The House on the Hill

This is supposed to be my Scholastic essay, which is awesome (to me) and it's like my best work yet (again, to me) WHICH DID NOT get sent by teacher, sigh :( But I shall share it here :D And okay, apparently the first part is retarded. Oh well, whatever,

“The house on the hill,                                                                                                                                                                                                           Is said to send chills;                                                                                                                                     That of those who came in,                                                                                                                              Are never again seen."

Those were the words I was told by my parents who got them from their parents and so on. Folklores said the house was built a few centuries ago by a man named Ed McCauley, with his bare hands. It was built for his wife who later ran away with a man she’s been having secret affairs with. Mr. McCauley was demented and shot himself.

Every few months, new people move into the house, but we never know what happens to the previous owners. They say Mr. McCauley still haunts the house, waiting for the man who took the love of his life away. He couldn’t pass the light, for he was still having a grudge in his heart.

It was the night of Halloween; I just turned twelve. I put on my Frankenstein costume and met with my two buddies, Jake and Lila. Lila’s a girl, but she’s kind of cool for one. So that night, while other kids were “trick or treating” with their parents, getting candies in their Halloween pumpkins, Jake’s idea was to go up to old Mr. McCauley’s house to check out if the ghostly tales were real. Lila and I agreed to follow.

We set up our bikes right in front of the house. The cold autumn wind gave an eerie sound to the background, branches of bald trees scratching the glass windows of the upstairs bedrooms. “Ready, Jake? Adam?” Said Lila, her voice was shaking; I could tell she was frightened by the sight.

“Yeah, on the count of three, we enter. One, two, three,” replied Jake. We took a few steps forward when a branch fell to the ground making a strident sound that made Lila jump in shock. “You guys, I don’t think we should go in.”

“Don’t be such a baby! It’s just a branch!” said Jake with all his confidence and quickly went inside.

We stood, three twelve year olds on the front porch of the house, when suddenly the door opened. It must have been the wind. The floorboards creaked as we stepped inside, cautious of everything around us. It was all dark, but we had equipped ourselves with flashlights before starting the journey. The corners of the white walls were covered with spider webs and dust bunnies. The furniture was covered in dusty, vast white sheets. Even the entrance hall looked uninviting.

“Let’s go upstairs first, and then we could check out the downstairs,” said Jake.

“Oh, uh o-okay,” I stammered, hesitating.  I wasn’t sure if we should go upstairs first, but then again, I wasn’t sure of anything. My instincts told me something bad was going to happen, but I couldn’t tell them that. I’d be called a coward.

One by one, we climbed up the stairs, Jake was leading the way. We entered the first room on the left; it was a bedroom with a huge portrait of Mrs. McCauley pasted on the wall, just staring at us with her beady eyes. The century-old red velvet bedspread was covered with dust, making it look maroon colored. “Hello! Is anybody here? Mr. McCauley! We’re in your bedroom!” shouted Jake.

I punched him on the side, “Dude! Are you trying to get us killed?” Jake looked at me with an irritated face, “Relax, man. There’s no one here. Ed McCauley’s been dead for centuries. What are you, a chicken?” The anger was building up inside of me, I knew I shouldn’t have done anything but he got on my nerves, so I shoved him to the ground.

“Adam! What is wrong with you?!” Lila was obviously mad.

“Well, he started it!” Without a second thought, I stomped out the door, walking, not knowing where I was heading. I muttered to myself of how selfish Jake was. I found myself entering another bedroom. I slammed the door behind me. There was a full length mirror with a gold frame on the wall. I wiped the dust away and saw my reflection, my face was all red. I threw the flashlight I was holding to the direction of the mirror; I didn’t want to see myself, I hated the coward I was. Tiny pieces of glass were scattered on the floor.

I couldn’t do anything; I was paralyzed at the sight, thinking of what I just did, when all of a sudden, Lila came into the room, tears rolling down her eyes. “Adam, have you seen Jake? He ran away and now I couldn’t find him. I’m so glad I found you,” she said, hugging me so tightly. I pat her back, asking her what had happened. “After you went out of the room, Jake started shouting and cursing someone named Howard. He took out a lighter from his bag and said that he was going to burn him to death. I tried to stop him, but he got out of the room too fast. Adam, he didn’t sound like himself. He kept calling me Jane. Who are those people?”

“Jane McCauley. She was Ed’s wife and Howard was the man she had an affair with. They say Mr. McCauley’s trying to kill the man who took Jane away. I’m guessing his spirit went into Jake’s body. Come on, we’ve got to find him before something bad happens.” I told Lila, taking her hand and rushing out of the room. I called out to Jake, over and over. No answer. I thought hard and headed to the kitchen. If he was going to burn something, he’d need gas, and the kitchen’s the place he might find some.

He wasn’t there. Just then, I heard a man’s voice, laughing so creepily from the basement downstairs. We walked out of the house as the stairs to the cellar was located outside. Slowly going down, the voice of Ed McCauley grew louder, “Jane, my beautiful Jane. I will never forget the day we got married, you were the one who kept me alive.” He sounded so innocent, so harmless. And then he changed, he was suddenly angry, filled with hatred, “But you left me for that sorry excuse for a man! How could you?” (HELP THAT PART, BETUL KE?)

I was right; Mr. McCauley had possessed Jake’s body. He was sitting down on the floor, burning the scattered pictures of Jane and him, rocking himself back and forth, as if he was crazy. Around him were the skeletons of those who had lived in the house. They had all died down there. I braced myself to go over to Jake, and shook him. “Jake, is that you?” He didn’t look at me let alone give a respond. I shook him harder and he clouted me to the ground. As I got up I felt that my hand was greasy, it was petrol, I could smell it.

Jake gave me a glare and a wicked smile as he flicked the lighter in his hand on. “Goodbye, Howard. You took away my Jane, now I’m taking you away!” With that, he set the picture in his hand on fire and threw it on the floor. The flame headed to me as I was covered in oil. I ran, taking Lila’s hand, ignoring her cries about leaving Jake behind. When we finally reached above ground, I quickly shut the cellar door and we ran as fast as we could away from the house. Before I left, I heard a voice shouting, “Curse you, Howard Collins! I will get my revenge on you one day!”

Heart beating fast, I stopped running and let go of Lila’s hand. She fell to the ground, crying and mourning over a lost friend. I just stood there staring at the house that was now in flames. It was the only bright light in the dark Halloween night. Everyone, as I saw, was staring up. It wasn’t a very common sight. I knelt down and took Lila in my arms, trying to calm her down, “its okay, Lila. It’s all going to be okay. We’re safe. It just wasn’t Jake’s luck.”

That Halloween night, three twelve year old kids managed to burn down the house on the hill, a house that was said to have made history throughout the years. And out of those three kids, only two survived. It is a memory I will never forget. I am now twenty-two years old, and I stood at where I stood ten years ago with Lila, looking at the bare piece of land. The place where the house used to stand, the house my friend Jake had managed to burn down. I wonder where he is now, probably up in the heavens, poor boy. He died at a young age. Sometimes when I think about it, I get that feeling of regret, but what can I do? The past cannot be changed.