The Haunted Arcade

The haunted arcade
By Michael Werner

     How much further is it?" Janie asked in impatience. She was getting agrivated by the branches swinging against her body.
      “It's not much further. Just about a half mile or so.” Jerald reassured her.
      Janie had stopped to scrape some mud off the side of her shoe. Jerald noticed this and stopped to and turned around to look at her.
     “This mud is ruining my shoes!” Janie said futilely trying to get her shoes clean. She picked up a stick and used it as a scrapper.
     Jerald could see she wasn’t enjoying the trek thru the forest like he thought she would and realized he better get her to the destination quickly before she really had a fit.
     “It really isn’t much further. Try walking on the side of the trail where the leaves are.”
     The forest was beautiful with the sun beaming thru parts of the canopy hitting the ground in sporadic spots of light. Janie looked out at the forest in an attempt to take in her surroundings. Her spirits were raised a little by seeing the warm sun sprinkle little patches of light here and there. It really accentuated the lush green moss and mushrooms. It kind of reminded of the fairyland she use to dream about as a child.
She felt a little better and she tried to not be such a nag. “It is pretty out here.” She said looking at a rainbow that was in one of the shafts of light hitting the ground where a little pond was with cat tails and big mossy tree root going into it.
     Jerald bucked up at Janie’s positivity. “Yeah it is.” He agreed admiring the forest with her. She started moving toward him signaling she was ready to start moving again, walking along the ground looking down at it and with one foot in front of the other as if walking on a balance beam trying to be careful where she stepped. “ You say its about a half mile or so away?”


     “Yeah, probably not even that far.” Jerald grabbed her hand to help her over a small tree that had fallen over the trial. After they cleared the fallen tree they continued on and Janie kept her eyes on the forest around her. She was surprised at how more and more it looked like the place she imagined when she was a kid pretending to be a princess. It was almost like she had been here before. The wide oak trees that

     "there it is!" Jerald said in a high tone of voice.
      Janie squinted her eyes and sure enough she could make out some kind of structure through the trees. They got to what was left of a wooden fence at the end of the trail and at the beginning of a yard the building was in. They stopped there infront of the fence that was broken out of its post and had mold and fungus growing on it from age. A lot of branches and under growth has grown through it partly blocking they're path. They just stood there taking in the site of what ly before them.
      "Well there is. I don't know if Eric and Kate are here yet." Jerald said while Janie scanned the landscape. The grass in the yard of the building was cut  short but had patches of weeds and was faded. The ground was uneven with little hills here and there.
      "This place looks creepy!" Janie said firmly with both sides of the top of her mouth above her teeth in a snear of disapproval. Jerald looked like he was offended by her statement. He really didn't know what to say to that. "Come on, you'll feel better once your inside" Jerald grabbed her arm. "Here let me help you over the fence." He pushed a big branch out of the way with his hand and stomped down on another limb that was growing through the fence. It was clear and Janie put one leg over the fence then the other as Jerald held her arm around the bicep guiding her over. Once she was firmly grounded on the other side Jerald put one hand on the post and swung himself over in one leap using the limb he was standing on as a spring board.

     they walked over the graveyard like grounds up to the front door of the building. It was a clanky metal door with just a hastily attached pull handle bolted to it. The door didn't even look like it could be opened without a key. Janie didn't even attempt to open the door. She just stopped and stood there in front of it looking at the deplorable entrance in apprehension.

     Jenny let him persuade her to come out to this so called teen rec center in the middle of the forest. They finally got there and she thought it looked more like a utility building then a recreation center. There was no one else around. Jerald tried the door by pulling on the bolted on handle. “Looks like it’s locked. We’ll have to go around to the front.”
They just let you come in any way you want?” Janie asked wondering how Jerald could get into this business establishment anytime and way he wanted.
     “They?” Jerald said as if he didn’t know who she was referring to.  “There is no      ‘They’ I have never seen any employees or management of any kind here.”

"This is it?" She asked in disappointment.

"Yeah! Don't worry about how it looks. This is just the back entrance. The front and inside look much better.”

Important plot parts:

Janie was startled at first at how real the fortune teller girl looked. It almost looked like a real person inside there. Other than the fact that the mouth looked too big for a real person and the glass eyes had a chip in it.

Janie looked at the photo in the old news paper then back up at face of the fortune teller. It was her.. the girl that went missing twenty years ago.

Book ideas:
The haunted train/ ghost train – have orient express and futuristic train