He was just sitting down to a cup of tea and a book out on his patio to enjoy the brisk autumn morning when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He heard a snap, a crack, sort of like a tree branch breaking. His house is the only house around for miles, so there shouldn’t be anyone around or anyone out there. Crack! He heard it again! This time he put his tea down and got up to look around to see if he could see where the noise had come from. He looked around and nobody was there.
“It must be in my head”, he thought, “I must be hearing things” and went back to his book.
Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to read this horror story when he was home alone. He always had a tendency to let his imagination get the best of him. But the book was just so intriguing, that he couldn’t put it down.
He was just finishing his tea when he heard it again, this time, it was louder, this time he was sure there was someone or something out there. The wind started picking up, and it looked like rain. Hopefully it wasn’t going to storm. He hated storms, especially thunder and lightning storms. He always had a fear of them, ever since he was young. Crack! Crack! That time it sounded real close
“Hello” he yelled, “I’m out back on the patio, is anyone there?”
Crack! Now the hair on the back of his neck was standing straight up again and he had goosebumps all over his body. He was starting to panic. He kept hearing the strange cracking noises but couldn’t see no one. He didn’t hear a car come up the long driveway. He was the only one there that he knew of. He was hoping he was the only one there. He wasn’t expecting anyone. He was starting to get freaked out. Snap, BOOM! He went running into his house. Now he was shaking all over. He ran around the house locking all the doors and windows. He ran over to the house phone, no dial tone. He ran to find his cell phone, no reception! BOOM! He scattered and went and hid behind the living room couch. He was really scared. He was shaking uncontrollably. What was going on?  He didn’t know what to do. As he lay quietly behind the couch, he could hear a knock on the front door. The knock was getting louder. Then it stopped. He laid there as still as possible, listening, hoping he was just dreaming. Maybe he fell asleep while reading and now he is dreaming. All of a sudden the front door opens, now he knows for sure that he wasn’t dreaming. This was real! All of a sudden he hears a phone ring, it’s his cell phone, great, he gets receptions behind the couch. He quickly hits the silent button hoping whoever just broke in the house didn’t hear it. As he was lying there, the couch starts moving, they heard the phone, they found him! As he looked up in fear, he finds his whole family staring at him.
“What are you doing back here?” his mother asked. She looked around, and realized that he was reading his scary stories again and started laughing.