The Haunted Piano

There was a family in my town that everyone stayed away from. The kids were several years older than us, and they were really strange. They lived a little ways out of town, bordering the state forest, there weren't many houses near them, and spooky things happened around there. No one went trick-or-treating there; everyone knew that they would put a curse on you if you so much as put one foot on their property.

Well, one day near sunset my friend's cousin Bobby was exploring the woods on the far edge of their property when he heard music. He followed it out of the woods and from the edge of the clearing could see the half mile or so to the house. There was nothing else around, so that must have been where the music was coming from. The music was enchanting and, even though he knew better, Bobby couldn't help walking toward it. As he got closer, he could hear singing as well. About halfway to the house, though, he came upon a trench, almost built like a moat, as if to keep the house safe from wanderers from the state forest. Only it wasn't filled with water or quicksand or anything; it was dry. In the trench sat an old, wooden, upright piano, and at the bench in front of it sat Mrs. Mitchell, with her back to Bobby. Sitting in the trench, on the ground, were three of the Mitchell kids, eyes closed, singing a beautiful, beguiling tune. Bobby dropped to the ground and hid over the rise of the trench.

As he lay there on his stomach, Bobby felt the shaking ground of an animal approaching quickly and silently. He froze, too afraid to move his body, but he managed to turn his head to the left to see an enormous black panther racing to the trench. As they got closer, Mrs. Mitchell seemed to sense its approach too and she stood up and lifted the lid of the piano. The panther, who had just taken off from the edge of the trench, as though to jump over the piano, instead crashed into the lid. Mrs. Mitchell then slammed the lid shut on top of it and it was trapped inside. The kids jumped up and they all four joined hands, dancing in a circle around the piano and started chanting. The piano shook for a few seconds and then was still. The Mitchells ended their chant and their dance and stood there, still and quiet, for a moment. The oldest Mitchell kid, a girl who was in high school, touched a few keys and the most horrible yowling sound came out, where before it had been a perfectly in-tune piano. Mrs. Mitchell nodded, satisfied, and then she and the kids left the piano right where it was and went to the house.

It was now fully dark and Bobby was all alone on the Mitchells' property, about a quarter mile to the relative safety of the state forest. He lay where he was until they were back in their house, and then he hightailed it home. A few days later he noticed that the piano was on the side of the road with a For Sale sign on it. A young couple bought it, thinking the yowling was just the piano being out of tune, but no matter how many times it was tuned, it still yowled. They had it inspected for animals and found nothing. Once Bobby's story got out, no one would buy the piano, thinking it was cursed as well as haunted. They abandoned it at the dump and occasionally, when the wind blows right, you can hear the yowling clear across town.