Boo!- Uncle Percy

I never wanna see a haunted house ever in my life again. Just when I was finally catching up on all the rest I missed from last week's very annoying night, I have been traumatized to the extent that I can’t sleep for another month. Uncle Percy decided it was high time to face his never-dying fear of ghosts and decided to take us all out on a haunted house tour. People say that the place is actually haunted. It sounded fun until we started off.

“Percy I’m telling you, you turn left from here!” “Nonsense! The GPS says turn left at the next intersection!” “The GPS knows nothing!” Yep. The usual argument in the car. Aunt always thinks she can use the map and we’ll reach everywhere perfectly fine. Uncle wants the GPS. And us kids want silence. Tamara was, as usual, lost in her headphones, Tyson was playing with his seat belt, Millie and Rebecca were sleeping, and me and Pepper were listening to aunt and uncle’s argument. Boy, I wonder how much more time till we reach that house tour.

After a few more hours (We took aunt’s left and got lost), we finally reached the haunted house. It didn’t look very haunted to me. It was neat and clean from the outside, well painted. The garden was maintained and, get this straight, there were even flowers. Wow, so much for a ‘haunted’ house. Man this place made our house look haunted. Maybe that was the idea.

We bought our tickets, and our tour guide met us outside the house. There were ten other people in the group with us. As expected, the triplets weren’t allowed inside. They say it's so that the kids don’t get scared, but it's actually so that they don’t end up picking apart the electronic devices used to run the house. Ha, I bet Uncle’s gonna be the one doing that.

We started going inside the first house, but the tour guide stopped us. “Oh, that’s just a model of what the house looked like before. The real house is this way. On the way, I’ll explain the timeline of the owner, whose ghost haunts this house.” Yikes! I’m starting to have second thoughts about this.

“The house was initially bought by Sir Roger Smythe, a British sailor. It was thought that a man of his background and wealth would only be satisfied with a large mansion with rolling meadows, and perhaps a stream running through the garden. It was thought the height of absurdity that this man would settle down near this part of the world, by the sea. He was considered possessed by the spirit of the sea. Of course, he himself claimed to be fine, but other ‘experts’ claimed to know differently. He was kept isolated, to prevent the spirit from manifesting itself into other forms. Soon, he died a lonely death. It is said his spirit still haunts this house, seeking REVENGE!”

Aunt was enjoying herself tremendously, listening to the story with deep interest. Uncle, on the other hand, was shivering with fear. “Um, excuse me, may I ask a question,” he asked timidly. “Yes go on,” said the tour guide, getting ready to scare yet another person. “Is this safe? What if someone was to get possessed by this ‘spirit’? Would your company be liable to any such occurrences?” “Firstly, sir, that’s three questions. And secondly, it's daytime. The spirit won’t be able to possess you now as once you step out into the light it will perish. And thirdly, this is all just a tour for entertainment. If at any point should you choose to leave, you are free to do so. And no, there are no refunds. Alright, moving on.” I think we’ve provoked something worse than a spirit. An angry tour guide. Believe me, it's terrifying.

After walking a bit more, we finally reached the real house. Until now the gardens around had just been deteriorating in maintenance a little bit, but the house itself was a terrifying sight. The paint around the walls was chipped, it was covered in cobwebs, and the garden was way overgrown. Man this place needed a maintenance team and fast.

We went inside. It was pitch dark. As soon as everyone was inside, the door slammed shut. Being the ones in the family who watched horror movies when they felt lonely, Tamara, aunt and me were expecting this. Uncle and Pepper, on the other hand, looked like they were already traumatized. Pepper was praying, uncle was crying. We stepped away from them and went up to the rest of the group to continue the tour before uncle went out running like a little kid. Man after this the only place we’re taking uncle to scare him is the amusement park. He gets dizzy on the cup carousel. Don’t ask what happens on the roller coaster.

“This is a painting of the late Sir Roger Smythe. The room directly opposite to this is his bedroom, where he is said to have died,” the tour guide said in a bored, monotonous voice. I don’t blame her. She probably has to do this a hundred times a day. “Let's go to the room,” Tamara exclaimed. “I have a better idea,” Pepper said. “Let's hop back into the car, drive home, go to the living room, and watch ‘Scoob’ again.” “What are you, five?” “Girls, stop fighting or Pepper you’ll go into the room and Tamara, you’ll watch that movie,” Aunt intervened before we had yet another thing scarier than a ghost- A war between Pepper and Tamara. I wonder though. If we have so many things we consider scarier than ghosts why are we scared of ghosts?

The tour guide took us to the room. As we were entering, something popped out from above the door frame. Another puppet. However this time even the tour guide wasn’t mentally prepared for this. Come to think of it, this didn’t look like the other puppets. I mean, where was the rope supporting it? It didn’t look like a projected image either. There was no screen. Does that mean...? Oh my god, this house is actually haunted! Time to run for our lives.