Haunted house excursion

On Saturday night, while at a party for adults and kids in Oglethorpe, I mentioned to a couple of kids who hadn't heard my stories a million times that the house across the street was haunted. I know because I lived there from 1986-1991. The ghosts were members of my church (before they died ... a week apart from each other), so I didn't really have a problem with it. Nice ghosts are cool, though my wife doesn't agree after the one night she spent in the house back in 1993.

One of the kids, Rachel, daughter of a couple of my old schoolmates, was fascinated. Apparently, she has a thing for ghosts. Next thing I know, four teenagers (Rachel, Matt, Jordan and Shane) and my 8-year-old son, Saylor, have talked me into leading them through the falling-down house. None of the other adults (and I'm lumping myself in the "adult" age group, though it's debatable) were willing to go, including my wife. Having seen one of the ghosts, she was willing to go in daylight, but not at night.

Rachel promptly grabbed a Polaroid camera (apparently, they still exist) and whatever ghost-hunting equipment she could round up, and off we went. It was pretty uneventful ... except when blood started dripping from the ceiling and then these hounds of hell pounced out of a closet and a zombie tried to eat one of the kids. (Hmm, wait a minute: Were there four teenagers or five? Oh, what's the difference?)

Saylor, who is scared of neither ghosts nor teenagers (but should be of at least one of those groups), had the line of the night when I got tired of trying to scare the kids to death and decided to be the first one out of the house. I think he's been watching 1980s slasher movies behind my back because as I was leaving he said, "Dad! You can't leave teenagers alone in a haunted house!"

Indeed. They weren't far behind.

I'll probably write more about the excursion for this Sunday's Ledger-Enquirer. And if Rachel captured any orbs or anything else on film, I'll share them here. So, send them my way.

Below is a pic of a couple of the mothers who reluctantly let me lead their kids on the ghost hunt (Mary Ellen, left, and Jenny) after we returned and they counted their kids and were satisfied that any kids left behind weren't theirs.


Speaking of horror stories, both of these ladies would have shuddered in horror 23 years ago if they had their photo taken with me in those days. Would have killed their reputations. I, however, am gonna build a time machine and show this picture to 14-year-old freshman dork Chris Johnson in 1985.