Love, Eddie

Outside the fence, we looked in at the eerily-silent, ghostly-blue water. Witnessing a floating corpse, face downward, would not have surprised me. The setting was perfect.

"Spooky, huh?" Tom asked, his voice less confident than before.

"Why don’t we turn around and go home."

He hesitated, then with feigned exuberance replied, "Naw. We’re halfway there. We’ll just have a quick look around and then beat it on outta there."

I took a last glance at the spectral swimming pool and realized that our destination would make the pool look as bright and cheerful as the Emerald City. Casting all hope to the wind, I set off after Tom along the exterior of the fence to the tree-covered grade overlooking the pool.

No path led to the horrors above. Although the lower rise of the hill was blanketed with high growths of weeds and bramble, the trees were younger, thinner, and sparser than those above. Here, even in the darkness, we found the climb easy. But as we drew nearer to the summit of the hill, a net of pines, maples, and oaks closed tightly about us. The woods were unnaturally quiet. A single, mournful hoot of an owl and the baying of a far-off hound were the only sounds upsetting the dead stillness. No breeze stirred the leafy roof over our heads. The trees continued their watchful silence as we groped our way through the forest’s maze, and I expected at any moment to be attacked by murderous phantoms that lurked behind the thick trunks. Finally I stopped.

"Tom," I called, my voice deadened by the tunnel of trees around us. "I can’t see where I’m going."

"Well, use the flashlight."

"But what if she sees it?"

"Just use it till we get up this hill. Here, give it to me."

He flicked on the light, and the brilliant beam cut a narrow path through the blackness that lay before us. Onward we crept until the slope became less steep, and at last we stepped over the top edge. Tom switched off the light. Here the woods continued on, even more dense and threatening than below, but as we stared ahead, we noticed a faint pinpoint of light.

"There’s the house, Chris. There must be a light in one of the windows. Come on. It’s only another thirty yards to the back. And whatever you do, be quiet."

"But what if she’s waiting out there someplace with a gun or an ax or something!"

"Shhh! Come on."

Almost numb with fright, I again followed after my cousin. Noiselessly we wove a path through the gnarled old trees. Their drooping branches swiped at us as we ducked beneath their skeletal fingers. They seemed to be warning us back from the dangers ahead, but no heed did Tom pay them, and I trailed shakily behind. As we slipped through a gap between two huge pines, we suddenly stopped. In front of us, not ten feet away, was the Ravenwood house.

Featureless in the night’s darkness, the house nevertheless possessed an air of immense evil. The light we had glimpsed from deep in the woods was now plainly visible, emanating from the far right window on the second floor. No other light did we see.

"That must be her bedroom," Tom surmised. "I wonder what she’s doing up at this hour of the night."

"I don’t know and I don’t care. Let’s just get outta here. It’s too dark to see anything in the house anyway."

"Well, before we go, let’s have a look around."

"Not me. You go ahead. I’m staying right here."