When I was a kid I lived in this small rural town called Mecosta, it was in central Michigan and basically in the middle of nowhere. I went to a small elementary school there called Chippewa Hills. It wasn’t bad it had a big playground and plenty of kids to play with. It had this massive metal slide that seemed a million feet high back then. At the base of the slide there were two cement slabs to hold it in place. I remember the older kids saying, “Legend has it a second grader fell off the top of the slide and broke his neck when he landed… and then he died.” The other kids would laugh and say, “I heard he haunts the playground at night.” Then they would go on about how an older cousin or brother has seen the ghost creeping around the playground at night moaning and muttering one word… “Mommy!”
Well, one of my best friends at the time Johnny lived right next to the school. I told him about the rumors I heard about the playground being haunted and how a kid died on the slide. We thought it would be really cool to investigate the haunting ourselves. So we planned on having a sleepover Friday night and sneaking out at midnight… the witching hour.
Friday has come we were so excited to get out of school and play video game until midnight. It seemed like forever for that day to pass, but when the final bell rang we met up together and road our skateboards to Johnny’s house. Johnny’s mom greeted us when we got there as we headed upstairs to his room. We threw our bags down on his floor and went directly to the play station and started playing games. We were discussing our plans for the evening and hyping ourselves up for the investigation. We simply couldn’t wait for it to be midnight.
It seemed like we were playing games forever but it was finally midnight, everybody at Johnny’s house were dead asleep… it was finally time to go to the playground. So we creeped down his stairs and out to his garage to grab some flashlights and we made our way to the school.
We got to the playground and made our way to the swings that were facing straight towards the slide. We waited there for hours just talking and waiting for something to happen. We were thinking about leaving because it was 2:00 AM and we were getting tired. Right when we were about to leave we heard a small raspy voice in the distance moan, “Mommy.” We looked at each other in disbelief then we heard again but this time it said, “Mommy please help me.” It seemed to get closer and closer repeating “mommy” and crying in pain. Then the figure of a small child started staggering towards us, its neck was crooked and it was holding its head. It was wearing ripped clothes and it was rotting and decaying with its skin falling off its face revealing its skull.
There was a potent smell of rotting flesh in the air, we were both frozen in fear as it creeped closer and closer to us. I screamed, “What do you want from us?” It whimpered back, “I want my mommy.” We replied, “We don’t know your mommy, we can’t help you.” It disappeared we thought we were safe then behind us we heard a raspy growling noise and the powerful odor of rotting flesh grew so strong I thought we were gonna vomit. I felt an icy cold touch on my shoulder so I jump back and looked behind me.
There it was right in front of my face it straightens out its neck making a loud cracking sound. It opened its mouth wide and vomited a combination of stomach bile and maggots all over me and Johnny. We both screamed and ran as fast as we could, we ran non stop all the way to Johnny’s house and up into his room. We just stood there in shock wondering what just happened trying to scrape the vomit and maggots from our clothes. We didn’t sleep that whole night I couldn’t wait to go home and be in the safety of my room again miles away from that dreaded play ground.
When I got home Saturday I greeted my parents and went directly to my room. I didn’t tell them any of what happened all they could say is how much I stunk and asked why. I replied, “You don’t want to know,” and kept walking. When I got in my room I changed my clothes and went to lay down for a nap. About an hour into when I fell asleep I felt this weight on my chest and I smelt this horrid smell. I opened my eyes and there it was inches from my face puss from its wounds were dripping in my mouth as it slowly grinned at me revealing it’s blackened rotting teeth and in a raspy voice it muttered… “Mommy?”
