Free Evil Behind That Door by Barbara Fradkin Page B

ugly old thing held together by forty years of soot and mold. I didn’t think it had been serviced this century. Didn’t anyone ever come down here? I grabbed a flashlight and shone it around the room. Wires, pipes and beams all covered in dust. Cobwebs everywhere, beetles scuttling, oily puddles on the dirt floor.
    And that door.
    Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a sucker for mysteries. Always wanted to know how something worked or why it did that or what would happen if I pushed this button. I wasn’t one to look up answers in a book. I wanted to see for myself. The worst thing my mother or my teachers could say was, “Don’t touch that.”
    That only got my imagination going. I felt like a magician when I pushed a button and made something move, or put something together so it worked again. When there are no other kids around for five miles and your mother is glued to As the World Turns , it’s nice to feel like Superman.
    I went over to the door and aimed the flashlight along the edge. For the first time I noticed it was nailed shut at the very top by a huge rusty spike. I picked up the crowbar Barry had left on the workbench the day before and went to work on the spike. The door was solid as a Douglas fir. It barely splintered as I yanked and pushed and pried and cursed. Finally I worked the spike loose enough to lever it out. It fell to the dirt with a heavy thunk. I kicked and shoved and threw my shoulder at the door, but it still didn’t budge. Soon I was sweating and panting like I’d run a marathon.
    But every now and then I remember to use my brain. It works a little different from most folks’, and it makes people laugh, but it comes up with a good idea now and again. Okay, maybe not that gas-powered scarecrow or the robot feed dispenser, but inventors learn from each mistake. And someday…
    Anyway, now I looked at the door and realized it pulled outward instead of pushing inward. With the crowbar’s help, I levered it slowly open until I could stick the bar through the crack and give it a good yank. The door squawked open six inches. Cold dead air rushed out. Air that had been in there for probably thirty years. A couple more yanks and I had it open far enough to look in.
    Inside it was dark as pitch. Silent as a grave. I shivered. I didn’t want to think what was in there, lurking in the corner or coiled on the ground. Sometimes imagination is not a good thing. I shone the flashlight inside. I was surprised to see just a small empty room with a dirt floor, stone block walls and a low, sagging ceiling of rough lumber and beams.
    I squeezed my way inside for a closer look. The walls were lined with shelves of mason jars. They were so dusty and black I barely recognized them. Mouse droppings and cobwebs covered everything. On the floor were some wooden bins half full of weird round things. I reached through the cobwebs to pick one up. It was hard and shriveled, like a black walnut shell. An apple? Potato? I sniffed but could smell no decay, no sweet ferment. Nothing but stale, musty air.
    I squatted in the middle of the room, disappointed. No secret passage, no time capsule, no magic kingdom. Just a root cellar where Barry’s mother stored her harvest crops. Long ago, when she still cared.
    I flashed the beam into the corners one last time, hoping to see the outline of a secret door. Maybe I was being silly but something about this room felt spooky. In the bright light, I could see the walls were scratched and chipped, and the earth dug up. Like an animal had been trying to dig its way out.
    I shook my head to get rid of that idea. When I jerked the light away, something pale caught its glare. Against the far wall, almost hidden behind the bins, was a bunch of brown sticks. I moved closer, hunching over because the ceiling was too low to stand. My flashlight played over the sticks. There were different sizes and shapes scattered about. In the middle