A Night to Remember

4-1-2020 101 Paranormal Writing Prompts Volume 1 by- J. Dodson

Prompt # 3- Skinny Dipping

Warning- There are some suggestive scenes in this short story so read with caution if you are not into those kinds of stories.

A group of young teens sits close together, circling around the oval coffee table with an ouija board sitting on the table. Very cliche game for the teen to play but they were bored of the other games that they had found in the hallway closet. The teens, 2 boys and 2 girls, sit close giggling and trying to scare each other, moving the little triangle piece around to make up answers to the questions, not at all taking the game seriously.

One of the two girls sits back, leaning against the bottom of the couch, “This is so boring. I want to go swimming.”

“Well, the cabin does have a fenced in pool in the backyard. I guess we can go swimming,” the boy with shaggy red hair pipes in as he sits back too.

“But it’s late and I want to play this game more,” the other girl complains as she shoves her long dyed orange hair behind her shoulders. “Come on, let’s do it again but this time can we please play it the right way? Maybe take it seriously this time?”

The others agree and move closer to the boar, placing their fingers back on the triangle piece. They look at each other, keeping an eye out to make sure that none of them moves the planchette or the triangle piece.

“Who is going to ask this time? Tina? Cheryl? David?”

“Why not you, Mike?” Tina, the long dyed orange haired teen, asks.

“Fine,” Mike says, pushing his fingers through his shaggy red hair. “I’ll ask since you all are too scared to do it.” He clears his throat before he jumps into questing the spirit world. “Are there any ghosts in the cabin that we are staying in this weekend?”

The group sits in silence as they wait for someone or something, to answer the question but nothing happens. They look at one another, Cheryl, the girl with the raven black hair, rolls her eyes as they continue to wait.

Finally growing impatient, Cheryl takes her fingers off of the planchette and stands up, “I’m done with this stupid game. I will be in the pool if you all need me.” She turns on her heel and heads out of the living room.

David jumps up and runs after her, “Hey wait up, Cheryl. I want to go swimming with you.”

“Ugh!” Tina sits on the couch, pouting. “No one was even trying.”

“Tina, it is just a stupid game,” Mike says as he puts everything away in the box. “Let’s just go swimming with the others and have some fun, okay?”

Tina stands up from the ground, “Fine but I am still not happy with you guys.” She stomps her foot before stomping off to her room in order to change into her bathing suit for a quick swim.

After the last two leave the living room, the lights begin to flicker and the box that holds the ouija board pops open. The planchette gets tossed out onto the table for a moment before it is hurled across the room as if an angry toddler had grabbed it and had thrown it. The lights turn completely off, dunking the room in complete darkness for several seconds then turn back on as soon as David and Cheryl walk back in, both ready for a swim.

They carry their towels draped over their arms as they head through the living room to the sliding door and outside to the pool area. They drop the towels on two of the four lounge chairs beside the pool before jumping into the heated water. Soon Tina and Mike have joined them and they are all laughing while splashing each other, just having a lot of fun. Inside, the ouija board flips out of the box, opens up flat, and the words ‘die’ burns into it by an invisible force.

“Let’s make this more exciting,” Tina says, already untying her bikini top.

“Skinny dipping? I’m game,” Mike tells her before he disappears under the water to take off his swim trunks.

Wet bathing suits line the ground next to the pool and four naked teenagers swim around, chasing each other while a ghostly face watches them from one of the upstairs bedroom windows. The ghost grins as it walks backward and disappears into the darkness of the room, the teens oblivious of their watcher. In a few seconds, the ghostly figure is standing in front of the sliding door to the backyard, sunken eyes watching as the teens move off into separate corners to have a bit more fun with one another; Cheryl swimming off with David and Tina making out with Mike as they move through the water into the opposite side.

The ghost cackles as it watches the teens fool around in the pool before it once again disappears further back into the house. The teens finish and head for their swimsuits so that they can go back inside the cabin for the night, the crickets around them letting them know that it was almost past midnight. They all get dressed back into their sopping wet suits, wrap their towels around them, then scurry back inside, laughing and chatting about what they wanted to do the next day for breakfast.

Once inside, they stop dead in their track as they spot the ouija board on the ground just a few feet from the sliding glass door. They see the word die burned into the wood, and the girls begin to freak out. Room by room the lights make a loud pop as the light bulbs explode by an invisible force. The group tries to run back outside but the door slides closed and locks. Screams can be heard as the teens rush for the front door but it is also locked and the lock wouldn’t budge no matter how much David tried to force it to unlock.

Mike rushes passed a closed bathroom door as he follows his friends towards the stairs, their plan to escape from one of the upstairs windows. As soon as he is in front of the door, it slowly creaks open, catching his attention. He slows to a stop and turns to face the door to see what is opening it, suddenly not too afraid to run away from whatever is chasing them. A hand reaches out, grabs him by the face, and pulls him into the room, the door shutting behind him and cutting off his scream.

“Go… go don’t stop!” David yells at the girls as they hear Mike’s death screams from somewhere behind them. “Get upstairs now. Run!”

They close the door to one of the bedrooms, each teen hiding in a different spot around the room. David hides in the closet, Tina crawls under the bed, and Cheryl hides behind the long curtains. Before she grows quiet, she tries to open the window to crawl out, but it holds fast as if it is glued shut. She stops moving when she hears the bedroom door opens. She covers her mouth as she hears someone quickly heading towards her. The curtains fly backward, exposing her to the spirit. She yells for it to leave her alone but the smirking ghost reaches forward against her please and rips out her throat to shut her up.

She chokes on her own blood as she slides down the window and wall, falling to the ground. Staring at Cheryl from under the bed, Tina covers her mouth, so that she doesn’t scream out and alerting the ghost to where she is hiding. The ghost looks around the room and stops when it spies the closet door moves just a bit. It races for it just as David jumps out, trying to escape after he had heard Cheryl die only a few feet from him. The enraged spirit slams David back inside the closet, the doors closing behind them, David screaming in fear.

Tina crawls from under the bed and runs out of the room, sloshing through the blood that slips out from under the closet door; David has now grown silent. She heads into the next room and tries to open the window with no luck. She stomps her foot and throws her hands down to her side, pouting that she isn’t able to escape. She turns to leave the room to try another, but she freezes when she sees the grinning ghost standing in the doorway.

She lets out a deafening scream as the ghost charges at her and shoves her through the window; the window raining down to the ground. Giant chunks of glass push itself through her skin as it falls with Tina. A sickening thud echoes in the night as the ghost sticks its head out of the window to look down at Tina’s body, her orange hair fanned out around her head mixing with her blood.

“Predictable,” a voice says as the movie ends. “But at least it is fun background noise for writing.” A pen scribbles in a notebook as the writer continues to work on her story.