Hello again, Story Club members. I'm Ivy, your ghostly host with the most, and the keeper of the

strangest, spookiest tales on earth. Today's chilling tale comes from my beloved nine-year-old

listener Avere, who lives in Castle Rock, Colorado.

Avere's story takes us into a quiet town, a long, dark hallway, and a shadow that doesn't quite behave the way shadows should.

Avere calls today's Ivy's chilling tale, The Shadow of Midnight.

Leo was nine years old when everything changed.

He had just moved into a quiet new town with his parents, his little brother Mason, and their

loyal family dog, Jerry.

Their new house was old, but beautiful, with creaky wooden floors,

tall windows, and a long, dark hallway that seemed to stretch on forever, especially at night.

At first, Leo liked the house.

I mean, it had character.

It had fun, old-fashioned things to explore, like laundry chutes and little bells.

It even had a dumb waiter, which is like a small elevator that people back in the old days used for carrying things like food between the top and bottom floor of the house.

So yeah, Leo was pretty jazzed about the new house right at the beginning.

That is, until the noises started.

Every night, at exactly midnight.

Tap, tap, scrape.

The sounds always woke Leo from a deep sleep.

Now Leo was not a boy who was easily scared.

He figured the tapping and the scraping was the old house settling,

or maybe the wind pushing against the siding.

...