Halloween Story

[cautiousswitch]

“Of course, there’s always the old Henderson place.”

“Haunted by the empty beer cans of a hundred underaged drinkers?”

“No, it really is haunted.  Why do you think nobody wants to live there?”

“I always heard there was a flood like thirty years ago and the foundation was ruined.”

“Well, yeah,” Clark stammered.  “That’s the official story.  They say that because they don’t want kids looking for ghosts and getting hurt.”  He sounded less convincing than he had a minute before.

“They did tell some weird stories about old man Henderson,” Matt added.  “How he used to keep his love slaves chained up in the cellar.”

Laura blushed.  She could talk dirty with the best of them, but Matt was Matt.  Any slightly off-colour statement he made would cause her heart to skip a beat.

“It’s still a bit out of the way,” she said.  “We’re trying to make a scary tour for little kids.  Parents aren’t going to want us leading their *** out into the woods and then trying to scare them.”

“That’s a pity.  There are some great stories…”

“No there aren’t,” Clark interrupted Matt, forgetting that he was the one who had first brought up the idea that the Henderson place was haunted.  All three of them had grown up in town and would have heard any such stories long ago.

“Love slaves,” Matt repeated with a wink to Laura.  “There are stories that the adults keep a lid on.  My uncle doesn’t have kids and is less hesitant about sharing some stories.”  Clark’s interest was peaked.  Laura was looking down a bit embarrassed but also seemed to be looking at Matt out of the corner of her eye.  “Yes, inappropriate for a kids’ tour but we should check it out some time.”

“What kind of stories?”

“They say that there are still some shackles hanging from the ceiling of the cellar.”  Matt lowered his voice as if telling a campfire story.  “If a blindfolded woman puts them on and says, ‘Here I am bonded, I want to be fondled,’ then a ghost will come and fondle her.”

“She’s got to be naked I suppose,” Laura snorted.  It wasn’t very convincing.  She had had a brief fantasy of Matt handling her and flushed as he told the story.  She felt a little flush.  “It doesn’t even rhyme that well.”

“Just the way I heard it,” Matt chuckled.  “And complete nudity isn’t a requirement.”

‘That’s what I’m talking about,” Clark interrupted the line of barely flirtatious patter.  “Only the more naked the better.”

Matt ignored the third wheel.  “Believe what you will, but visiting the place tonight might help us to put a better spin on the stories we do tell.”

“Tonight,” Laura said hesitantly.  Their friendship had grown to something more over the years.  At least in her head it had.  Was this the next step? Part of her hoped it was.

-----

There was a chill in the air as Laura approached the Henderson place.  It was a bit distanced from town, so it wasn’t surprising that nobody had bought and rebuilt the house.  It was a small house; mostly one story, but there was an awkward looking bit protruding from the roof which most people thought was an upper story bedroom; the stairs were too rickety for anyone to explore and find out.

One of the kitchen windows wasn’t as secure as the officials believed it to be; this was the usual entrance that ***agers used when they wanted access.  That was the rumour at least, Laura was shortly to learn that those rumours were true.  The window slid open easily enough.  It was loose enough to slam shut if one weren’t careful to hold it up as they climbed through.

When she was safely inside, Laura fished the light she had brough out of her purse.  The kitchen was in good shape other than having not been cleaned in years and the expected ***s from many kids passing through over time. 

There was a door where she would expect to find the cellar.  She opened it and shone the torch down the stairs.  They were in better shape than the descriptions of those that led to the second floor.  She still tested them carefully as she descended.

“Matt?” she called softly in case he had arrived first.  There was no reply.

She felt a tingle about halfway down.  ***? Anticipation? “Matt?” she called again a little louder, partly wanting his protection and partly wanting him to hold her.

At the foot of the stairs she slowly turned her light about the room, stopping when she saw the rusty shackles hanging from a rafter in the middle of the room.  She remembered Matt’s story and her heart skipped a beat.  Then she smiled to herself.

They were old friends but were they rushing things? she wondered as she undressed.   She was here hoping for… what? There were limits to what he could do to her standing up.  She looked through her purse and found a bandana before approaching the chains.  She tied it over her eyes and felt for the dangling chains, fitting the shackles around her wrists.

“Here I am bonded,” she stammered, trying not to laugh at Matt’s bad rhyme.  “I want to be fondled.”

She felt a little foolish saying it.  Then a hand gripped her hip.  She gasped.  Another hand touched her side, the fingers brushing her ribs, then caressed around to her bra.  She gasped again, then started to moan.

-----

“Why are you even here?” Matt

“That was the plan,” Clark said.

“Not you.  Just Laura.  Idiot!”

“Chaperoning,” Clark laughed.  “Can’t have you young’uns doing the nasty unsupervised.”

Matt muttered threats as they entered the kitchen window.  He saw the cellar door was ajar.

“I am going to check this out.  You stay here.  Or else.”

Clark took on an air of mock innocence but made no move to follow his friend.  Matt shone his own light around the basement – dirty, some bare shelving along the walls, nothing of interest.

“You’re too quiet down there, lovebirds,” Clark called down after a brief pause before coming down the stairs.  “She stood you,” he shouted with glee, finding his friend alone.

“Shut up.  She’s just not here yet.  You’d better not be here when she arrives.”

“OK.  OK. Let’s wait outside for her at least.  When we see her coming I’ll leave and you two can get it on.”  Clark gave a few pelvic thrusts for effect.

“Idiot!” Matt mumbled again, but it did make sense, so he started following Clark back upstairs.

“Oh Matt, you are so bad.”  It was a very faint whisper.  Matt looked over his shoulder but saw nothing.  Just imagination.

-----

A couple of hours passed before they decided that she had stood Matt up.  Laura wasn’t at school the next day either.  The investigation of her disappearance lasted a few months, but town life got back to normal eventually.  From that night onward, stories of the Henderson house started to circulate of giggling or sighing or moaning, all from a young lady, all very faint as if from a distance or perhaps from a ghostly realm.  There were some accounts that added the pleasureful chuckling of an older man.  Some folks who were old enough to know said it sounded like old man Henderson.

[DH****]

Very neat short story, too many writers fail to employ their greatest asset - the reader's imagination. 😇🙃😈