The Haunted Area

by LEEZA WINGET
(INDIA)

I used to study in a school called "ST. JOSEPH". It was a huge school with a big playground, 5-6 buildings, 2 basketball courts, and a cemetery! Yes our school had a cemetery about 50 years old at the time, and all of us, me and my friends, were excited about having an adventure.

None of us were so superstitious as to believe in vampires, werewolves, or even ghosts! It was one of those humid summer days when our class teacher was absent... all of us thought we were going to do math the whole day with a substitute teacher in place of our class teacher. But luckily that day none of the teachers were free, and the librarian came and told us to take our bags and go to the playground. Yeah... it meant we were going to have a whole day of games. 8 to 3 o'clock!!! It was an awesome feeling.

The first two periods we all played many games like basketball, badminton , football etc. After that we were bored and we thought of going and investigating the so called "haunted area" or as teachers say "restricted area". This was a particular area of 200-300 meters, separated by a wide border. This area was restricted for any of the students to go, but as no teachers were there in the playground we just peeked out.

We could hear many creepy voices, we saw so many unexpected things like torn purses, papers full of red paint (or maybe blood), and broken wine bottles with blood on the edge of glass. Then suddenly my friend Elsa started shouting. We were terrified by her scream and ran to her. She wasn't able to control herself, her head hurt, and she was saying creepy things. We thought of going out of this haunted area and thus after we reached the main playground, we made her sit still and gave her water. She went on saying "the w...wh..white sari, that man, they are seeing me." We turned back, but none of us could see any such thing. I thought to myself "Are ghosts favorite color white? Why do you bloody ghosts always come in white to scare people?"

A few of us took her to the library, and narrated the story to the librarian. She screamed at us for going there. We asked her that whats the mystery about that place. She said "50 yrs ago, even before India was independent, this place, where you study now, this place where where so many buildings have been built was supposed to be a cemetery, a GRAVEYARD. That wasn't anything new, we knew that, I thought. She continued "Your class teacher, 'Mister Fernandes', was the person who called the people to cut trees and trim the grass for making the buildings and playground. And that particular area, which is restricted for you to enter did not allow construction on itself, and what Elsa saw was absolutely true. No one works here at night, because the ghosts and vampires move around this place. All the sisters and fathers stay in their convents, in the houses praying to lord Jesus with doors and windows shut. That area is haunted... and if you disturb the souls of those people by entering their areas then they'll not stop following you."

TRING! TRING! rang the bell. And after this happened we all were told to go back to our classrooms and we never thought of investigating that haunted place again! Many such things have happened in our school, like someone fainting for no reason, several snake bites, and hyenas coming and doing God knows what in that haunted area...