I was inspired by this Poetry  Prompt to write a short story.  : Is harmless the same as friendly when it comes to ghosts? 

There’s an abandoned caretaker’s cottage on the very edge of Gordon Wood and it is covered in moss and ivy.

Part of the roof gave away and the rain and snow get in and sometimes the sunlight does too.

Nobody lives there and it’s hard to imagine anybody ever did.

The Caretaker’s Cottage looks like a tomb.

I walk my dog near the Caretaker’s Cottage but I never looked through the doorway, I have never peaked through the windows not even on the days when I hear a phone ringing from inside the Caretaker’s Cottage.

Sometimes the phone stops ringing and I can hear someone whisper, as if they are afraid someone might hear them, ” Yes, yes come as quick as you can. I think someone is outside. Please hurry. Wait. Wait. She’s out there again, with her dog. It’s a big beast and it’s looking right at me. Please hurry. ”

I pull on my dog’s leash and we run as fast as we can out of the wood and up to the road without looking back.

We stand up there  on that long dark road for hours and hours, sometimes we stand there for a few minutes and when cars drive by, they never stop for us. Sometimes they slow down, but they never stop.

Ever.

But we always go back to the cottage, sometimes we go back a day later, sometimes a month, sometimes it feels like minutes.

We always go back because it preys on my mind, is the Caretaker’s Cottage is haunted by human, or beast or a monster?

What haunts me above all is is the thought: which of three I am?