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Haunted Halloween with Jessica Souders

By: Jessica Souders

So, everyone who knows me, knows that Halloween is my favorite time of year, which is really weird, because I hate on things scary. I avoid horror movies. I steer clear of horror books. And video games that are creepy? No. Freakin. Way!
So why do I avoid these and still love Halloween? Easy. I live my own horror story.
It started as a kid. When I was six, I was CONVINCED that there were ghosts living in my basement. I refused to go down there if no one else was. In all actually there probably wasn’t, but it was creepy as heck.
Then we moved. And I had my first real, live experience with a ghost. We moved to this really old house. And at first I was supposed to share a room with my brother. It was only supposed to be for a few months until they fixed up the walk-in attic into a third bedroom. Then I’d get the ENTIRE thing to myself.
Of course, I was ecstatic. Here I was 8 years old and absolutely in love with the fact that I’d get the entire 2nd floor to myself. That was until I realized how creepy the stairway was. It didn’t seem to matter what time of day it was or whether or not lights were on, that stairway was ALWAYS PITCH BLACK.
Even when my parents installed lights in the stairway, they’d burn out. Or break. Or something. So they eventually gave up. They’d fix it later. But I knew I no longer wanted to be in the attic. Something was trying to keep me out of it. That’s why the light was always broken and why I always got the heebie jeebies whenever I went up with my parents to move the junk the other people left behind.
So they continued fixing up the attic for me, but in the mean time I had to stay in the room with my brother. He slept on one side, furthest from the door. While I slept on the other, which was directly in front of the door. The headboard butted up against the window.
At first it was really cool. In fact, it was darn right FREEZING. Even in summer that room was cold. And in winter? Forget it. You needed fifty blankets to keep warm.
My parents blamed it on the really old furnace that looked like a freakin’ octopus. It was scary. I was sure one day it was going to grab me with its tentacles and then eat me, but I knew better. There was just something about the way it creaked and moaned and groaned. I was sure it was something evil.
Well, it so happened that I had to have surgery on my foot right before Christmas, so I was confined to either my bed or the couch. Not that I wanted to be any where else. The basement had the furnance, octopus, demon and the attic was haunted.
One night, I went to sleep as usual, bundled up under a dozen or so blankets. The wind howling behind my head through the window. And snow falling like crazy.
Well, it wasn’t too long after I fell asleep that I heard, “Jessica. Jessica.”
Thinking it was just my dumb brother, I rolled over to face the wall. “Shut up, Steven. Leave me alone,” I mumbled.
Again, I heard, “Jessica. Jessica.”
I ignored it this time. I wanted to sleep. It was cold and I was pretty sure the snot was going to freeze to my face, so I covered my head with the blanket.
Then I felt a slight tug on the blanket and again I heard, “Jessica. Jessica.”
I whipped off the blanket and sat straight up, glaring across the room to where my brother was. “Steven,” I said. “If you don’t go to sleep and leave me alone, I’m going to hit you with my crutch and you can’t tell mom, because you’ll get in trouble for bothering me.”
He didn’t respond so I was pretty I’d put the fear of God into him. Smug with myself, I lay back down, watching my brother this time. I closed my eyes, but kept them slitted open so I could smack my brother if he tried bugging me.
Then, I feel the tug again and my name, “Jessica. Jessica,” but this time I’m staring at my brother and I KNOW it’s not him.
In fact, he takes that moment to roll over with a snore, so I can see he’s dead asleep with his mouth hanging open and drool coming down his chin.
Freaked out now, I don’t know what to think, but I know I don’t want to know what’s tugging on my blankets.
But it happens again, “Jessica. Jessica.”
Scared, but knowing I have to do SOMETHING, I roll over and look to where the voice is coming from. Then I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out.
There at the top of my open doorway, is a FACE. Just a face. There’s no body. No arms. No neck. Nothing but a floating head, taller than anyone in my family.
The face was pure white, with eyes as black as coal. It smiled at me, when it saw I saw it, and it was the most terrifying smile I’d ever seen. I can’t even describe how scary it was. I just knew that if I didn’t get off that bed. Right. Then. I was going to die.
I didn’t know what to do though. I was trapped. The only way out was through the door the face was occupying. So I grabbed one of my crutches and THREW it at the face.
It sailed right through it, landing with a thunk. Of course, I did the only sane thing I could think of. I bolted.
Using my only crutch, I hobbled as fast as I could out the door and bolted into my parents room.
They were both sleeping and no amount of sobbing, screaming, or shaking would wake them up. I finally gave up and crawled onto the couch, where I curled into a ball, sobbing.
I did eventually cry myself back to sleep. Only to be assaulted with nightmares about a man who’d murdered his children and shoved them into the furnace in the basement.
The next morning I told my parents what happened, but they didn’t believe me. But it wasn’t long after that, that my parents blocked off that room and my brother and I slept on the floor in their room.
A few months later, we moved back to Green Bay.
I’ll never know what that was all about, but I remember it to this day and I still think about doing research to find out if those dreams were true, but I don’t think I want to know.

Jessica currently has a few books in the works. Here is a blurb from one of the titles.
After millennia of war, one has been chosen to save humanity from the creatures that mean to destroy it. But a choice must be made. A choice that will determine the course of history. But how do you choose when one path leads to Hell, and the other leads to death?

Brianna Ridley always knew she was special--a Halfling, born of parents from two separate worlds. But when she's yanked out of bed on the eve of her 18th birthday and rushed halfway across the world by her panicked mother--because her people are being picked off one by one--she realizes special has a price.
Another book is a YA steampunk Dystopian — Renegade.
Evelyn Winters has been trained from the age of three to be an Enforcer--a trained assassin--and the only child of the Governor and Governess of the underwater utopia know as Elysium. But, when Gavin Hunter, a Surface Dweller, finds his way into her comfy little world, she’s forced to come to a startling realization: everything she knows is a lie. The happy little bubble she’s lived in all these years has just popped and the person she knows as Mother is a monster. She must now find a way to rescue Gavin from her murderous mother’s hands, regain control of her body and the implanted instructions constantly urging her to kill, and somehow find a way to start a new life with Gavin on the surface.

- Thanks Jessica for the great story!
Find Jessica Souders Jessica Souders / Blog / Twitter

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Haunted Halloween with Jessica Souders + TIME