Suspense Story Starter
Funnest. OK, I know that’s not a dictionary word. Believe me, I know! I mean whenever I describe anything as funnest, my Dad, the English teacher cringes and acts like I’ve cursed or something. But when it came to sleeping over Scotty Donovan’s house there was no other way to describe it than to call it one of the funnest things to do.
You see, rainy nights at Scotty’s house equaled ghost stories. I mean good ones! We’d tell them till all hours of the night trying to freak each other out. That wasn’t hard. There was no better place in the world to tell ghost stories than in the old Donovan house. Of course, that’s not what it’s known as in Belltown. All the old-time Cape Coddders called Scotty’s house the Hannah’s Hope House partly because of the widow’s walk that overlooked not only the Belltown Harbor but also the Atlantic Ocean.
What’s a widow’s walk, you might wonder?
Before I answer that, stay with me for a moment and you might understand why Scotty’s house was the perfect setting for telling ghost stories on stormy-weekend nights.
In the late 1700’s, Captain Andrew Salthouse used his riches from selling whaling oil to build the house for his young bride Hannah. He decorated it with expensive art work and furniture that he had collected during his years of sailing around the world. It was a dream house - one that many Cape Codders not only admired but also envied. The Captain also had a small deck built on the top of the house that had a view of the ocean that spanned for miles. Many people referred to this type of deck as a widow’s walk - a wife would pace along the deck day after day waiting for her husband to return from the sea. Sometimes the husband didn’t return leaving the woman a widow.
Obviously, Captain Salthouse and Hannah never called their deck a widow’s walk because that would’ve been bad luck. They decided to call their deck Hannah’s Hope because Captain Salthouse told Hannah that if he were ever lost at sea she should never give up hope. He promised the sea never would be his resting place. He vowed he’d return to her no matter how long it would take.
Well, the day came when Captain Salthouse’s ship was supposed to return from a long voyage but it didn’t. It was a week late. That was not uncommon. But then another week passed. Then a month! Then word came that Captain Salthouse’s ship was destroyed in a hurricane while trying to make its way around Cape Horn in South America.
“Not one survivor,” the messenger had stated to the crowd gathered at the Village Green.
Everyone mourned the loss of the crew but then moved on in life. But not Hannah Salthouse. She didn’t believe the account. She told the town that her husband would return to her someday.
She began to be viewed as a crazy widow. Everyday and night she’d walk the deck waiting for Captain Salthouse. But he never returned. Years passed and then the strangest thing happened.
When Hannah was in her early seventies, she vanished. Not one word. Nothing. Never to be seen again. But not only did she vanish but all of her expensive paintings and furniture disappeared with her. There were rumors about pirates docking, taking her captive, and loading up their ship in the middle of the night. But to this day, no one knows what really happened to Hannah Salthouse.
So here’s the deal, Scotty tried to scare my buddy Franco and me earlier in the night telling us some people think that her soul still roams Hannah’s Hope. He had said, on stormy nights he swears he can hear the sound of someone sobbing. Scotty went on to say that he really believes it is Hannah Salthouse still waiting for her true love to return.
So maybe that was the reason I woke up with start at 3 A.M.? After all, it was raining. I could hear it pounding the shingles, and thinking of the story, I was now wide awake. I grabbed my glasses, put them on, and strained my ears. What I heard above the rain made the hairs on my neck come to attention. It was a faint sound coming from outside my door - A whimpering. I knew I was talking myself into a frightened state but I did it anyway.
No, it couldn’t be? But it did sound like it - muffled crying! I shot a look over at Franco who was in his sleeping bag on the floor next to me. He was sound asleep. Then I glanced up at Scotty who was in his bed buried under his covers. I thought if I faked a cough I could wake at least one of them. I coughed for a few seconds. No luck. They were both dead to the world snoring away. They were even louder than the harbor, fog horn that moaned in unison with its green light, shimmering on the window every couple of minutes. I tried to ignore the sound in the hallway while keeping still in my sleeping bag with my eyes focused up at the window. Almost like counting sheep, I waited for the fog horn and its green light. It came on cue and then darkness. Again, the green moan and then darkness. It was working. My senses were transfixed on that sound and light and my eyes were getting heavy. I was forgetting all about the noise in the hallway. It had just been my imagination anyway, I figured. I was about to take off my glasses when something stopped me. As before, the window lit up green and then turned black but then it suddenly flashed red. It was just a flash but it was a red light.
Why would there be a red light, I wondered? Was it the police? Or an ambulance? But then it wouldn’t suddenly be dark again, I thought. I unzipped my bag, wiggled out, and rushed over to the window. I rubbed the cloudy moisture away and peered into the black and waited for the night to turn green again. It did.
But this time in that emerald halo, I spotted the back of a figure. It was down on the harbor dock crouched behind a stack of lobster traps. The rain and wind slashed along the dock wildly ringing the vacant, bell-buoys. It was terrible weather! It was also three in the morning! No one should be out, but there was someone - a mysterious figure hiding, directing a red light toward the open sea. This wasn’t right! Something was going on!
It looked like the figure was signaling someone or something. Whatever was being signaled was out of my line of sight but I did know one thing. That person or thing flashed back. A bright red flash illuminated the window. It was then I realized it hadn’t been the figure’s light that had lit up the window before - it was the reflection from the light of whomever or whatever was out at sea. Was it a boat? It had to have been. But I didn’t really know for sure.
All I knew was some old ghost story no longer was the reason I had chills racing up my spine. No, now it was real life that caused the blood in my heart to speed up. I didn’t want to have that feeling that fear brings, but I also couldn’t avoid it. I needed to know what was going on outside. I had to know! But I also needed a better view. I knew the only place I could get that view was up on the same deck that Scotty and all of the Cape Codders claimed was haunted. I had to go outside up on Hannah’s Hope but then my ears picked up that faint sound of sobbing in the hallway again! This time the sobs were louder. Sadder. And it definitely stopped me in my tracks! What was I going to do?
NOW IT’S UP TO YOU TO WRITE THE ENDING! GOOD LUCK!