We walked by that haunted house everyday for YEARS and never thought anything about it.
Until one day, we all started elbowing each other about it, and feeling like we
really REALLY wanted to go check it out. On the inside.
So we were quick back then, we made plans to sneak out of our homes and meet by that huge
orange-leaved tree at midnight. Then we'd walk 1 block down and 1 to the west to the haunted house.
I tell you, I spent the hours between dinner and midnight excited and a little sick. I thought I should bring a flashlight. I should bring my holy card. Gloves and hat as it was cold.
Lots of stars out cold.
What would be in that house? Would it be like tresspassin since noone lives there?
Would we just be stirring up some trouble - I tell you, the thought did occur to me.
I pried the screen offa my window and climbed down via a tree branch.
The night was so quiet I heard a train whistle as if it were next door.
I jumped!
The others were at the tree when I got there, all of us excited and uneasy. We started walking as one on some secret signal and gained the haunted house in a minute.
We stood and looked at it.It looked down on us, all gables and peaks and whatta-ya-call-em, gingerbreads? Except all rotting, all
decay.
It smelled down on us as well, a fact we never noticed as we were always hurrying by. You could smell the icy rotting-ness of the tall grass lawn, all bent over and mashed down, swampy. And behind that, a hulking presence of skull penetrating scent. Just coming out of that house right into our heads so we had to turn and cough! Musty and moldy and sad.
The house it loomed up there, up a slight incline, waiting.
We approached slowly up the stone path, amazingly visible although no sole had trod it for years, we all thought.
END PART ONE
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