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Scratch

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

Same as always.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

Every night, this same routine.

I scratch the doors and frames of the house, just to get the lady's attention.

I get her attention alright, but not quite the reactions I want.

Yeah, sure, I like scarring her, but she never... really does anything about it. Get the doors and frames fixed sometimes, but other then that and a few shocked expressions I don't get much out of her.

She even named me "Scratch" for it.

I don't mind the name. "Scratch". Has a certain nice ring to it. Exactly what I do for a living anymore. Can't say I disagree with the name. I've been called worse a long time ago.

Anyway, lady never really did much about my scratching. No guard dogs, no police calls (no major ones anyway), no shaman hiring- just her freaking out a bit or her friends and family getting spooked about it. But even then, I think the routine has become too routine for them.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

They're used to it.

Or at least, I thought they were.

One day she surprised me for once.

Somewhere between now and then, the lady had called a so-called "ghost hunter" team to investigate me and my scratching. Apparently she was this close to losing her nerve with me and decided to give these paranormal investigators a chance to prove if I'm real or if she's losing her grip.

Safe to say, my scratch marks on the frames and doors were very real.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

Finally, an audience! I haven't been treated like this in ages! Ages! An actual team of ghost hunters have come to hunt for me! Finally, I make my mark among all those other entities on the Internet to have been investigated! This will be just like old times again!

I waited until night time before I chose to do anything. I always waited until night time for scratching. This was going to be so fun, I knew it was.

They started with that infamous spirit box routine ghost hunters do. Hehe, to finally have a vioce that the mortals can hear! The things, the sounds I made on the box definitely spooked them a bit. They definitely are believers! And that reader thing they have- the thing with the different lights depending on how close I was to it- it's just like what the others have told me; annoying sounds, but rather thrilling to have humans coming after you for once.

I decided to mess with them a bit. I went out on the roof and banged around up there for a while, see if they'd notice. Boy, did it. They came running out like angry ants after you poke a stick in their anthill. They came out, in the dead of night, pointing their flashlights all around the roof as I stepped about. I guess they didn't see me at all. Odd. I could've swore one of their lights shone on me quite directly before I could duck behind the backside of the house. Ah well. They certainly noticed that I had closed the upstairs window to the outside on my way back in though. They even went up and saw I had kicked in the screen frame of the window too. Then again it was all over the stairs, kinda hard to miss it there. That certainly got their blood pumping, that's for sure.

At one point, a couple members of the team found themselves in the basement. And, much to my surprise, they found some loose bricks in the wall. The lady certainly somehow never noticed those bricks, so who was I to expect to see anyone else notice them. And boy, the looks on the team's faces when they removed the bricks to be met with a horrible stench. They were clearly perturbed by the smell, I tell you. It was so great, the flies immediately flew into the space to investigate for themselves.

I suppose it would've made some kind of stench like that after all this time.

The team looked at the charred ashes in there. They couldn't for the life of them figure out what was in there. Smelled horrible and long dead, whatever it was. So they did one last spirit box session to ask me about it.

And you know what I told them? Hehe, what any respectable spirit would've told them; the truth.

It was a baby. For the spirit.

I swear, the entire team had chills up their spines when I told them that. I think one of them looked like he was going to be sick to his stomach from the news. The looks on their faces was so priceless, I laughed out loud at them. So loud that their spirit box picked it up and made sound almost demonic. The whole team was out of there by 5 in the morning, I tell you!

It would've been riveting to tell them why there was a burned baby in the walls of an otherwise normal home, but I think it's for the best if that stayed a secret. I'm scarier to them that way, you know? And besides, us spirits can't give away all of our secrets! We wouldn't be so approachable if they knew, would we?

I am called Scratch (I take this nickname in stride), and this is my submission for the "Best Haunting in the Southwestern US 2020" awards. Here's hoping you consider me the scariest of the year!

Sincerely, Scratch scratch scratch!