The Strange Laughter: A Flashback from the Past

“That strange laughter is really weird!” thought Zack. “It is almost frightening. Who on earth laughs like that?” 

He listened intently and suddenly had a momentary flashback from the past. “It reminds me of laughter I heard a long time ago. Where on earth is this crazy laughter coming from now?”

Zack was eighteen and newly married. He had been busy replacing floorboards in the old barn, on a farm he and his new wife had recently purchased. It was getting late. The barn was cold and damp, as he searched for the source of the eerie laughter. 

“It is not stopping.” 

Shivering, Zack put on his coat and hat. He gathered his tools together, but held onto a hammer, just in case. 

“Maybe it is time I got out of here,” he thought to himself.

The strange laughter continued to resound in the creaky, old barn. As he walked across the boards he had been pulling up and replacing, the sound seemed to get closer and louder. He felt the hair standing up on the back of his neck.        

“All right, come on out, you weirdo!” Zack hollered.

“Weirdo…weirdo…weirdo,” the empty room echoed, repeatedly. 

“This is no longer funny!”

“Hey, I know what that is! It is a laughing toy from the mid-nineties. My little sister had ‘Tickle me, Elmo’, way back in 1996. I teased her with it continually.”

Zack began to lift up the floorboards, with a fury.

“Come on, Elmo, old boy! Keep on laughing and I will find you!” 

Sure enough, he found the laughing toy under one of the loosened floorboards. He could barely believe that its batteries were still working. 

“My sister is going to love this, just like she did then!” he said, as he laughed aloud.       

“Why are you laughing?” asked his wife. “And who is Elmo?”