The Haunted Mansion

One day at school me and Alma decided that we shall go to the nearby
forest that nobody had set foot for 70 years. People never went in the
forest because there was a sound of a woman screaming every night at
midnight.
Some villagers said that once upon a time there lived an old and
mentally ill lady in her 90s in an enormous mansion with hundreds of
rooms and that she lived all by herself.
Being brave girls, we thought that all of this was just a myth and we
decided to investigate and find out the real history of the mansion.
“Hey Alma what do you think about going to the mansion this night,
you’re not scared are you?” I asked Alma. “No! I’m not scared at all, but
just in case we get stuck in the mansion we shall pack some food and
water and get sweaters and jackets and things to keep us warm.”
“Ok so I’ll pack up some food and warm clothes and you can pick me up
from my bedroom window at 9o’clock when it is completely dark”, I
replied. “Ok great idea I’ll pack some water and warm clothes for me,
but Aymen make sure you pack everything in a rucksack.” Alma said
ensuring me that she agreed with my plan. “Yep, I’ll remember, all right,
see you at 9, bye!”. “Bye!!”, I wished her back. and that was our plan to
discover the hidden
secrets of ‘The Haunted Mansion’

When I went home, I was so excited about our upcoming adventure, I

couldn’t stop thinking about it. But I dared not to tell my parents or my
sister, because if I did so my parents would lock up the windows and
hide the keys.
At 8, my mom said that I shall go to bed but when my dad closed the
bedroom door, I quickly took out my rucksack and started to fill my
rucksack with warm clothes.
When I realized that my parents and little sister are in deep sleep, I
slowly opened my bedroom door and tiptoed to the kitchen downstairs,
grabbed food, and got back to my room upstairs and packed up
everything including my diary and a pen.
Finally, I was done packing and I sat tired on my bed looking at my wall
clock. To my astonishment I realized that it was 5minutes to 9! Which
meant I just had 5 minutes to jump out of the window.
Just then I put my legs out of the window and jumped with my rucksack.
BOOM!!!!! There was a loud noise but not loud enough to wake my
parents. “Hi Aymen!” whispered Alma out of nowhere “Hi, I’m glad
that you came to pick me up!”. “Ok, let me help you ‘cos we have to be
fast.”
So, off we went into the forest, we weren’t hesitating at first because it
was just an overgrown forest with stray cats, bats and owls all around.
Then suddenly in front of us stood a large broken metal gate

The gate led to an old dilapidated mansion; it was strange for some
reason. Every window was cracked or broken and it was pitch-black,
except for the one on top neither was it cracked nor broken, and that was
the one with a dim light on!
Then, all of a sudden there was some kind of noise that shocked me and
Alma, BRRRGRRR!!!! Luckily it was just the sound of a thunderstorm.
“Hey, Aymen, lets wear our jackets, gloves and mufflers or we’ll freeze
to death, c’mon.” “Yeah, but Alma don’t you think that tower on top
looks a bit strange?”. “Nah! It’s probably a candle that hasn’t gone out
because the window hasn’t let any air pass through. Anyway, don’t be a
scaredy cat!”. “Ok, umm Alma it’s just half past 9 so we have a lot of
time to explore inside the mansion, wanna go?”. “Yeah, c’mon”.

So, quietly and with a lot of excitement, we walked through gate. Just
then Alma started clutching my jacket sleeve and I told her that she was
a scaredy cat.
Then slowly we climbed the door steps and when I gently touched the
door, it creaked open by itself!
When I put my right foot inside, Alma grasped my sleeve more tightly.
Ahead of us was nothing but pitch blank. “Aymen, there are two
flashlights in the side pocket of my rucksack, take em out”, Alma said.
So, I took them out and turned them on! We noticed we were in a large
entrance hall of the mansion. As I moved the flash light around, we
could see a lot of elegant furniture draped in white.
 To the right side there was an enormous dining table covered with a
large cloth.
Now, we both were so hungry that we, took off the cloth, sat on adjacent
chairs and started opening our rucksacks.
Alma took out her water and said “Hey, I have Sprite!”, “Yay!” I said
while taking out the food pack, labelled ‘Dinner’.

After having some food, we packed up everything and set off again to
explore the mansion, and again Alma grabbed my jacket sleeve. We both
climbed up the creaking staircase. Then all of a sudden, we could hear
someone singing in a lovely tune along with an instrumental music in
the background.

When we reached the top floor, we saw a large door right in front of us.
There was a small hole in the center of the door. When I was forced by
Alma to look through the hole, I saw something very, very spooky. I saw
there was a man in shabby old clothes, playing the piano and a guitar at
the same time. There was also a chandelier with lit candles hanging
from the ceiling. To my astonishment, I realized that this was the only
room with lights we saw when we entered through the gates of the
mansion.

I leaned on the door to catch my breath and suddenly it opened. The man
with the shabby old clothes playing the musical instruments screamed
“WHOAAAAA!!!!!”.
With my eyes wide open, I yelled at the man with the shabby old
clothes, asking “Who on earth are you?”.
“I’m Cheese, Cheese Roberts, who are you?” the young man asked with
an astonished face. “I-I am Aymen, and this is my f-friend Alma, are
you a g-g-ghost or a monster or just a human being like us?” I asked the
young man. “Ha! I’m a human! Why are you so scared? But you girls
better not be in here, as this place is cursed. When I was 18, I came here
and now I can’t get out!”. “Oh, then we shouldn’t have entered this
mansion Aymen! Now we are trapped!
I wish we hadn’t come!”, Alma said, regretting her decision for this
adventure.
The man said “Calm down both of you! I know the history of this
mansion.
Now that you have come here, you better explore the entire
mansion. You are now trapped in this mansion forever like me, or if you
want to get out, you better start exploring the mansion. That is the curse
upon this mansion”.
So, myself and Alma went to the corner of the room and discussed
for a long time to choose either options.

Then finally we decided to choose the option of exploring the mansion

whether they see a ghost or not. “Ok, Cheese we’ve made our decision.”
I said with a hesitating voice. “To explore the mansion whether we see a
ghost or not”.
After that Cheese told us that it will take 3 days to explore the mansion
and that he has a bedroom and a bathroom for us to use. “You know that
voice of a lady screaming, I make those sounds to scare away
trespassers.” Cheese said ensuring us that ghosts didn’t scream at
midnight “Oh.” We exclaimed.
At half past 10’ Cheese led us to our room and showed us the bathroom,
then he told us that we better go to bed, because, we have to get up early
to start exploring. But unfortunately, we couldn’t even close our eyes
because we knew we were in ‘The Haunted Mansion’ (Who will dare to
sleep in a haunted place, eh?)
In the corner of the room, I saw a small cupboard, I then slowly walked
to the cupboard and picked out a thick book named ‘The Curse of Jog
Mansion and The Forest’. Then I walked back to the huge four-poster
bed and Alma and I read the book until the morning sun was shining
through our bedroom window. “Now we know all about this mansion
and all about the Jog Family and the forest they owned!” I told Alma in
an excited voice.
Suddenly Cheese dashed into our bedroom to tell us that breakfast was
ready downstairs. We both brushed, washed and went downstairs with
our rucksacks to eat breakfast. When we reached the dining table, we
noticed the most disgusting looking food, it was rotten fish Cheese
found in the cabinet of the old kitchen.
“Cheese, do you really expect us to eat that rotten fish!” I shouted
refusing to eat the food.
“Well, that’s what I eat every day for breakfast, supper, and dinner ‘cos
there are thousands of fish in that kitchen cabinet! And I tell you I
washed it!”.
Luckily, I had brought enough food supply for 3 days. Soon, I took out
the food pack labelled ‘Breakfast 1’ which included two sandwiches and
two apples and some Choco-Chip cookies.
After having a hearty breakfast, we set off to explore the mansion for the
first day. As we were all alone, we had to find our own way in and out of
rooms and try our best not to make a lot of noise while walking through
the creepy corridors and halls.
After exploring some of the mansion Cheese gave us signals to come
back for some supper.
“Cheese we don’t need to come for supper we already have the
rucksacks with us, but thanks for letting us know!” Alma shouted with
her handmade speaker that she used to respond back to Cheese.
After having a spooky but fun filled adventure exploring the basement of
the mansion, we had a quick dinner for the night we fell into deep sleep
and woke up with the morning sun……

To Be Continued!!!
 The Haunted Mansion
Part 2

The af3rd day,

After a couple of days of exploring the mansion we were fed up and
tired. We really, really wanted to go home. The more we stayed at the
mansion the more haunted it felt, but thankfully it was finally the last
day of staying at ‘The Haunted Mansion’ or what I call ‘Jog Mansion’.
But unfortunately, the last day horribly went by and it was a day to
remember for life.
The next morning when me and Alma were eating breakfast, we
discussed about what we would tell our parents, and would they be
proud of us to go alone and explore or scold us for risking our lives
instead.
What reasons are we going to give to our teachers for not attending
school for three whole days.
“Umm girls, you’ll have to go home when it is fully dark so that nobody
will see you two go from the forest” Cheese said while eating his rotten
old fish again. “Ok” we said together. “There’s an old secret passage I
know, it’s quite cold there so make sure you wear your coats” Cheese
said.
“Mmm Hmm, we will” I said.
We got up and ran up the stairs to the attic door, but it was locked! It
wasn’t locked the day before but now it was! Who must have locked it?
Cheese couldn’t because he didn’t have the keys to any room it the
mansion. Luckily Cheese had found a big stone on the kitchen floor
which he used to break the lock. This opened the door to the attic.
Even though it was morning, the attic was completely dark, as if there
was a black curtain all around the room, when we used our flashlights to
see what was in the attic, all we could see were lots of cartons and small
tables and chairs all around the room.
In the left corner of the room there was a carton labelled ‘Family Fotos’
it was written with a spelling mistake and the handwriting looked like of
a little kid.
Alma opened the carton and there was a family photo of the Jog Family.
There was a man named William George Jog, a woman named Clara
Jog, an elder boy named David Jog, a little girl named Catherine Jog,
and a little baby girl named Julie Jog.
They had taken the picture standing on the entrance of the mansion
(from where me and Alma had entered). It was in black and white. The
attire of the people in the picture gave an impression of the fashion 5 or
6 decades ago.
There was also something strange on the face of William Jog (probably,
the father) had a scar across the left side of his face.
I opened another carton labeled ‘Toys’ and as I opened it, a dreadful
looking clown doll popped out of the carton.
“AAAhh!”, save me please, save me!!!!” I screamed in fear and
collapsed on the ground as if I saw a real ghost!

But then thankfully Alma gave me a hand, and made me sit on a chair,
then she picked the clown face doll up and observed the face really
closely, “What’s the problem with this doll? huh? It’s actually super cute
what made you jump with fear?” Alma asked me bringing the doll
closer. “No! No, no, no! don’t bring it closer to me NO! Please, please
don’t!!!”. I was crying, then, suddenly Alma brought the doll very close
to me and it was cute! Cute as a baby doll! But there was something
wrong about it, certainly wrong…for sure.

After dinner Cheese told us to go upstairs and get our rucksacks ready to
run away from the mansion.

Then Cheese led us to the basement of the mansion and opened a

mysterious looking door which said ‘no trespassing!!!!’. “Go, go, go!!
And never come back again!! Go!” Cheese said feeling a bit tensed.
We ran as fast as our little legs could carry us. Soon, we reached the end
of the passage. Alma found a door at the end of the passage and pushed
it open. We were finally out of the mansion, yay!!

Just then we took our first steps out and suddenly something cylindrical
touched my foot. I picked it up to find out it was a telescope. Just then
an idea struck my mind. So, I aimed the telescope and Cheese’s
bedroom window and to my astonishment I saw something sinister!
Cheese was turning round and round and his face was turning pale.
His face resembled that of the father from the Jog Family photo, with a
scar on the face!!!
The next what I saw was an unimaginable sight, I literally saw four
distinct clouds of smoke emanating out of Cheese.
Could these be souls trapped in his body?
Were those souls of the rest of the family? The three children and the
mother? OH NO!!!
I was horrified by the sight and turned speechless, handing over the
telescope to Alma.
She threw the telescope out of my hands and said that we should run
because this place is haunted and we could get into trouble if we stayed
any longer.
We both decided to keep this as a secret amongst ourselves and not
breathe a word about it to anyone. Alma said we had to be sworn in
secrecy. So, we scribbled this on a bark of wood:
ALMA AND AYMEN SWEAR THAT THEY WILL KEEP MUM
AND WISH THAT THEY MAY DROP DROWN DEAD AND ROT IF
THEY EVER REVEAL THE SECRET TO ANYONE.
Then we pricked our fingers with a sharp piece of wood and marked our
initials on the bark in blood. We buried the bark deep in the ground,
whispering magical incantations that we made up randomly from words
that we heard elsewhere. It was an important ceremony to us. After
sealing the oath in blood, we were sure that neither would speak of that
dreadful incident ever again.

We were about to go home, when we were startled by the baying of a

dog. We thought it was a stray and were a bit scared, because in our
town; there was a superstition that if a stray dog turned towards someone
or their house and bayed, the person would die.
Alma and I looked at each other, speechless in our fright. We stood
absolutely still, without making any noise. After some time, thankfully,
the dog turned away and left, still baying loudly.
We walked home trembling because of this encounter.
Soon we reached Alma’s house. I helped her up the window to her
bedroom, suddenly something struck my mind. “Alma, I remember
Cheese had told me that if anyone enters the forest, time freezes!” I said
excitedly.
“Then that’s great!” Alma exclaimed. After saying ‘bye’ to each other, I
went at the back of my house where my bedroom window was, I
climbed up my window, went straight to the bathroom and took a
shower, ate a sandwich and went straight to bed, behaving as if nothing
has happened.
The End
By: Aymen Sayed Edited by: Imran Sayed (a.k.a Dad)