it was that Jimmy was doing. Cody had backed up against the wall, the fringe of his jacket shaking with his own body's tremble.

"Um, where's Jimmy?" Lou asked slowly, making sure that Kid could stand up on his own before she let go of her grasp on his arm.

Nobody was able to answer the question and Lou wondered why it was that as soon as they gained one person, they lost another. "Or…" she looked around, "Noah?"

It was a few seconds later that they heard a horrific screech, one more grinding on the ears than any of the others. "What was that!?" everyone shouted.

Jimmy's cry was what sent them all taking off into the darkness. They stumbled over each other and ran full force.

"Ouch!" he shouted again.

Buck ran smack into him after he yelled, "Jimmy, what's wrong!?" he asked.

"I don't know," Hickok cried, sucking on his finger. "Whatever it was bit me!"

"Bit you?" Lou asked, now almost annoyed. "Ghosts and scary things like that don't bite you."

"Oh yeah?" he shot back, tasting his own blood from his wound, "You try sticking your finger up there and then see what happens."

Kid came forward, the eyes of their monster not nearly as frightening as they had been before. In fact, he noticed now that after every few seconds, there was a blink in between. "What is it?" he asked.

The reaction that came from Buck was the last that any of them would have expected. In a few short seconds, he burst into laughter and could not stop. He tried to speak, but the words that formed on his tongue could not be understood by anyone in the room.

"Shut up an tell us what it is!" Jimmy yelled, feeling himself pulled down by the evil clutches of laughter. Although he had no reason to laugh…

"It's a bird!" Buck shouted suddenly.

"A bird?" they all questioned.

"That doesn't make any sense!" Lou said for all of them. "You mean a bird was screaming?"

Buck did nothing but nod as he wiped his tears away. "It's a screech owl!"

"Boy I'm so disappointed I could cry!" Lou said as they mounted their horses and started the trip back to the station. She had gone into this not wanting to find trouble, but rather an adventure. In her mind she'd created a magnificent fantasy about what great lady they would save, or what they might find along the way.

Kid looked at her and wondered if he should be angry or not. "What do you expect? We saved a stupid bird from a house, and managed to get scarred and bruised. Why would you find that disappointing?" he groaned sarcastically.

Lou ignored his mood and took a deep breath of frustration. After all that they had been through, it was just a stupid bird making the noise? It just didn't all add up. "I just don't get it. There's got to be something else that caused this! I want to find out."

Everyone looked at her with piercing eyes and she hastily responded. "I didn't say today!"

"Good," Jimmy said, brushing the dust off.

The riders took off down the same path that they had started up before…only this time there was no solution to the mystery. What had caused the hypnotic feeling? It was obvious that the owl's eyes had been alluring, but how did that account for the other mysteries such as the letter?

Lou contemplated all of these things as she listened to the boys chattering about everything. Although she knew they would never admit it, she was sure that even their strong natures had been freaked by the events. Silently, she laughed.

It wasn't a day after they had all pretended that nothing had happened, when Lou once again ran across the original letter that had started this whole game. She hesitated opening it, but her curiosity got the best of her, and she read it once again…only this time she noticed something she had not seen before. Faint and small script was written across the bottom. It was barely legible, but she was determined to see it…knowing that it must be the one and only key left to solving the great mystery…

In a few moments Lou forgot about getting lost, the whole events with the coffin, Kid's fear of spiders or the other odd occurrences, and was lost once again in the fascination that had lured her originally. She waited until she was sure that everyone had left the house before she allowed herself the satisfaction of scanning over it once again, saving the newly discovered part for the very end.

…this letter has been completely made up from all angles. There is no haunted house, no sinister eyes, and no problems at all. It's just a small plot that I wrote in my free time for a school project. The teacher says that if I keep writing like this, I might win the 1861 contest for young authors. I don't know though, I think I'll just throw it away…

P.S. Wouldn't it be hilarious if someone found this letter and fell for it?