667

Halloween, 1990

“Come on, don’t be a baby.” Johnny whispered. His best friend and next door neighbor Luke looked back at his dark house apprehensively. “Maybe we shouldn’t Johnny.” His voice quavered and Johnny felt better about his shaky knees and the fact that he was wearing his favorite superman shirt. Superman was like a dad but he protected everyone instead of just him so Luke would be safe too. “We said we would, do you want all the kids at school to call you a chicken?” he goaded, he could understand why Luke was scared. He was younger by two months and if there really was a witch in the house he would be the one she went after. But Johnny wasn’t going alone and if Luke didn’t suck it up they would both be laughed at until they died. Luke relented and once they were on the street they clicked on their cheap plastic jack-o-lantern flashlights and were on their way to the scariest, most haunted house in the whole world.

667 was on a dead end street all by itself. The road was full of snaky fissures in the blacktop and holes where ghosts hid and grabbed your feet if you weren’t careful. The rusted out Victorian rod iron fence ran the length of the shoddy blacktop that had once been beautiful cream and brown cobblestone. Gnarled oaks and maples blocked the moonlight and streetlights had never been installed. Things rustled the leaves on the ground and in the trees and Johnny’s shaky jack-o-lantern turned its grinning face to each skitter and flutter. Ahead, 667’s fat turret had a single window that leered at them, the glass glinting in the moonlight. The rounded porch, meant to mirror the turret, was blacker than Luke’s cat and the turreted roof was tilted on broken supports. “Let’s just go home Johnny, if my mom finds out I’m out here…” his beam shook whether from fear of his mother or going into 667 Johnny didn’t know. “We’re already here, we’ll just take the doorknob or something, no one’s here.” Johnny said. They stopped a few feet away from the dozen sweeping concrete steps that led the gaping doorway. There was a stench in the air that made him wrinkle his nose, rotten leaves and rank earth. Something else was in the air, something that made his skin itch and his hair raise.

“I’m surprised you chickens came.” A voice said from the shadow of wild bushes. Both boys jumped and their flashlights found the classmate that had put them up to the task in front of the whole playground. “Of course we’re here, there’s nothing scary about this place.” Johnny sneered. The kid glared back, “Then why you standing here?” he challenged. Johnny swallowed and grabbed Luke’s arm and lifted on leaden foot after the other up the stairs. “You’ve gotta stay five minutes.” The kid reminded them, Luke’s arm shook in his grip and he could feel his own heart pounding away in his chest.

The rusted knob was cold and wobbled in his shaky grip. Hoping with everything he had that the door would be locked he turned the knob and the door opened with a rusted shriek. Johnny licked his dry lips and led the way in. Once in, he hesitated closing the door, no one had told them to close it, but would they still call them chicken if they left it open? A soft breeze blew through the musty air and the door slowly screeched shut behind them and clicked softly when the latch caught. The wind outside rattled pieces of loose siding and the house groaned fitfully. “How long is five minutes?” Luke whispered. Johnny shrugged, “We have to find proof for the rest of the kids and then we’ll leave, he’s probably gone anyway.”

The house was barren of small knickknacks. There was a grandfather clock dead at the hour of nine o’ clock in the hall and a spindly legged wood cabinet with a heavy coat of dust. A long runner ran the length of the hall stone gray with dust. To the right two French doors were closed and the crystal knobs hung askew. To the left a swirling flight of stairs spun up into darkness of the second level. “Just take one of the knobs.” Luke whispered. Johnny swallowed and tiptoed across loose groaning boards to the study doors. Before he touched the handle there was a soft thump from upstairs. Both flashlights lit the dusty wooden stairs and the matching runner, “What was that?” Luke asked. There was the soft sound of a door shutting and then heavy, purposeful footsteps thundered through the house. Johnny backed up against the wall and kept his light trained on the stairs. Luke pressed back against the doors as the footsteps descended. No dust lifted and no legs came into their light but the footsteps struck the landing and rattled the boards under their feet as they marched toward Johnny. He opened his mouth but no sound came out and then the footsteps passed him and the study doors flew open banging against the wall and shaking the glass and just as quickly they snapped closed again and the house was quiet again.

Johnny looked at Luke and his friend stared back with wide watery eyes. At the same time they lunged for the door. The handle was gone. Johnny tried to get a purchase on the door to pull it open but the there was nothing to grab, “Come on there’s gotta be a back way.” He panted. He grabbed Luke’s hand and ran down the hallway. The hall opened into a sitting room with high arched gothic windows covered with flowing drapery. Their flashlights illuminated pieces of a settee covered with a sheet and pushed against the back wall and cattycorner another mirrored it. A table just big enough for two people to take tea was in the middle of the room and a sturdy china cabinet loomed over them. From somewhere in the house a woman began singing a lullaby.

Luke found the kitchen door first and grabbed Johnny’s hand and they ran for it. Inside the kitchen a six burner potbellied stove grinned at them. Shelves of dusty china and racks of silver lined the walls. The singing was getting louder. “There, there’s the door.” Johnny yelled. He grabbed the knob and twisted, turned, pushed and pulled but all it did was spin uselessly in his hand. “Johnny, Johnny it’s the witch!” Luke screamed. Johnny spun around and in the light he saw the basement door. “Come on.” He grabbed his friend’s hand and wrestled the door open. It sounded like the witch was in the sitting room, over her voice a child began to cry. He got the door open and ran down the stairs. He didn’t hear Luke following him and turned around to find his friend.

Luke was still in the kitchen staring wide eyed at something Johnny couldn’t see. The witch’s voice was louder and the baby was crying harder. “Luke!” Johnny screamed. His friend didn’t seem to hear him but he began to shake and Johnny ran up the stairs again. When he reached the top of the stairs he was splashed with warm water and he almost fell down the stairs in surprise. Luke screamed, a horrible pained sound, and finally moved he grabbed for Johnny and his wide frightened eyes gleamed in the jack-o-lantern flashlights’ light. He made a sick sucking sound like that kid that had an asthma attack at the beginning of the year and he gaped at him like a fish out of water. The witch’s dark shadow came around the corner and Luke was dragged into the dark with a watery scream. Johnny turned and ran.

The root cellar doors banged open and he scrambled up the stone steps scraping his knees and palms and then he was tearing through the weed choked yard tripping over exposed roots and finally on the buckled blacktop running for home. He dropped his flashlight somewhere in the grass and kept going. He ran until he was at the back steps of his house and stopped to catch his breath. He pressed his back against the door and stared into the night until he could get his shaking hands to turn the handle quietly. Inside he retreated to the downstairs bathroom, locked the door and flicked on the overhead lights and the mirror lights. Part of his face and Superman’s were bright with blood. He used the hem of his shirt to smear some of it off his face and then tore the shirt off and grabbed a washcloth, he turned the water on as hot as it could get and soaked the towel and scrubbed his face until his cheek was raw. His pants were dusty and muddy and dark with wet and he took those off so fast he fell back and knocked his head on the wall. He huddled against the wall slowly rocking back and forth.

Close to when his parents would be getting up he left the bathroom and took a trash bag from the kitchen and snuck into his room and put on his night clothes. He held his Superman shirt up and stared at his bloody face before crumpling it and stuffing it into the trash.

A/N: Yeah. I went there. I gotta one up myself every year, it’s a compulsion. Thank you for reading and reviewing :)