Milly

The little town of Maple Bay was as run down as any town could be in the time following the recession. There were a few businesses still open such as Gus's Hardware and Milly's Cafe. The latter served the best breakfasts for miles, not that Milly's had a lot of competition.

Chuck's Garage had long closed down with a 'For Sale' sign hung on the big rollup door on the main building. What fascinated Billy and his friends was the big abandoned barn in the back of the property. Billy was ten years old, freckle-faced and red-haired, and lived with his Uncle Charlie. His best friend and often rival in anything competitive was Jeff. He was the only son of the town's only black family who owned Milly's Cafe. They had bought it from another black couple who were retiring. The retiring couple didn't know where the name Milly originated from but as it was so well known in the county, Jeff's parents decided to keep it.

Billy, Jeff, and their three friends Max, Stephen, and Bo used the loft in the barn as their unofficial clubhouse. They had fixed the rickety ladder leading up to the loft and furnished the place with boy's stuff and some old furniture they had picked up from free roadside discards. There was a trapdoor in the ceiling above the loft and in the roof, a skylight. Using some old crates, they could get up through the trapdoor and then climb a rickety stepladder they found in the attic, they could get out onto the roof through the skylight. It took them a while using a hammer and a screwdriver to pry the rusty handles on the skylight free. When at last they succeeded, the skylight opened with a screech of rusty hinges. They would sit on a flat alcove outside the skylight, making paper planes and sailing them out, competing for the longest flight. Currently, Jeff held the record, sailing the new model he had designed in secret, all the way to the pond, almost a hundred yards away.

Billy's Uncle Charlie told the boys the barn was built back in the 1800s and had a dark history. He said a black slave had been lynched inside. As a result, he said ominously, the barn was haunted.

Of course, Billy and his friends kind of grinned as they knew Uncle Charlie had a tendency to tell tall tales. Still, they occasionally looked over their shoulders when they hung out in their clubhouse. Sometimes when it was windy, there was an eerie whistling noise as the wind blew through the cracks in the walls.

It was Jeff, who came up with the idea. He said none of them had ever stayed in the barn overnight. It was school vacation and no one was leaving town due to COVID, so why not a bit of adventure.

Stephen said. "Let's do it."

Knowing their parents would not agree to them staying overnight in a rickety old barn, they planned a sneak-out. Bo was the problem. His bedroom was on the second floor of his parent's house so they had to arrange for a ladder. Billy solved that problem by saying his Uncle Charlie stored a ladder beside his garage.

The next night after everyone was in bed and lights were out, Billy, Stephen, Max, and Jeff slipped out their bedroom windows. Max had a bit of a fright when the next-door neighbor's dog started barking and a light went on. He huddled by the back fence and when the barking stopped, scrambled over the fence and ran down the back alley. A few minutes later he met up with his friends outside Billy's uncle's place.

Billy whispered.

"Uncle Charlie's asleep. He usually goes to bed after the news."

"Where's the ladder?" Max whispered.

"Over here."

Billy led them over to his uncle's garage that was accessed from the back lane, away from the house. Down the side of the garage between the garage wall and the fence was an aluminum extension ladder. Wrapped around the bottom rung was a chain attached to a post.

Stephen said. "Hold on. It's chained to the wall."

Billy pulled on the chain and with a rattle, the chain came free. Billy pulled some more and the chain slithered out. There was an unlocked padlock hanging from the chain.

"It's not locked," exclaimed Max. "Your uncle must have forgotten to lock it up. Lucky for us."

"He's getting a little forgetful in his old age," said Billy.

Two of them each took an end of the ladder and they all trooped down the back lanes to Bo's house. They opened the back gate of Bo's place that squeaked which elicited a "shhh" from Stephen and a flash of light from Bo's bedroom window. With a bit of a struggle, they managed to get the ladder in place and set it on the ledge of Bo's window.

Bo climbed out and made his way down the ladder. The boys high-fived each other quietly with Billy holding a finger to his lips.

The boys crept quietly out the gate and using back lanes made their way to Chuck's Garage and the barn. Each boy was carrying a sleeping bag and a backpack with goodies to sustain themselves until around six the next morning when they would sneak back home, hopefully without being discovered.

Settling down in his sleeping bag, Jeff said.

"OK. Who knows a ghost story?"

Billy said."Uncle Charlie loves ghost stories. He told me a few but then I had scary dreams and Uncle Charlie said - no more ghost stories!"

The boys wrapped their sleeping bags around them. Max had bought a Colman lantern that he lit and the boys turned off their flashlights. The loft in the barn had no windows so they weren't worried about anyone passing by Chucks Garage and seeing a light.

They talked for a while about skateboards, favorite video games, comics, and other kids' stuff and munching on chips until they got sleepy.

It was Max who woke when he heard a noise on the roof. He bolted upright.

"Hey, you guys," he whispered loudly. He shook Billy who was asleep next to him. Billy woke with a start.

"What?"

"Shhhhh."

There was a creaking sound in the attic above their heads. Billy shook Bo who was next to him and whispered. "Bo, wake up. There's something in the attic."

Bo said: "What? What?

Billy shushed him and said. "Wake Jeff and Stephen up."

Bo leaned over and shook Jeff and Stephen who struggled to sit up, wiping sleep from their eyes. They looked around and saw Billy holding a finger to his lips, eyes wide. From the attic came another creak and then, an ominous thump.

Max looked at the others and said. "I don't know about you guys but I'm out of here."

He scrambled out of his sleeping bag. Before he could reach the ladder leading down into the barn's main floor, the trapdoor above their head flew open and a skeleton slowly lowered itself in a beam of light. All five boys sat there, stupefied. Jeff was the first to move. He scrabbled over to the ladder on his hands and knees swiftly followed by the other four boys. They literally flew down the ladder.

And when they reached the bottom, that's when they saw the ghost.

Between the boys and side door, their escape route, an apparition slowly floated up from the floor. It wasn't your Ghost Busters type of apparition. It was a young black man wearing a dirty white ragged shirt and there was a rope around his neck. As he floated up from the ground, his arms were held out in front of him as if pleading. The name Milly was crudely written on the front of his shirt. As the boys watched in fascination, he rose from the ground over their heads and then, abruptly vanished.

There was a stunned silence that lasted for about two seconds and the boys ran for the door, pushing shoving to be the first out and away from the freaky old barn. They raced down the laneway and didn't stop until they reached the back gate of Bo's place.

Huffing and puffing, they stood there for a minute, attempting to catch their breath. Bo was the first to speak.

"I don't know what was freakier, the skeleton or the ghost. Oh, man."

Billy said. "I'm never going back to that barn again."

The other boys all expressed the same feeling. Just then, there were some footsteps on the gravel path. The boys jumped.

Uncle Charlie said. "My, my. You boys are jumpy this fine night." And then. "How did you like my surprise skeleton?"

"What?" said Billy.

Uncle Charlie grinned. "I thought I would make your unofficial overnight camping trip a little exciting. That skeleton was from my office when I retired from my doctor's practice. It didn't take me long to get 'Skelly' out of retirement and then make it up to the roof before you kids arrived for your overnight stay."

The boys stared at Uncle Charlie. Then they broke out into grins and gave each other and Uncle Charlie high fives.

Bo said. " Wow. That was the freakiest thing I ever saw. That was scarier than the ghost house at the county fair."

Billy said. "Freakier than that Cruella movie!"

"I really liked the ghost, Uncle Charlie. That was cool," said Billy. " How did you do that?"

"And to have the name Milly on the ghost's shirt," said Jeff. "That was totally freaky."

Uncle Charlie looked at them, puzzled. "What ghost?" he said.

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