THE GHOST ON SIXTH STREET

Everyone who lived on Sixth Street was scared of the abandoned house, rumour had it that the owners of the house placed it under a curse, and the last family that lived in the house died mysteriously,  all found suspended from the ceiling fan in different rooms. Suicide!  I would boast to my friends that one day my dad would rent a house near the abandoned house and nothing would happen to us, I was thrilled with the mere fact of the house being supposedly haunted. So when dad announced we were moving out of our comfortable 3-bedroom apartment, I was super excited I'd thought my dreams were finally coming true.

Our new house on the sixth street in front of the abandoned house was different, there was no running water, it had only two rooms which were a little too small, one which I now had to share with my sister, the parlor was the size of my former bedroom. It was uncomfortable, but dad explained, that he did not have enough money, so we had to manage the new tiny house.

On Thursday 15th, 1998, some men I'd never seen before began to clear the bush surrounding the abandoned house, and when I went to take out the trash, I spotted them with shovels digging a hole, Mum came home that evening with the gist, the owner of the abandoned house, the only known member of the family died two days ago in Abuja and was going to be buried tomorrow, the most shocking part of the gist, according to mum was that the other members of the family who died many years ago were also buried on the house grounds. I got goose pimples all over! So I and my friends had been playing hide and seek on graves unknown to us?! I began to think about strange sounds I must have heard or things I might have seen.
"Both of you have to be indoors during the funeral, don't even think of going outside, especially you Ebiere! Dad ordered. Belema, watch your sister, your mum and I are traveling early tomorrow, we'll be back in the evening"

The next morning, mum's voice dishing out chores to my sister woke me up. We did our house chores and stayed indoors, My heart skipped a beat when I heard the sound of the juju priest chanting the funeral rites, -it wasn't a Christian burial- masquerades danced around the grave before the coffin was lowered into it. I saw this from my parent's bedroom window, after covering up the grave everyone began to leave, and the pallbearers washed their hands in our bucket outside, I told my sister this after they'd left, and she threw the water away.

That evening, when my parents got back, mum couldn't stop screaming at me for not doing the dishes, dad ordered me to the kitchen, I would have to go outside to take out the trash, our dustbin was a stone's throw from the abandoned house and four feet from the supposed graves of the house owners with only a tiny picket fence separating both, I was scared, I had read enough stories about ghouls and ghosts to give me nightmares for years, I saw an episode of willy-willy two days ago, I was terrified, the haunted house no longer intrigued me. I went outside, trash bag in hand, I could see the mound of the fresh grave from where I stood in front of our house.

I ran across the yard, then I saw it. A floating white garment. I closed my eyes, crossed myself countless times, and opened my eyes. It was still there, now it was moving toward me, with disheveled long black hair, a ghostly pale face, and gangly arms covered by the sleeves of the garment. It looked like a middle-aged woman, it wasn't walking, it was suspended in mid-air!
Mummy! I tried to shout but the words couldn't come out.
The ghost stopped and looked straight at me, its eyes were not normal, they were dark green and suddenly turned white devoid of pupils! And turned black! I felt the cold air on my skin, and the hair on my neck stood.
"Our father who art in heaven....."
A portrait appeared suspended in mid-air and another ghost crawled out of it.
My legs felt like spaghetti, I heard someone scream my name, and in a split second, I broke into a run back to the house.

photo credit: Gabriel Abadi
https://www.facebook.com/gabriel.abadi.798
Makeup Artist: Mimiz Perfection
https://www.facebook.com/lassieB