The Haunting of the Osage

By Brandon Gardner

When a group of practical joke-playing teenagers hear about a legend of the headless ghost of a decapitated bride, they decide to make a visit to the mansion where the story originated. They quickly become eye-witnesses to some wierd, paranormal activity in and around the mansion. They later learn from the Dungeon Master, a nickname given to the high school janitor, that a young girl had been abducted by a group of Osage Indians back at the turn of the century. The Indians had killed her family during a raid but kept her alive to live among them. Years later she was arranged to be married to one of the Indian leaders but being filled with resentment against the Indians for killing her family, she stabbed the Indian during the ceremony. The punishment for such an action was death through decapitation. Could the ghost of the headless bride be the young girl that had been abducted many decades ago? Could the strange, paranormal activity taking place be a result of the mansion being built on a sacred Indian burial ground? As the teen's search for answers, the mystery deepens when they come across several strangers who seem to want to keep the mystery a secret, and at any cost. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brandon Gardner
• Release date: Oct 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781386098980

Book preview

The Haunting of the Osage

Table of Contents

The Bugga Boys

A Ghostly Tale

The Dungeon Master

The Headless Bride

An Unpleasant Encounter 

The Screaming House

Confronting the Dungeon Master

The Death Card

The Stranger in the Park

The Haunted Mansion Opens

A frightening Invitation

Trapped Inside the Mansion

The Dark, Hooded Stranger

The Revealing

Chapter 1 - The Bugga Boys

"Y ou get back here now you dirty, rotten little bugga!" Mrs. O’Grady shouted with her ear-piercing, bone-rattling, nails-on-the-chalkboard scream.  The shockwaves from her scream could be felt down the hallway and clear to the other side of the high school. One time it even blew the toupee right off Mr. Dunedin’s head. He’s the school principal. During a normal day her scream can be heard miles away. One time the tornado siren malfunctioned and city officials picked Mrs. O’Grady up and actually used her as the siren instead. At least, that’s the rumor that floats around the school. Mrs. O’Grady is a little Irish lady with a thick accent who barely stands above five feet tall and is as thin as a rail but can make even the hardest of sailors blush and if you haven’t guessed yet, the thing she is most recognized for is her screaming. It’s so loud it’s like a superpower. She has two moods, grumpy and grumpier and has two volumes, loud and screaming. She has been teaching chemistry at our high school for over a decade which makes her even scarier because nobody knows if she is secretly making potions to turn students into a blob fish or orangutan or even worse, make them disappear all together!  Everyone at the school believes that Ireland kicked her out of their country; the big question was how do we send her back? Students and teachers alike spoke of her as having the charm of a rattlesnake and the temperament of a wolverine and anyone who knew Mrs. O’Grady personally would much rather cross paths with the wolverine.

My name is Russell, and I’m a freshman here at Ridgeview High and I will confess that I have been on the receiving end of the screaming from Mrs. O’Grady a time or two. Okay, maybe it’s closer to a dozen times or two. One thing is for sure; her shouting can definitely make your liver quiver. One student actually went to the hospital because his eardrum burst and blood started gushing out of his ear. Maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. He didn’t actually go to the hospital because she ruptured his eardrum, he went home because of a migraine but that makes for a really lousy story so I added a few minor details to make the story a little more interesting. I’m sure that she helped cause the migraine though, so the story isn’t completely false.

Anyway, Drew and I were walking down the hallway when we heard her screaming. Drew is a junior at the high school and lives a few houses down from me. Even though he is two years older we have been really good friends for the last several years and hang out whenever possible. He is tall, lanky, and likes running cross country. He was nicknamed ‘Stretch’ because the length of his stride is twice that of everyone else which makes him a really good runner.

You may run but I know it was you Oliver. You can just go straight to the principal’s office, Mrs. O screamed again.

We looked at each other and started laughing. We knew that probably wasn’t the most appropriate response, but there weren’t any other teachers around to yell at us if they saw us laughing. Although truth be told, I’m pretty sure that they were laughing hysterically as well. Many times when Mrs. O would get all worked up, she would point her boney index finger and it would move up and down in synch with the syllables of the words that she was yelling which, by that point, flowed out of her mouth like a song; a really twisted, messed up, loud, non-rhyming song. So in a way her screaming sounded like a sonnet from the worst opera singing ever and this made her especially entertaining.

Oliver is also a freshman here at Ridgeview High and had been one of my best friends since elementary school. He’s a little pudgy for his height and clumsy on his feet. He could trip over something while standing completely still. Add a one pound book bag on his back and he becomes a human wrecking ball. As he ran down the hallway he slammed into several lockers and then bounced off of the doorway like a pinball in a pinball machine in his feeble attempt to run away from Mrs. O’Grady without getting caught. As Oliver turned the corner he almost knocked the both of us over.

Dude, why is Mrs. O yelling at you? What did you do this time? Drew asked with a smirk on his face. Based on the volume of the screaming, you’ve clearly outdone yourself this time. 

I kinda played a joke on her. I mean, I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t intended for her like last time. She’s just really good at getting in the way. She said she had cafeteria duty and I watched her leave the room. I didn’t know she was going to come back. At least, not that quickly; she can really move fast for someone her age, Oliver said, still a little out of breath from running down the hallway with the unsuccessful hope of not getting caught.

Just then Diego came walking into the school from the north hall. Students in athletics are allowed to use the back doors because they lead out to the athletic field. He saw the three of us and came over. Who made Mrs. O have a blood rush? You can hear her screaming from outside the school! How is someone so tiny so loud? She is totally throwing a wobbly.

Wow! I exclaimed. "You heard her clear outside? She might have even outdone herself this time. I wonder if she exploded that big ‘ol blood vessel that’s in her head?"

Diego is a year older than Oliver and me, a few inches shorter and wore dark rimmed glasses. His family moved here several years ago from Puerto Rico. We played on the same soccer team and then started hanging out with each other and the four of us have ended up doing almost everything together ever since. It was Diego who first began pulling pranks on the three of us. They started out as small, silly little practical jokes but they eventually they led up to become a competitive, on-going competition to see who could out-prank the other. The pranks eventually escalated from being pulled on one another to being pulled on other students and eventually on some of the teachers. Pulling pranks on teachers took the competition to a whole new level because the teachers don’t tend to find any humor in having jokes played on them, especially if the prank was pulled on them in front of a lot of students and results in a lot of laughter. The other thing about playing a prank on a teacher is that if it did happen, it would have to be done without getting caught or else suffer major consequences. I’m pretty sure that one of the job requirements for being a teacher at the school is that you cannot, under any circumstance, have a sense of humor. Okay, so the worst thing that could happen would just be an out-of-school suspension. Don’t get me wrong, that’s bad, but perhaps not really that major. It wouldn’t be like going to jail.

Drew and Oliver looked at each other with a confused look on their faces when Diego made the comment about throwing a wobbly. I’m sure I had a really weird look on my face as well. None of us had a clue what he meant.

Diego explained. It’s when an adult is throwing a temper tantrum. I learned it from a foreign exchange student from England last year.

The comment was fitting but was especially comical to hear someone with a Puerto Rican accent try and imitate someone with an English accent.

Then Drew started laughing. "It was Oliver. He pulled a prank on Mrs. O and boy did she blow a gasket. That scream definitely registered the highest on the rating scale, especially if you could hear it from the outside. This would have moved you into first place and gained you lots of points except for the fact that you got caught, Drew said while thumping Oliver in the head with his fingers. That will give you some major negative points! What did you do anyway?"

Before I go on, I should explain what Drew meant when he said that this was going to cost Oliver some major negative points. We came up with rules, as well as a rating system, for the practical joke playing. We wanted an impartial way to tell who played the best practical joke. Anyone can say that they played the best joke but it would always be biased based upon their own perspective so we developed a system to help us determine in a non-biased way who played that best joke. We also had guidelines. There were a few rules we decided were necessary. First of all, any joke that could possibly result in the destruction of physical property was completely prohibited. We couldn’t do anything that could ruin clothing or destroy an object such as a phone, headset, etc. Not only would that cost points on the rating system but it’s a huge bummer if we had to turn around and then pay for the item that was destroyed as well. That’s a double negative! However, on the other hand screaming was a highly sought after reaction. Any joke that resulted in some kind of a scream was excellent! If it wasn’t just a scream, but one that also included the person practically jumping out of their skin, bonus points! We even created a rating scale to measure the quality of the scream. The longer the scream lasted the more points we got. The louder the scream the more points we got. Any joke that could cause multiple people to scream at the same time would rate as major fantastic and would score premium points. So far, Oliver has been the only one to capitalize on ‘the major fantastic’ score. Last year one of Oliver’s cousins had a baby and he somehow managed to snag a diaper. He soaked the diaper with apple juice to make it look like it had been peed in and then placed chocolate pudding in it to make it look like...well, I’m sure you get the picture. He rolled it up and then placed it in his backpack. During lunch, he opened his backpack and screamed and jumped out of his seat acting like someone had pulled the prank on him. This got everyone’s attention and all eyes were on him to see what the commotion was about. He then pulled the soiled-looking diaper out of his bag and held it up in the air. This got a lot of screams and most of the students sitting at our table jumped out of their seats and trampled one another to get away from the saucy looking thing, but he didn’t stop there. Oliver didn’t just take students to the edge, he then pushed them over. While holding his nose Oliver opened the diaper with a disgusted look on his face, gagged a few times, acted like he was going to hurl and then to everyone’s shock he sunk his face right into the mushy dark brown substance and began to eat it! When he lowered the diaper the brown pudding was all over his chin, cheeks, and nose. Several students puked up their lunch while everyone else screamed in hysteria. The results spoke for themselves. Oliver received a ‘major fantastic’ score, got premium points, and three lunch detentions. None of us have broken his record.

Another rule we made had to do with pulling a practical joke on a teacher. This could also score some premium points because of the consequences we could receive if we ever got caught. Teachers aren’t very fond of having jokes played on them and so, as a result, it would usually end in some kind of suspension. This could also have the potential of alerting every teacher who has ever had a joke played on them who the possible culprit is. Even if it wasn’t entirely accurate, they would probably assume that person would have been behind all of the other jokes. If one of us were to ever get caught, this could open a huge door allowing other kids to start pranking the teachers and the blame would immediately be placed on one of us, something we really wanted to avoid.

It wasn’t even that big of a prank, Oliver said, defending himself. It was just the silly bucket of water above the door. It wasn’t even intended for her, so she shouldn’t be that mad!

I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works. In fact, I can tell you with absolute certainty that’s not how it works. I think it’s possible that it could make someone even more mad to know that they were the victim of a joke that was not intended for them, I said.

It was meant for that punk Mcgee. He can be such a chowderhead, Oliver defended himself.

"And this is going to help him stop being um . . .uh chowderhead, whatever that is?" Drew asked.

"Maybe not, but he’s a punk. It’s one thing to be silly and pull little innocent jokes every once in a while but he’s a bully and just likes to be mean. I’ve never even pranked him before so there is a little bit of joy at doing something back to him and rubbing his face in it.

Except for the fact that it sounds like you missed his face entirely, I said.

Yea, there is that. Anyway, I saw him coming down the hallway because he was supposed to be going to her room at lunch for detention for being tardy to school this morning, Oliver stated.

Diego interrupted, "Wait a second, let me get this straight. He gets in trouble for coming in late to school this morning, but you get in trouble because of him coming in late to detention this afternoon? Now that’s funny; that’s good stuff right there. So instead of pranking the dweeb during detention you got Mrs. O instead?" 

Yup, that’s pretty much what happened, Oliver giggled, not bothered at all by the fact that he got caught.He would have deserved it. But then again, there’s no remorse being that Mrs. O ended up being the victim. She also kind of deserves it for being a crotchety old lady. Although if I had known that she was going to be the one to get it I would have also filled the bucket with ice.

Ah, she shouldn’t be too cranky if it was just a little bit of water right? I know water melted the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz and Mrs. O is her identical twin, but a little water never hurt anyone, Drew said.

Oliver didn’t say anything. He just stood there with a suspicious look on his face with his eyes gazing upwards towards the ceiling.

It was just water, right? I asked slowly. 

Well.... Oliver said slowly. "It might not have been just water."

Diego cocked his head back and roared out loud. This is great. Did you put something in the water? Is her hair going to fall out or something? Can you imagine seeing her bald?

I’ll have to confess, pulling pranks on Mrs. O’Grady had almost become a favorite pastime of ours. Her fiery temperament and outbursts, and the way she made it sound like she was chanting when she was yelling made it a rather comical form of entertainment.

I found a bunch of green dye in the trashcan in the art room that was being thrown away. It said it was permanent on the bottle so I knew it could come in handy someday, Oliver was laughing so hard tears ran down his cheek. Mcgee would have looked so funny with his blonde hair turned green but Mrs. O looks waaay more funny. You should have seen her! It didn’t just turn all of her grey hair green but it also turned most of her head and face green. With all those wrinkles, she looks like rotting flesh.

Oliver could hardly talk he was laughing so hard. His laughter was so contagious that all of us were practically falling over each other in laughter. Once again, probably not the most appropriate response and once again, again, I wouldn’t be surprised if most, if not all, of the teachers will also be laughing once they see her. If not outwardly, I guarantee you they are laughing inwardly.  After all, she isn’t the most popular teacher. She yells at them just as much as she yells at the students.

So did she turn into the Green Goblin or the Incredible Hulk? Drew asked teasingly.

"First of all, there is nothing incredible about her. She does have the anger of the Hulk, though. The only thing incredible about her is her bad breath. You can smell it from the back of the classroom. That thing growing on the side of her neck is also really distracting.