Flash Fiction Story: Craving

Flash Fiction story 600 words or less. Written for the Google+ community Writer's Discussion Group Weekly Writing Exercise.

Craving

‘It told me if I didn’t do this, than it would eat me.’

‘But it’s just not right.’

‘So I should sacrifice myself? Is that what you’re saying?’

    Holly didn’t speak.

‘Oh geez Holly.’

‘I was thinking.’

‘Maybe I should just feed it you.’

‘You wouldn’t?’

    Teresa smiled at Holly shaking her head side to side.

‘We’re getting close. Are you in or out?’

‘We’re gonna get in trouble Teresa.’

    Mocking her, ‘We’re gonna get in trouble. Blah. You make me sick, you know that.’
    Holly made an embarrassed face.

‘Alright. I’m in.’

‘Good. Just let me do all the talking. I don’t want you to give it away.’

They walked up to the door on Beverly drive knocking three times on the screen door. An older woman answered giving the two girls a judgmental look. 

‘Yes.’

‘Is Maggie home?’

‘Who would like to know?

‘I’m Teresa, and this is Holly.’

‘Hello.’ Holly said.

‘We know Maggie from school.’

‘Alright, just a minute.’

The woman went inside leaving the door open. The two girls heard muffled voices, then footsteps coming towards the door. 

‘Who is it?’

‘Hi Maggie. It’s me, Teresa. And Holly.’

‘Hi.' 

‘What are you doing here?’ Maggie asked.

‘We wanted to let you in on a secret.’ Teresa said.

‘What is it?’

‘We can’t tell you here. Can you come to the woods with us?’

‘I don’t know, I’ll have to ask my grandmother. Wait here will ya?’

‘Sure.’

Maggie went back in the house. The two girls again heard muffled voices followed again by footsteps. The door swung open. 

‘I have to be back in an hour.’

‘It shouldn’t take that long.’

The three girls walked towards the woods. Holly was very uneasy, pulling at her shirt sleeve. She wondered if there will be a lot of blood, or if Maggie would just, disappear. Or if anything would happen at all. Probably another stupid story Teresa made up to scare her, and Maggie is playing along. 

‘Up here.’

‘Is the secret something you want to show me?’

‘Yeah. Up here.’

    Teresa ran ahead. Holly and Maggie watched her jumping up and down, waving her arms into the trees..

‘Maggie.’ Holly said.

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you playing along?’

‘What?’

‘Did Teresa put you up to this? To scare me?’

‘Put me up to what? I’ve never hung out with Teresa before today.’

    Teresa turned around waving to the two girls, ‘Come on.’

‘You shouldn't go Maggie.’

‘I know Teresa is mean, but I'm bored so, why not.’ 

Holly opened her mouth to tell her, but Maggie had started running towards Teresa. She got about ten yards when a giant creature with beady green eyes and a bullet shaped black cobalt body stepped out from behind the tree. Maggie came to a halt. 

‘It’s alright. Come closer. This is it. This is the secret. Come take a closer look.’

Teresa continued, but Maggie didn’t move. Holly watched in terror while the creature’s eyes turned to red daggers. It opened it’s mouth full of jagged teeth then chomped them back down together. Its hunger was too strong. There was no more waiting as it bent down and picked up Teresa with its thin chopstick fingers.

‘No! Not me! Her! I brought her for you!’

The creature didn’t listen. It brought her up to its mouth and dropped her inside. Maggie screamed a high-pitched squeal that dogs in the next town over could of heard. The giant began walking towards them craving for more. Maggie turned to run while Holly watched motionless.

‘Teresa?’
    Maggie pulled on Holly's arm.

‘Come on Holly. We’re next.’

Holly felt her legs moving alongside Maggie, both running as fast as they could. Neither one ever turning to look back. Neither one ever returning to those woods again.

A Haunting on Nash Street

Whether you believe in ghosts or not this is a true story. All the events are told to the best of my memory. I have no reason to lie and there's no profit to be gained. All the events that occur may be explained with scientific fact and I'm open to those explanations. Until then, I believe in the paranormal and the presence of ghosts because of the events that happened to me on Nash Street.

In Akron, Ohio there is a house at the end of Nash street on the corner of Huntington Avenue where I lived for one year during my sophomore year of university at the University of Akron.

The Nash street house taken from Google maps, June 2011.



I went to the University of Akron from 2000 to 2005 to study music. I graduated in August 2005 with a Bachelors in Music Performance Percussion degree. During 2001-2002 myself and four other classmates lived in the Nash street house.

There are 5 bedrooms; 1 on the first floor, 3 on the second floor and 1 in the attic. There is a living room and a kitchen on the first floor, 1 bath room on the second floor, there is no bath tub just a shower stall, and another toilet behind the kitchen on the first floor next to the back door. Between the living room and kitchen is a flight of stairs leading into the basement, a very dirty, grimy place where we kept instruments, had parties and such.

We moved in to the house and began school in late August. Nothing out of the ordinary happened for the first few months except for 9/11. The first occurrences that I noticed starting happening after that between late fall and early winter.

The first noticeable phenomenon was the disappearance and reappearance of objects. These occurred almost exclusively in the kitchen with the silverware. Typically it would go unnoticed but on one occasion my roommate blamed me and began an argument.

We were both standing in the kitchen while he was busy making food probably chatting about school. He put his spoon down on the counter then turned around to get a bowl. He returned to the spot where he had left the spoon and it was missing. He turned to me and said, "Did you take my spoon?" I had not taken his spoon and explained to him I had no need for it and wasn't playing a joke on him. As he turned around back to the spot the spoon had returned. He asked, "How did you do that?" I explained again that I didn't do anything and he had not seen it the first time which he agreed because it wasn't there.

The most frequent observable occurrences occurred on the second floor. The bathroom's east wall is shared by the stairs leading into the attic room. While showering it was common to hear footsteps running up and down the stairs. This phenomenon was experienced by everyone living in the house. The first few times it was beleived the roommate living up there was the cause. When we would exit the shower the door would be closed and the roommate's car wouldn't be in the driveway. Maybe he had quickly came home to grab some items and left.

When we questioned him about it at school he explained that he had not been home that day. He typically did not stay at the house and would go to his mother's house in Brunswick going directly to school.

Explanation number 2 became the pipes. The house was old so the water running through the pipes banging against the wall in a rhythmic pattern was conceivable. But why would they go from the bottom to the the top if the pipes led down the the sewer?

I didn't believe the pipes theory and was now convinced there was paranormal activity occurring within the house. This ghost wasn't hurting anyone, didn't cause any trouble and became a good story to tell to our friends, although it never appeared to more than one person at a time.

These were the typical occurrences through the winter and spring. The roommate living in the attic didn't stay at the house very often and never reported any strange happenings when he did stay the night. He kept in his room his pet ferret who had leukemia and spent most of it's time sleeping. When the roommate was away I was asked periodically to check up on him. When I was in the attic room alone nothing unusual occurred and things were pretty normal.

Sometime in the spring we acquired a dog. Friends of ours had found him on the street and because they were living in the dorm at the time couldn't take care of him. They reached out to us to keep him at our house until they could find a home, but one of my roommate's fell in love with him and he ended up staying with us until we moved out.

I am not from Akron or Ohio at all. I'm from Indianapolis in the neighboring state of Indiana, about a 5 hour drive from Akron. At the end of the school year I went home for a week and returned to the Nash street house. One roommate was from Idaho and went back for 2 months or stayed with his girlfriend, for whatever reason that I can't remember he wasn't in the house for most of the summer, and the other 3 lived in the greater Cleveland area and went home often as well. I was alone most of the time between late May and early July.

During one of these summer nights I came home from practicing at the school to find the dog home alone. We ascended the stairs to find the door to the attic room open with the light on. I called up to my roommate, but there was no answer. The dog who had followed me up the stairs was growling and gave a few small barks. I figured he was barking at the ferret and told him to stop. He kept looking up as I opened the door to my room. I turned around to call his name when suddenly a picture frame fell from the wall and tumbled down the stairs. The dog got spooked folding his ears back with an expression that he had been punished. A bit spooked myself trying to reason the events that just unfolded I carefully took a quick a peek up the stairs. There was no one there. Even more spooked than before I called to the dog and we both went downstairs into the living room and outside onto the front porch. I remained there for a while until finally someone came home. I told them what had happened and we went up stairs to see the picture frame still lying on the floor, the door open and the light on. I set the picture in the doorway, turned off the light and shut the door.

By late July most of the roommates had returned. One summer afternoon my roommates and some guests were sitting out on the front porch. I was in the basement playing the drum set we had set up down there. During this jam session I got the feeling I was being watched. I looked up to see a transparent figure standing at the bottom of the stairs. It quickly turned and began to run up the stairs. I could see it's milky white legs ascend the stairs. I stood up and went to the stairs and went up. I went out the door and saw my roommates on the porch. I went up the stairs to the second floor but didn't see anything. I went out to the porch and asked if they had seen anything, but unfortunately they hadn't. I told them what had just happened and they cautiously believed me.

I was happy to see it finally after everything that had happened. A final cadence to the long summer because  of personal reasons we decided not to live together anymore and had made arrangements to move out of Nash street by mid August. So unfortunately that was the last encounter I had with the ghost of Nash street

Two years later I played in a band with a guy who had lived in the house after we had moved out. I told him about the ghost and the things that had happened, but he never had any experiences with the ghost.

I've always wanted to return to fully investigate the paranormal activity. After that experience I have learned a lot about ghost hunting and would love to have proof that a ghost truly resides in that house. I can't say that I truly believed in ghosts before this experience, even though Ghostbusters is one of my favorite movies, after all this I can say for sure, I believe.