Michael's Treehouse

Our summer holidays started today and my friends and I agreed to meet at Michael's Tree house to spend the afternoon telling horror stories and throwing slingshots at crows.

The tree house was built by the five of us and Michael's father, who provided the materials and took care of the stairs and the roof. Basically, he took care of everything. But it doesn't really matter. 

When I got to Michael's house, the smell of Mrs. Carmichael's cupcakes made my belly growl.

"You can take as many cupcakes as you want, Jonathan," said Mrs. Carmichael.

I didn't think twice. I immediately grabbed three carrot-filled cupcakes and ran out into the yard with Michael.

It felt like I had been the first to arrive and the smell of the cupcakes left me hungry. In less than a minute I gobbled two cupcakes and gave the other to Michael.

Half an hour later, me, Michael, Steven, Peter and Charles were sitting in a circle in the center of the tree house.

"This got stunning!" Peter commented while taking a look, for the thousandth time, at the inside of the House.

"Can I be the first to tell a story?" Asked Charles, raising his hand as if he were still in Professor McAllister's class.

“No.” Michael replied. "First, we will close the window curtain so that it is dark enough, and then we will toss for it.

And so it was.

While Steven closed the curtain and lit a candle in the middle of the five of us, so that we could see each other, our names were placed in a black cloth bag.

"And the first one is..." Michael started to advertise. "Steven!"

Charles snorted, annoyed that he was not the first, since he had already been imagining a chilling story about killer leeches all week. Also, because everyone already knew how Steven's horror stories ended. In a silly romance!

"Oh well..." Steven said and then paused for thirty seconds to snap his fingers and neck as if he were one of the athletic guys. "Here it goes." And he began to tell the story of a man who used to attract women to his home to then killed them.

Steven was not good at telling horror stories and his story that seemed scary at first, then became too romantic and made me sleepy.

Suddenly, the candle fade away, the boys disappeared and I found myself alone in the Tree House. I called for the boys, but none answered. It seemed like they had never been there. Since it was totally dark, I went to the window, groping to feel the curtain and let in some light to see if the boys were playing tricks on me, but when I touched the supposed window, all I felt was the cold wood wall. It was as if the temperature had dropped and it felt more like winter than summer. The window was also gone.

"That's weird!" I said.

And at that moment I heard a hoarse laugh right behind me and its echo echoing through the house.

"Michael, is that you?" I swallowed. "It's not funny." My voice was shaky and my heart started to beat faster as a shiver took over my body.

“Oh, little Michael is no longer with us. And now it's your turn.” Another laugh echoed through the house.

I froze. I didn't know whose voice it was. I didn't recognize it. And what did he mean with, 'Michael is no longer with us?' It meant that he died? Also, was my turn to what? To die as well?

I fell on my knees on the floor and when they hit the cold wooden floor, I heard a crush and groaned in pain. Something had forced me to kneel. My heart seemed to want to escape from my mouth because it was so fast.

“Peter, if it's you, knock it off with that horrible voice, you're really scaring me. Come on, you won all the gums from the glass jar. Your story was the most frightening. Another laugh came back to haunt me and I started to feel the floor looking for something, and luckily I felt something like a flashlight and touched it to see if there was a power button. I struggled with that for a second, with shaking hands, until the light came on and my eyes met a huge black shadow that spread from floor to ceiling, in the shape of a horrible and misshapen monster that looked at me with blood-red eyes. I felt my pants get damp.

I had just peed my pants and wanted to scream, because I was quite scared, but my voice wouldn't come out.

“Michael, Peter, Charles and Steven are all dead and I killed them and hung them by the feet on the branches that support this stupid tree house. And now I’m going to kill you too!” And he cast his claw shadow in my direction and I raised my arms, trying to protect myself when I finally heard the sound of my voice. I screamed so loudly that I felt the whole house start to shake and I thought it was going to collapse, but a loud slap made me wake up and find myself surrounded by the boys as the light was also back.

"Wake up Jonathan!" Michael shouted as he shook me violently and slapped me again.

"You fell asleep again!" Steven shot. "You always fall asleep when I tell a horror story!"

“Do you call that a horror story? You should have been on my dream to know what terror is.” I answered.

"You were scared there, you even peed your pants." Said Charles, pointing to my wet pants and the boys burst out laughing and calling me a pissant.

"Come on, tell us that dream that made you wet your pants for being so horrible as it was." Michael replied.

So I told the boys that dream and came home that late summer afternoon with a glass jar full of different gums and all the football players' cards Michael had in his sticker book.