Keith did not hesitate and immediately began telling
his story. He sounded a bit excited to relive this horror, which
to everyone's surprise was unlike the others. Violence has not
been a feature of any of the stories thus far, and then Keith started
in with a whole new dimension of fear for the group.
"Okay," Keith took a deep breath and began, "my
story is not as pleasant as the stories the rest of you have
told. I wish it was, but
it's not. I woke up one morning in the middle of December and
decided to get my Christmas shopping done. I had taken care of
almost the whole
family, but I still had to get my little brother something.
Anytime I want to get my brother something, I immediately start the car
and head to Toys 'R' Us. So I started towards this palace of toys
and brainstormed the whole way to get an idea of how much money I would
be spending. The trip did not take very long and I pulled up
within five minutes of leaving my house. I walked in and started
towards the video game section. My experience would soon get
worse after only a moment of being in the store. As I stepped
past the aisle I was looking for, I felt something drip on my
hand. I thought it was water dripping from the ceiling because it
was raining outside, but when I looked down I got a sick feeling in my
stomach. It was dark red and looked like blood! When I
noticed how much it looked like blood, it started to pour from the
ceiling! To my
disbelief I looked up to see what was above me, but nothing was
there. I was shocked, so I wiped the red liquid off my hand and
continued walking, hoping it was nothing to be worried about. I
continued to shop but my stomach never settled correctly, and I
couldn't stop thinking about what that liquid could have been.
"I continued walking and felt something hit me in
the back. It wasn't painful, but it was just enough to
notice. I turned around and saw a video game lying on the ground
behind me. I thought to myself that video games can't jump off of
shelves by themselves, but my thoughts weren't enough to settle my
nerves. I shook the whole thing off and picked up a game my
brother had said he wanted a few weeks ago. I started towards the
register, but something caught my attention over in the other side of
the store. I saw an employee waving his hands frantically trying
to get someone's attention, but it seemed as if I was the only one that
noticed. I ran back to see what was causing trouble and to my
surprise the worker had disappeared! I looked both ways to see if
he had run off unnoticed, but no one was there. I was a little
freaked out at this point. As I searched for the missing
employee,
something startled me by grabbing my ankle from below a rack of
toys! I shook off the creepy arm, and when I broke free, I
noticed that someone
started crawling out from underneath the shelf. The clearance
underneath this shelf was maybe two inches...impossible for a regular
human being to slide through. At that moment I lost my
cool. I
let out a loud scream and started running for the door, forgetting that
I hadn't paid for the game. I turned around, expecting this
'creature' to be gone, but it was following me! Not only was it
following me, but it was chasing me! Sprinting for the door, I
managed to throw a couple twenty dollar bills on the counter. I
wasn't worried about getting my change. I blasted through the
doors and turned around once more. It was still chasing me!
I started running out further into the parking lot, waving my hands in
the air and screaming to make sure someone noticed me. I turned
my
head as I was running and what I saw surprised me more than the whole
trip itself. A car ran this thing over, but the car didn't slow
down or even notice what it had done! It was gone! I don't
mean it was dead, but it completely disappeared! Vanished!
My heart was pounding a thousand miles an hour as I jumped into my
car.
"The drive home felt much longer than it took
because I could
not get that creature's image out of my head. What shocked me
most is that not one employee in that whole store came to assist me as
I was screaming through their store. Also, I never saw the
employee who disappeared again. I was in utter disbelief! I
didn't know what to think! The drive home took half the time it
did to the store. I ran in the house and caught my mom off
guard. I started telling her my story and she stopped me very
quickly. She pointed to the television and my story told
itself. The Toys 'R' Us was on the news and cameras were
everywhere. A boy around my age was talking to the
reporter. He was out of breath and trying to get his words
out. He spoke of a girl who had just been struck by a car
outside the store, and right after, he started talking about strange
things happening to him while he was shopping inside. His story
sounded exactly like what happened to me! It was like I lived his
story only a few seconds earlier! I thought I dreamed the whole
thing, but then my mom started nudging me in the shoulder.
"I can't believe this, this is what happened to me,
but the girl that was hit by the car disappeared. As the camera
changed angles I caught a glimpse of a body being loaded into the back
of an ambulance. I was in shock."
Dr. Kriegel started in, "So what you saw actually
turned out to be real?"
"Half of it I think," Keith said. "The girl turned
out to be real, but the blood and the ghost that chased me out of the
store
remained a mystery. The news never mentioned any of that."
Author's Note: I took a different approach with this story.
I added a tiny "drop" of blood and made the narrator believe he had
only imagined what happened, when in reality he did experience exactly
what he thought. I added blood and suspense which were not in the
original story. In the original urban legend, Haunted Toys 'R' Us,
the ghost is said to have been a disappointed lover in the town of
Sunnyvale, California. Although I never mentioned where my story
took place, I did however change the actions of the ghost. The
ghost in the original legend was a friendly ghost, many stating he was
much like "Casper the friendly ghost." In my story the ghost was
out to cause trouble
and chase Keith right out of the store, maybe even wanting to cause him
harm. This is a very typical ghost story in which things fly off
of shelves and swings start swinging all by themselves, but I decided
to add a ghost that can physically be seen chasing him out of the store
to add drama and suspense!
Image information: A Toys 'R'
Us at an unknown location at night.
Bibliography: "Haunted Toys 'R' Us." Snopes.com: Rumor
has it.
