From Tom Slemens' new book, 'How To Scare The Pants Off Cuffy' ~
There stands an old ivory-colored two-storey townhouse in Rice Street in the city of St Paul, Minnesota, which was the scene of ghostly goings-on in the 1980s. It all began when a young man - who had been left a substantial amount of money by his late uncle - decided to buy the four-bed-roomed house, because he liked the area it was situated in.
He was a popular raven-haired guy named Jimmy Ferranto, and he had only recently turned 21. He got a few of his friends around at the house to help him decorate it, but each of them left after saying they'd experienced weird things in the place. None of them would elaborate on just what these things were. This naturally unnerved Jimmy. When all the decorating was complete, Jimmy moved in and invited his friends around to his housewarming party, but none of them came, because they said the house had a spooky atmosphere. Jimmy invited Sandra, a girl he had fancied for ages, to come to his little housewarming party, and she accepted. She arrived at 8 p.m. with an expensive bottle of Moet et Chandon, which had been left unused at her 21st birthday party the week before. Sandra wore black stilettos, a short white leather mini-skirt, and a revealing red PVC bra top, and looked stunning. Not another soul came to the party, and soon Jimmy and Sandra were sitting on the sofa of the newly decorated house, getting steadily intoxicated. Jimmy suddenly moved closer to Sandra and said, "Y'know, I've always had the hots for you."
Sandra blushed, and got up, saying, "I'm just going to powder my nose." She went upstairs to the bathroom clutching her bag and inspected her make-up. She rubbed on some foundation, then applied another layer of lipstick. She put her make-up bag down on the edge of the sink, then turned around and started looking at the various aftershaves Jimmy had in his cabinet. She always thought the type of aftershave a man wore said something about him. When Sandra turned around, she saw to her horror that the word 'TROLLOP' had been written on the mirror in her lipstick. She then smelt a strange aroma pervading the bathroom, and heard a girlish type of giggle.
Sandra almost broke her neck running down the stairs in her high-heels. The girl was terror-stricken, and she told Jimmy about the message upstairs. He went upstairs and he saw that Sandra was right. Next thing he heard the front door slam; it was Sandra leaving. Jimmy was naturally disappointed at his dream-girl's departure. He walked around the house with a ball hammer, thinking some crazy intruder was at large. He heard the sound of heels walking in the bedroom next door, but when he opened the door and looked in the room, there was no one there. Then the same smell of perfume wafted past him. Jimmy thought it smelt like an old perfume his mum wore years ago called 'Charlie'. Suddenly in the mirror of a wardrobe, he glimpsed a reflection of a two girls. One had long dark hair and the other had reddish hair done up into a bun. But when Jimmy turned around, there was no one there.
Jimmy made himself a black coffee, and throughout the remainder of that night, he smoked a full twenty-pack of Marlboro in a bid to calm himself down. He finally went to bed around 3.15 a.m. and left the bedside lamp on. He dozed off, but when he woke, the lamp had been switched off. Then Jimmy saw a girl's face on the pillow, facing him. Her eyes were wide open, but the face had no expression on it. Jimmy was so terrified he couldn't move. He closed his eyes, and felt sweat trickling from his brow. He then felt a hand on his shoulder. Someone - or something was on the other side of him. Jimmy kept his eyes closed but let out a scream, then curled up into a ball. He looked up, and saw the distinctive silhouetted outline of two girls against the drawn curtains of the window. Jimmy jumped out the bed and switched on the light, and saw that there was no one there. Jimmy Ferranto put the house up for sale and moved in with his parents. He later learned from a taxi driver who lived next door to the haunted house that the place had a long history of ghostly activity. According to the taxi driver, two girls died in a blaze at the house in the 1970s, and he had known them personally. Jimmy told the driver he smelt an aroma in the house that was like the perfume 'Charlie', and the cabby said that had been one of the girl's favourite perfumes. When Jimmy said one of the ghosts had written the word 'trollop' on the mirror, the cab driver was amazed, and said one of the girls often used that word. Finally, Jimmy asked the taxi driver to describe the girls, and the cabby said, "One was a redhead and the other was a brunette." Which matched the description of the girls Jimmy had seen in the wardrobe's mirror. Today, it is said that the haunted house is empty. Go and check your bathroom mirror...
Hammy x x x
*waits to hear screams from Manchester*