A Bit of Spook For You!

Today, I'd like to do something different and share an excerpt of a new piece of fiction that I'm working on.
Be warned, it's horror. Mild right now, but it'll get freaky later.
It doesn't have a title yet, but I'm open to suggestions. Suggest something in the comments section. When it sees publication, if I use your suggestion, you'll get a shout-out in the acknowledgements! You could be famous...
Anyway, here's the excerpt, please let me know what you think!

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They say I’m mad, the people here. But I’m not. Not really. They just don’t understand because they’ve never been face to face with the evil that I have.
You asked what I saw? It wasn’t just what I saw, but what I heard and smelled. Hell, the whole thing.

Have you heard of Christina Mine? No? I’m not surprised, it’s not much now. Back in its prime it was a small village of maybe 60 buildings; a store, some homes, a train station, outbuildings for the mine, a hotel and a mill that took in logs from the surrounding woods and prepped them for the train trip south. By the time I saw the area a hundred years later all that was left was the skeleton of the mill, the train station and a boarded up entrance to the mine. The closest collection of people was ten miles away. I thought it was going to be a peaceful summer, the real estate agent never said a word about anything hinky going on before I bought the place. I thought it was just a sad, neglected train station.

I replaced the windows and doors before I ever stayed overnight. A couple of times I thought I heard kids playing in the hall, but of course, when I went to look they had left. I replaced the locks after that. The day after I replaced the locks, I was out in the front yard having a smoke and happened to glance up at the second story. When I saw someone’s face looking back at me from the corner of the window, I ran inside, grabbed my gun and charged up the stairs, mad as hell. It was my place, you know? I didn’t want kids coming back in, ruining what I’d done to fix the old place up. It never occurred to me that the closest kids would have lived ten miles away.  Of course I found no one else besides myself. I double checked the locks and kept my gun close by. It never really bothered me then.

The next time something weird happened, I was up a ladder, painting the outside of the building. I had picked up a few gallons of simple white on a trip to town and only had to wait for the right day. Well, the day finally came. The bugs were scarce, there was a slight breeze and it was as bright a day as I’d ever seen. So I set my stuff up, leaned the ladder against the building and took my tray and roller up the ladder. I had been painting for a couple of hours when I heard someone laugh, kind of a chuckle, right beside me. Like anyone else would, I looked. Of course there was no one there, I was twenty-something feet off the ground! I shrugged to myself and kept painting. When I heard the chuckle again, it came from my other side. Yeah, I looked again. Nope, no one there either. This time though, I got goose bumps up and down my arms. I got off that ladder as fast as my feet could carry me.

TBC