
#28
Two Sides to Every Coin
By Will Jenkins
About the author
It was a cold, misty,
November night. Two hobos were looking for a place to get out of the cold
and darkness for the night. As they walked along the old road that led
from the railroad yard, they came upon an old abandoned house.
“This looks like a
good place to hide out till the next train to Florida arrives”, says Pauly.
“Yeah, but kinda scary,”
says Jimbo.
“AWW, now quit that,
we’ve stayed in the exact same kinda place hundreds of times, nuttin’ ever
happened before,” says Pauly.
“Yeah, I guess you're
right,” says Jimbo.
So the two go to the
front door of the abandoned house, slowly open the loudly squeaking door,
and enter to find sparse furnishings consisting of an old couch and a few
battered old wooden kitchen chairs. Luckily there’s a fireplace.
“At least we can keep
a little warm tonight,” says Pauly. So the two begin to break up the chairs
and the couch to start a warm fire for the night. After the fire is blazing,
and the room is warming, the two decide to curl up next to the fire and
get the best night's rest they have had in days since they began their
journey south for the winter.
It can't be more than
30 minutes later that Jimbo is awakened by a scuffling sound in the upstairs
hallway.
Whispering, he says,
“Pauly, wake up, I told you this place was not right, listen.”
Pauly listens to the
scuffling for a few seconds, and says, “Go back to sleep, knucklehead,
just some mice or rats.”
“No,” says Jimbo. “That's
footsteps, I can tell.”
Pauly sits up, slightly
angry now, and listens more carefully. There is definitely footstep sounds
now, very definable. “Jesus,” says Pauly, “you're right.”
The footsteps come
closer to the top of the stairs. The two hobos are now clinging to each
other in fright. The footsteps begin to descend the stairs. Pauly wets
himself, and Jimbo begins to moan. As they look towards the stairs, they
see a woman and a man descending the stairs carrying candles.
“JESUS CHRIST, JIMBO!!!
THIS PLACE IS HAUNTED!!!! LETS GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE, NOW!!!!!”
Jimbo is already three
steps ahead of Pauly and heading for the road. They do not stop running
until they can stop seeing the smoke from the fireplace.
The man and woman stop
at the bottom of the stairs: “Did you see them that time, honey! Every
freaking night at the same time! The breaking up of furniture noises, the
snoring noises, I tell you it’s the two hobos that burned themselves up
that night about six years ago before we bought this old place to renovate
it.”
The man just stood
there shaking his head, “God, honey, you could see right through
them, just like you said. At least they were more afraid of us than we
were of them.”
The next night, two
hobos jump off a train and begin walking down the old road that leads from
the train yard.....
The End.