[Featuring GIFs from Are You Afraid of the Dark?]

At some point in life, I turned into a ‘fraidy cat. My husband—a horror/monster movie aficionado—suggests spooky H’weenish things for us to do, but they all seem too scary. Maybe after experiencing panic attacks throughout 2015, I just became frightened of being frightened and exhausted from emoting. Every nightmarish thought I could think of seemed plausible. Grim and gruesome ideas so crowded my mind that there wasn’t any room left for fictionalized serial killers.

But let’s harken back to those days when the illustration of the woman on page 52 of Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones didn’t horrify me!

I was all about ghosts and scary stuff as a kid. It was fun to scare myself with movies and haunted houses. I read “The Curse” from More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark out loud on the school bus and made fellow third graders jump with my impassioned storytelling. I’d flip through Daniel Cohen’s Encyclopedia of Ghosts while dipping a peanut butter sandwich triangle into a bowl of Campbell’s chicken soup. (Apparently, this is a disgusting thing to eat—I never knew.) I knew all about Aaron Burr’s ghost before I even knew who the hell Aaron Burr was.

Additionally, I had a blast inventing terrifying games of pretend that were full of ghosts and murder. On one such occasion, my brother, cousins, and I dimmed the lights in my parents’ basement and imagined we were trapped in a haunted house. We scootched under the coffee table, pretending it was a tunnel we had to crawl through to get from one terrifying room to the next. Of course, this tunnel was actually a coffin that took turns trapping us! FEAR!

Last October, my husband got to hear all about another game of pretend called Swing Scare. This is an original horror story first acted out by grade-school me and a neighborhood girl while playing on another kid’s swingset. Games of make-believe never just ended at that; they had to be preserved so they could be revisited. Additionally, I’m proud of being able to sweep my friends up into a whirlwind of fantasy like that. I’m trying to remember how I did this, what it was like to play as a kid. My brain must’ve been going like crazy, laying out the story and thinking ahead and getting everyone involved. That’s some wizardry!

At any rate, I wrote the story and typed it up, and then my mom made the title page all fancy on her Brother wordprocessor:

Now, with help from the Midnight Society, I share the story (and some snark) with you, dear readers, to help you achieve the Halloween spirit that I now flee from!

SWING SCARE

Krista Dax quietly opened Lewis School Elementary’s gate to the playground. This school has been good to me, she thought. Krista was a freshman in the high school. [Then why does she have the nostalgia of an ninety-year-old woman?]

She stared at the swings. A real long time ago there used to be a rumor that a girl named Cara jumped off one of the school’s swings and broke her neck when the school was having a fair.

She sat on one of the swings. This was said to be the swing Cara jumped off. But who believed in ghosts, right? Right.

Krista started swinging and all of a sudden, she heard wild laughter, having-fun hyena laughter.

Krista shut her eyes. She could have sworn no one was here with her before. She would have seen the person come in. But she didn’t.

With her teeth chattering Krista slowly turned her head. There was a little girl, probably about seven, swinging. How can a girl make so much noise? [To be fair, I ask this about most children.] Krista stared in horror. Why did she look so distant? How come before her voice was noisy and loud, and now looking at her, her voice sounded so far away?

Krista observed that those clothes went out of style five years ago. [This kid is so unfleek.] Cara died five years ago. Could it be true that this was Cara’s ghost? [Krista’s deductive reasoning is painful to witness.]

The little girl had blonde tangled hair put in pigtails. She wore a blue shirt with a smiley face on it and deep, dark blue jean shorts. But everything about her was faded. [As demonstrated by her red eyes and Dorito-stained fingers.]

Krista got up to go home. She was very scared. Who was this person? [Maybe if we give her another hour, she’ll finally figure it out.]

The girl looked at her. Then Krista knew…this was a replay. The little girl was Cara’s ghost. [Maybe Krista’s so slow on the uptake because she’s never read a Goosebumps book before, or watched any movie or TV show, or gone anywhere other than Lewis School Elementary.]

Cara’s ghost said, “Ellen, wait up!”

Krista’s eyes grew wide. She knew what was about to happen.

Cara jumped off, and smashed real hard on her side.

Krista didn’t know who screamed louder, her or the ghost.

Mrs. Rotwelder, who lived across the street from the school, came dashing out of house and ran onto the playground. “Oh, my god, Kris! What on earth is wrong?” Mrs. Rotwelder asked.

“Oh, help!” Krista gasped. She was out of breath from screaming so hard.

“Kris, what is wrong?,” Mrs. Rotwelder asked again.

“It…it….it was Cara’s ghost! She broke her neck again! It was a replay!” Krista screamed. She burst into tears.

Mrs. Rotwelder held her. “Shhhhhh. You must be seeing things. Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

As Krista walked with Mrs. Rotwelder, she knew she had seen Cara’s ghost. But nobody believed her. [I told Honey Bear he has to believe me if I tell him I see a ghost. The gaslighting would be scarier than the ghost.]

Krista woke up the next morning. It was the day of the school fair. She was still shook up about yesterday. Krista got dressed and her dad drove her to the fair.

“We’ll be here in three hours to pick you up, honey. Have fun and be good.” Mr. Dax informed Krista.

Krista smiled. “Bye, Dad.” She watched her dad’s red sports car zoom down South Avenue.

Krista looked around. People were selling things like straw hats, flowers, souvenirs, and snacks like chips and soda. Then something caught her attention.

A pretty red-headed girl was leaning against the swing pole. A dark brown curly haired little boy jumped on a swing that Krista had sat on yesterday.

“Get off the swing! Get off the swing! Shooo! Get off! Get OFF!!!!,” the red-headed girl yelled.

The little boy was so scared he ran off crying. The girl went back to being bored.

Krista got mad. This was NOT the girl’s playground! She stormed up to the girl. “What’s the big idea?” Krista asked.

The red headed girl sighed. “I’m protecting this swing. If I don’t, this young girl will break her neck.”

Krista looked very confused. [Just like the rest of us.] The girl sighed again.

“I’m Ellen Barr. I’m 14 years old.” [I’m going to start poignantly telling people my age, forcing them do math and make vague connections to my importance.]

Krista gasped. Ellen Barr was Cara’s best friend before she died. “Are you..?” Krista started to say. […but then she stopped because it’d be too goddamn obvious to bother.] 

Ellen nodded. “I was Cara’s best friend…before she died.”

Ellen’s eyes grew moist. “Somehow, I feel this was all my fault.” She really started crying now.

Krista lead her to a quiet, shady spot on the playground. After looking over at the swing, Krista bent down to where Ellen sat curled on the ground. Ellen was very pretty. She had strawberry blonde hair and eyes that sparkled like emeralds. Ellen had long eyelashes and pretty pink lips. [Put the gay away for five minutes and fucking focus, Krista.]

“Can you tell me the story about you and Cara?” she asked.

Ellen shook her head yes. “Me and Cara went to the fair together. Cara’s dad drove us. We all got out and ran to playground. It was a wonderful day. Cara and me ran to the swings. We were swinging until I was very hungry. I got up to get a slushie when I saw a strange man dressed all in black. He looked very terrifying. I know Cara saw him too. She called to me, ‘Ellen, wait up!’ I swung around. I saw her raise her chin, spread her arms, jump off with a confident smile and the next thing I knew, there was a crash! Then a super loud scream. I ran to my very best friend and (sob) her neck was twisted all funny.”

Ellen was gasping for breath from crying so hard. “But I noticed that the man in black was running from the fence where he had stood. Me and Sue Ellen ran to the fence and we saw a gun on the ground. I think the guy was going to shoot Cara!”

Ellen screamed. “There he is!” She threw herself to the ground and started whispering prayers. Ellen was really worked up about this.

Krista looked up and saw it was just a blonde-haired girl with flashing blue eyes. She was wearing a black fedora with those really short jean shorts and a black T-shirt. The girl looked at them, rolled her eyes, and walked on. [I blame all these unnecessary descriptions on the detailed accounts of Claudia and Stacey’s outfits in the Babysitters Club series.]

“She needs to go to a doctor.” Krista lied. The girl looked at her and nodded. Krista sighed.

Ellen stood up. “I’m not crazy! I’ll prove it.” [I suspect she won’t.]

Ellen stormed past her. Krista followed her. Ellen got on a swing and she got on one next to her. Krista looked intently at Ellen. She gasped.

Ellen’s eyes popped open. She grinned horribly. Her laughter was fun hyena laughter. Like Cara’s ghost.

Krista was just about to leave until she heard, “Kris, wait up!” Krista turned around and screamed. Ellen raised her chin, spread her arms, jumped off with a confident smile, and before Krista knew it, she heard a CRASH!

Krista ran off crying. People crowded around Ellen.

Ellen was dead. Krista knew it. [A master of intuition, this one.] She knew Cara’s soul was inside Ellen when she jumped.

Krista must have passed out at the fair because when she woke she found herself in her own bed. She looked at her digital clock. 10:00 P.M.

Krista grabbed her coat and tennis shoes and quietly slipped out the back door. She ran to the school. She didn’t know what to expect there, but she felt she had to be there. But if she knew what to expect there she never would have gone. [Dun dun DUN!]

Krista peeked on the other side of the Lewis School Elementary gate. She opened it. Krista went in and sat on one of the swings. She sighed. [So much sighing with this one.]

Then her head jerked up. Was that a noise?

Yes, it was.

Then she saw a beam of a distant flashlight. Coming closer, closer, and closer.

Krista saw that they were by a swing pole, not noticing her. Yes, it was a “they”. One was older than the other, with strawberry blonde hair and shining green eyes. The other, with a French twist in her long blonde hair that was neatly brushed had blue twinkling eyes. [Cara has someone to care for her now—a friend now who will brush and braid her ghost hair!] 

The younger one sat thoughtfully on the ground. “Ellen,” she said “Is there really such thing as…” She looked around and whispered, “Death?”

The older girl sighed. “Oh, Cara, don’t start this again. You know we’re dead. Why shouldn’t there be?”

Krista tuned out for a moment. This was Cara and Ellen when they were young. But they were dead. How weird. She tuned in again. [THANKS FOR THE UPDATE, KRISTA. How did she ever make it to high school?]

Cara curled up next to Ellen. “I don’t feel like it’s…enough,” she said.

“I feel you don’t make any sense,” giggled Ellen. “Talk to me.”

Cara shivered. “We need a new, dead friend.”

“Yeah. But who?” asked Ellen.

All of sudden, both girls turned to Krista. They got up and walked to Krista.

She started to run away from Cara and Ellen. But they were faster. They grabbed her and dragged her to the swings, kicking and screaming. The ghosts wrapped a swing around her neck, tight, to choke her.

Cara smiled. She said, “That should do it.” They disappeared.

The next day a search party was formed because Krista didn’t come home. Four hours later, a man came around to claim the reward. [“Here I am, ready for my accolades!”] He said Krista was on the playground. A swing made into a noose had been drawn around her neck and ropes around her hands. He said she was dead.

THE END!

Where’s the sequel about how Cara and Ellen totally framed Mr. Bountyhunter for murder? A true tale of terror, that would be!

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