Captain Courageous: The Haunted Hustle

The old Crenshaw house loomed over Oak Street, its peeling paint and boarded up windows giving it an eerie, abandoned look. The overgrown yard was a tangle of weeds and bushes scratching at the rusting chain link fence.

At night, that's when the real horror began.

The neighborhood kids said you could hear moans and cries drifting from the house after dark. Ghostly apparitions flickered in the upstairs windows. Cold spots and strange shadows would manifest out of nowhere on the sidewalk in front of the decrepit place.

"My brother saw a pale, disfigured face in the attic!" Carlos told his friends one day as they walked home from school, making sure to give the Crenshaw house a wide berth.

"No way, that's just a stupid story to scare kids," Jamal said, though he couldn't help glancing nervously at the creepy old house.

"It's true, I tell you!" Carlos insisted. "The Crenshaw place is haunted for sure."

Soon the entire neighborhood was abuzz with tales of the haunted house on Oak Street. Parents warned their children to stay far away from the place, as no one knew what sort of evil spirits might be lurking inside. Teenagers dared each other to sneak up to the house after midnight to hear the moans and wails for themselves, but few were brave enough to actually go through with it.

One muggy summer night, a neighborhood watch patrol made up of Mr. Reynolds and a few other concerned citizens decided to investigate the source of the strange noises once and for all. They crept up the overgrown path to the house's sagging front porch, flashlight beams wavering, only to hear a long, drawn-out groan right behind them!

The men whirled around to see a shadowy figure lurking underneath the porch, its pale face contorted in a terrifying scream! They all fled in terror, Mr. Reynolds losing his flashlight and tripping over the rusty fence in his panicked haste to get away.

The next day, the story of the lurking porch ghoul was all over the news and spreading across the internet. The abandoned Crenshaw house was being called the most haunted place in the city. Even the cantankerous Mayor Slaughter vowed to have the place boarded up and blocked off for good to keep people safe.

But one person wasn't buying the ghost story. Captain Courageous, defender of Metro City, thought there was something fishy about the whole haunted house deal. Using her power of supersonic flight, she did a reconnaissance sweep over the house one night, her enhanced vision catching some suspicious movements in the backyard.

The following evening after dinner, Captain Courageous returned to Oak Street, landing silently in the shadows beside the house's battered wooden gate. She could already hear creepy sounds emanating from inside the boarded-up place: a hair-raising moan, a ghostly wail, a deranged cackle.

Taking a deep breath, the superhero pushed open the gate and crept across the weed-choked yard toward the sounds. She peered through a cracked basement window and gasped at what she saw.

Three teenage boys were inside, operating an assortment of audio equipment hooked up to speakers positioned around the basement! One was moaning into a microphone, another was playing a looped wail sound, and the third was hitting a key to trigger a manic cackling noise.

"Just as I thought," Captain Courageous muttered to herself, realizing the haunting sounds weren't supernatural at all.

She slipped around to the basement door, ripped off the boards, and threw it open. "Alright, cut that ghost nonsense out right now! The haunt is over."

The three startled teens whirled around, eyes widening in shock and fear. One accidentally sent his microphone clattering to the ground with a bone-chilling screech of feedback.

"C-Captain Courageous!" one of the taller boys stammered out. "We were just...uhh..."

"Having a little fun scaring people with your haunted house hijinks?" the superhero asked sternly, arms crossed as she glowered at them. "Doesn't seem like a very heroic thing to do if you ask me. There are little kids terrified to even walk by this place!"

The three boys shuffled their feet and stared at the ground, properly abashed. "We just...we didn't want anyone coming around to this place," the short one piped up. "So we could, y'know, do our own thing without people bugging us."

"Let me guess, that 'own thing' you're doing isn't exactly legal?" Captain Courageous asked knowingly.

The three exchanged nervous looks before the third boy finally admitted, "We've been...ungh, tagging the place up and maybe doing a bit of petty theft around here when no one's watching. Nothing too crazy!"

"Nothing too crazy except scaring an entire neighborhood with your little haunted house scam!" Captain Courageous huffed. "I don't care for vigilante justice, but I care even less for mean-spirited pranks that traumatize innocent people. Why don't you put that creativity to better use?"

She glared at them fiercely until they were squirming with discomfort. "I'm not going to turn you in this time. But I better not catch you three up to anything like this again. The haunting of Oak Street ends tonight, got it?"

The boys all nodded quickly, not daring to argue with the powerful superhero.

"Good. Now pack up this ghost racket and get going. And you can return anything you...acquired...from around here. Maybe do something productive with your lives for once."

Captain Courageous watched sternly as the trio sheepishly unplugged their speakers and audio equipment, crestfallen looks on their faces. She made sure they swept up any spray paint cans and grabbed any ill-gotten loot before finally shuffling out, banishing them from the premises with a hard stare.

The next morning, the news was buzzing about the haunting on Oak Street being just a hoax perpetrated by some neighborhood delinquents. Captain Courageous smiled to herself as she imagined the relieved looks on the locals' faces as they realized the house wasn't actually haunted after all.

Maybe those three troublemakers would learn a lesson about using their powers for good instead of mean-spirited pranks. As for Captain Courageous, she'd unmasked the truth and freed an entire street from their ghostly torment, her deed going unsung as always. But she didn't need adulation or thanks.

Just another day's work in defending the city.