1. The Intruder

Emily was sitting at her study table, home alone, on a cold and stormy night. Her parents had taken a flight earlier in the morning to Australia as her grandmother had passed away. She had wanted to follow her parents but she had an important English examination the next day which she could not miss.

The storm was getting heavier by the minute and the wind was howling outside. All this noise made it very hard for her to concentrate. She was on the verge of dozing off when she was shaken alert by a sudden 'THUD!' She dismissed it as a window which had been slammed shut by the wind.

She tried to concentrate on her books when she heard faint footsteps. Emily got out of her room and looked around when suddenly, without warning, she was grabbed by the neck. She tried to scream but it came out as a mere whimper as the intruder was pressing hard against her throat with his arm. She tried to free herself from his grip but to no avail.

'Give me all your money!' growled the man who had grabbed her from behind.

'Th-there is none h-here! Please ll-let me go!' cried Emily.

'Don't LIE TO ME!' screamed the increasingly agitated man. She felt the man strengthen his grip around her neck. She said nothing and a few seconds passed by in silence. Suddenly the phone rang which alerted both of them.

'People will get suspicious if I don't answer the phone,' said Emily, with a controlled voice. The intruder let her go.

'Alright, but NO funny business, or ELSE!' said the nervous intruder. Emily walked toward the phone. She took a deep breath and calmed herself. She picked up the phone.

'Hey Em! How's the revision going?' said the caller.

'Hey Anna. Thanks for the call. Hey you know those Science notes I lent you last week? Well I really need them back. It would be a great help to me. It's an emergency, so if you could give me them tomorrow it would be great. Please hurry in finding the notes. I need to get back to my books now. Bye,' Emily said. She hung up the phone.

'It was wise of you not to say anything,' said the intruder, although he was more than a bit confused by her conversation.

'Now TELL ME WHERE THE MONEY IS KEPT!' screamed the thief.

'It...it's...in my dad's room. The first room on the right. Third drawer,' said Emily.

'SHOW me!' said the man, and removed his grip around her neck. She took a big gulp of air and nearly fell. She swallowed hard and said a silent prayer. She walked slowly, in silence, toward her father's room. All of a sudden, they heard police sirens. The intruder froze in his footsteps. He ran to the nearest window and jumped out of it.

Emily ran outside in time to see the intruder being escorted into the car. She saw Anna and she ran toward her and hugged her.

'Smart kids,' said the policeman.

What had happened?

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2. Go Ahead, Shoot

Pirate Pete had been captured by a Spanish general and sentenced to death by his 50-man firing squad.

Pete cringed, as he knew their reputation for being the worst firing squad in the Spanish military. They were such bad shots that they would often all miss their targets and simply maim their victims, leaving them to bleed to death, as the general's tradition was to only allow one shot per man to save on ammunition. The thought of a slow painful death made Pete beg for mercy.

'Very well, I have some compassion. You may choose where the men stand when they shoot you and I will add 50 extra men to the squad to ensure someone will at least hit you. Perhaps if they stand closer they will kill you quicker, if you're lucky,' snickered the general. 'Oh, and just so you don't get any funny ideas, they can't stand more than 20 ft away, they must be facing you, and you must remain tied to the post in the middle of the yard. And to show I'm not totally heartless, if you aren't dead by sundown I'll release you so you can die peacefully outside the compound. I must go now but will return tomorrow and see to it that you are buried in a nice spot, though with 100 men, I doubt there will be much left of you to bury.'

After giving his instructions the general left. Upon his return the next day, he found that Pete had been set free alive and well. 'How could this be?' demanded the general. 'It was where Pete had us stand,' explained the captain of the squad.

Where did Pete tell them to stand?

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3. The Servant's Wish

Once upon a time, in the West Lake village, a servant lived with his master.

After service of about 30 years, his master became ill and was going to die.

One day, the master called his servant and asked him for a wish. It could be any wish but just one.

The master gave him one day to think about it.

The servant became very happy and went to his mother for discussion about the wish. His mother was blind and she asked her son for making a wish for her eye-sight to come back.

Then the servant went to his wife. She became very excited and asked for a son as they were childless for many years.

After that, the servant went to his father who wanted to be rich and so he asked his son to wish for a lot of money.

The next day he went to his master and made one wish through which all the three (mother, father, wife) got what they wanted. You have to tell what the servant asked the master.

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4. Haunted House

Robert, the security guard, drew his gun, took a deep breath, and headed down a shadowy corridor full of plastic cobwebs, fake blood, and recorded screams. It was Robert's worst nightmare, a real-life killer on the loose in Cohan's Haunted House. At least one person was dead, and behind any one of these doors might lie another victim -or worse, the killer - waiting for another victim.

Someone somewhere turned off the sound system and switched on the emergency lights. Robert tried the door on the left. Locked. Then the one on the right. Unlocked. He pushed it open two inches, and then it hit something, something that moaned. Robert looked down and saw more blood. Real blood.

An hour later and the police had pieced together the basics. A total of two attacks and one murder. Jason Pierce, a 22-year-old employee, had been killed by an ax. Definitely not one of the prop axes, but a real weapon. Alicia Cohan had been luckier. She, too, was bleeding from an ax attack. But when Robert found her, barely conscious behind the door, she was still alive.

'It could've been worse,' Sergeant Greeley told his captain. 'There were just a few employees in the haunted house. The attacker wasn't seen coming into the building, or leaving, for that matter. But he was seen.' Greeley checked his notepad. 'Medium height, in a ghost costume and a full-head rubber mask. We found the costume, the mask, and the ax not far from the second attack scene. The lab matched the blood samples. Jason's blood and Alicia's blood.'

'Attacker not seen entering or leaving.' The captain had a way of honing in on the essentials. 'That's strange, given the limited access in that kind of attraction.'

'Yes, sir. I'll interview the second victim, then talk to the others.'

Alicia sat up in her hospital bed and spoke with effort. 'We were just opening up. Jason and Millie and Todd were changing into their costumes. Dad was there, too. I turned on the sound system and the mood lights. I was checking the halls for garbage when I heard Todd shouting--something about a crazy person with an ax. A few seconds later, this thing came around the corner. I knew right away.

'I don't know why I ran into the dungeon room. There's no other exit. This maniac pushed open the door and started swinging. I fell to the floor, then I must've passed out. I guess he thought I was dead, 'cause the next thing I know, the security guard was waking me up. Was anyone else hurt?'

Alicia hadn't yet been told about her boyfriend's death.

Todd Wilkins seemed more concerned about Alicia than about the death of his best friend. 'She's going to be all right,' Greeley assured him. 'Just some cuts and bruises. You saw the attack on Jason?'

'Part of it,' said Todd. 'I was changing into my ghoul costume when I heard something. I went into the next room and there was Jason, fighting off this guy in one of our ghost costumes and an old mask. The guy was swinging this ax, and Jason was trying to grab the ax and swing back. I tried to jump in, but the guy got in one last swing, then ran off down the hall. I shouted out a warning to the others, then went to help Jason. He was bleeding so much.'

Millie Miller, like the others, was in her early 20s: short blonde hair, an athletic build and slightly taller than average. 'I was in the locker room downstairs, changing into my witch's uniform. I guess I heard some screaming, but I thought it was the tape. I didn't realize anything was wrong until I came upstairs.'

Sergeant Greeley nodded, then changed subjects. 'I hear Alicia and Jason were engaged.'

'Engaged? She wishes.' Millie's laugh died in her throat. 'I shouldn't be mean. Jason and I were together for years, ever since middle school. Things were getting a little stale and too serious, all at the same time. Jason said we should see other people for a while, just to get it out of our systems. That's all Alicia was, a little experiment. He told her that. He was coming back to me.'

This was the third different story Greeley had heard. According to Alicia, they were happy, and Jason had already proposed. According to Todd, Alicia cried on his shoulder all the time. She was sick of Jason and ready to leave. And now Millie's variation on the old, familiar theme.

The sergeant caught up with Alicia's father at Cohan's Haunted House. A curious throng stood by the police barricades in front of the boardwalk attraction. 'Thank God Alicia's okay.' Then he chuckled. 'I can't figure out if this will be good for business or bad.'

'Are you the sole owner?' Greeley asked.

'Alicia and I,' said the sad-eyed, middle-aged man. 'Alicia has an inheritance from her grandparents. I'm the trustee until she turns 30 or gets married. A chunk of her money went into Cohan's Haunted House. It's a good investment for her.'

'Did you see or hear anything this morning? Anything at all?'

Cohan shook his head. 'Robert and the kids were all there when I unlocked the doors. I locked up behind them, then went upstairs to the office. They often joked about a real killer getting loose in the haunted house.'

'I'm not surprised.'

'That ghost costume came from a storage closet. And the ax...'

'Was the stairwell fire ax.'

Cohan sighed. 'It doesn't look like an outsider, does it?'

Sergeant Greeley agreed. It was an inside job, all right. And he had a good idea which insider it was.

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5. My Father's Chevy

My father has, over the years, restored his magnificent 1956 Chevrolet convertible to near perfect condition. Last weekend, he decided to go on a little spin ('twas a warm day, perfect weather for a convertible). As he was pulling out of the driveway, he noticed he was low on gas - the gauge was practically on empty.

On his way to the gas station, he made a quick stop at the local fast food restaurant. Having nowhere to park, he reluctantly stopped his car down a side street. As he was leaving, he noticed a few young guys eyeing his vehicle. Thinking nothing of it (it's rare to see this model car in such good condition, so people typically stare), he walked into the food establishment to get himself a deliciously awful burger.

The line was long, so it was a while before he returned to where he parked. He returned to his worst nightmare: his car was gone.

He hurriedly called the police and reported his Chevy convertible was stolen. He then went back into the restaurant and ordered a half-pounder with bacon, to go.

About 15 minutes later, the police called him back. Apparently, right after he called, the police received a call from a female worker at a gas station about a mile out of town. The worker reported that a beautiful car was left nearby. She said three young men drove up and prepaid for $20 of gas.

The three men walked around the vehicle many times, checking under the hood and in the trunk. After a couple minutes of studying the car, the men left without filling up. As they were leaving, the car ran out of gas near the gas station. The men left it there and took off running. The police couldn't think of a reason for the young men paying for gas they didn't use. My father, however, knew exactly what happened.

The question is, why would the three men pay for gas they needed but didn't use?

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