How often do you let your friends talk you into doing something stupid? For some reason I let them talk me into stuff all the time.
This is probably the worst thing that they have talked me into doing. There is this tiny shack in our neighborhood that no one has lived in for years. It’s roof is sagging, the stairs to the front porch have broken in the last storm, and the white paint that used to cover the walls has flaked off looking like skin as it lays on the dirty dusty floor.
I have always hated that shack. It has just sat in our neighborhood like a wart, ugly and completely useless and out of place. It has always given me a bad feeling too. For some reason I feel if I go in that horrid little shack, something terrible will happen. And of course I made the mistake of telling my friends. So they thought it would be fun to stay in the shack for a whole week.
I decided to keep a journal of the events that happen in this next week. None of my friends know about it. If they did they would take it away from me. They are coming back - my minute to write is over. I better put this in it’s hiding place.

The first night passed without incident, thank God! This house, if you can even call it a house, is giving me the willies. Every time I would pass this house as a child I just knew something bad would happen if I went in. Luckily nothing happened last night. Let’s hope it stays that way.
It is very dark in the house because it was made before they had invented electricity, so it is damp cold and smells like mildew. That was one of the first things I noticed about the house as a kid. The smell. It would seem to follow me home some days and others it would beat me home. It became a race, me against the smell, to see which one of us would make it to my house first. How strange that I didn’t remember that until just now. Most people don’t do stuff like that as kids.
I was a very weird child. I didn’t play normal games like the other kids. The shack would fill my mind. Sometimes I even had dreams about it. One night I went to the shack in my dreams and I burned it down. It was such a vivid dream I could feel the heat of the fire as the whole thing went up in flames. Then another night I had a horrible dream that I had witnessed a murder. The murderer was a man in a dark cloak. He had the brim of his hat pulled down so I couldn’t see his face. Here is the crazy thing though, the next day someone’s daughter had been killed during the night.
I told my mom about the dreams, I was just too freaked out about them to handle them on my own.
“Mom,” I said as I approached her later that afternoon of the murder. “Remember the murder that happened? Well I had a dream about it last night.”
She put down her book and took off her reading glasses to get a better look at me. “You sure it was the samhourse? The same girl?”
I didn’t like the tone of voice she was using, it was almost like she didn’t believe me or something.
I described everything to her exactly the way I had seen it in the dream.
“Well,” she said looking as we were discussing the weather instead of me witnessing a murder in a dream. “Try to put our of your head, my pet. There is nothing to worry about.”
But there was. I had the same dream over and over again. It was driving me crazy. Maybe if I could just see the mans face I would be able to tell who was living in that house. The person who killed that little girl.
After a month of that dream every night my mom took me to a psychiatrist. After we told the doctor what was going on, he said it was probably nothing. He gave us some medicine and sent us home. He told us to come back if the dreams continued. They, however stopped and I have been able to live a normal life, well up until this point anyway. Now I am being forced to spend night after night in the vile little shack.
I have to put you away now, my friends are wondering where I am. One night down, only a century more to go.

Last night was very strange. Genie is missing. No one knows where she is. My other friends are telling me she went home and too not be such a worry-wart but I can’t help thinking the worst. What if the man in the cloak is back? What if after all these years he has just been hiding in the shack waiting for me or anyone to come so he could kill them?
I hate this shack. There are shadows that don’t seem to have a source. They are just there! Just staring at me, laughing at me for trying and failing to figure them out. No one else seems to mind them. They think I am crazy. Maybe I am, a little. No one else had dreams like me as a kid. They could not even imagine the things that I have done. I mean seen of course. I better get back to looking for Genie. I hope nothing horrible has happened to her.

I saw him. The black hooded man, I saw him. It was after dinner we were sitting in the dirty dusty living room and he passed by! Right outside the window. I screamed and shouted “There he is! The person who has taken Genie and killed that girl all those years ago!” My friends rushed outside with me leading the way but it was too late. The man had disappeared. It’s like he went into the wall or something. There is no way someone without some sort of super power could get away that fast. Of course when I tried to explain all of this to my friends they said it must have been my imagination. Fools! I know what I saw. I tried to warn them. It will all be their fault when more weird things start happening they will see.

Last night nothing happened. I was so sure that after the hooded man had shown himself there would have been nothing from stopping him from taking everyone and doing with them what he will. Maybe I did just imagine it. But I didn’t, I mean why would I have made something like that up? To get attention? As if I don’t have enough of that already. My friends are saying I am acting strange. One of them said she saw me sleep walking. It’s the house and the man. Now they are working together to try and drive me crazy. They want to break me down until there is nothing left of my old life left. Why? I don’t understand why. Why did they pick me to torment and hate? What did I ever do to them? I only have two more nights to go before I can get out of this living he**.

I’ve been thinking. What if the hooded man isn’t working with the house, what if he is part of it? It would explain how he got away from me so fast the other night. And I have been looking around. There is nothing in this house. There is no furniture, no pictures noting. It’s almost as though it fell from the sky. If someone had lived here they would have put something in it to make it their own. So why wouldn’t the man be part of the house?
I haven’t shared this idea with any of my friends. They would want me to go home but I can’t, not when I am so close to figuring out this mystery. I just hope I can figure it out in the two nights I have left.

Last night Kristy went missing. The man is taunting me. He does these things while I am asleep. I even tried to stay up last night to see what he was up to but it didn’t work. I will figure this out, I swear to you I will wither it is the last thing I do.

I convinced my friends to stay one more night. I’m going to stay up for him tonight. He won’t be able to sneak past me this time!

I fell asleep for about five minutes but I am up now and the hooded man won’t get past me! What is this? There is something dark and sticky on the floor. The man must have left it for me when I was asleep. I get up slowly and start to follow the trail he has left for me.
He is part of thhourse. There is no other way he would be able to sneak around with out making a sound or waking anyone up. I must find a way to get him out and make him pay.
The trail leads to what looks like a wall. There seems to be an opening in it how strange. I put my hand in it and rrealize it is a handle. I thought it was a wall but it isn’t. It’s a room that I didn’t even know existed in this house. I stood in the door way and wait for someone to reach out and try to grab me but nothing does, so I continue into the room. The trail makes a dead end to the closet at the opposite side of the room. I walk over slowly keeping my eyes pealed for any sort of movement. Thhourse is still for a change. Even the shadows have stopped dancing around taunting me.
The closet smells awful. The smell is getting worse and worse as I get closer.
I put my hand on the cool metal of the old fashioned door handle and take a deep breath.
I open the door and something flies out at me. I scream and jump back, as the thing that hit me hits the ground hard.
I take one step forward and try to see what it is. The thing is a bloody mass. I can’t really tell. I lean down and I rrealize what a cruel joke the hooded man has played on me. Then mangled body is a person. As I lean even closer I rrealize with a start that the person is Genie! The dark sticky stuff on the floor is her blood. I stand up trying not to gag when I look in my closet and see my friends all strung up like pigs their blood dripping on the floor creating long dark streams that meet in the very middle of the room.
I back away from them doing the only thing I can think of when my back bumps into something. Something solid. I turn around and strike out hitting hard. I hear glass shatter. I know my hand is bleeding but I don’t feel it. I look wildly around the room. The black hooded man is laughing at me. I can hear him. Suddenly the crazed laughter stops. I turn and look at the thing I hit. It was a mirror. I look down at the shards coving the floor. I don’t my reflection as I look in the mirror shards. I see the black hooded man with a smile on his face looking back at me. The black hooded man is me.