Michael grimaced and a shiver ran through him.  This was more than he bargained for.  He’d gone along with Randall’s idea.  They’d broken into the spooky Shawnee house to see if they could find a ghost on Halloween night.  They’d gotten in through a back door, plowed through a bunch of cobwebs and shuffled down a dark creaky hallway.  

Their adventure was fun until their flashlights illuminated the severed hand on the ground near the base of the stairway.  It was surrounded by a pool of blood and chunks of something meaty. 

“Ewwww, gross!” exclaimed Randall, “Go ahead and poke it.  See if it’s real.” 

Michael shook his head.  “No way, man!  I’m not messing with it.”

Randall made clucking sounds.  “You’re a chicken, a little bitty chicken!”  

Michael hated it when Randall poked fun at him.  “If you’re so curious, you check it out.”  

Randall pushed him hard.  “Dweeb!” he muttered.  

Michael fell face first onto the wet floor.  His flashlight rolled beside him.  The hand lay right in front of his nose.  He reached out to touch it.  His fingers grazed the hand‘s skin.  That‘s when it jumped.  Red bits flew into the air and some landed on him.

Michael let out a yelp and jerked away.  The hand continued to wiggle.  Then it stopped.  He heard Randall laughing.  Goop covered his chin and shirt.  He wiped his face and caught the faint odor of… ketchup?  Yeah, this was definitely another prank on him.  

He grabbed the flashlight, stood up and turned toward Randall angrily.   

Randall shook with giggles.  “I can’t wait to tell everyone at school!  You should‘ve seen the look on your face when it moved.  Too funny!”  

Michael stood up.  He opened his mouth to call Randall a name.  Then he saw it.  A smoky cloud oozed up behind Randall.  The shape coalesced to become a figure.  Was it a man or a woman?  He couldn’t tell.  It hovered in the air and red glowing eyes appeared where the head seemed to be.  One of it arms jerked forward.

“What’s the matter?” asked Randall.  “Still freaked out?  Geez, you really are a dweeb.”

A sharp object suddenly projected out of Randall’s chest.  His eyes went wide and blood spurted out of his mouth.  He looked down.   His shirt became red as the blood spread outward and then dripped onto the floor.    He dropped, twitched in pain and then stopped moving with a sigh.  

Michael stepped back.  His foot slipped on the ketchup and he fell hard.  The fake hand hit the middle of his back and it started twitching.  He quickly moved to get away from it while keeping his eyes on the smoky cloud thing by Randall. 

It hovered over the body then it looked directly at Michael with its red eyes.  A toothy grin formed in the air.  It reminded Michael of the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland.  

Michael spun about and ran as fast as he could.  His flashlight created wild shadows on the walls as he plunged through the darkness and into a side room.  He saw a window.  He heard the thing’s footsteps, felt its hot breath.  He plunged through the window pane and broke the glass.  Something sharp grazed his leg.  The pain made him grimace, but adrenalin kept him moving forward all the way home.

Two police officers came to his house the next day.   They said that Randall’s parents called them to say their son was missing.  They’d found an email to Michael about going over to the Shawnee house.  The police followed up on this lead.  They found the back door had been jimmied open.  They went inside and found Randall’s body on the floor.  

Michael gulped.  “Yes, I was there.  I saw what happened,“ he said.  “Randall and I went to the house together.  He played a joke on me.  He left one of those rubber hands that moves on the floor.  It scared me but good.  We were… talking and then this weird thing appeared.  I swear it was a ghost!  It stabbed Randall in the back all the way through him.  And then it came for me!  So I ran.“  He showed the officers the wound on his leg.  “I barely made it out of there!”

They looked at him strangely.  “This looks like a glass cut. Apparently, someone used a piece of glass to kill Randall.  Did you two have a fight?” one asked.

“I didn’t do anything!” cried Michael.  “Honest.  He was my friend!”

The police didn’t believe him.   They concluded there was enough evidence to charge him.  The dust layer on the floor showed footprints leading to the crime scene and an area near the stairway where a struggle might have occurred.  Only one set of footprints left the scene.  They found ketchup residue and lots of broken glass pieces in the hallway, stairwell and by a broken window.  They did not find the hand prop and the glass used to kill Randall was missing.     

Poor Michael kept repeating the same story over and over until he was sentenced.  He ultimately ended up in a mental ward sitting in the corner of a padded room.  His only words since that day were “I’m sorry, so sorry” over and over.  Some said the words mean that he snapped because of the prank, hallucinated seeing a ghost and killed his friend.  Others believed him and thought he went crazy due to guilt and fear.

Ultimately, the story became an urban legend.  To this day, the people of the town stay far away from the Shawnee house.   Some say they have seen someone standing near the broken window on Halloween night.  They’re not sure whether it might be Randall or something more sinister. 

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