Haunt Me 'till I Laugh

Is there a point where the dead pity living? They see us go from baby to elder man in what seems to them like a heartbeat. I recall this erie feeling at a young age. I was in kindergarten and my school decided to have a field trip for the class to a nearby recreational park. The park slowly came into view among a very foggy valley. My older brother, who was forced to come along [all the sibilings in the school went on trips together], kept pocking fun at the spookiness of the situation. This angered the teachers very much.

"And to the right is the boogeyman's house. Holding a PhD. In education, we will gladly feed your children", he then looked at me and said, "some for half price."

After hours of constant yammering and jokes from my brother, my teacher told him that if I got scared because of his boogieman jokes, he would chapparone the whole class on the walk toward The Apple ("La Manzana"), a place within the forest where the pool was held. Unfortunately, the idea backfired, seeing as my brother would rather die than letting me go alone in the woods.

I had no idea of the itenerary for this trip, only that we would eat lunch when we got to The Apple. The name for the place itself became self explanitory as large apple trees came into view. I began to feel a feeling of disgust, as if I had just ate a raw food of some kind. I wanted to tell my friends, but for some reason, they seemed to be having a great time. As we walked, my brother offered me an apple from one of the trees. I thought that I was just hungry or needed something to chew. I grabbed the large, juicy looking apple and just as I was about to eat it, I heard the voice.

The voice of a woman. Singing somewhere out of sight. I tricked myself into believing it was just the wind. Dropping the apple in fright, I looked to see where I left it. It was no where to be seen. Spooked, I went to my brother. He asked me if I was hungry, and he offered me and apple. I was speechless. I took the apple, unable to tell him that he had already offered me one. I remained quiet and looked around at everyone else.

I finally saw my friends. They seemed just as confused as I did. The noise that usually follows a group of kindergartners died down. Then I knew we had all heard the same noise. We arrived to the pool and I began to forget about the voice in the forest. The water was warm and perfect. The teachers took turns in watching over us. As we played for what always seemed like hours, our minds could not see what was around us. While playing under water tag, I dove down and saw what seemed to be a pool floor covered with apples. I went up to the surface as fast as I could to tell everyone. They dove down to see for themselves.

Until this day, I don't know what conspired to look around the forrest that very moment. Until this day, I don't know why my eyes looked toward the direction of a woman on a ladder. She was dressed in a 19th century farmers way, which to a kindergartner just seems weird. However I noticed her hand touching her neck and breathing becoming more rapid. Suddenly, I was the blood falling from her neck. The woman's face transformed into pure horror, as she seemed unable to scream. She just starred at the tree, breathing heavily. Finally, she gave out a sigh and fell off the ladder and out of sight from me.

I couldn't describe the fear and terror that ran through my body. I ran out of the pool, yelling at all my friends to get out. The teachers noticed this and called on my brother, who happened to be sleeping on the chair. They all sat and called me down, as I started hystericaly screaming words like "woman", "smiling", "blood", the only words that I could muster. Unable to look, I pointed to where the woman was. I covered my eyes on my brother's shoulder, buried so tight as if trying to wake myself up from a dream.

"What the f*** is that?!?!" My brother screamed. He and everyone else saw the body of the woman, as if it had always been visible, laying there. My gym teacher, Mr. Andre, told everyone to get out of the pool now. He called the police and told them there was a dead woman near the Apple. Suddenly, my brother got the urge to be the good samaritan and ran into the woods. The teachers told him to stop but he kept going. Suddenly, me and the whole school went down there. However, when we got there we found.....

Nothing. The body had somehow been removed. There were no traces of the body being dragged or even the imprint of something falling on the ground. Just the ladder. Just as we thought things couldn't get worse, we looked around the woods and saw that night was already fast upon us. The fog retained a reflection of light.

"This dosen't make any sense," said one of the teachers, "How could...."

Immediatly cutting her off, a laugh was slowly heard far away from every direction of the forest. It went from dimmer to louder and louder, the wind carrying this distressing laughter. A laughter of pure mischief and terror coming from every dark point of their peripheral surroundings getting louder and louder. In faster than a heart beat, everyone started running out of the forrest in terror, screaming. As I ran, I made sure that all my friends were running and alive. But as I looked behind, what I saw held my breath in terror.

I saw the leaves of the wind reacting to the mysterious laughter, then chasing us. As the sun set, everyone kept running until reaching a street near the Recreation Center. The teachers told everyone to hold everyones hand tight and they walked along, ready to run at the sound of a heart beat, to the parking lot.

During the walk there, people tried to laugh it off and make sense of what had just happened. However, every theory contridicted each other, yet the possibility of something metaphysical was absurd. They left the event a mystery and even refused to believe what I saw, saying it was the cause of too much sugar and excitment that caused me to see what I saw.

The scene of a crime always contains an imprint that was left on something by someone, even if it is never found. I still cannot find the imprint of this event. If memories were a valueable source of evidence in every cause, then it would prove something no one will ever dare prove: I heard Death's laugh....and I'll be haunted by it forever.

(This story is credited to a person called Claudio T.)