Creepy Stories

Mineral Lane

At the edge of the small village of Hollow Waters was a street like no other. Many said the street was haunted, with ghosts hiding in the backyard sheds that were always threatening to spook those on their morning walks. Others claimed that they had seen faces in the windows of the abandoned manor that covered most of the right edge of the street. There were only two other houses on the street. One was owned by the elderly Eliza Polack, who lived alone and the other had just recently been bought by the Mindal family.

This street was known as Mineral Lane. The street was feared by all of the other villagers, who avoided it on their runs. Even the paperboy refused to set foot onto Mineral Lane, resulting in those on the peculiar street being forced to drive into town every day to pick up the newspaper.

My parents, Michelle and Kosias Mindal were both in their fifties. I – their son, Anthony - had attended a juvenile delinquent center twice in my life, and was seventeen years old. I had more than one tattoo, both in unseen places, and had nearly every part of my body that could be pierced had a loop ring or stub stuck into it. I often wore black eyeliner and I could remember when a boy at my first school had called him a freaky goth. The boy had been in the hospital for over a month and I had been kicked out the next day.

I tended to enjoy exploring more than anything else. Whenever I could, I talked over the cellphone with my friends back in the city, who often told me about their new tattoos or who they had beaten up that day. In my free time, I would venture far back into the woods behind my small, beat down home, and would hang out in a small swampy area I found, gulping down a couple of beers on his trip.

One day near the beginning of the school year, I was approached by a group of boys at his new school. They dressed like wannabes and acted like wannabes, what with their fuckin’ backwards caps and pants pulled way too far down.

“Wazzup muhfucka?” one of them asked. He was too short to be in high school, I couldn’t believe it. “Hear you were a badass back in the city. But here, we work a little differently.”

I didn’t answer, but instead blew a cloud of smoke into the boy’s face from his cigarette. Then he leaned in close to the choking boy.

“Why dunt you jus fuck off, you fuckin’ midget mongoloid?” I growled quietly to the still coughing boy.

One of the other boys shoved him away from his leader and smiled a shark grin.

“Heard you live on Mineral Lane. We’ve all been inside the manor across the street from your house, it ain’t as scary as you might think.”

I was ready to storm off, but I had been wondering about the manor. I knew it was abandoned, but I was sure I had seen some fucked up shit when I looked out my window during the night, like curtains shifting and faces in the windows.

“You see anything in there?” I asked the boys, who were staring at me with looks of excitement, waiting for my response.

“I dunno,” snarled the main boy. “You got any cash?”

I stepped forward, ready to beat the shit out of these assholes, but a hand appeared on my shoulder. I turned around to find myself facing a tall, lean figure with a hollow face. It was Principal Grewed.

“Is there a problem here, Mr. Mindal?” said Grewed in his raspy voice. He couldn’t have been more than fifty, probably younger than my parents, but he was wrinkled and bald, so I couldn’t be sure.

Before I could think of a response, the Principal led me off towards the front doors. As they marched away, I noticed the boys laughing at me. I flashed them the middle finger behind the Principals back. He opened up the doors and led me inside. Usually, I would have thrown this guy to the ground, but he knew my parents didn’t have the money to move again. So I simply tried to smile and stepped through the door, letting the Principal lead me down the hallway.