The Curse of Daniel Tripe

My brother Toby and I go to the woods with our friends to hang out. one stupid decision led to another, and we ended up pissing an evil spirit off.

I remember the night of July the tenth of 1995 like it was yesterday.

The night was a rather cold one for it being in the middle of summer. It was especially odd because I lived in Fresno California back then, and I know from experience, it was almost always hot. My older brother Toby and I went out to the middle of the woods with a couple of friends of ours.

Toby and I have always been odd for a brother and sister (just in case you confused Toby is my brother. Not the other way around) because we always got along. I can’t remember one time we have gotten into an argument.

We also shared friends. His friends were my friends. My friends were his friends. Even though he was a teenage boy at the age 19 and I was a teenage girl at age 16 at the time leaving us a good three years apart. Still that had never held us back from being the best of friends.

The night had started out like a normal summer night with our friends Ben, and Alice. We were talking about plans for the rest of the summer when the conversation turned to the creepy abandoned building in the middle of the woods, and soon enough, Ben had brought up the great idea of going inside said creepy building in the middle of the woods.

At the time we thought it was an amazing idea, even though we had heard the legend.

It is said that the family that lived in the house back in the late 1700’s were burned at the stake for supposedly being witches. The whole family was burned, except the father, Daniel Tripe. He was said to have been forced to watch his family burn. When it was his turn, he grabbed a fire poker, stabbed it into the fire, then stab it into each of his eyes, killing him almost instantly, but not before he laid a curse on anyone who set foot on his land.

Obviously, we didn’t believe the whole “curse” thing, so we went inside.

The building was an old wooden shack with dirty broken windows at either side of the old rotten door. On the left side of the house, there was a cellar, which was odd for Fresno since we don’t usually get tornadoes and most of the houses around there don’t have basements or cellars.

At first nothing happened. We were just a group of kids goofing off, but that all ended when Ben went too far__

All Ben did was drop a jar. That was all he did. Apparently, that is all you have to do to piss off a spirit.

Daniel Tripe appeared behind Ben not even three seconds after it happened.

He, or it, had messy brown hair, he was covered in blood, ash, and dirt, his clothing was ripped and torn, but his eyes. Oh his eyes. His eyes were not there.It looked like he had come out of a cheap 80’s horror film, blood and smoke poured out of his otherwise black eye sockets. That wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was that in his hands was a hot poker, dripping with dark red blood.

Before Ben Knew what was behind him, the poker went straight gh his back and out the front of his chest. Ben’s lifeless body collapsed to the floor, his blood pooling out the gaping hole in his chest, and his right shoulder was twitching slightly, and the last wisps of life gave way in a crimson puddle.

Alice’s screams echoed throughout the room, she started backing away from Ben’s motionless corpse, Toby was paralyzed, stuck in a motionless stupor, staring in shock. I however, could do nothing but laugh uncontrollably.

I fell to my knees laughing while Daniel advanced toward me. Hot poker in hand, he knelt in front of me. He stayed there, motionless, for a good 5 seconds before he stood up.

He glanced back and forth between Alice and Toby, as if to ponder which is to be his next prey. His head turned to Alice, who was backed up against a wall, screaming in terror. He sauntered toward her, all the while Toby was still motionless, and I still laughing hysterically.

In one swift motion, Daniel impaled Alice, who’s screaming was suddenly silenced. As her lifeless body slid down the wall, painting it blood red.

Daniel, who apparently had his fill, disappeared, leaving nothing behind. My laughing ceased, and Toby could move again.

Silently we both left. And got into the car. We both silently agreed never to talk about the night of July tenth 1995 again,

Until now.