"You Are Entering the Portals of Gehenna"

She motioned to me to come with her. The persistent growling emitted from the floorboards sounded mean. A sickly smell of burned flesh stalked me. Then, the floor moved from behind us. I shot a glance at it. The boards pushed up and down like they were breathing. A feeling of doom racked my brain. I followed the little girl with blond pigtails through the narrow hallway with high ceilings and dull lights. It was as though some outside force was compelling me to do so. I had no control over it.

I heard children running around. Several kids, maybe six, chased a red bouncing ball right past me. Their eyes were dark holes with nothing in them. “Help us! Help us!” they shouted at me. I watched the ball bounce into an open door that led to a stairway. The ball bounced through the opening. The kids followed.

They disappeared down the stairs which sounded rickety as they bounded over them.

“Come, come!” the now sooty little girl with the blonde pigtails said. We raced past a room with 18th century décor. Inside, I saw eight men in 20th Century dress marine uniforms marching around a cherrywood table with eight cherrywood chairs. They withdrew their sabers. They pointed them directly at me. In unison they said, “You burn the little children.” They sounded angry. Then all of them vaporized.

Without warning, I saw a fading beam cut through the little girl. She became transparent. She transformed into a tall, slimy shadowy figure in a hooded black cloak right in front of my eyes. The cloak was so long it draped to the floor. Peeking out from under it were claw-like feet.

A chilling terror eroded me as I was compelled to look into the figure’s eyes. They were blazing coals of fire. Standing on the smoky landing to the stairway, he beckoned me with his pale bony hand. “This way,” he rasped.

Hollow chanting unintelligible words floated up the stairway from the basement feet ahead of me. I noticed a black plaque on the wall with silver drawings on it centered around a skull with black sockets. The skull possessed narrow, human-like hands. They held ugly looking snakes, one with the head of a horse on it, another with an alligator’s face, a third with a dog-like face that had horns and the fourth one was a smaller skull with sharp horns.

“A portal of Gehenna to enter,” I heard a distant voice say. And as I looked into the opening to the stairs from the landing, I saw the children who were chasing the ball huddled together looking up at me. Fear raked their little faces.

“Portal of Gehenna?” I asked. As I stepped towards them, I noticed I was holding a flaming torch.

Author Notes: https://www.waldorfpublishing.com/product/the-real-ghost/292?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category_id=2

Recommend Write a ReviewReport