It was dusk, the sun faintly shining. The birds were chirping; the bitter air was beginning to wear on them. The grass still green, the trees still complete with leaves, the month of September held many changes. 7AM is usually the time where the neighborhoods begin to stir. School has started and the small children running to get to the bus stop first.
The Pryce family, however, were not moving during this early hour. The two children, Jessica and Christopher, were still sound asleep in their beds. Since the kids are homeschooled, they didn’t interact with the other kids and always did things on their own clock. The neighbors always thought there was something different about the family when they were alone. They never seemed to fit in with the rest. Deborah finally woke up at the sound of her alarm clock, the faint ringing echoed through the enormous house. Jessica and Daniel were woken up by their mother who rustled their perfect 8 and 12 year old, blonde hair. They scuffled downstairs to await their breakfast just as their father, Michael, had woken up.
Everything was going as a normal day would. Elliot went to work in his doctors’ office while the kids began homeschooling. Their teacher came over and Deborah waited in her room, watching television. The housekeepers came after the teacher left and the kids began to play with themselves. They played board games including, “The Game of Life”, “UNO”, “Sorry!”, and the “Ouija Board”. The Ouija board was their favorite, as they liked to contact their grandparents. They didn’t think anything of the Ouija board not answering them, they thought their grandparents were busy and would be back later. Jessica and Danny noticed the Ouija board began answering them but it was always a similar answer. They then were almost positive it was their grandparents because they were jokers and the kids thought they wanted to be home.
Days passed, and the children started to get annoyed about the constant answer from the board. When their hands were pulled across the board so slowly to form the sentence Go. I am at your door, Jessica and Daniel ran downstairs and heard the doorbell ring. They ran to the door only to see their mother was at the door receiving Chinese food. The delivery man was old, had grey hair, a small mouth, and large, rough, and wrinkly hands. The old man showed no emotion. He thanked Deborah for his tip, glanced at the kids, and went on his way. Allison and Daniel panicked and tugged on their mother to get attention. They told her about all of the Ouija board conversations and how they thought the old man was “dead”. Deborah pushed the kids away, not seeming to care, as she had other things to be worrying about. She was an at home real-estate agent, and made about 50 phone calls in a day. She talked frequently with many different people, and she thought the Chinese delivery man was familiar. Deborah just put it to the back burner of her worries, and told the kids to go in the game room and play some more.
Jessica, being the older of the two, was forced to go up the stairs first. Still frightened, they crept up the four flights of stairs until their noses were on the molding of the game room door. Jessica peeked into the room, she was paranoid all the time, but at that moment, her paranoia was at its peak. Her head shot out and her neck became as long as a giraffes. Nobody was in there of course, and she pulled her brother in by the arm. Everything was in its place, just where they left it. Relaxed, they started to play other games. But the Ouija board was staring them in the face. They figured, “How could it hurt us? It’s all fake.” They told themselves exactly what their mother had told them the last time they were scared and they wanted to see if they could get another response out of it. So, they crawled over to the Ouija board and started a conversation. “Hi.” Hello “What’s your name?” I am at your door. The kids ran downstairs like they had done once before and noticed the mailman walking up to their doorstep. The doorbell rang, they called their mother, and cracked open the door. Jessica and Daniel were always told to not let strangers in the house, but they knew the mailman. They had given him presents for the holidays many times and didn’t consider him a stranger. When they opened the door, they quickly realized this was not their normal mail man. This man had grey hair, small lips, giant, rough, wrinkly hands and showed no emotion whatsoever. He dropped the package on the floor and left after taking a long look at the kids.
The next few days were calm, but they did not touch the Ouija board. The temptation was too great for Daniel however, and one day after homeschooling, he left his sister to go into the game room. He took out the Ouija board without hesitation. He was confident; he thought nothing was going to hurt him. He was indestructible. The box bounced when he threw it to the side and his heart was beating a million times an hour. He asked the Ouija board a question to start with, “What is your name?” the answer, I don’t have a name He thought it was playing tricks on him and said, “Come on, everyone has a name.” There was a long pause, until his hand jerked and formed the sentence; I am at your door. Startled, Danny jumped up from the blue carpeted game room floor. He stumbled down the stairs and fell. As he rolled down the stairs he saw a glimpse of a face and a large hand reaching for the doorbell. This face seemed familiar to him and he knew he had seen it before. It was an older looking face with misty gray hair. He couldn’t quite make it out on who it was.

Jessica was eating lunch when she heard a continuous thumping on the stairs and the doorbell ringing. She ran when she heard Danny scream, and came to the sight of her brother lying unconscious on the floor. Jessica screamed and yelled to their mom in the kitchen. Deborah frantically came out and called an ambulance after shaking him and trying to wake him up. They asked each other what happened but they both were in the kitchen and didn’t see. They looked outside and opened the door to see if the ambulance or anyone was there. Deborah shut the door, amused at how long it was taking for the ambulance to come. The doorbell rang, and Deborah swung the door opened to the face of an old man, with grey hair, a small mouth, and large, rough, and wrinkly hands. He looked familiar to Deborah but she ignored it because the focus was on her son. The old man let himself in the house and immediately picked up Daniel and brought him outside. He laid him on the gurney and took a glance at Jessica. The other workers rolled Daniel into the truck. The ambulance speeded away and the sirens were heard throughout the town.
Deborah and Jessica went back inside the house and went upstairs to see what he was doing before he fell. Jessica knew he was using the Ouija board. She knew Danny was so much more curious than her, and always wanted to get to the bottom of things. Jessica however knew that she wasn’t that type, the curious type, the type to always want to solve problems. Yet, she kept on figuring, what he could have been doing. She found a new interest; mystery.
When Jessica and Deborah arrived at the hospital, everyone looked at them in sorrow; the doctors, the patients, the visitors, everyone. They wondered what was going on and asked for Daniels room number. When they arrived at his room, his bed was empty. The bed was made, and seemed like the room wasn’t occupied. They looked out in the hall both ways and saw Daniels doctor. When the doctor told them to go to the morgue to meet a man named Ed. The elevator down to the morgue was smelly and dark. It was quite large though, because it had to fit dead bodies. Deborah was in mid panic attack when the doors flew open. She called out, “Ed, is there someone named Ed here? Hello?” She talked to herself for a while until Jessica pointed out a man looking at a body. Jessica asked, “Are you Ed?”
“Yes. How can I help you?” The mans head rose. He had small lips and his large, rough, and wrinkly hands were resting on the table below him. Jessica turned around and looked at her mother; they both didn’t know what to do.
“Do you know where my son is? Daniel?” Deborah said, frantically looking around at the morgue.
“Yes. I believe I do.” He showed no emotion at all. Deborah knew something about the man was strange but ignored it again because she wanted to find her son. There was a long, silent pause and the morgue air stood immobile. The air hung above their heads pushing them down further every second of silence. Until Ed spoke again, Deborah was on the verge of tears, “If you want your son come with me.”
So, Deborah held on to Jessica as tight as possible and they both waddled three feet behind the strange man. Jessica knew he was familiar but didn’t know where she knew him from. He brought them into another room with a metal table and a small body lying underneath a white sheet. Deborah began to bawl and Jessica stood there in fear. She had figured out where she knew this man from.
Jessica jumped into the air and tried with all of her might to harm this man. She was furious that he had killed her brother. She knew now that he was the one controlling the Ouija board and he was the one with the Chinese food and he was the mailman too. She punched and kicked as hard as she could. Deborah was screaming in fear of her daughter getting hurt but just stood there. She looked around at the morgue and the paranoia set in knowing she was in a room with dead bodies. She began to shake and she screamed at the top of her lungs when the white blanket moved. Daniel slowly got out from under the white blanket. Deborah passed out and Danny, with bruises all over his body, pushed Jessica out of the way and punched Ed so hard he killed him.
Both kids ran over to their mother to see if she was okay. They woke her up and ran out of the morgue. At the front desk of the hospital everyone was shocked to see Danny alive. The woman at the front desk told Deborah that Danny had a concussion and Dr. Ed brought him down to the morgue to take care of him. The woman told Deborah that the hospital felt the morgue was the safest place for a concussion victim that bad. Deborah sighed and let out a breath of air that had been waiting to come out for hours.
Back at home that night, the Pryce family reflected on this eventful week. These past few days were amongst the strangest they had ever experienced. The children thought they found their stalker, the man who always seemed to show up when the Ouija board said they would. Trying to lift her family’s spirits, Deborah said, “I know we are all confused, but we don’t have to worry about this anymore. He’s dead now, whoever he was, and we can go back to our lives. No more Ouija board, and no more fear. In fact, I’m going to throw it out right now.” As Daniel ran up the stairs Jessica and Deborah stared at him and hoped for him to come back down. He darted down the stairs, but with no Ouija board in his hands. He stared at his mom and sister in a bundle, and they all jumped when they heard the doorbell ring.