Graveyard Home

the beginning

For almost 60 years there has been an abandoned house at the top of the Grand Leo hill. Many say it's haunted and others say it's just a hoax to scare children from ever going there and getting hurt. However, Jordan, Arora and I were curious to see if it is haunted or just another bedtime story.
     I pulled out my phone and decided to make a group message with the three of us. "Hey, tommorow after school you guys should come over so we can come up with a plan to go check out that house. What do you guys think?"
     " Sure thing Sam," Arora replied.
     " See ya there," Jordan texted back
     After that I pulled up a map of the house and printed it off so everyone could see. I thought about looking up the lore of what seems to be lurking in the shadows of the musky walls but I didn't. My mom called me down for dinner, enchiladas with beans and mexican style rice never sounded so good. She always makes that when she's in a good mood so it was the perfect time to ask. "Hey Mom. Is it okay if Arora and Jordan come over tomorrow after school to work on a project?" I asked.
      "Of course. You know I always love having them over," she said joyfully. "What's the project for?"
     "It's hard to explain. She wants us to write a short story about friendship and how it's important to us. I think it's just to show how things are taken for granted."
     "I think that's a wonderful idea. Why couldn't our teachers have been like that in highschool."
     We finished dinner and my mom did the dishes as always while my dad was passed out drunk on the couch watching wheel of Fortune. I had headed back to my room and gone to bed since school started an hour earlier the next day. I brushed my teeth and undressed to climb into bed.
     I woke the next morning a little hazy from my dream. I dreamt about being locked in a room with Arora, looking through a small crack in the door. We saw Jordan running like someone was chasing him. We called out to him hoping he could free us from the room but we couldn't talk or scream. Only silence escaped our mouths. We backed away from the door for a minute or two till we heard a bang outside the door. I looked through the crack and Jordan was standing on the other side with a cut on his face dripping blood. That's when I woke up. I didn't think much of it and I didn't tell anybody. Though I wish I had.
     I crawled out of bed for my usual morning routine. Brush my teeth again and get dressed, eat breakfast and gather my school books and stuff them in my bag. Once I was done my mom and I got in the car so she could drop me off the way to her work. We didn't talk much, I just leaned up against the door looking out the window. Every now and then I'd see someone standing in the bushes on the side of the road. A girl in a long, torn up night gown with long black hair. She couldn't have been more than 16 years old. Then something really weird happened. Time seemed to stop. The car stopped moving and everything froze. I looked around franticly, even my watch stopped. I got out of the car, but a hand reached out and pulled me back in before my for could touch the ground and time started again. My mom yelled at me "What the fuck do you think you're doing!?"  I didn't reply. "Hello... Earth to Calvin." I had to say something but I didn't know what.
     "Shut up you cock juggling thundercunt!" I snapped back at her. "I'm sorry Mom I didn't mean to say that! It slipped out I don't know why I said that!" She slammed on the brakes and pulled to the side of the road, took off her seatbelt and got out of the car. She walked over to my door and pulled me out by my shirt.
     "Listen here you little fuck! Your father and I never wanted you! You're just a needy piece of shit and I should've put you up for adoption the second you were born!" She threw me back in my seat and slammed the door in my face and got back in the driver's seat. Nothing else was said the rest of the car ride. When we pulled up at the drop off zone at my school she yelled at me again "Get the fuck out of my car you little faggot."
     "I hope you get into a car crash on your way to work. You're just a slut who sleeps with every guy she bumps into. Work? You probably just run every corner in town and fuck any guy that will give you money for it!" I yelled back. I went to slam the door before she could get anymore words out but I lost that one. "I should have thrown you into the dumpster fire behind the abortion clinic," she said.
     "You know what mom, when I come home I'll kill you myself." I replied as I slammed the door behind me. I spun around as the door was closing and walked off with the sound of shattered glass falling on the sidewalk behind me.  I didn't know Jordan and Arora were standing there the whole time and heard every word.
     "What the hell happened!? Your mom would never say those kinds of things." Arora said.
     " It's nothing, it's just her time of the month again." I replied but they didn't believe me. " Let's just go inside," I added.
     We all went inside for our first class of the hellish day, Math. Who in their right mind can function and do algebra that early in the morning. It's like waking up and getting hit in the head with a brick until it breaks. " Good morning students, I hope you've all paid attention the last week and a half because today you have a pop quiz." Mr. David said way too enthusiastically.
" Fuck," I thought to myself. Jordan knew I wasn't any good at math so he text me all the answers. Thank goodness because I would have failed math every year.
     Science was next then P.E. then English, Spanish and statistics. Why we took that I have no idea. It's more complicated math and words that nobody understands. English came around and I was scribbling on a price of paper not really listening. At least not until the phone rang. " Hello?" Mrs.Daluna answered. "Oh no is she alright?" She paused as she listened to the person on the other end of the line. "Okay, I'll send him up immediately." She hung up the phone and looked at me with eyes filled with apologies and sympathy. "Calvin, Mr. Harris would like to see you in his office. There's something he wants to discuss with you."
      " Oooooo," the whole class said implying I was in trouble.
     " You may want to take your things with you. I don't expect you will want to come back after this," she sounded like she was about to cry. I grabbed my stuff and walked up to the principles office as slow as I could, yet I still ended up there surprisingly fast. I sat outside waiting to be called in. Only a couple of seconds passed after I sat down when Mr. Harris came and grabbed me. I went inside and stood there as he took a spot behind his desk. "Please, take a seat," he said calmly. I sat down and couldn't stop thinking about what I did to end up here. "You're not in trouble here, there is just something I need to talk to you about." He paused to take a drink of his heavily sugared down coffee. He wiped the nervous sweat off of his palms and took a deep breath, locking his fingers together and placing his hands back on his desk. "Your mother was in a car accident on her way to work this morning. She hit something on the freeway. The car rolled off the road and caught on fire. The coroner said she died on impact and didn't suffer from the fire. We tried contacting your father but nobody could get ahold of him. I'm sorry for you loss Calvin. The school is willing to provide you with a therapist to help you through this hard time."
     I sat there in silence, thinking about what I had said to her that morning. "Calvin, are you going to be okay?" Mr. Harris asked. I didn't respond. I just stood up, walked out of his office and went back to English. My emotionless face startled Arora and Jordan but they said nothing. They knew it was best to leave me alone when I have that look. Mrs. Deluna said nothing too. She just looked at me and continued teaching. I could tell she was worried about me but didn't want to make things worse. It didn't take too long for the whole school to hear what happened. I heard the other students whispering about what they heard as I walked to my classes.
     "By the time I reached my last class, statistics, I was drained. Everyone saying "I'm sorry about your mom," or " if you need anything let me know." I was ready to snap on everybody. No one really knew who I was or cared about me, but suddenly when your mom dies everybody cares about you and how you're doing. I hated high school with a burning passion. It's a spawn of teen pregnancy and fake people.
     Jordan's mom gave the three of us a ride to my house after school to work on our "project." When she dropped us off we walked inside to find my dad still passed out drunk on the couch with flies buzzing around him and landing on his face. We went through the living room and up the stairs to my room. I never had to worry about it being dirty with guests. Ive never been able to understand how people can live with their rooms looking like a dump of dirty clothes with a nasty smell, so I always keep mine clean. The automatic air freshener sprayed the air as we walked in giving a pleasant ocean breeze scent. Everyone dropped their bags in the corner behind the door so they'd be out of the way, and thus the planning began.