Teacher’s Ghost Story – Please feel free to use mine or create your own!

When I was 11 I went on holiday with my family to the Lake District. Has
anyone been to the Lake District? It’s beautiful – it’s full of vast, sparkling lakes
and steep, rocky hills. It’s also very… very… remote.
My family and I were staying in a small cottage that was a mile away from the
nearest house. It was an old cottage and it had two bedrooms on the top floor,
a small kitchen and living room on the ground floor, with a basement below.
The basement was quite neglected. The walls were not painted, just exposed
brickwork, and there was very little furniture. There was a noisy old washing
machine, a television (yes they did have those in my day!) and an old sofa bed.
A single lightbulb hung from ceiling in the middle of room casting an orange
glow around the room. There was no heating. Despite it being the middle of
August it was always incredibly cold down there.
On the first night of our holiday I was awoken suddenly in the middle of the
night by a piercing scream. My sister was stood at the end of my bed, staring at
me, her eyes were wide and completely glazed. The whole room was freezing. I
felt myself begin to shake uncontrollably. My sister was shaking to and
pointing her finger towards to wall above my bed. She was screaming – no
words – just screaming. My Mum and Dad came running into the room and
tried to comfort her. After a while she managed to calm down enough to tell
use all what she’d seen. She said that she had been awoken in the middle of
the night by a horrible stench – it smelt like rotting meat. The stench got worse
and worse - almost as though it was moving towards her. She’d seen a shadow
of a man appear through the wall above where I was sleeping. The shadow had
started moving towards her just as I’d woken up and then disappeared
suddenly.
We were all certain it was just a horrible nightmare but in the days that
followed we all felt uneasy whenever we were in the house. My sister and I
were so scared that we spent the next few days sleeping on the floor in the
room our parents were staying in because it made us feel safer being all
together.
One evening, about two days before the end of our holiday, my dad had gone
out to collect a take way for dinner from the nearest town. My mum was in the
living room reading and my sister and I were down stairs playing a game of
monopoly. Suddenly my sister froze! ‘Can you smell that she said?’ – it was the
horrible stench of rotting flesh that she’d smelt on that awful night a few days
ago. The temperature of the room began to drop and we both started to
shake. Suddenly the light bulb that was hanging in the middle of the ceiling
burst! Shards of glass scattered all over the floor. My sister and grabbed each
other’s hand too frightened to move. The sound of nails scraping down the
exposed brick walls started the fill the room and the smell of rotting meat
started to get worse and worse. My sister and I summoned up every ounce of
courage we could muster and ran up the stairs and out of the basement as
quickly as we could slamming the old wooden door behind us! Our Mum ran
towards us to see what was going on. We explained and she promised to go
down into the basement to check it out. She grabbed a torch that the owners
of the house had left in one of the kitchen drawers, slowly opened the wooden
door and descended down the creaky, old steps. My sister and I clung to each
other. Mum was down in the basement for what appeared like an age.
Suddenly she appeared at the top of the stairs slamming the door behind her
too afraid to speak. At that moment my Dad arrived back at the house with the
take-away. “We’re leaving. Now.” My Mum exclaimed moving past us upstairs
to start packing our suitcases. We horridly packed our things in complete
silence, not wanting to spend a second more than was necessary in the house.
We piled into the car ready to make our way home.
As we sat in the car about to leave Mum decided that she was ready to tell us
what she’d seen. She explained that as she’d made her way down into the dark
basement she too had felt the instant drop in temperature. She too had smelt
the horrible stench of rotting meat that seemed to worsen the longer she was
down there. The sound of scratching nails began. Slowly and quietly… at first.
As it became louder and quicker my Mum turned on the torch and shone the
beam of white light slowly across the room. Behind the sofa… nothing there.
Underneath the sofa…nothing there. And then… between the wall and an old
washing machine was… a man. He was hunched on all fours and had long,
straggly hair. He was shaking. He quickly looked up making eye contact with
my Mum. Mum said his eyes were white and wide and didn’t look human! At
that point he stood up and ran – through my mum and through the wall
behind her! My Mum dropped the touch and ran as fast as she could up the
stairs and out of the basement! We all looked an one another gobsmacked. At
that moment we all began to feel a chill in the air. The sound of nails scratching
down the side of the car could be heard… quietly at first and then it got louder
and louder. A stench of rotting meat started to fill the car. Dad started the
engine. It chocked! It wouldn’t start! We all started crying and pleading with
Dad to get the car moving. I turned and looked back at the house out of the
back window. A man with long, straggly hair appeared through the door. He
looked up - making eye contact with me and his expression showed nothing
but pure hate. Dad tried the engine again. It chocked. By this point everyone
had noticed the man who was now making his way down the drive towards the
car. He looked almost dead and moved in a way that was not human. Dad tried
the engine again. The car started! Thank goodness! Dad put the car into gear
and put his foot down on the accelerator as quickly as he could shooting the
car down the drive and onto a country lane. The whole time I had my eyes
fixed on the man. As we turned the corner onto the next street the man
seemed to disappear into thin air – like he had never even been there at all.
We returned home and decided to stay together in the living room – each of us
too scared to sleep alone. As the days went on Mum and Dad tried to
rationalise what we’d seen as a strange shared dream but I knew what I’d
seen. Now fortunately I’ve never seen the man again but even to this day I
often have nightmares that he is there in my room, standing at the foot of my
bed with that same, strange evil expression on his face. White eyes staring into
mine.