Chapter 2

“Did you ever know the old guy who owned this place?” I asked Dad during dinner.

“Old man Peterson was the local bogeyman when I was growing up. You hardly ever saw him, but everybody knew the story about how he came home from college, went crazy, and chopped his own arm off.”

“Seriously? Is that why you wanted to buy this old house?”

“No, I wanted to buy it because it’s worth much more than I paid for it.”

“Did they find him dead in one of these rooms?” I asked.

“He died in a rest home so it’s not like it’s a horror movie house where the crazy old man dies and leaves a vengeful spirit behind.”

“The old guy next door called him old man Peterson too, just how old was he?”

“I don’t know, just old. He came back to town after he left Princeton.”

“So he was young, just out of college when he came back and went crazy?”

“No, he was a professor. Mathematics. We used to kid that Math made you crazy. He had to be in his forties when he quit and came home.”

“Huh,” was my eloquent reply to this revelation.

“His family built this house nearly 200 years ago. He was the last one, and with no heirs, it reverted back to the county who auctioned it off for back taxes.”

“It’s a pretty cool house.”

“I’ve always thought so. The neighborhood is relatively new, as his family held onto the surrounding acreage until the mid eighties. There were some death taxes when his brother died, and he inherited everything, so he sold off the lots where our neighbors live.”

“I was wondering about the neighborhood, it seemed to be a mishmash of styles and ages.”

“The town didn’t really need, or have the population for a new neighborhood. It’s taken a while for it to fill up, and there are still several vacant lots.

“The double wide across the street is the newest house I think,” Dad said.

“I haven’t met them yet. Mr Tallman next door said they had two kids around my age,” I told him.

“The Gershons. I was on the football team with Ed. He was the typical quarterback jock, he works over at the prison now too.”

“Is he a guard, or staff like you?”

“He’s not a maintenance mechanic like me. He’s third in charge over there, part of the disciplinary team.”

“I worry about you being over there with all those murderers and gang bangers.”

“They’re fine. They know I’m there just to run the boilers so they stay warm in the winter and have all the hot showers they want. I’ve even got a couple of them working for me now.”

“That’s cool. Still I worry about you.”

“I worry about you too. Ed’s got a daughter about your age, and if she looks anything like her Mom. Well, let’s just say, I worry about you.”

“You went to highschool with his wife too?”

“No, Sharon was the princess of Summerville. Every guy in town lusted after her, and every guy in Summerville claimed her as one of theirs. They’d roll you just for looking at her. I still don’t know how Ed pulled it off.”

“How come Aunt Joan never moved away?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Not really my story to tell. She did go to State for a year, then came home and never left. You should ask her sometime.”

We finished the salad, spaghetti, and garlic bread in silence. After Dad headed to bed, and the house went quiet, I headed back to my room with the flashlight. It took just a minute to pop the hidden latch on the floor, and open the secret passage.

The flashlight showed that I could safely pull the secret door closed behind me, as another latch would release it from the inside. With it latched behind me, I carefully made my way up the narrow and steep staircase as it twisted up and around.

It ended at a door, but I couldn’t really figure out in my head where in the house I was. I opened the door and stepped into a round room. My flashlight showed white walls with black writing.

‘I hope that’s not written in blood’ I thought to myself. ‘or poo. Definitely hope it’s not poo.’

The writing spiraled around the round room, going higher as it went. My flashlight followed it upwards as I realized where I was. The tower at the front of the house formed a nice little sitting area with windows for the master bedroom on the second floor, but the tower itself extended upwards above that for some distance, and was topped with a dunce cap of a roof. My secret staircase was the entrance to that hidden and otherwise inaccessible space above the second floor.

I looked around to see if there was anything besides the writing, but other than the door it seemed closed off. I stepped closer to the writing. The bottom most portion read, “it’s not evil, but I am. I had to cut it off to keep my evil from spreading.”

That was enough for me, I was thoroughly creeped out, and headed back thru the door to the staircase. It would take a ladder to reach where the writing started near the peak of the dunce cap roof to see just what it was talking about, but I wasn’t going to do that during tonight.

As the door to the room closed behind me, I noticed a few pages of paper stuck to a nail. I pulled them off, and recognized the same handwriting from the walls. I quickly hurried down the stairs to my room, where I turned on all the lights, and slid my portable laptop desk in front of the secret door, firmly blocking it. Just in case.