ESL Listening

Excerpts from the Spooky Series by S.E. Schlosser

Spooky New York Excerpts

From: The Galloping Hessian (Listen)

Hans was nervous about passing the graveyard, remembering the rumors of a galloping ghost that he had heard at the tavern. He stumbled along, humming to himself to keep up his courage. Suddenly, his eye was caught by a light rising from the ground in the cemetery. He stopped, his heart pounding in fear.

"Who is there?" he called, trying to sound casual. The only response was a whooshing sound as the white mist burst forth from an unmarked grave and formed into a large horse carrying a headless rider.

Hans let out a terrible scream as the horse leapt toward him at a full gallop. He took to his heels, running as fast as he could, making for the bridge where he prayed the fearful apparition would disappear.

From: The Central Park Skaters (Listen)

We turned the bend and found ourselves face to face with the woman in purple. With a quickening of my pulse, I realized that her feet were not touching the ice. And I could dimly make out the figures of other skaters right through her body. She was a ghost!

I must have gasped aloud, because Amy looked up from the careful study of her feet and saw the woman skating toward us. We were on a collision course, and Amy gave a small shriek as the woman skated right through us. For a moment, all I could feel was an ice-cold mist moving through my body. Then it was gone. Amy gave a scream that could have awaked the dead, stumbled over her own feet, and we both fell onto the ice. I rolled over quickly to gaze after the ghost. The woman in purple paused in the middle of her figure eight to look at us lying on the ice. The woman in red stopped beside her, and they both laughed silently at the spectacle we made. Then they disappeared.

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Spooky Southwest Excerpts

From: The Black Cat's Message (Listen)

I started down the road, hoping to get home before dark since I had not brought a lantern with me. I rounded a corner and saw a group of black cats standing in the middle of the road. They were nearly invisible in the growing dark.

As I drew nearer, I saw that they were carrying a stretcher between them. I stopped and rubbed my eyes. That was impossible. When I looked again, the stretcher was still there, and there was a little dead cat lying on it.

I was astonished. It must be a trick of the light, I thought. Then one of the cats called out, "Sir, please tell Aunt Kan that Polly Grundy is dead."

From: The Death Waltz (Listen)

We were waltzing around the ballroom when the door flew open with a loud bang. A gust of cold air blew in, dimming the candles as a heart-wrenching wail echoed through the room. The music stopped abruptly and everyone turned to look at the door. Standing there was the swollen, dead body of a soldier dressed in an officer's uniform. The eyes were burning with a terrible fire. The temple had a huge gash from a hatchet-blow. There was no scalp. It was Johnny.

From: Pecos Bill and the Haunted House (Listen)

Well now Pecos Bill was traveling through Nevada when he happened to hear about a frame house just outside Carson City that was supposed to be the most haunted house in the West. Folks about town reckoned that there were nearly 200 ghosts, spooks, and monsters in that house. Not a single man had stepped foot in it for the last five years. The ghosts and spooks in that haunted house made so much noise howling and shrieking and groaning at night that no one in the neighborhood could get any sleep. Most of the families had already moved away. Pecos Bill thought it was a cryin' shame that such a nice frame house was going to waste on account of a few spooks, so he volunteered to clear them out for the owner.

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Spooky South Excerpts

From: Chicky Licky Chow Chow Chow (Listen)

Pop and I were still eating when we heard the noise. It sounded like the whoosh of a great wind, but within it was the crackling sound of flames. I froze, the fork halfway to my mouth, and stared across the table at Pop. Now we could hear footsteps shaking the ground. And a voice like the hiss of flames cried out, "Bum, bum, Sally Lum, tearing down trees and throwing them as I come." This was followed by the crash of a great tree falling to the ground.

"What is that?!" cried the head of the house. Pop wiped his mouth with shaking hands.

"Something is after me and the boy," he said reluctantly.

From: The Jack O' Lantern (Listen)

When I was just a young boy living down in Alabama with my grandpappy, he told me about the googley-eyed jack-o'-lantern that bounds across the swamps. Folks walking in the dark swamp at night had best be careful or the jack-o'-lantern will lure them with his light. Folks say that once you've seen the jack-o'-lantern, you get this irresistible impulse to follow him wherever he goes. You follow the light until you fall into bogs or pools of water and drown.

From: Tailypo (Listen)

The old man was tired, so he finished washing up and went to bed. He hadn't been sleeping too long when a thumping noise awoke him. It sounded like an animal was climbing up the side of his cabin. He heard a scratch, scratch, scratching noise, like the claws of a cat. And then a voice rang out: "Tailypo, Tailypo; all I want's my Tailypo."

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Spooky New England Excerpts

From: Emily's Bridge (Listen)

Then, a school friend of mine came to class one morning looking pale and upset. He and his pa had been driving across the bridge the night before when they were stopped by a pale figure that glowed in the darkness. It had taken all his father's strength to keep the terrified horses from bolting. The ghost had circled the cart slowly and then gripped the side next to my school friend and shook the carriage savagely. My friend's pa lost his hold on the horses, and they bolted across the bridge and ran so hard and fast that it took his pa several miles of frantic pulling to bring them to a halt. The ghostly figure, my friend said, glancing at me and then away, looked like Emily.

From: The Devil and Jonathan Moulton (Listen)

The Devil put down the glass and said in a suddenly business-like manner: "Now, I think you have seen for yourself that I can make you the richest man in the province. So, in return for your agreement, duly signed and sealed, to deliver your soul to me," he drew a thick parchment from his pocket, "I will engage, on my part, to fill your boots with gold such as you have received here tonight, on the first day of each month."

The Devil laid the scroll on the table between them, smoothing it straight with his hands that glittered with diamonds. The sight of those jewels made the General's eyes gleam.

The Devil dipped a pen into the inkhorn and held it out.

"Sign," said he.

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