Writing contest Entry: What's that sound in the darkness?

This story was a good 15 years ago. It was a few weeks after my birthday and I was starting to get comfortable with the new bicycle I'd wished for and gotten. It was my pride and joy and I'd take any and every opportunity to ride it, day and night much to my parent's distress. We don't live in the safest neighbourhood so I would naturally have to check in regularly with them to make sure I was safe.

I was not the only one, to get our parents off our backs we formed a little group of friends that would always cycle through the neighbourhood together. We would ride to the soccer fields, the stores you know the usual things kids do. We began to become more brazen and risky and would start to ride further and further from home together.

During our little recon missions one day we eventually we discovered a house that had been abandoned. It was a pretty large 2 story home with 3 exits at the bottom and now windows so there plenty of ways to make your way in and out of the house. The grass had begun to grow right around the house so you couldn't get a full view of the property.

Every day for the next few weeks we would cycle down to the house and go exploring a little bit. We would leave our bicycles a few houses down as not to attract attention to the house and then walk to it. We would then dare each other to explore one room and see what we could find.

It smelled like urine, faeces, alcohol and all you would expect from an abanded home. Clearly, people were making use of the property or having their own little parties here. The walls were covered in graffiti and there was rubbish everywhere. It really was unnerving and not a pleasant place to be in, but as a kid, you simply can't resist the temptation of what could be in or be happening in parts of the "ghost house".

Like I mentioned before we didn't want people knowing we would play/explore there so we would only visit it 2 kids at a time while the other kids in the group looked after the bikes just in case anything happened. As kids in our group would come back from exploring, their stories would get more and more outlandish, their experiences bordering on the supernatural.

Image source: cheatsheet

That faithful night

Not to be outdone by the other kids in the group, myself and another boy, Kyle decided we're were going to top everyone's story once and for all. We were going to visit the ghost house at night and that's not all, we were going to venture upstairs too. None of the other kids were brave enough to visit the upstairs in fear of something happening to them and well, you couldn't exactly just jump off 2 story window and expect to get away.

Yes, we had an epic plan, but we were shit scared, we had to psyche one another up, there was no backing out. Tomorrow morning we would have the best story ever and all the kids would be jealous. Yes, we would be those 2 all the kids spoke about! Stuff legends are made of.

Kyle and I met up outside my house and off we went, lump in throat but adamant we would follow through with our plan. Since it was dark we did not have to leave our bikes at our usual spot no one would see them in the dark and tall grass.

We dumped the bikes and proceeded to venture inside. My heart was already pumping a mile a minute, my mouth dry and I was already shaking. We would push each other one, you know how kids are, but at the same time trying to keep quiet. We started to explore the first room, it was pitch dark, all you could hear were our footsteps stamping on dirt. We then heard a sound, it was a man's voice, we were pretty deep into the house already and there was no way we could make it to the exits or so we thought, we panicked and bolted for the stairs.

Naturally, the dumbest thing we could do, we were now sitting ducks! We would hear the man searching for us, his footsteps getting louder and louder. We hid in the room upstairs closest to the front of the house, facing the street. Hopefully, someone from the outside could see us, but with no light, that wasn't possible.

What to do, what to do?

By some miracle we found a short piece of a garden hose lying on the floor in the room, we tied it to one of the window frames and began to climb down out of the house. The hose wasn't long enough but gave us enough confidence to jump the rest of the way down. As soon as our feet hit the ground, we bolted for our bikes. We cycled like crazy not looking back, we made sure to take a long way home too in case he tried to follow us.

Eventually, we got back to my house put our bikes in the garage. Our hearts still racing. We didn't even care that it was the furtherst anyone has explored the house, or that we did it at night. We were just happy to be out and safe.

Needless to say we never went near the house again!

This is my submission for writing @jeezzle competition found here

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