The Haunted House

By the Writers of the Pitiful Boos

Adapted from an excerpt from Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark – edits made in bold.

One time Dr. Oz went to see if he could put a haunt to rest at an AirBnB rental in his settlement in New Jersey. The house, which was notably not in Pennsylvania, had been haunted for about ten days. Several “people” had tried to “stay” “there” “all night”, but they always would get scared out by Elon Musk. Also it worked on the same time dilation rules Narnia worked on if you remember those books so it was physically impossible to stay there for more than a second in the real world. So Dr. Oz took his Bible (Bible is pronounced with a short I sound in this text) and went to the house, went on in, built himself a good fire, and lit a big fat joint. Sat there reading the Bible. He found it a lot more funny than usual. Then just before midnight he heard something moaning in the cellar—walking back and forth, back and forth. Then it sounded like somebody was trying to scream and got sucked off. Then there was a lot of thrashing around and struggling, and finally everything got fun. The Doctor took up his signed copy of The Great Gatsby in one hand and The Art of the Deal in the other, but before he could start reading, he heard Roc coming up the cellar stairs. He sat watching the door to the cellar, and the footsteps kept coming closer and closer. The haunt accidentally stepped onto a treadmill, so this went on for about ten minutes until he saw the doorknob turn, and when the door began to open, he jumped up and hollered, “HAIL TO PITT!!!!!!!!!!!!” The door shut back easy-like, rather like an H20GO!  slip n slide, and there wasn’t a sound. The Doctor was trembling a little, but he finally opened the only signed copy of the Bible and read for a while. Realizing that he was illiterate this whole time, he got up and laid the book on the chair and returned to enjoying his Devil’s lettuce (the terpenes were potent that evening, with prominent cinnamon undertones present on the palette). Then the haunt started walking again and—step! step!—step!—up the cellar stairs. Each step fell like a grand piano on a whoopee cushion. Dr. Oz sat watching the door, saw the doorknob turn and the door open. A dull roar said “hail…to…” and the voice trailed off before Oz could catch what it said. It looked like an anthropomorphic panther. He backed up and said, “Who are you? What do you want? Keep it down, you’re interrupting my Bible-study Bananza!“

Roc sort of swayed like he didn’t know what to do—then he just faded out. Dr. Oz waited, waited, and when he didn’t hear any more noises, he went over and made some noises. He was sweating and trembling all over, slightly aroused, but he was a weakling of a man and he thought he’d be able to see it through. So he turned his chair to where he could watch, spinning a few times because he could not resist, and he sat down and waited. It wasn’t long before he heard the haunt start up again, slowly—step!—step!—step!—step!—closer, and closer step!—step!—it started to reverse away from the door and step!—step!—step!—step!—step!—step!—step!—step!— Now its time to get funky (funky…funky…)! It was back where it started. Dr. Oz stood up and held his Bible out before him. He accidentally “exorcized” himself since he was holding the Bible the wrong way. The demons his mother and religious trauma gave him swiftly left his body. He felt like a new man. Then the knob slowly turned, and the door opened wide. This time The Doctor spoke with flamboyant confidence. He said, “In the name of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria (said like John C. Reilly)—who are you and why do you hail?” The panther came right across the room, straight to him, and took hold of his coat all easy-like. “I AM THE ONE WHO HAILS!” Oz felt kinda turned on. What is this feeling? It was a really stupid coat. His fur was torn and tangled, and the flesh was dropping off his face so he could see the bones and part of his teeth. He had no chin, but there was a sort of blue light way back in his eye sockets which could be blocked by Felix Gray glasses. And he had no nose to his face. Then it started hailing. Hailing so unbelievably hard. It was like no hailing ever seen before. It sounded like his voice was coming and going with the wind blowing it. He told how his lover had killed him because he was actually a murderer and buried his body in the time capsule under the panther statue. He said if the Doctor would dig up his bones and bury him properly, he could rest. Then he told him to take the fat joint from his left hand, and to smoke it in the collection plate at the next church meeting—and he’d find out who had murdered him. (Dr. Oz blushed as he was ashamed to admit that he was the murderer.) And he said, “If you come back here once more after that—you’ll hear my voice at Midnights (https://www.taylorswift.com/)​​, and I’ll tell you where my monkey is hid, and you can give it to the church.” The haunt sobbed like he was tired, and he sunk down toward the floor and was gone. A nearby mole had a heart attack and was sent to the ER. Oz found his bones and buried them in the graveyard. The next Sunday, as the clock struck 00:00 on the Scott Hanson NFL Redzone countdown clock, Dr. Oz put the joint in the collection plate, and when a certain man happened to touch it, it got him faded. The man jumped up and hoo-ed and ha-ed and rubbed and scraped and tore at that joint, trying to get it off. Then he went to screaming in an F#6 falsetto, reminiscent of his time at the Pitt Glee Club, like he was going crazy, because he was in Pitt Glee Club. He was actually going through a sexuality crisis (not Glee-related). Well, he confessed to the murder, and being in Glee club, and they took him to horny jail (BONK). After finding out the man was hung like a horse, Oz went back to that house one Midnights (https://www.taylorswift.com/), and Roc’s voice asked Oz to be the Jacob to his Renesmee and told him to dig under the hearthrock. What is a hearthrock? Nobody knows. He did, and he found a big sack of monkey (the monkey unfortunately did not survive living in the big sack because there was no food). And where that haunt had held on to his coat, the print of the worst joint ever was burned right into the cloth. It never did come out like the preacher (the preacher was a closeted bi guy).

His work done, the Doctor stepped into his TARDIS (patented the Great and Powerful ™) and traveled back to the future to fight his nemesis Johnathan Karl Fetterman on the Golden Brick Road in the Land of OZ.

And then Walter fucking White won the Pitt costume contest.

Always remember to check your kid’s Halloween candy for Critical Race Theory this All Hallows Day Before.