We all have that one place where we go and get scared. You go there and a sudden rush of fear escalates through your body from your head to your toes and you feel like you might die at any second. A feeling of “impending doom” arises. For some people this place may be hospitals, basements, graveyards or the woods at night. The one place I get scared is at my best friend Nick’s house!

Nick is a somewhat normal dude but his house is nowhere near to being somewhat normal. It doesn’t even look like a normal house. Everytime I go there there’s some new project in his house and it’s under construction. One time I came there and he, all of a sudden, had a new bedroom! But more importantly, it doesn’t feel like a normal house. All of our friends agree that there’s something up. No matter what, as soon as you walk in, you’re constantly being watched by something. Every turn you make down the twisted hallways, you’re being watched by something. I think part of my problem is that I don’t go there much in the day. I get there in the evening, we skateboard, then we sleep. In the morning, we wake up at the crack of dawn, and go on a donut run. Doesn’t seem that scary right? After what I’ve seen at Nick’s, I can barely walk around my own house at night.
Sometimes, we all hear noises, lights stop working, doors get locked shut and weird things happen to people when they sleep. I’ve fallen asleep in his bedroom and woken up in his basement before. And this isn’t like, “Oh yeah remember 2 years ago when those lights shut off?” no, it’s like “Remember 5 seconds ago when the lights stop- oh yay were locked inside this room. If we’re all in here… who’s that person talking outside?”  There have also been instances where someone takes a picture and… things… show up in it. Whether it’s something satanic, paranormal, in the background or someones face changing, it’s pretty sickening. Just the idea that before that picture was taken, everything was normal. Then the shutter snaps and after you look at it, maybe things weren’t normal the whole time. The best example of this happening would be on the fourth of July when Tyler and I slept over again.
The night went like any other. Starting out with 5 hours of street skating, a large Hungry Howies pepperoni pizza with garlic butter crust, and sitting around and scaring each other with stories.The only differences this time were that we had 20 packs of sparklers, 500 firecrackers, and my camera.
“What are we gonna do with the firecrackers?” Tyler hinted impatiently while we were all lounging in Nick’s bedroom. I picked up my camera off the ground and held it up, “I have some ideas” I said as I waltzed out the door. They got the idea.
Nick and Tyler walked, in no hurry, to the front yard to get the fun stuff from the car while I got ready in the back. I walked through the entire house, alone, to get to the back sliding glass doors. Down the creaky stairs, past the living room, and around and through the computer room. The most horrifying part of Nick’s house is the basement. I’m fine with any other basement just not his. I peeked around the corner to look at the glass doors… they were right across from the closed basement door. I stood there for about 10 seconds until I overcame the fear of something coming out of the basement and I bolted for the glass door. I barrelled ten feet then stopped at the door. I wrapped my hand around the handle and it wouldn’t budge… IT WAS LOCKED. My heart was racing and my hands were shaking. I bent down to the lock on the floor and struggled to open it. The lock finally worked and I threw the door open. I ran onto the splintery wooden porch and slammed the door behind me. I turned around and there was nothing behind me to see. The basement door was still closed as it was before and I was safe. Except… I was outside now…alone.
The first thing I noticed outside was that it was dark and cold. It wasn’t cold like, I needed a winter coat, it was just chilly. And almost the entire backyard was pitch black. The only spot that wasn’t dark was a dimlit area of grass with the porch light shining upon it. I didn’t dare leave the light… What if something or... someone… is out there in the dark? I fantasized to myself as I set up the camera on a chair. It was perfect because the camera was pointing away from the house, onto the circle of light. To test the shot, I put the self timer on 10 seconds. I pushed the button and ran into the area of light. At first, it was really creepy because every inch I could see around me, besides the house, was completely black. After I thought about it, it wasn’t that scary because I was still standing in the light. I stood still in the grass and didn’t move a single muscle, which was hard to do with how high my entire body already feeling like jello from what happened in the house. But I tried my best to stand still so it looked clear and I wouldn’t have to take the picture twice. Something that I forgot at the time was that the camera makes a beeping noises for a self timed photo. The beeps start out slow *beep*...*beep*... then they get faster, *beep* *beep* *beep* then they get even faster *beepbeepbeepbeep* then after what feels like 10 years of waiting, it builds up to one long *beeeeeeeep* then the shutter snaps and the picture is taken. It was a relief that I could finally move. I walked toward the camera to take a look at the picture. As I was walking, I could see into the glass doors of the house and a shiver ran down my spine. The door to the basement was open. I specifically remembered that door NOT being open. I just pushed the thought away and took a look at the picture. I pressed the blue playback button on the camera to look at it. The picture looked nice. I angled the camera to look somewhat down on me and I got my whole body in the frame. I had my favorite flannel shirt on and my favorite grey, baggy jeans, which had holes in them. My shoelace belt was so long that it almost came down to my knees, which was something I didn’t notice before. I considered so many things about myself and my body that I didn’t notice before. I noticed how long my hair was when it came down past my hat, and how awesomely my glasses fit on my face and how tall I was getting. I realized so many great things about me because I had never genuinely looked at myself in a long time before that.
While my mind was floating away on this journey of self awareness, my eyes wandered onto another part of the picture. Stretched across the grass, about a foot away from my feet, there was a shadow. A shadow of what looked like a head, shoulders, and half of a torso. There were no devil horns or anything, just a normal shadow of the top half of a person. This made no sense to me. I had just been standing there when the picture was taken and there was no shadow. A sick feeling came to my stomach as if I were about to throw up. Even if the shadow was real where did it come from? The figure would have to have been standing outside in front of the porchlight for it to cast a shadow in that spot. There’s no way is came from inside the house!
Five seconds before I saw that shadow I was on a spiritual adventure, but as soon as I saw it and started wondering about it, everything rapidly escalated into whirpool of twisted emotions with evil images and thoughts racing through my head. I felt as if something was watching me. I felt like it was watching me from miles away in the darkness but at the same time, it was inches behind me, breathing down my neck. Or maybe it was just standing on the porch. A shiver ran through my whole body and every part of me was shaking. I wanted to leave. There was nowhere I could go though. I wanted to run somewhere far far away. Somewhere so far away that nothing could hurt me. I couldn’t run anywhere outside because I would be consumed by the shadows and I couldn’t go into the house because that would be even more nerve racking. I just sat down in the grass and covered my eyes. Then... the temperature rose and everything was HOT. It was cold when I (barely) made it outside but it felt like 90 degrees at this point. Closing my eyes, I ripped off my flannel shirt, threw it to the side and was left in my white t-shirt. I could feel my shaky hands start to sweat. I could almost feel hands on my shoulders… AM I DYING??? I anticipated in my head. The hands turned into an unyielding grasp and it hurt. The muscles in my shoulders all stung like someone was jabbing me in all my pressure points. The hands pulled and I went from sitting to laying, with my hands still over my eyes. I uncovered my eyes and I was in h*ll. I was seeing faces. All the horrendous faces of the characters, from all the horror movies Nick has made me watch, were drawn on the lenses of my glasses and everywhere I looked, they would be there, zooming in, getting bigger and bigger. A smiling clown with 300 bloody teeth, a demented young girl with her face split in half, someone who had their face burnt to a crisp and all that was left was black charred skin, blair witches, and all the other things I didn’t want to even imagine, I was seeing in front of me with my very own eyes. They were there with me and I could stick my hand out and touch them. I sat up, threw my glasses down into the grass and rubbed my eyes. I was breathing heavily and everything around me was spinning. I sat there for about 10 seconds before I could partially calm down. I just thought of happy places and picked up my glasses. I was still shaking but maybe it was because it started getting colder again, which was a good sign. I looked forward into the darkness and put my glasses on. All I saw was the night.
Thank god I thought to myself. Everything in my brain was finally calming down. Just as that thought came through, I heard an extremely intense screeching noise and a swift streak of light soared past me, about a foot in front of my face. My head followed it to the left into the dark. After I could no longer see it, I turned to the right to see Tyler and Nick standing on the porch with firecrackers, sparklers, and bottle rockets that they were looking for in the house. “Hey Matt!” Chuckled Nick wielding a lighter in his left hand. Tyler held up a bottle rocket with a smirk, “You ready yet?”
I smiled back at them and stood up. I looked behind them and could see the basement door behind them, closed. That made me a lot less anxious. I stepped up the porch to stand with them and check out what we had. Nick was telling me the story about how they found 10 bottle rockets and blah blah blah (I wasn’t paying attention) but I was just focused on the spot of light that I was standing in. From the place I was standing on the porch, I cast the exact same shadow that I saw in the picture. I abruptly stopped Nick mid sentence with my hand and walked over to my camera on the chair. I deleted the picture and haven't been scared of Nick’s house since then.