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Emily October 31, 2011

Posted by lightnessanddark in Darkness, Original Short Fiction, Writing Life.
Tags: Halloween, iPod, Wenzlick
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“Emily”

By W.P. Evans

            Kenny approached the house slowly, taking slow, deep breaths.  He looked down at the iPod and its timer, which reflected his goal: sixty minutes in the Wenzlick house for an iPod.  He could do it.

It was just stories, a bunch of kids talking.  There was nothing in the house, no danger.  Hang out for an hour and wait for the timer to hit all zeros, and he’d get to keep his skateboard, plus Derrick’s iPod would be his.

“I’m going to keep the time.”  Derrick said, as he snuck across the back yard with Kenny following.  The yard was a mess with grass up to their knees, part of the charm of the Wenzlick house, but it did give them cover if any cars drove by.  The house was on a corner lot, so it was hard to stay completely out of view from the road.  They worked their way to a pine tree near the back door and hid in its shadow.

They would be visible to the house next door, but there was no chance Mrs. Freeze would see them.  She kept the blinds closed on every window that faced east toward the Wenzlick house.  She’d lived there long enough she knew the Wenzlicks, but no one ever could get her to talk about them.

“That’s fine, but I’m keeping time too.”  Kenny looked up at the moon, and his heart sunk as an oily, black cloud smothered it from view.  He felt the temperature drop, and something in the back of his mind whispered it was not a good night for this.  It wasn’t a dark and stormy night, just dark (too dark for Kenny’s liking), and the air around the house seemed wrong somehow.  This was a mistake.

Derrick put his hand on his shoulder, and Kenny nearly launched himself into the nearest tree.

“Easy!”  Derrick grinned.  “Didjya think I was one of the Wenzlicks, back from the grave?”

“No.”

For a second, that was exactly what Kenny thought, but he wasn’t going to admit it.  Derrick always seemed to come out on top; it wasn’t fair.  Kenny called it the Derrick Luck: things always seemed to work out for Derrick, but this time Kenny was going to come out on top.  Sure, he wanted the iPod, his MP3 player was a piece of junk compared to Derrick’s, but he really just wanted to win the bet, to beat Derrick.

He hit the call button on the iPod as they slipped through the Wenzlick’s sideyard, and Derrick’s new Smart phone started to oink like a pig.  That always made Kenny laugh, but not tonight.

“Hey, Dork.  You’re live…FOR NOW?”  Derrick said in his best monster voice.  There was a high pitched shriek – Kenny thought banshee, but when Derrick reached his phone away from the iPod, the sound stopped.

“Easy, just a little feedback from the speakers.”  Derrick was clearly enjoying this, and Kenny wanted to punch him.  He was already regretting the bet, and he hadn’t even gone into the house.

“Stop or I’m shutting it off.”  Kenny was hoping they’d be too far a way to pick up any signal, but he didn’t have the Derrick Luck.  The iPod had four bars – from a careless neighbor’s signal, and they didn’t even have a password.  The Kenny Luck strikes again.  Now Derrick would get to watch him safely from outside while Kenny faced his fears in the old house.

“You can’t shut it off; that was the deal.  You have to take me for a virtual tour all around the house.  Show me the whole thing, upstairs, basement, everything.”

“I’m not doing it if you’re going to be an idiot about it.”

“Good, then I get your skateboard.  A deal’s a deal.”

“Shut up.  I’m keeping my skateboard.  I’m going to do it.”

“All right.  You’re a little up tight.  Relax.  I can see you’re scared.”

“I am not.”

“Yes, you are.  You’re totally on edge.  Tell you what, I’ll call the whole thing off if you run around the block naked, but you have to run past Kacy’s house.”

“Gee, thanks.  You’re a real pal.”

“I know.  You’re lucky I’m your best friend.”

“Whatever.  Can we just get this over with?  I can’t wait to talk to Kacy with your iPod later tonight.”

“What do you mean?  She’ll be at my house, learning to ride my new skateboard.”

Kenny couldn’t let Derrick win.  He needed a comeback, something to knock Derrick down a couple notches.  “No, she won’t.  She’ll be…Shut up, you Jerk.”

“Wow, Dude.  You really went for the jugular there.  Take it easy!  I was just messing around.”  Derrick 812, Kenny zippo.

Kenny’s stomach began to churn the closer they crept to the house.  He tried to hide it, but he was pretty sure he was turning green.  Nobody messed with the Wenzlick house.  It sat ignored in the middle of the neighborhood since their parents were kids.  People just acted like it wasn’t there.  Kids learned early on, you stayed as far away from that place as possible.

The house was never boarded up, but the windows were all still intact.  No one had the courage to throw rocks at the place.  It was weird.  It was like people thought breaking a window might let something out.

The house looked like a typical Cape Cod, but there was a vibe about the place that said, “Stay away.”  It didn’t look wrong, but it was.  The closer he came to the house, the more Kenny felt it.  He could almost hear it whispered in the cold, night air.

The house had aluminum siding that had probably been close to white at one time, but was now a dirty mix of brown and grey.  The roof was black, and some of the shingles had begun to crumble under the harsh Michigan winters.  The place looked like it was past the point of being a fixer-upper, yet it remained untouched by vandals, vagabonds and even vampires.

Kenny started taking slow, deep breaths again; he was sure he was going to hurl.  He felt like the house knew he was coming and was trying to repel him.  The thought was crazy, but Kenny couldn’t shake it.  It wasn’t doing the same thing to Derrick, only him.  How did it know?

“Make sure you keep the flashlight pointed in the same direction as the camera or I won’t be able to see what’s going on in there.”

“Ok, I got it.  I think you need to relax.”

“Oh, I’m cool.  I’m not the one going in there.”  He tilted his head at the house.  “Just remember, anything less than an hour…”

“I know.  Anything less than an hour, and you get to keep the iPod.”

“And your skateboard.”

“Whatever.”

“See you on the other side.”  Derrick’s monster voice was getting old.

“Shut up, Derrick.”

“Love you too, Kenneth.”

Kenny pushed his way across the yard, through the grass, and stepped up to the back door.  He knew it would open, but as he reached for the handle, he wished more than anything for it to be locked.  Not because he wouldn’t have to go inside, but because he’d have a few more minutes before they found another way in.

He thought about calling it off.  Derrick could have the skateboard, it really didn’t matter.  Kenny could get another one, but then…then Derrick would win…again.  Kenny couldn’t let that happen.  Derrick couldn’t win every time.  It was time for Kenny to step up.

He turned the handle, and the door swung all the way open, like someone pulled it open from the other side.  It banged against the wall, and Kenny waited for the sound of breaking glass.  Nothing.

The door opened to reveal a short, wide room probably eight feet by twenty.

Run!  The thought entered Kenny’s mind.  All he had to do was turn around and run away.  He stood in front of the open door for a moment, readjusting the camera and the flashlight.  Not this time, Derrick.

Kenny slid the toes of his shoes across the threshold and reached his hands into the room, holding out the flashlight to ward off whatever might be waiting for him inside.

“Can you see ok?”  There were toys all over the floor, must have been a kids’ room.  Kenny expected to see them broken, but aside from being a little dusty, they were all intact.

“Yeah, I can see.  GI Joes?”

“Yeah, the old kind, and there’s like a hundred of them.”  Kenny reached down to pick one up, but when his hand was about to touch the closest one, the door shut behind him.  His bladder almost let go right on the floor, then his head started spinning, and he fell to one knee, dropping the light.

It stayed on.  Luckily.  Kenny wasn’t sure what he would have done if he’d been plunged into darkness, but he was pretty sure he would not have come off as cool.

“You ok?”  It was Derrick, talking through the phone.

“Yeah, I’m ok.”

“Did you start your timer?”

Kenny looked down at the iPod, the room still spinning.  “No, I forgot.  I’m starting it now.”

“Mine shows 59 minutes and 30 seconds.”

“Ok, thanks.”  The spinning of the room started to subside.  He shook his head to help clear it.

“Hold up the camera so I can see.  Are you in a bedroom?”

“I don’t think so.  There’s no bed, and I don’t see a dresser either.  I don’t think they’d put a kid here in the back of the house.”

“Maybe just a playroom then, like your basement?”

Kenny got up and pointed the camera and flashlight around the room.  It seemed really weird that the toys weren’t boxed – or gone completely.  Didn’t the Wenzlicks have any family to sort through their possessions?

All around the room, he saw older versions of toys he’d played with as a kid:  Legos, the GI Joe’s and even a Hungry, Hungry Hippos game with a smashed box.  The Legos formed two castles a few feet apart, with the Joes scattered on the floor between them.  It looked like someone was right in the middle of a battle when they were interrupted.

Somehow, being in that room with the Wenzlick boys’ things didn’t seem right.  Kenny realized he was standing in the middle of a game that had been on pause for over 30 years.  He was in no hurry to see what secrets the rest of the house held, but he didn’t want to stay in that room, looking at the game that would never be finished.

“Ok, room number one:  GI Joe’s and assorted toys.  You ready to move on?”  Kenny stood up slowly, thankful the room was finally standing still.

“Take your time, Dude.  What’s your hurry?  You’ve got a whole hour to go.  Show me the whole room first and then move on.”

“All right.”  Kenny walked to the other end of the room, which had windows all along the wall, but he couldn’t see any light coming in from outside, and even though he’d put in brand new batteries, the light barely cut through the darkness.  There should have been a little light from outside, but the light of the flashlight would have to be enough.

In spite of the darkness, he didn’t walk into any cobwebs.  He at least had that to be thankful for.

When he got to the end wall, he saw a cheap TV stand with an old, box-style TV.  There was a video player connected to the TV that looked like the kind that took tapes.  Kenny couldn’t remember what it was called, but it looked enormous compared to the new player at his house.

“Is that a VCR on the counter there?”  Derrick asked, as Kenny walked up to the stand.

“Sure, I guess so.  I’m not sure.”

“Ok, well there doesn’t seem to be anything all that interesting down there.  Show me the rest of the room.”

Kenny turned and shined the light toward the opposite end of the room.  He could see closet doors there, and he knew what Derrick was going to say before he said it.

“Open that closet.  I want to see what’s in there.”

Kenny hesitated in the middle of the room.  He was right in front of the door where he’d come in.  Opposite that door, he saw a second door that would take him farther into the house.  He looked down at the timer.  A little over 90 seconds had passed.

He sighed.  He would have plenty of time to show Derrick the entire house, and that meant he’d probably be opening every single door he came to, which meant eventually he would probably see something he didn’t want to see.

He steeled himself as he walked up to the closet.  He didn’t want to show Derrick any fear, so he walked up to the closet and quickly pulled the door open.

Expecting a skeleton, or worse, he found old coats and dresses with bright floral prints as well as boxes of what looked like junk.  No skeletons.

“Need a new dress, Derrick?  Looks like they have plenty of extras.  Probably fit you too.”

“I’m all set.  Besides, that would just be weird since they look just like the ones you’re always wearing.”

“Funny.  There’s nothing to see here.  You want me to move on?”  Kenny shut the closet door.  He wasn’t sure why, but it seemed like he should.

“Yeah, go ahead.”  Kenny turned to head for the door.  “Whoa, what was that?”

Kenny froze, a little startled.  “What do you mean?”

“When you turned around, I thought I saw something!”

“What?  What did you see?”

No answer.

“Derrick?  You there?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you see?”

“I don’t know.  I just thought I saw something for sec.  Sorry.  Nevermind.”

“Ok.”  Kenny stepped over to the door opposite the one he came in through, turned the handle, and opened the door, shining the light into the next room.

“Oh my gosh, it’s hideous!”  Kenny stepped into the room.

“What is it?”

“This carpet is the most putrid mauve I’ve ever seen.  It’s horrible.  It looks like that pink Jell-o stuff your mom makes.”

“Oh, good grief.  I thought you saw something.”

“I did, looks like the family room.”  The L-shaped room was about 20 feet by 15 with a couple blue couches with little pinkish diamond shapes.  Kenny figured they went with the carpet, but there really wasn’t enough light to tell.

“And I like the pink stuff my mom makes.”

“What is that stuff called?”

“Uh, we call it… The Pink Stuff.”

“Duh,” Kenny shook his head.

“What’s so funny?”  Derrick asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Did you see something funny?”  Derrick asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“What were you laughing at?”

“Me?  I wasn’t laughing.  I was just looking around.”

“I heard you laughing.”

“I’m having an awful lot of fun in here, believe me, but I wasn’t laughing.”

Kenny stepped farther into the room and swept the light to the left, shining it along a paneled wall.  His mom hated paneling, but Kenny always liked to look for faces in the wood.  He decided not to look this time for fear he might find a face or two sneering back at him.

Along the first paneled wall, to his left, was a large entertainment center with another small, square TV.  There was a love seat on the wall across from the TV and a couch straight ahead on the side wall.  He imagined the Wenzlick family, sitting on the couches, watching the TV.  He could almost see them there, staring at him through the darkened screen.

Turning to his right to scan the room, he saw another outside door just past a short stairway down and a short stairway up.  He wasn’t ready to take the stairs so he turned back to his left toward the entertainment center.  When he got a little closer to it he saw the top of the entertainment center was covered with knick-knacks, mostly owls.  He walked up to the TV and without thinking, pressed the power button.

Nothing happened.

“Alright.  See anything you want in here?  I think they got a couple extra owls.”

“That’s ok.  I’m good.  What is so stinking funny?”

“Dude, what are you talking about?”

“What do you keep laughing at?”

“I’m not laughing, man.  Knock it off.  If you’re trying to freak me out, you don’t have to.”

“I think you’re trying to freak me out with that evil laugh.”

“I don’t hear anything.  It’s gotta be in your head.”

“Let’s call it off.  You don’t have to do this, Kenny.”

“That’s ok.  This is weird, but kind of cool.  I can’t believe I’m the one in the Wenzlick house, and you’re the one freaking out.”

“I’m not freaking out.  I just don’t think this was a good idea anymore.”

“You’re right, Derrick.  It was a really bad idea for you, but me?  I’m getting an iPod in about…”  He turned the iPod around.   “54 more minutes.”

Kenny turned away from the entertainment center and began to circle around the room, showing Derrick the furniture still arranged for TV viewing that hadn’t taken place in decades.  He worked his way around the room and found an old upright piano in the back corner.

Reaching out with two fingers, he started plunking the keys, making a high pitched, obnoxious, off-key sound.
“What are you doing?”

“Saw it on Ghostbusters.”

“Well, then I guess it makes perfect sense to do that right now.” Derrick deadpanned.  “Hey, what are those pictures on top of the piano?”

“I don’t know.  They’re pretty dusty.”  Kenny transferred the iPod and light into one hand and used his sleeve to wipe off the biggest picture.  What he saw shocked him.

There, on top of the piano, was a picture of THE Wenzlick family, but none of them looked evil or crazy like the stories said.  In fact, they all looked perfect.  Mr. Wenzlick had on a jacket and tie.  Mrs. Wenzlick, who was nothing short of beautiful, was wearing a light blue dress which matched her eyes as well as her husband’s tie, and the boys were wearing darker blue ties to go with their parents outfits.

Kenny chuckled to himself as he held up the iPod and light.  “Derrick Bruner, meet the perfect family, Ma and Pa Wenzlick and the boys.”

The Wenzlicks really looked like the perfect family, not a hair out of place on anyone, everyone smiling, a nice picture, so which one of them was a killer?  Some said Mr. Wenzlick came home one night in a drunken rage, but others said it was Mrs. Wenzlick who snapped.

The police closed their investigation without providing definite answers, but they assured the community there was no public danger.  Did that mean the killer died in the house along with the rest of the family?

“Whoa, that’s really them, isn’t it?  They look really…”

“Normal?”

“Yeah.  Pretty much.  Dude, check out the mom.  She’s kinda hot. Hard to believe one of them went crazy and killed the whole family.”

“Hot Mrs. W must not have had dinner ready on time.”

“Or maybe she did, but handsome Mr. W decided to make an extra stop on his way home from work.”

“Something like that.  Ready to move on?”

“Yeah, what else do you see?”

“Looks like a small bathroom here in the back.  Nothing to it really, toilet, sink and shower stall.”  Kenny waved the light and the camera into the bathroom.

“Anything in the toilet?”

“You’re sick, Derrick.  I’m moving on.”

Kenny turned back to the family room.  He was at the end of the L, so he had to go around the couch, which was against the wall opposite the bathroom wall.  He swept the light (and camera) around in front to light his path.

“What was that?”  Derrick asked in a high-pitched shriek.

“What do you mean?”

“Kenny, don’t move.  There’s something in the room with you.”

“What are you talking about?  I don’t see anything.”

“It’s a shadow, right there in front of you.  Get out of there!”

Derrick was good.  Kenny believed him for a minute there.  “Dude, you almost had me there.  First ‘Don’t move!’ then ‘Get out of there!’  I –“

“Go now.  Run.  It’s reaching out to get you.”

“There’s nothing here, you dork.  Unless you think the sofa’s about to attack.  It is a little scary.”

“Please, Kenny, get out of that room.  Now.  It looks like…  It looks like a man.”

“Really?  Well that’s pretty spooky there buddy.  Is it one of the Wenzlicks?”

“Oh, oh, ok.  It’s moving away.  No.  No way.  It just disappeared through that wall in front of you.”

“Wow, Derrick.  Why don’t you just buy a skateboard?  You have the money.”

“Kenny, that house is messed up.  Just get out of there, ok.”

“Nope.  I said I’d give you the tour, and now I’m gonna do it.”  Derrick watched his screen as Kenny walked across the room past the spot where the figure had stood.  “Oooh.  It’s cold in here.”  He was standing right where the shadow had been.  “I just got a chill.”

“Kenny, please just get out of there.  I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Really, Derrick?  I’m just starting to have fun.  Maybe I should call Kacy and give her the tour instead.”

No answer.

“See –“

“That’s a good idea!”

“What?”

“That’s a good idea.  Call Kacy and tell her what you’re doing.  There’s something in that house with you, Kenny.  If you don’t believe me, show her.”

“Sure, sounds good to me, but what about your tour?  We’re about to go into the main part of the house, you know, where they say everything happened.”

“No.  I’m done with this.  Call me if…  Call me if you need anything.”

“Okay, I will.  Are you going to stay out there?”

“Yeah, I won’t leave you there alone.”

“Dude, I am alone.”

“You know what I mean.”

“You sure you don’t want to come in and check out the basement with me?  I bet it’s creepy.”

“You need to get out of there while—“

“While I still can?  Nice.”  Kenny crossed the family room and faced the two sets of stairs.  “Ok, let me call the beautiful Kacy Fairbanks.”

“Ok, bye.”

“Later, Dude!”

Kenny wasn’t sure if Derrick was messing with him or not because he’d never seen Derrick afraid.  If Derrick was just messing with him, he had to stay in the house for the whole 60 minutes.  On the other hand, if Derrick was really scared, that might be even better.  Kenny would earn some respect to go with his new iPod.  That is, as long as he made it out of the house.

He stood in front of the stairs, contemplating.  He might lose his signal in the basement, but in order to really win the bet, he had to go down there.  Wasn’t the basement always where the ghost was waiting, buried behind a false wall or in a secret passage?  The stories were almost always the same.  If there was a ghost in the house, it would probably be down there.

Kenny didn’t know what he’d do if he saw a ghost.  He didn’t really believe in ghosts like in Scrooge.  He knew from watching Ghost Catchers that ghosts were really more like a recording left behind, some kind of psychic energy that imprinted a place and only played back when a person was there to see it.  If that was true, seeing a ghost would be a frightening but ultimately harmless experience.  Might was well get the basement over with now while he still had the nerve.

He started slowly down the stairs, which were covered with a funky patterned yellow linoleum.  Seeing the linoleum, he wondered if the basement might not be so bad.  He was imagining a damp, dark dungeon with a dirt floor and maybe a couple long dead prisoners hanging from shackles on the walls.

He figured that image must have come from a movie, but he couldn’t remember what it might have been.  Didn’t matter.  He was going down there, and he wasn’t taking any chances.  He was recording the basement with the iPod to prove to Derrick he’d been there.

He started down the steps when he realized the wall on his left had a handle.  He reached out and pulled it, but it was stuck.  He was about to yank it open when he realized it was a sliding door.  He slid it open and found piles of old shoes and other miscellaneous junk.  Nothing too interesting.  He checked the other side and found another storage compartment filled with boots and a few boxes which held pieces of glass in a bunch of different colors.

When he continued down the steps, he found a small landing at the bottom where he stopped to listen before opening the basement door.  Nothing.  There was no sound, at all.  That was somehow worse than hearing something.  He shifted the iPod around in his hand and started recording.

“We’re going into the basement of the famous Wenzlick house in Flint, Michigan, where no one has dared go in over 30 years.”

Somehow, talking his way through gave him courage, so he decided to have a little fun.  “We’re hoping for an interview with a member of the Wenzlick family, who can at last explain what happened that fateful October night 30 years ago.”

He pushed open the basement door, which provided an excellent haunted house creak.  “For those of you watching at home, that was the actual door; no sound effects were added.”

He stepped into the basement and let the door shut behind him.

“Is anyone down here?”  Kenny saw his breath rise when he spoke.  He didn’t think it should be so cold in the basement.

“Yes, good.  Glad you could make it, Mr. Wenzlick.  And for the folks watching at home, what’s your first name?”

“Thanks, Ben.  You can call me Kenny.”

“Nice to meet you, too.  This is a lovely basement you have here, aside from that smell.  Is that a pond in the corner there?”  Kenny shined the light in the corner where a black puddle reflected light like it was a thousand feet deep.  He knew the puddle was probably a half inch at most.  Still, he waited a moment to be sure there wasn’t a black hand coming out of the water after him.  There wasn’t.

“Ah, good.  I see.  I like the platform over here with the washer and dryer.  Wouldn’t want to drown in the puddles while you’re doing laundry, right Mr. Wenzlick?”

“Oh, sorry.  Right, Ben.”

“Wow, whoever did the laundry wasn’t very tall, huh?”  He stepped onto the platform, and his head almost hit the ceiling.  From the platform’s edge, he saw a large opening in the middle of the basement, above the furnace.  It looked like the perfect spot to hang a prisoner…or intruder.

“Great.  Yes.  Thank you.  I appreciate that.  You’re a handsome gentleman too, I might add, and you seem pretty easy going for a notorious killer.”

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what made you do it?”

“Really, that’s interesting.  Thanks for sharing.”

“Would mind telling us how you did it?”

“Oh, no.  I’ll just take your word for it.  Thanks for the offer though.”

Kenny noticed the basement floor wasn’t smooth.  It was like the concrete had been poured piecemeal.  He’d never seen anything like it.

The furnace was in the middle of the basement.  He saw a sump pump on the side by the laundry.  In the back, he saw shelves stocked with cans, but he couldn’t see what was in them.  Probably eyeballs, fingers and toes.

“So what’s buried underneath this uneven concrete?”

“Well, to be perfectly honest with you Ben, that’s a little gruesome, but I do appreciate your honesty as well as your willingness to share.”

Kenny stepped off the laundry platform, walked over to the shelves and picked up a can.  “MMM, pickles and grape jelly, my favorite.”

“Got enough to last you for eternity there, don’tcha Ben?”  Sealed in their containers, he wondered if they were spoiled, but even if they weren’t, the thought of eating them made his stomach turn.

“Well, I’d love to share a jar with you, but I need to keep moving, so the folks at home can finish the tour.”

“Oh, that’s a tempting offer.  It does sound like great fun, but I’m going to have to pass this time.”

Kenny circled around the furnace.  He was in the home stretch now, almost out of the basement, but he had a weird feeling someone, something was right behind him.  He felt the urge to run.

He hesitated, but when he remembered Derrick wasn’t watching, he clicked off the camera and ran out of the basement, stopping at the top of the stairs to catch his breath.

“Well, that’ll be a You Tube classic.  I’ll be the Beiber of Broadcasting when it goes viral.”

He looked down at the iPod and couldn’t believe what he saw.  The timer only had about 20 minutes left.  His stomach clenched.  He’d been down there over a half hour.  Impossible.

He checked the recording he’d made.  The iPod recorded 38 minutes.  How could that be?  He fast forwarded through the recording.

As he looked down at the screen, he noticed his hands were covered in dirt (Dirt as black as the basement pond), and he saw the knees of his jeans were coved with black sludge.  What was going on?

His head started to spin as he watched the recording.  He saw himself quickly circling around the basement, conducting his interview, but then he stopped suddenly in the back corner.  In the recording, he just stood in place for several minutes, in a trance.  Why didn’t he remember this?

As the recoding played on, his stomach churned and the room started to move again.  He thought he might pass out, and finally he collapsed to the floor and dry heaved.  He thought he was going to die.

This was wrong.  Everything in this house was wrong.

“What are you trying to do?”  He called out.

After a few seconds, the nausea subsided.  He sat up and waited for the room to quit spinning.  When it did, he got to his knees and finally stood.

He was in a breezeway, and there was a door to the outside a few steps away.  It was probably the main door the Wenzlicks used.  He could use it right now.  He could leave and never come back.

There was something in this house, a force that was causing strange things to happen to his body and his brain, but it was only a recording, a recording he just didn’t understand.

If he stayed a few minutes longer, finished his 60 minutes, maybe he would figure it out.  Whatever was going on in the house, it seemed to be most intense in the basement, and he had no intentions of going back down there.

He checked the timer.  He had less than 10 minutes to go.  He turned away from the outside door and climbed the stairs instead.

As he walked up the steps, there were closet doors on his right.  He opened them for Derrick’s benefit, but didn’t really look in them.

Shutting the doors, he continued up the steps and stopped in front of the door to the main part of the house, steeling himself for what he might see on the other side.

The kitchen.  He knew from the stories, something terrible happened in the kitchen.

BWAHK!  BWAHK!  BWAAAAAAHK!

He screamed and jumped high enough to make it halfway to Heaven, almost dropping the iPod.  When he got a handle on it again, he realized Kacy was calling him.

Perfect timing.  He’d have company while he finished the last 10 minutes of the bet.  He took a second to regain his composure and answered.  “Hi, Kacy!”

“Hi, Kenny,” Kenny was surprised to see Kacy outside, with someone standing right behind her.  Derrick must have told what was going on and asked her to meet him.

“What’s going on?” Kenny asked.  “What are you doing out there?”

“A better question is ‘What are you doing IN THERE?”

“I’m just winning a bet.  Right, Derrick.”  Kenny turned the handle to the kitchen door and was assaulted by an overpowering scent of Pine-Sol.

“What have you been doing in there, Kenny?”  Derrick asked, standing over Kacy’s shoulder.  “I’ve been trying to call you for over half an hour.”

“I was just checking things out.  Wow, someone kept a pretty clean kitchen.  I can still smell the cleanser.”

“Kenny, you can’t stay in there.  Come out now or we’re coming in to get you.” Kacy warned.

“I’m not going in there,” Derrick began.  “Kenny, no tricks, I’m serious.  You win.  The iPod’s yours.”

Kenny entered a small kitchen with dark wood cabinets.  The cabinets had dark splatter marks on them, and Kenny was pretty sure he knew what it was.  He’d seen this kind of thing on TV.  This was where it happened, or at least where it started.

“I only have 8 more minutes, and I haven’t finished the tour.  I think I understand what’s going on in here.”  Kenny shivered as the temperature dropped.  “I got this.  You wanna see what’s in any of these?”  Kenny stepped past the stove and reached for the cabinet to the right of the sink.  “I’m betting glasses.  Yup.”

“Kenny, I know you don’t believe me, but turn the iPod around and show Kacy the room.”

“I believe you, Derrick.  There’s something in this house, but I’m just not scared anymore.  Whatever is here, it isn’t dangerous.  It’s just like a recording; a psychic echo is what they call it on TV.”

Kenny closed the kitchen cabinet and turned around.  He saw the refrigerator, built into the wall.  It must have been in the opening he saw from the basement.  To the right of the fridge there was another door.  “Do you want door number one, the fridge?  Or door number 2?”

Kacy answered, “I don’t think I’d open that refrigerator door.”

“Very, well.  The lady’s chosen door number 2.  Oh, what’s this?  A bathroom?  I guess that’s why it’s door number 2.”

“That’s really mature, Kenny.”  Derrick scolded.

The bathroom was tiny; the toilet and vanity were crammed into such a small amount of space, the shower took up almost half the room.

“Should I check behind the shower curtain?”

“Sure.”  Kacy answered.  Derrick gave her a look.  “What?  This is kinda cool.”

“I know.  It is, isn’t it!” Kenny answered.  “A real haunted house.”  He reached out and slid the curtain aside.

“Ok, my gosh, Derrick.  It’s horrible!”

Behind the curtain was a yellowed bathroom wall with weird, blue paisley type flower patters.  Kenny chuckled as he closed the curtain, but when he turned to leave, he found himself looking into the bathroom mirror at a reflection that wasn’t his.  Fear hit him in a wave as a woman’s face stared back at him, the very beautiful, very dead, and apparently very angry Mrs. Wenzlick.

He heard gasps from Kacy and Derrick, and he knew they’d seen it too.  It was real.  She started to reach for him, and the iPod slipped out of his hand, landing on the sink with a crash.

He quickly grabbed the iPod, and when he looked back in the mirror, she was gone.  Kenny’s pale white faced stared back at him, wide-eyed.

His first instinct was to run, but then he remembered, “It’s just a recording.”  She wasn’t really coming through the mirror after him.  She couldn’t harm him.  He was terrified momentarily, but he was safe.

“Did you guys see that?”  His voice cracked, so he quickly continued.  “She was here.  That was amazing.”

“Kenny, get out of the house.  You proved your point.  You’re brave… or really stupid.  Get out of there before you get hurt.”  Derrick was reaching around Kacy to talk into her phone.

“No, you don’t get it.  I’m ok.  She can’t hurt me because she’s not really there.”  Kenny walked out of the bathroom, his heart pounding.  “Don’t worry, Mrs. W.  I’ll be leaving in about – he looked down at the iPod – 5 more minutes.”

He walked through the kitchen, headed for the next room, a dining room with dark curtains and an even darker table and chairs, one of the few rooms that looked like a haunted house.  He stopped for a second and noticed there were stained glass windows in the front.  They didn’t seem to go with the haunted house theme, and Kenny wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen stained glass like that in a regular house.

“Hey, I’m at the front door.  Do you want me to open the coat closet?”  Without waiting for an answer, he walked to the other side of the room and opened the door.  “Ah, coats!  And I don’t know what this is.  It kinda looks like a brown R2D2 with a – oh, I get it.”  He lifted up a hose connected to the droid.  “It’s a vacuum.”

“I’ve never seen one like that before.”  Kacy replied.

Kenny only had a couple minutes left, so he quickly moved to the next room, a small living room with another couch and entertainment center.  A stairway came off the living room to his right, and along the same wall was another door on the far side of the room.   The entertainment center was in between them.  He held up the iPod and light, showing Derrick and Kacy the room, and then he walked over and pushed the door open revealing a small bedroom, made smaller by a huge bed and dresser that took up all but a narrow path to a closet in the back.  “Looks like someone let the water out of their water bed.  Should I check the closet in here too, Derrick?”

“I don’t care.”  Derrick seemed to be conceding defeat, which was wonderful.

“Ok, then I’m just going to head upstairs and finish this.”

When he turned, Derrick and Kacy gasped and room got cold.  “Did you see something else?  Did she follow me?”  He waved the iPod across the room, giving them a complete view.

Neither answered him.

“You’ve lost your mind.”  Kacy finally said.  “Why won’t you come outside?”

“I don’t need to.  I have this place figured out.  It’s like I’m watching a movie.  No, like I’m in a movie, and I want to see the end.”

He walked through the living room to the stairs.  He looked up, but couldn’t see far because the stairs made a complete turn on their way to the top.  As he walked up the stairs, he noticed the air was stale and cool, but not cold like the kitchen or basement.  If the energy here was weaker, that was fine.  He really wanted to see the rest of the house, to finish the movie.

At the top of the stairs, he came to a small hallway with one door straight ahead, one at end and another just to his right.  The door to his right turned out to be a closet door, which he opened and quickly shut in order to get on to the bedrooms.

The bedroom door next to the closet was ajar, so he headed that direction first.  Pushing the door open, he found a double bed with Star Wars sheets at one end of the room and a dresser centered on the other end.  The top part of the paneled walls at each end of the room slanted inward, and on the slanted walls there were posters of Detroit sports stars Kenny had heard of, but who hadn’t played for a long time.  The way the walls followed the roof line, the posters were leaning forward, over the bed on one end of the room and over the dresser on the other.

Kenny didn’t like the way they seemed to lean over him, but he stepped into the middle of the room and waved the iPod around, giving Kacy and Derrick a 360 degree view.  He turned toward the door just in time to watch it slam shut in front of him.

That was the moment when he really began to doubt his movie theory.  Something moved that door, and from the way it slammed, that something wanted his attention.  He feared he was about to come face to face with one of the Wenzlick parents or some far worse horror, but what he saw when he turned away from the door shocked him.

There in front of him were two boys about his age, one a little taller than the other, the same boys from the picture on the piano, the Wenzlick boys.  He looked at them, and they were looking at him, trying to tell him something.

He couldn’t hear what they were saying, so he tried to read their lips.  When his fear made him take a step back, they followed him with their eyes.  He felt panic welling up within himself.  They were no recording.  The smaller one pointed at the wall behind the bed.

First, Kenny looked up at the posters, not understanding, but then he saw that the lower, vertical paneling had a cutout held closed by wing nuts in the corners.  That was where the boy was pointing.  He wanted Kenny to remove the panel.

Kenny looked down at the iPod to ask Derrick and Kacy if they were seeing what he saw, but the only sound he could make sounded like a puppy whining.  With the dead boys looking on, he set the iPod and flashlight on the bed and started pulling the bed away from the wall.  It slid along the floor easily, so Kenny was able to pull it to himself, scoot back and pull it again.  When it was far enough from the wall, the paneling fell forward exposing a hidden alcove.  Kenny picked up the light but left the iPod on the bed; he was impelled to enter the alcove.

Lifting the panel out of the way, he shined the light inside and saw a few boxes pushed into the back corner and a disassembled Christmas tree, but nothing really of interest.  He looked back into the bedroom.  They were still there watching him.  They lips were no longer moving, but their message was clear, “Go in.”

He did.

The alcove was a long narrow corridor that looked like it went the length of the house.  He had to hunch over because the alcove only about 4 feet high at the top and narrowed at a 60 degree angle.  He took a couple more steps, and as he shined the light deeper into the opening, he saw something that made his blood run cold.

Beside a pile of blankets, sitting on the wooden floor, about two thirds of the way down the alcove, he saw a little girl.

Her round face was as beautiful as her mother’s, and she had the same dark hair as her brothers’.  It wasn’t until after she started to crawl toward him that he noticed she was missing her lower legs and one of her arms ended in a nub just after her elbow.

Kenny was horrified at first, but he soon realized she was not a threat.  He fell to his knees in bewilderment as she crawled toward him.

No one ever mentioned the Wenzlicks had a little girl.  He wondered if anyone outside the family knew the perfect Wenzlicks had an imperfect daughter.

He watched as she came closer, and though he felt some fear, he knew he wasn’t in danger.  She crawled up to him, looked up at his face.  Then she continued past him and out to the edge of the alcove where she stopped and looked back, her eyes asking a question.

Kenny thought he understood.  He crawled deeper into the alcove to retrieve the bundle of blankets.  It was starting to make sense.  He realized what was inside the bundle and what he should do.

After he carried the bundle out of the alcove and reentered the bedroom where her brothers were waiting, the little girl followed.  When she saw the boys, the little girl raced toward them and let the older one pick her up.  His eyes met Kenny’s, and they exchanged a silent nod.

Thank you.

After more than 3 decades, the dead boys and their sister were together again.  They turned away from Kenny and started walking away.  Looking over her brother’s shoulder, the little girl smiled for the first time, and Kenny felt his nose and eyes burning as they began to fade from view.

When the Wenzlick kids disappeared, Kenny knew they wouldn’t be coming back.  He looked down at the bundle in his arms.  It barely weighed anything.  She was so small.

Kenny set the bundle gently on the bedspread while he closed the alcove and pushed the bed back into place.  It wasn’t until the bed was back against the wall that he heard the timer on the iPod going off.

It was over.

Kenny picked up the iPod, flashlight, and the bundle of blankets, and opened the door to the hall.  He looked down at the iPod; it had dropped the signal.  Kacy and Derrick were gone.  Kenny wasn’t surprised.

He thought about looking in the other bedrooms, to finish the tour, but he knew the movie was over.  If he went in the rooms, in one, he’d find the younger boy’s things, but in the other, he was pretty sure he’d find nothing but an empty room.  There would be no trace of the little girl who wasn’t as perfect as her brothers.  He decided after what he’d already seen, he couldn’t handle that.

As he walked down the winding stairs, the house didn’t feel the same.  Its dark power was gone.  It had given up its mysteries and was now just an empty shell.  When he was back on the main floor, he walked to the closest exit, the front door and stepped back out into the night.

Closing the door behind himself, he left the porch and walked to the side yard to where Kacy and Derrick were waiting.

“Kenny, are you ok?” Kacy asked.

He didn’t answer.

“We didn’t know what to do.  The call dropped, and you weren’t answering.”

Kenny still said nothing.  He handed Derrick the iPod and flashlight and walked up to Kacy and hugged her tightly with his free arm.

“What’s that?” Derrick asked, seeing the blanket.

“It’s the Wenzlicks’ dark secret, the reason for everything.”

Kacy and Derrick both stared at Kenny.

“A little girl who wasn’t perfect enough, I don’t even know her name.  One of you should call the police.  I’m going home.”  Kenny turned and walked back to the front porch and laid the blankets down by the door.

When he stood up, Derrick tried to hand back the iPod, but Kenny refused to take it.  “That isn’t what this was all about.  It’s not why I had to go in there.”

“Kenny, it’s yours.”  Derrick held it out in front of him.  He wasn’t going to take “No” for an answer.

Kenny didn’t want the iPod anymore, but he knew Derrick wouldn’t budge, so he reached out and took it.  “Thanks, Derrick.”

He turned and walked home in silence, never turning back to see if Kacy or Derrick followed.

When he got home, he kicked off his wet sneakers and went upstairs to change his clothes.  As he tried to slide his pants off, something poked his leg.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small rectangular box about the size of pen box.  It was coated with black sludge that he knew must have come from the Wenzlicks’ basement.  He didn’t know how the object got in his pocket or what it was, but he took it to the bathroom sink and rinsed the dirt off.

As he wiped the sludge off the case, he saw the inscription, “Emily, August 3, 1978.”