Free The Long Way Home by Andrew Klavan Page A

Josh gave an elaborate sigh. “All right, all right. I’m in. Just mention how brave I was at my funeral.”
    So we decided to do it. Josh and Rick and I decided anyway. In the end, Miler said he couldn’t do it because he was training for a track meet and needed his sleep. The assignment was due on Monday, so we went out to the mansion on Friday evening.
    Now, I have to be honest here and say we didn’t exactly get permission from our parents for this. It just wasn’t a serious possibility. There were all sorts of signs around the Ghost Mansion saying it was private property and warning you to keep out and that you were entering at your own risk and so on. I was pretty sure that would make my father say no. He’d be all worried about lawsuits or whatever. As for my mother—well, she’d be worried about everything. She was like that. I mean, she worried about me going to school. I might fall out of my desk and land on my pencil or something—I don’t know. She just found things to worry about. I knew there was no way she would let me do this.
    It’s not like I was going to lie about it or anything. I was just going to tell the truth a little late, that’s all. I told my parents I was going to have a sleepover with Josh and Rick—I just didn’t say where. Later, when we came home, I figured I would sort of just casually mention that little part of it. I didn’t expect to get away with it altogether. I thought I might get grounded for a weekend or something. But once my parents knew we were all right and understood why we’d done it in the first place, I thought I would get off pretty easily.
    Anyway, off to the mansion we went just before sunset. We had our sleeping bags and flashlights, our cell phones—which we could also use as cameras—and a little MP3 recorder I had. Josh even brought his Sony PSP so we’d have something to do if we got bored.
    It was easy to get inside the house. The heavy front door was locked, but there were plenty of other doors that were open. We found a big empty room—a parlor— on the second floor and set ourselves up in there. Then we took a look around so we could take some pictures.
    The place was pretty spooky, I have to say. The rooms were mostly empty, but now and then you’d find an ancient sofa or a dresser or something—just standing there alone in a room as if it was waiting for someone to come in and use it. The windows were all broken so the wind came through, making the dust shift on the floors and the spider­webs wave back and forth in the corners. There were these creepy noises, too, every once in a while: little footsteps. Mice in the walls. That’s what we told ourselves anyway.
    But it wasn’t until the night came down that the real, serious creepiness set in. The house sort of settled around us then, making all sorts of little creaks and pops that sounded like somebody walking around. The mice went crazy, running here and there in the walls. Some even came out and we would jump when we saw them suddenly scampering past the doorway. The wind picked up. It played in the branches outside, making the trees whisper and groan as it went past.
    But the spookiest thing of all was the graveyard.
    In the upstairs parlor where we were, there were two big windows on one wall, the panes half-broken. When we went to stand in front of one of them and peered out through the jagged shards of glass, we had a full view of the McKenzie family cemetery in the back. It was a scary sight to see.
    The night was clear, but there was only a sliver of a moon. At first, when we looked out, all we could see were the trees, their great spread of naked branches black against the starlit sky. The grass below them was in deeper darkness. But after only a moment or so, our eyes adjusted and the shapes of the graves came clear.
    They were mostly headstones, about a dozen of them. But there were also a few obelisks here and there. Then, off to the right, there was a statue, just one