Ghost story.

I have one ghost story. Just one. But it's totally awesome, and I realized recently that I haven't told it enough.

It starts on a chilly night in October. The year was 2002, and I was fifteen years of age, just coming into my own. But it was not to last. Here is a story of such terror and scariness that your pants will wet themselves.

Jason, Karen, and myself (names changed to preserve their sanity) were all sitting in the petland staff room, enjoying a nice dixie cup of coke and a nice dixie plate of pizza, when our co-worker dropped a bombshell. She stood up, and declared, in a voice both haunting and slutty, that she knew of a haunted house we should check out after the staff meeting. Being fifteen, and surrounded by 17 year-olds who for reasons of youth I thought were totally rad, I agreed to come along. Also we went to wendy's.

So there we were, 3 of us packed into her small sunfire, her smoking, jay getting stoned, me eating chicken and getting stoned and smoking, and all three of us soaring towards our imminent destruction via ghost. Down the snowy roads we travelled at speeds in excess of 60km/h, until we reached our destination. Those of you from the woodlands/far SW of calgary will be familiar with which I speak: I speak of the one lane bridge that used to go over fish creek at the bottom of the valley, which has since been replaced by a modern overpass high above the mysterious trees of the dreaded fish creek provincial park, and the terror of the Tsu-tina native reserve. This bridge was only wide enough to let one car through, but there was one thing about that bridge that was even scarier: a tiny little road, barely more than a path, bordered by a fence made of what appeared to be human skulls, but were in fact chunks of white rock stacked to form a little barrier. I drove past this numerous times, always curious as to what lay beyond that grim sentinel. Alas, that night I would find out what was hidden down that dark path.

The sunfire creaked and moaned as it traversed the rutted and overgrown trail, as if protesting the coming destruction that awaited us all. It's 1.4 litre engine quaked and fidgeted under the throttle, urging us to go back. But three stoned teenagers are a force to be reckoned with, and onwards we went. We drove for what seemed like hours, the road wouldn't let us over 10KM/H, and we went so far that soon the lights of the metropolis of woodbine were far in the distance. We had long since left the borders of calgary and had crossed over into the mysterious lysol scented forest of the reserve. Dark trees, with dark limbs and roots beckoned us onwards, until we reached our final destination, innocuous but horrible, innocent but terrifying.

We had arrived in a clearing, about the size of a cul-de-sac, bordered on all sides by lichen covered pine trees and poplar leaf covered poplar trees. It was a normal looking field, dead leaves and dead grass, some rocks, and an abandoned farm house. This, as Karen or whatever the fuck name I made up to protect Melissa's privacy had told us earlier, was the haunted house. The story goes, this place used to belong to a farmer who emigrated here at the turn of the century. He farmed happily for 40 years until one fateful night his stove had a gas leak, and destroyed the back half of the house, killing his wife and 14 year old daughter. As we piled out of the car, our fates in our hands...

TO BE CONTINUED