My Spooky, Scary Experience! - By Tianna Thakur

It was 8:30pm on a Saturday night. I was all alone at home, as my parents had gone on their weekly date night. I was sitting on my sofa, all comfortable, with a packet of Doritos, watching my favourite television show, when I heard a noise. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was, but after some observation, I determined that it was a loud thud followed by a scratching noise. I didn’t think much of it, as we lived in an almost deserted area with just a few houses, near a big forest, so it was probably some wild critter.

 

*DING DING DING* … My alarm went off, and as I looked at it, I realized it was 9:00pm, time to eat dinner. I went to the kitchen and made myself a nice bowl of steaming soup, and just as I was about to leave the kitchen, my eye caught something outside the window. A dark shadow, outside. I froze in my steps, looking at the shadow.

 

Now you might be thinking it's probably just the neighbours taking out the trash. It was of course a Saturday night; the usual time for neighbours to take out their trash. However, it being a Saturday night also meant that there was a big event in our community. The one event that I wasn't going to as I was more of a stay at home kind of person. Everyone was outside and nobody would have been near their house or to take out the trash, and that's what frightened me the most.

 

After a few seconds, the shadow slowly walked away. I was getting more and more paranoid by the second. I unfroze and almost ran to the drawing room, and tried to calm myself down. It couldn't have been anything scary, right? And that's when the real terror began. The phone rang, I picked it up but no one spoke. Annoyed, I thought, oh it's probably just a prank call and I put down the phone. Ten minutes later the phone rang again and just like the last time nobody said a single thing. This went on at least 15 times.  The last time I finally screamed into the receiver, “Who is it and why are you calling me repeatedly without saying anything?”

 

A lady's voice replied. “I am Angela.“  And then she hung up the phone.  I was scared so I switched off the Wi-Fi. I would have called my parents, but they had missed their last few date nights due to some conferences and I didn't want to disturb them at all because they always looked after me and I knew this night was very important to them.

 

I didn't care who called me. I just didn't want that stupid phone to ring anymore but I was spooked. I grabbed my phone, went up to my room and took a baseball bat from my brother's room. He had gone to college and had left his room to me. I cuddled up in my room and locked the doors. I held my baseball bat tight. Ten minutes later, the doorbell suddenly rang. I checked the house security cameras and was delighted to see my parents at the front door. I ran down the stairs with the baseball bat in my hand and quickly opened the front door. I hugged them with great delight and of course my parents were shocked as to why I was so happy to see them.

 

“Oh, what happened? You are never so happy to see us. Did you really miss us that much?” said my mom.

 

I said with a loud sigh “Oh Mom! Oh Dad! You won't believe the things that have happened to me. Come sit, I'll tell you all about it.”

 

They sat in the living room with a confused expression on their face as I told them all about the events that had happened to me that night. My dad is a very strong man, so he quickly went outside to check where the scratching noises were coming from. When he came back inside he was chuckling with a wide grin on his face. He told me that apparently the dustbin had emptied because of the wind and it had fallen over so that was the loud thud I had heard and the raccoons had come to eat all the trash and those were the scratching noises. The raccoons were the shadows as well.

 

My mom had a thoughtful face when she said, “Huh, our phone number is quite unique. Most people won’t get it easily, only our relatives and close friends would have it. Hmm… Who is Angela?

 

After a few minutes of silence, her face lit up and she excitedly told me that I had an aunt named Angela, and she definitely had our phone number. She quickly told me to show her the number that had been calling. I switched on the Wi-Fi and showed her and she said that it was Aunt Angela's number. She quickly dialed Aunt Angela and asked her why she kept on calling me and spooking me out.

 

Aunt Angela replied and said that “Well I was actually trying to call my brother but for some reason the number was rerouting to ours and I had forgotten that this was the landline for your house! My father got on the phone and quickly told Aunt Angela that he had set it so whatever phone calls came to his phone would automatically route to the landline.  Aunt Angela and I both gave a huge sigh. The mystery of the spooky night was finally solved and I could go to bed with a happy heart.