• This story happened in a small original town which had the only one feature: a huge sinister deserted house on its outskirts. It had been deserted for more than 80 years, and urban legends told that sometimes people passing the house could hear howling and laughing. Everyone was afraid of that strange place.
    One day young boys were playing in the park near that house. When they had got bored with all the usual children's games, they invented a new one: to find out who is the bravest in their company. A trial was to come in the frightful house. Only one boy (his name was Jacob) said it’s not too much for him to do that. He didn’t really believe there was something otherworldly in that house, but he wanted the other boys admitted he was the best, a leader.
    So, he came closer to the old gloomy house. There were no any howls, roars, no any menacing sounds at all. All he could notice was a mysterious silence: the birds weren’t singing and even leaves weren’t fluttering in the trees. Was it the nature trying to alert him? Jacob cast that thought aside: that is only a childish superstition! He is almost adult (9 years old!) and incredibly daring.
    He climbed on the porch, twice stumbled over the semi-ruinous steps, extended his hand and turned a door-knob. The door opened unexpectedly easily and a first thing he saw was a muddy rug with a word “WELCOME” written by something looking like blood. Jacob grinned the crooked smile: “So predictably!” He decided to look around in that horrific for everybody else derelict house and try to find any creepy evidence of his presence there. Walking through the rooms boy thought that the house was exactly the same as he had expected: lots of dust, spider’s web and dead leaves. Then his glance fell on a strange object which turned out to be a deformed, scratched and bitten doll. The boy decided that it would be an excellent proof of his bravery; he bent over and reached the hand down to take the doll when he heard: “It’s mine”.
    His heart sank, missing some beats…When Jacob could come to his senses and turn his head, he was a little ghostlike girl. Damn, she wasn’t ghostlike, she was a real ghost: pale, translucent and hovering a few inches above the floor.
    Though the girl was terrific, the thing that scared Jacob to death was not her, but a huge black beast in 10 times bigger than common dog and with knife-like fangs.
    “Who are you”, - Jacob heard the little ghost’s question and barely could tear his eyes from the beast to look at her.
    “Ammm…I’m sorry, I didn’t want to bother anybody, I thought this house was deserved…I really apologize for the disturbance, I will leave your place immediately”.
    “No!”, - the phantom said: “You stay with me!”, and added: “Forever”. Jacob heard a sudden sound of slammed entrance door. “I’m so lonely…Please play with me…” – the girl was almost crying, “Or I will order Trashy (quite glance at the hairy horrify beast) to kill you!”, - her blood-thirsty smile persuaded the boy to submit.
    After some hours playing with the little ghost whose name appeared to be Sally, the boy started to think that he would spend the rest of his life in that hated house and maybe even longer: he was afraid to be turned into a ghost too after his death.
    When darkness had fallen he suddenly heard the voices of his parents screaming for him somewhere outside. And at that moment he understood: of he wouldn’t escape himself, the parents might come in and they all would be the prisoners of the dead girl, her awful beast and that disgusting place. As soon as Jacob had made that decision he ran towards the exit.
    “Stop!!!” - the girl yelled, but he didn’t. There were only three rooms separated him from freedom, he successfully ran through the first and almost crossed the second when he felt like pointed fangs stuck into his left leg and bit it off. He fell on the floor, screamed and writhed in excruciating pain. He couldn’t continue to run, but he didn’t give up: he was crawling on his hands. Before he reached the last room the beast bit his second leg off. The pain was so strong that the boy became blind for a moment. He could hear a slurp of the beast’s teeth while it was chewing his flesh. But the only important thing for him at that moment was to get out from that nightmarish place, so Jacob overcame his pain and go on crawling. He had already been by the escape, rose on his arms, extended his right hand and turned the door-knob, when the beats appeared behind and bit his left hand off. The poor boy couldn’t even scream…Everything what was left of his body fell out on the porch and rolled down the steps. The boy’s parents saw their son and came running up, embraced him and started crying. Bleeding and suffering pain Jacob was so glad that he protected his mother and father from the evil house.

    THE HAPPY END