The Ghosts of the Woods

Chapter 1

It is the day before Christmas Eve and I am sitting in my room, reading this book I borrowed from the library after school yesterday. It is called 'Haunted'.
I love reading scary stories with suspense in them.
So there I am, lying in my bed, reading this story.

The story is about this girl getting lost in the woods, after hearing strange noises in the woods. She tries to flee even further into the woods, trying to get away from the noises, but they will not leave. She gets to a clearing. There is only one lonely house standing in the middle of the field. The girl hopes to find some help there, so she knocks on the door. It opens with a creak and the girl steps in. Inside she sees Santa Clause with an axe in his hand that is dripping with blood. He turns his head towards the girl and starts laughing. It is a horrible, scary laugh. The girl gets frightened and wants to run away, but something is stopping her from going. The door slams shut behind her and she is left in the dark. Suddenly the light turns on and Santa Clause is standing behind her. He starts laughing this horrible and scary laugh again, then pushes her through a door and slams it shut behind her. She is in darkness once again. Santa Clause's voice is heard, telling her that she has to find a way to get out or she will die. She hears him laugh again, really loudly, and then it slowly fades. Now the girl has to find a way to get out of the horror house.

I place the book on my little nightstand next to my bed. It is now three o'clock in the morning. I should have been in bed ages ago, but once I am reading a good book, I am lost in that world and cannot get out again, until the last page has been turned. I am quite tired now and my eyes are feeling quite heavy, so I turn the light of and decide to go to bed.

The next morning, I awake to the smell of bacon drifting in through my door.

I get up, put my nightgown over my pyjamas and head downstairs, where I see my father standing over the oven cooking bacon.

He hears me come down the stairs and turns round to face me, smiling. "Good morning, Kathy. How are you? I hope you are hungry for a bacon sandwich." "Starving actually", I respond, laughing.

I sit down and eat my bacon sandwich, enjoying it a lot. 'Today is Christmas. Yes, finally! Best day of the year', I think happily.

Every year on Christmas, I go down to the little river that flows along the woods, to meet up with my friends. There we give each other Christmas gifts and talk about all the good things that happened that year. Of course, we laugh a lot too.

I tell my dad that I am going to go into the shower and then head of to the river to meet up with my friends.

About one and a half hours later I am standing at the door, ready to head out. My dad comes down the stairs, so I give him a quick kiss, before I head out the door. I take a quick glance at the clock. It is half past three already. 'I am late', I think. We had said that we would meet at half past three and, where am I? At home. Thank god I only have to walk five minutes to get to the river. It is only down the hill.

"Don't forget to be back before it gets dark", my dad calls after me. "I won't", I turn round and smile at him. "Good, I love you", he says. "Love you too", I respond and run down the hill.

Five minutes later I get to our meeting spot, where everyone else is already waiting, deeply involved in a conversation. I am totally out of breath by the time I reach them.

"Well, Kathy shows her face too", Johnny laughs. "Late as usual", Lucy jokes. "But I did get here in the end", I retort, still catching my breath and laugh with them.

Johnny and Lucy are my best friends. We have known each other ever since we were small. We all live in the same area too and have been going to the same schools and are now on the same college.

Lucy has beautiful long brown hair that she usually curls, which would take her two hours in the morning, every day. Her eyes are a matching dark brown and they really glow when she is happy. In school she is one of the popular girls, although she is definitely not one of these girls that thinks she is much better than everyone else. On the contrary, she is so sweet and makes sure that everyone is happy and that nobody is bullied.

All the boys have a crush on her, except for Johnny that is. He does say that she is quite pretty but claims he does not love anyone. As a joke he would always say that he loves himself most, but everybody knows that he is just trying to cover up that he is actually in love, but nobody knows who it is he loves. If you asked me, I would probably say that it is Lucy he loves, but he just does not want to admit it, because she is too good for him.

Johnny has short, light brown hair. His eyes are a dark brown colour, and they sparkle like stars, although I am not sure, if I am just imaging it. It is not that I like Johnny or anything. Well, I do, but just as my best friend, nothing more. Well, never mind.

Anyway, there we are, giving each other our gifts, we got. We are laughing and having a really good time, when Johnny comes up with this brilliant idea to go into the woods and go looking for this creepy, old and abandoned house that lies somewhere in the middle of the woods.

Nobody ever dares to go near it, because they reckon it is haunted. I do believe them in a way, because nobody has lived in it for over a hundred years.

But Johnny decides it would be quite the laugh and states that he is brave enough to go near it. I do hate it, when Johnny wants to be brave and has one of his brilliant ideas that are actually not so brilliant at all.

But Lucy and I do not want to chicken out, so we decide to follow him.

We go deeper and deeper into the woods, the trees are growing thicker and thicker around them, also the sky is getting darker and darker.

'I should be getting home. Dad will be worried sick, if I am late', I think, getting a little frightened.

But luckily, I am not the only person, who is scared, because the next thing I know, Lucy is hanging onto my arm, not wanting to let go, as if it were the end of the world if she did.